90 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bill. 39 



There he found a chief named Aya'yi, who had married the daughter 

 of another chief by whom he had five chihh'en, four boys and a girl. 

 His wife was always making baskets, while Aya'yi himself went out 

 camping or to other villages. He had a long box that he took about 

 everywhere he went and always had hung overhead. In those days 

 each family tattooed the hands in some special way. One time, 

 when the chief's wife was sitting under this box a drop of blood fell 

 out of it upon her hand. Her husband was away, so she took the 

 box down and looked into it. It was full of severed hands, and by 

 the tattoo marks she knew that they belonged to her uncles. She 

 was very fond of her uncles and cried continually for them. 



After her husband had found her weeping several times he asked, 

 ''What are you always crying about?" and she said, "I am getting 

 tired of living here. I want to go back to my father and mother." 

 Then he said, "We will start back to your father's place to-morrow." 

 So next day he carried her and her children to a place not far from 

 her father's town and let them off there telling them to walk across. 

 Then he paddled home. 



Even before she started across, his wife noticed that there was a 

 heavy fog over her father's village, and when she got there she found 

 it vacant. There was nothing in it but dead bodies, and she went 

 from house to house weeping. Now after her children had thought 

 over this matter for a while, they skinned some of the bodies and 

 made a canoe out of them. It was the first of the skin canoes. It 

 was all on account of Aya'yi having murdered the people of that 

 to^\^l. They tied those places on the canoe that had to be made 

 tight, with human hair. Afterward they took it down to the water 

 and put it in, making a kind of singing noise as they went. Nowadays 

 these canoes are made of all kinds of skins, but the hair used is always 

 human hair and they sing in the same manner when they put them 

 into the water. They also made a drum out of human skin. 



After that all got into the canoe, and tliey started for their father's 

 town, singing as they went, while their mother steered. When they 

 came in front of it theipeople said, "There is a canoe coming. We can 

 hear singing in it, and in the song they are mentioning Aya'yi's 

 name." That was all they could hear. The whole towai came out 

 to look at the canoe. Then the eldest son arose in the canoe, men- 

 tioned his father's name, and said, "Give me my uncle's hands. If 

 you do not give them to me I will turn this town of yours upside 

 down." When he started this song again he began drumming and 

 the town began to sink. It shook as if there were an earthquake. 

 Now the people of the toAvu became frightened. They went to 

 Aya'yi and told him he would be killed if he did not let the hands 

 go. So he gave them up. When the children got these hands they 

 went away singmg the same song. At that the town again began to 



