food there. His wife said, “It is lucky that we came across this;” and
after a while the man said, “Let us cook some, my wife.” Then the woman
took her cooking basket and put some water into it. Presently she said,
“Way out there is a canoe coming.” It was a black canoe. She said, “We
better leave this alone until the canoe comes so that we can invite
them to eat with us.” Her husband said, “All right.” By and by his wife
said, “What is the matter? To my eyes it does not appear like a canoe.
It is too black.” It was really a young killer whale, under which the
other killer whales were swimming to make it appear like a canoe. When
the supposed canoe reached land, the whales rushed ashore, seized the
woman, who had concealed herself behind her husband, and carried her
down to the sea. They took her away because her husband had taken their
provisions. This time, when the killer whales rose again, instead of
appearing like only one canoe, they came up out of the water thick
everywhere and began to swim down the bay very fast. Meanwhile the
husband went down to his canoe, got in, and paddled after them along
the shore. But, when they came to a high cliff where the water went
down deep, all the whales suddenly dived out of sight.
Now the man climbed to the top of this cliff, fastened a bough to his
head and another slim spruce bough around his waist, filled the space
inside of his shirt with rocks, and jumped into the ocean at the spot
where his wife had disappeared, falling upon a smooth, mossy place on
the bottom. When he awoke, he arose, looked about, and saw a long town
near by. He entered the last house, which proved to belong to the chief
of the shark people.
In this house he saw a man with a crooked mouth peeping out at him from
behind a post. A long time before, when he had been fishing, a shark
had cut his line and carried off the hook, and it was this hook that
now peeped out at him. It said, “Master, it is I. When your line broke,
they took me down here and have made me a slave.”
Then he said to the shark chief, “Is there any news in this town?” and
he replied, “Nothing especial in our town, but right across from us is
the killer-whales’ town, and recently we heard that a woman had been
captured there and is now married to the killer-whale chief.” Then
the shark chief continued: “The killer-whale chief has a slave who is
always chopping wood back in the forest with a stone ax. When you come
to him, say within yourself, ‘I wish your stone ax would break.’ Wish
it continually.” So the shark instructed him.
Then he went over to the killer-whale town, and, when the slave’s ax
did break, he went up to him and said, “I will help you to fix that
stone ax if you will tell me where my wife is.” So he began to fix it
in place for him. It was the only stone ax in the killer-whale tribe.
Then the slave said, “I always bring wood down and make a fire in the
evening, after which my master sends me for water. When you see me
going after water, come to the door and wait there for me. As soon as I
come in I am going to push over the fire. At the same time I am going
to empty the water into it so as to make a quantity of steam. Then rush
in and carry out your wife.”
The man followed these directions and started away with his wife. Then
his halibut hook shouted, “This way, my master, this way.” So he ran
toward the shark people’s town, and they pursued him. Now the killer
whales attacked the shark people because they said that the sharks had
instructed him what to do, and they killed many sharks.
In return the sharks began to make themselves strong. They were going
out again to fight the killer whales. They went to some rocks and began
sharpening their teeth. Then they began the battle, and whenever the
killer whales approached, the sharks would run against their bellies
and rip them open, letting out their entrails. The whole bay was full
of killer whales and sharks. What happened to the woman is not told.
* * * * *
When the killer-whale tribe start north the seals say, “Here comes
another battle. Here come the warriors.” They say this because the
killer whales are always after seals. Killer whales are of different
kinds, and the one that always swims ahead is the red killer whale,
called “killer-whale-spear” (Kīt-wusāˊnî). It was so named by the man
who made these animals because he shaped it long and slender. The
Tsagueˊdî, to which this man belonged, are a branch of the Dᴀqʟǃaweˊdî;
therefore the Dᴀqʟǃaweˊdî are the only people who make the killer whale
their emblem.[18]
On their way to us the first killer whales came into a bay called
Kotsǃēˊʟǃ, after Tsǃēʟǃ, the first man who came to that bay. They
encamped at its head and the day after began digging into the cliff.
