He went back into their country. So the Chilkat people to this day make
their money by going thither. He also showed the Chilkat people how to
make tcîł, secret storehouses maintained some distance out of town,
and he taught them how to put salmon into these and keep them frozen
there over winter. So the Chilkat people got their name from tcîł,
“storehouse,” and xāt, “salmon.”
Raven also showed the Chilkat people the first seeds of the Indian
tobacco and taught them how to plant it. After it was grown up, he
dried it, gathered clam shells, roasted them until they were very
soft, and pounded them up with the tobacco. They used to chew this,
and it was so good that it is surprising they gave it up. They made a
great deal of money at Chilkat by trading with this among the interior
Indians, but nowadays it is no longer planted.
* * * * *
Then Raven went to a river beyond Copper river called Łᴀxaỵîˊk[55] and
told the people that they were to make canoes out of skins. There he
found a chief named ᴀyāˊỵî, who had married the daughter of another
chief by whom he had five children, four boys and a girl. His wife
was always making baskets, while ᴀyāˊỵî himself went out camping or
to other villages. He had a long box that he took about everywhere he
went and always had hung overhead. In those days each family tattooed
the hands in some special way. One time, when the chief’s wife was
sitting under this box a drop of blood fell out of it upon her hand.
Her husband was away, so she took the box down and looked into it.
It was full of severed hands, and by the tattoo marks she knew that
they belonged to her uncles. She was very fond of her uncles and cried
continually for them.
After her husband had found her weeping several times he asked, “What
are you always crying about?” and she said, “I am getting tired of
living here. I want to go back to my father and mother.” Then he said,
“We will start back to your father’s place to-morrow.” So next day he
carried her and her children to a place not far from her father’s town
and let them off there telling them to walk across. Then he paddled
home.
Even before she started across, his wife noticed that there was a
heavy fog over her father’s village, and when she got there she found
it vacant. There was nothing in it but dead bodies, and she went
from house to house weeping. Now after her children had thought over
this matter for a while, they skinned some of the bodies and made a
canoe out of them. It was the first of the skin canoes. It was all on
account of ᴀyāˊỵî having murdered the people of that town. They tied
those places on the canoe that had to be made tight, with human hair.
Afterward they took it down to the water and put it in, making a kind
of singing noise as they went. Nowadays these canoes are made of all
kinds of skins, but the hair used is always human hair and they sing
in the same manner when they put them into the water. They also made a
drum out of human skin.
After that all got into the canoe, and they started for their father’s
town, singing as they went, while their mother steered. When they came
in front of it the people said, “There is a canoe coming. We can hear
singing in it, and in the song they are mentioning ᴀyāˊỵî’s name.”
That was all they could hear. The whole town came out to look at the
canoe. Then the eldest son arose in the canoe, mentioned his father’s
name, and said, “Give me my uncle’s hands. If you do not give them to
me I will turn this town of yours upside down.” When he started this
song again he began drumming and the town began to sink. It shook as if
there were an earthquake. Now the people of the town became frightened.
They went to ᴀyāˊỵî and told him he would be killed if he did not let
the hands go. So he gave them up. When the children got these hands
they went away singing the same song. At that the town again began to
sink and carried down all of the people with it. Afterward it resumed
its former position, but it is said that you can see shells all over
the place to this day.
After they had reached their own village Raven said to the eldest boy,
“Get some eagle feathers and put them on the mouths of your uncles and
all the other town people. After you have placed them there blow them
away again. Put their hands in their proper places, and put feathers
over the cuts. As soon as you have blown the feathers away from their
mouths, they will return to life.” He did so, and all the dead people
came to life.
* * * * *
One day Raven saw a whale far out at sea and sat down on the beach to
study how he should bring it ashore. Then he got some pitchwood and
rocks of the kind that was formerly used in making fire, flew out to
the place where he thought the whale would come up, and went into its
open mouth. He made a fire inside of the whale and cooked everything
there. Only he would not touch the heart. When the whale took in many
fish he ate them. Finally he did cut the whale’s heart out and killed
it, after which it began drifting about from place to place. Then he
sang: “Let the one who wants to be high-born like me cut the whale open
and let me out, and he will be as high as I am.” He also sang: “Let
the whale go ashore. Let the whale go ashore on a long sandy beach.”
