The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1881-09-02
Purported Piute Legends.
From The H,rainia tNep.l Enterpl

From the V,rgnia tNeo.) Enterprise.
About the time the new comet was at its
brightest we took the occasion of a call from
Captain Sam, of the PIute tribe, to ask him
about the notions held by his people in re-
gard to such celestial visitants. Sam said he
would presently bring to us an old man of
his tribe who had the whole dome of heaven
by heart. In some trepidation, after so much
ceremony and preparation, we finally ven-
tured to ask the venerable savant If he knew
anything about the comet recently seen fam
ing in the northern sky. He did-he knew
all about it. 1t was, he said, ga wounded
star" Said he: at is badly hurt, but it
will get away" Without further ceremony
or preamble he proceeded to give us the
whole economy of the celestial realms in a
nutshell, so to say. II was as follows:
"The sun rules the heaven. He Is the big
chief; the moon Is his wife, and the stars
are his children. The sun he eat him child
rem whenever he can them catch. They are
all the time afraid when he is passing
through in the above. When he their father,
the sun, gets up in the morning. you see all
the stars, his children, fly out Of sight-go
away into the blue--and they do not make
to be seen again till he, their father, is about
going to bed. Down deep under the ground
deep, deep-is q great hole. Here he go
into his hole, the sun, and he crawl and
creep till he come to his bed; so then sleeps
there all the night. This hole Is so little and
he, the sun, so big that he cannot turn around
in it, so he must, when he has had all his
sleep, pass then on through, and we see him
next morning come out in the east. When
he so comes out, he begins to hunt up
through the sky to catch and eat any that he
can of the stars, his children. He, the sun,
Is not all seen. The shape of him Is like .
snake or lizard. II is not his head that we
can see, but his belly, stuffed with the stars
he has times and times devoured. His wife,
the moon, goes into the same hole as her
husband to sleep her maps. She have always
the same great fear of him, the sun, that
have her for his wife, and when he comes
into the hole to sleep, she not long stay
there II he be cross. She, the moon, have
great love for her children, the stars, aud Is
08pYy w 70 b0NUih6 AP WAuiO sifCy aiCs
And they, her children, fee. safe and smile
Is she passes along. But she, their mother,
cannot help but that one must 60 every
month. Il Is 80 ordered by Fah-ah, the
Great Spirit, that lives above the place Of
all. Every month he do swallow one of his
children. Then the mother moon feel sor-
row. She must to mourn. Her face she do
paint IL black, for child Is gone. But the
dark you will see wear away from her face
little, little, little every day, and after time
We see again all the bright Of the mother
moon. But soon he, the sun, her husband,
swallow another child, and she must put
again on Ter face the pitch and the black" !"
- But how about the cometr'
.Well,n said the philosopher, "some-
times you see the sun snap one Of the starr,
his children, and not get good fast hold
only tear one hole and hurt Il. Il get wild
Of pain and fy across the sky with great
spout Of blood from II. Il then very fraid,
aud - II fiies kseps always e head turn 70
wssch tbs sun, ~ father, and psves turn
away ffom him IL fhce till farout hirsach."