boas] TSIMSHIAN MYTHS 351 



threw hot ashes over the heads of the people. They say that the 

 great supernatural beings from the mountains took some one and 

 taught him how to act.) 



There was a young prince in a village of the G - it-q !a'°da whose name 

 was Gather On The Water. One winter, when the tune had come for 

 his dance, his father called the companies of Cannibals to let his son 

 join them. Therefore one day these people took the young man, 

 took him around the village, knocked at every house, and, after 

 they had been to every house, all .the men shouted, and said that 

 this young man had gone up into the air or that the supernatural 

 power had taken him away to his home in the mountains. They 

 deceived many common people. These dancers were chiefs and 

 princesses, and all the head men, old and young. 



They took this young man and placed him in the trunk of a large 

 tree secretly. They put a long ladder against the tree and sent the 

 young man up. He went up the tree and entered a small hut. 

 Then they took the ladder away from the tree, intending to come 

 back at the end of ten days. 



The young man staid on the tree; and the first night when he 

 was there, some one came up to his hut, and asked him, "What are 

 you doing in there, young man?" He replied, "I am a dancer." 

 Then the visitor laughed at him, and said, "That is not the way of 

 your dance for the dancer to stay on a tree. Wait until I come 

 again! I will show you the ways of a true dancer." So he went 

 away. After he had been away a short time, he came back with a 

 dead child; and he said to the young man who lived in the hut on 

 the tree, "Now open your mouth and eat this dead child!" The 

 young man was afraid. The person who held the dead child in his 

 arms said again, "If you don't do it, I will eat you right here!" 

 Therefore the young man opened his mouth and swallowed the dead 

 child's body whole. The supernatural being asked him, "Do you. 

 feel satisfied now?" The young man replied, "No, I do not feel 

 that I ate anything." — "Now come with me," said the supernatural 

 being. They flew down to the village, and the supernatural being 

 said to him, "Now shout and catch one of the people!" Then he 

 shouted, "Hop, hop!" caught one of the young men, and ate him 

 as a cat eats a mouse. Thus he did to the young men ; and he acted 

 like the supernatural being, which was glad to see that he had eaten 

 a whole man. Then they went back to the tree; and the super- 

 natural being said to him, "Whenever you feel hungry, take a person 

 and eat him in front of the village." Then the being went away. 



The people in the village always heard a terrible whistle on the 

 tree behind the village, and everybody noticed that before he came 

 down he shouted twice, and then he would fly down and kill some 

 one in front of the village, and everybody was afraid of him. His 



