boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 739 



taken revenge. He gives him his blanket and tells him to juinr down, saying, "On 

 the thumb!" and before landing, "On the sand!" Thus the man saves himself , and, 

 according to instructions, he burns the bones of the goats. Since that time people inoiu 

 that animals must not be maltreated, and that the meat and bones must be burned Ts 131. 

 Asdi-wa'l has been sent by his father-in-law to hunt mountain goats. He crosses a 

 range and sees a large house on a plain. The goats are inside, and a shaman goat 

 dances around in a circle to see the future. One goat beats the drum in the corner 

 of the house. The shaman goat jumps over the fire, followed by a female lamb. 

 Asdi-wa'l stands outside. He hears him singing, "People vanish!" The song also 

 mentions the smell of Asdi-wa'l. Then the latter enters, and killsall the goats Ts 1.91. 



The parallel part of the Kwakiutl story is as follows: 

 A mountain-goat hunter follows four mountain goats through a long cave. He hides 

 near the corner of the house and hears singing. The ceremony is disturbed because 

 he is looking on. The Mouse is sent out to see whether any one is near by. She 

 gives him advice; and when he jumps in, he sees the mountain goats dancing, with a 

 feather. The principal mountain goat has one horn. The rest of the story deals 

 with the ceremonial K 10.11. A briefer version of this story has been recorded in 

 5.169. 



The house of the Mountain Goats appears also in a Lillooet tale 

 recorded by Hill-Tout 6.191, which differs, however, still more from 

 the preceding stories. It deals with the fate of a hunter who was 

 taken to the house of the Goats in order to be instructed in the taboos. 

 In this respect it resembles the Tsimshian story. The same topic is 

 treated in Tl 58, in which story it is told that a hunter is taken into 

 his house in the mountain by the Mountain Sheep, who appears as a 

 man with white beard. 



Similar concepts are touched upon in K 9.9, K 10.17, where the 

 one-homed Mountain Goat appears, who is a chief or chief's messen- 

 ger among the Goats. Marriages among the Goats are the subject of 

 the tales U 258, U 261, Sh 5.12. 



13. The Giant Devilfish (p. 135) 



Hunters see from the shore how the chief's son of the Eagle Clan of the Killer 

 YHiales is killed by a Giant Devilfish. The chief Killer Whale sends messengers to 

 make war on the monster. The hunters see them coming. The battle between the 

 warriors of the Killer Whales and the Giant Devilfish is described in detail. The 

 Raven and Wolf Clans and the G'ispawadwE'da obtain five of the monster's arms. 

 Finally a warrior of the Raven Clan kills the monster. After many years the sons of 

 the Eagle chief are killed by a descendant of the Giant Devilfish. The birds make 

 war on it, and the Raven succeeds in killing it, For this reason the devilfish is 

 afraid of the raven (see p. 100).— An analogous tale is found in M 392, where it is 

 told that different kinds of killer whales or fish make war on the Giant Devilfish. 



14. The Hunter's Wife who Became a Beaver (p. 138) 

 A raccoon hunter is very successful. While he is skinning the animals, his wife 

 asks him to look at her. He becomes impatient and scolds her. This makes her 

 ashamed. She goes into the woods, dams up a river, and swims about in the water. 

 The man calls her back, but she refuses to come. He requests his wife's brothers to 

 induce her to come back, but they also are unsuccessful. She stays in the water, 

 and finally becomes a beaver. The woman had red hair, therefore all bearers have 

 red hair. 



