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292 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 59 
5. CoyoTE AND TREE CuteF! (2 versions: No. 64 and VAEU 23:166).—Coyote 
passes Tree Chief’s tent. Tree Chief’s mother likes him, and wishes him to become 
her son’sfriend. The two friends go out. When they pass Woll’s trap, Coyote diverts 
the attention of his friend and pushes him in. He pretends to be unable to pull him 
out. He induces him to throw out all his clothing, including a hawk, which he car- 
ries on his head, and his saliva. Then he leaves him and goes to the town where a _ 
chief lives who has two daughters. The chief, Golden Eagle, believes that he is 
Tree Chief. Wolf and his wife find Tree Chief in the trap. He has taken the form 
of a young child. Wolf wants to kill him; his wife wants to raise him. They agree 
that whoever reaches him first shall do with him what he pleases. Woli’s wife digs 
through the ground very quickly and rescues him.? 
Tree Chief asks Wolf Woman for sinew, which the boy uses for making a netted ring. 
He holds it up, and it is full of birds. Next he asks for the leg skin of a yearling 
buffalo calf. He makes a netted ring, rolls it into the tent, and tells the woman to 
cover her head. It becomes a buffalo, which he kills. He tells the woman to put 
the blood and guts behind the tent. On the following day they are transformed into 
pemmican. Coyote has married one of the daughters of Golden Eagle. Tree Chie 
takes some pemmican, and goes to the river to draw water. There he meets the 
chief’s daughter, to whom he gives the pemmican. Next the boy asks for the leg part 
of the skin of a buffalo bull. He obtains a buffalo in the same way as before. He 
puts the blood in the skin and puts it away. On the next day the blood has been 
transformed into pemmican; the skin, into apainted blanket. He goes again to draw 
water, and tells the girl to say that she has received pemmican from the one whom 
she saw at the river. 
Tree Chief hides the buffalo, and the people in the village of Golden Eagle are 
starving. Golden Eagle throws up a feather of his body, which becomes an eagle, 
which is perched on a tree. He arranges a contest, and orders every one to try to 
shoot the eagle. Each is to have one shot. Coyote shoots repeatedly, but does not 
hit the eagle. Tree Chief appears, and hits the eagle. Coyote pretends that his 
arrow had hit it; but when he is carrying along the bird on his arrow, it is seen that it 
is a prairie chicken. The boy goes back to the Wolf. In the evening he meets the 
girl again, and tells her that on the following day at noon he will show himself. He 
goes to the village in the same form as he used to have. The people are puzzled, 
because he himself and Coyote look alike. Tree Chief’s saliva turns into shells, which 
are eaten by the sparrow hawk that sits on the youth’s head; while Coyote has lost 
this art, and his hawk is starving. 
Tree Chief tells the chief, his father-in-law, to look at his fortune-telling place. The 
chief sees tracks of buffalo cows, and sends the people to go hunting. Tree Chief goes 
ahead, piles up buffalo chips, which he transforms into buffaloes. The people kill 
the buffaloes. Tree Chief takes an old mangy buffalo cow. He is laughed at by 
Coyote. Tree Chief takes it home. He gives his arrow to his wife, and tells her not 
1 Arapaho (Dorsey and Kroeber FM 5:348, 372). 
Assiniboin (Lowie PaAM 134). 
Blackfoot (Uhlenbeck VKAW A 12:30; 13:160; Wissler PaAM 2:47). 
Cheyenne (Kroeber JA FL 13:170). 
Crow (Simms FM 2:291). 
Hidatsa (Matthews 63). 
Kutenai (Boas VAEU 23:166). 
Nez Percé (Mayer-Farrand MAFLS 11:159). 
Ojibwa (de Josselin de Jong BArchS 5:2; only beginning). 
Okanagon (Teit MAFLS 11:85). 
Omaha (Dorsey CN AE 6:55, 604). 
Pawnee (Dorsey CI 59:159, 164, 280 et seq.). 
Shoshoni (Lowie PaAM 2:274). 
Shuswap (Teit JE 2:695). 
Teton (Curtis, N. A. Indians 3:111). 
2See Blackfoot (Uhlenbeck VK AWA 13:117). 
