Their deluge myth is startling in its resemblance to ours. When their flood came upon them, a few were saved in a great canoe which was made of cedar. This wood splits rather easily, parallel to its grain, under stress of storm, and the one in which the people embarked split after much buffeting. The Thlinkits clung to one part, and all other peoples to the other part, creating a difference in language. Chet'l, the eagle, was separated from his sister, to whom he said, "You may never see me again, but you shall hear my voice forever." He changed himself into a bird of tremendous size and flew away southward. The sister climbed Mount Edgecumbe, which opened and swallowed her, leaving a hole that has remained ever since. Earthquakes are caused by her struggles with bad spirits which seek to drive her away, and by her invariable triumph over them she sustains the poise of the world.
Chet'l returned to Mount Edgecumbe, where he still lives. When he comes forth, which is but seldom, the flapping of his great wings produces the sound which is called thunder. He is, therefore, known everywhere as the Thunder-bird. The glance of his brilliant eyes is the lightning.
Concerning the totem-pole which was taken from an Indian village on Tongas Island, near Ketchikan, by members of the Post-Intelligencer business men's excursion to Alaska in 1899—and for which the city of Seattle was legally compelled to pay handsomely afterward—the following letter from a member of the family originally owning the totem is of quaint interest:—
"I have received your letter, and I am going to tell you the story of the totem-pole. Now, the top one is a crow himself, and the next one from the pole top is a man. That crow have told him a story. Crow have told him a good-looking woman want to married some man. So he did marry her. She was a frog. And the fourth one is a mink. One time, the story says, that one time it was a high tide for some time, and so crow got marry to mink, so crow he eats any kind of fishes from the water. After some time crow got tired of mink, and he leave her, and he get married to that whale-killer, and then crow he have all he want to eat. That last one on the totem-pole is the father of the crow. The story says that one time it got dark for a long while. The darkness was all over the world, and only crow's father was the only one can give light to the world. He simply got a key. He keeps the sun and moon in a chest, that one time crow have ask his father if he play with the sun and moon in the house but, was not allowed, so he start crying for many days until he was sick. So his father let him play with it and he have it for many days. And one day he let the moon in the sky by mistake, but he keep the sun, and he which take time before he could get his chances to go outside of the house. As soon as he was out he let sun back to the sky again, and it was light all over the world again. (End of story.)
"Yours respectfully,
"David E. Kinninnook.
"P.S. The Indians have a long story, and one of the chiefs of a village or of a tribe only a chief can put up so many carvings on our totem-pole, and he have to fully know the story of what totem he is made. I may give you the whole story of it sometimes. Crow on top have a quart moon in his mouth, because he have ask his father for a light.
"D. E. K.
"If you can put this story on the Post-Intelligencer, of Seattle, Wash., and I think the people will be glad to know some of it."
The Thlinkits burned their dead, with the exception of the shamans, but carefully preserved the ashes and all charred bones from the funeral pyre. These were carefully folded in new blankets and buried in the backs of totems. One totem, when taken down to send to the Lewis and Clark Exposition, was found to contain the remains of a child in the butt-end of the pole which was in the ground; the portion containing the child being sawed off and reinterred.
