114 DAKOTA GRAMMAR, TEXTS, AND ETHNOGRAPHY. 
and swans. But when he tried to twist off the neck of a large swan, and could not, 
he made him squall. Then a small duck, which is called Skiska, partly opening its 
eyes, saw Uyktomi attempt to break off the neck of the swan, and immediately made 
an outery: 
‘* Look ye, look ye, 
Uyktomi will destroy us all, 
Look ye, look ye.” 
Whereupon they all immediately opened their eyes and started to go out; but 
Uyktomi threw himself in the doorway and attempted to stop them. But with feet 
and wings they smote him and knocked him over, walking over his stomach and cut- 
ting it all up, leaving him lying there for dead. But coming to life he got up and 
looked around. All were gone. But they say that the Wood duck, which first looked, 
had his eyes made red. 
Then Uyktomi gathered up the ducks and geese and swans whose necks he had 
twisted off, and carried them on his back. He came to ariver, and traveled along by 
the side of it till he came to a long straight place or “reach,” where he stopped to boil 
his kettle. When he had put all the ducks, geese, and swans, whose necks he had 
twisted off, into the kettle and set it on the fire to boil, then he lay down to sleep. 
And as he lay there curled up on the bank of the river, he said, Now, my onze, if any 
one comes you wake me up. So he slept. Meanwhile a mink came paddling on the 
river, and coming to Unktomi’s boiling place saw him lying close by fast asleep. 
Thither he went, and although the onze of Unktomi should have given the alarm by 
closing up, it made a mouth at the mink, at which he stopped only for a moment (till 
he felt all was safe). Then he pressed on swiftly, and, while Unktomi slept, took out 
all his boiling and ate it up, putting back the bones into the kettle. Now, when the 
mink was gone out of sight, the onze of Unktomi which he had set to watch told of 
it. Uyktomi commended the faithfulness of his guard, and sitting up looked around, 
but saw no one. ‘Perhaps my boiling is cooked for me. and that is the reason he has 
waked me,” he said, and set down his kettle, and taking a stick he found it full of 
bones only. Then he said, “Indeed the meat has all fallen off,” and so he took a 
spoon and dipped it out, but there was nothing but bones. Then said he, ‘* Why, my 
onze, | thought that I told you to inform me if any one came. I will surely punish 
you.” So saying he gathered much wood and put on the fire, and when the fire burned 
fiercely he turned his onze to it, and there stood holding it open, although it squirmed 
even in the death struggle, and then turned it over, so that finally, they say, it fell 
flown a blackened mass and lay there dead. 
This is the myth of Uyktomi and the Bad Songs.! 

' This is a very free rendering of the original. See p. 112, 1. 20: ‘So this myth is called, ‘The 
Bad Little Songs.’” Lines 21, 22 should have been translated: ‘‘ When I was a little boy I used to hear 
this (myth) very often; but it has been more than twenty years since I have heard it.”—J. 0. D. 
