Clara Kern Bayliss

“ Early the next morning the geese were astir, but Raven slept so heavily that the father goose had to shake him and say, "Wake up! Wake up! We must make haste for it will snow here soon; we must not linger."
As soon as Raven was fully awake he pretended to be eager to get away, and, as on the day before, he led all the others with his wide-spread wings, and was greatly admired by the others, especially by his young wife. ”

“ In a village on the lower Yukon lived a man and his wife who had no children. One day the woman said to her husband, "Far out on the tundra there grows a solitary tree. Go to that and bring back a piece of the trunk, and make a doll from it. Then it will seem that we have a child."
The man went out of the house and saw a long track of bright light like that made by the moon shining on snow, leading off across the tundra in the direction he had been told to take. It was the Milky Way. Along this path he traveled far away until he saw before him a beautiful object shining in the bright light. ”

“ Then he sat down at the rear of his hut with his back to the lamps and had the light extinguished.
He called for his mascot, and the bear at once appeared and he mounted its back. Up it carried him, above the village, above the mountains, up and up till they reached the Moon. To his surprise, the Moon was a house which was covered with beautiful white deerskins. Now white deer are strange and sacred and are hatched from long white eggs buried deep in the soil. There is mystery and magic in white deer, white buffalo, and in all albino animals. ”

“ Around the edge of it was a rocky rim from which they could see far across the broad river, or could look down upon the village at the base of the mountain on the water's edge.
From their perch on this rocky wall these great birds would soar away, looking like a cloud in the sky, to seize a reindeer from a passing herd and bring it to their young. Or, again, they would circle out with a noise like thunder from their shaking wings, and drop down upon a fisherman in his kayak on the river, carrying man and boat [Pg 100] to the top of the mountain. ”

“ The skin was bulging inward as if some strong force on the other side were pushing it.
"It is very quiet here. I think a little wind would make it livelier," said the Doll, drawing his knife and cutting the cover loose on one side of the hole. At once a strong wind blew through, every now and then bringing with it a live reindeer. Looking through the hole, Doll saw beyond the wall another world like the earth. He drew the cover over the hole again.
"Do not blow too hard," he said to the wind. "Sometimes blow hard, sometimes light, and sometimes do not blow at all." ”

“ With slow, noiseless wing flaps the owl set off toward the north, pausing every now and then to catch and eat a mouse. After a long flight Sledge Island came in view and the owl thought it would go there. When far out at sea its untried wings became so tired that only with the greatest difficulty did it manage to reach the shore, where it perched upon a piece of driftwood that stood up in the sand. ”

“ Very soon a family of white-front geese came along, consisting of the parents with four sons and a sister. Raven cried out, "Who wishes me for a husband? I am a fine hunter and am young and handsome." ”

“ XV THE FIRST WOMAN
"You will be very lonely by yourself," said Raven to Man one day. "I will make you a companion."
He went to a spot some distance from where he had made the animals, and, looking now and then at Man as an artist looks at his model, he made an image very much like Man. He took from the creek some fine water grass and fastened it on the back of the head for hair. After the image had dried in his hands, he waved his wings over it as he had done with all the live things, and it came to life and stood beside Man, a beautiful young woman. ”

“ Sometimes they use the skull of a walrus for the ball. The swaying movement of the lights shows that the players are struggling with each other and tugging back and forth. If the Aurora fades away and you utter a low whistle, the boys will come back as if answering to applause. ”

“ In the days when the earth was a child, there was light from the sun and moon as there is now. Then the sun and moon were taken away and the people were left for a long time with no light but the shining of the stars. The shamans, or priests, made their strongest charms to no purpose, for the darkness of night continued.
In a village of the lower Yukon there lived an orphan boy who always sat upon the bench with [Pg 91] the humble people, over the entrance way of the kashim or assembly house. ”

“ The little Eskimo away up in the northern part of British America has a pretty hard time of it, as you may know when you think how cold it is there.
He is born in a snow hut, and when he is but a few hours old he is carried on his mother's back out upon the ice, and around and around in circles and after a while through deep snow back to the hut. If that does not kill him, the names he gets are enough to do it; for he is given the names of all the people who have died in the village since the last baby was born. He sometimes has a string of names long enough to weigh any baby down. ”

“ As he looked around upon them he recognized the Headman of the sky-dwarfs.
[Pg 81]
"Why, what are you doing down here?" he asked.
"I and some of my people thought we would like a change, and so we came down to live on earth for a while," replied the dwarf.
"What has become of Man?"
"Who is Man? I never heard of him," said Raven boy.
"He was the first person ever seen on earth. He was our Headman until he went away with Raven," said the people.
"I will go into the skyland and find him," said Raven boy. He tried to fly, but could get up only a little way. ”

