NELSON] BRINGING OF LIGHT BY RAVEN 



the seacoast, and a great wind arose, drifting him with the ice across 

 the sea to the laud oil the other shore. There he found a village of 

 people and took a wife from among them, living with her people until 

 he had three daughters and four sons. In time he became very old and 

 told his children how he had come to their country, and after telling 

 them that they must go to the land whence he came, he died. 



Haven s children then went away as he had directed them, and finally 

 they came to their father s laud. There they became ravens, and their 

 descendants afterward forgot how to change themselves into people 

 and so have continued to be ravens to this day. 



At Raven s village day and night follow each other as he told them 

 it would, and the length of each was unequal, as sometimes Kaven 

 traveled a long time without throwing out any light and again he threw 

 out the light at frequent intervals, so that the nights were very short, 

 and thus they have continued. 



THE RED BEAR (TA-KU-KA) 



(From Andreivsky, oil the lower Yukon) 



On the tundra, south of the Yukon mouth, there once lived an orphan 

 boy with his aunt. They were quite alone, and one summer day the boy 

 took his kaiak and traveled away to see where people lived on the 

 Yukon, of whom he had heard. When he came to the river, he traveled 

 up its course until he reached a large village. There he landed and 

 the people ran down to the shore, seized him, broke his kaiak to pieces, 

 tore his clothing from him, and beat him badly. 



The boy was kept there until the end of summer, the subject of con 

 tinual beating and ill treatment from the villagers. In the fall one of 

 the men took pity on him, made him a kaiak, and started him home 

 ward, where he arrived after a long absence. When he reached home 

 he saw that a large village had grown up by his aunt s house. As soon 

 as he landed, he went to his aunt s house and entered, frightening her 

 very much, for he had been starved and beaten so long that he looked 

 almost like a skeleton. 



When his aunt recognized him, she received his story with words of 

 pity, then words of auger at the cruel villagers. When he had finished 

 telling her of his sufferings, she told him to bring her a piece of wood, 

 which he did; this they worked into a small image of an animal with 

 long teeth and long, sharp claws, painting it red upon the sides and 

 white on the throat. Then they took the image to the edge of the 

 creek and placed it in the water, the aunt telling it to go and destroy 

 every one it could find at the village where her boy had been. 



The image did not move, and the old woman took it out of the water 

 and cried over it, letting her tears fall upon it, and then put it back in 

 the water, saying, &quot;Now, go and kill the bad people who beat my boy.&quot; 

 At this the image floated across the creek and crawled up the other 

 bank, where it began to grow, soon reaching a large size, when it became 



