The Strange Story Book Part 17

'I shall be almost starving by the evening,' thought she, 'and I will eat them then;' but when evening came she had no more appet.i.te than in the morning, so she curled herself up in a corner and fell asleep, for she was very tired.

She was awakened early next day by a rushing of wings, and, looking out of the door, found a flock of birds sweeping by. But there was nothing very uncommon in that, and she lay down again and slept for several hours longer. Then she got up and walked some distance till she reached a flat plain, where the best roots grew, but the flock of birds had found them out also, and were feeding upon them.

When they saw her they flew away, and she went to a spot covered with dead gra.s.s, for she expected that would be a good place to dig in. To her surprise, under the dead gra.s.s lay several big canoes filled with oil, dried halibut and dried salmon.

'How lucky I am!' she said to herself; 'it was well indeed that I did not return with the others,' and she broke off a piece of salmon and tried to eat it, but she could not.

'What is the matter with me?' she wondered. 'I wish my aunt were here,'

and she felt rather frightened. And the next day she grew more frightened still, for she found out that the birds were spirits, and it was they who were preventing her from eating food, so that she might become a great shaman or medicine-man. After a little while her eyes were opened, and she understood many things she had never guessed at, and the spirit-birds she had seen took possession of her, and others came from the woods and the sea, and sang to her.

At first she went two or three times every day to visit the buried canoes and to dig for roots, but she quickly gave that up, for she had nothing with which to sharpen the sticks she used instead of spades; and besides, what was the use of digging for roots if you could not eat them? Meanwhile, in the village the girl's aunt mourned for her, as she felt sure Djun must by this time be dead of hunger.

'I am very lonely: I wish some of my old friends would come to see me,'

thought Djun when she had been living by herself for several months, and the next morning a canoe appeared in sight, and in it were seated some people whom she knew. Then Djun was happy indeed, and she bade them follow her to the brush-house, and gave them food out of the canoes; for two or three days they stayed, digging for roots and for anything else they could get, and at the end of the time Djun said to them:

'It is well that you should go again, but be careful not to take with you any of the food that I have given you. Tell my friends that I am alive, and beg my aunt to come and visit me.'

So the people of the canoe returned to the village, and told such tales of the food they had received from Djun that all the townsfolk hastened to get into their canoes and paddled straight off to the place where she was living. When they drew near enough to see the brush-house, they beheld it surrounded by thousands of birds that seemed to stretch right upwards from the earth to the sky. They also heard the shaman's voice and the sound of singing, but as soon as they approached closer to the brush-house, the birds flew away.

After that the shaman went out to meet them, and she asked:

'Where is my aunt? I want her;' and when her aunt came Djun gave her everything that was stored in one of her buried canoes, and then she said:

'I should like two of the women to stay with me and help me with my singing,' and one after another the chief women of the tribe, with their faces newly painted, rose up in the canoes; but she would have none of them, and chose two girls who were orphans like herself, and had been treated very badly by their kinsfolk.

'The rest can come ash.o.r.e,' she said, 'and camp out here,' but she took the orphans and her aunt into the brush-house.

Now these high-born women had brought their slaves with them, and Djun took the slaves in exchange for food, and put necklaces and paint and feathers and fine robes upon the orphans. And the whole of the village people stayed with her a long while, and when they got into the canoes again they were fat and strong with all that Djun had given them.

For some time Djun lived quite happily in the brush-house now that she had some companions; then a longing took hold of her to go back to her own village, so she worked magic in order to make the chief of the town fall ill, and the people, who had learnt that she had become a shaman, sent a canoe to fetch her and offered her much payment if she would cure him.

The family of Djun the shaman was one of the n.o.blest in the tribe, but misfortune had overtaken them. One by one they had all died, and when the girl came back to the village nothing remained but the posts of her uncle's house, while gra.s.s had sprouted inside the walls. She beheld these things from the canoe and felt very sad, but she bade the slaves cease paddling, as she wished to land. Then she drew out an eagle's tail, and, holding it up, blew upon it and waved it backwards and forwards. After she had done this four times, the posts and the gra.s.s disappeared, and in their place stood a fine house--finer and larger than the one the chief had lived in.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DJUN'S MAGIC IN THE HOUSE OF THE CHIEF.]

'Bring in whatever the canoe contains,' she said; and when everything was ready she went into the house, and the two orphan girls went with her.

