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Among the origin myths, the descent from a woman and a medicine 
man who assumed the form of a dog is common, particularly among the 
Dogrib tribe. There are also stories of a migration from the west which 
are chiefly connected with the myths of the First Brother. The present 
tribal divisions are accounted for by saying that in the days of the first 
Indians when all the people lived together, two children fought over the 
possession of an owl. As a result their parents commenced to fight and 
there was so much blood lost that the water of a small lake at the north 
side of the Satudene country became red in colour, which it remains to this 
day. After the battle the people separated and became the present tribes. 
The Eskimo are said to have fled at the same time but in such haste that 
they forgot to take the means of making fire with them, hence the Satudene 
say that the Eskimo live without fire and eat raw meat. There was an 
attempt to reconciliate the tribes, but it was unavailing because the sight 
of wounds from previous battles inflamed them to combat, and so until 
the coming of the white men there was always warfare. 
There are several flood myths, in a very simple form, among the 
Satudene. Probably the best known is that of a beaver, an otter, and a 
muskrat that sailed an endless sea in a canoe. They decided that they 
wanted some land, so each in turn dived for the bottom. The beaver 
and the otter were unsuccessful, but the muskrat came up with a handful 
of earth between his paws. From this the world was reconstructed. 
In the days of the first Indians, the Satudene say, there was no sick- 
ness and no death except that caused by war. The first man killed by 
other means was drowned, after falling out of his canoe. He was carried 
ashore by the people, who believed him to be asleep. After a while he 
began to decay and the people went away, leaving him his possessions and 
some food. Children in that early time ate neither fat nor berries, but 
only dried food. They grew up very quickly, not slowly as they do today. 
It was in those early days that the boy went to live in the moon. There 
was a great musk-ox hunt and one child cried for the fat but was refused, 
so he said that he would run away to the moon. Before he went he gave 
the people a song which he said they should sing at the eclipse, to avoid 
bad luck and to bring good fortune. He then made a big wind and dis- 
appeared in it. Afterwards the people discovered their cache of musk-ox 
meat was gone. The boy can now be seen in the moon. If he had not gone 
the country of the Indians would have been the richest in the world. The 
boy in the moon can be seen holding a dog on leash in his left hand. 
Myths about fabulous monsters hold a considerable place among 
the stories of the Satudene. A big eddy below Good Hope is said to be 
caused by the mouthings of a whale-like monster whose tail forms part 
of the hills to the east of that place. There are several groups of islands 
on Great Bear lake which the natives fear. One is said to contain burning 
sulphur and large natural caves of limestone. A Satudene informant said that 
there once lived on this island a great ‘worm’ which devoured people passing 
by. The customary Indian canoe route to the McVicar Bay portage 
lies behind this island, but one year a group of Indians decided to pass 
in front. Suddenly all the canoes except one, which had been unable 
to keep up, were engulfed in a whirlpool and disappeared. This was 
assumed to be the action of the £ worm\ The origin of such stories seems 
quite obvious and perhaps one may show an earlier stage of development. 
