458 THE TLINGIT INDIANS [eth. anx. L'(! 



because the first killer whale wus made by a man out of a piece of 

 yellow cedar. This is thought to explain why a piece of killer-whale 

 fat thrown into the hre crackles just like a piece of yellow cedar." If 

 one should shoot a killer whale the others would come after him in 

 crowds. Once a certain man did hvlug killers after him in this way 

 and placated them only by a gift of tobacco. It is curious thtit lAgu'ck Ii, 

 the term for a killer whale's dorsal tin, has been adopted l)y the Haida 

 as the name for a particular killer whale of sujx'rnatural consequence. 

 (See Memoirs of American Museum of Natural History, viii, i^ill.) 



There are supposed to be three varieties of killers. Kit ylyagu' is 

 the largest; it has a hole in its dorsal tin. Kit wu ("white killer 

 whale") is almost all white. Kit cfu)! ("red killer whale") is the 

 smallest but most warlike and always goes in advance. It is also 

 called Ivit wusa'ni ("killer-whale spear""). 



There are also three varieties of porpoises. The smallest, called 

 tcltc, is entirely black; the largest, Igilwu'. has the dorsal tin and whole 

 belly white; while the qlan is a dark-red porpoise. 



People used to talk to the large ground shark, and a member of the 

 WoU phratry addressed it as " My son's daughter,"" because it belonged 

 to that phratry. and a Wolf's son was the only i^erson who could marry 

 a girl who wore the shark. He would say to it, "You must look out 

 for me, so that I shall not l)e harmed when I am tra\cling."' 



The skate was the canoe of the land otter, and also the slave of the 

 gonaqAde't. 



Salmon are the subject-of a special story told along nearly the whole 

 extent of the north Pacitic coast, but seeming to have originated 

 among- the Tlingit. Haida versions of this are given in Memoirs of 

 the American Museum of Natural History, viir, 24;-5-:^4:5, and Bul- 

 letin 29 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 7-14. There used to 

 be a curious belief that king salmon, aftei- they had passed into the 

 creeks, turned into steelheads. 



To wiiat hasali'eady been said regarding tishing customs may be added 

 the following: The Tlingit always talked to theii- halil)ut lines, halibut 

 hooks, and Ituoys, addressing them as "brother-in-law,"" "father-in- 

 law," etc. If one did not do so, these would l)ecome ashamed and 

 refuse to let the tish bite. While l)aiting the hook a person spit upon 

 it and said. "Go right to the fireplace (gan kAnA'x tci'gidagu q!wAn). 

 Hit the rich man's daughter" Then the hook did not become ashamed. 



Floats and hooks were carved into the shapes of various animals, 

 and hooks with raven and land-otter carvings were thought to be most 

 successful — raven because Raven made the world, and the land otter 

 because that animal takes people away and sees things under the ocean. 



When a person had let his lines down into the sea in front of a camp 



aTlie crackling of yellow cedar has become a proverb. So, when u person uses his tongue too 

 freely, people say, " You talk too much, just like yellow cedar." 



