Where the Sun Swings North

g the lagoon across the bay stood high and clear above a bank of fog. The liquid music of the surf was hushed as if to give place to a new sound that pulsed unceasingly on the quiet air: the str

t between the totems of the Thunder-bird and the

in Katleean there were always knife-wounds to dress, battered heads to bind up, bullets to extract, and even broken bones to set. The nearest d

tern medical college had known him as a student in the far-off days before Alaska took him for her own. Whatever was the source of his knowledge he did his work with a degree of roug

s that went with this conferred honor and had taken an active part in the Potlatch ceremonies. As the years went by, with but four steamers a twelve-month to disturb his voluntary exile and

ould see him as the great chief and Shaman, banisher of Thlinget sorcery. But-how far might he go in this character without running the risk of becoming ridiculous? Never before had such an audience taxed his powers of discrimination. True, by subtle speeches, he had prepared his visitors

sed his head decisively and mounting

d-scoured floor, its rectangular box-stove of shee

nd him any place, but I see you've come to anchor all right. What's the m

the blankets, and with a shaking

) . . . lick hal out

he fair, blood-matted hair on

le drink together without beating each other up this way." He laughed as he

jured husband profane

Injune house vit da

ts-

to women. Now, instead of using the iron

d head to glare into the eyes of his satiric physician. "V

sobering up, I want you to think about that island, Silver. I want you to remember every little thing about it that you can, and after the Potlatch I'll be in to talk to you-perhaps. I'll go and hunt

esigns and borders made of white pearl buttons-thousands of buttons-a style which had come in when the white traders came to Alaska. Many wore the native Chilcat blanket of ceremony made of the hair of the mountain goat. These were marvels of savage embroidery done in conventionalized designs that might have startled a Cubist painter had they not been woven with the softest-toned native

l gods of the clouds, waves, and beasts, fish and birds. Heads were crowned with the skulls of grizzly bears and small whales. A few figure

held his head proudly under the sacred hat of Kahanuk, the Wolf, and on his face in re

eature broke suddenly from the crowd and rushed toward them, half-running, half-flopping like a wounded bird. To one side of its face half a moustache was attached. The other cheek was adorned with red and blue paint. The hair was

women shrank back in the doorway. The half-porti

rm. "It's that jolly little Senott, Silvertip's squaw.

ery, came close and gazed with fr

same seagull!" She threw out her arms raising them up and down and lifting

direction of Kilbuck's living-room windows under which he had ca

pouse at home nursing the broken head she had given him, flapped away to join her Indian lov

expectancy in the air. The few whites, with the exception of Kilbuck, sat on the platform in front of the store. The natives f

like as if them Injines had a tank full o' doodle-bugs under their hair-but I don't know- Take us white folks down in the States now, when we

f Katleean and the little Thlinget woman, Decitan. About her shoulders was draped a fringed black and yellow blanket o

the courtyard, and Paul Kilbuck, with the Indian woman beside him, turn

f his dark beard and dead-white skin. Carved wooden eagle-wings on each side of a tall hat crowned his hair. Below this emblem of the Shaman spirit, t

ay with a frightened q

nd the long, fantastic line wound about the courtyard and down the trail that led to the Village. Before the

eceased-songs of curious rhythm and halting cadences; songs with a hau

silence until the procession came back once more to the cour

s. Then one by one the small boxes containing ashes of the dead were handed to him. He lowered them into the grave. As the last one settled on the bottom he stepped back, flinging one co

as from under the bizarre robe of his heathen office he produced a prayer-book, and in the voice he knew so well how to modulate, read the ser

North in the moon of Kokwa-ha, I, the Unseeable, will watch. . . . Always, in the moons of the Big Salmon run, the Hat-dee-se, when there is no darkness in the nights of the North, I, the Unseeable, will watch. . . . I, who have brought you the great white medicine of the Letquan, the Snow People, I make the Big Medicine now-I make it with the sacred book of the White Shamans." He held one

ve grunts of satisfaction. Kilbuck turned away as if a bit weary of his role and

alertness strangely at variance with their usual stolid demeanor. Kil

he very last, Swimming Wolf, who had heretofore taken little part in the ceremonies, stepped forward with a tiny phonograph, a rare possession since it was the only one in the Village. The Indian carefully wound it up and lowered it into the hole. There was a craning of masked heads, . . . a period of grunting