SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY

VOLUME 7 [In Three Parts]

PART TWO

SERIAL PUBLICATIONS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

The emphasis upon publications as a means of diffusing knowledge was expressed by the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In his formal plan for the Institution, Joseph Henry articulated a program that included the following statement: “It is proposed to publish a series of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge.” This keynote of basic research has been adhered to over the years in the issuance of thousands of titles in serial publications under the Smithsonian imprint, commencing with Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge in 1848 and continuing with the following active series:

Smithsonian Annals of Flight

Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology

Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics

Smithsonian Contributions to Botany

Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth Sciences

Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology

Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology

Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology

In these series, the Institution publishes original articles and monographs dealing with the research and collections of its several museums and offices and of professional colleagues at other institutions of learning. These papers report newly acquired facts, synoptic interpretations of data, or original theory in specialized fields. These publications are distributed by mailing lists to libraries, laboratories, and other interested institutions and specialists throughout the world. Individual copies may be obtained from the Smithsonian Institution Press as long as stocks are available.

S. DILLON RIPLEY

Secretary

Smithsonian Institution

Under Mount Saint Elias:

The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit

Frederica de Laguna

PART TWO

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS

City of Washington

1972

A Publication of the

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

National Museum of Natural History

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Contents

Part 2

RECREATION AND ART: GAMES AND MUSIC

Introduction

Games

Gambling games

Stick drawing game

Hand game or “stick game”

Chair dice

Stick tossing game

Quoits

Chess and checkers

Bingo

Tops

Contests

Fourth of July canoe races

Cat's cradles

Music

Songs

18th-century singing

Recording Yakutat songs

Character of Tlingit songs

Dancing

Categories of songs

Poetic imagery in songs

Acquiring and composing songs

WAR AND PEACE

War

Types of wars

Major wars and military alliances

Causes for war

Preparations for war

The war party

Victory and defeat

Arms and armor

The warrior and his accouterments

Weapons

The warrior's costume

Peace and justice

The meaning of peace

Preliminaries to the peace ceremony

Restitution and retribution: evening the score

The peace ceremony: seizing the ‘deer’

The peace ceremony: the role of the ‘deer’

The peace ceremony: naming and dressing the ‘deer’

The peace ceremony: eight nights dancing

The end of the peace ceremony

Summary of known peace ceremonies

THE POTLATCH

Introduction

The Yakutat conception of the potlatch

Functions of the potlatch

Types of potlatch

Preliminary feasts

The major potlatch

Summary

Purposes of the potlatch

Rivalry at the potlatch

Beginning the potlatch

Preparations

Arrival of the guests

Entertainment at the potlatch

Feasts before the potlatch

Singing and dancing by the guests

Feasting

Special shows by the hosts

The potlatch proper

The hosts

Honoring individuals

Paying the guests

Feasting and dancing after the potlatch

“Potlatches” for insults or to shame a rival

Reports of potlatches

The TłuknaAdi potlatch in Dry Bay, 1909

The Teqwedi potlatch in Yakutat, 1910

A missionary's account of Yakutat potlatches

A layman's comments on a potlatch

CURES, MEDICINES AND AMULETS

Surgical techniques

Medicinal plants

Medicines for external use

Medicines for internal use

Medicines with great power

Magical plants and amulets

Other amulets

The land otter hair amulet

SHAMANISM

Introduction

The shaman

Known shamans

Becoming a shaman

The death of a shaman and the new shaman

Receiving the call

The quest

Cutting tongues

Subsequent retreats and the first seance

The shaman's spirits

The shaman and his paraphernalia

Regimen

Personal appearance

The shaman's “outfit”

Costume

Masks, maskettes and headdresses

Other paraphernalia

Spirit intrusions

The shaman and his powers

Introduction

The shaman's assistants

Inspiration

Spirit warnings

Sending the spirit for news

Ghostly visits

Power demonstrations

Rivalry

Curing the sick

Minor ailments

Epidemics

Stories about shamans Page

atgawet as shaman

How a man acquired land otter spirits

How a man acquired disease spirits

Daodzu, the female shaman

How QAłaetł became a shaman

The female shaman, Cak[w]e, and the chief who stabbed his nephews

How a Wrangell shaman was defeated

Further reminiscences of Te-’ic

Rufusing the call

A young man refuses to become a shaman

A woman refuses the call

White men's views of Yakutat shamanism

A Yakutat shaman, 1886

A missionary's account of Yakutat shamanism

The shamanistic legacy

“The Shouters” in Alaska (1890)

Native Accounts of the “shouters”

WITCHES AND LAND OTTER MEN

Witchcraft

Witches

Activities of witches

Origin of witches

Identifying the witch and destroying his power

Witchcraft stories

The girl who witched herself

Haida methods: the woman who witched her own son

The witching of adane and his relatives

The witching of Sitka Ned

The witching of Jack Peterson

Witchcraft accusations

Land Otter men

Fear of land otters

Capture by land otters and protection from them

Land otter men

Present beliefs about land otters

Stories about land otter men

The story of QàkÁ

The girls who had land otter men as lovers

Two little boys rescued from the land otter people

A boy rescued from land otters

NéxInte rescued from land otters

ŁdaEn and the land otters

The drowned woman

A girl captured by land otters

Small boys saved by dogs

Two boys lost in the woods

Adventures of White men with land otter men

THE TLINGIT INDIVIDUAL

The body

Sleep and dreams

Body parts and functions

Symbolism of the body in art and language

Reified body parts and functions

The tree of life

Afterlife and the spirit

The “soul” and the “ghost”

Forms of death

The story of ’Askadut who visited the land of the dead

The disease boat

Afterlife in Kiwa’a

“Dog Heaven”

Visits to the land of the dead

The Chilkat man who visited Kiwa’a

The man who visited Kiwa’a

Death and reincarnation of Qawua

Death and reincarnation of ‘AsdjIwAn and his partner

Reincarnation of Joseph

The story of Łxakunik who visited the land of the dead

Reincarnation

Insuring reincarnation

Choosing one's parents

Choosing one's sex

Multiple souls

Rebirth in the wrong sib

Names

Real names

Naming the child

Namesakes

Teknonymy

“Big names”

Pet names and nicknames

Origin of names

Conclusion: personal identity

MAN AND THE FORCES OF NATURE

Cosmology

The earth

The sky

Sun, moon, and stars

Space and time

Spatial orientation and measurement

Temporal orientation

Divisions of the year

Counting days

Divisions of the day

The weather

Predicting the weather

Animals associated with the weather

The winds

Weather taboos

Bringing fair weather

Divination

The forces of nature

A statement of problems

18th-century observations

Swanton's contribution

The Spirit Above

Fate, moral law, taboo, and luck

God

Spirits and beings in the world

Monsters and wealth-bringing beings

Manufactured objects

Plants

The world of animals

Animal souls

Attitudes toward animals

Totem animal and other animals

Dogs

Conclusion: the ordering of the world

Totemism

The world of spirits

MYTHS AND TALES

Introduction

The Raven Cycle

Three connected versions of the Raven Cycle

Isolated incidents of the Raven Cycle

Other Myths and tales

The children of the sun

The story of Łg’aya[w]

The story of Kat who married a bear

The story of the woman who married a bear

The story of the woman who married a bear and comments on the story of Kat

The story of the woman who raised the worm

The man who married Fair Weather's daughter

The story of Tl'EnAxídàq

Stories about hemlock child and spruce root child

The story of the blind man and the loon

The story of salmon boy

The story of black skin

Wolverine man

The story of the girls who stole mountain goat tallow

The story of the girl who turned into an owl

The braggart gambler

Legend of glaciers at Yakutat

The moral of Chief Shakes

The lying and truthful brothers in Sitka

Stories about a transvestite

The visitor to Yakutat

The race between the fox and the crab

A story about the big-breasted woman

The land otter's halibut hook

About the land far out to sea

The story of a Copper River potlatch

The discovery of copper

The true story of the discovery of gold

LITERATURE CITED

FIGURES

62. Chair die

63. Carved wooden chessmen

64. Tlingit song recorded in Lituya Bay, 1786

65. Song recorded in Sitka Sound, 1787

66. Metal daggers from Port Mulgrave

67. War pick

68. Design for war bonnet

69. Face painting for peace hostages

70. Positions of hosts and guests at K[w]acqwan potlatch

71. Positions of hosts and guests at Teqwedi potlatch

72. Shaman's headdress and false beard

73. Shaman's false beard and headdress as worn

74. Shaman's prophetic bone

Recreation and Art: Games and Music

INTRODUCTION

The pleasures of the Yakutat people consisted, and to a large measure still consist, of social gatherings. Many of these are informal, as when friends visit each other or stop to chat and gossip. The visits of relatives from another town, or trips to see them, are especially welcome for they permit renewal of family ties, giving and receiving gifts, feasting and drinking, learning new songs, story-telling, and exchanging news—what one informant called “chewing the rag.” Such visits might be short or long. Although the oldtime houses traditionally had extra rooms for guests, well-bred persons were careful not to trespass too long on the hospitality of their hosts. Often the gifts brought by the visitors offset the costs of their entertainment. The occasions for such visits were formerly trading expeditions or the annual gatherings at the sealing camps in Disenchantment Bay. Now trips to Juneau on business or for medical and dental treatment, or to attend the annual meetings of the Grand Camp of the ANB and ANS serve somewhat similar purposes. Naturally, giving and attending potlatches formed and still form social occasions of the greatest importance.

At home, wakes and funerals, weddings, christenings, church and school functions of various kinds, the community picnic after graduation, the Memorial Day visit to the cemetery, basketball games, Saturday night dances, Bingo games or special shows in the ANB Hall, movies at the school or at the Coast Guard Base, are occasions that offer serious, exciting, or amusing entertainment for everyone.

Small groups of friends and relatives enjoy expeditions together, for example to Haenke Island to gather seagull eggs, shoot seals, look at the scenery, picnic on the beach, and perhaps camp overnight. Or, a party may go to Point Manby to pick strawberries and perhaps to hunt bears. Many oldtime subsistence activities are now carried out by small parties as recreation: gathering shellfish or seaweed at low tide, picking berries, going hunting. Families still look forward eagerly to the first camping trip up the bay in the spring. The escape from the cramped houses of winter into the open air, and above all, the sight of the open bay, islands, streams, forests, and glorious snowy peaks are important sources of pleasure.

Singing and song composition have always been stressed at Yakutat. Now, depending on the occasion, people may sing the old potlatch songs, or newer compositions in Tlingit that deal with love, with hurt feelings, with loneliness, or mourning. These may bring memories of the dead, so that often the singers are overcome by tears. However, many enjoy a good cry, and this was evidently true in the past also. Singing is particularly associated with liquor; many native songs refer to the enjoyment of drinking, and singing usually occurs at drinking parties. Some men do not want to sing unless they feel a little warmed by beer or whiskey, and if some people start to sing they are likely to drink. Singing was also associated with gambling in the past but, as far as I know, poker and Bingo are played without accompaniment. The Yakutat people like to sing hymns in church, for a number of which there are Tlingit verses. Modern popular songs are also enjoyed, and many families have phonographs or radios. Some also listen to the news on the radio; fewer like to read books and magazines, although “comic books” are appreciated by youths.

In addition to the types of recreation mentioned above, and to children's games and toys (see pp. 515–516), traditional Yakutat games were primarily contests involving skill, quickness of eye and dexterity of hand, sometimes strength, and also “luck” or chance. These were games on which two or more opponents gambled with passionate enthusiasm.

The decorative arts, carving, painting, and the weaving of blankets and baskets, also gave pleasure. I will not attempt to discuss these; the examples illustrated must speak for themselves. There were few persons at Yakutat when I was there who were skilled in the old crafts and these arts were then all but dead. Boas, Emmons, Paul, and most recently Holm, have discussed the aesthetic and symbolic qualities of Tlingit representational art and basketry designs so fully that I cannot hope to make any additional contribution now.

GAMES

Gambling Games

The most important games involved gambling or betting (’Ałqa). “You have to bet just like you bet in poker. Put one out. Somebody put out something; then you put some more on the top. Something like a potlatch. They dance and sing [while they play].”

Some of the games played at Yakutat were like those of the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska or other Northwest Coast tribes. In some cases, the Yakutat rules appear unique, although this may reflect misunderstanding of informants’ explanations.

Gambling appears in Tlingit mythology. For example, the origin of the Unaqadet, the wealth-bringing underwater monster, is ascribed in one story (Swanton, 1909, Tale 33) to a formerly lazy man, “fond only of gambling,” who later reformed, but was killed when he tried to meet the exorbitant expectations of his nagging mother-in-law. The supernatural ‘Master of Gambling’ (’Ałqa ati), or “greatest gambler,” appears in another story (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 135–139) to bless QonAłg′c, an unlucky gambler, who then takes his revenge on the chief who had previously won everything from him. The story is told so as to stress the theme of moderation and of pity toward the loser. Swanton (ibid., p. 138, n. a) believes that this reflects missionary teaching, but the particular virtues seem consonant with what I feel were aboriginal. Thus, the lucky gambler is careful to stop each day when he is well ahead and when he wins the chief’s nephews, his wife, and the chief himself as slaves, he gives them their freedom.

The story is regarded as a warning to high-class people not to gamble, and especially not to go crazy over the game. QonAłg’c is supposed to have named the various sticks used in the Stick Drawing Game (see pp. 554–555). According to the story, gamblers can tell from the movement of the sticks what animals they will kill on the hunt, and whether there is to be a death in the family. People who cheat, according to the narrator, have sticks that fly invisibly, as did those of QonAłg’c.

Although I did not hear a version of this story at Yakutat, its warning against overdoing is similar to that in the Yakutat story of the Braggart Gambler (p. 894). In the latter case, the moral is against boasting of one's wealth.

It was probably the Stick Drawing Game that LaPérouse, Dixon, and SurÍa saw being played at Lituya Bay and Port Mulgrave. The story of QonAłg’c is of particular interest in confirming SurÍa’s conclusion that a man could wager himself, becoming a slave of the winner. We also find some corroboration in Krause (1956, p. 133):

“According to Lütke [1827, Sitka] the Tlingit are such desperate gamblers that they will bet their clothes, furs, guns, slaves, even their wives. In addition to the stick game [cf. below p. 555], in more recent times common playing cards are being used in gambling games which they have learned from the whites.”

LITUYA BAY, 1786

LaPérouse believed that gambling was the major cause of the quarrels he observed between the Indians at Lituya Bay.

“Of the passion of these Indians for gaming I have spoken above [quoted, p. 122]. The kind to which they are addicted is altogether a game of chance. They have thirty little sticks, each marked with a different number. [Footnote by the translator: “‘Differently marked like our dice,’ in the original. But this cannot be, because our dice are all marked in the same manner. ‘Like the different sides of our dice,’ is probably the meaning of the author. T.”] Seven of these they hide. Each plays in turn, and he who guesses nearest to the number on the seven sticks, gains the stake, which is commonly a piece of iron, or a hatchet. This game renders them grave and melancholy.’” [LaPérouse, 1799, vol. 1, p. 408.]

YAKUTAT 1787

The Yakutat Indians were also fond of gambling. Although writing about the Northwest Coast Indians in general (that is, about those encountered at Yakutat, Sitka, and Nootka Sound), Beresford observes:

“Though these poor savages are in their general manners truly in a state of uncultivated barbarism, yet in one instance they can boast of a refinement equal to that of more polite nations, and that is gaming, which is carried on here to as great a pitch (comparatively speaking) as at any of our moderate fashionable clubs. The only gambling implements I saw, were fifty-two small round bits of wood, about the size of your middle finger, and differently marked with red paint. A game is played by two persons with these pieces of wood, and chiefly consists in placing them in a variety of positions, but I am unable to describe it minutely. The man whom I before mentioned our having on board at Port Mulgrave [see p. 126], lost a knife, a spear, and several toes [adz blades] at this game in less than an hour: though this loss was at least equal to an English gamester losing his estate [!], yet the poor fellow bore his ill-fortune with great patience and equanimity of temper.” [Beresford, 1789, p. 245.]

In this last respect, the natives of Port Mulgrave seemingly showed better sportsmanship than those of Lituya Bay.

YAKUTAT 1791

Suría describes the “stick game” as played at Port Mulgrave. According to a footnote supplied by W. A. Newcombe, of Victoria, B.C., this is exactly the same game as that seen by LaPérouse and Dixon, even though the descriptions vary.

“The sticks are from four to five inches long and vary in thickness from that of the average pencil to the average little finger. The number of sticks in a bundle appears to have been immaterial, anywhere from 20 to 70…. It is a guessing game to locate certain ‘marked’ sticks in the bundle.” [Wagner, 1936, p. 257, n. 36.]

“They gamble with some little sticks, about eight or nine fingers long, and a finger in thickness, very well made. They count up to fifty with various signs, which differ one from the other. They shuffle them and then stretch one or two on the ground. From what we could make out the companion [opponent?] must pick out from these two [bundles in which the sticks are hidden?] the one which has been hidden by the one doing the shuffling, which he recognizes by signs. If he succeeds the little sticks pass to his companion and if not the same man continues the same shuffling. There is sufficient reason for thinking that with this game they put up their persons and whoever loses has to be at the disposition of the other, because one of our sailors went to play with one of them, and having lost as usual, because he did not know the game, the Indian became very contented and made a sign to the sailor to embark in his canoe, because he was now his, and on being resisted the Indian insisted, indicating by signs that he had won.” [Ibid., pp. 256–257.]

Stick Drawing Game

The Stick Drawing Game was called cict, according to JR, who said the word sounded Russian to him. According to Swanton, (1908, p. 443), cs was the name of a stick game played by the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian, while the sticks were called cct, and the scoring one was the ‘devilfish’ (nq). All of these sticks were, however, elaborately decorated. The rules described by Swanton were rather different from those given by JR, although the latter had originally come from Sitka to Yakutat. Quite possibly I did not understand him correctly.

According to the latter, the game required “an expensive outfit” (cf. the elaborately carved sticks collected by Emmons and listed by Swanton, 1908, p. 444). JR said there were sets of sticks—10 or 20(?)—made of hard red alderwood. The ends were carved to represent various animals: bear, caribou, rabbit, eagle, goose, and devilfish. The last is the “high one,” but how, or why, he could not explain. These sticks were about 5 inches long. In addition, there was a skin, 9 inches wide and 5 feet long, fringed along the edges and across the ends, “like a scarf or necktie,” made of caribou, deer, or sealskin.

They get an honest man as dealer, and he does not change unless the players so wish. Anyone can play, even strangers. There are lots of people playing and betting. The dealer takes the sticks and shuffles them inside or under a pile of shredded cedar bark (tcukAn). Then he rolls them up inside the “scarf.” The players bet on which stick will be drawn out first from the skin. The dealer pulls them out by the end. Each person will choose a different stick to bet on. They used to wager a sea otter skin. They will call out their stick, such as ‘bear stick’ (xuts cict), or ‘devilfish stick’ (naqw cict), singing and drumming for that one to be pulled out first. (It is not clear from JR's explanation whether individual players bet against each other as to whose stick will be drawn first, or whether the winner takes all the stakes.) They do not play this every night, nor all night, we were told—maybe in the full moon one month, and the next month in the last quarter, or at full moon.

According to Swanton (1908, p. 443), there were only two players to the game, who alternated in shuffling and hiding the “devilfish” and two nonscoring sticks in two piles of shredded cedar bark. The opponent had to guess which pile held the “devilfish” stick. If he missed, the dealer continued through 10 or 18 wrong guesses, depending on the particular form of the rules that had been agreed upon, and then three piles of shredded cedar bark were made for each try, and the guesser could choose two of the three. Whenever he correctly chose the pile with the “devilfish,” it was his turn to shuffle and hide the stick. Men usually had many sets of sticks, sometimes up to 180 pieces, so that they could try to change their luck by playing with different sticks.

This is the game ascribed to QonAłg′c, whose name is said to be Haida (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 135–139), and this suggests a southern origin for the game.

A Dry Bay woman described her father's gambling sticks as “just big enough to go across a man's hand. There are 12, I guess, like little totem poles. They call gambling sticks 'Ałqà. They don’t use it in Dry Bay, you know; only over here [Yakutat] they use it. They’re just going to dance when the Unana come to Dry Bay, not gamble.” Presumably these were decorated sticks for the Stick Drawing Game.

Professor Libbey collected at Yakutat in 1886 a skin pouch with a long flap closed by a cord and a flat T-shaped toggle, which contained 36 very nicely made wooden sticks (pl. 138). These were about 5 inches long and inch in diameter, each marked individually with encircling lines of now faded paint. About seven were inlayed with small rectangular pieces of abalone shell or tiny beads. This was undoubtedly an outfit of gambling sticks, although I cannot be certain for what game it was used. The form and markings of the sticks suggest those seen by LaPérouse, Beresford, and Suría.

Culin (1907, pp. 243–246, pl. IV) describes and illustrates several Tlingit sets of sticks for this game (“Stick Game”).

Hand Game or “Stick Game”

The Yakutat Tlingit also played the Hand Game. Although I did not learn its specific name, Swanton (1908, p. 44) reports that it was called nah′n, after one of the two sticks which are used. Nah′n is plain; naa’n, the other, is marked. The game is played by two teams, although according to Swanton only one man in each manipulates the sticks or tries to guess in which hand his opponent has hidden the marked one. A correct guess means gaining one counter, a mistake means losing one. All the counters must be taken in order to win the game and all that has been wagered. The stakes are apparently very high, but Swanton does not make clear whether each member of a team bets against his personal opposite. It is possible that this was the game seen by Suría at Yakutat and not the Stick Drawing Game, as suggested above.

A Yakutat informant said that when he was a boy the “Washington Indias” or “Flatheads” used to come to Yakutat in a schooner to hunt sea otter (p. 352). In addition to dancing “against each other,” these strangers and the local Indians used to play the “stick game.” They gambled blankets and ammunition. The last was not cartridges, but powder and shot and caps with which they filled their own shells by hand. One of the two sticks used in the game had a red line around it, and the other was plain. The players danced and sang, while they apparently passed the sticks from hand to hand. (He did not make clear whether the leader exchanged the sticks between his own hands—the usual method—or whether the sticks were passed along the line of players on his team.) No further details the game were given.

All the Indians knew this game, my informant said. Once the Yakutat and “Cordova People” (Eyak) bet against each other in a game on Kayak Island. In the old days a wealthy man might wager two slaves on one play. It might take a poor man 10 years to save enough for one slave—or 20 years—or never. Yet a wealthy man might bet two at one time.

Culin (1907, pp. 287–289, figs. 371, 372) describes and illustrates several pieces for the Tlingit Hand Game.

Chair Dice

A gambling game (itu) is played with a single die carved to represent a chair or a swimming bird (fig. 62). According to Swanton (1908, p. 445), the name ‘buttocks-shape’ (k!Îtc!u‘) is suggested by the curve of the piece. It is flat on two sides, and has four edges. Two persons play against each other, using 20 sticks as counters, each having a pile of 10 in front of him at the start of the game. (When Jack Reed made me a set, he made 20 pencil-shaped sticks like those for the Stick Tossing Game, see below, and 3 extra, in case some were lost.) To play, one person takes the die by the “back” of the “chair” (or the “beak” of the “bird”) between thumb and forefinger, and flips it over the back of his hand with a snap of the wrist. It counts 2 points if the “chair” lands sitting up on the shortest edge (qicqak); 1 point if it lands on one of the other three edges; and 0 if it falls flat on either side. As he scores, the player takes 1 or 2 counters from his opponent’s pile and adds them to his own. If the die falls flat on either side, the player misses his turn, which passes to his opponent. Winning involves taking all the counters. (JR)

This game is essentially like that described by Culin (1907, pp. 130–131, figs. 138, 139) for the Tlingit, except that the latter specified that the die was thrown onto a mat of heavy skin, carved with a crest design.

When Minnie Johnson and a friend played with Dr. McClellan and myself, they adopted different methods of scoring. All of the counters were put in the middle, from which each drew when she scored. The sides of the die counted zero as before, the longest side (“back of the chair”) counted 1, the curved edge (“seat”) 3, the shorter straight edge (“front”) 4, and the shortest edge (“bottom”) was said to “win the game” (fig. 62). I believe that our friends were following the method of scoring used by the Eyak, in which the edges count 1, 2, 3, and 4, in inverse proportion to their length, while both sides count zero (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 241).

FIGURE 62.—Chair die, carved by Jack Reed in 1952. The numbers indicate the points scored.

The late Sam George is said to have made a big wooden die for playing in the ANB Hall. Since the game was to raise money for the organization, the “winner” had to pay 10 cents for the honor, and didn’t receive anything.

It should be noted that the humerus of the seal or of the sea otter is tossed in exactly the same way as the chair die when it is being used for divination. Both chair dice for gambling and the use of the seal or sea otter humerus for divination are found among the Chugach (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 108).

Stick Tossing Game

The Stick Tossing Game, “throwing-up-stick” (ke-dAdjIt-łuqà[?], or kekdułitc 'Áłqà) seems to be like that played by the Chugach (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 106). Culin (1907, p. 729) describes a more northern Alaskan Eskimo version of the game as “jackstraws,” but neither he nor Swanton report the game from the Tlingit or other Northwest Coast tribes.

The game is played with pencil-shaped sticks of red cedar, or “any kind of wood,” about 8 inches long and inch thick. A set made for me by Jack Reed consisted of 20 sticks, of which 17 were plain. The others were carved at one end to suggest a head of a wolf (utc), a devilfish (naqw), and a shaman (’it’), and each of these was said to be worth two of the others. Sometimes, I was told, two sticks were simply marked by cuts: six marks for the “shaman” and three for his “assistant” (’it' An qawu). The number of sticks actually used in playing is uncertain, for my informants disagreed, although I believe that 12 is usual.

The game is played by two persons. To play, one man lays the bundle of sticks across the palm of his right hand. He tosses them up, catches them all on the back of his hand and tosses them again, this time trying to catch one (preferably one of the marked sticks) as they fall. As he catches a stick between thumb and forefinger, he sets this aside, and repeats the tossing and catching with the remaining sticks until all have been caught, one after the other, or until he misses, and the turn passes to his opponent. If he catches a marked stick, he may remove 2 sticks for each of the three carved ones, or 12 for the “shaman” with six marks, and 6 for hi “assistant” with three. (The last information sounds unreasonable, for it would spoil the game, and I think I must have misunderstood the number of sticks that could be omitted from the next toss after catching the “shaman” and his “assistant.”)

It is my impression that on the first round only one stick at a time is caught; on the second, two must be snatched from the falling bundle; on the third round, three; and so on; until on the last round of the game, the player tosses and catches all 12. Furthermore, he loses his chance if he catches more or less than the required number.

If neither player completes a whole game without failing, then they compare the number of points each has missed. The one who has lost more, say three more than his opponent, has the right to hit the back of the latter's hand three times with the end of the bundle of sticks. This pounding can be rather severe and would seem to be fairly effective in evening the chances of winning. (According to Birket-Smith, the Chugach player who is ahead has the right to hit his opponent.)

“A fellow can pound a bundle of sticks on the back of his hand. When he loses the last he gets a prize,” commented one woman. “I saw my brothers do that,” answered MJ. “‘How many sticks did you miss?’ Then you get that many tries. You get 20, I get 15—you hit five times.”

Quoits

Another gambling game which was played at Yakutat resembled quoits (’AnAłtiguq’[?]). As described:

“They sing a song with this gambling game. There will be lots on this side, and lots on that—lots of stuff. They have a big piece of sealskin and expensive things like blankets on both sides. They got a mark on the sealskin and they pitch at it. [The quoits] are pretty ones…like little chips. They are gaq' [Aqw?, or ‘hard wood’)—round as a dollar. They have something in the middle of the sealskin. They have [this as a] target. They throw at it and try to hit each other's markers out of it. They kind of slide it [their quoit] on the sealskin. You block your own with another.

“I saw it on the Fourth of July…. I think they played it in the ANB Hall just to show the younger generation. Old big shots played that game.”

This seems to have been the same game as that described by the Eyak as the “Partner Game,” so called because while two opponents tossed wooden disks at the shaving in the middle of a sealskin, each was closely watched by a partner of the other, to prevent cheating (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 240).

Chess and Checkers

Directly or indirectly from the Russians, the Yakutat people learned to play chess and checkers. Several parts of one or more sets of wooden chessmen, stained red, were collected by Professor Libbey at Yakutat in 1886 (pl. 139). These are very similar in style to some 19 out of 22 carved wooden chessmen (fig. 63) collected there by W. H. Dall (in 1874 or 1880?) and published by Culin (1907, fig. 1089, p. 793). An informant (MJ) mentioned checkers as being played by her father and mother at this same period. Regrettably, neither Dall nor ourselves secured information about the rules of these games.

FIGURE 63.—Carved wooden chessmen collected by W. H. Dall (USNM 16300) from Port Mulgrave. Culin (1907, p. 793, fig. 1089) mentions that 22 chessmen were collected but illustrates only 19. They varied in height from 1 –3 ″.

It should be remembered that the Cordova Eyak believed checkers to be aboriginal, and even told a cautionary tale about the child or youth who was abducted by the “Checkers People” as punishment for playing too much (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 322–323).

Emmon's notes listed as distinctive for the Yakutat and “Gutheokqwan” (Kahliak River-Controller Bay Eyak) the use of “native-made checkers (probably learned from Russians).” In discussing the patterns of Tlingit basketry, Emmons (1903, p. 277, fig. 360) described an old Yakutat basket with a checkerboard pattern. This was called ‘checkers-under board' (“darwar tar-yee dta-ye”) or ‘checkers-foot board’ (“dar-war kus-see dta-ye”)—i.e., dAWA tAyi t’ayI, and dAWA ui t’ayI. He writes of the game.

“The game of checkers has long been popular with the Tlingit. They play much as we do, but the checkers partake more of the appearance of chessmen. They are carved figures, divided equally in sex. Each one is named, and personates some natural or artificial object. This game was introduced many years ago, for the present people have no record of the event, and believe it to be of their own invention.”

Emmon's description of the pieces shaped like chessmen, but divided into a male set and a female set (i.e., corresponding to our “red” and “white”), suggests the checkers game (dÁmbà’) of the Atna Athabaskans on the Copper River (fieldnotes with McClellan, 1960). The pieces representing “men” are shaped like ordinary pawns, while those called “women” (pawns of the opponent) are notched at the top. Some pieces like these were among the chessmen collected by Libbey at Yakutat. His collection and that of Dall are much more varied in character than the simple “men” and “women” pieces of the Atna.

Bingo

The love of gambling and of simply handling money, even if unprofitable in the long run, explains the popularity of the Bingo games sponsored several times a week during the winter by the ANS (Alaska Native Sisterhood), in the ANB Hall. Some persons, especially women, go regularly to play and like to talk about their small winnings, for example, of $4. However, the rule is that each player must pay 10 cents a card, that is, to enter the game each time, and that half of the winnings (i.e., half the stakes bet each time) must remain in the ANS treasury. Thus, it would appear that the fun is in winning and in manipulating coins, and that the players fail to realize that they are actually losing in the long run. On the other hand, there is a strong feeling that they have an obligation to support the ANS, which gives help in time of sickness, death, or other catastrophe, and the women realize that playing Bingo benefits the organization.

In addition to Bingo, ANS raises money by charging admission to the Saturday night dances and to special shows, making paper flowers for sale, etc. The moneys collected in this way, especially through Bingo and dances, though in the form of small change, may amount to several hundred dollars in a short length of time, according to one of the cannery clerks who was counting and wrapping dimes for the ANS treasury.

Tops

Emmons (notes) also lists as distinctive for Yakutat to Controller Bay the use of “counting sticks,” and “the use of the top or tee-totum as [a] gambling implement.” I heard nothing about this and do not know exactly how the game was played. Of a bone disk, obtained at Yakutat (pl. 139), Emmons wrote, however; “A gambling spinner used by men. Each player furnishes his own spinner and they spin together; the one spinning longest wins. In use it fits over a bone or wooden spindle.” W. H. Dall collected a complete top at Port Mulgrave, consisting of an ivory disk almost 4 inches in diameter, and a wooden spindle, 3 inches long (Culin, 1907, p. 740, fig. 983). A stone disk for a top, engraved with a Raven on one side and a Salmon on the other (pl. 137), and a similar piece of whale bone decorated with a Frog (pl. 137) were collected by Professor Libbey at Yakutat in 1886. Two stone disks (AMNH E/2759, 19/225) were also obtained there by Lieutenant Emmons at the same period. The latter writes that the second was found in the possession of children, but the natives claimed that it was originally on a spindle to produce fire by friction. The children, at any rate, were using it as a “teetotum,” and I would suspect that it had always been a top, since the native fire drill lacked a flywheel.

The top, or “spinning wheel” (MJ), was called one or Une, and must have been very ancient among the Gulf Coast Indians, for Raven is said to have called himself ‘Top from Inside the Whale’ (yay yIk da one), referring to his adventures inside the whale that eventually drifted ashore at Dry Bay (p. 852). When it was cut open, Raven flew out with a buzzing sound, which the word for top suggests. Malaspina's “Ankau Junè' was obviously named ‘Top’ (onè). after Raven.

Contests

Other games, apparently played for stakes, were athletic contests. Among these, the most important were shinny and canoe racing. Swanton (1908, p. 445) also mentioned shinny, and several games involving shooting arrows or throwing darts at stationary or moving targets. My informants did not, however, happen to mention the latter, although they were probably held since the Copper River Eyak also had shooting matches, as well as foot races and wrestling matches. They also played shinny (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 240–241).

SHINNY

Shinny or “golf” (kuesa, kuèa, or a; cf. Quoits) was played by two teams that hit a ball back and forth, each side attempting to drive it across the goal line defended by their opponents. The field was preferably an area between two lakes or ponds, but there were no markers or posts set up to indicate the two ends.

“It's the same thing as golf [!] After we get skates, we play the same thing…. It's an Indian game. I don’t know how the White people get it.”

As among the Eyak (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 240), the two teams might be drawn from the same or from opposing sibs. This game, as well as one involving jumping over and between sharp greenstone rocks (an Eskimo sport), and also other games, are played in “heaven” (kiwa’a) by the souls of those slain in battle, or who have died of violence.

OTHER CONTESTS

Basketball is very popular today among the Tlingit, including those of Yakutat. It is played chiefly by boys of high school age or a little older. It has become so important an intervillage sport that the ‘medicine’ for marksmanship has been used in secret by ambitious players (see p. 661).

In earlier times the Yakutat people, like the Eyak, often had various contests with the Chugach. These were held when groups from Yakutat came to Nuchek to trade. Old Chief Makari in 1933 told Birket-Smith and me about such an event when he was a small boy (i.e., in the middle of the 19th century). The Chugach and Yakutat played shinny, but the former had a very fast player who used two sticks, and so could take the ball away from the Yakutat who were so slow they could use only one. The Chugach also won the footrace. Finally an Indian named Niuqut (probably Neut, a Teqwedi name), a small and not very strong man, defeated the Chugach champion in a wrestling match because he “chewed some kind of leaves and blew into his opponent's face,” so that the latter lost his strength (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 108). Obviously, he was using the ‘no strength medicine,’ which actually consists of roots, although the Tlingit call it ‘leaves’ (kaani). The Chugach naturally considered this use of ‘medicine’ to be very unfair.

It was probably only through oversight that my Yakutat informants failed to describe wrestling and footraces.

Fourth of July Canoe Races

The Yakutat people have enjoyed boat races for a long time. These are still traditionally held on the Fourth of July, after the children and young people, carefully graded by age and sex in the interest of fairness, have competed in short footraces, sack races, potato races, and other contests on the cannery dock. For these, as well as for the boat race which ends the afternoon's entertainment, the cannery helps in putting up money for prizes. The race is made by skiff with outboard motor over a course that runs from the cannery dock out and around the channel buoy near Point Turner and back to the dock.

In 1952 the proceedings were enlivened by the antics of XX, who with great humor pretended to compete in the sack race, and joined the boat race paddling a cranky canoe which he nearly upset. I was told that he regularly acts as a clown on the Fourth of July. His uncle, “Gums” (Jimmy Jackson, 1861–1948), B. A. Jack (1860–1949), Peter Lawrence (1871–1950), and others, all had the reputation of being “witty men,” which suggests that there may have been the tradition for someone to lighten serious occasions (including potlatches) with good-humored and clever buffoonery.

There is the tradition of a canoe race between Indians from southeastern Alaska and the ancient inhabitants of “Old Town” on Knight Island. The former had a large red cedar canoe, while the local people had a skin war canoe with a crew of 20 men. The race was from the village on Knight Island around Eleanor Island and back. Each crew was captained by a nephew of their chief. As the canoes were rounding Eleanor Island abreast, a man in one grabbed the gunwale of the other, but was cut loose by a member of the other crew, possibly by having his hand cut off(?). No one today is certain who won, but the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska always claim they did, while the Yakutat people are just as sure that they won.

While the Eyak had canoe races, even building special canoes for racing, and the Chugach also raced in umiaks and baidarkas, it is interesting that the Chugach never attempted to race against the Yakutat, because the dugouts of the latter were too fast for their skin boats (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 241, Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 104).

At Yakutat, boat races were formerly between rival sibs who used their large named “war canoes.” Such a race, which probably took place about 1890 was described as follows:

“Gee, I see a canoe race when I was young. Big war canoes raced from the Old Village to Khantaak…. It was a race between Kwacqwan and Tł'UknaAdi. I was held up so I could see. They bet on the race and chew the rag…. They had crews of Kwacqwan and Tł'UknaAdi. The men got no clothes on; they just tied their shirts around their waists. Big husky men with paddles—no, oars. I don’t know how many men [in each crew]. The captain steered. The captains were Ckinan [Tł'UknaAdi of Boulder House, who died before 1901] and Chief George—’Yakutat Chief Yaodaqet' [Kwacqwan sib chief who died in 1902 or 1903].” (MJ)

Referring to a later period, another informant said:

“They used to have Fourth of July canoe races. Month of March I used to hear all my uncles—tick, tick, tick—adzing out canoes. The races were more fun than now…. Sitka Ned [Teqwedi, died 1926] used to make tAyac [forked-prow canoe] for Fourth of July. His were always the fastest. The last race they beat him. Jack Reed [Tł'UknaAdi, 1880–1953] make it in Situk like ’andeyagu ['ship's boat’]. That was the last canoe. That canoe beat Sitka Ned. He’s paddling his own canoe then.”

In those days the Fourth of July celebration seems to have been anything but tame, for when “Captain Ahous” was at the cannery, he is said to have given two barrels of soda pop to the crowd, and a quart of whiskey and box of cigars to each seine boat captain (Situk Jim, Situk Harry, Daniel S. Benson, and Jim Kardeetoo), to share with his crew.

Cat's Cradles

The Yakutat people formerly amused themselves with string figures (tł’eł), but these are now all but forgotten, and I did not attempt to collect records of the various forms and the methods of making them. One elderly woman, with some fumbling, managed to make a few, and described others, as follows:

1. “Two men in a skin canoe.”

2. “The sea otter hunter and his son” [same as above?]. Here the little son is behind his father. He gets his spear ready, and when the proper string is pulled his coiled up harpoon line shoots out straight.

3. “Crow foot.” The informant had heard that one could change Crow Foot into Fish Tail, but did not show this.

4. “String Basket.” This was not demonstrated. A piece of charcoal or other small light object was put in the bottom of the “basket” and when the two correct strings were jerked, the pellet flew into the air.

5. A string is laced around the fingers, seemingly tying them tight, but it can be pulled free by tugging at one end. (Is this the way in which the fingers of adolescent girls, widows, and peace hostages were bound?)

Apropos of the last, the informant (MJ) remembered when her father had wound a string all through her mother's toes. Then he cupped one hand like an arch at the side of her foot, and with the other hand pulled the string. It came sliding through her toes, and was supposed to represent a frog hopping along under the arch. Her mother became angry and almost scratched his face. Probably this was because she had the characteristic Tlingit horror of frogs (see p. 831).

Her mother was always busy with housework, but in the evening she used to ask her husband to teach her string tricks. They would sit around in the evenings, playing checkers or making string figures.

Harrington was able to record only that “Old people make cats cradles: two mountains with a stream between them; and a boat coming down stream and a man throwing a spear, and two dogs on the bank. But all the informant knows how to make is a devil fish, and then turns this into a devilfish-under-a-rock.”

MUSIC

FIGURE 64.—Tlingit song recorded in Lituya Bay, July 1786. “They who have the strongest voices take the air a third lower, and the women a third higher, than the natural pitch. Some sing an octave to it, and often make a rest of two bars, at the place where the air is highest.” (LaPerouse, 1799, vol. 1, p. 403.)

Songs

“Oh gee, I’m just chock-ablock full of songs!” could be said by most of my informants at Yakutat. Songs were not the accompaniment of work, as they are in many parts of the world when many hands or feet must move together in grinding, monotonous labor. Rather, Tlingit songs are to express one's inmost feelings (qatuwu), the longings, love, joy or sorrow of individuals or groups.

With song, the dead were mourned at funerals and potlatches, sib treasures were displayed and personages honored; with song and dance, guests at feasts expressed their happiness and appreciation; hostilities were averted and peace was made with appropriate songs. Gamblers sang as they played, mothers dandled or soothed their babies with pet songs or lullabies, loved ones were wooed or rebuked in song, the hunter placated the souls of slain animals by singing to them, and the shaman invoked his dread spiritual helpers with the irregular rhythms of their own songs.

There is hardly an occasion—from a solemn ceremony to an idle hour with congenial friends or in lonely solitude—for which the Tlingit cannot find appropriate music, or for which he or she is not moved to compose a new song or set fresh words to familiar tunes. Informal gatherings, especially when there is something to drink, are times for singing, and it is still quite common for individuals, especially women, to sing when alone, the tears streaming down their faces at remembrance of the dead with whom the music is associated in their minds.

“The old people have died, and the songs have gone for good—Old Sampson, B. A. Jack and Jack Ellis are dead. KUanguwutan [Katy Dixon Isaac] is expected to die any time. Old Sampson was pretty good at potlatch songs,” said one man.

“The song composers, like Jimmy Jackson and William Milton, are dead. Same way, the women folks that can sing are dying off, and the songs are dying with them,” lamented a woman.

“Old people, two hundred years ago, make songs for blankets, hats, totem poles…. My father wants me to learn songs. I say ‘Iííí! No good! I don’t want to learn it. Kałeacute;—no good,' I say about church songs he learned at Stikine. My father said ‘One day, White people going to ask for old songs. You’re going to see it!' He was right. My father try to teach my sister a yek [shaman’s spirit] song. She didn’t want to learn it.” (Mrs. —)

“We’re forgetting native people's songs. When we joined the ANB they said ‘You’re going to be American citizen forever and forever.’ And they can’t sing those songs,” said another woman.

Yet of all arts formerly practiced at Yakutat, perhaps that of music is still most alive, and song composers are still esteemed.

18th-Century Singing

The earliest visitors to the Tlingit were impressed by their constant singing. The ships of these explorers were customarily greeted by canoes full of natives who sang to express their peaceful intentions or their welcome to the strangers. Thereafter, canoes coming out to the ships to trade would precede commercial transactions by lengthy singing, in which the chief seems to have acted as song leader, while the crews sang in harmony. After circling the vessels, the chief and his party might sing and dance on deck for an hour or more (see pp. 116, 119, 143, 146). Some of the songs seem definitely to have been used for peacemaking (pp. 147, 150, 151).

We are fortunate in having preserved for us the scores for two such 18th-century songs, although the numerous transcriptions of Yakutat songs, made by Haenke in 1791, have unfortunately been lost or mislaid.

LITUYA BAY, 1786

LaPérouse was the first to give us any clear idea of Tlingit songs. He had observed that, although gambling often makes them

“grave and melancholy: yet I have often heard them sing, and when the chief came to visit me, he commonly paraded round the ship singing, with his arms stretched out in form of a cross as a token of friendship. He then came on board, and acted a pantomime expressing either a battle, a surprise, or death. The air that preceded this dance was pleasing, and tolerably melodious. The following are the notes of it, as accurately as we could take them down.” [Cf. fig. 64.]

[A footnote adds:] “They who have the strongest voices take the air a third lower, and the women a third higher, than the natural pitch. Some sing an octave to it, and often make a rest of two bars, at the place where the air is highest.” [La Pérouse, 1799, vol. 1, p. 408.]

“The harshness of their language is less perceptible when they sing.” [LaPérouse, 1799, vol. 1, p. 410.]

These observations that melodies were rendered with part-singing in different voices corroborates the information of my informants. Although LaPérouse compared the native songs to the “plain chaunt [plein chant, ‘full song’] of our churches” (quoted p. 116), it is clear that part singing was truly aboriginal, and not inspired by Russian church music which was later to be adopted by the southeastern Alaska Tlingit.

SITKA SOUND, 1787

Beresford (1789, pp. 242–243), while apparently reporting on Northwest Coast singing in general, has given us the score of a song he heard in “Norfolk” (Sitka) Sound, sung before trading. Presumably, therefore, his remarks apply particularly to Tlingit singing. The words of this song are meaningless syllables.

He had explained that the natives treasure masks or visors and caps, painted or carved to represent animals, birds, fish, or the human face, and that they keep these in “neat square boxes.”

Indian Song as generally Sung by the Natives of NORFOLK SOUND previous to commencing trade

FIGURE 65.—Song recorded by William Beresford, Sitka Sound, 1787.

“Whenever any large party came to trade, these treasures were first produced, and the principal persons dressed out in all their finery before singing commenced. In addition to this, the Chief (who always conducts the vocal concert) puts on a large coat, made of the elk skin, tanned, round the lower part of which is one, or sometimes two rows of dried berries[?], or the beaks of birds, which make a rattling noise whenever he moves. In his hand he has a rattle, or more commonly a contrivance to answer the same end, which is of a circular form, about nine inches in diameter, and made of three small sticks bent round at different distances from each other: great numbers of birds beaks and dried berries[?] are tied to this curious instrument, which is shook by the Chief with great glee, and in his opinion makes no small addition to the concert. Their songs generally consist of several stanzas, to each of which is added a chorus. The beginning of each stanza is given out by the chief alone, after which both men and women join and sing in octaves, beating time regularly with their hands, or paddles: meanwhile the Chief shakes his rattle, and makes a thousand ridiculous gesticulations, singing at intervals in different notes from the rest; and this mirth generally continues near half an hour without intermission.

“I shall here write down, in notes, a song which I often heard whilst we lay in Norfolk Sound: my knowledge of the science is so very superficial that I can say but very little as to its accuracy; however, it will serve to convey a better idea of the music used on the American coast than any other mode of description can do; at the same time it should be observed, that they have a great variety of tunes, but the method of performing them is universally the same.” [Cf. fig. 65.]

The “Chief” seems to have been dressed in skin armor, of the kind worn by shamans (cf. p. 688), and the rattle he carried was not the usual raven rattle of the chief, but was a kind known to be used by shamans (p. 699; pl. 205), like one from the grave house of a Dry Bay doctor that was hung with puffin beaks and deer hoofs. Nevertheless, this description of singing corresponds well with the information I obtained: the chief as song leader, the men and women singing several tones or an octave apart, and compositions consisting of several stanzas with chorus.

The scores of the two songs have been reproduced so that they may be compared with those transcribed from my recordings (see Appendix).

PORT MULGRAVE, 1791

It is a tragedy that the transcriptions made by Dr. Haenke of Yakutat songs have been lost, for Malaspina's expedition had better opportunities for hearing and better preparation for recording Tlingit songs than had any other 18th-century visitor. References to these songs, to the occasions on which they were sung and the manner in which they were presented, are quoted on pages 141, 150, 151, 622–623. Thus, the Spanish vessels were greeted by songs which the chief led in a “stentorian and frightful voice,” according to Suría, while all those in the canoes joined in intoning “a very sad song…composed of only three notes although the measure varied.” This description would fit very well the ancient sib songs, sung at potlatches and funerals. Suría further tells us that on this occasion the natives also sang other songs in the same style, all “very agreeable and sonorous” [i.e., in parts?]. The song leader dictated the words and indicated the tune and rhythm with movements of his body, to which the rest kept “good time.” At intervals they might pause and all give three shouts.

When receiving foreign visitors, when making peace or celebrating the reestablishment of friendly relations with the Spaniards, the natives sang different songs, but ones apparently in the same style. When singing to the Spaniards they were divided into three groups and ended each song with “a kind of laugh” or a bark. Such cries at the ends of songs are still given.

Malaspina also mentioned the “really harmonious hymns of peace, war, rejoicing and devotions.” My informants, however, denied that there were special songs for war [p. 584]. Nevertheless, warlike dances with mock weapons (and sometimes with real ones, cf. Suría's experience, p. 150) were part of the peace ceremony (p. 601), and no doubt warlike dances or dramatic shows were also included in potlatch celebrations (p. 626) and in the reception of guests. The most serious sib songs, with three-part or four-part harmony and slow beat, would certainly impress anyone as having the solemn and reverent character which we associate with religious music. They are better compared with a national anthem or funeral march.

Vancouver's narrative also comments on the use of songs when the Yakutat natives made peace with the Russians (p. 157).

Perhaps some of the songs which I recorded at Yakutat in 1952 and 1954 actually date back to the 18th century. Some can with certainty be ascribed to the early or mid 19th century; others were composed later. For many late 19th and 20th-century songs, specific dates as well as the names of the composers could be given.

Recording Yakutat Songs

The Yakutat people have a large repertory of songs, including foreign as well as Tlingit compositions, ancient and modern, and varying in style and mood depending on the occasions on which they are usually sung. The ancient traditional Tlingit songs are almost all the jealously guarded property of particular sibs. Some songs, largely those of foreign origin (Athabaskan, Tsimshian, or Haida) may be sung by anyone. Still other songs are felt to belong to a particular individual (as composer, as the one for whom the song was composed, or as the shaman to whose spirit the song belongs). With the death of the owner, the status of his songs may change: some become the exclusive prerogative of the composer's sib, or of a close relative in it who has succeeded to his position; others, depending on their subject matter, may become “popular songs” which everyone sings.

Although I attempted to obtain examples of all types of songs, ownership, that is, the right to sing in public, had an effect on my ability to secure recordings. Thus, a number of songs were mentioned or even sung to me privately by persons who refused to do so for the tape recorder, since these songs belonged to another sib. This reluctance was especially noted in the case of the most precious sib potlatch songs (see pp. 586–587). Normally the latter would be sung only by the owners, who would demonstrate both their rights and the value of the music by paying their listeners (the opposite moiety). Or, if some of the latter were asked to take part, they would then also be paid. This last custom made it possible for me to secure the recordings of some valued songs even when the members of the owning sib did not know them well enough to sing; in such cases, they would often ask other persons to sing them for my machine, and then give them money for this service. If such cooperation could not be secured, and if the owners were unwilling, it was impossible to pursuade non-owners to make recordings.

Songs associated with specific individuals were usually not so strictly controlled. No one else would, of course, sing the composition of a living composer, nor a song dedicated to a living person, unless requested by him, but with the present breakdown of strict matrilineal inheritance a number of songs belonging to dead men were recorded by their children. Although the latter were members of the opposite moiety, they nevertheless felt close enough to the deceased to sing his songs, and besides, they argued, there was no one else left who knew them, and they wanted to have these recorded as permanent memorials to their beloved fathers. The same was true of a few shamans' songs.

In 1950 Dr. Catharine McClellan and I had made recordings of some songs at Angoon. These consisted of two Decitan (Raven sib) potlatch songs: The Song of the Raven Hat and the Song of the Beaver Hat; and there were three Tsimshian songs used for dancing. When we played these to an interested audience at Yakutat in 1952, some of those present became fired with the ambition to equal the Angoon singing. This led to the recording of about 26 songs that summer, ranging from the most serious traditional potlatch songs to a hymn rendered in Tlingit baby talk! Phonograph records cut from the tapes were sent as gifts to the singers. The songs sung by Jack Reed (Tł'UknaAdi, 1880–1953) were played at his own funeral potlatch.

Listening to these and to the other records not only revived interest in native songs, but stimulated hitherto reluctant singers, so that when I returned in 1954 with Mary Jane Downs we were able to record about 95 songs (the count includes two or three versions by different singers for a few melodies). Thsoe who sang were delighted to hear their own voices when the tapes were played back to them, and they were equally eager to hear what others had sung. They were also anxious to obtain phonograph records of these songs as mementoes of the dead and to play at future potlatches. Interest grew, and new songs were composed that year. (The last even included one by myself in Tlingit style, for which I gratefully acknowledge John Ellis' help with the Tlingit text, as well as gratitude for the reception accorded by the surprised audience.)

To a greater extent in 1954 than in 1952 an attempt was made to secure transcriptions of the Tlingit texts of the songs, sometimes from the singers and from the tape, but preferably from dictation. I also tried to obtain more accurate English versions than the very free translations or explanations usually offered. The results, however, are but moderately successful, for not only was my linguistic skill often unequal to the difficulties of Tlingit phonetics and grammar, but some informants were actually unable to dictate the words to the songs which they had just sung, omitting phrases, transposing their order, or even altering some of the expressions, and an interpreter might insist upon a different version from that of the original singer. This suggests not only the difficulties which we ourselves often experience when trying to teach a song to someone else, but also seems to indicate a certain “fluidity” in Tlingit versification. The degree to which even traditional songs may vary can be judged by comparing my texts with those of Swanton for what are obviously the same songs, as well as by comparing the different Yakutat versions in words or music of the same song recorded by different persons.

The recordings were made on a 1952 model Pentron tape recorder, on dual-track Audio-tape at a speed of 7 inches per second. Some difficulty was experienced, especially in 1952, with fluctuations of the electric current; some songs were never recorded because power was not available when the singers were willing. A standard pitchpipe was blown before and after songs so that it might be possible to allow for variations in the speed of the tape. No drum was available in 1952, and singers either did without, or pounded on the skin head of a banjo with a ruler wrapped in cloth, while holding down the strings. In 1954, I provided the singers with a Tlingit drum which I had purchased in Juneau. This was of the usual tambourine type with a deerskin head; the drumstick was unusual in that the striking end was made of a rubber ball encased in a stocking, instead of the traditional winding of skin. However, the Yakutat people approved of the drum and drumstick and made extensive use of them. When recording shamans' songs, Frank Italio beat time with a pencil on a wooden cigar box, imitating the sound of the customary tapping sticks and sounding board (p. 697). Although rattles should have accompanied some songs, we had none to provide, but some drummers were satisfied with a very rapid beat on the drum.

In making the recordings, the singers usually preceded the music with a spoken introduction in Tlingit. This would explain the myth or legend from which a traditional song was derived, or the occasions on which it was customarily sung and why it was now being recorded. For more recent songs, the introduction usually named the composer and his or her relation to the singer, explained why the song had been composed, and for whom it was intended or to whom it referred. Often a spoken conclusion followed the song, thanking the audience for listening and adding further information. Somewhat similar spoken introductions and conclusions, although perhaps more formal in style and always serious in tone, would have been made for songs delivered at potlatches. Many of the recordings also include translations or explanations of the songs in English.

Specific information about each Yakutat song is found in the Appendix. The songs are presented according to their type, with transcriptions and translations of the texts whenever possible, and with score and analysis of the music for 117 compositions.

In addition to the songs themselves, we recorded in Tlingit several myths, including two versions of the Raven cycle (both by Frank Italio, in 1952 and 1954), and some accounts of more recent history. The translations of these, where pertinent, are given in appropriate sections of this book.

Character of Tlingit Songs

Although Tlingit songs are of different kinds, most of them exhibit the same general form. With few exceptions, all have two stanzas. This is also apparently the case with most of those recorded by Swanton (1909, pp. 390–415), even though his texts as printed do not always make this clear. Note that Song 91 (ibid., p. 412) with only one stanza is called a “half song.” Each stanza is relatively short, consisting of one to about three short sentences, and rarely lasting 30 seconds. The melody is sung first to a refrain or chorus of meaningless syllables: “’aya ha he,” or “’aya ‘e—‘a—,” often ending in “’ani ‘aye” if it is a love song. The chorus of a mourning song may run “’aha huwu…‘ehuwe ‘ehuwa,” or “’awe he ‘iye,” or “’a—hine—.” This is referred to as “the humming” “without words.” Swanton transcribed none of these; my records are also deficient. After the refrain is sung, the first stanza is sung twice to the same tune. Then the refrain or chorus without words is repeated and the second stanza is sung twice. Thus, the same melody is sung in all six times, unless the song has three stanzas, in which case there may be nine repetitions. (I know of no song with more than three stanzas, although some sound as if they had been composed with four stanzas. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish a song of two stanzas from two separate songs.) In a few recordings, only the first stanza was sung, usually because the words of the second had been forgotten. Some singers omitted the refrain because they were unfamiliar with the proper style.

In the old traditional songs the words are usually very few, and often cryptic, conveying their full meaning by allusive imagery or by reference to mythic events familiar to everyone. In this respect they are like formal Tlingit oratory (cf. Swanton, 1909, pp. 374–388). Yakutat examples of such songs would be Lament for the Raven Post (1954, 3–2–H; p. 1161), or Raven Cries For Daylight (1954, 6–2–B; p. 1155). However, the lines are lengthened by inserting extra syllables in or between words, or at the ends of lines. The same device is used by modern composers to fit the words to the melody.

Thus, ‘my uncles’ (’a kak-hAs) becomes in songs ‘a kagi-hAsa; ‘the world’ (łIngit ’ani) becomes łInigIt ‘ani; Kagwantan becomes Kahagwani; and GIneqwan, the traditional and poetic designation for Kwacqwan, is lengthened to GIneqwani. ‘Thus’ (awes) and similar expressions (see the list of “particles” in Boas, 1917, pp. 150–152) are inserted into the sentence, and many words add an extra -a or -i at the end (after the final aspirated consonant has been transformed into a sonant).

The old songs likewise use unfamiliar, probably archaic, expressions which make it hard for informants to translate the words or even to explain their meaning. Swanton (1909, p. 390) encountered similar difficulties: “The language of these songs is so highly metaphorical that they are often difficult to understand even in the light of the native explanations, and in some cases the author's informants were themselves uncertain with regard to the meaning.” For example, one song, anciently sung after a canoe had safely descended the Alsek River under the ice bridge, could be translated, but my informants could not explain the meaning (1954, 3–1–C, 3–2–F, and 6–2–E; all on p. 1230). One suspects, since the song itself is said to be of Athabaskan origin, that the Tlingit words are simply ones adopted because they sounded something like the Athabaskan originals, although there is nothing apparently appropriate in their meaning.

Just as the words of the old songs so often convey so little explicitly, so too their tunes are generally limited in range to a few notes. It is as if time had drained them of words and melody, leaving only the emotional significance to be conveyed by the several voices intoning in harmony and the insistence of the long drawn-out phrases reiterated to the slow heavy beat. This is particularly true of the old mourning songs chanted at funerals and potlatches. So also, the joyous dance tunes with their more lively rhythm may lack intelligible words because they are almost all foreign, and may be equally limited in tuneful range. Yet because these are traditional, they carry their happy message. As far as I can tell, these foreign songs do not necessarily follow the formal Tlingit pattern of double repetition of each stanza, preceded by a refrain without words.

Modern compositions, that is songs by known composers, even though they may date back to the 1870's or 1880's, are both more tuneful and more dependent upon the sense of their words. Most of these songs are said to have been influenced by Haida style and are, therefore, called ‘Haida mouth songs’ (Dekina a ciyi). Love songs are usually (or exclusively) of this type. The Haida are said to use such songs for dancing, so these and their Tlingit copies are assumed to have a lively tempo, despite the fact that many express the sorrows of the composer. Even so, a number of the latter were actually composed for dances to be performed at potlatches (see Skin Canoe George's song, p. 633). With rare exceptions ‘Haida mouth songs' are addressed to sib-children, that is, to members of the opposite moiety who are the children of men of a sib in the singer’s own moiety (pp. 485–486).

Some of my informants recognized a difference in style between the compositions of such Dry Bay men as Dry Bay Chief George or Blind Dave Dick, and songs originating at Yakutat or in southeastern Alaska. Some of the former show in their faster and more accented rhythms what I take to be Athabaskan influence.

When singing was done on formal occasions, such as potlatches, funerals, feasts, or peace ceremonies, it was performed by a whole group, usually of men and women (of the same sib or moiety), and was directed by one or more song leaders. Such songs were chosen and rehearsed in advance. They were supposed to be accompanied, if not by active dancing, at least by set motions of the body and limbs. The song leaders guided the singing and gestures by means of long poles or paddles, which were raised and lowered, or moved from side to side in time with the music. The song leader, whether the chief or a young man, usually began the song, and the others joined in. He would call out the words in advance, just before they were to be sung by the rest, and would similarly give directions, such as ‘Again!' (tcułé), ‘To the beginning!' (hede), ‘End’ (hut), or ‘That's the end!’ (hut ‘awa!). Many songs, especially those sung at ceremonies, had several voices or parts, often two for the men and two for the women. The song leader was supposed to have a “bass voice,” while the other men and, of course, the women sang at higher pitches. Unfortunately, it was almost never possible to assemble enough singers to represent this aspect of native music (see, however, The Song of the Golden Eagle, 1954, 1–1–F; and the Killerwhale Drum Song, 1954, 5–1–D; pp. 1166 and 1167). Usually the songs had to be rendered by only one or two persons, but if one of these had been a song leader he would try to make the necessary calls, and when the tape was played back he would accompany himself (or herself) several tones higher in pitch. A number of songs ended with special cries, and these would also be given by the song leader. (See pp. 618–619 for the role of the song leader at a potlatch.)

As already indicated, the only musical instruments were the drum, rattles, and tapping sticks. The most common type of drum was a tambourine with a head of sealskin, or of deerskin imported from southeastern Alaska. The handle consisted of one or two thongs stretched across the back. Large wooden box drums, hung from the ceiling, were beaten on the inside. A simple stick, the end wrapped in skin or cloth, served to beat the drum. (For further descriptions, see p. 632.)

Rattles were not used for mourning songs, but were reserved for dance songs and for shamans' songs. My informants did not specify what dance rattles were like, only that they were different from those of shamans. Presumably they sounded much the same. Nor did I hear of any difference between the rattles used by chiefs and those that might be carried by ordinary dancers (see Swanton, quoted below). Tapping sticks were used only for shamans' songs. (For the shaman's drums, rattles, tapping sticks, see pp. 697–699.)

In addition to the sounds of these percussion instruments, other sounds accompanying the different songs would be the thud of the dancers' feet, clapping of hands, or the rattle of the shaman's bone and ivory amulets as he ran around the fire. During some happy songs, the singers or song leader might utter animal cries, for example raven caws or sounds suggestive of a whale spouting, such as “hiii” or “hwiii!” The last were said to be Tsimshian. Sad songs, to judge by those which I recorded, were probably accompanied as well as followed by sobs and wails.

Dancing

Just as Tlingit songs follow a formal pattern, so the dances accompanying them are formal and restrained. Always excepting the songs and dances of the shamans, there is nothing improvised or dionysiac about Tlingit dances. We may perhaps have to qualify this statement for some of the warlike dances that might be performed at peace ceremonies. At least Suría was terrified by what was apparently such a dance: “They formed a circle around me and danced around me knives in hand singing a frightful song, which seemed like the bellowing of bulls” (quoted p. 150). Although the greatest vigor of expression seems to have been found in such dances, performed with mock weapons as they were described to me (p. 601), the warlike character of these dances seems usually to have been conveyed by controlled and traditional gestures and cries. For most dances, certainly, the steps and movements were traditional and fixed for the specific song, and these were rehearsed in advance. For example, the formal motions accompanying certain traditional Kwacqwan songs have been described (p. 240). When these were recorded (1954, 7–2–A; 7–2–B; 7–2–C; pp. 1155, 1226, 1227), the singers even came prepared with the proper seagull wings and moved these in time to the music. Other dances are described in the account of the potlatch (pp. 624–629, 633–634, 638, 642–643) and peace ceremony (p. 601). I unfortunately saw none myself.

Katishan of Wrangell described Tlingit dances and songs to Swanton in connection with one of the stories (1909, Tale 31, p. 141):

“Thus it happens that there are two kinds of dances, a dance for the chief and his sons [when the chief gives a potlatch] and this common or Haida dance (Dek′na AL!′x) [i.e., to imported tunes or to ‘Haida mouth songs’?]. In the latter, women always accompany it with songs, and, if the composer sings about some good family, members of the latter give him presents [i.e., the traditional response of those addressed as sib-children by their opposites]. When the chief is going to dance, he has to be very careful not to say anything out of the way. He dances wearing a head dress with weasel skins [cAki'At], a Chilkat blanket, and leggings and carrying a raven rattle. He is the only one whose voice is heard, and he speaks very quietly. Meanwhile, until it is time for them to start singing for him, the people are very quiet and then only high-caste people sing. [This sounds like the chief initiating the singing at his potlatch, see p. 631.] The Haida dance, however, is always accompanied by noise. It is rather a dance for pleasure [by guests after the distribution of potlatch gifts], while the chief's dance is more of a ceremony. Although most of the people who witness it are high-caste, anyone is welcome. All watch the chief's actions and listen to his words very closely. If he makes the least mistake, showing that he has not studied his words beforehand very well, they have too much respect for him to say anything to him at that time. Next day, however, after he has found it out, if he does not take his words back, the people that had heard will disgrace him by giving away a great deal of property. The Haida dance was done away with years ago, while the chief's dance has been given up only in very recent times.”

The carefully chosen words of the chief, the restraint, decorum and careful attention to details that characterize the chief's dance are well described here. I heard nothing at Yakutat, however, to indicate that competitive potlatching would be utilized to shame him for his mistakes.

While some dances, especially those performed by vigorous young men in wooden headdresses (cAki'At) or in heavy wooden crest hats must have been strenuous and required considerable muscular control, they were not, I gather, acrobatic displays (p. 633). All dances must perforce have been restrained, either by the cramped space in the house, or by the heavy ceremonial garments. Even though the women were said to dance fast to the beat of the Killerwhale Drum, so that they sweated in their handsome woolen broadcloth button blankets, these enveloping robes did not permit much freedom of motion. Certainly a woman could not really “jitterbug” when wrapped in a bolt of calico (p. 634). A Chilkat blanket also effectively pinioned the arms. (It is probably significant that the shaman stripped naked or practically so for his performances. Yet since some of these involved dancing in a mask without eyeholes, around a fire, one wonders how carefully formalized and controlled may actually have been these seemingly ecstatic exhibitions of spiritual frenzy.) Most “dances” seem to have been performed on the same spot, without stepping away, the body swaying to and fro, the arms moving from side to side, and the knees dipping. Some “dances” apparently took place behind a blanket so that only the moving crest hat or headdress could be seen. Potlatch guests even “danced” sitting down as they feasted.

In singing and dancing, emphasis was upon flawless performance. To make a mistake was shaming, exposing one to the horrors of ridicule. It was for this reason that leaders and performers armed themselves with magical precautions and ‘medicines’ so that errors might pass unnoticed and the occasion be proclaimed successful (p. 616). This is why the Tlingit believed that a dancer could die as a result of the strain: “The people's looks have killed him” (Swanton, quoted p. 615). Mistakes, however, could be more than humiliating: those made by the ‘deer' during the course of a peace ceremony were breeches of taboo which might lead to renewal of the trouble. So the hostage’s feelings had to be calmed and the ill effects of any mistake neutralized in advance or wiped out by the ritual cry, “Waaaá!” (pp. 598, 599, 602).

Dancing made one forget one's sorrows. This institution was supposedly initiated by the unfortunate Haida(?) chief who had lost everything by gambling but who became happy again after dancing with the grouse and other birds (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 139). The Yakutat people may not have known this story, but it expresses their attitudes towards the dance.

Categories of Songs

Although Swanton recorded 103 songs on wax cylinders (now deposited in the Folklore Division of the Library of Congress) and transcribed the texts of most of these, he did not attempt a systematic classification of them.

“Several songs refer to myths and are explained by them, and there are a few shamans' songs, but by far the larger number were composed for feasts or in song contests between men who were at enmity with each other” (1909, p. 390).

On the whole this is true of the Yakutat songs, except that I recorded very few that expressed ill feeling or that suggested song contests between personal enemies.

Not represented in my collection of recordings, unfortunately, are songs to dead animals, of which there is said to have been a traditional song for each major species hunted. These were supposedly learned from the animals themselves, as were the proper rites to be observed in showing respect to the dead creatures (p. 362). Swanton (1909, p. 392) recorded two of these, one for the dead bear (Song 12), and the other for the groundhog (Song 11). The last was evidently similar to that sung formerly at Yakutat (p. 367). These ceremonies for dead animals are now obsolete and the songs forgotten.

While gambling songs were sung, especially for the Stick Drawing Game, the Hand Game, Quoits (pp. 554–557) and perhaps for others, I did not hear any of these songs. Since the first two of these games probably reached Yakutat from the south (introduced by parties of sea otter hunters?), I would hazard that the accompanying songs were foreign (Tsimshian?, Haida? or even Chinook jargon?).

The other types of songs distinguished by my informants, and of which I have examples, are sib songs, marching and dancing songs, peace songs, funny songs, songs for children, shamans' songs, and the large body of ‘Haida mouth songs.’ There are also recordings of a few songs that are difficult to classify.

SIB SONGS

'songs about the sib’ (naa ci), often called “tribal songs” or “national songs,” are sung by the hosts at a potlatch. Because wealth is laid out by the singers to be given away, these songs are considered very valuable, almost sacred. The eight with which the potlatch begins (p. 631) are designated as ‘akitc, a word which apparently means ‘its wing,’ perhaps suggestive of the “eight bones” symbolic of the body (see p. 761). Boas (1917, p. 144) suggests that kItc is a verb connected with the house-building feast, citing the translation ‘they danced the house together’ given by Swanton (1909, p. 336.4) for aodū’wakÎtc. The latter also gives the term ktcdaciÎ' or “nodding-of-heads-to-and-fro” for the first part of a Kagwantan mourning song, sung while the corpse is being cremated and the women, with long swaying ear pendants, dance around the pyre. One of my informants used the word ‘akitc da ciyi as the equivalent for any mourning song, translating it as “crying for the dead songs.” It is not, however, clear whether the term designates a special class of such songs, or only the group of eight that are sung at funerals, house dedications (in honor of the dead), or at the beginning of potlatches (pp. 608, 619, 631).

The most valued sib songs are ancient, traditional ones, ‘long ago songs’ (takw ci), the origins of which are ascribed to myth or legendary history. Some of these were believed composed by the sib totem (Beaver, Golden Eagle, Raven, Petrel), or by an ancient sib hero (QakewtE, Łayaw, GòsnÁ'w or others, associated usually with the acquisition of the crest. Other traditional mourning songs were composed by supposedly historical characters: the Gmeqwan ancestors of the Kwacqwan, including Gudiłta’, or Wuckika, or the CAnkuqedi woman mourning her relatives lost on the Yukon, or the Teqwedi men who suffered shipwreck because they took the green paint stone. Of presumably more recent date are Kacken's lament for those slain by the CAtqwan (1852?), or the Kwacqwan dirge for a drowned son (pre-1875). (For the range of subjects and occasions for singing, see pp. 631–633.) Many of these songs associated with sib emblems (named hats, blankets, canes, house screens, house posts, or canoes) are traditional and presumed ancient. These are all named for the crest object, as for example, 'Song for [or about] the Crane Canoe' (duł yAkw da ciyi), or 'Song for the Thunder[bird] Blanket' (xetł u da ciyi), or 'Song for the Raven Post' (yeł ga da ciyi).

However, sib potlatch songs, sung when dedicating a house, displaying a house screen, or mourning a dead relative, may also be recent compositions. I recorded modern examples dating from 1907, 1909, and 1918.

These songs are described as 'sad songs’ (tuwunukw da ciyi), or ‘heavy songs’ (yAdAł ci), either because of their manifest content or their associations. They are 'songs that tell about feelings’ (tuwunik dat ci).

Lastly among sib potlatch songs are the eight that are sung by the hosts just before the distribution of property (p. 634). I have recorded only one example, specifically identified as such, the Killerwhale Drum Song of the Teqwedi, which is presumed to be very ancient. I also know that songs for the same purpose have been composed in modern times (see that mentioned for the potlatch in Bear House, 1905). What distinguishes these from the preceding sib songs is that they have joyous lively dance tunes.

Almost all sib songs have Tlingit words. The only exceptions are some of those belonging to the Kwacqwan, since they were composed by their Athabaskan-speaking ancestors, so that the words are in Atna. The CAnkuqedi also have four Athabaskan songs given them by the Aiyan Indians of Fort Selkirk on the Yukon.

Sib songs are not only sung by those giving a potlatch, but the one captured as a ‘deer’ will sing his own sib song as part of the peace ceremony (pp. 599, 601–602).

WALKING, RESTING, AND DANCING SONGS

In sharp contrast to the sib mourning songs, are those sung by guests at a potlatch. They sing these as they come to the house where they will be entertained, and especially after they have been paid. Then the change in tempo and mood from the preceding laments is signalled by the last dance songs introduced by the hosts.

