swANTON] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 29 



6. THE LAND-OTTER SISTER <' 



A man set out from Sitka to a certain camp with his children in 

 order to dry hahbut, for in those days that was how they had to get 

 their food. It was spring time. Then, too, they had stone axes 

 and used small half baskets for pots in which to do cooking. His 

 wife and children spent all of their time digging clams, cockles, and 

 other shellfish down on the beach and in laying them aside for 

 future use. The man, meantime, was hewing out a canoe with his 

 stone ax. They had a hard time, for they had nothing to live on 

 except the things picked up at low tide. 



Many years before this man's sister had been drowned, but so long 

 a time had passed that he had forgotten her. She, however, had 

 been taken by the land otters and was married among them, having 

 many children. From around a neighboring point she was watching 

 him. Her children were all working to collect a quantity of food. 



After this the woman's husband told her to take a lot of food to 

 her brother. All the land-otter-people are called ''Point people" 

 (Qlatkwedf); they have plenty of halibut, seal, etc. So she began 

 packing these things up to take them to her brother. In front of his 

 dwelling house her brother had a house made of branches, and one 

 evening he heard someone come in front of his house and seem to lay 

 down a heavy pack there. Then the person said, "The place where 

 you are stopping is wonderfully far from us." He went out and saw 

 a woman but did not know who she was because her arms were grown 

 to her breast and her mouth was thrown open with her upper lip 

 drawn up under her nose. Btit the woman could see how he felt, so 

 she said to him, "It is I. I am your sister who lives a short distance 

 away around this point." Then she brought the basket into her 

 brother's house and said to him, "Take the things out of the basket, 

 for I have to return before the raven calls." 



Next evening she came back with another full basket. This time 

 she said, "You have three nephews who will come over and help you 

 get halibut and other things." So the little otters came to their 

 uncle. From their waist up they looked like human beings; below 

 they were otters, and they had tails. Their mother came with them 

 and began to take her brother's children on her lap saying, "Little 

 tail (l !lt k !Atsk !u') , little tail growing down. ' ' As she sang tails began 

 to grow down from them. Then their father looked at them, became 

 angry, and said, "What are you doing to my children anywa}^?" 

 Immediately she slapped them on the buttocks and said, "Up goes 

 the little tail, up into the buttocks (tu'denAtsi yeq)," and the tails 

 went up into their buttocks. 



a See story 45. 



