Page:Kutenai Tales.djvu/307

5. Coyote and Tree Chief ^ (2 versions: No. 64 and VAEU 23:166).— Coyote passes Tree Chief's tent. Tree Chief's mother likes him, and wishes him to become her son's friend. The two friends go out. When they pass Wolf's trap, Coyote diverts the attention of his friend and pushes him in. He pretends to be unable to pull him out. He induces him to throw out all his clothing, including a hawk, which he carries on his head, and his saliva. Then he leaves him and goes to the town where a chief lives who has two daughters. The chief. Golden Eagle, believes that he is Tree Chief. Wolf and his wife find Tree Chief in the trap. He has taken the form of a young child. Wolf wants to kill him; his wife wants to raise him. They agree that whoever reaches him first shall <io with him what he pleases. Wolf's wife digs through the ground very quickly and rescues him.

Tree Chief asks Wolf Woman for sinew, which the boy uses for making a netted ring. He holds it up, and it is full of birds. Next he asks for the leg skin of a yearling buffalo calf. He makes a netted ring, rolls it into the tent, and tells the woman to cover her head. It becomes a buffalo, which he kills. He tells the woman to put the blood and guts behind the tent. On the following day they are transformed into pemmican. Coyote has married one of the daughters of Golden Eagle. Tree Chief takes some pemmican, and goes to the river to draw water. There he meets the chief's daughter, to whom he gives the pemmican. Next the boy asks for the leg part of the skin of a buffalo bull. He obtains a buffalo in the same way as before. He puts the blood in the skin and puts it away. On the next day the blood has been transformed into pemmican ; the skin, into a painted blanket. He goes again to draw water, and tells the girl to say that she has received pemmican from the one whom she saw at the river.

Tree Chief hides the buffalo, and the people in the village of Golden Eagle are starving. Golden Eagle throws up a feather of his body, which becomes an eagle, which is perched on a tree. He arranges a contest, and orders every one to try to shoot the eagle. Each is to have one shot. Coyote shoots repeatedly, but does not hit the eagle. Tree Chief appears, and hits the eagle. Coyote pretends that his arrow had hit it; but when he is carrying along the bird on his arrow, it is seen that it is a prairie chicken. The boy goes back to the Wolf. In the evening he meets the girl again, and tells her that on the following day at noon he will show himself. He goes to the village in the same form as he used to have. The people are puzzled, because he himself and Coyote look alike. Tree Chief's saliva turns into shells, which are eaten by the sparrow hawk that sits on the youth's head; while Coyote has lost this art, and his hawk is starving.

Tree Chief tells the chief, his father-in-law, to look at his fortune-telling place. The chief sees tracks of buffalo cows, and sends the people to go hunting. Tree Chief goes ahead, piles up buffalo chips, which he transforms into buffaloes. The people kill the buffaloes. Tree Chief takes an old mangy buffalo cow. He is laughed at by Coyote. Tree Chief takes it home. He gives his arrow to his wife, and tells her not

1
Arapaho (Dorsey and Kroeber FM 5:348, 372).
Assiniboin (Lowie PaAM 134).
Blackfoot (Uhlenbeck VKAWA 12:30; 13:160; Wissler PaAM 2:47).
Cheyenne (Kroeber JAFL 13:170).
Crow (Simms FM 2:291).
Hidatsa (Matthews 63).
Kutenai (Boas VAEU 23:166).
Nez Perc6 (Mayer-Fairand MAFLS 11:159).
Ojibwa (de Josselin de Jong BArchS 5:2; only beginning).
Okanagon (Teit MAFLS 11;35).
Omaha (Dorsey CNAE 6:55, 604).
Pawnee (Dorsey CI 59:159, 164, 280 et seq.).
Shoshoni (Lowie PaAM 2:274).
Shuswap (Teit JE 2:695).
Tetan (Curtis, N. A. Indians 3:111).
2

See BJaokfoot (Xlhlmbeck VKAWA 13:117).