back, for he did not know what to do. Finally he said to the village
people, “Make a place where the lake can flow out.” So all of the
people went to work to drain the lake, and the water began flowing out.
When the lake was nearly dry they saw this girl, all covered with frogs
with the exception of her face, start to flow along with them. They
picked her out from the very midst of the frogs and carried her home,
but the frogs followed right after her. The house was quite filled with
them. Then they killed all of the frogs that were upon her body, but as
they did so more climbed up. When they began killing them with human
bones, however, they went away. Afterward the girl remained with her
father, and the frogs did not bother her any more.
FOOTNOTES:
[127] See story 22.
77. THE GIRL WHO MARRIED THE LǃALǃ
There was a certain Chilkat chief belonging to the G̣ānᴀxteˊdî whose
house stood in the middle of the village. One morning his daughter, a
very lively girl, went out of doors and stepped upon something slimy.
“Ugh,” she said, “those dirty people throw their slops out right where
a person may step into them.” What she stepped on was the skin of a
fish called ʟǃᴀʟǃ, which is taken in Chilkat river.
The girl thought no more about this, but toward midnight a young fellow
appeared to her as if in a dream and said, “I am in love with you,”
whereupon he sat down at the head of her bed. Although the girl had
rejected many suitors, she took a liking to this youth at once and
married him. This was against the will of her father, but she was his
only girl and was very wilful, so he let her have her own way.
The youth was very industrious, working at all times and hauling down
wood for them. From him they learned how to haul wood. It was well on
toward spring, but it was dry, and the ground was frozen hard. Every
day the young fellows in that village played ball, and the girl’s
husband, who was a very powerful fellow, kept throwing the ball farther
and farther up river every time they played. At last they became so
angry that they caught him and tore his clothes off. Then they saw that
his skin was covered with blotches. He was really the ʟǃᴀʟǃ who had
appeared to the girl like a young man. Then they said, “Look at his
body all in blotches. The idea of that girl having such a fellow after
she had refused high-caste people like herself.”
Now the youth continued to sit day after day where his clothes had been
torn off, and although people went to call him every day, saying that
his wife wanted him to come back, he would not answer a word. Finally
his wife went out herself and said, “You better come home,” but he
answered, “Tell your father to tie your house down very firmly and
block up every aperture even to the smoke hole.”
That night the ʟǃᴀʟǃ started off up Chilkat river, and a long time
afterward they noticed that the river was going dry. They wondered what
was causing it, but it was really due to the ʟǃᴀʟǃ, who had grown to be
a monster and was lying right across the stream higher up. Very early
one morning, however, they heard a terrible roar, for the ʟǃᴀʟǃ had
left the place where he had been lying and the ponded water was coming
down. It washed away the entire village except the house belonging to
his wife’s father.
78. THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A TREE
An old spruce tree stood at the end of a certain village. In this same
village a high-caste girl dreamed for several nights in succession that
she was married to a fine-looking man, and by and by she gave birth to
a boy baby. As she was a very virtuous girl, people wondered how she
had come by it.
The child grew very fast, and soon began to talk. One day it began
calling for its father. It would not stop, although they tried to humor
it in every way. Then people wondered whom it was calling, so the boy’s
grandfather invited all the men of that village and of the surrounding
villages to come to his house to see if the child would be able to
recognize its father. When this proved fruitless he invited the people
who inhabit trees to come in, and as soon as they entered and sat
down, the child stopped crying and began crawling around the circle,
looking at each person. Then the people said, “We will see where that
fatherless child is going.”
At the very end of the line toward the door sat an old man, and the
child crawled right past the high-caste tree people toward him. As it
did so, the others nudged one another, saying, “Look at Kᴀsᴀˊʟǃ.” They
said this because the girl had had nothing to do with the high-caste
tree people, but with this poor old man. The child, however, crawled
right up to him, climbed into his lap and said, “Papa.” At once the old
man married the girl.
79. THE GIRL WHO MARRIED THE FIRE SPIRIT
There was a chief’s daughter whom all of the high-caste men wanted to
marry. One day, as she sat close to the fire, a spark came out on her
clothing and she said something bad to the fire, pointing her hand at
it with fingers extended.
