boas] TSIMSHIAN MYTHS 65 



promise to slacken the tide-line twice a day?" She agreed, and 

 Giant cured her eyes. He had eaten all the shellfish that he had 

 carried up. 



The old woman said, "How can you get water to drink, Giant?" 

 He answered that it was under the roots of the httle alder tree. 1 Soon 

 Giant was thirsty, and he went to drink water, but he could not find 

 any. Finally he went up Skeena River, and there he found water, 

 because the old woman had dried up all the brooks anil creeks. 

 Therefore the tide turns twice every day, going up and down. 



(7) GIANT GAMBLES WITH GULL 2 



He went on and made a house. He saw a sea gull flying about, and 

 said, "Hey!" The Gull continued to fly about, crying, "Ha, ha!" 

 Then Giant ran about and made sticks, intending to gamble, and the 

 Sea Gull came to him. They began to gamble, and soon they began 

 to quarrel; and Giant said, "This is my gambling-stick." Sea Gull 

 said, "No, it is my gambling-stick." Therefore Giant threw the Gull 

 on his back and stepped on his stomach, so that the Gull vomited 

 one olachen. Giant took it, and the Gull flew away. 



(8) GIANT OBTAINS THE OLACHEN 2 



On the following day Giant made a little canoe of elderberry wood, 

 went down the river, and landed at the beach in front of the house of a 

 great chief, Kuwask. After he had rubbed the spawn of the olachen 

 over the inside of his canoe, he entered, and said, "Oh! my clothes 

 are wet, because the Tsimshian were working hard last night, fishing 

 for olachen. Many persons caught two or three canoe-loads of 

 olachen up the river last night." Then the people in the chief's 

 house said, "Oh, how could olachen get there? Their time has not 

 conic yet. They will go up four months and a half hence." They 

 did not believe what Giant said, and continued, "You are a liar, you 

 are a liar!" Giant said, "Look at the inside of my canoe! There 

 are spawn of olachen in it. ' ' The young men went down, and saw 

 that the whole inside of the canoe was full of olachen spawn; and 

 when they lifted up the stern-sheets, they found the tail of an olachen. 

 Therefore the young men returned, went up, and said, "It is true," 

 and showed the olachen tail. Then the great chief said, "Perhaps 

 those foolish young olachens have gone(?)." Moreover, he said, 

 " Go and ask the several chiefs in the village — ask Burst Under The 

 Stern Sheets, ask Stick To The Hot Stone, ask Half Eaten By The 

 Goose, ask Dried In Olachen Box. 3 See what they say!" Then the 

 personwent to ask them. He was sent by the chief, and they all agreed. 

 Therefore the chief ordered the men who were standing in the four 



i See p. 69. 2 Notes, p. 053. 



3 These are names of the various olachen chiefs, and refer to the conditions of the fish during the process 

 of catching and trying out the oil.— F. B. 

 50633°— 31 eth— 16 5 



