[Reprinted from The Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. II. No. VI.] 
 
 A MOHAWK LEGEND OF ADAM AND EVE. 
 
 An interesting study might be made of the influence which the 
 teachings of the missionaries of the Christian church have exerted 
 in modifying primitive Indian myths ; interesting also is the effect 
 produced upon the stones of the Bible by the Indian imagination. 
 As a contribution to this study, the following, obtained in November, 
 1888, from an intelligent Mohawk from the Reservation at Brantford, 
 Ont., may be of some value. The narrator stated that it was current 
 at Caughnawaga. 
 
 At first the bodies of Adam and Eve were all smooth and shining, 
 as men's finger-nails are now. But one day Adam was walking 
 about in the garden near the tree on which the fruit was, when he 
 heard something say to him : " Take ! take ! " and something, again, 
 saying : " Don't take ! Don't take ! " After a while, however, Adam 
 became bold enough and took a fruit and began to eat it. The first 
 bite he took stuck in his throat, and is there to this day. He then 
 gave Eve a piece which she ate. Then they both began to suffer 
 change, and all the smoothness and shininess of their bodies began to 
 disappear, and all that was left of it is seen now in our finger-nails and 
 toe-nails. It was the Devil, who had become a snake and climbed up 
 the tree, that tempted Adam. After doing this the Devil returned to 
 the centre of the earth. Even at this day a common form of assertion 
 among the Mohawks is, "As sure as the Devi returned to earth 
 again ! " The Indians believed that Oivistos {? Christ) would kill the 
 Devil-snake by driving a sword through the centre of his head, and 
 pinning him to the earth with his wings outspread. The Indians all 
 hate snakes, and every one (even the women) will kill a snake when 
 he sees it ; when so doing they call out, " Otoistos ! ooayerle / Owistos ! 
 ooayerle I " (Owistos ! I kill ! Owistos ! I kill !) 
 
 The variations from the Biblical narrative are too obvious to need 
 comment. 
 
 A. F. Chamberlain.