STORIES 465

had become a shaman from Mountain Goat and as he was proceeding
homewards the goat meat spoke to him.

“Tn the future,” it said, ““you needn’t bother chasing us to the moun-
tains. Just sing and we will come to you and fall dead. But never break
our leg-bones. Keep them until you have two boxes full, then perform
a kusiut dance, using for it the power which you have received from us.”

When he returned to Stucx, Atisidx placed a large box on each side of
the door of hishouse. Whenever he sang, goats came trooping down from
the mountains and fell dead; his success as a hunter was truly phe-
nomenal. Before long he had filled both boxes with the leg-bones of the
goats which he had killed.

Then A#sidx said to Skimutcitt, “T want to initiate a kusiut dance, as
the goat meat told me to do.”

Skimutcit? was angry, knowing that if his son did so he would be
forced to remain secluded for long periods and be unable to continue
hunting.

“Tf you start a kusiut rite,” Skimutcit? answered, ‘‘you will spend all
your time lying down. Now you are having success as a hunter, what
more do you want?”

“T cannot help that,” A#sidx replied. ‘Unless I perform this rite the
goats will carry me away.”

A#isidx felt very bitter at his father’s lack of sympathy. For four
days and four nights he lay, without sleeping or eating, on a raised plat-
form behind the fire. Then, to the amazement of the people of the
village, a number of goats came walking up to his house. A herald re-
ported this to A#sidx.

“All right,” he replied. “Do not disturb them. Do whatever they
want.”

The goats, including old ones and young ones, male and female,
entered the house, led by an old he-goat. When they had circled the fire
four times, the leader shook himself, and a spare hide jumped from his
body. This the animal tossed to the raised platform, where Atisiéx put
it over his shoulders and wriggled. Forthwith he became a goat, jumped
down, and followed the others as they ran from the house. As he dashed
out the doorway an old woman struck at him with her hand smeared with
red paint; it left a daub on his flank. Many times afterwards hunters
fave seen the red-marked goat on the mountains.

Skimutcit? was heart-broken.

“Qh, I have lost my son,” he wailed. “I have lost my never-ending
supply of good food.”

In his grief he rolled on the ground until his head went into the fire
and all his hair was singed off.