There are many other times, too, when the shaman takes charge or tells people what to do. I remember a great to-do over a frog that appeared in a house in the middle of the floor. The house had been built in the fall, after the ground was frozen, and one warm day in the dead of winter the frog thawed out of its hole and came out on the floor. This was an othlang, and it had to be righted at once. The shaman had to be paid to find out about it. Such an incident would never be forgotten.
Muskrats come out from their holes in the bank of pond or lake, when the ice breaks loose in the spring. If a muskrat came out before, say in February or March, this, too, would be othlang and would have to be righted.
Sometimes a whale will stray up the Yukon River, and when this happens, unless the whale is killed, there will be a great famine. Once, a whale went up river as far as Tenana, about nine hundred miles. There was great alarm, and one of the shamans, a shaman of medium powers (there are shamans of high, medium, and low powers; nowadays, however, there are no very great shamans who, as in the ancient days, can do everything; nowadays some shamans do one kind of thing, others, other things), this Tenana shaman went out single-handed and speared the stray whale. It was forty to fifty degrees below zero, he was nude from the waist up, and from the great exposure and the great strain, within a few days he died. The people were so grateful to the shaman for saving the village that they made a carving in split spruce of the shaman spearing the spouting whale, to place near his grave-box.
When the caribou and deer began to decrease at Anvik, the people became greatly alarmed, they were afraid it was because of something they had done, and they consulted the shaman. When he came out of his trance, he told them to paint seven deer on the board over the ridge pole of the grave-building of a certain shaman who had been a great hunter of caribou. Each deer was to represent a year’s kill. Once, long ago, to preclude othlang, the shaman ordered a man to be thrown off the side of a certain mountain.
At every death the shaman has to give the death stroke, that is, when it is time to send the spirit of the deceased away—on the fourth day for an ordinary person, some days later for a person of distinction—the shaman has to strike the corpse on the chest. He sends him on his journey under the river to the village of the spirits—kethagyiye—a way where there are, at intervals, pillars of fire at which the dead may warm himself, and may cook. At the time of giving the death stroke, the shaman also drives away all the evil spirits that are around the village.
I mentioned a cousin of Cries-for-salmon who died in childbirth. Her child was born alive, but as it was a girl and as the family were ordinary people—the deceased woman was a sister of the invalid woman I told about—the baby was put in the grave-box of the mother, in her bosom. Strong families with many songs, with spirit powers and hunting powers, might save babies in these circumstances, particularly a boy baby; some woman in the family would adopt him. But the girl baby of an ordinary family would certainly not be let live. I remember the case of a girl baby the Mission people wanted to save. They took her, and she had the best of care from them, but in four months she died.
Should a child die while it is still creeping, it is wrapped in something the animals will not devour, like bark, and placed in the woods under a spruce sapling. As long as the tree lives, the spirit of the child lives, too, under its protection. The spirit dies with the tree.... I may say here that in getting wood or bush from the forest we do not take all there is in any place. We depend on the wood and bark. If we destroyed it, we would become vagabonds.
The death of Cries-for-salmon’s brother was by drowning. He had been drinking with the white trader, they were out in a boat together, the boat upset, and the Indian was drowned. When Cries-for-salmon’s mother heard the news, she rushed out of the house, wailing with heart-rending cries, pulling her hair, and stripping herself to her waist. “My son, why have you left me?” she cried, looking to the North where the dead live. We could hear her cries a mile away, and we knew from her wailing songs the family of the deceased. Distinguished families have their own songs, and they make a greater outcry at death. Cries-for-salmon’s mother is a woman with power. She has many strong songs. Her father had been a great hunter, with wolferene and bear songs. She is always consulted in the village, she knows her power, and there is no one to check her or to talk about her. So she stripped to the breeches—an ordinary woman would be afraid to strip lest people would talk—and she threw herself into the ice-cold water. She wanted to go on with her son, he was the only son left her. But they pulled her out. And they pulled out her husband who had also thrown himself in.
After two or three hours, they found the body and took it home, transporting it in the oldest or most worn-out canoe at hand. As the spirit of the drowned man was supposed to be still in the water, nobody was allowed to go into the water. It would cause othlang. People were told not to use that channel for a year, and women were not to set out their fish nets in a place where there was a good place for pickerel. The evil spirit of the place might pull them overboard. I recall another place in the river where there are sand bluffs where, unless people pay homage, they do not feel safe.
As usual, the mourners made new garments, new mittens, new moccasins, and a new cap for the dead man. The second night they danced and sang old songs, and the third night they danced to new songs. Cries-for-salmon’s brother was a good bear hunter, so they danced bear dances which showed how a bear behaves and which would promote the increase of bears. Had he been a good seal hunter or hunter of other animals, similarly they would have danced seal dances or other animal dances. Besides, had he died during a good game year, they might have carved the game animal on his grave-box. I recall a hunter with a good heart, who died in a good deer year, having a string of deer carved on his grave-box—to continue the abundance of the deer.