THE MOOSE IN INDIAN MYTH 261 



number of moose which form his court, and which 

 render him all the services he requires."'^ 



In the Jesuit Relation for 1667-68 a missionary 

 told of meeting a band of hunters who said they 

 had found the bed of "the great moose/' and had 

 followed the trail a whole day in vain. The 

 hunters, however, said they often killed ordinary 

 moose, belonging to the retinue of the great one, 

 while following the tracks of the invulnerable 

 monster. This supernatural creature had the 

 fifth member, as described by Charlevoix, dont 

 il se sert comme de main four se preparer son 

 giste:''^ 



Freiherr von Kapherr quotes Prof. Marshall's 

 comment that this myth is evidently the survival 

 of a story of the mammoth and his proboscis, 

 the professor adding that the mammoth probably 

 was living in North America later than in the 

 Eastern Hemisphere, and may have lived in the 

 early days of the North American Indians.'^ 

 Madison Grant ascribes to the Sioux a legend of a 

 moose of the same fabulous size/^ but on what 

 authority he does not state. 



* 3 Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, vol. iii., Journal d'un 

 Voyage dans VAmerique Septentrionale (Paris, 1744), p. 127. 

 ^'^ Jesuit Relations (Cleveland, 1899), vol. li., p. 273. 

 Kapherr, Das Elchwild (Berlin, 1908), p. 56. 

 "The Vanishing Moose," Century Magazine, Jan., 1894. 



