[Told by Tom Stevens, chief of Those-born-at-House-point]
During a famine a child asked his mother for something to eat. Then his
mother cut off the upper part of a dog salmon for him, and he thought
it was not enough. He said it was too small and began to cry.
After he had cried for a while he went out with it. He chewed it up and
put it into a swampy place by the beach. Then the dog salmon swelled up
there, and there was a great quantity of it. He was sorry at having
lost it. Then he began to cry.
After he had cried for a while two persons came and stopped there in a
narrow canoe and invited him to get in. Then he got into it. After he
had gone along with them for a while the town came in sight, and they
landed in its very middle, before the chief’s house, and he went up
with them. Then they had him sit in the rear of the house and gave him
some food. A person sitting in the corner of the house, who was half
rock, [1] said to him: “Do not eat that. I am half rock because I ate
it.” So he did not eat.
He went out to play with the children. One day there was such a great
quantity of salmon eggs about that he sat down and, inside of his
blanket, put them into his mouth. Then a child looked at him and
shouted, “Moldy-forehead is eating our excrement.”
Then the one who was half rock said to him: “When you are hungry go
over to the stream that flows by one end of the town. Then take out one
of the salmon that come up into it. Cut it open, and, when you have
made a stick for it, roast it and eat up all the parts. Put its bones
into the fire. [2] Look about the place carefully [to see that none are
left out].”
Then he went thither and did as he was directed; and, after he came
away, the eye of the chief’s son became diseased. Then the one who was
part rock told him to look around in the place where he had eaten
salmon, and when he did so he found the hard part surrounding the
salmon’s eye with the stick stuck through it. He put it into the fire;
and when he came back not the least thing was ailing the one whose eye
had been diseased. It had become well. The souls of the Salmon people
were what came into the creeks there.
Then the person who was half rock said to him: “When you become hungry,
go thither. Take care of the bones. Put all into the fire.” And, when
he became weak from hunger, he went to it as directed, took salmon,
made a fire for them, and ate them there. One day the rib of some one
became diseased. Then he again searched there. He found a rib. That he
also burned. When he returned the sick person had become well.
One day, after he had been there for some time, people came dancing on
their canoes. [3] Then they landed and began to dance in a house, and
the one who was half rock said to him: “Now go behind the town. Then
break off a young hemlock bough. [4] Shove it into the corner of the
house over there where they are dancing. Do not look in after it.”
Then he did so, and when he felt strange (curious) about it, he looked
in. His head got stuck there. He barely could pull it away. His face
was half covered with eggs. He scraped them off with his fingers. And
he pulled out the hemlock bough. The eggs were thick on it. Then he
went to the end of the town and ate them at the creek.
Then the Herring people started off. Some time after that the Salmon
people also began to move. They started off in one canoe toward the
surface of the earth. [5] They loaded the canoe. Some stood about with
injured feet and eyes bound up, wanting to go. The people refused to
let them. After the provisions had been put on board they hunted about
among these, found some one, pulled him up, and threw him ashore. They
did not handle such carefully. One of these had hidden himself. In the
fall many of them have sore feet and their eyes are sore. [6]
Then Moldy-forehead also got in with them. After they had gone along
for a while they saw floating charcoal. [7] Part of them were lost
there. After that they also came to where foam was floating. There some
of them were also lost.
After they had gone along for a while from that place they came to the
edge of the sky and, standing near it, they counted the number of times
it descended. After it had closed five times they passed under it, and
the canoe was broken in halves. It was split in two. [8] Then few were
left, they say.
After they had gone on for a while longer they saw what looked like
many stars. Those were the salmon inlets, they say. Then three, four,
or five got off the canoe. Where the inlets were large ten got off.
Then they came to where people stood at the mouth of the creek. After
they had been there for a while they stood up and the people said
“Ē′yo.” [9] Then they made them ashamed, and they sat down. People kept
saying “Ē′yo” to them.
When it was evening he saw his mother with pitch on her face [10]
weeping. He also saw his father walking about. After they had gone
along for a while they said they had built a fort for them. Two went up
to see it and said it was not quite finished. After that they went up
again to see it. They said it was not quite finished; but the next time
they went up to see it they said it was finished.
Then it was fine weather, and they pulled off a pole from inside the
edges of the canoe and shook the sky with it. At once rain began to
fall. Those in the canoe were happy. They prepared themselves. They
shook their insides with anger, because they were going to fight the
fort. That [the fort] was a fish trap, they say. At once they started
up in a crowd.
He recognized his mother and swam ashore in front of her. Then his
mother tried to club him, and he escaped into the creek. And when he
did the same thing again he let his mother club him to death.
And when his mother started to cut off his head for immediate cooking
the knife clicked upon something on his neck, and she looked. She
recognized the copper necklace her son used to have around his neck.
[11] Then she put him upon a clean board. And his father stayed in the
house [instead of going fishing]. She put him on the top of the house.
After four nights had passed over him a slight noise began in his
throat. The top of his head came out. As the nights passed, he
continued to come out. By and by the salmon skin was washed off him by
the rain, [12] and he entered the house. Then he became a shaman. They
sang for him.
They moved away, and the next year they came to the same place to get
salmon. When the salmon came again and ran up a shining one was on top.
Then he told them not to spear it, but it was the very one they tried
to spear. By and by he made a spear for himself and speared it. When he
had pulled it ashore, and the salmon died, he, too, died. He did not
know that it was his own soul.
Then they made him sit up and sat above his head. They dressed some one
to look like him, who went round the fire while they sang. [13] They
also beat his drum. At the same time they sang for him. After four
nights were passed they put him into a pool where salt and fresh water
mingled, where he had directed that he should be placed. They laid him
upon the plank on which he used to lie. Then they put him there (in the
pool). They also put his drum there. After this had turned around to
the right for a while it vanished into a deep hole in the bottom. And
now, when there is going to be plenty of salmon, they hear his drum
sound in the deep place.
Here the story ends.
As might have been expected, this story was a very popular one along
the salmon-frequented North Pacific coast, and several different
versions of it have been already recorded. An excellent one was
obtained by myself in English from an old Kaigani, derived from the
Tlingit, among whom it appears to have originated. This will be found
in volume V of the Memoirs of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, part
I, pages 243 to 245. Apart from linguistics, the story is interesting
from the point of view of Indian psychology. It was related by the
present chief of Those-born-at-House-point (Na-iku′n qe′ig̣awa-i), once
the leading family of Rose Spit and Cape Ball, on the eastern coast of
Graham island.