That night the girl was missing and could not be found anywhere. They
searched all of the villages and all of the houses in all of the
villages where those people lived who had wanted to marry her, but in
vain. Then they employed shamans from their own and all the surrounding
towns to tell where she was. Finally the chief was told of a shaman in
a village a very long way off, and he went to consult him. The shaman
said to him, “How is it that my spirits talk of nothing but your fire?
Your daughter might have said something to the fire that displeased the
spirits of the fire. Let your fire go out as soon as you are through
preparing food and have the rest of your village people extinguish
theirs. Do so for a long time.” All of this time the parents were
mourning for their daughter.
Then the chief sent through all the village to ask his people to let
their fires go out, and they obeyed him. This went on for some time
without result, but one day the girl came up from the fireplace from
between the rocks on which the logs were placed. The Fire Spirit
(Gᴀˊntu yēˊgî) had taken her as his wife. Then the girl told her
parents that her husband had pitied them, and after that she stayed
with them most of the time. Every now and then she would be missing,
for she was very fond of her spirit husband, but she would not stay
long. She went into the fire to eat, and before she went directed them
to let the fire go out after a time in order to bring her back.
One day, when she had not been away for a long time, she was eating
in her father’s house. For the last dish they gave her soapberries.
Her father’s nephew, who was in love with her and who was encouraged
by her mother in hopes that she might be kept from going away again,
was stirring them. When she put her spoon into the dish he seized it.
At the same moment the firewood began to whistle, as it does when the
fire spirit is talking, and the girl understood what it meant. Then
she seemed frightened, and said to her mother and the boy, “He wants
me at once.” All that the girl had to do when she wanted to see her
husband was to think of him and she would immediately be at his side.
They never saw her going into the fire. Therefore, as soon as she said
this she disappeared, and they did not know what had happened. Then,
however, her spirit husband hurt her in some way so as to make her
scream, though the people could not guess the cause, and next day she
appeared in her father’s house once more, looking very sad, for she had
left her husband; and now she stayed with her father all the time.
After that her father’s nephew kept trying to get her to marry him, but
she would have nothing to do with him. Before she had liked him, but
after she had been abused by the Fire Spirit on account of what he had
done, she did not care for him and remained single all the rest of her
life.
80. ORPHAN
An orphan girl in the Tlingit country named Sᴀhāˊn (Orphan) was adopted
by some high-caste people so that she might be a companion to their
only daughter. She was very fond of going to the creek to get water,
and the chief’s daughter always accompanied her. Every time they went
the chief’s daughter would drink water from this creek against the
protests of her foster sister, and it made her very unlucky. When she
married into another high-caste family her husband became very poor on
account of her and finally abandoned her. Then he married Orphan, who
was very bright and knew how to take care of things, and she made him
rich. She was quiet and paid a great deal of attention to her husband.
The village people were also very much pleased with her, for after her
husband married her, they lived off of him.
Everything that this girl had was good, her dishes and spoons being
all set with abalone shell. She had four adopted brothers, of whom the
older two were rich but the younger two very poor and unlucky. The
former she would always treat well because she knew that they were
bright and able to take care of things, and she always gave them food
in her fine dishes. When she invited her poor brothers her husband
would say, “Go and get your dishes now and let your brothers eat off of
them,” but she always answered, “No, I don’t want to let them use my
good dishes. They might leave the marks of poverty on them.”
After Orphan had lived some time in luxury, however, her husband died,
and, as was customary, her husband’s relations took the property all
away from her. She became as poor as she had been before. Luck went
against her because she had treated her poor brothers so meanly. That
is why, nowadays, when a rich person has a poor brother he always
treats him just as well as the rich one.
81. THE DEAD BASKET-MAKER
A woman at Klawak was just finishing a basket when she died. She had
not yet cut off the tops. Then her husband took the basket and put it
up under the roof over his bed. He thought a great deal of it because
it was his wife’s last work. Sometimes he would take it down, press it
against his heart and weep as he held it there. He wept all the time.
