8 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO, 16 
permission to go along and show him of what use they can be. 
He refuses all except some small turtles who approach so noise- 
lessly that he does not notice them. On the raid Turtle is cap- 
tured and because of his professed fear of water is thrown into a 
lake and thus escapes. 
(C) Wi'sa'k a° and His Brother. Wi'sa'ka* tells his brother 
never to cross a certain lake, but the brother disobeys and is 
seized and killed by water-spirits. Wi’sa'ka* finds out what has 
happened to his brother and is told by an animal who the mur- 
derers are. Subsequently he meets a person who is hastening to 
the aid of the wounded animals. He kills this person, dresses 
himself in his skin, and, arriving at the home of the water-spirits, 
kills them under pretense of trying to cure them. He then seizes 
the skin of his brother, which was being used as a door-flap, and 
succeeds in making good his escape. Then he endeavours to re- 
store his brother to life but fails. 
(D) Tar-haby. An animal commits depredations on a chile 
field owned by an old woman who, after vainly trying to discover a 
method of capturing him, hits upon the plan of putting a number 
of decoys in the shape of tar or wax figures. The animal, ap- 
proaching the following night, sees the decoys, and, in endeavour- 
ing to push them aside, is held fast and captured, but succeeds 
subsequently in making his escape . 1 
With the possible exception of (D), the similarity of the plot 
in the examples given above has led to the assumption of the 
identity of the myths. Such an assumption is quite justifiable 
if the myth is regarded as essentially a question of plot. For the 
study of the specific significance of a myth, identity of plot is, 
however, only one of a number of features to be considered. 
Before proceeding to the discussion of plot elaboration, it 
may be noted that the above analyses are to a certain extent 
artificial, for certain episodes and motifs will probably be found 
to be invariably associated with definite plots. 
1 This is the Mexican version. 
