Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of US History to 1877

By Jennifer Jensen Wallach

Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of US History provides nearly two hundred primary documents that narrate aspects of US history from the period before European contact through the twenty-first century. Presented in two volumes, this curated selection—including letters, literature, journalism, and visual art—provides access to historical voices from a wide range of subject positions and belief systems.

Designed for US history survey courses, this reader provides both analysis and instructional support in the form of brief introductory essays and questions to promote student discussion and reflection. Containing Multitudes not only conveys a rich and complex portrait of the American past but also offers readers valuable insight into the many dimensions of the historian’s craft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781610757805

Book preview

Cover Page for Containing Multitudes

Containing Multitudes

Containing Multitudes

A Documentary Reader of US History

Edited by Wesley G. Phelps and Jennifer Jensen Wallach

Volume I: to 1877

The University of Arkansas Press

Fayetteville

2022

Copyright © 2022 by The University of Arkansas Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book should be used or reproduced in any manner without prior permission in writing from the University of Arkansas Press or as expressly permitted by law.

eISBN: 978-1-61075-780-5

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Interpreting the Past with Primary Sources

1. Native America

Document 1.1: Cherokee Origination Story for Corn and Game

Document 1.2: Spanish Explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado Describes Pueblo Provisions

Document 1.3: Hernán Cortés Describes Tenochtitlan

Document 1.4: Cabeza de Vaca Describes Encounters with Native People

Document 1.5: Map of Some Indigenous Nations in South Carolina

2. Cultural Encounters

Document 2.1: Bartolomé de Las Casas Describes European Atrocities

Document 2.2: John Smith Describes the Starving Time in Jamestown, 1609–1610

Document 2.3: William Wood Describes the English Perspective of Native People in New England, 1634

Document 2.4: Olaudah Equiano Describes Seventeenth-Century West African Life

Document 2.5: Account from a Portuguese Slave Trader, 1440s

Document 2.6: Venture Smith Describes Being Enslaved

Document 2.7: French Artist Jacques Le Moyne Depicts Native Hunting Practices in Sixteenth-Century Florida

3. The British Colonies

Document 3.1: Thomas(ine), an Intersex Virginian

Document 3.2: An Indentured Servant Describes His Experiences in Virginia, 1623

Document 3.3: Colonial Virginia Laws

Document 3.4: English Colonists at Plymouth Plantation Celebrate Their 1621 Harvest

Document 3.5: Iroquois Proposal to the Governors of New York and Virginia in 1684

Document 3.6: 1626 Map of America

4. Colonial America

Document 4.1: Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn (1714–1796)

Document 4.2: Advertisement for Runaway Enslaved Person

Document 4.3: Jonathan Edwards Sermon, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1741

Document 4.4: John Lawson Describes Carolina, 1709

Document 4.5: Mary Jemison Describes Life with the Seneca

Document 4.6: Blueprint and Photograph of Christ Church

5. The American Revolution

Document 5.1: The Stamp Act Congress, 1765

Document 5.2: The Boycott Agreement of Women in Boston

Document 5.3: Enslaved People in Massachusetts Seek Freedom

Document 5.4: The Olive Branch Petition

Document 5.5: Enslaved Poet Phillis Wheatley Praises George Washington, 1775

Document 5.6: Letter from George Washington to Phillis Wheatley

Document 5.7: Depiction of Two Men Tarring and Feathering a Customs Official in Boston, 1774

Document 5.8: Tools Necessary to Prove and Load Guns, 1779

Document 5.9: Matthew Darly Satirizes British Attempts to Negotiate Peace, 1778

6. Creating a Nation

Document 6.1: The Articles of Confederation, 1777

Document 6.2: George Washington Proposes Creating a Boundary between the United States and Native American Territory, September 7, 1783

Document 6.3: Benjamin Franklin’s Final Speech in the Constitutional Convention, September 17, 1787

Document 6.4 Deed of Manumission of Enslaved Person Francis Drake, May 23, 1791

Document 6.5: Amelia Simmons Publishes the First American Cookbook, 1796

Document 6.6: Engraving Depicting Whiskey Rebellion, 1794

7. The Young Republic

Document 7.1: Thomas Jefferson Describes Racist Ideas

Document 7.2: Madison Hemings, Son of Enslaved Person Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, Recounts His Life Story

Document 7.3: Physician Benjamin Rush Describes His Vision for the Education of Women, 1787

