boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 627 



in the house-corner (probably the woman who is rock from the hips down) saw what 

 he did and how he made the ghost lie down again, and how he resumed his form 

 and his place in the cradle. The people learned that he had taken his aunt and his 

 mother, and drove out Flood-Tide Woman and her son Ska.] The chief's nephew 

 was the lover of Flood-Tide Woman. Therefore her husband sent her back to her 

 brother Sko\ 



The last of these versions seems plausible, since it explains the 

 woman's later action when she saves her husband's nephew, and 

 since it agrees with her brother's remark on her return, referring to 

 her habitual faithlessness. This whole passage is a repetition of 

 Raven's love-making in his uncle's house, and is supposed to have 

 occurred in his father's village, whither Flood-Tide Woman had 

 followed her husband. This accounts also for the Kaigani incident 

 of her return Kai 5, which would otherwise be quite unintelligible. 

 The whole is an expression of the amorous propensities of Raven. 

 According to Haida customs, the aunt whom he seduces in his 

 father's town might become his uncle's wife, and the two personages 

 might easUy be identified in the narrator's imagination; so that the 

 later attempts on the part of Raven to seduce his uncle's wife might 

 appear as a continuation of his previous endeavors, or, placing the 

 girl in her father's house, it would be an extension of his courting to 

 a previous period. The incestuous intercourse between Raven and 

 his mother Ska does not seem plausible. 



On their way to Skidegate they found a young sea otter, out of whose skin the 

 woman made a blanket for her son Ska. [On her way she felt hungry, and tried 

 twice to start a fire with a fire-drill, but did not succeed. The boy struck the ends 

 of two large sticks together, and thus procured fire Ska.] When she reached her 

 brother's house, somebody put his head out and saw her Ska. [A large pole stood 

 in front of her brother's house in Skidegate. The slaves who were outside saw her 

 coming Skg. In Hai 5 (Skidegate version) the brother is called NAnkilsLa's; the 

 sister is the Loon, cuva'c] When they informed her brother, he said, "She has 

 done as she always does (that is, been unfaithful to her husband), and for that 

 reason she comes back again " Ska, jr. She staid near the doorway Skijr. 



Her brother asked her how she would name her child, and she replied, "Nau- 

 H'lsLas-lina'i." He objected, "Name him differently, lest the supernatural beings 

 who are afraid to think of the one who bears that name hear that a common 

 child is so called." The child would bang the door, and Great Breakers ordered her 

 to stop that common cliild from doing so. She said she could not do so Ska. The 

 child would defecate in the house all the time Ska, a, so that the uncle's slaves had 

 to carry out the excrements in buckets Ska. Therefore his uncle's wife disliked 

 him Ska. 



Once when his fathers went about on the sea, he ordered his dog to ask the tide to 

 leave the killer whales dry on the beach. They struggled on the beach, and Flood- 

 Tide Woman poured water over her lover, Fin Turned Back, and refused to do the 

 same favor to her husband. Then the boy made the dog call the flood-tide, and asked 

 for a present in return for saving the killer whales. They were on their way to buy 

 whales, and left one for the boy. He made a house of hemlock branches, and birds 

 settled on his whale. Then he shot a bufnehead, put on its skin, and was able to 

 swim. He tried to shoot a bluebird, and at last hit it. He put on its skin, and was 

 able to fly. He flew down against a rock, cried like a raven, and his voice split the 

 rock Ska. [At night, when the people were asleep, he would go to shoot birds, 



