[Told by Walter McGregor, of the Sealion-town people]
Some persons went out hunting from Songs-of-victory town. [678] And one
of them put on the skin of a hair seal and lay on a reef. Then some
went hunting from Food-steamer’s [679] town. One of them speared the
hair seal lying on the reef with his bone spear. But a human being
screamed.
They used to put on the skin of a hair seal, lie on a reef and make the
cry of a hair seal, and, when a hair seal came up, one sitting behind
him speared it. They speared him (the man) while he was doing that way.
Then they went off in terror.
And then they began fighting with one another. The Songs-of-victory
people went out first, and they killed Food-steamer’s wife with arrows.
Then they fought continually with one another. At that time they killed
each other off.
Falling-tide was a brave man among the people of Songs-of-victory town.
One time, when he got back from fighting, he threw his kelp fish line
into the fire. Then he occupied a fort. At that time he had nothing to
eat. He spoiled himself. [680] After that they also killed him, and
only the town of Kaisun was left.
One day they stretched out a black-cod fishing line upon the beach in
front of Kaisun with the intention of seeing how far down the house of
The-one-in-the-sea was. But, when they went out fishing, they never
came back. Then that town was also gone. [681]
They used to go fishing at night, because they said that the black cod
came to the surface of the sea during the night.
Before this, when the town people were still there, a child refused to
touch some black cod. And, after he had cried for a while, something
moving burning coals about called him through the doorway; [682] “Come
here, my child; grandmother has some roots mixed with grease which she
put away for you.”
Then his parents told him to go out, and he went thither. It stretched
its arm in to him into the house, and the child said: “Horrors, [683]
something with large, cold hands grasped me.” Then it said:
“Grandfather has just come in from fishing. I have been washing gills.
That is why he says my hands are cold.”
Then his parents again told him to go out, and he went out to it. It
threw him into a basket made of twisted boughs. Then the child cried,
and they went out to look at him. He was crying within the earth.
Then they began to dig. They dug after the sound of his crying in the
earth. By and by they dug out the tail of the marten he wore as a
blanket. There are now ditches in that place.
The chief’s children in the town of Kaisun went on a picnic. They had a
picnic behind Narrow-cave. [684] Then all went out of the cave from the
town chief’s daughter. Some of them went to drink water. Part of them
went after food. Some of them also went to get fallen limbs [for
firewood].
Then she thought “I wish these rocks would fall upon me,” and toward
her they fell. Then she heard them talking and weeping outside. And,
after she had also cried for a while, she started a fire. Then she felt
sleepy and slept. She awoke. A man lay back to the fire on the opposite
side. That was Narrow-cave, they say.
Then he looked at her, and he asked her: “Say! noble woman, [685] what
sort of things have they put into your ears?” And the child said to
him: “They drove sharp knots into them and put mountain sheep wool into
them.” Then he took sharp knots out of a little box he used as a
pillow. Now Narrow-cave laid his head on some planks for her, and she
pushed them into his ears. “Wa wa wa wa wa, it hurts too much.” Then
she at once stopped. And, when he asked her to do it again, she again
had him put his head on the plank. It hurt him, but still she drove it
into his ear. His buttocks moved a while, and then he was dead.
Then she again cried for a while. She heard the noise of some teeth at
work and presently saw light through a small hole. Then she put some
grease around it, and the next day it got larger. Every morning the
hole was larger, until she came out. It was Mouse who nibbled through
the rock.
Then she was ashamed to come out, and, when it was evening, she came
and stood in front of her father’s house. And one of her father’s
slaves said she was standing outside. They told him he lied. They
whipped him for it.
Then her father’s nephew went out to look for her. She was really
standing there. And her father brought out moose hides for her. She
came in upon them. They laid down moose hides for her in the rear of
the house. She came in and sat there.
Then her father called in the people. She recounted in the house the
things that had happened. When she had finished she became as one who
falls asleep. They guessed that she had gone into his (Narrow-cave’s)
house to live.
One moonlight night they (the children) went to Tcꜝixodᴀ′ñqꜝēt [686] to
play. And two persons came to a boy who was walking far behind, took
him off with them, and led him to a fine house.
Then they asked each other: “What shall we give him to eat?” “Give him
the fat of bullheads’ heads.” And they gave him food. In the night he
awoke. He was lying upon some large roots. And in the morning he heard
them say: “There are fine [weather] clouds.” Then they went fishing,
and, when it was evening, they built a large fire. He saw them put
their tails into the fire, and it was quenched. And next day, after
they had gone out fishing, he ran away.
Then they came after him. And he climbed up into a tree standing by a
pond in the open ground. They hunted for him. Then he moved on the
tree, and they jumped into the pond after his shadow.
Then they saw him sitting up there, and they called to him to come
down. “Probably, [687] drop down upon my knees.” And they could not get
him. They left him.
Then he started off. He came in to his parents. He came in after having
been lost, and his mother gave him a ground-hog blanket to wear.
Then he went out to play with the others one day, and something said to
him from among the woods: “Probably is proud of his ground-hog blanket.
He does not care for me as he moves about.” He did not act differently
on account of this. [688] Those who took him away were the Land-otter
people.
The Pitch-people (Qꜝās lā′nas) occupied much of the northwestern coast
of Moresby island between Tas-oo harbor and Kaisun, but, when the
Sealion-town people moved to the west coast, they seem to have driven
the Pitch-people out of their northern towns. They were always looked
upon as an uncultivated branch of Haida, and are said not to have
possessed any crests. Later they intermarried with the Cumshewa people.
Some of the Cumshewa people claim descent from them, but none of the
true Pitch-people are in existence. The relationship of their culture
to that of the other Haida would be an interesting problem for
archeologists. The following stories regarding these people were
obtained from a man of the Sealion-town people who supplanted them.