"In the beginning of my narrative I said as a prelude I would intersperce an occasional tradition, therefore I will relate one retained by the Natche tribe and related by them as a matter handed down through successive generations for their information. I insert it to show in its connection and inference that in olden times their patriarch knew or heard in some way of the deluge and that the primary information or knowledge he had of it had got blended with traditional fiction. It is said that speech and rational power was given to man alone and he by his knowledge and understanding is enabled to make the other creatures subservient to him, so that he rules and manages them in a way most conducive to his will and their comfort in life, but when the gift of speech is imparted to a dumb creature it is to be observed as a matter of inspiration to the beast purposed by the great spirit to be words of sacred truth from himself through said creature. As a manifest proof of the foregoing remarks it is said that there was a large assemblage of the undents on some particular occasion, in times of yore, when to their surprise they were accosted by a little dog, who, having gaped and yawned in a particular whining manner, began in articulate words to bemoan their sudden fate. He called on them individually to look between his ears first toward sunset and then in every other direction and see their fate. They looked accordingly as he said. They could see nothing, but on a second bidding they could see mountains of water rolling toward them. He bade him who could fly to the mountains for safety and escape death, so they fled. Only a few of them reached the mountains, however, most being overtaken and overwhelmed by the waving torrent of water. Among them the "old man of sorrow" was one who escaped by his flight to the mountains. He is called in their tongue Tarn seal hows hous o-pah [Note:Tam=dam', person; seal=sil, big; howt housopah may be from the stem ho, duplicated, meaning to howl, or from hoc, old, perhaps in the form hachactipa, "is very old," though I do not have this form in my material.] He uttered his wailings and lamentations continually, and in tears of sorrow he mourned for all that perished, and his sorrow likewise extended to the living whom he took under his care and instructed them by good words how best to live in future in order to shun the paths of destruction. The earth was overwhelmed by the billows of water and no one survived that did not attain the summit of the mountains. From these was the earth repeopled. Who this old man of lamentation or sorrow was may be a question but as I never heard any more of him I shall leave him as I heard of him, without any conjecture relative to him, to be solved by the inquisitive, and the antient of days."2 (Stiggins in Swanton)