114 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. VIII. 



After that they lived (alone), but they, the father and the mother, 

 were homesick after their boy. 



Now the father went to his field, and when he came there he hoed 

 his field. Then at the edge of the field something was running. It 

 was a bird, a B^chro. Now the Bachro spoke. "Alas!" he said, 

 "alas, my father is homesick after me." "Yes," the father said, "I 

 am homesick after you." The Bachro said, "Now you must not be 

 that way; why I told you (all about it). In four days I shall come 

 back again, hence you must both come." Having said this he flew 

 away. Now, after four days the father said to the mother: "Let us 

 go together." "Very well," she said. Now his wife prepared some 

 lunch and then they left. When they arrived there they were making 

 the field. Now the husband said to his wife, "Now somebody will 

 come." "Who?" she asked. When they were still thus talking it 

 arrived. Close by them something was whistling, and now he came 

 running towards them and arrived at them. As soon as he had ar- 

 rived at them he said, "Alas, you are homesick after me." Now the 

 father said, "Yes." "Now you must not be that way," he said. "I 

 live well." Now the mother said: "Yes, I am homesick after you." 

 Now again he said, "You must not be that way. I shall come and 

 see you." Having said this he again flew away. In the evening they 

 went home and surely after that when the father was walking in the 

 field that came there. After that they continued to live there. 



29. A JOURNEY TO THE SKELETON HOUSE.^ 



Haliksai! In Shong6pavi the people were living first, and there 

 a young man was often sitting at the edge of the village looking at 

 the graveyards and wondering what became of the dead, whether it 

 is true that they continue to live somewhere. He spoke to his father 

 about it. His father could not tell him very much. "We do not 

 know much about it," he said; "so that is what you are thinking 

 about." His father was the village chief. He said to his son that 

 he would speak to the other chiefs and to his assistants about it, 

 which he did. He talked about it especially to the village crier, and 

 told them that those were the things that his son was thinking about, 

 and whether they knew anything about it. "Yes," they said, "the 

 Badger Old Man (Hondn Wuhtaka) has the medicine for it and knows 

 about it. We shall inform him." So they called the Badger Old 

 Man. When he arrived he asked them what they wanted with him. 

 "Yes," they said, "this young man is thinking about these dead, 



' Told by Sik4hpiki (Shupaulavi). 