Finally he heard waves breaking on a sandy beach, and he said again:
“Let the one who wants to be high-born like me cut the whale open and
let me out, and he will be as high as I am.” Suddenly he heard the
voices of children. These children heard his voice, went home and
informed their parents. Then the people all came there and cut the
whale open, and Raven flew off into the woods crying “Qǃoneˊ, qǃoneˊ,
qǃoneˊ.”
Raven stayed up in the woods a long time in order to get the grease and
smell off of his feathers, and, when he came down again, he saw boxes
and boxes of whale grease. Then he made believe he was surprised and
asked the people where they got all of it. They said: “We found a whale
that had come right in here where we could get it easily. So we are
making oil out of it.” Said he: “Did you hear anything inside when it
first came ashore.” “Yes! there was some strange sound in there, and
something flew out calling itself qǃoneˊ.” Then Raven answered, “Years
ago just such a thing as this happened, and all of the people of that
town that heard the noise died. It brings bad luck to hear such a noise
in a whale. You people must leave this right away. Don’t eat any of it.
Leave it here.” Then all of the people believed him and left their oil
there. It became his.[56]
Next Raven went to a place where many sea lions, seals, and porpoises
were lying about. Among these there were a number of children, who
cut pieces of fat from the animals and threw them back and forth. So
he made himself look like a child and, when they threw him a piece
of fat, he ate it. Finally the children missed their fat and said,
“What is becoming of all the fat we were playing with? It is all
disappearing.”[57]
Then Raven came to a large town where everyone appeared to have died.
He entered the largest house, and saw no one inside, yet he could feel
a person continually pushing against him. It was a ghost house, and the
town was called the Town of Ghosts (Qaỵahāỵîˊ ānîˊ). Afterward Raven
loaded a canoe with provisions from the ghosts’ houses and started to
paddle away, but he did not notice that a very long line was fastened
to the stern of the canoe and secured at the other end round a tree.
When he reached the end of this rope the canoe was pulled right back to
the beach, and the goods were all carried up to the house by invisible
hands. One of the ghosts also dropped a very large rock upon his foot,
making him lame.[58]
Next Raven went among the Athapascan Indians of the interior beyond
the place he had reached before. There he saw a giant cannibal called
Cannibal-man. Knowing that this cannibal was very smart he tried to
get the better of him, so he won his confidence and learned that he
was married to the black pine (łᴀł).[59] In the morning the cannibal
bathed. After that the two became very good friends, and the cannibal
said to Raven, “I am going hunting, and I am going to get four animals,
two mountain goats and two ground hogs.” So the cannibal took a hide
rope such as the interior Indians used to make and started. On the
way Raven said to the cannibal, “Where is that man called Tsᴀˊmaya?”
He was another very powerful man. And the cannibal showed him where
Tsᴀˊmaya lived.
Then Raven stayed with Tsᴀˊmaya, and they became good friends also.
The latter lived all by himself at that time, all of his friends
having been killed by Wolverine-man (Nūsgᴀ-qāˊ). So he said to Raven,
“I do not know what to do with him. I would like to kill him.” And
Raven said to him, “Do you see this spear? Go and get a bear skin and
put it around yourself. Put the spear in such a position as to make
him believe he has killed a bear.” Tsᴀˊmaya did so, and by and by
Wolverine-man came along. He was very glad when he saw the bear and
said, “I have another.” Then he picked the bear up, took out the spear
and carried it home. After that he went to gather wood. While he was
gone Raven made himself appear like a common blackbird and in that
form said to Tsᴀˊmaya, “Wolverine-man’s heart is in his foot.” Then he
took the little spear he had concealed in his long hair and gave it
to Tsᴀˊmaya, who speared Wolverine-man in the foot as soon as he came
in. He was hurt badly but ran away from them. When they caught up with
him and told him they were going to kill him, he said, “All right.”
