SPIRIT DEITIES. XCV 



g'enius presiding- over it. This genius is called Tchitcliats%a''-ash or "Big- 

 Belly;" he is represented to be an old man whose vigor of life is on the 

 decrease. When he leaves his lodge, his appearance embodies the rain- 

 laden, dark-hued, thick nimbus clouds overhanging the earth. When his 

 engine* comes into action, he attracts by it all the objects within reach, he 

 oppresses the earth with his weight, and forces wayfarers to walk in other 

 paths than they intended to travel lest they may incur danger to life. 

 When he has spent his force by this wanton display, he is rent by a stroke 

 of lightning or a strong gust of wind; he is dissolved into atoms, and the 

 bones filling his big paunch, which had produced the rattling noise attend- 

 ing the course of whirlwinds, fall down to the ground. Tsiiskai, the Wea- 

 sel, the brother of Marten, wrestling with the old man and conquering him 

 after a hard struggle, is the mythic agent who brings about his final dis- 

 comfiture. 



SPIKIT DEITIES. 



' EnTtTa/iai. ipojSipav (ppiva, ieifiari a-oi^Auii. 



No people has ever been discovered that did not believe in the return 

 of human souls after death to their former homes in the form of ffhosts. 

 Ghosts or spirits hovering through space are invisible and may inflict dam- 

 age to anybody without danger of being recognized; therefore they usually 

 inspire awe and terror, and wherever the existence of these fanciful beings is 

 recognized imagination fills the earth, the atmosphere, and the waters with 

 such spooks. Not all of these are necessarily supposed to be the souls of 

 the deceased, but they may also represent the souls of animals, the spirits 

 of mountains, winds, the celestial bodies, and so forth, for animism has its 

 widest sway in this sort of superstition. Very diff"erent qualities are 

 ascribed to each of these hobgoblins or spooks. They are either gigantic 

 or dwarfish in size, powerful or weak in body, attractive or repulsive, of 

 beneficial or wicked influence. They chiefly appear at night or in stormy 

 weather; some are seen single, others in crowds, and a few of their number 



* Shu'kash is the substantive of sh'hii'ka to whirl about, this being the medial 

 distributive form of hiika to run about: .sh'hubfjka, sh'hiioka, sh'hu'ka "to run about 

 by itself in various directions." 



