swANTON] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 167 



around picking up dead salmon the whole village would be starving," 

 He listened to what she said, and afterward he and his wife laughed 

 about it. 



Next evening he went out again and caught a very large halibut, 

 which he also put in front of his mother-in-law's house. By this time 

 the woman thought, ''I wonder what this is that is bringing me luck. 

 It must be a spirit. I believe I am going to become the richest person 

 in the world. That is why this is happening to me." When she went 

 out this morning, as was now her custom, and saw the large halibut, 

 she called to her husband and her slaves to bring it up. She felt very 

 proud. Then the chief sent word all through the village, ''No one is 

 to go out early in the morning. My wife has had a bad dream." She 

 had not really had such a dream, but she told her husband so because 

 she did not want anybody to get ahead of her. In those days every- 

 one listened to what the chief said and obeyed him. Next morning 

 the young man got a seal and laid it down before the houses. 



Meanwhile his mother-in-law treated him worse and worse. She 

 said, "I will never go out again in the morning to find anything. I 

 know that the people in this village would starve if I did not find 

 things." After that she found the seal. Then they singed the hair 

 off, scraped it in w^ater to make the skin white, and cooked it in the 

 skin. The chief invited everyone in the village to his house to eat it. 

 He made speeches and listened to speeches in return which told how 

 his wife had saved all of them. Her son-in-law lay in bed taking 

 everything in. Also when a canoe lande(l in front of the town his 

 mother-in-law would say, "I suppose my son-in-law has brought in a 

 load of seal," and he listened to her as he lay there. 



In the middle of that night the old woman pretended that she had 

 spirits. The spirit in her said, " I am the spirit that finds all this food 

 for you." Then she said to her husband, as she lay in bed, "Have a 

 mask made for me, and let them name it Food-finding-spirit. Have 

 a claw hat" made." So her husband sent for the best carver in town, 

 and he made all of the things she had asked for. Her husband had an 

 apron made for her with puffin beaks all around it. 



After that spirits came to her and mentioned what she was going to 

 find. She rattled her rattle, and her spirits would say that she was 

 rattling it over the whole village. Her son-in-law lay abed listening. 

 The whole village believed in her and thought that she was a wonder- 

 ful shaman. 



The first time the woman went out she found one salmon, the next 

 time two salmon, the third time a halibut, the fourth time two halibut, 

 and after that a seal. Now she said her spirits told her that she was 

 going to find two seals, so, her son-in-law who had heard it, went out the 

 following night and found the two seals. His wife felt very badly for 



" A hat imitating the claws of some animal. 



