Chapter IV: Part 4

Soon he heard the noise of the sticks, as the man had forewarned him, just a little below the place where he was lying. He stepped forward quietly, and lo! he came to the door of a fine, large house. Inside of this he saw those who were beating the sticks and a man lying sick “with pneumonia,” out of whom the string of the spear hung. Then he crept in quietly, hiding behind the people, and said within himself, “If it were I, I would push that spear in a little farther, twist it to one side and pull it out.” Upon this everybody said, “Make way for him. This shaman says he can take the spear out by twisting it and then pulling out.” He said to himself, “I guess I can do it,” so he let them have their way. Then he came out in the middle of the house, pulled his blanket about himself, used his hand like a rattle and ran around the fire just like a shaman. When he went to the spear and moved it a little, the sick man cried out. After that he let it alone for a while. He wished very much that they would give him in payment a large animal stomach which was hanging on a post. So the man’s father said, “Pay it to him.”

Now he tied his blanket tightly about himself and said, “Bring in some water.” Then he ran around the sick man again, and, when he came to where the spear was, he summoned all his strength, pushed it in a little, turned it round slightly and pulled it out. At once he pushed it into the water in the customary manner and blew eagle down upon it, when all of the white matter came out of the wound and the sick man got his breath. After that he hid the spear quickly from the eyes of the people.

When he went out, the man who had first come to his assistance came again. This was the puffin (xîk). It said, “Take that big stomach, get inside, and go home in it. After you get inside do not think of this place again.” He did as the puffin had directed, but, when he was within a short distance of the shore, he thought of the place where he had been and immediately floated back to the island. The second time the skin carried him right ashore. Then he got out, went home to his friends and reported everything that had happened.

* * * * *

Another canoe also set out to hunt in much the same way. After the people had gone on for a very long time unsuccessfully, they came upon a great seal standing out of the water, and one of the hunters speared it. It was nothing but an old log drifting about which had appeared to him like a seal. That night they anchored their canoe in front of a steep cliff not far from this place and prepared to spend the night there. By and by they heard a skate flopping along on the water near by, whereupon the steersman took his spear and struck it on one side of the belly. Then the skate swam right down into the ocean.

This skate was a slave of the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt who lived under that same cliff, and when the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt heard him groaning under the house steps where he always stayed, he said to one of his other slaves, “Get up and find what he is groaning about.” Then the skate said, “There is a canoe outside here. The people in that canoe have done something to me.”

Then the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt awoke all his slaves’ nephews and said, “Bring that canoe in here.”

Presently the man in the bow of the canoe awoke and looked about. Their canoe was on top of the inside partitions of a house. He took something and poked his steersman quietly to awaken him, for he saw that something was wrong.

Early in the morning the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt awoke and said to his nephews, “Make a big fire.” Then he exclaimed angrily, “It is of no use to bother poor slaves. Why did they want to kill that slave?”

Meanwhile the friends of these people were searching for them everywhere.

Then the chief told them to come forward, saying to them, “You will now be judged.” One could not see the part of the house near the door, it was so crowded with the nephews and friends of the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt (i. e., all kinds of fishes and marine animals) dressed in every style. They said to them, “To what tribe do you belong?” and the bow man replied, “We are of the Kᴀtagwᴀˊdî family.” Then the chief said, “If one is going to visit a person, he should enter his house in a polite manner and not destroy anybody. Let them wash their hands. Give them food and dress them up well. I am a Kᴀtagwᴀˊdî myself, so you are my friends.” Then they fixed them up well, dressing them and combing their hair. But at home the people were beating drums, because they thought these men were dead.

Then the chief said to them, “When you build a house, name it Rock House (Tᴀ hît). It is a good thing that we use each other’s emblems.” Afterward the G̣onaqᴀdēˊt’s people loaded their canoe, combed their hair with cottonwood boughs so that it smelt good, and let them go home.

And when they first reached home they were dressed so finely that the people did not know them. The chief said to his friends, “A great living thing saved us. He gave us a thing to go by which shall be our emblem, namely, that whenever we build a house we shall call it Rock House.”

21. ORIGIN OF ICEBERG HOUSE[33]

A man and his wife were living at a certain fort. At that time some disease came into the world and destroyed all of their uncles, fathers, and friends. Then the man thought within himself, “I ought to give some sort of feast to my dead friends,” and he began to gather berries.

