216 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



would throw whales, walruses, and other creaturos on th(> shoro for 

 them to eat. He had a .stentorian voice and the people would feel 

 afraid when he talked. When he would tnvake from his sleep he 

 would talk a little, and all people could hear him and know that he was 

 awake. When Mj^erapuk would see a man paddlino- a kyak he would 

 often g-ive him food. 



FRIENDS OF MYERAPUK. 



Yupag-h'ag-hat, who were dwarfs '"half arm"* high, who had also 

 very hig voices, were very strong, could lift a walrus, one little man 

 taking the tail end and one other dwarf taking the head. They could 

 lift a big whale like the present species between two of theui; but a 

 A'ery small whale aliout -i feet long was so ver}^ heavy that they could 

 not lift it and had to fasten ropes about it and very slowly pull it to 

 shore. The present Massinga men occasionally find one of these small 

 whales (pro})ably a porpoise) and can lift it between two of them, but 

 can not. of course, lift a big whale. 



Once when the little men were trying to lift one of the small heavy 

 whales, god said. "'Do not try to lift it; it is too heavy; fasten a rope 

 to it and so pull it to the shore." The little men had small houses. The 

 dwarfs lived south. They may have been Japanese. Aleuts, or Indians. 



Two dwarfs from the south, not of the same village as the others, 

 were Ijlown by a gale to the Massinga village. The Massinga men 

 said (juietly to one another that they would kill them, thinking that it 

 would be eas}' and that they were not overheard. The Massinga peo- 

 ple crowded into the house which sheltered the dwarfs, and attacked 

 them, but the latter were strong like gods and broke in the chest bones 

 of their assailants and crushed their skulls. Then the dwarfs escaped, 

 going south on pieces of ice. 



FIRST PEOPLE. 



The chief was bad. If he caught a whae he would allow the meat 

 or flukes to rot in the blul)ber room and give rotten food to the people, 

 keeping the good food for himself and a few friends. He helped only 

 a few people. God did not like this. 



His son tried in the winter to strike with a harpoon a big seal which 

 was on the ice near the shore, but missed his aim. The seal would go 

 down and reappear further oflf. He tried desperatel}^ to strike big 

 seals, but always failed. Then the floe ice went off, 3'oung ice formed, 

 and big seals disappeared. The j'oung man got on a cake of young 

 ice and the waves tossed him to and fro and made him very sick, so 

 that he took out his knife and was about to kill himself w'hen he heard 

 a voice saying: "Where are you going?" "I am going down," he 

 said. God bade him go to his house, saving that his place was a good 

 place. The young man could not see any person and marveled whence 



