Smohalla’s chief supporter and assistant at the ceremonies was Kotai′aqan, or Coteea′kun, as MacMurray spells it, of the Yakima tribe. The name refers to a brood of young ducks scattering in alarm. He was the son of Kamai′äkan, the great war chief of the Yakima. He also gave MacMurray the story of the cosmos, which agrees with that obtained from Smohalla, but is more in detail: The world was all water, and Saghalee Tyee was above it. He threw up out of the water at shallow places large quantities of mud, and that made the land. Some was piled so high that it froze hard, and the rains that fell were made into snow and ice. Some of the earth was made hard into rocks, and anyone could see that it had not changed—it was only harder. We have no records of the past; but we have it from our fathers from far back that Saghalee Tyee threw down many of the mountains he had made. It is all as our fathers told us, and we can see that it is true when we are hunting for game or berries in the mountains. I did not see it done. He made trees to grow, and he made a man out of a ball of mud and instructed him in what he should do. When the man grew lonesome, he made a woman as his companion, and taught her to dress skins, and to gather berries, and to make baskets of the bark of roots, which he taught her how to find. She was asleep and dreaming of her ignorance of how to please man, and she prayed to Saghalee Tyee to help her. He breathed on her and gave her something that she could not see, or hear, or smell, or touch, and it was preserved in a little basket, and by it all the arts of design and skilled handiwork were imparted to her descendants. Notwithstanding all the benefits they enjoyed, there was quarreling among the people, and the earth-mother was angry. The mountains that overhung the river at the Cascades were thrown down, and dammed the stream and destroyed the forests and whole tribes, and buried them under the rocks. (_MacMurray MS._) In connection with the wonderful little basket, MacMurray states that Kotai′aqan presented him with a very ancient drum-shape basket, about 2½ inches in diameter, to give to his wife, in order that she might likewise be inspired. Concerning the catastrophe indicated in the last paragraph, he goes on to say: