compassion upon his distress and soothed him with food and
loving attentions. This was the bear-woman, from whom again he was
afterward separated by some mishap. The story goes that he had children
by each of his many wives, some of whom resembled their father, and
these became the ancestors of the human race, while those who bore the
characteristics of their mother returned to her clan. It is also said
that such as were abnormal or monstrous in form were forbidden to
reproduce their kind, and all love and mating between man and the animal
creation was from that time forth strictly prohibited. There are some
curious traditions of young men and maidens who transgressed this law
unknowingly, being seduced and deceived by a magnificent buck deer,
perhaps, or a graceful doe, and whose fall was punished with death.

The animal totems so general among the tribes were said to have
descended to them from their great-grandmother's clan, and the legend
was often quoted in support of our close friendship with the animal
people. I have sometimes wondered why the scientific doctrine of man's
descent has not in the same way apparently increased the white man's
respect for these our humbler kin.

Of the many later heroes or Hiawathas who appear in this voluminous
unwritten book of ours, each introduced an epoch in the long story
of man and his environment. There is, for example, the Avenger of the
Innocent, who sprang from a clot of blood; the ragged little boy who won
fame and a wife by shooting the Red Eagle of fateful omen; and the Star
Boy, who was the off-spring of a mortal maiden and a Star.

It was this last who fought for man against his strongest enemies,
such as Wazeeyah, the Cold or North-Wind. There was a desperate battle
between these two, in which first one had the advantage and then the
other, until both were exhausted and declared a truce. While he rested,
Star Boy continued to fan himself with his great fan of eagle feathers,
and the snow melted so fast that North-Wind was forced to arrange a
treaty of peace, by which he was only to control one half the year. So
it was that the orderly march of the seasons was established, and every
year Star Boy with his fan of eagle feathers sets in motion the warm
winds that usher in the spring.

VI. ON THE BORDER-LAND OF SPIRITS

Death and Funeral Customs. The Sacred Lock of Hair.
Reincarnation and the Converse of Spirits. Occult and
Psychic Powers. The Gift o