Clear away from before his face.” Upon this the little wolf ran right
up to him, smelt of him, and knew him at once. The wolf chief said,
“I feel well disposed toward you. I let my son live among you because
your uncles and friends were starving, and now I am very much pleased
that you have come here after him.” By and by he said, “I think I will
not let him go back with you, but I will do something else to help
you.” He was happy at the way the man had painted up his son. Now he
did not appear like a wolf but like a human being. The chief said,
“Take out the fish-hawk’s quill that is hanging on the wall and give
it to him in place of my son.” Then he was instructed how to use it.
“Whenever a bear meets you,” he said, “hold the quill straight toward
it and it will fly out of your hand.” He also took out a thing that was
tied up like a blanket and gave it to him, at the same time giving him
instructions. “One side,” he said, “is for sickness. If you put this on
a sick person it will make him well. If anyone hates you, put the other
side on him and it will kill him. After they have agreed to pay you for
treating him put the other side on to cure him.”
Then the chief said, “You see that thing that the boys are playing
with? That belongs to me. Whenever one sees it in the evening it
means bad weather; whenever one sees it in the morning it means good
weather.” So he spoke to him.
Then they put something else into his mouth and said to him, “Take
this, for you have a long journey to make.” He was gone up there
probably two years, but he thought it was only two nights.
At the time when he came within sight of his town he met a bear. He
held the quill out toward it as he had been instructed and suddenly
let it go. It hit the bear in the heart. Still closer to his town he
came upon a flock of sheep on the mountain, and sent his quill at them.
When he reached them, he found all dead, and, after he had cut them all
open, he found the quill stuck into the heart of the last. He took a
little meat for his own use and covered up the rest.
Coming to the town, he found no one in it. All had been destroyed. Then
he felt very sad, and, taking his blanket out, laid the side of it that
would save people, upon their bodies, and they all came to life. After
that he asked all of them to go hunting with him, but he kept the quill
hidden away so that they would not bother him as they had before. When
they came to a big flock of mountain sheep, he let his quill go at them
so quickly that they could not see it. Then he went up, looked the dead
sheep over, and immediately cut out the quill. All his friends were
surprised at what had happened. After they had gotten down, those who
were not his close friends came to him and gave payment for the meat.
The people he restored to life after they had been dead for very many
years had very deep set eyes and did not get well at once.
After that he went to a town where the people were all well and killed
some of them with his blanket. Then he went to the other people in that
place and said, “How are your friends? Are they dead?” “Yes.” “Well
I know a way of making them well.” He went up to them again with his
blanket and brought them back to life. They were perfectly well.
This man went around everywhere doing the same thing and became very
famous. Whenever one was sick in any place they came after him and
offered him a certain amount for his services, so that he became the
richest man of his time.
9. WOLVERINE-MAN
There were people living in a certain town on the mainland. You know
that in olden times the people did not use guns. They hunted with bows
and arrows, and horn spears, and it was very hard work to use them. So,
when they were going hunting, they had to fast and wash their heads in
urine. That is why in all of these stories—which I am telling you just
as they were told in the olden times—food was very scarce and hard to
get. Success depended on what things were used and how people prepared
themselves.
One day a certain man at this place began preparing himself by washing
his head in urine, and the following morning he dressed and started up
the valley carrying his horn spear. At the head of this valley he saw
a flock of mountain sheep, but he could not get at them, so he camped
over night. In the morning he saw that a wolverine (nūsk) was among
these sheep killing them off.
Next evening he reached the top of the mountain and started into the
brush to camp, but came to a house with the door wide open for him. On
the inside hung pieces of fat from all kinds of animals the wolverine
had killed. He wanted to go in very much, but instead he sat down in
the brush near by and waited.
Presently a man came along carrying a pack. This was Wolverine-man
(Nūˊsgu-qa). He said, “My trader, you are here. Why don’t you step
inside?” Then they entered, and Wolverine-man took off his clothes and
began wringing them out just like a human being. Then he heated some
hot rocks, took his half-basket, chopped up the bones of a ground hog
and put these into it along with the cooking stones. Then he said to
the man, “Give me that kᴀndᴀʟāˊx. Give me that kǃᴀx̣ᴀˊkaok.” These were
his own words which he was teaching to this man, and they mean, “Give
me my dish. Give me my little spoon.” So, when one went up to the top
of this mountain in olden times he called his dishes and spoons by
those names.