One day a quantity of ice floated up on the beach below him. He took this up piece by piece and put it into the house, treating the pieces as his guests. He poured a great deal of oil into the fire to make it blaze. Then he took dishes, put berries into them, and placed these in front of the pieces of ice to show that he was sorry for the dead people, and desired to give some one a feast. After he had given to them, the ice gave forth a kind of squeak as if the pieces were talking to him, though he could not make out what was said. It is from this squeak that the people now know that he invited them, and it is from this circumstance also that, when ice drifts down upon a person in a canoe, he talks to it and gives it tobacco, calling it “My son’s daughter” or “My son’s wife.” This is ahead of the Tcūkᴀneˊdî (i. e., the beginning of the Tcūkᴀneˊdî clan). Therefore they own Iceberg House.[34]

Afterwards this man went out again. He said to himself, “I will invite anyone out on the sea that hears me.” After he had gotten well out in his canoe he shouted, “Everybody this way. Everybody this way,” just as though he were calling guests, and immediately crowds of the bear tribe, thinking they were the ones invited, began coming down between the mountains.

When he saw these animals coming, the man told his wife to be courageous, but for himself he said he did not care whether he lived or died, because all of his friends were dead. When the bear people began to come in, he told them to go up to the rear end of the house, saying, “It is your brother-in-law’s seat you are going to sit down in” (i. e., that was where he formerly sat). His wife was somewhat frightened, but he talked to them as if they were his own people. As he called out the names of the dead men who had held those seats they would say in turn, “Hadeˊ (present),” and he would pass a dish up to the speaker.

After they were through eating the chief of the bear tribe said to his friends very plainly, “Do not leave this man friendless, but go to him every one of you and show your respect.” So they told the man to lie down in front of them, and before they left they licked him, meaning that thereby they licked his sorrow away. They said, “This is because you feel lonely.” Then the bears started off.

At that time men from some other town came near, watched the big animals come out and heard the man speak to them as if they were his own friends, but they were afraid to go near.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] See story 64.

[34] This man can not have belonged to the Tcūkᴀneˊdî himself, because the ice he invited must be of the opposite clan, but his wife may have been. He perhaps belonged to the Tǃᴀˊqǃdentān.

22. THE WOMAN TAKEN AWAY BY THE FROG PEOPLE[35]

There was a large town in the Yakutat country not very far back of which lay a big lake very full of frogs. In the middle of the lake was a swampy patch on which many frogs used to sit.

One day the town chief’s daughter talked badly to the frogs. She took one up and made fun of it, saying, “There are so many of these creatures, I wonder if they do things like human beings. I wonder if men and women cohabit among them.”

When she went out of doors that night, a young man came to her and said, “May I marry you?” She had rejected very many men, but she wanted to marry this one right away. Pointing toward the lake he said, “My father’s house is right up here,” and the girl replied, “How fine it looks!” When they went up to it, it seemed as though a door was opened for them, but in reality the edge of the lake had been raised. They walked under. So many young people were there that she did not think of home again.

Meanwhile her friends missed her and hunted for her everywhere. Finally they gave her up, and her father had the drums beaten for a death feast. They cut their hair and blackened their faces.

Next spring a man who was about to go hunting came to the lake to bathe himself with urine. When he was done, he threw the urine among a number of frogs sitting there and they jumped into the water. When he was bathing next day he saw all the frogs sitting together in the middle of the lake with the missing woman among them. He dressed as quickly as possible, ran home to the girl’s father, and said, “I saw your daughter sitting in the middle of the pond in company with a lot of frogs.” So her father and mother went up that evening with a number of other people, saw, and recognized her.

After that they took all kinds of things to make the frog tribe feel good so that they would let the woman return to her parents, but in vain. By and by her father determined upon a plan and called all of his friends together. Then he told them to dig trenches out from the lake in order to drain it. From the lake the frog chief could see how the people had determined, and he told his tribe all about it. The frog people call the mud around a lake their laid-up food.

After the people had worked away for some time, the trench was completed and the lake began draining away fast. The frogs asked the woman to tell her people to have pity on them and not destroy all, but the people killed none because they wanted only the girl. Then the water flowed out, carrying numbers of frogs which scattered in every direction. All the frog tribe then talked poorly about themselves, and the frog chief, who had talked of letting her go before, now had her dressed up and their own odor, which they called “sweet perfumery,” was put upon her. After a while she came down the trench half out of water with her frog husband beside her. They pulled her out and let the frog go.