“Walking songs” or “marching songs,” called ‘walking along songs’ (yAnAt da ciyi) or 'songs going to the house door’ (hIt kAwUł da ci) are sung by guests when coming by canoe to a potlatch (p. 611), when they walk or dance into the house of their hosts, and when they leave it.

“Resting” or 'sitting down songs’ (qin da ciyi) are sung as they pause at the door, but especially while they are feasting after the distribution of potlatch wealth. One informant said they were the same as the “walking songs” but another made a distinction between them.

‘Dancing songs’ (ł’e da ciyi) are used for the dances given by the guests after the potlatch, to thank their hosts and to cheer them. Some of these dances involve dramatic imitations of animals or persons (see pp. 624–627).

What distinguishes these songs is that they are all of foreign origin (Unana da ci), adopted from the alien peoples with whom the guests sibs have had the most contact, usually through trade or intermarriage. The songs are traditional, but they are also called “popular songs” (łAdju ci), for they may, on appropriate occasions, be sung by any sib.

Thus, the Teqwedi, who trace their origin to the far south, use Tsimshian songs, including some introduced into Yakutat only in the 1880's. The Kagwantan from Sitka via Dry Bay also have a Tsimshian song.

The Kwacqwan, on the other hand, have Atna walking, resting, and dancing songs, traditionally ones their ancestors had used at Chitina or had composed as they crossed the glaciers to the coast. (One song was said to have been “captured” from the Chugach Eskimo.) The ałyIx-Kagwantan and Tcicqedi use the same Atna songs.

Similarly, the sibs of Dry Bay, primarily the TłukwaAdi and CAnkuqedi, but also the long-resident TłUknaAdi and Box-House Kagwantan, have Athabaskan songs obtained from the Southern Tutchone on the upper Alsek. The Tł'UknaAdi also have some from the Unana of the upper Taku. The words of the Southern Tutchone songs are chiefly in Athbaskan, but at least one is in Tlingit, for the Athbaskans at Klukshu speak Tlingit. Some of these songs are said to have been sung for joy when canoes had safely descended the Alsek River, under the ice bridges (pp. 87, 628).

Sibs of the two moieties in the same area may sing each other's songs of this kind, for they are fathers and sons to each other, it was explained. The alinements of songs are given here from the point of view of visitors coming to potlatches at Yakutat. However, when guests in southeastern Alaska, any Yakutat or Dry Bay sib may draw upon the repertory of the whole area. Thus, Tł'UknaAdi guests at the potlatch given in Sitka (in 1900?) to honor the memory of Chief Minaman (DaqusEtc) who had died there of poisoned whiskey, sang and danced in imitation of the Copper River Indians, because the other local guests used Tsimshian dances (MJ). Now the Tlingit in southeastern Alaska sing these songs, for a Yakutat informant told me that he had heard some Copper River songs on a broadcast from Juneau.

The rhythms of these foreign songs, especially the Athabaskan ones, are in a fast, lively tempo, yet it becomes obvious after one has heard Copper River songs rendered by the Atna themselves, or native singers at Klukshu on the headwaters of the Alsek River, that the Yakutat versions have been slowed down. Conversely, the Atna and Southern Tutchone speed up in their own somewhat jerky style the songs they have learned from the Tlingit.

“Drinking songs” may well have been sung by guests at the feasts following the potlatch proper. At least I was told that Old Fox of Teslin, last of the YAnyedi song composers, had made a drinking song which the YAnyedi guests from Taku sang at the potlatch given by his Tł'UknaAdi father in Sitka in 1900. This song was not recorded. However, we do have two Athabaskan drinking songs from Klukshu, one of which has Tlingit words (1954, 2-1-J and 2-1-K; pp. 1361, 1362). A drinking song was also composed by Frank Italio(?) (1952, 1-2-C; p. 1361).

I should note that I heard of no songs like those recorded by Swaton (1909, Songs 28 and 29) which were used by guests when they felt that they had not received enough property. The words of these two are Tsimshian and are said to refer to the Eagle Hat and to the Unaqadet Hat, both undoubtedly sib emblems.

PEACE SONGS

'songs for the deer’ (kuwakan da ciyi) were composed and sung by members of the sib that had captured as hostage or ‘deer' a member of the sib with whom they were making peace. The new ceremonial name given to the hostage is mentioned or alluded to in the words of the song, which is sung by his captors while he dances to it. Since at Yakutat, peace ceremonies are held only between sibs in opposite moieties, the hostages are addressed as sib-children of their captors in these songs. The latter belong to the literary style of the so-called ‘Haida mouth songs.’ Peace songs become associated with the individuals for whom they were composed, and after their deaths might be sung by their own sib in their memory. A number of peace songs, composed at Sitka, Dry Bay, and Yakutat were recorded (for further information about these songs and the accompanying dances, see pp. 599–604).

A special “peace song” (for which I did not obtain the native term) was composed by each of the two groups of rival sibs who were invited as guests to a potlatch (pp. 614, 620). Since these two groups belonged to the same moiety, they could not sing to each other, but only to their hosts; yet they flattered each other by referring to the latter as the sib-children of their rivals. The only example recorded was composed by Dry Bay Chief George when his sib (Tł'UknaAdi) were co-guests with the Kwacqwan at a potlatch given by Jim Kardeetoo (Teqwedi, and child of Kwacqwan). The song was said to be ‘about Kardeetoo’ (Kayidatu dudat) because he was one of the GIneqwan-children for whom the song was composed.

In the sentiments expressed, as well as in the literary and musical form, both types of peace song are similar to love songs.

FUNNY SONGS

There are a series of traditional songs, allegedly composed by Raven himself or referring to his adventures, that are sung as part of the happy festivities at a peace ceremony (pp. 601–602). They would be sung by the wives of the captors, while their husbands danced with mock weapons, hence the name, 'song of the wooden tassels’ (kUwAłAkAnki da ciyi).

I have recorded a number of such humorous Raven songs, and even though I cannot be sure of the range of occasions on which they might be sung, they have all been grouped together. Thus, one informant denied that they ever would be sung at potlatches, and belonged only to peace ceremonies, yet one song, “Raven and the Mussel People,” was specifically mentioned as having been sung by the Kwacqwan when they were potlatch guests. “How Raven Became Drunk,” composed by Dry Bay Chief George, was ambiguously described as “a dance song for parties.” “Raven Loses His Nose” was recorded by Swanton (1909, Song 1, p. 390) as “used at all kinds of dances.”

Other funny songs suitable for peace making were the traditional teasing songs for children (see below, p. 571).

It may be significant that, except for childrens' teasing songs, all of the funny songs are about Raven. There are none, to my knowledge, about the totems of the same or the opposite moiety: Coho or Humpback Salmon, Frog, Owl, etc., or about Eagle, Wolf, Bear, or Killerwhale. This is consistent with the way these other totemic characters appear in myths. None is represented as funny except Raven himself, even though they may figure in the same stories as Raven. When I asked if there were funny songs about Wolf or Bear, for example, my informants were clearly at a loss. Some thought that there ought to be (perhaps because it would be “fairer” if the Eagle-Wolf moiety could claim some), but no one was able to cite a single one, not even one heard long ago. It is obvious that both moieties sing the same songs, laughing at or with Raven. “There are funny songs about Raven because he created the world”—and got into trouble so doing, was implied. In Tlingit mythology there is only one trickster.

SONGS FOR CHILDREN

There are at least two kinds of songs for children. The first are the traditional “teasing songs” which anyone may sing to a loved child. Swanton (1909, pp. 392–393, Songs 13 to 16) has recorded four of these. What gives them their specific character is that the child is indirectly teased by accusing the child's joking relatives of naughty acts. These individuals are specifically named, while the child for whom the song is sung is not. The inclusion of actual personal names is a marked departure from normal Tlingit poetic style and may be the feature which gives these songs a certain risque character. When I was recording one, sung by a woman as if it were to her Kagwantan-yAti grandchildren, the name of a particular woman, the children's joking relative, had to be omitted and that of another woman substituted, because someone pointed out that the first old lady might be offended.

When these songs are adapted for peace making festivities the appropriate sib-children designation is used instead of personal names.

“Pet songs” are composed by parents or grandparents for little children just learning to walk or talk. From the few examples transcribed, the words are apt to include references to the child as a “stinker,” because he or she has presumably dirtied himself, or as “tiny,” and baby talk expressions may be included. The tunes are lively in rhythm and simple in melody, being sometimes little more than a jigging, singsong recitation of a few phrases.

“Lullabies” were mentioned but none was recorded. Interestingly enough, one was said to be an Eyak song, learned from the seals and sea otters long ago. Another was for a baby boy, in which the child's own name is mentioned. This was once sung in the ANB Hall (in a show to raise money) by three men and by a woman holding a doll.

SHAMANS’ SONG

'songs for shamans’ (’it’ da ciyi) are supposed to be the songs of the shamans' familiar spirits (yek). The shaman-to-be indicates that he has become inspired by singing the spirit's song, or by falling into a trance when his sibmates invoke the spirit by singing it (p. 675). The song may be obtained by the novice when he goes into the woods on his quest; on his return, he teaches it to the men of his sib (p. 681). Thereafter, at seances, the song will be sung by his principal assistant, his drummer, and his fellow sibmates using tapping sticks, while the shaman himself dances, shaking his rattles or brandishing his dance wands (p. 702). The more often his songs are sung, and the larger the group singing them, the stronger becomes his power.

A shaman may control several spirits, each of whom has its own song. As the spirits are inherited (usually within the sib), so the songs are inherited and traditional. Since many spirits are Tsimshian, the words of their songs are in that language, and the tunes are also foreign. In a few other songs, the spirit speaks in Tlingit, and in the first person.

These songs are readily distinguished by their often irregular rhythm and rapid beat, and they may lack the clear form of refrain and two stanzas.

Shaman's songs are not always reserved for serious seances, but may be sung for dramatic masked dances at potlatches, in which the spirit (yek) of the hosts' sib is imitated (pp. 628–629). Now that there are no longer shamans at Yakutat, their songs have become sib mourning songs, to be sung at potlatches to lament the deceased shamans of the line.

HAIDA MOUTH SONGS

By far the greatest number of songs recorded were by known composers, the earliest of whom had died in 1888, while others were still making new songs in 1954. With a very few exceptions, these compositions were all addressed to members of the opposite moiety, most often as the children of specific sibs. ‘Love songs’ (qUsian da ciyi), 'sad songs’ (tuwunukw da ciyi), and 'songs that tell about feelings’ (tuwunik dat ci) all fall within this general category. So do most of the songs recorded by Swanton.

I do not know whether I should include here the songs which my informants termed in English “drinking songs” (see p. 570). Most of these modern compositions might well be sung at drinking parties, and some love songs refer to drink. It is also hard to place the sad song ascribed to the slave, Gucdutin (1954, 5-2-B; p. 1360). Two songs composed for special occasions, one about the Tsimshian word “ínàù” that averted a fight (1952, 3-1-C; p. 1312), and the other dedicated to Mount Saint Elias for sending sunshine to the ANB Convention in Yakutat in 1931 (1954, 5-1-A; p. 1303), are also hard to classify. While Gucdutin is clearly not a member of the Raven moiety, this does not seem to influence who may sing his song, as far as I could tell. The last two songs, like the “drinking songs,” are not addressed to members of the opposite moiety. On the other hand, at least one love song, specifically designated as a ‘Haida mouth song’ is also called a “popular song,” just because it is not addressed to sib-children and there is no mention of moiety affiliations. This is Jimmy Jackson's Sawmill Song (1954, 7-2-D; p. 1305).

We cannot say, therefore, that all modern songs about personal feelings are addressed to sib-children, although most (if not all?) seem to be of the type designated as ‘Haida mouth songs.’ For the most part also they conform to the pattern of refrain, first stanza sung twice, and second stanza sung twice. A few have only one stanza, perhaps because they were never finished; and a few have added a third. The majority could be designated as love songs, or at least songs expressive of tender feelings and affection. A Haida love song, introduced in 1900 from Kasaan, was sung as an example of the style that the Tlingit had copied (1954, 7-2-E). I was told that before the Haida style was imitated the Yakutat Tlingit had love songs of their own, but I learned nothing further about them.

We cannot limit precisely the occasions on which songs in this general group would be sung. Thus, peace songs, whether for a ‘deer' or for a potlatch, are ‘Haida mouth songs.' Others were composed as dance songs, to display the abilities of the young men of the host’s sib when they gave a potlatch (p. 633, Skin Canoe George's song, unrecorded). After the composer's death, his songs might be sung as dirges at his funeral or in his memory at a potlatch. Some songs expressing personal feelings have already become part of the sib's repertory of mourning songs. These are by B. B. Billy or Fanny Williams (1954, 3-1-G), Dry Bay George (1954, 6-2-G), Natsi (1952, 6-1-A), and Nishka (1952, 3-1-A).

Songs addressed to sib-children have acquired a new function since the founding of the ANB. In southeastern Alaska, I was told, they are sung at ANB parties, and if any one of those addressed fails to rise and dance to the song, he is fined. My informants were thinking of introducing this custom into Yakutat as a way of raising money for their chapter.

In the appended lists of songs recorded or mentioned (cf. Appendix), all those ascribed to modern known composers are listed under their names (in alphabetical order). Here too will be found references to their other compositions which may be of types different from the ‘Haida mouth songs.’

Poetic Imagery in Songs

Sib mourning songs, especially the more recent compositions, peace songs, love songs, and a few others of uncertain classification, give us a chance to explore Tlingit versification. Of these, it is the ‘Haida mouth songs’ that express the widest range of personal feelings and in which poetic imagery is most highly developed. The phrasing is always more or less metaphorical, and to understand the meaning one must always keep in mind the sib and moiety affiliations of the composer (or singers) and of those to whom or about whom the song is sung. These, of course, would be known to the audience, who would also be aware of the particular circumstances that had prompted the song.

It must be remembered that mourning songs are about the dead of one's own sib. Occasionally, members of the opposite moiety are begged to show pity. Otherwise, they are not mentioned. Nor can they be mourned in the same way, even though one has lost a father or spouse, or a man has lost a child; however, as we shall see, grief at their death may find a different mode of expression in song. Living members of one's own sib or moiety are not addressed in song; one sings only to one's opposites.

A ‘Haida mouth song’ is composed to or about a specific individual. Everyone knows who this is, even though informants have occasionally disagreed on the identity. But this person is never mentioned by name in the song. Rather, the song is usually addressed to the group of sib-children to whom he or she belongs, and this is always a group in the moiety opposite that of the composer and singer. Thus a Raven composer sings to Tł’UknaAdi-yAti, to TłukwaAdi-yAti, or to GIneqwan-yAti. One in the Eagle-Wolf moiety addresses his or her songs to Kagwantan-yAti, Teqwedi-yAti, Tcicqedi-yAti, or CAnkuqedi-yAti, that is, to children whose fathers are members of the singer's own moiety. Moreover, the group is always designated with the distributive form (-), a kind of plural, as if to suggest that any member of the group could stand for the one being wooed, rebuked, lamented, or entreated. Always a specific individual is implied, and so strong is this convention that an informant, on hearing my song, was certain that it expressed romantic sentiments for some Wolf man, and tried various means to discover who he might be.

The peace song is also addressed to sib-children, and even though it contains or alludes to the new ceremonial name given to the hostage, this name at the time is only a reference to some object symbolic of good will, even though it may later become the recipient's common appellation.

A single song may be addressed to two (or even three) persons. One may be the husband who is unkind, the other his brother who consoles. Or, the persons may be quite unrelated. In this case each of the stanzas may mention a different group of sib-children. Something similar is true of peace songs, since usually several hostages will be taken from each side; if not, each stanza of the song will refer to the different names given to the same ‘deer’ (pp. 599–600).

A similar anonymity covers the composer. Thus, although he or she may refer to ‘my feelings,’ or say that ‘I am longing for you,’ for example, he never mentions himself by name. The only exception is Gucdutin, ‘Visible Dorsal Fin [of the Killerwhale],’ whom my informant believed had been a runaway slave belonging to her grandfather, but whom Swanton identifies as a man of the Wrangell Nana’Î sib (1954, 5–2–B; p. 473; Swanton 1909, pp. 406–470, Song 68). “Pity poor Gucdutin,” he sings, “he will die before he reaches Victoria.” Even here one notes the tendency to refer to one's self in the third person. We should also emphasize that the composer never specifically indicates his own sib affiliation, nor that of the person addressed. (Sib-children claiming the same fathers may, of course, belong to more than one maternal sib.)

On the other hand, moiety affiliations are most commonly specified. Thus the composer and singer may refer to himself or herself as ‘this Raven’ (ce yeł, di yeł, ceAdi yeł), using archaic or unusual demonstratives, or as ‘your Raven’ (’i yełi [singular] or yi yełi [plural]. His opposites, no matter what their sib or specific totem, are simply ‘the Wolf’ (di utc or yAdi utc). Often one doesn’t know whether to translate these expressions as “Oh, Wolf,” or “these Wolf people,” or as “your Ravens.” Conversely, Kagwantan, Teqwedi, or CAnkuqedi, singing to Tł'UknaAdi, TłukwaAdi or Kwacqwan, sing as ‘your Wolf’ to ‘the Raven.’ Of course, other sib totems may be mentioned in traditional sib potlatch songs, such as the Frog (1954, 2–2–A or 6–2–A; p. 1164), the Thunderbird (1952, 2–1–F; 1954, 5–2–E; and 5–2–F; pp. 1171, 1172, 1173), and the Murrelet (1954, 7–1–B and 6–1–F; pp. 1175, 1167).

(As already noted the use of personal names in songs is avoided, except when a child's joking relatives, always older persons?, are mentioned by name, but this is done in private.)

The desired emotional effect is, I believe, heightened by not addressing one's opposite as a member of his sib, but as the child of his father's. Thus, if this father's sib is the singer's own, the mode of address serves to express such tender and romantic sentiments as the affection of a father, a paternal aunt, a sweetheart or spouse, since the latter is preferentially sought in the father's line. One may even so address one's own father, since the singer and his paternal grandfather may be men of the same sib, so in effect a man's father can be considered as his own beloved 'son.’ If the sib mentioned in the song is that of another in one's own moiety, one may still be addressing a father, spouse, sweetheart, or friend; furthermore the fathers of these sib-children are pleased by this reference to their offspring. Conversely, because people love and take pride in their fathers, they are particularly flattered when addressed as their father's children, and when formally sung to as such, are supposed to make some return gift (cf. de Laguna, 1952, p. 11). (This last was demonstrated to me when I sang my song to Tł’UknaAdi-children to a Wolf moiety woman of that group whom I chanced to meet on the dock at Sitka. She promptly accepted me as a paternal niece—she was also married to a Tł'UknaAdi man—and gave me a little doll as a gift.)

Songs to sib-children are, therefore, particularly appropriate for expressing friendly feelings towards one's opposites (as in a peace ceremony), or indirectly toward a rival sib in one's own moiety (as when the latter are rival guests at a potlatch).

The individuals who may be addressed or referred to in such songs are fathers, father's brothers and sisters, husbands, husband's nephews, wives, sweethearts (usually reluctant or unreliable), brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and friends of one's own sex in the opposite moiety. The sentiments expressed—longing for, loving, gently rebuking, appealing to for sympathy—generally give no clue to the sexes of composer and the one addressed. Perhaps for this reason they may all be called “love songs.”

In a very few mourning songs an appeal is made directly to the dead members of one's own sib. Thus, the Kagwantan man, Kacken, mourns his relatives slain by the CAtqwan (1954, 3–1–D; p. 1168). “It's your own fault, Wolf, you wounded yourselves. Always longing for you, my uncles, I want to dream about you.” Or Kardeetoo, knowing his forebears are dead at Diyaguna'Et, sings (1954, 5–1–C; p. 1167): “Nevertheless, for your house, I wish you were here [to help me], my uncles.”

Just as the singer may refer to himself in the third person as “this Wolf,” so he may exclaim (1954, 1–1–E; p. 1308): “Let all the Wolves become drunk [with love of Teqwedi-children]!” Or, when contemplating death, he may sing (1954, 3–1–G; p. 1313): “The world is rolling around for everybody, so let's not love our lives too much,” meaning that the old should yield their places to the young (presumably including his own relatives among those whom he exorts.

An unusual mourning song, apparently old, seems to violate the ordinary rules. It was composed by a WUckitan man [Angoon Eagle-Wolf sib] as a lament for his dead brother, an artist, symbolized by his sib's Murrelet Cane which was lost. It is not this identification of the dead with a sib crest heirloom which is unusual, but rather the fact that the Murrelet is apparently addressed directly and told that the Raven is grieving for him (1954, 7–1–B; p. 1175).

Thus, except for pet songs made by mothers for their own children, it would appear that the only members of one's own sib or moiety to be addressed or mentioned in songs are the dead. And the most valued songs are those that lament them.

The theme of death is indeed a very common one, even in love songs. One is often reminded of the death of one's relatives, and therefore turns to one's opposites for sympathy. It is only their love that can give one strength to live. Or, one would be happy to die with them. “What Raven will pity this Wolf? Give me your hand for the last time. I want to die with you.” This is a common romantic theme. Yet love never finds a physical expression more intimate than the handclasp on the deathbed.

Any loneliness or misfortune asks for consolation in song. The faithless lover may be reprimanded, the dead spouse or dead father rebuked for having deserted one. The bitter words of a brother-in-law are enough to drive a man to suicide.

Or love is like liquor; it makes one dizzy. “Let us drink together, and pledge each other in a single song.” “One cannot drink enough of love to be satisfied.”

There are other songs that seem to refer only to drinking: “Come back you Wolf, Let's get drunk! The Raven is crying just for liquor.”

Features of the landscape, especially the mountains, remind one of the dead, and for a moment the rocks standing on the sandflats look as if they might be one's relatives returning alive. One traditional song ascribed to QakewtE refers to a similar optical illusion (1952, 1–2–A; p. 1158). The rolling of the world symbolizes the passing of life. However, in the song for Mount Saint Elias (1954, 5–1–A; p. 1303), the mountain is joyfully addressed: “My grandfather's mountain, you made the Southeast Alaska Sisterhood happy [by giving good weather], so you must be happy, too.” There is no question but that the land of one's fathers’ sib and especially that of one's own uncles and grandfathers has great emotional appeal. The Yakutat man leaving home hates to see the mountains disappear behind him (1952, 3–1–A; p. 1310). “It is not Raven's town l weep for, but my grandfather's town [or country],” sang the homesick slave (1954, 5–2–B; p. 1360). Although I am sure that many persons derive an esthetic pleasure from looking at the mountains, forests, and sea, the beauties of nature are never described in song.

Humor, of course, appears in the funny songs referring to Raven and in the children's teasing songs. Yet other than the last, there seem to be no songs that exploit the possibilities of the joking relationship obtaining between children of the same sib. The only apparent exception is a song composed by one man to the wife of his joking relative. This was said to have been kept secret from his own wife. The two women, being wives of joking relatives, would be expected to tease one another. The fun here was probably a purely private joke, for one woman could gloat that her joking relative didn’t know that her husband had composed a love song to her. But the song itself was not funny. No doubt witty persons were able to utilize many seemingly serious or innocuous songs as veiled jibes. For example, B. A. Jack, who was credited a wit, is said to have convulsed and shocked the congregation by singing in church the hymn “Wash me whiter than snow” (with Tlingit words), in such a way as to imply that his joking relative sitting in the pew in front of him was a witch!

One song, addressed to a young girl by Dry Bay Chief George when he was old, involves a play on the word wudAcan, which is made to mean both ‘the old man’ and ‘old age.’ (1954, 7–1–C). “Why do you refuse the old man? Some day old age will come to you.” This song is also unusual in not being addressed to sib-children (although ‘your Raven’ speaks to ‘this Wolf’), and in lacking a second stanza although the single one is sung three times.

In general, we can say that Yakutat songs are highly introspective. The composer refers constantly to his feelings (’a tuwu, ‘my insides’), and professes them to be happy and smiling if he can dream of the loved person or friend.

Only one song seems to fall in the class of songs composed for contests between personal enemies, although many of those recorded by Swanton reproach one's opposites for delay in giving a potlatch (1909, Songs 18 to 21), or are “angry songs” that deride specific individuals for their failings. The apparent dearth of such songs at Yakutat is particularly striking in view of the fact that shaming a rival or personal enemy in song was said to have been a common method of settling disputes and collecting indemnities among the Eyak (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 144–145). The only comparable song recorded at Yakutat was the suicide song of Natsi (1952, 6–1–A; p. 1310), in which he reproached his brother-in-law for the latter's bitter words. It is now sung as a Tł'UknaAdi mourning song. If other “angry songs” existed at Yakutat they may have been purposely left unrecorded, in order to avoid revival of old feuds.

More texts, more accurately transcribed and translated, would permit a fuller exploration of Tlingit poetic imagery. Enough has been shown here, however, to indicate its general character.

Acquiring and Composing Songs

As we have seen, some songs are so old that their origins are lost in the mists of the past. They belong to myth time, and are indeed sung by the narrator as he tells the myth, as Frank Italio sang Raven's songs about Daylight when telling the stories of his adventures. There were probably more such musical interludes in narratives than are now remembered—there were supposed to be two songs by Raven which Frank Italio did not sing: the first when Raven, in the whale, wishes it to drift ashore on a sandy beach; the second when he wishes for a high-class person to cut open the whale and release him. We should expect many such songs if Tlingit, or especially Yakutat, mythology was anything like that of the Eyak, of which Old Man Dude said that “all the myths were supposed to be sung,” and demonstrated with part of the Raven cycle (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 246). Myths and tales of sib origins obviously suggest themes for musical elaboration.

Some songs were supposedly learned from animals. These include the Eyak lullaby learned from seals and sea otters, and the songs to be sung to slain animals. The most important animal songs are, of course, those given to a sib by its totem, such as the Lament of the Beaver, the Song of the Golden Eagle, and presumably Petrel's taunting song to Raven (Killerwhale Drum Song). We should note that this learning of songs is not all one way; the song sparrows of Yakutat are imitating the happy voices of children or the pet songs sung to them.

Songs in foreign languages or those belonging to other Tlingit tribes have been obtained as gifts. A Tsimshian song was part of the dowry of S’ełtin when she married a Kagwantan man (1954, 3–1–B; p. 459); the Kagwantan of Chilkat gave one of their “tribal” mourning songs to the Kwacqwan of Yakutat along with a wife for Cada of Moon House (p. 527). Some Athabaskan dancing songs were obtained by the Dry Bay people (TłukwaAdi or CAnkuqedi?) when their men married a woman from NuqwayÍk (p. 489), who was named Duhan (1954, 6–2–E and 3–2–F;p. 1230). Songs may also be given away by potlatch guests from other towns, just as the ałyI-Kagwantan Steam Boat Song was brought from Katalla to Yakutat (p. 620). Some Athabaskan “drinking songs” (1954, 2–1–J and 2–1–K; pp. 1361–1362), sung at Dry Bay, had been given to the CAnkuqedi by their trade partners at Klukshu on the headwaters of the Alsek (p. 355). My informant who recorded two of these said she had first heard them in 1914, although they are undoubtedly older. The gift of songs, especially of valuable potlatch songs, may serve as indemnity to reestablish friendly relations. The Aiyan chief at Fort Selkirk on the Yukon would, according to Tlingit belief, have been responsible for the drownings of those who were going to his potlatch. Therefore, he gave the CAnkuqedi “four of his precious potlatch songs” in compensation (p. 249). In a somewhat similar spirit of good will and contrition, the Tsimshian who had insulted Yakutat Chief George by seizing his sea otter, thereby nearly starting a fight, gave the Yakutat people a number of their songs “for forgivenness,” to settle all hard feelings (p. 286). The Haida love song (1954, 7–2–E; p. 1361) was purchased at Kasaan.

Although there is no evidence that the Yakutat people ever adopted Russian church music, to which they were little exposed, they are very fond of Protestant hymns (Lutheran, Presbyterian, evangelical). Many of these are sung to Tlingit words, not only in church, but elsewhere, for pleasure. The happily sad Memorial Day visit to the cemetery, to decorate the graves and picnic among them, is climaxed by singing all the favorite hymns of the townspeople, before the crowd disperses to return home. The receptivity to foreign music is also shown by the pleasure with which the Yakutat people listen to American popular music over the radio; they play it themselves for dances, and one Yakutat youth composed a very good dance tune in modern style which he taught the local Indian orchestra to play. A number of recent Tlingit songs seem to reflect the influence of our music, but this is certainly not true of all.

The song composers of recent years who are mentioned with the greatest respect were Dry Bay Chief George (Tł'UknaAdi, 1850?–1912); Blind Dave Dick (CAnkuqedi of Dry Bay, who died between 1909 and 1916); Jimmy Jackson (1861–1948) and Blind Sampson O'Shaw (1866–1948), both Kwacqwan of Yakutat. Dry Bay Chief George and Blind Sampson were almost professional composers, in that they would make a song to fill any request made to them. The chief certainly composed a great variety of songs—love songs, sad songs, “popular songs,” peace songs, and potlatch songs. Those of Blind Dave Dick and of Sampson seem to have had an almost equally wide range of theme, to judge by the examples recorded.

Song composition was a respected and admired accomplishment, and one in which the poor and lowly could excel as well as the highborn. Yet at Yakutat there was no suggestion that it was better for chiefs and high-caste persons to leave this field to the common people, as was indicated in a story told by Katishan, chief of the Kasq!ague’dÎ of Wrangell (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 141). In this story, a chief's son, with the help of ‘medicine,’ had become such a noted composer and dancer that he won the hearts of all the girls and made all the other youths jealous. Therefore his father announced:

“‘I do not think it is well for a high-caste person to compose songs and be a dancer. They say that a person’s name will become very high and be known everywhere if he composes songs and becomes a dancer, but a chief's son's name is already high, and a chief's name is known everywhere. Why should he compose songs and dance to make it so? It is better that the poorer people should do this and make their names known in the world.’ If the chief had not said this, people that compose songs and dance would be very scarce among us…. For no chief composes or dances without giving away a great deal of property.”

The implication is that the chief composes and performs only for the potlatches which he himself gives. The description of his dance has already been quoted (p. 567). We know that Dry Bay Chief George and Jim Kardeetoo (Teqwedi, 1862–1937), ranking leaders of their sibs, both composed songs for their potlatches, as did lesser house chiefs, Situk Jim (Teqwedi, died 1912), and John Nishka (Kwacqwan, died 1896). The most respected leader of the Teqwedi today, Olaf Abraham, is noted as a song composer, as was apparently his uncle, Skin Canoe George (1855–1900). However, I do not know whether Blind Dave Dick, Jimmy Jackson (“Gums”), or Blind Sampson were considered aristocrats.

Some songs had to be made for specific occasions, such as peace ceremonies and potlatches. Others were often composed under the stress of emotion, when feeling lonely, homesick or grieving for absent loved ones, perhaps smarting under a rebuff, or even when afraid. Thus, D. S. Benson (Teqwedi, died 1930?) composed a song to Kagwantan-children when he was on the Portland in a storm and people were frightened; Lituya Bay George (at’kA’ayi, 1854–1926) made a song after his face had been badly burned and he had been chased by bears (1954, 2–1–E; p. 1300). Many songs are said to have been composed on the deathbed. The lively tune for Jimmy Jackson's love song was supposed to have been inspired by the sound of the sawmill where he was working, after his wife had left him. For this reason it is called the “Sawmill Song” (acAAtku a ciyi, ‘little saw mouth song,’ 1954, 7–2–D; p. 1305).

Olaf Abraham told me that he had made songs when he was out at fishcamp, and there was nothing for him to do after putting out his net in the morning until it was time to lift it at night. The music came to him first, and then he fitted the words to it. He thought it was easier to make the music first and then find the words, than to make the words, especially for two stanzas, and then try to compose a tune to fit them, as my difficulties with Tlingit had forced me to do. However, when he was composing out by the river, sometimes part of the words came to him with the music, or even before it. The three compositions which he recorded seem to be in a more conservative style than other contemporary songs. Mrs. Chester Johnson (CAnkuqedi) also composed songs, but I do not know in what sequence the words and music came to her.

It may be that for most persons without particular talents finding words was easier than making the tune. This is probably because, as I discovered personally, there are many stock phrases and sentiments which can be used and recombined, and these may equally well apply to a lover, or to a member of one's own sex. For example, Frank Italio had composed a song to his father, Dry Bay Chief George (Tł'UknaAdi and Kagwantan-yAdi), yet when singing it with Minnie Johnson for the tape recorder, he was able on the spur of the moment to pay the latter a charming compliment by adapting the first stanza to a love song to Teqwedi-children (1952, 2–1–H and 2–2–A; p. 1301). I suspect that a number of songs about which there is some uncertainty as to authorship (1954, 3–1–G; p. 1313; by B. B. Billy or his daughter-in-law, Fanny Williams), or as to the individual to whom it was dedicated (1954, 5–1–G; p. 1302), have been transformed in similar fashion. Furthermore, I was told that Ckman put new words to an old tune (by Sampson or Nishka?) when singing about the Tsimshian word, ínàu (1952, 3–1–C; p. 1312). In the same way, Mrs. Chester Johnson used an old air in making a song for me (1954, 5–2–I; p. 1308). Thus, many persons could become song composers, so that the list of these is as long as that of the persons who sang for the recordings.

Some songs were felt to have been inspired. Perhaps there is always something mysterious and inexplicable in artistic creation. Thus, songs may come in dreams, as when Hilda Dick dreamed that Frank Italio was playing the guitar and singing the song (1954, 6–2–F; p. 1295). Swanton (1908, p. 459) also reports a similar source of inspiration: “If a man dreamed that the carving on his house post started a certain song, immediately on awakening he started that song himself. If the owner of a house dreamed that a dead man started a song to his carved post, the house owner began singing it next morning as soon as he awoke.” Similarly, when she was only 11 years old, Emma Ellis heard the first stanza of her sad song (1954, 3–1–F; p. 1296) in the waves for three nights after her father, mother, and grandfather had drowned; these were the voices of her relatives singing to comfort her. The second stanza she composed some 5 years later after the death of her first husband, although she did not explain the exact circumstances. The third, which offers a striking contrast in poetic effectiveness to the first two, was composed on the spot and sung to me as she held my hand to comfort me for the fire that had nearly burned down our house.

Shamans’ songs were, of course, inspired since they were the voices of the spirits. Shamanistic connections may also have had something to do with other compositions, and magic is believed effective. For example, in Katishan's story (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 139–140), that great dancer, the Grouse, and the (Haida?) chief who learned to dance and compose songs were enabled to do so by virtue of ‘medicine’ obtained from a shaman. This consisted of the leaf of a swamp plant, an eagle’s talons, foam from the edge of the rising tide, and a feather from the head of the Solitary Sandpiper, also a “great dancer” (p. 44), all put into a sack and tied to the top of a tree, where it would blow continually in the wind.

However, although Dave Dick was the son of utcda, the famous Dry Bay shaman (p. 671), this fact was not specifically mentioned in connection with his artistic talents. Jim Kardeetoo also had some powers derived from his uncle, the shaman Te-’ic (p. 719), yet he was not thought to be a good composer, even by his daughter. We note that Blind Sampson composed a love song for Kardeetoo to sing (1954, 2–1–D; p. 1313). I would be inclined to wonder whether blindness, cataracts in the case of Dave Dick, and a congenital defect in that of Old Sampson, may not have forced their creative energies into song composition.

For Dry Bay Chief George the case was different. Not only did he have a number of shamans among his forebears, and in fact took his two names, Qawua and Qusun, from the TłukwaAdi shaman who was his paternal grandfather (p. 645), but he also had obtained from one of them a magic bone that enabled him to compose songs.

“He's a composer. He's got a lot of them—sad songs, populars, peace songs. Whenever they tell him, ‘We want a song,’ he lay down someplace. He’s got a bone. He lay down and he taps with it. If he wants a sad song, he just taps slow; if he wants a happy song or a dance song, he taps faster, and it comes to him.”

The bone was said to have been plain, that is, undecorated, and was about 9 inches long. “That's utcda and them [shamans] got that thing. I guess it's some kind of mountain goat bone…. They got something inside, I guess, some kind of flower [kayaní, ‘medicine’]. When they look inside, there's nothing in there. That's that Indian doctor's present. Everytime it close to you—[the informant held an imaginary object to her ear]—you’re going to hear that song in your mind; you start singing. That’s the one he got it. Every time he got it, that bone, always hear it, that song…. Qawua, he used to be good singer…”

Anyone could use this bone. For example, a son (not Frank Italio) did not believe in its powers.

“‘I don’t believe it, give it to me. I’m going to put it under my pillow, so I can hear that song, the one I’m going to sing it.’

“His father give it to him. He put it under his pillow. Same night he hear that song. Next morning he got it.”

The informant sang this song but refused to record it without permission from the composer's widow, for she herself was not related to him. Not only did the son hear the music as he slept, but “that's the words, too, he hear it.”

Later, when the son inherited the bone after his father's death, he composed other songs, although none was sung to me for recording. Once when his daughter was grieving for an absent youth, “she stole that bone from her dad. Her boy friend went away to Katalla or some place. She stole that bone from her dad and went away to that secret place and tapped that. She was so lonesome. She composed a song.”

Appreciation of the beauty of music is perhaps best expressed by the following description of an Atna song which I was never fortunate enough to hear. Perhaps it was never sung in Yakutat.

“In Chitina, even if I’m the chief's nephew, if I done anything against the law, they’re going to send me away.

“See, it's a long village, and I just walk away from here at one end to the other end, and I go away, and nobody sees me anymore. Maybe if I’m lucky, I find another village. But they don’t kill me.

“That's what happened when we [our ancestors] left the village. Lots of times it happened.

“When I was westward I heard them singing a song one night in a pool room in Cordova. A man had a steel guitar. And it sounded so beautiful. I thought it was Hawaiian. I asked or they told me it was an Indian song, a Copper River Indian song. I was surprised. It had a wonderful tune. I used to hear the boys sing it. They would ery when they were drinking and singing. I asked them, ‘Is that really a Copper River song?’ and they said ‘Yes.’

“It's about a young boy. He fell in love with a girl who was on the same side he was, and they’re not supposed to look at each other or talk with one another. So they were going to send the young boy and the young girl away from the village in opposite directions. And just before they were going to be parted, the boy and girl got together and talked somehow. As they walked away out of the village, and he was going one way, he started to sing. She was going the other way, and she answered with just the same song. Their voices were heard fainter and fainter as they walked away, singing back and forth to each other.

“In the song you can hear him sing, then she answers, and they get further and further apart. It's a beautiful sad song.”

War and Peace

WAR

Types of Wars

The native histories of Yakutat, like the traditions of other Tlingit tribes, have many stories about wars and feuds. The most serious of these were international engagements, such as the intermittent warfare between the Chugach and the Eyak and Yakutat peoples, the conquest of the Eyak-speaking Ł’uedi or Tłaayik-Teqwedi by the Tł'UknaAdi and Teqwedi Tlingit from southeastern Alaska, and the Tlingit attacks on the Russians at Sitka and Yakutat. Because these were wars between peoples of different cultural backgrounds, or because conquest was their aim, they could not be settled by ordinary Tlingit peace ceremonies. Wars between Tlingit tribes, such as the wars between the Yakutat-Dry Bay people and the Chilkat Tlingit, or between the Dry Bay and Sitka people on the one side and the Wrangell Indians on the other, might be as bitterly fought and as costly of lives, but they were in most cases really feuds between two rival sibs: Tł'UknaAdi and anAtedi; Kagwantan and Nanya’ayi, for example; and between such groups peace could be reestablished through elaborate ceremonials. Perhaps some relatively minor incident had led to the first killings from which such intersib feuds developed. These were certainly more serious in character than if the trouble had arisen between people in the same community, for sibmates from other villages and tribes might join the original group involved, and even other sibs from other tribes might side with one or the other principals. In such major wars there is clearly less desire to settle differences and make peace than when the contestants are members of the same local group, closely bound by ties of consanguinity and affinity.

Killings do, of course, break out in the same village, and in the past have led to feuds, but the many relatives linking both sides (especially brothers-in-law, wives or married sisters, parents and children) could rouse sentiment in favor of a settlement. Lastly, every native lawsuit, that is, every case of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, or provocation to suicide, was called a “war,” and was settled by the same kind of peace ceremony, even though nothing that we would recognize as fighting had occurred, and the principals involved might be husband and wife or father and son. I am not sure whether bodily injury would require a peace ceremony, but if damages were not paid, the implied insult might lead to bloodshed.

Peace ceremonies or legal settlements can be instituted only between different sibs; troubles arising within a sib or lineage, such as disputes over inheritance of property, or jealousy over a woman (p. 251), may lead to killings, but the only solution of the difficulty is for the sib to split, and one group to move away. In fact, such cases are often cited as reasons for emigration and the founding of a new settlement and a new lineage. As long as jealous sibmates remain in the same community, witchcraft accusations are to be feared.

Thus, the same word “war” (a) may be used to designation international or intertribal conflicts (true wars), as well as lesser feuds, for which the word ‘trouble’ (wuł, ’adawu´ł, cf. Boas, 1917, p. 133; cf. p. 244, ‘At-da-wutł) would be more appropriate.

Major Wars and Military Alliances

How serious wars or raids were conducted we can learn only from traditional histories, for none of my informants had witnessed anything of the kind. Yet such stories often revived old bitterness and, in former times, might lead to further fighting, or even today might be interpreted as provocation by someone who had been drinking.

“These war stories they never tell much, because it's the revenge. They start war because some people they foolish and some people that do it for nothing, and there was no revenge to it, they never tell it. Olden times, when they told war stories it always ended with somebody picking up alder branches, whipping each other, and jumping in the cold water, and getting ready to revenge. That's why they never tell those war stories. That's why I don’t know much about it.” (Cf. p. 269.)

In major wars against foreigners, several sibs in the same locality might form an alliance for attack or defense. Thus, the Teqwedi leader, atgawet, was said to have aided his ałyi-Kagwantan father-in-law in repelling attacks by the Chugach or “Aleuts” (p. 254); at Knight Island he was reported as siding with his Kwacqwan brother-in-law against the Tł'UknaAdi from Dry Bay (p. 246), and presumably also stood with him against “Aleut” raiders. In the war against the Tłaayik-Teqwedi, the Tł'UknaAdi were assisted by six other sibs (including the TłukwaAdi and atkA’ayi from Dry Bay, and possibly the Kwacqwan), all eager to capture slaves and property.

The Bear House Teqwedi at Diyaguna’Et also helped the Tł'UknaAdi to escape after their initial defeat, but did not join in the fighting (pp. 264–267). In Swanton's version of the war waged by the Tł'UknaAdi of Guśex (Dry Bay) and Grouse Fort (Hoonah) against the anAtedi of Chilkat, the former had as allies the Raven Decitan (Angoon) and Tenedi (Auk), and the Eagle-Wolf TcukAnedi (Hoonah), all groups from whom the anAtedi had previously taken slaves. Later, the Tł'UknaAdi purchased the help of the KrksAdi (Sitka), DAdentan (Hoonah), and “other families” with gifts of coppers (see pp. 274–275 for summary of Swanton, 1909, Tale 32). It was also said that the Tł'UknaAdi had hired another sib with little coppers to fight for them, and that it was actually these people who defeated the ł’udei of Situk River (p. 269). In the massacre of the Wrangell people (Nanya’ayi) at Sitka in 1852, the local Kagwantan were helped by their sibmates from Chilkat (Swanton, 1908, legend for pl. LV, h), and also by their Raven sons. The Kagwantan leader of this massacre was a youth from Guex, who was assisted by his Raven “Kagwantan-sons” (p. 283).

The defeat of the Russians at Yakutat was ascribed to the Tłaayik-Teqwedi, led by Tanu. He was helped by his Kwacqwan brother-in-law, although the rest of Kwacqwan remained out of the fight on the decision of their chief at Nesudat (pp. 234, 260, 264). According to Russian sources (p. 170–176), a number of sibs from Yakutat and Akwe River and the Dry Bay area, as well as the KIksAdi of Sitka and many other Tlingit groups, were involved in the attacks and plots against the Russians in southeastern Alaska, Yakutat, and Prince William Sound. I have not, however, been able to identify the actual sibs that participated, nor those sibs or lineages that remained friendly to the Russians.

It is clear, however, that it is not the local community as a whole, or the tribe (qwan) as such, that makes war or peace, but the sib (na), or a group of sibs. At the same time, one of these allied sibs will probably provide the leader and the bulk of the combatants, while those associated with them will do so on the basis of kinship and community friendship, enhanced by gifts of coppers, by hatred of a common enemy, or by a desire to share in the fruits of victory.

Causes for War

The major causes for war as indicated in the stories told at Yakutat were the desire for slaves, for captives to hold for ransom, for booty, rivalry over the rights to sib crests, jealousy over women, and desire for revenge for previous killings or abuse of a helpless person. As Swanton explained it (1908, p. 449): “Revenge for the death of some one for whom no payment had been made and desire to obtain slaves in order to increase the power of the chief and his clan were the commonest incentives to war.”

One informant told me that if a widow refused to marry a member of her dead husband's sib, “and marries outside the tribe [sib]—that means war.” Another informant stressed that the Yakutat Tlingit did not allow bad men to go around killing for no reason. Men went to war, he said, if someone failed to show proper respect for their sisters. “That's the only time they have a war. If they don’t—that's a coward tribe.” He also stated that fighting might occur over disputed hunting territory.

On the other hand, the “Aleuts” or Chugach were bad people, and perpetual enemies because they used to come into Indian territory to hunt sea otters, even before Russian days, to take slaves, or simply to kill (pp. 213, 256–258).

“Those who came from westward were our enemies. They were called Gue. But the ones who came from the land were our friends. aanayi [a-a ‘for war,’ nayi ‘people-of’?]—that's the people that are going to quarrel with us. Our friends we call ‘a oni [p. 485]…. It's pretty hard to believe. It's our friends who climb over the mountains, mountains, mountains, to reach us from down south [i.e., Athabaskans coming south over the mountains]. They help us to fight the enemy. But the ones that are coming to fight us come in skin boats. Some of them are small, and they call them ‘kayak.’ And the other ones—I forgot what they call it—are big ones. They are so big that the people stay [camp] under these canoes [umiaks]—just like we stay under a roof.”

These Chugach raiders were especially hated because of their sneak attacks and because they raided anybody they saw, without warning or without valid provocation.

The desire for slaves and booty is illustrated in the following story of a Hoonah woman who was held for ransom:

“A long time ago [mid-19th century?], people from Klawak—or Vancouver [sic!]—used to go around to get slaves, captured them like prisoners. They captured a Tł'UknaAdi woman of Hoonah for a slave. Her son kept coppers and other valuables in a tall cache on posts. Her son was away, but she offered her son's coppers to her captors.

“Other people, ‘Akwqwan, said they paid for that woman, so they kept her. But they were just talking when they said they had paid.

“Just a little while ago in Douglas, the Tł'UknaAdi gave lots of money to the ‘Akwqwan to shut their mouths.”

Preparations for War

To guard against attack, people built fortifications (nu) around houses, camps, or villages. Such settlements were especially secure if they were located on tops of cliffs or on high places from which the defenders could see their enemies approaching from a distance, and up which the attackers would have difficulty in climbing. One fort is known to have been built on a small island in Yakutat Bay, called ‘Little Fort’ (nuw; de Laguna et al., 1964, frontis.). Single houses were evidently fortified at one time, to judge by the common Tlingit name, Fort House (at Yakutat, a Kwacqwan lineage house). The report quoted in the Coast Pilot of 1883 stated that the houses in a large village near Yakutat were “expressly adapted for defence” (Dall and Baker, 1883, p. 206).

Some fortifications consisted of palisades, as reported for Diyaguna'Et on Lost River, and for the “Eagle Fort” of the Tł’aayIk-Teqwedi on Situk River. The latter was described as having a hinged door, taken from the old Russian fort, which was fixed to admit only one man at a time. The defenders had dug tunnels to connect the houses inside the walls. The surrounding terrain was strewn with deadfalls for bears, like a minefield.

Other forts were described as having foundations or walls of stone, as was true of Little Fort Island (de Laguna et al., 1964, p. 22). The fortified sealing camp at WuganiyE is supposed to have had stone walls with loopholes for muskets. The fort built by the Children of the Sun was apparently built of stones and fallen trees (see p. 875).

All settlements, whether fortified or not, had to guard against attack. For this purpose, young men were on the look out for possible enemies. I was told that such scouts and sentries put a single feather in their hair. “If they see a young fellow running through the village with just one feather [sticking up at the back of his head—(gesture)], that means war. They always used to be out watching as scouts. Everybody would know the enemy was coming if they see one feather.”

Whereas the attacking enemy would attempt to sneak up on a fort unseen, the defenders would post sentries or watchmen especially at night. It will be remembered that WuganiyE fell simply because there was no one awake to warn of the attack. Women assisted in its defense by keeping a series of guns loaded for each warrior. Anticipating the attack, they had been trained how to charge the guns with powder and ball. On the other hand, the attacking party would make every effort to surprise the defenders, evidently basing their strategy upon what they could learn of the enemy's military dispositions and routine. To secure such intelligence, they might send ahead a scout, like the man who disguised himself as an eagle to spy on the fort at WuganiyE. In order to lull the defenders of this fort into a sense of false security, the Tł'UknaAdi had sent their wives to WuganiyE to spread the false rumor that their husbands had all gone to Sitka (pp. 262–269). Certainly, the careful preparation for the successful attacks on the Russian posts at Sitka and Yakutat were based on information about their military arrangements and daily routine of activities which had been procured from Indian women and others who had been taken by the Russians as mistresses and servants.

In addition to securing military intelligence and making careful plans, we can assume that men contemplating war also prepared and practiced with their arms. They must have drilled under a leader, for the reports of Malaspina (quoted p. 474), and Baranov (see pp. 587–588) indicate the considerable degree of control which the chief or war leader had over his men.

To the native, magicoreligious preparations for war and observances during the expedition were also of great importance, for upon them, victory or defeat ultimately depended. The responsibility for these fell upon the shaman, the war leader, the scout, all the warriors in the party, and upon the women at home; but certainly the shaman's role was crucial. In the first place, his spirits could warn of impending attack, as is specifically indicated by the professional name, łagua—“his spirits warn him of danger, of war”—assumed by the Teqwedi shaman Te-’ic.

When people were anticipating an attack or preparing to go to war, it was customary to consult a shaman, possibly several, to discover the chances of success. Since the shaman's pronouncements were always couched in Delphic ambiguity, it was possible for eager warriors to disregard apparently discouraging prophecies that recommended caution. The shaman also sent his spirits to spy on the enemy, and to cause their defeat by first overcoming the spirits of their shamans. One would assume that the shaman might prepare special amulets or ‘medicine’ for the warriors, but nothing was reported to this effect. He did, however, advise and participate in the purificatory exercises and abstinences (hewa) carried out before the departure of the war party, and also accompanied it.

These preparations for war were evidently begun weeks or months, perhaps a year, in advance and, as we have seen (p. 580), involved daily bathing and beatings (cf. also Krause, 1956, p. 173, from Veniaminov). These probably represented simply a resumption or intensification of the usual hardening and purifying exercises carried out by boys and men. If this training had slackened off, it would now be more vigorously pursued, just as it would be before any undertaking that involved danger, such as a major hunting expedition (pp. 362–363). In fact, the “training” beforehand, as well as the taboos and magical procedures observed during war were of the same general character as those associated with hunting (pp. 365–366, 373,378). Thus, warriors, like hunters, had to stay away from women. According to Swanton (1908, p. 449), such avoidance had to last for as long a time as the expected duration of the war party, and might even last a year. My informants mentioned the length of this abstinence, but not the direct association with the anticipated absence.

Swanton (ibid., pp. 449–450) also reports further magical exercises performed by the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska, but about which I heard nothing at Yakutat. These consisted of propping up the war canoes that were to be used, tying up the paddles, attacking and “capturing” wooden images representing the enemy (done by all the men and their wives), launching the canoe (if possible over the body of an enemy, if there happened to be a member of that sib whom they could kill), and the final 4 days of fasting and thirsting by the shaman, by the leader of the expedition, and by the warriors. The behavior followed by the wives left at home is not unlike that of women whose husbands are out after sea otter. On the other hand, Lütke (cf. Krause, 1956, p. 170) observed that all preparations had to be kept secret by the Tlingit, even from women, since they might have relatives among the enemy. There is no question but that women must have suffered from divided loyalties if their husbands were preparing to attack their brothers or their fathers. Women were, however, more often credited with inciting their men to war. Probably keeping war preparations secret from women was only necessary when the enemy were so close that the women could communicate with them, and no canoe voyage to reach them was involved.

The War Party

War parties normally traveled in fleets of canoes: there have been mentioned 8 war canoes from Yakutat going to attack the Chugach or the Russians in Prince William Sound (p. 175), and 8 or 10 canoes going from Gue (pp. 273–275). Such a flotilla was under the command of an “admiral” (cAkati), so called because he sat in the front, presumably in the bow of the leading canoe. He was not the same as the captain or steersman of the canoe who sat in the stern. The leader of a war party or “general” was called an kunayE (or kAnAyE, cf. Tanu, p. 262). Swanton (1908, p. 450) also distinguishes between the leader of the war party and “the bow man…[who] acted as scout and sentinel.” Whenever the party landed to camp for the night, “he usually went ahead and looked about, and they did not sleep until he had done this.” The war party was also accompanied by a shaman.

It would at first appear that the “admiral” of my informant was the same as Swanton's “bow man” or “scout,” yet I was told that the commands of the “admiral” had to be obeyed, as is illustrated by the following story. (I do not, in fact, know the precise division of responsibility between the “general” and the “admiral,” since these were terms used by two different informants.)

A war party was apparently going westward from Yakutat along the Gulf of Alaska, perhaps to fight the Chugach. Whenever smoke from a village was sighted, the “admiral” ordered the war canoes away from the shore, telling the crews that the water was shallow and full of rocks. Apparently the others wanted to attack the villages, but the leader did not want to fight them (because he was a Christian, it was hazarded). They had to obey him because if they did not they would be destroyed (?, yudiak). This native word was translated as: “I’ll kill them all out if they disobey him.”

The conflict in wishes between the war party and the leader in this case, and the authority exercised by the latter, is further explained by Swanton's statement about the usual behavior of a war party going out to fight the enemy: “As they went along the warriors took everything away from those they met, both friends and foes” (1908, p. 450). Presumably the villages which the leader refused to attack were those of the ałyI-Kagwantan or Eyak.

While on the way, the shaman prolonged his fast in order to discover when and where they would come upon the enemy. The warriors in the canoes observed special food taboos, and all wore shaman's hats. Swanton (ibid.) says further: “The bow man fasted differently from the others…. The war leader, during war time, no matter where he was, always drank from a small basket-work cup hung about his neck.”

Swanton gives little further information about the activities of the war party, and there is nothing to indicate any religious or magical precautions that had to be observed by those who had killed or taken trophy heads or scalps. From Krause (1956, p. 170) we can add that the war party usually tried to attack at dawn, and that before landing put on their wooden armor, wooden helmets and protective mask. After killing as many of the enemy men as possible and taking their scalps as trophies, the party returned home, singing victory songs, and prepared to receive a return attack or, perhaps, if they were satisfied with their revenge, to arrange for a peace ceremony (Krause, 1956, p. 170; Swanton, 1908, pp. 450–451). Yakutat war expeditions seem to have been essentially of the same kind.

My informants added the following details:

There were no war songs, but men preparing for war or to face danger, strengthened their courage and whipped up their hatred by fast drumming, pounding with their spears. This was called “fast drumming before it happens” (cayídE'AtcAłI'AXt, or ‘Atcudułátc), or “being mad” (an kUwunugú). When they attacked, they cried “HU! HU! HU! HU! or “U! U! U! U!” Men expecting to die uttered the cry of their sib animal. It should be remembered that their totemic sib identification was further emphasized by the name and decoration of their canoes, and by the symbolic ornamentation of arms, armor, and face paint.

When two enemy groups confronted each other, as they would if the surprise of the attack were lost, they would exchange insults—sometimes couched in the allusive style of typical Tlingit oratory, to judge from the sample quoted in the account of the attack on Eagle Fort (pp. 263, 266), although the worst remarks were censored (p. 267).

If a fort or town could not be taken by assault, the attackers might lay siege, hoping to force a surrender. The following incident, told to illustrate the behavior of a neutral sib in such an event, reminds me of the siege by the Wrangell warriors of the Fort DaXataknada, near Angoon (cf. de Laguna, 1960, pp. 150–151):

“See, one time they got a war, Tł'UknaAdi and that KIksAdi in Sitka. They don't get all that water, they shoot it—[KIksAdi going for water were shot]—That Tł'UknaAdi go around like this—holds all that water, you know. That KIksAdi get dry up now. They don’t get no water. Tł'UknaAdi holds it, all that water, in Sitka. That time they says they suck their wife's breast, they says that time, because they can’t drink water. Just nakani ['sib brothers-in-law,' neutral go-betweens, in this case Kagwantan] go over there; little bucket [of water] they take it [to KIksAdi]. Just nakani go over there with that little bucket—Kagwantan. Other tribes over there [were neutral?]. That's the way it is.”

Victory and Defeat

One informant, who saw the burned remains of houses which our party was excavating on Knight Island, was evidently reminded of war, for he remarked to Francis Riddell that the people at Old Town might have been sitting around, just as they were doing, not suspecting danger, and be suddenly attacked by another tribe, and everyone in the village killed. The enemy would plunder the houses, taking everything in sight, but probably would miss the caches of valuables which the owners had hidden away. While we know that the victors sometimes burned down the houses of their defeated enemies (as is indicated by the name WuganiyE ‘burned down’), the informant would not speculate that this had actually been the fate of the village on Knight Island.

We also know that crest objects and weapons which had been given totemic names represented especially valuable plunder (pp. 458, 460). Furthermore, rights to the designs for facial painting, personal names, and presumably other personal prerogatives were acquired by killing the owner.

If the conquerors were not carried away by the excitement of slaughter, they would also secure some women and children as slaves. While a high-class woman might be held for ransom (p. 246), a man, especially if he were an aristocrat, would prefer death to capture, and a brave chief like łucwAq would welcome death if all his people had been killed.

Whole heads or scalps were taken as mementos both of one's own dead and of the enemy. A war party would want to bring home the heads of their own dead, and possibly also the ashes. Usually, however, only the scalp (du cada dugu, literally ‘his head-around skin-of’) was saved, probably because it was easier to carry and preserve (cf. p. 535).

“If you love your brother, you’re going to take the hair…. Or they cut the head off…. They keep the hair as long as they live. Dry it up and keep it—think about it just like human being. That's why they keep it.”

The victorious war party usually killed all the men, and sometimes everyone in the settlement. The heads of the important dead, men of rank or of valor, were cut off and taken away. Swanton reports that these were usually scalped when the war party neared home, and that the scalps were hung up around the canoe, to be later suspended outdoors from the house beams. His informant suggested that the dead enemy would feel happy because his scalp had been taken. Swanton also reports the belief that if the scalp swung at right angles to the canoe, it was happy; if parallel, unhappy (Swanton, 1908, pp. 450 and 451 note a). It will be remembered that the scalp of the bravest CAtqwan was remarkable because it never stopped spinning when hung up (p. 284).

An informant told me: “If your enemy kill you, they cut your head off. Your spirit will be up there without a head. That's how they recognize you up there [in Kiwa’a, the sky afterworld of the slain], that you’re killed because you don’t have any head. That's the reason why. I’m not very high, not a chief or a chief's nephew, so they don’t cut off my head. But if I’m a high person, they cut my head off. They use my hair and say: “He's So-and-so.’ ”

I do not think that the informant really meant, however, that the ghost in Kiwa’a would be mutilated.

In the war between the Kagwantan and the CAtqwan, heads and scalps were taken on both sides (p. 284). Such trophies may be redeemed, for some of the heads taken by the Kagwantan are said to have been afterwards obtained by relatives of the slain men while others still remain in the possession of the Sitka Indians (de Laguna, 1933, p. 744; 1960, pp. 156–157). Usually the relatives would make every effort to secure the captured heads or scalps. For example, if Kagwantan had taken KIsAdi scalps, I was told: “After while KIksAdi are going to come. ‘I’m going to pay [for] it, give it back. That's my uncle's hair, my brother's hair. I’m going to pay it.' That's the way they do.” The sib will give “lots of blankets” to bring it back.

A trophy of this kind, taken and held for redemption, was called ‘aWAa (or 'AWUa). “You get it for nothing at a potlatch and later you pay for it” (MJ). Or, explained another, “He keeps it until they pay it back.” It was also called ‘aa qaWUa ‘aat ayAdi—“trophy, to make even” (MJ). The first part of this phrase seems to be 'something on account of which people ask,’ and we might therefore think of the trophy scalp as a “conversation piece” of a special kind.

A few of Swanton's Tlingit stories (1909, Tale 29, and Tale 27; cf. p. 269) indicate that prisoners, especially women, were killed in a cruel fashion, being impaled alive or thrown alive on the funeral pyres for slain warriors. I heard nothing of this sort from my Yakutat informants.

It seems to have been important after a battle to secure the bodies of one's own dead, for it was very humiliating if the enemy kept them and threw them into the water. This was what the TłaayIk-Teqwedi did to the dead Tł'UknaAdi at Eagle Fort, telling the defeated war party that their comrades' corpses “belonged to the eagles” (pp. 263, 266). To remind anyone that the fishes or birds were eating their dead would appear to be a deadly insult (p. 282; de Laguna, 1960, pp. 149–150, 152). Note how the anAtedi shaman upset the canoes of the Tł'UknaAdi when he discovered that someone in the crews had thrown overboard the head of a anAtedi man (p. 274).

Apparently to consign the bodies or heads to the water was the worst thing one could do, perhaps because it was customary to throw the corpses of slaves out on the beach. It was also shameful to leave the dead lying above ground, as the victors did when they overran WuganiyE, threatening war on anyone who tried to collect the bones (p. 267). The motive seems to be to humiliate the defeated survivors, not to inflict torment on the dead who would presumably be playing shinny among the Northern Lights in Kiwa’a. However, there was also the conflicting belief that those whose bodies were not cremated would be cold in the land of the dead (cf. p. 535), even though brave warriors, like shamans, were too hardened to mind this.

ARMS AND ARMOR

The Warrior and His Accouterment

Yakutat warriors, and those from other communities along the Gulf Coast from Lituya Bay to the Copper River, were elaborately accoutered, just as were the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska (cf. Krause, 1956, pl. IV, 1 wooden armor, and 2 leather cuirass or vest, 9–12 daggers). Their costumes and arms, with their sib symbolism, were intended for something more than the practical aims of defense and offense; “war,” especially when it took the form of a fight between champions, or the suicidal last duel of a noble, was conducted like a ceremony. Indeed, as has been pointed out, ceremonies were conducted like wars (McClellan, 1954, p. 96), and at the potlatch the same regalia might be worn as in battle. Other items seem to have been used both by warriors and by shamans when battling evil or enemy spirits.

However, on some occasions, when effective fighting was necessary, the warrior simply tied up his hair or wound a kerchief around his head, stripped off his shirt, and attacked with dagger or spear. At other times he painted his face, put on helmet or headdress, donned a full suit of armor, and hung himself about with his arms. While much of the warrior's outfit was mentioned or sketchily described by informants, it can best be understood from 18th-century descriptions and from 19th-century specimens in museum collections.

WEAPONS, LITUYA BAY, 1786

It will be remembered that LaPérouse was impressed by the iron and copper daggers which each Indian man at Lituya Bay wore suspended from his neck in a sheath of tanned skin. Although the Indians tried to reassure the French that these were used only against bears and wild animals (p. 116), yet they were seen continually threatening each other with these daggers in their many quarrels (p. 122). LaPérouse also mentions that the French demonstrated the power of their muskets by shooting through an Indian cuirass, which was impenetrable to the native arrows (p. 117), but he does not further describe the armor. The headgear, consisting of a bear's skin drawn over a wooden skullcap, might have served as a helmet (p. 432). Of weapons, only the dagger, lance, and bow and arrows are mentioned (p. 367).

WEAPONS AND ARMOR, YAKUTAT BAY, 1787–1788

Unfortunately, Beresford gives us no specific information about the weapons used by the Indians at Yakutat. His descriptions of arms and armor, like so many of his observations, apply to the Northwest Coast Indians in general, from Yakutat to the Queen Charlotte Islands. He does, however, illustrate a single and a double-bladed dagger of metal from Port Mulgrave (fig. 66).

Ismailov and Bocharov, coming to Yakutat the following year, had very little more to report. According to Shelikhov's account of their observations of the Yakutat Indians:

“Their arms are bows, arrows, and lances, which they make chiefly of stone. The lances are fourteen inches long, in the middle five inches broad, and sharp towards the end and on the side. Sometimes these lances are suspended at the girth, and hang down as far as the middle of the leg, and at other times are slung round the shoulders under their clothes.” [Coxe, 1803, p. 326.]

As Coxe correctly observes in a footnote: “Probably this is a species of dagger.” I should add that a stone blade of the dimensions stated could only have been made of slate, even though we found no complete archeological examples of such large slate blades in our excavations near Yakutat (de Laguna et al, 1964, pp. 125–127).

WEAPONS AND ARMOR, YAKUTAT, 1791

We are indebted to Suría not only for a sketch of a Yakutat warrior with all his accouterments (pl. 51), but also for the following description:

“The fighting Indians wear all their arms, a breast-plate, back armor, a helmet with a visor or at least what serves that purpose. The breast and back armor are a kind of coat of mail of boards two fingers thick, joined by a thick cord which after being berbirlis by as [front] and embes [back] [the reference is to twining] with much union and equality joins them. In this junction the thread takes an opposite direction, it being the case that even here the arrows cannot pass through, much less in the thickest part of the boards. This breast plate is bound to the body by the back. They wear an apron or armor from the waist to the knees of the same character which must hinder their walking. Of the same material they cover the arm from the shoulder to the elbow, on the legs they use some leggings which reach to the middle of the thigh, the hair inside. [A note by W. A. Newcombe of Victoria, includes the reference: “Walter Hough in the Report of the National Museum, Washington, for 1893 (p. 637), states that there are four sets of armor collected by Malaspina in 1791 in the Museo Arqueologico, Madrid. He questions the collecting locality but I would certainly say Yakutat Bay. N.”].

FIGURE 66.—Metal (iron?) daggers from Port Mulgrave obtained by Dixon in 1787. (Beresford, 1789, pl. opp. p. 188, nos. 3, 4.)

[No para.] “They construct the helmet of various shapes; usually it is a piece of wood, very solid and thick, so much so, that when I put on one it weighed the same as if it had been of iron. They always have a great figure in front, a young eagle or a kind of parrot [sic; some crest bird, evidently], and to cover the face they lower from the helmet a piece of wood which surrounds this and hangs from some pieces of leather in the middle of the head to unite with another one which comes up from the chin. They join at the nose, leaving the junction for the place through which to see.

[No para.] “It is to be noted that before they put this armor on they put on a robe like that of the women but heavier and thicker, and with certain kinds of work.

[No para.] “They hang catucas [carcaj(-es)?, quiver(s)] and the bow they put over the arm to which it hangs back of the shoulders. They clasp a short lance, a knife, and a hatchet. Such is the equipment of a warrior. The lance is a heavy stick of black wood [“western yew,” according to Newcombe], very well worked, and at the point they tie on the blade of a great knife which they obtain from Englishmen in exchange for their skins. The knife which they carry in their belt is the same as ours for the same reason. The hatchet is a black stone of the size, figure, and edge of our iron hatchet [the so-called “long-handled adze” like a shipwright's adz, according to Newcombe; or probably the war pick]. They fasten it to a heavy stick and make use of it in war and in their other necessities. The bows and arrows are the same as those of all other Indians. All this I know because an Indian who armed himself for us to see it, pointed it all out to us by signs.” [Wagner, 1936, pp. 255–256.]

Suría's picture of the warrior (pl. 51) shows that the wooden helmet is carved to represent a human head, with a bunch of feathers or fur at the top. Most of his face, not just the eyes, is visible between the wooden collar and the brim of the helmet. The wooden armor falls in two tiers, from shoulder to waist, and from waist to just above the knees. The undergarment of skin has loose sleeves to the wrist, and the fringed bottom reaches the ankles. He wears moccasins or boots. His dagger hangs on his right hip in a sheath that is slung on a band from his left shoulder across his chest and back. The bow is held horizontally, the arrow steadied and aimed between the first and second fingers of the left hand that grasps the bow. The nock of the arrow is held and the bowstring pulled by the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, as was demonstrated by my informant (fig. 30, p. 368).

As the French had done in Lituya Bay, so the Spaniards at Yakutat demonstrated to the Indians that their guns could shoot through the native armor. The Yakutat Indian evidently did not expose the wooden cuirass, of the kind described by Suría, but what I assume to have been a tunic of rawhide, which he soaked in water to render it impenetrable. It will be remembered how angry he was when one of the officers shot through it (p. 147).

ARMS AND ARMOR, YAKUTAT AND CAPE YAKATAGA, 1792

The following year, June 1792, Baranov's party in Prince William Sound were attacked by a party of Indians from Yakutat and from the ałyI-Kagwantan territory (presumably near Cape Yakataga), who later claimed they had mistaken the Russians for their enemies, the Chugach Eskimo. The Indians were prepared to face musket fire, for as Baranov reported (in Tikhmenev, 1861–63, quoted p. 159);

“[The Indians] were covered with three or four thicknesses of wooden shields, plaited with sinews and wore very thick rawhide cloaks; on their heads they had helmets in imitation of foxes [undoubtedly the Wolf crest] or other animals, of wood, and very thick, which neither our bullets nor grapeshot could penetrate.”

These natives were armed with spears and bows and arrows, were directed in what must have been very efficient military maneuvers by some leader “with a commanding voice,” and when retreating managed to take away their own wounded and four Chugach hostages of the Russians.

The translation by Ginsberg of this same passage in the letter from Baranov, as quoted by Okun (Ginsberg, 1951, p. 208), adds a little further information:

“The attackers were all dressed in three or four coats of plaited wooden armour, and over these they wore thick elk-skin cloaks, and on their heads they wore exceedingly thick wooden helmets with figures of various monsters on them, wherefore neither bullets nor bricks nor arrows nor pikes were powerful enough to defeat them, and had the Russians not chanced to have a one-pounder with them they would certainly have been worsted; for the attackers fought with great ferocity until daylight, being given orders by the voice of one man, something that had not been seen before in the case of these savages, and bravely stepping forward to take the place of their dead.”

While I have already suggested (p. 159) that the Yakutat Tlingit had learned from the target practice of Malaspina's officer what was needed to render their armor bulletproof, the type of military command may well have been purely aboriginal, since it duplicates the maneuvers performed at Yakutat at the command of the Ankau (quoted, pp. 141, 474).

Two years later, Vancouver's Lieutenant Puget and the Russian explorers, Purtov and Kulikalov, found the Indians at Yakutat armed with some guns and ammunition, as well as with their own iron daggers (pp. 156, 164).

Weapons

DAGGER

The weapons used by warriors included the long dagger, 'something close to the hand’ (djIan ’At), or 'something with which to strike’ (gwÁłÀ). These were made of copper or iron, the grip wound with thongs or spruce roots, and might have one or two double-edged blades. The dagger was worn on the chest in a skin sheath, slung aroung the neck. An iron specimen excavated at Diyaguna'Et (de Laguna et al., 1964, fig. 13 b) was recognized by informants as typical. Jim Kardeetoo, posing beside the posts of Shark House, shows (pl. 86) how the dagger would normally be worn. See also the tiny bit of the beaded sheath which shows as he poses among the Teqwedi guests at a potlatch in 1916 (pl. 214a). When fighting, the dagger was attached to the wrist to prevent loss. It will be remembered that the Kagwantan peace dancers went into the house where the peace dance was to be held with their daggers stitched to the skin of their thighs for concealment (p. 283).

Emmons collected several fighting knives or daggers from Yakutat and Dry Bay; apparently those with double blades he considered to be the oldest type. One of these of copper, from Yakutat, had the upper, smaller blade incised to represent a human face (AMNH E/1161). There were also iron knives from Yakutat and Dry Bay (AMNH E/1510, 1321*), and two additional copper knives from Dry Bay, one of which was found clasped in the mummified hand of a shaman in his gravehouse at the mouth of the Alsek River (pl. 160, and AMNH E/8510).

Harrington (MS.) recorded that the copper daggers had a

“10 inches long and 2 inches wide blade, and had a hair-seal thong passing around both ends of the handle, making a ridge so that one cannot get it out of the hand easily, and from this the thong went around the wrist. You could never get away from a man with one of these—he’d kill you.”

