The Creation of Man.
When the water which once covered the whole earth subsided, a raven (Ne-kil-stlas) was the only creature surviving. In his loneliness he started around the islands, seeking companionship, and when passing Sand Spit Point heard very faint cries, which he soon discovered proceeded from a cockle shell lying upon the beach. While examining it with great wonder, the voices grew louder and loader, until finally there issued therefrom several male [Footnote: As related by others only one infant, and a female, was found in the cockle shell, whom, marrying Ne-kil-etlas, became the great father of the Indian race.] infant children, which rapidly increasing in stature joined him in a common search for mates. Upon reaching the lonely island of Ninstints they found females clinging helplessly to the rocks, whom rescuing and taking for their wives, peopled the land.
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Origin of Light—The Sun, Moon and Stars.
Ne-kil-stlas, soon discovering that light, fresh water, and many other things which the people most needed were in possession of a powerful chief called Setlin-ki-jash, and jealously guarded by him, resolved to obtain them. Now this chief's daughter had a little babe, which, when they all slept, Ne-kil-stlas killed, and taking the place of the infant was fondly petted and cared for. When he found where the chief kept the moon, he began to cry to see it, and continued so to do for a long time, and until they opened the door into the apartment where the moon was concealed, which seeing, Ne-kil-stlas instantly became a raven and seizing it with his bill flew away to the Naas country. Here the Indians gathered about him and begged to see the moon, of which they had heard. Ne-kil-stlas agreed to let them see it if they would give him all the oolachan fish which he desired, to which consenting, he threw down the moon before them, which they in their wild delight tossed so high in the air that it broke in pieces, and formed one part the sun, another the moon, and the small fragments the stars.
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Carvings.
The Hydas are distinguished for their superior skill, above that possessed by any other aboriginal people on the continent, in carving and mechanical arts and contrivances generally. Besides their great columns, from 30 to 75 feet in height, covered with figures from top to bottom, nearly every article used by them is carved to represent either their totem crests, or some animal, bird or fish familiar to their sight. House-posts, canoe-heads, stone axes, mauls and mortars, fish-hooks and floats, seal-killing clubs, boxes of all kinds, cooking and eating utensils, trays, spoons, ladles, medicine charms, masks, rattles, whistles, gambling sticks, towes, and other articles, too numerous to mention, are all carved. Their designs are often grotesque, many evidently purposely so, and their workmanship commonly rude compared with that of our best white carvers; yet their skill in so curiously and accurately shaping some things, considering their few and inferior tools and semi-savage state, is quite remarkable. Desiring to possess some small article of Hyda manufacture, I gave a young Indian jeweler a two-and-a-half dollar gold piece at 9 o'clock in the morning with instructions to make from it an eagle. Before 1 o'clock the same day he brought me the bird so well made that not many jewelers could improve upon it.
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Food Supplies.