boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 869 



Ts'ak' takes revenge on the Wolves. A supernatural being tells him to blow sickness 

 through a hollow bone into the daughter of the chief of the Wolves. The Wolf shamans 

 can not cure her. He claims to be a shaman, sends his grandmother to offer his 

 sen-ices. He cures the girl, and receives as reward the sick girl and a slave named 

 Drum Belly N 122. 



Parallel to this is a Masset tale. A boy has been deserted with his grandmother. 

 The boy makes himself into a shaman and goes to cure the child of his uncle who 

 had deserted him M 417. 



Here follows Ts'ak's visit to the sky. He desires to get another wife, and starts, 

 accompanied by his slave Drum Belly, and several Birds. He reaches a burning 

 mountain, which he tries unsuccessfully to cross by assuming the shape of various 

 birds. He lies down, and is called by a Mouse, whose house is under a bunch of grass. 

 He obtains her good will in the usual way, and is shown the trail that leads to the other 

 side under the mountain. At the end of the trail he reaches another Mouse, who 

 gives him advice. Then follows the marriage between Ts'ak' and the daughter of 

 the chief, and the tests of the son-in-law, as discussed on pp. 794 et scq. N 120. 



Growing Tip Like One Who Has A Grandmother (N, p. 137) 



This story belongs to the type of tales of boys who are deserted 

 by the tribe (see p. 783) . The introduction is somewhat different here ; 

 but the second part of the story, telling how the boy becomes rich 

 and how he rescues the people who have deserted him and who are 

 starving, is the same as usual. 



A chief's nephew is a poor orphan. A light conies down from heaven and hangs at 

 the end of a branch. It proves to be copper. The chief promises his daughter to the 

 one who will knock it down. The orphan boy receives from a supernatural being 

 stones of four different colors, and with the last stone knocks it down; but the young 

 men take the copper away from him, and claim to have hit it. The next day a white 

 bear is heard behind the village, and the chief's daughter is promised to him who 

 kills it. The orphan boy kills it with his arrow. The other youths claim to have 

 killed it; but the youth's arrow is found, and thus the chief learns that his nephew 

 has killed the bear. The chief is ashamed, and deserts his nephew, his daughter, 

 and their grandmother. The boy goes to a pond and shouts. A giant frog, the 

 guardian of the pond, emerges and pursues the boy. The boy makes a trap and catches 

 the frog in it. 



The sea monster caught in a trap is mentioned in M 614, 624; 

 Sk 283. 



He skins the frog, goes into the pond, and catches a trout. He puts the trout on 

 the beach. In the morning a raven finds it and begins to croak. The princess sends 

 the boy to look, and he brings the trout. Every night he goes out and catches in 

 succession trout, salmon, halibut, bullheads, seals, porpoises, sea lions, and whales. 

 Finally the princess discovers that he catches them, and asks him to many her. 

 They have two children. The chief's people are starving; and the chief sends a 

 man and some slaves to see if his nephew, his daughter, and their grandmother are 

 dead. The boy gives them food to eat, and they report what they have seen. The 

 people return; and he sells his provisions for slaves and elk skins, gives a potlatch, 

 and becomes a chief. Finally he is unable to take off his frog blanket, and stays 

 in the sea, whence he provides his wife and children with food N 165. 



The story of a man who kills an animal or a monster, whose skin 

 he. puts on and whose form he thus assumes when out hunting, occurs 

 frequently in the mythology of the Haida. 



