IKTOMI is a spider fairy. He wears brown deerskin leggins with long soft fringes on either side, and tiny beaded moccasins on his feet. His long black hair is parted in the middle and wrapped with red, red bands. Each round braid hangs over a small brown ear and falls forward over his shoulders. He even paints his funny face with red and yellow, and draws big black rings around his eyes. He wears a deerskin jacket, with bright colored beads sewed tightly on it. Iktomi dresses like a real Dakota

ALONE within his teepee sat Iktomi. The sun was but a handsbreadth from the western edge of land. “Those, bad, bad gray wolves! They ate up all my nice fat ducks!” muttered he, rocking his body to and fro. He was cuddling the evil memory he bore those hungry wolves. At last he ceased to sway his body backward and forward, but sat still and stiff as a stone image. “Oh! I'll go to Inyan, the great-grandfather, and pray for food!” he exclaimed. At once he hurried forth from his teepee and, with his

BESIDE a white lake, beneath a large grown willow tree, sat Iktomi on the bare ground. The heap of smouldering ashes told of a recent open fire. With ankles crossed together around a pot of soup, Iktomi bent over some delicious boiled fish. Fast he dipped his black horn spoon into the soup, for he was ravenous. Iktomi had no regular meal times. Often when he was hungry he went without food. Well hid between the lake and the wild rice, he looked nowhere save into the pot of fish. Not knowing when

AFAR off upon a large level land, a summer sun was shining bright. Here and there over the rolling green were tall bunches of coarse gray weeds. Iktomi in his fringed buckskins walked alone across the prairie with a black bare head glossy in the sunlight. He walked through the grass without following any well-worn footpath. From one large bunch of coarse weeds to another he wound his way about the great plain. He lifted his foot lightly and placed it gently forward like a wildcat prowling noisel

IN one of his wanderings through the wooded lands, Iktomi saw a rare bird sitting high in a tree-top. Its long fan-like tail feathers had caught all the beautiful colors of the rainbow. Handsome in the glistening summer sun sat the bird of rainbow plumage. Iktomi hurried hither with his eyes fast on the bird. He stood beneath the tree looking long and wistfully at the peacock's bright feathers. At length he heaved a sigh and began: “Oh, I wish I had such pretty feathers! How I wish I were not I!

ON the edge of a forest there lived a large family of badgers. In the ground their dwelling was made. Its walls and roof were covered with rocks and straw. Old father badger was a great hunter. He knew well how to track the deer and buffalo. Every day he came home carrying on his back some wild game. This kept mother badger very busy, and the baby badgers very chubby. While the well-fed children played about, digging little make-believe dwellings, their mother hung thin sliced meats upon long wi

IT was a clear summer day. The blue, blue sky dropped low over the edge of the green level land. A large yellow sun hung directly overhead. The singing of birds filled the summer space between earth and sky with sweet music. Again and again sang a yellow-breasted birdie—“Koda Ni Dakota!” He insisted upon it. “Koda Ni Dakota!” which was “Friend, you're a Dakota! Friend, you're a Dakota!” Perchance the birdie meant the avenger with the magic arrow, for there across the plain he strode. He was hand

A MAN in buckskins sat upon the top of a little hillock. The setting sun shone bright upon a strong bow in his hand. His face was turned toward the round camp ground at the foot of the hill. He had walked a long journey hither. He was waiting for the chieftain's men to spy him. Soon four strong men ran forth from the center wigwam toward the hillock, where sat the man with the long bow. “He is the avenger come to shoot the red eagle,” cried the runners to each other as they bent forward swinging

THE huntsman Patkasa (turtle) stood bent over a newly slain deer. The red-tipped arrow he drew from the wounded deer was unlike the arrows in his own quiver. Another's stray shot had killed the deer. Patkasa had hunted all the morning without so much as spying an ordinary blackbird. At last returning homeward, tired and heavy-hearted that he had no meat for the hungry mouths in his wigwam, he walked slowly with downcast eyes. Kind ghosts pitied the unhappy hunter and led him to the newly slain d

IT was night upon the prairie. Overhead the stars were twinkling bright their red and yellow lights. The moon was young. A silvery thread among the stars, it soon drifted low beneath the horizon. Upon the ground the land was pitchy black. There are night people on the plain who love the dark. Amid the black level land they meet to frolic under the stars. Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night. There they are safely hid from all

THE water-fowls were flying over the marshy lakes. It was now the hunting season. Indian men, with bows and arrows, were wading waist deep amid the wild rice. Near by, within their wigwams, the wives were roasting wild duck and making down pillows. In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red porcupine quills about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion. Beside her lay a black-eyed baby boy cooing and laughing. Reaching and kicking upward with his tiny hands and feet, he played with the

FROM the tall grass came the voice of a crying babe. The huntsmen who were passing nigh heard and halted. The tallest one among them hastened toward the high grass with long, cautious strides. He waded through the growth of green with just a head above it all. Suddenly exclaiming “Hunhe!” he dropped out of sight. In another instant he held up in both his hands a tiny little baby, wrapped in soft brown buckskins. “Oh ho, a wood-child!” cried the men, for they were hunting along the wooded river b

MANSTIN was an adventurous brave, but very kind-hearted. Stamping a moccasined foot as he drew on his buckskin leggins, he said: “Grandmother, beware of Iktomi! Do not let him lure you into some cunning trap. I am going to the North country on a long hunt.” With these words of caution to the bent old rabbit grandmother with whom he had lived since he was a tiny babe, Manstin started off toward the north. He was scarce over the great high hills when he heard the shrieking of a human child. “Wan!”

ONCE seven people went out to make war,—the Ashes, the Fire, the Bladder, the Grasshopper, the Dragon Fly, the Fish, and the Turtle. As they were talking excitedly, waving their fists in violent gestures, a wind came and blew the Ashes away. “Ho!” cried the others, “he could not fight, this one!” The six went on running to make war more quickly. They descended a deep valley, the Fire going foremost until they came to a river. The Fire said “Hsss—tchu!” and was gone. “Ho!” hooted the others, “he