[Told by Abraham of the Qꜝā′dᴀsg̣o qē′g̣awa-i]
When he first started he decked out the birds. They were made of different varieties, as they now appear to us, in one house. Then, as soon as he had dressed up the birds, they went out together. At that time he refused to adorn two of them. When the house was too full they said to those who sat next to the walls: “Let your heads be as thin as the place where you sit.” Those have thin heads.
The two he had refused to adorn went crying to the [various] supernatural beings and came to Rose Spit, where they heard a drum sound toward the woods. They went thither. When they came and stood before Master Carpenter[55] with tear marks on their faces, he asked: “What causes your tear marks?” They then answered: “Raven[56] decked out the other birds. He said we were not worth adorning.” “And yet you are going to be handsomer than all others” [he said], and, having let them in, he painted them up. He put designs on their skins (feathers). Those were the Qꜝē′da-kꜝō′xawa.[57]
[Continued by John Sky]
He went thence by canoe, and came to where herring had been spawning. He then filled the canoe with herring, dipped them out of the place where the bilge water settles and threw them toward the shore. “Future people will not see the place where you are.”[58]
[Continued by the chief of Kloo of Those-born-at-Skedans]
And when he went away he came to where a spider crab sat. And he said to it: “Comrade, do you sit here? Don’t you know that we used to play together as children?” He then put his wings into its mouth and took them out again. “A little farther off, spider crab,” he said to it, and it closed its jaws together. It began at once to move seaward. And he (Raven) said to it: “Comrade, let me go. When about to let me go you used to look at me with eyes partly closed [as you are doing] now. Let me go. It will be better for us to play with each other differently. Let me go.” By and by the sea water flowed over him. Then it let him go.
And after he had traveled for a while he pulled off leaves from the salal-berry bushes, stuck spruce needles into them, and came to where an old man lay with his back to the fire. And he entered and sat down on the side opposite him. “Hē,” he said, as if he, too, were cold from going after something. Then the old man looked over to him and said: “Have I stretched out my legs, that one keeps saying he is getting cold?” He then stretched out his legs, and it became low tide. And, with Eagle, he brought up sea eggs to the woods. [Raven also brought up a red cod, but Eagle brought up a black cod.]
They then made a camp fire. And Eagle roasted his.[59] It began to drop fat into the fire. Then Raven roasted his, but it became dry. [[129]]And he asked to taste of Eagle’s. “Cousin, why does yours taste like cedar? Cousin, I will bring you a small bundle of bark from the woods. When a stump comes to you, rub this [black cod] upon its face.” As soon as he went off Eagle put some stones into the fire. When they became red-hot, the stump came toward him. He then picked up a stone with the tongs and rubbed it upon the stump, and the stump went back into the woods out of sight. By and by, lo, he came to him with bark on his shoulder. His face was blackened all over. “Why, cousin, what has happened to your face?” “Well, cousin, I pulled some bark down upon my face.” “Why, cousin, it is as if something had burned it.” “No, indeed, cousin, bark dropped upon me.”
[Continued by John Sky]