sight by seizing something which dropped down among them. Those who
were making canoes also disappeared mysteriously. Only a woman and her
daughter were left. Then the daughter swallowed some root sap and gave
birth to a boy called Root-stump. This boy pulled down the thing that
had carried off his people, by running his roots into the earth, and he
killed the man who had destroyed the canoe makers. Afterward he became
a great hunter.
14. THE PROTRACTED WINTER
For treating a piece of seaweed disrespectfully a certain town was
buried deep in snow at the very beginning of summer. The people were in
want until informed by a bird that berries were ripe in a neighboring
town. So they repaired thither and found it midsummer.
15. BEAVER AND PORCUPINE
Porcupine stayed with Beaver to protect him from Bear. By and by
Porcupine went home and Beaver with him, and when Bear approached,
Porcupine carried Beaver up to the very top of the tree and left him.
Finally Squirrel came and helped Beaver down. Then Beaver carried
Porcupine out to an island, from which he escaped only by calling on
Wolverine, who caused the surface of the lake to freeze over. After
that happened, Porcupine went to live with Ground hog. A man caught a
ground hog, but, as he was about to cook its head, the head spoke. He
was scared, stopped trapping ground hogs, and went up to see his bear
dead falls, when one of these fell upon him and killed him.
16. THE POOR MAN WHO CAUGHT WONDERFUL THINGS
A poor man could catch no halibut, although others were very
successful. One day he pulled up a huge abalone, but he became so tired
at what people said to him about it that he let it go again. By and by
he baited his hook with a sponge saturated with blood from his nose and
pulled up a nest in which were multitudes of fishes called îcqēˊn. From
these he became very rich.
17. THE FINDING OF THE BLUE PAINT, AND HOW A CERTAIN CREEK RECEIVED ITS
NAME
Four brothers were forced by a storm to take refuge at a place near
Mount Edgecumbe, and one of them discovered a blue substance out of
which they made paint. When they started back with some of this the
weather became stormy, and one of them suggested it might be best to
throw the blue substance overboard, but the eldest held on and they
reached home safe.
One day some women were gathering shellfish at a place not far from
Sitka. While they were down on the beach the baby belonging to one of
them began crying, and its mother shouted to an older child to give it
something to eat. Misunderstanding her words, the child rolled the baby
into the fire and burned it up. Thereafter the stream at that place was
named Creek-where-a-person-was-burned (Kᴀˊxsîgᴀnîhīn).
18. VARIOUS ADVENTURES NEAR CROSS SOUND
A man collecting cedar bark slipped from his tree climber and was
strangled by it. Afterward the board he had slipped from was always
exhibited at potlatches. Two men belonging to the same place had their
canoe swallowed by a devilfish, and the people of the town sank a great
piece of half-burned wood in the sea over the devilfish hole. It was
never seen afterward [and probably killed the devilfish].
Some hunters killed a land otter, cooked and ate it. They were followed
home by a land-otter-man, who began throwing rocks at them from a tree.
After they said something to it, it threw cones instead. Toward morning
they lighted a fire under the tree and made the land-otter-man fall
into it.
A woman had disappeared from the town these men came from, so everybody
hunted for her. At last they came upon the house of those who had
killed her, which they overthrew and set on fire over the heads of
its occupants. A shaman who belonged to the people they had destroyed
learned from his spirits where there was flint and broke some off by
their help.
19. KĀTSǃ
A Sitka man named Kātsǃ hunted bear, was taken into a bear’s den, and
married a female grizzly bear by which he had several children. When
he went back to his own people his bear wife told him to have nothing
to do with his human wife and children. He went hunting every day, but
took everything to his bear wife and children. One time, however, he
disobeyed her injunctions and was killed by his bear family. Kātsǃ’s
bear children afterward spread over the world and were killed in
various places, the last by the Sitka people in White Stone Narrows.
Before they killed him the bear destroyed an entire camp in which a
girl had said something bad to him.