Then Wolverine-man placed the food before his guest, but, when the
latter was about to take some, Wolverine-man said something that
sounded strange to him. He said, “There he is picking it up. There he
is going to eat it.” It sounded strange. Then he kept on talking: “He
is getting closer to the small bones. He is getting closer to the small
bones. He is getting closer to the small brother of the big bone. He
is getting closer to the small brother of the big bone.” He did not
want the man to eat the small bones at the joint,[22] and it was from
Wolverine-man that people learned not to eat these. He said, “I am not
saying this to you because I hate you. If anybody swallows these, the
weather is not clear on top of the mountain. It is always foggy, and
one can kill nothing. This is why I am telling you.” Meanwhile the
people in the camps hunted every day for this man but in vain.
By and by Wolverine-man said to him, “Go around to the other side of
the mountain and sit down where the ground-hogs’ places are.” He went
there every day, but always came home without anything. Wolverine-man,
however, brought him a great load every time. Finally Wolverine-man
told him to go and cut off two small limbs with his ax. People
generally carried a stone ax when off hunting. With these he made a
trap for him and named it Never-lasting-over-night (Łankāˊkǃîxē). It
was so named because it was certain to catch.
When they went up next day, Wolverine-man said, “I am going this way.
Do not set your trap until you see a large ground hog going into a
hole. Set it there.” Soon after he left Wolverine-man he saw a big
ground hog going into its hole. He set up his trap there, stood near,
and watched. Soon he heard the crack of his trap falling. He set it up
many times, and each time he caught one. He killed four that day. That
is why the trap is called Never-lasting-over-night. From that time on
he increased the size of his catch every day, while Wolverine-man did
not catch much. When he got home with all his ground hogs Wolverine-man
lay down by the fire and began singing, “What I would have killed has
all gone over to a lazy man’s side.”
Next morning, when they again started off to hunt, Wolverine-man,
instead of continuing on his usual route, came back to see what his
companion was doing. Then he climbed into a tree to watch him, began to
play around in the tree, and afterwards suddenly fell down. He wanted
to deceive the trapper. This tree is a small bushy one called sǃᴀx, and
it is Wolverine-man’s wife with which he had really been cohabiting.
The man, however, observed what he was doing, and returned home at
once, upon which Wolverine-man became so ashamed that he lay down and
covered himself with ashes.
After that Wolverine-man told his guest to lie down and cover himself
up. Then he took his urinal full of urine, with two white rocks in
it, to another place. He was going to bathe to purify himself from his
wife. After he had purified himself, he came home, put grease into the
fire and began to motion toward his face and to blow with his mouth.
Then he took a wooden comb and began to comb his hair. The man had
covered his head with the blanket but was watching through a hole.
Now the man arose and said to Wolverine-man, “I am going home to my
children.” Then Wolverine-man told him not to say where he had been but
to keep him in remembrance by means of the trap. He had stayed with
Wolverine-man more than a month, and, when he went down, he had a big
pack of skins.
Then he began to distribute these to all his friends, telling them that
he had discovered a place where there were lots of things, and that he
had a trap which never failed to kill ground hogs and other animals if
set on the mountain over night. When he explained to the people how
to set up this trap, a man named Coward (Qǃᴀtxāˊn) said, “I will go
along with you.” This time they did not go way up to the place where
Wolverine-man had helped him but into one of the lower valleys where
there were many ground hogs. There they constructed a house out of dry
sticks and began trapping. Coward had understood him to say that he
caught ground hogs by whittling up sticks near the hole. That was what
he was doing every day, until finally his companion said, “What do you
do by the holes that you do not catch anything?” He said, “Why, I have
already cut up two big sticks by the holes.” Then the other answered,
“That is not right. You have to cut and make a trap with which to trap
the ground hog.”
After that this man thought he would do the same thing to the tree he
had seen Wolverine-man do, but he fell to the ground and was barely
able to crawl home. When he thought he had enough skins, he started to
pack up and return. The trap was very valuable at that time because
it was new, and anyone borrowing it paid a great deal. So he became
wealthy by means of it. He went to every other town to let people know
about it. They would invite him to a place, feast him, and ask him for
it. He became very wealthy.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The knee-pan or the ankle and wrist bones.
