138 TRUE STORIES OF THE HEAVENLY BEINGS. 
brum on the side and would again say, ‘‘Do you see them?” He kept on 
hitting it on one side and then on the other. After a while hismembrum 
began to speak and it said: “I see them. I see them. I see them.” 
The man said: ‘‘Well, that is enough. Do not say that any more.” 
But it kept on saying: ‘‘I see them. I see them.” The man saw 
that it would not stop speaking and he became scared. He went along 
to where he saw the people making their village. As he went down it 
kept saying: ‘I see them. I see them.’’ He went into his lodge and 
sat down and it kept saying: ‘‘I see them. I see them.” The people 
wondered what it was. After a while the man told them that when he 
was upon the hill looking for the buffalo he had asked his membrum to 
say that it saw the buffalo; that it had spoken and that it was speaking 
all the time. They tried in every way to make it stop speaking. After 
a while it said: ‘‘My mother-in-law must come and touch me and then I 
will stop.”” His mother-in-law went up to it, touched it, and said: ‘* Please 
stop speaking,’ and it stopped. The next day the man was mad and 
ashamed and he left the village and went off and was never heard of again. 
37. THE HERMAPHRODITE." 
There was a village and in this village lived a fine-looking young man. 
The young man never cared anything for women; but one night a young 
girl came to his bed and they lay together. After they had lain together 
for a while, the young man sent the girl away. He then went to a fine 
spring that was gushing forth from the side of a hill, and took a bath. 
Then he went home and lay down. That night in a dream he saw Spider- 
Woman sitting with her legs spread out, and a spring of water was com- 
ing out from between her legs. Spider-Woman told the boy in his dream 
that as he had come and washed after having connection with the woman, 
from that time on he should be like a woman. The boy woke up; 
he could not sleep any more. ‘The next day the dream worried him, and 
for several days he felt as though he were sick, and he had a medicine- 
man come and wait on him. The medicine-man could not tell what was 
the matter. One time they sent for one of the medicine-men who, on 
examining him, told him that he was turning into a woman. The med- 
icine-man told the relatives of the young man that he was turning into 
a woman, and that Spider-Woman was the cause of it; that the only way 
1White-Sun, Kitkehahki. The common belief in the fact that springs take 
their origin from spider-women is emphasized in this tale. The teaching of the 
story is the warning given to young men not to bathe in springs after sexual inter- 
course—that is, while unclean. Not only must this be done for the good of the 
tribe, but also because the spider-woman, representing one of the supernatural 
earthly beings, must be treated with a certain amount of respect. 
