90 DAKOTA GRAMMAR, TEXTS, AND ETHNOGRAPHY. 
verb “to be.” But in the Dakota language there are several ways of expressing it. 
One that appears frequently in these myths is in, dee, hee, ee, Gee, and eéee; the last 
“e” is the verb of existence; “ this is it,” or, more properly, ‘this is,” “that is,”! “it 
is.” In ee and eéee the idea is that of continuance. Heya edéee, he was saying that; 
that is, he repeated it; he kept on saying it. So also the verb “uy,” when it can be 
used, corresponds to our verb ‘to be.” But the use of “uy” is limited. Then we 
have “yanke” and “ wayke,” which have reference to place as well as being. But still 
it remains true that in many cases the Dakotas do not need a substantive verb; I am 
good they can express by the pronoun and adjective alone, ‘‘ma-waste.” 
4. The study of these Dakota myths has greatly strengthened my former impres- 
sions of the necessity of the supernatural. In this myth the deliverer of the people is 
“star-born.” In the Badger and Bear myth the deliverer is created by mysterious 
power. But everywhere and always the supernatural is recognized. The bad forces, 
whether the nameless, shapeless thing that swallowed them all up that went for water, 
or the mythic owl’s ear that covered them all in when they went for wood, or the more 
powerful and tangible force, the north-god, all these and others must be met and con- 
quered by the supernatural. So the incarnation of selfishness and meanness, imper- 
sonated in Gray Bear, must be overcome and killed by the mysterious born. 
TRANSLATION. 
A people had this camp; and there were two women lying out of doors and looking 
up to the shining stars. One of them said to the other, ‘1 wish that very large and 
bright shining star was my husband.” The other said, “I wish that star that shines 
less brightly were my husband.” Whereupon they say both were immediately taken 
up. They found themselves in a beautiful country, which was full of beautiful twin 
flowers. They found that the star which shone most brightly was a large man, while 
the other was only a young man. So they each had a husband; and one became with 
child. In that country the teepsinna,? with large, beautiful stalks, were abundant. 
The wife of the large star wanted to dig them, but her husband forbade it, saying 
“No one does so here.” 
Then the encampment moved; and the woman with child, when she had pitched 
her tent and came inside to lay the mats, ete., saw there a beautiful teepsinna, and she 
said to herself, “I will dig this—no one will see it.” So she took her digging stick 
and dug the teepsinna. When she pulled it out immediately the country opened out 
and she came through, and falling down to the earth, they say, her belly burst open. 
And so the woman died; but the child did not die, but lay there stretched out. 
An old man came that way, and seeing the child alive took it up, put it in his 
blanket, and went home. When he arrived he said, ‘‘Old woman, I saw something 
to-day that made my heart feel badly.” ‘ What was it?” said his wife. And he 
replied, “A woman lay dead with her belly bursted, and a little boy child lay there 
kicking.” ‘* Why did you not bring it home, old man?” she said. He answered, 
‘Here it is,” and took it out of his blanket. His wife said, “Old man, let us raise 
” 

! As the author has said in another part of this volume, ‘‘e” predicates identity rather than ex- 
istence. And this is the case in the cognate languages: e in (egiha, are in yaiwere, and hére or ére 
in Winnebago, should be rendered ‘‘the aforesaid,” ‘‘the foregoing.” ete.—J. 0. D. 
* Tipsinna, the Psoralea esculenta (Pursh), the Pomme blanche of the French Canadians.—J, 0, D. 