10. THE HALIBUT PEOPLE
There was a very long town where people were fishing for halibut. One
evening the daughter of the chief, whose house was in the middle of the
place, went down on the beach to cut up halibut, and slipped on some
halibut slime. She used bad words to it.
A few days afterward many canoe loads of people came to get this girl
in marriage, and she started off with them. But, although they appeared
to her like human beings, they were really the halibut people. As soon
as they had left the village they went around a point, landed, and
went up into the woods after spruce gum and pitch. They brought down
a great quantity of this, heated a rock in the fire and spread pitch
all over it. When it was melted they seated the woman upon it. The two
brothers of this girl searched along shore for her continually, and
finally they discovered where she was; but she was dead.
Then they felt very sad on her account and asked each other, “What
shall we do about her?” They thought of all kinds of schemes, and at
last hit upon a plan. Then they went home, filled a bladder full of
blood, and went out to the halibut fishing ground. The elder brother
let his younger brother down on a line, but before he got far he lost
his breath and had to be pulled up. So the elder brother prepared
himself. He put on his sister’s dress, took his knife and the bladder
full of blood, and got safely to the bottom. When he arrived there he
found himself in front of a house. Some one came out to look and then
said to the chief inside, “Has your wife come out to see you?” They
thought it was the dead woman. So the halibut chief said, “Tell her to
come in,” and he married her.
At this time the friends of the young man were vainly endeavoring to
catch halibut, and he could see their hooks. Instead of coming into the
houses these would fall around on the outside. They tried all kinds
of hooks of native manufacture, but the only one that succeeded was
Raven-backbone-hook (Yēł-tūˊdᴀqǃê), which came right in through the
smoke hole.
After a while the halibut chief said, “Let us go and take a sweat
bath.” [Frater autem puellae mortuae semper secum portabat vesicam
cruore plenam, quo ungebat extrema vestem qua indutus erat, ut rhombum
deciperet, dicens, “Mensibus affectus sum; noli mihi appropinquare.”]
That night, as soon as the halibut chief was asleep, the man took his
knife, cut the chief’s head off and ran outside with it. Everybody in
the town was asleep. Then he jerked on his brother’s line, and his
brother pulled him up along with the head.
After that they paddled along shore for some time, and on the way the
elder brother kept shooting at ducks with his arrows. Finally he hit
one and took it into the canoe. It was shivering, and his brother said,
“Look at this little duck. It is dying of cold. I wish you were by
my father’s camp fire.” On account of these bad words the canoe went
straight down into the ocean.
Arrived at the bottom, they saw a long town, and some one said,
“Get out of the canoe and come up.” Then the duck led them up into
the house of his grandfather, the killer whale—for the killer whale
is grandfather to the duck—and a big fire was built for them. Then
they seated the brothers close to this and said, “Do you think
it is only your father who has a big fire?” After they were so
badly burned that their heads were made to turn backward with the
heat, they were thrown outside. There they became the ducks called
Always-crying-around-[the-bay] (Ỵīkᴀg̣āˊxe). You can hear them crying
almost any time when you are in camp. They never got back to their
friends.
11. STORIES OF THE MONSTER DEVILFISH[23] AND THE CRY-BABY[24]
Many people once went to a certain camp to dry salmon. They did not
know that a big devilfish lived under a steep cliff not very far from
this place. In olden times, besides using hooks, they caught salmon by
means of traps (cᴀł), and when the trap was full, they would take out
the fish and hang them on drying frames. When these people had many
fish on the frames, they took off their covers so that the red color
shone out on the ocean very distinctly.
A man and his two brothers living at this camp were fond of hunting,
and one day, when very many salmon were on the frames, they started
out. While they were gone the devilfish saw the glow on the water from
the red salmon, threw his tentacles around the camp and swept every
vestige of it into the sea. In those times a hunter washed in urine
before going out hunting and was then sure to kill something, but on
that day everything the hunters speared got away. When they returned to
the camp, they saw many pieces of canoes drifting about the bay. Then
they were very sad on account of the loss of their friends, but they
did not know what had destroyed them.
After they had remained there for four days, they told the youngest to
climb to the top of a high hill and watch them. Then the eldest told
his other brother to cut four young spruce trees, and he sharpened
these, making two for himself and two for his brother. Early in the
morning they loaded their canoe with rocks and prepared to meet the
dangerous animal. They went out in front of the high cliff and began
throwing rocks down there, the elder saying to his youngest brother,
“Look down.”