Document 7.4: Judith Sargent Murray Advocates for Women’s Equality, 1790

Document 7.5: Abigail Bailey Describes Escaping an Abusive Relationship, 1815

8. The Market Revolution

Document 8.1: Hezekiah Niles Extols Economic Growth, 1826

Document 8.2: Lucy Larcom Describes Working in a New England Textile Mill

Document 8.3: William Schauler Argues against Legislation to Address Poor Working Conditions, 1845

Document 8.4: Catherine Beecher Argues for Both the Equality and the Subordination of Women, 1845

Document 8.5: View of Lowell, Massachusetts, between 1840 and 1860

Document 8.6: Trademark for Textiles

9. Democracy and Conflict

Document 9.1: Nathan Sanford Argues for Expanding Male Voting Rights, 1821

Document 9.2: Sarah Josepha Hale Argues that Women Vote by Influencing Men

Document 9.3: Englishwoman Fanny Trollope Describes American Political Culture

Document 9.4: The Panoplist and Missionary Herald Argues that Expansion and Population Growth Lead to Degeneration, 1818

Document 9.5: Tecumseh Advocates for Native American Solidarity against US Encroachment, 1811

Document 9.6: I. W. Burton of the Republic of Texas Reports on Native Americans Residing in Texas, 1837

Document 9.7: Depiction of Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 1831

Document 9.8: Drawing of 1,400-pound Cheese Served at the 1837 White House Reception

10. The Impulse for Reform

Document 10.1: Hymn Urging Young People to Embrace Christianity, 1830

Document 10.2: Louisa May Alcott Offers a Satirical Account of Her Family’s Involvement in the Transcendentalist Community Fruitlands in the 1840s

Document 10.3: Sojourner Truth Advocates for Rights for Women, as Reported in the Anti-Slavery Bugle

Document 10.4: David Walker Urges Black People to Resist Enslavement and Oppression, 1829

Document 10.5: Lithograph Depicting Minister Comforting Family of a Drunken Man, between 1835 and 1836

Document 10.6: Drawing of Joseph Smith Being Tarred and Feathered, 1853

11. Nineteenth-Century Slavery

Document 11.1: Harriet Jacobs Describes Being Sexually Exploited

Document 11.2: Harriet Jacobs Describes Cruelty to Elderly Enslaved Person

Document 11.3: Frederick Douglass Describes Longing for Freedom

Document 11.4: William Wells Brown Describes Escaping from Slavery

Document 11.5: A Southerner Claims the Bible Justifies Slavery

12. Westward Expansion

Document 12.1: Mary Dewees Describes Moving from Philadelphia to Kentucky in the Late Eighteenth Century

Document 12.2: Thomas Jefferson Gives Meriwether Lewis Instructions for the Mission of Exploration, 1803

Document 12.3: William Clark Describes Exploring the American West

Document 12.4: Cherokee Women Argue against Removal

Document 12.5: Cherokee Leader John Ross Disputes the Validity of Treaty Mandating Removal

Document 12.6: Cherokee Leader Elias Boudinot Argues in Favor of Removal

Document 12.7: Cartoon Depicts Anxiety about Chinese Immigration

13. The Looming Crisis

Document 13.1: The American Anti-Slavery Society Documents the Impact of the Fugitive Slave Act

Document 13.2: Roger B. Taney Gives the Majority Opinion in the Dred Scott Case, 1857

Document 13.3: The Texas Almanac Publishes a Defense of Slavery, 1858

Document 13.4: Formerly Enslaved Writer and Activist William Wells Brown Dramatizes Escaping from Slavery, 1858

Document 13.5: Satirical Representation of Texas Sitting on Enslaved Person

Document 13.6: Sheet Music Promoting the Abolitionist Cause

14. The Civil War

Document 14.1: Abraham Lincoln Delivers the Gettysburg Address, 1863

Document 14.2: Hannah Johnson, Mother of a Black Soldier, Writes to Lincoln

Document 14.3: Andy J. Anderson, Formerly Enslaved, Recalls Life in Texas during the Civil War

Document 14.4: Harry Smith’s Memories of the Moment of Emancipation

Document 14.5: Abraham Lincoln Delivers the Second Inaugural Address

Document 14.6: Depiction of Southern Women Promoting Civil War and Rioting for Bread

Document 14.7: Photograph of the Widow of a Confederate Soldier

Document 14.8: Depiction of the Charge of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment

