428 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [eth. ann. 31 



meet during a famine, each hoping that the other one might assist 

 her (1.71). In the story mentioned hefore, in which the man kills 

 all his sons, fearing their revenge, the mother is described as loving 

 her son and finally running away with him (307). She flees from the 

 ill will of her son's uncle ( 244) . 



The poor lonely woman and her daughter sleep on opposite sides 

 of the fire (1.73). When a supernatural being approaches her daugh- 

 ter, she allows her to be married, pretending not to notice what is 

 going on (158). A bad woman offers her daughter in marriage to a 

 visitor, whom she intends to kill while he is asleep (N 234). The 

 mother urges her son to marry ( 242) . 



Grandparents and Gnnidcliildirn. — Very often the relations between 

 grandparents and grandchildren are referred to. The grandmother 

 who stays with a boy in a small hut on a brook (X 117), the grand- 

 mother who stays with an isolated girl (N 96), and children deserted 

 with their grandparents (see p. 432), are not of rare occurrence. In 

 one tale from Nass River a boy who lives with his grandmother makes 

 fun of her and maltreats her (N 119, N 121), but finally he is anxious 

 to return to her. 



When a woman is married in a foreign country, she likes to send 

 her children back to her father. Thus the Grouse children visit their 

 mother's father, and at his request call in their parents (N 2.30). 

 The children of the princess who drifted away in a hollow tree visit 

 their mother's father (256). The children of the Bear go back with 

 their mother to their grandfather's house (2S3). The woman who 

 had married the Mouse and had drifted to Queen Charlotte Islands 

 also sends back her children to visit her father (234). In several 

 cases the children are sent back because their paternal grandmother 

 scolds them. The incident generally takes the form of the children 

 romping in the house and falling against their father's mother, who 

 then reprimands them and calls them children of slaves (234, 256). 

 In only one case does this incident refer to the mother's mother ( 283) . 



It is stated on 274 that the father of a male supernatural being 

 sends back his son's children to their maternal grandfather. 



A number of cases of adoption are referred to in the tales. The 

 Wolf Woman adopts the slayer of her son in his place (320). She 

 calls the animals to a feast, and shows them her adopted son, who 

 then marries her brother's daughters. A Haida chief adopts girls 

 who drifted ashore near his village in a hollow log, and his sons marry 

 them (255). At another place a couple who have lost their daughter 

 find a girl, and adopt her in place of the dead girl. Then the father's 

 nephews marry her (234). The apparent discrepancy in usage may 

 be due to the fact, that in the first case the Wolf Woman adopts the 

 youth as a member of her clan; in the second the Haida chief makes 



