488 KE VIEWS. 



Some of tlie brief extracts given above suffice to sliow the attractive 

 glimpses of ingenuity and artistic skill vcbicli it discloses among tbc 

 rude tribes of Alaska. Of these the Thlinkets comprise various tribes, 

 such as the Ahimsyaos, the Haidahs, the Koloshes, and the Yakutats : 

 all noted by earlier explorers for their talent as carvers in v^ood and 

 bone. They also work in native copper, and covet silver and other 

 white metals, preferring them to brass or gold. The following account 

 of their religious ideas will illustrate still more curiously the mental 

 and moral characteristics of the native tribes of the northwest. " The 

 Thlinkets do not believe in a Supreme Being, for good or evil. Their 

 feeble polytheism presents no features worthy of the name of religious 

 belief. Yehl, or Yayhl, is the maker of woods and waters. He put 

 the sun, moon and stars in their places. He lives in the east, near the 

 head waters of the Nasse River, whence the Thlinkets say they origin-^ 

 ally came." The Thlinket narrative of the creation, or the mundane 

 revelation of the heavenly bodies, is embodied in the following myth : 

 "There was a time when men groped in the dark in search of the 

 world. At that time a Thlinket lived who had a wife and sister. He 

 loved the former so much that he did not permit her to work. She 

 sat the whole day doing nothing. Eight little red birds, called hun by 

 the Thlinkets, were always around her. One day she spoke to a 

 stranger. The little birds flew and told the jealous husband. So 

 when he went into the woods to build a canoe he shut her up in a box. 

 He killed all his sister's children because they looked at his wife. 

 Weeping, the mother went to the sea shore. A whale saw her and 

 asked the cause of her grief, and when informed, told her to swallow a 

 small stone from the beach and drink some sea-water. In eight 

 months she had a son, whom she hid from her brother. This son was 

 really Yehl. As he grew he became a great expert in shooting with a 

 bow and arrow. It is said the mother made herself a mantle out of the 

 skins of humming-birds which he had brought down. He killed birds 

 of large size, and dressing himself in- their skins, flew about to difi"erent 

 places, having many adventures. 



'' The only one worth relating is the most glorious of his deeds, that 

 of putting the light in its place. At that time the sun, moon and 

 stars were kept by a rich chief in separate boxes, which- he allowed no 

 one to touch. Yehl heard of it and desired to have them. This chief 

 had an only daughter, whom he loved and spoiled to such a degree, 

 that he examined everything she ate and drank before he would allow 



