In the course of time one of the brothers disappeared and the other determined to select a wife from one of the two women, as it seems he had not yet chosen. He watched what the Woman of Darkness did in her absence, and discovered that she descended into the waters and enjoyed the embraces of a monster, while the Woman of Light passed her time in feeding white birds. In course of time the former brought forth black man-serpents, while the Woman of Light was delivered of beautiful boys with white skins. The master of the house killed the former with his arrows, but preserved the latter, and marrying the Woman of Light, became the father of the human race, and especially of the Dènè Dindjié, who have preserved the memory of him.[1] [Footnote 1: _Monographie des Dènè Dindjié, par_ C.R.P.E. Petitot, pp. 84-87 (Paris, 1876). Elsewhere the writer says: "Tout d'abord je dois rappeler mon observation que presque toujours, dans les traditions Dènè, le couple primitif se compose de _deux frères_." Ibid., p. 62.] In another myth of this stock, clearly a version of the former, this father of the race is represented as a mighty bird, called _Yêl_, or _Yale_, or _Orelbale_, from the root _ell_, a term they apply to everything supernatural. He took to wife the daughter of the Sun (the Woman of Light), and by her begat the race of man. He formed the dry land for a place for them to live upon, and stocked the rivers with salmon, that they might have food. When he enters his nest it is day, but when he leaves it it is night; or, according to another myth, he has the two women for wives, the one of whom makes the day, the other the night. In the beginning Yêl was white in plumage, but he had an enemy, by name _Cannook_, with whom he had various contests, and by whose machinations he was turned black. Yêl is further represented as the god of the winds and storms, and of the thunder and lightning.[1] [Footnote 1: For the extent and particulars of this myth, many of the details of which I omit, see Petitot, _ubi suprá_, pp. 68, 87, note; Matthew Macfie. _Travels in Vancouver Island and British Columbia_, pp. 452-455 (London, 1865); and J.K. Lord, _The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia_ (London, 1866). It is referred to by Mackenzie and other early writers.] Thus we find, even in this extremely low specimen of the native race, the same basis for their mythology as in the most cultivated nations of Central America. Not only this; it is the same basis upon which is built the major part of the sacred stories of all early religions, in both continents; and the excellent Father Petitot, who is so much impressed by these resemblances that he founds upon them a learned argument to prove that the Dènè are of oriental extraction,[1] would have written more to the purpose had his acquaintance with American religions been as extensive as it was with those of Asiatic origin.