swANTOXl TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 49 



supporting posts and let it fall on the occupants. Those who tried 

 to get out between the logs they killed. Then they set the ruined 

 house on fire and burned it with all it contained; and they l)roke 

 up the canoe belonging to those people. 



Close by lived a shaman related to the same people. His spirits 

 told him that there was a mountain near by where flint coidd lie 

 obtained. His spirits had so much strength that he went right to 

 that place and broke it oft". In those days every time a shaman cut 

 an animal's tongue he had more strength, so, when his strength was 

 all combined, it amounted to considerable. 



At that time the people did not have any flint, but, after the spirit 

 discovered it, all knew where it was to be found, and they have since 

 brought it from there. 



f9. KATS!« 



Kats! belonged to the Ka'gwAntan and liveil at Sitka. One day 

 he went hunting with dogs, and, while Ms dogs ran on after a male 

 bear, tins bear's wife took him into her den, concealed him from her 

 husband, and married him. He had several cliildren by her. In- 

 doors the bears take off their skin coats and are just like human 

 beings. 



By and by he wanted to go back to liis people, but before he 

 started she told liim not to smile at or touch liis Indian wife or take 

 up either of his children. After his return, he would go out for seal, 

 sea lions, and other animals which he carried up into an inlet where 

 his bear wife was awaiting liim. Then the cubs would come down, 

 pull the canoe ashore violently, take out the game antl throw it from 

 one to another up to their mother. On account of the roughness of 

 these cubs it came to be a saying in Sitka, "If you tliink you are 

 brave, be steersman for Kats!." 



One djiy Kats! pitied one of liis children and took it up. The next 

 time he went up the inlet, however, the cubs seized him and threw 

 him from one to another up to their mother, and so Idlled him. Then 

 they scattered all over the world and are said to have been Idlled in 

 various places. 



What is thought to have been the last of these was killed at Wliite 

 Stone Narrows. When some people were encamped there a girl 

 spoke angrily about Kats!'s cliild, and it came upon them, Idlling all 

 except a few who escaped in their canoes, and this woman, ^\ horn it 

 carried off alive, making her groan with pain. One man tried to 

 kill it but did not cut farther than its hair. Finally all the Indians 

 together killed it with their spears and knives.'' 



a See story 69; also Boas, Indianischc Sagcn von der Nord-Pacifisehen Kiiste Amerikas, p. 328. 

 b Because a human being married among the grizzly bears, people will not eat grizzly-bear meat. 



494.38— Bull. 30—09 4 



