OW one of the first and most perfect of all of the fathers among men was Yanáuluha, who brought up from the under-world water of the inner ocean, the seeds of growing things. He carried in his hand a staff which appeared in the daylight covered with feathers of beautiful colors yellow, blue-green and red, white, black and varied. Attached to it were the beautiful shells of the sea, that had a songlike tinkle. And when the people saw the staff, and heard the music of the shells, they stretched forth their hands like little children, and cried out, asking many questions.

Yanáuluha was wise beyond all men, and he knew his staff to be magic as it had been given to him by the God Beings, and he replied, — "This staff is powerful medicine, and it was given to me that I might test the hearts and understandings of children." Then he balanced it in his hand and struck with it a hard place and blew upon it. Amid the plumes appeared four round things, eggs were they, two blue as the sky and two dull-red like the earth.

"These are the seeds of living things," said the god-priest. "They are the joy and the distress of the summer time; choose without greed which you will have, and will follow. For from two shall come birds of beautiful plumage, colored like the flowers of summer; and where they fly and you follow, shall be everlasting summer. Everything shall grow about you in a land of delight where food will be plentiful and you shall have great happiness.

"From the other two shall come evil things, uncolored, black and dreary. And where they fly and you follow, there will be winter as well as summer. You will have to labor in the fields, and the off-spring of the two will return and steal much of the food you have worked so hard to procure for your children. Think well before you choose."

"The blue! The blue! Give us the blue!" cried the people.

"Let it be as you wish," said Yanáuluha, and he gave the two beautiful blue eggs to them.

They carried the treasures gently, and laid them in soft sand on the sunny side of a cliff, and they watched them day after day. And when the eggs cracked and the tiny birds came forth with pin-feathers under their skin, the people shouted, "We have chosen with understanding, for see, yellow and blue, red and green are their dresses even seen through their skins!" And they fed them with the choicest food, and they grew rapidly. But when their feathers really appeared they were black, for they had chosen the ravens. Dreadful were these somber birds as they flew away mocking the people, and they covered their ears with their hands when they heard the croaking and coarse laughs from the sky.

Then Yanáuluha took his wand and sent the two birds from the dull colored eggs which he had kept, away to the southland where it is always summer. And he divided all the people into two classes, and to the Winter People he gave the Raven for their totem or symbol; and the many colored Macaw he gave to the People of Summer time.