boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 773 



the youth wishes to marry a woman (II </). They go on, and pass the country of 

 various kinds of salmon. Finally they come to the house of the Spring Salmon. 

 (Here the incident of vagina dentata is introduced, that is not found in the other 

 Salmon stories, but which is characteristic of the story of the Transformer's marriage as 

 told by the Kwakiutl [see Co 5.69]) BC 5.266. It is implied also in the doubtful 

 story M 349, in which mention is made of a traveler who meets a dangerous woman 

 (see No. 63, p. 604; No. 12, p. 614; 809). 



The chief tells the boy that he sent for him because he unfolded his feet and arms 

 when taking the salmon out of his mother's box, and that this cured him Ts 195. 



A woman tells him that he was taken away because he had said something against 

 the Salmon people Tl 313. 



(i b) The Salmon Village 



I iehind the houses, on a sand-hill, children are playing. The boy clubs one. It is 

 transformed into a spring salmon, which he roasts, and throws the bones into the fire. 

 Then he goes to a brook and drinks. In the evening a boy cries, "My eye is sore!" 

 The visitor is told by the Mouse to look for the eye of the salmon, which he finds and 

 throws into the fire. At once the boy is well. Next the same happens with a rib 

 Ts 194. 



He eats fish eggs in the town, and is laughed at because he is eating dung Tl 313. 

 He sees salmon eggs lying about. When he eats them, people say he is eating dung Kai 

 243, Sk 8. When the people are visiting the country beyond the ocean, Bluejay eats 

 berries, and the dwellers of that -country shout, " He is eating excrement!" Chin 56. 



The Salmon people take him to Amusement Creek, where cranes jump up and down 

 facing each other, and where all kinds of birds are shouting Tl 302, Tl 312. 



He is told to catch salmon in a creek and to roast them whenever hungry, to put the 

 leavings and the roasting-sticks into the water. The eye of one person is sore, and he 

 is told that he must have left it on shore Tl 313. 



There are crowds of people, the souls of the Salmon that have been killed. A woman 

 who had been taken there before tells him to go to the playground, to pull a child out 

 of the stream and cook it and throw the bones into the water. One child has a sore eye, 

 which becomes well when a salmon eye that he lost is thrown into the water Kai 243. 



A person half rock tells him not to eat what is offered to him. The person who is 

 half rock tells him to get salmon from a stream at the end of the town, to roast it on a 

 spit, and throw the bones into the fire. He leaves the eye of a salmon, and the chief's 

 son is sick until the remains of the salmon eye are burned. The same happens with a 

 rib Sk 8. 



There is no description of the Salmon village in BC 5.266. 



The youth is told to g6 to the playground of the children, and to throw one of them 

 into the water. It is turned into a salmon, which he takes home. When throwing the 

 bones into the water, he overlooks one eye, and the boy has only one eye. It is restored 

 when the eye is thrown into the water H ap 886. 



When the boy arrives at the Salmon village, a woman who sits in front of a house 

 weaving a basket tells him to kill a boy and throw the bones back into the water. 

 Since the eyes are not thrown back, the boy is blind, but recovers when the eyes are 

 put into the water Chil 24. 



The most important element in the descriptions of the Salmon 

 village is the transformation into salmon of the young men who are 

 killed, and their restoration. This incident is a prominent element in 

 the Bungling Host story (see p. 698), and occurs also in a number of 

 other tales referring to visits to the Salmon country or to the ob- 

 taining of salmon. The revival of animals whose bones are thrown 

 either into the water or into the fire occurs also separately. 



