HOW EVENING-STAR’S DAUGHTER WAS OVERCOME. 41 
them and they were stunned. He then touched them and they were 
killed. Then the girl said, ‘‘You can not come.” The next night the 
panthers came and the boy killed them also. The next night the wild- 
cats came and the boy killed them. Then the coyotes came, but they 
were willing to help the man. Then the next night the girl said, ‘‘You 
must not come.’ Then the boy went out during the day and cried 
and cried. He did not go that night, but all night he cried, and by 
morning as the Morning-Star came up he cried and right before him stood 
the man who had been helping him. ‘My boy,” he said, ‘‘you are about 
to approach the bed of that girl. You have killed all bad animals. The 
girl herself is the only one now. Here, take this stone. That girl’s 
vagina is like the mouth of a rattlesnake and has teeth. Take this stone 
when you are about to lie with her and rub the stone upon the teeth 
until you have broken them all up. Then she becomes a human being, 
and you can lie with her.”’ 
That night the boy did as the man had told him. After that the girl 
became his wife. Then in the morning Morning-Star came to the boy 
and said: ‘‘You have married this girl and you shall have two bundles. 
The girl’s bundle shall be one and you shall make another bundle and 
place the Morning-Star symbol in it, and these two bundles shall be known 
as the Morning-Star bundles. When you went to get the girl there were 
two of you who went. You overcame all obstacles by my power. You 
will now learn the mysteries of heaven, the gods, the songs, and through 
that your people shall prosper and have good crops all the time. For 
my pay for helping you out in this way, you shall, from time to time, 
capture a girl from the enemy and offer her to me and then I will bless 
your people. All the obstacles that you met shall be represented in the 
ceremony. You shall represent each step that you took in gaining the 
girl until at last you shall come to represent the putting up of the baby- 
board. Then put the captured girl upon the scaffold and kindle a fire 
under her. All the children who are born from now on must have a baby- 
board with my picture upon the top, and shall have the covering of the 
buffalo and the wild-cat, and the otter-skin string shall be tied around 
the baby-board to hold the baby upon the board.”’ 
The boy and his wife went to his village and the woman carried the 
bundle with her. Then the gods who were Stars returned to their places 
in the heavens, and the animals which were present in the tipi went back 
into their dens in the timbers, rivers, and creeks. 
