HEWITT] 



MYTHS 469 



customs, and at which is burned a male and a female dog, pure 

 white in color, as bearers of thanksgivings of the people, is held in 

 honor of De'hae°'hiyawa"kho''' for his works, blessings, and good- 

 ness, which have been enjoyed by the people during the year. 



In going from place to place on the earth doing his work one day 

 De'hae°'hiyawa"kho"' found that all the animals, seemingly, which 

 he had formed had disappeared. Not at once suspecting the cause, 

 he went in many directions seeking them. While thus unsuccess- 

 fully engaged a bird informed bin; that they were virtually held 

 captive in a vast cavern in a rock cliff, wherein his brother had con- 

 cealed them. Having discovered the place, De'hae°'hiyawa"kho"' 

 removed the rock that closed the mouth of the cavern and at once 

 ordered the captive animals and the birds to come forth. While 

 the creatures were thus issuing in obedience to the command of their 

 maker, O'ha'a' and his grandmother, noticing that the animals were 

 again becoming plentiful about them, and divining the cause, hastened 

 to the mouth of the cavern and at once closed it with the great rock. 

 The few creatures which did not have the opportunity to escape 

 became changed somewhat in their natures, which thereafter were 

 wholly evil, uncanny, monstrous, and othon} 



Seemingly this incident of the concealment of the animals is a 

 figurative statement of the annual forced hibernation of certain 

 animals and reptiles and the migration of certain birds, and also 

 shows that De'hae°'hiyawa"kho°' possessed the power of changing 

 the seasons by bringing back the summer. Since all game animals 

 were intended to serve for the perpetual sustenance of human beings, 

 then about to be formed, De'hae"'hiyawa"kho°' enjoined on them 

 the duty of permitting themselves to be taken or killed, provided 

 that human beings in killing them should do it with dispatch and that 

 they should not be killed in sport. In furtherance of this injunction 

 De'hae°'hiyawa"kho'" questioned some of the animals to learn in 

 what manner their posterity would defend themselves against human 

 beings. The bear, for example, replied that his posterity would 

 flee to escape; thereupon De'hae'"hiyawa"kho"' stuck the bear's 

 legs full of fat and meat in order to make him slow and clumsy in 

 running. The deer answered that his posterity would stand and 

 not flee and would instead bite human beings who hunted them; 

 then De'hae°'hiyawa"kho"' twisted out the teeth of the deer's 

 upper jaw, thus rendering his bite comparatively harmless. A 

 similar change was made in the buft'alo and the elk. 



See note on p. 608. 



