NELSON] TALE OF AK’-CHIK-CHU’-GOUK 503 
so emaciated that the bones were almost through the skin. Leaving her 
there, he closed the door and soon brought the next elder brother to the 
girl; after which both went back and, awakening the others, told them 
what they had seen. 
After this all the brothers kept awake and watchful until morning. 
As dawn appeared the bad shaman came to the window in the roof and 
cried out, “Now it is time to kill those strangers.” Going into the 
kashim, he sent a man for a large, sharp-edge piece of whalebone, while 
he had another take away loose planks from the middle of the floor, 
which left a square open pit several feet deep, and about the edge of 
this the shaman bound upright the piece of whalebone with the sharp 
edge. The brothers were then challenged to wrestle with him. 
Ak’/-chik-ehit’- gtk whispered that they should wrestle with him without 
fear, as he had killed and restored them to life again before leaving 
home, so that men could not harm them. 
One of the brothers stepped forward, and after a short struggle the 
shaman stooped quickly, caught the young man by the ankles, and 
raising him from the floor with a great swing, brought him down so 
that his neck was cut off across the edge of the whalebone. Casting 
the body to one side, the shaman repeated the challenge and killed the 
second brother in the same way. Again the shaman made his scorn- 
ful challenge, but scarcely had he finished speaking when Ak’-chik- 
cehiv-gik wiped the fish roe from his face and hands, and with a wrench 
tore the bird-skin coat from his body and sprang up as a powerful 
young man with anger shining in his eyes. 
When the shaman saw this sudden change he started back, with his 
heart growing weak within him; he could not escape, however, and 
very soon Ak/-chik-chtl/-giik caught him in his arms, pressed in his 
sides until the blood gushed from his mouth, and, stooping, caught 
him by the ankles and whirled him over his head and across the whale- 
bone, cutting his neck apart; then he brought the body down again 
and it fellin two. Throwing aside the fragment in his hand, he turned 
to the frightened villagers and said, “Is there any relative, brother, 
father, or son of this, miserable shaman who thinks I have done wrong? 
If there is, let him come forward and take revenge.” 
The villagers eagerly expressed their joy at the shaman’s death, as 
they had been in constant fear of him, and he had killed every stranger 
who came to their village. Then Ak’-chik-chi’-gtik sent everyone out 
of the kashim, and soon, by help of his magic, restored his two brothers 
to life; after this they went out and released their sister, and clothed 
ing herin finenew garments. She told them of her long drifting on the 
ice with her brother and of their landing near Un-a/-shik,' the village 
at which they then were; also how the shaman had killed her brother 
and kept her a prisoner. 
The brothers were now treated so kindly by the people in the village 
!Un-a/-shnk, a village near St Lawrence bay, on the Siberian shore of Bering strait. 
