swAXTON] TLTN(iTT MYTHS AND TEXTS 431 



eldest brother, KAcklA'i.k!, opened a passag-e. After that the}- wanted 

 to kill a monster near Wrangell, so they borrowed the canoe of He- 

 who-knows-everything--that-happens, and passed many obstacles in it, 

 thereby rendering them harmless, until they came to the monster and 

 tried to catch its head in a noose. All of their nooses broke, how- 

 ever, until they triied one made out of the sinews of a little bird called 

 old-person. After that they returned to their mother and sister and 

 went southward with them through the forest, destroying the forest 

 monsters. Coming to an old blind man whose wife had left him, they 

 taught him how to catch fish in a net and how to cook it. They also 

 met an Athapascan shaman with long hair, and he and IVAcklA'Lk! 

 compared the relative strengths of tiieir spirits in the sweat house, 

 KAcklA'Lkl's proving to be the stronger. So they told the Athapascan 

 not to harm the people in his neighborhood. Then they moved south 

 and tried to cross the Stikine, but their sister, who was menstruant, 

 looked out at them, and the}'^ were turned to stone. 



One time while Raven was traveling along he came to a sculpin who 

 claimed to be older than he, so he placed it in the sky where it still is 

 (the Pleiades). He also sent a canoe load of halibut fishermen thither. 

 He invited the seal people to a feast, smeared their foreheads with 

 pitch which ran down over their eyes, and then clubbed them. He 

 married the daughter of a chief named Fog-over-the-salmon, who ob- 

 tained a quantity of sahiion for him by simply washing her hands in 

 a basket filled with water. One time he hit her with a piece of dried 

 salmon, and she went away, taking all of the salmon with her. He 

 wanted to marry another high-caste woman, but a bird named tsAgwa'n 

 told the people how he had treated his first wife and they rejected 

 him. Going on from there, he turned an old man named DAmna'dji 

 into a handsome youth, and told him to marr}^ the girl. This man did 

 so, but on the waj' home resumed his proper shape. When his wife's 

 people came to visit him, he had to receive them in his miserable hovel 

 because no one else would have anything to do with him. When he 

 went out after water, however, he came to an old woman at the head 

 of the stream who made him young again, and gave him a basket full 

 of dentalia through which he became rich. Some time afterward his 

 wife wished to marry among tlie bird people, and at last the brants 

 carried her off, finally dropping her naked. She came to an old woman 

 and obtained some fox skins. She was now really a fox, and let her- 

 self be killed by her father. On cutting the fox open, however, they 

 discovered her copper ornaments, and laid her on top of the house, 

 when she revived and became a great shaman. 



After this Raven changed himself into a woman, and married the 

 killer-whale chief's son. She stole their food at night, and when her 

 labret was discovered in a box of grease, pretended that it had gone 

 there of its own accord. By and by she killed her husband, and pre- 



