916 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [bth. ask. 31 



fished for sharks; and the chief Woodpecker said to his speakers, 

 "Let the sharks eat him, as they did my princess! Before you throw 

 him into the lake, take a rock and tie it on his feet, so that he 

 will go to the bottom of the lake quickly, and keep his hands tied 

 together behind him." After he had finished speaking to them, they 

 took poor Kwa'tiyat' away and led him to the lake; and when they 

 came to the lake, they found Kwa'tiyat"s canoe there, and they put 

 him into it and paddled out to the middle of the lake. There they 

 threw him overboard with the rock tied to his feet, and he went down 

 very fast. 



Then the speakers went home; but Kwa'tiyat', when he reached 

 the bottom of the lake, found that he had fallen on the roof of a house, 

 and inside of the house he heard some one groaning with pain. 

 Kwa'tiyat' had become a shaman. He untied his hands and took 

 the rock off his feet; and after he was free, he cried out, "He, he, 

 he!" like a shaman. Then the sick man in the house told his 

 daughter to go and see what was on the house ; and when she came 

 on the roof of her father's house, she saw an ugly old man sitting on it. 

 Without saying a word, she went and told her father that there was 

 a man on the roof; and as she was telling her father about the man 

 on the roof, Kwa'tiyat' cried out, as before, "He,he,he!" as the sha- 

 mans do. The sick old man said to his daughter, "He is a shaman, 

 go and call him in!" The young woman went out of the house and 

 called Kwa'tiyat' in, and he followed her into the house; and as he 

 went into the house, he saw the sick man lie down on his side, close 

 to the fire, with Kwa'tiyat "s spear sticking through his back; and he 

 found out that this man was the great shark that he had speared 

 the day he-told Woodpecker's princess to go into the lake as bait. 

 As he passed the sick man's back, he touched it with his feet, and 

 the sick man groaned with pain. 



Now, Kwa'tiyat' found out that the Shark people could not see the 

 spear; and then he saw that this man was a chief of the Sharks, and 

 that he had very pretty women. Then Kwa'tiyat' began to say once 

 more, "He, he, he!" as if he were a shaman; and he said, "Yes, I am 

 the great shaman of the upper world, and while I was in my house this 

 afternoon I saw that you were sick, and that is what made me come, 

 to make you well, chief." Then he began to sing a shaman's song, 

 and these are the words of his song: 

 "I cure a sick man only when he gives me in payment his (.laughter to he my wife." 



As soon as the sick man heard the words of the song, he said to 

 Kwa'tiyat', "I have two daughters: I will let you have both of them 

 for your wives if you will only make me well again." Then Kwa'tiyat' 

 pretended to suck the sickness out three times: and the fourth time 

 he pulled out the spear, and the man got well at once. 



