SWANTON] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 221 



other disgraceful thing." He did not feel like killing himself, so he 

 thought that he would go olT into the forest. 



While this man was traveling along in the woods the thought 

 occurred to him to go to the bears and let the bears kill him. The 

 village was at the mouth of a large salmon creek, so he went over to 

 that early in the morning imtil he foimd a bear trail and lay down 

 across the end of it. lie thought that when the bears came out along 

 this trail they would find and kill him. 



By and by, as he lay there, he heard the bushes breaking and saw 

 a large number of grizzly bears coming along. The largest bear led, 

 and the tips of his hairs were white. Then the man became fright- 

 ened. He did not want to die a hard death and imagined himself 

 being torn to pieces among the bears. So, when the leading bear 

 came up to him, he said to it, "I have come to invite you to a feast." 

 At that the bear's fur stood straight up, and the man thought that 

 it was all over with him, but he spoke again saying, "I have come to 

 invite you to a feast, but, if you are going to kill me, I am willing to 

 die. I am alone. I have lost all of my property, my children, and 

 my wife." 



As soon as he had said this the leading bear turned about and 

 whined to the bears that were following. Then he started back and 

 the rest followed him. Afterward the man got up and walked 

 toward his village very fast. He imagined that the biggest bear had 

 told his people to go back because they were invited to a feast. 



When he got home he began to clean up. The old sand around 

 the fireplace he took away and replaced with clean sand. Then he 

 went for a load of wood. When he told the other people in that vil- 

 lage, however, they were all very much frightened, and said to him, 

 "What made you do such a tlimg?" After that the man took off his 

 shirt, and painted himself up, puttmg stripes of red across his upper 

 arm muscles, a stripe over his heart, and another across the upper 

 part of his chest. 



Very early in the morning, after he had thus prepared, he stood 

 outside of the door looking for them. Finally he saw them at the 

 mouth of the creek, coming along with the same big bear in front. 

 When the other village people saw them, however, they were so terri- 

 fied that they shut themselves in their houses, but he stood still to 

 receive them. Then he brought them into the house and gave them 

 seats, placing the chief in the middle at the rear of the house and the 

 rest arouad him. First he served them large trays of cranberries 

 preserved in grease. The large bear seemed to say something to his 

 companions, and as soon as he began to eat the rest started. They 

 watched him and did whatever he did. The host followed that up with 

 other kinds of food, and, after they were through, the large bear 

 seemed to talk to him for a verv Ions: time. The man thought that 



