300 THE MAIDU. 
be Oan-koi’-tu-peh (the Invincible). Whenever you see him, think of me. 
This boy has no life apart from me; he is myself.” 
Then his mother took this basket, in which the babe lay, and started 
to go to her father’s house, but when she had gone a little way she turned 
to look back, and behold Yangwiakanuh was gone out of sight, and no man 
ever saw him more. 
She took her babe home, and secretly went into the assembly-house, 
and hid him in the basket behind the great basket of acorns. But the 
child’s heart was quick with life, and the beating of it was like the ticking 
of a bug on the wall. When Kiunaddissi, the child’s grandfather, heard 
the noise, he said to his daughter, “‘ What noise is that? I never heard 
such a noise as that before.” At that the girl was greatly ashamed, but 
she held her peace. 
On the fourth night Kiunaddissi made a sacred dance in the assembly- 
house, and there was a hot fire of willow-wood. <A coal snapped out from 
it, and fell upon the basket in which was hidden the young child. It burned 
through the basket, and the child came forth a man full grown, and came 
down and stood upon the floor. He knew his grandfather, and called him 
by name. But the old man was overcome with astonishment. He ran and 
called to his daughter, saying, ‘‘Come to me quick; there is a stranger 
here; he calls me grandfather, but I know nothing of him.” His mother 
came in all haste, weeping, moaning, and wringing her hands, because she 
knew the five days were not expired, and she feared evil would befall her 
child. When the lad spoke to the old man again, he replied, “ You are 
not my grandson. My daughter has no husband.” 
But when the mother entered, she cried out, ‘My son! my son!” 
She led him and seated him on a clean board, washed his face and hands, 
and her heart was full of joy. He sat there ; he looked all around ; he knew 
all things beforehand. He took note of all the deadly snakes, the deadly 
beasts, the diseases, the fatal quagmires wherein men sank and perished, 
and he said to them that all the men who had perished by these means in 
other times had gone to the land of good spirits. He asked his grandfather 
what meant all the round pits about them. He told him that once a great 
people had lived there, but their chief had gambled them all away in cap- 
