20 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 16. 
may at times represent a slurring and the repetition be the com* 
plete description. This may happen, and we have an example 
of it in the above snow storm episode. The complete description 
of the episode would, however, have been quite impossible 
in the first part of the plot and we have here an admirable illustra- 
tion of how a certain type of plot elaboration does necessitate 
an alteration in the form of an episode. Why however, is the 
episode given completely when repeated ? In addition to the 
literary reason given above, two other reasons are possible. 
It may be a true episode and not merely a motif, as the pursuit 
with water which is shot back and the snakes unquestionably 
are, or the author-raconteur did not feel that he could take the 
liberty of slurring it and, since it could not possibly be grouped 
with the other motifs and episodes in the first part of the plot, 
it had to be given afterwards. But why was the flood episode 
slurred both in the first description and in the repetition ? It 
cannot, therefore, be hesitancy on the part of the author- 
raconteur which has preserved the complete account of the snow 
storm, but really his realization of its necessity from a literary 
view-point. A complete narration of the flood incident would 
have been ridiculous and, consequently, it is not given. The 
same point comes out admirably in the following episode of the 
Holy One. 
(It will be remembered that the old woman has told Holy 
One that the hawk is to cure the wounded water-spirits). 
“Then he (Holy One) went home. The next morning, at 
noon, he went to the place that the old woman had mentioned as 
the place where the hawk would come. Just at noon the hawk 
came in sight. The hawk was singing: 
‘Hawk, they went after you as a doctor. 
Hawk, what will you do ? 
Hawk, you may carry your gourd, 
Hawk, you may carry your gourd, 
Hawk, you may carry your gourd. 
Aho!’ 
“Thus the hawk sang as he went along carrying on his back 
a black sack with a gourd on top of it. As he turned from side 