The land there is not very high, so they were soon through, laid
skids down, and carried their canoes across. Some people watched
them. The killer whales always used to cross at the place where they
laid down these skids, and now people cross there. It is called
Killer-whale-crossing place (Kītgūˊnî), but is now overgrown with trees
and underbrush.
[This place is said to be on the north arm of Tenakee bay, where a
canal has been projected to enable boats to reach Huna more easily.]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] See stories 59 and 71.
[18] The Wūˊckitan must, however, be added.
5. KAKAˊ[19]
When Kᴀkaˊ was taken south, either to Cape Ommaney or farther, a
woman came to him and said, “I am in the same fix as you. We are both
saved[20] by the land otters.” That is how he found out what had
happened to him. The woman also said, “I am your friend, and I have two
land-otter husbands who will take you to your home.” Then she called
him to her and began to look over his hair. Finally she said, “Your
wife has put the sinew from a land-otter’s tail through your ear. That
is what has caused you to become a land otter.”
Then they took down what looked to him like a canoe, but really it was
a skate. The skate is the land-otter’s canoe. When they set out, they
put him into the canoe, laid a woven mat over him and said, “You must
not look up again.” He did look up, however, after a time and found
himself tangled among the kelp stems. These land otters were going to
become his spirits.
On their journey they started to cross a bay called Kēn to an island
called Tēłnuˊ, and, as daylight was coming on, they began to be afraid
that the raven would call and kill them before they reached the other
side. It was almost daylight when they came to land, so they ran off at
once among the bushes and rocks, leaving Kᴀkaˊ to pull up the canoe.
This was hard work, and while he was at it the skin was all worn from
his lower arm, so he knew that it was a skate.
Some people traveling in a canoe saw his shadow there and tried hard to
make him out clearly, but in vain. They did not want to have him turn
into a land otter, so they said, “Kᴀkaˊ, you have already turned into a
ground hog.”
By and by one of his friends heard him singing in the midst of a thick
fog at a place near the southern end of Baranoff island on the outside.
Each time he ended his song with the words, “Let the log drift landward
with me.” Then it would drift shoreward with him. Meanwhile he was
lying on the log head down with blood running out of his nose and mouth
and all kinds of sea birds were feeding on him. It was his spirits that
made him that way. The real land otters had left him, but they had come
to him again as spirits.
Now the people sang a song on shore that could be heard where Kᴀkaˊ
was floating, but, although they heard the noise of a shaman’s beating
sticks, they could not get at him. Then the friend who had first found
him went ashore and fasted two days, after which he went out and saw
Kᴀkaˊ lying on his back on the log. He was as well as when he had left
Sitka. Then his friend brought him ashore, but the land-otter spirits
remained with him, and he became a great shaman.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] See story 31, pp. 87–88.
[20] So interpreters persist in speaking of the capture of a human
being by anthropomorphic animals or other supernatural beings.
6. THE LAND-OTTER SISTER[21]
A man set out from Sitka to a certain camp with his children in order
to dry halibut, for in those days that was how they had to get their
food. It was spring time. Then, too, they had stone axes and used small
half baskets for pots in which to do cooking. His wife and children
spent all of their time digging clams, cockles, and other shellfish
down on the beach and in laying them aside for future use. The man,
meantime, was hewing out a canoe with his stone ax. They had a hard
time, for they had nothing to live on except the things picked up at
low tide.
Many years before this man’s sister had been drowned, but so long a
time had passed that he had forgotten her. She, however, had been taken
by the land otters and was married among them, having many children.
From around a neighboring point she was watching him. Her children were
all working to collect a quantity of food.
After this the woman’s husband told her to take a lot of food to
her brother. All the land-otter-people are called “Point people”
(Qǃātkwedîˊ); they have plenty of halibut, seal, etc. So she began
packing these things up to take them to her brother. In front of his
dwelling house her brother had a house made of branches, and one
evening he heard someone come in front of his house and seem to lay
down a heavy pack there. Then the person said, “The place where you are
stopping is wonderfully far from us.” He went out and saw a woman but
did not know who she was because her arms were grown to her breast and
her mouth was thrown open with her upper lip drawn up under her nose.
