31. Raven, Part XVI

Now the people of that town were very much frightened, and none of them went away. They had heard before that the land otters have death and all kinds of sickness for their bows and arrows, but until then they had not believed it. Afterward the people began to starve, and the children especially suffered very much. One child, who must have been very poor, would cry at night with hunger. After he had been crying for several nights in this manner the people saw a torch coming toward the house and heard the bearer of it say, "Come here, grandchild, and I will feed you on q!olkAdAkê'x." The child did so. This man was named Man-with-a-burning-hand (DjînakaxA'dza), because his hand was always on fire and what he called q!olkAdAkê'x were ants (wAnAtu'x). This happened at TA'qdjîk-ân, the old town of the Klawak people.

Now the father and mother of this child looked about for it, weeping continually. As they were passing a certain cliff, they heard a child crying there, and, raising a flat rock which appeared to cover an opening, they saw it lying inside. Then they saw that ants were crawling out of its nose, eyes, and ears. After that many other children were brought thither, and their parents said to them, "Look at this. Man-with a-burning-hand did this because the child cried so much. You are always crying too. This will happen to you some day if you do not stop." Back of the site of TA'qdjîk-ân there is a cliff still called Man-with-a-burning-hand. This story was mostly for children, and, when a child cried too much, they would say, "Do not cry so much or Man-with-a-burning-hand will get you." The story was known all over Alaska, and the children were very much afraid of Man-with-a-burning-hand. a

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