Part 13

On the next day his father invited them again, and they (the big-bellies) came in and stood there. And again cranberries were emptied into their mouths. Then Nᴀñkî′lsʟas went quickly toward the end of the town. As he was going along he came to open ground where cranberries were being blown out. He stopped up this hole with moss, and he did the same to another. After he had entered he questioned the big-bellied ones, who stood near the door: “I say, tell me the reason why you eat [so much].” “Don’t ask it, chief. We are always afflicted in this way.” “Yes; tell me. When my father calls in the people, and you are going to eat, if you do not tell me I will make you always full.” “Well, chief, sit close to me while I tell you. Early in the morning take a bath, and when you lie down [after it] scratch yourself over your heart, and when scabs have formed on the next day swallow them.”

He did at once as he was told. After he had sat still for a while [he said]: “Father, I have become hungry.” Upon this his father sent to call the people. [The big-bellied persons] again came in and stood there. Again was [food] emptied into their mouths. It did them no good. And he again became hungry. He again called them in. Day after day, for many days, he called them in. One day he went out [to defecate]. They saw him eating the cranberries that had floated ashore upon the beach [from peoples’ dung]. Thereupon they shut the door upon him.

He now started off. By and by he came [back] and sat behind his father’s house. “Father, please let me in.” They did not want him. “Father, please let me in. I will put grizzly bears upon you. I will put mountain goats upon you.” [212] He offered him all the mainland animals. “No, chief, my son, they might wake me up by walking over me.”

He then began to sing a certain song. He beat time by striking his head against the house. The house began to fall over. And at that time he nearly let him in, they say. And when he went away they snatched off from him the black bear and marten [skins] he wore.

That time he went away for a long period. By and by they saw him floating on the sea in front of the town in a hair-seal canoe. [213] He wore his uncle’s hat. On top of it the foam was swirling around as he floated. As soon as they saw he had become changed in some unknown manner the town people all entered Qîñgi’s house. And after they had talked over what they should do for a while he dressed himself up. The town people put themselves between the joints of his tall hat. After Nᴀñkî′lsʟas had remained there a while the sea water continued to increase. And Qîñgi, too, grew up. Then he became angry and broke the hat by pulling it downward. Half the people of his town were lost.

After he had been gone for a while he came and stopped in front of the town. “Nᴀñkî′lsʟas is in front on a canoe.” And his father said: “Go and get him that I may see his face.” They then spread out mats, and his comrades came in and sat there. His father continually gave him food. His father was glad to see him.

After food had been given out for a long time and evening was come, his father sat down near the door. By and by he said: “My son, chief’s child, let one of your companions tell me a story.” He then asked the one who sat next to him: “Don’t you know a story?” [214] “No,” they all said, and he turned in the other direction also. “Don’t you know one story?” “No; we do not.” He then said to his father: “They do not know any stories.” And his father, Qîñgi, said, “Ītꜝē′i, let one of your companions relate to me ‘Raven traveling,’” by which he made Nᴀñkî′lsʟas so ashamed that he hung his head.

By and by, lo, a small, dark person, who sat on the right side, threw himself backward where he sat. “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the village of the master of stories, Qîñgi.” When he said this the people in the house were [startled], as if something were thrown down violently. “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the supernatural beings came to look at a ten-jointed łqeā′ma [215] growing in front of the village of the master of stories, Qîñgi. There they were destroyed.” “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the supernatural beings came and looked at a rainbow [216] (a story name) moving up and down in front of the village of the master of stories, Qîñgi. There they were destroyed [said the next].” “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the supernatural beings once came to look at Greatest-sea-gull and Greatest-white-crested-cormorant throw a whale’s tail back and forth on a reef that first came up in front of Qîñgi’s town. There they were destroyed.” “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the supernatural beings came to see Harlequin-duck and Blue-jay run a race with each other on the property of the master of stories, Qîñgi. There they were destroyed.” “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the supernatural beings once came to look at the lower section of a wooden rattle lying around which used to sing of itself. [217] There they were lost.” “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the supernatural beings once came to look at an inlet, which broke suddenly through white rocks at the end of Qîñgi’s town, out of which Djila′qons came knitting. There they were destroyed.” “Ya-yā′-ō-ō-ō-ō-ō, the supernatural beings once came to see Tā′dᴀlᴀt-g̣ā′dᴀla and Marten run a race with each other in front of the village of the master of stories, Qîñgi. There they were destroyed.” [What the other three said has been forgotten. [218]]

