180 ' ANTHROPOLOGY. 
The earth, according to them, is not spheroidal but flat, and 
surrounded with water on all sides, like an island, and heaven or 
sky is nothing else than a huge hollow mountain, covering the 
earth, as the covering of a kettle. Before the creation, Skòmelten 
(obsolete word, meaning mother, and which was substituted by 
the word Skói); a woman very powerful, and who took existence 
by herself, begot a son without assistance of man, and this i 
son undertook to create heaven, and earth, and man; and for his 
dwelling he chose the summit of the covering, namely, heaven, — 
whence he took the name of Amédtkan, which means, He who sits 
on the tops of the mountains; while Skdmelten, his mother, 1% — 
mained above on another land beyond the waters; for besides out 
earth, they thought that Amétkan created other worlds, under, 
above and around us. Be 
This Amòtkan was then considered as their invisible God, who 
has also many sons, though no wife; and when the Indians sav 
the whites for the first time, they considered them to be the natu- r 
ral sons of Amòtkan, and consequently immortal, until they $8" 
one of them killed by the Blackfeet. 
‘The first generation of mankind became very wicked, and turned | 
a deaf ear to the admonitions of Amdtkan, who, in his Wf ; 
_ drowned them all in a general inundation. Amòtkan undertook à ; 
second creation of a race of people, twice as tall as the first ae 3 
but proving worse than the first, they were all destroyed by pi 
_ which came from heaven. The third generation being êS ak 
the first and second, was destroyed by Amotkan through e ee 
pestilence. The fourth generation would all have been anh h . 
on account of their crimes, had not mother Skomelten rte wre 
with her son in behalf of mankind. The wrath of Am 
appeased by the prayers of his mother, and he promised uae 
destroy his creations again. But until that time the world w E 
perfect darkness, there being no sun; and the people per they 
suaded that the darkness was the cause of their wickedness itt 
held a general council for the purpose of enlightening the W ‘ y 
but as every one refused, Sinchlèp (a small prairie-wolf): right 
the smartest of all the animals, undertook and sueceeded F people 
ing the world very little less than the actual sun, and if ot 
were very glad. But the animals of those times had t et 
of speaking, no less than the people, and Sinchlep, being 
cunning, interfered too much in their secret business, and nT 
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