Atondido Stories
She brought food which she served with berries and oil.
"These are berries which I gathered last summer," she said.
For four days he remained there as the guest of the whale's spir-
it, and found it a very pleasant experience; but he continually
wondered what the tube was that ran along the roof of the
house. Whenever the spirit woman left the room she said, "You
must on no account touch that tube," and that only served to
make him the more curious.
On the fifth day, when she left the room, he went to the lamp
and caught a drop of the oil which he licked up with his tongue.
It tasted so sweet that he began to catch other drops as fast as
they fell. This soon became too slow to suit him, for he was hun-
gry, so he reached up and tore a piece from the side of the tube
and ate it. As soon as this was done a great rush of oil poured in-
to the room and put out the light, while the room itself began to
roll wildly about.
This continued for four days, and Raven was nearly dead
from exhaustion and the bruises which he received. Then the
room became still and the whale was dead, for Raven had torn
off part of one of the heart vessels. The inua never came back to
the room, and the whale drifted upon the shore.
Raven now found himself a prisoner and was saying to him-
self, "Now I am in a pretty boat! I have enjoyed the trip, but how
is one to get out of a kayak like this?"
Presently he said, "Hark! What is that I hear? As I live, it is
someone walking on the roof of the house!"
And he was right, for two men were walking on top of the
dead whale and calling to their village mates to come and help
cut it up. Very soon there were many people at work cutting a
hole through the upper side of the whale's body.
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