swANTOx] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MTSSIRSTPPI VALLEY 323 



Of the creation and flood myths very little is preserved. ''The 

 beginning of things " is said to have been by a flood. Certain persons 

 foretold this, and some believed what they .said while others did not 

 believe it. Those that believed built a big boat and were saved; the 

 others were lost. At that time the woodpecker and the dove flcAV 

 up into the sky and remained there until the flood was over. That is 

 why the woodpecker has such a funny tail. It is a sign of the flood. 

 Nothing is known about the bringing of the flrst soil l\y a bird, but 

 what Du Pratz says of the flood legend of the Natchez renders it 

 probable that it had originally formed part of the Tunica story also. 

 After the flood came hal-nisajn'rati^ " the new completion of the 

 earth." Animals, birds, and, in short, everybody and everything 

 could change into human beings at night and talk, but not in the day- 

 time. As an illustration of this belief the following story was told, 

 one of a type found all over North America : 



A very bandsonie youth once came to court a certain girl every evening, 

 leaving before daybreak. By and by be asked her father and mother if he 

 might marry her, but they refused because they did not know who he was. 

 But the girl was foolishly iu love with him, and one night, after her parents 

 had again refused him, the youth asked her to run away. She consented and. 

 after the old people were iu bed she went off with him to his house. The 

 house was a very nice one and the people there were the best-looking persons 

 she had ever seen. After talking a long time she and her husband left the 

 others sitting there and went to bed. She awoke at daybreak and, moving 

 quickly, saw instead of a bouse the ugliest liind of a briar bush, in the midst 

 of which she was lying. This was a rattlesnake nest, and the young man she 

 bad married was a rattlesnake. She tried to move, but every time she did so 

 all the snakes rattled their tails, and she was obliged to lie where she was 

 all day. She held her bands tightly clasped over her eyes so as not to see them. 

 V\'hen night came again it was as it had been before, and everything looked 

 pretty. Then she walked out and returned to her parents, glad to escape from 

 that place. When she told what bad happened all of her relatives gathered 

 together to go out and kill the bad snakes.* •* 



A much more detailed story of a local flood is preserved, which 

 contains very interesting feattires. It is as follows: 



There was a certain village ruled by a chief. In the middle of his house 

 tbey used to pound corn in a wooden mortar, and bad worn two holes into the 

 ground, into which the wooden mortar set, being changed every now and then 

 fi'om one to tlie other. One morning when the people got up and pr(»pared to use 

 the mortar tbey saw a little water in the deeper of the two holes. Looking up at 

 the roof above tbey saw ice banging there, from which tlie water, as it melted, 

 fell into the bole. In the little pool thus formed tbey saw some tish. Then 

 tbey began to ask one another what was the matter. They wanted to know 

 what the sign indicated, but no one could tell. Some said, " ^laybe it is a sign 

 that we shall have plenty to eat," and others gave other explanations. But 

 when the chief saw that no one could tell what the sign really meant he sent 

 for an old woman, the oldest in that village, to see if she could interpret it. 

 She came and examined it thoroughly. Then tbey asked her if she could tell 



« The storyteller added that there were other parts to the mjth, which he had forgotten. 



