friend, “I dreamed that a great enemy came and attacked us.” Then he
had all the fowls assemble and come to fight, so that his dream might
be fulfilled. As soon as Raven had told his dream, Cᴀkǃᴀˊkᵘ went down
and saw the birds. Then Raven went into the house and began drinking up
his grease. But the man came back, saw what Raven was doing, and threw
him into a grease box, which he started to tie up with a strong rope.
Raven, however, called out, “My brother, do not tie me up with a strong
rope, but take a straw such as our forefathers used to employ.” He did
so. Then Raven drank up all the grease in the box, and, when the man
took him up on a high cliff and kicked him off, he came out easily and
flew away crying “G̣ā.”
One time Raven assembled all the birds in preparation for a feast
and had the bears in the rear of his house as guests. All the
birds had canes and helped him sing. As he sang along Raven would
say quietly, “Do you think one of you could fly into the anus of
a bear?” Then he would start another song and end it by saying in
much the same language, “One of you ought to fly up into that hole”
(i. e., anus). He kept taunting the birds with their inability to
do this, so, when the bears started out, the wren (wuˊłnᴀxwūˊckᴀq,
“bird-that-can-go-through-a-hole”) flew up into the anus of one of them
and came out with his intestines. Before it had pulled them far out
the bear fell dead. Then Raven chased all of the small birds away, sat
down, and began eating.
Raven never got full because he had eaten the black spots off of his
own toes. He learned about this after having inquired everywhere for
some way of bringing such a state about. Then he wandered through all
the world in search of things to eat.
After all the human beings had been destroyed Raven made new ones out
of leaves. Because he made this new generation, people know that he
must have changed all of the first people who had survived the flood,
into stones. Since human beings were made from leaves people always die
off rapidly in the fall of the year when flowers and leaves are falling.
At the time when he made this world, Raven made a devilfish
digging-stick and went around to all created things (shellfish
apparently) saying, “Are you going to hurt human beings? Say now either
yes or no.” Those that said “No” he passed by; those that said “Yes” he
rooted up. He said to the people, “When the tide goes out, your food
will be there. When the tide comes in, your food will be in the woods,”
indicating bear and other forest animals.
In Raven’s time the butts of ferns (kǃwᴀłx) were already cooked, but,
after some women had brought several of these in, Raven broke a stick
over the fern roots. Therefore they became green like this stick. He
also broke the roots up into many layers one above another.
Devilfish were very fat then, and the people used to make grease out of
them, but, when Raven came to a place where they were making he said,
“Give me a piece of that hard thing.” That is why its fatness left it.
[Corvus appellavit saxum, quod erat tectum algis, “Pudenda, ubi
crescunt crines.” Nepotes patris eius rogaverunt, “Esne capillatus?” Et
ille respondit, “Sane, pudenda mea pilis vestita sunt.” At modo habebat
in mente copias algarum, quae protegebant saxum in quo sedebat.]
One time Raven invited all the tribes of little people and laid down
bear skins for them to sit on. After they had come in and reached
the bear skins, they shouted to one another, “Here is a swampy, open
space.” That was the name they gave to those places on the skins from
which the hair had fallen out. By and by Raven seized the bear skins
and shook them over the fire, when all the little people flew into the
eyes of the human beings. He said, “You shall be pupils in people’s
eyes,” and ever since human beings have had them.
Now he went on from this place and camped by himself. There he saw a
large sculpin trying to get ashore below him, and he said to it, “My
uncle’s son, come ashore here. Come way up. One time, when you and I
were going along in our uncle’s canoe we fell into the water. So come
up a little farther.” Raven was very hungry, and, when the sculpin came
ashore, he seized it by its big, broad tail intending to eat it. But it
slipped through his fingers. This happened many times, and each time
the sculpin’s tail became smaller. That is why it is so slender to-day.
Then Raven said to it, “From now on you shall be named sculpin (wēqǃ).”
Raven had a blanket which kept blowing out from him, so he threw it
into the water and let it float away. Then he obtained a wife, and, as
he was traveling along with her, he said, “There is going to be a great
southwest wind. We better stop here for a little while. I expect my
blanket ashore here.” After a while it came in. Then his wife said to
him, “Take your blanket ashore and throw it on some branches.” He did
so and it became _Rebis bracteosum_ (Tlingit, cāx). When they went on
farther the sea became so rough that his wife was frightened, and told
him to put ashore some of the fat with which his canoe was loaded. He
did this, but was so angry with his wife for having asked him, that he
said to her, “You better put ashore your sewing basket,” and so she
did.[12]
Then he left his wife and went along by himself. He assembled very many
young birds, and, when he camped told them to go after cātǃkǃ, the term
he at that time applied to drinking water.
