between the mountains where they could see people whenever they started
up hunting. One day a man started out, and when they saw him, the
porcupine began singing, “Up to the land of ground hog. Up to the land
of ground hog.” The man heard him. That is why people know that the
porcupine sings about the ground hog.
After this the man began trapping ground hogs for food and caught a
small ground hog. He took it home and skinned it. Then he took off
the head and heated some stones in order to cook it. When he was just
about to put it into the steaming box the head sang plainly, “Poor
little head, my poor little head, how am I going to fill him?” The man
was frightened, and, instead of eating, he went to his traps in the
morning, took them up (lit. “threw them off”) and came home.
Next morning he reported everything to his friends, saying, “I killed
a ground hog, skinned it and started to cook the head. Then it said to
me, ‘Poor little head.’” After that he went out to see his bear traps.
While he was endeavoring to tighten the release of one of these, the
dead fall came down and struck him in the neck, making his head fly
off. When he had been absent for two days they searched for him and
found him in his own trap. This was what the ground hog had predicted
when it said, “My poor little head.” They took his body down to the
beach, beat the drums for him, and had a feast on the ground hogs and
other animals he had trapped.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] See story 63.
[29] Wutcyᴀqāˊwu, signifying friendship between people regardless of
relationship.
[30] See _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology_, p. 453.
16. THE POOR MAN WHO CAUGHT WONDERFUL THINGS
There was a long town from which all the people used to go out fishing
for halibut and other large fish every day. In those times, before bone
was used, they made hooks of two pieces of spruce from young trees,
sharpened the point and hardened it in the fire. For lines they dried
slender kelp stems.
A very poor man living at one end of the town fished among the others,
but did not catch anything. While they were having a good time fishing
he remained perfectly quiet, and they kept laughing at him. One day,
when he pulled at his line, it acted as if it were fast to something.
He thought it had caught upon a rock and pulled it about in the
endeavor to free it. All at once it began to come slowly up, and,
although every one laughed at him, he held on.
After he had brought it close to the canoe, he looked down and saw that
it was a great live abalone caught in the flesh. Its color shone out of
the water. As it ascended it was so big that all the canoes seemed to
come inside of it, and it shone in every one’s face. Then some people
who wanted to take this valuable thing away from him, said, “Cut the
line. It is a great thing that you have caught. You better let it go.”
After a while he became tired of the people’s talk, so he cut his line.
Then it began to go down very slowly, shining all over.
Then others came to him and said, “You did not do the right thing.
It is a very valuable thing you let go.” He said, “Has it sunk?” So
nowadays, when a person has lost a valuable thing, they say to him, “Is
it an abalone that has sunk?” (Dêˊca guˊnxa ak we wutǃaˊqǃ) Whenever he
thought about this he cried at the riches he had let go.
Another time they went out fishing, and he was with them. He had a
sponge in his hand, and taking a piece of flesh out of his nose inside
so as to make it bleed, he filled the sponge with blood and let it down
into the ocean. When he began to pull up his hook, it was again fast.
He pulled it up slowly, for it was very heavy. It was another valuable
thing, the nest of a fish called îcqēˊn. Then he filled his canoe with
these fishes, called the other canoes to him and filled them. After
that he stood up in his canoe and said, “The abalone has not been
drowned from me yet. I still have it.” He distributed these fishes
all over the town and began to get rich from the property he received.
People gave him all kinds of skins—moose, caribou, fox, etc. He had
great stores of riches from having caught the abalone and the nest of
fishes.
17. THE FINDING OF THE BLUE PAINT, AND HOW A CERTAIN CREEK RECEIVED ITS
NAME
At Sitka lived four brothers who were very fond of hunting. In those
days people liked to hunt about the straits north of Sitka for fur
seals, sea otters, etc. One day, while they were out, they were forced
to take refuge from a storm at a place near Mount Edgecumbe, called
Town-on-the-inside-of-blue-paint-point (Nex̣îˊntaiataqǃ-ān), and while
hunting about this place during their long stay they discovered a
rocky cave or overhanging cliff from which soft blue stuff continually
dropped. The youngest said, “I have discovered a valuable thing which
will be used for painting and for everything carved.”
