The Return of the Dead Wife

Once upon a time there lived in Alaska a chief of the Tlingit peopletribe who had one son. When the boy grew to be a man, he saw a girl who seemed to him prettier and cleverer than any other girl of his people. Histhe tribe, and his heart went out to her, and he told his father. Then the chief spoke to the father and the mother of the girl, and they agreed that she should become the young man’sto give her to the young man for a wife. So the two were married, and for a few months all went well with them and they were very happy.

But one day the husband came home from hunting and found his wife sitting crouched over the fire—her eyes dull and her head heavy.

'You are ill,' he said. 'I will go for the shaman, the spiritual healer.' Butsaid, 'I will go for the shaman,' but the girl answered:

'No, not now. I will sleep, and in the morning the pains will have gone from me.'

But in the morning she was dead. The young man grieved bitterly and would eat nothing. Hedead, and the young man grieved bitterly and would eat nothing, and he lay awake all that night thinking of his wife, and the next night also.

'Perhaps if I went out into the forest and walked till I was tired, I might sleep and forget my pain,' he thoughtthought he. But, after all, he could not bear to leave the house while his dead wife was in it, so he waited till her body was taken away that evening for burial. Then, very early next morning, he put on his leggings and set off into the forest and walked through that day and the following night. Sunrise on the second morning found him in a wide valley covered with thick trees. Before him stretched a plain which had once been full of water butwater, but it was now dried up.

He paused for a moment and looked about him. As he looked,him, and as he looked he seemed to hear voices speaking a long way off. But he could see nobody, and walked on again till he sawbeheld a light shining through the branches of the trees and noticed a flat stone on the edge of a lake. Here the road stopped. He had been travelling along the road of the dead,stopped; for it was the death road along which he had come, though he did not know it.

The lake was narrow, and on the other side were houses and people going in and out of them.

'Come over and fetch me,' he shouted, but nobody heard him, though he cried till he was hoarse.

'It is very odd that nobody hears me,' whispered the youth after he had shouted for some time longer. Atlonger; and at that minute a person standing at the door of one of the houses across the lake cried out:

'Someone is shouting'; theyfor they could hear him when he whispered, but not when he made a great noise.

'It is somebody who has come from dreamland,' continued the voice. 'Let a canoe go and bring him over.' So a canoe shot out from the shore, and the young man got into it and was paddled across. Asacross, and as soon as he stepped out he saw his dead wife.

Joy rushed into his heart at the sight of her. Her eyes were red as though she had been crying,her; her eyes were red as though she had been crying; and he held out his hands. As he did so the people in the house said to him:

'You must have come from far. Sit down, and we will give you food.' They spread food before him, andfar; sit down, and we will give you food,' and they spread food before him, at which he felt glad, for he was hungry.

'Don't eat that,' whispered his wife. 'If you do, you will never get back again.' Hewife, 'if you do, you will never get back again'; and he listened to her and did not eat it.

Then his wife said again:

'It is not good for you to stay here. Let us leave at once.' They hastened to the edge of the water and got into the canoe. It is called the Ghost's Canoedepart at once,' and they hastened to the edge of the water and got into the canoe, which is called the Ghost's Canoe, and is the only one on the lake. They were soon across and landed at the flat stone where the young man had stood when he was shouting. Thethey landed at the flat stone where the young man had stood when he was shouting, and the name of that stone is the Ghost's Rock. They went back along the road he had takenDown they went along the road that he had come, and on the second night they reached the youth's house.

'Stay here,' he said, 'and I will go in and tell my father.' So he entered and said to his father:

'I have brought my wife back.'

'Well, why don't you bring her in?' asked the chief. Hechief, and he took a fur robe and laid it on top of a mat for her to sit on. After that the young man led his wife into the house, but the people inside could see only her husband entering. Yetnot see her enter, but only her husband; yet when he came quite close, they noticed a deep shadow behind him. The young man told his wife tobade his wife sit down on the mat they had prepared for her, and a robe of marten skins was placed over her shoulders. Itshoulders, and it hung upon her as if she had been a real woman and not a ghost. Then they put food before her, and, as she ate, they sawbeheld her arms, and the spoon moving up and down. But they did not see the shadow of her handsthe shadow of her hands they did not see, and it seemed strange to them.

From then onNow from henceforth the young man and his wife always went everywhere together. Whether he was hunting or fishing, the shadow always followed him. Hetogether; whether he was hunting or fishing, the shadow always followed him, and he begged to have his bed made where they had first sat downseated themselves, instead of in the room where he had slept before. The people in the house gladly did this, for they were joyfulAnd this the people in the house did gladly, for joy at having him back.

In the day, if they happened not to be away hunting or fishing, the wife was so quiet that no one would have guessed she was there. Butthere, but during the night she would play games with her husband and talk to him, so that the others could hear her voice. When she first cameAt her first coming the chief felt silent and awkward, but after a while he grew accustomed to her. He would pretend to be angry and callher and would pretend to be angry and called out: 'You had better get up now, after keeping everyone awake all night with your games.' They could hear the shadow laugh in answergames,' and they could hear the shadow laugh in answer, and knew it was the laugh of the dead woman.

Thus things went on for some time, and they might have gone on longer. But a cousin of the dead girl, who had wanted to marry her before she married the chief's son, becamelonger, had not a cousin of the dead girl's who had wanted to marry her before she married the chief's son become jealous when he found that her husband had brought her back from across the lake. And he spied upon her, and listened to her when she was talking, hoping for a chance to do her harmwork her some ill. At last the chance came, as it commonly does, and it was in this waywise:

Night after night the jealous man had hidden himself at the head of the bed, and had slipped away unnoticedstolen away unperceived in the morning without having heard anything to help his wicked plans. He was beginning to think he must try something else when one evening the girl suddenly said to her husband that she was tired of being a shadow. She was going to show herself in the body she used to haveshadow, and was going to show herself in the body that she used to have, and meant to keep it always. The husband was glad in his soul at her words, and then proposed that they should get up and play a game as usual. Whileusual; and, while they were playing, the man behind the curtains peeped through. As he did so, a noise like rattling bones rang through the house. Whenas of a rattling of bones rang through the house, and when the people came running, they found the husband dead and the shadow gone, for both their ghoststhe ghosts of both had sped back to Ghostland.

Tlingit Myths.