THE GIRL WHO MARRIED A STAR. 47 
her body and covered ther hands with a part of her robe. She slipped 
down, down, down the string and after a time she found herself at the 
end of the string. The earth was still far away. She took her own 
string and tied it to the string that she was tied to. She fastened her- 
self to the other string after untying herself from the main string, and 
slid down upon it. She slid down until she had reached the end of the 
string, and she was at the height of the highest tree from the ground. 
She saw that she could not get down, so she made a loop and put her 
foot in it so that she stood upon the string, and there she hung. 
When the woman’s husband came home he found her missing. He 
went out to hunt for her. After ia trme he came to the place where the 
hole was, and there he saw the woman hanging on the string. He 
went and took up a little stone, about the size of his thumb. He took 
this to the place where the hole was dug. He placed the stone on the 
string, then said, “Niow I want you to slide down on the string and hit 
the woman upon the head and kill her, but do not harm my boy.” As 
he let go of the stone a sound was heard like that of thunder. The 
stone slipped down upon the string and struck the woman on the top 
of the head and killed her. As the woman fell down towards the earth 
the boy slipped out from the robe upon the back of the woman and 
fell on the ground, but was not hurt. 
The boy stayed around where the woman was lying, for he was 
now about five or six years old. He would go off from his mother dur- 
ing the day and in the evening he would come back, crawl under the 
robe, and nurse at his mother’s breast. He did this for many days. At 
last the boy had to leave her, so he went on west from where his 
mother lay. He came to a patch of squash and also to a cornfield. This 
he went through, taking corn from the stalks and eating it raw. He 
returned to his mother and sat there. 
In the morning, the owner of the field, who was an old woman, 
went into her field, and there she saw a child’s footprints. She was so 
glad to see the footprints that she went home and made a small bow 
and some arrows. She also made a small shinny ball, and a stick. The 
old woman thought if this child was a girl it would choose the shinny 
ball and stick, and if it was a boy it would choose the bow and arrows. 
In this way she thought she could tell whether the child was a boy or 
a girl. The old woman made these things, and took them into the field 
and left them there. 
The next day, the boy went back into the field. ‘There he saw 
these things upon the ground. When he saw the bow and arrows he 
jumped at them and picked them up. When he had picked them up he 