After they had been there for a long time the weather became fine and
the sea smooth. Now in olden times people knew that everything was
dangerous. When the brothers were about to start, they said, “We will
take some off now to carry home.” So they knocked off a big piece,
rolled it up among their clothes and hid it away. But the canoe had
scarcely started before the sea began to get rough. When they were some
way out they headed for an island outside of Edgecumbe which they had
to pass. Then the eldest, who was steering, began to compose a song
about the course he was taking: “Which way shall I steer the canoe,
straight out into the ocean or straight on to the shore?” The youngest
said, “There is no way of getting home. Would it not be better to throw
this blue paint into the water? Then we can get ashore.” So the eldest
brother put in the next verse as follows: “Which way shall we steer,
straight in or not? Shall we not throw this blue paint into the water?
If not how shall we be saved?” Then he exclaimed, “Bring the blue stuff
here and tie it to my head, and I will be drowned with it so that
things shall eat me up with it.”
They were not drowned, however, and reached shore in safety, so people
still speak of their bravery in not throwing the blue paint overboard.
To this day they say that, if you take anything from there, the weather
will be stormy, and people are still afraid to do it, but take the risk
because the thing obtained is valuable.
For a long time after the brothers reached shore with this blue paint
the weather was bad and great rollers came sweeping in out of the
ocean. No one could go to sea after halibut.
At that time some people were camping a short distance north of Sitka,
and one day two women went from there with their children to dig clams.
They came into a small inlet and made their camp. Then the women began
bringing up shellfish, which they afterwards boiled to get the insides
out, ran small sticks through them, and hung them up to dry for their
children. One day they went down on the beach as usual, leaving their
babies in camp, and the smallest began crying. Then a child somewhat
larger shouted, “The baby is crying. The baby is crying.” Its mother
said, “Bury one of those cockles in the fire and cook it for her,”
but the little boy understood his mother to say, “Dig a hole for your
little sister in the fire and put her into it.” So the little boy began
to pull the fire apart and to make a hole in the middle of it. He
tried to knock his little sister into this hole but she kept getting
up again, so he shouted, “She keeps trying to get away from me.” After
a while he became too strong for his little sister, put her in, and
covered her over.
When his mother came up, she said, “Little son, where is your little
sister?” “I have buried her in the fire. She is there.” So after that
they named the stream Creek-where-a-person-was-burned (Kᴀˊxsîgᴀnîhīn).
18. VARIOUS ADVENTURES NEAR CROSS SOUND
There is a place in the neighborhood of Cross sound called
Kǃudēˊs-qǃaỵîk, which people used to frequent in olden times to hunt,
catch halibut, and so on. People were then in the habit of traveling
from camp to camp a great deal. One time a man and his wife went out to
get cedar bark off from some trees, and the man went quite a distance
up into the woods from his wife with his stone ax and tree climber.
This tree-climber was an apparatus composed of ropes, with a board for
the climber to stand on. But, while he was high up in a tree, the board
slipped from under the man’s feet, and the rope held him tight to the
tree by his neck so that he died. Since he did not come back, his wife
went home and reported that he was missing. Then they hunted for him
everywhere, and finally a man found him hanging from the tree dead. The
dead man was brother of a chief. So they took the board that had fallen
from under his feet home, laid it across the neck of a slave and killed
him to be revenged on the board. They kept the board and exhibited it
at feasts. Afterward people were called for the death feast.
People continued going to the different bays hunting, and one day a
canoe with two men in it anchored close by a cliff. While they were
there one of them saw two huge devilfish arms moving across the bay.
They ran ashore and hid under a rock, letting the arms pass over them,
while the devilfish took the canoe into its hole under water.
Then the men started up the hill. On their way home they saw in a small
creek what appeared to be a little halibut, but on coming closer they
found that it was only a white rock which had that appearance.
After they had reached home and had reported what had happened, all the
people began to chop at a log. Then they started a big fire and began
to burn it. But, when it was half burned, they put out the fire by
throwing hot water upon it. They were going to take it to the devilfish
hole and drown it there. So they took it over to that place and let it
down, but never saw it again.
