SWANTON] SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 201 
if you can,” the man replied, and upon this the to"fa seized him. At first it 
seemed as if the man were the stronger of the two and he was able to throw 
the lo"fa down, but the latter smelled so bad that it was too much for his 
antagonist, and the to"fa overcame him, hung him up in a tree and went away. 
The man hung there all night, and when he did not make his appearance at 
camp the other hunters began a search for him and, when they found him, cut 
the grapevine by which he was fastened so that he fell to the ground. They 
asked him what had treated him in this manner but he would not speak and they 
thought he might have seen a ghost or something of that sort. Some time 
later, however, he came to himself and related what had happened. After- 
ward, although he was very fond of hunting and knew that he would be suc- 
cessful, he would not venture out unless someone were with him, 
STORY OF THE BIRD CLAN 
This clan was not very numerous. Their origin was not known for some 
time, but finally it was discovered. There were some people living on two 
neighboring hills, but for a long time it was not thought that these had inhab- 
itants because other people did not see how they could get down from them to 
hunt. When they found that they actually were inhabited they thought that 
the occupants must have wings, and so they called them Birds. They were 
people who were up and off before day. They did not have many peculiar 
customs. They were like real birds in that they would not bother anybody. 
They usually had many wives, and they had a good custom of not marrying 
anyone outside of their clan or those belonging to another house group. A 
woman might belong to the very same clan as a man, but if her house name 
was different from his he would not marry her. The reason was that they 
did not want to mix their blood with that of other people. They kept to the 
ways of their ancestors without disturbing anyone else. They were satisfied 
with what had been handed down to them. The people of this clan have 
different sorts of minds, just as there are different species of birds. Some 
have the minds of woodpeckers, others of crows, others of pigeons, eagles, 
chicken hawks, horned owls, common owls, buzzards, screech owls, day hawks, 
prairie hawks, field larks, red-tailed hawks, red birds, wrens, humming-birds, 
speckled woodpeckers, cranes, bluebirds, blackbirds, turkeys, chickens, quails, 
tcowe’’cak (birds found only in winter and looking like martins), yellow 
hammers, whip-poor-wills, and like all other kinds of birds. Some have homes 
and some have not, as is the case with birds. It seems as though the best 
people of the Bird clan were wiser than any others. They do not work at all, 
but have an easy time going through life and go anywhere they want to. 
They have many offspring, as birds have. They do whatever they desire, and 
when anything happens to them they depend on persons of their own house 
group without calling in strangers. This is the end of the story of the Birds, 
although much more might be written about them. 
STORY OF THE RED FOX CLAN 
Red Fox (Tcula)** was once found in a cave asleep by a hunter. The hunter 
crept up to him and saw that it was Tcula. As he lay there asleep he looked 
red all over, and in consequence the hunter called him Red Fox. From that 
time on his descendants have been known as the Red Fox clan. 
Some time after this Red Fox took up with a woman belonging to the Wildcat 
elan, Their descendants were known as Teula homa iksa, and they lived only 
4a Tcula simply means ‘ fox,” but this is the way it was given. 
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