coward. He would not go into the water, and the people teased him
by pushing him over, when he would not do a thing in return. He was
very slow. The man’s real name was Duktǃūˊʟǃ (Black-skin), but they
nicknamed him ᴀtqahāˊsǃî. His real name may also have been a nickname
originally, applied to him because he was ugly.
At the same time Black-skin was merely feigning weakness, and, though
he continued to lie in bed when the others bathed, at night after all
were asleep, he would steal off and do the same thing himself for hours
and hours. He remained in so long that he had to float to rest his
feet. On coming out he would throw water on the ashes of the fire so
as to make it steam and lay his mat on top. That was the only bed he
had. The people thought that he was a low, dirty fellow, but in reality
he kept himself very pure and would not lie or steal. He did not say
a word when they made fun of him, though he was strong enough to have
done almost anything to them if he had so desired. When they sent him
after big pieces of firewood he acted as if they were very hard to
lift, and they thought he was so lazy that they gave him very little to
eat.
The people went on in this way, bathing every day with their chief,
while Black-skin bathed at night. After they were through, the village
people would make a big fire, take breakfast and then go after wood. As
soon as the people came up, Black-skin moved into a corner and slept
there. One night, while Black-skin was bathing, he heard a whistle that
sounded to him like that of a loon. He thought, “Now that I am seen I
better let myself go.” So he went toward the place where he had heard
it and saw a short, thick-set man standing on the beach clothed in a
bear skin. This man ran down toward him, picked him up, and threw him
down upon the beach. Then he said, “You can’t do it yet. Don’t tell
anyone about me. I am Strength (Łatsīˊn). I have come to help you.”
Toward morning Black-skin came in feeling very happy, for he thought
that he had seen something great. He kept thinking of Strength all the
time. He could not forget him, but he was quieter than ever in his
demeanor. When they were playing in the house he would never pay any
attention, and, if they said mean things to him, he let them go on
unnoticed, although he belonged to the family of the chief. Anything
they wanted they asked him to get, and he got it. In olden times the
boys used to wrestle in the chief’s house while their elders looked on,
and they would try to get him to wrestle also. Sometimes the little
boys would wrestle with him, and he pretended that they pushed him
down. Then they would make fun of him saying, “The idea of a great man
like you being thrown by a child.”
When he went in bathing again, this man felt very happy for he knew
that he had strength. Anything hard to do, when he looked at it,
appeared easy to him. That night he heard the whistle once more. He
looked round and saw the same man, and the man said, “Come over this
way. Come over to me.” Then they seized one another, and as soon as the
short man felt his grip, he said, “Don’t throw me down. Now you have
strength. You are not to go into the water again. Go from here right
to that tree and try to pull the limb out.” So he went to the tree and
pulled it right out. Then he put it back again. After he had done so,
the man told him to go to the other tree. “Twist it right down to the
roots,” he said. So he did. Afterward he untwisted it and made it look
as before.
Just after he got to bed the people started in bathing. As they passed
him the boys would pull his hair saying, “Come on and go in bathing,
too;” but he paid no attention. After they had bathed they went up to
this limb as usual, and G̣ᴀłwēˊtǃ pulled it out with ease. Black-skin
lay in bed, listening to the shouting they made. Then G̣ᴀłwēˊtǃ ran to
the other tree and twisted it to the very root. When they came home,
they told the story to one another, saying, “G̣ᴀłwēˊtǃ pulled out that
limb.” The chief himself felt very proud, and the people of the village
were very happy that he had done so, especially his two wives. Then
they tried to get Black-skin out of bed. They laughed at him, saying,
“Your chief has pulled out the limb. Why couldn’t you? He has also
twisted that tree. You sleep like a chief and let your chief go bathing
in the morning.” They laughed at him, saying, “He is sleeping in the
morning because he has pulled out that limb and twisted that tree.”
They had been bathing in order to hunt sea lions, so the young men
said, “To-morrow we are going after sea lions. I wonder which part of
the canoe Black-skin will sleep in. He is such a powerful fellow.”
And one boy said, “Why this Black-skin will sit in the bow of the
canoe so that he can land first. He will tear the sea lions in two.”
