So the children went down to the house, but, when they entered it, some one called out, “Look at those little frogs coming into the house.” Then their grandmother said, “Put them out.” So they were thrown out of doors.

When the children got back to their mother she said, “Did you see your grandmother?” and one answered, “I think it was she. We went into a house,” which they described so that their mother knew at once that it was the right one, “and some one called out, saying, ‘Look at these frogs.’ Then some one else said, ‘Throw them out,’ and they did so.”

Then their mother said, “Go back and try to see her again even if they do throw you out.” So the little frogs went down and entered their grandmother’s house once more. Again some one called out, “Those little frogs are in here again.” But this time their grandfather said, “Bring them here to me. My daughter is missing. These might be her little ones.” So he held out his fox robe and they laid the little frogs upon it. The frogs crawled all over his breast and shoulders. Then the frogs were seated in front of their grandfather and were given cranberries. They picked them up one by one with the fore foot and put them into their mouths.

Afterward the frogs started to hop out, and a man followed them with the dishes of food. They hopped straight up to a lake back of the village and jumped in. Then, as the chief had already directed them, the men set the dishes down at the edge and stood watching. Presently the dishes moved out into the lake and sank. All at once they came up again and moved back to the same place.

Then these men returned to the chief and reported everything that they had seen, whereupon he sent them back, saying, “Go back and say, ‘Your father has invited you to the house.’” They did so. Then they heard a voice replying, “I cannot come.” They reported this to her father, and he told them to take up her marten-skin robes and her other clothing and lay them by the lake. After that she came down and along with her the two high-caste frogs whom she had married. When they had finished eating, all went back.

Now the girl’s father thought often and deeply how he should get her back, for he did not know what to do. Finally he said to the village people, “Make a place where the lake can flow out.” So all of the people went to work to drain the lake, and the water began flowing out. When the lake was nearly dry they saw this girl, all covered with frogs with the exception of her face, start to flow along with them. They picked her out from the very midst of the frogs and carried her home, but the frogs followed right after her. The house was quite filled with them. Then they killed all of the frogs that were upon her body, but as they did so more climbed up. When they began killing them with human bones, however, they went away. Afterward the girl remained with her father, and the frogs did not bother her any more.

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That evening the sisters ran off into the woods. Next morning, when her daughters did not appear, their mother thought that they had stayed in bed and called to them, “Isn’t it time you were getting out of bed?” By and by, however, she found that they were gone, and the people began searching for them. Their mother would go from one place to another where they had been playing, but nobody saw anything of them for seven days.

Meanwhile, although they were suffering with hunger, the girls went farther and farther into the woods. When they got very far up among the mountains they heard somebody chopping wood, and the elder sister said to herself, “I wonder if that isn’t the man mother was talking about?” Coming closer, they discovered a man with his face painted red. He looked up, saw the girls, and said, “What are you poor girls doing way back here?” Then the elder answered, “Mother abused us. That is why we left our home. She abused us because we ate some tallow. She said, ‘You are so fond of eating tallow you better go and marry Mountain Dweller.’”

Then Mountain Dweller, for it was he, invited them into his house, and they found it very grand. Another house near by was full of all kinds of meat drying. Seeing that they looked hungry, he gave them some food. Next morning early, when he was getting ready to hunt, he said to them, “Do you see that curtain over there?” In one part of the house a large skin curtain was hanging. “A very bad woman lives behind that. Don’t peep at her.”

At their father’s village all the people were now mourning for them, and all of their relations had their hair cut and their faces painted black.

The elder sister was now married to Mountain Dweller, the younger being still a little girl. After a while the former became curious to see the bad woman her husband had told her not to look at, so she peeped at her through a hole. At once the bad woman seemed to feel that some one was looking at her, threw up her hands, and screamed. Then both of the girls fell over dead.

By and by Mountain Dweller came home from the hunt, saw them, and knew what had happened. Then he went over to the bad woman and killed her. After that he put eagle down upon the girls’ bodies and walked around them several times, shaking his rattle. In that way they were restored to life.

After the girls had lived there for a long time, Mountain Dweller said, “Don’t you wish you might see your father and mother again?” The younger said, “Yes,” and the elder also wished it. After that Mountain Dweller hunted a great deal to prepare a quantity of meat for his father-in-law. He said to his wife, “Make a little basket, just big enough to put your finger into.” When it was done, he shook it and made it very large. Then he put all kinds of meat and tallow and sacks of grease into this basket. He shook it again and made it small with all of the meat inside.