After this man had been a widower a long time he married again. One
evening, when he was sitting on the bed playing with his new wife, the
basket fell right over his head. He tried to pull it off, and his wife
laughed, not knowing why it had been up there. When he was unable to
pull it away his wife also tried, but it stuck tight around his neck.
He became frightened and worked very hard at it. Suddenly the basket
said to him, “Yes, pull me off of your head. Why don’t you press me
against your heart again?” At last if they had not cut the strings the
basket would have choked him to death. Then he put it farther back and
in the morning threw it into the fire.
82. THE CRYING-FOR MEDICINE
One of the Kāsqǃagueˊdî named Floating (Nᴀłx̣āˊc), living at Wrangell,
had a wife called ᴀxtcîˊkǃ who kept running away from him. He was a
great hunter and hunted continually among the mountains of Bradfield
canal accompanied by his slave. One day, as they were pulling along in
a canoe while the dogs ran on shore, they heard the dogs barking at
a certain place. They landed and ran thither. Then they saw the dogs
lying on the ground with saliva dropping from their mouths, while a
small bear ran along some distance off. The hunter saw this bear climb
up the side of a cliff and was about to pursue it when he suddenly
lost all of his strength and lay there just like his dogs. He watched
the bear, however, and saw it go into a hole in the very middle of the
cliff. Then he said, “That is not a bear. It could not have climbed
up there and have gone into that cliff had it been one. It must be
something else.”
Floating thought a great deal of his wife and was suffering much
because she had now been gone from him for eight months.
When he saw this bear go into the inaccessible hole in the cliff, he
went back to town and made a very large, strong rope out of roots and a
cedar-bark basket large enough to hold one person. With these he went
back again to the cliff and climbed to a position above the hole the
bear had entered. Then he tied a rope around his slave’s waist, and
another to the basket and put the slave inside. He was going to lower
him down to the hole.
Now the man said to his slave, “When I get you to the mouth of the
hole, shake this basket very hard so that I may know it.” He gave him
a little wooden dipper and said, “Dip that into the hole and see what
you get out.” Then he lowered the slave. When the latter put his dipper
into the hole it came out filled with ants. Then the slave screamed,
but his master said, “I will let you drop if you don’t hold up. Put
that dipper in again and see what you bring out.” The slave did so and
brought out little frogs. All these were to be used with the medicine
he was to get out last. The third time he put the dipper in he got blue
flies. Then he put it in the fourth time to get the medicine, and sure
enough on the end of it, when it came out, there was some stuff that
looked like tallow and had a pleasant odor.
After that Floating pulled up his slave, and when he reached the top
he had fainted and looked as though he were dead, but he soon came to.
Then Floating took one of each kind of creature, mashed them up along
with the white stuff, and put all into the shaft of an eagle feather.
The medicine he thus made is called Crying-for medicine. When Floating
wanted to kill any bear, mountain goat, or other animal, all he had to
do was to shake it in the air and whatever he wanted would come down to
him.
After this Floating went back to his village, where his wife also was,
and the news of his return spread everywhere. It was early in winter.
Then his wife was entirely unable to stay away from him, and ran to his
door very early in the morning. They let her inside, but her husband
would not allow her to come any nearer to him. She begged very hard to
be allowed to come back, but he had already suffered so much on her
account that he was determined that she should suffer in her turn. The
harder she begged the more determined he was that she should not come
back. He never took her back, and she suffered a great deal, especially
when she found that he had become very rich and could have any woman in
the village that he wanted. It was because of this medicine that she
was so anxious to get back to him, and it was because he wanted to make
her suffer that he was so anxious to get it. None except people of the
Raven clan use this medicine. Even now, when a girl is so much in love
as to be crazy over it, it is said, “They must have used the Crying-for
medicine on her.”
83. THE RUNAWAY WIFE
A high-caste youth among the Haida was determined to marry his uncle’s
daughter, because his uncle was a very old man and he wanted to take
his place. But, after he had given a great deal of property for the
girl and taken her, she ran away. He followed her and induced her to
come back, but before long she ran away again, and she kept on acting
this way for a long time.
