people send for him again and again, they go on with the feast, lest
those of the opposite party think that the host cares more for this
one person than for all the rest of them and leave his house. That is
why they paid no attention to Raven when he did come. One reason why
Raven stayed away was that he thought he would make them come after
him several times because he had promised to give a feast in return.
Nowadays a person who is going to give a feast acts in the same way,
and people know by it what he intends.
The following winter Raven gave his feast. This was at Alsek river,
and you can still see his house there with the boxes inside [a rock
hollowed out like a cave with other rocks inside of it]. When they came
in sight of that the Indians would pray to it.
As soon as his guests came, Raven went down to meet them with his bow
and arrows. That is why people now go down with their guns. He had
so much respect for his guests that he had all of his relations act
as servants, washing their hands and waiting on them while they ate.
Therefore the natives now act just so when they invite people from
other towns. Raven taught that all who came after should do just as he
had done. He also prepared chewing tobacco for his guests.
Then he began building his house, and, when the frame, consisting of
four uprights and two crosspieces, was completed, he and his friends
danced the first dance. In this dance people sing funeral songs.
Eight songs, or one song with eight verses, are used at this time,
following a certain regular sequence and, if one that does not know the
song starts it and begins with the wrong verse, it is looked on as a
disgrace to his people. The guests danced, wearing their masks, hats,
emblem coats, and other festal paraphernalia. After that he distributed
his property, the people that had invited him before and the leading
chiefs obtaining most of it.[82]
After this Raven returned to the place where he was born and found
the box which had held the sun, moon, and stars, and which now
contained his mother, still hanging up in the house of Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł.
Then he went out with his bow and arrows and shot a whale (yāˊî).
It floated ashore on the beach and every day he saw all kinds of
sea birds sitting upon it, but he did not like the looks of any of
them. Finally, however, he shot a bird called cāx and a large bird
which was very pretty and had a bill that looked like copper. Then he
went to Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł’s house, took down the box which contained his
mother,[84] and liberated the flickers (kūn) which she always kept
under her arms. When Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł saw that, he said, “All those pretty
things of mine are gone.” They knew that Raven had done this, so they
called him into the house, and Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł asked him if it was indeed
he. He said, “Yes.” Then Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł said, “Go and fell that tree
standing over there,” for he wanted the tree to kill him. But when the
tree fell upon Raven it could not kill him because he was made of rock.
Finding him still alive, Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł called him in the following day
and said, “Go and clean out that canoe.” It was a canoe just being
made, and when Raven got into it to clean it out it closed upon him.
Then he simply extended his elbows and broke the canoe after which he
smashed it up for firewood. All this Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł saw, and again sent
for him. He came in, and they put into the fire a large copper kettle
made like a box, filled it with water, and put heated stones into it.
Then they told him to get in, and they covered it over in order to
kill him. Raven, however, again changed himself into a rock, and, when
they thought he was cooked to pieces and looked inside, they saw that
he was still there. Then they told him to come out.
Now Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł was very angry and said, “Let rain pour down all
over the world, and let people die of starvation.” Then it became so
wet and stormy that people could not get food and began to starve.
Their canoes were also broken up, their houses fell in on them, and
they suffered terribly. Now Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł asked for his jointed dance
hat and when he put it on, water began pouring out of the very top of
it. It is from Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł that the Indians obtained this kind of
hat. When the water rose so as to cover the house floor, Raven and
his mother got upon the lowest retaining timber. This house we are
talking of, although it looked like a house to them, was really part of
the world. It had eight rows of retaining timbers, and, as the water
came up, Raven and his mother climbed to a higher one. At the same
time the people of the world were climbing up into the hills. When
the waters reached the fourth retaining timber they were half way up
the mountains. When the house was nearly full of water, Raven had his
mother get into the skin of the cāx he had killed, while he got into
the skin of the white bird with copper-colored bill, and to this very
day Tlingit do not eat the cāx because it was Raven’s mother. The cāx,
which is a great diver, now stayed on the surface of the water, but
Raven himself flew to the very highest cloud in the sky and hung there
by his bill.[85]
After Raven had hung to this cloud for days and days, nobody knows how
long, he pulled his bill out and prayed to fall upon a piece of kelp,
for he thought that the water had gone down. He did so, and, flying
off, found the waters just half way down the mountains.
