BOAS] TSIMSHIAN TEXTS 239 



ROTTEX-FEATHKKS 



Children pla^' ball and make much noise, which annoys Heaven, 

 who sends feathers down. One boy puts them ou his head and they 

 lift him up. Others try to hold hiui and all are taken up. One men- 

 sti'uating girl and her grandmother, wiio were in a small hut, are 

 the only ones left. The girl puts wedges of various kinds of wood, a 

 grindstone, a knife, and some mucus into her blanket and soon gives 

 birth to five lioys and one girl, who are these objects personified. The 

 children annoy Heaven by their noise. The feathers come down again 

 and take them up, thougli tiiey transform themselves into trees, moun- 

 tains, and mucus. The knife girl climbs her brothers' bodies and cuts 

 off the feather. Then the boys fall down. The feathers remain on 

 the head of the eldest, who is called Kotten-feathers. The bones of 

 those who had been taken up before fall down. They are revived. 

 Grindstone eats berries and is transformiHl into a mountain. Rotten- 

 feathers cuts passage through the mountains with a feather and 

 reaches Great-goose, who advises them. He marries the daughter of 

 a chieftainess, who tries to cut off his head with her sharp hands. 

 He changes his own and his wife's headdress and the young woman is 

 killed in his place. He abducts the wife of Sleep and escapes in a 

 self-moving canoe. Sleep is awakened l)y his watchmen. Chamlier-pot 

 and Wooden Maul. Ht> creates a mountain in front of Kotten-feathers 

 and his wife, which is cut by the feathers. Then he throws a comb 

 ahead of them, which is transformed into a thicket. Again Rotten- 

 feathers cuts a passage and escapes with the woman. 



K""i:LK" 



Children are playing in a hollow log of driftwood on the beach. 

 The}- are carried out to sea by the tide. They strike their noses until 

 the}' bleed and smear the outside of the log with the blood. Gulls 

 that alight on the log are glued to it by the blood. The boys kill them 

 and subsist on them. The log drifts into a laige whirlpool and is 

 pulled out by a one-legged person who lives near by, hunting seals in 

 the whirlpool. He takes care of the boys. His neighbor. Hard- 

 instep, envies him. The boys are homesick and are sent to look for 

 One-leg's canoe, which they can not find because it looks like a rotten 

 log. Finally he uncovers it and it proves to be a self-moving canoe 

 with a head of Wase at each end. These heads eat whatever crosses 

 the bow or the stern of the canoe. The boys feed each end with five 

 seals and the canoe takes them home. 



The Sealion Hunters 



One of four sealion hunters finds no sealions on his rock and steals 

 those of his companion. The latter makes an artificial sealion. which, 

 when harpooned by the thief, pulls him with his crew across the ocean. 