Afterwards he came to a certain place and started to make a
salmon creek. He said, “This woman shall be at the head of this
creek.” The woman he spoke of had long teats, so he called her
Woman-with-long-teats-floating-around (Hīn-cᴀkxēˊnaỵî), saying, “When
the salmon come to the creeks, they shall all go up to see her.” That
is why salmon run up the creeks.
After this he went into the woods and set out to make the porcupine.
For quills he took pieces of yellow cedar bark, which he set all the
way up and down its back so that bears would be afraid of it. This is
why bears never eat porcupines. He said to the porcupine, “Whenever
anyone comes near you, throw your tail about.” This is why people are
afraid of it when it does so.
Now Raven went off to a certain place and made the west wind, naming it
Qǃāxōˊ. He said to it, “You shall be my son’s daughter. No matter how
hard you blow you shall hurt nobody.”
He took up a piece of red salmon and said to it, “If anyone is not
strong enough to paddle home he shall take up this fish and blow behind
him.”
Raven is a grandchild of the mouse (kułēˊłtᴀǃnî). That is why a mouse
can never get enough to eat.
Raven also made the south wind (sāˊnaxet). When the south wind climbs
on top of a rock it never ceases to blow.
He made the north wind (x̣ūn), and on top of a mountain he made a house
for it with something like ice hanging down on the sides. Then he went
in and said to it, “Your buttocks are white.” This is why the mountains
are white with snow.
He made all the different races, as the Haida and the Tsimshian.
They are human beings like the Tlingit, but he made their languages
different.
He also made the dog. It was at first a human being and did everything
Raven wanted done, but he was too quick with everything, so Raven took
him by the neck and pushed him down, saying, “You are nothing but a
dog. You shall have four legs.”
One time Raven came to a certain thing called fat-on-the-sea
(ỵīkᴀtāỵîˊ), which stuck out of the ocean. He kept saying to it, “Get
down a little,” so it kept going under the surface. But every time it
came up he took his paddle and cut part off. It did this seven times,
but, when he spoke to it the eighth time, it went down out of sight,
and he never saw it again.
As he was traveling along in another place, a wild celery came out,
became angry with Raven, and said, “You are always wandering around for
things to eat.” Then he named it wild celery (yāˊnaet) and said to it,
“You shall stay there, and people shall eat you.”
Once he passed a large tree and saw something up in it called cᴀxdᴀˊq.
Raven called out “Cᴀxdᴀˊq,” and it shouted back, “You Raven.” They
called back and forth to each other for some time.
[Advenit in alium locum et alligavit aliquid circum caput ostrei, quod
protrudebat ex arena. Appellavit idem ʟdas-qēˊt (viri pudenda).]
SUPPLEMENTARY TO STORY 1
Near a bay not far from Kōtsǃēˊʟǃ there used to be a sea-water pond in
which lived a beaver. Raven very much wanted to get at this beaver and
kill it, so he dug two trenches in order to drain the lake at low tide.
After the water had run out through them, and the beaver had become
visible at the bottom, he let down a kind of hook and pulled it up.
Raven had tried every sort of thing as a post under this earth. Last
of all he caught this beaver and made the post out of the bone of its
foreleg [which is very solid]. That is why the world is now standing.
Old-woman-underneath (Haỵicāˊnakǃᵘ) attends to this post, but, when she
is hungry, the earth shakes. Then people put grease into the fire and
it goes to her.
After he had killed the beaver Raven killed also a big whale and got
his people to tow it to the place where the beaver had formerly lived.
He got four large canoes full of people to tow it up the rapids in one
of the canals he had then made. After they had labored for many days,
they became tired, and he said to them, “Take it easy.” Finally he
himself became tired and said, “Turn into stone.” All did so, and to
this day you can see a large island there shaped like a whale and a
string of four smaller islands extending out from one end of it.
