42 THE SIA. 



The tiiimoni, wlio presided over the council, said : " I think if you and 

 the women live apart you will each be contented." And on the follow- 

 ing morning he had all tlie men and male children who were not being 

 noiirislied by their mothers cross the great river which ran by the vil- 

 lage, the women remaining in the village. The men departed at sun- 

 rise; and the women were delighted. They said: "We can do all the 

 work; we understand the men's work and we can work like them." 

 The men said to each other: "We can do the things the women did for 

 us." As they left the village the men called to the women : "We leave 

 you to yourselves, perhaps for one year, perhaps for two, and perhaps 

 longer. For one year you may be haijpy to be apart from ns. Per- 

 haps we will be happy to be separated from you; perhaps not; we can 

 not tell. We men are more amorous than you." 



Some time was required for the men to cross the river, as it was very 

 wide. The tiiimoni led the men and remained with them. The women 

 were compelled by the tiiimoni to send their male infants over the river 

 as soon as they ceased nourishing them. For ten moons the men and 

 women were very happy. The men hunted a great deal and had much 

 game for food, but the women had no animal food. At the expiration of 

 the ten moons some of the women were sad away from the men. The men 

 grew stout and the women very thin. As the second year passed more 

 of the M'omen wanted the men, but the men were perfectly satisfied 

 away from the women. After three years the women more and more 

 wished for the men. but tlie men were but slightly desirous of the 

 women. When the fourth year was half gone the women called to the 

 tiiimoni, saying: "We want the men to come to us." The female 

 children had grown up like reeds; they had no flesh on them. The 

 morning after the women begged the tiiimoni for the return of the men 

 they recrossed the river to live again with the women, and in four days 

 aft«r their return the women had recovered their flesh. 



Children were born to the women while they were separated from 

 the men, and when born they were entirely unlike the Sia, and were a 

 different people. The mothers, seeing their children were not like them- 

 selves, did not care for them and drove them from their homes. These 

 unnatural children matured in a short time, becoming the skoyo (giant 

 cannibals). As soon as they were grown they began eating the Sia. 

 They caught the children just as the coyote catches his prey. They 

 made large fires between great rocks, and throwing the children in, 

 roasted them alive, and afterward ate them. When parents went 

 to the woods to look for their lost children, they too were caught by 

 the giants and roasted. No one ever returned to the village to tell the 

 tale. The Sia were not only devoured by the skoyo, but by thoseauimals 

 who quarreled with their people at the time of the rupture between 

 the Sia men and women, the angry animals joining the skoyo in their 

 attacks ui)on the Sia. 



Although the children were destroyed whenever they ventured from 



