50 CREMATION MYTHS. 



"The moon and the coyote wrought together in creating all things that 

 exist. The moon was good, but the coyote was bad. In making men and 

 women the moon wished to so fashion their souls that when they died they 

 should return to the earth after two or three days, as he himself does when 

 he dies. But the coyote was evil disposed, and said this should not be, 

 but that when men died their friends should burn their bodies, and once a 

 year make a great mourning for them ; and the coyote prevailed. So, 

 presently when a deer died, they burned his body, as the coyote had decreed, 

 and after a year they made a great mourning for him. But the moon cre- 

 ated the rattlesnake and caused it to bite the coyote's son, so that he died. 

 Now, though the coyote had been willing to burn the deer's relations, he 

 refused to burn his own son. Then the moon said unto him, ' This is your 

 own rule. You would have it so, and now your son shall be burned like 

 the others.' So he was burned, and after a year the coyote mourned for 

 him. Thus the law was established over the coyote also, and, as he had 

 dominion over men, it prevailed over men likewise. 



"This story is utterly worthless for itself, but it has its value in that it 

 shows there was a time when the California Indians did not practice crema- 

 tion, which is also established by other traditions. It hints at the additional 

 fact that the Nishinams to this day set great store by the moon ; consider it 

 their benefactor in a hundred ways, and observe its changes for a hundred 

 purposes." 



Another myth regarding cremation is given by Adam Johnston, in 

 Schoolcraft,* and relates to the Bonaks, or root-diggers : 



"The first Indians that lived were coyotes. When one of their number 

 died the body became full of little animals or spirits, as they thought them. 

 After crawling over the body for a time they took all manner of shapes, 

 some that of the deer, others the elk, antelope, etc. It was discovered, 

 however, that great numbers were taking wings, and for a while they sailed 

 about in the air, but eventually they would fly off to the moon. The old 

 coyotes or Indians, fearing the earth might become depopulated in this way, 

 concluded to stop it at once, and ordered that when one of their people died 



* Hist. Indian tribes of the, United States, 1854, part IV, p. 224. 



