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SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEREMONIALi LIFE 205
Finally Oklatabashih sent a dove to see if any dry land could be found. She
soon returned with her beak full of grass, which she had gathered from a
desert island. Oklatabashih to reward her for her discovery mingled a little
salt in her food. Soon after this the waters subsided and the dry laud appeared
; then the inmates of the great boat went forth to repeople another
earth. But the dove, having acquired a taste for salt during her stay in the
boat continued its use by finding it at the salt-licks that then abounded in
many places, to which the cattle and deer also frequently resorted. Every
day after eating, she visited a salt-lick to eat a little salt to aid her digestion,
which in the course of time became habitual and thus was transmitted to her
offspring. In the course of years, she became a grand-mother, and took great
delight in feeding and caring for her grand-children. One day, however, after
having eaten some grass seed, she unfortunately forgot to eat a little salt as
usual. For this neglect, the Great Spirit punished her and her descendants
by forbidding them forever the use of salt. When she returned home that
evening, her grand-children, as usual began to coo for their supply of salt, but
their grand-mother having been forbidden to give them any more, they cooed
in vain. From that day to this, in memory of this lost privilege, the doves
everywhere, on the return of spring, still continue their cooing for salt, which
they will never again be permitted to eat. Such is the ancient tradition of
the Choctaws of the origin of the cooing of doves.
But the fate of the three birds who eluded capture by Oklatabashih, their
tradition states : They flew high in the air at the approach of Oka falama,
and, as the waters rose higher and higher, they also flew higher above the
surging waves. Finally, the waters rose in near proximity to the sky, upon
which they lit as their last hope. Soon, to their great joy and comfort, the
waters ceased to rise, and commenced to recede. But while sitting on the
sky their tails, projecting downward, were continually being drenched by the
dashing spray of the surging waters below, and thus the end of their tail
feathers became forked and notched, and this peculiar shape of the tails of
the biskinik, fltukhak and bakbak has been transmitted to their latest pos-
terity. But the sagacity and skill manifested by these birds in eluding the
grasp of Oklatabashih, so greatly delighted the Great Spirit that he appointed
them to be forever the guardian birds of the red men. Therefore these birds,
and especially the biskinik, often made their appearance in their villages on
the eve of a ball play ; and, whichever one of the three came, it twittered in
happy tones its feelings of joy in anticipation of the near approach of the
Choctaws' favorite game. But in time of war one of these birds always appeared
in the camp of a war party, to give them warning of approaching
danger, by its constant chirping and hurried flitting from place to place around
their camp. In many ways did these birds prove their love for and friendship
to the red man, and he ever cherished them as the loved birds of his race, the
remembered gift of the Great Spirit in the fateful days of the mighty
Oka falama.*"
This second narrative seems to contain a slight trace of missionary
influence but the greater part of it is plainly aboriginal.
Ill
The tradition, as related by wise men of the Nation, about the flood, is as
follows: A long continued night came upon the land, which created no small
s^Cushman, Hist. Inds., pp. 285-287.