Finally the young man heard of a very large woman who knew of medicines
to get anybody with whom one was in love. When he came to her village
her people treated him very kindly, asking him to come up and eat with
them. After they had fed him and his companions they made a large fire
on top of the retaining timbers for the woman to take her purifying
bath. She had a little girl to wait upon her when she bathed, and she
was so large that this girl could bathe only one leg at a time.
After she had finished bathing, the large woman came out and gave the
youth an eagle’s tail across which ran a single streak of red paint.
Then she said, “Right around the point from your father’s village you
will see land otters running up from the water. As soon as the white
one among them steps up on the beach, raise your eagle’s tail and see
whether she will stand still. If she stands still and does not run away
go right past without touching her. Then you may know that you will get
your wife and that she will never leave you again; otherwise she will
never come back. When you get to the village, that woman you are having
a hard time with will come directly to you.”
The young man did as this woman had told him, and, sure enough, when
he reached the village his wife was very anxious to see him. She tried
to fight against the inclination, but finally she had to go. When she
entered, however, her husband, refused to take her back. Instead he
went to another village along with his father and married somebody
else. His first wife took all this hardly, and, when they returned,
came to him to demand property. Then the young man gave her some of his
own and some of his father’s property and some slaves so that she would
not bother his new wife. At the same time the girl felt very badly. Not
a day passed but she cried to think that the husband who had formerly
thought so much of her now had another wife.
84. THE REJECTED LOVER
Somewhere to the north lived a chief who had a daughter and a nephew
who was in love with this daughter. In olden times when a man married
a woman with a marriageable daughter he married the daughter as well,
so the youth wanted to marry this chief’s wife in order to get her
daughter. The boy’s father was chief of a certain clan. When he found
that he could not get this woman by himself the young man told his
mother, and his mother worked hard for him. They carried in slaves and
goods of all kinds to the chief. Still the chief would not consent,
for he wanted his daughter to marry some great chief from outside. He
would not let anyone in the village have her. It was really the girl,
however, that had induced her father not to give his consent. She must
have been in love with somebody else or her father would not have
spoken in that way.
The boy’s father had him ornamented with abalone shell, in his ears and
all over his shirt, but, just as soon as he came in decorated in this
way, along with his mother, the girl would jump up, raise her marten
robe in front of her face, run to meet them before they sat down and
say to him, “You may be decorated with all kinds of valuable shells,
but I will not have you.” The boy and her mother were hurt at this.
At first the girl liked her cousin well enough, but, when she found
that he had made hard feelings between her parents, she began to feel
unkindly toward him. Probably her father hated the boy because his wife
was willing to marry him.
One day the girl felt lonely and asked her cousin to go up with her to
get spruce bark to eat. The girl took along her little servant girl and
the boy his little servant boy. So they went up back of the town until
they came to a place where there were only spruces with open grassy
spots between. The girl sat down on one of these latter and her cousin
took the bark off for her. He was very good to her, and tried to humor
her in every way, but by and by she said to him, “Pull off your marten
robe and put it into that pond close by.” The boy did so, saying, “Did
you think I could not do that? I have plenty of marten robes.” Then the
girl spoke again saying, “Pull off all of your hair.” He began to do
so, and, when it was all pulled out, she said, “All right.” Then she
said, “Take all those shells from your ears and face and throw them
away.” The boy began to feel disturbed (lit. strange) about what she
was saying to him, but he did so. As soon as he had finished, however,
the girl and her servant ran home.
Now the boy did not dare to return, because he had nothing to wear, his
marten robe being wet and his shells lost in the grass. So he took some
moss wide enough to cover his shoulders and body and lay down upon a
point at the edge of the woods. He felt very badly and cried hard as
he lay there. When he looked up he saw a loon swimming about in the
sea. By and by he looked up again and he again saw the loon in the same
place. Every now and then it uttered a cry. Finally, as he was lying
with his head down, he heard some one say to him, “I have come after
you.” He looked up again but saw nothing except that loon. The fourth
time this happened he kept watch, for he thought that it was the loon,
and he saw a man coming to him. Before this person, who was in fact the
loon, could say anything the boy exclaimed, “I have seen you.” Then
the loon said, “Come along with me. Get on my back and shut your eyes
tight.”