But the woman could see how he felt, so she said to him, “It is I. I am
your sister who lives a short distance away around this point.” Then
she brought the basket into her brother’s house and said to him, “Take
the things out of the basket, for I have to return before the raven
calls.”
Next evening she came back with another full basket. This time she
said, “You have three nephews who will come over and help you get
halibut and other things.” So the little otters came to their uncle.
From their waist up they looked like human beings; below they were
otters, and they had tails. Their mother came with them and began to
take her brother’s children on her lap saying, “Little tail (ʟǃīt
kǃᴀtskǃuˊ), little tail growing down.” As she sang tails began to
grow down from them. Then their father looked at them, became angry,
and said, “What are you doing to my children anyway?” Immediately she
slapped them on the buttocks and said, “Up goes the little tail, up
into the buttocks (tūˊdenᴀtsî yēq),” and the tails went up into their
buttocks.
After his nephews had stayed with him for some time the man said within
himself, “I have no devilfish for bait,” and the same evening the young
fellows were gone after it. Although it was high tide many devilfish
were found in front of his house. The young otters called good weather
bad and bad weather good.
One day they went out with their uncle to fish, and, when he put his
line down with the buoy on it, the little otters all jumped into the
water. They went down on the line and put on the hook the biggest
halibut they could find. After they had brought in the canoe loaded
twice their uncle had an abundance of provisions.
In the evening the otters had worked so hard that they fell asleep on
the opposite side of the fire with their tails close to the blaze. Then
their uncle said to them, “Your handy little tails are beginning to
burn.” On account of those words all became angry and left him, going
back to their father. Then the man’s sister came to him and asked what
he had said to his nephews. He said, “I simply told them that their
clothes were beginning to burn on them.” So the otters’ father tried
to explain it, saying to them: “Your uncle did not mean anything when
he said your clothes were beginning to burn. He wanted only to save
your clothes. Now go back and stay with him.” So they got over their
displeasure and went back.
All that time the man was working upon his canoe. He said within
himself, “I wonder how my canoe can be gotten down.” Next morning his
nephews went up, put their tails under it, and pulled it down. When
they got it to their uncle’s house, he loaded the canoe and started
home with them, but quite near his town he missed them out of the
canoe. Then all the people there wondered where he could have gotten a
canoe load of such things as he had. He gave everything to his friends.
Then his wife said to the people, “Something came to help us. We have
seen my husband’s sister who was drowned long ago, and that is the way
we got help.”
Afterward he went back to the place where he had received assistance
but saw nothing of those who had helped him. He hunted all about the
place from which his sister used to come but found nothing except
land-otter holes. He became discouraged and gave up searching.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] See story 45.
7. THE LAND-OTTER SON
There was a great famine at Sitka, and all the people went halibut
fishing. Then a certain man went with his wife to the mouth of Redoubt
bay. He had prepared barks some time before, and, when they got to this
place, they made a house out of them. They fished there for a long
time, but caught no more than one or two halibut a week. By the end of
two months they had little to live on except shellfish and other things
picked up at low tide.
One evening they caught a small halibut at their fishing ground. They
cooked a piece of it and put the rest on the drying frame in the brush
house the man had constructed outside.
Next day they heard a noise there as if something were being thrown
down and moved about. The woman said, “What can that be?” Then her
husband went out and was astonished to see two medium-sized devilfish
lying there. He wondered how they had gotten up from the beach. Then
he went in and said, “Wife (dja), I am in luck. There are two large
devilfish out there. I do not know who brought them. To-morrow morning
we will take them and see if we can not catch some halibut. The person
who brought them here is very kind, for I have been hunting everywhere
vainly for bait.” The woman sat down and considered. She said, “Do you
know who brought them here?” He said, “No.” Then she said, “I will tell
you who brought them here. Don’t you remember that my son was drowned a
year ago, and no one has seen anything of him since? It must be he, who
has taken pity on us because he sees how poor we are. I will call his
name if I hear anyone whistle to-morrow or any other night, for I know
it is my son.” So the woman spoke.
