NELSON] THE DISCONTENTED GRASS PLANT 505 
them toashapeless mass. Then he caught up her basket and scattered 
about him in a circle all the finger bones it contained. Without a 
moment’s delay he took the rib and striking the bones as quickly as 
possible, repeated, ‘He is dead. He is dead. He is dead.” And his 
enemies fell as he moved until not one of them was left alive. Then 
he exercised his magic power and restored his brothers to life again, 
after which the villagers were called in. When the latter came and 
saw the kashim filled with dead men, they were full of fear and told the 
brothers that so many people had been killed by them that they feared 
to have them remain there any longer. 
The brothers consented to go, and preparing their umiak, they 
embarked with their sister. Just as they were leaving, the villagers 
told them to be sure to stop and build a large fire on the beach as soon 
as they came in sight of their native village. They traveled slowly 
back as they had come, and finally they were pleased to see their 
village just ahead of them. At this time the sister was walking along 
the shore with a dog, towing the boat by means of a long, walrus-hide 
line. When she saw the houses she remembered the directions of the 
villagers about building a fire when they came in sight of their home, 
and reminded her brothers of it, but Ak’-chik-chi/-gik was eager to 
complete the journey, and said impatiently, ‘‘ No, no, we will not trouble 
ourselves to do that; I wish to hurry home.” When the sister turned 
and started to go on she had scarcely taken a step forward when her 
feet felt so heavy that she could not raise them. She shrieked in fear, 
and said, “‘ My feet feel as if they were becoming stone.” Asshe spoke 
she changed into stone from head to foot. Then the same change 
occurred with the dog, and out along the line to the boat, changing it 
and its occupants into stone. There until this day, as a rocky ledge, is 
the boat where it stopped, the brothers facing their home, and a slender 
reef running to the land where the towline dropped, while on shore are 
the stony figures of the girl and the dog. 
THE DISCONTENTED GRASS PLANT 
(From Sledge island) 
Near the village of Pastolik, at the Yukon mouth, grows a tall, slen- 
der kind of grass. Every fall just before winter commences the women 
from the villages go out and gather great stores of it, pulling or cut- 
ting it off close to the ground, and making large bundles which they 
carry home on their backs. This grass is dried and used for braiding 
mats and baskets and for pads in the soles of skin boots. 
One of these Grass-stalks that had been almost pulled out of the 
ground by a woman, began to think that it had been very unfortunate 
in not being something else, so it looked about. Almost at first glance 
it spied a bunch of herbs growing near by, looking so quiet and undis- 
turbed that the Grass began to wish to be like them. As soon as this 
