swANTo.N] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 157 



and it made the whole vihagc happy. Then Kake'q!'"te distril)iited 

 the sahnon, for evei^^one thought that it l)elonged to him. He gave 

 to the poor people, who had never before tasted salmon, and he said 

 to the wealthy, "Don't feel offended that I give them as much as 

 you for they need it as much. To-morrow and the day after we will 

 have it." 



At this time of the year they never got any salmon to dry. If one 

 got a salmon he ate it at once. Only when the salmon was old did 

 they dry it. Each man had a ])\i\ce who'e he s]ieared salmon, and 

 no one dared go there. Those spots were all named. Wlien they 

 got salmon from the traps they were all rich, and they were glad to 

 have a supply so early in the season. Before they had these traps 

 they ate every part of the salmon, all the insides, the heart, etc., but 

 after they had had the traps for a few days you could see along the 

 beach various parts of the fish, as the heads, and even some good 

 parts, where they had been thrown away. After they were through 

 drying their salmon they had enough for a year, and they stored 

 them all away in boxes. 



That fall the Athapascans went up among the valleys for ground 

 hogs, each man having his own place, where no one else was allowed to 

 intrude. That day only one came from the very best spots and in the 

 whole village there were but tlu"ee. Kake'q!"te watched how they 

 got them. Ground hogs were valued even by the coast people on 

 account of the blanlcets made of their skins. Then he asked them, 

 "Is this the only way you get your ground-hog meat?" "Yes," they 

 said, "this is the only way." Then he sat right down and began carv- 

 ing some pieces of wood, while everybody watched him, believing that 

 whatever he did would succeed. He asked the women to make hide 

 thongs. All sat down to do it, and with them he made slip-nooses to 

 be placed at the mouths of the ground-hog burrows. Then he said, 

 "I don't want anyone to go over there. Keep away from the traps." 

 So they did, and the morning after he went out among his traps accom- 

 panied by all of tlie people. In each trap was a ground hog, and he 

 gave every man in the village five. Even when they had killed three, 

 the meat was distributed so that all had at least a taste of the broth. 

 They remained in this place just three days, and he killed them off so 

 in that time they had to move to another. Each valley was claimed 

 by some man, who had a special tree there on which his dried meat 

 was hung, and every time they moved to a new valley they left the 

 meat hanging on the limbs of the tree in the place abandoned. 



Then the people started for home, carrying their meat along with 

 them. They would carry part of it a certain distance and go back for 

 more, and repeat the process until all was down on the beach. After 

 that he told them how to prepare their food to keep it over winter. 

 He told them to get their cooking baskets and cook their meat well. 



