Chapter XXVI: Part 26

A man at Klawak lost all of his property in gambling, and his wife left him. Then he took the sons of his seven sisters and started away by canoe. Finally they settled at Tongass. While there they saw an animal that looked like a bear and shot at it, but it was medicine, and a clayey substance came off on their arrow points, which enabled them to get plenty of game, and which also caused them to become handsome men. One time they went farther on and came to a Tsimshian town. After that a canoe came to them from their friends, and when these found what had happened to them, all joined them.

76. THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED THE FROG

A version of story 22.

77. THE GIRL WHO MARRIED THE ʟǃᴀʟǃ

A girl said something about a fish called ʟǃᴀʟǃ, and afterward the fish married her. He was a very good polo player, and one time the boys became so jealous of him that they knocked him down and made fun of him. Then the ʟǃᴀʟǃ told his father-in-law to tie down his house firmly, and went off up stream. There he grew large, lay down across Chilkat river for a while, and then got up, letting the stream sweep all of the houses away except that of his father-in-law.

78. THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A TREE

The spirit of a spruce tree at one end of a village came to a girl and married her, and they had a son. One day the child began calling for its father, and after all the other people had been called in, the tree people were summoned, and the child recognized an old man near the door as its parent.

79. THE GIRL WHO MARRIED THE FIRE SPIRIT

A girl said something to the fire which offended it, so that it carried her away and married her. After her people had hunted everywhere for her they kept the fires extinguished as much as possible, and she was sent back. For some time she kept going back and forth from her husband to her father and mother, but once her nephew, who was in love with her, seized a spoon that she was holding and her fire husband treated her badly on account of it. She never went back to him.

80. ORPHAN

A poor girl was so smart and painstaking that she married a wealthy man. She became proud, however, and treated her poor adopted brothers ungenerously. By and by her husband died and his relatives took all of his property, leaving her as poor as before.

81. THE DEAD BASKET-MAKER

A man used to cry over his dead wife’s incompleted basket. By and by he married again, and one time, when he was playing with his new wife, the basket fell from above over his head and almost strangled him, so that the people were obliged to cut it loose.

82. THE CRYING-FOR MEDICINE

The wife of a certain man kept running away from him. One time when he was out hunting, he pursued what he thought was a bear and saw it go into a hole in the side of a cliff. He knew that it was medicine, so he took his slave up to the top of the cliff and let him down in front of it, telling him to reach a dipper in and take whatever came out. With the things so obtained the man compounded a medicine which made his wife want to come back to him, but he refused to take her. It would also bring down any animal he wanted, so that he became very wealthy.

83. THE RUNAWAY WIFE

The wife of a Haida youth kept leaving him until he learned from a certain woman how to make her love him. When she tried to come back, however, he refused to take her, and married somebody else.

84. THE REJECTED LOVER

A youth was in love with his cousin, but she would have nothing to do with him. Finally, in order to please her she made him throw away his clothing and ornaments and pull out all of his hair, after which she left him. Then a loon came to him and restored his hair by diving under water with him. It also gave back his clothing and landed him at another town where he married the daughter of Calm. A long time afterward they went back to his people. Every day while they were there he brought his wife water, and she put a quill into it before drinking to see whether he had been faithful to her. One day the girl he had formerly been in love with seized his hand, and when his wife tried her quill the water was slimy. Then she left him and started to walk home on the surface of the sea. He followed her, but presently she looked round on him and he went down out of sight.

85. THE FAITHLESS WIFE

The wife of a certain man pretended to die and was put into the grave box. Then the son of the town chief, with whom she was in love, took her to his father’s house and married her. One time her little girl came to that house for fire, saw her, and told her father. Then her father went to the grave box and saw it was empty, and through the smoke hole of the chief’s house he saw her playing with the chief’s son. Then he made himself a wizard by playing with dead men’s bones, flew to the chief’s house, and ran two sharp-pointed sticks into the hearts of his wife and her new husband. Next morning he went out gambling.

86. THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED THE DEAD MAN

A girl kicked aside the skull of a dead person, and the following night two boys came to her and she married one of them. This was the man who had owned the skull. The two youths stayed there for a long time. When they hunted they went all through the actions of paddling, spearing, and camping without ever leaving the house. When they pretended to get back, however, their canoe would be found on the beach loaded with fish and seals. They were slowly becoming materialized when another girl became jealous of them and destroyed them by marking the places where they sat with human blood.