15. Reconstruction

Document 15.1: Jourdan Anderson, a Formerly Enslaved Person from Tennessee, Declines His Former Master’s Invitation to Return to His Plantation

Document 15.2: Laura Spicer and Her Husband Cope with the Aftermath of Family Separation during Slavery

Document 15.3: Elizabeth Hyde Botume Describes the Trauma of Family Separation during Slavery

Document 15.4: Description of Rev. Elias Hill Being Attacked by the Ku Klux Klan

Document 15.5: Annabella P. Hill Offers White Southern Women Advice on How to Cook after the Civil War, 1867

Document 15.6: Thomas Nast Cartoon Offers a Critique of Presidential Reconstruction

Document 15.7: Drawing of Andrew Johnson Pardoning Confederates at the White House

Document 15.8: Depiction of Freedman’s Bureau School

Assessment and Reflection Questions, Volume I

Contributors

Acknowledgments

These volumes are the result of a collaborative process that brought together the efforts of more than two dozen participants. However, like all undertakings of its kind, there was someone whose efforts were indispensable to the project. In this case, Wesley G. Phelps did the bulk of the work of soliciting suggestions for documents to include, filling in gaps, and creating an initial draft of the primary documents. Jennifer Jensen Wallach joined his effort later, helping to coordinate the revisions and performing some of the editorial work necessary to weave the contributions of nineteen different historians into a cohesive whole. We owe a large debt to our colleagues in the Department of History at the University of North Texas who helped select documents and who wrote the introductory headnotes and discussion questions designed to help readers interpret them. You can read short biographies of each contributor at the end of the volumes. J. L. Tomlin and Danielle Dumaine deserve special recognition for also writing the reflection questions and essay prompts that conclude these readers, which were designed to help readers synthesize what they learned.

Jami McQueen Thomas and Coleton Caldwell offered valuable administrative support to help keep this joint effort on track. Miranda Leddy performed editorial work, supervised student researchers, and completed numerous miscellaneous tasks that helped us get to the finish line. We could not have done it without her. University of North Texas Department of History graduate students Zacharie Barber, Michael Stout, Constance Wallace, Rhealee Andrews, Cairan Bergstrom, Duncan Harding, Payton Molina, and Keely Sanders transcribed documents, performed copyediting, and wrote captions and citations. Their imprint can be found on every page, and we are grateful that they used their skills as rising historians to help us with this important task.

Finally, at the University of Arkansas Press, David Cajías Calvet offered expert editorial assistance. We are grateful to Jenny Vos and to Betty Pessagno for their careful attention to detail while editing the manuscript and for their excellent suggestions. Editor-in-chief David Scott Cunningham, who was unceasingly generous with his time, went above and beyond in helping us refine our vision. We appreciate his enthusiasm, his tremendous skills as an editor, and his belief in this project.

Introduction

The two-volume Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of US History includes nearly two hundred primary documents and images that narrate many aspects of US history from the period before European contact and colonization through the twenty-first century. Each chapter is framed by an introduction designed to help readers interpret the rich collection of historical snapshots that follow and includes discussion questions designed to deepen engagement with those specific documents. Each volume also concludes with a list of questions that encourage readers to synthesize what they have learned and to engage in further inquiry. The volumes can stand on their own, giving any interested reader a rich tour through the history of the nation, as told from the perspective of many generations of historical subjects. Containing Multitudes is also designed to support the teaching of a two-part college-level survey class in US history.

A survey class can be one of the most rewarding classes that faculty teach; it can also be one of the most challenging. It is through this course that most college students are introduced to the professional study of history. Thus, many professors think of this class as an opportunity not only to offer engaging content that will open students up to the intellectual richness of historical study but, sometimes, also to present a necessary corrective. Although some students enter the college classroom with an excellent foundation of historical knowledge, others know history mainly through rote memorization and through exclusive focus on the outcomes of elections and military conflicts at the expense of the experiences of everyday life. Good teachers know that students who have not been trained to see themselves and their families as subjects of history or to realize that every subject or activity that interests them is embedded in its own historical context can sometimes feel disconnected from the discipline’s content. Faculty teaching introductory classes have a crucial opportunity to add nuance and new dimensions to the perspective students bring from their high school training. They can also help these students discover how an informed historical framework can positively shape their experience and understanding of their social world. While expanding their students’ understanding of the broad range of topics offered by historians, these teachers can also introduce them to some of the many methodological tools historians have at their disposal. Herein lies not only the opportunity but also the challenge of teaching an introductory course.