After a while they saw the large devilfish coming up right under them.
Then they took the sharpened sticks and began to pierce its flesh. The
youngest watched all that happened. When their canoe was broken up,
they climbed on top of the devilfish and continued running the sticks
into it until it died. When that happened it carried them down along
with it.
Then the youngest brother started off to find some settlement, and when
he came to one, the people set out at once to look for his brothers.
Finally they discovered the place to which the devilfish had floated,
along with the hunters and their canoe. But it did not get the salmon
it had destroyed so many people for. Then the people gave a death feast
and all cut their hair off short.
In the town to which these people belonged once lived a little boy
who was always crying. His parents tried to rear him properly, yet
he cried, cried, cried all the time. Finally his father shouted out,
“Come this way Djînᴀkᴀx̣wᴀˊtsǃa.[25] Pull this boy away, for he cries
too much.” Toward evening he repeated the same words, and this time a
land-otter-man behind the house shouted out stutteringly, “Bring my
grandchild here and let him eat gᴀłkᴀdax̣ᴀˊkǃᵘ to keep him quiet.” So
the little boy was taken away and given what appeared to him to be
blackberries.
Two days afterward they began searching for him, and they finally
found him far up in the woods. When they brought him down he had a
big belly and did not cry as loudly as he had before, so they thought
that something was wrong. Then they boiled some dried salmon and gave
him broth made from it. The heat of this broth expelled all of the
small creatures that had been given him to eat under the appearance of
blackberries. Spiders began running out of his mouth, ears, nose, eyes,
and buttocks. His insides were filled with them, and they had eaten out
all of his flesh. When these were expelled, nothing was left but the
skin which they threw away.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] See pp. 150–151, story 31.
[24] See p. 145, story 31.
[25] The name of some man that had been captured by land otters.
12. THE WOMAN WHO WAS KILLED BY A CLAM
There was a famine at a certain town and many people had to depend on
shellfish, so the women went down to the beach at low tide every day
to gather them. One time a chief’s daughter went down and reached far
under a rock to find some clams. Then a large bivalve called xīt closed
upon her hand, holding her prisoner. Presently the tide began to rise,
and, when it had almost reached her, she began singing a song about
herself. She kept on singing until the tide passed right over her. Then
all felt sad and held a feast for her at which they put food, blankets,
and other things into the water.
13. ROOT-STUMP[26]
There was a certain town in which many people were dying of sickness,
but those who felt well used to play shinney on the beach every day.
Then something came down through the air and one of them seized it
and was dragged up from the ground. Another person grasped his feet,
endeavoring to pull him back, but he, too, was carried up and another
and another until there were ten. All of these were taken up out of
sight.
The next day the same thing came down a second time, and ten more were
carried off. This happened every day until all the men in the town
were gone. Next it came to a woman, and all the women were carried away
in the same manner except two.
These two women now walked along the beach calling for help. They did
not know whither their friends had gone. And every day they went up
into the forest after roots.
One day, after they had gone up into the woods, one of these women
began swallowing root-juice, and it formed a child in her. This was
born and proved to be a boy. After he had grown a little larger, his
mother named him Root-stump (Xᴀt-cūgūˊʟkǃî). This is what helped her.
All the men who used to chop canoes away from town had also disappeared.
The child grew very rapidly and repeatedly asked his mother, “Where
have all my friends gone?” She said to him, “We do not know. They kept
going up into the air.” When he was a little larger he began to test
himself. He would go up to a tree, seize a limb, and try to stretch
himself. Then roots would run out from him in every direction because
his mother had named him to have that sort of strength.[27]
His mother said to him, “Look out when you go down on the beach to
play, because those who do so go up into the air and you will also go
up. So look out.” Then he ran down to the beach and began playing. All
at once the thing came down. He seized it, and immediately roots grew
out from him into the ground in every direction. So he pulled down the
thing that was killing his people, and it broke into small pieces.
