swANTON] TLTNGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 69 



broken, people beat a drum as though somebody had died. It 

 means that this woman was very sorry indeed for the dead people 

 when she lent her stone ax for this purpose. 



When the Alsek River people heard of this slaughter they were 

 very sad, but first they started their respective shamans fighting. 

 It was really the shamans' spirits that fought. The shaman would 

 stand in one place and say, "Now we are going to fight." He would 

 also perform with knives just as if he were fighting something, 

 though at that time the shamens were very far apart. Their spirits, 

 however, could see each other plainly. They vv^ould also give the 

 names of those warriors who were to be killed. 



On the next expedition from Alsek against the people who had 

 killed so man}" of their friends, they killed the same number on the 

 other side. That was the way people did in olden times. They 

 kept on fighting until l)()th sides were even. Therefore they stopped 

 at this point. 



28. THE YOITTHFITL WARRIOR 



A man belonging to the Wolf clan went hunting with his Ijrothers- 

 in-law. He wore a black bear-skin coat. They went up a certain 

 creek after grizzly bears, but one time at camp he climbed a tree with 

 his bear skin on and was filled with arrows by his companions who 

 mistook him for an animal. Then he said to them, "I will not say 

 that you filled me with arrows. I will say that I fell from the tree." 

 So, when they got him home, he said, ''I fell from a tree." After he 

 was dead, however, and his body burned, they found mussel-shell 

 arrow points lying among his bones. 



After this his friends told liis sister's son to go up to the place where 

 he had been killed. The name of this place is Creek-with-a-cliff-at- 

 its-mouth (WAtlage'L), and it is near Port Frederick. When the 

 hunters came into camp with a bear the boy pretended to be asleej), 

 but really he was looking through a hole in his blanket. Wliile they 

 were cooking the bear some of them suggested that they say to this 

 boy, "The bear's soup is very sweet," but others did not wish to. 

 They tried to get the boy to eat some of it, but he would not. Then 

 they started home with him. 



After he had reached home he said to Ins mother, ' 'Let us go down 

 to the beach. I want you to look over my hair for lice." But, when 

 she got down there with him, he said, ' 'Mother, I want you to tell me 

 truly what my fathers meant. They said, 'Wake this young fellow up 

 and let him drink some of this bear's soup,'" Then his mother 

 became frightened and said to him, ' 'Your uncle went to that creek. 

 They shot him full of arrows there." When he found that out he 

 chased his mother awa}^. 



