NO. 4 UPPER YUKON NATIVE CUSTOMS — SCHMITTER 2.J 



the people with his wife. After a while he would come back without his wife. 

 He would say that she died. Then he would get another wife. One girl was 

 very smart, so she married him to find out what he did with his wives. They 

 went away together. When he found a good hunting ground he stayed there. 

 Whatever game he got he only gave fat and grease to his wife and ate the 

 meat himself. Whenever she wanted a drink of water he gave her grease to 

 drink. Every time he went hunting he took about ten days, and brought back 

 fat and grease and blueberries and cranberries and all kmds of berries, but no 

 meat. The girl knew by this that he was going to make her so fat that she 

 couldn't walk, for already when she would lie down she could hardly get up. 

 Then, before he went hunting again, at her request, he prepared a dugout on 

 the bank of a creek. She told him she was lonesome and wanted to be where 

 she could see the creek running. This dugout was to be her home while he 

 was away. The door was covered with brush. She told him to make a small, 

 sharp spear for her, so she could keep the mice away with it. As soon as her 

 husband went she took the spear and dug a tunnel from the dugout to the 

 creek for her escape, for she knew he would kill her when she became very 

 fat. She was too fat to walk, so she rolled down to the creek through the 

 tunnel, and stayed in it a whole day, until the fat came off from her. Then she 

 went into the woods and watched till her husband came back. As he ap- 

 proached she saw that he was picking a lot of berries. When he reached the 

 dugout, where the hole was covered with brush for concealment, he ran his 

 spear through the brush so as to kill her; but she wasn't there. Every time he 

 jabbed the spear in and withdrew it he tasted of the point to see if it stuck her. 

 Then he said aloud to himself, "Some spirit must have taken her away." The 

 woman now was sure that he wanted to kill her, so she ran away back to her 

 family. She told them all about it, saying that he killed his wives and ate them, 

 and that he fed them berries to flavor their meat. The man came back then. 

 His wife's mother previously put her in a sack and hid her. He cried much, 

 pretending to be sorry for the death of his wife. He said to the mother, "My 

 wife has died again." Everybody else cried, to deceive him into thinking they 

 believed him. Next day everybody moved again. The old woman gave him a 

 heavy sack to pack along and told him it belonged to his brother-in-law, who 

 needed it. She told him to hang it high on a tree, so the dogs couldn't get it. 

 She told the other men not to help him lift it up. He tried so hard to lift it 

 up that he broke his back-bone. 



When the man was injured nobody took care of him. The hunting party 

 went away without him. When they returned and saw that he was sure to 

 die, they let him see his wife, so that he would know that he was found out. 

 His wife was in the sack. Her mother then arrived with other Indian women, 

 untied the sack, and let her out, and she was safe. He died then. They pre- 

 ferred to let him kill himself in this way. 



THE ROBIN 



The robin had a husband, but she loved another man. She had a family of 

 four— a husband, son. daughter, and self. When she sat on a tree she would 

 laugh. Because she loved another man, she wanted her husband and son to 

 die, so that she and her daughter could live with this man. Every time she 

 sang she would say, "T wish my husband and son would die," then she would 

 laucih. Then she would say, "I wish T and my daughter would live," then she 