When anyone spoke to this woman, she made a popping noise “Hu,” such as a frog makes, but after some time she came to her senses. She explained, “It was the Kîkcaˊ (i. e., Kîksᴀˊdî women) that floated down with me,” meaning that all the frog women and men had drifted away. The woman could not eat at all, though they tried everything. After a while they hung her over a pole, and the black mud she had eaten when she was among the frogs came out of her, but, as soon as it was all out, she died. Because this woman was taken away by the frog tribe at that place, the frogs there can understand human beings very well when they talk to them. It was a Kîksᴀˊdî woman who was taken off by the frogs, and so those people can almost understand them. They also have songs from the frogs, frog personal names, and the frog emblem. All the people know about them.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] See story 76. This myth is more often localized at Wrangell, and the woman’s name is said to have been Qałtsîˊxkǃî.

23. HOW THE FROGS HONORED THE DEAD

One time, when they were afraid of being attacked, all of the Kîksᴀˊdî and Kāˊgwᴀntān encamped on Kᴀnᴀsqǃēˊ (St. Lazaria island). There are two parts to this island separated at high tide, and the Kîksᴀˊdî encamped upon one, while the Kāgwᴀntān lived upon the other. On the same island there is also a small salt-water pond at the bottom of which was a creature called ʟǃīn, and, being pressed for food on account of their fear of the enemy, the allies often tried to bail out this pond when the tide left it, to get at the sea animal.

While the people were there, a chief of the Kāˊgwᴀntān died, and, after he had been in the house among his friends for eight days, one of his friends said to the Kîksᴀˊdî, “Take care of his dead body.” All the Kāˊgwᴀntān chiefs marry Kîkcaˊ (Kîksᴀˊdî women). But the real frog tribe thought they were the ones who were summoned, because they are also Kîkcaˊ.

Then all the Kîksᴀˊdî made ready to go ashore to burn his dead body. They chopped much wood and made a fire, while all of the Kîksᴀˊdî and Kāˊgwᴀntān stood around it, and everyone felt badly. All at once a big frog, as long as the hand and wrist, jumped out from the place where the fire was and began making a noise. All looked at it. It had come out because the frogs were the ones to whom the Kāˊgwᴀntān had spoken. After that it jumped into the fire and burned up.

Then all the people tied themselves up (gᴀˊxᴀnî) (i. e., tied their blankets around their waists, as they did when they were engaged in lifting the sun[36]) out of respect to the chief. All felt very badly about the dead man, and one person said, “It will not be like draining out the ʟǃīn lake (ʟǃīn āˊya). Let us go to war.” So they captured slaves and killed them for the dead man, and, when they put food into the fire for him, they also named the frog that it might receive some as well.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] See _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, p. 430.

24. THE BRANT WIVES[37]

A Kîksᴀˊdî youth lived with his father in a long town. When he was well grown, he went about in the woods hunting with bow and arrows. One time he came close to a lake and heard the voices of girls. When he got nearer he saw two girls bathing there. Then he skirted the shore toward them, and, when he was very close, discovered two coats just back of the place where they were. These were really the girls’ skins. He took them up, and they began talking to him, saying, “Give us those skins.” But he said, “I want to marry both of you.” So he married both of them and took them to his father’s house.

Both of this man’s wives used to look over his hair to pick out the lice. When spring was coming on and the brants were coming from the south, the girls sat on top of the house with him and kept saying, “There comes my uncle’s canoe. There comes my father’s canoe.” They were beginning to get homesick, and they asked their husband if he would let them go home. When the brants began coming, one would say, “Those are my friends coming up. I am going to ask them to give me something to eat.” So, when they were above the house, she said, “Give me something to eat,” and down came green herbs one after another.

When it was time for the brants to start back south, both of the girls had become tired. They wanted to go home. They knew when it was time for their father’s canoe to pass over, and just before it was due they told their husband to go up into the woods after something. When he came down, his wives were gone. He said to his father, “Do you know where they went?” but he answered, “No.”

Then the young man said, “I will start down on foot to the place whither I think they have gone.” So he set out, and after he had gone on for some time, he heard people making a noise. It was the brant tribe in camp. On this journey he took a bag full of arrows with mussel-shell points, and bows. For this reason, when he came back of the place where they were, and they caught sight of him, they were afraid and flew away. Then he went down to the place where they had been sitting and found all kinds of green herbs such as brants live on.

After this the girls said to their father, “Let us camp a little way off. He has been with us for some time, and we have gotten his heat. Therefore let us camp near by so that he can come to us and be taken along.” But their father answered, “When he comes behind us again and camps, say to him, ‘Our fathers[38] do not like to see your bows and arrows. Get rid of them.’” They came to him and repeated these words, but he said, “I do not take them in order to do harm to your fathers but to get game for myself. I wish you would tell them that I want to go along, too.” So they told him to come down, and, when he did so, his father-in-law said, “Bring out the best coat. I want to put it on my son-in-law.”

