NELSOX] TALE OF AK -CHlK-CHU -GUK 503 



so emaciated that the bones were almost through the skin. Leaving her 

 there, he closed the door and soon brought the next elder brother to the 

 girl; after which both went back and, awakening the others, told them 

 what they had seen. 



After this all the brothers kept awake and watchful until morning. 

 As dawn appeared the bad shaman came to the window in the roof and 

 cried out, &quot;Now it is time to kill those strangers.&quot; Going into the 

 kashim, he sent a man for a large, sharp-edge piece of whalebone, while 

 he had another take away loose planks from the middle of the floor, 

 which left a square open pit several feet deep, and about the edge of 

 this the shaman bound upright the piece of whalebone with the sharp 

 edge. The brothers were then challenged to wrestle with him. 

 Ak -chik-chiY-gfik whispered that they should wrestle with him without 

 fear, as he had killed and restored them to life again before leaving 

 home, so that men could not harm them. 



One of the brothers stepped forward, and after a short struggle the 

 shaman stooped quickly, caught the young man by the ankles, and 

 raising him from the floor with a great swing, brought him down so 

 that his neck was cut off across the edge of the whalebone. Casting 

 the body to one side, the shaman repeated the challenge and killed the 

 second brother in the same way. Again the shaman made his scorn 

 ful challenge, but scarcely had he finished speaking when Ak -chik- 

 chiY-guk wiped the iish roe from his face and hands, and with a wrench 

 tore the bird-skin coat from his body and sprang up as a powerful 

 young man with anger shining in his eyes. 



When the shaman saw this sudden change he started back, with his 

 heart growing weak within him; he could not escape, however, and 

 very soon Ak -chik-chu -guk caught him in his arms, pressed in his 

 sides until the blood gushed from his mouth, and, stooping, caught 

 him by the ankles and whirled him over his head and across the whale 

 bone, cutting his neck apart; then he brought the body down again 

 and it fell in two. Throwing aside the fragment in his hand, he turned 

 to the frightened villagers and said, &quot;Is there any relative, brother, 

 father, or son of this miserable shaman who thinks I have done wrong? 

 If there is, let him come forward and take revenge.&quot; 



The villagers eagerly expressed their joy at the shaman s death, as 

 they had been in constant fear of him, and he had killed every stranger 

 who came to their village. Then Ak -chik-clnV-guk sent everyone out 

 of the kashim, and soon, by help of his magic, restored his two brothers 

 to life; after this they went out and released their sister, and clothed 

 ing her in fine new garments. She told them of her long drifting on the 

 ice with her brother and of their landing near Ufi-a -shuk, 1 the village 

 at which they then were; also how the shaman had killed her brother 

 and kept her a prisoner. 



The brothers were now treated so kindly by the people in the village 



] Ufi-a -shfik, a village near St Lawrence bay, on the Siberian shore of lieiing strait. 