Then he traveled along again and came to a shark which had a long stick
it had been swimming around with. He took this, stuck it straight
down into the sea and used it as a ladder on which to descend under
the ocean. Arrived at the bottom, he gathered up some sea urchins and
started along with them.
By and by Raven came to a place where an old woman lived and said
to her, “How cold I am after eating those sea urchins.” As she paid
no attention to him, he repeated it over and over for a long time.
At last she said, “What low tide is this Raven talking about?” He
did not answer, and presently she said again, “What low tide are you
talking about?” After she had asked him this question many times Raven
became very angry and said, “I will stick these sea-urchin shells into
your body if you don’t keep quiet.” At last he did so, and she began
singing, “Don’t, Raven, the tide will go down if you don’t stop.” At
the same time Raven kept asking Eagle, whom he had set to watch the
tide, “How far down is the tide now?” “The tide is down as far as half
a man.” By and by he asked again, “How far down is the tide?” “The
tide is very low,” said Eagle. Then the old woman would start her song
again. “Let it get dry all around the world,” said Raven to Eagle. By
and by Eagle said, “The tide is very, very low now. You can see hardly
any water.” “Let it get still drier,” said Raven. Finally everything
became dry, and this was the lowest tide that there ever was. All kinds
of salmon, whales, seals, and other sea creatures lay round on the sand
flats where the people that were saved could get them. They had enough
from that ebb tide to supply them for a long, long time. When the tide
began to rise again all the people watched it, fearing that there would
be another flood, and they carried their food a long distance back,
praying for it to stop.
Quite a while before this flood took place the shamans had predicted
it, and those who worked from that time on collecting food were saved
while the others were destroyed.
After the flood Raven stayed in a town of considerable size. A man
there, named Cᴀqǃᵘkǃᵘ, collected all kinds of big sea animals, as
whales and seals, at the time of this great ebb and made a great
quantity of grease out of them, while Raven collected only small fishes
like cod and red cod and obtained but a few stomachs full of oil. He
would eat this up as fast as he made it, but his companion worked hard
so as to have a large quantity on hand.
By and by Raven said to Cᴀqǃᵘkǃᵘ, “My uncle, I had a bad dream last
night. I dreamt that there was war here and that we were all killed.
You must be on the watch.” After that Raven said to the birds, “You
must make a lot of noise now.” They did so and Cᴀqǃᵘkǃᵘ, thinking
warriors were coming to kill him, ran out of the house. At once Raven
began carrying off the boxes of grease to a certain place in the woods.
Just as he was at work on the last of these the people of the house
came back, pushed him into it, and tied him up, but he made a hole with
his bill and escaped. Then he went to the place where he had hidden the
boxes and stayed there for a year, until he had eaten everything up.
Next Raven returned to Nass river and found that the people there had
not changed their ways. They were dancing and feasting and invited him
to join them.
By and by he came to where war was going on between two different
parties, and he said to them, “Make carved fighting hats, greaves, and
war coats to protect your bodies.” The name of one village was Gîtǃîˊkc
and the warring families were the Gînᴀxdâˊyîkc (or Gîtgîcᴀłk) and the
Gîtᴀnduˊ. The people of Gîtǃîˊkc were getting the worst of it. There
were only three of them left—the chief, his sister, and his sister’s
daughter. So the chief began sending to all the villages for an aged
man who was very smart and knew the old stories. Whenever he brought
in an old man, however, the latter would talk of what good food he had
been eating and what a high family he belonged to, or tell what a wild
life he had led when he was young, all which had no interest for the
chief. He thought if he could find an old man that would tell him just
the old story he wanted, he would pay him well. Finally he found that
among his enemies was Old-man-who-foresees-all-troubles-in-the-world,
the one spoken of at the beginning of this story, and he sent for him
without letting the rest of his enemies know about it.