Raven named several places in this neighborhood. One was Qāgᵘᴀntoqaˊ,
(A-hidden-person); another Tsētkǃ (Little Ladder). He named an island
outside, Łatǃᴀˊn. Still another was called Łᴀqoˊx̣ᴀsǃ, after the name
of a small canoe, because one of these was passing at the time.
Between two mountain peaks just eastward of Sitka is a hollow
filled with trees supposed to resemble boys, so the place is called
Kǃêsāˊnî-āˊỵaodihaỵiỵa, Where-is-a-big-crowd-of-boys. Raven appointed
this as the place from which the sun would turn back north. A point
on the coast just north of Sitka was called by him Kǃoˊłacᴀtqǃaˊ,
Point-holding-things-back, because when a canoe passes it coming
toward Sitka it can not go fast (i. e., it does not seem to get by
this rapidly). Just north of this is a kind of bay which Raven called
Kᴀˊdᴀłᴀtc-x̣ᴀkᵘ, Noisy-beach.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cf. story 31.
[2] Perhaps the anal opening.
[3] See _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of Bureau of American Ethnology_,
p. 455.
[4] Perhaps Mount St Elias.
[5] A song goes with this.
[6] A song goes with this also.
[7] This paragraph is perhaps misplaced, the incident being confounded
with another on page 17.
[8] This name does not occur in the list given by this same man
(_Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, p.
426.) He said it was the eighth month and according to his list the
eighth month is March, which he calls Hīn taˊnᴀx kayāˊnî dīˊsî, “Month
when things under the sea begin to grow.”
[9] Possibly the heroes of story 3. See also story 31.
[10] This appears to be retrospective. Cf. p. 9.
[11] Said to be a kind of bird. Kǃᴀkᵘ alone would mean “chicken hawk.”
[12] This is evidently told to account for certain peculiarly shaped
rocks.
2. THE BIG CLAM
At the farther end of Tenakee inlet (Tǃīˊnag̣e) is a little bay called
Where-sweetness-killed-a-person (Gᴀtłqōˊwag̣eya). One summer there were
many people encamped there drying salmon, and among them many lively
young people. One day some girls took a canoe and crossed the bay to
a strawberry patch on the other side. Afterwards a man named Tsǃēʟǃ
went down into the water to wade over to them but was swallowed by a
halibut. So they named the place Kotsǃēˊʟǃ after this man.
Near this inlet is a high cliff in front of which a big clam formerly
lived. It used to stick its head (lit. penis) high up out of the water.
It always had its valves open, and if a canoe passed that way, it would
close them on it (lit. shut its mouth on it), and the canoe was gone.
Raven heard of this clam, and he instructed a little mink to call to
it, “Stick out your head and let us see you,” (īłiˊł-ᴀnᴀxdāˊx tsǃᴀg̣āˊx
dustīˊn), while the people stood ready above with sharpened sticks.
But, instead of speaking as it was told, the mink said, “Raven made
clam” (Yēł djeˊaosîniỵî g̣āʟǃ). Finally the mink said plainly as he had
been directed, “Stick your head out of the water and let us see you,”
and it began to put out its head. He said, “A little more.” When it was
well out, all the people seized their sticks and plunged them into it,
cutting the ligament which held the valves together so that they sprang
apart. Then the whole bay began to smell badly from it. On the rock
slide back of the place where this clans used to run out its head all
sorts of things now grow. It is called Clam-slide (Yēs-kādêˊ).
3. ENGLISH VERSION OF THE STORY OF THE FOUR BROTHERS[13]
There were four brothers who owned a dog of an Athapascan variety
called dzī.[14] They had one sister. One day the dog began barking at
something. Then Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ, the eldest brother, put red paint inside
of his blanket, took his rattle, and followed. The other brothers went
with him. They pursued it up, up, up, into the sky. The dog kept on
barking, and they did not know what it was going to do. It was chasing
a cloud.
When they got to the other side of the world they came out on the edge
of a very steep cliff. They did not know what to do. The dog, however,
went right down the cliff, and they saw the cloud still going on
ahead. Now these brothers had had nothing to eat and were very hungry.
Presently they saw the dog coming up from far below bringing the tail
of a salmon. After a while they saw it run back.
Then they said to one another, “What shall we do? We might as well go
down also.” But, when Łqǃayāˊkǃ, the youngest brother, started he was
smashed in pieces. The two next fared in the same way. Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ,
however, braced his stick against the wall behind him and reached
the bottom in safety. Then he put the bones of each of his brothers
together, rubbed red paint on them, and shook his rattle over them, and
they came to life.
