A Treasury of Eskimo Tales Part 12

This continued for four days, and Raven was nearly dead from exhaustion and the bruises which he received. Then the room became still and the whale was dead, for Raven had torn off part of one of the heart vessels. The _inua_ never came back to the room, and the whale drifted upon the sh.o.r.e.

Raven now found himself a prisoner and was saying to himself, "Now I _am_ in a pretty boat! I have enjoyed the trip, but how is one to get out of a kayak like this?"

Presently he said, "Hark! What is that I hear? As I live, it is someone walking on the roof of the house!"

And he was right, for two men were walking on top of the dead whale and calling to their village mates to come and help cut it up. Very soon there were many people at work cutting a hole through the upper side of the whale's body.

Raven quickly pulled down his mask, becoming a bird, and crouched close in the farthest corner. When the hole was large enough, he watched his chance and while everybody was carrying a load of meat to the sh.o.r.e, he flew out and alighted on the top of a hill close by without being noticed.

"Ah, my good fire-drill; I have forgotten it," he exclaimed, remembering that he had left it behind.

He quickly pushed up his beak and removed his raven coat, becoming a young man again. He started along the sh.o.r.e toward the whale. The people working on the dead animal saw a small, dark-colored man in a strangely made deerskin coat coming toward them, and they looked at him curiously.

"Ho, you have found a fine, large whale," said he as he drew near. "I will help you to cut him up."

He rolled up his sleeves and set to work. Very soon a man cutting on the inside of the whale's body called out, "Ah, see what I have found! A fire-drill inside a whale!"

At once the wily Raven rolled down his sleeves and quit work, saying, "That is a bad sign, for my daughter has told me that if a fire-drill is found in a whale and people try to cut up that whale, many of them will die. I shall run away before the _inua_ of the whale catches me."

And away he ran.

When he was gone the people looked at one another and said, "Perhaps he is right; we'd better go too." And away they all ran, each one trying to rub the oil from his hands as he went.

From his hiding-place Raven looked on and laughed as he saw the people running away. Then he went back for his raven coat and when he had put it on and pulled down his beak he flew to the carca.s.s and began to cut it up and fly with chunks of the flesh to a cave on the sh.o.r.e. He did not dare go to it as a man lest the villagers should see him and, discovering the trick he had played them, should come back for the meat. As he chuckled over the feast in store for him he said, "Thanks, Ghost of the whale, both for the boat ride and for the feast."

XXVII

THE RED SKELETON

In a village on Cape Prince of Wales, very long ago, there was a poor orphan boy who had no one to take his part and who was treated badly by everyone, being made to run here and there at the bidding of all the villagers.

One snowy night he was told to go out of the kas.h.i.+m to see if the weather was getting worse. He had no skin boots, and it was so cold that he did not wish to go, but he was driven out. When he came back he said, "It has stopped snowing, but it is as cold as ever."

Just to plague him, the men kept sending him out every little while, until at last he came in saying:

"I saw a ball of fire like the moon coming over the hill to the north."

The men laughed at him and asked, "Why do you tell us a yarn like that? Go out again and see if there is not a whale coming over the hill. You are always seeing things."

He went out, and came in again quickly, saying in agitation, "The red thing has come nearer and is close to the house."

The men laughed, but the boy hid himself. Almost immediately after this the men in the kas.h.i.+m saw a fiery figure dancing on the gut-skin covering over the roof hole, and an instant after a human skeleton came crawling into the room through the pa.s.sageway, creeping on its knees and elbows.

When the skeleton was in the room it made a motion toward the people which caused them all to fall on their knees and elbows in the same position as it had. Then, turning about, it crawled out as it had come, followed by the people, who were forced to go with it. Outside, the skeleton crept through the snow toward the edge of the village, followed by all the men, and in a short time every one of them was dead and the skeleton had vanished.

Some of the villagers had been absent when the spook came, and when they returned they found dead people lying all about on the cold ground. Entering the kas.h.i.+m, they found the orphan boy, who told them how the people had been killed.

They followed the tracks of the skeleton through the snow, and were led up the side of the mountain till they came to an ancient grave, where the tracks ended.

It was the grave of the boy's father.

XXVIII

THE MARMOT AND THE RAVEN

Once when a Raven was flying over some reefs near the sh.o.r.e of the sea, he was seen by some Sea-birds that were perched on the rocks.

They began to revile him, calling him disagreeable names: "Oh, you offal eater! Oh, you carrion eater! Oh, you black one!" until the Raven turned and flew away, crying, "_Gnak, gnak, gnak_! why do they call me such names?"

He flew far away across the great water until he came to a mountain on the other side, where he stopped. Just in front of him he saw a marmot hole. He said to himself, "If it is a disgrace to eat dead animals I will eat only live ones. I will become a murderer."

He stood in front of the hole watching, and very soon the marmot came home, bringing some food. Marmot said to Raven, "Please stand aside; you are right in front of my door."

"It is not my intention to stand aside," said Raven. "They called me a carrion eater, and I will show that I am not, for I will eat you."

"If you are going to eat me, you ought to be willing to do me a favor," replied Marmot. "I have heard that you are a very fine dancer, and I long to see you dance before I die. If you dance as beautifully as they say, I shall be willing to die when once I have seen it. If you will dance I will sing, and then you may eat me."

This pleased Raven so much that he began to dance and Marmot pretended to go into ecstasies about it.

"Oh, Raven, Raven, Raven, how well you dance!" he sang. "Oh, Raven, Raven, Raven, how well you dance!"

By and by they stopped to rest and Marmot said, "I am very much delighted with your dancing. Do shut your eyes and dance your best just once more, while I sing."

Raven closed his eyes and hopped clumsily about while Marmot sang, "Oh, Raven, Raven, Raven, what a graceful dancer! Oh, Raven, Raven, Raven, what a fool you are!" And with a quick run, Marmot darted between Raven's legs and was safe in his hole.

There he turned, putting out the tip of his nose and laughing mockingly as he said, "_Chi-kik-kik, chi-kik-kik, chi-kik-kik_! You are the greatest fool I ever met. What a ridiculous figure you made while dancing; I could scarcely sing for laughing. Look at me, and see how fat I am. Don't you wish you could eat me?"

And he tormented Raven till the latter flew away in a rage.

XXIX

ORIGIN OF THE WINDS

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 s.h.i.+ning 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 s.h.i.+ning in the bright light. Going up to it, he found it was the tree of which he came in search. The tree was small, so he took his hunting-knife, cut off a part of the trunk, and carried the fragment home.

He sat down in the house and carved out from the wood an image of a small boy, and his wife made two suits of clothing for it and dressed it in one of them, "saving the other to put on when he had soiled the first," she said.