Later four other men went hunting by canoe one autumn to a place called
Wᴀtᴀsǃāˊx, where they encamped. By and by one of the party, on going to
his traps, found a big land otter in one of them. He took the bough of
a tree, twisted it around the land otter’s neck, and carried it home.
He did not know what it was. As he dragged it home it went bouncing
along behind him and at every bounce something whistled behind him.
Arrived at camp he began to skin it. Then he said to his brothers, “Go
and get your pot ready to cook it,” but, when they began to cut it up
to put it in, something whistled. “That is just what I heard on the
way,” he said.
After the pot had boiled and they had begun eating, something began
to whistle in a tree near by and threw a rock down. They threw one
back and soon rocks were flying back and forth. It was a great thing
to fool with. By and by the men said, “You might cut our faces,” so,
instead of throwing rocks, they seized long cones and threw these back
and forth all night. Toward morning the being in the tree, which was a
land-otter-man, began to hit people, and they on their part had become
very tired. Finally they tried to get him down by lighting a fire under
the tree where he was sitting. When it was burning well, all suddenly
shouted, and he fell into it. Then they threw the fire over him, and he
burned up. But when they started for the beach to go home, all wriggled
from side to side and acted as if they were crazy; and when anyone went
to that place afterward he would act in the same manner.
These men lived at a place called Person-petrified (Cᴀkdahᴀnaˊ), and
when they came home, it was told them, “A woman and her child have been
lost from this place.” This woman had been attacked by some strange
man, whom she also killed with the pole which was used to take off
cedar bark. At that time many persons had disappeared, and the people
were wearied out looking for them. Now, however, they were determined
to find the murderers, so all got into one canoe and started along the
coast. After a time the high waves compelled them to encamp, and all
went up into the woods to hunt through them for a beach. Then they came
to a house made of driftwood, where the murderers lived. They went
to each end where the main stringer protruded, lifted it off of its
supporting posts and let it fall on the occupants. Those who tried to
get out between the logs they killed. Then they set the ruined house on
fire and burned it with all it contained; and they broke up the canoe
belonging to those people.
Close by lived a shaman related to the same people. His spirits told
him that there was a mountain near by where flint could be obtained.
His spirits had so much strength that he went right to that place
and broke it off. In those days every time a shaman cut an animal’s
tongue he had more strength, so, when his strength was all combined, it
amounted to considerable.
At that time the people did not have any flint, but, after the spirit
discovered it, all knew where it was to be found, and they have since
brought it from there.
19. KĀTSǃ[31]
Kātsǃ belonged to the Kāˊgwᴀntān and lived at Sitka. One day he went
hunting with dogs, and, while his dogs ran on after a male bear, this
bear’s wife took him into her den, concealed him from her husband, and
married him. He had several children by her. Indoors the bears take off
their skin coats and are just like human beings.
By and by he wanted to go back to his people, but before he started she
told him not to smile at or touch his Indian wife or take up either of
his children. After his return, he would go out for seal, sea lions,
and other animals which he carried up into an inlet where his bear wife
was awaiting him. Then the cubs would come down, pull the canoe ashore
violently, take out the game and throw it from one to another up to
their mother. On account of the roughness of these cubs it came to be a
saying in Sitka, “If you think you are brave, be steersman for Kātsǃ.”
One day Kātsǃ pitied one of his children and took it up. The next
time he went up the inlet, however, the cubs seized him and threw
him from one to another up to their mother, and so killed him. Then
they scattered all over the world and are said to have been killed in
various places.
What is thought to have been the last of these was killed at White
Stone Narrows. When some people were encamped there a girl spoke
angrily about Kātsǃ’s child, and it came upon them, killing all except
a few who escaped in their canoes, and this woman, whom it carried off
alive, making her groan with pain. One man tried to kill it but did not
cut farther than its hair. Finally all the Indians together killed it
with their spears and knives.[32]
FOOTNOTES:
[31] See story 69; also Boas, Indianische Sagen von der
Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas, p. 328.
