~ 
ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA, Doe 
rolling Spa’tzin (Asclepias speciosa) on his thigh into rope.’ This old man 
was Ska/kit, the Spider, whose home is in the clouds. On seeing the 
shadow caused by the youth he looked up and perceived him. As soon 
as his eyes fel] upon him he began to weep and lament. ‘O dear wife,’ 
said he, ‘here is our grandson all naked and cold. Bring some blankets 
and skins for him.’ To the youth he cried out, ‘ Come down, dear grand- 
son ; I am so sorry for you. I knowhow badly you have been treated by 
your father.’ The youth descends, and they cover him with blankets and 
make him lie down by the fire and give him food to eat. Next morning 
the grandson rises early and goes out to bathe in the stream. As he 
leaves he sees his grandfather, Ska/kit, busily spinning the Spa’tzin grass 
into rope, coils of which lay about the house. After some days had 
elapsed, and he had recovered from the fatigues of his long journey, he 
began to grow weary of doing nothing besides watching his grandfather 
spin Spa‘tzin into rope. So he said to his grandparents, ‘ Have you any 
game in this country? I should like to go hunting.’ ‘ We always snare 
our game here,’ said the grandfather. ‘I never shoot, although I have an 
arrow.’ ‘Give me yonarrow, grandfather ; I am a great hunter and I will 
shoot you lots of deer.’ Ska’/kit gave him the arrow, and thereafter he 
went out hunting every day. One day, as he was leaving, he said to his 
grandfather, ‘ Why do youspin so much Spa’tzin ? You are always making 
rope ; what do you want so much for?’ ‘It is for your sake I spin so 
much,’ responded the Spider. ‘I am going to help you get back to your 
own country again.’ Said the youth, ‘I am happy here with you ; I don’t 
wish to leave you.’ ‘That is quite right and proper for you to desire to 
stay with us,’ said Ska‘kit ; ‘but this is no country for you. For me it 
does not matter much where I live. I can go where I want to. I can 
just stick my thread on anywhere and climb up or down as I wish, or let 
the wind carry me where it will. But you can’t do this, you see, and you 
ought to return to your eagle-wife and little son. They want you very 
much, and are grieving over yourabsence. I shall soon have enough rope 
now for my purpose.’ The youth said no more, but the next time he went 
out he plucked four hairs from the lower part of his abdomen and threw 
them on the ground. Immediately three or four acres of the land adjoin- 
ing the stream became covered with fine Spa’tzin grass. When he returned 
home he asked his grandfather where he got his supplies of Spa’tzin from. 
‘Oh, we have to go a long way to get it,’ answered he ; ‘it does not grow 
hereabout.’ ‘That’s odd,’ said the youth ; ‘I certainly thought I saw a 
fine tract of it just beyond the stream. When you go down to the stream 
next, just see if I am not right.’ Ska’kit went down to the stream shortly 
after, and found the grass growing there as his grandson had said, and as 
it was unusually fine and long he now soon finished his rope. When this 
was done he bade his wife bring out the goat-hair blankets she had woven. 
The grandmother fetched out four dozen of these. ‘ Now bring the dried 
meat and fat,’ said Ska/kit. And she brought out four dozen prime pieces. 
He then told her to get the cradle-basket she had made for the occasion. 
When all lay before the Spider he said, ‘The pack will be too big ; we 
must make it smaller. Shut your eyes, both of you, and don’t open them 
till I tell you.’ They did so. He then closed his own, and waving his 
1 Spa'tzin is the Asclepias or great milkweed, yielding a fibre grass from which 
the natives of this region make all their fish-nets, lines, &c. It grows sometimes three 
or four feet long, and is then highly prized. It has given the name to Spatzum Station 
on the Canadian Pacific Railway, 
