Haida texts and myths

by Unknown

By and by he picked him up again. He threw him at it. He climbed up as a California creeper.[29] Again [they said], “S-s-s-s-s-s.” Again

Then he took his baton and put it back into the box. “Enough. I think he has danced a long time.” He put him away. Then He-who-was-born-from-his-mother’s-side went to the rear of the house, put on [[233]]his blankets, and took his mother. Then the old man went out quickly. They got into the canoe and went off.

When they were halfway home it came burning after them again. When it got near, he breathed toward it, and it stopped. Then they came home, and he went up.

Again his five blankets were burned off, and his mother as well. He reached for his wife. She, too, was gone. They took her away from him to marry her, they say.

Then he wandered on aimlessly. After he had gone along a while he let himself fall to the ground and wept. He looked toward the forest. All the trees wept with him. Then he looked seaward. All the fishes beneath its surface wept with him. Now he had his fill of crying and went on again.

After he had wandered on for a while [he heard] some people laughing and talking. And he went thither. They were trying to shoot leaves off of a big tree. As soon as they had shot one down they ate it. When he got there they moved back from it. “He-who-was-born-from-his-mother’s-side is going to shoot,” they said.

Then he shot at it. He shot it near the base. It began to fall. He made the supernatural beings rejoice by his shot. And he said, “Take care of its eggs (seeds). I will let my cousin, Cloud-woman, take off the head [of seeds].”[30] That was tobacco, they say.

Then they sent for her, and she came by canoe. She took all of its eggs. These she began to plant. They were spread all over this island.

This short story is given as if it were a purely Haida myth, but from an abstract of another version obtained in 1878 by Dr. G. M. Dawson it would seem possible that it came originally from the mainland. The abstract referred to runs as follows:

“Long ago the Indians (first people or ancient people—thlin-thloo-hait) had no tobacco, and one plant only existed, growing somewhere far inland in the interior of the Stickeen country. This plant was caused to grow by the deity, and was like a tree, very large and tall. With a bow and arrows a man shot at its summit, where the seed was, and at last brought down one or two seeds, which he carried away, carefully preserved, and sowed in the following spring. From the plants thus procured all the tobacco afterward cultivated sprung.” (Dawson’s Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, Montreal, 1880.) [[235]]