Black-skin listened to all this, but he paid no attention to them. The
whole town was going all day long to see the place where the limb had
been pulled off and the tree twisted down to the root. Those people
almost lived on this sea-lion meat, but it was very scarce and only
powerful people could get it. For this reason they picked out only the
strongest fellows from among those who had been bathing with the chief,
to go after them to the sea-lion island. This island was very slippery
because the sea lions stayed there all of the time and very few could
get up to the place where they were. That is why they went through such
hardships to get at them.
The elder of the chief’s two wives had had pity on Black-skin, and
would do little favors for him on the sly. So Black-skin, after he had
bathed secretly, came to his uncle’s wife and said, “Will you give
me a clean shirt; it doesn’t matter much what it is so long as it is
clean, and something for my hair?” “Are you asked to go?” she said. He
replied, “I am not asked, but I am going.” So she prepared food for
him and put it in as small a package as she could. All prepared and
got into the canoe. Last of all came down Black-skin, and, when they
saw him, they said, “Don’t let him come. Don’t let him come.” Seeing
that he was determined to get in they began pushing the canoe out as
fast as they could. Black-skin then seized the canoe, and they struck
his fingers to make him let go. It sounded like beating upon a board.
And, although all of them were shoving it out, he exerted a very little
of his strength, pulled the canoe back, and jumped in. Then the people
talked very meanly to him, but the chief said, “Oh! let him be. He will
bail out the canoe for us on the way over.” So he sat in the place
where one bails. The uncle might have suspected something after his
nephew had pulled back the canoe, but he did not appear to. As they
went rapidly out they said, “Black-skin came along to tear the sea
lions in two.” They asked him, “How many sea lions shall I skin for
you?” But Black-skin said nothing.
The sea-lion island had very precipitous sides against which great
waves came, so G̣ᴀłwēˊtǃ waited until the canoe was lifted upon the
crest of a wave and then jumped ashore. He was a powerful fellow, and
seizing a small sea lion by the tail smashed its head to pieces on the
rocks. Then he thought he would do the same thing to a large one. These
large sea lions are called qǃᴀtǃ-cu-qāˊwu (men-of-the-islands). He went
to the very largest of these and sat astride of its tail, intending to
tear it in two, but the sea lion threw him up into the air, and, when
he came down, he was smashed to pieces on the rocks.
Now, when Black-skin saw what had happened to his uncle, he felt badly.
Then he put his hand into his bundle of clothes, took out and put on
his hair ornament and his shirt, while all watched him, and said, “I
am the man that pulled out that limb, and I am the man that twisted
that tree.” He spoke as high-caste Indians did in those days, and all
listened to him. He said to them, “Take the canoe closer to shore.”
Then he walked forward in the canoe, stepping on the seats which broke
under his weight, precipitating their occupants to the bottom of the
canoe. The young men that were sitting in his way he threw back as
if they had been small birds. Then the people were all frightened,
thinking that he would revenge himself on them for their meanness, but
he jumped ashore where his uncle had gone and walked straight up the
cliff. The small sea lions in his way he killed simply by hitting them
on the head and by stepping on them. He looked only at the big one
that had killed his uncle, for he did not want it to get away. When he
came to it, he seized it and tore it in two. A few of the sea lions
escaped, but he killed most of them and loaded the canoe down. While he
was doing this, however, his companions, who were very much ashamed of
themselves and very much frightened, paddled away and left him. They
said to the people in the town, “It was Black-skin who pulled out the
limb and twisted the tree.” Then the town people were troubled and
said, “Why did you leave him out there? Why didn’t you bring him in?”
Meanwhile Black-skin took out the sea-lion intestines and dried them.
He had nothing to make a fire with and did not know what he should do.
So he lay down and went to sleep, his head covered with his blanket.
Then he heard something that sounded like the beating of sticks.
Suddenly he was awakened by hearing someone say, “I have come after
you.” He looked around, but could not see anything except a black
duck which was swimming about in front of him. Then he saw the black
duck coming toward him and said to it, “I have seen you already.” It
answered, “I am sent after you. Get on my back but keep your eyes
closed tight.” So he did. Then the duck said again, “Now open your
eyes.” He opened them and saw that he was in a fine house. It was the
house of the sea lions. It is through this story that the natives to
the present day say that everything is like a human being. Each has
its “way of living.” Why do fish die on coming out of the water? It is
because they have a “way of living” of their own down there.
