MYTHIC TALE OF OLD MARTEN. 117 



ders, while the Thunders stoi)ped in the small kay^ta which was the abode of their 

 parents. To enter snch an earth-lodge a high ladder called ga-ululkish must be climbed 

 on the outside, and another ladder, as long or longer than the other (wakish) leads into 

 the interior Piitcho'le ua'shak, p6patchle (for p^piitchole) lApok wakish: "he had 

 stepped once", "twice" down on the inside ladder; that is, he had made one step, 

 two steps on it commencing ijom the top. Each one of the Thunders, when trying to 

 penetrate into their own lodge, gets a little further down than the previous one, but 

 all are driven out by the chilling, powerful spell of Skelamtch's headdress. 



112, 7. gulip61ank. The second of the Thunders, frightened at the ill-success of 

 his experiment, retired again to the low hut or kay^ta, where the other Thunders were 

 and where their parents dwelt. This word has two accents on account of shash being 

 enclitic; cf. Ill, 2. 112, 13. 113, 9. 



112, 8. Tdt/61amni refers in this connection to the relative age of the brothers : 

 "the third in age of the five Thunders." 



112,9. gekanshCnii'nk: for gekanshna hu'nk. Cf. 113, 12. kt^nshan ndnui s;^ol- 

 ;f6tak, for : ktdnshna nanui sh;^oljf6ta ak. 



112, 9. gu't;^itkt, a contraction of gu tkitko at. 



112, 11. 12. "Ya! ati' a ua'lsh winni'p^itk tua'ki." This was said by aU the five 

 Thunders simultaneously and unisono. In tua' ki, a is altered into a', almost 6. The 

 inserted particle hu, ii "in the distance, out there, over there" seems to have pro- 

 duced this change. 



112, 15. li'lhankshti i'tpa "he brought some venison," a phrase corresponding 

 exactly to the French: "il apporta du gibier'"; both nouns standing in the partitive 

 case. These partitives are governed by another noun in 113, G (maklaksti) and 113, 7. 



112, 21. puelhi' : they threw the dead Indians down into the lodge from its roof. 

 The sufiflx -1- indicates a downward direction, like -ila, -kuela etc., and occurs also in 

 112, 17, hii'mgle, to speak in a downward direction, to shout to somebody standing 

 below. The suffix -hi meaus down to the ground, or on the ground, earth, soil, 

 and since the lodge-floor is the soil itself, it also means "into, or in the lodge or 

 wigwam". 



113, 2. iwa sha tchiii. They put into the bucket the bodies of the dead Indians to 

 stew or boil them up. 



113, 2. Nokshtak etc. The gray wolf, the marten and the weasel all being carni- 

 vores, there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that mythic fiction lets them partici- 

 pate in a meal consisting of human flesh. 



113, 3. h^shpa shash. Shash stands for maklaksash, the dead Indians. 



113, 8. nanuk wu'ta. Marten ate up all the human flesh which he had taken out 

 of the kdla. 



113, 8. sh6wanank. The verb sh6wana refers to a plurality of objects, the objects 

 being sometimes expressed by a collective noun, as here (tchule'ksh). 



113, 9. K^-udshi^mtchkash stands for K6-udshiamtch tchkash ; nu'kla is to roast 

 on coals ; tchule'ks is here venison meat. 



113, 13. ka-uloktantktiim'na. The verbal sufiix -tdm'na, which marks an action 

 often repeated, or continued for a long time, is not here, as usually, appended to the 

 simple form of the verb, but to its derivative in -tka. 



113, 14. Tch^kag. The blackbird has yellow eyes shining bright in the darkness, 



