THE MAN WHO SANG TO COYOTE. 219 
he was up in the hills he saw a Coyote coming out from a hollow. 
He pulled his bow to shoot the Coyote. Heremembered that it was bad 
luck to shoot a Coyote, and he lowered his bow. He remembered also 
that the people were telling about Coyotes the night before. He stopped 
and yelled at the Coyote. He said: ‘‘Coyote, people talk about you 
nearly every night during the winter. Suppose you tell me a story. We 
are alone in the hills.”” Coyote stopped and sat down upon the snow. 
The man picked up a stick and ran to where the Coyote was sitting, threw 
the stick at him, and the Coyote began to run, never returning a bark. 
Then the man stood watching the Coyote as he ran and sang: 
That Coyote going along yonder, 
What is it he is carrying on his back? 
Truly I have tallow, thick tallow. 
It was killed 
On top box elder hill. 
That Coyote going along yonder, 
He has no stories. 
I havea story of the 
Whistling (scalp-man’s) home in the Kiowa’s country. 
The man sang the song several times. As he did so the Coyote disap- 
peared, and the man went home. After that the man was always lucky 
in killing game, and he always thought it was because he did not shoot 
at the Coyote. 
67. HOW THE CANNIBAL SPIDER-WOMAN WAS OVERCOME.’ 
In a village there lived a boy who always wore his buffalo robe in a 
peculiar manner. The hair of the robe would be inside, only part of it 
showing where he lapped it over his shoulders. He was known to be a 
wonderful boy. Every once in a while it was reported through the village 
that a young man had gone into a country where there was another 
village and had never returned. In that village lived a Spider-Woman, 
who was all the time contesting with strangers in climbing an old cotton- 
wood tree. The young man who wore the wonderful robe heard of 
Spider-Woman so often that he finally made up his mind that he would 
visit her village. 
The young man started out to find it. He went through thick wil- 
lows, and when he came to the edge of the village he saw a grass-lodge. 
He stood outside of the lodge. The youngest child in the lodge came out 
1Told by Little-Chief, Chaui. The tale represents one of many forms of the 
contest between the young poor boys who became heroes and the Spider- 
Woman. It also explains why the woodpeckers make their homes in the tops of 
elm trees and the woodrats among the roots. 