After a while he heard this old man coming along, talking very loud,
like a brave person, and he thought, “This is the old man from whom I
am going to hear the story.” Then the old man said, “Chief, if you are
pleased with the story I am about to tell you, let me know how long I
shall stay in your house, and, if you are not pleased, let me go at
once.” After that he told him all about the brave people that had lived
in times gone by, and said, “Always speak very highly of your enemies.
If you speak slightingly of them they will get above you. If you speak
to them in a nice manner, you will be able to stand alone. If you speak
to your enemies kindly, they will say, ‘Let us give ourselves up to
him.’” Then the chief said to the old man, “You shall stay with me a
long time,” so he stayed there, and next day they waited on him, giving
him water to wash his hands and face and food to eat.
After that the old man sent for a piece of Alaska maple (qǃāłqǃēˊ)
and made a war hat out of it carved to resemble a wolf. Then he said,
“Isn’t there a wolf skin around here somewhere?” So they killed a wolf,
skinned it entire along with the claws and teeth and put the dancing
hat inside to fill out the head. He sent for another piece of hard wood
from a tree called sᴀks and made an arrow out of it. He burned black
lines around the shaft of this arrow like those on gambling sticks.
Then he said to the chief, “Your sister shall sing the war song for
you, and your sister’s daughter shall beat the drum. Put the wolf on
while the song is being sung and go down toward that beach just below
the house. Jump over that rock four times.” There was a big rock upon
the beach just below the house. As he gave these directions the old
man made his voice sound as though he were making war. He began to
excite the chief. “My nephews,” he continued, “are out in the canoe
farthest from the beach. Be careful how you use your arrow. Do not
point it toward that canoe.” When the old man was about to leave him
he handed him the arrow and a bow and said, “Put on your war clothes
about midnight. Then stand in front of your house and pretend that you
are going to shoot. Stand with the arrow pointed toward your enemies’
village and say to the arrow just before you let it go, ‘I am shooting
you to kill the chief of my enemies.’ Then let the arrow go.” After
that the old man left, saying that that was all he intended to tell him.
The chief did everything just as he had been directed. At midnight
he put on his war clothes and said to his sister, “You start the war
song, and let my niece go to the drum.” Then he took the position the
old man had told him and shot the arrow saying, “Lodge in the heart
of my enemies’ chief.” He shot, and in the morning the people of that
village saw that the chief was dead. They thought that he had died
of heart disease, but, when they examined his body, they found the
small arrow sticking into his heart. Then they cut this out and began
asking one another, “Where has this arrow come from? What tribe does it
belong to?” So they sent for the old man who had made it and, as he was
examining it, he said, “I wonder to what place this belongs.” Just then
it flew out of his hand, and he said, “Run out and see what it is going
to say.” So all ran outside, and the arrow flew up and down in the
sky saying “Nuˊx̣gayu.” This is the Tsimshian name of an animal, but
the old man made it indicate by that the village from which it came.
After that it went across to their enemies’ town. Now, when they saw
this, they got into their canoes and went over to fight. As soon as the
canoes had gotten around his house the chief said, “I am not afraid to
be killed by you, because I know that you are all from a high family.”
Then he again had his sister sing the war song and his niece beat the
drum, and he acted as the old man had directed him. Just before he
came out he threw out ashes which looked like smoke and concealed his
movements. In the midst of this he came out and shot the arrow toward
their canoes, which passed through every man in four of them. Then it
came back to him, and he shot it through four more canoe loads. Those
who were left went home.
The day after this still more came to fight him with like result, but
the next time he made a mistake, shot toward the canoe which contained
the old man’s relations, and killed all of them. Then the arrow flew
back to the old man, who sent it at the chief for whom he had made it,
and killed him.
Now the chief’s sister put on her brother’s war clothes, while her
daughter sang the song and drummed. With the arrow which had traveled
back to her, she began killing off her enemies just as her brother
had done. So the people made fun of the old man, saying, “I thought
you said you had killed that chief.” “I did kill him.” “Well! if you
killed the chief, who is it that is killing our friends?” Still he kept
assuring them that he had killed the chief. Then they started over once
more. But, this time, when the woman had shot and was running back into
the house, they saw by the apron she wore that it was a woman, and the
canoes started shoreward, the people exclaiming, “It is a woman. It is
a woman.” When all had landed, and she saw that they were coming after
her, she and her daughter escaped out of the rear of the house and ran
up into the woods. From the top of the mountain there she glanced back
and said to her daughter, “Look at your uncle’s house. It is burning.”
