Once upon a time a famine broke out among the tribe of the Tlingits, and one of their girls, who was an orphan and had to look after herself, would have fared very badly had she not now and then been given some food by her father's sister. But this did not happen often, for everybody was almost starving, and it was seldom that they had any food for themselves, still less for anyone else.

Now the girl, whose name was Djun, heard some of the women planning to go to the forest and dig roots, and though she wished very much to accompany them, they would not take her.

'You will bring us bad luck,' they said, and struck her fingers when, in despair at being left behind, she grasped the side of the canoe. But though the girl was obliged to loosen her hold from pain, she was so hungry that she would not be beaten off, and at last her father's sister, who was one of the party, persuaded the others to let her go with them. So she jumped in and paddled away to the forest.

All that day the women hunted for roots till they had collected a large pile, and had even caught some salmon in the river as well, and as evening drew on they prepared to encamp for the night, and built a fire to warm them and to cook some of the roots. But the girl, who had wandered away by herself as soon as they had landed, did not return, and the women were angry, and said that if she did not choose to come back, she might stay in the forest for ever. And the next morning, when they started for home, they threw water on the fire so that Djun might not be able to cook her food, if she had any to cook. However, the girl's aunt managed to steal a burning coal which lay on the fire, and, unseen by the rest, threw it into a deserted brush-house where they had slept, and put a piece of dried salmon with it. Just as she had done this she caught sight of the girl hiding behind the brush-house, and went to speak to her; for the other women were too busy packing the food into the boat to notice what she was doing.

'Are you not coming with us?' she asked, and Djun answered:

'No; as they don't want to take me, I had better stay here.'

'Well, I have put a live coal in that brush-house for you and a piece of salmon,' said her aunt, 'so you will have something to eat for a day or two.'

The girl did not leave her hiding-place till the boat was out of sight, and then she made a big fire from the burning coal, and cooked her roots and her salmon; but though they smelt very good, and she was hungry, she did not somehow feel as if she could eat. So she soon got up and went farther into the forest and dug some more roots.

'I shall be almost starving by the evening,' thought she, 'and I will eat them then;' but when evening came she had no more appetite than in the morning, so she curled herself up in a corner and fell asleep, for she was very tired.

She was awakened early next day by a rushing of wings, and, looking out of the door, found a flock of birds sweeping by. But there was nothing very uncommon in that, and she lay down again and slept for several hours longer. Then she got up and walked some distance till she reached a flat plain, where the best roots grew, but the flock of birds had found them out also, and were feeding upon them.

When they saw her they flew away, and she went to a spot covered with dead grass, for she expected that would be a good place to dig in. To her surprise, under the dead grass lay several big canoes filled with oil, dried halibut and dried salmon.

'How lucky I am!' she said to herself; 'it was well indeed that I did not return with the others,' and she broke off a piece of salmon and tried to eat it, but she could not.

'What is the matter with me?' she wondered. 'I wish my aunt were here,' and she felt rather frightened. And the next day she grew more frightened still, for she found out that the birds were spirits, and it was they who were preventing her from eating food, so that she might become a great shaman or medicine-man. After a little while her eyes were opened, and she understood many things she had never guessed at, and the spirit-birds she had seen took possession of her, and others came from the woods and the sea, and sang to her.

At first she went two or three times every day to visit the buried canoes and to dig for roots, but she quickly gave that up, for she had nothing with which to sharpen the sticks she used instead of spades; and besides, what was the use of digging for roots if you could not eat them? Meanwhile, in the village the girl's aunt mourned for her, as she felt sure Djun must by this time be dead of hunger.

'I am very lonely: I wish some of my old friends would come to see me,' thought Djun when she had been living by herself for several months, and the next morning a canoe appeared in sight, and in it were seated some people whom she knew. Then Djun was happy indeed, and she bade them follow her to the brush-house, and gave them food out of the canoes; for two or three days they stayed, digging for roots and for anything else they could get, and at the end of the time Djun said to them:

'It is well that you should go again, but be careful not to take with you any of the food that I have given you. Tell my friends that I am alive, and beg my aunt to come and visit me.'

So the people of the canoe returned to the village, and told such tales of the food they had received from Djun that all the townsfolk hastened to get into their canoes and paddled straight off to the place where she was living. When they drew near enough to see the brush-house, they beheld it surrounded by thousands of birds that seemed to stretch right upwards from the earth to the sky. They also heard the shaman's voice and the sound of singing, but as soon as they approached closer to the brush-house, the birds flew away.

After that the shaman went out to meet them, and she asked:

'Where is my aunt? I want her;' and when her aunt came Djun gave her everything that was stored in one of her buried canoes, and then she said:

'I should like two of the women to stay with me and help me with my singing,' and one after another the chief women of the tribe, with their faces newly painted, rose up in the canoes; but she would have none of them, and chose two girls who were orphans like herself, and had been treated very badly by their kinsfolk.

'The rest can come ashore,' she said, 'and camp out here,' but she took the orphans and her aunt into the brush-house.

Now these high-born women had brought their slaves with them, and Djun took the slaves in exchange for food, and put necklaces and paint and feathers and fine robes upon the orphans. And the whole of the village people stayed with her a long while, and when they got into the canoes again they were fat and strong with all that Djun had given them.

For some time Djun lived quite happily in the brush-house now that she had some companions; then a longing took hold of her to go back to her own village, so she worked magic in order to make the chief of the town fall ill, and the people, who had learnt that she had become a shaman, sent a canoe to fetch her and offered her much payment if she would cure him.

The family of Djun the shaman was one of the noblest in the tribe, but misfortune had overtaken them. One by one they had all died, and when the girl came back to the village nothing remained but the posts of her uncle's house, while grass had sprouted inside the walls. She beheld these things from the canoe and felt very sad, but she bade the slaves cease paddling, as she wished to land. Then she drew out an eagle's tail, and, holding it up, blew upon it and waved it backwards and forwards. After she had done this four times, the posts and the grass disappeared, and in their place stood a fine house—finer and larger than the one the chief had lived in.