WAR PICK

Another weapon used for close fighting was the stone or antler-headed pick (két’u). This is the implement usually described as a “slave-killer,” although it is uncertain that it served this function. The weapon was carried on war and hunting expeditions, and is said to have been similar to the war or hunting picks carried by the “McCarthy Indians” (Nabesna or Upper Tanana). The latter had a wooden handle across which was tied a sharp spikelike blade made of moose or sheep horn.

Another informant had found the heads of such weapons on the riverbank at Diyaguna'Et; these were made of bone and of greenstone (fig. 67). He sketched and described the weapon as “something like a mattock…. They hit people with it or they hit an animal. It's a hard rock…about a foot long…. The két’u was sharp on one end and on the other end just a little piece sticks out. It's like a peg, just about a quarter of an inch long—just big enough to go through the head bone. They tied the handle on.” The bone specimen was similar.

FIGURE 67.—War pick (kéu) as sketched by Sampson Harry.

In the photograph of the Teqwedi potlatch guests, taken in 1916, Joseph Abraham holds an ordinary stone-bladed splitting adze in the crook of his arm, and Henry Shada beside him grasps what appears to be a war pick (pl. 214). A double-pointed stone club head of somewhat different pattern from any of these was found at Old Town on Knight Island, as were roughly shaped stone specimens which could have been spikes for clubs (de Laguna et al., 1964, pp. 122–123, pl. 5, c).

Emmons obtained a stone club or pick at Dry Bay, which was reported to have been lashed to a handle with thongs and used for fighting (AMNH E/98). He also collected a number of war picks of this type from the grave houses of Dry Bay shamans, who had used them to kill the land otters from which they obtained their powers, and also for fighting evil spirits. The shaman SAtEn had owned four of these (AMNH E/424*, -/425*, -/429*, -/432).

WAR CLUBS

A club (ú) of wood or moosehorn was mentioned as a weapon but was not further described. This may have been simply the club like a baseball bat, used for dispatching fish and sea mammals, or a weapon similar to it which Emmons called “kluk-ka-ut” (perhaps tl’ukA 'At?). He gives the name “kutze” (ú) to the war club and to the similar dance wand carried by the shaman. One ivory war club which he obtained at Dry Bay was carved to represent a sea lion and incised with a design symbolizing a hawk's head. A fine and rare specimen of this kind, he felt would be owned only by a chief and would be used in close fighting (AMNH E/2489). The shaman, SAtEn, had seven dance wands like such clubs, carved with decorations that evidently represented his spirits (AMNH E/422, -/423, -/426*, -/427*, pl. 187, -/430*, -/431).

BRAINING STONE

One Yakutat woman described what appears to have been a braining stone (qayÁ gw ÁłÀ), 'someone's face, thing to strike with.' This had pits for finger grips, and was used “to hit the face” (MJ). It reminds one of the braining stones of Chugach assassins, although the latter were grooved for attachment to a thong (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 101).

I could not discover whether the sling (djuwa) and sling stone (djuwa tE) were ever used in war.

WAR SPEAR

The war spear (tsàÁł’) was described as “a knife tied on the end of a stick,” and seems to have been the same as that used in hunting bears (p. 367). It was thrust, not thrown, and in war was never permitted to leave the hand. The shaft was usually the length of a man's double span, that is, about 6 or 7 feet, but DaquwAden shortened his by about the length of his forearm (about 2 feet) when preparing to attack the CAtqwan in the house (p. 282). Although his grandfather thought this was too short, the length (measured from the elbow of one arm to the fingertips of the other, about 4 feet), was that of the short hunting spear, and the usual length for the war spear on the Northwest Coast (de Laguna et al., 1964, p. 125).

BOW AND ARROW

The bow and arrow (sAqs, tcunEt) carried by the warrior were also the same as those he would have used against land animals.

Harrington reports that his informant “volunteered that the early Indians here made a wooden gun, called khaa-’uunaa [qa ‘una], literally a ‘wooden gun.’ It has a bow and bowstring, [and to judge by the sketch, a stock like a gun with a trigger]. They shoot strong.”

This weapon as described resembles a crossbow, although it seems difficult to understand how the natives could have seen a European model to copy.

FIREARMS AND ACCESSORIES

Guns, muzzle-loaders in the old days, were much prized as weapons. The first at Yakutat were the “six excellent muskets” noted by Lieutenant Puget in 1794 (p. 156), or the “many guns and ammunition of lead and powder in considerable quantities” as they appear in the report by Purtov and Kulikalov, who were at Yakutat at the same time (p. 164). These the natives obtained from European vessels that came to trade for sea otter skins. For most of the 19th century, the common type of gun was the old Hudson's Bay Company musket. By 1884 the favorite weapon at Yakutat was a combination 44/100-inch caliber rifle with a .14- or .16-gauge shotgun (p. 187). The sale or breech-loading guns and cartridges (“fixed ammunition”) to the Indians was still forbidden by law. By the end of the century the Yakutat people were armed with Winchester repeating rifles and double-barreled shotguns but, of course, these were used only for hunting (p. 375).

The gun (’una 'something to shoot’) was often called ‘war gun’ (àn ‘úná). Because this weapon was a muzzle-loader the Yakutat warrior had to carry shot, powder, caps, and wadding. The shot was carried in a double basket or a birdskin pouch (pls. 116, 128). Powder and caps were likely to be put into a small gutskin bag (p. 426). Emmons obtained two powder horns, one made of cow's horn, at Yakutat (pl. 116). He also obtained there a powder charge container (“Unaguay” possibly ‘una gwel?) made of woven spruce root. A charge of powder was put in either end and a stopper of twisted cedar bark or wood held it in the chamber until it was required for use (AMNH E/2539).

Professor Libbey obtained a powder measure of mountain goat horn “from the chief of the Eagle clan, Yakutat,” that is, from Chief Yen-aht-setl, the Teqwedi sib chief (pl. 116). As described by Baird (1965b, p. 6), “…it has a line scribed inside to mark the 4-dram level—which would be a heavy load for a .12-gauge fowling piece or a light load for a .10-gauge (at least with full-strength gunpowder). A carrying thong, now missing, passed through the eagle's beak.” The Eagle was one of the totemic crests which the Teqwedi chief might use. It may also be of interest to remember that one of his names was YanAct’ukw, Firing a Gun’ (p. 200).

The Hudson's Bay Company muskets could shoot pebbles, although the Yakutat people made bullets for them. Emmons collected at Yakutat a copper bullet, said to have come from the Copper River country, used for bear hunting (AMNH E/1167). Professor Libbey acquired a bullet mold and bullet, which Lieutenant Schwatka obtained from some Indians he encountered on his trip through the Ankau lagoons and Lost River system (pl. 116).

As Schwatka writes:

“One of the utensils our Indian friends had in their possession struck me rather forcibly as an illustration of the fact that the working in stone by these Indians has not yet ceased, and this, too, in the making of necessary implements for every-day use. It was nothing more or less than a pair of bullet molds made by one of the young men of that party. At first I thought that the body was made of iron set in a pair of perfectly working hinges of wood, so carefully adjusted that the two halves of the molds came together as exactly as the best bullet molds we make…. This body, however, upon close examination proved to be stone, the workmanship of which was claimed by a young man from 25 to 30 years of age. The interior of the molds showed perfect globes reversed, and a specimen bullet from them was as good as any I have seen made in civilized countries. It is now, I believe, in possession of Professor Libbey, who secured it for the Princeton College ethnological collection. It was a small, unassuming affair, but expressed a great deal ethnologically.” [New-York Times, October 26, 1886.]

[Baird writes (1965 b, p. 7):] “The neatly pivoted wooden handles are evidently patterned after a white man's pair of dividers while the mold blocks are carved of stone. Although the .38 caliber balls cast in this mold are rather eccentric they would serve well as buckshot.”

Although the Yakutat Indians had started the 19th century better provided with Russian arms than the Indians of southeastern Alaska, just as they had still earlier been better equipped with drift iron blades for their spears and daggers, by the end of the 19th century their guns were still inferior to the modern rifles and revolvers which the Tsimshian possessed (pp. 262, 266, 275, 285).

Among the arms taken from the Russian fort were cannon (anta óna ?, perhaps ‘antu ’úna, ‘gun inside the town’ ?). The Indians obviously appreciated the value of these small cannon; one was kept at Yakutat and the other is said to have been taken by the Tł'UknaAdi to defend Gue (p. 261).

The Warrior's Costume

ARMOR

From a Dry Bay informant, I obtained a sketchy description of armor. The wooden helmet (ł’uWUcAda)—“wood on their heads…. They make it just like hat, you know, [like] that steel hat…”—came down to the brows. On one occasion she corroborated the statement by Emmons (1903, p. 274) that it was decorated with a special basketry design (see below), but again denied that the wooden helmet was carved or painted. “No—just plain.” Below the helmet was a wooden collar, which covered the neck and lower part of the face, like a protective mask. “All over here [the mouth]…. They bite it like this,” indicating a wooden mouthpiece held between the teeth. The informant could not remember the name for the collar, but believed it was just part of the armor.

Some helmets at Dry Bay were evidently as decorative as that one sketched at Suría at Yakutat, for Emmons collected a magnificent specimen at Dry Bay, carved to represent a man's face contorted with pain, as if he had just received a mortal blow (pl. 158).

The armor (gucket, sAnket) was made of rods of hard wood, and covered the body from the neck to just below the knee, “just like apron…. And when they using that, tsàÁł' [spears], they don’t hit their body.” The armor was stained dark with dye made from the cooked roots of the “wild rhubarb.” Under the wooden armor was a skin shirt (guda), usually of mooseskin. “Mooseskin—it's hard. They can’t get tsàÁł' in, touch their body. And that's why they use it.” Other “strong skins” were used, but she did not know what kinds they were. Below the armor were worn heavy skin boots (us ket).

Krause (1956, p. 170, citing Lütke) says of the Tlingit warriors: “Before the attack they put on their wooden rod armor which protected their backs and chests, they covered their faces with masks [collars?] representing the heads of animals, and put wooden coverings decorated in the same way on their heads. All these parts were fastened to the armor with strong sinew.” Krause (1956, pp. 145–146) describes two suits of leather armor, the longer (“kk-ke”) reaching to the knees, the shorter (“chlŭch-tschÍ-n” or “chlūcht tschín”) covering only the body, and wooden rod armor (“uónda,” i.e., wAnda, 'surface of the edge’).

Emmons obtained at Yakutat a suit of armor made of mooseskin and wooden slats bound together with sinew. The leather was painted to represent the spirit of Kiwa’a (?, “Ke-war-klue”), and a witch (AMNH 19/1038). Part of some wooden slat armor, to be worn on the lower leg, he obtained from the grave of a Dry Bay shaman (AMNH E/2311). He also collected at Yakutat a plain moosehide shirt to be worn alone or under a suit of wooden armor (pl. 161).

WAR BONNET

Swanton (1908, p. 450) reports that each member of the war party wore a special shaman's hat. This was described by Emmons (1903, p. 257, pl. XVI) as:

“Shar-dar yar-ar-kee (‘around-the-head work’) [cÁdà yE’áge] is essentially a Tlingit type of headdress worn by the shaman…, and it might be denominated a ‘war bonnet;’ not that he wore it in actual war, but in his practice when contending with hostile spirits. In weave it is a continuous broad band, slightly wider at the top than at the bottom; so that when it is flattened out and creased, the outward flare comes more in front, giving it a clumsy appearance. The top is sewed together, and is surmounted by a wolf or fox tail, or by the mane of the mountain-goat combined with one of the former. The entire exterior surface is ornamentally embroidered in straw and color. The hat itself gives the name to the peculiar step-like design…. ”

And there was usually, in addition, a small animal figure embroidered on each side.

Of the design, Emmons (1903, p. 274) writes further: “Shár-dar yar-ár-kee (’the work or embroidery around the head,' i.e., on the wooden helmet, and also on the basket-work hat or war-bonnet worn exclusively by the shaman)…” and believes that it is a very old basket decoration.

The Dry Bay informant told me that this step design was also used for the beadwork on a girl's hair ornament. She sketched two variations of the same design (cf. Emmons, 1903, fig. 344), corroborating his statement that it was used on war hat and helmets (fig. 68). The wearing of these was not confined to war time, she said.

Jim Kardeetoo appears to have worn such a war bonnet when he posed with the Teqwedi guests at a potlatch in 1916 (pl. 214). Perhaps, like the Sun Dagger and other heirlooms, it had once belonged to the shaman Te-’ic. As far as I know these basketry bonnets have not been found in the grave houses of shamans.

BEAR'S EARS HEADDRESS

One form of headdress, worn when going to war or undertaking a serious task (p. 621), such as giving away great wealth at a potlatch, was called the ‘Bear's Ears’ (uts gAngúc). For example, DaquWAdÈn tied brown bear's ears on his head when going to kill the CAtqwan (p. 283). These ears were formerly made of real bear skin, but symbolic representations have also been made of other materials (cf. Keithahn, 1963, p. 73, fig. on right). A bear's ears headdress was acquired in 1950 by the Alaska Historical Museum from Mrs. A. B. Jack of Yakutat (pl. 153). According to a letter from the Curator (Edward L. Keithahn, November 30, 1964), this is made of leather, perhaps tanned sea lion hide, and is decorated with wooden disks on the “ears,” painted in alternate bands of red and green. Between the “ears” is a patch of white feathers with down, probably hackles from an eagle's neck, and there is also hair from a cow's tail (that of the mission cow). It is very similar to the headdress worn by Te-’ic and other Teqwedi shamans, and which was called 'Sun's Ears' (gAgan gAnguc). The latter was probably a special form of ‘bear's ears.’ Jim Kardeetoo donned it to pose before the sale of the Shark House posts (pl. 86).

FIGURE 68.—Design for war bonnet, shaman's hat, or girl's hair ornament as sketched by Emma Ellis. Above, ‘Baby design around the head,’ (cAda yE’age yAtx’i). Below, ‘Large design around the head’ (cAda yE' age tlenx’) as worked in beads on her young aunt's hair ornament. The colors of the elements are: red white, blue, white, red, white, white, white.

It is this headdress which LaPérouse's artist has rendered like a bishop's mitre in his engraving of the Lituya Bay chief sitting among a group of inhabitants, and which is also worn by three occupants of a canoe on Lituya Bay (pls. 37–38).

Emmons collected several examples of bear's ears headdresses at Dry Bay and Yakutat from the grave houses of shamans (pls. 199, 206; AMNH E/1632, 19/979).

FACE PAINT

Face paint was apparently worn by warriors. Thus, two of the many designs for facial painting collected by Swanton (1808, pl. LV, h, i) are said to have been worn originally by a Wrangell man (Tsun’ku) just before he was killed by a Kagwantan man during the war between the two groups. Now it is worn by the Kagwantan, by both men and women at dances, and (by men only ?) before going to war. This certainly suggests that the other designs, unless specially designated as worn by peace hostages, women, song leaders, or mourners (ibid., pls. XLVIII–LV), the majority of which symbolized crests, would be worn both by dancers at a potlatch and by warriors preparing for battle. I learned little about face painting at Yakutat, except that black around the eyes was for war (p. 283).

PEACE AND JUSTICE

The Meaning of Peace

To make peace after a war involved redemption or exchange of scalps taken, of crest objects and captives, but it could not be achieved until the killings on each side were judged equal in amount; that is, in numbers and rank. This was because the making of peace was equivalent to making a legal settlement that would eliminate all causes for conflict; the original reasons for the fighting and all the ensuing injuries were treated as if they were issues in a case at law. Restitution or recompense had to be given for what had been siezed or destroyed; for human lives lost an equivalence had to be surrendered. Thus, paradoxically the victors in battle were theoretically the losers in peace. Ideally, peace was made when an equal number of persons, of matching rank, had been killed on both sides. Payment of damages in the form of such property as coppers, blankets, slaves, or other valuables, might be accepted in order to equalize the score of deaths. Property was also given to redeem captives and crest objects, or these might be exchanged (pp. 459–460).

Most important of all, making peace involved the holding of a peace ceremony, with elaborate symbolism to testify that grudges were buried and with magicoreligious sanctions to guarantee amicable behavior. That old hatreds do not die so easily, and that men may violate a truce, is amply illustrated by the massacre of the CAtqwan peace officers at Sitka and by the bitter feelings that still smolder. Moreover, although a settlement might be accepted as adequate at the time, in later years this might come to be considered insufficient, and fresh demands be pressed in anger, rekindling the old strife.

Not all wars, even between Tlingit or Tlingit and Eyak sibs, end with formal peace settlements. There may be simply a suspension of hostilities, as perforce occurred with the imposition of American law, or, as in the old days, one group might simply conquer and absorb another. This appears to have been the case with the Tłayik-Teqwedi. Originally defeated and almost exterminated by the Tł'UknaAdi and their allies, the survivors were enslaved by the Bear House Teqwedi, who took over their lands, and other property and prerogatives, including personal names (cf. Tanu), and the ghost of łucwAq as a shaman's spirit. Perhaps it was to secure and legitimatize their title to the Situk and Lost River area, shaky because it had not been purchased (p. 253), that the Bear House Teqwedi finally undertook to bury the bones of the Tłaayik-Teqwedi fallen at WuganiyE, and were quick to seize the opportunity of turning a play peace ceremony into a real one (pp. 267, 269). The Bear House Teqwedi were, I think, resorting to a kind of legal fiction, since it was their “fathers,” the Tł'UknaAdi, who had actually conquered the original Situk inhabitants, and so could with some justice claim prior rights to these territories. As far as I know, the Bear House Teqwedi had never been at war with the Tł'UknaAdi, so the peace ceremony was doubly fictitious. Perhaps the name “Teqwedi” was really given to the Eyak-speaking ł’uedi by the Bear House Teqwedi as part of this same legalistic maneuvering.

Potential wars have, of course, been prevented without recourse to formal peace ceremonies, as when territorial rights were purchased in order to avoid charges of trespassing (pp. 119, 233, 252).

On the other hand, a peace ceremony has often been used to settle what we would consider a local or domestic case of homicide or manslaughter, even when the deaths were quite unpremeditated or even accidental. If not settled promptly, however, these cases would (in former days, at any rate), lead to feuds and further deaths, and would eventually necessitate a peace ceremony. It is because formal peace ceremonies are used to settle legal cases of this kind that the latter are called “wars” by the Yakutat people. Conversely, my principal historical informant did not think that fighting the Russians at Yakutat should properly be called a “war” (p. 264), perhaps because a true peace settlement would have been impossible. That the Yakutat Indians did attempt to use the formality of the peace ceremony in dealing with Whites is strongly suggested by Suría's experiences (p. 150), and by the behavior of the Indians the following day when the Spaniards' suspension of trading had angered them (pp. 150–151).

For the Indians, “peace” does not mean cessation of fighting, or the imposition and acceptance of conditions of surrender; it means restoration of lawful relationships, settlement of claims for loss and injury, and reestablishment of equity. To understand “war and peace” in Tlingit terms will, therefore, illuminate Tlingit conceptions of justice.

While there have been no formal wars or feuds within the memory of my informants, a number of serious disputes have been settled by peace ceremonies. The details given in the following pages are based largely upon descriptions of ceremonies which informants had seen as children at Yakutat and Dry Bay, between about 1890 and 1910. There was also some mention of other ceremonies at a still earlier period, as well as some generalizations and explanations. No single narrative was complete, so that the following account is a composite which can neither make clear possible differences in practice between Yakutat and Dry Bay, nor distinguish features which might have been characteristic of peace ceremonies conducted after bloody wars and those held after legal settlements.

Preliminaries to the Peace Ceremony

GO-BETWEENS

Negotiations for peace were carried out by go-betweens, 'sib brothers-in-law’ (nakani), that is, men who were married to women of the sib they were to represent. The persons employed as nakani by hosts at a potlatch, and the nakani of the guests, might or might not be members of the sib on the opposite side (guest or host) to whom they spoke as ambassadors for their ‘brothers-in-law,’ (see pp. 617–618), but nakani in time of war should not belong to either sib that was involved in the trouble. Thus one informant said that if Kagwantan and Kwacqwan had a war, CAnkuqedi would be nakani. Or, she admitted when asked, Teqwedi or Tł'UknaAdi could serve. “They free people. Just [only] that Kagwantan and Kwacqwan got a war with each other. Any of the other tribes, they free [neutral], you know. They go around.” In illustration she cited the humanitarian role of the Kagwantan nakani in relieving the thirst of the KIksAdi who were besieged at Sitka by the Tł'UknaAdi (see p. 584).

In answer to a question, MJ stated emphatically that Teqwedi could not use Kwacqwan as nakani—“have to be Tł'UknaAdi.” This statement may be based on the old-time preference for marriages between the Bear House Teqwedi and the Tł'UknaAdi, especially for aristocrats, although the informant had just been speaking about an actual peace settlement between Teqwedi and Kwacqwan, when of course the latter could not have been nakani. Continuing, “Kwqwan uses Kagwantan—any Kagwantan [that] marry into their tribe.” While I lack sufficient instances to check these statements, they probably reflect the desired norms, not fixed rules.

There is no definite evidence that each sib involved in a dispute had to have their own brothers-in-law as representatives. For example, in an actual case (a legal settlement) at Dry Bay about 1902, the nakani between the TłukwaAdi and CAnkuqedi were a Kagwantan man and woman, the latter chosen in default of a suitable man. Both were spouses of TłukwaAdi; the man had been the father-in-law of the CAnkuqedi woman whose death was involved in the dispute, but I do not know the actual or theoretical relationship of the Kagwantan woman to the CAnkuqedi. In this case, as in others at Dry Bay and Yakutat, it was obviously impossible for both parties to have ‘brothers-in-law’ in the same neutral sib. I unfortunately lack specific information as to whether two groups of neutral ‘brothers-in-law’ (one for each side) were ever employed. We may infer, however, that the main consideration was that the go-betweens should be persons of importance, members of a group that had no involvement in the trouble, and as individuals have personal ties that would make them anxious to restore peace.

The duty of the go-betweens was to discover what compensation in property or in life was demanded by the side that felt itself aggrieved, inform their opponents and secure the aggreement of the latter, arrange for the exchange of peace hostages or ‘deer’ (kuwakan, usually heard as ‘gowakan’; Boas, 1917, p. 128, q’ùwàk’àn), and supervise the ceremonial dances of these hostages. For example, the nakani at a peace dance are supposed to search the dancers, and others(?), for hidden weapons (p. 283). The position of nakani was recognized as a very responsible one, second only to that of the peace hostages who seem to have occupied the center of attention. It was always the sib chief, of course, who decided on war and peace, after deliberation with the various house owners.

WHO COULD MAKE PEACE

At Yakutat (and Dry Bay?) peace ceremonies could be held only between sibs in opposite moieties. This is in contrast to the custom among the Tlingit in southeastern Alaska where any two sibs could make peace by this means. Thus, when Yakutat informants were questioned specifically as to whether Teqwedi and Kagwantan, Kagwantan and CAnkuqedi, or Tł'UknaAdi and Kwacqwan could make peace by exchanging peace hostages, they all reported that such a case was unknown. “I never heard it happen yet—always opposites,” and informants did not believe that peace hostages could be exchanged between two sibs in the same moiety.

In the hypothetical event of a killing involving Teqwedi and Kagwantan, “They settle with the money. That's brothers. Kagwantan and Teqwedi are brothers—they settle with the money, I think. I never heard of kuwakan between brothers.” The same would be true of a murder case involving two houses or lineages, like Drum House and Bear House. “Pay, I think that's all. I never heard it that brothers kuwakan.”

Other informants with whom the matter was discussed agreed that the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska might exchange peace hostages between sibs in the same moiety. “They do that outside from Yakutat, not in Yakutat—Kagwantan and WUckitan,” and a case involving these two Wolf sibs at Killisnoo near Angoon was cited, as was the war between the Sitka Kagwantan and the Wrangell Nana’ai, both Wolves, when the peace officers from Wrangell were murdered at Sitka.

Restitution and Retribution: Evening the Score

At Yakutat, settlements of feuds within the moiety did not involve further killings to even the score. The wealth given for blood money or damages in such cases consisted of money, goods, and also of property called ’Atu, that is, crests, emblems, or “totems” (p. 452). In other words, crest objects or ceremonial privileges were transferred from one side or house to another. This did not disturb the ordinary totemic alinement, since both parties already shared the major totemic crests. These payments must, therefore, have consisted of the same kinds of property that would be given by a high-class man to his future father-in-law. Indeed, in a later generation, perhaps as a gesture of good will, the same crest object might be returned to the original owners as bride price (p. 459).

Quite possibly the anomalous position of the Beaver and the Golden Eagle (gIdjUk, “Hawk”), as crests of both Wolf and Raven sibs in different parts of Alaska, can be as readily interpreted as consequences of peacemaking as of capture in time of war, for we cannot eliminate the possibility that crest objects or rights to crests were also given away in peacemaking between sibs in opposite moieties.

We should note in this connection that the Aiyan chief (Fort Selkirk, Yukon?) who felt guilty because the CAnkuqedi whom he had invited to visit him had drowned on the way, adopted the CAnkuqedi as his brothers, and gave them “four of his precious potlatch songs” in compensation (p. 248). Perhaps this was the same kind of payment. It will also be remembered that after the “kind of war” between the Yakutat people and the visiting Tsimshian, the latter gave songs “for forgivenness” (p. 286).

Ceremonial services may also follow a peace ceremony between sibs in opposite moieties, further settling the trouble. Thus when łdaxin (Tł'UknaAdi) by mistake killed the son of his “uncle,” Ckman, by his ałyI-Kagwantan wife, QU’ya, this made trouble between the two sibs. The father of the dead youth, Ckman, was taken as ‘deer’ in a peace dance, and later, as a gesture of further goodwill he built Wolf Bath House in the Old Village for his wife's people. (Not only had the usual property been paid for the dead youth, but the father in his turn would certainly have been recompensed for his labor at the house-building potlatch.) Later, łdaxin's true mother's brother, YakunaEn, married QU’ya, and their son was named YAkuwat, after the slain youth. This naming was also interpreted as settling any hard feelings.

Property might be seized to force the payment of damages. Thus a trophy scalp could be held for ransom in a legal case involving a killing. For example, the Kwacqwan at Yakutat kept the scalp of a man called Qaginukw, identified only as “an outsider,” because his family had killed a Kwacqwan, and the latter had not killed anyone in retaliation. It was never made clear how they obtained the scalp, unless Qaginukw died a natural death. It was hoped that the scalp would be redeemed, but it never was. Yakutat Charley (WUtdAł’, S’istcakw-’ic, 1862–1920) exhibited it and wore it at the potlatch for Fort House, and it was eventually buried with him.

Wars or serious feuds usually could not be settled simply by payments of property. For each extra life lost on one side, another from their enemies might be demanded in compensation, to even the score. It will be remembered that DaquwAdEn accused the Cd;Atqwan of treating the Kagwantan like their fathers’ slaves because they were trying to make peace without paying for the Kagwantan lives they had taken. And that payment had to be in their blood, to make the losses even. It was in this way that the Kagwantan champion justified his killing of the Cd;Atqwan peace mission (p. 283).

The usual procedure was for the nakani to go to the aggrieved chief and find out whom he demanded as a sacrifice. It was seldom the actual killer, in cases of murder, unless he and his victim happened to be of equal rank. More often a substitute was demanded.

“The chief of the opposite tribe mentions who's to be killed. It has to be an equal for the dead man. Then their own chief calls out the one who has to die to equal things up.” In the old days, if the oldest brother had been designated to be killed in payment for a death in another sib, the younger brother was supposed to step forward to take his place. “The younger brother is supposed to save the oldest brother when the opposite tribe mentions who's to be killed.” Remembering this tradition, one of my informant's sons who was serving in Alaska during World War II, wanted to be sent to Germany where his oldest brother was fighting. He wrote to his father, “Let me be killed before my oldest brother—like the Indians used to do.”

Sometimes, the opposite side did not insist on the sacrifice of a life. Perhaps this might happen if tempers had been allowed to cool, and the nakani had been very persuasive. Perhaps sibs in the same town would be more ready to compromise. At any event I was also told:

“Sometimes the man who was supposed to be killed in payment would say he didn’t want to die. Then his chief would say: ‘All right, we’ll pay for you.’ The man wasn’t thought a coward. [However, see below, the statement of the same informant. Probably in this case the man would have gone if necessary.] His chief would send word to the chief of the opposite tribe, and that chief would say it was all right, too. So then they would just get a lot of money in payment for their man who had been killed before, and they would not kill anybody more to make up for it.”

There was some question as to whether the life of a woman equalled that of a man. In one case of accidental deaths at Dry Bay, the TłukwaAdi were not satisfied because thay had lost a man, and the CAnkuqedi a girl. “…the one that drowned, that's a girl, you know. That's lower than a man. That's why my father don’t satisfied.” Yet this same woman informant on another occasion agreed with a friend that sex made no difference, if both parties were aristocrats (’anyAdi). Nor was age a consideration. What was important was social rank. “If that old man and this young man [were killed]—that's the same ‘anyAdi. If one is higher than the other, that's not even. They’re going to kill two of them.” And again: “When they kill ‘anyAdi [in a war, or by accident], four people they kill on the other tribe. That's the way I hear.” After confirmation from MJ, she added: “They wouldn’t take no pay except there [in the case of] anybody that's high class people. They wouldn’t take no pay or else they do something even. On the other side high-class people they just even up. If he's higher than the other side, there's got to be four killed.”

Like the Tlingit in southeastern Alaska, I imagine that the Yakutat people probably tried to match the victim in sex as well as in rank with the one who had been slain. I do not know, however, if injury to the face of an aristocrat warranted the deaths of one or two lower class men, as in southeastern Alaska (Jones, 1914, pp. 194, 198), yet the fact that Chief Daqusetc was injured in the face during the war between the Bear House Teqwedi and the TłaayIk-Teqwedi was mentioned as if it constituted a serious grievance (p. 251).

Probably no greater degree of heroism or self-sacrifice for the good of one's people was exhibited than that of the man or woman who had to walk out and deliberately allow himself or herself to be killed to make up for the deed which another had committed in the heat of battle or passion.

“In olden days—suppose my tribe [Kwacqwan] made war with Teqwedi. We kill so much, we’re going to pay. Either pay with a life, see? What you call a ‘gentleman's war,’ Indian war. If I kill so many of Olaf's tribe [Teqwedi], I [as Kwacqwan chief] ask him, ‘We want to pay.’

“We send nakani, my brother-in-law, over there. Olaf [the Teqwedi chief] is going to mention my tribe's life, how many they want. I’m going to send them over there. He's going to kill it.

“Sometimes they paid by property, but if the chief don’t want property, maybe he mention my brother. I have to send him. They’re all equal when they have a peace [i.e., each side must be even in its losses].”

There was no escape from this sacrifice:

“No, you just have to go. It's a coward then [if you refuse]. If I stop my brother, I’m a coward. And if they mention my name, my brother can’t stop me.” (See, however, above.)

If the man who had been killed on one side were of very high rank, it is “sometimes two against one,” to make even. But when it was suggested that the enemy chief might be unfair in demanding too many lives for settlement, our informant replied that this made no difference. “I think it just has to be. It's olden days, before White man.”

Another said:

“They had the strongest law that no White man can break it. Like my brother killed your sister. I’m ‘anyAdi…. Then they have to match a death. They go by the class, even if they kill by accident…. They look for an equal. They put on their best clothes when they come out to their death.” She evidently was imagining herself as the matching victim to my sister.

As Swanton has written (1908, p. 449):

“If a man were killed and the murderer escaped into his own house, the people of the murdered man held a council, and if they thought that he was not of high enough caste to make up for the dead person they went out and called the name of one belonging to the same clan who answered the requirements. This person then had to put on his best clothing and run out to be killed, though before this happened he tried to stab one of his would-be slayers. After that the actual murderer was punished by his friends by being compelled to pay a great deal of property [presumably to the close kin of the sacrificed champion].”

The person who had committed the initial killing or who had caused the “war” by inciting to violence, was punished by his or her own sib, and his shame was remembered. Thus, the faithless KIksAdi wife of the Kagwantan man whose intrigues with her Cd;Atqwan lover precipitated war between the two sibs was cited as an example to shun, in contrast to the virtues of other women.

“If I make trouble over there, if somebody died out of me, if somebody gets killed out of what I say,” said a woman, “they’re going to take me for a slave. That's the way it used to be, olden times. They used to grab kids by the hair. That's what my mother said: 'Sit down over there! Don’t talk about outside things. You’re going to have a war or something.’ That's the way olden time is. That's why that Kagwantan cawu [women] are like that Tł'Uknaca [Tł'UknaAdi women]. That's why they don’t have a war out of those people.”

Responsible people do not like to tell stories of old wars because these are likely to revive the troubles and lead to more killings. With reference to the history of the Kagwantan-Cd;Atqwan war:

“I think they [the Sitka Kagwantan] don’t try to tell that story. That's why we know more in Yakutat. They don’t tell it amongst themselves, because it's against the Indian law.

“It's this way: After the war's over, they don’t tell it any more. Especially now, today, drinking going on. That's why they don’t tell it any more. It's all right if Kagwantan tell it.”

Here we see the recognition that no harm can come from telling the story far away from the homes of the principals, balanced against a recognition of Kagwantan rights in their own history.

However, to cost the life of a sib-mate by making trouble with another sib so that his life had to be forfeited to make peace was the most despicable act. The troublemaker might even be killed by his own people. His lawlessness put him outside the social order, like a slave; his reckless acts were like the crazy treason of witchcraft. An informant expressed the attitude towards such a malefactor:

“When a person's like that, they jump him so much he's down to nothing. If he breaks it [the “law”], like a killing, it costs his tribe's life. It leads to wars. Have to be very careful—preach to one another how to act. Might even become a 'slave.’ Those people who become slaves like that, they don’t labor—just called 'slaves’—no good for anything. Sometimes they call them ‘witchcraft’ [a witch]. They have no respect for him, kick him out of the way.”

The Peace Ceremony: Seizing the ‘Deer’

The exchange of hostages, often called “peacemakers,” “peace officers,” or “peace dancers” in English, was supposed to end the war or the trouble. These persons, always men or women of high rank, were under supernatural sanction to be peaceful. They were called deer (kuwakan) because “The Indian people believed that deer never make no harm. That's why they call them that.” “Kuwakan, ‘deer,’ they’re so innocent.” Another informant explained “Deer, they can’t get mad. Even you touch deer, they’re not going to kick you or something. I guess that's why they call [them] like that. It's against our rules [for] kuwakan to fight with other people. They can’t.”

These hostages were subject to many taboos, designed to insure peaceful behavior. Their persons were also supposed to be inviolate. “Kuwakan—you can’t kill him. After he become kuwakan, can’t make trouble with him any more. He become brother of the other tribe [his captors].” He was not, however, called ‘brother.’

When a man was taken as a peace hostage, it was as if he ‘turned into a woman’ (cawAt wUsIti). “Ten days it's [he's] going to turn to a girl. He can’t do anything. He can’t get mad, he can’t talk funny, you know. Quiet, like a girl.” The informant made it very clear that he is never compared to a transvestite or homosexual (gAtan, ‘coward’). Rather, he obeys taboos similar to those of the adolescent girl and the widow.

Ideally four ‘deer’ were taken from each side, carefully paired as to social status, and preferably, if rank permitted, close kin to the slain and to the person or persons held responsible for the death. If a woman were taken on one side, her ‘opposite’ (geí) should also be a woman.

It was, of course, never possible to make equal restitution or retribution after a “war,” and second thought might find the settlement unsatisfactory. Since the peace ceremony with exchange of hostages invoked supernatural sanctions against further violence, it was an appropriate measure to be initiated by the side that feared or knew that they had failed completely to satisfy their opponents. This would be done by seizing hostages from the latter, and offering some of their own members in exchange. Of course, there was always the risk that the opponents would refuse to accept the offered hostages as ‘deer’ but would instead kill them, or simply continue the war.

For example, in explaining a case at Dry Bay in 1902, a man was captured as a peace hostage because he was not satisfied with what had been paid for the death of his brother.

“He's not satisfied. That's why they catch kuwakan. That's the only way they settled everything…. They make peace. Everybody's that way. But if they’re not satisfied they take one of the other tribe for kuwakan; and the other ones take it for kuwakan. Then they make peace…. They wouldn’t have to make peace if they satisfied…. Just when they’re not satisfied, that's the time they go like that—they make kuwakan.”

In another case at Dry Bay in 1907, a peace ceremony was held because the man who had caused the deaths of two guests by serving poisonous homebrew at a potlatch was too poor to pay. These peace ceremonies were the more easily arranged because retributive killings would have been punished by U.S. law.

It would thus appear that the side desiring peace takes the initiative by seizing a prominent man of their opponent's side as a ‘deer.’ Assuming that the others respect the conventions, and fear the threat of misfortune if they break the rules, this act would be equivalent to forcing them to make peace. Apparently such seizure of a ‘deer’ might be attempted even before nakani had acted as mediators. Thus, the Cd;Atqwan tried to make a ‘deer’ of the captive they had maltreated when they saw a superior force of Kagwantan approaching (p. 281). When the Yakutat natives were trying to capture Captain Bustamente and other Spaniards, they were probably trying to take them as ‘deer’ and thus force the Spaniards to reopen peaceful trade (p. 150). It is doubtful that the Tlingit understood the exchange of hostages in the same terms as did Europeans.

Peace hostages were usually taken in a mock battle, in much the same way that persons were killed to even up deaths. Thus, all the men of one sib, armed with guns and other weapons, and all painted as if for war, would assemble outside the house of the person desired as a ‘deer.’ Here they would call: “Come on, come out now! Your sAni (father's brothers) want you,” and they mention especially the names of their dead relatives.

“(heyÚ nagÚ) Come out here! (’isAni ’ate ’iyía yádu) Your uncles out there for you are waiting. (’isAni ‘iyia yáduhÚ dutuwÚ) Your uncle wants to see you. (du tuwásIgu ‘iwIstine) He wants to see you.”

And, explained the informant, “if you don’t come out over there, you’re going to have bad luck.” The reluctant ‘deer’ would get sick and die, or fatal illness attack some other member of his family. “That's why he just have to go out there.”

MJ explained: “If they called them to come out and they refused to come out, that means there's still war on hand. They still have argument towards one another. That's why they capture the opposite tribe…. [The informant's sister had been kuwakan]. For instance, that sister of mine, if she refused to come out, they have to kill her…. ”

The ‘deer’ also put on war paint (’ueyuditiy[?]) on their face, “to show they’re not coward,” and came out to face the enemy. There was of course some danger, even if the chiefs and principals in the dispute had agreed to peace, that some hothead might shoot the ‘deer.’ Thus, we can understand why the designated hostage might be reluctant.

When the hostages emerged from their houses, a sham battle ensued in which they were supposedly killed. When MJ was a little girl and her older sister, osałtła, was taken as a ‘deer,’ she was terrified.

“I thought they killed her with all those guns going…. They just go out there, pretend they’re going to kill her in place of that woman [the one whose death had necessitated the ceremony]…. The people got together and shot off guns. They took all the bullets out so people wouldn’t get hurt…. They were shooting and hallooing, and grabbing hostages—four from each side.”

The house to which the ‘deer’ were taken had been specially prepared, and the four ‘deer’ would be captured and carried into it, one at a time, and laid on bedding at the head of the house.

“Four men grab you and take you inside. Carry kuwakan in like they’re dead. Gee, I was scared when they took my sister in! I thought they killed her when the gun went off. She was just like a rag.” (MJ)

“They hold you like that [on outstretched arms], like you died. You can’t do anything when they catch you. You can’t. That's against the law—that kuwakan get mad, you know. Your people's going to die off, or else that opposite people, different tribe's going to die off.” For the kuwakan to resist, “It's just like they use a knife or something. Just like they cut a family's head. That's the way they know it.”

Meanwhile, the other sib, with equal noise and excitement, were capturing their ‘opposites,’ and carrying them into their lineage house.

The Peace Ceremony: The Role of the ‘Deer’

The ‘deer’ were kept in their respective captors’ or ‘masters’ ’ houses for a ritual period of 8 days, with dances every night. Then on the following night, the hostages were taken home where they and their captors were feasted, and on the last (10th) night, they all met together in one house for a final dance and feast, when the hostages were freed. This form of the ceremony is apparently one which could only be held when both sides were residents of the same town. In a real war, this would not be the case, and the ‘deer’ might be held by his ‘masters’ for a year. The peace ceremony would obviously be held at the town of one of the former enemies. Perhaps it was also shorter, for when the Cd;Atqwan came to Sitka to make peace, it was to be a 4-days’ dance, with the Kagwantan and the Cd;Atqwan ‘deer’ taking turns dancing, apparently supervised by nakani from both sides (pp. 282–284).

A person serving as a ‘deer’ was tabooed from doing anything. One or two men would be appointed to wait on each hostage, and if the latter were a woman she would have woman attendants. The latter sat beside their charge all the time to care for him. “He can’t do anything for himself—can’t even wash his own face. He has to use his left hand, because his right hand causes trouble,” and the informant made the gesture of stabbing. To insure that the right hand was kept idle, the fingers were laced together with cord, as was done to a menstruant.

“Somebody has to be with [the ‘deer’] all the time—Wash their face, wash their hands. Oh, that's awful red tape! One side of the hand tied up, hooked up with string. They’re stringing up their right hand. Just eating with that left side [hand]. Until a week, I think, or so. And then they went through a lot of red tape, and they change it to the right place.”

“If someone is lazy, they say: ‘You’re not kuwakan. We aren’t going to wait on you.’”

The ‘deer’ was forbidden to scratch himself with his fingernails, for this would mean “agitating more war.” Instead he was given a flat hard rock, or rubbing amulet (kAd;adat tei), with which to scratch any place that itched. This hung by a string around his neck. Because he was forbidden to touch his head, his “servants” combed his hair for him.

According to MJ, the ‘deer’ had to rub his mouth with this stone every morning during the ritual period of his confinement, before the raven calls, so that he would not cause more trouble by his speech.

Another informant, however, described the rock as a “round one.” It was taboo for him to address anyone but his attendants, and before he did so, moreover, “just like wetedi [menstruant],” he rubbed the rock around his mouth, put it under his feet, and stepped on it. If this taboo were broken, either the captors’ sib or the deer's sib would “die off.” Or, “If he do something, he's going to get crazy when he get old. That's łIas [taboo].”

During the daytime this rock was kept “in his pocket,” and at night the ‘deer’ slept with it “under his pillow.” After “about 10 days,” the rock was put into a hole dug under an old fallen tree and piled over with stones and mud. If the ‘deer’ lost the rock, then he would apparently become paranoid. “He get crazy. Anything he hears, he always go around, get mad about it…. When he got old he's going to be bad, that man.” Another sanction was palsy. When old, he would shake “just like a leaf…in the cold wind.”

Every word and gesture of the hostages was watched to make sure that there were no signs of anger or hard feelings. To prevent, or perhaps to drown out any expression of resentment, or perhaps to undo the breach of taboo, all his captors would utter the ritual cry “Waaaá!” “They all say ‘waaaá!’ (wucdaségA hAs ‘awuduwAła).” “Everybody just saying ‘waaaá!’ No more—they [the deer] can’t do anything. Never get mad. He can’t do anything (du da wuduwAła), they call it.” All of the captor's group, men and women, apparently held out their arms as if they were carrying the ‘deer.’ “Just like a baby. All the people's going to catch it, hold it like this.”

“If you captured as peace officer, you dare not mention hard word, or else they say ‘waaaá.’ Even if it's two or three [words], they saying that. Make you calm down (’adatałétc). That's one thing, that peace officers doesn’t dare quarrel with anybody.”

Swanton has written about the proper conduct of the ‘deer,’ (1908, p. 451 n. b): “While he acted in this capacity his wife was not allowed to look at him, and certain men watched over him, took care of his toilet sticks, etc. He carried the tail feathers of eagles in each hand and wore eagle's down and quills in his hair.”

My informants also stressed the sexual taboos with which the ‘deer’ was surrounded. It was only in default of properly qualified attendants of his own sex that those of the opposite sex were provided. Furthermore, the spouse of the ‘deer’ was not allowed near. Even though Qanatin, the wife of Qeduatc, was one of the nakani when her husband was taken as a ‘deer’ in 1902, she was not allowed to approach him. She could go to the house where he was held, but neither she nor their 7-year-old daughter could go toward the back of the house where he sat, not could they call to him.

Apparently for the first day, the ‘deer’ fasted. Then whenever he put anything to his mouth, all those in the house called “waaaá.” Whatever water was left after he drank was taken into the woods in back and poured into an old stump. The cry “waaaá” was uttered again “when they change to the right hand,” that is, when this was unbound and he was allowed to use it in eating. However, it was not clear from the informant's contradictory remarks whether the right hand could be used after 4, or after 8 days. At the end, the string that had been laced through the fingers was tied around an old stump to rot, and thereby insure the ‘deer’ a long and peaceful life.

Peace hostages were also subject to a number of food taboos, similar to those of the adolescent girl. Hot food, hot soup, was forbidden, or “when they old like us, they sweating so easy.” Fresh fish was also avoided because it was slippery, and would make money slip away, or would make it impossible for him to catch fish with a spear. Fishskin would bring spots to the face in old age. “Beachfood” (shellfish and seaweed) meant poverty. “Indian rice” (root of the Kamchatka lily) and “even that White people's rice” was taboo “because they get fat,” in the way the rice swells up as it is cooked. Bear meat, fresh or dried, was also forbidden, because the bear is cranky. But mountain goat meat put up in seal oil, dried fish, and fresh or preserved berries were permitted.

The same taboos applied to the attendants, and probably to all those who slept in the house with the hostages. To be in the house with the peace hostages gave these people a chance to “wish for something in their mind all the time,” good luck, money, a good living, and all else desirable. They were supposed to wake early, before the raven called, and to rouse the ‘deer’ with a long “waaaá!”

The Peace Ceremony: Naming and Dressing the ‘Deer’

The first day that the hostages were taken was usually quiet, while the ceremonial dancing began the evening of the next day. At least this was apparently the program at Dry Bay in 1902, since the hostages had been seized late in the day.

“[That evening] they just sit down. Everybody sits with him [the kuwakan]. Big house, you know…. Just like a party. Everybody doing something over there. Just that kuwakan sitting over there. All those people working. [He was sitting] deikA [back wall opposite the door]. There's something underneath him—blankets, good blankets. They sit down.”

The composer of the special song to which the hostage would dance would rehearse it in his mind. The next morning he sang it to all his people so that they could learn it. The hostage or hostages sat silently while their captors rehearsed the song. It was at this time also that the people announced the new peace names for the ‘deer.’

A Yakutat informant, however, reported a somewhat different schedule. “Peace-makers used to sing early in the morning before the crew [their captors]. Then they would sleep till they get something to eat. Each had a lady of the opposite tribe to take care of them.” (MJ)

Everyone agreed on the importance of the new peace names given to the hostages by their captor-hosts. In some cases the name became so closely associated with the individual that he was known by this instead of by his ordinary birth name or his honorific potlatch name. The song to which he or she was to dance for the 8 critical nights of the ceremony also became known as “his” or “her song,” and the words either specifically mentioned the peace name or alluded to it. Such a song would be sung again, “when it comes to potlatching.”

If the hostage were of rank, it was not unusual for him to be given up to three “kuwakan names,” each of which would be featured in a separate song. I suspect, but cannot be sure, that this multiple naming was a device employed when only one peace hostage was taken from each side instead of four. When several ‘deer’ are taken, each seems to receive only one name. Unfortunately, I do not know whether there is also a separate song for each, but assume that this is likely.

Kuwakan names are said to be derived from some crest or valued possession belonging to the donors, or may symbolize something suggestive of good will, even though the association may seem to us rather farfetched. Thus, the Kwacqwan have used as sources of names their crests, the Moon (dIs kuwakan), the White Raven (yeł tłed; p. 457), as well as Mount Saint Elias (ca kuwakan) and Glacier Point below it (sI a kuwakan). The TłukwaAdi have similarly used Gateway Knob (ita kuwakan), a landmark in their territory associated with sib traditions and Raven myths (p. 87), and they have also used the Dog Spirit (ketł kuwakan) of their famous shaman, utcda. Another name given by the Kwacqwan was Wedge (yis kuwakan), because “when you split wood, your whole body open—no hard feelings towards one another.” Similarly the Teqwedi used Dollar (dAna kuwakan); the CAnkuqedi used Mortar (eAyIt kuwakan), “because CAnkuqedi got a pot to pound gold in,” and the Sun (Agan kuwakan) because they claimed it as a crest. Fort (nu kuwakan) and Armor (SAnket kuwakan), both given by the CAnkuqedi suggest protection. The American Flag (tit ‘ankweyI kuwakan) was used by the TłukwaAdi because it aroused elevated feelings. Other names, for which I can offer no explanation, were Fish Rack (anÀSa; kuwakan) and Trail (de kuwakan), both given by the CAnkuqedi; Stone Canoe (tE yakw), River Marker (hin kweyI), and Kwéł (or xwetł) kuwakan, given by the Qusedi of Sitka to a Kagwantan man. Fishtrap (cał kuwakan) was given to the brother of Chief Yaodaqet, probably by the Teqwedi, and my informant speculated that it referred to the big trap at Diyaguna'Et.

For the whole period of their captivity, the peace hostages were specially dressed in fine garments provided by their captors. Most important, as a symbol of peace, were the two feathers (kuwakan awu), standing up like a V at the top of the head. Originally they were eagle plumes, as they were for one ceremony in 1907; more often at Yakutat they were made of silver, incised with the crest or crests of the donors (pl. 135). These feathers were fastened to a band of ermine fur that crossed the top of the head and hung down over the ears. The whole skin was used, taken off like a little bag.

When Qeduatc, a TłukwaAdi man, was a hostage in the CAnkuqedi Thunderbird House in Dry Bay, 1902, he wore two white feathers attached to an ermine skin and a white handkerchief on his head, big earrings of shark's teeth, and a button blanket. When Mrs. Situk Jim (osał-tła), a Kwacqwan woman, was a ‘deer,’ she wore a black Navy “handkerchief” tied around her head, two silver feathers fastened to the middle of the ermine skin across her head, and a purple-red Hudson's Bay cockade, sticking up at the back. Her face was painted with a single line of red, “a streak about as wide as a finger—just one line,” that ran diagonally down from left to right, across the face (fig. 69a). She wore a fine button blanket, fastened under the chin. All ‘deer’ were similarly garbed in fine regalia, but the patterns of face painting varied. Thus, on another occasion, the hostages had a slanting red line drawn down from the corners of the nose across the jaw on each side of the mouth (fig. 69b).

Two of the song leaders at the potlatch at Sitka in 1904 seem to have been dressed like peace hostages (pl. 210). One wears an ermine coat(?), dancing bib, and two cut white feathers rising from the top of his cap which is made of alternating white and dark bands of fur or feathers. He was identified as George Dick, and holds a Raven dance wand. One of the young Teqwedi guests at a Yakutat potlatch in 1916, Nick Milton, has a somewhat similar headband of beadwork (?) drawn down over a black handkerchief that covered his head (pl. 214). Two white feathers rise like a V in back. He wears a crest shirt (Eagle?), holds up his white gloved hands as if in surrender, and has his face blackened. Although we cannot be sure that these men were really dressed as ‘deer’ would have been, their costume is suggestive.

FIGURE 69.—Face painting for peace hostages. a, osał-tła, according to Minnie Johnson. b, Mrs. Lituya Bay George, according to Jenny White.

An informant specified that it was the siblings of the hostage's “opposite” who not only acted as attendants but supplied the articles of adornment for the ‘deer,’ as well as dishes for the accompanying feasts.

“The sister has to stand the expense if her brother gets taken. She has to furnish everything and take care of the one who takes her brother's place. Anything fancy they got, like Hudson Bay feathers, aw [cockade], they use. [If] you’re so confounded poor you can’t afford to take care of your brother. You got to dig into your trunk to keep up with the other side. You use expensive Hudson Bay dish and cup—anything expensive in your possession, you got to get out.”

The ‘deer’ keeps the beautiful clothes and feathers with which he has been dressed.

“You preach to your daughter or son to have prepared in case of things like that, so you wouldn’t get stuck. You have to supply your opposite—’i geí. Charley [my brother] and I have to supply my sister's geí [when she was kuwakan]. My mother helped us. Charley's already married, and I got to stand my sister's geí—his shoes and clothes and everything. That's when you see fancy moccasins, knitted stockings…. That's why they have that saying, a long time ago—dAna ‘aa’ XA ‘awunaé—’That eats up the money,’ that peace officer. And if you’re poor you can’t afford to dress up your own kuwakan. That means you’re no good amongst your own family. ‘It eats up the money when you got your own relation captured as peace officer.’” (MJ)

The Peace Ceremony: Eight Nights Dancing

The 8 nights of dancing were separately observed by the two groups, each with their captured ‘deer’ in one of their own lineage houses. “Eight days—eight bones in your body—got to make up” (MJ; see p. 761). My informant (MJ) described the dance as follows:

“The tribe [captors] dance. They come in just like they’re fighting. They got dance paddles in the hands, they stamp their feet, just like they’re wild. Towards the end, the peace officers come in with their servants. They got button blankets, they got their faces painted,” and the two feathers on their head.

“…You see all that coming in, coming in just like they’re wild. Act like soldiers with a gun. They got some kind of jiggers in the hands, made out of wood, shavings like. Some of them rattle in the hand. Some of them using old tribal [dance paddles? The sentence was never finished].”

The wooden “tassels” (kUwAłAkAnki), carried by the captors, were about 12 inches long, the middle part of a size to be grasped conveniently. The ends were cut into large tassels of shavings. These objects were brandished in a threatening manner.

“They come in with those tassels. ‘U! U! U! U!’—just like they were in a war. They paint their faces, stamp their feet, and everything, just like they were in a war.”

It was not clear whether the captors used the red paint of friendly ceremonial or the black paint of war.

“You dance—that costumes—just to make peace with them and make them feel good. There's no gun, nothing but that things in their hand.”

When the kuwakan come in, they first stand with their faces to the wall, backs to the room, each flanked by a pair of attendants.

“When they first come in, too, they…the peace officers, supposed to be four of them…turn their back towards you until they sing some king of song, by each one of them, belonging to the family—the tribal songs…. Each peace officer sings a song. Then they go around as the sun goes around, then they turn to face the people. When they first come in, they stand like that [backs to the room full of their captors], until the time comes they [the captors?] say ‘waaaá,’ then they turn the face…. That woman and that man stand each side of them.

“Then they start to dance. My sister imitate a dollar moving, because they call her dAna [dollar] kuwakan. The song is composed like that: ‘…Just like a silver dollar tied up around your neck.’ Teqwedi [her captors] got a big piece of tin about that big [6 inches in diameter], and imitate it was a dollar. Tied it on her servant, because she's got that Teqwedi-yAti feeling, like a silver dollar. ‘The Wolf tribe will get that silver dollar in their hair.’”

In the song (1954, 1–2–D; p. 1247), the Teqwedi express their love for their sib-children, the Kwacqwan, and for the hostage in particular, like a silver dollar. The symbolic silver dollar was worn by the attendant, not by the ‘deer’ named Dollar kuwakan. One would gather from Swanton's pictures of the Fort Hat and the Fish Trap Hat (1908, pls. L, a, XLIX, i), which were worn by the ‘deer’ so named, that it was more customary for the hostage himself to wear the symbol appropriate to his name.

In the case described by my informant, the female hostage, DAna kuwakan, held the edges of her button blanket in her hands, her arms down at her sides, and danced—“just her body, not her hands,” turning within the circle made by the arms of her two women attendants who held each other's hands.

At another peace dance, described by the same informant, the attendants “got hold of each corner of his button blanket. Go around four times like that (sunwise). The whole tribe stand before him and make some kind of noise.”

While DAna kuwakan (Mrs. Situk Jim) was dancing, the Teqwedi men sang her song. Later there were funny songs.

“And all the Teqwedi's wives [in this case Tł'UknaAdi women], sitting in a line [down one side of the house?], help them to sing. And they jump up and down when they singing, too, the ladies. They call them qaúsi cawu [’wives of the men's feet’]—that's Teqwedi's wives. Each Teqwedi got a wife sitting on the floor. They got a bench for them to sit. ‘Ladies sitting amongst the feet’—tłai ca—'sitting-down women.’

“They sit down and help them to sing. Each one had to sing. Your turn coming and you have to find some kind of a song—lively song, any kind of song that's cheer the tribe, you know.”

The informant gestured as if to indicate the turn passing one by one along the line of seated women.

“And she got a song, and they call her name and she has to sing. They [the Teqwedi husbands] dance by them. Their wife, they got to help their husband…. Husbands dance and sing at the same time, but it sound more lively when the ladies are singing.”

These “lively songs” were apt to be the humorous Raven songs, or teasing songs for children (see pp. 570–571).

The “tribal songs” sung by the ‘deer’ would be the solemn, ancient songs about the sib totem, usually sung by the mourning hosts at a potlatch in memory of the dead. If the ‘deer’ made any mistake in singing their songs, everyone would cry “waaaá!” “They waaá the boots off you!”

Different house chiefs might take turns in inviting “the kuwakan into his house.” For example, on one occasion (1904?), the Kwacqwan hostages and their Teqwedi captors danced first in Drum House, then Shark House, Golden Eagle House, and in Coward House. “They take turns…. No feast. They just dance.” The house chief who issues the invitation does not have to pay anything as he would if a host at a potlatch. “That goes to show that he's in that tribe, too. Just to make peace. That he's got no argument towards them. That means he agreed to have peace amongst them.” (MJ)

The End of the Peace Ceremony

The ceremony ends when the two sides, each with their captives, come together for a final dance. This is called ‘they’re going to meet in the same house’ (wuca neł degAtu’at). There is also a distribution of food, or a feast, given by one side to the other, but it was not made clear whether the two events took place on the same day at Yakutat, or whether, as at Dry Bay, they occurred on two separate days. Nor am I sure whether the final dance should be reckoned as the eighth (or ninth?) day of dancing.

For this final dance, both sides come into the same house with their ‘deer.’ First one group entered, “and they sit back until the others come in.” The two parties seem to have faced each other across the house, but as usual, their hostages turned their faces towards the wall. “You don’t have to look at your opposite dancing, either.” First one set of ‘deer,’ would dance, then the other. Apparently “they just going around like that [arms upstretched] three or four times. And then the person captured goes to their own tribe—the four of them. And this one goes to their own tribe.” One gets the impression that the hostages simply crossed the house to join their sibmates. “It comes to a place when they’re going to meet and get it over with.”

Then followed the feasting.

“And when they get over with kuwakan, give the opposite tribe some kind of feast. Go around, distribute amongst them. That's when they bring out Hudson Bay dishes and things like that…. Show off that they’re not starving their kuwakan. Their kuwakan is treating to the opposite tribe.”

“After they get it all settled, they have a big feast. That's the time you get out what you put up for precious treasures of your own. Both sides feast one another…. Either side first—no particular…. They just peaceful together, eat together, no more trouble. And all the tribes getting included.”

The neutral sibs in the community would also be invited, and all the lineage houses on each side, if they could afford it, would invite their “opposites” or erstwhile enemies to such feasts.

At the Dry Bay peace ceremony in 1902, only two houses were involved: Thunderbird House of the CAnkuqedi, and Far Out House of the TłukwaAdi (and Tł'UknaAdi). After 8 days (and it must be remembered that there was no dancing the first night), the two ‘deer’ were taken by their respective captors back to their own houses. The two groups simply passed each other on the way. Each group was feasted in the house of their opponents (apparently by the latter's spouses), then returned with their captives to their own house for the last night. On the 10th night, there was the really big dance, the two hostages dancing on opposite sides of the same house (Thunderbird House), and the big feast was also held there.

“They eat good, that kuwakan. That 10th night they sure had a good time! Anything you got, you take it out. Feed each other. Big time.”

This occasion marked the lifting of taboos (łIas kawudziké hutawe). “Everybody is free.” The hostage, in particular, is free from restrictions. “He go to his wife, he can do anything he wants…. All over.”

The former hostage kept the feathers that had been given him, for henceforth he was dedicated to peace.

“Kuwakan?—always. Everytime that kuwakan, he's a peacemaker. After he became a kuwakan, he's a peacemaker all the time. Suppose I’m kuwakan to Teqwedi [the speaker was Kwacqwan]. Every time Teqwedi had trouble, I put my feather on, which feather they gave me; I go over there and make it peace. Kuwakan always make it peace.”

Unfortunately, no further details were obtained, but one gathers that the ‘deer’ could now act as go-between for his former captors. There is also some reason to believe that the same individual might be taken as a kuwakan for successive peace ceremonies involving the same two sibs. However, this impression may simply be due to forgetfulness on the part of my informant who may have confused two different but similar occasions. One of the masks belonging to a shaman named utcda, which Emmons obtained from his grave house on Dry Bay, represented the spirit of a peacemaker (pl. 192). Emmons explains in the catalog that if the peacemaker is killed, then his spirit has the power of healing the sick. This mask would presumably represent some particular individual who was killed while acting as kuwakan. It is, however, not clear from Emmons’ wording whether the same beneficent role is accorded the ghost of the nakani who is killed when acting as go-between.

A Summary of Known Peace Ceremonies

The following fragmentary records of peace ceremonies are given in their probable chronological order. For the first few there are no clues to the dates.

1. “Here is a story that old Billy Geddes [White resident of Dry Bay and Yakutat] told me: On one occasion some people from Sitka were visiting here [Yakutat] and two men were drowned. Later a fleet of war canoes came from Sitka and anchored in front of Khantaak Village, a messenger went ashore and demanded that Yakutat pay for allowing the men to be drowned. They waited in their canoes until Yakutat had a council meeting. Then Yakutat went to the beach and did a peace dance. Then retired. Then Sitka dancers came ashore and did a peace dance. Then there was a big feast. A few days later Sitka paddled home with some furs.” [Letter from Frank Johnson, November 8, 1964.]

2. Before 1880, the Teqwedi shaman, QadjAqdaqina, was killed up the Situk, either by another Teqwedi man (KusAxwkw) or by the Kwacqwan (informants gave confused and contradictory accounts). In some way the Kwacqwan were involved, however, and took the shaman's nephew, adane Johnstone (1843–88) as ‘deer.’ His opposite was Nicga, probably John Nishka, later chief of Moon House on Khantaak Island (d. 1896), or that individual's predecessor. The kuwakan names were not recorded. Because he had not avenged his uncle's death, Johnstone built Coward House at Situk, so no one could call him a coward.

3. Jack Shaw-coo-kawn (Tictakw or Tisdjakw) (1831–99), was given the name Mountain [Saint Elias] Deer [ca kuwakan] by the Kwacqwan. Since he was also a nephew of the murdered shaman, one wonders whether this was at the same peace ceremony as the one in which his brother, adane, was a ‘deer.’

4. A brother of Chief Yaodaqet, the Kwacqwan chief, was given the name Fish Trap Deer (cał kuwakan), apparently by the Teqwedi, referring to the big trap at DIyaguna'Et. Again, one wonders whether this was at the same peace ceremony for the dead shaman.

5. A Sitka Kagwantan man Kuckéna, was given the following kuwakan names: Stone Canoe Deer (tE yakw kuwakan), River Marker or Buoy Deer (hin kweI kuwakan), and wéł (or xwetł) Deer. He was the son of a hIttan, Cow House People, or Quskedi of Sitka. Frank Italio recorded the songs to which he danced (1954, 3–2–Ga,b;). Emma Ellis insisted that this was her father's father's song (see no. 9), and that the second verse should have referred to him as akA’ayi-yAti.

6. About 1888, while hunting at Icy Bay the Tł'UknaAdi man, łdaxin (łdahin) killed his “uncle's” son by mistake. This was YAkuwat, the ałyI-Kagwantan son of Ckínàn by his wife, Mary (QU’ya’.) YAkuwat was wearing a brown coat and his “cousin” mistook him for a bear. The mother received considerable wealth in compensation. For the peace ceremony, CkInan was taken as ‘deer’; and Kayak John On-as-tad (YanEStEt, 1867–1916) was his opposite. Later, Ckman built Wolf Bath House in the Old Village for the ałyI-Kagwantan, and gave his wife, Mary, to his “brother,” John Charley Brown (YAqwUnaxÉn), who was the true mother's brother to łdain. The son of Mary and John was named YAkuwat after his dead half-brother.

7. About 1890(?), an old Kwacqwan man, CAkw of Moon House, committed suicide when accused of witchcraft (see p. 743). In some way, the Teqwedi were implicated, and Situk George (Qayakw-’ic, died after 1916) was chosen as ‘deer’ by the Kwacqwan. His name was White Raven (yeł tłed—was kuwakan omitted?). The name of his opposite was not recorded.

8. In 1894, the Kwacqwan man, Jimmy Jackson or “Gums” (ÀíxgAłÈ, 1861–1948), when drunk, is alleged to have killed his pregnant Teqwedi wife, CUkwin, or Mrs. Shookeen (1864–94). She was the daughter of Cada. For the ceremony, Joseph Abraham (1867–1917) and three other Teqwedi were taken as ‘deer,’ and so were four close relatives of the slayer. The latter were taken to Drum House. At the peace ceremony, the Tł'UknaAdi women, Mrs. Joseph Abraham, Mrs. Daknaqin, and the latter's sister, who was then Mrs. Peter Milton, helped their Teqwedi husbands with the singing. Details of this ceremony are confused with the later one (no. 11), which also involved the killing of a pregnant woman by her husband.

9. The Kagwantan man, Qatan, (EE's father's father), was given the name Armor Deer (sAnket kuwakan) by the Tł'UknaAdi. This was between 1896 and 1900.

10. In 1902 a peace ceremony was held over the death of the TłukwaAdi man, UnanIStE. He was the nephew of the shaman utcda and had inherited the latter's widow, CAkwense, a CAnkuqedi woman. However, two young CAnkuqedi women wanted to marry him. One of them, Qatckayi-tła, went, despondent, to gather seagull eggs and was drowned in a flashflood on the Alsek River. A Tł'UknaxAdi girl with her was saved. UnanIstE, who was held responsible for the death, had a fit while looking for her body, and drowned also. Although cedar chests and blankets were given to the dead man's siblings, his brother, Qeduatc (also known as YełIda and GAtłen; 1879–1907), was not satisfied, because a man's life was worth more than a woman's. The CAnkuqedi therefore seized him as a ‘deer’ and held him in Thunderbird House. The nakani between the TłukwaAdi and the CAnkuqedi were Kagwantan: Qatan, the father of the two TłukwaAdi brothers, and Qanatin, the wife of Qeduatc. Qeduatc was given three names: Sun Deer (Agan kuwakan), Mortar Deer (eAyIt kuwakan), and Fish Rack Deer (anÁ kuwakan). (This last name was given 5 years later to Dan Smith, see no. 12, and it was also claimed that John Williams, Sr., was Sun Deer. Both of these men were also TłukwaAdi.) The song to which Qeduatc danced, imitating “the rising of the sun,” was composed by Blind David Dick, CAnkuqedi, but was not recorded.

Opposite him was Frank Italio (KwutcEn, 1870–1956), who was given three names, although only two were recorded: Gateway Knob Deer (yadagwÁtł in Tlingit, or mita in Athabaskan, kuwakan), and Dog Deer (ketł kuwakan). He was held in Far Out House. When Frank Italio recorded the song with two stanzas to which he had danced as ita kuwakan (1954, 3–2-A; p. 1246 he insisted that his opposite had been a Kwacqwan man, Qanukw, who was called Road Deer (de kuwakan). He must have been thinking of another ceremony in which he was also taken as a ‘deer.’

11. About 1904(?) the Kwacqwan son of Situk Jim (probably Jim Qádáék or Sanax-’ic), was held responsible for the death of his pregnant Teqwedi wife, CUkwin (or Cawu-tła). The Teqwedi sized a hostages, his mother, Mrs. Situk Jim (osał-tła, 1856–1916), the oldest daughter of adane Johnstone. She was named Dollar Deer (dAna kuwakan). The other Kwacqwan hostage was young Jack Shakokan (NUk wané, 1884–1912), son of the peace hostage in no. 3. His kuwakan name was not recorded. They were held in Drum House. Opposite Mrs. Situk Jim was the Teqwedi man, Joseph Abraham (Tuné, Yakwan, 1867–1917), who was called Glacier Point Deer (sIt’ a kuwakan). Henry Shada (Ca’e, 1865?-1940) was the other Teqwedi hostage, named Wedge Deer (is kuwakan). One informant remembered his name as Moon Deer (dIs kuwakan). One of the nakani was Charley White (Yaniki, 1879–1964), the Tł'UknaAdi half-brother of Mrs. Situk Jim. The latter was attended by Olaf Abraham (Qaugu, b. 1886), younger brother of Joseph, and by Mrs. Young George (Cangexw, 1854–1927), cousin to the dead woman. Old Blind Sampson (Yándułsín, 1866–1948) composed the songs for Mrs. Situk Jim (1954,1–2-D; p. 1247) and also for Joseph Abraham (not recorded).

12. In 1907, two CAnkuqedi men, Ixutse, and his nephew Qałaxeł’, died after drinking liquor served at a potlatch by John Williams, Sr. (ukwatc, 1887–1943), a TłukwaAdi man. He had few relatives and was unable to pay damages, so a peace ceremony was held. The CAnkuqedi taken as hostages were Mary George (QátuwUqín, Mrs. Lituya Bay George), the sister and mother of the two dead men, who was named American Flag Deer (tit ‘ankweyI kuwakan), and with her, her brother, Jack Peterson (Unakw, 1870–1938), whose kuwakan name was not remembered. The song to which Mrs. George danced was recorded, (1954, 1–1-A; p. 1247). It was perhaps composed by Blind Dave Dick, since he made a mourning song for the victims (1954, 3–2-K; p. 1174). Their respective opposites were two TłukwaAdi-Tł'UknaAdi men: Dry Bay Charley (Yełk’ida), who was called Fort Deer (nu kuwakan), and his mother's brother, Dan Smith (DAnawAq), who was named Fish Rack Deer (aná kuwakan).

13. “The last war and peace dance was in 1911. A Raven man got drunk and killed his Eagle wife and then when he discovered what he had done, he killed himself. First they had war, then peace dance. War was not real. Both Eagles and Ravens blackened their faces as in the old days, and met each other with guns. They pretended to fight by shooting over each other's heads. Then the Eagle side grabbed a Raven man and took him to their community house. That was the beginning of the peace.” They had previously decided who was to be taken from each side. “They were looking for the highest man. The other tribe had met to decide who to take. They got someone of the same rank and grabbed him. In this case it was an Eagle woman, mother of the murdered woman, and they took her to the Raven house. When they grabbed them, they call them ‘a deer,’ because they are harmless…. They were like prisoners, but were really treated like brothers and sisters. They have a good time. Dances went on in each house for 4 days, at the same time. Each fellow imitated what he wanted—used different masks. Had lots of fun. It was the best fun I ever seen. At the end they exchanged the deers.”

The Potlatch

INTRODUCTION

The Yakutat Conception of the Potlatch

The potlatch was not an isolated ceremony; it was rather a single episode in a series devoted to the memory of the dead. This cycle began before the disposal of the corpse with the smoking party for the deceased, and culminated perhaps years later with a great ceremony lasting usually at least 8 days and involving as hosts or as guests every member of the community, as well as guests invited from another tribe. Within this ceremonial series, the potlatch proper was the climax when the relatives of those who had died distributed gifts to members of the opposite moiety. Then followed days of feasting when the guests danced to thank their hosts.

The primary purpose of the potlatch was to mourn and honor the dead and to repay in fitting manner the members of the opposite moiety who had tended the corpse or who had worked on a memorial structure. Such memorials always included the grave itself, and if the deceased had been an important man or woman, the lineage house. No one could die without the UnEtkAnayi being called upon to perform funerary services, and these persons could be properly repaid only at a potlatch. This was the rule no matter how lowly the deceased or how poor his close relatives.

Such people could not afford to sponsor potlatches of their own, but paid their debts at a potlatch given by a wealthy member of their lineage or sib. This meant that any potlatch was always given to conclude the funeral observances for several dead persons. Furthermore, all potlatches involved the economic support of all members of the host's sib, resident or visiting, and even of his whole moiety in the community. And all these persons, before making their contributions to the pile of wealth intended for the guests, would sing a mourning song or would speak of some dead relative or relatives for whom they were grieving. In this way, the deceased members of the sib and moiety were remembered and honored. As an informant said:

“It's kind of hard to explain it, that Indian law…why they give a potlatch. That's what I try to explain it. [If] it's just a small person like me—Suppose I lost my sister. The olden days I giving potlatch. But just a small man, a small person, they just invited the town people, maybe a year after. Not a real potlatch, but all the tribe is helping anyway.

“It's this way: A person lost his sister or brother or mother—he don’t give a potlatch right away. Sometimes it takes him about 2, 3, 4 years, sometimes 10 years until he make enough money. Then he give a potlatch. It don’t take a small money to give a potlatch. It takes a lot of money.”

“But suppose it was a very poor person?” I asked.