Meanwhile the elder wife of the chief, who had helped Black-skin, was
mourning for her husband and nephew. Her husband’s body was still on
that island. The older people were also saying to the people who had
left him, “Why did you do it? A powerful fellow like that is scarce. We
want such a fellow among us.” Then the widow begged the young men to go
back to the island and bring home her nephew and her husband’s body but
the younger wife did not care. Finally some other people did go out.
They saw the body there, but Black-skin was gone. Then they took aboard
the body, loaded the canoe with the bodies of sea lions, and went
home. When they heard of it the wise people all said that something
was wrong. The shamans said that he was not dead and that they would
see him again. They said that he was off with some wild animal. This
troubled the village people a great deal. They felt very badly to think
that he had kept himself so very lowly before the low-caste people, and
they feared that he was suffering somewhere again when he might just as
well have occupied his uncle’s place.
Black-skin, however, continued to stay among the sea lions. They looked
to him like human beings, but he knew who they really were. In the
same house there was a boy crying all the time with pain. The sea-lion
people could not see what ailed him. Black-skin, however, could see
that he had a barbed spear point in his side. Then one of the sea lions
spoke up saying, “That shaman there knows what is the matter. He is
saying, ‘How is it that they can not see the bone in the side of that
child?’” Then Black-skin said, “I am not a shaman, but I can take it
out.” So he cut it out and blood and matter came out with it. Then they
gave him warm water to wash the wound, and, since the young sea lion
belonged to high-caste people, they said to him, “Anything that you
want among us you can have.” So he asked for a box that always hung
overhead. This box was a kind of medicine to bring any kind of wind
wanted. The sea lions would push the box up and down on the water,
calling the wind to it like a dog, whistling and saying, “Come to this
box. Come to this box.” So the natives now whistle for the winds and
call them. Then the sea-lion people told Black-skin to get into it,
and, as soon as he did so, he saw that he was very far out at sea. He
began to call for the wind that blows shoreward, and it carried him
ashore. Then he got out of the box and hung it out on the limb of a
tree in a sheltered place. He did this because the sea-lion people had
told him to take very good care of that box and not go near anything
unclean with it.
Black-skin had now landed only a short distance from his own town, so
he walked home, and his uncle’s wife was very glad to see him, feeling
as if his uncle had come back. The dried sea-lion entrails he wore
around his head. Then he asked all of the town people to come together,
and the people who had been cruel to him were very much ashamed, for
they thought that he had gone for good. He, however, looked very fine.
He eyed his enemies angrily but thought thus, “If I had not made myself
so humble, they might not have treated me that way.” So he overlooked
it. Some of the people that had left him on the sea-lion island were so
frightened that they ran away into the woods. Some of the old people
and the good-hearted people were very glad that he was back, but he
could see that others hung their heads as if they were ashamed. Then he
said, “Some of you know how cruel you were to me. You know well that
you are ashamed of yourselves. But I can see that some of you feel good
because you know that you felt kindly toward me. It will always be the
case that people who are cruel to poor people will be ashamed of it
afterward.” They had thought that he would avenge himself on them, but
he talked to them in a very kindly manner saying, “Do not make fun of
poor people as you did when my uncle was alive.”[98]
* * * * *
After this the people went out hunting and encamped in a place called
Tayuˊkǃnᴀxe. A man went out from here with his brother and little son
one day, and, when they returned, saw that every one had disappeared.
They felt very badly and said, “What is wrong with our village?” Then
they saw that the whole town was covered with devilfish slime and
said, “It is that monster devilfish that has done all this.” People
say that he had seen the red glow of the salmon on the drying frames
outside. Then the two men said to the boy with them, “You must stay
here. We are going off.” So they made a mat house over him and let
him have their blankets. They were wild at the thought of having lost
all their friends. Then they killed a number of porpoises and seals,
went to the devilfish’s place and threw them into the water above him.
