TRADITIONS—LEGEND OF SATTIK. 111 
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they hold that there is only a certain limited number of spirits existing 
among the animals. When one departs this life his spirit immediately takes 
up its abode in some other one just then entering into existence. 
Thus they revolve through a never-ending cycle, qualis ab incepto, and 
are of necessity immortal, though the Indians do not carry out the philoso- 
phy to these fine conclusions. 
They have also a tradition of the flood, and as usual this occurrence 
took place in their immediate vicinity. Taylor's Peak is the mountain on 
which the surviving Indians took refuge. 
Frogs and white mice are reverenced by the Mattoal, and they never 
on any account kill or injure one of these sacred animals. Their super- 
stitious regard for frogs is illustrated in the legend following: 
LEGEND OF SATTIK. 
Many snows ago there came up a white man out of the southiand, 
journeying down Kel River to the country of the Mattoal. He was the 
first white man who had ever come into that land, and he lost his way and 
could not find it again. For lack of food through many days he was sore 
distressed with hunger, and had fallen down faint in the trail, and he came 
near dying. But there passed that way an Indian who was called Sattik, 
and he saw the white man fallen in the trail with hunger with his mouth in 
the dust, and his heart was touched because of him. He took him and 
lifted him up, and he brought him fresh water to drink in his hands, and 
from his basket he gave him dried salmon to eat, and he spoke kind words 
to him. Thus the man was revived, and his soul was cheered within him, 
but he could not yet walk. Then the heart of Sattik was moved with pity 
for the white man, and he took him on his back and carried him on the 
way. They journeyed three sleeps down Eel River, but Sattik carried the 
white man on his shoulders, and he sat down often to rest. At the end of 
the third day they came to a large spring wherein were many frogs; and 
Sattik dipped up water in his hands to drink, as the manner of Indians is, 
but the white man bowed down on his.belly and drank of the waters, and 
he caught a frog in his hand and eat it, because of the hunger he had. At 
the sight of this the Indian’s heart became as water for terror, and he fled 
