Gros Ventre Myths and Tales

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Some of the mythical incidents that have the most common distribution in central North America, but that so far have not been found among either the Arapaho or Gros Ventre, are the story of the theft of light or the sun; of the theft of, or some other means of obtaining, water; of the supernatural being that has been wounded by a human being, so that a human medicine man only can extract the weapon; of the person or pursuer who crosses a body of water or a chasm on a leg, usually of the crane, and is shaken off; of the hero who transforms himself into a leaf or small object, which is drunk by a woman, as whose son he is reborn; of the bathing women with bird-skins, one of whom is captured; of the visit far to the east to the sun; of the unfaithful wife who has a snake or water-monster as her lover, one of the most persistent traditional ideas in northeastern America; the common conception of the origin of mankind or the tribe from the lower world or successive lower worlds; and a tradition of a visit to the land of the dead, other than in stories told as the actual experience of persons recently alive or still living.