BOAS] TSIMSHIAN MYTHS 245 



high mountain to live in the hunting-hut. They camped there, 

 as they had often done before. He killed the mountain goats, and 

 they filled the hut with meat and tallow and fat. In the winter he 

 went home, and gave a great feast to all the tribes of the Tsimshian, 

 and he proclaimed his new name which his father Asdi-wa'l had given 

 to him as soon as he was born. His name was Waux; and he was a 

 great hunter in -those days, and his fame spread among all the tribes 

 of the Tsimshian, and the animals of the woods knew him also. 



His two children followed him wherever he went. One time he. 

 went up a newly discovered mountain, and there he lost his two 

 children. They slipped on one side of that new mountain, and both 

 died there in the Valley Of Supernatural Beings. Waux, however, 

 was going to die there too. They mourned for the two children 

 whom he had lost there. So they moved to the old hut at the foot 

 of the high mountain, and Waux went every day to hunt mountain 

 sheep. He enlarged the old hut which his late father had built, and 

 filled it with dried meat and fat. 



Late in the fall, when the leaves were falling, he went up the same 

 mountain for fresh meat. He forgot to take his spear along. He 

 took only his hunting-pole and his dog, his mat blanket, his little 

 root basket, and his hunting-hat. He saw great flocks of mountain 

 sheep, and he pursued them, and the mountain sheep had no way to 

 escape. There was only a narrow cleft on one side of the high 

 mountain. Then all the sheep went into the cleft; and at the end 

 of the cleft there was only bare rock like glass, and all the sheep 

 slipped there. One large sheep was the last; and before the large 

 sheep jumped off the slippery rock, it kicked the side of the mountain, 

 and leaned its head against the rock to show that the mountain was 

 angry with the hunter. 



After the sheep had done so, it leaped down the slippery rock. 

 Then the high mountain shook for a while. Therefore Waux struck 

 his hunting-pole through the hard rock. He took hold of it, and called 

 his dog to his side. When the mountain shook again, he looked 

 down to his hut and shouted down to his wife, saying, "Sacrifice fat 

 to the supernatural powers, for I can neither go on nor turn back!" 

 The woman replied, "I can not hear what you say! What is it?" 

 "Oh, sacrifice fat to a supernatural being!" She cried out and 

 answered, "Shall I eat fat?" Waux answered still louder, "Offer 

 to a supernatural being!" She replied again, "Shall I eat fat?" 

 Waux repeated the same words over and over again, but his wife 

 repeated her own wish. 



Finally Waux shouted, and said, "Go and eat all the fat you can! 

 Melt it all and eat it ; and after you have eaten the melted fat, drink 

 cold water and lie down across an old log!" Then she heard her 

 husband's words distinctly. She hastened into the hut, made a 



