boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 825 



(ni/) Asdi-un'l Goes Back to STeeena River 



Asdi-wa'l goes back to Skeena River and finds his first son grown up. He gives 

 him his bow and arrows. Asdi-wa'l goes to the lake of G'inada'°xs. He finds many 

 mountain goats. One day he forgets his snowshoes, and. after climbing the mountain, 

 is unable to move. Both he and his dog are transformed into stone. His soul goes 

 away with his father, the bird of good luck Ts 1.143. 



A fuller version of the end of Asdi-wa'l is contained in the story of 

 Waux (Ts 243). 



The son is a very good hunter, and his father gives him all his huntiDg-utensils, 

 while he himself uses only his bow, arrows, and snowshoes. When Asdi-wa'l is 

 deserted at KsE-ma'ksEn, his uncles take the boy along. After a while the boy and 

 his mother search for Asdi-wa'l, but can not find him. He marries one of his mother's 

 cousins. His wife gives birth to twins. One day when he is hunting mountain goats, 

 the twins, who accompany him, fall down the precipice and die. At one time he 

 forgets his spear, and he reaches a place on a precipice where he can not move. He 

 shouts down to his wife, asking her to sacrifice. She understands that she is to eat 

 fat. After shouting to and fro several times, Waux gets impatient, and tells her to 

 eat melted fat and to drink cold water, and then to lie down across an old log. She 

 does so, breaks apart, and is transformed into flint, while Waux himself is transfQnried 

 into stone. The misunderstanding of an order followed by a transformation occurs 

 also in Sk 362 I (see also K 9.447, p. 826). 



37. The Blind Git-q!a'°da (p. 246) 



(18 versions: Ts 24G; Tl 104; M 353; Kai 263; Ri 5.228; K 9.447; Chil 35; Car 1 171; 

 Loucheux Petitot 7.84; Hare Indians Petitot 7.226; Central Esk Boas 2 625; Cen- 

 tral Esk Boas 3 168; Esk 4 99; Esk East Greenland; 5 Smith Sound Esk 6 169; 

 Assiniboin 7 204; Arapaho 8 286; Osage 9 32) 



The essential part of this story, which is common to all the versions 

 here quoted, tells of a man who lost his eyesight and who was mal- 

 treated by his wife. Later on he recovers his eyesight by magical 

 means and takes revenge. This theme is worked out into a number 

 of different tales. Following is the Tsimshian version: 



A blind man, his wife, and his little son, who loves his father, live on a salmon 

 stream. A grizzly bear appears on the opposite side of the brook. The boy holds 

 the bow for his father, aims the arrow, and the father shoots the grizzly bear, ne 

 hears the grizzly bear groan, and knows that he has hit it. The woman tells him that 

 ho missed it. She makes the boy pick up the arrow, washes it, and tells the man that 

 he had hit a log. The man smells the fat. Every day mother and son eat meat, 

 while the man is starving. The boy gives his father a little meat and tells him what 

 is going on. The father asks the boy to take him to a lake where a loon is crying, 

 who takes rubbish out of his eyes. 10 By repeating this four times he restores the eye- 



1 Morice, Transactions of the Canadian Institute, iv. 



2 Boas, Central Eskimo (6th Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnol.). 



3 Boas 'Bulhtin A in, ncan Museum of Natural History, xv). 

 ' Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. 



s Holm ( itcddelelvr om Greenland, x, p. 31); Thalbitzer Ammassalik Eskimo (ibid, xxxix, 250). 



« Kroeber (Journal of A merican Folk-Lore, xn, 1S99). 



' Robert H. Lowie, The Assiniboine (Anthropological Papers of :h< American Jfr« u n> m 

 tory, vol. rv). 



s Dorsey and Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho 'Field Columbian Museum Anthropol 

 vol. V). 



' G. A. Dorsey, Traditions of the Osage i ibid., vol. vn). 



10 In another connection the Sea Anemone (M 4SS, M 649) and Sea Gull (M 679) give to a person keen 

 eyesight by removing blood from his eyes. See also Sk 115. 



