boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 835 



be killed. The mats mean the period of purification for each brother. Among the 

 Bears to be killed by the youngest brother is also the young woman's husband. The 

 chief instructs the Bears to gather food, and to go into their dens when they hear the 

 thimder rolling. The brothers go hunting, and the dogs of the youngest one find 

 the den of the Bear who married the young woman . The man can not go up. H is sister 

 sees him and throws down a snowball. The youth finally succeeds in climbing the 

 mountain, and recognizes his sister. The woman gives birth to two children, which 

 she gives to her brother and comes out. She asks him to kill the Bear by means of a 

 smudge. She sings a song and teaches her brother the Bear taboos. She is taken 

 home with her cubs. When these grow up, they go hunting. They call clouds 

 the smoke of their Bear grandfather. One day while they are romping in the house, 

 they fall against the back of their grandmother, who scolds them. They run back 

 to the Bears, but give food from time to time to their uncle Ts 279. 



44. Explanation of the Abalone Bow (p. 284) 



This is the story of a chief who finds a live abalone bow, which 

 becomes his crest Ts 284. 



45. Story of Gunaxnesemga'd (p. 285) 



This story consists of four parts: 

 I. The girl who is taken away by the Bear whom she scolded. 

 II. The marriage of the girl with the lake-being. 



III. The woman carried away by the Killer Whales. 



IV. The origm of the crests of the Raven Clan. 



We have two full versions from the Tsimshian, and one from Skide- 

 gate. Only one of the Tsimshian tales contains the fourth element, 

 which I recorded in 1SSS, however, as a separate story (Ts 5.294). In 

 Masset and among the Tlingit, parts I and III have been recorded 

 separately. The first part appears as the beginning of tales based on 

 the marriage of a girl to a Bear — either Black Bear or Grizzly Bear. 

 We have this form in the Tsimshian story of Part Summer, the Tlingit 

 tale of the origm of copper (Tld), a Bellacoola story, and in a Shu- 

 swap version. The analogy with the Snail story (p. 749) and others 

 of a similar type shows that the return of the young woman to her 

 parents, with or without her children, would be a complete story. 



The connection between the first and the second parts of the story 

 is made by means of the incident telling how the young woman came 

 to marry the lake-being. In the Tlingit, Skidegate, and Masset ver- 

 sions, the Obstacle myth is furthermore introduced as a connecting 

 link. The second part of the story would be complete in itself if the 

 lake-being had abducted the girl. 



In all the versions there is a distinct break between the return of 

 the woman and the incidents relating to the story of the young 

 woman carried away by the Killer Whales and rescued by her hus- 

 band. This lack of connection is also brought out clearly by the fact 

 that among the Tlingit and Masset the two stories are told sepa- 

 rately. The distribution of the story of the woman carried away by 