After a while they saw that the water was getting frothy around them
with ascending bubbles and presently saw the devilfish coming up. It
looked very white. One of these men was making a noise like the raven;
the other was acting like a dog salmon. All that went on was observed
by the little boy. As soon as the devilfish reached the surface they
jumped upon it with their knives and began slashing it. They cut its
ink bag and all the water became black. The devilfish and the men died.
Soon after this had happened a canoe from another camp came there, saw
this object floating on the sea some distance out from the village, and
thought that it was yet alive; so they hurried to get past it. When
they came ashore the boy told them all that had happened, and they
cried very much at seeing him there alone, for he was their relative.
After this they returned with him to their camp, which was situated
upon an island near by, and told the story there, on which two canoe
loads of people left to look for the devilfish. After they had found it
and had cut it open with their stone axes, they saw the two men still
inside, knife in hand. All the village people that the devilfish had
eaten were also there. Then they took the bodies back to town and had a
death feast.[99]
* * * * *
Later on a chief’s daughter at the place named Qǃᴀqᴀˊx-duūˊ obtained
a wood worm (ʟǃuqǃuˊx) as a pet and fed it on different kinds of oil.
It grew very fast until it reached the length of a fathom. Then she
composed a cradle song for it: “It has a face already. Sit right here.
Sit right here (Kǃesi-yaˊkǃᵘ ᴀˊsgî. Tcǃayāˊkǃ ᴀˊnu).” She sang again,
“It has a mouth already. Sit right here. Sit right here.” They would
hear her singing these words day after day, and she would come out from
her room only to eat. Then her mother said to her, “Stay out here once
in a while. Do not sit back there always.” They wondered what was wrong
with her that she always stayed inside, and at last her mother thought
that she would spy upon her daughter. She looked inside, therefore, and
saw something very large between the boxes. She thought it an awful
monster, but left it alone, because her daughter was fond of it.
Meanwhile the people of the town had been missing oil from their boxes
for some time, for this worm was stealing it. The mother kept saying to
her daughter, “Why don’t you have something else for a pet? That is a
horrible thing to have for a pet.” But her daughter only cried.
Now, the people got ready to kill this thing, and they tried in every
way to induce the girl to come away from her house. Her mother told
her that her uncle’s wife wanted her help, but, although she was very
fond of her, that was not sufficient to get her out. Next morning she
said to the big worm, “Son, I have had a very bad dream.” After they
had begged her to come out day after day she finally came. “Mother,”
she said, “get me my new marten robe.” Then she tied a rope around her
waist as a belt and came out singing a song she had been composing
ever since they first began to beg her: “I have come out at last. You
have begged me to come out. I have come out at last, you have begged
me so hard, but it is just like begging me to die. My coming out from
my pet is going to cause death.” As she sang she cried, and the song
made the people feel very badly. Then she heard a great uproar and said
to her uncle’s wife, “They are killing my son at last.” “No,” said her
uncle’s wife, “it is a dog fight.” “No, they are killing him.” They had
quite a time killing the worm, and when she heard that it was dead she
sang, “They got me away from you, my son. It isn’t my fault. I had to
leave you. They have killed you at last. They have killed you. But you
will be heard of all over the world. Although I am blamed for bringing
you up, you will be claimed by a great clan and be looked up to as
something great.” And to this day, when that clan is feasting, they
start her four songs. This clan is the G̣ānᴀxteˊdî. Then she went to
her father and said, “Let that pet of mine be burned like the body of a
human being. Let the whole town cut wood for it.” So they did, and it
burned just like coal oil.
Another of this woman’s songs was, “You will be a story for the time
coming. You will be told of.” This is where the G̣ānᴀxteˊdî come from.
No one outside of them can use this worm. What causes so many wars
is the fact that there are very many people having nothing who claim
something. The G̣ānᴀxteˊdî also own Black-skin. They represent him on
poles with the sea-lions’ intestines around his head.
The girl’s father felt very badly that she should care for so ugly a
creature, but to please her and make her feel better, he gave a feast
along with tobacco and said, “If my daughter had had anything else for
a pet, I would have taken good care of it, too, but I feared that it
would injure the village later on, so I had to have it killed.”
* * * * *
In the town where this occurred a man named Sǃāwᴀˊn became a shaman.
He told the people to leave and go somewhere else because spirits
were saying in him, “If you stay in this village, you will all die.”
