334 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull- 194 



A son is born to Moon and the girl from below. Meadowlark tells the son he 

 does not belong up there. Moon forbids his wife to dig "wild turnip's sister" and 

 in digging one she finds the hole in the sky. Moon's wife makes a rope of the 

 sinews from one buffalo but Moon did not include all of them so the rope reaches 

 only to the tree tops. Moon's wife and son attempt to escape down the rope and 

 Moon discovers them hanging at the end of the rope at the level of the treetops. 

 He drops a stone, directing it to kill the woman but to spare his son.^* 



The son remains around his mother's body which falls near a large garden cared 

 for by Old- Woman- Who-Never-Dies. Discovering a child's tracks in her garden, 

 she wonders whether they are by a boy or a girl. She makes a bow and arrows 

 which will be taken if it is a boy and a ball if it is a girl. Finding the bow and 

 arrows taken, she knows that the tracks have been made by a boy so she looks for 

 him and takes him to her lodge near by. 



She forbids him to roast the red corn, giving him permission to use any other 

 variety. He roasts red kernels; they turn into blackbirds which he kills. She 

 appears pleased but she takes them outside and frees them for they are her helpers 

 in the gardens. 



She forbids him to go into a certain thicket but he goes there and finds a large 

 grizzly bear who does not kill him for the bear is afraid of the boy's father, the 

 Moon. So he takes the bear to his grandmother to serve instead of a dog. [This 

 act introduces the Bear rites and relates them to the Old-Woman-Who-Never- 

 Dies rites.] 



During the evening he hears Two Men singing love songs to Old-Woman-Who- 

 Never-Dies from a village on the north side of the river.^^ Meanwhile he observes 

 that his grandmother feeds someone who is staying under her bed and behind 

 the curtains. 



The grandmother forbids him to go to Red Hills but when she was not in sight 

 he goes there and finds that the hill is full of snakes. The snakes tell the boy 

 that they are eagle trappers and that the lodge arrangement is for the ceremonial 

 capture of eagles. [The myth at this point describes the lodge arrangement for 

 the rites of eagle trapping and explains that the snakes were the first eagle trappers 

 to set up the altar.] 



The snakes bite into a paunch, leaving their teeth there, and offer it to the boy 

 who roasts the paunch. This burns their teeth and they all run out. The snakes 

 address him as "Grandson," for they and all other snakes represent the husbands 

 of Old- Woman-Who-Never- Dies. 



The snakes ask him to tell them a story. Grandson tells how the buttes make 

 a noise like the wind and then it is quiet again; part of the snakes go to sleep. 

 The streams make a noise like the wind and then it is quiet again; half of the 

 snakes are asleep. The large trees make a loud noise in the wind and then it is 

 quiet again; only a few snakes are still awake. The wind blows hard and then it 

 dies down; all of the snakes are asleep. 



Grandson kills all of the snakes except the last one which goes into a hole. 

 This snake warns Grandson never to lie on his stomach to drink. [This red 

 hill provides the name for one of the Mandan clans, the MasEdomak or "Red 

 Hilled People," receiving the name from Clay-on-the-Face who provided the 

 names of the seven clans making up one moiety. I could find no evidence that 

 the Hidatsa clan names were in any way associated with this hill situated less 



'8 For a picture of this stone, now a shrine to Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, and another version of this 

 myth, see Beckwith, 1938. 



" This site was excavated by the Smithsonian Institution in 1952. The artifacts— particularly pottery- 

 observed by this writer, appear to give the site a date of late prehistoric period, Heart River Focus. 