'The chief's daughter is ill as well as her father,' so Djun heard after she had been back in the village for a few days, and she waited in the house, expecting to be summoned to work a cure. But though they had sent for her while she was living far from them, now that she was amongst them again she looked so like the girl they had known from a child that the people could not believe she could be a _real_ shaman, and called in others. However, in spite of the care of these medicine men, both the chief and his daughter became worse and worse, and in despair, their kinsfolk suddenly bethought themselves of Djun. The girl was not in the house at the time that the messenger arrived, but one of the orphans met him, and asked:

'How much will they pay the shaman if she cures them?'

'Two slaves,' was the answer.

'That is not enough,' said the child; 'go back and tell them so.'

And the messenger went back and came again.

'How much will they pay the shaman?' asked the child as she opened the door to him.

'Two slaves and much goods,' answered he.

'That is well; she will come,' said the child, and the messenger returned with her answer.

'We will go together,' Djun said to the orphans, and the three set off at once to the house of the chief. Inside, there was a crowd of people, except for an empty s.p.a.ce round the fire where lay the chief and his daughter. The shaman sat down between them and worked all the spells she knew, but they grew no better. Then she rose and walked through the people in the room, and when she had looked at each one she said to the chief:

'The witch that is killing you two is not here.'

As soon as the people heard that, they left the house and brought in those of the villagers who had not come before, for there was not room for a very great number. For the second time Djun went among them and examined them, and then she repeated:

'The witch is not yet here.' But the spirits, which showed her what others could not see, opened her eyes, and after a moment she spoke again.

'The road of the witch is very clear now; it runs straight to this house.' After that she waited in silence, and the people were silent also. At last they heard a bird whistling in the woods at the back, and the shaman said:

'She is coming now; open the door and let her in,' and they flung the door wide, and there flew in a wild canary.

'Go and sit between the two sick persons,' said Djun, and the canary fluttered towards them, making such a noise with her wings that they were frightened and shrank away from her. And the shaman desired a man to tie the bird's wings to her side so that she might be still. Next a rolling sound such as thunder makes a long way off filled the air.

'Here come her children,' cried the shaman. 'Stop all the holes so that they may not enter, for they are very angry.' But though the holes were stopped, there were cracks in the boards, and the birds flew in through the cracks till the house became full of them, and the noise was deafening. They flew round and round among the people, and whosoever they touched received a cut or a bruise. Suddenly--no one knew how--they all vanished, and not a bird was left in the room save the one which was tied.

Hours had pa.s.sed since the shaman first came to the house, and it was now morning. The canary never ceased making a noise all that time, and at last the shaman said:

'She wants to go to the place where she has put the food and the locks of hair with which she is bewitching the chief and his daughter. Untie her wings and let her do as she will, but be careful to follow her.' So they untied her wings, and the canary flew out of the house followed by four men, and she hopped ahead of them the way she had come through the woods.

At length she stopped and began scratching at the roots of some bushes till she laid bare a skull. On the top of the skull some leaves, hair, food, and sc.r.a.ps of clothes were carefully arranged in a pattern. She picked up as many of them as she could carry in her beak and flew with them down to the sea, letting the wind scatter them in different directions. This she did till all had disappeared and the skull likewise, and then she returned to the house with the four men following her, and they found the chief and his daughter quite cured, for as soon as the skull and the other things had touched the sea, they recovered by magic.

'Do you hear the noise she is making?' asked the shaman, when the bird had begun to chatter as noisily as before. 'She wants to go away from here, but not to her home, because the other birds will be ashamed of her. The place she wishes to go to is a town called Close-along-the-beach. Therefore, let a canoe be got ready at once to take her there.' So the canoe was got ready, and the bird flew into it, and they pushed off from the sh.o.r.e, and paddled till the bird suddenly broke out into the strange speech, which no one could understand but the shaman.

'This must be the place,' they said, and paddled in towards the beach, and the canary flew out of the boat and went very fast down to the sh.o.r.e followed by a man who wished to see where she was going, and she stopped at a tree whose roots stuck out above the ground. For this was the bird-town of Close-along-the-beach.

That is how the ancient Indians first heard of witchcraft.

[_Tlingit Myths and Texts._]

_WHAT BECAME OF OWEN PARFITT?_