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Entering the kashim, they found the orphan boy, who told them how the people had been killed. They followed the tracks of the skeleton through the snow, and were led up the side of the mountain till they came to an ancient grave, where the tracks ended. It was the grave of the boy's father.
One snowy night he was told to go out of the kashim to see if the weather was getting worse. He had no skin boots, and it was so cold that he did not wish to go, but he was driven out. When he came back he said, "It has stopped snowing, but it is as cold as ever."
Then he went on for a long way in the darkness, and threw out another piece of light, making it day again. He continued to do this at intervals until he reached the kashim in his own village, where he dropped the rest of the ball.
After the shamans had tried very hard to bring back the sun and moon and had failed, the boy began to ridicule them. "What fine shamans you must be, not to be able to bring back the light, when even I can do it," he said mockingly. At this the shamans became very angry and beat him and drove him out of the kashim.
Almost immediately after this the men in the kashim saw a fiery figure dancing on the gut-skin covering over the roof hole, and an instant after a human skeleton came crawling into the room through the passageway, creeping on its knees and elbows.
The shamans, or priests, made their strongest charms to no purpose, for the darkness of night continued. In a village of the lower Yukon there lived an orphan boy who always sat upon the bench with the humble people, over the entrance way of the kashim or assembly house. The other people thought he was foolish, and he was despised and ill-treated by everyone.
The orphan was like any other boy until he put on a black coat which he had, when he became a raven and remained in that form until he removed his coat. When the shamans drove him out, he went to the house of his aunt in the village and told her what he had said, and how the shamans had beaten him and driven him out of the kashim.
The moon, being without food, wanes slowly away from starvation until it is quite lost to sight; then the sun reaches out and feeds it from the dish in which she carried food to the kashim. After the moon is fed and gradually brought to the full, it is permitted to starve again, thus producing the waxing and waning which we see every month.
Then he went into the kashim and said, "Now, you worthless shamans, you see I have brought back the light, and hereafter it will be light and then dark, making day and night." And the shamans could not answer. On the tundra south of the mouth of the Yukon River an orphan boy once lived with his aunt.
One time, however, she became angry at him, and that night when she carried food to the other brothers in the kashim or assembly house where the men slept, she gave none to the youngest brother. When she went out of the assembly house she saw a ladder leading up into the sky, with a line hanging down by the side of it. Taking hold of the line, she ascended the ladder, going up into the sky.
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