20. THE UNSUCCESSFUL HUNTERS
A sea-lion hunter speared the sea-lion chief’s son and was drowned, but
his companion reached a rock in safety. He was taken into the sea-lion
chief’s house, cured the chief’s son by pulling out the spear point,
and was sent home inside of a sea-lion stomach.
Two other hunters, along with their canoe, were taken into the house of
the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt because one of them had struck his slave, the skate.
When he learned that they were Kᴀtᴀgwᴀˊdî, however, he sent them home,
and told them to use his emblem, Rock House.
21. ORIGIN OF ICEBERG HOUSE
A man whose friends had all died took some pieces of ice up into the
house and treated them as if he were feasting them, in order to show
respect to his dead friends. Since that time the Grass people have
owned Iceberg House. Afterward he went outside and called aloud as if
he were inviting people to a feast, upon which a multitude of bears
came down, and he feasted them. As they went out they showed their
respect for him by licking him.
22. THE WOMAN TAKEN AWAY BY THE FROG PEOPLE
A woman in the Yakutat country said something which displeased the
frogs, and she was taken away by them. Next spring a man saw her among
the frogs. So the people drained the pond and recovered her. She had
been living on black mud like the frogs, and after her people got
all of this out of her, she died. From this, according to some, the
Kîksᴀˊdî claim the frog crest and names.
23. HOW THE FROGS HONORED THE DEAD
A Kāˊgwᴀntān chief having died, one of his friends called upon the
Kîksᴀˊdî to take care of his body. The frog people, hearing this,
thought that they were meant, and when the corpse was being burnt a big
frog jumped out from the place, made a noise, and then jumped into the
flames. Afterward they captured slaves for the dead man, and, when they
put food into the fire for him, they named the frog as well.
24. THE BRANT WIVES
A Kîksᴀˊdî found two women swimming in a pond, seized their coats, and
compelled them to marry him. They were really brants. When the brants
came north in the spring his wives obtained food from their people, but
when they returned south the wives went with them. The man went after
them, and, although they were at first afraid of his bow and arrows,
they finally let him live with them. When they went north once more,
war broke out between the heron people and the brant people, and the
man killed so many of the former that they made peace.
25. STORY OF THE PUFFIN
A woman used to wish that she might live among the birds on a certain
island. One time, as she and some other women were endeavoring to land
there, they were capsized and all her companions drowned. Some time
afterward her father happened to pass the place and saw his daughter
sitting among the birds. He tried to induce the birds in every way to
give her up, but succeeded only by offering them some white hair that
had belonged to his wife’s grandfather. Each bird put one of these
hairs on its head, and they let the woman go. Because the women who
were drowned there were Tǃᴀˊqǃdentān the Tǃᴀˊqǃdentān claim that island.
26. STORY OF THE WAIN-HOUSE PEOPLE
A youth who had been trained to hunt mountain sheep was carried away by
them, and liberated only after his people had made war on the mountain
sheep. Then he taught the people mountain-sheep tabus, and he became
a great shaman. Afterward his people went to Little-lake-fort and
built a big house for him. When the shaman fasted for this, he saw the
Wain, so they carved the posts to represent the Wain and named it Wain
House. Once, after he had had a possession, he sent his friends out
for a grizzly bear. They destroyed it, but it killed the first man who
attacked it, and the shaman restored him to life. Later he performed
about a dead raven to make his people successful in war, and, when they
went out, they destroyed their enemies’ fort completely.
One time some women went to a reef near this town, lost their canoe,
and were drowned in the rising tide.
Another time a wealthy man from Yakutat visited Auk. While he was there
the son of the town chief threw the stern piece of his canoe, which was
covered with abalone shell, into the fire. A property contest followed
between the two chiefs in which the man from Yakutat was worsted.
In the same fort a woman gave birth to the greatest liar among those
people. When his mother died he started for Chilkat to give the people
a death feast, and on his return related the following adventures. He
said that on his way Indian rice hailed down into the canoe, and he
obtained sirup to put on it from a waterfall of sirup. They got up to
Klukwan by blowing on the sail, and when he began crying he put a piece
of bark in front of his face and the tears ran down on it in streams.
