452 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [ETH. ANN. 18 
mainly of a supernatural character, 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 everywnere, 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 FROM 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 land 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 
wniak 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 spread among other Eskimo on the coast of 
Bering sea. 
TALES OF THE RAVEN (TU-LU-KAU’-GUK) 
THE CREATION 
(From Kigiktauilk) 
The following was related by an old Unalit man living at Kigik- 
tauik, who learned it, when he was a boy, from an oldman. Fragments 
and versions of the same tale were found among the Eskimo from the 
Arctic coast to the banks of Kuskokwim river. The last portion of 
this series of legends, describing the recovery of the light by Raven, 
was repeated by Eskimo from Kotzebue sound, Norton 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 pour 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 
