boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 855 



purpose; therefore women talk until they forget; they remember, get the box, open it, 

 and destroy the enemies; the youngest is taken from the pole; they spit medicine on 

 him, and he revives; the others are lost; he goes inland; here follows the story how he 

 learns to dive and a story belonging to the Tsauda cycle Ski 346 (see p. 856); the chief 

 in heaven is angry because they abuse the gift, and makes them forget it when they 

 attack the town Gulg'e'u; there the place is called Hwil-d'ak's-ts'ax (" where the club 

 is forgotten "); they go to Prairie Town, settle there, and become the ancestors of the 

 Gisg'aha'st N; in M there follows a tale telling that not long after Lia's children died 

 they made a well behind the town, into which no girl was allowed to look; at that 

 time they established taboos; the well fills with water, which becomes a large river, 

 which sweeps away the middle of the town ; they build a trap on the other side, and 

 the river becomes a lake; there the people are called Salmon-Trap People. 



In the discussion of this story I have omitted the Le'gwilda £ x u story K 5.130. This 

 tells of three brothers and one sister, and the husband of the sister, Nantsuwigame. The 

 four men go hunting together, but the husband is unsuccessful. He suspects his wife, 

 finds her with her lover, whose head he cuts off. The woman flees to her brothers. 

 The husband stays singing in his house. Then the brothers go to the house and find 

 the head, and the husband flees. The story then continues in the form of Burning 

 Leggings (p. 781). It seems fairly clear that this is a distorted version of these stories. 

 As stated in 5.130, 1 suspect very strongly that it is a recent importation from Skeena 

 River. 



50. Story of the Gispawadwe'da (p. 297) 



A man is carried to a bear's den and taught how to catch salmon and how to build 

 canoes. When he returns, he looks like a bear, but by means of medicine he is finally 

 restored. He becomes a successful hunter and assumes the bear crest Ts 297. 



51. Tsauda and Halus (p. 297) 

 (2 versions: Ts 297; Ts 5.298. See also Sk 346) 

 A shining youth from heaven named Tsauda appears to a girl who is carefully 

 guarded. She marries him. The next night Tsauda sends his slave Halus, and she 

 mistakes him for Tsauda. Suddenly Tsauda himself appears and curses his slave. 

 He himself marries the girl's lame sister. He takes her up to the sky, washes her in 

 his father's washtub, and she becomes beautiful and sound of body. 1 Tsauda receives 

 from his father a magic sling and sling-stones. 2 The father-in-law sends Halus to get 

 firewood. Tsauda blows water from his mouth, and wills that the firewood shall pro- 

 duce smoke. It so happens, and Halus is scolded. Next Tsauda gets wood, which 

 burns well. In spring the people move to Nass River. They can not round a point 

 on account of head winds, and Halus is induced to throw a stone from his sling against 

 the point of land. Tsauda wills that it shall fly back and pass through the old chief- 

 tainess's lip-hole. When Tsauda throws, he makes a hole through the rock, through 

 which the canoes pass. Next they throw at a copper hanging on a high mountain. 

 Tsauda wills that Halus' s sling-stone shall pass through his father-in-law's canoe, while 

 Tsauda hits the copper. It slides down, and one part flies to Copper River, another 

 part northwestward. When they go fishing, Halus fills his bag net with leaves, while 

 Tsauda fills his canoe with fish. Halus is ashamed, jumps into the water, and becomes 

 a snag. His wife also jumps into the water, and becomes a codfish. Tsauda's bag 

 net catches in the snag, and Tsauda curses him and transforms him into a red cod. 

 When Tsauda catches the woman who had been transformed into a codfish, he 

 throws her back into the water. Tsauda's wife gives birth to a daughter, who is 

 born with four holes in each ear and a hole in lip and septum. He says the girl is his 

 sister-in-law come back. He announces that he will take his wife up to the sky, and 



' See also p. S70. * These appear also in N 139. 