Because the topics and perspectives of historical study are so expansive and the chronological reach of a survey class is so extensive, a number of difficult decisions present themselves: Which subjects should be covered? Whose experiences should be highlighted, and which events can be skimmed over? Faculty also must decide which interpretive and methodological lenses to emphasize and how to balance the insights offered by political, social, and cultural perspectives. The vast array of textbooks and course materials that are available to support teaching the US history survey course highlights the wide diversity of approaches to the subject. These texts are inevitably shaped by the perspectives of those who created them, a fact that ultimately and necessarily defines and limits their interpretive frameworks. Containing Multitudes is designed to push against some of these inherent limitations by offering multiple perspectives and by seeking to capture as many interpretive visions of the American past as possible.

The documents assembled here capture the voices of Americans (along with some others who had connections to the Americas) of various ages, races, ethnicities, and genders. These historical actors represent not only diverse subject positions but also a wide variety of belief systems and circumstances. Assembling these documents was a collaborative process involving more than nineteen historians (see Contributors). These historians were selected on the basis of their ability to shed light on a number of important historical moments and issues. In their choices of documents, these contributors were mindful of the problem of affordability for students, opting not to include documents that required expensive permission fees. As is true of all document collections, this one represents a starting place for readers seeking familiarity with the major themes of US history, and the editors sincerely hope it inspires further investigation and research. Some of the documents collected here, including famous political speeches or influential pieces of legislation, will be familiar to many readers. Other documents, such as recipes, poetry, song lyrics and sheet music, and images ranging from the figure of a grieving widow to the daily activities of school children, offer less familiar glimpses of past realities and help capture some of the intimacy of lived experiences.

The broad range of voices captured here is certainly one of the strengths of the collection, but our endeavor to capture the voices of people from different subject positions also raised some ethical issues that led to some difficult editorial choices. If we want to capture the past in all its complexity, we have to include the perspectives of enslavers as well as those of the enslaved, of Native Americans intent upon maintaining traditional ways of living as well as those working to violently displace them, and so on. All too often, documents created by someone intent on dehumanizing or limiting the rights of another are couched in harsh and offensive language. As editors, we know that this language, even that spoken or written hundreds of years ago, still has the power to wound. We want our classrooms to be safe spaces where students do not have to be afraid of hurtful language; yet we also must aim for historical accuracy.

The act of studying history necessitates grappling with uncomfortable truths and navigating changing social norms. In an imperfect attempt to balance a desire to make our classrooms safer spaces, while also demonstrating fidelity to the historical record, we made the editorial decision to replace one frequently used and deeply offensive epithet with the label n-word. Our hope was that doing so would prevent any students reciting in class from uttering a word that we know is potentially one of the most offensive words in our contemporary language. We felt we could do this without altering the historical integrity of the text since readers will understand what slur is being replaced. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a simple solution to some of the other words or phrases in the book that were designed to denigrate others. In these instances, it proved to be impossible to signal what the speaker intended to impart by making a simple substitution. For example, the label Chinaman can certainly be regarded as offensive and dismissive, but to remove the word or to come up with our own nonstandardized substitution could alter the meaning. Therefore, for lack of a solution that could simultaneously serve two different aims, we left language intact when we thought that altering it would alter the author’s intent. After all, to deny the racism of the past would also inflict harm and be contrary to our goal as keepers of the past. For these reasons, we recommend that instructors using this book have a frank conversation with their students about these issues and caution them to read critically and with great care. You might also invite them to weigh the merits of our editorial solution and come up with other alternatives for how they might have handled this dilemma.

Not only do the documents themselves represent a multiplicity of past perspectives and experiences, the interpretive apparatus designed to help readers appreciate their significance represents an unusual degree of intellectual diversity. Nineteen different historians contributed editorial content to these volumes, writing the headnotes that introduce the documents and the discussion questions designed to help students and other readers grapple with the particular historical issues involved. As professional historians, the contributors represent a wide range of chronological, thematic, and geographical concentrations. They range from specialists in different American regional histories to scholars of the history of religion or warfare or food, to specialists in the history of gender and sexuality or of race and ethnicity. They exhibit a similarly broad range of methodological approaches, variously centering their historical work on, for example, the questions central to military, environmental, or medical history. Some foreground the methods of the political historian interested in the pasts encoded in official governmental records. Others are most influenced by the social historian, who is most interested in capturing the experiences of everyday people or the dynamics of social movements, or by the cultural historian, who is focused on locating the meanings of rituals, artifacts, ephemera, and other forms of expression, none of which were intended to constitute a formal historical archive. The varied, often layered, interpretive approaches of the contributors to this volume combine to deliver an unusually complex and rich portrait of the American past, while also offering readers glimpses of the many dimensions of the historian’s craft.

