88 TRIBES TRIBUTARY TO THE HUPA. 
instantly crush to death a human being, or bear him away through the forest. 
If any one is ever so unfortunate as to behold this fearful hobgoblin he 
dies upon the spot. Mr. Hempfield related to me a story of a Chillula 
squaw whom he once found in the forest rigid in the last agonies of death, 
with blood oozing from the nostrils and ears, and her eyes fixed in a horrid 
ghastly stare; and who he had no doubt was frightened to death by believ- 
ing that she had beheld the devil. The Indians told him such was not an 
uncommon occurrence among the squaws. 
Under various forms this superstition is common to the coast tribes of 
this region. ‘The Chillula multiply terrors to themselves by assigning this 
one supreme devil legions of assistants, who assume divers forms, as those 
of bats, hawks, tarantulas, and especially that of the screech-owl; and who 
make it their business to torment people, bewitch them, poison them, and 
do other dreadful things. Let a Chillula woman hear the unearthly gibber- 
ing of a screech-owl in the dead and pulseless stillness of midnight, and 
she shudders with unspeakable horror. It is difficult for us to conceive of 
the speechless terrors which these poor wretches suffer from the screeching 
of owls, the shrieking of night-hawks, the rustling of the trees, or even the 
cold-legged and slimy crawling of insects, all of which are only channels 
of deadly poison wherewith the demons would smite them. 
THE. WHIL -KUT. 
This name is said to be derived from the Hupa verb hu-al'-kut, whal'-kut, 
“to give”, from which comes H6-al-kut-whuh, “the givers”, corrupted by 
the Americans into Whil-kut. Hence these people are “the tributaries”. 
They lived on Upper Redwood Creek, from the territory of the Chillula up 
to the source. They ranged across southward by the foot of the Bald Hills, 
which appear to have marked the boundary between them and the Chillula 
in that direction, and penetrated to Van Dusen’s Fork, opposite the Sai’-az 
and the Las’-sik, with whom they occasionally came in conflict. 
Very little can be affirmed of them, for the same reasons which obtain 
in regard to the Chillula. Mr. Hempfield states that they burned their 
dead, but this seems somewhat doubtful, seeing they were surrounded on 