“They can do it. They always wait until somebody giving the potlatch. Suppose I’m just a small person. Suppose HM is rich, he's the chief, and suppose I lost my mother or brother. I go into his potlatch. When the song leader mention it's my turn to sing, that's the time I tell people how sorry I am…. In English I guess it's just ‘the memory of the dead.' I guess that cover the whole thing. But this is the way. In olden days before I born, before my father's born, if any person dies [and his relative] don’t give a potlatch, it just disgrace the tribe [sib]. They call them ‘low class’—the tribe.”

In early days the dead were believed to receive the spiritual part of the wealth distributed in their names, as well as the food eaten or put into the fire for them. Indeed, if they were not remembered at potlatches their existence in the afterworld would have been utterly miserable.

Functions of the Potlatch

From one point of view, the potlatch can be seen as part of the life cycle of an individual, since it always follows the death of some prominent person and is concerned primarily with honoring his memory. Since, on the same occasion, all of the dead among the hosts are remembered and mourned, the potlatch also serves as a period to their individual lives. This concern with the dead is always present, even though the more apparent function of a potlatch may be to dedicate a new lineage house, to announce the assumption of a dead chief's title by his successor, or to honor and ennoble the children of a chief. The motives for giving any potlatch are always complex, and it always combines several functions.

Yet no matter how closely linked to the death of any individual, or to the aspirations of a chief, this ceremony cannot be understood except in the full context of the relationships between the member of a sib in one moiety and their opposites in the other. One sib, even one lineage for a particular occasion within the potlatch sequence, stands as hosts (assisted by all the local members of their moiety) and invites members of the opposite moiety. All members of the opposite moiety who are present can find their places among the guests at a potlatch. Yet those who receive the largest rewards, do so by virtue of their individual positions, either as ranking sib chiefs or lineage heads, the equals and opposites of the host chief, or as individuals linked by affinal (or father-child) ties to the hosts, relationships which have already determined the particular ceremonial services they have rendered.

The great ceremonial occasions for the Tlingit are all based upon the life crises of individuals. The death of a sib member by violence or accident for which someone in an opposite sib may be held responsible leads to the peace ceremony. Serious illness or other personal misfortune prompts the public seance of the shaman, perhaps the drama of a witchcraft trial of the victim's sibmate, conducted by a shaman from another group (see pp. 735–738). Thus the potlatch, memorializing the dead and honoring their living descendants, may be considered as the final occasion among many, at which the UnEtkAnai have assisted in the important rites marking the critical stages in the life of an individual. But now, in performing this last service and in receiving their rewards, the occasion is magnified by ceremonial into the most important in Tlingit social life, far transcending the importance of the persons for whom it is held.

The potlatch is a public ceremony in the fullest sense of the word, for it involves participation of all members of the community, and even of guests invited from afar. All are grouped according to sib and moiety, so that even the plan of seating symbolizes the structure of the tribe; their actions dramatize the interrelationships between Raven and Wolf sibs, and the dynamic forces which both unite and divide these groups. Chiefs and commoners and slaves all play roles appropriate to their stations. The potlatch, more than any other institution, brings together the most important aspects of Tlingit life. It is the foremost occasion on which the position of chiefs and the legal ownership of sib prerogatives are demonstrated. It involves the greatest consumption of subsistence goods (food) and the greatest distribution of luxury items (potlatch gifts), yet it is more than an economic institution. The potlatch stimulates the composition and performance of the finest songs and dances, the production and display of the most beautiful costumes, carvings and paintings, including those of the house itself. Yet the significance of these transcends their purely aesthetic appeal, since they serve to symbolize the whole social order, the relation of man to man and of men to their totemic counterparts, while the oratory of the chiefs and the poetry of the songs evoke the legendary history of the sib ancestors and myths of the world's establishment. The emotional stresses range from the heartbroken grief of a child mourning a dead mother, to the gay mimicking of foreigners in a dance or the warlike challenges of rivals.

Types of Potlatch

Krause (1956, pp. 163–165), following Veniaminov and Holmberg, recognized three kinds of “large feast” among the Tlingit. The first was the “cremation ceremony,” or “feeding the dead,” which took place at the time of the funeral and mourning for a chief or other important person. It corresponds to the “smoking feast” described by Yakutat informants (pp. 533–534).

The two other feasts were major potlatches, seldom given in the early part of the 19th century because of the expense involved. They could be sponsored only by chiefs. One was the “anniversary feast,” given by a chief, if possible in a new house, in honor of his deceased ancestors in whose memory one or more slaves were sacrificed, sib origin stories told and sib heirloom regalia displayed. Gifts, representing the wealth of the chief and of his wife, were distributed to guests, some from out-of-town, and at the end of several days' entertainment the host was entitled to assume the name of an ancestor (”on his father's side”—sic, Krause, 1956, pp. 164–165). This ceremony corresponds to the commemorative potlatch described in the following pages.

The third is the “feast for the children,” which resembles the memorial potlatch except that it is given to ennoble the children (of the host?) by having their ears pierced for ear ornaments. It is always held in a new house, whose builders are among the guests to be paid, and a slave is freed for each child honored, not killed as for the dead. This was also very expensive to give, although the ideal was to hold one eight times, so that eight holes, four in each ear, could be made. This potlatch also has its counterpart at Yakutat, although it was not clearly distinguished as a specific kind of potlatch by my informants, perhaps because its functions were in general merged with or overshadowed by the major commemorative potlatch. Rather, my informants seemed to recognize only one kind of potlatch, that given in memory of the dead, but acknowledged that different occasions might offer opportunities for holding potlatches and that these could serve a variety of purposes. The following discussion will center, therefore, on the potlatch as a commemorative ceremony, because this was how Yakutat informants conceived it.

Another difference between the potlatch as described by Krause and by my informants, is that the former and his sources (Veniaminov, Holmberg, etc.) stress the importance of the chief as host and sponsor who played the major role, not only in expending the property necessary to feed his guests and give them gifts, but also in honoring his own dead. However, my Yakutat informants have suggested a much more democratic picture, with all of the host chief's moiety privileged and expected to contribute to the wealth publicly expended and also to speak and sing publicly in honor of their deceased relatives. It is hard to estimate how much this difference may be due to local cultural conditions at Yakutat (Eyak and Athabaskan influence?) as contrasted to those at Sitka, how much to the way in which the Russians understood this ceremony, and how much to the emphasis of my informants who are explaining the modern (late 19th and early 20th century) ceremony in terms of their own understanding. Certainly at the time of the potlatches which they describe there was far more wealth at Yakutat and Dry Bay, so that many more persons of relatively undistinguished antecedents were able to give potlatches or make substantial contributions to them.

During this same period, Kwakiutl tribes farther to the south utilized their new wealth and the formal institution of the potlatch to strive for personal advancement, to wipe away shame, and to humiliate or ruin a rival. There seems to have been relatively little of this at Yakutat. Contests in destroying and throwing away property did occur, but these do not seem to have been considered potlatches, and they were rare.

Preliminary Feasts

Since the potlatch at which a dead person was remembered might occur long after his death, there were usually a number of preliminary ceremonies in the funeral cycle. The first of these was the smoking feast before (?) the body was cremated or buried, given to take leave of the dead and to provide him with food and tobacco. The night after the funeral (if the smoking feast had been held before), the relatives gave a feast for the UnEtkAnai who were paid (in substantial or in token form) for their services. On both occasions the bereaved were the hosts, and the guests were of the opposite moiety. Not only was food and tobacco put into the fire for the dead person, but everything consumed by the living was for the benefit of all those who had previously died. (For further details of this funeral ceremony see p. 534.)

Two other feasts were likely to intervene between the funeral and the potlatch. This is because no potlatch was given unless a grave, grave fence, grave house or memorial had been erected or repaired, and because it was also usual to build a new house or refurbish the old one in which the potlatch was to be held. These extra feasts were given, therefore, to those who had worked on the grave or on the house.

FEAST FOR A HOUSE

A smoking (eq-yIs duwa’í) feast was given on the first day after a new house had been completed, but we know little about it except that: “They always have a song about the house when they build it…. Sometimes they sing about the people who died—what they build the house for…. When they finish the house, when it's new, they have a smoking party…. They sing song same time they have smoking party.” On such occasions, leaf tobacco (antc) was smoked in pipes or sucked as snuff. It was at first denied that any special number of songs was sung, but later remembered that there was a group of eight songs at the beginning of the feast, apparently to “finish” the house. The singing was done by the hosts, and the guests were members of the opposite moiety who were paid something, but certainly not in full, for their work on the building, since they were also mentioned as receiving special gifts at the subsequent potlatch. Presumably the dead received the benefit of the tobacco that was consumed.

I heard nothing about putting the bodies of slaves under the posts of a house, nor of throwing water-soaked stomachs of animals among the people in the house when it had been finished, as recorded by Swanton (1908, p. 437). The latter specifically mentioned the eight songs, but indicated that these were sung at the potlatch. “At the beginning of a potlatch, when a house had just been completed, all the host's friends [sibmates?] assembled inside of it and ‘danced it together' by making motions four times to the right and four times to the left as they danced. These motions were accompanied by as many songs.” (Ibid., p. 438.) Perhaps this occasion was simply the smoking feast elaborated into a real potlatch, or perhaps if a potlatch were held immediately after the completion of a house no special smoking feast would be needed, or perhaps the eight songs and dances were repeated at the first real potlatch held in a new house.

I recorded a song composed by Jim Kardeetoo (1862–1937), ranking Teqwedi chief, in connection with Bear Paw House, which he built on Lost River near the site of Diyaguna'Et. The house was dedicated in a potlatch in 1918, and was erected in memory of his “uncles” who had lived at Diyaguna'Et. This song is presumably like one that might have been sung at the smoking feast for a house, although we do not know whether he gave such a feast in addition to the potlatch. The words of the song are:

“I imagine that my uncles are still there at Diyaguna'Et. I’m still expecting them.

“Nevertheless, for your house, my uncles, I am longing for you [to help me].” (1954, 5–1–C; p. 1167.)

Although a potlatch could be held, if necessary, in an old house or one that had not been specially repaired, no lineage house could be built or receive major renovations except by the labor of the gunEtkAnayi, and they had to be paid in a potlatch because the house was not only a dwelling but a memorial to the dead (cf. p. 294). This was made very clear by MJ who described a potlatch held in 1905(?), in Bear House at Situk, by Situk Jim, her brother-in-law, in memory of her father (adanek’) who had died in 1888. The new house was presumably on the site of Situk Jim's earlier Bear Den House. It was called Bear House because “my father [had] told my sister's husband he had no business to let Xuts hIt [’Bear House’] go,” that is, to allow an important house name to lapse. “My sister and her husband are not supposed to claim the house till the potlatch is over. The potlatch was for my father, and for the house. There was no one living in my father's house then.” The latter had been abandoned since the owner's death. The potlatch was also necessary to establish Situk Jim as leader of the Situk Teqwedi, taking the place of his father-in-law, for MJ explained further: “The new chief may take over the house, or if it's not suitable, may build a new one.”

Moon House in Yakutat, the owner of which was Billy Jackson (1883–1951), was built as a memorial to Mrs. Atsezy Jack (1821–1919), an old Kwacqwan woman, born blind and reported to have been an authority on tribal affairs. She had burned to death in her own little house, so Moon House was built on the site. Everyone in the sib contributed money to build and dedicate it. One man gave $25 at the first collection and $75 at the second. In this way the house was built “by the whole tribe,” and was “the tribe's house.”

Without a potlatch for the dead, to whom the house is in effect dedicated, the builder is simply an owner, not a house chief (hIt ati). The house is only a shelter, not a monument to the forefathers of the lineage, and has no right to a name. The builder lacks status and the house its personality. The potlatch confirms both, in much the same way that the commissioning of a naval vessel endows her with ceremonial life and an honored place in the fleet, while at the same time giving public recognition to the orders conferring the command upon her new captain.

FEAST FOR A GRAVE

The same rule, requiring dedication at a potlatch, also applied to the grave or grave marker; but more important, no potlatch could be given unless a grave had been made or refurbished. Such labor was always entrusted to the unEtkAnai, and the workers were feasted during the course of their labors. If these were finished some time before the next potlatch was to be held, the workers were paid at a special party. Often several graves were, or are, fixed at the same time. Formerly this meant building a new grave house, either for a newly cremated individual, or one into which the ashes could be transferred from an old grave house. On such occasions, new chests or boxes were substituted for the old containers. One informant said that the bones of the dead would be put into new boxes each year, “because they thought so much of one another” (HB for FI). Although this statement is probably not to be taken literally, it may well represent the ideal. For example, when Dry Bay Chief George built Far Out House in 1909, he had a new grave house built for the bones of six long-dead shamans (Tł'UknaAdi or TłUkWaAdi; see p. 646). The great potlatch given at Yakutat in 1905 by the Kwacqwan under Chief Moses to honor his brother, Chief George, served also to dedicate the erection of the tombstone to Bear Bit Billy, head of Fort House, who had died in 1902.

Finishing the modern grave involves covering the earth with cement (after the ground has settled), and still later erecting the marble tombstone if the immediate relatives have been able to afford one. Work of this kind may be done on several graves at the same time, usually those of sibmates, although not necessairly persons who died or were buried the same year. Thus, in the fall of 1952, when four or five graves were to be fixed, these were of both Kwacqwan and Tł'UknaAdi dead, belonging of course to the Raven moiety, and dying in 1950, 1951, and 1952. For this work, the close relatives of each dead person chose the particular UnEtkAnai who were to work on the grave, and these relatives were also primarily responsible for paying them. The plans were discussed several times by one of the persons involved:

“After they get through in the graveyard, we’ll feed them in the Cafe, and next day we’ll give a party [or small-scale “potlatch”] in the ANB Hall and pay them…. They will work on the cement for all of them. There will be a lot of graves fixed up.

“[While the men work in the cemetery], we’re supposed to take lunch and build a bonfire. That's the time you put dishes in the bonfire [for the deceased]. You can’t do it in a stove. Dishes with grub, cigar, candy, what old people like to eat.” (MJ)

I am not sure whether on this occasion the picnic lunch was actually held at the graveside. A feast was, however, given afterwards at the Cafe, at which those who had covered the graves with cement were paid. Furthermore, the widow of one of the dead men on this occasion distributed her husband's clothing and most of his money to his close relatives and to other members of his sib who were not so closely related. That is, this money went to the hosts at this feast. (For the details, see pp. 546–547.) The tombstones were not erected until the following summer, to allow time for the cement to set properly. I did not hear of another party to pay for this work; perhaps payment was postponed until another important occasion, although the tombstones were in place by Memorial Day, 1954.

At any event, food was offered to the deceased at the feast in the Cafe after the cement was laid, for one of the missionaries is reported to have preached against the practice.

“Yakutat is full of superstition,” he is quoted as saying. “Do you try to feed the dead people? Do you expect them to come alive? Do you think the dead people are going to eat?”

Such would, indeed, have been the explicit belief at a former time, but the practice has now become more of a gesture of respect, like putting flowers on graves. What was stressed by my informant, whom the sermon had angered, was the necessity for giving such a party or small-scale “potlatch” in order to pay for the funeral services.

“So I said, ‘Can I tell you why we got to have feast? That's our way. When we are born we are told to do that. Suppose your mother or brother died. Just because you belong to Church of…you let your mother rot in your house and not get a hand to bury her? That's the way we do. We can’t do it ourselves so we get other people to do it. We appoint somebody to help us with the burying.’” And afterwards was when they were paid (MJ). The minister had told her that he had sent money to his mother so she could pay for her own funeral, but my informant thought this a crazy idea.

Swanton (1909, pp. 374–389) has outlined the “feast when a pole was erected for the dead,” as it would have been given at Wrangell in 1904. In this he has recorded the full texts of the speeches that would have been delivered. Unfortunately, it is impossible to discover whether this was a preliminary feast, to be followed later by a large-scale potlatch, or whether it was itself a potlatch on a small scale. The ceremony, which lasted only one night, involved speeches by all five guest chiefs and by the host, dances by the two groups of guests, feasting accompanied by a secret society (cannibal?) dance by the host's nephew, distribution of property, and, “when the feast was over,” three shows staged by the hosts and by the two guest groups, one of which involved a masked impersonation (see further discussion, pp. 628–629). The order of events is impossible to reconstruct with certainty. This ceremony, like that held in the Cafe at Yakutat in the fall of 1952, may have been the only one given in which the funeral debts were paid.

THE MAJOR POTLATCH

Summary

A major potlatch (qu ’i tłen, ‘big invitation’; Harrington, khuuwwA’ii, ‘an inviting’) formerly involved preparation long in advance, the collection of food to entertain guests from a distant Eyak or Tlingit tribe and of wealth to pay all the ceremonial debts which had been incurred by the hosts. Most of the potlatches about which I received specific information occurred between 1905 and 1916, although the earliest that was mentioned was the one given at Diyaguna'Et about 1855 when a baby slave was sacrificed at the dedication of Shark House-Bear Paw House (pp. 317, 471). The “potlatches” given today are very minor affairs in comparison.

In earlier times it was only the sib chief or lineage head who could afford to act as host at a potlatch, for only he could muster the active cooperation of a large household. In the first two decades of the 20th century and a little earlier, increased wealth enabled a number of others, brothers or cousins of such men, to build and dedicate houses by sponsoring potlatches, and there were even a few women who did so (see the history of houses at the Old Village, pp. 321–326). A major potlatch, however, was given only by the chief of the sib; the other lineage heads might join with him for such an outstanding affair, or might utilize the occasion when foreign guests were present to give subsidiary potlatches of their own, so that a round of potlatches and accompanying feasts might last 10 days or more.

The sequence of events in a major potlatch may be briefly summarized as follows:[87]

Notification has been given a year in advance that a potlatch is to be held, so that hosts and guests may make the necessary preparations. There are always two groups of guests, one residents of the host's village, the other from another tribe. Only at small potlatches (cf. p. 610) are there no guests from away, although the local guests are divided into two groups. In addition to insuring the supplies of food and goods needed by the hosts, both they and their guests have to refurbish the costumes to be worn, and practice songs and dances. The two groups of guests, and sometimes the hosts, have each to compose a new song for the occasion. The leaders of these groups, and sometimes others, also prepare “medicines” and observe ritual abstinences.

Just before the potlatch, the hosts send two 'sib brothers-in-law’ (nakani) to escort their out-of-town guests. The guests do not come directly to the village where they are to be entertained, but camp for the last night a short distance away, where their hosts have provided quarters, food and fuel, while the nakani hasten on to notify the people of their guests' imminent arrival. The guests usually travel by canoe, but if they have come on foot from Dry Bay, they will be furnished with canoes for their ceremonial arrival next day at their hosts' village.

On this day, the first of the ceremonial sequence, the out-of-town guests dance on the beach while the local guests watch them from war canoes. Then they board canoes to watch the local guests dance on the beach in front of the houses. The host chief greets them, the guests land, and are formally welcomed to the house of the chief giving the potlatch, where they are served something to eat. Here they sleep every night while they remain in the village, although they may be entertained with feasts and parties in other houses of the host sib.

On the four(?) days following their arrival, the guests wake early and sing before dawn. In the evenings they are feasted by their hosts, perhaps in several houses. These parties are times for fun, when the two groups of guests may be pitted against each other in feats of eating and of drinking seal oil. (I believe it is also during this time that the hosts may put on shows.)

On the evening of the fifth day the potlatch itself begins, the hosts in their finest costumes and regalia at the front of the house, the two guest sibs seated in honor at the rear. The host chief begins with a speech of welcome to his guests, explaining the reasons for the potlatch, starts with eight ancient potlatch songs mourning the dead, and then calls on his brother or nephew to follow him. Eventually all the members of his sib and of his moiety have a chance to speak or start a song, and all make their contributions, the adults paying for each child too young to do it for himself. All weep freely, but the sorrow is relieved from time to time by dances performed by the host women or by skilled young men of the host's sib. At the end, the chief again sings eight songs, introduces his grandchildren, and the wealth which has been accumulated is distributed to the guests. These proceedings are so lengthy that they may last many hours without any interruptions except for brief recesses. Sometimes, instead of a single large potlatch, each lineage head of the sib may give one in his own house which lasts only one day.

On the 4 days after the potlatch (or potlatches) the guests are feasted, the out-of-town and the hometown groups taking turns in dancing after eating. These dances are to thank their hosts, and such parties are apparently given in all the houses in which they have been entertained.

This sequence of events is what might be expected at a major potlatch, although there were undoubtedly variations since novelty seems to have been prized. At a minor affair, held in the house of a lineage chief, what has been described as 4 days of feasting might be condensed into a single night. At the present time, “potlatches” have shrunk in scope to a single evening of feasting, singing, and distribution of gifts, although the major emphasis of honor to the dead and payment for the funeral is retained.

No matter what the scale, however, every potlatch was and is an affair involving every member of the sib who could possibly attend, and everyone contributed on behalf of his own dead. In addition, every member of the moiety, resident or visiting, gave wealth, the amount varying according to the means of the individual and his or her relationship to the principal deceased or to the sponsor. The potlatch was thus a ceremony that united in a common cooperative effort all the members of one moiety in a community. Moreover, if the host sib had branches in other places, the members of the latter would make every effort to attend and take part in a major potlatch.

Purposes

A single potlatch fulfilled many functions: to provide the dead with food and clothing, and to honor their memory; to dedicate and name a new house or a renovated one; to exhibit new sib regalia and especially the sib heirlooms which thereby acquired or increased in value because of the wealth distributed; to validate the assumption of a new name or title by the sponsoring chief; and to validate the bestowal of honorable names upon junior members of the sib and upon grandchildren. The wealth given to the guests was in repayment for the care they had taken of the corpse and for the labor of erecting the grave house or grave marker, for erecting the house itself and carving its posts or painting its interior screen. Guests were also paid for other ceremonial services, such as piercing the ears of the host's nephews and nieces and grandchildren, and for tattooing their hands. Lastly, guests were paid simply for attend-the potlatch, for listening to their hosts' laments for the dead, and for easing their grief through comforting speeches, songs, and dances. Their presence was official recognition of the rights to names, crests, songs, and other property exhibited actually or symbolically at the potlatch, and for this service as witnesses they also were paid.

As the potlatch testified to the grief of the living and to the high esteem in which they held their dead, so the giving of the potlatch served to elevate the prestige of the hosts. The host chief and his lineage or sib received public recognition commensurate with the amount of wealth which they had lavished on their guests. For this reason the potlatch could also serve to wipe away the memory of disgrace, insure against insult, or restore lost status. It was for this reason that Coward House was built and dedicated at Situk, so that no one could call “coward” the builder who had accepted a peace settlement for the murder of his uncle, instead of killing the murderer (pp. 320, 603).

All of these purposes and functions of the potlatch were, however, conceived as memorializing the dead, either directly, or indirectly by carrying on the traditions which the ancestors had established. Thus, the big names or titles of the dead members of the lineage were revived through their formal bestowal upon the living. Just as the host chief introduced his “nephews and nieces” and his “grandchildren” to the guests by the honorable names they were henceforth to bear, so he himself succeeded to the position of his dead predecessor as head of the lineage or sib. The garments (blankets, coats, hats, headdresses) that had been worn by the dead at earlier ceremonials were placed upon these, their living representatives, and even the children of the dead might be called before the other guests to display such regalia. The songs sung in memory of the dead included those which they had composed and sung, and again their own children might be asked to sing them. For such services these specially honored guests were paid. And all payments went in some mysterious fashion to supply the dead. In such ways the living members of the lineage were drawn close to the dead, and to their descendants, so that the line was symbolically restored.

In the same manner, the house, the most important material expression of the lineage it sheltered, was rebuilt and given a traditional name, so that it became symbolically the same house in which the lineage had always lived. Thus of one house it was said: “They didn’t live there very long. They built it just to have a big potlatch, just to remember that ‘Itc hIt [Boulder House] belonged to Tł'UknaAdi.” (MJ, cf. p. 321.)

In the same way, all the important crest objects exhibited at potlatches bore traditional names: the Killerwhale Drum, the Raven Hat, the Copper River Dance Paddle, the Ahrnklin River Blanket. They were made by the opposite moiety for the hosts, who paid them at the potlatch, and they replaced the original objects which had worn out. Just as persons are reborn to carry on the line and assume the ancient honored names, so hat and drum and blanket are renewed and receive again their titles. They are the symbols of their owners' lineage and sib, and of the origin and destiny (cAgun) of the line, and their totemic crests link the living with those ancestors who long ago won for their descendants the right to use these emblems.

As the value of such sib regalia was felt to be increased with each potlatch at which they were displayed, because on each occasion more wealth was sacrificed in order that they might be shown, so with each potlatch the chief could assume a new and more honorable title for himself from among those borne by his illustrious predecessors, and award more names to his juniors and grandchildren. It was therefore natural that a wealthy and ambitious man should give as many potlatches as he could afford: repeatedly honoring his dead relatives; repeatedly restoring their graves; rebuilding or repairing his house, and renaming it. Sometimes the prestige of the living came to outweigh the major funerary purpose of the potlatch so that in effect it was given simply to enhance the sponsor's standing.

One man was, perhaps, expressing the ideal values of the Yakutat Tlingit when he emphasized the common grief and respect for the dead, and when he saw the potlatch as an institution which strengthened brotherly feeling within the moiety, and which bound generations together, linking parents to children, grandparents to grandchildren, and the living to the dead. For him, the potlatch meant dignity, sympathy, high respect for all, with the exalted chief and the poor and lowly united in sorrow and honor for the ancestors.

Rivalry at the Potlatch

RIVALRY AMONG THE HOSTS

Despite the ideal of cooperation and unity, there is no doubt but that an element of rivalry entered into the relationships between those members of the same sib and moiety who acted as hosts. The wealth which each contributed to the pile to be later distributed was publicly displayed and the amount announced by the nakani. It was thus easy to see what each had offered and in private to make invidious reflections on the economic standing and generosity of the others. In such matters there was always stressed the necessity of acting according to one's social position and of emulating the illustrious precedents set by one's uncles and grandfathers. However, the abstract standards of noblesse oblige or the legendary examples of dead ancestors were readily replaced by the challenging marks set by the present acts of fellow chiefs and sibmates. Thus, while Łuso (who was rebuked by his daughter for cruelty because he sacrificed a slave at a potlatch) could retort that he had to do this in order to live up to the example of his forebears, my informant, his granddaughter, perhaps more correctly interpreted his behavior as trying to “raise himself” in competition with the other rich and prominent men of his own sib and moiety who were also “giving away” slaves at the potlatch. “He was trying to beat the other tribe—see who was the biggest, had the most property.” (MJ; see also pp. 317, 471, 513.)

Another reason for competition might be the exhibition of crest objects or of ceremonial prerogatives by one lineage or sib which were claimed as the exclusive prerogatives by another in the same moiety. Witness the trouble at Sitka in 1902 between the KiksAdi and the Tł'UknaxAdi over the latter's attempt to dedicate a Frog House (p. 288) or the war between the anAtedi of Chilkat and the Tł'UknaAdi over rival claims to display a Raven Hat (p. 274; and Swanton, 1909, Tale, 32, pp. 161–165). Other examples are discussed in connection with crests (p. 454). Touchiness about such matters may last for years.

RIVALRY BETWEEN GUESTS

The guests at the potlatch were, of course, members of the moiety opposite from that of the hosts. There were always two groups of guests, usually two separate sibs, each with its own chief and song leaders. At a major potlatch at least one group was invited from a distant tribe (Tlingit or Eyak), while the other was a sib from the hometown. Thus, the Kwacqwan potlatch given at Yakutat in 1905 in memory of Chief George was also for the many Kwacqwan who had died near Katalla in a snowslide when hunting bear. It was therefore fitting that the out-of-town guests should be the ałyI-Kagwantan and TcIcqedi from Chilkat on Bering River, Kayak Island in Controller Bay, Katalla, and Cordova.

“[Because] so many of them died around Katalla…that's why they invited all the westward people…. If I had a brother or uncle [who] died in Sitka,” said my Kwacqwan informant, “I’m going to invite Sitka Kagwantan or Teqwedi. That's the Indian law, that's the way.”

Probably in this hypothetical case he would have invited the Sitka sib that had cared for the corpse, although he did not explain the possible reasons that might have guided his choice. Foreign guests were, however, always invited to a major potlatch, even when those to be honored had died at home. In such a case the particular guest sib would probably be selected on the basis of some special relationship to the deceased or to the sponsoring host.

We should note that guests who came from a different tribe or town were, of course, accompanied by their spouses and children. The same was true of members of the host sib who came from a distance to help an important chief with a potlatch. Such relatives took their places among the hosts or guests according to their moiety affiliations. Similarly, while only one group of local guests are said to have been formally invited, actually all the members of the opposite moiety who lived in the town were present as guests, sitting with one or the other of the two groups.

Yakutat people regularly exchanged potlatch invitations with the people of Katalla and Bering River to the northwest, and with the Dry Bay people to the southeast. Less frequently, perhaps, they invited guests from Sitka or Juneau, although we know that the Kagwantan and Tł'UknaAdi from Yakutat and Dry Bay often assisted their sibmates in these towns when the latter gave potlatches, and were also invited there as guests.

Even at a small-scale potlatch to which only local townsmen were invited, there were always two groups of guests; that is, two sibs. Presumably if there were only one sib of the guest moiety, this would be divided into two lineage groups, as Swanton has indicated would be the case at Sitka (1908, p. 435). Such an arrangement was not mentioned by my informants, probably because even before Yakutat itself was founded, bringing together so many sibs, it was always easy for Yakutat, Lost River, Situk River, Ahrnklin River, and Dry Bay people to visit each other. Swanton also makes clear that when three or more sibs are represented among the guests, these will be grouped together to form two divisions, and that such alinements are traditional.

I did not discover just what these arrangements were at Yakutat, although in 1905 the ałyI-Kagwantan and TcIcqedi were invited together as one group, while the local Teqwedi and CAnkuqedi were “always mixed together” and formed the other group of guests. The ałyI-Kagwantan and the “Sitka Kagwantan,” that is, the Box House lineage of the latter that was established at Dry Bay, were almost certainly grouped together, if only because my informants did not distinguish between them in such contexts. I should also imagine that at a small Dry Bay affair the Kagwantan and CAnkuqedi would have formed the two divisions. However, when Dry Bay Chief George and the Tł'UknaAdi gave a potlatch in 1909 at Dry Bay, the local CAnkuqedi formed one group and the Yakutat Teqwedi the other. Kagwantan from Yakutat accompained the Teqwedi as guests, but whether they were the few resident ałyI-Kagwantan or the few married-in Kagwantan from Sitka, I do not know. It might be significant that in the photograph of Teqwedi guests at a potlatch at Yakutat in 1916 there are two Sitka Kagwantan men among them, both married to Yakutat women and living in that place, but there were no CAnkuqedi (pl. 214).

Whenever the Ravens were guests at Yakutat, the Kwacqwan and the Tł'UknaAdi formed the core of the two divisions. Thus, at the potlatch series given by the Teqwedi at Yakutat in 1910, the local guest sib was, of course, Kwacqwan, while the Tł'UknaAdi invited from Dry Bay included the TłukwaAdi as well as a few akA’ayi. However, at the Bear House potlatch at Situk in 1905, the Yakutat Kwacqwan and the Yakutat Tł'UknaAdi formed one group (because adane, in whose memory it was given, had married women of both sibs whose children were among the honored guests?). The Dry Bay Tł'UknaAdi and TłukwaAdi formed the other division. Any Eyak anAtedi or Qusedi who might be present at Yakutat would be considered as “part of Kwacqwan” because of the tradition of their common origin on the Copper River.

Swanton (1908, p. 435) believed that: “If people were invited from another town they formed one party and the town people the other,” but the alinements at Yakutat and Dry Bay, as far as I could tell, seemed to group together those sibs whose “children” would be joking relatives (p. 486), and separated those whose members were trade partners (p. 355). The arrangements in any case seem to have been, as Swanton (ibid.) states, “based on supposed consanguinity.”

What is important about these two groups of guests is that they came as rivals, ‘to dance against each other' (wutc a’aduł’e), trying to outdo each other in beautiful costly garments, and in the excellence of their singing and dancing. Because the two guest sibs were usually members of different Tlingit tribes, it was natural for such rivalry to reflect the hostility or suspicion felt for strangers. One informant maintained that it did not mean that they were jealous of each other, but that “they try to beat each other—just for fun, that's all.” Others disagreed with this statement, and one insisted: “They try to beat one another—That cause war.” The first rejoined: “It never happen in Yakutat, it happen somewhere. It don’t know it, I heard about it…They jealous of each other and almost lead to war.”

Whether or not there was ever actual trouble at Yakutat, there was always the possibility of overt hostility. Thus, the first informant had earlier spoken of the dances performed by the guests as “peace dances,” indicating the tensions involved.[88] He had also told how the Yakutat Teqwedi in 1905 were afraid that the ałyI-Kagwantan from Katalla might succeed in “sneaking in,” trying to “beat” the local guest sib by arriving before the latter were ready. It was partly to prevent such an occurrence that the nakani sent by the hosts to accompany their guests left the latter when nearly at their destination in order to hurry home with the news of the latter's approach. Furthermore, this man also explained, each of the two guest sibs would compose a special “peace song” addressed to the children of the other. If the Teqwedi, for example, were giving a potlatch, he suggested: “Suppose they invite us Kwacqwan, Tł'UknaAdi they always [invite, too]. Everytime we supposed to be invited, they notify us ahead of time. Kwacqwan always compose a song to Tł'UknaAdi-yAti. That's for peace, that song. [The Tł'UknaAdi also compose a song to Kwacqwan-children.] For just that potlatch. That's a peace song. Everytime they always sing it, that song, and dance.”

Such songs are like those actually composed and sung at peace ceremonies by the captor hosts while their hostage ‘deer' dance. Since these songs express love and admiration for the sib-children of the rival group, they tend to lessen the hostility of their fathers. The same idea is expressed by Swanton (1908, p. 440): “The contesting sides indicate that they want to dance in peace by saying to each other, ‘I am holding your daughter's hand.' [Note:] The daughter of one Wolf man being the wife of another, and vice versa.” These songs are sung every time the rival groups danced against each other.

Still further precautions were taken. The two groups of guests were each accompanied by their own nakani, that is, by men of the host group who had married their sib sisters. My informant at first denied the practice, then corrected himself and mentioned the possibility of “trouble.” When it came the turn of one guest sib to dance, their nakani had the duty of leading the line as they danced into their hosts' house and of standing at the door all the time, to “look after” the proceedings. In other words, the nakani were stationed at points of possible danger, which they, as neutrals, were supposed to avert, and if it came they guarded the line of retreat for their brothers-in-law. They also seem to have assisted the song leaders of the group they escorted—”just like a committee…look after the songs for their brother-in-laws.” I believe they prompted the song leaders, perhaps especially when the guests were called upon to sing or to join in singing a song belonging to the hosts. For the song leaders to make any mistake was a disgrace to their own sib, but was highly gratifying to their rivals. The nakani were obviously concerned to prevent, if they could, any trouble that might arise from such an incident.

From personal reminiscences, it is clear that the guests were usually nervous when dancing and singing, fearing that their rivals might find cause to laugh at them for any awkwardness or error. Indeed, if any notice were taken of a mistake made by a song leader this was likely to precipitate a fight. “If anybody make a mistake, they’re going to have a big fight, going to use the knife,” reported one woman who had served as song leader and worried about this possibility, although she added: “I never see it.” (pp. 648–649.)

Swanton has made clear the dangerous character of this competition (1908, p. 435):

“Great rivalry was always exhibited by the two parties, however, and their endeavors to outdo each other sometimes almost resulted in bloodshed. Each side attended carefully to the slightest remark made by an opponent, especially the two song leaders with which each was provided, and the least slight, though couched in the most metaphorical language, was at once seized upon and might precipitate a riot. The actions of each dancer were also scrutinized with great care, and any little mistake noted and remembered. The strain upon a dancer was consequently so great that, if a fine dancer died soon after the feast, it was said, ‘The peoples’ looks have killed him.’ ”

The hosts made every effort to prevent trouble between their guests, by treating them alike, seating the two guest chiefs side by side, and by speaking to both in the most solemn manner. If quarreling should break out, it was the responsibility of the hosts to stop it. Then the host chief would step forward from his place by the door and appeal to the guests, pointing out that the ceremonial costume he was wearing had belonged to the dead—perhaps the blanket had been his mother's—and asking for peace in the name of the dead. Simultaneously other members of the host moiety, who would also be clothed in blankets and hats inherited from their dead relatives, might speak to the people: “See what I have on.” Such heirlooms are called ‘ownerless things' (ł ati 'At). This is “a peace word. That's hard to explain it. Every time respect, deep respect. So it's peace.” And the guests would have to quiet down. Apparently any heirloom decorated with sib crests could be used by any member of the sib to make peace between others.

Swanton (1908, p. 440) reports that when a fight was imminent between the guests at a Chilkat potlatch, one of the hosts who was wearing a Raven Hat averted the fight by stepping forward and uttering the raven's caw. In the story (Swanton, 1909, Tale 104, p. 346) about the fight with live coals among the Kagwantan owners of Wolf House at Grouse Fort, a Tł'UknaAdi man stopped the brawl in exactly the same way. The Eyak also made use of dance paddles as peace emblems to end quarrels (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 130).

In this way we see how the potlatch, which served primarily to unite the moiety of the hosts, divides the moiety of the guests into rival groups. McClellan (1954) has analyzed the typical Tlingit potlatch to show how it strengthens the most important units, the sibs, while in the main accentuating the differences between them. She has also pointed out (p. 96) how the theme of warfare is symbolically stressed throughout the ceremonies.

RIVALRY BETWEEN HOSTS AND GUESTS

There was certainly far less possibility of rivalry between hosts and guests, although competitively minded individuals were doubtless stimulated by the magnificence of their hosts to give as great a potlatch as possible when it became their turn. Sometimes, as we know, a guest might complain afterwards in private of the meanness of the gifts received, or a host comment on how little the recipient merited what he had been given. While it was quite customary for a man or woman to boast afterwards of what he had contributed or received, to my knowledge this was not in terms of comparison with another but was made as a statement of isolated fact. Children would speak in the same way about the potlatching record of their father. In such cases, the rivals, if they existed, were all the other members of the community.

I was able to record few remarks directed against the opposite moiety to suggest potlatch rivalry. For example, when MJ was asked about the location of a house in Dry Bay where a potlatch had been held, she replied: “I don’t know which place it was. I didn’t notice it. My mother and grandmother don’t interest in the opposite tribe—just in our own tribe what's ahead.” Or, referring to calico which is often wrapped around women of the host sib before distribution: “They do it so they won’t look down on you—the opposite tribe. They give that stuff away.”

BEGINNING THE POTLATCH

Preparations

Because so many purposes were served, the actual events that took place in the potlatch ceremonies were complex, involving the participation of many persons who played a variety of roles. My information is unfortunately not complete, since it is based on recollections of the last full-scale potlatches which had been given some 40 to 50 years previously. An attempt will be made, however, to piece together these data to show how the potlatch was generally conducted. This is followed by personal reminiscences of specific occasions.

Potlatches about which I have information were: the Tł'UknaAdi potlatch for Boulder House in 1901 (pp. 323, 473); the Kwacqwan potlatch for Chief George in 1905, held in Raven's Bones House, Moon House and Fort House (p. 324); a ałyI-Kagwantan potlatch in Wolf Bath House in 1905 (p. 323); the Teqwedi potlatch for Bear (Den) House at Situk in 1905 (p. 321); the Tł'UknaAdi potlatch for Far Out House (Frog House) at Dry Bay in 1909 (p. 319); the Teqwedi potlatch at Yakutat in 1910, primarily in Shark House, but also in Drum House, Coward House, and Wolf Bath House (p. 325); the Tł'UnaAdi potlatch at Sidewise House in 1916 (p. 326). Photographs of Teqwedi guests at this last affair, and also of Yakutat Tł'UknaAdi guests at a Teqwedi potlatch at Sitka in 1904 give us further information (pls. 210–214). Additional potlatches were, of course, mentioned in connection with the oldest known houses, and more modern “parties” or small potlatches of recent years: by Kwacqwan of the Moon House lineage for Henry Adams in 1949 and for Jenny Kardeetoo in 1950, by the Tł'UknaAdi for Jack Ellis in 1952 and for Conrad Edwards in 1954. There may well have been other small potlatches in recent years about which I know nothing.

THE YEAR BEFORE THE POTLATCH

When a decision to hold a potlatch had been reached, apparently by the sib chief in council with the other house chiefs of his sib, guests were informally notified.

“They always notify a year before so they can practice the dance, get ready for the potlatch.” Formal messengers (nakani) are not sent at this time. “They send word there, that's all. ‘You’re invited.' They always notify a year before.”

During this year the host chief prepared himself magically by bathing before dawn and by observing dietary rules. “They drink water so much a day, not much. They don’t eat much.” Presumably at the end a total fast was enjoined. The chief also had to be continent. His wife slept alone in their bedroom while he slept on the bench by the door of the house, although my informant did not know for how long. I did not learn whether other members of the host's group also observed similar taboos.[89]

The host might also prepare the magical ‘medicine to be noticed' (see pp. 662–663). Presumably this involved the root of some plant, as was customary in Tlingit “medicines,” with which was placed a piece of something that had previously received favorable notice. This was to insure a successful potlatch.

The guests also took magical precautions, but these seem to have been most important for the song leaders and principal dancers, for I heard no specific mention of the guest chiefs in this connection. Swanton (1908, p. 438) specified of guests from Sitka on their way to a potlatch at Klukwan: “While they were going up the dance leaders had to fast for two days and for some time they had to keep away from women; otherwise they would not live long.” I believe that this abstinence was because they were using a magical ingredient. One of my informants, who was a song leader in the group invited from Dry Bay to Yakutat in 1910, told how she and the two male song leaders were given the medicine ‘no strength inside one,' and in consequence had to fast for a day. This was a tasteless piece of root which the song leaders held in their mouths while performing. This was to prevent them from making mistakes, and to attract favorable attention even if they sang and danced poorly (see the account on p. 648).

Guests might also use ‘need medicine' or ‘looking at the sun medicine' so that they might be paid twice over at the potlatch. An informant was shown this plant by Sam George, a son of Dry Bay Chief George, the same chief who had prepared the medicine for the song leaders in 1910. “When they’re having a potlatch, when they start paying off people from one end, then they come back again. If a person has that kaani [’medicine’], they give him another one [gift]. I think it's that ‘AłAtin nakw[‘looking at medicine’]. Sam George was surprised [that it worked]. His father or grandfather made it for him in a potlatch…[He was paid twice], even coming back.”

Other preparations made by hosts and guests involved the selection of nakani, while the guests had to compose a peace song and chose their song leaders.

THE NAKANI

The nakani, 'sib brothers-in-law,’ were always men of some rank who had married equally important sib sisters of the group they were to represent. The hosts' nakani were the more important, since they escorted the out-of-town guests to the hosts' village, invited the guests to the feasts or ceremonies held each night, and at the potlatch itself handled and accounted for all the wealth involved. For example, one nakani for Chief Moses' great Kwacqwan potlatch of 1905 was Sitka Ned (died 1926), head of the Teqwedi Coward House and husband of the Kwacqwan daughter of his predecessor (cf. p. 324). The other nakani was John On-as-tad (YanEstEt) or Kayak John (1867–1916), a ałyI-Kagwantan man who had married a Kwacqwan woman from Fort House. We have already seen him acting as a ‘deer' in trouble between his sib and the Tł'UknaAdi (p. 603). For this same potlatch in 1905, the ałyI-Kagwantan Chief John (Gułé, ałyA-’ic) appointed SA’-yeł-tu and 'As-t’a-kané, who were Eyak anAtedi or Qusedi men that counted as Kwacqwan. The Yakutat Teqwedi who were also guests at this potlatch had three nakani. One was Charley White (1879–1964), a Tł'UknaAdi man who had married the Teqwedi daughter of his Uncle Abraham, the former chief of the Boulder House lineage (p. 323). There was also Sitka Charley (áÁgÙ, or áÁù) from the Tł'UknaAdi Whale House in Sitka who had married the Teqwedi daughter (Kitty, KAí, 1875–1909) of a Yakutat Kwacqwan man. The third nakani was Jack Shokokon (1884–1912), Kwacqwan son of Ca-kuwakan of Coward House (pp. 524, 603, 604), and who like his father had probably already served as a ‘deer.' He was married to the sister of the chief of Golden Eagle House (Qestł’eq, sister of Tanu).

In 1909, the Tł'UknaAdi chief, Dry Bay Chief George, sent as nakani to Yakutat his three sons: Frank Italio (1870–1955), Sam George (1890–1947), and Dry Bay Francis, all CAnkuqedi men who had married Tł'UknaAdi or Tł’ukwaAdi women.

The following year, when the Dry Bay Ravens came to the Teqwedi potlatch at Yakutat, Sam George seems to have acted as nakani for the guests, for we see him prompting his wife who was serving as a Tł'UknaAdi song leader. The three nakani for the Teqwedi hosts on this occasion were again Charley White, Young George (1870–1915) a Kwacqwan man of Fort House who had a Teqwedi wife (p. 324), and lastly George Martin (1892–1915), also Kwacqwan man of Fort House who was married to the Teqwedi daughter of its former head, Bear Bit Billy (pl. 81).

Women were also nakani. Thus, I was told that Mrs. Situk Jim, osał-tła, wife of the builder of the Teqwedi Bear House at Situk, came out through the snow to welcome her husband's guests and assign them sleeping places in the new house (see p. 621). The wife of Dry Bay Chief George, a CAnkuqedi woman, was in charge of the food served to guests at her husband's potlatch, although his sib sisters actually passed the dishes.

Swanton's Sitka informant (1908, p. 438) reported that the wife of the principal Raven chief sponsoring a potlatch at Klukwan was sent as nakani to Sitka to invite the guests. “Had the host lived in the same town he would have sent a brother-in-law instead.” But such was evidently not the Yakutat and Dry Bay custom. This Chilkat woman took leaf tobacco and food to feast those whom she was inviting, and they danced before her in crest hats and blankets to express their thanks. Before she left she had demanded and received over $2,000 worth of property. “She asked for this in order that they might feel just as good as the Klukwan Wolves who had built her husband's house, for those of Sitka had not had a hand in it” (ibid). At the potlatch, her husband returned this property together with twice as much of his own. I was not told of such formal requests for contributions made by nakani, although spouses and “brothers-in-law” did assist each other with potlatch funds (see pp. 640–641).

All I was told specifically about the behavior of nakani was that when they went to the village of the foreign guests, “they stand in the middle of the town, among the buildings, and talk…. They say ‘You’re invited!’ naming the guests.” The nakani wore no special costumes and carried no insignia denoting their status. Sometimes those whom they came to fetch would entertain them with a party before starting out. On the way back, the nakani conducted the guests to quarters prepared for them near their destination, left them there overnight while they hurried on ahead to announce their arrival, and then returned to escort the guests on the last short stage of their journey.

During the period that the guests were being entertained in the village, the hosts' nakani issued formal invitations for each event. “They go around in front of the house and call the people they invited, a day ahead of time [that is, on the morning before a party in the evening, or the day before a morning ceremony]. They call their names. Stand outside and call who's going to come. Just like a list.” (MJ) Another informant added: “Like suppose tonight they’re going to have a potlatch…. Nakani go to the houses. They don’t go in. They’re going to say, ‘KUanguwutan, ‘ixwa ’i—KuanguwUtan [using the potlatch or honorable name], I invite you!' And whoever is in this house, they’re going to mention your name. Same thing for each house.” The call, as demonstrated, was solemn and slow. Invitations of the same kind were issued for each of the feasts or parties that preceded or followed the potlatch proper. “Next night, same thing. Just like those days, invitation goes through the houses.”

“It's a disgrace to the tribe if you invite guests and they don’t come. Your fault in the first place because you don’t make it clear. ‘You invited, you expected to come.' You got to come, especially UnEtkAnai.” “You refuse to go to the feast, they [the hosts or their nakani?] coming with that ł ati 'At [heirloom] to get you!”

It is not certain whether the same nakani that were sent to invite the guests would necessarily be the same individuals who handled the wealth at the potlatch, for the former were often young men, and of the latter it was said: “One old fellow keep track of [the money, and call] ‘Who's next? Who's next?' “In former times the nakani killed the slaves that were “given” to the guests, taking the victims outside and strangling them by standing on a pole laid across their necks.

SONG LEADERS

Before coming to the potlatch the guests also had to designate their song leaders, ‘masters of song' (ci ati). There were always two young men for each group, often accompanied by a young woman who stood or danced between them. Photographs of the Yakutat guests at at the Sitka potlatch in 1904 show what appear to be three male song leaders (pls. 210, 211, 212). “They have to have two song leaders in case one forgets” (MJ). These men carried long oar-shaped wands or dance paddles (wutsaa) with which to beat time and signal the dancers and the other singers. These dance paddles were decorated with sib crests, bore traditional names, and were passed on from one song leader to his successor.

Such dance paddles or batons were the Teqwedi Killerwhale Pole, at one time owned by Jim Kardeetoo and now in the Alaska Historical Museum in Juneau. The paddle represented the fin of the Killerwhale, while below was the figure of the man who carved the original killerwhales, NtSAłAne′, according to Swanton (1909, Tales 4 and 71). I am indebted to Edward Keithahn, Curator, for a photograph of this pole (pl. 163).

A modern substitute, the Bear Dance Paddle, was used by Joseph Abraham and by Tom Smith in 1916, both Teqwedi song leaders (pls. 140, 214b).

Another Teqwedi dance baton is the Wolf Pole, carved by D. S. Benson (1869–1940 plus), who though Teqwedi carved it for Joseph Abraham (1867–1917) shortly before the latter's death. It was used by Olaf Abraham (1886—) at the Tł'UknaAdi potlatch in 1916. The pole is 67 inches long and is painted red, black, and blue green (pl. 214c). It is now in the Denver Art Museum (Malin and Feder, 1962, fig. 17, a, b).

The Kwackwan have the Copper River Dance Pole (pls. 13, 163). On the lower part just above the handgrip, is a face, decorated with human hair and eyes of inlaid abalone shell, that represents the river. Above and facing the head is a fish, with a fringe of human hair on the tail, representing copper. The pole had originally been colored with native paint, but after it was broken, B. A. Jack mended it and painted it with red and green commercial paint. The pole is an heirloom of Raven's Bones House and Fort House.

The Tł'UkanAdi had a Devilfish Pole, made by D. S. Benson, described by MJ as “shaped like a devilfish with sucker buttons on the arms. It was beautiful.” Another said that it was “the most beautiful one I ever see. They put abalone shells on the inside of the suckers.” This pole was destroyed (by accident?, by malice?, or to prevent its sale), and is now represented by a miniature model carved from yellow cedar by B. A. Jack (pl. 163). This represents an octopus, with anthropomorphic face at the bottom, and four long arms, extending straight up, within which is the semisquatting figure of a nude woman. This was carved separately and inserted between the arms, and represents the woman who married the Devilfish. The Tł'UknaAdi claims to the pole are based on the story of how Raven obtained the original pole from its owner, ÁnAqatwayá at Dry Bay to hook ashore a big coil of kelp (or an “ark”), filled with birds, animals, sea otters, and other “precious stuff” (p. 867). I gather that the Tł'UknaAdi imitate Raven's efforts in dragging this treasure ashore when using this dance pole at a potlatch. Apparently other sib regalia memorializing this myth are or were in Whale House in Sitka, unless Sitka Charley sold them all to a museum (MJ). The photographs taken at Sitka in 1904 (pls. 210–212) show what appear to be two long oarlike dance paddles, one with an anthropomorphic face at the bottom and octopus suckers above, as well as a fringe of human hair. The other has a Raven's head near the bottom of the blade. The third, shorter dance wand is in the shape of a Raven.

With these poles or paddles, the song leaders directed the singing. “The song leader always has to keep their voice steady. And when they dance, everybody watch that, if the song leader's going to lift it up and down. They move by that.”

This was apparently a physically tiring job, as well as a nerve-racking one because of the strain of competition. The song leader was supposed to have a bass voice and usually began the song by singing the refrain through first before the rest of the singers joined in for the first stanza. He usually called out the words before each phrase, and might give other directions, such as “From the beginning!”

No song leader was needed by the hosts, for each individual introduced the song of his own selection when it came his turn, or asked the chief to do it for him. The chief introduced the most important potlatch songs himself, and perhaps for this reason carried an ornamented cane (wutsaa). Jim Kardeetoo had such a cane, with carved top suggesting an anthropomorphic head, decorated with human hair. He carried this at the dedication of the Golden Eagle Screen in Drum House (pl. 213g). Tanu, head of Golden Eagle House, held an elaborately carved cane when he was among the Teqwedi guests at the Tł'UknaAdi potlatch in 1916, when he probably used it to emphasize points in his speeches to his hosts (p. 214f). A number of older, and evidently prominent men among the Tł'UknaAdi guests at Sitka in 1904 carried canes, presumably for the same purpose (p. 210). At aceremony in Thunderbird House, Yakutat, Frank Italio, one of the CAnkuqedi hosts, held an elaborately carved cane (pl. 215a). This same cane, or one identical to it, was collected by Emmons and is now in the Museum of the American Indian (pl. 162). It is described as “a chief's family wand used at a potlatch.” The figures from the top down are: Eagle or Thunderbird, olf's Whead, she-Bear's head (with labret?), and Wolf.

All songs and dances were rehearsed long in advance of the potlatch. While the Dry Bay woman song leader for the potlatch in 1910 was not chosen until the evening before she was to perform, this was not customary, at least for the men who carried the greater responsibility. In fact, one informant indicated that the song leader served for some years and that his replacement was finally chosen or elected at a meeting. Since the latter was then given the dance paddle, the succession was supposed to be kept within the lineage or group of closely related houses, for there were bitter feelings if the paddle were obtained by another lineage of the sib.

Arrival of the Guests

KwACQWAN POTLATCH, YAKUTAT, 1905

What HKB remembers most clearly is the arrival of the guests invited to the great Kwacqwan potlatch in 1905. The following account is compiled from narratives on July 11, 1952 and May 2, 1954.

“His younger brother, Moses, Djinuk-’ic, had it for Chief George [Yaodaqet, who died in 1903]…. My tribe gave the po’latch. They invited people from Cordova, Katalla, Bering River and Kayak Island. They held the potlatch in the Old Village, but the dock [at the new part of Yakutat] was here already because they built the cannery [saltery then] in 1902…. The Copper River song leaders who came were Frank Thomas (TcIcqedi) and Chief Dick (ałI Kagwantan). The Kagwantan and the TcIcqedi danced together. From Kayak Island, Chief John, chief of the Kagwantan, was the leader. He's the ‘big man' [łmgit-tłen, sib chief]. George Johnson's uncle, Naa-cani, was the TcIcqedi chief from there [Katalla].” In addition, Chief Moses “invited from the hometown the Teqwedi…. so they can dance together.

“Nakani went after the tribes up north: Sitka Ned (Tewedi), and John YanEstEt (ałyI-Kagwantan)—that's a Tlingit name…. Before that, Sitka Ned before he left, he's meeting with the tribes, Kwacqwan tribes [lineages]. No airplane that time, just boats, steamboats. He said, ‘If the people are coming, the ones you invited, if the people are in the boat, I’m going to tell the captain of the boat to blow his whistle as soon as they come around that point over there [Point Carew at the entrance to Monti Bay]. Two short whistles, so the people can get prepared at Yakutat.’

“The day the guests were invited, the people got dressed up to be ready. The people listen. There's a boat coming.

“And a boat came from the west. No whistle. They don’t blow the whistle at the point. And the people from Yakutat says, ‘They’re going to sneak up on us.' ‘They’re sneaking in on us. They try to beat us.' But anyway, Teqwedi is ready to dance against that one.

“Nobody in that one. They don’t come in that one.

“Next boat came. Soon as they come around that point there, they blow two short whistles.

“Fine day—good day—sunshine…. Early fall, westerly wind. You can hear the Indians singing on that boat, way out there yet. All the Indians standing on top of the captain's cabin, that pilot house, with [a small American] flag in each hand…. They singing a song…. A walking song, 'Steamboat Song.’

“The singing is that way…. Not every one, but some of the walking songs, the song leader singing it for short. When everybody going to start [the nakani fires a gun, or gives a signal], everybody sing. But that time, the boat whistle started. When the song leader [is] singing that song by himself [and] when everybody going to start, that boat make a short whistle—everybody sing. In certain place, when everybody stop, the boat make a whistle again.

“As soon as it come around the point, you can hear the song. They imitate the Copper River dance. It's a wonderful song. There's a song leader—just one man sings in a bass voice. Then they toot the whistle and everybody sings. Then they stop. Then they blow the whistle two times and then everybodystops. They were all dressed up in beaded costumes with feathers on their head.

“[They sang] two songs. The first one, when they [were] way out in there, they sing it this way”: [The following words are incomplete.]

“ya ha…. é

sAni sa, sAni sa

ya ha yu ho

SAni sa…. sAni sa”

[The next was a dancing song.]

“And then they come to that dock.

“The boat was going to come to the Village [Old Yakutat], but it come to he cannery dock instead. There was a west wind blowing” and the beach at the Old Village was too exposed. The hosts had provided tents and firewood for their guests on “Canoe Island” near the Old Village, but the visitors were taken that night to the cannery bunkhouses.

“[The ałyI-Kagwantan guests announced]: ‘Tomorrow we’ll meet on the sand beach [by the cannery] and we’ll dance. The Teqwedi are going to dance against us.' All the Eagle tribe at Yakutat were going to dance against the invited westward tribes.”

The next day, the Kagwantan danced on the sand beach by the cannery. All the Teqwedi came over from the Old Village in canoes. “The Yakutat Teqwedi with war canoes watch the westward Kagwantan dance on the beach. It's a peace dance. The Kwacqwan [hosts] watched them too, but not from canoes.” Perhaps the latter were not yet officially present. “Then the Teqwedi went back to the Village and dressed up and danced on the beach, and the Kagwantan came and watched them from canoes.” The canoes were apparently furnished by the Teqwedi to their rivals, so that the latter could come to the Old Village and watch them dance on the beach in front of their own hometown. Presumably the peace songs which each side had composed to the others' sib-children were sung for these dances.

Before the hosts appeared, “that ałyI-Kagwantan and that Teqwedi, they talking to each other because they dancing against each other…. I remember the first words Chief John uses when…they coming on the war canoes in front of the village. They singing a song. When they start, Teqwedi were all dressed up for dancing, standing on the beach, but it's dark. And ayłyI-Kagwantan ask the Teqwedi chief: ‘gu sItAn ta–Where is the dead Humpback Salmon lying?' [referring to the house of the deceased Kwacqwan chief by the eponymous totem of his sib, using the Tlingit word]. He give that question to that Teqwedi chief, Ned Daknaqin [of Drum House].”

The Teqwedi chief had to answer. It should properly have been Jim Kardetoo, chief of Bear House or Shark House, and “chief of the tribe, but he was out of town. And that Teqwedi chief don’t answer it. He get stuck. He don’t know how he's going to answer that question…. [It meant] ‘Where is the Kwacqwan tribe house?' They don’t know it, see? It's dark.

“And so Joseph Abraham answer that question. [He was Daknaqin's nephew.] He's song leader, he's not supposed to be chief. But anyway, he answer that question. Nobody there to answer it. And Joseph Abraham answers it this way: ' ‘a’awE ‘i ‘ieyk ‘iłt’is—You anchor right in front of it.’

“…He catch on, the chief, this Kagwantan, where the humpback salmon is [i.e., Raven's Bones House].

“That's the way chiefs talk to each other. [They don’t say what they mean in plain language.] That's why it's hard to understand. A common man like me don’t understand it. Somebody have to explain it when they talking to each other.

“Then they put the guests in the tribal house and welcome them. Chief Moses speaks from the porch. All went into Yeł aqI hIt [Raven's Bones House]. Now when they try to do the best respect way for the other town coming the chief takes off his shoes, if he has them on to meet the war canoes of his guests. And he rolls up his pants over his knees, and goes in the water to meet the guests. Just as he touches the boat, he says ‘Welcome!' and he goes back to his house.

“If he is Raven (or Eagle), when all the tribes who he is welcoming are in the house—the chief sits by the door. All who are invited are in the back of the house. The chief then stood on the porch [bench] by the door, and he put out his hands [arms extended]: ‘I welcome you. The warmest place under my wings,' he says it like Raven, ‘the warmest place under my feathers, I welcome you.’

“Then they gave everybody something to eat. Everybody was happy and the guests were welcome.”

RECEPTION OF GUESTS AT CHILKAT, 1899

Swanton has described (1908, p. 439) the warlike reception given the Kagwantan guests from Stika by their anAtedi hosts at Chilkat.

“When the visitors reached Klukwan the first man to come out of the house was Ył’k, who wore a hat provided with ears and covered with abalone shell. He had a bow and arrows in his hand, and as he came down he kept making the motions of letting go an arrow. He did this because he was about to spend a great quantity of money and wished to show how brave he was.”

This belligerent performance contrasts with the description of the Kwacqwan welcome just described. However, the Yakutat Teqwedi evidently affected such southeastern Alaskan manners to some extent, in making use of a similar headdress that symbolized determination and herosim, both in facing the enemy and in lavish giving. This has already been described in connection with the warrior's costume (p. 591). As explained to me:

“Xuts gAnguc—’brown bear's ear.' All the Teqwedi use that brown bear's ear. Like American flag belongs to all America, this thing belongs to the whole tribe of Teqwedi. That brown bear's ears belongs to them. It's the sign of war or trouble. When somebody comes to that big chief and asks for that ear—’The brown bear's ear, give it to me. I’m going to put it on’—the people know there's trouble. They know there's something going on. That's the way it is when somebody gives a potlatch. When someone's going to put up so much property, he's the one asks for that brown bear's ear. ‘Give me that brown bear's ear. I’m going to tie that on my face.' Then the people know he's going to give away lots.”

POTLATCH AT BEAR HOUSE, SITUK, 1905

When Situk Jim gave a potlatch in the winter of 1905(?) for Bear House at Situk, guests from Yakutat and Dry Bay came on foot with snowshoes and sleds. The Yakutat Kwacqwan (and a few Tł'UknaAdi, among whom was Minnie Johnson), danced against the Dry Bay Tł'UknaAdi, and TłukwaAdi. MJ's older sister, osał-tła (Kwacca), was the wife of the host and one of the nakani. She apparently went to Yakutat to give invitations to the guests, for we are told that she answered the objections of her sister's White husband, who did not want his wife to take part in the potlatch. “Why don’t you want your wife there?…It's for her father.' ” And the woman promised that her young sister would sleep in her own room in the new house, not on the floor with the ordinary guests. The potlatch was in memory of adane Johnstone (1843–88), the ruins of whose Coward House were near that of his son-in-law (p. 321).

“All the Teqwedi of Yakutat helped Situk Jim and Situk Harry [his younger brother] to give the potlatch. They went on ahead of us—Joseph [Abraham], Sitka Ned, Old Tanu [Jim Itiniscu—all Teqwedi men]…. They met us down at the beach [on the riverbank]. The Dry Bays went on the beach and welcomed us Yakutats. The owner's wife is supposed to be nakani. My sister was nakani. At the time there was no such a thing as a woman wearing pants. It would be a shame on her brother's face. She had on such long skirts, dragging through the snow. We said, ‘What you make a trail for other people?' It [the skirt] was just frozen stiff. She had a gopher robe, belted on….

“Dry Bay danced on the beach to welcome us. We’re not supposed to cross the river until they get through. Men, women, and little kids dance….

“We came in first…. We danced Copper River dance, Kwacqwan. We all get together on the Kwac-qwan side. Also the Dry Bay Tł'UknaAdi and Tł’ukwa-Adi danced on the other side…. After one dance was over, then the Dry Bays dance….

“We didn’t even know what on earth we going to do. I tried to hide myself in a corner of the smokehouse. I was raised in the mission. I don’t know what to do. My cousin [Judith, daughter of Chief Minaman, another mission girl] and I were both raised ‘Whites.' They put paint on our faces…. My aunties [father's sisters?] paint my face…. We can’t get out of it. We have to dance…. We were played out. We had walked 10 miles on soft snow. They called us ‘tłed-qa qu-’iI—invited White ladies.' The opposite Crow people is watching you. Any mistake you make, you is laughing stock! We were so green we were chewing gum!”

What perhaps made it harder for the two mission girls was that the Reverend Johnson disapproved of potlatches.

“Albin Johnson didn’t want me to go. But we talked him out of a sled [on which to take their clothes and blankets]. ‘It's a sin to paint your face,' he said.”

“Her husband [Situk Jim] invite so many people, so my aunt [older sister?] and him had to sleep by the door. All unEtkAnai sleep in that potlatch house. My sister and her husband were laying by the door on a locker. She said, ‘I told [your husband] I’m going to take care of you, [and give you my room], but I can’t refuse your sAni (my father's nephew [Sitka Ned?]), so she takes me upstairs. It's chock-a- block full of people. There's a pile of blankets makes a soft bed. But in the morning, before Crow makes a noise, drum is going. It's dark! Ci ati [song leaders] on both sides were drumming, take turns.” (Later episodes in this potlatch are given on pp. 624, 627, 630, 634, 638).

RECEPTION OF VISITORS, PORT MULGRAVE, 1791

While the reports of Malaspina's expedition do not seem to refer specifically to potlatches or to genuine peace ceremonies, nevertheless they do describe the ceremonious reception of visitors, both European and native, and the singing of “peace” songs on these and other occasions. This is all suggestive of the manner in which guests at a potlatch may have been received by their hosts, and peace dances carried out by the opposing groups of guests at a potlatch or the two parties at a peace ceremony.

The Spanish ships were met by two canoes of men, accompanied by the chief in his little kayak, and the natives welcomed them with signs and songs indicating their peaceful intentions (see p. 141; pl. 40). As described by Suría, as soon as the canoes came close to the ships:

“…all except the steersman stood up, and at the sound of a stentorian and frightful voice which the ugliest one, who was in the center, uttered, they all extended their hands together in the form of a cross with great violence, and turning their heads to one side intoned a very sad song in their language, which, however, preserved tune and time. It was composed of only three notes although the measure varied. Soon they continued with other songs in this style, but very agreeable and sonorous. Amid all that confusion the one in the middle could be heard dictating the words with a loud voice and carrying the measure, making various contortions and movements for this purpose, now to one side and now to the other, with his right arm extended and at times looking towards the sun. The others understood him perfectly, keeping good time. On other occasions, after a short pause, they continued with a great shout, repeating it three times, and, striking the palms of their hands against those who were carrying the tune and those of the rowers, finished by extending their arms in the form of the cross. [As the ships moved into Port Mulgrave, the canoes followed them, the occupants] always singing songs which, although harsh on account of the pronunciation, were not very disagreeable.” [Wagner, 1963, pp. 247–248.]

The chief, by calling out the words and indicating the time, is acting in his traditional role of song leader which he may assume on important occasions. The wide-extended arms are certainly a sign of peaceful intentions. The shouts at the end of the song may be similar to the “waaa!” which is called out by the captors or hosts of the ‘deer' at a peace ceremony (p. 598). The same “hymn of peace” and the same gestures of arms in the shape of a cross were employed by the natives when good feeling was being restored after the various episodes of friction following their thefts from the Spaniards (p. 151).

I have already commented on the seemingly hostile reception given the canoes of visiting Indians, and how the latter, after the Spaniards, at the request of their hosts, had fired a volley into the air, also sang the hymn of peace as they came to the shore. The whole episode is interpreted as the usual welcome for guests (p. 146).

Suría has further observations to make on the reception of visitors, and on the song used in making peace with the Spaniards.

“We noted that whenever some canoe from the neighborhood whose Indians are subject to some other chief come to this island [from context this would appear to be Ankau Point with the grave monuments; it may be Khantaak Island(?)] they make a salute to it which is worth describing. As soon as they see them they go down to the beach and all together in unison kneel until they remain on their knees and on standing up they utter a great cry, very ugly, and ferocious, on a gangora [gangosa?, ‘nasal' (adj.)] which sounds something like an N. This they repeat three times and at the last end with a very sharp and quavering shriek.” [Wagner, 1936, p. 258.]

From this obscure passage it is impossible to tell who is kneeling and shouting, whether it is the visitors paying some kind of respect to the local inhabitants or to the grave monuments, or whether the local natives are greeting their visitors. Suría continues without a break:

“On the occasion of receiving foreigners they make use of many songs all different, as I have described on the 27th when we entered this port [see above]. They also make use of others of this style in order to ask for peace as we found out as the result of having suspended commerce with skins with them for a day. Believing that we were very angry they did not stop singing all afternoon and night and as this song is interesting, I find it necessary to give an account of it.

“They divided themselves into three parties each of considerable numbers and planted themselves on the beach in front of the ships. At the end of each song they finished with a kind of laugh which jointly and in measure they sustained on this sound, Xa Xa Xa Xa Xa. In others they ended with another sound which cannot be described but it was like the barking of a dog. Thus they went on all night, leaving us unable to sleep.” [Wagner, 1936, p. 258.]

The threefold division of the natives would be that normally expected at a potlatch, or at welcoming guests to a potlatch, where the hosts compose one group, and the guests form two groups of singers and dancers, opposed as rivals to each other. This arrangement does not quite fit the situation on this occasion, however, for the Spaniards were the subject of their attention. Perhaps we are to interpret the three groups of native singers simply as representing three sibs.

I have already speculated as to what might happen in the course of a potlatch in discussing the framework of a large house near the cemetery on Ankau Point (p. 312).

Malaspina noted that the natives of Port Mulgrave had “really harmonious hymns of peace, war, rejoicing and devotion…” (1885, p. 349). He was also impressed by the language used by the chiefs in haranguing their followers for it “[has] not only oratorical harmony and volubility, accompanied by extremely expressive gestures, but also [we can see] the ease with which it is adapted to the new ideas which they acquire through contact with Europeans.”

ENTERTAINMENT AT THE POTLATCH

Feasts Before the Potlatch

Very little specific information was obtained about the dances or entertainment before the potlatch proper, that is, before the ceremony in which the hosts accumulated and distributed wealth to their guests. When the Kwacqwan entertained the ałyI-Kagwantan and Teqwedi in 1905, I understood at first that the potlatch was given the day after the guests had been welcomed to Raven's Bones House, but my informant later said that he could not remember how soon afterwards the potlatch was held. It was more usual, I believe, to have up to four days of parties (feasts and dancing) before the potlatch. These parties were sometimes given only in the house of the principal host chief, but it was not unusual for a few of the other important lineage chiefs of his sib to entertain the guests in their houses. On the mornings of these days, the song leaders woke early and sang dancing songs before the raven called.

The parties were in the evening, and all were notified in the morning by the nakani. On these occasions the guests came dancing into the house, and were formally seated as they would be later at the time of the potlatch, with the men at the back of the house and the women on the sides toward the rear, but with the two guest sibs on opposite sides (fig. 70). The hosts and their women were at the front of the house. The host chief usually made speeches to welcome his guests, his group sang, and the women of his sib danced. The guest chiefs answered his speeches.

The song leaders for each group of guests might sit on chairs in front of the men, or sometimes, the “song leaders sit in the corner and got the totem pole [dance paddle] all ready in the hand, ready to start to sing. Any time the song leader [of the Tł'UknaAdi, for example] start a dance, all the Tł'UknaAdi stand up and dance.”

Although the songs of both hosts and guests were accompanied by the drum, I did not discover how many drummers were customary, how they were chosen, or where they sat. Since almost everyone who sang for the tape-recorder could use a drum, and since no particular mention was made of drummers by informants, I gather that in native eyes they were not nearly as important as the song leaders. Although rattles were also used, for example by chiefs and probably by others, the occasions and persons using rattles were not explained. That some men were regularly drummers, as others were song leaders, is suggested by the fact that informants identified the man with the drum in the picture of Tł'UknaAdi guests at the Sitka potlatch in 1904, even though his face was hidden (pl. 211t). This man was Teet Milton, (1878–1920, Ka’u or Detun), a Teqwedi man then (?) married to a Tł'UknaAdi wife, the daughter of Daknaqin. Was he with the Tł'UknaAdi guests as a nakani? Was it customary for the nakani to beat the drum?

The old houses were admirably adapted as theaters because the spectators sat on one or more raised benches around the walls, and still more could watch from the high shelf above the sleeping rooms. If the bench had been partitioned off in any way to make sleeping places, the curtains or boxes were all cleared away to accommodate the crowd. Modern houses lack such benches, but in the latter “they always make a platform. They always build it that way, every time they have a potlatch. Seating place about three feet high, just temporary, every time they going to have a potlatch…. Make it look like olden days.” In front of the platform were rows of benches, chairs, and pillows.

At preliminary parties the hosts usually put on a show of some kind to impress their guests. The latter were feasted, and this might involve feats of gluttony. The guests then danced to express their thanks. The two groups “danced against each other,” taking turns. The order of events at these parties may never have been fixed, and in more recent years, as the whole potlatch sequence became shortened, there was evidently a simplification of the preliminary ceremonies. All this makes it difficult for us to reconstruct what was done at an earlier period.

