ftWANTONl TLTNGTT MYTHS AND TEXTS 155 



eulachon. He roasted some on sticks before the fire. After he had 

 thought over the problem for a while, he made a small fish trap with a 

 hole in it for the fish to enter. The trap was soon filled witli a mvd- 

 titiide of fishes. Then he took all out, dug a hole in the groinid, and 

 placed the fish there. He was glad to think that he could get some- 

 thing to eat, so he remamed in that place. 



One day, while he was roasting fish, he saw eight Athapascans 

 (Go'nana), and knew from tliat that he was in the interior. These 

 men wore nice fur clothing and had their faces painted. Kake'q!"te 

 became frightened and ran into the woods, leaving his fish roasting 

 by the fire. Afterward the eight men acted as though they were 

 calling him, so he climbed up into a tree and watched them. They 

 did not know where he had gone. Then the men sat down and ate 

 his fish, after which they stuck a copper-pointed arrow into the 

 ground where each roasting stick had been. This was the first time 

 a Tlingit had seen copper. 



Next day the same men came back. They were dressed much 

 better, and two nice-looking women were with them. Then they 

 called to him saying, "You have brought us good luck, so we want 

 you to be our friend. If you will come and stay with us you can 

 have either of these sisters of ours." So he came down from the 

 tree where he had been hiding, went with them, and married both 

 of their sisters. 



Now they took him to the place from which they got their fish 

 and showed him how they did it. It was by making deadfalls in 

 the water, in which they caught only one small fish at a time. Kake'- 

 q!"te was surjirised to see how hard they worked to get a fish. If 

 a man were lucky he woidd get perhaps forty or fifty very small fishes. 



Now, Kake'q!"te ordered all in the village to procure young trees 

 that were very limber and to split them into long pieces. He told 

 them to whittle these down very smooth, and sat in the middle to 

 show them how. Then he got some roots and tied the sticks together. 

 The name of this trap is t!itx. It is shaped like a barrel with the 

 inner entrance just small enough for the fish to pass tln'ough. At 

 the mouth of this trap a weir is run across the stream. 



The whole village worked with him fixing the traps. Finally they 

 cut posts to fasten them to and placed them at that point in the 

 river which the tide reaches. When the tide went down they went 

 to look at them and found them fidl of eulachon. Before they could 

 never get enough of these fishes but now there were plenty for the 

 poor, who formerly could obtam none. Even the old people were 

 cutting and drying some to put in holes and make oil out of. Some 

 filled twenty boxes with oil, some thirty. Some boxes of this kind 

 weigh 150 pounds, some 100, some 50, some 20. Before his time the 

 people of that village could not sleep, because they had to run down 



