160 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN' INSTITUTE. 



black and red canoes hault-d on the other side of tlie river, he lialloed 

 for somebody to come ami take him across. But the tumult was such 

 that they could not hear him. At last, after repeated effoi-ts to 

 attract attention, having inadvertently yawned, one of them heard 

 the movement of his jaws.' Having apprised his fellow spirits of the 

 fact some of them at length came across to fetch hin). 



" But he had no sooner stepped into theii' black canoe than he sank 

 down with the part his foot had touched which seemed to be 

 elastic. Which seeing, the spirits at once smelt him. ' He does 

 not smell of smoke,' they said, and then they learned that he had not 

 been burnt. Therefore, madly seizing him in their fleshless ai-ms, 

 they tossed him up in the air as one does a ball, until nothing remain- 

 ed of his former self Vjut his empty skin. In that state they threw 

 him in the river where a big fish swallowed him at once. His 

 oousin who all this time had been in hiding then set out to return to 

 the land of the living and this time without any fear of the snakes 

 and toads, for his sojourn in the regions of the shades had made him 

 another man. While in the act of crawling back in the hollow tree 

 through which he had entered, he heai'd a terrific voice calling : 

 " Grandson ! grandson ! " Then at the end of the subterranean 

 conduit, he came upon a giant who adoj»ted him as hLs grandson. 

 After a very long series of wonderful experiences with this new 

 grandfather, he finally went up above and it is he that we now see 

 standing on the moon." 



Such is the Den^ myth, or rather part of myth or legend, for what 

 they narrate of this couple is far too long to be repeated here. Now 

 is it not strange that we should find here among hy])erborean Indians, 

 the l>elief in this very Tartarean river which plays such a role in the 

 mythologies of ancient Rome and Athens ? Is there any noticeable 

 difierence between this broad river of the Dends and the Styx-atra of 

 Virgil ? And does not their hero's experience in the infernal regions 

 offer remai'kable analogies with those a.scribed by the Greeks and 

 Latins to Theseus and Hercules, Orpheus and .^neas ? It is also 

 worthy of notice that this belief of the Dends, as evinced bv the 



1 To understand this particular circumstance of the Denes' legend, one must know that the 

 nation regard yawning as ominous, and believe It to be a calling back of the departed ghost-s to 

 earth. 