Thus, of the preliminaries to the Teqwedi potlatch at Situk in 1905, I was told only that on the day the guests arrived: “There was a big party that night. After the dancing and performance, everybody eats.” (MJ) Apparently the potlatch itself began the following day.

Except for the women who danced and the men who took part in special exhibitions (pp. 627–629), I believe that none of the hosts wore fancy or ceremonial costumes, reserving their crest hats, headdresses, crest blankets and other heirloom accouterments for the potlatch itself. While I know that the guests were elaborately dressed for the feasts and dances after the potlatch and was told that they wore their fine beadwork and ceremonial garb every time they danced, there was no specific information given about their appearance at the party or parties before the potlatch. In southeastern Alaska, where the guests might be expected to eat or drink oil until they vomited as a way of honoring their hosts, they could hardly have been expected to wear their finery and must have worn ordinary clothes. Probably the feasting came first, and then the guests retired to dress and returned to dance. Swanton (1908, pp. 439–441) indicates, however, that the guests came to the feast in costume, danced into the house, and apparently ate some of the food “wearing their valuable hats,” and danced between courses. However, there were also eating contests, and “In these various sports the people threw grease on one another and all over the floor.” Perhaps for this they set aside their best clothing, and resumed it again for the dances. I imagine that the same doffing and donning of costumes was also done at Yakutat.

There must in fact have been considerable shifting of places, because dances by one group of guests were usually given on one side of the house which had been specially cleared, while the audience, hosts and other guests, moved to the otherside to watch (see also p. 642).

Singing and Dancing by the Guests

For entering the house where they were to be entertained, the guests had special songs. They sang a “walking song” (An'At da ciyi, ‘walking along song’), while marching to or through the door (hIt kAwUł da ciyi, ‘house doorway song’); and entered to a “dancing song” (ł’e da ciyi, ‘dance song’). After the feasts, and probably between courses, there was also dancing by the guests to express their appreciation, but each side had to be careful not to sing and dance more than four times, for such ostentation might provoke the rival guests to a fight. It was on these occasions that foreign songs were used—Atna, Southern Tutchone, or Tsimshian—and foreign dances were especially featured. Two rival guest groups also repeated their peace songs to each other's sib-children, although I do not know exactly when these were sung.

As one informant explained: “The Indians always sing a song when they’re walking. That's why we call them walking songs. Then when they have a potlatch, first one going in the door, they have to dance into the house…[Suppose you invited them into this house:] They get together in the tribe's house [i.e., the guests assemble in a house of their own sib?, or where they are visiting?]. They start singing, walk into this door, then they end it. [That's the walking song.] Then they dance into the house—another special song for it. Then after they get in, four popular songs—’fun, good time,' sAgU. Four of them…. always four.”

During the feast, there was singing by the guests of “sitting down songs” (qín da ciyi; cf. Boas, 1917, p. 164, q‘é, ‘to sit’ plural). These were also of non-Tlingit origin. After the party the guests danced out of the house to the same walking song which they had sung for entering.

Except for the peace songs, all the others that were sung by the guests were termed “popular songs” (łAdjú ci), not because they were popular in our sense, I believe, but because they were not the copyright of any sib or any individual. They were all apparently of non-Tlingit origin. Thus, the Kwacqwan and ałyI-Kagwantan use Copper River Atna songs and dances, and occasionally a Chugach Eskimo one. The TłukwaAdi and CAnkuqedi use Alsek River songs, some with Southern Tutchone Athabaskan words, others with Tlingit words; and the Dry Bay Tł'UknaAdi and Kagwantan do the same. When invited to southeastern Alaska, however the Tł'UknaAdi from Yakutat and Dry Bay will use any songs or dances typical of Yakutat, such as Atna or Chugach ones. The Teqwedi use Tsimshian songs and dances when they are guests at Yakutat, but when invited to Dry Bay might also use an Atna song. Thus, the “Steamboat Walking Song”, introduced to Yakutat by the ałyI-Kagwantan in 1905, was sung by the Teqwedi when they were guests at Dry Bay in 1909. Swanton (1908, pp. 442–443) reports that the Sitka guests to Klukwan “’left a dance' in that place, to show respect for their hosts” just before they went home, so this may be one way in which such dances are exchanged. The Sitka Kagwantan at Dry Bay evidently had at least one Tsimshian dance song; S’ełtin's Marriage Song (1954, 3-1-B, p. 1226; Swanton, 1909, p. 401, Song 47).

FIGURE 70.—Positions of hosts and guests at a potIatch given by the Kwacqwan to the Kagwantan and Teqwedi. H, Host chief by the door to welcome guests. X, “grandchildren” of hosts. SL, positions of guest song leaders. P, main house posts. (From a sketch by Harry K. Bremner.)

Although most of the walking songs and dancing songs which were recorded were associated in the minds of informants with the parties after the potlatch, they were also used at the preliminary feasts and may be mentioned at this time. A Kwacqwan walking song (pp. 240, 1226, Reel 7-2-A), for example, is supposed to have been used by their ancestors when coming across the ice from Copper River. “They had a feather in each hand as they were marching along…. When our tribe sings this song, the men and women are in a line and they move backward and forward, moving both hands to left and right.” (See also pp. 240, 1226; 1954, 4-1-B.)

When they pause at the door of their host's house, the Kwacqwan may sing a “resting song,” originally sung by their ancestors when they rested on a prairie during their terrible journey (pp. 240, 1227; 1954 7-2-B). Feathers are held in the hands and the movements when singing are: “Move the knees from side to side, but we don’t move our feet. We dip twice on each side, and move our hands in time [across the chest from side to side with arms bent at right angles to the body]. Your knees goes with your hands. It's just like the wind goes.”

Another “popular song” used by the Kwacqwan for dancing is the Spear Song originally used by their Raven ancestors at Chitina on the Copper River when they danced against guests from an enemy village up the river. (See p. 899.)

Some “sitting down” or dance songs of the CAnkuqedi and TłukwaAdi and other Dry Bay groups are supposed to have been the songs originally sung by the TłukwaAdi Athabaskans after they had successfully passed under the ice bridge over the Alsek River when returning from their yearly trips to the interior (p. 87; 1954, 3-1-C; 6-2-D; 6-2-E; p. 1230).

Swanton (1908, pp. 439–440) mentions that individual guests at the preliminary feasts gave dances or performances imitating animals or foreign peoples, and McClellan (1954, pp. 82–83) has pointed out how the relative geographical situation that determines with which foreign groups alliances are made in trade and intermarriage also suggests which ones are to be imitated in songs and shows.

A foreign performance of this kind was the “Aleut” (Chugach Eskimo) dance performed at Sitka by Jack Ellis (1892–1952) when he was a small boy. This was probably the potlatch of 1904, for his picture was identified among the Tł'UknaAdi guests from Yakutat (pl. 211a). At this potlatch there were also anAtedi from Chilkat. Although Jack Ellis was one of the youngest in his group his dance was so successful that the anAtedi chief wanted to take him back to Klukwan to marry him to his daughter, a high-class Kagwantan girl. The boy refused because he was only about 12 years old and was homesick.

“When he was a little boy, he used to have some play or something. That's when they saw him dancing like that [so they] took him down to the dances. He was imitating a man drowning, trying to push away the things that was going to eat him…. Something like shark tried to attack him…. He imitated a person who drowned.”

Another imitative dance described to me was a (solo?) performance representing an Athabaskan hunter and a lynx. It was performed in southeastern Alaska by Jack Reed (1880–1952), a Tł'UknaAdi man who was born in Sitka but had married a Yakutat woman. I do not know whether this dance was given when he was a guest or a host, although it seems to have been like the imitative dances performed by Chilkat guests at Klukwan in 1899 (Swanton, 1908, pp. 439–440). We should also note that he appears among the guests at the Sitka potlatch in 1904 dressed in Athabaskan costume, very similar to that which he described (pl. 210f). According to his account, he wore dancing gloves or mits, face paint, a beaded headband with feathers (Unana axw, 'Athabaskan hat’), and a band of white rabbit fur across his chest. He carried an arrow about 4 feet long, to which eagle feathers were attached. In this dance, which he had learned from the Southern Tutchone, and which was accompanied by two songs, the lynx smells the bait, approaches the trap, is caught in it, and is finally shot by the hunter. The dance was also performed at Yakutat in 1936 at a show in the ANB Hall to raise money for that organization. Possibly this was not a solo dance, as I had understood, because in the photograph he is with four Raven women, two with guns and two with slender feathered wands (pl. 216).

Among the many Athabaskan songs used by the Dry Bay people was the Ptarmigan Dance Song (1954, 2-1-H; p. 1229). As the singer explained: “This is a unana song, belonging to Tł'UknaAdi. It's called eAwa ł’eE [’ptarmigan dance’]. When the Teqwedi invite the Tł'UknaAdi to the potlatch, men, women, and kids all dance. They wear white clothes with down feathers on their heads and arms and hold long white feathers in their hands. It's a fast one. All go up and down like ptarmigan.” This may well have been a “popular song,” not owned by any sib, since the singer was CAnkuqedi.

I have no way to distinguish the dances which may have been given by the guests before the potlatch from those performed by them during the four days of feasting after the potlatch. However, the second period of dancing was much more important at Yakutat than the first, and may therefore have included more spectacular dances.

The women guests at a potlatch made cries like those of their totem animal or bird. For example, the Raven women, particularly the Kwacqwan, are called ‘Crow women’ (tAxweł-ca). “You know, when we’re in a party, Kwacca always make noise like that—like those little Crows…. Tł'Uknaca always make noise like big yeł [Raven]. Teqwca make noise like Wolf. CAnkuqca, I never hear them make noise. TłUkwaAdi-ca just make noise like that Kwacca…. [They] make noise when they’re invited to potlatch. Kagwantan-ca make noise just like Teqwca—Wolf.”

“At a potlatch Ravens say ‘yA!' Eagles whistle ‘hwiiii!' ”

Feasting

In southeastern Alaska, as already mentioned, it was customary at the feast before the potlatch to serve embarrassingly large amounts of food or oil which the guests were honorbound to consume if they could. Swanton (1908, pp. 436–437, 439–441) has pointed out that this was often staged as a contest between two guests; or the hosts might force a man to eat until he vomited, partly for a joke, and partly to retaliate for a reported boast, or what the hosts chose to regard as a slighting remark. However, all guests distinguished in this way were specially rewarded at the potlatch, so that the atmosphere was one of “great fun.” In recent years, however, among the northern Tlingit of southeastern Alaska, the hosts still serve great quantities of seal blubber, for example, and reward the unusual guests who are able to swallow it all, but they also provide buckets into which the majority can unobtrusively slip what they cannot consume. Whether or not there were ever contests or ordeals of gluttony at Yakutat, I do not know, but my informants' accounts suggest only the gentler interpretation of recent Tlingit eating contests.

For example, MJ reported: “In Gau hIt [Drum House], when my uncle [Ned Daknaqin] and aunt gave a potlatch, they had oelachen oil in a big horn spoon. They gave some to each person to gobble it down.” When asked if it didn’t make them sick: “No, they just pretend to drink…. They [the hosts] call the names [of the people] they’re going to give it to, and they [the recipients] say ‘Thank you—’ictłahaw.' ”

The hosts at Yakutat and Dry Bay also seem to have had enormous named feast dishes or food boxes like those which the more southern Tlingit set before their guests (p. 418). “My father used to have the biggest oil box there is. He has it for feasting when he's going to feast the opposite tribe. The name of that box was Wuctacaw[?], ‘Family [of] Brown Bear.’ When he built that house at Situk [Coward House], there was two or three kinds of grub in there, enough of it to go around to everybody. There was high-bush cranberries and mountain goat meat in tallow and bear meat and preserved strawberries. Talk about food!”

When Situk Jim feasted his guests at the potlatch for Bear House in memory of his father-in-law, there was also lavish food. “My sister put up lots of native food. Robinson, the cannery superintendent, hauled all the grub [to Situk for them]. He took a liking to my sister's husband…. There was a swamp behind my father's house full of swamp berries. They get potfulls of berries there. The young Teqwedi go to Arhnklin Glacier for mountain goat. My sister put that up for the potlatch. Everyone has to be prepared.” (MJ)

It was, I believe, at this feast before the potlatch that food was again put into the fire or into the water for the benefit of the dead, as was the practice of the Copper River Eyak. Among the latter, the host chief would also put the dead person's belongings one at a time into the fire, but these objects and the dishes in which the food was to be burned could be claimed by any of the guests. He would simply ask for what he wanted and give the relatives of the deceased some useful object in exchange (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 170–171). A similar practice at Yakutat is suggested by the explanation given for the term, ’awAa, which seems to mean a memento which is ‘asked for,’ especially a trophy scalp (p. 585). “It's anything you [they?] give in a potlatch—-valuable stuff. They were going to throw it in the woods [on the grave?] or in the water [for the drowned?], and you spoke up and get it for nothing. ‘Grab’—you get it for nothing at a potlatch and later you pay for it…. When your turn comes, you got to pay it back…but not right away…. You give it back when your turn comes to give a potlatch. You got it in your mind all the time.” (MJ)

The food served to the guests always included the items which had been most enjoyed by the dead person for whom the potlatch was given. Thus, when the ałyI-Kagwantan Bear House was built in 1908 at Strawberry Point by Chief John and his nephew, “They had a little potlatch for it—just whiskey, because Chief John's uncle loved whiskey.”

Special Shows by the Hosts

At the preliminary parties before the potlatch the hosts usually scheduled a fancy performance. Thus, we see the Dry Bay Tł'UknaAdi in 1909 dressing their women in Japanese style, suggested by the Japanese sailors who had been wrecked at Dry Bay the year before (p. 645). It was probably on a similar occasion that the Sitka Kagwantan “adopted the Navy” and, in so doing, copied sailor clothes as potlatch regalia and displayed these for the first time. Unfortunately the informant's explanation of what occurred is not very clear:

“See, American got that Eagle. That's Kagwantan. That's why we adopt that sailors. All sailors, Navy, our brothers…. When they had a party in Sitka, always put on sailors' clothes…. Kagwantan's children say ‘’isAni-hAs [your father's brothers] is coming' when the Navy comes…. When they have party over there [at Sitka], big potlatch, we used to use Navy clothes.”

This costume was apparently first exhibited in Sitka (before 1899) when four female slaves were freed, and guests from four different “nations” (sibs) from Chilkat and other tribes were present. The Navy is called yAnwa, and Kagwantan woman are yAnwa-ca. The informant believed that this potlatch was given in 1904, but it was evidently much earlier, for at the anAtedi potlatch at Chilkat in 1899, Swanton (1908, p. 440) reports that the Sitka Kagwantan were called “man-of-war's guests” (probably ‘man-of-war guests’). “The word for man-of-war, yê’nawâ, is simply a corruption of the English term.” This word seems to be applied particularly to Kagwantan women, yAnwa-ca, yEnwa-ca, or even wAnwa-ca, which makes it probable that the original display of Navy dress was by the women. In 1921, two young ałyI-Kagwantan women at Yakutat whose ears were pierced at a potlatch (see below, p. 637), were garbed in “Navy dress, with middy blouse. It's popular in Sitka. All Kagwantan-cawAt [woman] is sailor. I think during the war in Sitka, Kagwantan adopted the Navy, and the women are wEnwa-ca.”

While a number of “stunts” or displays of special costumes and dances were mentioned, it was usually impossible to determine whether they were staged by the hosts or by the guests, or whether they took place at the parties before or after the potlatch. Some may well have been offered by the hosts at the potlatch itself, as an exhibit of sib prerogatives or as an interlude from sorrow. Probably the assumption of a special costume or the performance of a special dramatic act, like the display of a crest, was first done by a group when they were hosts and, when thus validated, might be used again when they were guests.

Other foreign costumes, like Athabaskan costume, or the wide-brimmed hats ornamented with beaded fringes which were “captured from the Russian Navy,” seem to have been free for any sib at Yakutat to adopt, for they were worn by Raven men and women at Sitka in 1904, and by Teqwedi men at Yakutat in 1916 (pls. 210–212, 214).

Swanton (1908, p. 435; 1909, pp. 388–389) indicates that dramatic performances, some of which illustrated or symbolized sib crests, were given in connection with a potlatch, but he is never very explicit as to what might be staged by the hosts and what by the guests. Unfortunately the account which is most detailed refers to the “feast” which would be given when a pole or grave marker had been erected. This was evidently a minor one-evening ceremony for those who had worked on the grave, given either as a preliminary to a subsequent full-scale potlatch or as a substitute for it. The ceremony was described by Chief Katishan of Wrangell. During this feast, but before the guests were paid, the host's nephew staged a secret society performance, like those copied from the Tsimshian (and derived ultimately from the Kwakiutl). Some of these acts were imitations of animals. Performances of this sort were evidently rather common at Wrangell among the Southern Tlingit, but there was only one man at Sitka who had been initiated. There is no evidence that such southern secret society demonstrations were ever adopted at Yakutat as part of the ceremonies of the potlatch, although we cannot reject the possibility.

What may have been originally a secret society stunt was used for a show in the ANB Hall in 1936. I have no record that it was ever used in a potlatch, although it was purchased some years ago in southeastern Alaska. It was a trick in which one man appeared to shoot another so that the blood spurted out. As explained by the principal performer:

“We bought that trick from southeastern Alaska, with three songs to go with it. My uncles bought it from Peter SIkan (Raven). SIkan taught me alone. I inherit it. I am only one can use it. My partner [Willy Brown, deceased Kwacqwan of Owl House] was afraid for me to shoot him, but he shoot me…. I open my shirt and the arrow is sticking in my skin. I hold it up and show it to the people.”

At the hypothetical Wrangell ceremony, after the feasting but before the guests were paid, three shows were staged, the first by the hosts and the others by the two groups of guests. One of these (presumably that given by the hosts) featured the appearance of a masked man who was introduced as a dead uncle, come back to see the people after being “captured” by a UnaqAdét (wealth-bringing water monster), by a grizzly bear, or by a wolf—in this case all crests of the host's sib. “The persons with these masks on are all supposed to be yks (i.e., supernatural beings)” (Swanton, 1909, p. 389). Masked performances were apparently featured at Tlingit potlatches, for “Masks were used in the shows (îkteî’) which each clan gave at a potlatch, but were not valued as highly as the crest hats and canes” (Swanton, 1908, p. 436).

Again, while I know that masked performances were given at Yakutat, I learned little about the details. The masks themselves have already been mentioned (p. 444). Apparently Ned Daknaqin, Teqwedi head of Drum House, wore the Eagle Mask, when he was host at a potlatch and paid the carver, B. A. Jack, head of the Kwacqwan Owl House. He would seem to have been impersonating the crest bird of his sib or moiety. A photograph of a group of CAnkuqedi in ceremonial regalia, obviously posing as hosts for some kind of funeral celebration in Thunderbird House (1918 or 1921), include one CAnkuqedi woman wearing a mask (pl. 215). This she described as a “dancing mask” for an Athabaskan dance (unana ł’eE). The other mask like a human face was simply described as a “dancing mask” used by the Teqwedi (pl. 157), and the copper mask like a bear's face may not have come from Yakutat. On the basis of this slender information, we might hazard that masks were worn by the hosts at a potlatch or similar occasion. At Eyak potlatches, a man from each moiety wore a mask representing his moiety crest bird, Raven or Eagle (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 172).

Apparently some of the masks used for dances at Yakutat and Dry Bay represented spirits, and some dances were staged so that the body of the performer was hidden by a blanket with only his head visible. This is the way the hosts at Angoon may exhibit a prized crest hat. When this type of dancing was described to a Yakutat informant, she told me: “Lots of people dance that way, behind a blanket. I saw Teet Milton [Teqwedi, 1888–1920] with a mask dance behind a blanket. It was a yek [spirit] mask. I don’t know the name of the yek. At one potlatch someone danced a yek dance. He danced like a woman holding an eagle tail. The yek was…gudAkan cawu, ‘people [women] from behind the clouds.’” The dancer was Lituya Bay George, akA’ayi sib, (1854–1926), and the spirit was one that had belonged to an ancestor, probably his mother's father (see “Shamans,” p. 713), although I was unable to secure further details.

On the whole there is the suggestion that these dramatic performances, masked dances, and stunts were given at Yakutat by the hosts at a potlatch, possibly during a preliminary feast when the guests were welcomed, or as part of the display of sib prerogatives and heirlooms during the potlatch proper, when the hosts sang and brought out the wealth they were to give away.

Cries made both by hosts and guests at potlatch ceremonies imitated those of their totemic bird or animal, but nothing specific was learned as to when they were uttered. Possibly they might be given at any stage of the proceedings. Among the Eyak, the hosts made animal cries, Eagle, Raven, or Wolf, when they wanted their guests to dance (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 172). We know of the southeastern Alaskan Tlingit that the cry of the sib animal or bird was uttered when the host chief appeared from a rear room of the house clad in his finest regalia at the beginning of the potlatch proper. This was the signal for sacrificing one or more slaves (Krause, 1956, p. 164). We also know that the “a!” of a Raven, if uttered by a Raven host wearing an heirloom hat, could stop his guests from quarreling, and appropriate cries could be made by hosts of the opposite moiety under similar occasions. We may also surmise that animal cries might accompany animal impersonations.

THE POTLATCH PROPER

The Hosts

The potlatch proper was the one-day or two-day ceremony in which the hosts mourned their dead and gave to their guests, thereby paying the latter with the material aspect of the wealth, while the deceased received its spiritual counterpart. During this part of the ceremonial sequence the hosts performed almost exclusively, for if the guests sang it was only by request. The latter wore ordinary clothes, while the hosts donned their most elaborate costumes, especially those with sib crests, the named heirlooms which belonged to the lineage or to the sib as a whole. The ceremony afforded opportunities for displaying the crests and sib prerogatives in innumerable forms; in the house itself, in the names assumed by the host or given to his male juniors, in the regalia worn or otherwise displayed, in the particular songs which traditionally accompanied the exhibition of certain heirlooms, and in speeches. References in songs to geographical features, such as mountains or rivers, or their symbolic portrayal as crests on sib regalia such as the Kwacqwan Mount Saint Elias Blanket and Shirt, or the Drum House Teqwedi Ahrnklin River Blanket, also served to reiterate rights to sib territories acquired by long-dead ancestors. The potlatch was, above all, the occasion for the almost unrestrained expression of personal grief, as each member of the host group spoke about his or her own bereavement, while all were united in weeping for their common ancestors.

These traditional sib songs, whether referring to the dead or to crests and the ancestor's adventures, are in Tlingit, unlike the marching and dancing songs used by guests at the feasts. However, the CAnkuqedi have in addition a few potlatch songs which they were given by the Aiyan Athabaskans at Fort Selkirk on the Yukon (p. 248; 1952, 4–1-A, a, b, c; p. 1173). The Kwacqwan also have a number of Copper River mourning songs. One of the latter, for example, was said to have been composed during the journey across the ice by a man who shot his younger brother by mistake, and would therefore be particularly appropriate in a similar situation. The words are in Atna (pp. 239, 240; 1954, 4–1–1, 7–2-C; p. 1155).

To sing this last song is very expensive, for much wealth must be given away. “All the tribe stands, men and women together. The whole tribe just moves back and forth. The men and women sing together…. The men sing a bass and a tenor, and the women sing high and low, too. The four voices are singing all at the same time.”

Such four-part singing is common at Yakutat. The Atna words for this song: “My little brother, where are you? Come back to me!” are typical of the Atna “worry songs,” composed for Copper River potlatches.

Other mourning songs which date certainly from the middle of the last century if not earlier are Wuckika's songs for her brothers who were drowned in Lituya Bay (p. 274); the lament for the Crane Canoe (p. 274); the Kagwantan lament for those slain by the CAtqwan (p. 281); and a Kwacqwan song for a drowned man (1954, 7–2-H). The last is said to have been harmonized for two male and two female voices.

More ancient songs were probably the ałyI-Kagwantan's mourning song of the little Beaver (p. 254); the Teqwedi's Golden Eagle Song (p. 253); the songs supposedly composed by QakewtE, now sung by the Tł'UknaAdi (p. 271), and certain Raven songs (1952, 4–1-E; p. 848). Other ancient songs refer to the Raven Post (1954, 3–2-H; p. 1161), and to the Thunderbird Screen or Blanket (1952, 2–1-F; 1954, 5–2-E, and 5–2-F).

At Yakutat the potlatch itself began in the morning(?), sometimes on the day after the end of the preliminary feasts and dances. Swanton (1908, p. 441) indicates that it might begin a day or so later, the intervening period being devoted to the erection by the out-of-town guests of a new grave house or other monument to the hosts' dead. A new grave house for the bones of some shamans was constructed by the local CAnkuqedi in connection with the building of the Tł'UknaAdi Far Out House at Dry Bay (see pp. 644–646), and this was therefore connected with the potlatch given by Dry Bay Chief George in the new house, although the work was apparently not done at the time of the ceremony. My informants said nothing about interrupting the potlatch cycle for work on graves. They may have been accustomed to have such services performed in advance by the local unEt-kAnayi, rather than to ask the out-of-town guests to do it.

When the potlatch itself was to be held, the people were summoned with a drum. “Long ago they beat the drum through the streets to call the people together, invite them to the potlatch. They [also] beat the drum when they’re going to practice songs for the potlatch.” (MJ)

The host stood near the door of the house to welcome his guests (fig. 70). I believe that the nakani showed them to their places in the rear of the house. The men sat in rows across the back of the house, with the two principal rival chiefs side by side in the middle of the rear row, the lesser chiefs of each sib next to their leader. Other important old men were also on the rear row, but the young men sat in front. There might be four such rows, but if the guests were numerous the house might be filled as far forward as the fireplace in the center. The guest women were seated along the sidewalls next to their sib brothers. The two sib groups, however, were always on opposite sides of the house. When the Ravens were guests, for example, “they don’t mix the tribes. They don’t mix Tł'UknaAdi and Kwacqwan.”

The hosts always stood in the front half of the house, the women along the sidewalls next to the guest women, and the men across the front end of the house. The host chief was at the door, flanked by the other lineage heads of his sib, perhaps three on each side, who acted as his counselors or advisors (du ét yuAtÁngì). “Sometimes the chief next to him is smarter than him.” The chief also had a brother, or nephew, or sometimes an uncle, standing right behind him to prompt him if he “got stuck” and could not think of a suitable reply to a guest chief. Behind these dignitaries stood all of the men of the host moiety.

Slight variations in these arrangements might depend upon the size of the house in proportion to the number of guests. Thus at Bear House at Situk: “The hosts are by the door. My brother-in-law gives the party. His family is by the door to invite. The guests are in back, ladies on each side. When they start to potlatch, the Teqwca [hostesses] stand in back on the side [behind their seated women guests]. The Teqwedi men are by the door. The Teqwca dance [from time to time]. The Raven men sit in the back on pillows. The Teqwedi men got to stand. If they sit down, they are cowards.” (MJ)

There is no question but that endurance was required, both of hosts and guests, for the potlatch might last for 2 whole days and nights with only short breaks. The proceedings began apparently with a welcoming speech by the host chief, who would speak of his sorrow and the reason for the potlatch. An informant imagined that he was the chief:

FIGURE 71.—Positions of hosts and guests at a potlatch given by the Teqwedi for the Ravens at Bear House, Situk, in 1905. (From a sketch and description by Minnie Johnson.)

“Then I give eight songs. I start the song and all my people sing. These are old songs, potlatch songs, called ‘akitc [’its wing’?] or naga ci ['songs for the sib’]. They always talk between songs.”

The host and guests' chiefs, in fact, exchange speeches all the time, using language so esoteric and full of allusions to sib legendary history and myth that ordinary people could hardly understand their oratory.

The name (’akitc,) for these songs suggests that which was sung during a cremation (Swanton, 1909, p, 407, “ktcdacyî’’”) and also the eight songs with which ‘they danced the house together' (ibid., p. 336, line 4, “aod'wakîtc’’), mentioned in connection with what was discussed as a separate house-building feast (p. 608).

When these eight songs were ended:

“Then I call on my brother or my nephew to sing a song…. When he is finished he puts money on the table, [to stay] until everybody is finished. Then I call all the men and women in my tribe [sib], give each one a chance to sing a tribe song. He will say something to gunEtkAnayi before he sings…. He will start to sing and the rest of his people will help him. Each person tell how he feel—what happened to their relatives, if they’ve lost a brother or a mother. Even the poor men, they give them a chance. Everybody is equal to tell their story how they feel.”

In addition to calling on all of his own sib, a Kwacqwan host would also call on all the Tł'UknaAdi, “because they are Ravens, too, and all the Ravens want to help out.” This opportunity is given even to the Raven spouses of guests invited from far away. “Everybody. Even the small children…. You’re supposed to help. All Ravens supposed to help.”

“That's why it sometimes takes two nights—so everybody gets a chance and everybody is satisfied. They begin in the morning and go on all day and all night. If it's a big tribe it might last for 2 nights. They don’t stop. All stay there until they’re finished. Nobody leaves and nobody eats.

“Sometimes the invited chief speaks up, asks for excuse or recess to go out. He asks the host chief to move out of the way. If he's speaking to me, he will say, ‘Would the Raven step out of the way?) [If the host were Teqwedi he would be addressed as the Bear.] The host chief always says, ‘No!' but he don’t mean it.[90] The other chief doesn’t ask again, but after a while the host chief gives a recess. He says. ' ‘iAnat ‘awa nuqw—I’ll move out of your way.' And everyone goes out. In about half an hour they come back. The people giving the potlatch stand in the doorway. They never sit down.”

SINGING

The host chief is master of ceremonies. He is the one to “look after the songs. He's looking after the whole thing, the chief when he's giving a potlatch…. Each person has to sing.” The chief calls on all by name, beginning with the most important men and women.

“If I’m one of his tribe, he's going to mention my name…. My big name [honorable or potlatch name], ‘gucwà ‘Étc !' [’All right, it's by-you’]—and he mentions my name. “It's up to you,——.” Then I always say a word to these people, which ones we invited. If I don’t know what to say…I tell him…The chief do the talking for me. Then I start a song, my tribe's song. And after I ended that one song, I put up the money. Nakani looks out for it, always put in one place, dish, or box or anything. The next person, same thing…. They always sing tribe song.”

When one person starts a song, “everybody, the whole tribe is singing, woman and man. Sometimes the opposite tribe help, too. [If a person can’t sing when called on, he] mention the song, and somebody sing it for them, if he don’t know how. Chief always helps. That's what the chief there for.”

While new mourning songs might be composed for a potlatch, each person who proposed a song was expected to choose an appropriate one from those already in the repertoire.

“There's a song composed if you lost your brother. That's a song you’re going to sing. It's already composed. There's so many songs. If I lost a mother, there's already song composed about it. Suppose I lost my sister, there's already song composed about it, so many years ago…. They had so many songs…some of them pretty sad. Somebody got shot and killed…a brother drown…song's already there, so you wouldn’t get stuck…. They always practice, so many days, sometimes so many months [before the potlatch]. How they practice—the chiefs always have a meeting, lots of meetings. And if I’m going to sing a song, I ask my chief, ‘Is it all right if I sing this song? I lost my brother.' Maybe he said, ‘No, I got a better one than that.' Maybe he says, ‘Yes.’’’

These “tribal songs” (naga ci 'songs about the sib,’) are traditional songs belonging to the sib. Many are mourning songs (tuwunukw da ciyí, 'sad songs’; yA-dAłI-ci, ‘heavy songs’; or tuwunik dat cí, 'songs about one's feelings’). These were supposedly composed and sung for the dead (or by the dying) in the legendary past or a generation and more ago. Other sib songs which are sung at potlatches refer directly to incidents in sib legends, often those concerned with the acquisition of a crest, the Raven sibs drawing upon the myths of the Raven cycle for this purpose. Such songs may be called ‘ancient songs' (takw ci). The words of such songs referring to myths may not themselves be sorrowful, but, like the ancient mourning songs, the rhythms are heavy and slow, the tunes solemn, and the songs as a whole are felt to be sad because of their association with so many potlatches and so many dead singers. To judge by the floods of tears which such songs now inspire, I gather that the potlatch was punctuated by violent weeping. However, even those most afflicted did not cry all the time. “No, they just feeling sorry when they talk. After they sing a song and put up the money, it's all over then. Then another one coming up—same way.” The chiefs who spoke, however, were supposed to be able to control their emotions, for I heard criticism of one man as a speaker at funerals because he always wept.

Songs were accompanied with drums of tambourine type with a deerskin head. Sometimes sib crests were painted inside the head where they would not be worn off by beating. Such is the drum carried by Teet Milton at the Sitka potlatch in 1904. The Raven Drum (yeł gau) of the Kwacqwan was photographed at Yakutat in 1949 (pl. 166). The painting inside the drumhead shows a Raven sitting on a rock (symbolized as a head), with two humpback salmon below, to represent the Humpback Salmon Stream (Kwac) with the big rock under which the fish swim. For certain songs a big wooden drum was used. This was made like a box with a single bent plank of cedar wood for the side, open at one end, “just big enough for a hand to go inside and beat it” (MJ). It was hung by a rope from the ceiling. Such drums were decorated with sib crests on the sides. All decorated drums were named.

A wooden box drum was purchased at Yakutat by G. G. Heye in 1938 (pl. 165), and may be the Moon Drum (dIs gau), formerly owned by Kayak Tom (Detłen, Kactan-’ic, of Moon House). This drum stands a yard high and is decorated on both sides with almost identical designs representing the Owl, with eyes of abalone shell, painted within what I interpret to be the disk of the full moon. The Teqwedi's Killerwhale Drum (kit gau) originally belonged to Chief Shakes of Wrangell (p. 459) and is now in the Portland Art Museum (pl. 164). The figure of the Killerwhale is painted in red and black on each side in a circle. On top of the drum is a fine carving of the dorsal fin, inlaid with opercula and eight tufts of human hair. On each side of the fin is carved a human figure seated on a human head. This is the man “Na-ta-see” who befriended a killerwhale that was stuck on a rock, and who in turn was rescued by it when marooned by former friends. The design, painted in red, black, green, and white represents the man being carried safely to the mainland by the killerwhale. This fin is detachable (pl. 144).

Rattles were not used for the solemn songs, except that occasionally, in memory of a dead shaman, his spirit song might be sung and in such a case his rattle would be used to accompany it. As shamanism gradually became obsolete, the singing of spirit songs seems to have become more common at potlatches and at funerals. Thus, the Tsimshian song of the Children of the Sun spirits, used by the Teqwedi shaman, Te-’ic, was sung at the death of Jim Kardeetoo, who should have inherited his powers (1954, 6–1-A; p. 718). A Kwacqwan spirit song, attributed to Daxodzu who foretold the arrival of the Russian ships, and which is preceded by the Owl cry when sung, is now called a “national song” by the Kwacqwan, meaning that it is a sib song used at potlatches (1954, 7–2-E; pp. 712–713).

New songs are, of course, made and sung at potlatches and eventually come to be considered as sib songs. Such a song is that composed by Dry Bay Chief George for his potlatch of 1909 to commemorate relatives who had drowned. Freely translated the words are:

“It was your fault, O World, that made me so much sorrow.

“I wish you (my relatives) could hear my voice, sorrowing, so you would come back alive, as happened in ancient days.” (1952, 1–1-A; p. 1162.)

Sometimes a composer's own song was sung in his memory, and it is not unusual on such occasions to ask his children—who would be, of course, among the guests—to sing it, for which they would receive special gifts. Or, guests might be requested to sing a song of their own, if there were one considered appropriate. For example, at the funeral “party” or potlatch planned for Mrs. Jenny Kardeetoo (Tłé’àn, 1872–1951), an important Kwackqwan woman, it was planned to ask the Teqwedi to sing the song which was supposedly composed by the Sitka men threatened with shipwreck. They had broken a taboo connected with getting blue paint (1954, 6–1–I; p. 1165; cf. Swanton, 1909, Tale 17, p. 46, for words of the song). These Teqwedi men were facing death bravely, so the rendering of this song would doubtless be heartening to the dead woman's children, since their father had been Teqwedi. “Whenever they [Teqwedi] feel bad, lose best man for Teqwedi, they always sing that song.”

Phonograph records of songs recorded in 1952 and 1954 have also been played at recent “potlatches,” and in one case a guest was paid $4.50 for playing one on his machine.

DANCING

Dancing accompanied the singing of the hosts. This was done primarily by the host women, who wore long swinging earrings (gukw tłen) made of beads strung or tied on with red yarn. Their faces were painted with designs associated with the sib crest, sometimes applied by means of a wooden stamp. They wore blankets, usually the button blankets of blue serge with red borders, although some had Chilkat blankets. Blankets were apparently considered essential for dancing, because in telling about an impromptu dance, a woman said: “We didn’t have blankets, but we used our coats, and we put bands around our hair and struck flowers in like feathers.” Host women might wear a silk kerchief and a Hudson's Bay Company cockade, or the wooden headdress (cAki'At). Usually their husband's sisters or father's sisters (or the latter's daughters) were called upon to robe and paint them, for which services they were paid at the potlatch. Slaves who assisted in attiring the family of a chief were freed.

Because of the crowded floor, dancing was done largely with the body and arms, but without moving from the spot. Young men, even small boys, of the host sib danced from time to time in CAki'At, the headdress with the square masklike plaque above the forehead depicting the sib totem. The songs to which they danced were Tlingit songs addressed to sib-children, but called ‘Haida mouth songs' (Dekina a ciyi), because they were supposed to be in the same rhythmic style as Haida love songs or dance songs. “Mostly Haida have CAki'At and dance with it to songs like these,” and the Tlingit utilize such songs and dances as special potlatch features. The livelier rhythm is supposed to be like “jitterbugging.”

One song of this type, composed by Skin Canoe George, (eyegatqín, 1855–1900), chief of Drum House, has for the first stanza: “Why is the Wolf crying on the beach? Go to Teqwedi-children, they’ll weep with you.” The second stanza apparently asks: “Kagwantan-children, give me your hand before I die.” I was told that when a song like this was first composed, the composer would sing it at a potlatch, just for fun, as a relief from crying. This song had been sung in that manner, while the composer's little nephew danced to it, presumably in a CAki'At. Then the uncle paid money to the nakani, although he did not give his nephew a new name.

“Little boys dance when the Teqwedi give a potlatch. Mostly when the tribe have a potlatch, they call out the good dancer. We want our guests to see our young men dance.” This apparently occurs as a pleasant intermission between the singing of sad songs and weeping, and is flattering to the guests who are addressed as children of the host moiety.

Now that the composer of the song is dead, his surviving nephew will sing it in his memory before putting up money at a potlatch, but there will probably be no dancing.

Another man commented on dancing in a CAki'At:

“You have to have a strong back to dance with that. The way they dance, they supposed to imitate a halibut flopping. That's how come they land on their knees and bend back and almost touch the floor. They bend backwards and forward. The feathers fly all over. You have to move fast…. [The feathers are] chopped down inside the hat [behind the crown of sea lion whiskers and flicker feathers].” This informant believed that this dancing was traditionally done on the bench (ta), although he had never seen an old-style house with a bench. “When they dance at a potlatch, he's dancing up there, and all they can see is that little feather [flicker feathers on the CAki'At?] when he sit down. That's the most important part of the dance, when they sit down. ‘Just the feathers on his head they could see' [I missed the Tlingit phrase]. That's when he bends down in the dance.”

I gather that the type of dance performed was the same, even though the figures carved on the headdress varied with the sib. Photographs (pls. 62, 210–215) show women, little children, and even Chief Minaman (”Yen-aht-setl”) wearing these headdresses, and since the wearer may have a rattle in his hand, I believe that the rattle accompanies this dance.

Wooden hats or helmets, surmounted with the totem of the sib, were also used for dancing. “They dance with it, just like CAki'At,” said one informant, referring to a Kagwantan Killerwhale Helmet, reported to have been sold to the “Indian Affairs Office in Juneau.” (See pl. 215c.) I believe that this statement refers to the exhibition of the helmet by the hosts at a potlatch, rather than to the type of dance performed by the wearer. For example, at Angoon in southeastern Alaska, a comparable wooden hat, the Beaver Hat of the Decitan, was worn at a potlatch in 1949 by a young woman who danced behind a blanket so that only the hat was visible, moving like a swimming beaver.

There are traditional songs (and perhaps dances) that are supposed to accompany the exhibition of each sib heirloom of this kind: hat, helmet, blanket, drum, and so forth. Sometimes the chief himself displays the emblem or calls on his nephew to do so, and sometimes he calls on his paternal grandchild. The greater the importance of the object displayed and of its song, the more wealth would be contributed when it was shown, and this in turn enhances the value of the object and the prestige of the sponsor and of the junior who exhibits the crest. Even a house screen may have its song, as, for example, one composed by Dry Bay Chief George for the Frog Screen installed in his house in 1909 (1954, 2–2-A, 6–2-A; p. 1164).

“From out of the fishtrap wings at the head of the river, the frogs begin to emerge. Inside the wings, indeed, they make a noise. On account of the visitors [the fish], they make a noise.

“Within my reach almost to the beach they came. My last uncle by accident fell in. Already I give up.” (Free translation.)

The most important exhibitions of crest objects and of young people to be honored apparently took place at the end of the singing, when the chief offered the last group of eight songs, and put up the last and largest amount of wealth. I gather that some of the songs (at this time?) might be about the wealth which was shortly to be given away. Of this type was the song composed by Situk Jim for his potlatch in Bear House.

“In some parts they wrap calico around someone who dances. Situk Jim composed the kit [Killerwhale] Song—’like kit corners up valuable things, like fish.' They sang it at that potlatch. All the Teqwca got long ear pieces (gukwtłen) [and danced to it]. It's a lively song and swaying dance.” (MJ)

Another spirited song introduced by the Teqwedi chief at the end when he makes his contribution of wealth is the song for the Killerwhale Drum (p. 632). The words of this song refer to the argument between Raven and ànùk (Petrel?), as to which was the older, an argument in which Raven was defeated (Swanton, 1909, p. 10). The Petrel (anuk), a bird of the Eagle moiety, is supposed to be addressing Raven, and mentions the Murrelet (tít), another Eagle moiety totem, in order to frighten Raven. The somewhat cryptic words of the song are:

“Were you born long ago, you Raven? They’re telling a myth about you. You want to be[?] Raven-at-the-head-of-Nass, you Raven. Your Murrelet will come ashore.” (1954, 5–1-D; 6–1-F; p. 1167.)

My informants were not sure about the meaning of these words, which are obviously of far less importance than the tune, which is a lively one, for two or three voices. At the end of each stanza, some of the singers will call out “hiii!” or “wuuuu!” or “hwiiii!”, perhaps imitating the sound of a killerwhale spouting. Such noises were compared by informants to the sib animal cries which warriors made when entering battle, or which anyone might utter when facing death.

When this song was rendered during the potlatch in Shark House in 1910, one of the best Teqwca dancers, a woman of 36, and a little ałyI-Kagwantan girl of 10 danced to it, in competition with one another to amuse the guests, since both were Tł'UknaAdi-children, and therefore joking relatives (p. 487).

It was customary to hire a member of the Raven moiety to beat the Killerwhale Drum, while the Teqwedi men sang and the Teqwca danced with paddles in their hands.

“When they sing this song, everbody get excited. All the people stand up and watch the dance…Teqwca dance to this song. They all like it, too. They all want to dance…. Everybody laugh and happy…. A kind of big man, he's the one start that song…. After that song finished, then he put up the money. Divide it up then.”

When the song was ended, the guests were paid.

Honoring Individuals

An important aspect of the potlatch was to increase the prestige of the host sib and to raise the social position of its individual members. For this reason, important persons tried to give as many potlatches as possible (p. 612).

“It takes eight feasts [potlatches] to make a chief…. When giving a feast they put a mark [tattoo] on the kid's hand. The father [later corrected to mother's brother] gives the feast…. You had eight feasts before you become a princess.” “It takes eight feasts to make a prince.”

These remarks refer to the highest rank and prestige attainable through potlatching, either on one's own behalf or for one's children, nephews and nieces, or grandchildren.

“If his father or uncle give a potlatch, so many potlatches, he's the one they call him ‘prince' or ‘princess.'…Eight is the limit, I think, for just one person.”

Here, as in so many instances, eight times represents completion and fulfillment because of an analogy with the “eight bones” of the body. Apparently no Yakutat chief or rich man had been able to achieve this record in potlatching, except the semilegendary atgawet, but Chief Shakes of Wrangell was mentioned as perhaps the only one who was able to do so.

Jim Kardeetoo (1862–1937), chief of the Bear House lineage of the Yakutat Teqwedi, apparently came very close to the full number.

“It's this way, those big names, it's Indian law—Big name, I can’t get it,” explained his adopted son. “My father can’t get that big name [atgawet] until he built his tribe house several times…seven times. Every 7 years he tear it down and rebuild it again and have a potlatch. So he can be a big man and get respect from other tribes. That's the time he got that name atgawet…. Five or six times he built that house; then he got that name.”

Like the original atgawet, the last holder of the name married a Kwacqwan woman, Tłe’an [Jenny], ałyI-Kagwantan's daughter, and is supposed to have acquired the wealth necessary for potlatching through the gifts of furs and the hunting privileges granted by his father-in-law. (This is, I suspect, attributing to the latter the experiences of his predecessor.) Kardeetoo also assumed the other titles of his earlier namesake: ‘Continually Crowding up on Top of One Another' (WuckAkéAdagwetc), and ‘Tears up the Water' (Hinieł’), both of which refer to the behavior of killerwhales (MJ and friend). His daughter reported that he had built five houses, and for three of the dedicatory potlatches invited people from Dry Bay and southeastern Alaska. An important man would not want too old a house, but after 5 or 6 years would tear it down and rebuild on the same site. His houses in the Old Village were Bear Den House, Shark House, Bear House, and Bear Paw House. His last house was Bear Paw House built at Lost River Landing in 1918 (fig. 10, p. 231).

Similarly, the Kwacqwan chief's title, Yaodaqet, supposed to be an ancient Atna name from the Copper River, was acquired through major potlatches connected with house building. Chief George, who died in 1903, had presumably potlatched several times before assuming it, as did in turn his younger brother, Moses, who potlatched for him in 1905. “After he built so many tribe houses, he got that name.”

On such occasions, the extremely honorable title or name which had been held in abeyance since the death of the last holder would be assumed by his successor. “Sometimes the big ones mention it out themselves, but [for] a small one like me, the big one gives out the name. Oh, you get so many names at a potlatch. My grandfather gave me a name every time they gave a potlatch, so they respect me.”

The many names borne by the leading Yakutat chief, Chief Minaman (1810–90), leader of the Teqwedi at Diyaguna'Et and Khantaak Island, are evident witnesses to his many potlatches (pp. 200–201).

A chief sponsoring a potlatch made a special point of giving names to his grandchildren, the children of his son, who were, as likely as not, members of a sib other than his own but in the same moiety. The chief would also give names to his sister's children, and to his sister's daughter's children, the last also counting as “grandchildren.” In addition to his actual grandchildren, a chief might give a name to anyone who was a sib-child of his son, but I suspect that he would select only those of rank to honor in this fashion. Anyone in the host's sib could name a sib-grandchild when it came his turn to speak. Even a woman, if she were noble and wealthy, might give a name to a “grandchild,” presumably to a brother's son's child, or to a brother's son's sib-child, but I do not know how often this was done. Since the value of the name given depended ultimately upon the wealth contributed when it was announced, the relatives of the rich chief obviously received the most honored names. Probably a poor person would not presume to give a name at all, unless it were one which he had himself received, for there is some uncertain evidence that an old person, who felt that he or she were no longer of much account, might pass on his own “potlatch name” to a younger one, in the hope that the latter could “do something for the tribe” (KDI). There is also some hint that the nephews and nieces of a chief would expect to receive honorable names when their uncle gave a potlatch, while persons of lesser rank would be more likely to get them from paternal “grandfathers” who were members of their own moiety but in another sib.

The “grandchildren” who were to receive names stood among the hosts at the front of the house all through the singing except when their sponsors called them forward to announce their names.

“Suppose it's my turn to sing song at potlatch. I got one, I do the talking. I’m going to call off any one of my grandchildren, like Minnie Johnson [a woman in another Raven sib, but the sib to which the speaker's grandchildren actually belonged]. I call her and she stand on that box [in front of the hosts, facing the guests], and I’m going to talk about her, for her respect, so people will respect.”

This would indicate that such naming might take place at any time during the period of singing, although I was also told that it occurred “after it's over,” presumably when the distribution of wealth was to be made. Very small children were not necessarily present at the potlatch, for one woman said: “I know when my mother and father came in, they wake me up in the morning and told me I got a new name. My sister got a new name, too.”

“All Tł'UknaAdi is grandson of Kwacqwan. And olden days, every time they have a potlatch, they give them high respect. They stand on a box and the chief talks about them—high respect, and they give them so many names…. Minnie Johnson, she's the granddaughter of Kwacqwan; she's Tł'UknaAdi…so she got so many names from Kwacqwan.” They “give her a name to make respect, to build her up higher than the other ones, so it couldn’t be lower…. I don’t know how many names she's got.”

“The chief is always the last one. He calls all his grandchildren. He's speaking all the time, but he's the last one to sing a song. Sometimes he sings about eight songs. Not one—eight.” Then he announces the new names of his grandchildren and puts on them his sib heirlooms, “a Chilkat blanket that used to be his uncle's, beadwork, anything.” The informant denied that there was any one type of inherited garment or regalia that was intrinsically worth more than any other kind, which contrasts with southeastern Alaska where crest hats and canes seem to have been most highly prized.

As far as I can tell, the honorable names given in this way to “grandsons” usually refer to the crest of the donor's sib, such as “[Thunder] Makes a Noise Above,” and “[Cloud] Holding the Rain,” given by the CAnkuqedi to a Teqwedi man, and both associated with the Thunderbird. “Strong Wind,” referring to the wind from Mount Saint Elias, was given by a Kwacqwan man to his grandson in the same sib. There are other men's names, also referring to totem animals or to natural phenomena used as crests, that are acquired in potlatches, although I do not know who bestows them. These are traditional names, but ones that seem to be kept within the sib; at least this is what my genealogies show and I have no record that they were given to “grandsons” outside the sib. The same is true of some honorable names for women. “Granddaughters,” however, usually receive a name specially coined for a particular potlatch, referring to the grave or to the house that was dedicated or to the potlatch itself. Thus, a Kagwantan woman received the name “Stands Beside It,” referring to a slave beside a copper, and a Teqwedi woman the name “Facing the Town,” referring to a tombstone; both names given by paternal grandfathers in their own sib. Two Kwacqwan women were named “One Never Tires of Looking at It,” and “It Never Decays,” the first referring to Whale House in Sitka, and the second to Frog House (location not specified); both names given by their Tł’uknaxAdi grandfathers. A Tł'UknaAdi woman was named “Visible from the Town,” referring to the tombstone of Bear Bit Billy, the Kwacqwan house chief. Occasionally a man might receive a topical name of this kind, such as “Inside the Town,” which had reference to a pile of tombstones, or a woman might get a name inspired by the crest animal of another sib, such as “Bites the Town,” a Thunderbird name given by the head of the Teqwedi Thunder (Thunderbird) House to a ałyI-Kagwantan “granddaughter.” A father-in-law might also give an honorable name to his daughter-in-law; Dry Bay Chief George named his son's wife, who was also Tł'UknaAdi, “Not Filled with Boards,” an allusion to the Frog Screen which was still unfinished at the time of his potlatch in 1909. Honorable names received in potlatches sometimes became the designations by which individuals were usually known, and a number of specially coined names given to “granddaughters” in other sibs have been inherited by their female descendants.

The potlatch was also an occasion when young people of the nobility had their ears pierced and their arms or hands tattooed. Such operations seem only(?) to have been carried out when the uncle or grandfather gave a potlatch, and were always performed by the unEtkAnai relatives of the young person. I was not told at exactly what stage of the ceremonies they rendered these services, although it must have been before the distribution of property. As already explained (p. 607), this was done at special potlatches in southeastern Alaska, and the same may have been the case of Yakutat.

One informant explained that if he were a rich chief of former days he would give a potlatch for his son's children. He is Kwacqwan, and the children are Tł'UknaAdi. He would give a big potlatch just for them, inviting many sibs and laying out a good deal of wealth in goods and money. Then the members of the opposite moiety would make a pair of holes in the children's ears. At the next potlatch he gave, another pair of holes would be added, until the limit of eight holes (in each ear?) was reached at the eighth potlatch. The children would then be “princes” and “princesses,” or ‘anyAdi.

The chief might do the same for his sister's children, and I have already mentioned that the nephew or niece of a rich man could also receive honor by dancing in a CAki'At, crest hat or helmet. I was also told of a potlatch (p. 467) in which an uncle announced that his niece never quarreled and gave $500 or $600 to the four members of the opposite moiety who had robed her for the potlatch. At the same or on a similar occasion, a slave was freed for an aristocratic woman who never quarreled. Such a method of ennobling is similar to that employed to wipe out the memory of a disgrace or of a physical defect, as when a slave was freed to forestall any possible derogatory remarks about the relative so honored (p. 473).

The children of the hosts, especially of the chief giving the potlatch, were also honored, even though they belonged to the opposite moiety. Children were, of course, much concerned with the reputation of their father and of their father's lineage and sib. A child's status depended upon the social position of the father, as well as upon that of the grandparents and maternal kinsmen. Children might shine, therefore, in their father's reflected glory. The father could also contribute to their prestige by assisting his wife when she was among the hosts at a potlatch, for a mother was expected to contribute in the names of her small children. “If I got children, for instance R—and E—,” said MJ, naming her adopted daughters, “when my turn comes to give away, I have to give away for each one of them in order to stand in for the people who's giving the potlatch.”

The informal assistance given by the husband to the wife could amount to a considerable sum, as when payment was made for piercing the ears of a child, or for tattooing the hand. In fact, the decoration of the child might be the real reason for the potlatch, as was the case of a “party” given in 1921 by a ałyI-Kagwantan woman to have the ears of her two daughters pierced. Because there were so few members of her sib at Yakutat, the mother assumed the role of a chief at potlatches, and this was why she sponsored this occasion, although it would have been customary for an uncle to have done so. This particular party was held in Far Out House in Yakutat (Tł'UknaAdi), rented for the occasion because the ałyI-Kagwantan's Wolf Bath House in the Old Village had already been sold. The choice of Far Out House may also have been a compliment to the girls' father, a Tł'UknaAdi man. The mother put up $2,000 for this party, and the CAnkuqedi and Teqwedi also made small contributions.

The two girls were dressed as “Navy women” (YAnwa-ca), in dresses with middy blouses made by Minnie Johnson, (Tł'UknaAdi) who was also a skilled dressmaker. They were seated on two trunks, each containing $500 in goods and cash, while the mother spoke about her dead uncles at Controller Bay, Strawberry Point, and Kaliakh River. “Not a real potlatch; it's a dance, but they talk like a potlatch.” The girls' ears were pierced by old Mrs. Joseph Abraham, Tł'UknaAdi, who was paid $30 or $35 for the operation, and each daughter received a pair of diamond earrings worth $98. One of the two daughters confessed that she had been frightened, but the old ‘anyAdi woman “fooled around with her ears,” while her mother explained how high-class they were, and she didn’t feel the actual piercing. Each girl was also given a gold pin in the shape of a Beaver, their sib totem, the design for which had been drawn by the Kwacqwan husband of one of them, and for which he was paid $50. The pins were made by a jeweler in Juneau. These ornaments were pinned on by a Kwacqwan woman, Mrs. Annie Johnson, the maternal aunt of this husband, who was also reckoned a “niece” of the young women because she was the daughter of their mother's mother's mother's brother (the chief, ‘Aaqudułu, of Beaver House at Okalee Spit, Controller Bay; see p. 714). I do not know how much this woman received. The mother had also wanted to have the two girls tattooed, but they objected.

In some way, not made clear, the father could also ennoble his children by having their ears pierced or their arms tattooed when he himself gave a potlatch. How he managed to pay the operators who were members of his own sib was not explained, so I can only note the following remarks of my informants. Thus, one believed that the Kwacqwan sons of atgawet were ‘anyAdi because their father had given eight potlatches for them, putting out money for them. She did not know what he had done—”maybe put tattoo on them, like my ears were pierced.” Another woman felt that to make his daughter a real ‘anyAdi, the father should have his own kinsmen tattoo the girl's arm or hand, and give them eight coppers for this service. “That's called nEkaduwucu [8] duda [around her] tei [stones, i.e., coppers] ‘idatiyi [you give to] UnEtkAnai.” The reference to eight coppers is, I believe, quite fanciful. Other informants (CW, etc.) interpreted the phrase as meaning that the potlatching should be done eight times, although the wealth would be called 'stones.’

The father also paid for having the hole for a labret cut in his daughter's lower lip. This was done when she was an adolescent. For example, MJ said that her mother's labret hole was cut by the latter's paternal aunt, and the girl's father (the operator's brother) “paid her a slave right there.” The labret was inserted “at a party.” The informant's own father wanted to have her mouth cut for a labret, but her mother would not allow it.

Swanton (1908, p. 434; 1909, p. 388) reports that piercings for labrets were not made at ordinary potlatches, nor at the feast for erecting a grave pole, although the girl's father would give away many blankets when it was done. He gives no further information of this point, and my informants said nothing about it. Probably the occasion was like the “potlatch” or “party” among the Inland Tlingit, which was given by a father to his own kinsmen when his daughter emerged from puberty seclusion, or when his child was born. These distributions made the young girl or the baby ‘anyAdi (information from Dr. McClellan).

If a practice of this kind had been followed at Yakutat it would explain how the father could be host to honor his own children, for at an ordinary potlatch it would be incongruous for a Tlingit to hire a member of his own sib to perform a service, even though it were for a child in the opposite moiety. However, I suspect that the fiction was devised whereby the payment appeared to come from the children's mother, who would be among the hosts, since there was a way whereby a husband could honor his wife by contributing in her name. Or, if the father were the host, payment may have gone to the spouses of the operators, since this practice was not uncommon when the person to whom the payment was actually due belonged to the wrong moiety to receive it (see below, p. 640).

Another way of honoring a person was to display him with the wealth that was to be given away. At Yakutat and Dry Bay, women of the hosts's sib might come out swathed in yards of cotton cloth or calico. “They make you stand up and get wrapped up [in it], and they give it away. But you don’t dance in it.” (MJ) However, at the Teqwedi potlatch in 1910, some of the people danced swathed in cotton cloth, and one female guest was given a piece of it large enough to make a housedress when it was torn up and given out. Swanton (1908, p. 442) reports that when blankets were being distributed at a potlatch, “…the host brought out his brother-in-law or his child and put him on the property before it was distributed. This was to make him high caste, for it would be afterwards said of him that so many blankets ‘were lost to see him.’”

Obviously to request a guest to perform during the potlatch, for example to beat the drum or to sing, was to honor him, and he also received extra payment. Even more honorable, perhaps, was to display the guest with one's own crest object. The children of adane of Coward House at Situk were distinguished in this fashion at the potlatch given in his memory when Coward House was built at the Old Village by his older brother, Jack Shaw-coo-kawn (Ca-kuwakan, 1831–99), and by the latter's son-in-law and nephew, Sitka Ned.

“Sitka Ned brought over two of my father's corner posts from Situk—the best he can do to remember my father…. [The posts were carved to represent a woman's face, the gAtan.] We sit on that. They make us sit on that—I and my sister [Mrs. Situk Jim] and my brother [Charley White]. They pay me for sitting on it…. [Sitka Ned] put them [the poles] in the house until the potlatch is over. I don’t know what became of it…. I guess it's buried in my father's grave…. I was over there when they fixed my father's grave, too. Charley and I got appointed to finish that job, too…. Gee, we got lots of potlatch blankets, money!…We get paid for sitting on that post. Fancy blankets, and calicoes, lamps, and everything, they give away at that potlatch. Even got a soft seat and pillow to sit on when the potlatch is going on. I was married then. I got $75 out of that potlatch, and all that fancy blankets—all kinds of stuff. Gee, they give away lots of money!” (MJ)

Paying the Guests

The climax of the potlatch was, of course, the distribution of property to the guests. In the period known to my informants this was in the form of money and of goods, the latter including Hudson's Bay Company blankets, cloth, silk kerchiefs, yarn, dishes, and baskets of native manufacture, but fancy blankets were most frequently mentioned and money was stressed. Although not part of the wealth used for payment, the hosts would provide so much food that the surplus would be given to the guests to take home afterward. Oranges, canned goods, milk, butter, and crackers were distributed in this fashion at a recent potlatch in Juneau attended by a Yakutat girl.

The guests were paid after the last songs proposed by the host chief had been sung. The distribution was made in two installments, or two rounds, hence the ‘medicine' used by a guest so that he would be rewarded twice. The first distribution seems to have been exclusively or largely in goods, and the second in money. Thus, at the Teqwedi potlatch for Bear House at Situk in 1905, “They got calico [and other things] around the fireplace. They give the calico first and then the money. The second night I had to sit on the floor. I got no sleep. They give away the money…. I got $20, fancy blanket, and calico.” (MJ) Apparently on this occasion, there was a feast and dancing the first night, the distribution of property on the second day, and a dance by the guests at a feast on the third evening, although the informant was so uncomfortable sleeping in the crowded attic that she returned to Yakutat before the feast.

When the money was handed out, the first sums went to those who had performed special services: dressing a corpse; attending a wake; cremating the body or making the coffin and digging the grave; making or repairing a grave house or erecting a grave monument; working on the house, especially on its decorated posts or screen; making other sib regalia; adorning the hosts, tattooing their young people or piercing the latter's ears; performing special feats before the potlatch such as eating to excess, and, during the potlatch, helping the hosts to sing or rendering songs of their own on request. Probably no single potlatch involved all of these services, especially if the occasion for honoring children were not directly associated with the funeral of a chief. Among the guests, the chiefs always received the most. They had usually been specially “commissioned” to carve a house post, to paint a screen, or to work on a grave, and would be paid for such work at rates commensurate with their rank, even though they had not performed it in person. The widow and children of the principal dead man for whom a potlatch was given were also likely to be well paid. At the end of these special payments, all the money remaining was divided evenly among the guests.

“When they gave out the money, they held it up and announced how much each person had given. They held it up for you.” The nakani displaying the money would announce the donor's “potlatch name,” the number of dollars contributed, and the name of the deceased person for whom it was given, Thus, he might call out: “ ‘AndAdutin [Visible-from-the-Town] tłeqá dAna [$20] Qankida-’ic kade [Father-of-Q towards]” or, to use the deceased's English name and a free translation supplied by the informant: “ ‘In memory of Conrad Edwards.' Whatever is given his spirit is supposed to get.” It was probably at this time that the contributor, if he or she was in debt to some member of the guest moiety, could ask the nakani to pay the latter. The nakani would call out the potlatch name of the recipient, who would respond with “Hade—This way!”

An informant denied that chiefs were paid first. “It might be anybody. Just like suppose we’re giving. I get up there and I’m going to tell he had been working for me some time ago in my sorrow, [when] I lost my sister and mother, and I’m going to pay all that money. Suppose I take [contributed] about $200. I pay out about seventy-five or a hundred—leave that [the rest] in there [in the general collection].”

When asked what would happen if he couldn’t contribute so much, he said: “All the tribe's going to help. When I’m going to pay off, everybody put up the money.—[Or] if I’m the chief, we put up the money. I standing there. You walk out there and call nakani, ‘I want that much money to pay so-and-so out there.' And he pick it up and mention his name. Then you tell why you pay him. Then someone else—he walk out, tell why you [he?] pay him. Then another one again. That's the way. Some of them spend all the money [they had put in]…. You can take out more [than you put in]. That's the tribe's money. If you put in $20 and you owe $100, you take it. [You don’t have to warn the chief ahead of time.] They put in so much there's always lots left…. Some of them are rich,” and so contribute more than enough to cover their obligations and those of their poorer relatives.

When I pressed further, proposing the hypothetical case of a poor woman who owed a great deal but could contribute only a little, he went on: “Sometimes it's this way. If I [as chief] put up some, [and] if you’re my 'sister,’ I call on you. ‘You want to pay something?' I mention [how much she can give??]. I ask the woman again [if she owes more?]. ‘Anybody else want to pay them some?' if this woman's got no money. And it's coming out. They pay it.”

As he summarized it: “Like E—[who had recently lost a child], a bunch of opposite tribe help her, and during the potlatch she has a chance to pay back those who help her…. Everybody help [her to pay]. All the tribe helped. Like her, she's going to pay just a little if she's not rich. But when other tribe's turn comes, they pay a little bit until they’re satisfied.”

This last may mean either that all the members of the opposite moiety contribute to the payments she must make at the potlatch, or that she may pay off her debts in installments at subsequent potlatches.

When someone has been commissioned to make a house screen or something similar: “One person take responsibility for that, to make it for him. He pay the most money…. [In this way, Raven Screen in the Kwacqwan Moon House was painted for Cada.] They make it for Cada…. He take more responsibility for it, paid the most money, so Cada is the most respect[ed], but all the tribe helped…. They make it not very long ago. I don’t remember what year. [He died about 1908 or 1909?] It's for the whole tribe. That's a big potlatch, that one. [It was painted by] D. S. Benson, Teqwedi. Always the opposite tribe made it. And during the potlatch they pay him.”

Often the artist was a close affinal relative of the host and it seems to have been an approved gesture for such a “brother-in-law” to refuse payment for his work, which was performed as a social service for his “sister.” This was what was done by YAndus-’ic, Tł'UknaAdi, who carved the small Bear Post for the Teqwedi Bear House on Khantaak Island (p. 319, pl. 89):

“My grandmother's [mother's mother's] brother made it for my father…. That's expensive stuff…. And after, they give a potlatch. My father's family is supposed to pay lots of money…. He [the carver] raise his hand during the potlatch—You know, long time ago, they wanted to be somebody—He just raise his hand to my father, his kani [brother-in-law]. ‘I don’t want no pay. I done the work for nothing.'…He's related to my mother. He said he done it for nothing. He don’t charge my father anything. Teqwedi tribe paid him just the same, but he refused my father to pay him.” (MJ)

The carver was described as “a great man who had a copper knife,” and was head of the Boulder House lineage of the Tł'UknaAdi. At one time he had married the informant's father's “sister,” (Mrs. Bessey, ‘AndEs-tła, died 1916), and by her was father of Sitka Ned.

Even when a chief or important man had not performed a special service, he would be paid more than an ordinary guest. “The chief always gets the most all the time.” So when Moses, the Kwacqwan chief, gave the potlatch in 1905, those who received most were Chief John of the ałyi-Kagwantan, and Naacané, chief of the Tcicqedi, while among the Teqwedi guests from Yakutat the most important men were Ned Daknaqin, chief of Drum House, and Jim Itinisku (Tanu), chief of Golden Eagle House. In addition, the Teqwedi who had worked on Raven's Bones House where the potlatch was held were paid extra, and these were Sitka Ned, chief of Coward House, and Jim Kardeetoo, Chief of Shark House. (It will be remembered that the last was “out of town” at the time of arrival of the guest, but it is presumed that he returned in time for the potlatch, see p. 620.) I do not know whether Kardeetoo actually did any work on the house, but Sitka Ned was a skilled carpenter, much in demand for house construction.

With the deaths of the old craftsmen, there came to be fewer and fewer persons capable of carving and painting. For this reason, it was often necessary to hire an artist from one's own moiety, even though he could not be paid at the potlatch because he would be among the hosts. To avoid this dilemma, payment would be made to the wife, utilizing the “legal fiction” that she had done the work and was a completely distinct economic personality. The same solution was recently adopted when the body of a drowned man was found by a sibmate; the reward of $70 which had been set aside for the funeral potlatch was paid to the finder's wife.

“After they pay all the persons, what's left is given to the ones invited. Sometimes $5 each; sometimes, when they getting short, just $1 [to] everybody.” Men and women got the same. It was not necessary to calculate in advance the amounts to be distributed, because so much was contributed that there was always enough. “In olden days they take every cent they got when they giving a potlatch. That's way over what they’re going to pay.” So the surplus was divided among the guests. “They can’t come for nothing.” There is also some suggestion from the report of the potlatch given by Dry Bay Chief George that those who came from a distance might receive larger shares than the hometown guests (see p. 645). The informant concluded that the hosts retained “something to live on, I think.” He had never heard of a chief who gave potlatches too often, or when his people could not afford it.

Not all the wealth put out and distributed by the hosts was actually their own for, as already indicated, husbands helped wives and wives their husbands. Affinal relatives also gave money, and in this way far more wealth was handled and a bigger display was possible than if only the hosts' own cash were available. Informants had never heard of borrowing money for a potlatch, or of lending money out at interest to get sufficient sums. When asked about such a practice, one informant replied: “Well, they don’t do it here. If you go and try to borrow from other people, that goes to show you’re no good, you’re lazy. You get your own stuff. You never get no credit no matter how much you give, if you borrow it…. You wouldn’t give a potlatch unless you prepared for it, and you have to give the last you got.” (MJ) Assistance from spouses and affinals did not come under the stigma of borrowing, however.

“When my side gives a potlatch, my husband is going to give for me…. He gives away bolts of calico [and other things]. My father's family paints his face.” (MJ) The last remark would suggest that the husband made his contribution in his wife's name, stepping out among the hosts, although there was no clarification on this point.

When a woman was widowed, the sib brothers of her deceased husband would also contribute for her. “It's her time to put up money. Suppose she puts up $10. Her husband's tribe [sib] stand up and says, ‘I give so much for her,' and they all do that, and put up some money for her…. Give it to her right there [in the potlatch].” Of course, this wealth returns to the guests within a few hours.

I have no specific reference to assistance given to a woman by the brothers of her husband during the latter's lifetime, but the sib brothers of the wife would give money to their “brother-in-law” to use at a potlatch. This is illustrated by what occurred in 1902, when a ałyi-Kagwantan wife accompanied her Tł'UknaAdi husband to Sitka. These were T. Max Italio of Sidewise House and his wife, Jean or Jane (cf. p. 326), and the event was the Tł'UknaAdi ill-fated attempt to display the Frog (pp. 288–291).

“My mother, when they have a potlatch in Sitka one time, she has to go down there with my father. All Tł'UknaAdi went down there. And hardly any money around. And she help…with all the things she has, because all her brothers helped her in Sitka, too. All the [Sitka] Kagwantan just donate so much things to my father so he can use it in a potlatch. That's the only way he can do. She has so much money of her own. Sitka Kagwantan meet together and donate so much property and money, give it to my father…just a little before, few hours before the potlatch. But not in the potlatch.”

Such assistance to a brother-in-law was given to increase the husband's respect for his wife, the giver's sister (p. 495). I have already cited Swanton's account of how the wife of the host chief who went as nakani to invite the out-of-town guests also collected their contributions (p. 617).

POTLATCHING FOR WOLF BATH HOUSE, BOULDER HOUSE, AND FOGGY HOUSE

The history of Wolf Bath House (Beaver House) and of Boulder House in the Old Village (p. 322), and of the persons associated with them, illustrates a number of ways in which husband and wife might shift sides at a potlatch. It will be remembered (pp. 594, 603), that Wolf Bath House was built by Ckinan, Tł'UknaAdi, for his ałyi-Kagwantan wife, Mary, as part of the peace settlement for the accidental death of their son, shot by accident by Ckinan's “nephew.” The bereaved mother and her relatives “got good pay, but he [Ckinan] doesn’t want to get any bad name in our face,” explained the latter's niece, “so he built that house for his wife's family so they won’t talk about what his nephew done.” Later, when Mary had a son by Ckinan's younger “brother,” this baby was named for his dead half-brother, “to keep the family friendly. Otherwise the Kagwantan would do something bad to us.” (MJ)

The house was built about 1890, I believe. “Her husband give a potlatch over that tribal house built for her,” MJ said on another occasion. When it was objected that Mary's sib, the ałyi-Kagwantan, would have to give the potlatch, not Ckinan—”That's for his wife. His wife give a potlatch. Well, of course he paid for it. You know what I mean? The whole Kagwantan [gave it].” The informant agreed that all the money put up by the wife actually came from her husband, and added, “Well, they stand together. In them days, you know, they try to beat one another.”

Mary's husband was already dead when his nephews and niece built Boulder House in 1901 (?) next door to Wolf Bath House. The site was chosen because “they already potlatched over the ground,” for an earlier house on the site, or in connection with the potlatch for Wolf Bath House(?). At the potlatch given by the TłuknaAdi for Boulder House, Mary freed her husband's slaves. She had evidently retained them and other property of her husband after his death, instead of relinquishing it at once to all his heirs in his own sib. There was some criticism of this, and because she was the one to keep and to free the slaves, they became adopted members of her sib, whereas if her husband's people had done this they would have become Tł'UknaAdi. One of the slaves was freed to honor her niece who suffered from curvature of the spine, so no one would feel free to mention this (p. 473).

