[9] Slate creek, which flows into Skidegate inlet near its head, and along which the famous slate is found, carved so extensively by the Haida. [↑]

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He-who-got-supernatural-power-from-his-little-finger

[Told by Walter McGregor of the Sealion-town people]

At White-slope[1] a certain person and his mother were disliked. They made a house out of branches at one end of the town in which they lived. When it was low tide he went down and brought up something for his mother to eat.

After he had done this for some time he came to a heron with a broken bill. Then he sharpened it. And it said to him: “Grandson, you helped[2] me nicely. I will also help[2] you. Keep this medicine in your mouth.” Then it also gave him the feather on the tip of its wing, and it said to him: “Blow this under the armpit of the son of the town chief. Even the supernatural beings will not know it.”

The child often played at having supernatural power. He had a mat as a dancing skirt. He fastened shells upon it. Others he used as a rattle. He had feathers he found as a dancing hat. He used old cedar bark as a drum. One evening he went around the town. He looked into some of the houses. A chief’s son sat in one of them. Then he pushed the feather in between the side planks. When the point was turned toward his armpit, he blew it in. As soon as it went into the chief’s son’s armpit, he had a pain.

Then he went home. They got a shaman for [the chief’s son]. He went over to see him practice. Some persons with black skins on the side toward the door held burning pitchwood. Then he thought: “I wonder why they do not see the thing sticking out of him.” They dropped their torches and ran out after him. He ran from them. Those were The-ones-who-have-spines-for-earrings.[3]

The day after he went again. He wanted to see the shaman. When he thought the same thing as he had thought before they ran out after him again. At that time they discovered that it was the boy.

Then they set out to get him. He spit medicine upon the things he had been playing with.[4] The dancing skirt had a drawing on it. The drum had the picture of a wā′sg̣o. The dancing hat, too, was finished.