27. THE ALSEK RIVER PEOPLE
Two shamans at Alsek river began singing, the one to bring up eulachon,
the other to bring bears and other forest animals. The first succeeded
in starting a run of fish by going down under the river in a little
canoe. After that the land otters tried to carry off two women who were
menstruant, but, with the assistance of the shaman, the people finally
made them desist. Some people in a neighboring town who heard of it
spoke contemptuously of the land otters, and their whole town with the
exception of two men was destroyed by a flood of water from the lake
above them. After this one of the shamans set out for another place.
On the way he hooked an enormous devilfish which swept all the forest
trees in his vicinity into the ocean. When he performed blindfolded at
that town, the people ran out their feet to trip him up, but he jumped
over them. He also stabbed a man and restored him to life. Presently he
predicted an eclipse, and when it came on, the people all danced to
dance the moon out and held out their property to it so that it would
not feel poor.
Meanwhile the other shaman brought an enormous salmon into Alsek river,
and his spirits were so powerful that a small boy sufficed to kill
it. There is a hole in the neighborhood of that place out of which
quantities of rocks used to come when there was to be a great run of
eulachon or other fish. A glacier crosses Alsek in one place, and he
who speaks while passing under it is overwhelmed. When it was asked for
food, it would rush into the water and raise a wave, carrying numbers
of salmon ashore. An Athapascan shaman living far up the river was
visited by several canoe loads of people from below and prophesied that
one canoe load would be lost under the glacier. The down-river shaman
then fought with the Athapascan by means of his spirits and killed him.
There is a rock just south of Alsek river inhabited by the spirits of a
certain shaman, and it is used as a crest by the Tǃᴀˊqǃdentān.
The Alsek River people once killed a rich man belonging to some people
who lived on a stream farther north. The next time they went up there
the enemy forced them to enter their fort through a narrow passage
and killed a large number. On their third expedition, however, they
destroyed the fort and all within it. Another time some Alsek people
visited at a place beyond, where they were invited to take sweat baths,
and were killed. Then the Alsek people made their shaman fight the
shaman of the northern people, undertook another raid, and killed a
number equal to those that had been lost.
28. THE YOUTHFUL WARRIOR
A man wearing a bear skin climbed a tree, and was accidentally killed
by his brothers-in-law. Some time later his young nephew heard of
it and bathed for strength. Four men went out to carve things for a
shaman, and the young man was deceived into thinking that they had
been killed by the same persons who had shot his uncle, so he started
out to war. After he had killed a great many people he was induced to
give up fighting by some words uttered by his father’s sister. After
a time he killed one of his own clan from another town and lost some
of his immediate friends in return, so he decided to go to war, but he
was captured and many of his people were killed. Then he promised not
to fight again, so they let him take the bodies of his people home.
Some time afterward a man from Prince of Wales island, on the way to
Chilkat, visited him to inquire about that place. Then his visitor
continued up to Chilkat and brought home great quantities of presents
in payment for dancing.
A rich man started from Chilkat for Kᴀqǃᴀnuwūˊ to obtain property for
a dead friend. He was so high that no one dared speak to him until a
poor man rushed down with a war spear as if he were going to kill him.
This was to shame them for their delay, and they immediately brought
the visitor ashore and paid him for his dead friend.
29. THE FIRST WAR IN THE WORLD
A man named Xakuˊtcǃ killed a large devilfish with his spear, but
perished in doing so. Afterward his spirit came to a man of his clan
who was very powerful. Having tested his spirits, the people started to
war. Just before they reached the fort a brave man there was killed by
a little boy held captive among them. Then they came upon the fort and
destroyed it. Now the southern people started north. On the way they
came to a great climber whom they tried to test by seeing if he could
climb a very steep cliff near Huna. He went up and got away. Afterward
he came down to the place where they were camping and liberated his
steersman to whom they had tied their canoes. The enemy then attacked
a fort and killed all of the people except one woman who was pregnant.
Her they carried south, and she gave birth to a boy, who became a
wealthy shaman, purchased his mother’s freedom, and went north with
her. Then he performed for his own people, and they set out to war and
destroyed many towns, but spared that in which he had formerly lived.