They could see the fire and smoke coming from it. Then they felt very
sad and composed songs which the Indians sing to this very day. They
cried so hard that they fell asleep. After that they went farther into
the forest crying, and the mother said as she wept, “I wonder whom I
can get to marry my daughter so that he can help me.”
By and by Mink came to the woman and said, “What is the matter with me?
Will not I do for your daughter?” “What do you do for a living?” she
asked him. “I have a smell that kills everything.” Then the woman went
straight on without paying the least attention to him. Next Marten came
along. To this woman they appeared as human beings. And Marten said,
“What is the matter with me?” “What can you do for a living?” He said
he was a very fast runner and could get anything he wanted, but she
rejected him. Then she went on again singing as before, “Who will marry
my daughter in order to help me?” Next came Mountain-goat. “What is the
matter with me?” “What do you do for a living?” “I can kill anything
with my horns. I live far up among the bluffs where nothing can harm
me.” He did not please her, and she went on past. Then Wolf came,
saying, “What is the matter with me? Can not I get your daughter?”
“What do you do for a living?” “I am a fast runner. I can kill anything
I want. I have plenty to eat.” He did not suit her, and she passed by
him, but he was so determined that he met her again with a mountain
goat in his mouth. She went right by, however, and came to a lake where
she repeated the same words. At that place she met a very fine-looking
young man, Frog. “What do you do for a living?” she asked, and he did
not tell her what he did but said, “Although I am small very few people
like me. Even the big animals are scared of me.” After him Grizzly Bear
asked, “What is the matter with me?” “What do you do for a living?”
“Don’t you see how large I am? I am a very powerful fellow.” He showed
her his strength and what teeth he had, and said that he was very quick
and active, but she refused to have him, and went on. Then she met the
Wild Canary (sǃāsǃ). “What do you do for a living?” she said. “I am a
fine singer.” She went on and met another bird, called Tsǃīnîg̣ēˊnî,
and asked, “What do you do for a living?” “Don’t you see that I am
a very handsome fellow. All the women want to marry me.” Then she
went along and met Fox, who said, “What is the matter with me?” “What
do you do for a living?” she asked. She noticed that he was dressed
very warmly in very beautiful clothing. “I can run and get anything I
want,” he said. “I have plenty to eat.” He did not suit her, and she
went right by. After a while there came Lynx (g̣āk), who replied to
her question by saying, “I am a traveler and get all kinds of birds to
eat.” Next she met Wolverine (Nūsk) which answered, “I am a good hunter
and I kill all kinds of animals.”
After that she went along sadly, repeating as usual, “Who will marry
my daughter so that he can help me?” Then she saw a man who shone all
over, standing on top of a mountain. She came very close to him, and
he said, “What is the matter with me?” “What do you do for a living?”
“I move about as quick as thought. Wherever I want to go, there I am
at once. My father is the sun.” She said, “Let us see him then.” So he
spoke to the sun. It was a cloudy day, but, when he spoke to it, the
sun appeared and it became very warm. “All right,” she said, “you can
have my daughter for your wife.”
After that the man took a limb from a tree and said to his
mother-in-law, “You shall be this limb.” He put her inside and
shoved the limb back. Then he said to her, “The world will call you
‘Woman-of-the-forest’ (Ās-gutuˊỵîk-cā). You will mock everybody that
shouts or whistles. When they hear you they will know what it is.” So
she became the echo.
After this a spherical cloud came down and rolled up with them. As the
cloud was going up, the man said to his wife, “Don’t look at it. Keep
your face hidden.” When he told her to open her eyes again she saw that
she was in a beautiful place with flowers all about. It was his house.
It was a grassy country and there were all kinds of fruits about the
place.
There this woman had eight children, seven boys and a girl. She was
very much afraid of everything, and that is why women are so to-day.