Then the man did as this loon directed, and the latter dived down into
the sea with him and came up quite a distance out. “Look up,” it said.
The youth did so and found himself some distance out on the water. The
hair was growing again upon his head. Then the loon told him to close
his eyes a second time, went out still farther, and told him to reopen
them. He was out a very long distance. Then the boy thought, “What
is he taking me out here for?” When he opened his eyes for the third
time he could see a village, and the loon said to him, “You see that
village. The chief there has a lovely daughter whom you are to marry.”
After he had come up to the shore with him he showed him this chief’s
house and said, “You are to marry the daughter of the chief who owns
that house.” Then the loon handed him the shells for his ears and his
marten robe, which looked as nice as ever.
At night the youth went to the chief’s house, passed in to where his
daughter was, and said, “Chief’s daughter, I have been told that I am
not good enough to marry you.” But the girl liked him very much and
married him at once.
When news came to this girl’s father, who was the Calm, that his child
was married, he did not say anything, for she had been brought up very
well, and she was to marry whomsoever she pleased.
So the man stayed there very many years, but at last he wanted to
return to his father’s people. The chief took down his own canoe for
his daughter and son-in-law, and they put all kinds of food into it.
The people disliked to see them go, and the chief told his daughter
to be good to her husband. The canoe that they had was a bear canoe,
and everywhere they camped they had to take very good care of it.
Before they set out the chief said to his daughter, “Don’t let anybody
whatever give you water. Let your husband always bring it and give it
to you.” He gave her a quill to drink water out of and a very small
basket for her cup. Then the girl said to her husband, “You must let
alone those girls you used to go with and those you were in love with.
You are not to speak to them.”
When they came to his father’s town all were glad to see the youth,
for they had been looking for him everywhere. While they were there he
always brought the water for his wife to drink as he had been told. One
day, however, as he was going for water, his former sweetheart, who
was angry with him because he would follow his wife around and pay no
attention to her, ran through the woods to him, seized him and spoke to
him. He, however, pulled himself away and would not answer her. When
the girl put her quill into the water this time, however, the water
was slimy. Before it had been pure and would drip like raindrops. At
once she said, “I must leave you,” and, although he begged her hard
to stay, she got up and walked out. He tried to stop her but in vain.
Every time he seized her his hands passed right through her. Then she
began walking right out on the surface of the sea and he followed her.
She said “Go back,” but he kept on until they were a long distance out.
Then she said, “Go back or I will look at you.” So she turned around
and looked at him, and he went straight down into the ocean.
85. THE FAITHLESS WIFE
A man of the Anqǃaˊkitān at Killisnoo lost his wife. When she was dying
she said to her husband, “When I die, don’t bury me. Keep me out of the
ground.” Bodies of common people used to be put into the ground for
a little while before they were burned, those of high-caste persons
being put into a house. So, when she died, instead of burying her, he
placed her body up on a high place. This woman knew, however, that she
was not going to die. She spoke as she did because she was in love
with the son of the chief. The chief’s son was also in love with her,
and, when he knew that she was put away, he went there at midnight
when her husband was asleep, took her out, and carried her to his own
house where he kept her in the bedroom at the rear. The chief was so
fond of his son that he did everything the latter asked of him. This
was the only house in that town that had a fire in it at midnight, and
the people wondered what was the matter. The chief had his slaves get
breakfast for the young couple before others were up.
The man whose wife had left him had a little girl whom he would humor
very much, and she was in the habit of roaming from house to house
throughout the village. One morning very early he said to the little
girl, “Run out and get some fire.” As the chief’s house was the only
one in which she could see smoke, she ran there after some, and, as
soon as she entered, saw her mother sitting with the chief’s son. As
soon as her mother saw her she hid her face, but the girl watched
her closely. She walked directly out with the fire, however, without
speaking.