44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY Tbull. r'.Q 



came to him and helped him down, while the porcupine was off in a 

 hole in the rocks with a number of other porcupines. 



By and by the porcupine went back and saw his friend swimming 

 in the lake. The beaver asked him down to the lake and then said, 

 "Partner, let us o;o out to the middle of the lake. Just put your 

 head on the back of my head and you will not get wet at all." Be- 

 cause these two friends fell out, people now become friends, and, 

 after they have loved each other f<ir a while, fall out. Then the 

 porcupine did as he was directed, the beaver told him to hold on 

 tight, and they started. The beaver would flap his tail on the water 

 and dive down for some distance, come to the surface, flap his tail, 

 and go down again; and he repeated the performance until he came 

 to an island in the center of the lake. Then he put the porcupine 

 ashore and went flapping away from him in the same manner. 



Now the little porcupine wandered around the whole island, not 

 knowing how to get ofl^. He climbed a tree, came down again, and 

 climbed another, and so on. But the wolverine lived on the main- 

 land near by, so after a while he began to sing for the wolverine 

 (nusk)"Nfi-u-sgue-e', Nu-u-sgue-e', Nu-u-sgue-e'." He called all the 

 animals on the mainland, but he called the wolverine especially, 

 because he wanted the north wind to blow so that it would freeze.'* 



Then the wolverine called out, "What is the matter with you?" 

 So he at last sang a song about himself, saying that he wanted to go 

 home badly. After he had sung this the whole sea froze over, and 

 the porcupine ran across it to his home. This is why they were 

 going to be friends no longer. 



Then the porcupine made friends \vith the ground hog and they 

 stayed up between the mountains where they could see people when- 

 ever thej' started up hunting. One day a man started out, and 

 when they saw him, the porcupine began singing, "Up to the land 

 of ground hog. Up to the land of ground hog." The man heard him. 

 That is why people know that the porcupine sings about the ground 

 hog. 



After this the man began trapping ground hogs for food and caught 

 a small ground hog. He took it home and sldnned it. Then he took 

 off the head and heated some stones in order to cook it. When he 

 was just al)out to put it into the steaming l)ox the head sang plainly, 

 "Poor little head, my poor little head, how am I going to fill him?" 

 The man was frightened, and, instead of eating, he went to liis traps 

 in the morning, took them up (lit. "threw them off") and came 

 home. 



Next morning he reported everything to his friends, saying, "I 

 killed a ground hog, skinned it and started to cook the head. Then 

 it said to me, 'Poor little head.' " After that lie went out to see his 



a See Twcnty-siith Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 453. 



