Now most of the people who had left the town at the chief's bidding were
dead, and the chief never doubted but that his daughter and the poor
little boy and the old grandmother were dead also. But at length some of
those who survived, wished to behold their homes once more, and they set
out in four canoes to the old place. As they drew near, they saw many
storehouses all full of spoils from the sea, and four whales laid up
outside. Greatly were they amazed, but they got out of their canoes and
went up to speak to the young man who stood there, and he spread food
before them, and gave them gifts when in the evening they said farewell.
They hastened to tell their chief all that they had seen and heard, and
he was glad, and bade his people move back to the town and live in their
old houses. So the next day the canoes put to sea again, and the poor
little boy opened his storehouses and feasted the people, and they chose
him for their chief.
'It grows harder every day to take off the frog blanket,' he said to his
wife, and at his words she cried and would not take comfort. For now her
husband could not rest contented at home, but hunted elks and bought
slaves and was richer than any other chief had ever been before him. At
length he told his uncle he wished to give a pot-latch or a great
banquet, and he invited to it the Indians who dwelt many miles away.
When they were all gathered together he called the people into the
house, for in the centre of it he had placed his slaves and elk-skins
and the other goods that he possessed.
'You shall distribute them,' he said to his uncle, and his uncle bade
him put on his head the great copper he had knocked down from the tree,
and the skin of the white bear which he had killed when he was still a
poor little boy. Thus with the copper on his head and the bear-skin on
his shoulders he walked to the pile of elk-skins in the middle of the
house and sang, for this was part of the ceremony of giving him a name
to show that he was grown up. And after the song was ended the chief
said:
'Now I will call you by your name,' and the name that he gave him was
Growing-up-like-one-who-has-a-grandmother, because his grandmother had
always been so kind to him. After that the poor little boy took off the
great copper and the bear-skin, and gave gifts to his guests, and they
departed.
* * * * *
The chief and his wife were left alone and he put on his frog blanket,
for he was going to catch seals for the people to eat. But his face was
sad and he said to his wife:
'I shall return safely this time, but when next I put on that blanket I
may not be able to take it off, and if I can't, perhaps I may never come
home again. But I shall not forget you, and you will always find the
seals and halibut and the salmon, which I shall catch for you, in front
of the house.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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