442: THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [BTH. ANN. 18 
they are nade tonurse. One was described to me as having been born 
at Pikmiktalik many years ago; it devoured its mother’s breast, and 
when the people ran into the house in response to her cries the child 
escaped through the smoke hole in the roof. When they followed it 
outside, it was seen sitting between the horns of a reindeer, riding 
toward the mountains, where it disappeared. 
Other curious beings are believed by the people of the lower Yukon 
to exist in the moon, but are said sometimes to be found on the earth. 
These are man-like creatures without head or neck, but having a broad 
mouth, armed with sharp teeth, across the chest. A wooden image of 
one of these was obtained by me, but it has since been lost. 
The d-mi'-kuk is said to be a large, slimy, leathery-skin sea animal 
with four long arms; it is very fierce and seizes a hunter in his kaiak 
at sea, dragging both under the water. When it pursues a man it is 
useless for him to try to escape, for if he gets upon the ice the beast 
will swim below and burst up under his feet; should he reach the 
shore the creature will swim through the earth in pursuit as easily as 
through the water. 
Near St Michael the people believe that these creatures swim from 
the sea up through the land to some land-locked lakes in the craters of 
extinct volcanoes and to similar inland places. Several dry lake-beds 
were Shown to me in that vicinity as having been drained by these ani- 
mals when they swam out to the sea, leaving a channel made by their 
passage through the earth. It is said that if the d-mi/-kuk returns the 
water follows from the sea and again fills the lake. The idea of this 
creature may have had its origin in the octopus. 
Wi!-li-ghé-yik is the sea shrew-mouse—a small animal, exactly like 
the common shrew-mouse in size and appearance, but it possesses cer- 
tain supernatural powers. It lives on the ice at sea, and the moment it 
observes a man it darts at him with incredible swiftness, piercing the 
toe of his boot and erawling all over his body in a moment. If he 
remains perfectly quiet it disappears by the hole through which it 
entered without doing him any injury and, after this, he becomes a 
very successful hunter. If a man stir ever so little, however, while the 
animal is on him, it instantly burrows into his flesh, going straight to . 
the heart and killing him. Hunters are very much afraid of this ani- 
mal, and if they chance to come across a shrew-mouse on the ice at sea 
they stand motionless until the creature goes away. In one case, of 
which I chanced to hear‘at St Michael, a hunter who was out on the 
sea ice in that vicinity during winter stood in one spot for hours, while 
a shrew-mouse remained near him, and the villagers all agreed that he 
had a narrow escape. 
Az!-i-wi-gim ki-mukh'-ti, the walrus dog. This animal is believed to 
be found in company with large herds of walrus. and is very fierce 
toward men. It is a long, slender animal, covered with black scales 
which are tough but may be pierced by a good spear. It has a head, 
