swANTON] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 225 



67. QAQ!ATCGU'K« 



One of the Sitka KlksA'dl, a man named Qaq!Atcgu'k, was very 

 fond of hunting and could use his spear very accurately. He had two 

 wives and several children, to whom he always brought home a fur seal. 



One time he heard a little fur seal crying continually, and he heard 

 one of the others say to it, "Take care of that baby. Feed it. 

 Qaq lAtcgu'k comes here hunting." Then Qaq !Atcgu'k was frightened 

 and said to his companions, "Let us go back." So they went back 

 and told the people in town what had happened. Then Qaq lAtcgu'k 

 broke up his canoe, his paddles, and his spears, and burnt them, 

 saying, "I will never go out hunting again." So he remained at 

 home for a long time. 



One day, however, when a crowd of people were eating fur-seal 

 meat, his little ones looked on hungrily. He pitied them so much 

 that he did not know what to do. Then he said to his wife, "Go to 

 your brother and ask him to loan me his canoe and spears." Then 

 he started off again, but, although there were many seals about, he 

 could not get one. A young seal in particular he tried very hard to 

 get. He kept chasing it farther and farther out to sea. At last he 

 said to his men, "Let us go back. I can not get anything." When 

 they started paddling, however, a light breeze was blowing out from 

 Sitka, and, although they worked vigorously the shore seemed to get 

 more and more distant. Finally all became tired, threw their 

 paddles into the canoe, and lay down to sleep, letting themselves 

 drift farther and farther out. 



After a very long time they came to a rock crowded with sea lions, 

 fur seals, and sea otters, which seemed very tame. They clubbed 

 numbers of them. Fresh water they obtained from a wild celery 

 (kiiq!) which has hollow stalks full of water. They built a house 

 out of dry bushes, cooked the flesh of the sea animals and lived thus 

 until August. 



At last they wanted to start home again, so they made ropes of 

 sea-lion hide, dried four sea-lion stomachs to carry along as floats, 

 and filled a fifth with water. In the bottom of their canoe they put 

 numbers of sea-lion bristles and loaded the rest of it down with 

 valuable furs. They also cooked a lot of dried and fresh meat for the 

 journey. Then they started off, guiding themselves by the sun, 

 which they knew came up right behind Sitka in summer. When the 

 sun set, they anchored by means of their hide lines and put the four 

 sea-lion stomachs around their canoe to float it in case of storms. 

 They did this every day. 



Finally, after many days were past, they saw what they thought 

 was a sea gull, but it always stayed in one place, and at last they 



oStory 101 is a Sitka version. 

 49438— Bull. 39—09 15 



