Then they saw him sitting up there, and they called to him to come down. “Probably,[10] drop down upon my knees.” And they could not get him. They left him.
Then he started off. He came in to his parents. He came in after having been lost, and his mother gave him a ground-hog blanket to wear.
Then he went out to play with the others one day, and something said to him from among the woods: “Probably is proud of his ground-hog blanket. He does not care for me as he moves about.” He did not act differently on account of this.[11] Those who took him away were the Land-otter people.
The Pitch-people (Qꜝās lā′nas) occupied much of the northwestern coast of Moresby island between Tas-oo harbor and Kaisun, but, when the Sealion-town people moved to the west coast, they seem to have driven the Pitch-people out of their northern towns. They were always looked upon as an uncultivated branch of Haida, and are said not to have possessed any crests. Later they intermarried with the Cumshewa people. Some of the Cumshewa people claim descent from them, but none of the true Pitch-people are in existence. The relationship of their culture to that of the other Haida would be an interesting problem for archeologists. The following stories regarding these people were obtained from a man of the Sealion-town people who supplanted them. [[330]]
[1] There were several Haida towns so named. This stood near Hewlett bay, on the northwest coast of Moresby island. [↑]
[2] Given at length the name means “putting rocks into fire to steam food.” He was chief of the town of Kaisun before the Sealion-town people came there. [↑]
[3] By destroying his kelp line he cut off their only source of food supply, and, as a result, the fort was destroyed. [↑]
[4] All except one man, who was found there by the Sealion-town people on their arrival, and of whose strange actions and unusual abilities many stories were told. [↑]
[5] A similar story occurs in my Masset series where the old woman was used as a kind of bugaboo to frighten children. The same was probably the case at Skidegate. [↑]