He who hunted birds in his father’s village
[Told by Walter McGregor of the Sealion-town people]
He was a chief’s son. He wore two marten-skin blankets, one over the other.[1] After he had shot birds for some time he went along among some bull pines, which stood in an open space behind the town and presently heard geese[2] calling. Then he went thither. Two women were bathing in a lake. On the shore opposite two goose skins hung over a stick. The roots of their tails were spotted with white.
After he had looked a while he ran quickly [to them]. He sat down on the two skins. Then they asked him for their [skins]. He asked the best looking to marry him. The other said to him: “Do not marry my younger sister. I am smarter. Marry me.” “No; I am going to marry your younger sister.” Now she agreed. “Even so, marry my younger sister. You caught us swimming in the lake our father owns. Come, give me my skin.” Then he gave it to her. She put her head into it as she swam in the lake. Lo, a goose swam about in the lake. It swam about in it making a noise.
Then she flew. She was unwilling to fly away from her younger sister. After she had flown about above her for a while, she flew up. She vanished through the sky. Then he gave her (the other) one marten-skin blanket and went home with her. He put his wife’s skin between the two heads of a cedar standing at one end of the town. He entered his father’s house with her.
The chief’s son had a wife. So his father called the people together for the marriage feast. They gave her food. Instead [of eating it] she merely smelled it. She ate no kind of human food.
By and by her mother-in-law steamed some tcꜝāl.[3] But she liked that. While her mother-in-law was yet cooking them she told her husband to tell her to hurry. They put some before her. She ate it all. Then they began giving her that only to eat.
One day, when he was asleep, he was surprised to find that his wife’s skin, after she came in and lay down, was cold. And, when the same thing happened again, he began watching her. He lay as if asleep. He felt her get up quietly. Then she went out, and he also went out just after her. She passed in front of the town. She went to the place where her skin was kept. Thence she flew away. She alighted on the farther side of a point at one end of the town.
Then he went thither quickly. She was eating the stalks of the sea grass which grew there. As the waves broke in they moved her shoreward. [[265]]He saw it. Then she flew up to the place where her [feather] skin had been kept. And he entered the house before her. Then he lay down where they had their bed, after which his wife lay down cold beside him.
They became nearly starved in the town. One day the woman said to him from the place where she was sitting: “Now my father has sent down food to me.” Behind the town geese were coming down making a great noise, and she went thither. They went with her. All kinds of good food lay there, such as tcꜝāl[3] and wild clover roots. They brought them away. For this her father-in-law called in the people.
When this was gone she said the same thing again: “Now my father is bringing food down to me.” Geese again made a great noise coming down behind the town, and she went thither. Again heaps of food of all kinds lay around, and they carried that also out. For that, too, her father-in-law called together the people.
At that time some one in the town said: “They think a great deal of goose food.” The woman heard it. Immediately she went off. Her husband in vain tried to stop her. She went off as one of a strange family would. In the same way he tried to stop her in front of the town. She went to the place where her skin was. She flew up. She flew around above the town for a while. Her heart was not strong to fly away from her husband. By and by she vanished through the sky.
Then her husband began to walk about the town wailing. By and by he entered the house of an old man at one end of the town and asked him: “Do you not know the trail that leads to my wife?” “Why, brave man, you married the daughter of a supernatural being too great for people even to think of.” At once he began bringing over all sorts of things to him. After he had given him twisted cedar limbs, a gimlet, and bones,[4] he said to him: “Now, brave man, take oil. Take two wooden wedges also. Take, as well, a comb, thongs, boxes of salmon eggs, the skin of a silver salmon, the point of a salmon spear.” After he had got all these he came to him. “Old man, here are all the things you told me to take.” “Now, brave man, go on. The trail runs inland behind my house.”
Then he started in on it. After he had gone on for a while he came to some one who was looking upon himself for lice. Every time he turned around the lice fell off from him. After he had looked at him unobserved for a while he said to him: “Now, brave man, do not tickle me by looking at me.[5] It was in my mind that you were coming.” Then he came out to him and combed his head. He also put oil on it. He cleared him of lice. He gave the comb and the hair oil to him. Then he said to him: “This trail leads to the place where your wife is.” [[266]]
He again started along the trail. After he had gone on for a while [he saw] a mouse with cranberries in its mouth going along before him. She came to a fallen tree. She could not get over it. Then he took her by the back with his fingers and put her across. Her tail was bent up between her ears [for joy], and she went on before him. Presently she went among the stalks of a clump of ferns.
