86. The Woman Who Married the Dead Man

86. THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED THE DEAD MAN

A woman belonging to the cohoes people (L!û'kAnA-câ), whose father was a chief, was kept very pure and had a girl accompany her always. One day, as she was going out with her servant, she tripped over something and on looking at it found that it was a skull. She said, "Who can the bad person be who has brought skulls near my father's house in the place where I was going to walk?" She kicked the skull to one side and walked straight back into the house, for she was frightened.

The same night this girl thought she dreamed that two boys came to her. They were two chiefs' sons who were dead, and it was the skull of the elder that she had kicked out of the way. It was really no dream, as she at first thought, and she married the elder youth. These two chiefs' sons had met with some accident together, and so they always traveled in company.

Next morning the chief said, "What is wrong with my daughter? She isn't up yet." Then he called the servant girl to go and awaken her. So the girl ran to look, saw the young men there, and told the girl's mother that she was married. "Well," said the mother, "whom can she have married? She did not know anybody." After that the girl and the young men rose and came down to the fire

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to have something to eat. Her husband looked to her like a fine young man, but everyone else could see that he was a skull. They were very much frightened.

At that time the people there had very little food, and presently the girl's husband said to her, "Has your father a small canoe?" "Yes," she said, "he has a small canoe." "Ask him for it and for spears and arrows." Then the girl said to her mother, "Mother, he is asking for a small canoe. They want to go hunting." Her mother humored her, for she was afraid she would go off with that man. But when they looked for the canoe it was already missing. Afterward the young men acted in the house just as if they were in canoes, going through the motions of paddling, spearing seals, etc., and the girl was ashamed of them. In the evening they said to each other, "Let us camp." The people of the village could not see what they did or hear what they said, but the girl could, and she felt very uneasy. Then they pulled off the painted boards from her father's house and began to cook. After that she saw them act as though they were coming back bringing a load of dead seals, etc. To the people it seemed as if they were still in the house.

Presently the girl called to her mother saying, "Mother, they are in already. They want some one to go down and bring the things up from the canoe." Then her mother said to the people, "There is a canoe down on the beach, and they want you to go down and bring up what they have killed." It was late in the evening, and, sure enough, when the people went, they found the canoe loaded with all kinds of fishes, with seals and sea lions. Then the chief gave the head man of each family a seal and fed the entire village with the food which they had brought in. After that the people had plenty of ground hogs, mountain sheep, etc., with which these two men provided them.

The two men began to come to life and were beginning to look like living beings. It was then that people found out who they were. When they got up in the morning they could be seen very plainly, so the chief got some marten robes and put them upon his son-in-law and his son-in-law's brother. They were both very industrious.

In that same house was a girl who became very angry with the younger brother, after she saw who they were, because he paid no attention to anyone but his brother's wife. She marked the place where he used to sit with human blood, and as he sat on this blood eating he dropped over dead. The other lived for some time afterward, and the girl who had destroyed his brother tried to draw his attention to herself also; but he was too fond of his wife to think of her in the least. Then she marked his seat with blood, and he in turn dropped over dead.