Starting on again around this world, they came to a creek full of
salmon. This was where the dog had been before. When they got down to
it they saw a man coming up the creek. He was a large man with but one
leg and had a kind of spear in his hand with which he was spearing
all the salmon. They watched him from between the limbs of a large,
dead tree. When he got through hooking the salmon, he put all on two
strings, one of which hung out of each corner of his mouth. Then he
carried them down.
Then Łqǃayāˊkǃ said to his brothers, “Let us devise some plan for
getting the salmon spear.” So he seized a salmon, brought it ashore and
skinned it. First Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ tried to get inside of it but failed. When
Łqǃayāˊkǃ made the attempt, however, he swam off at once, and, if one
of his brothers came near him, he swam away. Then the other brothers
sat up in the dead tree, Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ at the top.
When the big man came up again after salmon, Łqǃayāˊkǃ swam close up to
him, and he said, “Oh! my salmon. It is a fine salmon.” But, when he
made a motion toward it with his spear, it swam back into deep water.
Finally it swam up close, and the big man speared it easily. Then
Łqǃayāˊkǃ went to the tail of the fish, cut the string which fastened
the big man’s spear point to the shaft and swam off with the point.
Upon this the big man pulled his shaft up, looked at it and said, “My
spear is gone.” Then he went downstream. In the meantime Łqǃayāˊkǃ came
ashore, got out of the fish, came up to his usual station on the lowest
limb of the tree, and sat down there. They had him sit below because he
talked so much, and because he was the most precipitate.
That night the one-legged man did not sleep at all on account of his
lost spear. He was using it in working for the bear people. When he
came up next morning he had a quill in his hands which would tell him
things. He took this about among the trees, and, when he came to that
on which the brothers were sitting, it bent straight down. Then he
cried, “Bring my spear this way.” Although he saw no one, he knew that
there were people there who had it. Then he came to the bottom of the
tree, seized Łqǃayāˊkǃ and tore him in pieces. So he served the next
two brothers. But Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ had his dog, which he was able to make
small, concealed under his coat and, after his brothers were torn up,
he let it go, and it tore the big man all to pieces. Because he had his
red paint, rattle, and dog he cared for nothing. Now he put the red
paint on his brothers’ bodies and shook the rattle over them so that
they came to life.
Next morning they got into the same tree again. Then they saw a man
with two heads placed one over another coming up the stream. It was
the bear chief. He hooked a great many salmon and put them on pieces
of string on each side of his mouth. Next evening a little old man
came up. Łqǃayāˊkǃ came down and asked, “What are you doing here?” He
said, “I have come up after salmon.” But he could hook none at all, so
Łqǃayāˊkǃ caught a lot for him. Then Łqǃayāˊkǃ asked him: “What does
that double-head that came up here do?” The old man said, “I will tell
you about it.” So they said to him: “Now we want you to tell the truth
about this? What does he really do when he gets home with his salmon?
We will get you more salmon if you tell us truly.” And the old man
answered: “When he gets home with a load of salmon, he leaves it down
by the river. Then he takes off his skin coat and hangs it up.” This is
what he told them.
The next time the two heads came up and began to throw salmon ashore,
it said all at once, “I feel people’s looks.”[15] As soon as he came
opposite the place where they were sitting, Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ threw his dog
right upon him. It caught this big bear by the neck and killed him.
Every time thereafter, when the little old man came up, they questioned
him about the people in the place he came from.
At last they caught a lot of salmon and prepared to descend. Then
Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ put on the bear skin, placed his brothers under his arms
inside of it, took strings of salmon as the bear had done, and
started on. When he came in front of the houses he acted just like the
two-headed man. First he entered the two-headed man’s house and shook
his skin, whereupon his brothers and the dog passed behind the screens
in the rear of the house and hid themselves. After that he began fixing
his salmon, and, when he was through, took off his coat and hung it up
in the manner that had been described to him.
Toward evening a great deal of noise was heard outside, made over
some object. Łqǃayāˊkǃ very much wanted to go out and look, but they
tried to prevent him. Finally he did go out and began to play with the
object, whereupon the players rolled it on him and cut him in two.
