158 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 39 



After it was cooked, he told them to put it on sticks high up in the 

 house and dry it in the smoke. When it was dried, he asked them to 

 take it down and put it in oil for the winter. One family would have 

 fi'om four to six boxes of such dried meat. Before this man came they 

 did not know how to do that. They ate everything as soon as it was 

 procured, and it was very hard for them to get enough. Kake'q!"te 

 also saw the women going after berries and eating them at once. If 

 they kept any very long they would spoil on their hands. Then he 

 said, "Don't you know how to preserve berries for winter?" "No," 

 they replied. So he showed them how to dry these and how to cook 

 the different kinds of berries and preserve them in grease. 



Before his time the Athapascans did not know how to put up their 

 winter food. They would stay on the spot where they had killed a 

 moose until it was eaten up. That was why they were always in 

 want. The Athapascans were very wild and did not seem to have 

 any sense. Before Kake'q!"te came among them these people were 

 always hunting, but now they stayed in one place and had an easy 

 time. A person went hunting only for amusement in case he got tired 

 of staying in iloors. Before this, too, they did not have a taste of 

 berries after the berry season. They ate them on the bushes like 

 the birds. Now, however, they have plenty all the year round. 

 They used to live in winter on dried salmon and what meat they 

 could get. If they could get nothing while himting, many died of 

 starvation. 



^Hien spring came on, Kake/(|!"te also showed them a certain tree 

 and said, "Don't you know how to take off the ])ark of this tree and 

 use it?" They replied that they never knew it coul<l l)e eaten. So he 

 took a limb from a hemlock, sharpened it, and showed them how to 

 take off the hemlock bark. After that he took big nuissel shells 

 (yls!) from his sack and said, "Do you see these. This is the way 

 to take it off." After he had obtained (piite a pile of bark, he showed 

 them how to eat it, and they thought that it was very nice, because it 

 was so sweet. Then he sharpened some large bear bones on a rough 

 rock, gave one to each woman and said, "Use it as I have used the 

 shell." Each woman's husband or son strij)pe(l the bark off of the 

 tree, and the women sat down with their daughters to help them and 

 separated the good part. He was teaching the people there to live 

 as do those down on the ocean. 



Next Kake'q!"te collected a lot of skunk cabbage, dug a hole in the 

 ground, and lined it with flints, while all stood about watching him. 

 Then he made a fire on top of these rocks to heat them, and after- 

 wards threw a little water upon them, filling up the remamder of the 

 pit with successive layers of skunk cabbage and hemlock bark. Over 

 all he spread earth and made a fire above. He left just so much fire 



