swANTON] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 189 



At this place the man met an aunt who had heen drowned years 

 before and had become the wife of two land otters. She was dressed 

 in a ground-hog robe. Then she said to him, ' 'Youi aunt's hus- 

 bands will save you. You must come to see me this evening." 

 When he came his aunt said, ''I can't leave these people, for I have 

 learned to think a great deal of them." 



Afterward his aunt's husbands started back with him. They did 

 not camp until midnight. Their canoe was a skate, and, as soon as 

 they came ashore, they would turn it over on top of him so that, no 

 matter how hard he tried to get out, he could not. In making the 

 passage across to Cape Ommaney they worked very hard, and 

 shortly after they landed they heard the raven." They could go 

 only a short distance for food. 



When they first started back the woman had said to her husbands, 

 ''Don't leave him where he can be captured again. Take him to a 

 good place." So they left him close to Sitka. Then he walked 

 around in the neighborhood of the town and made the people suffer 

 so much every night that they could not sleep, and determined to 

 capture him. They fixed a rope in such a way as to ensnare him, 

 but at first they were unsuccessful. Finally, however, they placed 

 dog bones in the rope so that they would stick into his hands, dog 

 bones being the greatest enemies of the land otters. 



Late that night the land-otter-man tore his hands so with these 

 bones that he sat down and began to scream, and, while he was doing 

 this, they got the rope around him and captured him. When they 

 got him home he was at first very wild, but they restored his reason 

 by cutting his head with dog bones. He was probably not so far gone 

 as most victims. Then they learned what had' happened to him. 



After this time, however, he would always eat his meat and fish 

 raw. Once, when he was among the halibut fishers, they wanted 

 very much to have him eat some cooked halibut. He was a good 

 halibut fisher, probably having learned the art from the land otters, 

 though he did not say so. For a long time the man refused to take 

 anv, but at last consented and the food killed him. 



^.' } 



47. THE MAN FED FROM THE SKY 



Datga's, the nephew of a chief at Chilkoot, used to lie all the time 

 bundled up in a corner made by the retaining timbers. When 

 everybody else was in bed he would rise and go to the fire. Then 

 he would gather the coals into a heap in order to warm his blanket 

 over them. The people of that town were starving, so Datga's 

 would say, as he held his blanket over the coals, ''Would that a 

 piece of dried salmon fell upon this from the smoke hole." He did 

 this every night. 



a Supernatural beings who heard the raven call before they came to land, died. 