There was so much respect for shamans in those days that people obeyed
everything that they told them to do. By and by his spirit said to the
shaman, “You will be asked to go somewhere, my master. My masters, the
people of the village, do you go away with me?” And the village people
kept saying to him, “Yes, we are going along with you.” Then the spirit
said, “The persons that are going to invite me from here are not human
beings. They are already getting ready to come.”
By and by the canoe came after him. He seemed to know that there was
something about to happen, and said, “Somehow or other you people look
strange.” He put all of his things into small boxes ready to depart.
Then he got in and they covered him with a mat until they reached
their village, when he got up and saw some fine houses. The fronts
were beautifully painted. Among these houses was one with a crowd of
people in front which they tried to make him believe was that where
the sick person lay. His rattle and belt, however, ran up on the shore
ahead of him and entered the proper house, which was in another part of
the town. These people were land otters, and they called him by name,
“Sǃāwᴀˊn, Sǃāwᴀˊn.” They said to him, “All the shamans among us have
been doctoring him, and they can not do a thing. They can not see what
is killing him. That is why we have asked you to come.”
Then the shaman thought within himself, “Who will sing my songs for
me?” but the land otters spoke out, saying, “We can sing your songs.
Don’t be worried.” Inside of this house there hung a breastplate made
out of carved bones, such as a shaman used in his spiritual combats.
The land otters saw that he wanted it and said, “We will pay you that
for curing him.” Then the shaman began to perform. He could see that
the land otter was made sick by an arrow point sticking in its side,
but this was invisible to the land otters. After he had pulled it
out, the sick otter, who belonged to the high-caste people, sat up
immediately and asked for something to eat. The shaman kept the arrow
point, however, because it was made of copper, and copper was very
expensive in those days.
Then one of the land-otter shamans said to him, “I will show you
something about my spirits.” And so he did. He saw some very strange
things. When he was shown one kind of spirit, the land otter said, “You
see that. That is Sickness (Nīkǃ).” What he called Sickness was the
spirit of a clam. These clams look to the spirits like human beings.
That is why the spirits are so strong. He also showed him the Spirit of
the Sea (Dekīˊna yēk), the Spirit of the Land (Dāˊqna-yēk), the Spirit
from Above (Kīyēˊgî), and the Spirit from Below (Hāỵīˊnᴀq-yēk). All
these became the man’s spirits afterward.
Nowadays, when a man wants to become a shaman, he has to cut the tongue
of a land otter and fast for eight days. You can tell a shaman who has
been fasting a great deal because his eyes become very sharp.
After he had shown all of the spirits, they said, “We will take you to
your town any time you want to go.” Then they took him to his own town.
They had to cover him up again.
The people of Sǃāwᴀˊn’s village were always looking for him, and one
day four men in a canoe saw something far out on the shore which looked
very strange. A number of sea gulls were flying around it. Going
closer, they saw the shaman lying there on a long sandy beach, the
gulls around him. They did not know of any sandy bay at that point,
and said that it was the shaman that brought it up there. They then
took him into the canoe and brought him over. He was so thin that
he appeared to have fasted a long time. After they got him home the
spirits began mentioning their names, saying, “I am Spirit of the Sea;
I am Spirit of the Land,” etc. Every time a spirit mentioned his name,
the people would start its songs.
* * * * *
This is the last thing that happened in the Raven story. From this time
on everything is about spirits (yēk) over and over again. Very few
people believed in Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł. Most believed in the spirits. From
the time that these come into the story you hear little about Raven
because people had so much more faith in spirits. You notice that in
every Tlingit town in Alaska there are shamans, and years ago, when a
shaman died, there was always one right after him, and he was always
of the same family. It is through these that the Raven story has been
getting less and less.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] See story 1. Into this story, as will be seen, the writer’s
informant has woven a large portion of the sacred myths of his people.
[51] In another place the writer’s informant admitted that he had
concluded this must be the case, because there were no bad stories
about Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł.
[52] See _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology_, p. 454.
[53] See _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology_, pp. 460 to 463.
[54] See story 5.
[55] This is an error, Łᴀxaỵîˊk being a general term for the Yakutat
country and people.