Page:Tlingit Myths and Texts.djvu/84
When he was a few years older he began bathing for strength in winter-time. After people had whipped each other they would go to the shaman to see what he predicted. This had been going on for some time when four persons went out of the town to carve things for the shaman. They were gone so long that late in the winter it was thought they had been lost, and the shaman was consulted. They laid him in the middle of the house and tested his spirits in every way to find out what the matter was. Finally, the shaman got his spirits to take a certain man up to the sky to see if he could discover the missing men. The man he chose knew that the young man was preparing to kill some one, so, when he awoke, he said to him, Tell the shaman that they are there (i. e., in the heaven to which those go who are killed)." And the youth said to the people, "The persons who destroyed my uncle are the same who destroyed these. Let us go to war."
Then they made a war hat for the young man all covered with abalone shells, and he went out to fight. Every time he went out he conquered, because he was strong. The missing men, however, got home safely. After some time the youth came against a fort where lived an old sister of his father, and this woman shouted down to him during the fight, " I never thought that that boy would grow into such a powerful man. When I took away the moss[1] from his cradle he never felt how cold it was." So the young man, when he got into the fort, inquired, "Who said that to me?" "It was your father s sister who said it." So he pitied his father s sister, pulled off his war hat, and smashed it on the rocks in front of her, breaking the abalone shells all to pieces. He gave up fighting, and they made peace.
Some time after this, however, he killed one of his own friends belonging to another town, and they came over and killed two of his people in revenge. After that every time the young man ate, he would say, "I will leave this good part for my enemy," meaning that he would feed them on a good war. He always made fun of his enemies because he was brave. So the people at this place, when they had destroyed all of his companions, took him captive because he had talked so much. They would not let him touch the bodies of his friends, and he said to them at last, "Let me have my friends." "Will you do this any more?" they said. "No, I will not set out to war any more. Let me have my friends." Then they lowered a canoe into the water with himself and a few others who had been preserved, and they started home with the bodies. On the way one of his companions said to him, "I wish you would steer this canoe well." "It can not be steered well," he said, "because there are so few to pad dle it." Some of the women belonging to his enemies were in the canoe along with them. When they burned their dead, they put these
- ↑ A piece of moss was placed in the cradle for sanitary purposes.