HOW THE RIVERS WERE FORMED
Tlingit (Wrangell)
PETREL was the first person created by Raven-at-the-head-of-Nass. He was keeper of the fresh water. No one else might touch it. Now the spring he owned was on a rocky island called Dekino, Fort-far-out, where the well may still be seen. Raven stole a great mouthful of water, but as he flew over the country drops spilled out of his beak. These drops made the rivers: the Nass, Skeena, Stikine, and Chilkat. Raven said, “The water that I drop down upon the earth, here and there, will whirl all the time. There will be plenty of water, but it will not flood the world.”
Now before this time, Raven was pure white. But when he stole the water from Petrel he tried to fly out of the smoke hole. Petrel cried, “Spirits of the smoke hole, hold him fast.” So the smoke-hole spirits held Raven until the smoke blackened his white coat.
THE ORIGIN OF FIRE
Tlingit
LONG ago, in the days of the animal people, Raven saw a fire far out at sea. He tied a piece of pitch to Chicken Hawk’s bill. He said, “Go out to the fire, touch it with the pitchwood, and bring it back.” Chicken Hawk did so. The fire stuck to the pitchwood and he brought it back to Raven. Then Raven put the fire into the rock and into the red cedar. Then he said, “Thus shall you get your fire—from this rock and from this red cedar.” The tribes did as he told them.