el ran up this tree, and was pursued by
Chapewee, who endeavoured to knock it down, but could not overtake it.
He continued the chase, however, until he reached the stars, where he
found a fine plain, and a beaten road. In this road he set a snare made
of his sister's hair, and then returned to the earth. The sun appeared
as usual in the heavens in the morning, but at noon it was caught by the
snare which Chapewee had set for the squirrel, and the sky was instantly
darkened. Chapewee's family on this said to him, you must have done
something wrong when you were aloft, for we no longer enjoy the light of
day; "I have," replied he, "but it was unintentionally." Chapewee then
endeavoured to repair the fault he had committed, and sent a number of
animals up the tree to release the sun, by cutting the snare, but the
intense heat of that luminary reduced them all to ashes. The efforts of
the more active animals being thus frustrated, a ground mole, though
such a grovelling and awkward beast, succeeded by burrowing under the
road in the sky, until it reached and cut asunder the snare which bound
the sun. It lost its eyes, however, the instant it thrust its head into
the light, and its nose and teeth have ever since been brown, as if
burnt. Chapewee's island, during these transactions, increased to the
present size of the American Continent; and he traced the course of the
rivers, and scraped out the lakes by drawing his fingers through the
earth. He next allotted to the quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, their
different stations, and endowing them with certain capacities, he told
them that they were in future to provide for their own safety, because
man would destroy them whenever he found their tracks; but to console
them, he said, that when they died they should be like a seed of grass,
which, when thrown into the water, springs again into life. The animals
objected to this arrangement, and said, let us when we die be as a stone
which, when thrown into a lake, disappears forever from the sight of
man. Chapewee's family complained of the penalty of death entailed upon
them for eating the black fruit, on which he granted that such of them
as dreamed certain dreams should be men of medicine, capable of curing
diseases and of prolonging life. In order to preserve this virtue, they
were not to tell their dreams until a certain period had elapsed. To
acquire the power of foretelling events, they were to take an ant alive,
and insert it