Then Nᴀñkî′lsʟas started off afoot. After he had traveled for a while he came to the town of Ku′ndji. In front of it many canoes floated. They were fishing for flounders. [219] They used for bait salmon roe that had been put up in boxes. He then desired some, and changed himself into a flounder. And he went out. After he had been stealing the salmon roe for a while they pulled out his beak.

Those people, who then sat gambling in rows in the town, looked at the beak one after another. They handed it back and forth for the purpose. Nᴀñkî′lsʟas looked at it, and said: “It is made of salmon roe.” He then went toward the woods and called Screech-owl. And he pulled its beak out, put it upon himself, and put some common thing into [the owl] in its stead.

By and by they went out again to fish and again he went out. And after he had jerked off many pieces of salmon roe a hook entered one of his lips. They then pulled him to the surface and came ashore, and [the owner] gave it to his child, and they ran a stick through it [to put it over the fire]. And when his back became too warm he thought: “I wish something would make them run over toward the end of the town.” After some time had passed the whole town (i.e., the people of the town) suddenly moved. And right before the child, who sat alone near by, he put on his feather clothing and flew out through the smoke hole. The child then called to its mother: “My food flew away, mother.”

He did not go away from the town, they say. On another day they prepared some food in the morning. Crow invited the people to a feast of cakes made of the inner bark of the hemlock and cranberries mixed together. Among them they called him (Raven). And he refused. “No; you only call each other for mussels.” Afterward he sent Eagle out to see what they did call each other for. And after he had gone thither he said to him: “They call each other for cakes of hemlock bark and cranberries.” “Now, cousin, be my messenger.” Eagle then said: “The chief is coming.” “No; we call each other for mussels.”

Before they had begun eating he ran into the woods. After he had made rotten trees into ten canoes he put in spruce cones, standing them up along the middle. Grass tops he put into their hands for spears. They then came around the point, and he walked near them with his blanket wrapped tightly around him. Terrible to behold, they came around the point, men standing in lines along the middle of the canoes. Leaving their food, the people fled at once. He then went into the house and ate the cakes. He ate. He ate. Where the canoes landed they were washed about by the waves.

He then started off. He traveled about. On the way he got his sister neatly, they say. He then left his sister with his wife. And he started off by canoe. He begged Snowbird [220] to go along with him, and took him for company. He also took along a spear. And short objects [221] lay one upon another on a certain reef. Then, when they came near to it, the bird became different. [222] He took him back. And he begged Blue-jay also to go, and he started with him. But when they got near he, too, flapped his wings helplessly in the canoe. And, after he had tried all creatures in vain, he made a drawing on a toadstool with a stick, placed it in the stern, and said to it: “Bestir yourself and reverse the stroke” [to stop the canoe]. He then started off with him. But when he got near it shook its head [so strong was the influence].

He then speared a big one and a small one and took them back. And when he came home he called his wife and placed the thing he had gone for upon her. And he put one upon his sister as well. Then Sīwa′s (his sister) cried, and he said to her: “But yours will be safe.” [223]

After he left that place he married Cloud-woman. And, as Cloud-woman had predicted, a multitude of salmon came up for him. But, when they were on the point of moving and he went through the middle passage of the smokehouse, salmon bones stuck in his hair, and he used bad language that made his wife angry. [224] She then said to the dog salmon: “Swim away.” From all the places where they lay they began to swim off. And a box of salmon roe on which his sister sat was the only food left in the house.

They then moved the camp empty-handed. And he made himself sick. He went along in the bow beside the salmon roe. After he had gone along for a while his sister smelt something, and he said it was a scab he had pulled off with his finger nails. After she had spoken about it many times as they went along he threw Sīwa′s’s box empty ashore.

