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Show "Origin of the Echo"* Teugai (a witch) came near to a village one night and called to a little girl, "Bring me my child." The girl thought it was her mother, so she obeyed. Teugai had a basket on her back, and in it she put both the baby and the girl and carried them away, scampering through the woods. When the mother missed her children, there was a great search through the village for them. The people all believed that a teugai had taken them ofr. Early the next morning they followed the old hag and found her asleep, wearied from her flight. The people quickly rescued the children. When Teugai awoke and found they had taken the children from her, she went to her grandfather Togoav (Rattlesnake), taking all her own family with her. She begged him to take care of them, for she feared the people of the village would come to kill them and her also. Not knowing what to do, he swallowed them all. It made him very sick, and he asked them to crawl out again. This the children did, but the old teugai was stuck fast. Then Togoav crawled out of his own skin, leaving Teugai in it. She shouted, "Let me out, let me out!" "Stay where you are; be still!" Togoav. Still she screamed, "Let me out!" But Togoav refused to help her and went away. Then Teugai wriggled with the skin into a crevice in the rocks and made her home there. When the people of the village came in search of her, she repeated their words in mockery; and though they heard her voice, they could not find her. Since that time all teugai live in snakeskins, and the echoes which are heard in the rocks are their spiteful mockings. Op. Cit., Powell, "Ute and Painte Legends." 69 |