There was another being in the woods who always chopped and made noises
to entice people to him in order to kill them. He was in the habit of
killing people by asking them to get into his canoe, when he knocked
out a thwart so that it closed in upon them. He was the one who had
killed the canoe makers. Root-stump once found this man engaged in
making a canoe, and the man asked him to jump inside. Root-stump knew
what he was about, however, and jumped out too quickly. Then Root-stump
was so angry that he seized the canoe-maker and beat his brains out. He
broke up the canoe and piled it on top of him.
This boy grew up into a very fine man. He brought in all kinds of
things for his mother. If he were hunting mountain sheep and came to a
chasm or other similar place, he would cross it by sticking his roots
into the ground on the other side.
This is why they say even at the present time to a woman who works with
roots, “Do not swallow the sap. You might have a baby from it.”
FOOTNOTES:
[26] See story 49.
[27] The exact words of the story-teller.
14. THE PROTRACTED WINTER
One time some boys pulled a piece of drifting seaweed out of the water
on one side of their canoe and put it in again on the other. It was
almost summer then, but, for having done this, winter came on again and
snow was piled high in front of the houses so that people began to be
in want of food. One day, however, a blue jay perched on the edge of a
smoke hole, with elderberries in its mouth, and cried, “Kîłnᴀˊxe.” This
was the name of a neighboring town. So the people took all the cedar
bark they had prepared to make houses out of and went to Kîłnᴀˊxe where
they found that it was already summer and the berries were ripe. Only
about their own town was it still winter. This happened just beyond the
town of Wrangell.
I tell you this story to show how particular people used to be in olden
times about things, for it was only a piece of seaweed that brought
winter on.
15. BEAVER AND PORCUPINE[28]
A porcupine and a beaver were once very close friends.[29] They
traveled about everywhere and reported to each other all that happened.
The bear is very much afraid of the porcupine, but he hates the beaver.
Wherever the beaver has a dam the bear breaks it up so as to let the
water down, catches the beaver and eats him. But he is afraid of the
porcupine’s sharp quills, so the porcupine sometimes stayed in the
beaver’s house, which is always dry inside.
When the lake began falling, they knew it was caused by the bear, and
the porcupine would go out to reconnoiter. Then he would come back and
say to his friend, “Do not go out. I will go out first.” Then the bear
would be afraid of the porcupine’s sharp quills and go away, after
which all the beavers began repairing their dam while the porcupine
acted as guard.
By and by the porcupine said to the beaver, “I am hungry. I want to
go to my own place.” Porcupine got his food from the bark and sap of
trees, so he told the beaver to go up a tree with him, but the beaver
could not climb. Then the porcupine told him to stay below while he
went up to eat. Soon they saw the bear coming, and the beaver said,
“Partner (xōˊne), what shall I do? The bear is getting near.” Then the
porcupine slid down quickly and said, “Lay your head close to my back.”
In that way he got the beaver to the top of the tree. But, after a
while, the porcupine left him, and the beaver did not know how to climb
down. He began to beg the porcupine in every way to let him down, but
in vain. After quite a while, however, the squirrel, another friend of
the beaver, came to him and helped him down, while the porcupine was
off in a hole in the rocks with a number of other porcupines.
By and by the porcupine went back and saw his friend swimming in the
lake. The beaver asked him down to the lake and then said, “Partner,
let us go out to the middle of the lake. Just put your head on the back
of my head and you will not get wet at all.” Because these two friends
fell out, people now become friends, and, after they have loved each
other for a while, fall out. Then the porcupine did as he was directed,
the beaver told him to hold on tight, and they started. The beaver
would flap his tail on the water and dive down for some distance, come
to the surface, flap his tail, and go down again; and he repeated the
performance until he came to an island in the center of the lake. Then
he put the porcupine ashore and went flapping away from him in the same
manner.
Now the little porcupine wandered around the whole island, not knowing
how to get off. He climbed a tree, came down again, and climbed
another, and so on. But the wolverine lived on the mainland near by, so
after a while he began to sing for the wolverine (nūsk) “Nū-u-sguē-eˊ,
Nū-u-sguē-eˊ, Nū-u-sguē-eˊ.” He called all the animals on the mainland,
but he called the wolverine especially, because he wanted the north
wind to blow so that it would freeze.[30]
Then the wolverine called out, “What is the matter with you?” So he at
last sang a song about himself, saying that he wanted to go home badly.
After he had sung this the whole sea froze over, and the porcupine ran
across it to his home. This is why they were going to be friends no
longer.