THE SEVEN BROTHERS AND THE SISTER. yee 
After eating they all went to bed. The two women slept together. The 
next morning the woman again cooked her brothers’ food, and when 
they were through eating they went out again, the same as usual. The 
woman was no longer worried, for she had some one to stay with her 
and talk to her. They went off in the timber and cut wood and brought 
it home with them, and during that day both hauled about four or five 
loads, and the remainder of the day they stayed at home. 
Time went on, and the woman began to ask the Coyote woman 
how people obtained children. She said she wished she might in some 
way have a child, for she was very fond of young children since she 
had heard about other people having children. The Coyote woman then 
said that a man and a woman had to marry in order to get a child, and 
that was the way her father and mother made her and the other chil- 
dren of the family. The Coyote woman then told her that her mother 
and father had told her all about these things, and how a child must be 
kept, and that was how she came to know so much about it. The woman 
then asked the Coyote woman if she could by marrying one of her 
brothers bring a child. The Coyote woman said she could, for her 
father and mother had told her if she could get hold of some good 
man for a husband she could have children the same as they had. So 
the woman offered her brothers to the Coyote woman to marry, for she 
knew that they were good enough for this woman to marry, and she 
knew that they would do whatever she might tell them to do. So they 
talked at home and things were now ready for the Coyote woman to 
marry the other woman’s brothers. The next day, when the brothers 
returned from hunting, their sister began to tell them what she had 
thought of; that she had always wanted to know how a child was 
brought, and through the Coyote woman, who had been told all about it 
by her father and mother, she had learned that to get children a man 
and woman must marry. The woman then said to her brothers that 
she wanted them to marry the Coyote woman, as she wanted to see a 
child born to one of them. ‘This was first directed to the oldest brother, 
who said that his next younger brother should have her. This brother 
refused her, and so on down, till it came to the youngest brother, who 
said he did not understand why the responsibility was laid upon him, 
since his sister had desired that they all should marry the Coyote 
woman. Said he: “I thought it was for us to do whatever our sister 
wants us to do, so I think it best that we should all have the woman 
between us.” Ail agreed that this was right. The oldest of the seven 
brothers slept with the Coyote woman first. As they were ignorant, 
the Coyote woman had to show them what to do when married. As 
