The clouds are large bags of water, owned by two old women who push them across the sky. The thunder is their voice and the lightning their torch. When water leaks out of the seams of the bags, it rains on earth. If a spark of lightning falls upon anyone, he has to go to the Ghost Land.
At each corner of the Earth World there lives a mighty being, with a very large head. When any one of these breathes, the wind blows. Some breathe violent storms and others summer breezes. Each wind spirit has many powerful servants.
At the edge of the Earth World, and beyond the precipices, is a great abyss. A narrow pathway leads across it to a land of brightness and plenty and abundance and warmth. To this place none but Raven and the dead can go. When spirits wish to speak to people on earth, they make a whistling noise and people answer only in whispers. Auroras are the torches held in the hands of spirits to guide the newly dead over the abyss.
BELIEFS
Bella Coola
The Bella Coola believe there are five worlds, one above the other. The middle one is our own world, the earth. Above it are two upper worlds, one the home of Afraid of Nothing, and the one below that is the House of the Sun. Below our earth are two lower worlds. The first is the Ghost Land; the second is the home of those who die a second time.
The upper heaven, which is the home of “Our Woman,” or Afraid of Nothing, as others call her, is a prairie without any trees upon it. In order to reach it, one must pass through the House of the Sun; though some people say that the sky is rent and one must pass through the great hole to reach the upper world.
The house of Afraid of Nothing stands in the far east. A strong wind blows always toward it across the open prairie so that everything rolls to her house; but immediately around the house it is quite calm. In front of the house stands a post in the shape of a large winged monster, and its mouth is the entrance.
Afraid of Nothing created the whole world. A long time ago she also had a great war with the mountains. In the beginning of the world the mountains were of great height. They were human, and they made the world uninhabitable. Afraid of Nothing made war upon them and defeated them. She made them much smaller than they used to be. During this fight she broke off the nose of one mountain, and its face may be recognized even now. It is near the Bella Coola River.
There were two mountains near the headwaters of the Bella Coola River, and one kept always a fire burning in his house. One could see the smoke, and this fire warned its master, the mountain, whenever an enemy appeared. When Afraid of Nothing came down in her canoe, the fire gave warning. When she approached, the mountain broke her canoe and turned it into stone. So she returned to heaven. The canoe is still there at the foot of the mountain.