87. THE RETURNED FROM SPIRIT LAND

After the death of a certain woman her husband, who was very fond of her, started off aimlessly and came by the spirit road to a lake. He shouted to the people on the other side to come over and get him, but they did not hear him until he spoke in a whisper. After he reached the other side he found his wife and started back with her. At first nothing could be seen of her but a shadow, but gradually she became more and more distinct. She was about to resume her proper shape, when a young man who had been in love with her lifted the curtain which was stretched around her and her husband, and both went back to ghost land.

88. THE SKY COUNTRY

A man whose wife had died felt so lonely that he set out after her along the beach. He soon found himself in a wide trail, and met a woman tanning a skin, who directed him to his wife. The people in the town where she was staying wanted to burn him, but he made them think he was more afraid of being thrown into the water, so he saved himself. They were really in the sky. By and by a spider woman let them down, and they returned home.

89. THE ORIGIN OF COPPER

A woman was carried away by the grizzly-bear people, escaped, and impeded her pursuers by throwing small objects behind her which changed into great obstructions. Finally she was taken up into the sun in a canoe and married the sun’s sons, who made way for her by killing their former cannibal wife above a Tsimshian town. Therefore there are many cannibals among the Tsimshian. At last the woman returned to her parents in a canoe which was like a live grizzly bear. By and by her husbands became angry with her and left her. Then she and her child lived in a brush house covered with filth, at one end of the town. When he got larger her boy shot something in the lake which proved to be his fathers’ canoe, and pounded out all kinds of copper objects from the metal of which it was composed. Then he married the daughter of the town chief and became a great man.

90. THE MAN WHO WAS ABANDONED

A lazy man was abandoned by his townspeople, who left him nothing except a piece of dried fish which one of his uncle’s wives dropped into a post hole. After that a small animal killed all kinds of game for him, and he became wealthy, while the other people were starving. By and by some slaves were sent to burn his body and were feasted by him. They were told not to say anything about him, but one of them concealed a piece of fat for her child and the cries of the infant over this food let the truth be discovered. Then they went to him and he became a great chief. He married the woman who had been good to him, but killed his uncle’s other wife and her husband.

91. THE SHAMAN WHO WENT INTO THE FIRE, AND THE HERON’S SON

A little boy was so badly treated by his uncle’s wife that he went off into the woods, made eight nests, like those of the salmon, along the edge of a stream, and spent as many nights in them. So he became a shaman and could bring to himself and destroy all kinds of animals by means of his songs. By and by his uncle searched for him and found him. A spirit called Nix̣âˊ came to him and took him into the fire, and he burned down to a very small size, but his uncle, obeying his directions, took him out, put him into a basket, and so restored him. Afterward he had his uncle send for his wife, but he took the bottom part of her away so that what she ate did her no good. By and by a spirit showed itself in the form of a bear, after the shaman had been carried into the fire, scaring his uncle’s wife so that she died, while the uncle forgot to take his nephew out of the fire and let him burn up. At once all of the animals that had been killed came to life and ran away.

All the people of the town to which this shaman had belonged disappeared except a woman and her daughter. The woman called for something to marry her daughter and was answered by the heron, by whom the daughter had a son very fond of hunting. One time he found a fish called hīn-taỵīˊcî swimming in a pool, reared it, and, when it became as large as himself, killed it and made use of its skin. After a while he went up on one of the two trails on which his uncles had disappeared, saw a finger sticking up there, pulled up the being to which it belonged, and killed it. Then he went along in the other trail, saw a head, and killed the being to which it belonged. Next he went along the beach, came upon a monster devilfish, and killed it by means of his hīn-taỵīˊcî coat. He killed an enormous rat in the same manner. Then he came to a cannibal woman who offered him human flesh to eat. When he refused it she threw a mussel shell at him to kill him, but he jumped aside, threw the shell back, and destroyed her. He put her body into the fire and the ashes became mosquitoes. Then he met and killed her cannibal husband.

92. MOUNTAIN DWELLER

Another version of story 65.

93. KĀHĀˊSǃÎ, THE STRONG MAN

In a certain town two persons were bathing for strength in order to kill sea lions. One of these, the town chief, bathed in public accompanied by all of the town people, while his nephew bathed during the night only, and lay in bed all day, pretending that he was a weakling. Finally a being called Strength came to the latter and made him so powerful that he was able to accomplish the feats the chief had set himself, namely, to pull the stump of a branch out of a tree and twist another tree down to the base. Having done so, however, he put them into their original positions, and when the chief tried them next he thought that he had become strong. When they started out for the sea-lion islands, they let Kāhāˊsǃî go along also, and, while the chief was killed, Kāhāˊsǃî destroyed two big sea lions, one with each hand.