[32] Because a human being married among the grizzly bears, people will
not eat grizzly-bear meat.
20. THE UNSUCCESSFUL HUNTERS
Two persons very fond of hunting were in the habit of washing in
urine, as was usual in old times when one wanted something very much.
Then they went to a sea-lion rock, and one of them threw his spear
at a sea lion but the point broke off the handle. The animal was the
sea-lion-chief’s son. Afterwards the man who had done it was drowned,
but his companion reached the sea-lion rock in safety. He looked about
for his friend, but could not see him, so he went up on top of the
rock, lay down, and, pulling the grass over himself, fell asleep. While
he was asleep and dreaming, some one came to him and said, “I come to
help you.” He awoke, but there was nothing visible except nesting birds
flying about the island. Then he again fell asleep, and again he heard
some one come to him and say, “I come to help you. The place you have
drifted upon is a house. When you hear the noise of a shaman’s beating
sticks, go straight to the door of the place from which it comes.”
Soon he heard the noise of the sticks, as the man had forewarned him,
just a little below the place where he was lying. He stepped forward
quietly, and lo! he came to the door of a fine, large house. Inside
of this he saw those who were beating the sticks and a man lying sick
“with pneumonia,” out of whom the string of the spear hung. Then he
crept in quietly, hiding behind the people, and said within himself,
“If it were I, I would push that spear in a little farther, twist it
to one side and pull it out.” Upon this everybody said, “Make way for
him. This shaman says he can take the spear out by twisting it and then
pulling out.” He said to himself, “I guess I can do it,” so he let them
have their way. Then he came out in the middle of the house, pulled
his blanket about himself, used his hand like a rattle and ran around
the fire just like a shaman. When he went to the spear and moved it a
little, the sick man cried out. After that he let it alone for a while.
He wished very much that they would give him in payment a large animal
stomach which was hanging on a post. So the man’s father said, “Pay it
to him.”
Now he tied his blanket tightly about himself and said, “Bring in
some water.” Then he ran around the sick man again, and, when he came
to where the spear was, he summoned all his strength, pushed it in a
little, turned it round slightly and pulled it out. At once he pushed
it into the water in the customary manner and blew eagle down upon it,
when all of the white matter came out of the wound and the sick man got
his breath. After that he hid the spear quickly from the eyes of the
people.
When he went out, the man who had first come to his assistance came
again. This was the puffin (xîk). It said, “Take that big stomach, get
inside, and go home in it. After you get inside do not think of this
place again.” He did as the puffin had directed, but, when he was
within a short distance of the shore, he thought of the place where he
had been and immediately floated back to the island. The second time
the skin carried him right ashore. Then he got out, went home to his
friends and reported everything that had happened.
* * * * *
Another canoe also set out to hunt in much the same way. After the
people had gone on for a very long time unsuccessfully, they came upon
a great seal standing out of the water, and one of the hunters speared
it. It was nothing but an old log drifting about which had appeared
to him like a seal. That night they anchored their canoe in front of
a steep cliff not far from this place and prepared to spend the night
there. By and by they heard a skate flopping along on the water near
by, whereupon the steersman took his spear and struck it on one side of
the belly. Then the skate swam right down into the ocean.
This skate was a slave of the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt who lived under that same
cliff, and when the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt heard him groaning under the house
steps where he always stayed, he said to one of his other slaves, “Get
up and find what he is groaning about.” Then the skate said, “There is
a canoe outside here. The people in that canoe have done something to
me.”
Then the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt awoke all his slaves’ nephews and said, “Bring
that canoe in here.”
Presently the man in the bow of the canoe awoke and looked about.
Their canoe was on top of the inside partitions of a house. He took
something and poked his steersman quietly to awaken him, for he saw
that something was wrong.
Early in the morning the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt awoke and said to his nephews,
“Make a big fire.” Then he exclaimed angrily, “It is of no use to
bother poor slaves. Why did they want to kill that slave?”
Meanwhile the friends of these people were searching for them
everywhere.