And after they had gone along for a while they built a camp fire. He then put yellow cedar upon the fire. After it had given forth sparks for a while one flew between Sīwa′s’s legs. He then told her a remedy: “Now, go around in the woods exclaiming, ‘I call for medicine.’ When something says ‘Yes,’ go over to it and sit down where a short red thing sticks up.” And after he had spoken to her, and she had called about for a while, something said “Yes.” And after she had looked for it [she saw] something red sticking up. Then she sat down there. Lo, she discovered her brother lying on the ground under her.

He then became ashamed, and drew something with the tip of his finger. Right there a child cried. And he took it out [of the ground]. And he put boards round it as people were going to do in the future. Then the child became old enough to play. And he went around after [the child]. One time when it went out to play it vanished forever.

Then he started to search for it. He put on his feather clothing and flew over the whole of this country. He did the same upon Mainland. When he could by no means find it, he heard that the supernatural beings had taken it because he (Raven) used to fool them. He then stopped searching. When the boy stood up, lightning used to flash around his knee-joints. He was named Sᴀqaiyū′ł.

One day some one with disheveled hair came in. “Father, I come in to you.” Then he (Raven) spat upon his face. “Sᴀqaiyū′ł was not like that.” And when he went out, lightning played around his knee-joints. He vanished at once. Then he cried; he cried.

Then he put his sister into his armpit and started off with her. And after Siwa′s had finished her planting at Ramsey island he came, stood on the inner side of Ramsey island, and begged all kinds of birds to accompany him. They went after cedar-bark roofing in preparation for a potlatch. They soon got this out upon the open ground. He then caused the cedar bark to be left there. [225]

And, when they became hungry, he called all kinds of animals. And, after they came floating in front of him on their canoes, he came out wearing black, shabby clothing. He then spoke. They did not understand. And they sent for Porpoise-woman. And when she came he (Raven) said: “I am the sides and I am the ends, between which I qᴀlaastī′s.” [226] Then she said: “How would they get along if I were absent? He wants them to fight him with abalones and sea eggs.” They then threw these at him. And he ate. And, since the house was too small, he started to potlatch outside. All the supernatural beings whom he had invited came by canoe.

Then he made holes in the beaks of all kinds of birds. And Eagle, too, asked to have his pierced. He became wearied by his importunities and made them anyhow. That is why his nasal openings now run upward.

[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 [227] with tear marks on their faces, he asked: “What causes your tear marks?” They then answered: “Raven [228] 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. [229]

[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.” [230]

[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. [231] It began to drop fat into the fire. Then Raven roasted his, but it became dry. 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]

On the way from this place he begged for canoe companions. [232] He begged all kinds of birds to come. Then Blue-jay offered himself to him, and he said: “No: you are too old to come.” But he insisted. He then seized him by the top of his head and pulled him into the canoe. For that reason the top of his head is flattish. And he completed his begging for comrades.

They all got then into the canoe. And it set off. It went. It went. It went. It went. They stopped in front of the Halibut people. Hu-hu-hu-hu-hu, [233] they came down to the beach in crowds. “Raven is going to war,” they said one to another as they came down to meet him. And he asked them to go, too, as companions, and they went. They fixed themselves along the bottom of the canoe like skids [234] and started. They went. They went. And before daylight they landed at the end of his (the enemy’s) town. Then his Halibut people lay [in two rows], with their heads outward, along the path which extended down from the house. Outside of them the birds also stood in lines. They hid themselves behind the halibut. After they had been there a while he came out wearing his dancing hat. When he came out one of the halibut flopped his tail at him. He fell down. The next one, too, wriggled his tail. So they continued to do until they brought him in. [235] Then he asked them why they did this to him. And they said they did it because he blew too long. They then let him go. And they started back. This was Southeast-wind, they say. After they had gone along for a while they set down the halibut at their homes, and the birds also went away.

And after he had traveled about for a while he came to some children playing and offered to join them. “I say-y-y, playing children, let me play with you-ou-ou.” “No-o-o; you would eat all of our hair se-e-e-al.” And he said: “My grandfather has gone after some for me. My father has gone after some for me.” They then let him play with them. Then he devoured all of the children’s hair seals, and they were all crying for them.

He also started away from that place. After he had gone along for a while he found a flicker’s feather floating near the shore and said to it: “Become a flicker.” It at once flapped its wings.

