78 MYTHS OP THE IROQUOIS. 



The fox soon made bis appearance, but instead of men his companions 

 proved to be a dog and a lame cat. While awaiting in their turn, the 

 cat, perceiving the slight motion of one of the uncovered ears of the hog, 

 sprang upon it, whereupon the squeals of the in%isible pig put the whole 

 comi)any to flight, and the bear never had the satisfaction of avenging 

 the loss of his tail. 



ORIGIN OF MEDICINE. 



Chief Mt. Pleasant, one of the Bear clan, relates that once on a time a 

 sickly old man, covered with sores, entered an Indian village where over 

 each wigwam was placed the sign of the clan of its possessor; for in- 

 stance, the beaver skin denoting the Beaver clan, the deer skin the Deer 

 clan. At each of these wigwams the old man applied for food and a 

 night's lodging, but his repulsive appearance rendered him an object of 

 scorn, and the Wolf, the Tortoise, and the Heron had bidden the abject 

 old man to pass on. At length, tired and weary, he arrived at a wig- 

 wam where a bear skin betokened the clanship of its owner. This he 

 found inhabited by a kind-hearted woman who immediately refreshed 

 him with food and spread out skius for his bed. Then she was in- 

 structed by the old man to go in search of certain herbs, which she pre- 

 pared according to his directions, and through their efficacy he was 

 soon healed. Then he commanded that she should treasure up this se- 

 cret. A few days after, he sickened with a fever and again commanded 

 a search for other herbs and was again healed. This being many times 

 repeated he at last told his benefactress that his mission was accom- 

 plished, and that she was now endowed with all the secrets for curing 

 disease in all its forms, and that before her wigwam should grow a hem- 

 lock tree whose branches should reach high into the air above all others, 

 to signify that the Bear should take precedence of all other clans, and 

 that she and her clan should increase and multiply. 



ORIGIN OF WAMPUM. 



A man while walking in a forest saw an unusually large bird covered 

 with a heavily clustered coating of wampum. He immediately informed 

 his people and chiefs, whereupon the head chief offered as a prize his 

 beautiful daughter to one who would capture the bird, dead or alive, 

 which apparently had come from another world. Whereupon the war- 

 riors, with bows and aiTows, went to the " tree of promise," and as each 

 lucky one barely hit the bird it would throw off a large quantity of the 

 coveted coating, which, like the Lernsean hydra's heads, multiplied by 