In the morning they went out with these devilfish and caught two
halibut. Evening came on. After they had reached home and it was dark,
they began to cook some halibut. Just as the woman was putting some
into the pot a person whistled behind the house. Then she said, “We
have longed for you, my dear son. Come in. Don’t whistle around us.
We have been wishing for you for the last year, so do not be afraid.
It is only your father and I. Come in.” Then it whistled again. The
man went to the door, opened it, and said, “Come in, my son, I think
you have come to help us because we are very poorly off here. The door
is open. Come right in.” So the father said. And without their seeing
him enter, all of a sudden he was seated opposite them with his hands
over his face. Then they spoke to him, saying, “Is it you, my son?” He
only whistled [by drawing in his breath]. That was the way he spoke to
them. Toward midnight he began to speak. The father said, “Is it you,
my son?” The land-otter-man (kūˊcta-qa) said, “Yes.” He motioned to
them that there was something outside which he had brought for them. It
was some more devilfish. He said, “In the morning we will go out.” The
woman gave him a pillow and two blankets for the night, and he slept on
the other side of the fire.
So early in the morning that it was yet dark he took his father by
the feet and shook him, saying, “Get up. We will go out.” He told him
to take his fishing line, and they carried down the canoe. Then the
land-otter-man stepped in and his father followed. His father gave him
a paddle. The canoe went flying out to the halibut ground. It was his
son’s strength that took them there so quickly. Then the land-otter-man
suddenly stopped the canoe. He took the line and baited a hook with one
devilfish tentacle. He baited all of the hooks and lowered them. Then
he tied the end of the line to the seat. He said to his father, “Put
the blanket over you. Do not watch me.” His father did so but observed
him through a hole in the blanket. The land-otter-man, without causing
any motion in the canoe, jumped overboard, went down the line, and put
the largest halibut that he could find on their hooks. When he came in
he shook the canoe and his father pretended to wake up. He gave the
line to his father who began to pull up. Very many big halibut began to
come up, which he clubbed and threw into the canoe as fast as he could.
Then he turned the canoe around and started for home. The canoe was
full.
On the way the land-otter-man was in the bow holding a spear. After he
had held it there for a long time he threw it. His father could not
see that he had thrown it at a large seal. He brought it close to the
canoe, gave it one blow to kill it and threw it into the canoe. When
they came ashore it was almost daybreak. Then, motioning to his father
that the raven might call before he reached shelter, he ran straight up
into the woods.
Now the man’s wife came down and began cutting up the halibut. By the
time they had it all into the house it was dark. The same evening,
before they knew it, he was with them again. Then the man took some
pieces of raw halibut, cut them into bits and placed them before him.
He turned his back on them and ate very fast. He could eat only raw
food.
About a week later they told their son not to go into the woods at
night but to stay with them. So he did. When he wanted to go fishing he
would awaken his father while it was still dark, and they would start
off. Each time they brought in a load of seal, halibut, and all sorts
of things. They began to have great quantities of provisions.
After that they began to see his body plainly. His mouth was round, and
long hair had grown down over his back to his buttocks. He took nothing
from his father and mother but raw food.
Some time after they began to pack up to come to Sitka. He now talked
to them like a human being and always stayed with them. He helped load
their canoe, and his father gave him a paddle. Then they set out, the
land-otter-man in the bow, his father in the stern, and his mother
between. When they came to Poverotni point (Kaodjîxîtî-qǃa), the woman
saw the shadow of her son’s arms moving, his hands which held the
paddle being invisible. She said to her husband, “What is the matter
with my son? He does not seem to be paddling. I can see only his shadow
now.” So she moved forward to see whether he was asleep or had fallen
into the water. Her son was not there. The blanket he had had around
his knees was there, but he was gone. She said to her husband, “Your
son is gone again,” and he replied, “I can not do anything more. He is
gone. How can I bring him back?” So they went on to Sitka.
When they came to Sitka, they reported all that had happened. The
father said, “My son helped us. Just as we got around the point he
disappeared out of the canoe.” So his friends gave a feast for him. His
father’s name was Sᴀkīˊ, and the place where they fished for halibut is
now called Sᴀkīˊ-īˊdî.