“ The Milky Way is the snow that fell from the Raven's snowshoes when he walked across the sky, during one of his journeys while he was creating the inhabitants of earth.
From Puget Sound at the northern border of the United States all along the coast to Bering Strait, both Indians and Eskimo believe that the eagle, the raven, the goose, and perhaps any bird, can push up its beak making it the visor of a cap and thus become a man, and that by pulling it down he can become a bird again. ”

“ XXIV THE RED BEAR
On the tundra south of the mouth of the Yukon River an orphan boy once lived with his aunt. They were all alone with no house within sight; but the boy had heard that there were people living farther up the river. One summer day he got into his kayak and rowed up the river hoping to find other human beings. He traveled on until he came to a large village where he saw many people moving about. There he landed and began calling to the people expecting to make friends with them. ”

“ When the Kalopaling sits sleeping, the hunter comes up very cautiously and throws a walrus harpoon into him. Then he shuts his eyes tight until the Kalopaling is dead, otherwise the hunter's boat would be capsized and he be drowned. They dare not eat the flesh of the creatures, for it is poisonous; but the dogs eat it.
One time an old woman and her grandson were living alone in a small hut. They had no men to hunt for them and they were very poor. Once in a while, but not often, some of the Inuit took pity on them and brought them seal's meat, and blubber for their lamp. ”

“ There the man would be eaten by the young thunderbirds, and the kayak would lie bleaching among the bones and other refuse scattered along the border of the nest. Every fall the young birds would fly away to the northland, while the old ones would remain by the mountain.
After many fishermen had been carried away by the birds, there came a time when only the most daring would venture upon the river. One summer day a brave young hunter was starting out to look at his fish traps and he said to his wife, "Don't go outside the house while I am away, for fear of the birds." ”

“ The animal had small eyes, and was of darkish color, almost black.
"These animals can sink right into the ground and disappear," said Raven. "When the people want to kill one of them, they have to put a log under it so it cannot sink. It takes many people to kill one, for when the animal falls on the lower log, other logs must be placed above it and held down, while two men take large clubs and beat it between the eyes till it is dead."
Next they came to a round hole in the sky with a ring of short grass growing around the border and glowing like fire. ”

“ Very long ago there were many men living in the northland, but there was no woman among them. Far away in the southland a single woman was known to live. At last the shrewdest young man of the northland started and traveled southward till he came to the woman's house, where he stopped and became her husband.
He was very proud of himself for getting ahead of the other young men in the north. One day he sat in the house thinking of his former home, and he said, "Ah, I have a wife, while even the son of the Headman has none." ”

“ That is where she lives now, and she has taken another husband."
"Oh, I can never reach her," said Itajung in despair. "I have no boat and do not know how to reach the island."
"I will help you," said Small Salmon kindly. "Come down to the beach with me. Here is the backbone of a salmon. Now shut your eyes. The backbone will turn into a kayak and carry you safely to the island. But mind you keep your eyes shut. If you open them the kayak will upset." ”

“ He looked about and thought there was nothing on the land as lively as the fish in the water, so he made the shrew-mice, for he said, "They will skip about and enliven the ground and prevent it from looking dead and barren, even if they are not good for food." ”

“ The Inuit say that in olden times there were a great many of these creatures, and they often sat in a row along the ice floes, like a flock of penguins. Their numbers have become less and less, till now there are but a few left.
Anyone standing on shore may see them swimming under water very rapidly, and occasionally they rise to the surface as if to get air. They make a great noise by splashing with their feet [Pg 15] and arms as they swim. In summer they like to come out and bask on the rocks, but in winter they sit along the edge of the ice or else stay under water. ”

“ The land is ice-bound during so much of the year that the inhabitants cannot depend upon getting a living by the cultivation of the soil, and have to subsist almost entirely upon meat which they get from reindeer, seal, bear, whale, and walrus. ”

“ The names of the houses were Quern and Exaluq.
One summer it happened that the men from Quern had killed many deer, while those from Exaluq had caught but a few. The latter said to each other, "They are not fair; they shoot before we have a chance;" and they became very angry.
"Let us kill them," said one.
"Yes, let us kill them, but let us wait till the end of the season, and then we can take all the game they have in their storehouse," said the others. For the game was packed in snow and ice and was taken home on dog sledges when the hunting was over. ”

“ They ate walrus, deer, and seal, and when they went sealing in the winter they fastened the lower edge of their coat to the snow by means of pegs. Under the coat they carried a small lamp, over which to melt snow when they were thirsty, and over which to roast some of the seal meat. They sat around a hole in the ice and watched for their prey, and when a seal blew in the hole they whispered, "I shall stab it." Sometimes in their eagerness they forgot the lamp and upset it as they threw the harpoon, and thus got burned. ”