206 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [etii. axn. 31 



River." Therefore the Salmon father invited all his people into his 

 house, and told them what his adopted son had said; and all the 

 Salmon were glad, because the prince was wise. Early the next 

 morning they took the prince down to a new canoe. They launched 

 it, and they all went aboard, together with the prince and his friend. 

 Then the Salmon people paddled; and as soon as they arrived at the 

 mouth of Skeena River, they saw the ice floating down, therefore 

 they could not go any farther. 



Then the prince said to his companions, "Let us try to go a little 

 farther up;" and the young people pulled very hard to get ahead, 

 but they were hindered by floating ice. Soon they arrived at the 

 mouth of G'itslEmgalon River. Then the prince said to his friend, 

 "You go ashore here and walk up to the village." They both cried 

 for a while, and then separated, their hearts full of sorrow because 

 they were never to meet again. The young man stood on shore, 

 weeping. Then the canoe of the prince went down river quickly, 

 and the young man lost sight of it. Therefore he went up to his 

 own town; and when he arrived there, his parents were glad of his 

 coming. His father called all the people; and when they were all in, 

 the young man told his story — how the Spring Salmon had taken 

 the body of the prince, and that he was living there now, that he had 

 gone with him in the canoe of the Spring Salmon. He continued, 

 "He did not know me at first; and when we reached the place, I 

 remembered that he put a small pebble, into my mouth, so I put it 

 back into his mouth. Then he knew that I was with him. He still 

 loved me, but the Salmon people did not see me at all." Moreover, 

 he told the people that the prince would not come back any more, 

 because the Spring Salmon loved him, and that many of the young 

 Sahnon people loved him much. He. also told the people what advice 

 the prince had given, to be very careful in cutting the spring sahnon 

 when cutting off the head and the tail, and that if they broke the 

 backbone at the head or tail, then thunder and lightning would burn 

 up the mountains and the. village; and he said, "Don't use stone or 

 bone knives, because this will make heavy rains and the rivers will 

 overflow." Furthermore, he said to them, "Don't let the people 

 keep sahnon in their boxes when it is dry, lest there be no salmon 

 the following summer;" but he also told them how the Herrings 

 were dancing every day, and how beautiful the houses of all the 

 Salmon were; that the Spring Salmon had carved houses, and also 

 Silver Salmon, Humpback Salmon, Dog Salmon, Cohoes Sahnon, and 

 Steelhcad Sahnon, but that the houses of Trout were carved bet- 

 ter than all the others; that the Spring Salmon were the chiefs 

 of all the Salmon, and that their town was way out at sea, and so on; 

 and that all the tribes of Salmon were people. This is the end. 

 They have always kept the story of the prince and the Salmon. 