After that his wives said to him, “We are going to start along with you. When we set out do not think about going back and do not look down.” Then they put a woven mat over him and started. After they had gone on for some distance the man wanted to urinate and dropped down from among them on the smooth grass. The brants did not want to leave him, and they followed. It was quite close to their real camping place. The brant tribe was so large that he felt as if he were in his own father’s house. They would play all the evening, and he felt very happy among them.

When they arrived at their real home, this man took off his bag of bows and arrows and hid it back in the woods so that they could not see it. In the same town were fowls of all kinds—brants, swans, herons, etc.—and by and by war arose over a woman, between the brant tribe and the heron tribe. They went outside and started to fight. The swan tribe was between, trying to make peace. When they came out to fight for the second time, the brant tribe was pretty well destroyed by the heron people’s long, pick-like bills. It was from the herons that the Indians learned how to make picks. This is also the reason why the ʟǃūkǃnᴀxᴀˊdî use the swan as their crest, for they are very slow, and the Kîksᴀˊdî use the brant as their emblem because they are very lively.

Then the brant chief said to his son-in-law, “Your wives’ friends are almost destroyed. Could you do anything with your bows and arrows to help them?” You could not see whether these were brants or people. They looked just like people to him. When he ran among them to help his wives’ friends, he killed numbers at each shot and made them flee away from him. The heron tribe was so scared that they sent out word they would make peace. So messengers were sent back and forth, and the heron chief was taken up among the brants while the brant chief was taken up among the herons.[39] They renamed the heron with his own name and the brant with his own name. In making peace they had a great deal of sport and all sorts of dances. From that time on the heron has known how to dance, and one always sees him dancing by the creeks. Then the birds began to lay up herbs and all kinds of things that grow along the beach, for their journey north.

Meanwhile the man’s people had already given a feast for him, and he never returned to his father. He became as one of the brants. That is why in olden times, when brants were flying along, the people would ask them for food.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] See story 54.

[38] Meaning their father and his brothers.

[39] See _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, p. 451.

25. STORY OF THE PUFFIN

There is a place called G̣ānᴀxaˊ and a creek close by called G̣ānᴀxaˊ-hīn whither many people used to go to dry salmon and do other work. One day some women went out from there at low tide to a neighboring island to dig shellfish. They brought their canoe to a place where there was a hole in the side of the island, but, when they endeavored to land, a breaker came in, upset the canoe, and drowned all of them except one. In former times, when this woman went by in her father’s canoe, she used to think the birds here looked pretty and was in the habit of saying, “I wish I could sit among those birds.” These birds were the ones that saved her. They felt so happy at having gotten her that they flew about all the time.

Meanwhile drums were beaten at the town to call people to the death feast, for they thought that she was drowned.

One time a canoe from the village containing her father happened to pass this place, and they said to him, “Look among those birds. Your daughter is sitting there.”

The puffin chief had ordered the łᴀgwâˊtcǃ, a bird which lives on the outer islands and is the puffin’s slave, to braid the woman’s hair, and she always sat on the edge of the cliff.

Her father was very rich, so he filled many canoes with sea-otter, beaver, and marten skins for the birds to settle on when they flew out. When they reached the place, however, he could not see his daughter, for they had taken her inside. Then he became angry. They carried all sorts of things out there but in vain.

At last, about four days afterward, the girl’s mother thought of the white hair that had belonged to her grandfather. In the morning she said to her husband, “We have that old hair in a box. What can we do with it? We ought to try a stratagem with it. Suppose we put boards on the canoes, spread the hair all over them, and take it out.” They did this, and, when they got to the cliff where their daughter used to be, they saw her sitting on the edge with her hair hanging over. They went close in. Then all the birds flew out to them, and each stuck a white hair in its head where you may see it at this day. The girl, however, remained where she was.

Then these birds flew in to the puffin chief and told him about the hair. They thought a great deal of it. Therefore the chief told them to carry the girl back to her father. But before she went he said to her, “If you are ever tired of staying with your father, come back to us.” At that time she had a nose just like one of these birds, because she had wanted to be one of them.

The sea gull is also the slave of the puffin. Therefore the Huna people say that when anyone goes to that place it calls his name, because it was the slave of the puffin at the time when this woman was there.

Because some of their people were drowned at that island, all of the Tǃᴀˊqǃdentān claim it. Later they built a house which they named after it.