94. THE LǃÊˊNAXX̣ĪˊDAQ

A man saw a woman and two children floating in Auk lake, and he captured one of the children and brought it home. During the night the child gouged out the eyes of all the people living in the village except one woman, and ate them. This woman killed the child, and taking on her back her own child, to which she had just given birth, she went up into the woods and became the ʟǃêˊnᴀxx̣īˊdᴀq. As she went along she ate mussels and fitted the shells together.

95. ORIGIN OF THE FROG CREST AMONG THE KÎKSAˊDÎ

Another version of story 66.

96. HOW THE KÎKSAˊDÎ CAME TO SITKA

When the Kîksᴀˊdî first reached Sitka some people, called Sky-people, killed all of them except one woman who concealed herself in a cave. She called for some one to marry her, and, after having refused all the animals, married the sun’s son. By him she had four boys and a girl, and their grandfather placed them inside of a fort which he let down on the site of their former village. Then the enemy came upon them, and when they were in danger, their grandfather heated the land so hot that the enemy ran down into the sea. They found that boiling hot also and were destroyed.

97. THE FOUR BROTHERS

In order to destroy a malevolent shaman four brothers let their sister marry him, took her back, and got her to tell them the location of her husband’s heart. They killed him outside of Ring island, Sitka sound, and took away his red-snapper coat. One of these brothers, named Łqǃayāˊkǃ, then put this on and used it in the pursuit of large animals. By and by he pursued an animal up into the sky and his footprints formed the Milky Way.[195]

FOOTNOTES:

[195] This is part of a longer story of which story 3 is one version while a second is contained in story 31.

98. THE KÎKSAˊDÎ WOMAN WHO WAS TURNED INTO AN OWL

Another version of story 37.

99. MOLDY-END

A small boy made an angry remark about a piece of moldy salmon and was carried off by the salmon people to their town. When he became hungry he began eating the salmon eggs lying upon the beach, but was told that they were salmon dung. Finding that he was homesick, his salmon father diverted him by sending him to Amusement creek and placing his arms around two sand-hill cranes. By and by they started back with him, and passed through something called sīt which opens and closes, and scars those salmon which are caught in it. When they camped they made other scars by throwing hot rocks upon one another, as if cooking. Then they met the herring tribe, with which they had a verbal contest, and finally announced what creeks they would enter. The boy’s father went to Dax̣ēˊt, where the boy let his human father spear him. When his mother began to cut him open she discovered his copper necklace, and concluded it was her son. His father put him into a basket and placed it upon the roof, where his spirit began to work in him, and he turned back into a man. Then he became a great shaman and told the people what had happened to him. By and by he tested his spirits by sending a raft load of his people over a waterfall under the sea. The next morning it came up with all the people safe. He sent his clothes man to spear land otter, and, although he had him throw his spear across a point at an invisible animal, it struck the land otter on the tip of the tail and killed it. He lived to be more than a hundred.

100. MOLDY-END

Wrangell version of the above story, more detailed in the main portion but without the last episode.

101. QĀQǃATCGŪˊK

Another version of story 67.

102. THE SEA-LION HUNT

Some hunters killed a large number of sea lions by pushing sharpened sticks into their noses.

103. THE WAR IN THE SPRUCE CANOE

The Chilkat people once warred against the Stikine in a spruce canoe and killed numbers of people. (This probably refers to story 29.)

104. STORY OF THE KĀˊGWANTĀN

A noted hunter named Qakēˊqǃᵘtê killed the sleep bird, and along with it all his own people. Being unable to sleep himself, he wandered north to the mouth of Alsek river where he tried to trap a ground hog, but found a frog in his trap instead. He thought he saw some people but found they were stones. Then he went up the river and came among the Athapascans, whose good will he obtained by teaching them how to catch eulachon, thus preserving them from starvation. In spring they accompanied him back to his own people, bringing loads of furs with them. They came first to the Grass people, but these were afraid and sent them away, so they went to the Kāˊgwᴀntān who opened trade with them and became rich. The Athapascans traded particularly for a kind of seaweed.

From the wealth thus obtained the Kāˊgwᴀntān built Shadow house, and had a great feast. By and by the chief’s daughter, who was menstruant, said something to anger the glacier, and it extended itself over the town, driving the people to Kᴀqǃᴀnuwūˊ, while the Tǃᴀˊqǃdentān settled opposite. Later on the people warred with the Łuqāˊxᴀdî of Alsek river and captured the Wolf post from them. A Łuqāˊxᴀdî shaman was attacked by some warriors and flew away. He flew around for some time until a menstruant woman looked at him, making him fall into a pond. The warriors who had attacked him began to tamper with his spirit paraphernalia, and all but one of them were destroyed. Then the Kāˊgwᴀntān erected another house, which they named Wolf house, and carved its posts like the Wolf post they had captured. They invited people to the feast from Chilkat, Sitka, and Killisnoo. Slave’s valley then received its name from some slaves who came to life after having been killed and thrown down into it, supposedly dead. Afterward two parties of young people contended with each other going after firewood, and later on pushed the house fire over on each other until the great beams caught. As a result of this fight the family scattered, and some moved to Sitka. From that time, too, they came to be known as Burnt-house people (Kāˊgwᴀntān).

