426 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY Lbull. 39 



26. Story of the Wain-house People 



A youth who had been trained to hunt mountain sheep was carried 

 away by them, and liberated only after his people had made war on 

 the mountain sheep. Then he taught the people mountain-sheep 

 tabus, and he became a great shaman. * Afterward his people went to 

 Little-lake-fort and built a big house for him. When the shaman 

 fasted for this, he saw the Wain, so they carved the posts to represent 

 the Wain and named it Wain House. Once, after he had had a posses- 

 sion, he sent his friends out for a grizzly bear. They destroyed it, 

 but it killed the first man who attacked it, and the shaman restored 

 him to life. Later he performed about a dead rav^en to make his 

 people successful in war, and, when they went out, tlie}^ destroyed 

 their enemies' fort completely. 



One time some women went to a reef near this town, lost their 

 canoe, and were drowned in the rising tide. 



Another time a wealthy man from Yakutat visited Auk. While he 

 was there the son of the town chief threw the stern piece of his canoe, 

 which was covered with abalone shell, into the fire. A property con- 

 test followed between the two chiefs in which the man from Yakutat 

 was worsted. 



In the same fort a woman gave birth to the greatest liar among 

 those people. When his mother died he started for Ghilkat to give 

 the people a death feast, and on his return related the following 

 adventures. He said that on his way Indian rice hailed down into 

 the canoe, and he obtained sirup to put on it from a waterfall of 

 sirup. They got up to Klukwan by blowing on the sail, and when he 

 began crying he put a piece of bark in front of his face and the tears 

 ran down on it in streams. 



27. The Alsek River People 



Two shamans at Alsek river began singing, the one to bring up 

 eulachon, the other to bring bears and other forest animals. The first 

 succeeded in starting a run of fish by going down under the river in a 

 little canoe. After that the land otters tried to carry off two women 

 who were menstruant, but, with the assistance of the shaman, the 

 people finally made them desist. Some people in a neighboring town 

 who heard of it spoke contemptuously of the land otters, and their 

 whole town with the exception of two men was destroyed by a flood 

 of water from the lake above them. After this one of the shamans 

 set out for another place. On the way he hooked an enormous devil- 

 fish which swept all the forest trees in his vicinity into the ocean. 

 When he performed blindfolded at that town, the people ran out their 

 feet to trip him up, but he jumped over them. He also stabbed a man 

 and restored him to life. Presently he predicted an eclipse, and when 



