180 ■ BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 39 



down on a point, after which she disappeared and he cHd not know 

 what had happened to her. He went out on tlie point and hunted 

 everywhere. lie is a lonely beach snipe, called ayAhiyiya', which 

 is often seen hunting about on the points to-day, and when they see 

 him the Tlingit say, "There he is looking for his wife." 



39. ORIGIN OF THE FERN ROOT AND THE GROUND HOG « 



The girls of a certain place were playing house under a cliff back of 

 their village, and each of them took some kind of food there. Among 

 them were two very poor little orphans who had no food to bring, so 

 the elder went home and brought up the bony part of a dry salmon 

 and the younger a fern root named k !wa}x. Then the older girls took 

 these from them and threw them away, so that they began to cry very 

 hard. 



Wliile the girls were crying, the cliff behind them fell over in front 

 and imprisoned them all. They began to cry from fright. After tliat 

 they began to rub on the cliff the tallow and salmon they had with 

 them, and the little birds that had also been im])risone(i began to peck 

 it off, so that at length they began to make a hollow in the rock. In 

 course of time the birds pecked a hole entirely through, and, when it 

 was large enough, the girls began to crawl out. Finally all of the 

 girls were taken out except one poor little girl who got stuck half way. 

 The walls had in reality closed in on her, and they continued to do so 

 until they had cut her quite in two. Her head became the fern root 

 (k !wa1x) and her body became a ground hog. 



40. THE HALIBUT THAT DIVIDED THE QUEEN CHAR- 



LOTTE ISLANDS 



Formerly there was but one village on the Queen Charlotte islands 

 (Deki' qoan a'ni. Town-far-out) . Every day the people used to go out 

 from this Anllage to fish for halibut, and all were successful except one 

 man. Though the people all about his canoe were pulling in fish he 

 caught nothing day after day, and he became angry. 



One calm day, however, he had a bite. Pulling at his line he found 

 that something very strong was attached to it. After he had pulled 

 it up a short distance it would pull the line away from him, and each 

 time he let it go for fear of losing it. Wlien he at last got it up, how- 

 ever, it was only a little halibut about as big as a flounder. He could 

 not catch anything else. 



In the evening, after this man had brought his halibut ashore and 

 had entered his house, he said, "I have a very small halibut. It might 

 bring me luck." His wife took up her knife and went down to it, but 

 when she saw that diminutive fish she took it by the tail and threw 

 it up on the beach. Then the halibut, which was still alive, began 



a Evidently fragmentary. 



