452 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [eth.ann.18 



mainly of a supernatural cliaracter, and finally becomes fixed in the 

 tribal folklore. 



Another class is made up and recounted by the shamans, or medi- 

 cine-men, always dealing with supernatural powers and beings, and 

 are intended to increase the public regard for them and their ability to 

 deal with the shades that are believed to exist everywhere, through 

 the propitiation of which the public and private welfare is secured. 

 Many of their festivals have undoubtedly originated from tales told by 

 the shamans regarding visions seen and instructions said to have been 

 obtained from supernatural beings, while asleep or in a trance. One 

 such tale is that of the Yuguk festival of the lower Yukon. 



FLOOD LEGENDS PROM ST MICHAEL 



The Norton sound Eskimo have a legend that in the first days the 

 earth was flooded except a very high mountain in the middle. The 

 water came up from the sea and covered all the laud except the top 

 of this mountain; only a few animals were saved, which escaped by 

 going up the mountain side. A few people escaped by going into an 

 umiak and subsisting on the fish they caught until the water subsided. 

 Finally, as the waters lowered, the people who were saved went to live 

 upon the mountains, eventually descending to the coast; the animals 

 also came down and replenished the earth with their kind. During the 

 flood the waves and currents cut the surface of the land into hollows 

 and ridges, and then, as the water receded, it ran back into the sea, 

 leaving the mountains and valleys as they are today. Legends very 

 similar to this are widely si)read among other Eskimo on the coast of 

 Bering sea. 



TALES OF THE RAVEN (TU-LU-IvAU'-Gl!rK) 



THE CREATION 



(From Kigiktauik) 



The following was related by an old Unalit man living at Kigik- 

 tauik, who learned it, when he was a boy, from an old man. Fragments 

 and versions of the same tale were found among the Eskimo from the 

 Arctic coast to the banks of Kuskokwim river. The last i)ortion of 

 this series of legends, describing the recovery of the light by Kaven, 

 was repeated by Eskimo from Kotzebue sound, Korton bay, and Kus- 

 kokwim and Yukon rivers. 



My narrator said that the old man from whom he learned it came 

 from Bering strait, and that always, when he finished the tales on the 

 third evening, he would i^our a cup of water on the floor and say: 

 "Drink well, spirits of those of whom I have told." 



It was in the time when there were no people on the earth plain. 

 During four days the first man lay coiled up in the pod of a beach-pea 

 {L. maritimus). On the fifth day he stretched out his feet and burst 



