boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OP TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 755 



■wood and bone. They succeed when they use yellow cedar. They succeed in getting 

 her down. The brothers feel disgraced, leave the village, and become the Thunders. 

 The rest of the story does not belong here Tl 175. 



The young woman who has been taken away by the Otters, and who has given 

 birth to a boy, is told by Mouse Woman to kill the Otters. She closes the holes of 

 the den except one, makes a smudge, and clubs the Otters as they come out. This 

 makes her son unhappy. After some time the young Otter wants to visit his maternal 

 grandfather. On his return he promises his mother to take her home. He makes 

 her sit on his back. When he is tired, he tells his mother to drop some gravel, which 

 is transformed into a sandbar. Finally she gives some gravel to the young Otter, 

 who makes a sand-spit which stretches out to the mainland. They walk home. He 

 carries her to a place near his grandfather's house. The women see him and try to 

 club him, but his mother takes him up and they enter the house. Her parents recog- 

 nize her, and she tells her story. The child goes hunting and brings vast amounts 

 of food, so that the grandfather becomes very rich. One tribe is not invited. One 

 day her Otter is out hunting. Some hunters of that tribe kill him because they do 

 not know him. The grandfather sends out to find out what has become of him, and it is 

 discovered what has happened. The people who killed him pay for the loss they 

 have inflicted upon the chief Ts 168. 



The old woman rooted to the floor advises the young woman to place pitch wood 

 around the house, to lay a flat stone in the doorway, and to burn the house. At night 

 she sets it on fire and clubs the Otters as they try to pass out at the door. The woman 

 tries to return home," but does not know the way. She gives birth to a young Otter, 

 which gets food for her. Finally he brings a tree from his grandfather's town. He 

 carries his mother to her home village. When they are on the way, a gale sets in and 

 they return. They try again and cross the sea. She sits down at the place where 

 people get water, and is found. The young Land Otter begins to bring food to the 

 people. Finally the young-man Otter returns home. The young woman cries, tells 

 her father that her son has come to take her, and dies Kai 254. 



Before the bears go into their dens, the Bear chief asks the young woman, "How 

 many mats have your brothers?" She gives a certain number for each, which means 

 that as many bears will be killed as each brother has mats. The Bears gather pro- 

 visions and go into their dens. Next the brothers stay out hunting, and the youngest 

 one finds the den of his sister's husband . The dogs find the den, but he can not go up. 

 His sister sees him, makes a snowball, and throws it down. It strikes one of his snow- 

 shoes, and he sees the impressions of her fingers. The dogs reach her and wag their 

 tails. After the brother arrives, the sister gives birth to two children. She tells her 

 brother to make a smudge and to suffocate the Bear. She orders him not to kill him 

 with a spear. She sings a song, and gives detailed orders to her brother how to cut 

 the Bear's body in accordance with instructions given at a previous time by the Bear 

 himself. The sister and her two cubs are taken home. When they see clouds rising 

 on the hills, they call it the smoke for their Bear grandfather. When one of them 

 falls against his maternal grandmother's back, she calls them slaves, and they run 

 away. From time to time they bring food to their mother and their youngest uncle 

 Ts 279. 



Whenever the young woman goes out, she is accompanied by Grizzly Bear women, 

 her sisters-in-law, who guard her. Mouse Woman tells her the way home. One day 

 when they are out, she pretends to help her sisters-in-law to put a load on their backs, 

 but instead ties them to stumps. Then she runs away, pursued by the Grizzly Bears. 

 (Here follows another story, telling of her marriage to a water-being [see p. 838].) 

 Ts 1.155, Ts 5.295. 



The Tlingit stories based on the forcible abduction of a woman 

 also close with her liberation or with the revenge of the people. 



