270 JilTKKAU OK AMERK^AN J:THN()L<)«Y [Hri,i,.»J 



Now, he HmmI tlicrr for a loii^- t'mi(\ All the while ho worked on 

 his canoe. Kvery night the earth changed foi- him. In {\w morning 

 the house stood there just as it ought to appeal'. 



By and by four persons went out by canoe to hunt coots. They 

 called hullheads coots. After they iiad Ixmmi gone for a wliile only 

 three came hack. He (the fourth) was killed because he forgot the 

 mat to cove)' his knees. When they forgot this they never escaped. ' 



When his canoe was finished he steamed and spread it. At that 

 time his brothers-in-law helped him. After that he started to go out 

 in it. All that time she (his sister) made the child dance. Already it 

 began to have a tail. Then she gave them directions. She said that 

 when they went outward they should not look back. She said that 

 the child, who was just able to talk, must not speak about that country. 

 And she also gave the same directions to him. 



One time, aftiM' that, they started otf. W^hen they were souk*, 

 distance away the child rememlxM'ed the town. And, when he said 

 "How [wellj we lived among them," they were back again in front of 

 the town. When they again started and had passed ])eyond the place 

 where the bo}'^ tirst spoke he repeated the same thing, and again they 

 were back in front of the town. When they went away again they 

 kept straight on. Then they came to [their owrij town. 



Here it draws to an end,* 



This is one of the numerous and 2>opular land-otter stories and the only tyi)e of 

 story in which that animal appears in a role at all benevolent. Usually he is repre- 

 sented as trying to steal away some human being and make a slave of him, to 

 deprive one of his senses or turn him into a ga'gix.it (see story of Supernatural-being- 

 whq-went-naked, note 19). Nevertheless, his jieculiar nature brought him into inti- 

 mate relations with the shamans, especially among the Tlingit. 



' Pitch wood supplied the place of a lantern. 



-That is, by the land otters. One had looked at her while she was drinking 

 water. When this happened one was seized with tits, soon died, and went to 

 live among the Land-otter people. 



^ Haida, klal, identified by Doctor Newcond>e, of Victoria, as the kelp crab (Epial- 

 tus productus, Randall). 



* Another version says that the land-otter brother-in-law also turned the man's 

 canoe over when he was ready to work upon the inside. Canoes were tirst roughly 

 shaped ujion the outside and then turned over so as to be hollowed out on the 

 inside. 



^ If a land otter forgot to take along the mat used to cover the knees of a canoe- 

 man while paddling, he was sure to be killed by human beings. 



''One way of concluding a story. More often they say Hao Lan 1' g.e^ida, "Here 

 it comes to a stop," Hao L a'sga-i kundjii^ga, "Here it comes to a point," or some- 

 thing similar. See the conclusions of the various stories. When a story is too long 

 to be told at one sitting, they break it off by saying, La l sitle^dji, "Let us make a 

 knot." 



