ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 565 
hardships by the way. This one woman could not find her way back, and 
had to build a shelter in the woods and support herself upon roots and 
berries as best she might. After she had lived some while in this lonely 
state, as she could not get a man for a husband, she determined to take 
for husband a certain kind of root. This root now goes by the name 
Koakoé'la, or ‘Husband-root.’ By this root-husband she became the mother 
of a male child. When the child had grown into a strong youth he one 
day asked his mother where his father was. The woman was ashamed to 
tell him what kind of a father he had had ; she dissembled therefore, and 
told him that his father had been drowned. On hearing this the youth 
went to the river and reproached it for drowning his parent. The river 
denied the charge, declaring that his father had not been drowned. Upon 
hearing this he returned to his mother, and said, ‘Mother, you have 
deceived me ; my father was not drowned. Why don’t you tell me truly 
where my father is?’ The mother still prevaricated, and said, ‘ Your 
father is dead, my son; it is true he was not drowned ; he fell from a 
lofty tree and was killed as he was trying to take a hawk’s nest.’ The 
boy, to whom the language of all nature was familiar, now reproached the 
trees for the death of his father ; but they one and all deniedit. He 
returned again a second time to his mother, and entreated her to tell him 
the truth concerning his father, and where he was. The request was too 
embarrassing for his mother to comply with, so she put him off again by 
declaring that his father had fallen over a precipice and broken his neck. 
But when the youth taxed the precipice with the deed it indignantly 
denied the charge. As he was returning home he found his feet catching 
in a certain kind of root, which constantly tripped him up. As this had 
never happened to him before, he wondered what it meant. When he got 
home he said to his mother, ‘ Mother, I see you do not intend to satisfy 
my longing to know who and where my father is ; you have deceived me 
these three times. I shall not ask you again ; but, tell me, why does this 
root trip me up all the time to-day when I walk in the woods?’ and he 
held a root in his hand similar to that which his mother had taken for 
husband. The mother turned away and would not answer him, though 
she perceived that the knowledge he sought would soon be made known to 
him. He now determined to prepare himself to become a Shaman. He 
therefore left his mother and lived apart by himself, and fasted and exercised 
his body till a Shaman’s dream came to him, and with it great Shamanistic 
power. In his dream he learnt also that he was the son of a root. This 
knowledge made clear to him at once why his mother had sought to 
deceive him about his father. He now determined to seek out the tribe 
to which his mother belonged. In the course of his journey he came one 
day upon a great concourse of people watching a game of ball. They 
asked no questions of him as he joined the players ; but when he presently 
struck one of his opponents’ legs they got angry and mocked him, calling 
him the ‘son of a root,’ and from this time forward he was known by the 
name Koakoé’la.!. He was so struck with shame at this taunt that he 
covered his face with his hands. Some of the people are sorry for him, 
! Dr. G. M. Dawson has given the name Awil-7-elt’. In his account of this hero 
he records deeds performed by him which were done by his friend Skoé’qtkoatlt, 
according to my informant, Chief Mischelle, of Lytton. Compare Dr. Dawson’s 
account in his ‘Notes on the Shuswap People of British Columbia,’ Zrans. Loy. 
Suc. Canada, 1891, with the writer’s account of Skoé’qtkoatlt in Zransactions of the 
English Folklore Society for 1899, 