But every time they killed him he came to life again until finally
they burned him. Then, when they were about to pulverize his bones,
the bones spoke up and said to them, “Pulverize my bones and blow them
away. They will always be a bother to you and everybody else. I shall
always remain in the world.” That is where the mosquitoes and gnats
come from.[60]
Afterward Raven came to where a house was floating far out at sea,
called Kǃuˊdatᴀn kahîˊtî. Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł had been keeping it there, and
in it were all kinds of fishes, but Raven did not know how to get at
them. At the same place he also met a monster, called Qǃāˊnᴀxg̣ādaỵiỵê
(which seems to mean “a thing that is in the way”), who had spear like
the arm of a devilfish called, “devilfish-arm spear.” Raven wanted
this, and obtained it by marrying the monster’s daughter. Then he got
into a canoe, paddled out near the house, and speared it. Inside he
heard all kinds of songs sung by different voices. These were the songs
people were to sing in the fishing season. When Raven threw his spear,
it became very long and wrapped itself around the house so firmly that
he was enabled to take his canoe ashore. He had great difficulty,
however, for as he did so he had to sing continually, “I think so, I
think so,” a song known to all of the Raven people. Whenever he stopped
singing, the house went back to the place where it had been at first.
This happened three times and the fourth time he got it in.
After that the door of the house opened, and all kinds of fish came out
of it. He sang, “Some go to Stikine river. Some go to Chilkat river,”
which they immediately did. Then he sang again, “Some go to the small
creeks to provide the poor people.” That is how fish came to be all
over the world.[61]
* * * * *
Now Raven went farther and came to a woman and a little girl all alone.
She was crying and Raven asked her, “What are you crying about?” “I
have lost all of my friends. I am all alone here with my little girl.
The people kept going off hunting or fishing and never come back. What
has happened to them I do not know.” Then Raven said to the girl, “Do
you know the thing with which they make fire?” She said “No,” for they
had kept their fires all night since the other people were gone. Then
Raven showed her how to make fire with the fire drill. He said, “Drill
away until you get a lot of this fine stuff. Then take some and eat it.”
After the girl had done this she became pregnant and gave birth to a
male child whom they called Fire-drill’s son (Tūˊłî-ỵᴀˊdî). Then Raven
said to her, “There is a cold spring back here. Bathe your little one
in it every day, and he will grow up very fast.” To this day they call
that spring Water-that-makes-one-grow. The woman bathed him as directed
and he soon grew up into a man very skilful at work of all kinds.
Finally he asked his mother: “Mother, is this the way you have always
been? Didn’t you have a father, mother, and friends?” But she said, “We
have always been this way.” He was so bright that she would not tell
him. Then the child went on asking, “Whose houses are those? I think
that you had friends who have all died off, and you will not tell me.”
So his grandmother finally told him what had happened.
This boy was a good shot with arrows, but he said, “What can I do? All
the canoes lying here are old and broken.” In the night, however, his
father, Fire-drill, appeared to him in a dream and said, “Take one of
those old canoes up into the woods and cover it with brush. No matter
how old it is. Do it.” The morning after he had done this, he went
there and found a very pretty little canoe with all things in it that
he needed. Then his father appeared to him again, pulled the root of a
burned tree out of the ground and made it into a little dog for him.
He called it G̣ᴀnt (Burnt), and it could scent things from a great
distance. Although small it was as powerful as a bear. He also gave his
son a bow, and arrows pointed with obsidian(?). Finally he gave him a
very powerful club called Qōtᴀcāˊỵî-qǃus.
Now he thought of what his grandmother had told him, took his canoe
down, and prepared to go away. He told his mother that he might be gone
for two days and said, “Take care of this fire drill. Hang it in a safe
place overhead, and, if I am killed, it will fall.” He went along on
the water shooting at birds and suddenly saw a canoe coming toward him.
“There is the thing that has killed all of my mother’s friends,” he
thought. Then he began talking to his dog, his club, and his bow and
arrows, all of which could understand him.
The man coming toward him had only one eye, placed in the middle of
his face and from this fact was called ʟēcᴀwāˊg̣î (Man-with-one-eye).
