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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
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south of Alsek river, named TA nAku, has within it the spirits of a shaman called Qatsati . When a person wanted to kill some animal he placed things there, and now the TU qldentan make a door like it and use it as an emblem. Near by is a place where many wild onions grow. They were planted there by Raven.

There is a small river beyond Alsek to which the Alsek River peo ple once went for slaves. On their second expedition they killed a rich man, and those people, who were called Lluqloedi , built a fort. Among them was a very brave man, named -Lucwa k, who conceived the idea of making the gate very strong, and of having it fastened on the inside so that it could be opened only wide enough to admit a single person at a time. Now, when the Alsek River people came up again and tried to enter the fort through this door, they were clubbed to death one at a time. By morning there were piles of dead bodies around the door.

Then the survivors begged Lucwa k to let them have the bodies of those who had been wealthy, but he climbed up on the fort and said, "I will name my fort again. Know that it is Eagle fort. The eagle s claws are fastened in the dead bodies, and he can not let go of them. Poor as we are you always bring war against us, but now it is our turn. We have done this work, and I can not let one go." Toward evening, however, he had all of the bodies thrown outside, and climbed on the top beam of the fort where he walked about whistling with happiness. Meanwhile his opponents loaded their canoes with the dead and took them home. When they burned these, they took all the women they had enslaved in previous expeditions and threw them also into the flames. Then all the Eagle people assembled, returned to Eagle fort, burned it, and destroyed nearly everybody inside. Lucwa/k s body was not burned, because he was a brave man, and brave men do not want to sit close to the fire in the Ghosts home like weaklings.

Another time some Alsek people went visiting at a certain place and were invited to take sweat baths. But their hosts remained etitside, and, when the Alsek people came out, they killed them. One of their victims was a man named Slta/n, related to the Atha pascans. He protected himself at first by holding a board in front of his face. Then they said, "Take down the board, Sita n. What we are doing now is especially for you." In those times a person used to make some kind of noise when he went out expecting to be killed. So Sita n uttered this cry, ran out, and was killed.

After they had collected all of the dead bodies on a board a woman came crying out of the town. Then they said to her, " Are you really crying? If you are really crying for the dead bodies, lend us your husband s stone ax so that we can .cut firewood with which to burn them." In those times stone axes were valuable and, when one was