ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 561 
but he shakes his head at all. She knows no others, so the attempt at 
communication fails. The people regard him as a great medicine-man, 
and wonder if he will heal a sick woman they have among them. They 
take him to the woman. He nods his head to indicate that he under- 
stands their wishes and will do as they desire. He builds a sweat-house 
and puts the woman in it, and made to go in with her himself. Big Crow, 
who has been observing all that took place, is suspicious of the man, and 
when Snikia’p would have entered the sweat-house alone with the woman, 
she called out to the others that he was an impostor; that no true 
medicine-man would enter the sweat-house with his patient. But the 
people are angry at Big Crow ; but she declares she is right, and that he 
only wants to enter the sweat-house with the woman for evil purposes. 
She gets angry because they side with the stranger against her, and she 
takes a club and hits Snikia’p over the head with it. He screams out at 
the attack, and everybody recognises the voice of Snikia’p, and discovers 
that he has been trying to trick them. They fall upon him and beat him 
well. He begs for mercy, declaring that if he did wrong in the past he 
has also wrought much good for them by breaking down the witches’ 
barrier across the river and letting the salmon through, and by giving 
them the cool wind which, since its escape from its prison, had blown up 
river continuously. They presently allow his claim for mercy, and let 
him off without further punishment. From this time the salmon came up 
the river regularly, and the prevailing wind of the region is an up-current 
breeze which keeps the air cool even in the hottest weather. These two 
blessings the old Indians believe were due to Snikia’p the Coyote, whose 
memory they keep alive by this and other stories of him and his doings. 
Matq, or the Fire Myth. 
Long, long ago the Indians on Fraser River had no knowledge of fire. 
Beaver, who travelled about a good deal in the night prospecting the 
rivers, learnt from some source that away in the far north there lived a 
tribe who knew how to make fire. He determined to seek out this tribe 
and steal some of their fire and bring it back to the ‘Stalo’ (2.e. Lower 
Fraser River) Indians. He told his brother Eagle to wait for him at a 
certain point on the Fraser while he went down the river to the coast to 
tell the people of the settlements along its banks that he was going to 
steal the fire for them in the far north. When he reached the coast he 
met a large tribe there. He begged from them the gift of a pair of clam- 
shells in which to stow away the fire he should steal. They gave him the 
shells and he then returned to his brother, and the two set out together 
for the far north. ‘You go through the air,’ said Beaver to Eagle, ‘and 
I will travel by water.’ They continued their journey in this way for 
many days and nights, Beaver travelling by the Fraser. When they 
arrived near the village of the people who possessed the fire, Beaver called 
his brother to him and told him his plan of action. ‘To-night,’ said he, 
‘T will build a dam across the water, and then burrow from the dam along 
under the ground until I come up under the house where the fire is kept. 
They will spear me sooner or later, and take me to the village, but 
although they will spear me they will not be able to kill me. In the 
meantime I shall build myself a house in the river, and when they see it 
they will come out and spear me. When they have speared me they will 
take me to the house where the fire is kept to skin me. I shall put the 
1899, 0Q 
