boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 859 



he obtained these crests. The people build a fort with a double wall against the 

 Wolves. The Wolf prince's mother sings her mourning-song, and asks for the body. 

 At night the Wolves attack the fort. They throw down the outer wall, but are unable 

 to break the inner wall. At last the prince says to the Wolf mother that he will ta ke 

 her son's name. She adopts him as ner son. From this time on the prince is suc- 

 cessful again, because the Wolf mother helps him. After the death of his father and 

 mother, the Wolf mother carries him away. She invites all the wild animals, to show 

 them her adopted son. She gives him her brother's two daughters in marriage. The 

 Wolf wives help him when he goes hunting. Finally he becomes homesick. He 

 goes home alone. His body has become hairy. His cousin, the chief, recognizes 

 him and welcomes him. After a while he brings down his Wolf wives too, who help 

 the people hunt by locating the game. When he dies, he orders his children, some 

 of whom are Wolves, not to harm the people. The rest of th i children stay among the 

 tribe. 



There is no strictly analogous story on record. The incident of 

 the stockades built against animals occurs, however, in other con- 

 nections. 



In a Masset story (M 518) it is told that a man is carried away by the Black Bears. 

 Eventually he steals the Bear chief's skin and makes his escape. Here the incident 

 of the fort is introduced (M 522). The people build ten stockades, one inside another. 

 The animals try to overthrow the fort, pull out the posts with their teeth, but are 

 unable to destroy the innermost line. 



54. The Ghost who Fought with the Great Shaman (p. 322) 



A prince and his friends play that they are shamans. He lies down in a coffin and 

 dies at once. His friends watch by the grave-box. but after a while go home one after 

 another. His father takes the body home, places it on a plank, and finds that the 

 heart is still beating. The shamans dance and restore him. The prince has come 

 to be a great shaman, and goes to recover the soul of a person who died. He goes to 

 the village of the Ghosts and takes back the soul. On account of his shamanistic art 

 nobody dies. Therefore the Ghosts try to kill him. Next time when he crosses the 

 bridge to the Ghosts' village the Ghosts try to throw him into the water, which burns 

 his feet (see p. 455). He lies sick in his father's house, but recovers by the aid of his 

 supernatural powers. Next the Ghost chief pretends to be sick, and sends for the 

 prince to cure him. While he is away the Ghosts attack the village, but are beaten 

 back by means of noxious fluids which^re thrown against them. When the prince 

 performs his shamanistic dance around the Ghost chief, he kicks the ground, the earth 

 opens and swallows the chief of the Ghosts, who thus meets his second death. He 

 cures a princess who has been drowned and whose body is found months after. The 

 other shamans become envious and decide to kill him. They give him dried human 

 flesh to eat, and he predicts that he will die, but will revive after a year, provided 

 they will catch him. One of his nephews promises to do so. At the end of one year 

 he arises in the form of an owl. The nephew is afraid, and for this reason all the 

 people die. He becomes the chief of the Ghosts. His companions become powerful 

 shamans. The souls of the shamans who killed him he casts into the burning river 

 that separates the Ghost village from our world. The prince's friends are told by him 

 not to try to resuscitate those who have been dead more than four days. They disobey, 

 and are killed by the Ghost chief. 



55. Great Shaman (p. 331) 



A prince and his companions try to obtain power in a deep pit. The first two have 

 not the courage to go down, but are hauled up again after descending a short distance. 



