swANTON] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 87 



The first man captured (or "saved") by the hind otters was a 

 KiksA'di named IvAka'. The land otters kept coming to him in hirge 

 canoes looking like his mother or his sister or other tlear relation, and 

 pretending that they had been looking for him for a long time. But 

 they could not control themselves as well as he, and at such times he 

 would discover who they were and that their canoe was nothing but 

 a skate. Finally, when KAka' found that he could not see his friends, 

 he thought that he might as well give himself up to the land otters. 

 Then they named him Qowulka', a word in the land-otter language 

 now applied to a kind of fishhook which the halibut are thought to 

 like better than all others. Nowadays, when a figure of Qowulka' 

 is made, it is covered with a dog skin, because it was by means of a 

 dog skin that he frightened the land otters, and they also hang his 

 apron about with dog bones. The shaman who is possessed by him 

 dresses in the same manner. From KAka' the people learned that 

 the land otters affect the minds of those who have been with them 

 for a long time so as to turn them against their own friends. They 

 also learned from him that there are shamans among the land otters, 

 and that the land otters have a language of their ow^n. 



For two years KAka"s friends hunted for him, fasting at the same 

 time and remaining away from their wives. At the end of this period 

 the land otters went to an island about 50 miles from Sitka and took 

 KAka' with them. The land-otter tribe goes to this ])la('e every year. 

 Tiien an old land-otter-woman called to IvAka': ''My nephew, I see 

 that you are worrying about the people at your home. When you 

 get to the place whither w^e are going place yourself astride of the first 

 log you see lying on the beach and sit there as long as you can." 

 And her husband said to him: "Keep your head covered over. Do 

 not look around." They gave him this direction because they 

 thought, "If this human being sees all of our ways and learns all of 

 our habits, we shall die." On the way across the land-otter-people 

 sang a song, really a kind of prayer, of which the words are, "May 

 we get on the current running to the shore." 



The moment they came to land the land-otter-people disappeared 

 and he did not know what had become of them. They may have 

 run into some den. Then he ran up the sandy beach and sat on the 

 first log he came to, as he had been directed. The instant his body 

 touched it he became unconscious. It was a shaman's spirit that 

 made him so. 



By and by KAka"s friends, who were at that time hunting for fur 

 seals, an occupation that carries one far out to sea, suddenly heard 

 the noise of a shaman's drum and people beating for him with batons. 

 They followed the sound seaward until they saw thousands and 

 thousands of sea birds flying about something floating upon the 

 ocean a mile or two ahead of them. Arrived there thev saw that it 