After that the two brothers next older went out and were cut in two in
the same manner. After this Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ sent his dog out. He seized the
object, shook it and made it fly to the tops of the mountains, where it
made the curved shapes the mountains have to-day. Then it rolled right
back again. When it rolled back, the dog became very angry, seized it
a second time, shook it hard, and threw it so high that it went clear
around the sun. It made the halo of light seen there. Then Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ
took his brothers’ bodies, pieced them together, put red paint upon
them and shook his rattle over them. They came to life again. Then he
took the dog, made it small, and put it under his arm; and they started
off. Since that time people have had the kind of spear (dīnaˊ) above
referred to. The brothers started on with it, and, whenever they were
hungry, they got food with it. They always kept together.
After a while they came across some Athapascan Indians called
Worm-eating people (Wūn-xa qoan). These were so named because, when
they killed game, they let worms feed upon it, and, when the worms
had become big enough, they ate them through holes in the middle of
their foreheads which served them as mouths. Łqǃayāˊkǃ wanted to be
among these Athapascans, because they had bows and arrows and wore
quills attached to their hair. They used their bows and arrows to shoot
caribou, and, when they were pursuing this animal, they used to eat
snow.
After Łqǃayāˊkǃ had obtained his bow and arrows they came out at a
certain place, probably the Stikine river, and stayed among some people
who were whipping one another for strength, in the sea. Every morning
they went into the water with them.
At that time they thought that Łqǃayāˊkǃ was going with his sister, and
they put some spruce gum around the place where she slept. Then they
found the spruce gum on him and called him all sorts of names when they
came from bathing. They called him Messenger-with-pitch-on-his-thigh
(Naqāˊnî qǃᴀcgūˊqǃo), the messenger being a brother-in-law of the
people of the clan giving a feast. They named him so because they
were very much ashamed. This is why people have ever since been very
watchful about their sisters. Because he had been fooling with his
sister, when Łqǃayāˊkǃ went out, his brothers said to him, “You do not
behave yourself. Go somewhere else. You can be a thunder (hēʟǃ).” They
said to him, “Hāˊagun kādîˊ.”[16]
This is why, when thunder is heard, people always say, “You gummy
thigh.” It is because Łqǃayāˊkǃ became a thunder. Their sister was
ashamed. She went down into Mount Edgecumbe (ʟǃux̣) through the crater.
Because the thunder is a man, when the thunder is heard far out at sea,
people blow up into the air through their hands and say, “Let it drive
the sickness away,” or “Let it go far northward.” The other brothers
started across the Stikine and became rocks there.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] This story was told by Dekināˊkǃᵘ. According to some, the story
begins with the birth of five children from a dog father. See stories
97 and 31 (pp. 99–106).
[14] Łᴀkîtcᴀneˊ, the father of these boys, is said to have lived near
the site of the Presbyterian school at Sitka and to have used the
“blarney stone,” so called, as a grindstone.
[15] Meaning “I feel that people’s looks are on me.”
[16] It is said that no one knows what these words mean.
4. ORIGIN OF THE KILLER WHALE[17]
A man named Nātsᴀłᴀneˊ, belonging to the Tsagueˊdî (Seal people), made
killer whales. He first tried to carve them out of red cedar, then out
of hemlock, then out of all other kinds of wood in succession. He took
each set of figures to the beach and tried to make them swim out, but
instead they floated up on the surface. Last of all he tried yellow
cedar, and was successful.
He made these of different sorts. On one he marked white lines with
Indian chalk from the corners of its mouth back to its head. He said,
“This is going to be the white-mouthed killer whale.” When he first
put them into the water he headed them up the inlet, telling them that
whenever they went up to the heads of the bays they were to hunt for
seal, halibut, and all other things under the sea; but he told them not
to hurt a human being. When you are going up the bay, people will say
to you, “Give us something to eat.” Before this people did not know
what the killer whale is.
* * * * *
Another thing people did not know was that the killer whale could go
ashore and camp. One time a man married a high-caste woman and went up
to the head of a certain bay with her, because he knew that the killer
whales always went there. On the way they saw a camp fire blazing upon
the shore. There were killer whales encamped here, but he thought they
were human beings and landed to see them. When they got close in, he
jumped into the water to urinate. All at once the killer-whale chief
said, “I feel people’s looks. Go outside and look on the beach.” But,
when they saw him urinating, they started off, leaving their camp just
as it was, jumped into the water, and swam away.