THE MOOSE IN INDIAN MYTH 



267 



hind foot scratches himself behind the ear so that 

 the blood flows, and that this cures him."^^ And 

 Fr. Le Clercq: "The left hind foot cures epilepsy; 

 but it is necessary to secure it, the savages say, at 

 a time when the animal is itself suffering from this 

 malady, of which it cures itself by placing this 

 left foot to its ear.'"^ 



Fr. Rasle's dictionary shows that the Indians had 

 adopted from their earlier English neighbors the 

 names of certain things previously unknown to them, 

 as cow, pig, cabbage. Probably at the same time 

 they adopted the superstitious belief in the efficacy 

 of moose hoofs in therapeutics, and hence added 

 ^kass to their vocabulary, as they added '^ka^s'* 

 for cows, kabits'^ for cabbage, pikess" for pigs, 

 and other English words to describe their newly- 

 acquired domestic animals and vegetables. 



According to Denys, "'in the heart [of the moose] 

 there is a little bone which the Indian women use 



""'Description Geographique, etc. (Paris, 1672), vol. ii., p. 320. 

 =8 Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspesie (Paris, 169 1), p. 472. Sieur de 

 Diereville, a French traveler whose Relation du Voyage du Port Royal 

 de VAcadie was published in Rouen in 1708, gave this superstition to \ 

 his readers in verse : 



Ii est fort sujet au haul mal, 

 Mais dans les pieds fourchus de ce grand animal, 

 La Nature a mis le remede; 

 Quelle prevoyance ! quel soin I 

 II se gratte la ttte en ce pressant besoin, 

 Et se delivre ainsi du mal qui le possede. 



