boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAJS MYTHOLOGY 629 



After he has obtained the love of his uncle's wife, the story goes 

 on as follows: 



His uncle's wife induced her husband to go sealing, lie left at midnight. The 

 boy put on two sky blankets and painted his face. Then it thundered underground. 

 It always thundered when Great Breakers lay with hi* wife Soon the husband came 

 back, and asked his wife, "Why did it thunder?" She replied, "It happens with, 

 your nephew as it happens with you " Ska. [The uncle's wife was sitting on the 

 top platform, making mats, and the boy put himself around her, his feet under her 

 right arm, his body on her back, his head under her left arm. (Compare Ska the boy 

 seized his aunt in his father's village.) While his uncle is out, he goes to the woman, 

 and it thunders. This proves to his uncle that his wife is faithless Skg. The boy- 

 changed into a youth and went to his uncle's wife, who did not believe that it was he. 

 She went to look for the infant in his mother's bed; and since he was not there, she 

 believed him. He made an appointment with her for the following morning in the 

 woods. There he showed her his sqa'llsit blanket. She told her husband's sister 

 what had happened, and convinced her by showing her the blanket. Her husband 

 came home without seals, and knew by this that his wife was not true to him. She 

 told him what had happened, and the next day he observed his nephew from behind 

 a point of land Hai 5. In Ska it is said that the boy staid with his mother, and that 

 his soul went out hunting, flying, and seducing his aunt.] 



In Ska follows the deluge made by his uncle, who puts on his hat, the top of which 

 turns, and out of which rushes a whirlpool. The boy puts on his raven skin and flies 

 up to the sky after he has floated out of the smoke hole. He runs his beak into the- 

 sky, his tail floats on the water, which he kicks down so that it subsides. In flying 

 down he strikes the smoke of his uncle's house. His uncle then calls him chief of 

 chiefs. [In Sk<7 this incident is placed after Qingi's flood, which will be found discussed 

 on p. 637. When the waters pour out of his uncle's hat, he puts on the .skin of the 

 bufllehead and floats out of the smoke hole, then the raven skin, and flies to the sky. 

 He makes a chain of arrows reaching from the sky to the waters, and fastens his bow 

 to the lower end of the chain. He climbs the chain and pierces the sky. He finds 

 five countries and the singing women referred to before. In Hai 5 the incident 

 follows immediately the discovery of the woman's faithlessness. In this version he 

 also pierces the sky and finds five countries, one over the other (probably a five-row 

 town). In Kai 5.306 he drowns his uncle by placing his feet against his hat. His 

 uncle's wife is transformed into a whirlpool.] 



In Skg follows Raven's transformation into a hemlock leaf, which the Sky chief's 

 daughter swallowed. After two months she gave birth to a child, which at night 

 gouged out the eyes of the people of four towns. He roasted the eyes in the ashes and 

 ate them (see p. 746). An old man (probably better a woman, stone from her hips 

 down) observed him. Then the Sky chief broke the stone floor of his house and 

 threw him down. The earth was still covered with water, only the top of a totem- 

 pole being visible. The child landed on it, and the pole split. Then the water 

 subsided. [In Sk 5.307 this incident is omitted. He merely returns to earth.] 



Here belongs also M 296. He spoils a person's property and is thrown into the sea. 

 where he falls on a stone that he has prepared for himself. 



In Ska this incident is placed at the very beginning of the Raven 

 myth in which, as mentioned before, the Raven is not really the 

 son of NAnkilsLas's sister, but merely enters his body; so thai the 

 whole important story appears as one of the exploits of his migra- 

 tion — an arrangement that does not seem very plausible. We shall 

 consider next, before a fuller discussion of these points, the beginnings 

 of the tale in Ska, 