It seems to have been rather unusual for a widow to take her husband's place in this fashion, and one informant had never heard of a similar case. “Kagwantan can’t do anything to Tł'UknaAdi's potlatch unless her husband's right there. First time I ever heard of it.” The informant conjectured that the recency of the husband's death might have been the deciding factor. (There was a somewhat similar case in 1952, see pp. 546–547, 610.)

The woman who had been honored at the Boulder House potlatch said: “He's gone, and she's got as much right to do that as her husband does. That belonged to them [that is, the slaves belonged to his family]…. She wants to show off, too, you know, that her and her husband is well-to-do…. She wants to show off the respect of people that she's been with. She's high-class woman, too. Her father got lots of slaves and all that. She's showing off because she thinks so much of her husband, and because we were her husband's family…. That's why that Qu’ya' [Mary] got her heart open up, because she think of her husband. We’re the only ones left out of that family…. Her husband give a potlatch over that tribal house built for her. I guess she done that in return.” (MJ)

I was unable to discover whether there was a special term or phrase for a widow's taking her dead husband's place at a potlatch.

The first owner of Wolf Bath House is unknown, but in the period 1905–10 it was Yakategy John who had the old house replaced by a new frame structure and the Beaver Screen installed. This was painted by D. S. Benson, a Teqwedi man, then about 35 or 40 years old, in return for permission to marry Annie, John's adopted daughter, a Kwacqwan girl of 16. Benson was asked to make the screen because he was a good artist. (See pl. 85.)

” ‘Could we make a deal,' he ask Yakategy John. ‘I want to marry that girl you have…. Then you pay me just half-money. I want to marry that girl.' Yakategy John said, ‘That's fine. And with that cash money in the potlatch, I’m going to pay your wife,' that is, pay for the screen by pretending that the girl was the painter, since Benson as a member of the host moiety could not be paid at the potlatch.

This was what was done, and Mrs. Benson received about $200. My informant (HB) did not know what year this happened, but then or in 1910, “I know my mother was dressed up like a man, because there's hardly any [in the sib] left now. And my mother was rich, and my dad [Max Italio, Tł'UknaAdi] give her every bit of money [that he had]. And she was head of that potlatch.” My informant had forgotten the special term for such an arrangement with a woman as potlatching chief. “I only know she was head of that potlatch. She's doing the talking.”

In this manner, too, the husband returned to his wife the financial assistance which she and her “brothers” had given him at the potlatch in Sitka in 1902 (p. 641); and again he helped his wife when their daughters' ears were pierced (p. 637).

This woman was not the only one to act as a chief, however, for Mrs. Sitka Ned (Łqawaałis, ‘Never Get Tired Looking at It,' died 1926) also did so. She was the Kwacqwan daughter of Jack Shaw-coo-kawn (Ca-kuwakan), chief of Teqwedi Bear House on Khantaak Island for a time, and later of Coward House at the Old Village, which Sitka Ned inherited after his father-in-law's death in 1899. The wife was described as “a big respectable woman…. She acts like a big man, danced beside her brothers in a potlatch…. She didn’t dress like a man.” A photograph of her as a young woman in a high-necked long-sleeved white blouse and checked skirt showed her hair parted in the middle, combed down straight and cut short around her face “She gave a potlatch herself.” This was for Foggy House, built directly behind her husband's Coward House, and erected just for the sake of giving a potlatch, for no one ever lived in it. “She just put property in there.”

Feasting and Dancing After the Potlatch

We have now followed the potlatch to its conclusion, when the last money has been distributed and everyone has retired for a much needed rest. The next day the guests would be invited for a feast.

“Potlatch is for sorrow, death. Afterwards it's just to make happy. The other tribe [guests] come to make you happy, to forget all your troubles. You’re going to have a lot of fun. That's the way…. After the potlatch is over, about a day afterwards, feast. When the feast is going on the ones invited always dancing all the time. They have special songs for it when they’re eating [”sitting down songs”]. Sometimes they don’t get up and dance, just sit down and dance. But they always sing songs when they’re eating.”

The guests were invited by the nakani, and danced into the house using one of the “walking songs.” They were dressed in ceremonial attire. The seating was the same as it had been for the potlatch itself. Although sib-children were sometimes seated together so that they could enliven the feast with their jokes, I was unable to determine at what time during the potlatch cycle this might be done. The custom was rather common in southeastern Alaska but seems to have been much rarer at Yakutat.

After the feast, either that night or the next, began 4 nights of singing and dancing by the guests in order to thank their hosts. On the first and last night they usually danced in the house of the principal host chief where the main potlatch had been held, but on the other nights they danced in different houses of their host sib “for respect.” Such dances were preceded by feasts given by the house owners. Informants stressed these dances rather than those before the potlatch, although they seem to have been of the same kind. That is, the two rival groups of guests danced against each other in their finest costumes, using their dancing songs of foreign origin, and also sang the peace songs composed to each other's sib-children. They took turns in dancing; sometimes both danced on the same night, one dancing first one night and the other coming first on the next. Or, sometimes only one group danced on the first and third nights, while the other danced alone on the second and fourth nights. All of the guests—men, women and little children—took part. For these performances one side of the house was cleared for the dancers, while the hosts and the other group of guests crowded into the other side to watch. Between dances, the host and guest chiefs exchanged complimentary speeches, just as they had been doing all through the previous ceremonies.

I was unable to discover whether any special dances or shows were given at this time, or whether such dramatic acts were given before the potlatch, as Swanton has reported (1808, pp. 439–441; 1909, pp. 374–389). When speaking of the guests' songs and dances, informants emphasized the party or parties following the distribution of property. It is possible that the customary order of events differed somewhat between southeastern Alaska and Yakutat, especially since the Copper River Eyak and the Indians of Controller Bay made much more of the dances and stunts given on the days after the potlatch. There, the guests put on animal masquerades in masks, did funny dances, and had dancing contests, while only a feast was mentioned before the potlatch (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 173, 181–182). However, the shortening of the whole potlatch sequence and the simplification of the ceremony in modern times may have resulted in shifting the emphasis at Yakutat from prepotlatch to the postpotlatch dancing.

“POTLATCHES” FOR INSULTS OR TO SHAME A RIVAL

It was almost impossible to discover whether potlatches were ever given at Yakutat to shame an opponent or to wipe out an insult, for the information elicited was confused and seemed to refer to contests in throwing away or destroying wealth, or else to the payment of damages. While “parties” were sometimes involved, I do not know whether these should be called “potlatches.” Such occurrences were very rare, for most informants when questioned remembered nothing about them until they had searched their memories or an incident had been suggested.

One man was correct, I believe, in denying that a chief might try to ruin a rival by overwhelming him with property in a potlatch. A property contest would occur, but “that would be a gamble, though—'Ałqá [’gambling game’], they call it,” and he went on to tell a story about a gambler who boasted of the wealth he was going to wager, but was laughed to scorn when the property he brought out was worthless (p. 894). The informant had never heard of a potlatch conducted in this spirit. “It's because they never know what the other person got, and if they get beat it's shameful, and the other tribe just look down on them. It spoils their reputation that they tried so hard to build up.”

When property destruction contests, involving canoes or coppers, were suggested, he thought that they might occur if two men were very angry at each other. Then one man might break up his canoe, “then the other fellow might break up one. If he don’t, then they beat him. Anyway, they just get mad about something…I think that thing happens just very seldom, not all the time. But I do know they do such a thing as that, [because] they call it: wuct ada yudułi'Atk—’to put [move] it around each other's mouths' [trying to silence each other].”

Swanton (1909, Tale 26, p. 63) recorded a story in which a man from Yakutat named K’yeswsâ’t was beaten in a property contest with the ł’enedi chief of Cał-nu, Fish Trap Fort of the YAtE-hittan [Great Dipper House lineage] of Awk. The Yakutat man ran out of of coppers and tried to substitute cedar bark weighted with stones, which he threw into the water. “They chased him out with riches, and told him to come back again with more property.” (Ibid., Song 43 refers to this.)

There was some disagreement among informants as to whether contests in the destruction of property occurred exclusively between members of the same sib or moiety, or whether they could also involve individuals in opposite moieties. While the rivals were most likely to belong to the same side, there was a case at Yakutat about 1896 that involved a Tł'UknaAdi man and a Teqwedi man. The following account has been pieced together from statements made by the same informant on three different occasions:

The head(?) of the TłuknaAdi Whale House in Sitka, a man named Nakitłan, had come up to Yakutat to attend a potlatch and to visit his wife's relatives. He was married to Sitka Ned's mother, “Mrs. Bessey,” ‘AndEs-tła, the widow of his uncle. He and his wife were staying in Shark House in the Old Village, where Sitka Ned was living at the time. Also visiting there was Situk X—,Teqwedi, then evidently a very young man. The two men began drinking and gambling, and in the ensuing quarrel Nakitłan was insulting his “brother-in-law.” He wanted to show that he could put the other down because he knew that Situk X—was poor. So he was throwing money and blankets away, right out of Shark House. The informant (MJ), who had then neared the end of her puberty confinement in Drum House next door, was being carried down to the canoe for the trip to her parents' fishcamp, when the quarrel began. In deference to the taboo (see p. 522), the little girl was wrapped up in a blanket, but she peeked out.

“I’m anxious to see it. I just peek out of the cover. He was throwing things away, right outside…. Blankets, gee, good blankets, too! He's got Situk X—stuck there. I see that man there [Nakitłan]. He's just holding the corner of that big gray blanket. ‘Come, come, come on!' he say like that…. I didn’t see all he had. Some of it was piled behind a stump…. They took me to the lake [the fishcamp at Aka] and I don’t know how that come out. That's a wonderful thing! Maybe somebody feel good over it, and somebody poor picked them up…. Anybody can pick it up, that's thrown out of his hands. [None of the Tł'UknaAdi could take any of the money or blankets, because it was a sibmate who threw his property away.] Throw money away to keep the other person's mouth shut, so he wouldn’t quarrel with him. They call it: wuct ada yudułI'At. See, just to keep Situk X's mouth shut. He can’t give much.”

Later, some “well respected people” (not specified) invited Nakitłan and Situk X to a party, to make them friends. Apparently, just members “of the family” were invited to the party. Either at this party, or at a later one (my informant was not clear), “they [the former rivals?] have to pay them [the peacemakers?] for working that way for them.” Possibly it was Nakitłan who gave the second party, for “he's a well-to-do man, that Nakitłan. My mother's in that family, got to contribute stuff, help him out with it. Or else he feels like he's going to be thrown out of the family.” Possibly what is meant is a real peace ceremony, with both Teqwedi and Tł'UknaAdi contributing the food and ceremonial garments necessary to entertain the ‘deer' taken from the other side. This last seems unlikely, for MJ would certainly have known more about such an impressive affair and told me about it.

The only other case of a similar nature occurred in Juneau, apparently involving two women of the same sib. “She had a party, she put up $200, this lady, Mrs. X. She had a big trouble with her sister's daughter. They had a big fight, right on the road. And she had a party in her house. She put up $200.” This money was given to the Eagle-Wolf moiety, specifically to the WUckitan, the sib to which the donor's husband belonged, explained my informant.

Another woman added: “That's what they call ctat a wudułIuw—’wiping [łI-uw] the other person's sweat [spit?] off your mouth' with it, just to keep it shut…. That's when you throw things away, meaning you wipe the mouth away from the body, because she bawl you out, and just to keep your mouth shut, and you wipe that stuff.” (MJ) The phrase is reflexive and probably means ‘to wipe it away from one's own mouth.’

Although I did not learn exactly what would happen, a distribution of property might take place after an injury. This was mentioned as equivalent to giving a potlatch because one felt insulted. Thus, if a man received a cut on the face, even by accident, he was supposed to spread property among the people. If a member of the “opposite tribe” were responsible, “they’re the ones supposed to get together and give it to him, and he can’t keep it for himself, he has to spread it out among his own people…. They just get together and they get the money and they turn it over to him. They just watch, and he's supposed to split it among them, his own tribe. He just does it and afterwards they have a potlatch.”

The distribution of property made by the injured man to his own sibmates is called ctat ‘At kawuyAłIeł—”he tore something off himself.” This wealth would, of course, go back to the opposite moiety at a potlatch given by the prior recipients: “And when they make a party, just like they turn everything back again.”

What was never made clear was what would be done if the injury had been caused by a member of one's own moiety or sib, unless we can take the Juneau case cited above as a guide. The informant's remarks suggest that in any case of serious injury, felt as insulting, there would have to be a property distribution to the relatives—”The one that got a cut, he's the one supposed to pay”—and that there would also be a potlatch or distribution to the opposite moiety.

Unfortunately it was possible to learn very little about payment of damages to members of the same moiety or sib. Every case of injury was interpreted, if it could possibly be so manipulated, to fix responsibility upon a member of the opposite moiety.

It is also unclear whether the “party” or “potlatch” mentioned was a special one. More likely, it was simply at the next ordinary potlatch that the property received was redistributed, probably with a reference to the injury which was now to be forgotten, in much the same way that the slave was given at the Boulder House potlatch to prevent any mention of a physical defect (see p. 641).

REPORTS OF POTLATCHES

The Tł'UknaAdi Potlatch in Dry Bay, 1909

[The following account of the potlatch given by Dry Bay Chief George has been edited for easier reading. The narrator was a Tł'UknaAdi woman, the host's daughter-in-law and paternal “granddaughter,” AG; July 7, 1952, September 8, 1952, March 9, 1954.]

I was down in Dry Bay in 1909 with my last husband, the same year they built the last Frog House. My husband's father built it, Qawua or QuUn. They called it Dekina hIt [Far Out (People's) House] and Xixt hIt [Frog House].

They invited the Yakutat Teqwedi to Dry Bay for the potlatch, just the Teqwedi, but some Kagwantan came too. My husband, and Frank Italio, and Earnest (Dry Bay) Francis, Sr. [all CAnkuqedi sons of Dry Bay Chief George], were sent up to Yakutat to invite them. The chief of the Teqwedi was Jim Kardeetoo. They invited them to Dry Bay in the wintertime, and only the men came down because it was too hard for the women. [Among] those who came were Ned Daknaqin [head of Drum House], and his nephews, Joseph, Martin, and Olaf Abraham, my sAni [paternal uncles]; Situk Jim [head of Bear House at Situk] and his younger brother, Situk Harry; Daniel S. Benson, B. B. Williams [son of the Kwacqwan head of Fort House, Bear Bit Billy], Teet or William Milton and his younger brother Nick Milton.

They were the ones who came. They stayed in Dekina hIt, the house to which they were invited. Thunder House (xetł hIt) was filled with Dry Bay people [presumably the CAnkuqedi guests, for this was their sib house]. I was in Thunder House [my husband's home]. It was 4 months before my baby was born, so I didn’t have to help much to get the potlatch ready.

When the people came from Yakutat, it was about seven in the evening. They were on snowshoes. My husband [as nakani] came first, and told his father they were coming, so they would have everything ready in the house. Three TłukwaAdi [and Tł'UknaAdi] men went out: QuUn [Dry Bay Chief George], Qadjaqi-’ic [Dry Bay Jack, Sr., his son-in-law], and Yełida [Dry Bay Charley]. They went down the trail [to welcome the guests].

That night that they came in, there was a party but no dance. They were cold and didn’t do anything.

Next day they danced and had a party again. I went in there to help just a little. I had to pass dishes in the evening. The CAnkuqedi of Dry Bay and the Teqwedi of Yakutat all sat at the table. The TłukwaAdi [and Tł'UknaAdi] fed them. They fed them things they had put up themselves: mountain sheep meat and berries, dried fish in seal grease, dried king salmon. QuUn's wife, Tude [the younger wife of the chief], could help with the food because her husband invited the people. She was in charge of the food [as nakani], and all the TłukwaAdi ladies helped her.

One year before that, four Japanese men drifted ashore in a small boat. They brought the Japanese men to Yakutat after 2 months of bad weather. Then at that time when they gave a party there in Dry Bay, they cut the Tł'Uknaca's hair, just like the Japanese they saved on the beach. Maybe they thought that at the party before the potlatch they would talk about how the Tł'Uknaca are Japanese women.

QuUn made a speech while they were eating. Then the Japanese women were coming in. They wore Japanese hats and kimonos. They just came in after QuUn sent for them.

They didn’t cut my hair. My husband didn’t want it.

Then when they had the potlatch, they put out $900 to the Teqwedi men. That's QuUn's own money. And the other Tł'UknaAdi put out some more. QuUn mentioned out the dead ‘it' name—Qawua and QuUn. He took both names from his grandfather [the dead shaman (’i)].

And then they had lots of baskets about. The baskets had a handle. They strung them in lines in the big house. [A sketch shows that the two lines ran diagonally across the ceiling from corner to corner.] And after the Tł'UknaAdi sang a song, they took the baskets down and gave them to Teqwedi—lots of them, maybe 60! They were all small size. I made four. QuUn's daughter made some, and gave them to him because QuUn's mother used to make baskets. They were all the same style. We weave it for buckets long ago, just baskets then. [See pl. 130.]

The CAnkuqedi and the Teqwedi danced. Benson (CÉA-’ic) is the ci ati [song leader], and Joseph [Abraham, also Teqwedi] is the other. [She did not mention the CAnkuqedi song leaders.] The Tł'UknaAdi just had QuUn for a song leader.

The second time he had $300 all in gold pieces. And he gave it out to the Teqwedi. And they called that gold “tł'Uk” [coho salmon]. “Here's a piece of tł'Uk. Cut it up! Cut it up!” The nakani carried it around.

Before he started to hand out the gold to the Teqwedi, he sent after the Japanese women. They all came in. They had cut their hair just like the Japanese. And they went in, and I went in. I stood by the door.

The CAnkuqedi and the Teqwedi are in the back [of the house]. The CAnkuqedi got some gold—just the old ones. Those who had a hard time to walk to Dry Bay [the Yakutat Teqwedi?] got the most money.

The Teqwedi clapped when the women came in. Some of the Dry Bay women cut their hair like that for a long time.

Next day, one day after that, we had a party again. They didn’t give out anything. Two days afterwards they started to go home to Yakutat.

[Because the narrator was the paternal granddaughter of Dry Bay Chief George's older brother, she was, therefore, “granddaughter” to the chief and received from him a name at the potlatch. He named her łAnuwudaqat, “It's not filled up with boards, just one board is missing,” referring to the Frog Screen in the house which Situk Jim had painted but which was not finished at the time of the potlatch.]

I am granddaughter of Tł'UknaAdi…. That's when I got my name. They named their grandchildren after what happened when they were building that house. Other grandchildren got names then. They had blankets all piled up.

[Connected with the building of the house and the potlatch, was the making of a grave house on a point across from the new house, to which the bones of six shamans were transferred from the Akwe River. Presumably the names which Dry Bay Chief George assumed at this potlatch were those of one of these shamans, his TłukwaAdi grandfather. The narrator did not indicate when the work on the grave house was done, but I assume that it was performed by the Dry Bay CAnkuqedi before the potlatch was given.]

He built a small house called ‘it' qadakedi [shaman's grave house], because the old shamans were over at Gue [the abandoned town on Akwe River]. And they brought the bones over to where they built the house, so that if anything happened to QuUn, he was going to do the work for the last. [The meaning is obscure. Does it suggest that QuUn anticipated receiving the shamanistic call?]

A at’kA’ayi ‘it' and a TłukwaAdi one—maybe six ‘it' died at Akwe right below Gue—they dug the bones up and put them all together at Dry Bay. And that's the time he invited Yakutat, and built Xixt hIt [Frog House] and Dekina hIt [Far Out House] at the same time.

My husband start. They had a long stick to walk with, just a tree. They call it Ani. It's right after they built that shamans' house. They call the women that—Ani. I don’t know what it means. [’Mourner’—cf. p. 536.] They all went in a single line. łqena-tła [Mrs. Blind Dave Dick, Tł'Uknaca] is the head of us. They do it in the snow for 8 days. It takes 4 days to finish the ‘it’. [That is, to finish the new grave house and transfer the bones. This work was done by the CAnkuqedi, led by the informant's husband.] When they put it [the bones] away, they have to have 4 days to get over it.

That's the time I’m not coming back to Dry Bay! [She was so miserable she determined never to return.]

That time when they worked on those shamans, when they built the house the TłukwaAdi women have to get up at 4 in the morning, and walk way out, about 1 mile. And they wore button blankets—they must use that. And they have to walk way out the inside way [Athabaskan fashion?]. And they have to come back before the yeł [raven] makes a noise. They have to wish out there. They can’t talk, they just walk. [Apparently the women carried saplings as mourners' canes.][91]

My husband didn’t want me to do it. I just watched them. They walked under little trees. [Was this so snow could fall on them, symbolic of riches?]

All the TłukwaAdi couldn’t eat for 4 days. I couldn’t eat. I would eat in the evening but not in the morning. I couldn’t drink any water. I must just stay still.

The CAnkuqedi couldn’t drink or eat, either, because they were working [on the grave house].

My husband got angry because I didn’t eat and I was carrying a baby.

One night I went to the old lady next door. She stayed in her cabin. She had no water in her house. I took snow in a pot and tried to make water [by melting it]. And she took it away—because the snow fell on the ‘it' [shamans] and it will make you sick if you drink it.

Two days after—no, the same one, maybe—something happened. I don’t know what. It's just like I’m dizzy and I pretty near fall down on the floor. Because someone is to be ‘it' after that [become a shaman]. But I had a baby. I don’t want to fall down. They wanted us to dance right in there when they were fixing the grave and sing the ‘it' song. And I feel dizzy and pretty near fall down. I got on a chair in time.

Si-ee ['Stingy Daughter,' Mrs. Dry Bay Francis, TłukwaAdi] got it [the shaman's spirit]. She died from it because she didn’t want it.

I think that's how it is that my first son tells me anything that's going to happen. I watch him sometimes now. If anyone is going to die he always tells me about it…. [This was the baby she was carrying at the time.]

The men have to stay clean, too. They went out like us, and without anything to eat.

utcda [’Wolf-Wease, a famous TłukwaAdi shaman] is one ‘it’. He is there, too.

When they start to sing those ‘it' songs, that lady, Si-ee, felt it [the spirit], and fell on the floor. But she don’t want to be ‘it' and she died 4 months after.

[See p. 719, for an account of a young man who refused the call he had received on the same occasion.]

The Teqwedi Potlatch in Yakutat, 1910

[The narrator is the same as for the previous account.] It was in 1910, that time; and one year before that, in 1909, they invited the Yakutat Teqwedi to Dry Bay….

I came to Yakutat in 1911 [i.e., 1910] as song leader. I pretty near killed myself.

It was in the fall time. The Teqwedi from Yakutat invited us Tł'UknaAdi from Dry Bay. They built Tu hIt [Shark House], and Gau hIt [Drum House], and GAtan hIt [Coward House]—three new houses in the Old Village. [These were new buildings on the sites of older structures.] The Teqwedi sent their nakani to Dry Bay after the Tł'UknaAdi: Charley White, Young George, and George Martin. [See p. 617.] They didn’t bring any special costume with them. They came down to Italio River and stayed one night and then went on to Dry Bay. They waited for us in Dry Bay, because the women were going to come with the kids. That's why they waited on account of the bad weather. It was right after fishing in the fall. The snow was on the ground.

Then all the Dry Bay people who were invited came back with them to Italio River. We were staying there in a smokehouse. Qawua [Dry Bay Chief George] owned it. His tribal house, Xixt hIt [Frog House] was in Dry Bay. We were just staying in that smokehouse for drying fish, and sometimes spend the winter [there].

When they all came back from Dry Bay to Italio River, the same night, all those people wanted to give a party for Young George and Charley White [and George Martin]. They gave a party and they danced all night.

Two days afterwards we started for Situk. It was weather like this—raining, and the wind blows. It was cold—rain, wind. We camped from Italio River two times, I think. We camped out at Dangerous River, and then next day we came to Situk.

We came to Dangerous River and made a fire there and we tried to warm ourselves. We were going in canoes, and they had to take the canoes to Arhnklin River on their shoulders, while we warmed ourselves and put up a tent.

Any place that we stopped, we could sing and dance, to practice. There were just two women and some children left behind at Italio River. There were three canoes full of people who were coming to the party. They were White men's canoes. One of them was a great big one.[92]

[The narrator listed about 11 or 12 male guests and 7 female guests, Tł'UknaAdi, TłukwaAdi, and at’kA’ayi. There were also about five CAnkuqedi women, wives of the male guests, and about four CAnkuqedi men accompanying their wives. Dry Bay Chief George was the leader of the guests—”the head man of Dry Bay, łingit-tłen (‘big man’).”]

We left Dangerous River at 4 or 5 o’clock in the evening, and got into Situk at 11 that night. It was sure bad weather that night! They thought it would take only 2 hours to get into Situk, but it took a long time before we got there.

Before we got to Situk it started to get dark, and the wind blew and it was raining. We were sailing and there were lots of people in the boat. I was sitting down and my husband was standing beside me and watching. He said he thought he was going to catch me if anything happened.

When we got to Situk, they took us up to GAtan hIt [Coward House], Situk Jim's house. It was just a new building at that time. They had already finished the potlatch for that GAtan hIt at Situk. They took us there. All the Teqwedi from there had gone to Yakutat for the potlatch. Situk Jim was in Yakutat, but people stayed in his house to take care of us. There were two men. [She did not remember who they were.]

They had everything just like a party. And when we came in, we were all wet. We started to sing after we got warm. I took care of my baby and the others sang. It's none of my business what they do.

We stayed there until the next day. But those three men left us. Charley White and Young George [and George Martin] walked back to Yakutat. They didn’t stay for the party. They told the people in Yakutat that we were in Situk. They left lots of things to eat for us there. They left us just as soon as we got there.

The next morning, they came back on a handcar [on the railroad]. They used four push-cars between two handcars [to take the guests to Yakutat].[93]

We stayed with my grandfather on my mother's side, Da-tłen [’Big Weasel,' Charley Benson, 1857–1933, probably a maternal greatuncle]. He's not my real grandfather, he's Tł'UknaAdi from Yakutat, and he stays at Sitka a lot, but he came up here.

The Teqwedi didn’t take us in. We just looked after ourselves. We had nothing ready if they had taken us in [i.e., were not prepared to dance]. We were in Charley Benson's house that day, and we talked about who was going to be song leader. They let me go out of the house when they talked about it, about who's going to be the leader for the songs.

[In one version, the narrator said that Charley Benson proposed a woman “on the Kwacqwan side,” as song leader. This seems quite unreasonable, since the Tł'UknaAdi from Dry Bay were to dance against the Yakutat Kwacqwan. The narrator corrected this statement the next day.]

Da-tłen just mention her name. But that lady didn’t want to do it. She had a small baby, and her husband wasn’t there. [Then?] they talked about my cousin, QutkEndutín, Mrs. Frank Italio [the wife of the informant's husband's brother]. She was bashful, couldn’t say anything in public, couldn’t talk loud. She was too bashful. She could dance, but she couldn’t sing.

Then when I came in the house with my husband, that Mrs. Charley Benson was standing up, and she called me right to the chair where she was sitting, and she talked to me. I didn’t know her husband was going to take my name. She stood up and said, “You’re going to be the leader of the song.”

My goodness! I said I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to let my baby go, let somebody else take care of him. And I said “No!”

And she said, “You can’t get away from it, because you’re married to Tł'UknaAdi's son.”

And I said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” But I couldn’t get away with it—talk, talk, talk!

When they elected me for a song leader, it was tough. I couldn’t go to sleep in the night. I used to sing different kinds of songs a lot when I was a young woman, but when you’re a song leader, it's different—right in front of all those people in the house!

I knew all the songs when I was chosen. I was right there when they were ready.

Pretty soon they gave me a shirt, and a Devilfish totem pole [song paddle]. It was a long one, pretty. Like the one I had that you see [the model photographed in 1952; pl. 163]. Made just the same. That big one had the little lady inside [the arms of the devilfish]. It wasn’t heavy. They used a ribbon around my neck to hold it up.

It was a white shirt with beads on it—just a design [not a crest]. It was a Unana shirt [Athabaskan].

Then when we were going to start to dance, two men would fix me up. The men were Sitka Charley [asAgu of Whale House, Sitka] and Yełida [Dry Bay Charley]. They were both Tł'UknaAdi. They put red and black paint on my face. And they put an eagle feather in the middle of my head—just one. No, I didn’t wear cAki'At. They tried to cheer me up. They always came when I’m going to dance. Gee, I’m scared!

My husband stood right behind me all the time where we were dancing. We were just married, just had our first baby. I didn’t think they were going to take me that way. He was 17 and I was 27.

They had two men and one woman song leader from each tribe. The song leaders for us that time were John Williams, Sr., u-watc, TłukwaAdi, and a man from Sitka called Ctuwu or QacdAte [probably Fred George]. He is at’kA’ayi, but that's the same as Tł'UknaAdi. His father was born here in Yakutat. He came up here sometimes from Sitka.

The at’kA’ayi and the Tł'UknaAdi and the TłukwaAdi all came and all danced together and all stayed together. The Tł'UknaAdi of Yakutat danced with those from Dry Bay.

From that time I never see my baby for 1 week! He was 6 months old. My aunty took him away—that is, my father's sister, Olaf Abraham's sister, that used to be Charley White's wife [Jenny Abraham, Teqwca, 1874–1918]. She took care of him. I sent my husband after him, but my aunty says he's all right. He drinks no milk, but he eats. The only time they brought him to me was in the party. He didn’t cry much when he was small. The baby's name is Tom.

I didn’t have to stand up when we go in canoes, but the older people got up and said something. The Kwacqwan were dancing on the shore at the Old Village and they had a song leader woman. She's my cousin, Dàsdíyà [Nora George, Mrs. William Milton, died 1931]. And they had two men song leaders, Danuq-’ic, and Young George (Yanukt-łAtsin). They were doing a Copper River dance.

After they got through dancing, they went home, and the Teqwedi took us to Tu hIt [Shark House]. Our old persons talked to the Teqwedi before we got out of the canoes. Qawua is our head. He talked in the front of the canoe. Kardeetoo [chief of Shark House] talked for the Teqwedi on the beach. Then we went into Shark House. The Teqwedi took us in and they packed [carried in] all our things.

When we went into Shark House they gave us something to eat, just a lunch. I don’t have to [wasn’t supposed to] eat, and those two men [song leaders] don’t have to eat, because we had dope [”medicine”]. I don’t know anything about it. They made it in Italio River. Qawua made it. Those two men used it. I don’t know about it. But it always goes like that: the song leaders don’t eat for one day. I kept it in my mouth when they are having a potlatch. It didn’t seem to taste. I don’t know what it was.

When I first got that dope, I wasn’t supposed to eat. That dope is so I wouldn’t make a mistake when I dance. The Kwacqwan will laugh if I make a mistake when I dance. If our tribe laughs at the other one, at their mistake, then the hosts bring out their blankets—all kinds of stuff, cAki'At. The Teqwedi stand right between the Kwacqwan and the Tł'UknaAdi, and they talk to them and make peace. The Kwacqwan would laugh at me if I made a mistake. But they made lots of mistakes that time. But we never paid attention to it.

There was a song leader for each [song?]. I started the one song. My husband stood behind me and told me what I forget. In Shark House I led the song once, right after the potlatch when we were dancing….

After we danced, all the dances were one night [i.e., those of the Tł'UknaAdi]; next day, they, the Kwacqwan, did all the dancing.

In the party we were dancing after they got through. And then we stood up. Their song leaders made mistakes two times. Then John Williams, the song leader on our side, said to these boys, “Get up and make fun of that man. He sang the same song two times!” I told him not to do that, and they didn’t. If they started to fight, I knew he was going to jump out of the window! He was sitting next to us. And they didn’t. Sometimes they have a war.

And that Quun [Dry Bay Chief George] made songs for Kwacqwan-yAti [Kwacqwan-children], because they invited us with the Kwacqwan. And they, on the Kwacqwan side, made songs for Tł'UknaAdi-yAti. We sing it up here in Yakutat. We sing it [still?].

[The song composed by Dry Bay Chief George is addressed to GIneqwan-children; 1954, 1–1–B; p. 1244.]

The next morning [after the first night in Shark House], we had to sit up about 4 o’clock in the morning and sing. Everybody had to sing. I had to sit up before everybody. Those two men woke me up, and sometimes my husband did. And when I started to sing, everybody did. Only just the song leaders sit up. The other people sang when they were asleep. Some just dreamed about it, maybe.

We started singing before the crow calls. Then we all got up after we sang for about half an hour. We did this the first 4 days in Shark House. After 4 days we sang any time we wanted. Sometimes I didn’t want to sing. I made my husband do it. When he started, they sang just the same. We sang dancing songs, special dancing songs for Dry Bay, and unana songs from Chilkat.

I had to go to my mother's to eat—just me, just the ones who belong to Yakutat. [This would have been the Teqwedi Thunderbird House of Joseph Abraham, the narrator's father.] My mother and my sisters and my brothers are there. When I came back from Dry Bay they wanted to see my baby. They didn’t even know I had the baby. My husband was 16 and I was 27 when I had the baby.

The other Dry Bay Tł'UknaAdi ate in Shark House. The Teqwedi fed them. The Kwacqwan stayed in their own house. There were none from far away.

The next day, we were invited again to the party. Kardeetoo invited us. Kardeetoo stayed there in Shark House. I went back again. The party was at night.

Before they have a feast, a potlatch, they make you a party 4 days before that. Right after the potlatch, one day after, they have a big party. And then they rest.

[She summarized the order of events]:

First they had a party in Shark House in the afternoon.

Then [the second day] they had a party in Coward House.

Third, they had a party in Drum House.

Fourth, they had a party in Shark House.

Then they had a potlatch in Shark House again.

One night they are in Shark House and they collected money.

Then they had a big party in Shark House again.

Then they had a potlatch in Drum House again.

One night they were in Drum House and they collected money.

Then they had a potlatch in Coward House again. One night they were in Coward House and they collected money.

Then they had a party in Coward House.

Then they had a party in Drum House.

They call it gAdánakw [AdAnÀq(?), ‘they stood’] when they give out the money. We danced right after the parties, not after the potlatches. We danced after every party in Shark House, and after the party in Drum House and after the party in Coward House. We danced right in those houses to say “thank you.” [Evidently each of the events listed above fell on a separate day, except for the party and the dance after it.]

And after that, we went through all the houses: Shark House, Coward House, Drum House, and Wolf Bath House. Wolf Bath House is [ałyI-] Kagwantan, but they invited us. And we all danced in there. We did all that in one day.

The Teqwedi danced for the potlatch, only one time, in Shark House, and Drum House, and Coward House. The potlatch in Drum House was for Tauw-’ic [Skin Canoe George Ki-ye-quat-kene, 1855–1900, its former chief]. He built it in the first place. Dok-na-keen [Daknaqin] built it the second time. When Tauw-’ic died they had the party [for the funeral]. I don’t remember who it was for in the other houses.

We went to that Kagwantan house and they had a party there for us because that man in there, S’A’Ał [Yakategy John], was married to a Teqwedi-yAdi, Sisgexw-tła [the Kwacqwan daughter of En of Bear House]. That's why he invited us in there. He was ałyI-Kagwantan.

After we finished the dancing and party and potlatching, we all went back to Dry Bay on the snow. We used a sled. Some went in canoe, and others on the snow.

[When asked what she had received at the potlatch:] I got a piece of cloth—cotton cloth, I made a housedress out of it—some money, and some yarn.

A Missionary's Account of Yakutat Potlatches

Albin Johnson mentions Yakutat potlatches in two chapters of his book dealing with his 17 years at Yakutat. Perhaps the first potlatch witnessed by the missionaries was that given by the Teqwedi chief, YAnACIt'Ukw, “Jana-Shoo,” or Minaman, in 1890(?). Of this, Johnson writes (1924, pp. 33–34):

“During the winter of 1890 on little Khantaak Island in southern Alaska a big feast was to take place among the Indians of the so-called “Thlinket” tribe. The winds blew coldly…snow had fallen…. On this island there was a large Indian village, with its cold and poor houses, built after their models. In the house of the chief, the largest one, preparations were made for the potlatch feast. Wood was carried in for the fire, food of different kinds, such as fish, a great amount of seal oil, as well as blankets and calico, of which the last two items were to be given away at the potlatch.

“Chiefs from far away villages had been invited. People had come even from the village of the Stick Indians in distant Dry Bay. It was a cold winter evening before the real feast started. The author and a missionary, K.J., made a little trip from our station in Yakutat to greet the people in the village. We were very warmly received by the chief, Jana-Shoo.

“He said, ‘I am glad that you whites have come here to teach the people. My people cannot do anything, understand nothing, and behave like dogs.’”

The missionaries then announced their plans to build a church, open a school, and found a home for orphan children. This pleased the chief, and when the news spread among the assembled people, a little ragged orphan girl, “Datt-sherke,” then about 6 years old, ran to sit among the missionaries. She was taken back to live with them and was baptized Esther.

The date of this potlatch is probably in error, and I suspect that it took place in the fall of 1889, not of 1890, because the church and orphanage were already built by the latter date, and Chief Minaman was dead (p. 201).

Albin Johnson described the potlatch at Yakutat under the title of the “Tlingits' Annual Feast” (1924, pp. 108–112):

“The Indians yearly hold a great feast in the late fall, when they are home from the hunt and from fishing. They keep catching salmon until the rivers and the lakes freeze…. [While at fishcamp] they always have in mind the preparations for the feast in the fall. The money they make by working for white gold miners or for the canneries, they save for this feast. When they come home to the villages they buy a great amount of blankets and cotton cloth and food for the feast. This is a giant feast which they hold only once in 25 or 50 years. The richest in the whole tribe then gives away all his property, which consists of blankets. A chief in Sitka held such a feast twenty years ago. This chief had gathered 3,000 blankets and a lot of cotton cloth, which he gave away. And then there were representatives from several places who were the recipients of the many gifts. They know nothing better than to hold a potlatch-feast and to give away all they can. The more they give, the higher they are regarded by the tribe.

“At the autumn feast they make themselves happy. When everything is ready, they gather in a large house, the different tribes [sibs] in different groups. The feast is divided into different acts, such as food-feasts, gift-feasts, weeping-feasts, dance-feasts, and shamanistic (troll) feasts. Everything was characterized by darkness and the blackest heathendom. They like blankets and cotton cloth; the brighter the colors, the better, according to their taste.

“The feast starts with drum beating. A large food container [box drum] is the bass drum. They paint their faces, red, black, green, striped and in totemic designs. From the whites they buy sugar, rice, beans, sirup, etc. From their own resources they have fish, birds, seal meat, fat, dried berries, roots, seaweed, etc. Each family [lineage?] has a gigantic tray that holds four to five gallons. Now they group in a square, and a band of young men give out sugar, etc. Then comes etaing and singing. Then a number of women come in, dressed in richly embroidered clothes. After that a great amount of dancing, wilder songs and screams and dreadful noise. All start simultaneously and stop simultaneously.

“In the next act, a great number of red, brown, striped and checkered rags are brought in which are to be given away. The blankets are torn in long strips, eight or ten from each blanket, and are given away by the owner, whose name is shouted so that all may hear and see how much valuable goods he is giving away. After that, bolts of cloth are carried in. Two men unroll the cloth and show how long a piece and how much this man and that man is giving away. This is now talked about and admired by the people. Then the cloth is torn up, in lengths of one yard or less, and these are given away like the pieces of blankets.

“At the feast all were given food, cloth and pieces of blanket, that is, pieces of either the one or the other kind. Then, after the feast, the women were busy sewing clothing, blouses and other garments, of these many pieces which had different colors and shapes. These became colorful clothing. But the worse in appearance, they better they thought it.

“Afterwards came other acts of the feast, with dark behavior and of an evil nature. One of these was the feast for the spirits of the dead. The shaman led them. There could be weeping for whole nights, suddenly starting and suddenly stopping. The whole crowd wept loudly. Here were listed the great men and women who had left them. They thought that their spirits came at the times of the feasts, and they wanted to honor them in the following way: A fire was started on which they threw blankets, pieces of cloth, food, etc. Someone shouted the names of those who had lived and died in the belief that what one threw on the fire they would receive. In this way they kept up the memory, friendship and relationship with the spirits.”

Perhaps the shaman to whom Johnson refers was Te-’ic. If so, he was probably officiating at the potlatch by virtue of his position as head of Bear House on Khantaak Island, not in his professional capacity.

A Layman's Comments on a Potlatch

A White man who had lived for some time at Yakutat, visiting there for business purposes, said that he was glad the natives were “getting away from all that old tribal business,” because it just meant drinking and fights and conflicted with the law. He had never known a potlatch or dance that didn’t end in a fight because the natives got jealous of each other. They all needed to get together and work as a community.

“At Situk, they would brew a batch of sourdough beer, put in anything—potatoes, rice, flour, et cetera. They’d start drinking, then they’d begin to sing. And finally someone would take a broomstick and they’d begin some of those real old-time songs and start to dance. But it would always end in a fight. It's those African jungle rhythms—boom, boom, boom—that gets them all worked up. The younger men who had been away to school would take the guns and knives away from them—I bet there must be a hundred guns and knives under the Situk railway bridge—so nobody was badly hurt, but they did get beaten up. The Whites used all to gather in one tent or camp so there would be too many of them for the natives to attack, which they might do to get their knives and guns. The natives would always fix up the crock again so they’d have something to sober up on in the morning.

“Now they are trying to get away from potlatching…. And when they give all the dead person's things away to the opposite tribe, that means there is no money left for the probate fee or funeral expenses or to cover bad debts. All the people die intestate and that means a minimum fee of $150…. There is also trouble between the old rule of inheritance and the present law.”

Cures, Medicines, and Amulets

The native people of Yakutat, especially shamans and certain other wise persons, had considerable surgical skill and knowledge of many native medicines. Native medicines (nakw) were made from the roots, stems, leaves, bark, and pitch of plants, bushes and trees, and also from mosses and lichens. They were therefore often called ‘green leaves,' (kaaní), even though the principal ingredient was the root. The native term, however, almost always signified a ‘medicine' or “dope” used, not for curative functions, but as a magical ingredient (see below). Some medicinal plants were eaten or applied raw, but most were cooked. Various infusions were drunk to relieve coughs or other pulmonary ailments, to induce sweating, or to act as purgatives. Sometimes the infusion was rubbed on an afflicted place or used for a hot bath. Sores, swellings, and infected wounds were treated with cooked mashes, usually applied with seal oil. A few of the medicinal plants are known to have required religious rites to become effective, or apparently operated in supernatural ways; perhaps in former days this was true of them all. A serious or wasting illness, or one which could not be relieved by home remedies, was usually attributed to witchcraft and therefore required the services of a shaman (pp. 708–709, 730–731). Tumors or less serious afflictions were explained as due to spirit infection from a shaman's paraphernalia, and again could be cured only by a shaman (pp. 699–701). Some epidemic diseases were believed caused by evil spirits (p. 710).

However, even laymen had some means of combatting these, and in cases of illness native remedies were always tried before the shaman was called in.

The use of medicinal plants is today known both to men and women, although in most of the cases described it was the women who were the most active in securing, preparing, and administering the remedies. In serious illnesses, father and mother would cooperate in the care of a sick child, or parties of young men and young women would be sent out to find the necessary ingredients. Information about medicinal plants is exchanged between friends or relatives, but the gathered plants or dried roots are sold; some are even bought from the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska. Some of the older natives have admitted that in their youth they were not much interested in such matters, but are now, and they often combine or alternate native remedies with those prescribed by doctors or with drugs procurable at the store. Stories are told of native medicines that effected cures in cases that could not be relieved at the Government hospital in Juneau. The Yakutat people are, however, eager to take advantage of whatever Public Health facilities are offered, and in 1954 were anxious to secure the presence of a full-time nurse at Yakutat. They take “shots,” have their chests X-rayed, prefer to have their babies in a hospital, and go to Juneau or even to Seattle for operations, often patronizing private physicians or clinics, if they can afford it, in preference to those of the Indian Service. They look forward to an annual trip to Juneau “for check-up” as a vacation outing, as well as a medical desideratum.

Ills for which native remedies are or have been employed include infected wounds, abcesses, skin irritation, scalp trouble, burns, rheumatism, arthritis, menstrual pains, headache, coughs, tuberculosis, influenza, shingles(?), cataract, pneumonia, and smallpox. Swanton (1908, p. 446) also mentions syphilis. The natives also had knowledge of such surgical techniques as washing wounds, lancing boils, covering burns, and sewing up wounds with sinew. Presumably they also set broken bones, although I was not told anything about the last. Gynecologic skill is well developed (see pp. 500–502), and there must have been considerable knowledge of anatomy since formerly the foetus of a woman who died in pregnancy had to be cut out and burned or buried separately (pp. 535–536).

There seems to have been no clear line drawn between “true” medicines (in our sense) that were purely curative, and those which were magical ‘medicines,' or even amulets that could ward off misfortune or bring good luck. Rather, these various properties were all manifestations of the great powers of the ‘medicines.' These substances were vegetal in almost every instance, or included some portion of a plant. Only a few cures did not involve the use of medicinal plants, and only certain amulets were made that did not contain magical roots. A number of plants used primarily for food are also believed to have curative powers.

The term ‘medicine’ (nakw) is sometimes given as the name of the plant from which the medicine is made. It may designate either medicine in our sense or the magically potent preparation. ‘Green leaves’ (kaaní) almost invariably implied the latter, hence was usually translated as “dope.” We should also note that an amulet (of stone, bone, ivory, or wood), to be worn or rubbed on the body, was called ‘body-medicine’ (danakw). A charm ‘to wish on’ (wùxí) might include a magical root (kaani), or be used like a rubbing amulet.

My information on medicinal plants and their administration, while incomplete, gives some clue to the richness of the aboriginal pharmacopoea.

“There's lots of things in the woods that can cure people. We don’t even know [about them] ourselves;” but the old people did (MJ). After listing a variety of magical plants, another informant added: “These are the most important kinds of kaaní. Nobody knows how to do it [find and prepare them]. Costs lots of money for it. They buy it from one another—not from doctors [shamans]. The same way with these medicines The only common one is yana'Et adi [wild celery root] and atł' adi [skunk cabbage root].”

It is almost impossible to present this information in an orderly fashion. This is because so many different plants might be used for the same purpose, for example as a poultice for wounds, or as an infusion for coughs. Conversely, a number of important plants have sovereign virtues effective over many ills, and, in addition, may act magically to bring luck. In a number of cases we were unable to identify the plants, probably because knowledge about them is still prized as a personal or family secret.

Because medicinal lore and the substances themselves were exchanged between the Tlingit of Yakutat and those of southeastern Alaska, this account includes the ‘medicines’ recorded by Swanton in 1904 from an old man at Sitka (1908, pp. 446–448). Some of these are undoubtedly identical with ones employed at Yakutat, even though the uses were sometimes different and the names varied slightly from those we obtained.

SURGICAL TECHNIQUES

The shaman certainly had surgical skills. Thus, the shaman Te-’ic lanced infected wounds or glands to let out the pus, and when a man was mauled by a bear, directed the women who were sewing up his wounds (pp. 709, 716–717). According to the Rev. Albin Johnson, the last was accomplished with ordinary black thread, and he seems to credit the man's recovery to the missionaries’ use of carbolic acid in the water with which the wounds were washed (p. 717)! At an earlier day, sinew thread would have been used.

Salt water was used to wash and soak wounds, for there was virtue in sea water baths, apart from their role in hardening the young hunter. Such baths were physically and spiritually purifying, as well as curative (p. 516). Thus:

“When my dad go on sea otter hunting—The man behind him, he put the loaded gun down in the boat, and it went off, and my father was shot in the hip. They brought him home, and when he's getting healed they put him in salt water. After he got bit up by a bear, treat him the same way. Salt water is like medicine.”

Salt water, taken internally, was also cleansing.

Severe burns were effectively treated. For example, when the first mission building was destroyed by fire and the Reverend Hendrickson was injured trying to rescue the furnishings, his cure was undertaken by the native women, according to my informant (MJ). They opened and drained the blisters on his face and arms, and greased the burned flesh with fresh seal oil. Parties of young people had been sent out to gather small chitons at low tide. The black skins from these were peeled off and used to cover the raw flesh, until the blisters dried and new skin had grown again. Extra chiton skins to renew the dressings were kept spread out on pieces of wrapping paper, and additional live chitons were at hand in a water bucket. The patient is said to have recovered completely, and the same cure was also employed in another serious case (SJ).

I might also mention that urine was said to be a good eyewash (MJ). It was, of course, used as soap to wash the person both for physical and spiritual cleanliness, and it served further as a prophylaxis against contamination by Land Otter Men (p. 747). According to Swanton (1908, p. 447) one drank one's own urine before taking 'syphilis medicine,’ and it was also effectively employed in connection with ‘grabbing medicine’ when hunting sea otter (see below, p. 661). Perhaps the belief in the medicinal effectiveness of human urine was based upon its obvious cleansing properties and upon its supposed virtue in overcoming evil spirits and animal souls.

MEDICINAL PLANTS

Medicines for External Use

SKUNK CABBAGE

The root of the skunk cabbage (atł’, p. 33) is a good medicine for infected wounds (eł nakw).

“Big brown bear digs it up. Stick it to a place where it's wounded. That's how they [people] learn…. Bears just use it raw…. No matter what place he is, bear always go to that. He [my father] wounded so many brown bears, he see them do it.” (MJ)

The informant explained how her little brother had a badly infected ear into which a fly had crawled and died. The earache was cured by putting in shavings of skunk cabbage root and warm oil. This was kept up for about 2 days and nights until the abscess broke and the pus and dead fly came out. On another occasion, the same boy cut his knee badly. Boiled skunk cabbage root was mashed on a flat rock, squeezed through a cloth, mixed with seal oil and mountain goat tallow, and heated. This mash was put in or under the bandage, and the cut healed quickly.

Skunk cabbage root is also taken internally (p. 657).

Harrington (MS.) records the word, xáatł’, both for the skunk cabbage and for a hair tonic, made of some unknown “vegetal product…mixt with oil” (see Hellebore, p. 658).

COW PARSNIP

The root of the “wild celery” (yana'Et, p. 33; pl. 97) is also used as a poultice. “Yana'Et adi—wild celery root is what the brown bear uses when wounded” (SJ). It is still used for arthritis by a woman who explained, “You steam the root in water, split it apart, then put it on when it's still steaming, If you don’t put grease on first, it will take the skin off. It's pretty strong stuff.” The boiled root is apparently applied in cheesecloth and left on the afflicted joint overnight.

YARROW

A type of yarrow with clusters of pink and white flowers that bloom about the first of August (Achillea sp., p. 34), is called ‘mouse tail’ (kaak tł’idi). If boiled and put hot on a swollen infection it will draw the bad blood to the surface so that it can be lanced. A hot compress made of the leaves may also be used on a sore eye or on any sore place. Leaves are laid on the hot rocks in the steambath as a cure for rheumatism or for menstrual cramps.

SEAL-TONGUE MEDICINE

Swanton (1908, p. 446) reports a plant with a “large flower” called 'seal’s-tongue medicine’ (tsa-ł!″te naku). This is chopped up and applied as a poultice to large boils or sores.

SNUFF

Although perhaps not a regular remedy, on at least one occasion snuff was chewed and applied to a cut to staunch the bleeding. This was done by some young people after an escapade in which a girl cut her knee badly and they wanted to keep the incident hidden from their parents.

DOCK OR SORREL

“Wild rhubarb” (Rumex sp., p. 33), in addition to its use as food and as a dye, also furnished medicine. “They use rhubarbs—good medicine for cuts, that thing, the roots.” The informant told how her grandmother had treated her father's younger brother when the youth ran a fishhook through his hand:

“They cook it, they mash it, they use fresh seal oil and mix it. Then they put it on. All that thing, you know—sometimes it's pussy, you know. They clean it out. It heals quick.” “It eats up the pus. Boil it and chop it up and put it together with fresh seal oil like vaseline…. Put it on cuts, like iodine.” Her uncle's hand was “spoiled—all swollen up.” But after the root was applied, “next day it was all cleaned up.”

KELP

Another remedy for swellings is pulp made from kelp (gic, p. 56). “If you bump your knee, they use kelp pulp. Warm it and put it on. It's like iodine. There's iodine in it.” (SJ)

DEVILCLUB

Devilclub bark was also used as a poultice (see p. 659).

LICHENS

“Lichens from the ground in the woods are good for sores. Smash it up and heat it on rocks with seal oil and mountain goat tallow.” (MJ)

DEERBERRY

In late June, 1952, we went with a party of women to the woods between the Ankau lagoons and the ocean beach, where they found some medicinal plants which they intended to transplant near their homes at Yakutat. One of these was the deerberry or bunchberry (ekaItłk or qet kaaní, p. 32). One of the women intended to lay the leaves on the stove to heat them as an application for her eyes. She said she “can’t see so good. It draws the poison out. Also it's good for burns.” Another added, “It's medicine for everything—boils, cataract, and breast milk. Cut it to size, put it on your eye, and in the morning the cataract comes right off.” (MJ) Another woman told us that she had used it on her breast when she had her first baby and the nipple became sore “and spoiled.” She confirmed its value for the eyes and for infected cuts.

BLUE CURRANT

Swanton (1908, p. 447) also mentions another plant used to remove cataracts. This is probably the ‘wild currant’ (ca or cax, p. 32) for he called it CAXWA'S!Î (i.e., ‘currant bush’). If pieces of the broken and heated vines are placed close to a white spot on the eye, this is supposed to come out.

Very similar in name is what he calls 'syphilis medicine’ (c’xnAstÎ nku, see below, p. 657).

MOSS

Another compress for cataracts is made from a light green moss, Parmelia sp.? (Eoni, p. 31), that grows on an unidentified tree (tł’ułyIk). The moss is soaked, mashed, and made into a pad. “Then take the smash stuff and soak it in breast milk that just comes out fresh from your own breast. My mother used to do that for my grandfather when he was getting blind. It help him.” (MJ)

Medicines for Internal Use

Although not reported at Yakutat, Swanton (1908, p. 448) was told that the Tlingit used to drink the slimy water in which slugs had been dissolved as a remedy against spitting blood. My informants, however, stressed the great variety of plants that were used to make infusions, drunk primarily for relief of pulmonary consumption. Some of these were also applied externally.

SKUNK CABBAGE

This useful root (see p. 655) was also used for “lung trouble.” “Peel the outside off. Slice it and boil it with pure water and seal oil. Drink it when it's warm.” (SJ) “When it's dry, scrape it and smell it. It's good for headache—and TB.” (MJ)

In this connection we should note that American pharmacists in the last century gave fresh-ground skunk cabbage root (Ictodes foetidus) as a stimulant or narcotic to stop spasms. It was also prescribed “for a variety of medical conditions, including asthma, catarrh, rheumatism, dropsy, whooping cough, and pulmonary consumption” (Fred Lascoff of J. Leon Lascoff and Sons, commenting on President Truman's autobiography, quoted in the New York Times, Sept. 29, 1955; p. 35).

FETID CURRANT AND THIMBLEBERRY

The stems and leaves of the ‘lowbush currant’ (kAnEłtUk, p. 32) may be gathered in the spring or fall when there are no berries. An infusion made by boiling these is drunk as a “TB medicine.”

The thimbleberry (p. 32) is also used for the same purpose (MJ and friend).

HEMLOCK AND SPRUCE BARK AND PITCH

Hemlock bark is also good for tuberculosis, as is the pitch from the hemlock and balsam. Presumably infusions were made from these (MJ and friends). Tea made from spruce bark is said to make better cough medicine than any that can be bought in the store.

MOUNTAIN ASH

A useful TB medicine was made from a tall plant (kAtłtcAnEt) in the woods that has white flowers in late July and red berries in mid-August. This was a species of Sorbus, probably the Sitka mountain ash (p. 32). The roots were used to make an infusion.

HUDSON'S BAY TEA

Tea made from the leaves of Ledum groenlandicum (IkcAłtin, pp. 33, 407) was drunk as a substitute tea, and as a medicine for colds and for the stomach.

BLUE CURRANT(?)

Swanton mentions 'syphilis medicine’ (c’xnAstÎ nku), the native name of which suggests that of the ‘wild currant’ (ca).

GOATSBEARD

The roots of the goatsbeard, a tall plant with white spires that blooms in mid-July (Aruncus vulgaris, p. 33) are dug and boiled fresh to make a tea. In the fall, when the plant becomes red, they are worthless. The first effects of this medicine (qa kakdusex nakw) are to make the patient feel worse. “It makes you sick, if you’re going to get well. You say to the one that gives it to you, ‘How come you give me this medicine that makes me sick?’ In a few hours you feel good.” The medicine is supposed to be “good for everything—TB, rheumatism.” The informant's grandfather used it “when the sickness came,” presumably smallpox.

There are probably many other types of plants than were named by my informants that yielded infusions that were drunk as cough medicines.

Medicines With Great Power

Certain medicines seem to be in a special class because they are so powerful. Not only are some of them good for a variety of ailments, but they are also magically effective. Some may be gathered only after they have been asked to help the patient and a small token payment left in their place. Perhaps this was true in the past of all remedies. From the hints given in the statements quoted below, we may infer that in serious cases the preparation and administration of remedies was, whenever possible, entrusted to relatives in the opposite moiety who were paid for their services, since such persons were always called upon at life crises. However, it should be noted that at present all native remedies are employed in much the same spirit as the White man's medicines.

AMERICAN WHITE HELLEBORE

“Skookum root” (Ikc, p. 33, pl. 94) is known as a strong medicine, so poisonous that it will kill if used incorrectly. It was believed to be an effective protection against land otters (p. 746). Swanton (1908, p. 446) reports that a little bit of it (s!Îkc, “a species of Veratrum”) was snuffed up the nose to stop a cold.

The roots, ground up and mixed with fresh seal oil, will make the hair grow, hence it is called ‘head-hair medicine’ (cAawu nakw). According to one woman, the roots are cut in small pieces and mixed with oil, while fir buds are added to make it smell good. This is rubbed on the head for dandruff.

Or, to make “good dandruff medicine, when you get your hair falling out, you take the leaves, put it in a little can, and burn it. Just use the ashes of it. [Or?] dry the leaves, make a powder out of it. Put seal oil on, rub it in your hair. Be mighty careful you don’t get any on your eyes. It would blind you. It's strong, that's why you can’t use it without oil. That's why you never find any old people bald-headed.”

The informant went on to tell how “skookum root” and seal oil quickly restored to a man's head the hair torn out by his jealous wife.

“Other people make cramp medicine out of it, for when women have their monthlies…. People used to get it and dry it and put it away for winter. It's good for pneumonia. Boil the leaves of it, or the roots, with seal oil. Take just a little bit.” (MJ) This was effective in her own case (see p. 659).

YELLOW POND LILY AND BUCKBEAN

Another sovereign remedy is made from the roots of the yellow pond lily, ‘things growing in the lake’ (’atugwei, p. 33), and also from the buckbean, a gentian that grows beside it and is called its ‘children’ (’atugwei yAti, p. 33, pl. 97). The two are perhaps not clearly distinguished by the natives, and are on the borderline between ordinary medicine and magical plants. Thus, the patient will not be cured unless a payment is made to the UnEtkAnai, specifically a member (or members) of the opposite moiety who is closely related through the paternal line or through affinity. It is such a person who must gather the plant.

“When you dig it up, talk to it, like you would to Indian doctor, and leave some of your clothes [or money] in its place. Tell them it's for a person we’re going to use it for. [Name the patient]. It's medicine…[Say to it] ‘No Indian doctor could cure, so we appoint you for a doctor. The person appoint you to cure, that Indian doctor give it up. But you, you do your best to cure it.’ They give present to the doctor to make his spirits stronger, so the spirits can cure you or find things out.” That is why, it is implied, the plants must also be paid.

This medicine is “good for hurt of any kind,” this woman explained. She said that she had drunk an infusion of the plant when she was sick, and had also given some to a relative of her husband, when he had “poison blood” and sores on his legs which the hospital had been unable to cure. He drank a cupful before meals, and now wants her to supply him with more, for which he offered $5. Angoon people are said to use only the roots, but she boiled all the plant and prefers the buckbean to the yellow pond lily.

The medicine is also good for tuberculosis, and informants also cited two cases of pneumonia in which an infusion of the yellow dock had been administered with success. A White man who was afflicted with rheumatism had drunk it and rubbed some of the infusion on his legs.

IRIS

Although my informants did not mention the Arctic iris, Vernon (1895, p. 346; quoted p. 33) noted that the Yakutat Indians used its root as “a medicinal charm.” Because it grows in association with the yellow pond lily and the buckbean, although in the marsh near the pond, not in the water, I suspect that it was employed in the same way.

WILD HELIOTROPE

Wild heliotrope or valerian, one of the “heavy-scented perennials with small whitish or pinkish flowers in close cymes” (Anderson, 1959, pp. 433–434), yielded ‘medicine that stinks’ (ł tcAni nakw, p. 34). According to Swanton (1908, p. 446, this “smelling medicine” was made from a plant that grows on the mountain tops and has a strong odor, and was rubbed on the body for “any kind of sickness.” It was also blown on traps to make them successful.

My informants said that it was obtained high above the timber line near Point Latouche, or on the slopes above Disenchantment Bay, and that formerly it was addressed and paid when gathered. This was done after it had ceased blooming, for informants denied that it had flowers, and I presume that only the root was taken. Mashed to a powder, it is known as “native pepper,” put on a mother's breasts to assist in weaning, since it would burn the baby's mouth (p. 506). When ground up and soaked in hot water it was used for rubbing on sore muscles. “My grandfather used to have bags of it…. It eases up cramps.” (MJ)

DEVILCLUB

The devilclub (tAt, p. 32, pl. 95), with its murderously spiked leaves and branches, is perhaps the most important medicinal and magical plant of all. It was closely associated with the shaman, who wore suspended from his neck a bundle of its stems and spruce twigs, in which was the animal tongue that contained his power (p. 695, pl. 198). This charm might be touched to the patient's body as part of the cure. Or, the shaman might remove the disease by having the patient step through a hoop of devilclubs. Sometimes the shaman chewed a piece of the plant, then gave it to the patient (p. 708).

The devilclub (principally the bark) is a powerful emetic and purgative, taken by the shaman for purification during his noviciate and quest (pp. 676, 677). Others also used it as a purgative, and it is apparently still taken. The thorns are scraped off the stem and the bark is chewed.

“Somebody get sick, he eat devilclub, you know—good medicine! I eat it myself. That's why I no get sick. Chew raw, just bite it off. Strong that stuff! Vomit sometimes…. Stomach get cleaned, see?” Or, “Boil it in the water and drink it that way…. Good for flu, too” (CW).

Another purgative is hot sea water which, one woman reported, had also been successfully employed in a case of influenza.

Another informant explained that when she had pneumonia, she was made to sit in a big tub of hot water and shavings of devilclub bark. She was also given tea made of “Skookum root” (hellebore) and fresh sea oil, and the combined treatment sweated out the fever (MJ).

The same woman said further that a poultice of roasted devilclub bark shavings mixed with spruce pitch can be used for “any place that's sore.” The spot is first greased with fresh seal oil. “It takes the swelling out and gathers the sickness up in one place and takes it out.” A case in which it had been effective would appear to have been shingles, for the patient “got sores all over, just like a belt on.” The informant also believed that this poultice would be good for impetigo, of which there were a few cases at Yakutat (MJ).

If a woman becomes so badly chilled that menstruation stops, the devilclub may be used as a remedy, still another woman averred. It is boiled and a “drop” or “about half a teaspoon” of the infusion is drunk in water. Or the bark is put on hot rocks in the bathhouse and the patient pours water on them to make steam, and squats over the hot rocks. The yarrow called ‘mouse tail’ (p. 656) may be used in the same way, or both yarrow and devilclub may be heated and put on the woman's belly. “Then the womb is open.”

Hardy Trefzger (1963, p. 24) reports that medicine made from devilclub bark was used to treat cases of venereal disease, contracted by women from the oriental crews at the cannery.

The devilclub is perhaps most important during epidemics, for it is thought to be an effective protection against such diseases as smallpox, chickenpox, measles, and virulent influenza, infections which are believed to be caused by spirits called ‘things of the world’ (łIngit ‘ani ’Adi). They are invisible to all but shamans (p. 710), but are supposed to be afraid of the sharp spines of the devilclub.

“Nothing likes devilclubs. Everybody is careful when they go among devilclubs. They think the ‘things in the world’ is scared of them.”

For this reason, the people used to nail branches of devilclub “like good-luck horseshoes,” on the outside of the house, above the door and at the corners, and sometimes indoors as well, to keep out epidemic diseases. This was usually done in March, when there was apt to be a good deal of sickness about, or when there was word of epidemics in neighboring settlements. The practice is still followed by a few old people. A small piece of devilclub might be peeled and pierced to hang around the neck of a child to ward off illness. Later (when the danger was passed?), it was put with dog excrement.

During the influenza epidemic of 1918–19, several families kept the house full of smoke from pieces of devilclub that were burned on top of the stove. The door was left open all the time to keep the house cold, so that the occupants would not become overheated and so liable to catch cold when they went out. These precautions were believed to have been effective (CW, et al.).

The purifying powers of devilclub are used to make the fish run again if they had been driven away by a menstruating woman, and they can also be employed to end bad weather (pp. 528, 807).

MAGICAL PLANTS AND AMULETS

Magical plants or substances, although called ‘medicine’ (nakw), may perhaps be distinguished from purely curative medicines because they do not act primarily on the one who employs them, but upon other persons, animals, or objects, usually at a distance. They are therefore not applied as a poultice to the body that is to be affected, nor drunk as an infusion. They may, however, be handled, carried on the person, held in the mouth, or even in some cases rubbed on the body, but only to influence or attract something else. The use of these ‘medicines’ may involve chastity, fasting, purging, bathing, making a wish, or performing specified ritual acts. To be effective, some require that a portion or sample of the object to be affected (hair, clothing, money, etc.) be put in contact with the ‘medicine.’ The latter may, therefore, be considered as a kind of amulet to attract wealth or good fortune, or, when it is employed to injure another, as a form of witchcraft.

We have already noted that some plants (kayaní) were so effective that they not only could cure illness, if applied to or taken by the patient, but could also act magically. In this category are hellebore, wild heliotrope, and devilclub. Probably others could be added if our information were more complete. Knowledge about magical “dopes” or about the magical properties of medicinal plants was probably always more esoteric than about ordinary curative preparations, or else it has been more forgotten as belief in the effectiveness of magic has been weakened or destroyed. Perhaps some ‘medicines’ were known only to shamans. In any case, I was able to learn less about these supernatural ‘medicines’ than about home remedies. Except for the Siberian springbeauty, the star flower, and the white bog-orchid, the plants involved could not be identified.

These magical “dopes” were used to weaken an angry enemy or animal, to beat a rival hunter, to shoot accurately, to attract game, to attract wealth, to secure double payment at a potlatch, to conceal mistakes in dancing or singing, to make a potlatch successful, to kill someone by magic, or to attract a loved one.

Such a medicine was mentioned in the “History of Yakutat” (p. 233). It will be remembered that the AłyI-Kagwantan chief “made a lucky flower that helped them in hunting. The lucky flower was called kaaní. There are other kinds of kaaní. We learned about it from the Haida.” This wealth-bringing flower led the natives to a wrecked vessel on the beach.

A variety of magical substances and amulets might be used by the hunter, most of which were made from plants (kaaní).

“All different people know different things. Some they learn from Dekina [Haida], or different people. They make it to do good, or to do bad. Or animals—they claim the power of kaaní draws them in their way.” The informant stressed the regulations surrounding its use. “They have to be careful. Have to stay away from women so many months when working on kaaní, [but the informant did not know how long]. Have to get up early, go without food maybe all day long, eat in the evening, for 4 days, or 8 days. Different kinds got different rules.” (SJ)

He believed that there were certain varieties for arrows, and also for traps and snares, but again did not know what these were. “Different families has different kinds.” I have already indicated that no actual poison was used on weapons (p. 363); it was magic that was effective.

“They used to believe in all that. Now they don’t believe, so it kills all the power of that.” (SJ)

‘NO STRENGTH MEDICINE’

The best known kind of “dope” is called ‘no strength inside someone’ (łqatu łAtsín). This robs a dangerous animal, such as a bear, or a human adversary of strength and the will to fight.

It makes “animals pity you. When they get mad, they don’t want to harm you.” (SJ)

The native name for this medicine suggests that recorded by Swanton (1908, p. 446) and ‘medicine-that-makes-things-humble’ (łq′tuł tcn nku). The roots are chewed and spat out in front of oneself as one goes along, making both men and animals humble.

A Yakutat informant further described the hunting medicine: “When you take the roots out, it looks like a seal flipper or a fishtail; and that's what they are going to get…. I see some. They brought it from up the bay. It's good for hunting, also for many things. The name means ‘feeling weak.’”

That the appearance is a clue to its virtue suggests the European “Doctrine of Signatures.” The connection between the shape of the root and the use to which it could be put was also specifically suggested for love medicine (see p. 663).

When using ‘no strength medicine,’ said one woman, “You keep the roots in your pocket when you go out hunting. You see a bear or something, always take the roots off and put it in your mouth. Keep it in your mouth until you come to it,” and kill the animal. Another woman, whose brother has used it in bear hunting, said: “He has it in his possession all the time [when out hunting]. He carries it in his mouth and chews it…. It will kill the dead feeling in that animal when he gets angry [i.e., will destroy the murderous rage of the bear].” (MJ)

We should note that when using metal (silver, iron, steel) as a protection against land otters this is more effective if put into one's mouth (p. 746).

Not only is the root carried by the hunter, but it is also sucked or chewed or held in the mouth by the song leaders of the potlatch guests, so that their mistakes will not be noticed (p. 616). This is because there are always two rival groups of guests at a potlatch, that “dance against each other,” and each is jealously watching while the other performs, hoping that they will make mistakes. The song leaders who use this medicine have to fast. It is said to lack taste.

The same magical roots are also used in quarrels or contests. “You can use it in fighting—put it in your mouth. The other fellow kind of backward in harming you, not too willing to hurt you.” (SJ) Quite possibly it was this root that a Yakutat man used in a wrestling match with a Chugach Eskimo and, according to the Eskimo, thereby obtained an unfair victory. The Yakutat visitors to Prince William Sound, “had a small man named Niuqut [Neut?—a Teqwedi potlatch name] who was not very strong but usually won all the wrestling matches, because he chewed some kind of leaves [a literal translation of the Tlingit kaaní] and blew into his opponent's face, and so he lost all his strength. He wrestled with Makari's elder brother who was a big, strong man. When he blew in his face, the other felt his legs grow weak and cave under him, and so he lost.” (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 108.) Some Yakutat informants agreed that this “dope” would be “just the thing” for their favorite heavyweight contestant for the World Championship.

The same root was also said to have been used by a defendant in a murder trial in 1919. “Larry” shot a man who accused him of witchcraft and was on trial (p. 743). “Even if you get mad at someone who has it, all of a sudden you don’t know what to do…. When they caught L, they give him a trial. He said that's why he come out with no sentence, because he had it [the root]. But that's just a coincidence.”

This magical root does not have to be procured from a shaman; in fact, some old men and women in Yakutat are reputed to know what plant to take and to have gathered it on Haenke Island, although our informants could not identify it for us. “If you know about it, you can go out, get it yourself before you eat.” It must be gathered early in the morning. “Just the way they say, that kaaní strong when you get it in the morning before you eat. After you eat it wouldn’t help you.” The gatherer did not have to fast the previous day, but was supposed to have refrained from sexual intercourse, although the informant did not know for how long.

After the user has been successful, he must dispose of the root. This rule applies to all kaaní. “When he gets his wish, he puts it under a rotten tree. If he keeps it, it will bring bad luck.” (MJ) It was never specified, however, whether the magical root could be used only for a single hunt or contest, or whether it might be employed for a whole season.

MEDICINE FOR MARKSMANSHIP

Another medicine was used to shoot straight, although I did not learn its native name. It was effective for basketball.

“I know a boy from southeastern Alaska. He graduated from college. He is thinking about his uncle, and about basketball dope. And his uncle said, ‘If you live right and take my word, you’re gonna make it.' So he takes his uncle's word. He told me all the story. By the time his uncle made it for him—in 8 months—he feel like he's going to fly. He can catch the ball and put it in the basket from anywhere. And he wins two stripes at college. And after, when it was condemned for him—you must destroy it before it's too late—he tried to play basketball and he couldn’t play it at all…. They wanted to make that medicine for the Yakutat Basketball Team, but they wouldn’t live pure 8 months—keep away from their wives and keep clean, and so on.”

This case was mentioned on another occasion and the young man identified as a resident of Angoon.

“He told a story—I don’t know if it's true…. After the tournament, he put it [the kaaní] away. He can’t use it. It's dangerous.”

The same youth was given shooting medicine by his uncle. It is not clear that this was the same as that which he had used for basketball, although this was what I inferred.

