QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 151 B 



All this time, however, the people were without daylight, and it was origin of light, 

 next the object of Ne-kil-stlas to obtain this for them. This time he 

 tried still another plan. He pretended that he also had light, and con- 

 tinued to assert it, though the chief denied the truth of his statement. 

 He, however, in some way made an object bearing a resemblance to the 

 moon, which, while all the people were out fishing on the sea, in the 

 perpetual night, he allowed to be partly seen from under his coat of 

 feathers. It cast a faint glimmer across the water, "which the people 

 and Setlin-ki-jash thought was caused by a veritable moon. Disgusted 

 at finding that he was not the sole possessor of light, and losing all 

 conceit of his property, the great chief immediately placed the sun and 

 moon where we now see them. 



One thinu; more much desired still remained in the possession of Origin of the 

 , . i i i n -, -at , i ^ f • i oolachen fish. 



Settin-ki-jash ; this was the oolachen fish. JNow the shag was a friend 



■or companion of the chief, and had access to his property, including 

 his store of oolachens. Ne-kil-stlas contrived that the sea-gull and the 

 shag should quarrel, by telling each that the other had spoken evil of 

 him. At last he got them together, when, after an angry conversa- 

 tion, they followed his advice and began to fight. Ne-kil-stlas knew 

 that the shag had an oolachen in its stomach, and so urged the com- 

 batants to fight harder, and to lie on their backs and strike out with 

 their feet. This they did, and finally the shag threw up the 

 oolachen, which Ne-kil-stlas immediately seized. Making a canoe from 

 a rotten log, he smeared it and himself with the scales of the oolachen, 

 and then coming at night near the great chief's lodge, said that he was 

 very cold, and wished to come in and warm himself, as he had been 

 making a great fishery of oolachens, which he had left somewhere not 

 far off. Setlin-kijash said this could not be true as he only possessed 

 the fish, but Ne-kil-stlas invited the chief to look at his clothes and at 

 his canoe. Finding both covered with oolachen scales, he became 

 convinced that oolachens besides those which he had must exist, and 

 again in disgust at finding he had not the monopoly, he turned all the 

 oolachens loose, saying, at the same time, that every year they would 

 come in vast numbers and continue to show his liberality and be a 

 monument to him. This they have never failed to do since that time. 



This Haida story of the origin of things is substantially the same Resemblance 

 with that which I have been told by Indians of the Tinneh stock in the myths, 

 northern part of the interior of British Columbia. My surprise on 

 hearing it gradually unfolded as a Haida myth was very great. It 

 would be hazardous to theorize on the cause of this similarity of myths 

 in tribes so distant and so dissimilar in habits, but it is certain that 

 both its versions are derived from a common source not very remote. 

 It may indeed be that the Haidas have adopted this «tory from the 