Now the southern people made a great raid, capturing fort after fort.
At the second fort two canoes attempted to pass down through a tideway
at half tide and were destroyed. From another they were driven off
by means of clam shells. In one fort a man was living alone because
he was very jealous of his wife, and while the warriors were talking
to him one of their canoes ran against a rock and split in two, so
they left him. When they had no more space for slaves, the southern
people destroyed the canoes at every fort so that the northern people
could not retaliate. The bulk of the northern people, however, had
been encamped along the coast to the westward. When they heard what
had happened they cut down an enormous spruce, hollowed it out, and
started to war the following spring. The southern people thought that
the northern people could not do anything to them. They were scattered
about in various camps and fell an easy prey to their enemies.
30. HOW PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY WAS FIRST HEARD OF AT SITKA
A man returning to Sitka from the south told his people that
Dekīˊanqāˊwo (God) had come down from Heaven to help them, and the
women dressed up and began dancing. They danced an entire year.
MYTHS RECORDED IN ENGLISH AT WRANGELL
31. RAVEN
[This version of the Raven story contains, besides frequent minor
variations, many episodes not found in the Sitka version, and a number
of stories usually given independently are incorporated into it. Only
the sections that do not occur in the Sitka version are noted at
length.]
Raven’s mother kept losing her children, until Heron told her to
swallow a red-hot pebble. She did so and gave birth to Raven, who was
called from that circumstance Hammer-father. Nās-cᴀˊkî-yēł tried to
make human beings out of rock and leaf, but the latter was quicker
and man came from it, so there is death. Then he told them that if
they lived right there would be a good place for them afterward. One
time Raven sent a woman into the other world to convince her that it
existed; so she went along the spirit trail and was ferried across a
river at the end of it to the ghosts’ country. The ghosts told her that
they were hungry, thirsty, and cold, so, when she got back she told
people to send the dead food and to burn their bodies. Raven taught
people to have slaves and shamans, also to make all kinds of hooks,
spears, traps, and canoes. He went under the sea and visited all of the
fish people, teaching men afterward that fish are really human beings.
Then Raven instituted war. Afterward he told the birds what they were
to be like. He told what the land otter would do, especially how it
would capture men. [Here follows the account of Kᴀkaˊ, story 5.] After
this, Raven lived in a cliff near Taku with North Wind, and that is why
people believe that cliffs are inhabited by spirits. He also taught
them the tabus to be used when paddling on the rivers. The killer-whale
chief took him into a sweat house and tried to roast him, but Raven
outwitted him by concealing a piece of ice near by. He taught the
people that there were Athapascans, and he taught the Chilkat people
how to keep salmon frozen in storehouses all winter. He taught them
also about Indian tobacco.
Now Raven went to Łaxaỵîˊk and taught the people there to make skin
canoes. A man in that country killed all of his wife’s people and kept
their hands in a basket in his house. When she found it out the woman
asked to be taken to her own town. Her husband left her there with her
children, and they found everyone dead. Then her children made a canoe
out of skins taken from the bodies, went to their father’s town and
made him give up their uncles’ hands. Afterward they made his town sink
under the sea with everybody in it. Raven instructed the boys how to
restore their uncles to life.
One time Raven came to a town inhabited by ghosts and tried to carry
off their property, but it was taken back by invisible hands. He went
into the interior and lived with two giants successively. He told the
second giant how he might kill Wolverine-man by pretending that he had
been caught in Wolverine-man’s trap. After Wolverine-man had carried
him home Raven continued to instruct the giant, and helped him burn
Wolverine-man’s body, which turned into mosquitoes and gnats.
Coming to another place, Raven found a woman and her daughter living
alone, and he told the latter how to make fire with the fire drill,
and then told her to eat some of the powder that comes from it. She
gave birth to a boy, who was called Fire-drill’s-son. When he grew up
his father, Fire-drill, gave him a dog, a bow and arrows, and a club,
with which he killed Man-with-one-eye, a shaman who had destroyed
the people of his village. Then he came to the wife of this man, who
killed people by throwing her hand, which had a knife fastened to
it, at them, and he destroyed her also. Starting inland, he came to
Old-mole-woman, who fed him with food taken from between her teeth,
and told him where the hawk lived that had carried away his people.