Interpreting the Past with Primary Sources

This collection of documents contains a diverse selection of primary sources, including excerpts from letters, diaries, memoirs, legal codes, maps, newspapers, poetry collections, speeches, novels, song lyrics, government documents, and much more. A primary source is a firsthand account of a historical event, usually produced during the period under study, by people or groups who participated in or witnessed the events or topics under consideration. Historians rely on a variety of primary sources to interpret the past. Primary sources remind us that the historian’s craft is not simply designed to recite interesting or important events that occurred in the past. Rather, the aim of the historian is to find meaning in the past to help us make sense of the present and to chart a better future. Primary sources make achieving this goal possible.

When engaging with primary sources, it is important that students of history read them with a critical eye to analyze the content, extract its meaning, and determine any insight it may reveal about the historical period under study. To critically analyze a primary source, students should ask the following questions about each document they encounter:

1. Who is the author? Who produced the source?

2. When was the source produced?

3. Who was the intended audience for the source? What group or groups of people was the author trying to reach with the source?

4. What was the purpose of the source? What messages did the author wish to convey to the intended audience?

5. What was the historical context in which the source was produced? What important events related to the source were occurring during the time the source was produced?

6. What is the historical significance of the source? What insights does the source reveal about the period during which it was produced? What can be learned about this historical era by analyzing this source?

As students engage with primary sources, it is important that they remember that there is not just one valid way to answer historical questions. Historians critically analyze multiple primary sources to make claims about the complex meanings of the past, and they often disagree about how to interpret their sources. In their ongoing debates about the past, historians rely on primary sources as evidence to support their arguments. These disagreements help to keep the discipline of history vibrant and exciting, as historians discover new primary sources and new ways to interpret familiar ones.

Primary sources are the bedrock on which historical interpretation rests, and they serve as an important entry point for students to learn about the value of studying history. By engaging directly with primary sources, students get the opportunity to practice their analytical skills, amass evidence, develop their own interpretations, construct arguments, and engage in the work of professional historians. Along the way, students develop the ability to think historically, a skill that will prove invaluable in meeting the challenges of our modern world.

Containing Multitudes

1

Native America

According to current knowledge, the descendants of people who migrated from Asia dominated the area now known as the Western Hemisphere for at least fifteen thousand years. These first immigrants, who came to be known as Native Americans, adapted to the various changes in climate that occurred during the fifteen or so millennia and established successful and complex cultures in the different regions they settled. Diverse groups of people, speaking numerous languages, adopted various methods that allowed them to survive, raise families, establish religious beliefs, and pass their knowledge on to succeeding generations through oral traditions. Unfortunately, much of what we know about Native Americans has been filtered through observers of European origin, all of whom had their own prejudices and beliefs concerning what they saw and heard. As a result, when reading their observations concerning the Native Americans, one must take the Europeans’ preordained notions into account.

Three of the documents presented in chapter 1 come from Spaniards who explored various regions of North America in the early sixteenth century. In 1519, Hernán Cortés and a few hundred Spaniards landed in Mexico and within a few years—with the assistance of thousands of Native American allies—had conquered the powerful Aztec Empire that dominated the region. His letter to King Charles I of Spain (Document 1.3) describes the wonders of the Aztecs’ capital city of Tenochtitlan—present-day Mexico City—paying particular attention to its great wealth and comparing it favorably to various cities in Spain. His conquest of Mexico set off dozens of Spanish expeditions throughout the Western Hemisphere in search of Indigenous empires comparable to that of the Aztecs. Cabeza de Vaca was a member of a Spanish expedition that washed up on the coast of Texas in 1528. He and three other survivors of the expedition traveled through Texas and northern Mexico before being rescued by fellow Spaniards in 1534. His description of their encounters with the Native Americans of the region is included in Document 1.4. Cabeza de Vaca’s tale inspired Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to search for a New Mexico in 1540; Document 1.2 is a record of his description of the Pueblo Indians he encountered near present-day Albuquerque. Note the differences in the wealth and sophistication of the Native Americans described by Cortés and those of Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado.

