COYOTE REGULATES LIFE AFTER DEATH. 15 
back to their people, and then others die and never see their people 
again. I propose to make another rule, so that we may all be treated 
alike after death. This isthe rule that I wish to propose: When any 
one dies let him be dead forever, and let no living person ever see him 
again. Our Great-Father-Above made a place there where every one 
of us may go after death. Now when any one dies he shall go from 
the living forever, but we shall still keep up the fire for six days.’’ All 
the people were well pleased with Coyote’s rule, and so from that time 
on, even to the present day, the same rule is kept, and when anybody 
dies he is gone forever, never to return again. The people are taken 
to the sky when they die and become the stars that we see at night. 
Morning Star, who freed the earth from bad animals, had three 
brothers, and he was the oldest one and the leader of allthe tribe. In 
the beginning he had been the errand man, and during war expeditions 
he had to get up early in the morning, hours before dawn, to go around 
the camps and wake the people, so that the enemy would not find them. 
That is the reason he gets up so early now. Inthe evening one of his 
brothers would go back a long distance to see if the enemy were coming 
on their trail, and so the man was named Evening Star. The other 
two brothers were named North Star and South Star, and these four 
brothers always had something todo. North Star always had to camp 
in the North and watch for the enemy lest they should approach from 
that direction ; South Star had to camp in the South and watch lest 
the enemy should approach from that direction. Their father’s name 
was Great Star, and he was the chief of the people. Now the people 
think that when any one dies he goes up to the sky, where he turns 
around and looks back and becomes one of the stars, and so they believe 
every one when he dies goes up to the sky. 
5. COYOTE AND THE ORIGIN OF DEATH. 
In the beginning of this world there was no such thing as death. 
Every one continued to live until there were so many people that there 
was not room for any more on the earth. The chiefs held a council 
to determine what todo. One man arose and said that he thought it 
would be a good plan to have the people die and be gone for a little 
while, and then to return. As soon as he sat down Coyote jumped up 
and said that he thought that people ought to die forever, for this little 
world was not large enough to hold all of the people, and if the people 
who died came back to life there would not be food enough for all. 
All of the other men objected, saying that they did not want their 
friends and relatives to die and be gone forever, for then people would 
grieve and worry and there would not be any happiness in the world. 