26. STORY OF THE WAIN-HOUSE PEOPLE

People came to a fort to live and began to kill bears, ground hogs, porcupines, mountain sheep, etc., with spears, and bows and arrows, laying the meat up in the fort. After they had killed some of these animals they would cut off their heads, set them up on sticks, and begin to sing for them.

There was a young man among them who had been put into a mountain-sheep’s skin instead of a cradle as soon as he was born. When he grew older he was able to follow the mountain sheep to places where no one else could get, so he killed more than the others. He would also play and dance around the heads after they had been cut off and say, “I wish my head were cut off, too.” Then people sang about it. Meanwhile the sheep were getting tired of losing so many of their number.

One day all the people went up to a mountain to hunt, and, finding a flock of sheep, began to chase them to a certain place where they could bunch all together. Suddenly this youth became separated from the other people, and on the very top of the mountain was met by a fine-looking man who shone all over and had a long white beard. This man led him through a door into what he at first thought was a house, but it was really the inside of the mountain. All at once it looked very strange to him. Piles of horns lay about everywhere.

Meanwhile all of his friends had missed him and were hunting about, but had to go home without him. They thought he was gone forever. They hunted for him every day and found his horn spear stuck into the ground at a certain place near the top of the mountain, but nothing more. After searching everywhere in vain they became discouraged and beat the drums for him.

Meanwhile the mountain sheep tried to fit a pair of horns on the young man’s head. They heated these first in the fire, and tried to put them on, when it seemed to him as if the insides of his head were all coming out.

The people kept up their search for him, however, and about a year afterward a man climbed up on the same mountain to hunt sheep. Above him he saw a big flock, and he heard a noise as though some one were shouting or talking there. Then he went straight down, for he knew that it was the person who had been lost, and he knew that the mountain sheep had captured him. Pointing this mountain out to the people, he said to them, “It is he, for I know his voice.” So all the people started up.

Now the sheep could see whenever the Indians set out to hunt for the person they had taken, and they said to him, “There come your friends. If you will tell them to throw away their weapons, we will let you go to them.” So he said to his friends, “If you will lay down your hunting weapons, I will tell you what these mountain sheep say to me.” Afterward he said, “They say that I am being punished because you are destroying them too much, and, when you have killed them, you take the heads and put them on sticks.” Although he was among the mountain sheep he retained his own language. He said besides, “The mountain-sheep chief tells me to say to you that you must hang up the sheep skins with their heads toward the mountain and the rising sun and put eagle feathers upon them. They tell me to say, ‘Do not put our heads on sticks. Grizzly-bears’ heads are the only ones you should treat that way—not ours.’” One could not see or hear this man unless he were specially purified by bathing in urine. Afterward the sheep went right into the mountain with him to the place where they have their homes.

Now they tried in every way to recover him, and finally came out with dogs. Then the mountain sheep said to him, “You can go among your friends after a while, but now you may talk to them from the top of a little cliff.” So his friends came up underneath this, and he talked down to them. By and by the sheep again changed their minds regarding him, and one day he said to his friends, “This is the last time I shall come to see you. If you are going to begin a war on my account, try it in the fall. Then they always come down into the thick timber below the glacier, and you can come up there with dogs.”

In the autumn, therefore, they prepared to kill the sheep. The people were told to put the sheep heads toward the rising sun and throw their skins about anywhere without drying, for they thought that this would make the mountain sheep let their friend go.

Then the mountain-sheep chief said to the man, “They are going to let you go now, because all of your fathers are suffering very much from not having their skins well dried.”

The mountain sheep could easily see when all of his friends started out to fight for him, and they got him ready to send down to them. Then they said, “Now you will be allowed to start down to them.” When they got down far enough the dogs which were coming up in front met the flock he was standing among. Then they took off his mountain-sheep skin and put it aside, leaving him in human form, and he chased all the dogs away from them.

He stood in the midst of the flock of sheep, and all the people stood below. Then he said to his friends, “Do not kill any more mountain sheep, for they will now let me go among you.” So they broke all of the shafts of the spears they had used in fighting the mountain sheep and threw them away.

When he came down he smelt like the things that grow on the tops of cottonwood trees (dōxkwāˊnkǃ). They brought him into the house and he saw the mountain-sheep skins lying about there at random. Then he said, “They let me come among you again that I might have you dampen these, hang them up, and dry them thoroughly.” After they had worked upon the skins for some time they put red paint upon them and eagle down. The man who had come down from among the sheep told his people to say this to the skins while they were doing so: “We will put your skins in just the position in which they came off from the flesh.”

