Page:Tlingit Myths and Texts.djvu/75

sing for him. At the command of this spirit he had them make him a pair of snowshoes with which his spirit could take him around the fire, a shaman's mask, and bows and arrows.

Then they came with him to Fort-by-small-lake (Ak! u Nu), just west of Juneau,^[1] and built a big house for him with inside rooms (t!aq!), corner and middle posts, the last mentioned being carved to represent the Great Dipper (YAxte ). At that time the shaman fasted for four days and YAxte (the constellation) appeared to him. So from that house the people were called YAxte -hit-tan (Wain-House people).

The mountain-sheep tribe gave this man the name of SkowadA l, and he was also called CAxtca/tc (Long-toothed-humpback). When his spirit was about to work in him, two porcupine bladders were blown up and hung in the house, and, when the spirit arrived, all stood up in the customary way. Then he put on his mask and his snowshoes, which were thrown down on the floor for him, and carried his bow and arrows in his hand. Although he could not see through this mask, he climbed up on the walls of the inside rooms and ran around there backward. While there he shot at a bladder and the arrow passed straight through it.

When the shaman's spirits left him he said, " You people are going to see a wonderful gift. It is coming to such and such a place." In the morning they went out with a dog and armed with spears, and before they got far away the dog began to bark at a bear. Then the animal ran under a log, and all climbed on top of the log prepared to spear it. The shaman had said, " Something is going to happen to one of you," and sure enough the first man that speared this bear fell down before it and was caught and killed. Then the others quickly speared the bear through and through and killed it.

Meanwhile a spirit came to the shaman, who had remained at home, saying, "Your friend has been killed by a bear." They brought the bear and the dead man's body down at once and laid the body before him in the middle of the house. Then the shaman took some of the red paint with which they had brought the mountain sheep to life and put it on the body after which he began running around it. The third time he did this the dead man sat up. The shaman always had such strength.

Some time afterward he again began testing his spirits, because they were going south to war, and, when they left him, he told his people that they would destroy an entire town.

When he was walking around in the woods a raven fell in front of him, and on getting back to the house he said to his clothes man, "I am in luck." He told some one to return with him, and they found the raven still with life in it. Then he said to his friends, "I will set up