“After, his uncle fix it out for him for seal hunting. He fixed shooting medicine for him. He don’t know how he's aiming. He don’t even know how he shoot it, but he never miss.” “He was a dead shot, shooting. But he got rid of it. Someone hired him [for a hunting party], but he can’t shoot anything.” “When the seal hunting season opened, then he can’t shoot at all…. They say you have to do away with it [the ‘medicine’] right away after the event is over. You got to do it the proper way.”

‘GRABBING MEDICINE’

Swanton (1908, p. 447) describes ‘grabbing medicine’ (dj′yAnAXAC nku) that was used by hunters, primarily for seals and sea otters. The maker had to remain continent for a month, and let no one else touch his urine box. Then he killed an eagle, from which he cut off the foot, itself apparently an effective amulet because of the grasping talons, and tied the medicine flower to it. The eagle's foot might be made to grasp the thwart of a miniature canoe in which was the figure of the hunter aiming at a sea otter. Then when he went out, he took the foot with him and either put it in the same place in his canoe, so that his prey could not escape, or fastened it to a piece of floating wood, so that the sea otter would rise up to be shot. If he blew some of his urine at it, the animal would become confused and approach.

‘Grabbing medicine,’ together with some hairs from the genital region of the deer, might be fastened to a gun barrel. If waved at a deer, this would make the animal come close.

What was probably the same medicine, although Swanton (1908, p. 446) calls it ‘medicine-that-makes-one-win’ (djiA’naAC naku), was a plant that made one angry and successful in revenge. This last was achieved by wrapping up an image of one's enemy with the medicine, a procedure that suggests witchcraft, although it is implied that it will simply enable the user to kill his enemy with a weapon.

MEDICINE FOR GAME THAT HAS ESCAPED

One of my informants described a type of ‘medicine’ that was used to secure an animal that had escaped from the hunter. (This may have been the same as the ‘grabbing medicine’ described by Swanton.)

“I did prove it. My father had medicine for getting animals that got away. My dad pick up roots. And then some of the things he missed—like a fox that got away when its ‘finger’ breaks off in the trap—and if it gets out of the snare—he will get the same animal that got away the next day.

“My father came back and he said, ‘Well, that mountain goat got away. I shoot him and he got away. But I have some of his hair.’ He put some hair with the root. Then he's walking on the beach. And that goat he shot come right down there.

“You have to have something from the animal, like hair, and put it with the [medicine] and [you will] get it next time.”

“GLARE MEDICINE”

Another type of ‘medicine’ was called “glare” (kAłík; cf. Boas, 1917, p. 150, kA-YA-łIk, ‘to be dizzy’). This was used when rival hunters had sighted the same game and both were racing to secure it. The one who lacked this medicine would be unable to keep up with his rival. The name suggests that he would become dazzled or blinded, feel dizzy, but further details were not learned.

‘LAND-OTTER MEDICINE’

Swanton (1908, p. 446) mentions ‘land-otter medicine’ (kūcta nku) taken when one was “short-winded in one place.” Presumably this was useful on hunting trips into the mountains.

DZÎ′NÎ MEDICINE

Swanton (ibid.) further reports that a flower(?), the name of which was not translated and which grows only where a groundhog lives, gives one the power to kill animals if carried in one's cheek.

SEA-OTTER HUNTING MEDICINE

A more elaborate type of ‘medicine’ for hunting sea otter involved the use of some roots, the kind unspecified.

“The men used to get ready to kill sea otter. Now they can’t do it. They made a kind of dope for it. They can tell how many otter they’re going to get. At Lituya Bay, [a man named] Qanukw [or anu] did it. They take hemlock bark and roots and they’re going to make a dope for sea otter.

“If I prove [test] it, I stay so many months—8 or 9 months—without my wife. Don’t take no water, not sleep too much. Then for 2 or 3 days, he don’t eat or drink at all.

“Afterwards he went where there is a swamp, like the village lake here where there is always grass. He put the bark on the water like he is washing gold. And he makes a strong wish. He lifts it up and sometimes there is a little rock on it. And then he puts it with the roots. Sometimes he's got four rocks. He can’t get more. [See p. 665.]

“If I don’t do it right, I get crazy inside. Only I don’t listen to Dad, I believe in God. They claim the person who had that kaaní would have lots of money and luck, but that it would go right into the air.” That is, the riches would not last.

MEDICINE TO ATTRACT FAVORABLE NOTICE

The host who gave a potlatch might use some kind of magical substance to insure that he received the approbation of his guests and that the entertainment was successful.

“My dad was telling me. It's some kind of medicine. They take part of the most popular place [as an ingredient], like—Point Latouche—people talks about it all the time. They put it [a piece from the popular place] with that medicine…. That's to be noticed.”

The informant explained that before the Alaska Native Brotherhood Convention which was held at Yakutat in 1931, one man made such a medicine with shavings from the church door.

“My mother caught Jimmy J shaving out part of the church door frame. He felt guilty, so many years later he told me. He was fixing it for the 1931 Convention. That's why it was nice weather, and the Convention went nicely.”

It was also said that the native orchestra that used to play for dances in the cannery mess hall used the same ‘medicine.’

‘HAPPY MEDICINE’

Swanton (1908, p. 447) described a ‘medicine’ which seems to be rather similar to the last. To the plant(?), one adds a piece of wood cut from an old tree on which there is an eagle's nest, (i.e., a conspicuous place?). It is called ‘happy medicine’ (ktū’k!A nku, probably qatu yue nakw ‘one's-insides or feelings are-well’). It is supposed to make one feel joyful; and if this interpretation is correct, it would seem to act on one's self, rather than on others. One would suppose, however, that it would affect others to make them pleased.

In its alleged mode of action, ‘happy medicine’ must have been somewhat similar to that described in the Wrangell story (see p. 577) which enabled one to become a great dancer and song composer. The little sack with this concoction was tied to the top of a tree and therefore acted upon its owner at a distance, while it swung in the wind. Perhaps this ‘medicine’ was the same as that which Swanton's Sitka informant called ‘entertainment medicine.’

‘ENTERTAINMENT MEDICINE’

What Swanton (1908, p. 447) calls ‘entertainment medicine’ (SAgū’aÎ nku, from sI-gu, ‘to be happy’) was taken by someone who was to be taken as a ‘deer’ in a peace ceremony, so that he could gladden the hearts of his captors when he “makes sport” for them (pp. 596–602).

WEALTH MEDICINE

Swanton (1908, p. 446) mentions a flower 4 feet tall with seeds on top, called ‘flower-hunting-for-a-rich-man’ (nq′wo ′kocÎ), because it makes a person wealthy.

My informants gave the names “money dope” (duwuwEt kai kaaní) and ‘called-by-the-village medicine’ (’antc ‘UU nakw) to plants that were said to attract wealth. I am not sure whether one or two different species were designated, although the second name was certainly applied to the Siberian springbeauty (p. 33), and the same technique of employment was described for both.

The entire plant should be gathered early in the morning “before breakfast,” that is, before the raven calls at dawn. It is not necessary to address the plant or to leave a gift in its place. The plant, or the root alone, is wrapped in a little bag or envelope with a silver dollar, and left outdoors.

“When you are ready…put it in the bottom of your handbag. It will make your bag heavy with money.” “It draws the spirit of money to you—the intentions of the townspeople.” (MJ and friend)

Apparently the appearance of the root indicates its effectiveness (MJ). As in the case of other magical plants, it must not be kept too long, but must be returned to the ground.

When Dr. McClellan showed an informant a locket containing a sprig of Scotch heather and jokingly remarked, “This is my money kaaní,” the woman, laughing but a little shocked, exclaimed, “Shame! Girls don’t get kaaní. That's only for men.” She may have been thinking specifically of love medicine (see below), which she went on to describe.

We should also note that Swanton (1908, p. 446) reports a flower found in the woods with a name very similar to that of the springbeauty. This is ‘medicine-that-tells-anything-that happens-in-the-town’ (′ntoXOX- nkw) because it was supposed to report all the news.

‘LOOKING AT THE SUN MEDICINE’

The white bog-orchid (wild hyacinth, p. 33) was called ‘need kaaní’- or ‘looking-at-the-sun medicine’ (gAgan ‘AłItín nakw). It is said of it that no matter how long the sun shines, there is always some dew on the leaves. Guests at a potlatch might carry some of the plant to insure that they would be paid twice, that is, the hosts would give twice to the man who had it.

“If they have that, everything in the world is looking up to them. But if they don’t live right, they get sick, have bad luck. But the money they makes, though, that don’t last.”

Swanton (1908, p. 447) also mentions the ‘medicine-always-looking-at-the-sun’ (gAg′n łat′n nku), so called because the flower always turns to follow the sun. This ‘medicine’ was, however, used in sea-otter hunting, being rubbed on the hunter's body and not washed off until the end of the season. This again suggests that the same magical plant could be effective in attracting wealth in any form.

LOVE MEDICINE

‘Loving-each-other medicine’ (wutc sIAni nakw) is the delicate starflower that blooms in June (p. 32). Again it is the roots that are important, and are said to look like a little man. They must be procured or “looked at” before breakfast, or after fasting all day. The root is wrapped up with a piece of one's own clothing and something from the clothing of the person one wishes to attract. One man who had a succession of pretty young wives was said to have used it. Although supposedly used only by men, a case was cited in which a native girl successfully employed this ‘medicine’ on a White man. The ‘medicine’ was alleged to be good for many things other than love, but these were not specified (MJ, et. al.).

Swanton (1908, p. 446) also describes the use of ‘loving-each-other medicine’ (wuctsÎxA’nÎ nku) to make a girl suffer for the love of a suitor whom she has rejected. To the plant are added bubbles from the edge of the water, so that her pain will rise with the tide, and earth from her own footprints, so that she will follow him weeping.

‘Crying-for medicine’ was another love charm, but could be used only by Raven men. According to a Wrangell story (Swanton, 1909, Tale 82, p. 242) it was composed of ants, frogs, blueflies, and “some stuff that looked like tallow and had a pleasant odor.” The mash was kept in an eagle quill; when shaken it would attract any bear, mountain goat, animal, or woman that the owner desired. This ‘medicine’ was not mentioned at Yakutat.

I should add that a man at Yakutat was reported to have died because the love magic made for him by a woman was improperly handled. This was described as like a case of witchcraft (p. 744). His hair and a piece of his clothing had been wrapped around the root. He might have recovered if those who found the charm had removed these objects of his and then burned or buried the root. However, they broke the root first and then burned the whole charm, so the man died.

‘MEDICINE-FROM-FALLEN-TREES’

This last form of ‘medicine’ will kill anyone on whom it is fastened. Swanton (1908, p. 446) calls it ‘medicine-from-fallen-trees’ (s L!Îq! nku), and it probably signifies a broken tree (’as ł’i nakw; cf. Boas, 1917, p. 150, yà-ł’í, to break). I did not hear of this at Yakutat.

Other Amulets

The ‘medicine’ elaborately prepared and put away, especially with the grasping talons of an eagle, a fragment of something that attracted every eye, or with the money one wished to accumulate, has in effect become an amulet. In addition, there are other amulets, not made of medicinal plants, but of different materials. They are called ‘body-medicine’ (danakw) because they are often used to rub or scratch the body, or 'something to wish on’ (WÙÍ). As already indicated, no clear line can be drawn between medicines and amulets.

‘WISH STONE’

The technique for using certain amulets is like that described for ‘medicine’ to secure game or wealth, or for love magic. This was explained by one informant who was shown an archeological ornament made of a tubular piece of native copper (de Laguna et al 1964, fig. 19, g, i).

“Some old people got their dope in there—the roots they believe are lucky. Somethimes they use it for hunting sea otter. Sometimes before they eat, they use it. We don’t use it much [now], but we hear about it. This time we believe in God, but I hear about it. It [the copper tube] is just to keep it [the root]. They tie it up and make a wish for luck.” I understood him to suggest that the small piece of copper had been used to attract a big piece. “Because copper cost so much, they use a little of that. There's lots of things they save out of this to make money on.”

He called the root, or the root in the copper tube an amulet (WÙÍ). When shown a coal bead from the same archeological site (de Laguna et al., 1964, pl. 17), he failed to recognize it as a bead, but said: “You tie up that WÙÍ with it. They call it ‘wish stone’.”

These remarks would indicate that the same magical root or amulet might be used to attract both wealth and game animals, especially since fur-bearers were wealth in a very real sense, and that uttering a wish was part of the technique of employment.

An amulet (WÙÍ, or danakw) was used by the hero, Łkettitc, of Akwe (p. 244). This was given to him by the grateful slave, who further instructed him to rise before the raven called and to wash his head in the river at each end of the village, at the same time making a wish for good luck. When asked to explain the meaning of the native word, my informant said:

“WÙÍ—It's something from the birds or something. Sometimes a bird—maybe it's something wrong with his beak or his claws. And he never fly away, but just [let you] examine it and fix it up. And then it flies away, and you dream or something. Early in the morning, you go over there where he tell you. And sometimes they drop something—something funny that doesn’t exist, that brings you luck.”

An incident was also recorded (p. 709) in which a small stone from the lowest tide level was given by a shaman to an ailing girl as an amulet. This she lost, but it was later returned to her by an eagle, presumably the shaman's spirit (yek), for there is no indication that this bird had been befriended. The nature of that mysterious substance, copper, was revealed to an Atna youth because a spirit pitied him and because he fed the birds (see pp. 899–900). A stone from the level of the lowest tide (cAnya tei) was apparently a potent object; it was from swallowing such a rock that Raven's mother became pregnant (p. 844). One wonders whether rubbing amulets (see below, pp. 666–667) were usually made of such beach stones.

AMULETS FROM ANIMALS OR BIRDS

The necklaces and neck charms worn by shamans were all amulets (p. 689), and we should note that these were often made of carved bone or ivory. The tooth of a brown bear was considered a powerful amulet of this type because it came from such a powerful animal. The animal tongues, bear jaws, eagle talons, etc., in shamans' neck bundles are, of course, especially potent amulets (p. 695).

Swanton (1908, p. 447) reports that in southeastern Alaska the bezoar stone (dan′k) found in a deer was used by men as an amulet for deer hunting. This animal, it will be remembered, was not native to Yakutat. There is, however, some hint that the Yakutat people used stones from sea lion stomachs as amulets.

If one finds the next of a hummingbird (stAgAtgíya) with its four tiny eggs, one will become rich. The neat way in which the nest is made was admired by my informant, but it is not clear whether the nest and contents were saved.

The magic bone, presumed to have been that of a mountain goat, and containing a magical plant (though invisible to the ordinary eye), was in effect an amulet which enabled Dry Bay Chief George, his son, and granddaughter to compose songs (p. 577). It had originally been procured from a shaman.

‘FIREWOOD EGGS’

Swanton (1908, p. 448) describes an extraordinary type of amulet, ‘firewood eggs’ (An kah′gu), so-called because they resembled eight large soft dog salmon eggs, and might be found when chopping firewood. The finder would immediately take them home, put them outside over the door, and wash his head, hands, and feet in urine. He had to fast and remain continent for some time, or the eggs would disappear. If treated properly, these amulets brought wealth.

It will be remembered that a sea-otter hunting medicine, described by a Yakutat informant, involved the scooping up on a piece of bark of four little rocks (p. 662). These may well have been similar to the amulets called ‘firewood eggs’ and the 'sun's excrement.’

‘SUN'S EXCREMENT’

The maternal grandfather of two of my informants, Łuso of Coward House, is supposed to have owed his good fortune to the possession of four amulets (danakw) that were believed to be the excrement of the Sun (Agan hatł’i). That there may have been some connection between this type of amulet and the Teqwedi sib is suggested by the fact that the name, ‘Excrement Medicine’ (Hatł’IS nakw), belonged to the Bear House branch of this sib at Yakutat; it was, in fact, borne by the brother of adene. The amulets were described as like shiny marbles or golf balls, golden in color, with speckles. As the granddaughter of Łuso explained:

“He runs across that in a nest on the gravel.” “He goes in the woods and mooch about on the island, hunting. That thing is like somebody put it in front of him. It's a nest with nice little golden things in it. There's no such a thing as God at that time. He bring it home. He don’t know what to do with it. The reason he thought of it was he find that thing where there's no birds or anything to make a nest. That's why he's suspicious and bring it home…. He had that a long time. That's how come he have a big canoe of his own, and five slaves, and a big house of his own. It's just from that box, they believe it.” (MJ)

The four amulets were kept in a little wooden box, about 3 to 6 inches square, tied up tight. With them were put sea otter fur, or the hair of any other game animal he wanted to kill, as well as bits of calico, wool from clothing, bits of new blankets—”anything he wish for.” No one was allowed to look inside, although the informant as a little girl once managed to catch a glimpse when her grandfather opened the box. The box was kept in a sack, hanging from the rafters, so the children could not get at it. It was taken outdoors to preserve the “strength” of the amulets whenever one of the women in the house was menstruating, “because it's so particular.”

Before opening the box, the owner had to bathe, fast, and abstain from drinking water for 1 to 2 or 3 days in advance. He would wash thoroughly in a steam bath, go to the sea and bathe in salt water, wash his head, and finally rinse off in fresh water. This was done early in the morning before the raven called. Then, still before dawn, he would open the box and wish for luck. It was presumably at this time that the fur or bits of cloth were put with the amulets. The informant did not know what her grandfather said because he had to be alone when he uttered his wish.

There was always a certain day of the month when he opened the box, but his grandchildren do not remember which it was. He did this before he went sea otter hunting and this was why he always came home with one or more (MJ, CW).

Possibly these little egglike objects were the fruits of a tropical plant, which are sometimes found in Alaskan waters and are esteemed by the Chugach and Koniag Eskimo as amulets. The way in which the Chugach use these is very similar to that described by my Yakutat informants (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 32).

Katlian, the KIksAdi chief of Sitka, had a small box (dan′kudk′t, i.e., danakw dakEt, ‘medicine box’) that contained various wealth-bringing substances, formerly including the Sun's manure (Swanton, 1908, p. 448). Before opening it, the owner had to have been chaste for 4 months, and fast for 7 days. Each day he would wade naked out to sea over his depth, returning before the raven called. He would blow into the box through one of eight tiny holes, and suck out. On the eighth day he spread the charms in the box over all his valuable furs. From two grease boxes near the fire, he put some grease on his head, and some in the fire to “feed” the amulets. He gestured toward them, put his hands to his face and blew out, uttering the wish: “Let me be wealthy. Let me have five slaves.” Then he put the amulets away with bits of beaver and marten fur (the wealth he hoped to acquire), and when it was broad daylight, he distributed the rest of the grease to other houses, and broke his fast.

Swanton does not know what the box actually contained, but reports that if one obtained the foam from where a UnaqAdEt had emerged, this would be included. This creature is a wealth-bringing sea being (pp. 820–821). My own informants mentioned the cherishing of the scab from a scratch made by Property-Woman as a similarly potent amulet (see p. 821).

Such an amulet box would be inherited from uncle to nephew as an important lineage heirloom, bringing material wealth to the house. However, if the rules for handling the medicines in it were not properly observed these would vanish from the box, and the possessor would become poorer than ever before (see also Swanton, 1908, p. 448).

SCRATCHING AMULETS

Just as the adolescent girl, the widow, and the peace hostage used a rock to scratch themselves and to rub ritually around their mouths (pp. 521, 538, 598), so do other persons who are concerned lest they “make trouble with their mouths.” Hunters also had a rock to scratch an itch on their bodies (p. 363). Such a stone was called a ‘body-scratcher’ (dàÁÀ), or a ‘mouth stone’ (kAadat tei; probably qa-a-dat ‘around someone's mouth,’ tei 'stone-of’). It is not clear whether these two terms designate two special stones or one with two functions: one, to protect the user from the contaminating touch of his or her own fingernails; the other, to prevent gossip. “It makes their lips lazy, and their tongues heavy as a rock, so they wouldn’t cause trouble with their mouths—war” (MJ).

It seems to be impossible to determine just when or by whom such rubbing stones were used (other than the special persons mentioned above). Thus, one old man said:

“When you eat, clean your mouth,” and he rubbed his lips. “Big shot—’anyAdi—boys sometimes used it. Small boys wear it on a string around their necks…and girls, too. I’m baptized now, and wear a cross.” (JR)

The purpose of the stone, he told me, was so they would become “just like you, kind to everybody. They would say, ‘I don’t want to say bad talk to anybody’—Just like pray to God—’Please, I don’t want to make mistake.’” (JR)

The natives of Lituya Bay evidently used such mouth amulets, for LaPérouse (1799, vol. 1, p. 401) reports of the men that: “Their teeth are filed down to the gums by means of a rounded piece of sandstone in the shape of a tongue.”

The use of the rubbing or scratching stone in time of personal crisis was also to protect one's own life.

“They’re scared to use their fingernails” (JR), although he did not make clear to whom he referred. “This rock…some women use it for their lips, so they will have good lips, not talk too much. And they use it for scratching themselves. If they use their hands it will poison them,” a woman reported.

One old CAnkuqedi woman who had “married into Dry Bay” from the interior was said to have used such a scratcher. “She had a stone with a hole through it, hung around her neck, and when she itched she rubbed herself with it.”

“They do that to make themselves live a long time” (MJ).

At Angoon in southeastern Alaska, I was told that many persons wore such rubbing amulets, given to them by the shamans (de Laguna, 1960, p. 123).

Katlian at Sitka had a small piece of jade suspended on a thong which had been used by a ‘deer’ or peace hostage as a scratcher. For him to use his fingers would be fatal (Swanton, 1908, p. 451).

Professor Libbey obtained three scratching charms from the natives of Port Mulgrave in 1886. These are about 4 to 6 cm. in length, are made of slate or a similar stone, and have a hole for suspension. One shaped like a “copper” has a lead eye at one end, and is incised on one side with the figure of a seated or squatting manikin (perhaps the Teqwedi's Children of the Sun) (pl. 136). Another, like the upper part of a “copper” which has been cut in two, has the engraved figure of an eagle on one side, and a shark or sculpin on the other, probably the Teqwedi Eagle and Shark crests (pl. 136; cf. Wardwell, 1964, p. 62, no. 153). The third, hung on a braided cord, has a geometric design (pl. 137).

Seton-Karr (1887, p. 60) has described these:

“Some one else had bought for a few cents a charm hung on a string and resembling a small whetstone. The use of this for a long time rested a mystery until our Tlingit interpreter discovered that, during the three days previous to starting out on sealing, the Yakutat Indians are not to scratch their backs with the hand, but when the irritation becomes absolutely unendurable they may use such stones as these like scrapers. Any man violating this rule will probably be drowned—accidentally.”

Although unpierced, I have interpreted the incised pebbles from sites in the Angoon and Yakutat areas as rubbing amulets (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 122–125; de Laguna et al., 1964, pp. 168–172). Insofar as we can interpret the designs, these represent masked anthropomorphic figures, perhaps shamans' yek(?). Swanton noted that shamans wore small stones with which to scratch their heads (quoted, p. 689).

Emmons also obtained at least two specimens at Yakutat which he cataloged as “stone amulet or scratcher—tes-sate.” One was a natural claystone, similar to those he had seen in the Stikine country (AMNH E/148, discarded), the other (E/751) is of ornamented black slate. He reported that such a stone would be “worn around the neck as a charm against witchcraft, and used to scratch the body with.”

The Land Otter Hair Amulet

[Told July 19, 1952; somewhat edited. The informant had just identified a lump of coal from the site on Knight Island (de Laguna et al., 1964, pl. 17, i–bb) as a “luck stone,” or amulet.]

You tie up your WÙÍ with it. WÙÍ is luck.

My aunt used to have things that look like your hair [i.e., blond or brown, like that of CMcC or FdeL]. They call it kucdaqa cAawu [Land Otter Man's head hair]…. Billy Jackson [WaSU, 1883–1951] had it before he died…B. A. Jack [WatÍ, 1860–1949] used to have it. After he's gone and died, I don’t know what happened to it….

It was way up the Copper River. My uncle left my aunt there when he went out hunting. He left her with just the kids.

Then just at once she heard things—tapping—u u u u, ps ps ps ps. She locked the house. She was scared because she was alone there.

Pretty soon she don’t know herself; she fainted. She tied the baby to her chest against her, because she's [afraid she's] going to lose the baby [that the Land Otter Men would steal it; cf. p. 744].

She fainted again. And the third time. She thinks she's going to lose the baby.

Then she sees it stays right by where the fire burns. It looks like a woman to her, that kucda-qa [Land Otter Man]. That thing looked like a woman with thick bushy hair.

My aunty said to the woman: “’Ican At! [Pity me]. You’re a woman just like me. I stay here waiting for my old man.” She talked to that kucda-qa, “Try to wish me good luck. Wish good luck for me somehow. I can’t do nothing to you. ‘Ican At! I wish you give me good luck. Don’t bother me,” she told her.

Then the last time, she don’t know herself. Four times [she fainted], her left hand close up tight. This time when she opens her hand, she got hair in her hands. She looks at it. It's like kucda hair. The natives never had red or blond hair.

The next day she wake up, and she don’t eat. And she don’t feed the kid, too, till late. Even the little kids in the old times [had to fast]—just to wish for luck. The old folks can’t eat when they wish for luck….

If you wish for money with that thing, you keep money with it. Or if you wish for a boat, you keep part of a boat with it. Call it WÙÍ. Before the raven makes a noise, you go in the water with it. That hair they used to have, they keep it in a special box. If you wish for lots of fish, then you put dried fish in with it….

Shamanism

INTRODUCTION

The Shaman

The shaman (’i) is the intermediary between men and the forces of nature. He cures the sick, controls the weather, brings success in war and on the hunt, foretells the future, communicates with colleagues at a distance, receives news about those who are far away, finds and restores to their families those who are lost and captured by the Land Otter Men, reveals and overthrows the fiendish machinations of witches, and makes public demonstrations of his powers in many awe-inspiring ways. He is the most powerful figure in his own lineage, or sometimes even in his sib. Though his fame may have spread far to foreign tribes, he is seldom consulted when those of his own line are sick and dying, for these he cannot save. Nor can he save his own children if they are bewitched. His patients are inevitably members of another sib, often residents in another village. His professional rivals may be colleagues in any sib except his own; his most deadly enemies, like those of any Tlingit, are the traitor witches who lurk among his closest relatives.

The shaman practices his profession because he controls and is inspired by supernatural spirits (yek). They have been inherited from a predecessor, usually an uncle or older brother, although some shamans obtain new ones of their own. Such spirits, each of whom has a personal name, a special song, and associated regalia in the “outfit” or costume of the shaman, his “master,” will be passed on from one shaman to another in the maternal line. Stories of especially great “doctors” tell how new spirits have been acquired. At the death of a shaman, his attendant spirits remain in association with his “outfit” and with his corpse, where his own spirit (or ghost) also waits to choose his successor. This will be some junior relative, man or woman, who has come in contact with his paraphernalia or come close to his body when, as is customary, they supervise the construction or repair of his grave house. I do not know whether a nephew or younger brother can refuse to participate in such a dangerous duty, or whether such refusal would protect him from exposure to the dead shaman's influence. In any case, however, once selected by the spirits, to refuse the call means serious illness, and often death. On the other hand, some have definitely sought the spirits, or have valued their unsolicited coming as a great blessing. Although shamanism is an involuntary calling, the success with which it is carried out, the number of yek involved and the power of the shaman, all depend upon himself, his courage, skill, fortitude, undeviating adherence to taboos, and luck.

To practice his calling, the shaman needs one or more assistants, invariably members of his own sib, but not necessarily of his own lineage or house. His closest assistant or “helper,” (’i an qawu, or du An qawu, ‘the one with the doctor,’ or ‘with him’), was called by one informant his “sidekick or stooge,” because the shaman makes use of him in demonstrations of his power. His assistant is his “partner,” at all times closely associated with him, observing his regimen and accompanying him to watch over him on those exhausting retreats into the wilderness on which he obtains new spirits or consolidates his powers. The shaman's assistant may sometimes become a shaman himself. The assistant may also care for the doctor's paraphernalia, or be sent to fetch it, since such dangerously power-charged objects are usually cached outside the house and the village. Another assistant usually beats the drum during seances, although “all of his people,” that is, all the men of his own sib or house, assist the shaman by singing his song and beating time, thereby strengthening his powers. To keep himself a fit receptacle of the spirits, the shaman must observe a strict regimen of prolonged fasting, thirsting, purging, and sexual abstinence, and he is forbidden to cut or comb his hair.

In addition to regular shamans, there are others who have lesser powers or skills of the same kind. These might be a daughter to whom the shaman has taught a little of his own healing craft, a relative or descendant whom his spirits have temporarily touched, or a nephew who has acquired some power of his own through association with his uncle's shamanistic paraphernalia. Other relatives of a shaman may share in the latter's ability to “feel” bad luck approaching. Perhaps such persons are especially phenomena of modern times when the true shaman has disappeared but, more likely, even in the old days there were individuals with varying degrees of supernatural power and curative ability, so that it was impossible to draw a sharp line between “Indian doctor” and layman.

The shaman was usually a man, although a few were women. Some shamans were house heads or close relatives of a chief. While I have not heard of any who were sib chiefs, this would not have been impossible. One at least, atgawet, was wealthy, but it may be significant that his wealth came from marriage, not from his practice. Although one had to give the doctor good pay for his services, there was no indication that shamanism was itself a lucrative profession through which a man might become rich. It did, however, bring awesome power, and prestige tinged with horror. Shamans were intensely jealous of each other.

Persons living today in Yakutat have heard the eyewitness accounts of their parents who saw demonstrated the powers of shamans now long dead. There are even a few individuals still alive who themselves knew the last shamans, or saw their miraculous feats. It is acknowledged that not all shamans had all the powers they claimed, yet to make false boasts was to invite attack by stronger rivals. “And there's some false ones—they don’t last long,” a woman remarked. “And there's some that's real.”

“All the doctors die off when the White people came, because nobody believe it any more.”

Known Shamans

Most of the specific information about shamanism in the Yakutat area was obtained in the form of stories about particular individual shamans. Some of these were the legendary figures of the past, especially the Teqwedi atgawet and the Kwacqwan woman, Daodzu, but most stories concerned doctors who had lived at the end of the 19th century. Of these, the most was learned about Te-’ic, ‘Little Stone's Father,’ also called Łagua, ‘Tells about War,’ a Teqwedi shaman who was head of Bear House on Khantaak Island (pl. 65).

Te-’ic was apparently born in 1830 or a little earlier, for he was the oldest brother of Ca-kuwakan (Jack Shaw-coo-kawn, 1831–99), and he died about 1890. It is, however, impossible to fix the date of his death accurately. Thus we are told that he died after receiving the news of the death of Daqusetc or Chief Minaman, and the latter's tombstone is dated 1890. Yet Te-’ic's younger brother, adane Johnstone, is supposed to have cared for his body, although the latter's tombstone is dated 1888. Both stones were undoubtedly procured some time after the deaths of these men (Johnstone's after 1901, and Chief Minaman's probably at the time of his memorial potlatch in Sitka, December 1904), so it is possible that mistakes were made in the dates. Johnstone's daughter (MJ) mentioned several times that her father had worked on or been present at the building of the grave house for Te-’ic, and that she herself as a child saw the shaman's dead body on this occasion. Possibly she may have referred to her stepfather, not her father, or may have confused the building of the grave house for the predecessor of Te-’ic with the time when the latter's body was placed in the same structure. Or she may refer to later repairs on the grave house.

We know a good deal about Te-’ic because two of my informants (MJ and CW), the son and daughter of his younger brother, had known him in their childhood and had seen him practice; their father had accompanied him on some of his retreats. Two additional informants were the sons of the shaman's nephews; their fathers as very young boys, had also served as his assistants. Te-’ic was the last of a line of Bear House Teqwedi shamans who had inherited their powers from the famous atgawet. His immediate predecessor was his uncle, QadjAqdaqina, whose unrevenged death up the Situk River had led to the building of Coward House at Situk (p. 320). From this uncle, Te-’ic had inherited his spirits and his paraphernalia and, as already stated, at his death was put into the same gravehouse with him near the then abandoned site of Diyaguna'Et on Lost River. This structure was repaired or restored at least once. On one occasion, his son, Tom Coxe (pl. 90), was supposed to have painted a bear design on the grave house. Still later (about 1900?), Jim Kardeetoo (1862–1937), who had been one of his assistants and would normally have been his successor, had his uncle and his most dangerous paraphernalia buried in the ground. This effectively put an end to this line of shamans, even though Kardeetoo himself (pl. 86) had some shamanistic powers. These were due to his close association with his uncle, and to his inheritance of some items used by Te-’ic. The objects were eventually sold to the missionary, Reverend Axelson. At the height of his practice, Te-’ic had as principal assistant Skin Canoe George “Ki-ye-quart-kene,” or eyeatqín (1855–1900). In addition to Jim Kardeetoo, another nephew, Situk Harry (died 1945), as a boy once accompanied him on a spirit quest.

An equally important shaman was the TłukwaAdi man, utc-da, ‘Wolf-Weasel,’ or “Wolf Turning into Weasel,” i.e., becoming white. He may have been head of Far Out House at Dry Bay. At any event, he was the most famous of a line of TłukwaAdi shamans at Akwe River and Dry Bay. He died after Te-’ic, probably about 1899 or 1900. He was known personally to some of my informants, and had been seen practicing at Yakutat when he was hired to discover who was witching Sitka Ned, then head of Coward House in the Old Village. A nephew of utcda was the father of one of my informants. The shaman had inherited his power from his uncle UnanIstE, and the latter in turn had obtained it from his older “brother,” SEtAn (his mother's sister's son). My informant's father's younger brothers were also named UnanIstE and utcda after their uncles, and perhaps one or another of them would have inherited their power if they had not all died when very young. The younger UnanIstE, who was married as a youth to utcda's widow, CAkwense, then 60 years old, drowned about 1902 in an epileptic(?) seizure (p. 603). Although John Williams Sr. was named SEtAn, it was his sister, Siee, who received the shaman's spirit in 1909, when the grave house was repaired for the older utcda and UnanIstE (see pp. 646, 719). A still older shaman in this line was the GA-tłen, ‘Big Rabbit,’ who had his wife's hair cut because she cried too much (p. 276). One of the names of my informant's father was also GA-tłen. I do not know, however, whether utcda had the same spirits as the shaman GAtłen, or how they may have been related. It should be noted that many members of this family, including their children in other sibs, seem to have been susceptible to shamanistic influences.

utcda was a great traveler, and used to walk up the Alsek valley and over the interior route to Chilkat, paddling back to Dry Bay via Lynn Canal and Icy Straits. His two wives were both CAnkuqedi woman, one of whom, Ctuoka, he had married in the interior. His fame is still remembered by the Southern Tutchone of the Alsek headwaters.

There is considerable difficulty in establishing the dates on which SEtAn and utcda died, probably because the names were inherited (along with the powers) by several shamans in the same family line. For example, in 1888 the American Museum of Natural History purchased from Lieutenant Emmons collections which he had made in Alaska between 1882 and 1887. These included the masks and other objects from the grave houses of shamans at Akwe River and Dry Bay, two of whom were named “Sa-ton” (SEtAn) and “Koutch-tar” (utcda). The first collection (pls. 187–190) Emmons reported had come from a very old grave house near a deserted village on the Akwe River, and consisted of some objects which had been inherited by five generations of shamans, while other items had been added from time to time. The masks, for example, were very old and decayed. The grave house of “Koutchtar” was on Dry Bay near the mouth of the Alsek River, and contained some objects which had passed through the hands of three previous shamans, as well as newer items (pls. 190–193). Emmons records that this shaman had been “very powerful” and had died “a few years previous to his visit” (about 1885). It is therefore impossible for Emmons' “Koutch-tar” to be the same man as the utcda who came to Yakutat after the mission had been established. Probably many of the exploits of the earlier shaman (or shamans) of that name were attributed to his successor. We might note in this connection that the name, SEtAn, was properly that of the shaman's principal spirit, which the shaman had adopted as his own. Was this also true of ‘Wolf-Weasel’ (utcda) and ‘Big Rabbit’ (GA-tłen)?

I also learned something about shamans in other sibs. One of these was the ałyI-Kagwantan woman, Cakwé, sister to Chief ‘Axaqudułu, head of Beaver House on Controller Bay. There were said to have been many women shamans at Katalla. There is reason to believe that Mary, or Qu’ya, the ałyI-Kagwantan wife of CkInan, Tł'UknaAdi head of Boulder House in the Old Village, had shamanistic powers, although I know nothing further about these.

According to Harrington's informant: “They used to say the best doctors of all were up the Copper River.” A male shaman from Copper River was mentioned as having come to Yakutat, where he demonstrated his powers to Te-’ic. It will also be remembered that Abercrombie in 1884 reports (see p. 186) that a Yakutat shaman, aged 50 (Te-’ic?) had paralyzed a rival Tlingit shaman, then living among the Eyak at Alaganik (cf. the shaman, Kai, Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 226–228).

A famous female shaman was Daodzu, sister to the Kwacqwan chief, Yaodaqet. She is said to have predicted the coming of the Russians and to have made her brother an invincible hunter (see pp. 712–713). Other Kwacqwan shamans, supposedly her successors (and all male), I know only by name: DanAq-’ic, łúgúwú, and Céq the last of the line. łúgúwú or ługuwé was supposed to have been a rival of Te-’ic, and on one occasion overcame him in a power demonstration. The account was, however, impossible to follow in the absence of an interpreter. I gather that the trouble experienced by Te-’ic on that occasion was due to some mistake made by his assistant, Situk Harry, then a boy, when they were seeking power in the woods on an 8-day quest.

A Kagwantan doctor who acquired his powers during the smallpox epidemic (presumably that of 1836–39) was QAłAetł or łtune. His daughter's son's daughter sang two of his songs for the tape recorder and told his story (p. 713). Another Kagwantan doctor mentioned was Teci-’ic or TAci-’ic of Sitka, a rival of Te-’ic. He is reported to have lived during Russian times and also to have helped the Kagwantan in their revenge on the Wrangell people (CAtqwan) in 1852, by defeating the Wrangell shaman. I was also told about a female shaman of Wrangell who was defeated by a Sitkan (p. 715).

Nothing was learned about Tł'UknaAdi shamans, except for the one mentioned in the story of the war with the TłaayIk-Teqwedi (pp. 263, 264). As one informant remarked: “I don’t remember any Tł'UknaAdi, either. Maybe I just don’t know. The Tł'UknaAdi is more traveling people. They went back and forth.” It is not possible to establish the identity or sib affiliation of the blind shaman whom Seton-Karr and Professor Libbey observed practicing on Khantaak Island in 1886 (see pp. 720–721). Nor could I identify “Old Shata, the Alseck medicine-man,” visited by Glave at Dry Bay in 1890, nor the Unana doctor who had accompanied Glave and Dalton to Dry Bay from Neskatahin on the upper Alsek River (pp. 203–204).

BECOMING A SHAMAN

The Death of a Shaman and the New Shaman

When a shaman died, and before his body was taken to its final resting place, it was carried around inside the house, eight times, sunwise, and then taken out head first through an opening in the right side of the house made by the removal of some planks. This was done so that his spirit would soon return. His paraphernalia were not put in the grave house with him, it was said, but were kept for the use of his successor or to inspire the latter. In many cases, however, witness the innumerable caches of shaman's gravegoods made by Lieutenant Emmons, the cache of the dead doctor's outfit was located in his grave house.

The body of the shaman was not burned, like that of an ordinary person, but was kept above ground. I was told that it was not put into a box but was laid out, as if sleeping, on a board about 3 inches thick, and this was put into the grave house. Sometimes, as in the case of QadjAqdaqina and Te-’ic at Diyaguna'Et, and of utcda and UnanIstE at Dry Bay, two shamans might share the same grave house. This was usually a small gabled structure elevated on four posts. At one time long ago, it was said, the body might be laid out in a cave (cf. de Laguna et al., 1964, pp. 35–36 for shaman's grave on Knight Island).

The doctor's body never rotted, but simply dried up, nor did it have a bad stench. Even though the flesh shrank away, the dried skin would hold the bones together, and the corpse “just turns into mummy.” The remains of shamans are indefinitely preserved, being gathered up and transferred to a new grave house as the old one becomes dilapidated. This might be done at the same time that a lineage house was built or rebuilt, so that the same potlatch covered both events. This was what was done by Qawua, Tł'UknaAdi chief at Dry Bay, when in 1909 he had new grave houses built for the remains of utcda and other shamans, and also built Far Out or Frog House (see pp. 644–646). Such occasions were especially propitious for the creation of a new shaman. In fact, all of the ritual surrounding the funeral of a shaman and the subsequent care of his corpse was to enable his spirit to return to a successor, and to protect ordinary people from his baleful influence (cf. Swanton, 1908, p. 466).[94]

A new shaman becomes one through infection by the spirit or power of a dead shaman in his own sib, usually a close relative. This comes from going near the corpse or grave house, or from handling the shamanistic paraphernalia. Therefore, when a shaman died, it was customary for his nephews to be present at the ensepulture of his remains, or to participate in the attendant mourning ceremonies, although members of the opposite moiety actually handled the corpse and prepared the grave house. The “opposites” also were called upon when the remains had to be transferred to a new structure. On such dangerous occasions, all participants of both moieties, as well as their spouses, observed taboos against eating and drinking for 8 days. Several persons of the correct sib were usually affected by the shamanistic powers to some extent, although only one actually became a shaman at that time.

One informant believed that the shaman's hair was cut and handed to his nephews, one after the other, to see who would get the spirit. Perhaps only a single lock was so used, since several informants reported that the shaman's long hair continued to grow in the grave house. On the other hand, we know that the scalps of notable men were saved, and at Klukwan in 1949, the scalp of a curly-haired shaman who had died a few years before was being kept among the lineage treasures in one house. This was shown to the men with me, but the lid of the trunk in which it was stored was raised so that I did not see it (possibly to protect me from a spirit intrusion, since women are particularly susceptible to such afflictions, especially from a shaman of another sib).

Some persons are so 'solid inside' (tudak sIduk) that “there's nothing can get in them.” So handling the hair “doesn’t work; it doesn’t affect them.” While others, who “don’t live right,” i.e., have not prepared themselves properly, also fail to receive the spirit. But even for the one chosen, “it don’t happen right away. It takes time.”

If there were no one in his own lineage or sib to whom the deceased shaman's spirit could come, it might come to his child. “Rarely, if a man had no suitable clansman, his spirits would pass to his son” (Swanton, 1908, p. 466). This is why an informant suggested of utcda's yek (spirit): “After utcda, [if] there's nobody it can go to, it goes to QałdjAqe [David Dick], and then Jack Peterson, would get it next. QałdjAqe and his younger brother, Jack Peterson, were true sons of utcda and his wife, CAkwense.” Both were heads of the CAnkuqedi Thunderbird Houses at Dry Bay and Yakutat. Even the child of utcda's nephew was somewhat affected by his spirit.

Krause, citing Veniaminov, reports (1956, p. 195) that although the shaman seldom inherits the spirits of his ancestors, “The position of shaman is usually inherited by a son or grandson, with the masks, drums, etc.” He mentions a shaman who had two sons: one wanted to become a shaman but was unable to see a spirit; the other was plagued with them, and even “went to the women” to get rid of them, but finally yielded to the spirits. “He then became a very famous shaman at Yakutat, whose influence prevented the great smallpox epidemic of 1836 from reaching his people.”

Infection by the spirit or power of a dead shaman manifests itself as an illness, even in the one who welcomes it. The unwilling recipients of such power “always have the hardest time.” This is the way it always starts, until the power is accepted and controlled, “until it starts working right. It bothers them. That's why they call it ‘AnEłsin, ‘hiding—it hides inside.’ “ This is conceived as something actually inside the body.

“If you go around anything that used to belong to ‘ix [shaman]—that's quawUłIsI—’It gets into somebody,' but the person doesn’t know it. It bothers you. You get sick until you do just like those ’i do, and turn into ’i. And then you’re all right. It's his yek that gets into you—du yegi [his spirit]. Kucda [land otter] is the same as that. Some way it gets into them. It's not a real land otter, just a spirit—like kucda yek, but to make it short, you just say ‘yek.’ ”

The power or spirit that has come in this fashion to the future shaman is “always called kucda [land otter].” It is the yek or spirit that wants him to become a doctor. “That ‘AnEłsin starts to work on them first, then they get the spirits.” There is nothing one can do but accept the call, for even if a man refuses to become a doctor, “that thing's always hiding in him, [he] just can’t get rid of it.” Sometimes, of course, those who have received the call, “don’t take care of themselves,” in which case they fail to develop any power. The proper “cure” is to “go out in the woods and cut a tongue,” that is, to go out on a quest to meet and cut the tongues of the animals from whom the new shaman will derive power.

All informants stressed the dangers involved in the approach to a shaman's grave house or in touching his paraphernalia for the one who was not authorized to do so, and especially for one not ritually prepared. In such cases, even inadvertent contact or propinquity might prove fatal.

Jack Ellis (1892–1952) explained that when he was very young the doctor's grave on Lost River (i.e., that of Te-’ic) was last repaired. It was dangerous to go near such a place, “because something gets in you and makes you die soon. You have to prepare, get ready, to go near, by keeping away from women and not eating for 4 or 8 days.” He guessed that this affects Indians because they believe in it, not Whites who don’t get scared.

Gallstones and tumors were called ‘AnEłsin, not kucda, and were attributed to inadvertent or unauthorized contact with shamanistic things. These growths usually took the form of the shaman's paraphernalia which had been handled (see below), although they might not manifest themselves until years later, and might or might not be removable by another Indian doctor or by a White surgeon. These tumors are not, in any case, the sign that the patient is becoming a shaman.

Swanton (1908, pp. 466–467) reports similar fears of sickness and of tumors (?) in the belly from approaching a shaman's grave. However, when passing in a canoe the point or island on which a shaman's grave house is located, the Tlingit usually put food and tobacco into the water for him, praying for luck, long life, favorable winds, etc. (see also Olson, 1962, p. 211).

“Nobody is born to be an Indian doctor. They got to do certain things.

“Any man wants to be a good Indian doctor has to go in the woods. He has another man to watch over him and take care of him—his sidekick, ‘i anqawu. Sometimes he [the latter] would become a doctor himself, if he wanted to. Any tribe, when an Indian doctor dies, his nearest relative, brother or nephew, has to become an Indian doctor himself, whether he likes it or not.” (SJ)

It was denied that there was any way of predicting when a child was born that he would become a shaman. “A person was never born to it. You got to live right and do the right things…. You just have to live right…and the people just watch to see how he's going to be.”

The correct conduct of the one who was becoming a shaman was of the greatest importance, because a mistake would bring “bad luck, hardship, mostly troubles,” to “the whole tribe [sib].” The rules that he had to follow as a novice were probably the same as those which were to govern his conduct throughout his life.

“He can’t do no evil stuff, has to obey ha kina yegi [‘our spirit above’], watch how his food, watch how he sleeps, watch how he drinks his water—there's lots of things.”

It was not an easy life, and there were some who risked much to refuse the call (see pp. 719–720).

Receiving the Call

The future shaman begins to get sick and to exhibit signs—”shaman signs.” These are like having a seizure. “That's something that makes you go crazy,” as PL put it. He becomes dizzy, falls unconscious, and may foam at the mouth. Then too, he may have premonitions or “feelings,” probably the first stirrings of those clearer convictions about coming events which he will have when his powers are stronger. I believe that his dreams also become more impressive and significant. These seizures are similar to those which he will experience when he is practicing.

“When they get that Indian doctor spirit—just like he's drunk, he don’t know himself. That's that Indian doctor spirit he got. That's the time.”

The spirit may come unbidden, without the usual preliminary of frenzied running around the fire. The novice might simply “feel” its presence, then don his “Indian doctor's clothes,” i.e., those of his predecessor, and his people would begin to sing his spirit song, beating out the rhythm with tapping sticks. Although my informant's explanation was confused, I infer that such a first appearance of the spirit might be to warn of some impending disaster, just as the spirit might later come of its own accord to the established shaman when danger threatened.

A more usual procedure was for the spirit to be invoked; i.e., called or invited to the house to choose and inspire the successor of the dead shaman. 'Spirit assistants' (yek anqawu) stood outside the door and called “hi—, hi—,” or some similar cry. According to Swanton, all the men, women, and children, belonging to the dead doctor's sib, would be gathered in the house, fasting and waiting, and a specially selected youth would go outside and announce that such-and-such a particular spirit was coming in. Then the people started the song associated with that spirit, and while they were singing, the future shaman fell into a trance (1908, p. 466).

As an informant explained, people could tell when someone was becoming a doctor, because of his song:

“If that yek [spirit] is over there—that man sing it—that's a yek song. Sometimes when yek [i.e., the man inspired by the spirit] start singing, you know, when they’re going to have that Indian doctor's spirit, they get sick all the time. That's the time they get that song, one song, you know.”

Since all shaman's songs were traditional, and each one was associated with a particular spirit, it must have been obvious to his relatives when a man was receiving the call. Furthermore, his people would be able to sing the correct spirit song, either when the spirit was called or when its presence was manifested by the novice.

At this stage, the assistants took charge of the novice, told him what to do, and helped him. One or more of these men were, I believe, among those who had attended to his predecessor and could therefore instruct the novice in the proper rules of behavior (as well as in the tricks of his calling). Perhaps it was such an experienced assistant who first recognized the incipient signs of spirit infection in the new shaman. The younger assistants mentioned by an informant (see below, p. 679), were probably drawn from among his nephews when the shaman was older and had become established.

As MJ explained simply: “The doctor's right-hand man is supposed to fast along with the doctor. He goes along when the master cuts tongues, and he is supposed to take over when the doctor dies.”

According to another: “That's the time they take him to the woods. They cut something, you know—kucda [i.e., a land otter's tongue].” Another shaman could distinguish between an ordinary illness and the sickness of the novice, because he can see the spirits around the latter. “They see those spirits—’i spirits. That's the time they say he's beginning to go Indian doctor. They tells to his family, his tribe. Then they take him to the woods. Then they cut [a tongue].”

The only shamans who would be consulted in such a case would be ones friendly to the neophite because they belonged to his own sib. There is also some indication that such doctors would help him. Perhaps it was these friendly shamans that took him on his first quest, or that instructed him or his attendants in the correct procedure to follow. At least this is suggested by the following story about a man who wanted to become a shaman, but was failing:

“There was one out there in Situk. I forget just how it happened. Anyway, he just couldn’t make it, so he sat in a canoe and it drifted down with him. Just about come to those breakers, and then that canoe stopped with him, just like they anchored. That was the other shamans that caught it with him. So when he came back they did everything to help him get stronger. And he made it all right. [The doctors who helped him were] his uncles—mostly his uncles. [Those from another sib would not have done so.] They’re the most jealousy things.”

The informant was not sure how the helpers for the new shaman were usually chosen, but thought that there ought to be “at least five persons. Doctors can’t move by themselves.” However, everyone in his sib would be glad to help their kinsman, because it was to their common advantage.

“For a tribe, it used to be lucky if any person became a shaman, so they do everything they can to make him strong…. His assistants are the ones who really take care of him all the way through.”

A woman might receive the call in the same way as a man—” ’i could be either man or woman,” and a “woman doctor could get her spirit from a woman or even from a man.” Yet there were said to be “not too many women doctors.” Some informants believed that a woman who still “has her monthly” could not receive the spirits. “She has to wait until she's an old lady, about 50 years, before she can be ’i.” Even then, CW said, she would not be as strong as a male shaman, and the yek would never come to a young woman.

I heard of two young women, however, who actually received the call, although neither wanted it. One died because of her refusal (see p. 646). The other managed to reject the spirits although not without a serious illness (p. 720). Moreover, the women Cakwe and Daodzu were said to have been strong shamans, and both were young when they received their power. Of the latter I was told: “She still had her monthly. It's strong, you know, when a woman's like that.”

The female shaman was not a berdache, nor was the male shaman.

The Quest

When the novice had received the intimation that he was to become a shaman, he had to go into the woods, far back toward the mountains, to encounter the spirit. After a suitable interval, perhaps a year, he would go on a similar quest to strengthen his power and, after that, return again a number of times, on each occasion meeting a new spirit. Sometimes this retreat might be undertaken for a specific purpose. Although the quest was described several times, none of my informants referred specifically to the first experience of the novice, or distinguished clearly between this and the retreats that followed. Presumably then, all were alike, except that on the first one, the novice would have been instructed by an older, more experienced mentor, while on later quests his assistants were likely to be young boys.

These retreats were summarized as follows:

“His spirit start coming to him (du yegi duqawu’a). These shamans go out in the woods and don’t eat. Sometimes they get small as a baby when they get back. They cut a tongue. These animals drop dead when they get there—they don’t kill them. They cut the tongue, and put it away where nothing can bother it. And the spirit of that animal is his yek. They split the side of the tongue—just split it on the side, and wrap it up good. If they don’t do it right, the man will get crazy, insane. But he got to live right. If he don’t, he just get a lot of trouble. There would be about five people or so that would go with him—du án qawu, ‘the people with him.’ And they always go along with him all the time.”

However, Krause (1956, p. 195) on the authority of Veniaminov reports that one who wishes to become a shaman must go alone into the woods, for one week or several months, eating nothing but devilclub roots, until he encounters a spirit. However, if the spirits have not appeared to him there, then he goes to spend the night at the grave of another shaman (the relationship between them is not specified), where he holds in his mouth a tooth taken from the skull or a tiny piece of dried flesh cut from the tip of the little finger. This report, however, sounds very much like the story of the origin of witchcraft told by one of my Yakutat informants (see p. 733).

Before going into the woods, the novice or the established shaman must have abstained from sexual intercourse for some time (several months?), and the neophite probably had to remain continent until his powers were established. Te-’ic, for example, is said to have “laid off 1, 2 years from women. He don’t bother them.” (PL)

Those who accompanied him on his quest must also have prepared themselves by sleeping apart from their wives, but probably for a much shorter period of time (the traditional 8 days?). Perhaps one reason why very young men were chosen as assistants was because they had not yet had sexual experience, although this possibility was not mentioned by any informant. Two to five persons were said to have accompanied the shaman.

All the party had to thirst and fast “for 8 days,” that is, for as long as they remained away. The period of “8 days” means that dietary restrictions were enforced during this time, not necessarily that complete abstinence from all food and water was required. Some vigils terminated after 4 days, perhaps because they had already been successful.

Although it would seem that thirsting for 8 days would be physically impossible, I was told: “First that he [becomes] ’i, sometimes he no eat for 8 days. No drink water. That's why he quick ’i. [He stays away from women] sometimes 1 year, 10 months, 12 months. That's why quick ’i. That's why Te-’ic do that. He's over there in the woods. He's going to find it. He see everything [motions of looking in all directions]. That's why he go—no eat, no drink water.” (CW)

Most of my informants reported that the assistants were also prohibited from eating or drinking during the whole period of the retreat. Yet I imagine that there must have been some arrangement whereby they could break their fast and all obtain some moisture. However, the ordeal of the shaman must have been more severe, because on one occasion he is said to have become so weak that his assistants had to carry him. He (the assistants also?) ate devilclubs, a powerful emetic and purgative. On the second day, they all bathed in cold water and presumably did so again on later days.

I was also told that even though the shaman goes into the woods in winter and must fast 8 days, he never feels the cold.

Similar rules governed the conduct of the shaman's relatives at home, just as the families of hunters or warriors had to observe taboos while their men were away. Each time the shaman goes into the woods to cut a tongue, his relatives are “just sitting at home, without eating.” They utter or think a prayer: “I wish I got good luck.” The shaman may go for 4 days, or for 8 days, but while he is away, his sibmates meanwhile will eat just in the morning and then fast for 4 days again. Or sometimes they will eat every 2 days, just a little bit, and drink just a little bit. But again the informant insisted, the shaman fasts for 8 days. His wife observes the same rules as his sibmates.

Another informant, however, reported that the wife had to follow the same severe rules against eating and drinking as her husband. A question suggested the story of how atgawet knew even far in the woods when his wife had “stolen” water (see pp. 711–712).

During the vigil in the woods, some animal or bird is believed to come to the shaman and die. The doctor does not club it or shoot it, but his “strong luck” makes it fall dead when he looks at it. “They can’t kill the animal. It's got to come to them.” Then the shaman cuts its tongue, slicing off a piece along the left side. This is bound tightly between two pieces of wood, and is put away carefully in some dry place, a hole in the rocks or a hollow tree. The doctor knows he must be careful, for if anything happens to the tongue, he will become insane or die.

This procedure is repeated on subsequent retreats, until the shaman feels that his power is strong enough. The most powerful shamans traditionally “cut eight tongues.”

Women who become shamans receive their spirits in the same way, and “women cut the tongue, too” (CW). Cakwe, the ałyI-Kagwantan female shaman, was rereported to have cut the full number of eight tongues.

Krause (1956, p. 195, based on Veniaminov) says that the shaman is lucky “if he gets a land otter in whose tongue is contained the whole secret of shamanism.” The animal is supposed to approach the would-be shaman, the latter cries “oh” four times in various pitches, and the animal falls on its back and dies. The neophite then “tears the tongue out,” with a wish for success in his profession. The tongue is put into a basket and kept in an “unapproachable place,” for if a layman found it, “he would lose his senses.” “He [the new shaman] pulls off the skin carefully and keeps it as a sign of his success while he buries the meat in the ground.” As we shall see, the details of this experience are somewhat different from those reported by my informants. Krause also attributes the fear of the land otter to its connection with shamanism, not with drowned persons as reported by my informants.

According to the notes accompanying Emmons' catalog (cf. p. 696), the novice carried a picklike club, which he had only to brandish toward the animal to cause it to fall dead or senseless. He wore skin gloves while he cut out its tongue. This was put into a bundle of devilclub and spruce twigs, wrapped about with roots. A knife with an iron blade and a decorated handle might be used to cut the tongue.

Olson (1962) gives further information on becoming a shaman, based upon anecdotes or case histories told him by his Chilkat informant.

When a great shaman died, we learn, or if he were the only one in his sib, the whole sib would fast for 8 days, and in one case remained continent for a whole year. For 4 days after the funeral, the whole group of kinsmen would gather outdoors, while the sib chief called on all the spirits by name, asking them to enter a new shaman. “Don’t give up staying with your masters! ”

Olson also reports that the spirits may come unbidden, sometimes appearing to their new master in a dream. These would be spirits that had belonged to his sib ancestor and were now looking for a new “home.” Or they might manifest themselves as an “illness” to be diagnosed by another (presumably friendly) doctor.

If a man accepts the call, all his sibmates observe sexual continence and a partial fast, refraining entirely from eating beach food, while the novice and one or more attendants go into the woods for 8 days, fasting and drinking only salt water during this entire period. The shaman must not touch his penis, so would hold it in tongs of devilclubs when urinating. As he cuts each tongue, he wishes for a specific power (to be able to cure wounds, not to be burned by hot iron, etc.). His principal spirit teaches him songs, usually four. The novice and his assistants make piles of objects (rocks) to symbolize the wealth which he will accumulate. Before going on subsequent retreats to cut additional tongues, the shaman and his assistant must fast and remain continent for 8 days.

According to one story, a novice, if commanded by the spirits, might leave offerings at the grave of an ancestor who had been a shaman. In this case, tobacco was given on 4 successive days, which the spirits took away each night.

Cutting Tongues

My informants supplied different details of what was supposed to happen in the woods. Some had probably acquired specific information from their fathers who had been assistants to Te-’ic, but in addition all had, of course, heard accounts of the traditional procedures. Unfortunately none had actually witnessed the death of the animal or the cutting of its tongue. There remains uncertainty, therefore, as to how the animal came to die and just how its remains were treated. Such knowledge was obviously esoteric, and was probably not imparted to anyone but the novice shaman and his assistants. Certain minor discrepancies between the accounts received may be attributed to imperfect memories, to difficulties in communication, and to the fact that probably different occasions were being described. In every case there was perhaps a mingling of what was expected to happen and what actually did happen.

One informant specified that the land otter was always the first animal to appear to a novice, and we may infer that other creatures, as well as additional land otters, might be encountered on subsequent retreats. Land otter power was available to any shaman, no matter what his sib or lineage, or what specific spirits he might have inherited. All doctors cut land otter tongues, and this gives them their strong power said CW. Certainly this animal was the one most frequently mentioned.

PL mentioned cutting the tongue of “any kind of bird,” and said that Te-’ic used to talk to birds before he cut their tongues, but that no spirit spoke to him. The same informant added that “if you cut the tongue or a rat or a little red mouse—that's powerful medicine to help you steal.” I do not know how reliable this statement is.

Other animals whose tongues might be cut included the brown bear, wolf, eagle, raven, and owl. These are the creatures actually mentioned by informants, and the list is almost certainly very incomplete.

The soul (qwani) of the animal whose tongue is cut becomes the yek of the shaman. Thus, an unidentified shaman from Wrangell who visited Yakutat had an eagle for a spirit (tća qu yek). The raven spirit (yeł qu yek) belonged to the TłukwaAdi shamans, SEtAn, UnanIstE and utcda; the owl (tIsw qu yek) to the Kwacqwan shamans, łtuguwé, DanAq-’ic, and Céq; the wolf (utc qu yek) and perhaps the brown bear (xuts qu yek) to Te-’ic, the famous Teqwedi shaman. Interestingly enough, the land otter spirit might be called simply kucda yek, as well as kucda qu yek. This animal does not belong exclusively to any sib, either as a totem or as a shamanistic spirit. As far as could be ascertained from the above list, whenever an animal was the totem of a sib it seems to have come primarily to shamans of that sib. But such information is only suggestive. There is also evidence that many other animal yek were used by Dry Bay and Yakutat shamans, although we do not know how their power was acquired, and except for the frog, fish, starfish, and dog that seem to have belonged to utcda (p. 692), we usually do not know to what sib belonged the shaman that received the yek.

Power could also be obtained from animals, apparently without cutting their tongues, which again indicates that the list of animal yek given above could be greatly expanded.

If we may infer that the animal masks, maskettes, and other animal decorations and symbols on the shaman's costume and paraphernalia (cf. pp. 685–699) represent those animals from which he derived his power, then the objects obtained by Emmons from the grave houses of shamans of known sib affiliation would indicate that there was, in actuality, no absolute restriction on the species of animal that might appear to the shaman. Even though shamans in the Raven moiety might be more likely to receive a raven, owl, frog, or other totemic animal of their own moiety as a spirit, they also seem to have been able to claim the powerful totemic animals of the opposite moiety, especially the bear. For example, Emmons' TłukwaAdi shamans at Dry Bay had in their grave houses paraphernalia symbolizing the bear, eagle, killerwhale, and “hawk” (golden eagle?), all totems of the opposite moiety, as well as the raven, frog, salmon, and devilfish associated with their own moiety. The Raven akA-’ayi shamans also used the wolf, bear, and killerwhale, as well as the raven, frog, owl, and devilfish. In addition, both groups had the land otter and crane, while the TłukwaAdi shamans had the dog, oyster catcher, kingfisher, and sculpin; and the akA’ayi had the sea lion, puffin, albatross, and stickleback. None of the last are sib totems, at least in the Dry Bay area. These lists do not exhaust the possible animal figures used by shamans, for specimens from unidentified graves at Yakutat and Dry Bay would include the mountain goat, shark, mouse, crow, grebe, mosquito, and chiton.

There is, unfortunately, no collection from a known shaman of the Wolf-Eagle moiety with which the collections from Raven moiety shamans may be compared. It is obvious, however, from the animals that appear on shamanistic paraphernalia that they could not all have been acquired as yek by cutting their tongues (cf. starfish, mosquito, killerwhale, or chiton!). The shaman must have obtained them in some other manner. Furthermore, the association of crest animals of the opposite moiety to that of the shaman could in some cases be explained by inheritance of the spirits from his father. In many cases the masks, rattles, and other objects may not have been made by the Tlingit, but have been imported from the Tsimshian, and there is no guarantee therefore that the animal which appears on such an object is interpreted in the same way by the Tlingit shaman as by the Tsimshian carver. While the list of animal symbols given above is very suggestive, it cannot be taken as establishing these particular animals as yek.

Moreover, the vast majority of shamans' masks represented spirits in human, not animal, form (pp. 690–692). What is the relationship, therefore, of these anthropomorphic spirits to those which appear to the shaman as animals? This is a problem which my informants were unable to solve.

The animal, as we have seen, was supposed to approach the shaman and die of its own accord. CW said that his father had accompanied Te-’ic, “way up into the woods” above Situk. “That strong, Te-’ic, when he go in the woods, he see that little otter—just like dogs talking. [He made a sharp, quick little sound.] ‘Xw, xw, xw, xw’—just same as little dogs talking…. He just look at it and then it die. Make him die, that land otter. That's the way he cut his tongue.”

The great atgawet, Te-’ic's predecessor, had one spirit called both ‘Land Otter Spirit’ (kucda yek), and 'Spirit that Came to the Village' (’an yawugudi yek). This was because the land otter had come of its own accord to the village. It was winter, and there was a hole cut through the ice of a pond to get water. The land otter (or otters?) came to the waterhole and dropped dead, right where atgawet got water. So the spirit came to him. The informant verified that the otter's soul (kucda-qwani) became the shaman's yek. Then atgawet cut the tongue and took the land otter's skin.

This, and the fragmentary account of how a man acquired land otter spirits (p. 712), suggest, of course, that the animals are found dead. But this interpretation is obviously not what the natives believe, nor does it explain why particular species seem to come most often to shamans.

The shaman's assistants on his quest played an essential role. This was not simply because they took care of him if he became weak, or because they instructed him in proper procedure, but was because they could perform acts which were forbidden to him. It would seem that they had to wait on him in much the same fashion that the attendants of a ‘deer’ would care for such a hostage-ambassador in a peace ceremony, because of the taboos restricting his activity. As explained by an informant:

“The Indian doctor always had two men—his nephews, the youngest in the tribe, the assistants to him, his helpers.” These were traditionally “his youngest nephews,” although the informant could not specify their ages. Their duty was to “go with him in the woods when he's going to get more power. They always go with him, those two.

“This Indian doctor, he can’t use no knife and he can’t use no ax to cut anything. If he's going to cut anything, he's going to use his left hand. So these two helpers, they do the work for him. They almost have the power, just the same as him, because they are with him all the time.”

Perhaps this statement means that the shaman during his retreat was prohibited from using any cutting tool of iron. Possession of any iron object (or of silver money) was a protection against land otters or Land Otter Men (see pp. 746, 755). The ordinary person, of course, fears such kidnapping creatures, while the shaman welcomes their presence.

For cutting the animal's tongue, the shaman used his right hand. Of Te-’ic it was said: “He used a knife, łÍtÀ, made of yi [mussel shell]. He cut the tongues of animals he wishes for—land otter, and something else.” (MJ) Presumably other shamans used knives of shell, or perhaps of copper, for this ritual task. (Yet, see p. 695.)

The details of how the tongues were actually cut were described by several informants. Apparently the tongue was first cut off or cut out of the animal, although this point is not very clear. One informant, however, stated that the shaman would “just stick a piece of wood underneath and cut it off.” MJ demonstrated this by sticking out her tongue, putting one finger under it like the piece of wood, and drawing the other finger across it to imitate the cutting motion. Another spoke in somewhat the same way: “He cut the tongue off that land otter,” and then went on to explain that both the tongue and the pelt (see below) were saved. According to him, a piece of alder, one foot long, was split, and the tongue was put between the two halves, with the edge sticking out. Then “they cut just the side off, just a little bit,” indicating slicing along the edge of the tongue that protruded from the wood. The split alder was called cútc. “I don’t know the meaning of it. Just luck that's all, I guess. Just luck.” The tongue is kept in the split stick, and “what they cut off they put in the alder again. They tie them up with spruce, that small spruce branches, narrow like this, long.” He denied that spruce roots were used, as mentioned by another informant. “That's a law, I think.”

A different man specified, however, that when Te-’ic cut a land otter's tongue, he “don’t cut it out—[He] split it [lengthwise, and took a slice]. Split devilclub and put a little piece of tongue inside.” (CW) This was the informant who said that the slice was cut from the left side of the animal.

When cutting the tongue, the doctor (or possibly an assistant) first makes three motions with the knife, pretending to cut, and coming closer to the tongue each time. The shaman slices it on the fourth trial. Each time he pretends to cut, the doctor and his helpers wish for luck, and each time the shaman says “ux ux ux ux” [imitating the otter's whistling cry?]. The cutting motion must be made away from the body, not toward it as is customary when whittling, for if the shaman cut towards himself “he's going to cut his own life—and his tribe's life. As soon as he cut it, he's going to make a wish—that he be an Indian doctor—or anything.”

“When Te-’ic cut the tongue, he wish for healing other people, wounds, broken bones. He cut the tongue, eight times.” (MJ)

Another informant indicated that the shaman, in addition to wishing for the ability to heal or save, would wish for his own personal luck, specifically for many patients and clients who would pay him with “high-priced things.”

The slice of tongue, called tłAxétł (’luck’) by one informant, was carefully tied up and put away. “He just hide it in the woods.” He knows that if it is lost, he will “go crazy,” so he watches it for “two, three, four months, eight months,” to see that it is safe (CW).

The spot selected was described by MJ as a “hollow tree.” Another said, however, that shamans “had special places at the mountains…some caves in the mountains. That's where they keep it. Keep it in a good dry place. If any person cut those tongues of the animals, and don’t take care of it, he goes crazy. So they just have a special good dry place to keep it.” The tongue had to be put away “somewhere in a place that's quiet, where nothing can happen to it. If it's here [near Yakutat] where they can hear the breakers, he’ll go crazy. It's going to work in his head, maybe. [He’ll] go crazy if breakers are making all that noise, or if something is fooling around with it, or if it gets wet, or something.” PL explained why the tongue had to be hidden in the woods: “You can’t keep it in the house, because women have sickness every month and it would kill them. So you hide it in the woods, tied up with roots. Every year put a new piece of cloth on it.”

“Every year” the shaman had to visit the hiding place of this precious amulet. “Every 12 months or, I dont know…[the informant could not explain]. It's the same day he cut the tongue. Next year, same day, he go back. If he don’t, it's bad luck for him.” The doctor looks to see if the tongue is “still in good shape” and, if necessary, will “clean it.” These yearly visits must be repeated every year “all his life.” The exact day for the visit could be determined because “they have a calendar of their own, ”presumably like the wooden peg calendar of Russian derivation owned by Chief Yaodaqet (see p. 801).

Before visiting the tongue, I assume that the shaman had to prepare himself by remaining continent, by fasting and thirsting, just as did anyone before he handled a powerful ‘medicine’ (cf. Swanton, 1908, p. 448), and as the shaman himself had done when obtaining the tongue.

In addition to the otter tongue, the pelt was taken, although I do not know whether the skins, claws, etc. were usually taken from other animals or birds whose tongues the shaman had cut. The dead otter was carefully skinned and the carcass put away in the woods. On one occasion at any rate, the whole skin (apparently taken off like a bag) was held with its mouth to the shaman's ear (in this case, by Te-’ic), who then began to sing. This was the spirit singing through the shaman. In this way he is said to hear the songs of all the different powers. Te-’ic was also said to have healed a wound by putting the otter skin on it. (This should be contrasted with the witch's use of a dogskin, see p. 734). The same informant called the land otter skin ‘lucky skin’ (tłAétł dugu), and he believed that the tongue, skin, and ‘medicines’ (kaani) would be kept together. This may refer to a practice like that reported by Swanton (1908, p. 464) that the shaman might combine the tongue “with eagle claws and other articles,” although no other informant at Yakutat mentioned such a bundle.

Another informant reported, however, that “they always take special care” of the land otter skin, explaining how atgawet had used one to make a canoe that attracted the spirits known as Children of the Sun.

In addition to the tongue and the otter skin, the shaman might also obtain an amulet. “When they split tongues, something drops,” said an informant who was trying to explain how the female shaman, Daodzu, obtained the supernatural arrow which she gave to her brother, Chief Yaodaqet (see pp. 712–713).

Subsequent Retreats and the First Seance

“I heard that the strongest doctor cut eight tongues. Seems like eight is the limit to anything, the most.” When asked how many tongues a doctor might cut, the informant replied that “It depends on their strength,” and confirmed that the more they split, the greater their powers.

It was impossible to determine, however, how soon after the first tongue a man might begin to demonstrate his powers,[95] or whether he would have to wait until he had cut a certain number. One informant said: “When he gets his first spirit, they know he's turning into Indian doctor” (MJ). However, another stated categorically: “And all Indian doctors have to cut a tongue about eight times before they receive spirit, before they can cure or get any power.”

I suspect that both statements are extreme, for still another person explained: “This year, one year they cut one. Four years. [If] it's not strong enough for that spirit to see everything and save somebody, you know, they’re going to take another tongue, and cut it off. They just take little pieces off the side and tie it up good.” Apparently the doctor might cut a tongue a year for 4 years, “if it's not strong enough. And then, it's getting strong. That's the time they quit.”