In the morning all of the houses shook. Every piece of flesh that had come off of the mountain sheep was in its place in the skins, and, when the man who had come back to them opened the door, they came down from the drying racks and marched off. But they had been so long among the Indians that just before they reached the highest mountain where they belonged they lost their way and became scattered over all the mountains. Because the mountain sheep once saved (or captured) a man, they have beards and look in other respects like human beings.

After this the mountain sheep sent a spirit called Ỵīx̣âˊ (A-very-young-man (or -yēk)) to the man who had been rescued, to be his strength (yēk). There was great rejoicing among his friends when this spirit began to manifest itself in him, and all commenced to sing for him. At the command of this spirit he had them make him a pair of snowshoes with which his spirit could take him around the fire, a shaman’s mask, and bows and arrows.

Then they came with him to Fort-by-small-lake (Ākǃᵘ Nū), just west of Juneau,[40] and built a big house for him with inside rooms (tǃāqǃ), corner and middle posts, the last mentioned being carved to represent the Great Dipper (Yᴀxtêˊ). At that time the shaman fasted for four days and Yᴀxtêˊ (the constellation) appeared to him. So from that house the people were called Yᴀxtêˊ-hît-tan (Wain-House people).

The mountain-sheep tribe gave this man the name of Skōwadᴀˊł, and he was also called Cᴀxtcāˊtc (Long-toothed-humpback). When his spirit was about to work in him, two porcupine bladders were blown up and hung in the house, and, when the spirit arrived, all stood up in the customary way. Then he put on his mask and his snowshoes, which were thrown down on the floor for him, and carried his bow and arrows in his hand. Although he could not see through this mask, he climbed up on the walls of the inside rooms and ran around there backward. While there he shot at a bladder and the arrow passed straight through it.

When the shaman’s spirits left him he said, “You people are going to see a wonderful gift. It is coming to such and such a place.” In the morning they went out with a dog and armed with spears, and before they got far away the dog began to bark at a bear. Then the animal ran under a log, and all climbed on top of the log prepared to spear it. The shaman had said, “Something is going to happen to one of you,” and sure enough the first man that speared this bear fell down before it and was caught and killed. Then the others quickly speared the bear through and through and killed it.

Meanwhile a spirit came to the shaman, who had remained at home, saying, “Your friend has been killed by a bear.” They brought the bear and the dead man’s body down at once and laid the body before him in the middle of the house. Then the shaman took some of the red paint with which they had brought the mountain sheep to life and put it on the body after which he began running around it. The third time he did this the dead man sat up. The shaman always had such strength.

Some time afterward he again began testing his spirits, because they were going south to war, and, when they left him, he told his people that they would destroy an entire town.

When he was walking around in the woods a raven fell in front of him, and on getting back to the house he said to his clothes man, “I am in luck.” He told some one to return with him, and they found the raven still with life in it. Then he said to his friends, “I will set up all these things.” So he took sticks and set them all round the raven. “Before I cut it,” he said, “I will let the wings flap over it. This will be (i. e., represent) your enemies. Before I cut it I will cause it to kill all of your enemies. The raven will have so much strength.” When they tested him[41] the spirit said, “All people on sticks,” meaning that it wanted all of their foes to fall on sticks and be destroyed when they fought. Then they prepared, saying, “We will start.” The shaman said, “At the moment when we arrive a man is going to chop down a tree in front of us.”

Toward morning they came close to the fort, all prepared for fighting. After they had surrounded it a man came out with a stone ax and climbed up a tree to chop off limbs. Then they shot him with arrows, unnoticed by the fort people, so that he fell down dead. But a little while afterward the fort people said, “Where is that man who climbed the tree a short time ago. He is not there now.” At once they rushed together on both sides, and all those in the fort were destroyed just as the shaman had predicted. Then they returned to their own fort, which was also known as Eulachon-trap fort (Cāł nū).

Another time five women went around the island where they had their fort, after mussels, and came to a reef on the outer side. They left their canoe untied and it floated away. Then the tide began to come up. They stood up on the reef with their hands in the air, singing death songs for themselves, for they knew they were about to die. After that the reef was called Woman reef (Cā qǃāˊtǃagu), on account of the women who were destroyed there.

A year after this some people went across from the fort to a lake into which salmon run, and were surprised on encountering people. They thought it was some war party from very far south and beat a precipitate retreat to the fort. Then the people in the fort saw a big canoe all covered with abalone shell come out from this place and make straight toward them. When it had come close in, the chief questioned these strangers and learned that they were on a friendly visit from Yakutat. It took the strength of all the people to bring up this canoe. Then they made the fort chief a present of land-otter skins, marten skins, skins of all kinds. This was the custom in olden times, a slave being generally given back.