Then the chief told them to come forward, saying to them, “You will now
be judged.” One could not see the part of the house near the door, it
was so crowded with the nephews and friends of the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt (i. e.,
all kinds of fishes and marine animals) dressed in every style. They
said to them, “To what tribe do you belong?” and the bow man replied,
“We are of the Kᴀtagwᴀˊdî family.” Then the chief said, “If one is
going to visit a person, he should enter his house in a polite manner
and not destroy anybody. Let them wash their hands. Give them food and
dress them up well. I am a Kᴀtagwᴀˊdî myself, so you are my friends.”
Then they fixed them up well, dressing them and combing their hair. But
at home the people were beating drums, because they thought these men
were dead.
Then the chief said to them, “When you build a house, name it Rock
House (Tᴀ hît). It is a good thing that we use each other’s emblems.”
Afterward the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt’s people loaded their canoe, combed their
hair with cottonwood boughs so that it smelt good, and let them go home.
And when they first reached home they were dressed so finely that the
people did not know them. The chief said to his friends, “A great
living thing saved us. He gave us a thing to go by which shall be our
emblem, namely, that whenever we build a house we shall call it Rock
House.”
21. ORIGIN OF ICEBERG HOUSE[33]
A man and his wife were living at a certain fort. At that time some
disease came into the world and destroyed all of their uncles, fathers,
and friends. Then the man thought within himself, “I ought to give some
sort of feast to my dead friends,” and he began to gather berries.
One day a quantity of ice floated up on the beach below him. He took
this up piece by piece and put it into the house, treating the pieces
as his guests. He poured a great deal of oil into the fire to make it
blaze. Then he took dishes, put berries into them, and placed these
in front of the pieces of ice to show that he was sorry for the dead
people, and desired to give some one a feast. After he had given to
them, the ice gave forth a kind of squeak as if the pieces were talking
to him, though he could not make out what was said. It is from this
squeak that the people now know that he invited them, and it is from
this circumstance also that, when ice drifts down upon a person in
a canoe, he talks to it and gives it tobacco, calling it “My son’s
daughter” or “My son’s wife.” This is ahead of the Tcūkᴀneˊdî (i. e.,
the beginning of the Tcūkᴀneˊdî clan). Therefore they own Iceberg
House.[34]
Afterwards this man went out again. He said to himself, “I will invite
anyone out on the sea that hears me.” After he had gotten well out in
his canoe he shouted, “Everybody this way. Everybody this way,” just
as though he were calling guests, and immediately crowds of the bear
tribe, thinking they were the ones invited, began coming down between
the mountains.
When he saw these animals coming, the man told his wife to be
courageous, but for himself he said he did not care whether he lived or
died, because all of his friends were dead. When the bear people began
to come in, he told them to go up to the rear end of the house, saying,
“It is your brother-in-law’s seat you are going to sit down in” (i.
e., that was where he formerly sat). His wife was somewhat frightened,
but he talked to them as if they were his own people. As he called out
the names of the dead men who had held those seats they would say in
turn, “Hadeˊ (present),” and he would pass a dish up to the speaker.
After they were through eating the chief of the bear tribe said to his
friends very plainly, “Do not leave this man friendless, but go to him
every one of you and show your respect.” So they told the man to lie
down in front of them, and before they left they licked him, meaning
that thereby they licked his sorrow away. They said, “This is because
you feel lonely.” Then the bears started off.
At that time men from some other town came near, watched the big
animals come out and heard the man speak to them as if they were his
own friends, but they were afraid to go near.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] See story 64.
[34] This man can not have belonged to the Tcūkᴀneˊdî himself, because
the ice he invited must be of the opposite clan, but his wife may have
been. He perhaps belonged to the Tǃᴀˊqǃdentān.
22. THE WOMAN TAKEN AWAY BY THE FROG PEOPLE[35]
There was a large town in the Yakutat country not very far back of
which lay a big lake very full of frogs. In the middle of the lake was
a swampy patch on which many frogs used to sit.
One day the town chief’s daughter talked badly to the frogs. She
took one up and made fun of it, saying, “There are so many of these
creatures, I wonder if they do things like human beings. I wonder if
men and women cohabit among them.”