NELSON] THE LAST OF THE THUNDERBIRDS 487 
been carried away by the birds, that only the most daring would go 
upon the great river. One summer day a brave young hunter started 
out to look at his fish traps on the river, but before he went he told his 
wife to be careful and not leave the house for fear of the birds. After 
her husband had gone the young wife saw that the water tub was 
empty, so she took a bucket and went to the river for water. As she 
turned to go back, a roaring noise like thunder filled the air, and one of 
the birds darted down and seized her in its talons. The villagers cried 
out in sorrow and despair when they saw her carried to the mountain top. 
When the hunter came home the people hastened to tell him of his 
wife’s death, but he said nothing. Going to his empty house he took 
down his bow and a quiver full of war arrows, and after examining 
them carefully he started out toward the eagle mountain. Vainly did 
his friends try to sto) him by telling him that the birds would surely 
destroy him. He would not listen to them, but hurried on. With firm 
steps at last he gained the rim of the great nest and looked in. The 
old birds were away, but the fierce young eagles met him with shrill 
cries and fiery, shining eves. The hunter’s heart was full of anger, and 
he quickly bent his bow, loosing the war arrows one after another until 
the last one of the hateful birds lay dead in the nest. 
With heart still burning for revenge, the hunter sheltered himselt 
by a great rock near the nest and waited for the parent birds. The 
old birds came. They saw their young lying dead and bloody in the 
nest, and uttered such cries of rage that the sound echoed from the 
farther side of the great river as they soared up into the air looking 
for the one who had killed their young. Very quickly they saw the 
brave hunter by the great stone, and the mother bird swooped down 
upon him, her wings sounding likea gale in the spruce forest. Quickly 
fitting an arrow to his string, as the eagle came down the hunter sent 
it deep into her tl roat. With a hoarse cry she turned and flew away 
to the north, far beyond the hills. 
Then the father bird circled overhead and came roaring down upon 
the hunter, who, at the right moment, crouched close to the ground 
behind the stone and the eagle’s sharp claws struck only the hard rock. 
As the bird arose, eager to swoop down again, the hunter sprang from 
his shelter and, with all his strength, drove two heavy war arrows 
deep under its great wing. Uttering a cry of rage and spreading 
abroad his wings, the thunderbird floated away like a cloud in the sky 
far into the northland and was never seen again. 
Having taken blood vengeance, the hunter’s heart felt lighter, and he 
went down into the nest where he found some fragments of his wife, 
which he carried to the water’s edge and, building a fire, made food 
offerings and libations of water pleasing to the shade. ! 
1 The truth of this tale is implicitly believed by the Eskimo of the lower Yukon. They point out 
the crater of an old volcano as the nest of the giant eagles, and say that the ribs of old canoes and 
curiously colored stones carried there by the birds may still be seen about the rim of the nest. This 
is one of the various legends of the giant eagles or thunderbirds that are familiar to the Eskimo of 
the Yukon and to those of Bering strait and Kotzebne sound. 
