swAXToNl WITCHCRAFT 471 



sian Church at Sitka. Ho would lie on a sealskin and let it swim out of 

 the house with him, and he would jj^o out to sea just like a porpoise, 

 a« fast as the people could let the line out they had fastened to him. 



A DAqLlawe'di once flew about the house where a dead man was 

 lying, in order to bewitch iiim. One night he was seen to fly out from 

 a grave house and go up the Chilkat river, and the night following 

 all the dead man's friends watched for him with their guns. At last 

 one of these, who was sitting under a box where .salmon were cut, heard 

 a great noise. '■ Wh. wh, wh, wh, wh," and saw the tiling perch on a 

 flag pole and give out a sipieak like that of an owl. He raised his gun 

 and fired, and the wizai-d fell at the foot of the pole. He recovered, 

 however, and is still living. 



Mice are said to help wizards and witches to steal a person's prop- 

 erty. It is supposed that they like to go inside of a dead body, for 

 one time while some Sitka people were singing and l)eating time for a 

 man who had been speared through the side of his head the })ody 

 began to move and mice ran out of the wound and out of the mouth. 

 On investigating they found that his insides had been all eaten out, 

 and this within two days. 



Another time a Haida came up to Sitka, married a girl there named 

 Qata'.x, who had just reached maturity, and took her home with him. 

 But all of a sudden her hus))and became sick. He would eat nothing 

 until after all the people except his wife had left the house. Then 

 his wife pulled dried salmon to pieces and set it before him, when 

 mice began running out of his mouth, one after the other, to eat it. 

 Last of all came a big white mouse, the mother of all the rest. After 

 they were through eating he would open his mouth and let them run 

 back inside. 



Finally the man's friends discovered this and determined to interfere. 

 Two of them went into an inside room with clul)s and a third stood 

 by the door. Then the man's wife again put out salmon and berries, 

 and the mice ate them. Immediately afterwards she put fat on a tray 

 as a signal to the men in waiting. So the man at the door and the two 

 youths ru.shed in, saying, '"This is the thing that is killing our uncle." 

 The latter cried out, " Do not kill my white mouse. Save my white 

 mouse."' but they destroyed all of them. Then the chief's stomach 

 was perfectly tiat, and two days later he died, for the iui<c "• had been 

 breathing for him." After that all of his wife's brothers went down 

 and took her home, and she told her father what had happened. For 

 this reason, although she was the daughter of a chief, i)coi)l(> did not 

 respect her. They said, '• We don't care about you. You used to 

 feed mice." 



The Haida are said to believe that one nuist not sleep under a berry 

 bush (jr the mice will get inside of him." 



a For further malurial on witchurafl iind shamanism consult Krausc, Dii; Tlinkit ImiiancT, iSt-301. 



