Hungry is the lodge without a hunter.
There was a woman whose husband had died of the coughing ill. Without kinsfolk in the winter village to help them, times were hard for her and her children.
One year there came a time at the end of Winter, when nights are cold but days begin to be warm, that no food was left in the lodge. While they had strength, the children wept for hunger.
Then the woman nicked her breasts with a knife and let the children suckle her blood. In this way, their lives were saved.
But with time the woman herself grew weak from this blood-suckling, and in the end she died. When the ground had thawed, they buried her. From her grave grew a tall tree with beautiful silver bark.