Now he rested himself there. Something said to him: “The chief-woman asks you to come in.” Then he raised the ferns. He stood in front of a big house. He entered. The chief-woman was steaming cranberries. She talked as she did so. Her voice sounded sharp. And, after she had given him something to eat, Mouse-woman said to him: “You helped me when I went to get some poor cranberries from a patch I own. I will lend you what I wore when I went hunting when I was young.”
Then she brought out a box. After she had opened a nest of five boxes, she took out of the inmost a mouse skin with small, bent claws. And she said to him: “Practice wearing this.” And, although it was so small, he entered it. It went on easily. Then he climbed around upon the roof of the house inside. And Mouse-woman said to him again: “You know how to use it. Now go on.”
Again he set out upon the trail. After he had gone along for a while he heard some one grunting under a heavy burden. Then he came to the place. A woman was trying to carry off a pile of large, flat stones upon her back. The twisted cedar limbs she had kept breaking. After he had looked at her for a while he went out to her. “Say, what are you doing?” Then the woman said: “They got me to carry the mountains of the Haida island. I am doing it.”
Then he took out his thongs and said to her: “Let me fix it.” And he bound the thongs around it. He said to her “Now carry it on your back,” and she carried it. It did not break. Then the woman said to him: “Now, brave man, thank you for helping me. The trail to your wife’s place runs here.”
Then he set out upon it. After he had gone on for a while he came to a hill in an open place on top of which rose something red.[6] Then he went to it. Around the bottom of this something lay human bones. There was no way in which one could go up. Then he entered the mouse skin and rubbed salmon eggs before him [on the pole]. He went up after it. When he stood on top of this he clambered up on the sky.
There, too, there ran a trail, and he started off upon it. After he had gone on for a while he heard the noise of laughter and singing. After he had gone on a while longer [he came to where] a big stream flowed down. Near it sat Eagle. On the other side also sat Heron. Above sat Kingfisher. On the other side sat Black Bear. He (black [[267]]bear) had no claws. He said to Eagle: “Grandfather, lend me some claws.” Then he lent him some. At that time he came to have claws.
After he had sat there for a while a half man came vaulting along.[7] He had only one leg and one arm. He had but half a head. He speared silver salmon in the river and pulled them in. Then he entered his silver salmon skin and swam up to meet him. When he speared him he could not pull him down. Then he cut his string. And the half man said: “What did it is like a human being.”
Now he came to him. “Say, did something pull off your spear point?” “Yes,” he said to him. Then he gave him the one he had. That was Master Hopper, they say. After he had gone up [he came upon] two large old men who had come after firewood. They were cutting at the trunks of rotten trees and throwing the chips into the water, when silver salmon went down in a shoal.
He went behind and put stones in from behind, and their wedges were broken off. Then he (one) said: “Alas, they will make trouble for us.” Then he went to them and gave them his two wedges. They were glad and said to him: “This house is your wife’s.”
Then he went out [to it]. He went and stood in front of the house. His wife came out to him. Then he went in with her. She was glad to see her husband. She was the town chief’s daughter. He remained in the town as her husband. And all the things they gathered he, too, gathered along with them.
After he had been there for some time he came to dislike the place. And his wife told her father. Then his father-in-law called the people. In the house he asked them: “Who will take my son-in-law down?” And Loon said: “I will take down your son-in-law.” And he said to him: “How will you do it?” And he said: “I will put him near my tail, dive into the water right in front with him, come up at the end of his father’s village, and let him off.” Then they thought he was not strong enough for it.
Then he asked again. Grebe said the same thing. Him, too, they thought not strong enough to do it. Then Raven said that he would take him down. And they asked him: “How are you going to do it?” “I will put him into my armpit and fly down with him from the end of the town. When I get tired I will fall over and over with him.” Then they thought he could do it.
They stood in a crowd at the end of the town looking at him. He did with him as he had said. When he became very tired and was nearly down he threw him off upon a reef which lay there. “Yuwaiyā′, what a heavy thing I am taking down.” Shortly he (the man) was making a noise there as a sea gull.[8] [[268]]
The interest of this story lies in the fact that it resembles well-known Eskimo myths in certain details. The episode with which it opens is told all the way round the world. [[269]]
[1] As was once customary with the sons of chiefs. [↑]
[3] Plants with edible roots growing around the mouths of creeks. ↑ [a] [b]
[4] Such as were used to make awls and gimlets out of. [↑]
[5] Supernatural beings are often said to be tickled by having some one merely look at them. [↑]
[6] This is undoubtedly the pole held on the breast of Supernatural-being-standing-and-moving, which rose in the middle of the Haida country and extended to the sky. [↑]
[7] Master Hopper (Łkienqā′-ixōñ), referred to in many other places throughout these stories. He was a one legged supernatural being, or a supernatural being having one leg shorter than the other. Here he is represented as only a half-man. [↑]