The chief at this place had a nephew named Yêtx̣âˊ who was very fond of gambling. The fourth day that the visitors were in town the chief’s nephew was away from home, and the fire went out. Then he acted as though he were crazy. He went down to the valuable canoe of the visitors, broke off the stern piece for firewood, and threw it indoors so that the abalone shells fell off of it.

Next morning, when the man that owned the canoe got up, he saw that his stern piece was missing, and that burnt abalone shells were lying by the fire. He called to his companions, “Get up and let us be gone. Push the canoe down and load it quickly.” He had a number of copper plates and other property which he had not yet unpacked, and, after he had gotten a little distance from the fort, he landed and took these out. Then he went right back in front of the fort to destroy them on account of the injury he had received. When these people came opposite they took out a copper plate, struck it on the edge of the canoe so as to make it sound and threw it into the sea. They threw away four. Then the fort chief also took four coppers, flung them on the wall of the fort and threw them into the ocean.

[I have explained to you before where this copper came from. It came from the Copper river. Probably this rich man came several times before the fort. Coppers were valued according to their height when they were first made, some at four slaves and some at six.][42]

When the Yakutat man came before this fort again, his copper plates were all gone, and he began to use cedar bark. His people would tie a rock on each piece and throw it into the water. Meanwhile the fort chief put his canoe on the walls of the fort and began to put Indian beads, caribou skins, moose skins, and other articles into it. Since these ʟǃenēˊdî have the dog salmon for their emblem, the chief’s sister began acting like one when it is shaking out its eggs. She pretended to be shaking out riches in the same way, and, while she did so, they threw the canoe over the edge of the fort, and all the good things spilled out. The man from Yakutat was foolish to try to contend with so wealthy a chief. His name (i. e., the Yakutat man’s) was Kāˊyeswūsâˊt. They chased him out with riches, and told him to come back again with more property. A song was composed about this afterward to the effect that he was simply fooling the people with this yellow cedar bark which was not real property at all. (See song 43.)

In the same fort a woman gave birth to a boy, who exclaimed as soon as he was born, “How many things there will be for all the people who are holding my mother.” In olden times certain women used to hold a woman who was about to give birth, and they were paid for this service. The child grew very fast. He was going to be the greatest liar among his people. After he was grown up and had a family of his own, his mother died, and he started for Chilkat to invite people to the death feast. This was before the Russians came.

He said to his children, “Pull away. Pull fast.” He had started off without any of the property he had intended to take, but on his way Indian rice hailed into his canoe, and a large box of grease floated down to him. When he got close to the mouth of Chilkat river he came in front of a waterfall. He tasted the water of this and found it very sweet. Then he took all of his buckets and filled them with it so that they might put this water on the rice when they ate it. As he was bound for Klukwan, the village farthest up the river, he said to his children, “Blow on the sail.” They did so and passed right up to Klukwan. Then he stood up in his canoe and began to talk. They took all of his stuff up, and in the evening the drums were beaten as a sign that he was going to give out property.

He began to cry in the customary manner as he beat the drums. Then he took a piece of bark and put it in front of his eyes, upon which the tears ran down it in a stream. Afterward he gave out two copper plates and invited the people to eat what he had brought. Then the people danced for him in return, and a man came in with something very shiny on top of his head.[43]

That is all he told when he returned.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Or on the side toward Sitka.

[41] That is, when the people allowed him to perform before them.

[42] An “aside” by the story-teller.

[43] This last was said to be “the way the story went,” but otherwise was unexplained.

27. THE ALSEK RIVER PEOPLE

Once there was a famine among the people of Alsek (Ałsēˊx) river. There were two shamans there, one of whom began singing to bring up eulachon, while the other sang for strength in order to obtain bears and other forest animals.

The first shaman’s spirit told him that if he would go down the little rapids he would see great numbers of eulachon. So he dressed up next morning and went straight down under the water in a little canoe.

That night the other shaman’s spirits came to him, saying that the first shaman would remain under water for four nights; that he had gone into a house where were eulachon, salmon, and other fish and had thrown the door open.

At the end of four days they hunted all around and found him lying dead on the beach amid piles of eulachon. As soon as they brought him up, all the eulachon that were in the ocean started to run up river, and everyone tried to preserve as many of them as he could.

In the same town were two menstruant women, and the other shaman told these that there would be a great many land otters about the town that evening. Just as he had said, at the time when his spirits came to him that evening, numbers of land-otter-men came through the village. They could be heard whistling about the town. Finally some one said, “Why is it that it sounds as if they were all where the two women are?” Sure enough, they found that the land otters were talking inside of the two women. The ones that were inside of them were really land-otter-men, that is, men who had been taken away by the land otters and made like themselves.

