Alaskan and Mackenzie Delta Traditions 65 a 



keeping this time to the middle of the stream, and passed the first village unseen. 

 She saw the inhabitants there lead a man up to a great fire, and, gathering 

 round him, slay him with a horn and dismember him, broiling the pieces over 

 the fire and licking up the blood; but she herself passed unseen and reached the 

 second village. There she landed near a small hill in which there was a cave. 

 Placing the kayak with all that it contained within the cave, she approached 

 a house which stood not far away. Lying on the roof of the passage was a large 

 dog which pricked up its ears at her approach. She was very frightened. "This 

 must be my grandmother's dog," she thought, and ran hurriedly into the house. 

 Finding a very old woman inside, she exclaimed, "Oh, my grandmother." The 

 old woman answered, "Why, my granddaughter, where have you come from?" 

 •"From far up the river," she replied. "My husband killed my father and all 

 my brothers;" and forthwith she related all that had happened to her. 



Some of the people in the village had noticed her arrival and a woman came 

 into the house with her sons. The old grandmother was lying on the sleeping 

 platform. She said to her grandchild, the young widow: "There is someone 

 coming. You had better hide behind my back." So the young woman climbed 

 up and concealed herself. The visitor entered the house and said to the old 

 woman: "Where is your daughter? I want her to marry one of my sons." 

 But the old woman answered "I have no daughter, only a grandson whom you 

 know already." Thus she got rid of her visitor. As soon as she had gone the old 

 woman turned to the young widow and said, "That woman wanted to take 

 you away and marry you to one of her sons." But her granddaughter replied, 

 "I don't want to marry anyone but this grandson of yours." 



So the young widow married the old woman's grandson. She told her 

 husband about the kayak and the other things that she had hidden in the cave, 

 and they set out with the dog to bring them in. The man placed the kayak and 

 all that it contained in one of the dog's ears, while he himself and his wife 

 climbed into the other. Away galloped the dog, and very soon they were home 

 again. Then the dog said to them: "Tomorrow we shall go and look for cari- 

 bou." So on the morrow the man placed his bow and arrows in one ear, and 

 climbed with his wife into the other. Soon they sighted two caribou. The dog 

 lay down while the man jumped out and shot them both with his bow and 

 arrows. Then the dog sprang up and ran to where the dead animals were lying. 

 The man put the two caribou and his bow and arrows inside the one ear, climbed 

 into the other again, and all returned home. Not long afterwards he sought 

 out a stick, and he and his wife set it up in the ground on top of the hill. They 

 strung a Uttle blubber and a deerskin and some beads to the top of the stick. 

 Next morning when they went to look at it, the stick was still there, but every- 

 thing they had hung upon it had disappeared — their grandfather had taken 

 them away. After that the two Hved for many years; they became rich and 

 had many children. 



35. The Stone Baby 



(Told by Pautcana, a Barrow Eskimo) 



There once lived three sisters. One married an Eskimo from another 

 district and went away to her husband's home. The other two married amongst 

 their own people. After a time one of the women bore a child, but the other 

 was barren. They hved together in the same house, and the young mother 

 continually reproached her sister for her barrenness. The childless woman 

 became in consequence very despondent, and said to herself, "Would that I 

 might have a child, whatever it were like." Some time afterwards she did 

 conceive and bear a child. She said to her sister, "I have a child now;" but 

 neither she herself nor anyone else had ever seen it, for as soon as it was born 

 she had wrapped it up in a sealskin without looking at it and had never un- 

 wrapped it afterwards. In moving about she carried it on her back beneath 

 her hood. One day she went outside to cook, and laid the baby, still wrapped in 