Then they built for these children a small house with a painted front,
put up forty boxes of every kind of fruit and berry, also dried
salmon, grease, and other kinds of food, and stored the house with
them. They had bracelets and a marten-skin robe made for the girl, and
her grandfather said to her, “You are going to be very quarrelsome.
While quarreling you will always examine your bracelets.” Then their
grandfather prepared war clothes for the boys and said, “You are now
going down to fight.” He also gave them a painted wooden wedge and
said, “Keep this with you all the time. When you are fighting and see
that your enemies are too strong for you, and you are getting beaten,
put this wedge into the fire. While putting it into the fire, say
this: ‘Grandfather, our enemies are beating us?’” Then they were all
placed, together with their house and its contents, in the spherical
cloud and set down on the site of Gîtǃîˊkc. As soon as it landed, the
little house grew to be a big house with painted front, and the boxes
of berries, salmon, and other provisions were all big painted boxes.
Everything had been made small so as to come down without being seen.
Then the children of the sun were all very happy, and made so much
noise that their enemies, who were out on the river fishing for
eulachon, heard then and said, “Those are the bones of the Gîtǃîˊkc
people that are making so much racket.” As soon, however, as they found
that their enemies’ village was repeopled they started off in their
canoes to make war upon them. They were so numerous that the children
of the sun found they were going to be beaten and put their wedge into
the fire. Then the sun came out fiercely, and many of the enemy became
so hot that they jumped into the ocean. The ocean was so hot that they
died there, while those upon land, becoming too blinded to fight, were
also killed.[86]
Therefore nowadays people do the same thing. When they fight and a good
man of high caste is killed, his friends do not come to their opponents
as though they were angry. They use good words to them, and thereby
induce a man of equally high rank on the other side to come out and be
killed by them. If they went there talking meanly they would not get
him to come out. The woman who was saved remembered how her brother
and all of her relations had been killed. Therefore she took good care
in selecting a husband for her daughter, because she felt if she did
so she would get all of her relatives back. That is why the Indians of
good family took such good care of a daughter in old times. They knew
that if she married well she would be a help to the family.
* * * * *
When the inhabitants of that town became very numerous the daughter of
the chief there used to go out berrying. One day, while she was out
after berries, she stepped into the manure of a grizzly bear and said,
“That nasty thing is right in the way.” Then the grizzly bear came to
her in the form of a fine-looking man, and she went off with him but
they thought that a grizzly bear had killed her. Now the grizzly-bear
people watched her very closely, and, whenever she went out of the den,
they covered up her tracks. This girl had dentalium shells around her
neck, and the bears were very much surprised to find one of these lying
in her tracks every time they covered them over. Early in the morning
the male bears went out after salmon, while their wives gathered
firewood. They always selected wet wood for this, but the girl got
nothing but dry wood, and her fire continually went out. She could
never start a fire with it. One day, however, an old woman called to
her and said, “You are with a different sort of people. You are brought
away from your own people. I got here because the same thing happened
to me. Use wet wood like the rest of the women. Leave that dry wood
alone.” Then she used wet wood and had good fires.
When this girl had lost almost all the dentalia from her clothing she
thought, “What is going to become of me?” But the old woman said to
her, “Do you want to save yourself? Do you want to go back to your
father and mother? This is not a good place where you are. Now,” she
said, “go and get a piece of devil’s club, a thorn from a wild rose
bush, some sand, and a small rock. When you see these bear people
coming after you, throw that devil’s club back of you first. Next throw
the thorn, then the mud, then the sand, then the rock.”
So the woman collected these things and started off on the run, and
after a while she saw the bears coming behind her. When they had gotten
quite close to her she threw back the devil’s club and there came to be
so many devil’s clubs in that spot that the bears could not get through
easily. While they were in the midst of these she got a long distance
off. The next time they got close she threw back the thorn, and rose
bushes covered the country they had to traverse, retarding the bears
again and enabling her to obtain another long lead. Next she threw back
the mud, and the place became so muddy that they had to wade through it
slowly. After that she threw the sand which became a sand bank, and the
bears slid back from it in attempting to cross. Finally she threw back
the rock, and there was a high cliff which it took the bears a long
time to surmount.