He was a very big man whose home was in a cliff. Then he said to the
boy, “Is this you, my nephew?” He answered, “It is I.” “Where did you
come from?” “From my uncle’s village.” “Yes, I know you.” The one-eyed
man could read the boy’s thoughts and said to him, “It was not I who
killed your uncles and your mother’s friends. It was the East wind and
the North wind.” He mentioned all of the winds. But the boy knew that
this big man was after him, and he knew what he meant by talking to him
so kindly. Then the big man said, “Let us trade arrows.” “Oh! no, my
arrows are better than yours. They cost a great deal.” One of the boy’s
arrows was named Heart-stopper (Tēqǃ-g̣ōts), because a person’s heart
stopped beating the instant it touched his body. Another was pointed
with porcupine quills, and a third with bark. The big man made the boy
believe that his arrow points were sea-urchin spines, but in reality
they were only the seed vessels of fireweed. This man was a bad shaman.
He held his arrow points up, and said, “Do you see these arrows?” He
could see that the points were all moving. Then the boy said, “It is
wonderful, but my arrows are not like that. They are only good for
shooting birds.” Now the shaman’s object was to get Heart-stopper.
Finally the boy said to the shaman, “Look here, you call yourself my
uncle. That is how you did away with my uncles and my mother’s friends,
is it? You will never make away with me so.” That angered the big man,
and before they knew it both had their arrows in hand, but the boy was
the quicker and killed his antagonist; the dog helped him. Then the boy
took the big man’s tongue out and burned his body. All this time his
mother was worrying about him.
Then he paddled along by the shore and heard some one calling to
him. He thought, “There is another bad man.” So he went to the place
and discovered on a very steep cliff falling sheer into the water an
aperture with red paint around it and devil clubs tied into a ring
hanging close by. Some one inside of this invited him in, and, as he
was very brave and cared for nothing, he went up to the entrance. The
person who lived there was the wife of the man he had killed. She had
seen his canoe passing and thought, “He must have killed my husband.”
So she said, “Your aunt’s husband went across that way.” And the boy
said, “I have seen your husband.” This woman’s name was Knife-hand
(Djîwᴀn-yīsǃ), because she had a knife on each hand. She said to the
boy, “You better come in here and let me give you food before you go
on.” “All right,” he said. So he entered and found her cooking the
parts of a human being. She called the ends of its fingers, “crab
apples,” its eyes, “berries,” etc. When he told her that he did not eat
that sort of food, she at once said, “Well! let us have a fight then.
We will kill each other.” He agreed and she went to a large rock where
he could hear her drawing both hands back and forth to sharpen them.
As soon as she had finished, she threw her hand at him, but he jumped
aside so quickly that it stuck in the spot where he had been sitting,
and, when she drew her hand away, the knife remained there. Then the
boy jumped forward, seized it, and threw it back with such good aim
that it killed her. He also cut her tongue out. He had no more than
finished with her, however, than he noticed that the entrance hole was
growing smaller and smaller. So he made himself small also, crept into
one of the ermine skins he had tied in his hair, and ran out. When he
came home again with his canoe loaded down with seal and deer, his
mother and grandmother were very glad to see him, for they had been
weeping for him and worrying about him ever since he left. Now he told
them not to worry any longer because he had killed the bad people who
destroyed their friends.
Next he said to his mother, “Mother, do not be afraid to tell me. What
was it that killed my uncles when they went back here hunting?” By and
by he went back into the woods to hunt and saw smoke rising a long
distance off. He came to a house and entered. There he saw a very old
woman called Old-mole-woman (Kǃᴀgᴀˊkqōcāˊ-nᴀkᵘ). As soon as she saw the
boy this woman said, “My grandson what is it that you are after?” The
boy felt that she was an honest old woman and said, “I am looking for
the person that killed my uncles and all of my mother’s friends.” Then
she told him to come in and eat. She picked a small piece of salmon
out from between her teeth which at once turned into a whole salmon.
