DENIG] THE ASSINIBOIN 607 



them to have been stolen, each single mark (10) counting a horse. 

 The puns, bows, and lances show the party to be 10 (1). The hand 

 pointing the direction in which they are traveling and toward a 

 scalp (11) intimates that they have killed an enemy. The hand 

 pointing the other way with the scalp (12) explains they have lost 

 one of their party. The dotted line is their path home along a river 

 and only extends as far as they have traveled to the place where the 

 painting was left. The number of days they expect yet to travel to 

 reach home are indicated by these characters (8, 10), the one a brush 

 fort, signifies the number of encampments, and the horse track with 

 it means it is the road they intend to travel." 



Myth Telling 



As has been several times mentioned in these pages, one of the 

 principal ways of passing time at night in an Indian camp is the 

 recital of fables for their amusement. Most old men and women can 

 recount these stories, but there are some particularly famed for their 

 talents in this respect, and these are compensated for their trouble 

 by feasting, smoking, and small presents. At night, when all work 

 is over, a kettle is put on containing some choice meat, tobacco mixed 

 with weed prepared, the lodge put in order, the family collected, and 

 the story-teller invited, who often prolongs his narrations the 

 greater part of the night. Some of the tales are of a frightful kind, 

 and to their impression on young minds is no doubt mainly to be 

 attributed the fear of ghost monsters and other imaginary super- 

 natural powers exhibited by most Indians when grown. 



We have taken some pains to call together a few of the most famed 

 and sensible story-tellers and listened with much patience to a great 

 many of their allegories, but find nothing in any of them bearing 

 on their ideas of a future state. 51 The circumstances and actors por- 

 trayed do not reveal the actual notions of the tribe on their religion 

 as it now exists but are founded on their ancient mythology and 

 handed down complete in their details through successive genera- 

 tions, and their real signficance, if they ever had any further than 

 amusement, is now lost or absorbed in their manner of worship as 

 referred to in these pages. 



Nevertheless, we can discern in them a probability of their being 

 the real belief of their ancestors in their primitive ignorance, before 

 their superstitions and religions had assumed a systematic form and 

 tangible shape. This much may be inferred by the tacit acknowl- 

 edgment of their truth apparent in the auditors and the unwilling- 



C1 This inference on the part of Denip: indicates that he was not cognizant of the farts, 

 poetically expressed, conveyed by native Indian myths, and so he reached the false con- 

 clusion that all myths are no more nor less than simple fictions, when, in fact, except in 

 their verbal dress, they are true. lie failed to interpret rightly the metaphorical diction. 