105. STORY OF THE KÂˊCKǃE QOAN

After the death of an Athapascan chief on Copper river the people of his house began fighting over the possession of a dish, and those who lost it determined to emigrate. They set out, and, after losing some of their people in the mist, crossed the mountains near Mount St. Elias and came to the sea. While they were living at the mouth of a large river a little girl reared a sea gull which attained enormous proportions. When it got large her brothers wanted to kill it, but it disappeared together with the girl. By and by the chief sent six brothers alongshore to hunt for other people. They encountered head winds at one place and lost one of their number, but finally reached Yakutat. When they got back they heard that the name of the girl who had reared the sea gull had been given to another. This girl dug up some thing long and red in the forest out of which a dish was carved like the one that had been taken away from them. Presently they called in some Burnt-house people who were coming south from the mouth of Copper river and entertained them.

After this the six brothers were sent back to Copper river for a certain copper plate that had been left there, and they went and came in twenty days each way, half the time it had taken the whole band to come out. Then the people all set out for Yakutat, where they were at first received in a hostile manner by the Koskǃēˊdî and ʟǃuqǃoeˊdî living there, until they purchased a creek from them with the copper plate and settled upon it. This was Kâckǃ, from which they obtained their name. By and by the six brothers went hunting, and one of them became so lazy that the others left him for some time. Then a mountain being came to him and helped him to become a great hunter. Finally he sent him home in a canoe which was really a grizzly bear. This bear turned around to be fed when it was hungry, and that is what made the turns in the river. After a time the brothers went up to a glacier at the head of Kâckǃ to hunt, but their canoe was carried away by a swell raised by falling ice. After waiting in vain for succor, they started to cross the glacier, but one of them became dizzy and was carried away by the Wolf people. The others got across and were in a starving condition, when the youngest discovered a mountain sheep with very large horns, that was really “the mother of the bears.” After that they reached home.

By and by the six brothers started south with their brother-in-law. They tried to cross from Kᴀstaxēˊxda-ān to Auk, but were delayed for months by storms. Finally Heavy-wings, their brother-in-law, discovered that this was caused by North Wind, who was in love with his daughter, and he gave her to him. After that Heavy-wings saw and caught the ʟǃêˊnᴀxx̣īˊdᴀq and became wealthy, but because he did not use exactly the right words at that time he was killed by a copper falling upon him and cutting him open. His nephew also saw the ʟǃêˊnᴀxx̣īˊdᴀq, used the right words toward it, and became very wealthy.

106. ORIGIN OF A LOW-CASTE NAME

Some people found a rock man’s son on some rocks and adopted him, but he got them into so much trouble that they carried him back there. Then the weather, which had been bad, immediately cleared. Since that time a low-caste person has been called a “man of the rocks.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in footnotes lead to the corresponding stories.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. Inconsistencies in the Tlingit have not been corrected.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 30: Duplicate “the” removed from “So the the otters’ father....”
47: Duplicate “to” removed from “...his wife went out to to get
cedar bark...”
58: “strategem” replaced with “stratagem”
80: “Adawūˊlǃ-caˊnakᵘǃ” replaced with “Adawūˊlǃ-caˊnakǃᵘ”
123: Duplicate “the” removed from “Then he took the the
position....”
131: “husband’s” replaced with “father’s” in “She knew the voices
of all her husband’s servants.”
134: “inititated” replaced with “initiated”
145: “Takʷaneˊdî” replaced with “Takᵘaneˊdî”
Note 98: “tal” replaced with “tale”
Pg 160: “ʟǃūǃkǃnᴀxᴀˊdî” replaced with “ʟǃūkǃnᴀxᴀˊdî”
204: “Meawhile” replaced with “Meanwhile”
255: Duplicate “it” removed from “for it it was”
275: “Kucaqēˊǃtkᵘ” replaced with “Kucaqǃēˊtkᵘ”
338: “x̄ᴀˊaỵā” replaced with “xāˊaỵā”
369: “abroad” replaced with “aboard”
370: “valuble” replaced with “valuable.”