826 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [ETH. ANN. 31 



sight of the blind man. This mailer had gotten into his eye because he had been care- 

 less in hunting. The woman finds the blood that had been removed from her hus- 

 band's eye, and thinks that he is dead. The man goes home, tells his son what has 

 happened, and does not allow the woman to enter. She freezes to death, and is 

 transformed into a hooting owl. One day when the owl flies over his head, he falls 

 down dead Ts 246. The transformation into a night owl of a woman who is left out- 

 side in the cold is repeated in Kai 238. 



The Rivers Inlet version is similar to the Tsimshian tale. 



A successful hunter cuts his game with shell knives, and blood squirts into his eye. 

 This makes h im blind . A bear appears on the other side of a river. The woman aims 

 the arrow, and the man shoots the bear. She tells him that he has missed it, but 

 against her orders one of her sons gives his father a piece of the meat and tells him 

 what has happened. The father asks the boy to take him up to the upper mountain, 

 where his eyesight is restored. Then he sends him home. He swims and prays to 

 the Loon, 1 who dives with him. After diving four times for a very long time, he has 

 recovered his eyesight. He kills his wife and his sons, except the youngest one 

 Ri 5.228. 



After this the travels of the man are described. He marries among 

 the Bellabella; and here follows the story of the deserted sea-lion 

 hunter (see p. 818), which in our series forms part of the Asdi-wa'l 

 story. 



Following is a Kwakiutl version: 



The children of a blind man find a salmon in the river. The father tells them to put 

 up a salmon trap. Mother and children eat, while the blind father is starving. The 

 children see a black bear on the other side of the river, point their father's arrow at it, 

 and he shoots the bear. He thinks he hears that his arrow strikes the bear, but the wom- 

 an saj she missed it. In the same way he kills a deer and mountain goats. He tells his 

 wife to eat as much tallow as she pleases and to lie down. She does so, drinks water, 

 and is transformed into a white stone. (See also the end of the Waux story, p. 825.) 

 The man goes up the river alone. He reaches a lake. The water shakes, and a loon 

 appears, which dives with him. When he gets out of breath, he pokes the loon. 

 This is repeated several times, and the loon takes him to the house of a supernatural 

 being, where his eyesight is restored. He returns, finds his children dead, and 

 restores them by sprinkling them with the water of life. He restores his wife by 

 sprinkling the stone with the water of life. Then he transforms her into a deer. By 

 sprinkling her he retransfonns her, and finally makes her a "woman of the woods." 

 This is followed by a meeting between the blind man and his brother, the Thunder- 

 bird, which does not belong to our story K 9.447. 



According to Swanton, the Kaigani story (Kai 263) and the Masset 

 story (M 353) are identical. In the Masset version it is stated that 

 the story orgmated among the Tlingit. 



At Qaik!, a Tlingit town on Kupreanof Island, lived a man who had been a good 

 grizzly hunter, but who in his old age had become unsuccessful. He lives alone with 

 his wife, who digs clams, on which they subsist. One day he tells his wife to look at 

 a certain place. She sees a grizzly bear there, tells her husband, who asks for his 

 belt, bow, and arrows. She leads him out, puts up a support for the arrow, and aims 

 for him. Then the man shoots the bear. She claims that he missed it. She abandons 

 her husband aud lives on the meat of the bear. The husband creeps to a trail, and 

 reaches a pond. A loon cries and asks him to get on its back. The loon looks like a 



1 Erroneously translated in the original as "goose." 