Documents 1.1 and 1.5 attempt to capture the actual words and symbols of some Native Americans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By the late nineteenth century, most Native Americans in the United States had been confined to reservations, and their numbers were in steep decline. As a result, in 1879 Congress created the Bureau of American Ethnology in order to collect artifacts and folk tales from Native Americans. Document 1.1 comes from the work of James Mooney, an ethnologist who spent time with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, learning their language and creation stories, this one in particular describing how the Cherokee learned to hunt deer and raise corn. Document 1.5 is a map produced on deerskin in 1721 by the Catawba Indians of South Carolina, describing the positions of other important Native American groups in relation to the English settlement (and trading center) of Charleston, established in 1670.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the various foodstuffs raised by the different groups of Native Americans, as described in Documents 1–4? Which Indigenous groups seem wealthy and which ones seem poor? How might the Spanish explorers have responded to the relative wealth of the different Native American groups they discussed?

2. In Documents 1 and 5, how do the Native Americans suspend reality in order to get their various points across?

3. What biases do the European authors display in the documents they have produced concerning the Native Americans?

Document 1.1: Cherokee Origination Story for Corn and Game

When I was a boy, this is what the old men told me they had heard when they were boys.

Long ages ago, soon after the world was made, a hunter and his wife lived at Looking-glass Mountain, with their only child, a little boy. The father’s name was Kanati, The Lucky Hunter, and his wife was called Selu, Corn. No matter when Kanati went into the woods, he never failed to bring back a load of game, which his wife cut up and prepared, washing the blood from the meat in the river near the house. The little boy used to play down by the river every day, and one morning the old people thought they heard laughing and talking in the bushes, as though there were two children there. When the boy came home at night, his parents asked who had been playing with him all day. He comes out of the water, said the boy, and he calls himself my elder brother. He says his mother was cruel to him and threw him into the river. Then they knew that the strange boy had sprung from the blood of the game which Selu had washed off at the river’s edge.

Every day, when the little boy went out to play, the other would join him; but, as he always went back into the water, the old people never had a chance to see him. At last, one evening, Kanati said to his son, To-morrow, when the other boy comes to play with you, get him to wrestle with you, and when you have your arms around him hold on to him and call for us. The boy promised to do as he was told; so the next day, as soon as his playmate appeared, he challenged him to a wrestling-match. The other agreed at once, but as soon as they had their arms around each other Kanati’s boy began to scream for his father. The old folks at once came running down, and when the wild boy saw them he struggled to free himself, and cried out, Let me go! You threw me away! But his brother held on until his parents reached the spot, when they seized the wild boy and took him home with them. They kept him in the house until they had tamed him, but he was always wild and artful in his disposition, and was the leader of his brother in every mischief. Before long the old people discovered that he was one of those persons endowed with magic powers (adáwehǐ), and they called him Ínage Utăsûhî, He who grew up Wild.

Whenever Kanati went into the mountains he always brought back a fat buck or doe, or may be a couple of turkeys. One day the wild boy said to his brother, I wonder where our father gets all that game; let’s follow him next time, and find out. A few days afterward, Kanati took a bow and some feathers in his hand, and started off. The boys waited a little while, and then started after him, keeping out of sight, until they saw their father go into a swamp where there were a great many of the reeds (wátiké) that hunters use to make arrow-shafts. Then the wild boy changed himself into a puff of bird’s down (atsî lû), which the wind took up and carried until it alighted upon Kanati’s shoulder just as he entered the swamp, but Kanati knew nothing about it. The hunter then cut reeds, fitted the feathers to them, and made some arrows, and the wild boy—in his other shape—thought, I wonder what those things are for. When Kanati had his arrows finished, he came out of the swamp and went on again. The wind blew the down from his shoulder; it fell in the woods, when the wild boy took his right shape again, and went back and told his brother what he had seen. Keeping out of sight of their father, they followed him up the mountain until he stopped at a certain place and lifted up a large rock. At once a buck came running out, which Kanati shot, and then, lifting it upon his back, he started home again. Oho! said the boys, he keeps all the deer shut up in that hole, and whenever he wants venison he just lets one out, and kills it with those things he made in the swamp. They hurried and reached home before their father, who had the heavy deer to carry, so that he did not know they had followed him.

