490 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [KTH.ANN. 18 



with her feet raised more than a span above the floor. He asked her 

 if she was a live person or a shade, but she did not reply, and he 

 went hurriedly into the kashiin. There he told the men to hasten out 

 and look at the strange being standing in the passageway, whose feet 

 did not rest on the earth and who did not belong to their village. All 

 the men hurried out, and, seeing her, some of them took down the 

 lamp and by its light she was recognized and hurried into the house of 

 her parents. 



When the men first saw her she appeared in form and color exactly 

 as when alive, but the moment she sat down in her father s house her 

 color faded and she shrank away until she became nothing but skin 

 and bone, and was too weak to speak. 



Early the next morning her namesake, a woman in the same village, 

 died, and her shade went away to the laud of the dead in the girl s 

 place, and the latter gradually became strong again and lived for many 

 years. 



THE STRANGE BOY 



(From Andreivsky, on tlie lower Yukon) 



At a village far away in the north once lived a man with his wife and 

 one child, a son. This boy was very different from others, and while 

 the village children ran about and shouted and took part in sports 

 with one another, he would sit silent and thoughtful on the roof of the 

 kashim. He would never eat any food or take any drink but that given 

 him by his mother. 



The years passed by until he grew to manhood, but his manner was 

 always the same. Then his mother began to make him a pair of skin 

 boots with soles of many thicknesses; also, a waterproof coat of double 

 thickness and a fine coat of yearling reindeer skins. Every day he sat 

 on the roof of the kashim, going home at twilight for food and to sleep 

 until early the next morning; then he would go back to his place on 

 the roof and wait for daybreak. 



One morning he went home just after sunrise and found his new 

 clothing ready. He took some food and put on the clothing, after which 

 he told his mother that he was going on a journey to the north, His 

 mother cried bitterly and begged him not to go, for no one ever went 

 to the far northland and returned again. He did not mind this, but 

 taking his bear spear and saying farewell, he started out, leaving his 

 parents weeping and without hope of ever seeing him again, for they 

 loved him very much, and his mother had told him truly that no one 

 ever came back who had gone away from their village to the north. 



The young man traveled far away, and as evening came on he reached 

 a hut with the smoke rolling up through the hole in the roof. Tak 

 ing off his waterproof coat, he laid it down near the door and crept 

 carefully upon the roof and looked through the smoke hole. In the 

 middle of the room burned a fire, and an old woman was sitting on the 



