702 REPORT— 1898. 



pair to escape from the house and hide themselves in tlic bush. When 

 they fled from tlie Raven's house they carried with them a large cedar 

 box, in which the sun and the tire-stick were placed. Day after day, and 

 month after month, they wandered southward without proper nourish- 

 ment, and in great fear of the Raven. They also carried with them the 

 box containing the sun and the fire-stick. One evening, faint and weary, 

 they sat down near a little creek, and the woman, being very hun^^ry, 

 wept bitterly. Her husband walked a little distance up the stream, and 

 at last found a dead land otter, but they could not eat it, as they had no 

 fire with which to cook it. On the following morning they remembered 

 that they had the fire -stick in the box they were carrying. They at once 

 determined to see if they could produce a fire with it. They were 

 successful, and soon had a good fire, with which they cooked the otter. 

 Having made a hearty ineal, they proceeded on their way. When they 

 reached Cape Ball they were hungry again, whereupon the youth began 

 to sing one of the songs taught him in heaven, and the sea receded four 

 miles from the shore, leaving a great whale stranded on the beach. The 

 youtli surrounded the whale with a circle of stones and rocks so that it 

 should not escape. This circle of boulders is said to exist to-day. The 

 runaway couple lived on whale flesh until they reached the channel 

 which divides Graham and Moresby Islands, where they settled and built 

 a house. On this spot the village of Skidegate afterwards sprang up. 

 Here they lived for several years in peace and prosperity, and a daughter 

 was born to them, which caused them great joy. In course of time the 

 daughter grew to womanhood, and was an exceedingly beautiful woman, 

 and they would have all been perfectly happy but tnat there was no 

 prospect of a husband for the maiden. 



Year after year passed by, and they had given up all hopes of a 

 husband for their daughter, when one day there cams from the North 

 Island, around the west coast, the Raven's male-slave, whom he had 

 made on the beach at Sisk. This forlorn creature now desired the 

 parents to give him their daughter to wife. The father indignantly 

 refused his request, and became very angry at what he considered a great 

 piece of impudence on the part of a clam-shell-made man. How could 

 such a being as he look to wed with the daughter of a heaven-born chief ] 

 But the slave was not to be so easily repulsed. He betook himself to the 

 woods surrounding the house, and whenever the father was away would 

 go and talk with the mother. She regarded him as her brother, seeing 

 that they had been created together, and told him all her secrets, and 

 even went so far as to tell him where her husband kept the chest con- 

 taining the sun which he had stolen from the Raven's house at Rose-spit. 



This treasure was stored away in a strongly built house in the woods, 

 where the heaven-born man would frequently go to pray to the gods in 

 the Kingdom of Light. The woman was not wise in thus divulging the 

 whereabouts of her husband's precious treasure ; for the slave, on asking 

 a second time for the maiden, and receiving a good kicking from her 

 father,' went away in great wrath, vowing that he would be revenged. 

 As soon as night fell, having watched the chief retire to rest, he betook 



' It is mteresting to note in this connection that the heaven-born man 

 ihoagbt m thing of taking the slave for liis wife, but was much incensed at the idea 

 of Ins dauf-d-ter becoming the wife of a slave. We see that the same notions pre- 

 vailed among the Haidas generally, for although a chief could marry any of his 

 female slaves, no slave could marry a free-born woman under pain of death. 



