xciv ETHNOGKAIMIIC SKETCH. 



to touch the ground. He then stole all the fruits in the garden and went 

 with them to his underground abode. 



Then K'nn'ikanitch, who had observed all this from a distance, arrived 

 and knocked at the top of the house. This time it was the man who opened. 

 When asked what had become of the fruits he excused himself by stating 

 that Munatalkni had taken all of them. This put K'mukamtch into such a 

 rage that he threw the woman out of the house and whipped lier to death. 

 Then he cut open the eyelids of both, which previously had been fastened 

 together, and the man said; "I can see the sun." K'mukamtch then 

 instructed the man how to make his livelihood by using the bow and arrow, 

 and how to manufacture sinew- strings and obsidian arrow-heads. Upon 

 this he brought the man's sister into life again and both went into the 

 mountains to hunt, for they had nothing to eat. Ever after this K'mu- 

 kamtch remained angry with them. 



This is but the commencement of a long tale designed to show the 

 miraculous growth of the family which sprang from the first man and 

 woman, and their progress in the life-sustaining arts and manufactures. 

 There is no doubt that the above is a singular distortion of the Bible tale 

 concerning Adam and Eve in paradise. The question which remains to be 

 solved is this, whether or not Munatalkni himself is borrowed also from the 

 Jewish story. If he is, then in connection with him we may recall Aishish, 

 who, according to some Modocs, is nobody else but Jesus Christ, who two 

 thousand years ago passed through Lost River Valley and dug a deep well 

 there which he presented to the Modocs — all this on account of a phonetic 

 similarity between the names Aishish and Jesus. 



The renuiinder of the story is exactly like what other Oregonian myths 

 relate concerning the origin of mankind and is incontestably of Indian 

 origin. No further mention is made in it of Munatalkni. 



SHtJ'KASH OE WHIELWIND. 



Another of the numerous elementary deities is the Whirlwind or 

 Shu'kash. An interesting mythic tale about it, which I have obtained 

 among the Modocs in the Indian Territory, makes of the .Shu'kash an 

 engine brought into play from time to time with tremendous effect by the 



