1'J8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 39 



"Well! if you think you can kill me, swim out here." Immediately 

 they plunt:;ed into the water and when she saw them coming the girl 

 was frightened, but the man said, "Don't be frightened. My father 

 was of the GinAxcAmge'tk."" When the bears got close to the canoe, 

 he put his club into the sea and it killed them all. Then they went 

 to his home. 



The morning after this, when her husl^and was about to go out 

 fishing, he said to the woman, "I have a wife living on the other side 

 of the house. She is a very l)ad woman. Don't look at her while 

 she is eating." After her husband got home fi'om fishing he waited 

 on his new wife and was very kind to her, and, when they were 

 through eatmg, they went up to the to}) of the house to sit. Then 

 she said to him, "I am your wife now. Anything you know or 

 whatever you have seen you must tell me all about." So her hus- 

 band said, "This wife of mine is a very large clam. She is very high. 

 Nobody looks at her. You see that there is always water in the 

 place where she is sitting. Anyone that looks at her falls into this 

 water and drifts away." This man lived under ground, but the girl 

 thought she was in a house because she was as if out of her head. 

 Her husband caught halibut all of tlie time to give to his monster 

 wife, and the girl thought to herself, "How does that thing he feeds 

 so much eat?" One time, therefore, as soon as the clam began eat- 

 ing, she lay down, made a hole in her blaidvct aiul looked through it 

 at the big clam eating. She saw that it was a real clam. When 

 the clam saw that she was looking, it sliot out so much water that 

 the liouse was filled, and tiie girl was carried underneath the clam 

 by the current. When her husljantl got home, however, and found 

 the girl gone, he said to the clam, " Wiiere is that girl?" He became 

 very angry with the clam and killed it by breaking its shell. Then 

 he fountl the girl's dead body in the water under the clam, took it 

 out, put eagle feathers u})on it, and restored it to life. Therefore 

 nowadays eagle feathers are used a great deal at dances and in mak- 

 ing peace.'' 



By and by the man said to his wife, "Do you know that your 

 father lives a short distance fi'om here? Do you want to go to see 

 your father and mother T' She was very glad to hear that, and 



a Said to be the Tsimshian word for GonaqAde't. 



6" Eagle feathers are often referred to nowadays in speeclies. Thus people will say to one who is 

 mournmg, 'You liave been cold. Therefore I bring you these feathers that have been handed down 

 from generation to generation. ' When peace is aljout to be made one man is selected called tlie ' deer' 

 (Qowaka'n) because the deer is a very gentle animal. When a man is so taken lie is supposed to be like 

 the deer, and he has to be very careful what he says. l'2agle feathers are put upon his head because 

 they are highly valued. The songs he starts while dancing are those sung when the people were pre- 

 s>rved from some danger, or at the time of the flood. He does not sing anything composed in time of 

 war. They also called the "deer' the 'sun deer' (gAga'u qowaka'n), because the sun is very pleasant 

 to see and never does anybody any harm. Some called him 'fort dcei 'Nu qowaka'n), becausr 

 people are safe iu a fort. I-'or this olUce a high-caste person was always selected." ( From the writer's 

 informant.) Cf. Twenty-sixth Annual Report of Ike Buriau o) American Ethnologij, p. 451. 



