swANTON] IIAIDA TEXTS AND MYTHS 283 



his blankets, and took his mother. Then the okl man went out quickly. 

 They got into the canoe and went off. 



When they were halfway home it came burning after them again. 

 When it got near, he breathed toward it, and it stopped. Then they^ 

 came home, and he went up. 



Again his five l)lankets W'ere burned off, and his mother as well. lie 

 reached for his wife. She, too, was gone. They took her away from 

 him to marry her, they say. 



Then he wandered on aimlessly. After he had gone along a while 

 he let himself fall to the ground and wept. He looked toward the 

 forest. All the trees wept with him. Then he kioked seaward. All 

 the fishes ])eneath its surface wept with him. Now he had his till of 

 crying and went on again. 



After he had wandered on for a while [he heard] some people 

 laughing and talking And he went thither. They were trying to 

 shoot leaves off' of a big tree. As soon as they had shot one down 

 they ate it. When he got there they moved back from it. "He- 

 who-was-born-from-his-mother's-side is going to shoot," thej^ said. 



Then he shot at it. He shot it near the base. It began to fall. 

 He made the supernatural beings rejoice by his shot. And he said, 

 "Take care of its eggs (seeds). I will let my cousin. Cloud- woman, 

 take off" the head [of seeds]." ^" That was tobacco, they say. 



Then they sent for her, and she came bj^ canoe. She took all of its 

 eggs. These she l)egan to plant. The}^ were spread all over this 

 island. 



This phort story is given as if it were a purely Haida myth, but from an al)straot 

 of another version olitained in 1878 by Dr. G. M. Dawson it would seem possiljle that 

 it came originally from the mainland. The abstract referred to runs as follows: 



"Long ago the Indians (first people or ancient people — thlin-thloo-hait) had no 

 tobacco, and one plant only existed, growing somewhere far inland in the interior 

 of the Stickeen country. This plant was caused to grow by the deity, and was like 

 a tree, very large and tall. With a V)Ow and arrows a man shot at its summit, where 

 the seed was, and at last brought down one or two seeds, which he carried away, 

 carefully jireserved, and sowed in the following spring. From the plants thus pro- 

 cured all the tobac(!0 afterward cultivated sprung." (Dawson's Report on the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands, Montreal, 1880. ) 



' These two sentences, which sound ridiculous in English, are rendered necessary 

 here by the fact that Haida has only one personal pronoun for the third person 

 singular. 



^ The ancient doorway through the foot of the house pole was closed by a plank 

 hinged at the top. 



*L. indicate;? the shape of a bow. When a supernatinal being was born he grew 

 up quickly, and soon cried for a bow, but would only he satisfied Avith one made 

 of copper. 



*The Western Winti-r Wren (Troglodytes hiemalis pacilicus, Baird). 



•''The Rusty Song Sparmw (MelosjMza fasciata guttata, Nutt. ). 



''' Anas boschas, Lirm. 



^The Canada Goose (Branta canadensis, Linn.). 



