FRACHTENBERG] ALSEA TEXTS AND MYTHS 239 



and nose and eyes of the dead elk and spread them out on the rock. 

 Then he took the largest smew and lashed the rock with it. Behold ! 

 A canoe appeared in front of him. Then he placed the nose m the 

 bow of the canoe alongside of the eyes and ears, and the tail he com- 

 manded to act as a steersman. He himself stood in the middle of 

 the boat. Then the canoe started to move. It went very fast. As 

 they went along the eyes of the dead elk acted as lookouts. Soon 

 they came within sight of the shore. 



When his brothers-in-law saw him, they said, ''Here comes our 

 brother-in-law." But he did not go ashore right away. He kept on 

 floating close to the shore without landing. Finally he said to him- 

 self: "What am I doing here? I am going to go back to the land." 

 Thereupon he came ashore. As soon as he got out of the canoe he 

 hit it on the ground and it disappeared. Then he put the nose, ears, 

 eyes, and smews of the dead elk back into his quiver and left his 

 treacherous brothers-in-law for good. 



This is all. 



28. The Runaway Couple ^ 



Once a young man and his parents were living together. His 

 uncle was also living in the same house with him. The uncle had a 

 daughter with whom the young man was in love. But his uncle 

 would not let him marry her because she was his cousin. So they 

 decided to run away. One day the two young people left the house 

 and ran into the woods. After a long journey they located on a 

 creek. Here the man made a salmon trap and supplied his wife with 

 the fish that was caught in the trap. After a while his wife gave 

 birth to a boy. When the boy grew up he took his father's place as 

 a fisherman. In due time another boy was born, and when he was 

 big enough he helped his brother. The two boys used to go down- 

 stream every night to catch salmon. 



One night they caught other things besides salmon in their trap. 

 Broken shinny clubs, broken arrows, bows, gambling-sticks were 

 caught in the trap. Then the younger brother said: "There must be 

 some people up the creek who are causmg these things to be caught 

 in our trap. Let us go and see." So they got ready and told their 

 parents they were going upstream. They traveled a whole day, and 

 when night came they felt very tired. Every once in a while they 

 found shinny-sticks, gamblmg-sticks, and other playmg paraphernalia 

 floating down the creek. It was late in the evening when they finally 

 heard people shoutuig and cheering. As they kept on gomg, the 

 noise seemed to grow nearer. At last they came to an open prairie 

 where they saw a number of people playing shinny. Then they 

 stopped at the edge of the prairie in order to watch the game from 



' Among Farrand's notes I found one stating that this story is a Siuslaw tradition. This statement would 

 seem to be contradicted by the fact that the names occurring in this narrative are Alsea (not Siuslaw) terms. 



