THE CAMP ROBBER[12]

THE CAMP ROBBER[12]

Athapascan (Upper Yukon)

NOW in the days of the animal people, the camp robber was a medicine man. One time the people had nothing to eat, so they asked the medicine man to find food for them. Therefore for six nights the men dreamed of a way to find food. The camp robber was the sixth man. He dreamed on the sixth night. Then he called all the people together and told them to bring their snares with them. He took all the snares, make a pack of them, and put them on his back. But the people heaped up the snow in a great pile. Around this snow pile the camp robber walked, chanting and singing “By and by meat will come.” Thus he sang.

Then the camp robber reached into the snow and pulled out a caribou’s head by the horns. This was not a real caribou; it was the spirit caribou. So the camp robber painted the horns and tail red and sent it back into the snow heap. The next day a great herd of caribou came. The one with red horns and tails was among them.

That is why an Indian never kills a camp robber when he steals food. He lets him go because he helped to find food for them in the days of the animal people, when the camp robber was a medicine man.

Photograph by C. L. Andrews

View of Skagway

Bering Sea, near Nome