siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

200 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
at once pawed a hole in the ground with his feet (it being always soft
from the frequent rains during the season of shedding) into which
he pushed the fallen horns and carefully covered them up." ''-
Cosmology and Mythology
What must have been the primitive Choctaw conception of the
world is preserved in the story of Tashka and Walo recorded by
Bushnell among the Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb. It is as follows:
Tashka and Walo were brothers who lived loug ago. Every morulng they
saw the suu rise above the horizon, pass high overhead, and late in the day die
in the west.
When the boys were about four years old they conceived the idea of following
the sun and seeing where he died. So the next day, when he was overhead,
they started to follow him; but that night, when he died, they were still in
their own country, where they knew the hills and the rivers. Then they slept,
and in the morning when the sun was again overhead they once more set off to
follow him. And thus they continued for many years to wend their way after
the sun in his course through the heavens.
Long, long afterward, when the two boys had become men, they reached a
great expanse of water, and the only land they could see was the shore on
which they were standing. Late that day, when Sun died, they saw him sink
into the water ; then they also passed over the water and entered Sun's home
with him. All about them they saw women—the stars are women and the
moon is Sun's wife. Then Moon asked the brothers how they had found their
way so far from their home. Tlsey told h