346 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY .[bth. ann. 31 



formed into minks, which cried pitifully. The people disappeared, 

 and then - canoe took its true shapo. It was an old log of driftwood. 



After a while the Land Otters made another attempt to get hold of 

 the man, but in vain. 



One evening, while he was seated by the fire, he heard the voice of a 

 woman, saying, "My dear, don't be afraid! I am your friend. Here 

 I have food for you. Trust me!" Immediately a woman stepped 

 up to him and gave him fish and seaweed. Although he was very 

 hungry, he did not eat. The voice called him by name, and promised 

 to bring 1dm food regularly, saying, "Don't look at me, just look at 

 the dishes ! " but he looked straight in her face, and shouted, "Eat it 

 yourself, you Land Otter!" The woman continued to ask him to 

 accept the food, but he did not yield. Every evening he heard her 

 voice. One day it seemed to him that the voice was like that of Ins 

 sister who was drowned when his canoe was capsized. He questioned 

 her, and she replied, "Yes, I am your sister's ghost." Then he thought, 

 "I ought not to be afraid of my own sister," and accepted what she 

 offered to him. The food did not do him any harm. Then he began 

 to hunt seals, winch he killed with his club. Nevertheless he contin- 

 ued to be on his guard, for he was afraid of the Land Otters; and he 

 made up his mind that if a canoe should arrive, he would first burn the 

 paddles and knock a hole in the body of the canoe, in order to make 

 sure that the visitors were not Land Otters. Finally, after he had 

 been away for a whole month, a real canoe came and took him home. 

 Thus he was saved. 



61. The Deluge 1 



At the end of our ancestors' time the people lived on Skeena River, 

 as I have told in another story, in a place named Prairie Town; 

 and most of the people were clever, good hunters, and brave war- 

 riors. One day some hunters left their home and went toward 

 the east. They came to a great lake named Lake Of The Beginning. 

 This was the lake of Skeena River. When the hunters reached there, 

 the waters of the great lake began to rise, and the lake overflowed. 

 The waters ran down the Skeena River, and almost all the villages 

 on the river were swept by the currents. The hunters looked on, 

 and, behold! a great whale 2 rose to the surface of the lake. The 

 water of the Lake Of The Beginning rose because the great whale 

 came up. It had gills like a fish, and four fins in a row along the 

 back, like the fin of a killer whale which is near its spouting-hole. 

 When the great whale went down, the waters subsided. 



The next year two brothers of the same village started and went 

 to the Lake Of The Beginning to get supernatural power. The elder 