When the girls came to their father’s house their little brother ran out, saw them, and went in again crying, “Mother, my sisters are out there.” But his mother became angry and said, “Why do you say that? Your sisters have been dead a long time, and yet you say that they are out there.” But the boy screamed, “Those are my sisters. Don’t I know them?” “Well! let me see the hair from their marten-skin robes.” In those times none but high-caste people such as these wore marten skins, so when he came in again bringing pieces from their robes she and her husband and all her relations went out. There she saw both of her daughters. “My daughters,” she cried, and wept with happiness. All in the village ran to see them and were very happy.

Next day the elder girl said to her mother, “Mother, there is a basket a little way back there in the woods. Send after it and have it brought down.” All the people went out to it, but returned saying, “It is such a large basket that all the people in the village can’t bring it in.” Then the girl went up herself, and it became small so that she brought it home easily. As soon as she had gotten it into the house and had set it down, it became large once more. Then she began to unpack it, and the house was filled with all sorts of meats. They feasted on these, and the village people were satisfied and felt very happy. Their mother, however, took too much grease on top of everything else. On going to bed, she drank some very cold water which hardened the grease so that her stomach broke in two.

Nowadays it is a fortunate man that hears Mountain Dweller’s axe or sees where he has been chopping. The basket obtained from him at this time is called Mother-basket (Kakula), and is used by the Ganaxte’di as an emblem.

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By and by the canoe came after him. He seemed to know that there was something about to happen, and said, “Somehow or other you people look strange. He put all of his things into small boxes ready to depart. Then he got in and they covered him with a mat until they reached their village, when he got up and saw some fine houses. The fronts were beautifully painted. Among these houses was one with a crowd of people in front which they tried to make him believe was that where the sick person lay. His rattle and belt, however, ran up on the shore ahead of him and entered the proper house, which was in another part of the town. These people were land otters, and they called him by name, “Sawa’n.” They said to him, “All the shamans among us have been doctoring him, and they can not do a thing. They can not see what is killing him. That is why we have asked you to come.”

Then the shaman thought within himself, “Who will sing my songs for me?” but the land otters spoke out, saying, “We can sing your songs. Don’t be worried.” Inside of this house there hung a breastplate made out of carved bones, such as a shaman used in his spiritual combats. The land otters saw that he wanted it and said, “We will pay you that for curing him.” Then the shaman began to perform. He could see that the land otter was made sick by an arrow point sticking in its side, but this was invisible to the land otters. After he had pulled it out, the sick otter, who belonged to the high-caste people, sat up immediately and asked for something to eat. The shaman kept the arrow point, however, because it was made of copper, and copper was very expensive in those days.

Then one of the land-otter shamans said to him, “I will show you something about my spirits.” And so he did. He saw some very strange things. When he was shown one kind of spirit, the land otter said, “You see that. That is Sickness (Nik). What he called Sickness was the spirit of a clam. These clams look to the spirits like human beings. That is why the spirits are so strong.” He also showed him the Spirit of the Sea (Deki’na yek), the Spirit of the Land (De’qna-yek), the Spirit from Above (Kiye’gi), and the Spirit from Below (Hayi’naq-yek). All these became the man’s spirits afterward.

Nowadays, when a man wants to become a shaman, he has to cut the tongue of a land otter and fast for eight days. You can tell a shaman who has been fasting a great deal because his eyes become very sharp.

After he had shown all of the spirits, they said, “We will take you to your town any time you want to go.” Then they took him to his own town. They had to cover him up again.

The people of Sawa’n’s village were always looking for him, and one day four men in a canoe saw something far out on the shore which looked very strange. A number of sea gulls were flying around it. Going closer, they saw the shaman lying there on a long sandy beach, the gulls around him. They did not know of any sandy bay at that point, and said that it was the shaman that brought it up there. They then took him into the canoe and brought him over. He was so thin that he appeared to have fasted a long time. After they got him home the spirits began mentioning their names, saying, “I am Spirit of the Sea; I am Spirit of the Land,” etc. Every time a spirit mentioned his name, the people would start its songs.

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