come home empty.  I know of these things from the old men and the old women, who got them from their fathers and mothers before them.  These strange white men did not take kindly to our ways at first, but they grew strong, what of the fish and the oil, and fierce.  And they built them each his own house, and took the pick of our women, and in time children came.  Thus he was born who was to become the father of my father’s father.

’As I said, I was different from my people, for I carried the strong, strange blood of this white man who came out of the sea.  It is said we had other laws in the days before these men; but they were fierce and quarrelsome, and fought with our men till there were no more left who dared to fight.  Then they made themselves chiefs, and took away our old laws, and gave us new ones, insomuch that the man was the son of his father, and not his mother, as our way had been.  They also ruled that the son, first-born, should have all things which were his father’s before him, and that the brothers and sisters should shift for themselves.  And they gave us other laws.  They showed us new ways in the catching of fish and the killing of bear which were thick in the woods; and they taught us to lay by bigger stores for the time of famine.  And these things were good.

’But when they had become chiefs, and there were no more men to face their anger, they fought, these strange white men, each with the other.  And the one whose blood I carry drove his seal spear the length of an arm through the other’s body.  Their children took up the fight, and their children’s children; and there was great hatred between them, and black doings, even to my time, so that in each family but one lived to pass down the blood of them that went before.  Of my blood I was alone; of the other man’s there was but a girl.  Unga, who lived with her mother.  Her father and my father did not come back from the fishing one night; but afterward they washed up to the beach on the big tides, and they held very close to each other.

’The people wondered, because of the hatred between the houses, and the old men shook their heads and said the fight would go on when children were born to her and children to me.  They told me this as a boy, till I came to believe, and to look upon Unga as a foe, who was to be the mother of children which were to fight with mine.  I thought of these things day by day, and when I grew to a stripling I came to ask why this should be so.

’And they answered, “We do not know, but that in such way your fathers did.”  And I marveled that those which were to come should fight the battles of those that were gone, and in it I could see no right.  But the people said it must be, and I was only a stripling.

’And they said I must hurry, that my blood might be the older and grow strong before hers.  This was easy, for I was head man, and the people looked up to me because of the deeds and the laws of my fathers, and the wealth which was mine.  Any maiden would come to me, but I found none to my liking.  And the old men and the mothers of maidens told me to hurry, for even then were the hunters bidding high to the mother of Unga; and should her children grow strong before mine, mine would surely die.