knew something, and he said,
"If this grey fox returns for two nights more and whistles outside
of the house of our sick neighbour, that man will die." My informant
did not believe this at the time; but the next night the grey fox
returned and whistled very uncannily, and on the third night he did
it again. And on the following morning a man came and asked the Indian
to help him to bury the neighbour who had died during the night. They
went to the house of the dead man, and "then," the narrator concluded,
"I knew that the grey fox had said the truth, for the grey fox never
tells a lie."

The grey fox and the rabbit in ancient times danced rutuburi.

The horned toad holds the world. It says: "Don't tread on me! I am the
colour of the earth and I hold the world; therefore walk carefully,
that you do not tread on me."

The master of the deer lives inside of the mountains, in the earth;
therefore the Tarahumares place small quantities of corn and beans,
or three arrows in a jar, on top of the highest mountain to buy the
deer from the one below.

The brown ground squirrel (chipawiki), which lives among rocks and
seldom ascends trees, is thought to become a serpent. This belief is
also current among certain classes of Mexicans. A Mexican told me that
a man once smashed the head of a chipawiki in the hollow of a tree,
and when he wanted to take his game out, he found that the rest of
the animal had the body of a serpent. It cannot be used for sacrifices.

Rats become bats.

The owl is very bad. Whenever it comes to a house and screeches,
somebody falls ill. If it calls three times, in three consecutive
nights, the sick person will die. The owl is also very smart. It knows
when the Tarahumare's blanket (in which he is wrapped when sleeping
along the fire) is going to be burned. When the owl hoots near a home
it says, "Chu-i, chu-i, chu-i,"--"dead, dead, dead." Owls are killed
but not eaten.

The goat sucker makes darts through the air and calls down rain. It has
two nice fat young, which the Tarahumares consider a great delicacy.

The crow is much in disfavour because it eats the corn. Only the
young crows are eaten.

The large swifts (olamaka) are thought to be witches, who pierce the
souls of people and eat them. They are used by the sorcerers, whom they
obey like dogs. Once a woman was sitting in a corn-field watching it
by the side of a fire, and making yarn, when a swift settled on her
skirt. She told a girl t