swANTON] HAIDA TEXTS AND MYTHS 353 



of all kinds of animals prepared in unusual ways. Furthermore, the 

 woman dressed herself ditferenth'. She wore things such as the 

 Wood Indians wear. But the man did not dress himself so. They 

 now came back to the town. 



The man said that he had come to a town while he was hunting- 

 far iidand, had there married the woman, and had remained there. 

 One night he said that his wife would dance. All the while she spoke 

 the words that she had composed for her husband. Bat her husband 

 said that it was her language. 



All the people of the town then went into the house where she was, 

 and she began to dance before them. Her dances and her songs were 

 strange. Nevertheless she made them desire to come in and look 

 at her. 



Whenever she danced her former husband and her child came and 

 looked on with them. When she ceased her dancing she pointed her 

 finger at her child and said something. Her husband then explained 

 her words. She said, [he explained], that she had a child like him in 

 her own countr3\ She then called her child, and she cried. 



When she first danced her former husband recognized the motions 

 that she used to make, and her voice. Although he recalled the one 

 who was dead, he did not believe that it was she. That was why he 

 continually^ went to look. Because she kept them up all night to see 

 her dance they were all asleep in the morning. The}' learned her 

 songs. 



After a while, having positiveh^ identified his wife, he climbed up 

 to where she had been put and untied the box cover. Only rotten 

 wood was there. Some time after he had seen this, very early one 

 morning after she had danced, while the}' still slept, he went thither. 

 Then, after he had pulled from her face the thing that she wore as a 

 hat as she slept, he saw it was his wife. And while they slept he 

 killed them both. 



Then they discovered it, but the woman's friends were ashamed. 

 The man's friends were also ashamed. Nothing happened.'^ 



A similar story from the Alaskan Haida will be found in Memoirs of the Jesup 

 North Pacific Expedition, Volume V, part 1, page 263. 



' Tcla^ogus, the word used here, is identical with "Stick Indians" of the Chinook 

 jargon and is applied to all interior Indians, such as the Athapascan tribes and the 

 interior 8alish. In this case it would refer either to the Athapascans or to the 

 Kitksan of the upper Skeena. 



^ Both parties were so ashamed that no fight resulted and no blood money was 

 exacted. 



17137— No. 29—05 23 