A person would often creep close up to these women to find out what they were, but every time something spoke out inside, “Do not sneak around here for I can see you.” They could not get at them. These land-otter-men had come to the women to turn them into land-otter-people also.

A menstruant woman is the only thing that will enfeeble the power of a shaman’s spirit, therefore, although the shaman endeavored to get these land-otter-men out of the women, his spirits kept turning back. When the shaman’s spirit came to him next evening, it said that there were more land-otter-men coming to take away the ones in these women and the women with them. He told the people to be watchful, because there was going to be a great disturbance that night. When night came on the people were all very much frightened at the noises the land-otter-men made under the houses, and they had great trouble keeping the two women in their rooms so that they should not be carried off. All the people helped them, but the land otters were invisible. After that nobody went out to camp for a long time. Then they said to the two women, “Take your bloody clothes to different beaches, leave them there, and tell the land otters that they are too great animals to fight with weak beings.” In those times whenever a menstruant woman said anything of that kind it had to be obeyed. So the land otters went off.

The shamans in those times were very strict and strong, and whatever they saw was true. By and by these shamans said, “Something is going to happen to that great town there by the lake.” When the things that had happened in their neighbors’ town regarding the land otters were reported to the people there, they said, “Are you afraid of those things that stutter and can not talk like you and I?” By and by two men started hunting from this place. When they had reached the top of a neighboring mountain, they looked back and saw a great flood come down between the mountains and overwhelm their town. This flood was caused by an avalanche which poured into the lake and filled it up, forcing the water out. Some human bodies were hanging to the branches of trees. The men knew this had happened on account of the way they had spoken of the land otters, and, starting on aimlessly, they came to the town where the shamans lived.

One of these two shamans had a quantity of oil which he was going to carry to another town. He wanted to buy skins of kinds different from those his own people had. When they reached a camping place outside of the town the man’s spirit told him to go down to the beach at low tide and carry a hook with him. A shaman’s spirits never liked salt things. There he saw a very big devilfish under a rock, and his spirit said to him, “Look out, master, that is a big live devilfish.” As soon as he had hooked it, he saw what appeared to be two ducks flying toward him from either side, but they were really the devilfish’s arms. Then his spirit told him to run up quickly on the bank, and he squatted down there under a rock, while the devilfish’s tentacles swept over him, carrying all the forest trees along with them. Two days after this his spirit told him to set out again.

When this shaman arrived at Kǃᴀkᴀnuwūˊ, where many people lived, everybody wanted to see him and try his strength, because they had heard that he was a great shaman. One evening they began trying him. They threw his mask on his face and it stayed there, covering up his eyes so that he could not see where he was going. Then, when he ran around the fire, the people stuck out their feet to trip him, but he jumped over them every time. This showed how strong his spirits were. Another time his spirits came to him they built a big fire and he started around it. Then he threw the fire round upon everyone who was there and as high up as the ceiling, but the fire hurt nobody. By and by his clothes man said, “Another spirit is coming to him soon, named Gutsǃcaxoˊtǃqā.” This spirit had a big knife in his hand with which he would hit people on the breast. When it came to him, the shaman told the older people to stand up straight and motionless and not to fear, for if one got scared he would die. He hit one, and they laid him in a certain place. Then everyone said, “You better kill that shaman, for he has slain the best man in the company.” After his spirits had gone away, however, the shaman went to the body out of which blood was still flowing and said, “It will be all right,” while his spirits made a noise. Then the man got up and jumped about. The people looked at the wounded place, but there was not so much as a scar upon it.

After a while the shaman began trading off his grease to all who wanted it. One day he said, “Something is about to come up that will be very dangerous to you people.” It was the moon. When the moon came up it shone brightly, and the stars were bright, but after a time the moon began to hide its face from them. That was what he had predicted. The people, however, thought this was caused by the shaman himself.

Then the leading men and women of the Kāˊgwᴀntān dressed themselves up, put grease on the fire, and began dancing to dance the moon out. After awhile it came out just a little, so they felt very happy and danced still harder. They continued doing so until the whole moon was out. At the same time people took whatever property they had, held it up and called the moon for it. They say the moon acts in this way because it feels poor and lonely, so, when the moon or sun does thus, they act in this manner. After that the shaman went home and told his fellow shaman how everyone had tried him in this place. “When I went around the fire, people put out their feet to make me stumble. They tried me in every way.”