When he reached the place he made the young birds tell him about their
father and mother, who came in clouds, and killed them, after which
he got ground hogs for the young ones and told them not to eat human
beings any more. After that he left enough food with his mother and
grandmother to last them all their lives, and went away from them.
Pursuing something called Dry-cloud, he came among the mink and the
marten people successively, but did not stop until he reached the wolf
people. These became jealous of him and tried to destroy him by getting
him to jump through a hoop which cut a person in two if he failed. His
dog, however, seized it and threw it up to the moon, where it became
the ring that indicates change of weather. Now the man and his friend
among the wolves kept on after Dry-cloud and came to an old woman who
told them that there was a monster fish near by. On looking at it, they
found only a red cod, which Fire-drill’s-son killed. He skinned it and
dried the skin. After that he married Daughter-of-the-calm, and they
had a son named Łᴀkîtcîneˊ, and this man married a woman who had a
litter of puppies by the dog. Afterward she found that they were able
to take off their dog skins and appear in human form, so she surprised
them, gathered together the skins, and burnt them. When Łᴀkîtcîneˊ
saw these children he began to maltreat his wife, and her children
jumped upon him and killed him. Then they went through Alaska, killing
off harmful monsters. One of these, which was like an eagle, used to
forewarn other animals, until they made him promise not to do so.
[Here follows the adventure with the one-legged man told in story 3.]
Afterward Łqǃayāˊkǃ chased Dry-cloud across the sky and made the Milky
Way. Coming to a very cold region in the sky, he wanted to get down,
but the clouds prevented until his eldest brother, Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ, opened
a passage. After that they wanted to kill a monster near Wrangell, so
they borrowed the canoe of He-who-knows-everything-that-happens, and
passed many obstacles in it, thereby rendering them harmless, until
they came to the monster and tried to catch its head in a noose. All
of their nooses broke, however, until they tried one made out of the
sinews of a little bird called old-person. After that they returned
to their mother and sister and went southward with them through the
forest, destroying the forest monsters. Coming to an old blind man
whose wife had left him, they taught him how to catch fish in a net and
how to cook it. They also met an Athapascan shaman with long hair, and
he and Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ compared the relative strengths of their spirits in
the sweat house, Kᴀckǃᴀˊʟkǃ’s proving to be the stronger. So they told
the Athapascan not to harm the people in his neighborhood. Then they
moved south and tried to cross the Stikine, but their sister, who was
menstruant, looked out at them, and they were turned to stone.
One time while Raven was traveling along he came to a sculpin who
claimed to be older than he, so he placed it in the sky where it still
is (the Pleiades). He also sent a canoe load of halibut fishermen
thither. He invited the seal people to a feast, smeared their foreheads
with pitch which ran down over their eyes, and then clubbed them. He
married the daughter of a chief named Fog-over-the-salmon, who obtained
a quantity of salmon for him by simply washing her hands in a basket
filled with water. One time he hit her with a piece of dried salmon,
and she went away, taking all of the salmon with her. He wanted to
marry another high-caste woman, but a bird named tsᴀgwâˊn told the
people how he had treated his first wife and they rejected him. Going
on from there, he turned an old man named Dᴀmnāˊdjî into a handsome
youth, and told him to marry the girl. This man did so, but on the way
home resumed his proper shape. When his wife’s people came to visit
him, he had to receive them in his miserable hovel because no one else
would have anything to do with him. When he went out after water,
however, he came to an old woman at the head of the stream who made
him young again, and gave him a basket full of dentalia through which
he became rich. Some time afterward his wife wished to marry among the
bird people, and at last the brants carried her off, finally dropping
her naked. She came to an old woman and obtained some fox skins. She
was now really a fox, and let herself be killed by her father. On
cutting the fox open, however, they discovered her copper ornaments,
and laid her on top of the house, when she revived and became a great
shaman.