8. THE WOLF-CHIEF’S SON
Famine visited a certain town, and many people died of starvation.
There was a young boy there who always went around with bow and arrows.
One day, as he was hunting about, he came across a little animal that
looked like a dog and put it under his blanket. He brought it to his
mother, and his mother washed it for him. Then he took the red paint
left by his dead uncles, spit upon the dog and threw paint on so that
it would stick to its hair and face. When he took the dog into the
woods, it would bring him all kinds of birds, such as grouse, which
he carried home to his family. They cooked these in a basket pot.
Afterward he brought the animal down, washed it, and put more paint
upon its legs and head. This enabled him to trace it when he was out
hunting.
One day after he had traced it for some distance, he found it had
killed a small mountain sheep, and, when he came down, he gave it the
fat part. With the meat so obtained he began to take good care of his
mother and his friends. He had not yet found out whether the animal was
really a dog.
The next time they went hunting they came across a large flock of
sheep, and he sent the dog right up to them. It killed all of them,
and he cut the best one open for it. Then he took down the rest of the
sheep and dressed them. What the animal was killing was keeping some of
his friends alive.
One time the husband of a sister came to him and said, “I wish to
borrow your animal. It is doing great things in this place.” So he
brought the little dog from the house he had made for it, painted its
face and feet, and said to his brother-in-law, “When you kill the first
one cut it open quickly and let him have it. That is the way I always
do.” Then this brother-in-law took up the little dog, and, when they
came to a flock of sheep, it went straight among them, killing them and
throwing them down one after another. But, after he had cut one open,
he took out the entrails, threw them into the dog’s face, and said,
“Dogs always eat the insides of animals, not the good part.” The dog,
however, instead of eating it, ran straight up between the mountains,
yelping.
Now when his brother-in-law brought the sheep down, the man asked him,
“Where is the little dog?” And he said, “It ran away from me.” That was
the report he brought down. Then the owner of the dog called his sister
to him and said, “Tell me truly what he did with the little dog. I did
not want to let it go at first because I knew people would do that
thing to it.” His sister said, “He threw the entrails to it to eat.
That is why it ran off.”
Then the youth felt very sad on account of his little animal and
prepared to follow it. His brother-in-law showed him the place between
the mountains where the dog had gone up, and he went up in that
direction until he came to its footprints and saw the red paint he had
put upon it. This animal was really the wolf-chief’s son who had been
sent to help him, and, because the man put red upon its head and feet,
a wolf can now be told by the red on its feet and around its mouth.
After he had followed the trail for a long distance he came to a lake
with a long town on the opposite side. There he heard a great noise
made by people playing. It was a very large lake, so he thought,
“I wonder how I can get over there.” Just then he saw smoke coming
out from under his feet. Then a door swung open, and he was told
to enter. An old woman lived there called Woman-always-wondering
(Łūwat-uwadjīˊgî-cānᴀˊkǃᵘ), who said to him, “Grandchild, why are you
here?” He answered “I came across a young dog which helped me, but it
is lost, and I come to find where it went.” Then the woman answered,
“Its people live right across there. It is a wolf-chief’s son. That is
its father’s town over there where they are making a noise.” So the old
woman instructed him.
Then he wondered and said to himself, “How can I get across?” But the
old woman spoke out, saying, “My little canoe is just below here.”
He said to himself, “It might turn over with me.” Then the old woman
answered, “Take it down. Before you get in shake it and it will become
large.” Then she continued: “Get inside of the boat and stretch
yourself on the bottom, but do not paddle it. Instead wish continually
to come in front of that place.”
He did as she directed and landed upon the other side. Then he got out,
made the canoe small and put it into his pocket, after which he went
up among the boys who were playing about, and watched them. They were
playing with a round, twisted thing called gîtcxᴀnag̣āˊt (rainbow).
Then some one directed him to the wolf-chief’s house at the farther end
of the village. An evening fire, such as people used to make in olden
times, was burning there, and, creeping in behind the other people, the
man saw his little wolf playing about near it in front of his father.