That was the way she got anything she wanted, and it was the only way
she got her food. Then she said to the boy, “Grandson, it is pretty
hard to get at the beings that murdered your uncles. They are the hawks
(kîdjūˊk). You must find their nests, which are very high up, and watch
until the old birds go away, leaving their two young ones.” When he
came to the nest, however, he saw that the old birds were away, so he
went up to the young ones and said to them, “What do you live on?” The
birds showed him numbers of human skulls and other human bones lying
about the base of the tree and said, “That is what we live on.” They
also said, “Our father and our mother always come just at daybreak. You
can not see them because they come in clouds. Our mother comes over the
mountain in a yellow cloud and our father comes in a black cloud.” Then
he said to the birds, “Do not tell about me or I will kill you,” and
they believed he would do it.
Suddenly the boy saw the yellow cloud coming. He distinguished the
mother bird bringing a human body for her children to eat. Then he
killed her and threw her down to the foot of the tree along with the
body she was carrying. After that he saw the black cloud coming and
presently distinguished the father bird. The father bird said to the
young ones, “Where is your mother?” and they answered, “Our mother
dropped the dead body she was bringing and went down after it.” As he
was sitting there talking the boy killed him also and threw his body
down. Then he said to the little birds, “You must never kill people any
more or live on human flesh. I will go and get something for you to eat
until you are strong enough.” So he went out hunting and brought them
a lot of ground hogs, saying to them, “This is what you are to live
upon.” So these birds now live only on ground-hog meat. They do not
live on human flesh any more. They kill their victims with rocks, and
a person who is about to become rich will see them throw one of these.
Then he picks it up and it brings him good luck.
After that he went back to the old woman and told her what he had done,
and she was very happy to learn that these dangerous birds were killed.
He said to her, “I am going back to my mother and grandmother. I and
my dog have obtained a great deal of food for them.” He also gave a
quantity of food to the old woman who had helped him. His mother and
grandmother were very glad when they saw him come back with the skins
of those birds and a quantity of provisions.
Now Fire-drill’s son collected enough food and grease in boxes to last
his mother and grandmother all their lives and said, “Mother, I am
going to leave you forever. I was not put here to be with you always. I
have done what I wanted to do. If what you have hanging overhead falls,
you may know that you will never see me again. But do not worry, for it
is my duty to leave you.” Then he went away.
As he was traveling along from that place, Fire-drill’s son saw some
one ahead of him called Dry-cloud (Gusǃ-x̣ūk). He was able to travel
very fast, and he chased it. As he was running along he came to the
mink people. He ran along again and came to the marten people. Both
kept saying to him, “We want you to be our friend,” but he paid no
attention to them and kept on pursuing Dry-cloud. Then he came to the
wolf people and stayed there.
One of the wolf chiefs thought a great deal of Fire-drill’s son. One
time the wolves began talking about all those things that can run very
fast, and finally they spoke about the mountain goats, how they can
travel about easily among the cliffs, and said that they were going out
to hunt them. When they set out, all ran hard to see who could kill
the first one, but Fire-drill’s son’s dog killed a great number before
anyone could get near them, so many, in fact, that Fire-drill’s son
took only the leaf lard home to show how many he had gotten. Then the
wolves all went up and brought down the dead goats, and they felt very
much ashamed that they, who were noted runners and hunters, had gotten
nothing. They wondered what they could do to get even with Fire-drill’s
son. Then they took a quantity of long stringy vines called
mountain-eel (cayałīˊtǃî), made them into rings and began playing with
them. They would let these roll down the sides of the mountains and
jump through them when they were at full speed. Anyone who got caught
in one of these would be cut in two.
Fire-drill’s son’s wolf friend said to him, however, “My friend, don’t
go near those people that are playing. You do not know anything about
the things they are using. They will kill you.” He answered, “No, I
will not play with them, but let us watch them.” So they went out and
watched them. Then Fire-drill’s son said to his dog, “Now, you play
there and throw it as high as you can.” So the dog played with it and
threw it as high as he could. It was a fine moonlight night, and the
ring rolled right up to the moon, where it became the ring you see
there whenever there is going to be a change in weather.[62] After that
his friend, the wolf chief, said to the rest of the wolves, “You know
that this son of Fire-drill is a wonderful fellow. He can do anything.
Do not try to injure him in any way, but treat him as a friend.”[63]