452 THE TLINGIT INDIANS [eth. ann. 28 



the sea. The sun and the moon were also the abodes of spirits. The 

 rain})0\v was thouohtto he a road hy whifh the souls of the dead passed 

 to the upper world, while the northern lights were spirits of the dead 

 playing about, and shootingstars were embers thrown down from their 

 tires. The milky way was named "Ii([Iaya'k!"s tracks" (Lcjlayfi'k! 

 q!5'si_yite), because the Tlingit hero Lqlaj^a'k! had made it in journej'- 

 ing across the sky. 



The earth was in a measure conceived of as a live thing, and a '" great 

 liver of the world" is spoken of. Under everything lay Old-woman- 

 underneath (Hayica'nak!"), who had charge of a post made from a 

 beaver's foreleg, on which the world rested. When Kaxcn tiied to 

 drive her away from this post the earth quaked. According to another 

 story she was attending to a big pot over a fire, and when she was cross 

 with those at)out her or they used words which displeased her the 

 cover of the pot shook and the earth moved. Or, again, the earth 

 shook when she was hungry and stopped when people put grea.se into 

 the fire, which immediately went to her. 



The nunil)ei' of spirits with which this world was peopled was simply 

 limitless. According to Katishan, there were one principal and several 

 subordinate spirits in everything, and this idea seems to be reflected 

 in shamans' masks, each of which represents one main spirit and usually 

 contains effigies of several subsidiary spirits as well. There is said to 

 have been a spirit in every trail on which one traveled, and one around 

 ever}' fire; one was connected with everything one did. So in olden 

 times people were afraid of employing trifiing words l)ecause they 

 thought that everything was full of eyes looking at them and ears lis- 

 tening to what they said. As among the Haida, the ))elief prevailed 

 that supernatural beings went hunting or on expeditions at night and 

 had to get ashore before the raven called; if not they would die 

 instantly. Most of the following items about these "yeks" were told 

 by an old man at Sitka (Dekina'kl"). 



People reverenced the sun and moon very nuich, because when these 

 hide their faces, as in an eclipse, it is dark and one can not see. When 

 a man was traveling along out at sea and the sun had just begun to 

 rise above the horizon, he " grasped the shadow of the sun" and lilew 

 on his hands, saying, "Let me have luck." Toward morning a fisher 

 man also went out on the ocean, grasped the shadow of the sun and 

 put it around his float, saying, "Now is your luck. Bring me luck. 

 The sun is just conung up with it." If a mock sun, of which there 



down hill or an animal running is by no means a manifestation of supernatural energy, although it 

 something peculiar be associated with these actions, something outside of the Indian's usual experi- 

 ence of such phenomena, they may be thought of as such. Altliough the Indian has, in tliis latter 

 case, reasoned to an erroneous cause, the difference iu his mental attitude is none the less great. 

 The one action he conceives of as natural, the product of imrely physical fi^rces; the t)ther as a mani- 

 festation of supernatural energy, although in a manner superficially resembling that iu whicli a 

 physical phenomenon presents itself. 



