160 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [eth. ANN. 31 



going away now to my own home. I took pity on you and your 

 mother. Therefore I came to show you how to make nets." The 

 girl said, "I will go with you. Let my mother go to her own home." 



On the following day the young woman told her mother what her 

 husband had said to her; and the widow felt very sad, yet she had 

 nothing to say. The young man said, "I will take one bundle of 

 dried salmon for you when you go," and the young woman was very 

 glad to go with her husband. 



In autumn, when the leaves were falling, and all the people had 

 assembled in the village, they saw that all their poor relatives had 

 died of starvation. They took the bodies and burned them. The 

 widow returned to the village, and the people thought that her 

 daughter had died because she had been left alone. She did not tell 

 any one that she had plenty of dried salmon. The people, however, 

 tried to find out what had become of her. 



When winter came, the widow called the young men to help her, and 

 they took down two large canoes and went to the place where her store- 

 houses were. Then the young men went up, and saw the houses full 

 of bundles of dried salmon. They carried them down; and when 

 the two large canoes were full, they went home. They carried the 

 bundles of salmon up to the widow's brother's large house. On the 

 following day the two large canoes went again, and both were filled 

 with bundles of dried salmon. Now, the large house was quite full. 

 When all the bundles of dried salmon had been taken to the village, 

 she invited her tribe to give each chief one bundle of dried salmon, 

 and divided one bundle between each man and woman, and her fame 

 spread among all the tribes. They came to buy good dried salmon, 

 and she became very wealthy. The net, however, she did not show 

 to any one. 



The young man took his wife to his home; and when the young 

 woman sat down on one side of the house, a Mouse Woman came to 

 her, and asked her to cast her woolen ear-ornaments into the fire. 

 After the Mouse Woman had taken the burnt ear-ornaments out of 

 the fire, she said, "Don't you know who married you ?" The woman 

 said, "No." — "It is the Spider. He took pity on you, therefore he 

 went to show you how to make a net. Don't eat their food, lest you 

 die! If you take your own food, you will remain a human being; 

 but if you eat theirs, you will become a spider." Thus said the 

 Mouse Woman, and then she went away. 



The woman's husband showed her some more kinds of netting, and 

 the following summer the Spider's wife went home to her mother's 

 camp, and she showed her mother what she had learned in the house 

 of the Spider. 



This is how the people in olden times learned how to make nets. 

 That is the end. 