A few days after, the boys went back to the swamp, cut some reeds and made seven arrows, and then started up the mountain to where their father kept the game. When they got to the place they lifted up the rock, and a deer came running out. Just as they drew back to shoot it, another came out, and then another, and another, until the boys got confused and forgot what they were about. In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down, like other animals, but, as a buck was running past, the wild boy struck its tail with his arrow so that it stood straight out behind. This pleased the boys, and when the next one ran by, the other brother struck his tail so that it pointed upward. The boys thought this was good sport, and when the next one ran past, the wild boy struck his tail so that it stood straight up, and his brother struck the next one so hard with his arrow that the deer’s tail was curled over his back. The boys thought this was very pretty, and ever since the deer has carried his tail over his back.

The deer continued to pass until the last one had come out of the hole and escaped into the forest. Then followed droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges that darkened the air like a cloud, and made such a noise with their wings that Kanati, sitting at home, heard the sound like distant thunder on the mountains, and said to himself, My bad boys have got into trouble. I must go and see what they are doing.

So Kanati went up the mountain, and when he came to the place where he kept the game he found the two boys standing by the rock, and all the birds and animals were gone. He was furious, but, without saying a word, he went down into the cave and kicked the covers off four jars in one corner, when out swarmed bed-bugs, fleas, lice, and gnats (kălúyăstǐ, tsu’kă, tǐnǐ’dastǐ’-’nǐû), and got all over the boys. They screamed with pain and terror, and tried to beat off the insects; but the thousands of insects crawled over them, and bit and stung them, until both dropped down nearly dead from exhaustion. Kanati stood looking on until he thought they had been punished enough, when he brushed off the vermin, and proceeded to give the boys a lecture. Now, you rascals, said he, you have always had plenty to eat, and never had to work for it. Whenever you were hungry, all I had to do was to come up here and get a deer or a turkey, and bring it home for your mother to cook. But now you have let out all the animals, and after this, when you want a deer to eat, you will have to hunt all over the woods for it, and then may be not find one. Go home now to your mother, while I see if I can find something to eat for supper.

When the boys reached home again they were very tired and hungry, and asked their mother for something to eat. There is no meat, said Selu, but wait a little while, and I will get you something. So she took a basket and started out to the provision-house (û’ wătâ’ lǐ). This provision-house was built upon poles high up from the ground, to keep it out of the reach of animals, and had a ladder to climb up by, and one door, but no other opening. Every day, when Selu got ready to cook the dinner, she would go out to the provision-house with a basket, and bring it back full of corn and beans. The boys had never been inside the provision-house, and wondered where all the corn and beans could come from, as the house was not a very large one; so, as soon as Selu went out of the door, the wild boy said to his brother, Let’s go and see what she does. They ran around and climbed up at the back of the provision-house, and pulled out a piece of clay from between the logs, so that they could look in. There they saw Selu standing in the middle of the room, with the basket in front of her on the floor. Leaning over the basket, she rubbed her stomach—so—and the basket was half-full of corn. Then she rubbed under her arm-pits—so—and the basket was full to the top with beans. The brothers looked at each other, and said, This will never do; our mother is a witch. If we eat any of that it will poison us. We must kill her.

When the boys came back into the house, Selu knew their thoughts before they spoke. So you are going to kill me! said Selu. Yes, said the boys; you are a witch. Well, said their mother, "when you have killed me, clear a large piece of ground in front of the house, and drag my body seven times around the circle.

Then drag me seven times over the ground inside the circle, and stay up all night and watch, and in the morning you will have plenty of corn. Then the boys killed her with their clubs, and cut off her head, and put it up on the roof of the house and told it to look for her husband. Then they set to work to clear the ground in front of the house, but, instead of clearing the whole piece, they cleared only seven little spots. This is the reason why corn now grows only in a few places instead of over the whole world. Then they dragged the body of Selu around the circles, and wherever her blood fell on the ground the corn sprang up. But, instead of dragging her body seven times across the ground, they did this only twice, which is the reason why the Indians still work their crop but twice. The two brothers sat up and watched their corn all night, and in the morning it was fully grown and ripe.

When Kanati came home at last, he looked around, but could not see Selu anywhere, so he asked the boys where their mother was. She was a witch, and we killed her, said the boys; there is her head up there on top of the house. When Kanati saw his wife’s head on the roof he was very