480 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT (ETH. ANN. 18 
THE CIRCLING OF CRANES 
(From St Michael and other places on Norton sound) 
One autumn day, very long ago, the cranes were preparing to go 
southward. As they were gathered in a great flock they saw a beau- 
tiful young woman standing alone near the village. Admiring her 
greatly, the cranes gathered about, and lifting her on their widespread 
wings, bore her far up in the air and away. While the cranes were 
taking her up they circled below her so closely that she could not fall, 
and their loud, hoarse cries drowned her calls for help, so she was 
carried away and never seen again. Ever since that time the cranes 
always circle about in autumn, uttering their loud cries while preparing 
to fly southward, as they did at that time. 
THE DWARF PEOPLE 
(From St Michael and Pikmiktalik) 
Very long ago, before we knew of the white men, there was a large 
village at Pikmiktalik. One winter day the people living there were 
very much surprised to see a little man and a little woman with a child 
coming down the river on the ice. The man was so small that he wore 
a coat made from a single white fox skin. The woman’s coat was made 
from the skins of two white hares, and two muskrat skins clothed the 
child. 
The old people were about two cubits high and the boy not over the 
length of one’s forearm. Though he was so small, the man was dragging 
a sled much larger than those used by the villagers, and he had on it a 
heavy load of various articles. When they came to the village he easily 
drew his sled up the steep bank, and taking it by the rear end raised 
it on the sled frame, a feat that would have required the united 
strength of several villagers. 
Then the couple entered one of the houses and were made welcome. 
This small family remained in the village for some time, the man taking 
his place in the kashim with the other men. He was very fond of his 
little son, but one day as the latter was playing outside the house 
he was bitten so badly by a savage dog that hedied. The father in his 
anger caught the dog up by the tail and struck it so hard against a 
post that the dog fell into halves. Then the father in great sorrow 
made a handsome grave box for his son, in which he placed the child 
with his toys, after which he returned into his house and for four 
days did no work. At the end of that time he took his sled and with 
his wife returned up the river on their old trail, while the villagers sor- 
rowfully watched them go, for they had come to like the pair very 
much, 
Before this time the villagers had always made a bed for their sleds 
