Page:Tlingit Myths and Texts.djvu/50

The people he restored to life after they had been dead for very many years had very deep set eyes and did not get well at once.

After that he went to a town where the people were all well and killed some of them with his blanket. Then he went to the other people in that place and said, "How are your friends? Are they dead?" "Yes." "Well I know a way of making them well." He went up to them again with his blanket and brought them back to life. They were perfectly well.

This man went around everywhere doing the same thing and became very famous. Whenever one was sick in any place they came after him and offered him a certain amount for his services, so that he became the richest man of his time.

There were people living in a certain town on the mainland. You know that in olden times the people did not use guns. They hunted with bows and arrows, and horn spears, and it was very hard work to use them. So, when they were going hunting, they had to fast and wash their heads in urine. That is why in all of these stories which I am telling you just as they were told in the olden times food was very scarce and hard to get. Success depended on what things were used and how people prepared themselves.

One day a certain man at this place began preparing himself by washing his head in urine, and the following morning he dressed and started up the valley carrying his horn spear. At the head of this valley he saw a flock of mountain sheep, but he could not get at them, so he camped over night. In the morning he saw that a wolverine (nusk) was among these sheep killing them off.

Next evening he reached the top of the mountain and started into the brush to camp, but came to a house with the door wide open for him. On the inside hung pieces of fat from all kinds of animals the wolverine had killed. He wanted to go in very much, but instead he sat down in the brush near by and waited.

Presently a man came along carrying a pack. This was Wolverine- man (Nu sgu-qa). He said, "My trader, you are here. Why don t you step inside?" Then they entered, and Wolverine-man took off his clothes and began wringing them out just like a human being. Then he heated some hot rocks, took his half basket, chopped up the bones of a ground hog and put these into it along with the cooking stones. Then he said to the man, " Give me that kAndALa x. Give me that klAxA kaok." These were his own words which he was teaching to this man, and they mean, Give me my dish. Give me my little spoon." So, when one went up to the top of this mountain in olden times he called his dishes and spoons by those names.