NELSON] THE ORIGIN OF WINDS 497 
sky people or shades were satisfied by the offerings and ceremonies of 
the earth people, they would cause au image of the kind of animal 
that was needed to grow to the proper size, endow it with life and send 
it down to the earth, where it caused its kind to become again very 
numerous. 
ORIGIN OF WINDS 
(From the lower Yukon) « 
In a village on the lower Yukon lived a man and his wife who had 
no children. After a long time the woman spoke to her husband one 
day and said, “I can not understand why we have no children; can 
you?” To which the husband replied that he could not. She then 
told her husband to go on the tundra to a solitary tree that grew there 
and bring back a part of its trunk and make a doll from it. The man 
went out of the house and saw a long track of bright light, like that 
made by the moon shining on the snow, leading off across the tundra 
in the direction he must take. Along this path of light he traveled 
far away until he saw before him a beautiful object shining in the 
bright light. Going up to it, he found that it was the tree for which 
he came in search. ‘The tree was small, so he took his hunting knife, 
cut off a part of its trunk and carried the fragment home. 
When he returned he sat down and carved from the wood an image 
of a small boy, for which his wife made a couple of suits of fur clothing 
in which she dressed it. Directed by his wife, the man then carved a 
set of toy dishes from the wood, but said he could see no use for all 
this trouble, as it would make them no better off than they were 
before. To this his wife replied that before they had nothing but 
themselves to talk about, but the doll would give them amusement 
and a subject of conversation. She then deposited the doll in the place 
of honor on the bench opposite the entrance, with the toy dishes full 
of food and water before it. 
When the couple had gone to bed that night and the room was very 
dark they heard several low whistling sounds. The woman shook her 
husband, saying, “‘Do you hear that? It was the doll;” to which he 
agreed. They got up at once, and, making a light, saw that the doll 
had eaten the food and drank the water, and they could see its eyes 
move. The woman caught it up with delight and fondled and played 
with it for along time. When she became tired it was put back on 
the bench and they went to bed again. 
In the morning, when the couple got up, they found the doll was 
gone. They looked for it about the house, but could find no trace of 
it, and, going outside, found its tracks leading away from the door. 
These tracks passed from the door along the bank of a small creek 
until a little outside the village, where they ended, as the doll had 
walked from this place on the path of light upon which the man had 
gone to find the tree. 
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