Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Traditions of the Ts'ets'a'ut
Once upon a. Time there was a woman who went every night hunting porcupines. During the daytime she hunted marmots. While out on the mountains she built a shelter of branches. One night, when she had gone to sleep, a young man entered her hut. He looked just like her lover, and she thought he had followed her. In the morning she boiled some of the porcupine meat and both partook of it, and in the evening the young man went out to hunt porcupines. As soon as he had left the hut, he put on his blanket and appeared in his true shape. He was one of the dogs of the village. He crawled into the dens of the porcupines and caught a great number. Then he took off his blanket and reappeared in the shape of a man. For three nights he stayed with the woman. During the daytime he went hunting marmots, and he never went out without bringing back a vast amount of game. Then he ate of the food that the woman had cooked and they went to bed. In the third night he arose about midnight. He had assumed his true shape, and ate the meat and gnawed the bones of the marmots and of the porcupines. The woman awoke by the noise and saw a large dog eating their provisions. She turned to the man, intending to awake him, but there was nobody to be seen. Then she took a club and killed the dog. Early in the morning she made a bundle of the remaining dried meat and returned to her village. She did not tell any one of what had happened. But soon she felt that she was with child, and when this came to be known nobody knew who had been her lover. After two months she was about to be con fined. The women of the village assembled to assist her, but what was their terror when she gave birth first to two male dogs, then to a female dog! They all fled, even her mother. Only her brother's sister remained with her. The women told the people what had happened, and all the inhabitants of the village resolved to desert her. They packed their belongings and left the place. Only the young woman and her pups remained.
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