And after he had traveled thence for a while he came to the place where Master Fisherman [236] and his wife lived. He wanted Raven’s flicker; so he gave it to him. “Things like this are found on an island that I own.” And he said he would show it to him. And after he said he would show it to him Master Fisherman baited a halibut hook taken from among those hanging in bunches on the wall. When he had let it down into the hole into which they used to vomit sea water he pulled out a halibut, and his wife split it open and steamed it. When it was cooked the three ate it.

They went to bed, and next day he took him (Master Fisherman) to see the flicker island. Then he arrived there and said to Master Fisherman: “Do not get off.” Then he (Raven) landed. He broke off the ends of cedar limbs. And he wounded his nose. As he went along he let the blood run down into his hands. And he threw around the cedar twigs with blood upon them. “Change to flickers,” he repeated. Then they flew in a flock. And he brought some in. “Now, get off. There are plenty of them,” he said to him. Then he landed.

[Continued by the Chief of Kloo.]

And he (Raven) lay down in the canoe and began to drift away with the wind, and he (Master Fisherman) shouted to him: “Say, you are drifting away. You are drifting away.” He paid no attention to him. [237] He got far off. Then he started away [by paddling]. Then he made himself appear like Master Fisherman, and landed in front of his wife’s [house]. And he said: “Behold, it was the one always doing such things. There is not a sign of the things he went to show me.” And after he had had her as his wife a while he said: “My child’s mother, differently from my former state, I am hungry.” Then she steamed a fat halibut for him, and he ate it. After he had remained sitting for a while, he said: “My child’s mother, differently from my former state, I would like it.” [238] Then he again drank salt water. And after he had drunk salt water he baited the halibut hook and let it down into the hole where sea water was vomited out. The same thing as before happened. He pulled a halibut out.

And when his wife went after some water, lo, her husband sat near the creek and said to her: “That was the same one who is always doing such things. Stop all the holes in the house. As soon as he drifted away from it (the island) I wished my hair-seal club would swim over to me.” And to him it swam out. Then it brought him to the land, they say.

Then he ran in with the hair-seal club. And he (Raven) ran squawking about the house. By and by he knocked him down with his club. Then he threw him down into the latrine. And after he had lain there a while he spoke up out of it. [239] Then he took him out and pounded him up again. He even pounded up his bones. And he went down to the beach at low tide and rolled a big rock over upon him.

[End of so-called “old man’s story” and beginning of “young man’s” part [240]]

Then he was nearly covered by the tide. And he changed himself in different ways. By and by, when only his beak showed above water, his ten supernatural helpers came to him. Then they rolled the rock off from him, and he drifted away. The first to smell him among his supernatural helpers was a Tlingit, who wore a bone in his nose [like the shamans.]

After he had drifted away for a while, some people came along in a canoe. “Why does the chief float about upon the water?” And when they got within a short distance he said: “He has a hard time for going after a woman.”

And after he had drifted about a while longer, a black whale came along blowing. And he thought, “I wish it would swallow me.” And, as he wished, it swallowed him. Then he ate up its insides. After he had eaten all he thought: “I wish it would drift ashore with me in front of a town.” And in front of a town it drifted ashore with him.

After they had spent some time in cutting it up, they cut a hole through right where he was, and he flew out. Then he flew straight up. And he turned down at the end of the town, pulled off the skin of an old man living there, threw away his bones, went into his skin, and lived in his place instead of him. By and by they asked him about the something that came out of the whale’s belly. Then he said: “When something similar happened a long time ago they fled from each other in fear.” At once they fled from each other in fear. And afterward he ate the whale they were bringing up. This was why he had changed himself.

[Told by Tom Stevens, chief of Those-born-at-House-Point.]

And one time he had Hair-seal as his wife. Then they had a child. And one day he went after firewood with him. His son was fat, and, pleased at the sight of him, he wanted to eat him. Then he said to him: “I am within a little of eating you.” And after they had come home, and had got through eating, he said to his mother: “Ha ha⁺, mama, my father said to me: ‘I am within a little of eating you.’” And Raven said: “Stop the child.” He made him ashamed. After that he devoured him. [241]

[Continued by the Chief of Kloo.]