One man (CW) who believed in the powers acquired by Te-’ic specified that the latter had cut four tongues. “That's why he get strong,” and repeated several times that he had cut the tongues of four land otters (daun kucda), and had four land otter spirits (daun yek kucda-yek dutciyéutè Te-’ic). MJ, however, said of the same shaman: “He cut eight different animals' tongues. They became his yegi.” On another occasion she said: “Te-’ic had more power than any Indian doctor in Alaska. He cut the tongue of animal eight times to make his spirit powerful. Had to quit eating and drinking and stay in the woods 8 days. Had to do this each time he made one cut. He had a stooge who went with him and had to fast just like his master. His name was eyeatqin, Skin Canoe George. His other name was Tawu-’ic.”

Because eight, the ritual number, referring to the “eight bones of the body” (see p. 761), is specified as the ultimate number of tongues, cut by the greatest shamans, there is the implication that there were lesser doctors who failed to achieve this. Even for those who did, the retreats were undoubtedly spread out over a good part of their professional lives, and we may infer that they began to practice as soon as they felt ready, probably after the first few successful quests. As already indicated, there was some suggestion that a retreat might be undertaken before a shaman had some particularly difficult professional task to perform. One supposes that he might then cut another tongue, and return with strengthened power.

When the novice returns from his first successful quest, or perhaps after later ones, he calls his family together, that is, the men of his sib. “He stays in the woods, and he came home. All his family come. He make a song.” (CW) That is, the song connected with the spirit he had acquired would be sung so that all his brothers and nephews and other men of the sib could learn it and sing it with him. At first the new shaman's power is small and weak, but it grows stronger as many persons sing his song, and as he himself observes a strict regimen of repeated fasts, preferably for 8 days at a time, sexual abstinence, and careful observance of taboos.

Finally the new shaman is ready to demonstrate his powers at a public show. By this time everyone is aware of his condition. “You know [in] these small places,” as one woman observed, “they know it.” On this occasion, the shaman's assistant announces his new shaman's name, which is apparently revealed by the shaman's own muttering. The doctor himself is said to “talk funny,” and his assistant, the only one who can understand him, must act as interpreter. This is his role at every seance. At first, I understood that the shaman would be introduced at a special “party,” like a potlatch, given by his chief and sibmates, but this was later denied.[96] One informant (MJ) said only, “they got some kind of meeting, doctors, certain day of the month,” apparently referring to shamanistic contests in which each displayed his powers (See p. 706). It is certain, however, that a doctor might, at any time, hold a special seance, when “he wants to show off his experience” (MJ), and his first exhibition may have been of this nature. The most common demonstrations occurred, of course, when a client had called upon the doctor for his professional services, or when his spirits came to him of their own accord. Often the particular action taken by the shaman on such occasions was preceded by a power demonstration, presumably of the same nature as those exhibited in special “shows.” These exhibitions are described later.

A Dry Bay informant gave a sketchy account of the first of such seances which a shaman might hold:

'some people come over to that place [the doctor's house]. They’re going to come in. ’Asán [seance], they call it…. That yek [i.e., the spirit in the shaman] goes around, you know. His spirit's in it, in that house. All the people sit down like this [around the walls]. Big house, just full, all that tribe [the shaman's sib]. And different tribe, too, among them. Then that ’i coming in, then he go around the fire, like this, you know, so they can see that spirit, how strong it is…. [A demonstration with the shaman's mask was mentioned, see p. 705.] When they come out from the woods, you know, they go around.” Although this is called ‘asán, like the seance for which the doctor is paid, the novice receives no fee for this demonstration. “They [he] just show off for his people, you know, how strong he is.”

The type of performance depended, of course, upon the particular powers of the individual shaman, as well as upon the occasion. “Going around the fire,” while his assistant and his sibmates sang one of his spirit songs, seems, however, to have been an almost constant feature.

The Shaman's Spirits

The spirits acquired by shamans include the souls (qwani) of animals whose tongues he has cut, or that have come to him. Animal spirits could apparently be acquired in still other ways. For example, according to one version of the “true story” of “Half-Moldy [Salmon] Boy,” the latter became a shaman after the Salmon People (at qwani) had taken him away as a punishment for insulting them. When he had finally come home and was returning to human form, the attending shaman announced that the youth would become a shaman. Although the Fish People who had captured him became his yek, he nevertheless had to go into the woods, for immediately upon regaining his human shape, he asked two assistants to accompany him. Although he was admitted to be KIksAdi (by an informant who was unfriendly toward this sib), the TłukwaAdi shamans of Dry Bay supposedly derive their Fish Spirits from this same incident, because they are “nearly the same as” the KIksAdi.

The shaman's spirits also include the ghosts of dead persons, for example that of the slain łucwAq who comes to the Teqwedi shamans of Yakutat (p. 267); others are the Disease Spirits (ghosts of those who have died in epidemics, see pp. 712, 713). Still others are apparently spirits of, or associated with, regions: the air, or sky, clouds, or other places. There are, for example, the Children of the Sun (p. 710) and the Spirit of HayiwAni (below the earth) that came to the Teqwedi. SÉtAn and other TłukwaAdi shamans of Dry Bay had the 'Spirits above the Alsek' (’Ałse kina qwani). A Kagwantan shaman, the maternal grandfather of Lituya Bay George, had as spirits the ‘Women behind the Clouds’ (gu dAkan cawu). The list could be greatly expanded. But what did these spirits look like, and how were the different kinds related to each other? A possible answer to the last question is suggested in a later section (pp. 835–836). Only the shaman himself could answer the first, although my informants could tell us something.

“When Indian doctor become Indian doctor, his spirit is so small you can’t see it. He just make a noise. Right here the spirit [up under the highest part of the gabled house roof]. Pretty soon it growing big, big as a mouse. And [if] Indian doctor got strong power—grows to a giant, but nobody seeing it. But if the Indian doctor don’t take care of himself, his spirit don’t grow much. Something like brown bear, that spirit.”

According to another, the shaman's spirit or power is called tłúkÀ or łúkÀ. “Yek is the same thing…. They say it looks like a bear, but it grows. The more tribe you have, the more people in the tribe, the bigger that is. That's why, a small tribe—their shaman isn’t strong.”

The last refers to the “help” which the men of the shaman's sib must give him by singing his songs.

łúkÀ or ‘power’ “looks like a bear. It walks around.”

Another informant, in discussing how the shaman's spirit may come to him to warn him of impending misfortune (see p. 703), went on to remark: “That's a funny thing, it comes from the clouds, they say.” The informant compared the spirit to the Holy Ghost. “They come out from Heaven.” And likewise the spirit is “clean,” and “good looking.” That is why good-looking people are compared to yek, “just like angels,” (yeki yA yAti) ‘they resemble spirits.’

THE SHAMAN AND HIS PARAPHERNALIA

Regimen

The shaman's newly acquired powers could only be retained and strengthened by observance of a strict regimen. His life depended upon the exactness with which he “took care of himself.” With his life, too, were bound up the lives and welfare of all his sib. Paradoxically, it would seem that the acquisition of supernatural powers rendered him more susceptible to disaster through his own neglect, and also exposed him to the attacks of jealous colleagues. One would suppose that only a man or woman of considerable physical stamina and moral determination could endure the life to which the shaman was doomed.

For example, before summoning his spirits to attempt any feat or any cure he had to fast and thirst, if possible for 8 days. He was often out in the woods, but whether in search of more tongues I do not know. There were only certain times when he could eat shellfish (see below), and he had to have his own dishes. His wife was also bound by dietary taboos. For long periods also, he had to remain sexually continent, and I believe that she had to remain chaste during the same time, although the wife of an ordinary man might sleep with her husband's unmarried younger brother or nephew.

Several informants described these restrictions:

“After he becomes shaman, they can’t eat just anything—nothing off the beach until maybe this month or next month [March or April], until Tł'EnA-xídÀq łen duwugUt [’Property-Woman goes on the beach at low tide’]. [They] eat things off the beach at low tide, when Tł'EnAxídÀq goes on the beach and is going to eat them. Then he [the shaman] can do it. Other times, he can’t.” The informant added that some people would not eat anything from the beach because they were afraid of being poor.

Another person specified that all members of a doctor's family had to be careful of their diet. She was, I believe, thinking particularly of those who had come in contact with shamanistic powers and were to some degree acquiring them (see pp. 676–677). The exact details were perhaps peculiar to Dry Bay shamans.

“That's why everyone of us descended from that ‘i [utcda], we don’t eat anything of that seafood. I don’t eat seafood since 1930. I get sick. No more I don’t eat it—[except] ribbon seaweed and black seaweed—that's all…. That's the way it is. All that descended from those Indian doctors they got sick from that, and that's why they quit. Their spirit don’t want us to do it. That's why they go like that.” Clams, cockles, “gum boots” (i.e., chitons), were enumerated as taboo, although the informant had formerly enjoyed eating raw cockles “just like candy.” The three doctors, SEtAn, UnanIstE, and utcda, whom the informant called “grandfathers,” had eaten seaweed for luck, but only in February; that is, only when Tł'EnAxídÀq does.

The reason for this practice was that it brought luck to the shaman—many patients and high fees: “blankets, everything, sometimes guw [slaves]…. When they eat it, somebody got sick. They come to him. They give money to him. That's the time they got lucky.” She could not explain further. This was only what she had learned from her father and grandmother. Perhaps “that Indian doctor's spirit tells them to do like that, you know.” But she was also sure that “after I got sick out of that [eating shellfish], I know that Indian doctors don’t want me to eat it, so I quit.”

For Te-’ic, the rules were apparently somewhat different, although beach food was also under special restrictions.

“It was only certain part of the month [sic] he could eat shellfish, a little bit of his own salt. The rest of the time Te-’ic couldn’t eat shellfish because he went in the woods to get his message (from the spirits). His wife couldn’t eat it either—anything out of the salt water…. They could eat salmon, sure, but nothing from the beach….

“…Only 2, 3 days out of the month. He was guided by his spirit. All his people got to get together before he can eat salt things. He bless them and they eat part of what he eats. He bless them so they won’t get sick next time they eat. He notifies his spirit….

“His sisters put up what he eats. He has his own dishes.” (MJ)

The sexual restrictions were also stringent. Almost all married persons (according to my records) had several children, often many, perhaps one ill-fated baby following another every year, since few grew to maturity. Yet a shaman had fewer.

“Te-’ic had only one child because he could stay with his wife only a certain day of each month. The rest of the time he was off in the woods[!]. In the spring, before sea otter hunting, he used to sleep away from his wife on a West Coast cedarbark mat on the ta [bench].” (MJ) We should note that the intermittent fast for 8 days, that is, eating only every 24 hours, abstention from beach food, and continence, is reported by Tikhmenev (see p. 379) as rules to be followed not only by the shaman before a sea otter hunt, but by all the hunters.

utcda, unlike Te-’ic, had two wives at the same time, and at least four known children: David Dick and Jack Peterson by CAKwénse, and two daughters by Ctuoka.

Personal Appearance

The assumption of shamanistic powers was signaled by the growth of the novice's hair, which became long, curly, and twisted to form eight matted locks. In time these would reach down to his heels, and indeed were said to continue to grow even after his death. It was denied that the curly or reddish hair of a child indicated that he would become a shaman for, as the informant shrewdly observed, if that were the case there would be shamans today. It is only after a man, or woman, gets that power that they also get the characteristic hair.

Seton-Karr (1887, p. 51) reported that when the New York Times expedition arrived in Yakutat in 1886 (see p. 188) the ship was greeted by several canoes coming from houses on the mainland opposite Khantaak Island. “The first [canoe] contained an old half-blind Yakutat Indian of characteristic appearance, who was evidently a 'shawaan’ or medicine-man by his long uncut hair.” (See pl. 66.)

The Yakutat shamans as described by the missionary, Albin Johnson (1924, p. 43), were “ragged, their clothes were filthy, as if they had been dipped in seal fat, stinking, the hair long, a braid dragging several feet behind them as they walked.” Of course, he remarks, it could not have grown as long as this of itself, but had been pieced out with extra hair, “fastened on with filth, to give people the impression of magical power or authority over the evil spirits, and [ability to] drive out illness.”

The life of the shaman was in his hair—”like Sampson,” one informant commented. He could not cut it, nor could his wife cut hers. The shaman's long matted locks (’it' ii) could never be combed out. He sometimes wore them pinned up, held by long bone pins or an elaborately carved bone comb; at other times the snaky ropes of hair hung loose. The hair of a female shaman was similar.

The doctor was also prohibited from paring his fingernails, we discovered, when a small pointed bone implement, excavated on Knight Island, was identified as an implement for cleaning the nails. “’It' can’t cut his fingernails, so he has to have something to clean it with. It's a doctor's big fingernail knife—qaakw łItAi [human-claw knife].” (MJ)

“When he's becoming Indian doctor, when his hair start to grow, it always grows long. That's funny. It's not hanging down like this [straight]; it's always twisted, curly. It's solid, eight of them [locks]. No matter how hard you try to straighten them out, you can’t do it. Just solid.

“And when he gets the spirit—singing—it's moving. That's what my father said. He see it. Sometimes it goes out like that—[almost straight out from the head].”

“The way they tell powerful shamans is by their hair—i—all twisted around. When the spirit is coming to them, that thing just moves around by itself. d;i is not braids; i is matted hair, all stuck together and twisted up.”

Such hair was not restricted to Tlingit shamans, for Athabaskan shamans also had long locks that moved of themselves, according to a Dry Bay informant whose father had hired a unana shaman from way up the Alsek River to deal with the witchcraft that was killing off his children.

Harrington recorded the following story in 1939–40:

“One time a sea captain came on a boat to Yakutat and there was an Indian doctor here who had long hair, and the captain said that the man ought to have his hair cut. The Indian doctors derived their strength from their long hair. The captain said the Indian medicine man ought to cut his hair, and the captain ordered a sailor to cut the old doctor's hair, and the old doctor said ‘If one cuts a hair of my head, he will drop dead.’

“The Indian doctor sat in a chair, and two sailors tried in turn, and each sailor dropped the scissors, and they all changed their mind, and never cut the doctor's hair.”

Harrington adds that this happened before the informant's time.

Variations of this story are traditional among the Tlingit. For example, I was told several times, and by three different persons, about the Kagwantan shaman at Sitka, Teci-’ic or TAci-’ic, whose hair the Russians, or the soldiers, tried to cut, and Swanton (1908, p. 465) also heard the same story about the attempt made by U.S. Marines. The White men were unable to cut his hair. “They can’t move, can’t cut it. They claim the scissors broke in half. The hair just moved around.” According to a more detailed account, the first one to attempt it fell down and died, and the second was afraid to try. “Soon as he take the scissors, the hair just go around like this [snaky motions]…. His hair is just like it's walking around. It's just twisted all around. It's like lots of little ropes.” A third informant specified that TAci-’ic was one doctor who really showed his power, and helped the natives during their war with the Russians.

This last informant ascribed the same powers to utcda of Dry Bay, reporting that, in 1894, the Government had sent the Coast Guard around to cut the hair of all Indian doctors. They failed with utcda. “They caught two—in Klukwan, and one in Angoon. He don’t show his power. They want them to show their power to prove it. But he don’t show his power—except this man in Dry Bay. He prove it.” The Klukwan shaman was Qałgé (CAnkuqedi), and the Angoon shaman was Kacudutłak (Decitan).

We have already seen the disaster that came to the Dry Bay people when the TłukwaAdi shaman, GA-tłen (Big Rabbit), had his wife's hair cut (p. 277).

Te-’ic committed suicide in much the same way, and one wonders whether he was the “old sorcerer” that the missionary's wife, Mrs. Albin Johnson, persuaded to bathe and cut his hair, in return for a whole set of nice clean clothes (Johnson, 1924, p. 49). As I was told, “Te-’ic asked to have his hair cut because his brothers were all dead and he wanted to die. When they cut his hair, he died soon after.” (MJ) For a fuller version of the story, see pp. 718–719.

We get some impression of the shaman's appearance from the photograph taken of Te-’ic, just before his death, when he was sitting on the steps of Bear House, Khantaak Island (pl. 65). One who had known him said that his face was ugly and haggard because he had to fast so much.

His colleague, utcda, came to Yakutat and when he visited the church at the mission, he was described as “awful looking,” and terrifying in appearance. He was wearing a big button blanket, with “buttons as big as quarters,” and great big round earrings of bone that hung down. “His hair—he had a big bundle of it, i,, that round. It was all matted. He never comb his hair. They never comb it when they are doctors. They pin it up with bone hairpins. They go straight up like a stick. There are carvings on the ends, of animals. He didn’t paint his face for church.” (MJ) That Sunday evening, during a seance in which he was trying to detect a witch, utcda was: “Ugly looking! His hair just that big. It's all down. Naked—one of them fancy aprons on, sAnket, with bones on the bottom. Got 'At agú—like some kind of animal fingernail [i.e., the shaman's crown of claws].” (MJ)

The Shaman's “Outfit”

The shaman was set apart from other men by his special costume, or what one informant called “his uniform” (MJ). This was not, however, worn on ordinary occasions, but was donned for seances. In addition, his “outfit” (yak-ta ‘Adi; Boas 1917, p. 161, ‘dàÍdèdí) consisted of a number of other items used in his practice, their exact nature varying according to his particular spirits and powers. Since the shaman had to use his own dishes, I imagine that all of his personal possessions had a more or less sacrosanct character, and were probably never handled by others, except at times by his wife(?), or by his assistants who shared his taboos. His professional paraphernalia were particularly important, and were stored in special places where they could not harm others or be harmed by the approach of a menstruant. Thus, of Te-’ic I was told:

“He keeps his outfit tied up in a box, up above everything [in the house]. His sticks and drum he keeps in the house. The rest of his outfit he keeps in a hollow tree.” (MJ) That is, the most dangerous things were cached away in the woods. “Only a doctor and his helper could open or handle a doctor's things.” “When he was going to perform he would send his sidekick for it.” (MJ)

Krause also mentions (1956, p. 196) that a famous Chilkat shaman in 1881–82 had quantities of regalia which he kept in several boxes stored in the woods; these he brought out only when they were needed.

Another informant spoke about the many doctors that formerly lived at Yakutat. “There were lots of their things stored in the woods around the head of Monti Bay. They got rid of tongues around here.” From this we may infer that even these dangerous amulets were stored in the woods near the present town of Yakutat.

In recounting an exploit of the shaman, atgawet, one man spoke of the room in the house called the drum room' (gau t’a), “just a special room where the Indian doctor keeps his drum and all his power—those masks, and all.” One would infer that all large houses in which a shaman lived had such a room, although no other informant happened to mention it.

Three caches of doctor's things were found in the woods by my informants when they were children (see pp. 699–701). It is not possible to tell from some of their accounts whether the owners were alive at the time, although in one case the shaman was said to be dead. I believe that the others were also, and this was the reason why their belongings were so very dangerous. Probably a shaman's cache was left in its hiding place after the owner's death, while his grave house might be put up nearby; at least in some cases the grave and cache were close together. The outfit of the doctor was supposed to be inherited by his successor. Some objects were actually used by the latter; others were replaced by copies, while the originals were left near the grave or put into the grave house of the dead shaman. Thus, Te-’ic had the outfit that had been owned by atgawet and QadjAqdaqina, but I do not know whether these were the original objects or replicas. After his death, much of this was inherited by Jim Kardeetoo. Normally, the paraphernalia of a shaman were never destroyed but, like his corpse, would be kept above ground in order to inspire another doctor in his own lineage.

We know a good deal about the articles owned and used by shamans, not only from the accounts of informants, but from specimens from Yakutat and Dry Bay now in various museums. The latter include not simply miscellaneous items of shamanistic equipment obtained from the graves or the persons of living shamans at Yakutat and Dry Bay, but a number of collections which represent the more or less complete contents of doctors' grave houses. These can, therefore, give us an indication of what items were to be found in the shaman's outfit. The collections, detailed below, were made by Professor Libbey at Yakutat in 1886 and by Lieutenant Emmons at Yakutat and Dry Bay at about the same time (1883–87).

From Dry Bat at the mouth of the Alsek River, or from the Akwe River, the grave houses of three TłukwaAdi shamans: “Sa-ton” or SEtAn (AMNH E/409–432); “Koutch-tar” or utcda (who died in the early 1880's or late 1870's, probably a predecessor of the shaman of that name known to my informants; AMNH E/396–407); and an unknown shaman of the same sib (AMNH E/1653–1669). In the same area were also the grave houses of two shamans of the “Kut-kow-ee” or d;akA’ayi sib, of whom one was named “Kar-tchu-say,” or Qadjusé (AMNH E/1590–1623), while the other was unknown (AMNH E/1624–1652). In addition, seven items came from the grave of an unknown doctor at Dry Bay (AMNH E/340–346). These grave goods were all obtained by Emmons.

From Yakutat, we have only the portion of the shaman's grave robbed by Emmons and Libbey (p. 192) that went to the Museum of Natural History, Princeton University (pl. 170;—about 30-odd items). The rest is no doubt widely scattered, since Emmons supplied Tlingit specimens to every major museum in this country. Many are no doubt incompletely cataloged so that they cannot be identified as having come from this particular grave. Other pieces which would have been taken by various members of the expedition are probably lost, so that it is now impossible to reconstruct the exact contents of this grave cache. Also from Yakutat are 14 masks which may or may not be a set from a single grave (AMNH 19/867–880), and 3 masks from a grave house 20 miles south of Yakutat (AMNH E/2486–2488), obtained by Emmons.

Not all of Emmons' original collections are still intact, for many items (indicated by an asterisk after the catalog number) were subsequently exchanged by the museum with Emmons himself or with other museums.

The types of objects found in these and other shamans' grave houses, or obtained in other ways, comprise the following types of artifacts: grave guardian image, box to hold his outfit and additional containers for small items, masks, headdresses (of down feathers or cedarbark) with maskette (tługu?), headdress of ermine skin (yek tini), extra maskettes, crowns of horns or claws, bears' ears headdresses, crest hat, (also mentioned: belt, war bonnet of basketry, cedarbark mat, shaman's doll, prophetic bone), comb, hairpins, skin blanket or shoulder robe, apron, armor, amulets and charms (some attached to robes, others worn around neck), necklace, bracelets, bundle with dried tongue, gloves, knife, canes and dancing wands (especially those like war pick and club), rattles, drums, tapping sticks, paintbrushes, dishes, firemaking outfit, extra cedarbark, animal teeth, and other raw materials.

Many of the large collections found in grave houses included objects of several ages, and Emmons has noted that in a number of cases the oldest of these had been used by up to five generations of shamans, while other newer objects had been added from time to time. The fact that so many items, especially masks representing spirits, were found in a single grave house suggests that the last owner was still without a successor when Emmons took his outfit. Or, the successor had obtained some different spirits of his own and so could not use these particular items that represented spirits that had not appeared to him; or perhaps he had replaced all these old objects with new ones. In one known case, that of the d;aKA’ayi shaman, Qadjusé, Emmons obtained the consent of his “heirs” to the removal of the objects from his grave house, suggesting perhaps the waning importance of the shaman, coupled with fear of his outfit and the desire for money. Emmons does not, unfortunately, describe the conditions under which most caches were opened, nor how he was able to identify the contents according to function and the particular spirits represented. It is incredible that even a man of Emmons' standing among the Indians would be able to induce some knowledgeable native actually to examine the items from these graves, and it is equally hard to understand that Emmons could make these identifications from his general knowledge. There is no question, however, but that his catalog notes are remarkably full and informative.

Seton-Karr (1887, pp. 59–60) has described the discovery of the shaman's grave near Port Mulgrave in 1886. The great number of objects known to have come from this single deposit suggests that most of the shaman's professional equipment had been left at the grave:

“Some one [from the Pinta or from Schwatka's party] went out in a canoe and made a great ‘find’ of some boxes in the grave of a medicine-man in a retired part of the bay. Whenever a 'shawaan' dies his charms and other articles that he has used are placed in boxes, buried [sic] with him, and left to rot unless rescued as curios, for no Indian will touch them. As no Indian even dares to approach the grave of a medicine-man, the abstractions can never be discovered or lamented. In the evening the two sacksfull were spread out on the floor in the captain's cabin for inspection, and comprised, among other things, a quantity of masks of painted wood, a leather shawl, ornamented with sea-parrots' bills, and a crown of wild-goats' horns.”

The plate (Seton-Karr, 1887, opp. p. 56) showing masks with solid eyes, a bird-shaped rattle, bracelets, and a cedarbark rope, purports to illustrate this find, but from the photographer's name we know that the picture was taken at Sitka, and the masks are quite different in character and artistically very inferior to those known to have come from the Yakutat grave.

The find includes the following items (pl. 170): Skull and jaw of the shaman himself (PU 12484); a small weatherbeaten grocery box, with hand-hewn lid, containing a roll of cedarbark 5” wide, another 1” wide, a ring of cedarbark cable 7 inches in diameter, large whale tooth sawed in two, pair of spring tweezers (?) of mountain goat horn, 35 perforated sea otter canines, animal rib split and carved to represent an animal (wolf? otter?) but now broken, many ivory, bone, and bear-tooth pendants, of which some had fallen from the shamans' necklace (see below), and an ivory reel for twine (pl. 117). There were also: a shaman's wand (pl. 171; Gunther, 1962, fig. 23, p. 58); wand (pl. 171), three mountain goat horns from crown (pl. 175), maskettes for headdress (pl. 175; Gunther, 1962, fig. 13, p. 55; pl. 175), two ivory picks (pl. 171), two slender ivory rods (pl. 172), two ivory necklaces (pls. 171, 172), additional bone and ivory charms (pls. 172–173), three rattles (pl. 177; Gunther, 1962, fig. 22, p. 58; pl. 170; Gunther, 1962, fig. 21, p. 57; pl. 176), set of tapping sticks (pl. 171), two drums and drumsticks (PU 5062, 5194; pl. 171), and a skin garment (PU 5195).

In addition, not specifically labeled as having come from the grave but probably of that provenience are four masks, and possibly two more (pl. 174), and three rattles (pl. 176).

These, and other shamans' objects from Yakutat and Dry Bay are described in the following pages.

Although the dead shaman and his grave will be shunned by all except those who would be his successors, he may, nevertheless, be attacked by evil spirits. One of his spirits, we are told by Krause (1956, p. 197), is supposed to stay with him. Presumably it is this spirit (yek) which is represented by the small wooden carving which may be left at his grave. Thus, a d;aKA’ayi shaman at Huagin River near Lituya Bay had a figure carved in human form, with a frog on the head, land otters on shoulders and hips, and spirits at the kneecaps (AMNH E/2208). A dead shaman at Yakutat had a figure with a wolf's head on the breast, bears' heads on the kneecaps to defend him, and a seal below his feet (now missing) to indicate his ability to glide through the air (pl. 169).

The shaman may also be provided with a knife for self-defence in death. One Dry Bay shaman was found with an old copper dagger (djIAn ’At) clutched in his mummified hand against his breast (pl. 160).

The shaman in death may retain the box in which he used to keep his equipment. From a Dry Bay grave house there is one ornamented on the sides (AMNH E/2218); Qadjusé had a box carved to represent the wealth-bringing water monster, Unaqadet, which contained his masks, rattles, and other paraphernalia (AMNH E/1590). The box from the Yakutat grave house is, as mentioned above, an ordinary grocery box provided with a native-made lid.

A shaman on the Akwe River had a bag of cedarbark to hold a pair of dance rattles (AMNH E/2513).

In addition to his professional outfit, some personal possessions of the dead shaman may be put into the grave house with him. Thus, a Dry Bay shaman and one at Yakutat were each provided with a set of paintbrushes, presumably used to decorate masks, rattles, and other objects (AMNH E/594 [6 brushes]; E/593*). The unknown TłukwaAdi shaman at Akwe River had his own wooden dish from which he is supposed to have eaten, carved with representations of the land otter and devilfish. Emmons called it “kithlar” (pl. 195). The same shaman also had a leather bag containing stones for striking fire (AMNH E/1667). In Libbey's Yakutat shaman's box was a small ivory reel for thread, apparently of Eskimo manufacture (pl. 117), as well as other oddments listed above.

Costume

When performing, the shaman wore a special costume, or rather a series of special garments and accouterments, since he was then impersonating in succession each spirit that came to him and possessed him (pl. 168). This impersonation was naturally most effectively achieved by wearing a mask, but many other items which he wore were decorated with carvings or paintings representing additional attendant spirits, or were filled with his power.

The shaman's costumeis said to have been made for him “by his sisters and his cousins. If you make one for and Indian doctor, you are going to have luck.” This must apply to articles made of tanned skin or woven basketry. Perhaps his brothers and male parallel cousins supplied objects of wood or bone, or the shaman may have made some of these himself. Many items in his outfit had been inherited from his predecessor.

APRON

The shaman usually wore an apron (ket, sAnket, or ucket), preferably made of moose hide (pls. 168, 216). It was fastened around the waist and seems to have hung down to the knees in front, curving up at the sides. It was described as painted with “lots of pictures…sometimes his yek” (CW). Hanging loose from the uneven bottom was a fringe of long, rattling bones. “Those bones rattle. Those bones of his are going up and down! Gee, it looked terrible. And sometimes he is just that far [8 inches] off the ground!” (MJ)

While one informant specified that the shaman wore the apron when he sang, it was evidently not donned for every seance, since Te-’ic was described as stripped to a G-string, or as stark naked except for his long hair, when he was summoning his spirits. Possibly one of the words given for apron (ucket) may refer specifically to a breechclout.

The dancing apron is represented in grave finds by that of the d;aKA’ayi shaman, Qadjusé, who had a skin “waist robe” painted to represent two wolves, and hung with rattling pendants of deer hoofs and puffin beaks (AMNH E/1616). Another from a shaman's grave at Yakutat was of deerskin, ornamented with rattling pendants of deer hoofs and metal, and painted to represent a wolf flanked by two bears (AMNH E/1043).

BELT AND SHOULDER ROPES

The shaman also had a belt (sík). That of Te-’ic was made of twisted or braided roots (tid; at). Apparently roots “of all the trees” were braided together “like a chain” (CW).

Qadjusé was provided with two cedarbark rope girdles, to be worn over one shoulder and under the other arm (AMNH E/1609, 1610). These were evidently like the shoulder ropes worn by song leaders and others at a potlatch (p. 140), so I cannot be sure that they were part of the shaman's professional garb.

BLANKETS AND SHOULDER ROBES

A number of shamans are said to have had special blankets, and perhaps all did. These may be the same garment as that called “shoulder robe” by Emmons.

The Kagwantan shaman, QAłaxetł or łtuned;, whose power came from Disease (Smallpox) Spirits, is said to have had a “yek blanket,” inherited by his grandson, Lituya Bay George, who also impersonated his grandfather's spirits in a masked dance at a potlatch (pp. 629, 713–714). The yek blanket was not described. However, utcda also had something of the kind, for I was shown a photograph depicting his blanket and also the CAnkuqedi Thunderbird Blanket tacked against a wall. The shaman's was light colored (skin?), with a raven (?) in the middle, a disembodied head on the left, and between this and the raven was the same head on top of a post. The whole design was disorganized, possibly because it represented the shaman's spirits, although my informant did not know what the pictures symbolized. The design looked messy, as if it had been painted on a sheet of heavy canvas or rough skin.

From the same grave at Yakutat where Emmons obtained the deerskin dancing apron (see above), there was also a shoulder robe of the same skin, ornamented with wooden land otter heads, teeth, and Russian buttons (AMNH E/1044). Qadjusé must also have owned a shoulder robe although the latter was not preserved, for his grave house contained ornaments for the shoulders of such a robe, made of the feathered butts of sea otter arrows (AMNH E/1617).

Emmons also collected a number of charms for such shoulder robes or blankets. For example, the unknown d;akA’ayi shaman had two wooden killerwhale fins for the shoulders of his dancing robe, two more for the back, and one for the middle of this blanket (pl. 204). Isolated charms (aq sed), identified as attachements for robes, consist of a mountain goat horn toggle carved like a fur seal and originally used to attach the bladder to a harpoon (AMNH 19/618). There is also a carving of a raven's head (AMNH E/643). Both of these are from Yakutat. From Dry Bay is a whale carved in bone, a bone wolf with the spirit of a Tlingit in his mouth, and an Aleut carving in ivory of a sea otter (AMNH E/648, 2048*, 1162).

I cannot determine how most bone and ivory charms were worn, although a number were made into necklaces.

ARMOR

A shaman was sometimes provided with wooden slat armor, for part of a suit of armor was found with a Dry Bay shaman. These consisted of pieces to be worn on the leg below the knee, and were painted to represent faces (AMNH E/2311). We do not know, of course, how many specimens of armor now in museums originally came from shamans' grave houses.

Professor Libbey obtained from the shaman's grave at Yakutat his buckskin coat or vest, made of two rough oblongs sewed together along one edge, with a fringe and three pairs of trapezoidal lappets along the seamed edge (PU 5195). This was probably skin armor.

BOOTS

The shamans at Dry Bay are said to have worn short boots (u kEt), although none was found in a grave cache there. Te-’ic always went barefoot, as in his photograph (pl. 65). Possibly what were described as “boots” were actually dancing leggings.

BRACELETS

Shamans might wear bracelets. A pair, found in a grave near Yakutat, consisted of copper wire twisted around a core of iron (AMNH E/1813, 1814). Qadjusé had a pair of bracelets or armlets, worn below the elbows, consisting of twisted spruce roots and ermine skins (pl. 198). The TłukwaAdi shaman also had bracelets of cedarbark and ermine skin (pl. 196).

NECKLACES AND NECK CHARMS

Another very important part of the doctor's costume was his necklace (aq sed or ’i da ‘Itsedi). This was traditionally made of dangling rods, sometimes of wood, more often of animal bone or imported ivory. These were described as about 12 inches long, with a hole at one end, by which they were strung on a cord. They hung down over the doctor's breast, “close together, and made a noise when he danced” (CW). Almost all the animal tooth pendants or beads found in our archeological excavations (de Laguna et al., 1964, pp. 155–160) were believed by informants to be parts of a doctor's necklace. Apparently many different kinds of bones were used, and they traditionally filled a whole box. “He makes all kinds of noise when he start to run around. He has lots of bones for that.” A bear's tooth was considered particularly appropriate. “Doctors used brown bear teeth to get their spirit stronger, because they came from a strong animal” (MJ). The noise made by the doctor's rattling bones (necklace, and attachments to his garments) seems to have impressed all informants.

One doctor's necklace, seen by an informant in Dry Bay, was described as like a long chain of at least six bone rings, “put together.” A Yakutat informant (CW) had never heard of such a necklace, or of a chain carved from one piece of bone (as is made by the Eskimo).

From the shaman's grave at Yakutat, Libbey obtained two necklaces: one a leather-covered hoop with long ivory pendants that must have hung low over the shaman's chest and clashed together as he danced (pl. 170); the other of 10 tubular ivory beads, alternating with 10 (blackfish?) tooth pendants, carved like claws (pl. 172). Additional beads and pendants for the latter were found loose in the shaman's box.

Other bone and ivory pendants and carvings in this grave find may have been worn at the neck or attached to the clothing, or served some other purpose, since the shaman had neck charms and amulets, as well as necklaces. Among these objects were ones incised with dot-and-circle designs; others were carved to represent the land otter, a bear's head, a goat's head, a raven's head, a human figure with bird headdress, etc. A number of specimens were of walrus ivory, obviously imported from the north (pls. 170, 172, 173).

Also from Yakutat is a necklace of wooden balls on a string (AMNH 19/256), and a neck ornament (aq sed) of ivory representing a shaman's dream, which came from a grave house on Ankau Point. This shows a double bear spirit with a smaller spirit in its mouth, and three spirits in the body (AMNH E/2046*). Another ivory neck charm from Yakutat shows one spirit eating another, a small dead man in the power of a larger spirit, and heads representing the spirits of dead witches (AMNH 19/477). A bone fish is from Yakutat, as is an ivory carving of a double-headed monster (frog? and whale?), with faces in the jaws at one end and a figure on the side which may represent the Child of the Sun (Agan-yAti) (pl. 182). I do not know how these last two carvings were worn.

Dry Bay doctors also wore necklaces. One is of ivory pendants, of which two are carved to represent a raven and a fish (AMNH E/361). Another necklace is of ivory with two old Russian glass beads (AMNH E/2579). Emmons also obtained from a living shaman his bear tooth scratching amulet (AMNH E/1328). The unknown TłukwaAdi shaman had a necklace of ivory pendants, a neck charm carved to represent a raven's head at each end, and another with a killerwhale's head at each end (AMNH E/1669, -/1666, -/1665). Other Dry Bay neck charms represented coppers, a devilfish between two bears, a duck's head, an eye, a doctor wearing a devilfish shoulder robe, and a complicated figure of a sea monster (whale?) with various spirits, shamans, spirit canoes full of dead men, etc., carved on it (AMNH E/2209, -/2210, -/2163, -/322 (3); pl. 183). A similar carved walrus ivory charm illustrates a shaman's dream (pl. 183); the central figure is a bear devouring a man.

According to the catalog notes prepared by Emmons, the shaman's neck charms, when carved, represented spirits that protected him. These, as well as the necklace and other objects, might impart beneficial effects if touched to the body of a patient.

Swanton (1908, p. 464) reports that not only did the shaman wear a necklace of bones, but “a little whetstone hung about his neck, which he employed as a head scratcher.” The use of this rubbing amulet was not, however, restricted to shamans, for Seton-Karr noted that these were used by hunters before setting out (p. 666), and Professor Libbey obtained some specimens. I do not know which of the miscellaneous bone or ivory carvings from shaman's graves may have been used as body amulets (pls. 182, 183).

Swanton (1908, p. 464) also writes: “At the command of various spirits bones were worn through incisions in the septum of the nose,” which suggests another function for some of the objects in shamans' outfits.

COMBS AND HAIRPINS

Although shamans were not allowed to comb their hair, they might possess combs which they used to hold up their long matted locks. A Dry Bay shaman had a wooden comb carved to represent a bear (pl. 178).

Long bone or ivory pins were also used to hold up the shaman's hair. Such pins have been collected at Dry Bay and at Yakutat, and were apparently called tin (AMNH E/650; pl. 178). Some of the longer ivory ornaments from the shaman's grave at Yakutat may have been for such a purpose, for example the two slender ivory rods now strung on a cord (pl. 172), as well as other ivory pins, especially those carved with animal heads (pl. 173).

Masks, Maskettes and Headdresses

MASKS

Masks (tł'ÀkÉt, tłaket) were used for mimetic dances at potlatches, often those in which a shaman's spirit was represented (pp. 628–629; Swanton, 1909, p. 389), as well as by the shaman himself. It is not always possible to determine whether a given specimen was simply a mask for dancing (p. 444) or a shaman's mask, in default of specific information. However, when the mask is complex, representing one or more subsidiary figures in addition to the face, it is almost certainly for a shaman (Swanton, 1908, pp. 463 f.), although a plain mask which realistically represents a human face or an animal may be either a shaman's mask or one used for a potlatch show (ibid., pp. 435 f.).

According to one informant, probably thinking of Dry Bay shamans, “they always use a mask.” It may be significant that Te-’ic is not reported to have done so. CW, who had seen him curing a sick man, explained that the doctor put black paint on his face, especially his forehead, but “don’t make picture on his face,” and that he tied his long hair up on top of his head on this occasion. Certainly, plenty of shaman's masks have been collected at Yakutat, and we may assume that Te-’ic, like other Tlingit shamans, possessed and made use of several, even though my informants did not mention them.

Dry Bay doctors, certainly, had “lots of masks.” Each was different and each had a name. Some were said to have had a land otter's face, presumably to symbolize the power derived from that animal. The informant could give no further description, except that animal teeth might be inlaid in the wood. The mask is “for when the spirit comes and they go around the fire—that's the time they use it.” It was interesting that no one to whom were shown Swanton's pictures of utcda's masks was able to name them (pl. 194). These photographs had been made from copies of the masks, not the originals, for Emmons had already collected the set that belonged to the utcda who died in the early 1880's (Swanton, 1908, pl. LVIII, pp. 467–468). (See pls. 190–193.)

The masks of a shaman represented his spirits and, when he put one on, he not only was supposed to resemble the spirit in outward appearance, but he became actually inspired by that yek, and spoke, danced, and acted as the yek. The most important part of the shaman's outfit, except for the tongues he had cut, consisted of his masks. Emmons' utcda had 8, SEtAn had 9, the unknown TłukwaAdi doctor had 7, Qadjusé had 10, the unknown akA’ayi doctor had a set of 8. Unfortunately, all of these shamans belonged to Raven sibs; we have no set of masks or other paraphernalia from shamans of the opposite moiety. In addition, a set of four was obtained from an unknown Dry Bay shaman; Libby's Yakutat shaman probably had at least four, although not all the specimens at Princeton can with certainty be ascribed to his grave. I believe that, in addition, one or possibly two masks now at the Washington State Museum are of this provenience. The list given below does not include the four models of masks owned by utcda and collected by Swanton.

In all, including specimens not assigned to any specific grave find, there are about 70 known masks from the Yakutat Dry Bay area. These represent the following spirits (yek):

Chief Spirit (yek ‘anqawu)1

utcda (pl. 191).

Qadjusé (AMNH E/1599).

Friendly or Good-Natural Spirit

SEtAn (pl. 188)—spirit in the air.

Qadjusé (AMNH E/1597).

20 miles s. of Yakutat (AMNH E/2488).

Spirit in the Clouds

Dry Bay (pl. 181).

Unknown akA’ayi shaman: set of eight; four are old women with labrets, four (one missing) are young women with labrets (pls. 206, 207).

Young Woman of the Woods

Qadjusé (pl. 202).

Young Woman or Girl

Unknown TłukwaAdi doctor (pl. 197, two masks).

Old Woman with Labret

Yakutat (pl. 174).

Yakutat (set?) (AMNH 19/867), with bear's ears headdress.

Tlingit Singing

Yakutat (pl. 174).

Yakutat (pl. 185).

Yatutat (set?; pl. 184).

Shaman Singing

SEtAn (pl. 189).

Tlingit Man

SEtAn (pl. 188).

Yakutat grave (pl. 174).

20 miles s of Yakuta (AMNH E/2487).

Dead Man

SEtAn (pl. 188).

Dead Peace-Maker

utcda (pl. 192).

Dead Shaman

Unknown TłukwaAdi shaman (pl. 197) with crown; (AMNH E/1659) with beak for nose, devilfish-land otter on forehead.

Shaman

SEtAn (pl. 188) with killerwhale facepaint; (AMNH E/413*) with nose pin.

Akwe River, with nose pin (pl. 181).

Athabaskan Shamans

Yakutat (set?; pl. 186; AMNH 19/872, -/875*, 869*), two are said to be angry.

Angry Man

utcda (pls. 190, 192) in clouds.

(with open mouth as if speaking in anger; down is blown out through the mouth when dancing

Unknown TłukwaAdi shaman (pl. 197) with bear's ears headdress.

Qadjusé (pl. 202).

Unknown Dry Bay set (pl. 180).

Bow Man of War Canoe

Qadjusé (pl. 201).

Face with Animal Parts

With frogs on cheeks, unknown TłukwaxAdi shaman (Shamans?) (AMNH E/1654).

With mice on cheeks, Dry Bay (pl. 186).

Bearlike face, with octopus-land otter on cheeks; Dry Bay (pl. 181).

With shark decoration at mouth, Yakutat (pl. 174).

With octopus facepaint, Yakutat (pl. 174).

Athabaskan woman with hawk bill, Yakutat (set?; pl. 184).

Drowned Men into Land Otter Men

Gutcda (pl. 191)

SEtAn (pl. 189).

Dry Bay set (pl. 180).

Yakutat (set?; AMNH 19/871, 873).

Glacier Spirit

Qadjusé (pl. 200).

North Wind of Alsek River [bear's head]

Dry Bay set (pl. 180).

Spirit of Sun

Qadjusé (pl. 202).

Spirit of Doctor Below the Earth

Qadjusé (AMNH E/1595).

Bear

Yakutat (set?; AMNH 19/899).

Devilfish [human face with tentacles on cheeks]

utcda (pl. 192).

Dog

utcda (pl. 190).

Sculpin [human face]

SEtAn (pl. 188).

Stickleback [human face]

Qadjusé (pl. 202).

Mosquito [human face with bill]

Yakutat (set?; pl. 185).

Raven

SEtAn (pl. 189).

Crow [somewhat human]

Dry Bay (pl. 181).

Owl

Yakutat (set?; pl. 184).

Eagle [human face with bill]

Yakutat (set?; AMNH 19/877).

20 m. s of Yakutat (pl. 186).

“Hawk” (Golden Eagle)

utcda (AMNH E/398).

Yakutat (pl. 174).

Kingfisher

Unknown TłukwaAdi (AMNH E/1655).

Puffin [human face with bill]

Qadjusé (pl. 201).

Chiton [wrinkled human face]

Dry Bay set (pl. 180).

Most of these masks are extraordinarily realistic, as for example all those representing women with labrets, men singing, Athabaskans with nose pins, and so on. Some of these are said to represent dead persons; I believe that all do, and one could imagine in many cases that the mask is the portrait of a particular individual. On other masks that are predominantly anthropomorphic in character, the character of an animal, fish, or bird may be rather subtly suggested by the shape of nose or lips, or by facial painting. The drowned man turning into a Land Otter Man is shown with open lips, displaying his teeth, and a heavy beard of fur; already he is growing a muzzle and animal hair. In the most fantastic masks, small figures of animals (mice, frogs, or monsters that combine land otters and devilfish) climb over the human face. The colors are red, black, green (or blue-green), or blue. Strips of copper, animal fur, moose skin, or bird skin, tufts of human hair, and animal teeth may be inlaid or applied to the wooden mask to heighten the illusion. In only a few masks are there tiny holes for the eyes; on most, the eyes are solid. When the shaman was wearing the mask, it must therefore have been the duty of his assistant to see that he did not blunder into the fire.

In addition to the masks listed above, Swanton obtained 4 models of otcda”s (utcda's) masks (1908, pl. LVIII, b, c, d, e; see pl. 194). One of these represented a raven (pl. 194); the other three were more or less anthropomorphic. Thus, “Cross Man (AnAxła’)” is a human face, with red and green paint (pl. 194). “Spirit- put-on (Ada’ołi-yēk),” so-called because the mask was put on in time of war, is womewhat similar, except that the tongue protrudes to show that the spirit “gets tired in war time.” On the forehead is a small frog, said to represent another spirit (pl. 194). The last mask, “Land-otter-man Spirit (Kū’cta-qa-yēk),” is again a human face, with fur around the open mouth, and a small land otter figure climbing the forehead. The black and red lines radiating from the nostrils across both cheeks “represent starfishes, which are also spirits” (Swanton, 1908, pp. 467–468). This model resembles in character the mask from Dry Bay now in the Washington State Museum (pl. 181), with bearlike face and four figures of combination land otters and octopus attached to the cheeks. It lacks the realism of the Land Otter Man mask in the original outfit of utcda (pl. 191).

The masks obtained by Libbey at Yakutat, presumably all from the shaman's grave, are of superior workmanship, and are largely anthropomorphic in character (pl. 174). One (PU 3923) is a face with beard, mustache, and eyebrows of fur, copper eyelashes and lips, and facial painting symbolizing the arms of an octopus. Another (PU 3922) is also a face with copper eyebrows and lips, but has three curved red lines at each corner of the down-turned mouth to represent the gill slits of a shark. The third (PU 3911), which has tiny holes for the eyes, has a large nose or bill trimmed with copper, erect ears with a face in each, and must represent an eagle or hawk. Still another (PU 3957) is simply a human face with black mustache and asymmetric facepainting in red and black. There are tiny holes for the eyes, and the lips are parted.

An almost identical specimen, even broken in the same places, was acquired from Emmons in 1909 by the Washington State Museum (pl. 174), and came, I am convinced, from the same grave. This seems to represent simply the face of a Tlingit, but is, according to Emmons' catalog notes, really a spirit in the act of singing. “When the shaman puts it on he impersonates this particular spirit and loses his own identity.” A very old and somewhat decayed mask (pl. 174), representing the spirit of an old woman with a large labret, came from a grave house at Yakutat and was acquired by the museum at the same time from Emmons. Possibly this was also from the same grave. There are no eyeholes on this mask.

A mask representing the realistic face of a man, with parted lips, and small eyeholes, from a grave house south of Yakutat (pl. 185), and another of a man with furrowed brow, bone nose pin, and exaggeratedly protruding lips, from a grave house on the Akwe River (pl. 181), were both collected by Emmons and are both of equally fine workmanship.

When the shaman was not wearing a mask he presumably painted his face, for the shaman doll carved by Jack Reed has such a painted face (pl. 168). Perhaps some of the patterns of facial decorations on the masks were those which the shaman might apply to his own face.

HEADDRESSES WITH MASKETTES, OR OTHER SYMBOLS

The shaman also had several headdresses, called “thlu-gu” (Emmons), possibly tługu or even łukA, ‘power,’ These also represented his spirits. These were sometimes made of shredded cedarbark and human hair, more often of swansdown or eagledown, with a crown of eagle tail feathers or of eagle tail and magpie tail feathers. One, belonging to Qadjusé, formerly consisted of the skin from the head and neck of a mallard drake (pl. 199; maskette only). In front of these headdresses, over the forehead, was a wooden maskette, or a small carved head or some other small figure. (In many cases, only these detached carvings can be identified.) Emmons noted that these headdresses were worn for “general dances,” for dancing in the evening after a day of fasting to bring good fortune to the shaman's family, and also for dancing around the sick and bewitched. Probably the occasion determined which spirit was to be summoned and therefore which headdress would be worn. utcda, SEtAn, and Qadjusé each had three such headdresses (AMNH E/404–405 and pl. 193; pl. 187 and E/420; pl. 199). The unknown at’kA’ayi shaman had two of cedarbark and three of swansdown (pl. 208; AMNH E/1633*, 1635*; pl. 207); the unknown TłukwaAdi shaman had one (AMNH E/1661*). The shaman from whose grave Professor Libbey made his collection evidently had one of cedarbark, for a ring 7 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick, was found in his box.

Some shamans had a headdress called yek tini (”yake cheenee”). This was made of ermine skin, eagle tail feathers, and perhaps braids of human hair falling behind. It was ornamented with the feathered shafts of arrows and small carved heads or maskettes. Qadjusé, his unknown atA’ayi colleague, and the unknown TłukwaAdi shaman each had one (pls. 199, 195; AMNH E/1636).

In addition to these complete headdresses, shamans might also have unattached maskettes or other ornaments which could be put on such headgear. For example, Qadjusé had a wooden wolf's head for his yek tini (AMNH E/1639), as well as a killerwhale fin, and a wolf maskette (pls. 199, 200). Libbey's shaman had three maskettes (pls. 170, 175), and there is another from Yakutat (set?; AMNH 19/996). The unknown Dry Bay shaman had a small carving representing the head of a land otter with protruding tongue (pl. 179), and also a wooden headdress ornament representing a spirit of a dog, to be attached to a cap of birdskin or cedarbark (AMNH E/341).

The 27 spirits represented on these headdress ornaments and maskettes are: a’kA’ayi shamans (including Qadjusé); 3 wolves, killerwhale fin, human hand, raven, owl, bear, albatross, spirit from land of dead doctors, good spirit, spirit that lives above, and a Tlingit. The TłukwaAdi shamans (including utcda and SEtAn) possessed 2 eagles, hawk (golden eagle?), 2 spirits above or in the air, dead Tlingit, boy with raven facepaint, and a carving of three headless guardians. The unknown Dry Bay doctor had the dog and land otter. Libbey's Yakutat shaman had the bear, sculpin, and a human face; the other Yakutat shaman had the grebe.

Little direct information was obtained about maskettes or about headdresses of this kind. Peter Lawrence had had one in his possession for several years, even though he was not able to explain it (fig. 72). This maskette represented a mountain goat, to judge by the horns. These had knobs, painted alternately red and green, and the anthropomorphic face was also green. The wooden maskette was fastened to a band of swanskin with the white down still attached, above which on each side were two large projections of brown bear fur. As demonstrated (fig. 73), the skin band was pulled around the shaman's head so that the maskette covered the bridge of his nose and forehead (like the frog and land otter figures carved on Swanton's copies of utcda's masks), and the bear fur rose on each side of his head like ears (see the bear's ears headdress, p. 694). With this, he wore a large beard of bear fur, fastened to an oval wooden piece carved to represent protruding red lips, and obviously symbolizing the drowned man becoming a Land Otter Man.

CROWNS

The shaman also had a headdress or crown made of claws (’i CAda agu), 'shaman's head claws.’ Mountain goat horns, or even wooden spikes were also used. Jack Reed's carving of a shaman represents this (pl. 168), and a copy of such a crown was worn by Peter Lawrence in a performance at the ANB Hall in 1936 (pl. 216). Several horns for such a crown, each carved to represent a head with a single horn, came from the shaman's grave at Yakutat (pl. 175). Qadjusé of Dry Bay had a crown of bear claws, another of mountain goat horns trimmed with ermine skin and, in addition, a single wooden spike (AMNH E/1619; pl. 203). The last was carved to represent a face with a mountain goat horn, and probably came from a complete crown. His akA’ayi colleague had a crown of bear claws (AMNH E/1642*). These crowns were worn when dealing with cases of illness caused by witchcraft, and might be touched by the shaman to the body of the patient.

FIGURE 72.—Shaman's headdress and false beard formerly owned by Peter Lawrence. Right, The beard, which was worn with the headdress, is made of brown bear fur surrounding a wooden piece. The wood is painted red and represents the protruding lips of the Land Otter Men. Original dimensions, 6 × 9”. Left, The headdress, which represents a mountain goat, is made of swansdown with “ears” of brown bear fur, and a maskette painted red, green, and black. (Schumacher, after Malin 1949.)

BEAR'S EARS

When the shaman had to contend with hostile spirits, he might don the warrior's headdress of bear's ears (xuts gAnguc; p. 591). These were of brown bear fur, and might have a small wooden ornament on the forehead. Perhaps Peter Lawrence's headdress with maskette was really an elaborate bear's ears headdress. We may also note that some masks represented the spirit of an old woman or of an angry man wearing the bear's ears.

Qadjusé had a bear's ears headdress (AMNH E/1606); the unknown at’kA’ayi shaman had one ornamented with a wooden sea lion head, and also owned an additional wooden image of a bear's head to be attached to a gAnguc (pl. 206; AMNH E/1632). A Yakutat shaman had one with the beak of an albatross and a double frog figure (AMNH 19/979).

utcda had an unusual head covering made of the paw of a brown bear, with the claws attached (pl. 193).

SUN'S EARS

Because atgawet had obtained the ‘Children of the Sun’ (Agan-yAti) as his yek (see pp. 680, 710), Teqwedi shamans at Yakutat wore a special headdress called the 'Sun's ears' (Agan gAnguc). The one worn by Te-’ic was sold by Jim Kardeetoo to the Reverend Axelson (pl. 144). My informants described this headdress as an exclusive prerogative of Teqwedi shamans, but not restricted to those at Yakutat.

“It was like the sun—when the sun comes out. It was painted, like a rainbow. But it had human hair on it. It was made out of the part of the whale that sticks out of the whale's mouth on each side [baleen?]—ya a Éni, ‘whale's whiskers.’’’ These earlike pieces were attached to a leather headband and stuck up on each side of the wearer's head, as is shown in the photograph of Te-’ic. “It was an old-fashioned painting—just like a sun comes out and it belonged to that Agan-yAti business. Te-’ic had the spirit of that Agan-yAti.” “The headpiece is mounted with abalone shell, costly at that time. That's Te-’ic uniform.” (MJ)

Associated with this headdress, was the dagger called 'Sun Dagger' (Agan gwAłA; see p. 696).

An unknown TłukwaAdi shaman had a headdress which must have been quite similar in appearance, although it was made of cedar-bark, to which were attached two perforated and projecting wooden disks, painted black and red (pl. 196).

HATS

FIGURE 73.—Shaman's false beard and headdress as worn together by Peter Lawrence. (Sketch by Edward Malin in 1949.)

A shaman might own a crest hat, but perhaps this was more a reflection of his social rank than of his professional standing, since many Tlingit shamans were lineage heads or house owners. For example, one Nana’ai shaman wore a “very large hat with a high crown” (Swanton, 1908, p. 466). atgawet, too, had a huge Killerwhale Hat (kit axw), which he had obtained from the same Tsimshian colleague who gave him several spirit songs. That is, atgawet was given the right to use such a hat, so a copy was made at Yakutat of the Tsimshian hat which his spirit had seen. It was said to have had a brim as big around as a circular dining table (5 feet dimater?), and the top with rings was 2 feet high (see p. 711). I do not know whether this hat was ever worn in seances, or whether the story explains the right of the Teqwedi to use the Killerwhale Hat as a sib crest object.

Emmons found a ceremonial hat of woven spruce root (”chut-dar-ku,” i.e., axw cAdaku, ‘hat with rings’), painted to represent the Frog, in an old shaman's grave house at Dry Bay (AMNH E/1082). One wonders whether the fine hats obtained by Libbey at Yakutat also came from the shaman's grave.

My informants at Yakutat said nothing about the woven warrior's bonnet with steplike design as a shaman's hat (p. 591, fig. 68). However, since Jim Kardeetoo, who had inherited the rest of Te-’ic's outfit, had such a bonnet, it is possible that this also had belonged at one time to that shaman (pl. 215).

Other Paraphernalia

TONGUES

The most important part of the shaman's equipment was the bundle containing the tongue of the land otter or other creature that he had killed during his noviciate. This was wrapped up with spruce twigs and devilclub twigs, and in one known instance contained the upper and lower jaws of a brown bear (pl. 178; from Alsek River). The whole bundle was tied about with spruce roots and was worn as a neck charm by the shaman when practicing on the sick, according to Emmons' catalog notes. At other times, it was of course kept hidden far away.

The at’kA’ayi shaman, Qadjusé, had four such bundles of land otter tongues (”shutch,” according to Emmons; all shown on pl. 198). His unknown at’kA’ayi colleague had a pair (pl. 204), as did the TłukwaAdi shaman (pl. 196). Of course, all shamans actually possessed one or more of these indispensable amulents, but others have not been collected from their graves at Dry Bay or Yakutat.

Qadjusée's outfit also contained the skin gloves which he wore when cutting the tongue (AMNH E/1615), and the iron knife used in the operation (AMNH E/1612). The other at’kA’ayi doctor also had his knife, the handle carved to represent a bear's head (AMNH E/1643).

KNIFE

The knife owned by the shaman was presumably part of his outfit. As already noted, it might be put into the grave house with him, so that he could defend himself against evil spirits (p. 687). I do not know, of course, whether the two knives, just cited as having been used to cut tongues, were also supposed to be weapons of defense.

utcda was reported by informants as having owned a knife with a carved handle representing an animal's head with a large nose. He had a snuff can “made the same way.” When he came from Dry Bay to Yakutat on a visit he brought a big box of things with him, but my informant did not know what it contained. There were unfortunately no stories about the use of a knife or snuff can in his seances.

On the other hand, the knife owned by Te-’ic was definitely part of his professional equipment, and was decorated to represent one of his spirits, the Child of the Sun. This was a large copper dagger, which was worn in a beaded sheath that hung from his neck. The designs on sheath and neck strap were ordinary floral motifs of Athabaskan derivation, but the handle of the knife had the figure of a squatting mannikin, in silhouette within an open ring (pls. 86, 144).

“That's Te-’ic's copper knife. It's down at museum now. They call it Agan gwAłA [Sun Dagger]. It belongs to Teqwedi tribe…. The little man in the knife handle is Agan-yAti” (MJ), that is, ‘Children of the Sun,’ or perhaps more properly ‘Child of the Sun’ (Agan-yAdi), as another informant called it.

This was the big knife which Te-’ic apparently used for some of his most spectacular power demonstrations (see p. 706).

CANES

The shaman had a cane or staff which was used in his seances. Thus I was told: “The doctor has a cane. They call it nukw ati ketłi—witchcraft dog [literally ‘dog of master of sickness,’ or witch's dog]. Whichever is a witch that cane points at. It just stops at the person who does the witching. Then the family gets the order to tie him up for witchcraft. Kardee [Kardeetoo] had the cane. Jim Kardee had all Te-’ic's outfit and he sold it all.” (MJ)

The photograph of Te-’ic shows him holding the Russian sword cane (pl. 65), but we do not know whether this was the one he used for detecting witches. In the picture of Teqwedi heirlooms on the porch of Shark House there is a carved wooden cane or staff, which may have been his, although the design cannot be determined (pls. 143, 144).

Without specific information it is almost impossible to distinguish, on the basis of appearance, between the staff used by a shaman and that of the host at a potlatch, since both may be covered with anthropomorphic and animal designs.

DANCE WANDS

When dancing, the shaman might be armed with a dance wand or dance stick. These were of several different types. One of these was shaped like the warrior's pick (katu), with a wooden handle and a pointed blade inserted through it or lashed to it. SEtAn had four of these, of which Emmons reports that he had carried them when he went out to cut a tongue. A clubbing motion toward the land otter was enough to render it unconscious or dead. These picks were carved to represent a bear and spirits, hawks and a raven, a land otter and a raven, and a singing doctor with otters for his feet and spirits in his hands (AMNH E/432, -/424*, -/425*, -/429*). The at’kA’ayi shaman had one in the shape of a cross (pl. 205); another shaman of the same sib had one carved to represent a raven above a devilfish and a land otter (AMNH E/2212). I gather that these picklike clubs were also used in combating the evil spirits afflicting the sick or bewitched.

A shaman's wand, about 43 cm. long, obtained by Professor Libbey from the grave cache near Yakutat (pl. 171), may be the handle for such a pick. The specimen has an oval hole in the middle, and a human head carved at each end. Both heads depict dead or dying men with sunken cheeks, probably witches that have been strangled, to judge by the protruding tongues. Two ravens dive toward the central hole. Possibly the two ivory picks from the same grave (pl. 171) were intended as blades for this or similar dancing picks.

Another type of dancing wand was shaped like the hunter's club used to dispatch fish or sea otters. This club (”kutze” Emmons, u) was also used in contending with evil spirits. SEtAn had a set of seven, variously carved with land otters, devilfish, crane, salmon, hawk, sculpin, raven, a doctor's spirit with a land otter coming out of his mouth, and a monster with a land otter's head and a devilfish body (pl. 187; AMNH E/422, -/423, -/426*, -/427*, -/430*, -/431). The at’kA’ayi shaman had one with a man's head at one end and a crane at the other (AMNH E/1646), and a pair, to carry in each hand, carved with a killerwhale's fin (AMNH E/1644). The unknown Dry Bay shaman had one carved to represent a hawk above and a bear below (AMNH E/346); and another shaman at Dry Bay had one carved to represent a sea lion combined with an octopus (AMNH E/2477).

An unknown Yakutat shaman had a dancing wand in the shape of an old-fashioned fighting knife or dagger (gwAłA; AMNH E/1102).

One doctor, probably at Dry Bay, was said to “use an arrow.” He would run around the house with it when he got his spirit.

The number of real or simulated weapons carried by shamans as dance wands is testimony to the warlike character of many seances.

Other dance wands or dance sticks were carried by the shaman in his practice, and apparently might be placed beside the patient. From Yakutat is one carved and painted to represent a crane's head and neck, and another with a wolf's head at one end and a bear's at the other (AMNH 19/1251; pl. 179). From the Yakutat grave, Professor Libbey brought back one of wood carved at the end to represent a kneeling man, naked except for his large hat (pl. 171). The lower end is pointed like a stake.

PROPHETIC BONE

Some, if not all, shamans are said to have had an animal bone with a hole in it, through which they could look when foretelling the future. Peter Lawrence, for his imitation of a shaman's performance in the ANB Hall, had what purported to be part of a bear's pelvis, cut and painted in red and green to suggest an animal's head (fig. 74). To demonstrate its use, the old man held it up, gazed at me through the natural opening very intently, and finally pronounced that I would be lucky and become rich. Another informant thought that an archeological bone bead was the bone through which a shaman looked.

FIGURE 74.—Shaman's phophetic bone, used by Peter Lawrence in a dramatic performance in the ANB Hall in imitation of a shaman. The bone is supposed to be that of a bear because “it has lots of power.” (Sketch by Edward Malin in 1949.)

MAT

A shaman customarily had a cedarbark mat (atc), undoubtedly imported from the south. Te-’ic slept on his, as already noted (p. 427), and when going to “visit” a shaman in Sitka was covered with it (see p. 704).

SHAMAN'S DOLL

Te-’ic also had a wooden image that moved of itself, and which he used in power demonstrations (see pp. 705–706 and fig. 54b). Like his headdress and dagger, this image symbolized the Children of the Sun, evidently his most important spirits. While Copper River Eyak and Chugach shamans often had “dolls” which they could animate with their power (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1936, p. 210; Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 128), I do not know whether these were common among Tlingit doctors. (See pl. 168.)

DRUM

The musical instruments belonging to a shaman were essential to his performance. These were the drum, tapping sticks, and rattles of various kinds that were used to accompany his spirit songs. The bones of his necklace and apron also helped to accentuate the quick irregular rhythms as the shaman danced around the fire.

The drum (gau) was a big tambourine drum, about a yard in diameter, with a sealskin head. I do not know if the drum of a shaman was ever painted. Professor Libbey obtained two drums and drumsticks, both sets apparently from the shaman's grave, although we can be certain of the provenience of only one (PU 5194, 5062). This is a black drum with drumstick made of a slender rod wound with cloth. The other drum is tan and has a similar drumstick (pl. 170). These drums are about 54 and 52 cm. in diameter, and 9.3 and 8.3 cm. deep. The skin heads are fastened with brass tacks; the handle is a cord across the back. The drumsticks are slender rods about 40 cm. long. In other words, except for the lack of decoration, these were similar to the drums used for potlatches.

Occasionally for certain performances, Te-’ic made use of the Teqwedi's Killerwhale Drum, a wooden box drum (see p. 705). According to one informant, Skin Canoe George, his principal assistant, used to beat the drum for him (CW). Another denied that this man was the drummer; indeed, he could not have served in this capacity during the power demonstrations in which he was stabbed. Then the drummer would have been another man in the same sib. We do not know who served as drummer for utcda.

TAPPING STICKS

The shaman's assistants, or rather all the men of his sib who were present, beat time with tapping sticks (ÍtÀ, ÍtcÀ). These were described as plain undecorated wooden rods, about 12 inches long. A man held one in each hand and struck them together crosswise. This was apparently the way they were used at Yakutat. The shaman kept the sticks until they were needed, then handed them out to his assistants (CW).

Professor Libbey obtained a set of 24 plain wooden tapping sticks from the shaman's grave near Yakutat which correspond to the description of my informant (pl. 171). The at’kA’ayi shaman's outfit obtained by Emmons contained one of bone, carved to represent a land otter's head (pl. 205). This suggests that some of the longer bone and ivory charms in the Yakutat grave may have been used as tapping sticks.

Moreover, a Dry Bay informant said that the tapping sticks would be carved to represent the shaman's spirits. “When they got that kucda yek [land otter spirits], they’re going to use kucda faces. Sometimes they use it for something like this—to make a noise [demonstrating by tapping with a pencil]…. All those people sitting around, that Indian doctor go around over here. All those people hitting on the floor [with sticks].

“And sometimes they got something like this:” She described a low flat rectangular sounding board, about 24 inches long, 6 inches wide, and “just flat,” or about 3 inches high. It was called ‘mouth tapping-stick place’ (a xÍtcÀ yet). It was hollowed out below, “just like a box, you know…just like a dish, so it can loud,” and it was decorated with yek designs. “They got kucda under there. And all that things, they’re going to use kucda or bear designs in it.” This would imply that the designs were on the hollow under surface, although my impression at the time was that they were carved on the top of the sounding box. “That's the one they using it on the floor. They hitting it.” Each man used only one stick, not two.

It is interesting that when Frank Italio sang some of utcda's spirit songs for the tape recorder, he pushed aside the tambourine drum provided him, and instead beat time with a pencil on a cigar box.

RATTLES

The shaman shook his own rattle (cècú) during a seance. The sound was described as “xw xw xw xw.” One shaman owned several rattles of different types and styles and with different designs, probably symbolizing different spirits. While I was told that the rattles used by shamans were shaped differently from those used in the happy dances after the potlatch, all were called by the same name, cècú, and I do not know what were the distinguishing features. A shaman's rattle might be used at a potlatch in his memory, it was said, and I suppose that it then would probably be kept among the lineage heirlooms. Rattles known to have been used at Yakutat (although some may have been made by the Tsimshian or Haida) include both plain forms and those that are elaborately carved to represent either crest animals or the shaman's spirits. The latter have either oval heads, or are in the shape of a bird with subsidiary figures carved on the back and breast. I was specifically informed that shamanistic spirits (yek) might be represented on rattles, just as they were on the shaman's masks and on the sounding board used with tapping sticks.

The elaborate bird-shaped rattles are often called “chief's rattles,” even though Tlingit shamans used them, and these rattles usually have figures carved on the back of the bird that illustrate the torture of a witch (which would be instigated by a shaman), or the acquisition of shamanistic power. Krause (1956, fig. on p. 168; cf. also p. 203) publishes a picture of such a rattle as a “Tlingit dance rattle,” although he also describes a Hoonah shaman practicing with a wooden rattle carved in the shape of a crane. Swanton (1908, p. 464) reports of shamans' rattles among the Tlingit:

“Besides oval rattles, such as Haida shamans always employed, they sometimes used the large chiefs' rattles, with figures of a raven and other animals upon them. This may have been because Tlingit shamans were generally of higher social rank than those among the Haida. The chief's rattle came to them originally from the south.”

Because of the type of decoration one would assume that these bird rattles had been originally associated with shamans, not chiefs.

When Professor Libbey photographed the Teqwedi Chief “Yen-at-setl” (Daqusetc, or Minaman) in 1886, the latter posed in front of Shark House on Khantaak Island, wearing a carved headdress (cAki'At) representing an eagle(?), and holding a bird rattle in his hand (pl. 62). The latter was recognized by my informant (MJ) as one that her grandfather, łuso, had given to the chief, his “nephew.” Curiously enough, the straight beak of the rattle suggests a raven (cf. especially Gunther, 1962, fig. 121, pp. 38, 80, Haida) or possibly some other bird, but not an eagle, which would have been a proper Teqwedi crest. On the back of the bird is a recumbent human figure that holds a small animal on his chest. Such a scene is often carved on these rattles, and represents the land otter stretching its long tongue into the mouth of the prostrate shaman, thereby endowing him with power.

The same informant also remembered a rattle carved in the shape of a kingfisher (tłÁAnÉ) “a bird that digs a hole in the bluffs with its long bill.” The last owner was Yandus-’ic, brother (?) to Natski and, like the latter, an important leader of the Tł'UknaAdi Boulder House lineage. As far as I know, he was not a shaman, only “a great man who had a copper knife.” Hardy Trefzger, a former resident of Yakutat who sold so many objects to Reverend Axel Rasmussen, obtained this rattle, but I do not know where it is now.

In the photograph of the performers in the ANB Hall at Yakutat (pl. 216), Peter Lawrence, posing as a shaman, holds a rattle with an oval head, painted to represent what looks like a shark.

It is thus obvious that, while shamans possessed rattles of various types, it is very difficult to distinguish between those which doctors would use in their practice and those which might be used by chiefs and others at potlatch dances. Fortunately, the many rattles found in the grave houses of shamans give us a good idea of the types which they actually used.

Of the rattles from grave finds, the most interesting are in the shape of birds with attached figures. From a shaman's grave on the Alsek River, Emmons obtained one representing a seagull, inlaid with abalone shell, and which has in addition the figures of a water spirit (nukw ati usi yek, 'spirit of the witch's foot), and of a shaman tying up a witch (AMNH E/2509*). A similar theme of witch and shaman is illustrated by a rattle from the shaman's grave at Yakutat (pl. 176; cf. Gunther, 1962, fig. 21, p. 57). It is of wood, about 11 cm. long, representing an oyster catcher with a bone bill. Ermine skins are fastened along each side of the rattle, and there is a band of birdskin (originally feathered) around the bird's neck. On the back of the bird, extending back over the handle is the head of a mountain goat with protruding tongue. Between its horns are the figures of a shaman torturing a witch. The latter crouches, hands bound behind the back, while the shaman pulls back the witch's head by the hair.

Emmons also obtained at Yakutat from a shaman's grave a rattle in the shape of an oyster catcher, with a dead doctor lying on its back between the eyes of a bear's head carved near the handle (pl. 178). The TłukwaAdi shaman on the Akwe River also had an oyster catcher rattle, with a witch's spirit on the back; the latter has yeks at the knees, and there is a bear's spirit near the handle (pl. 195).

From the shaman's grave at Yakutat, Libbey obtained a second bird rattle (the head is missing). This has a recumbent man with a frog on his belly, lying between the horns of a mountain goat's head near the handle. This probably shows a shaman obtaining his power from a frog. The bottom of the rattle is carved to show a hawk with upturned feet (pl. 176).

SEtAn had a raven rattle, with hawk's face below, and on the back a dead man whose tongue formerly protruded to touch the bill of a crane's head, carved on the raven's tail. Emmons commented that this type of rattle is usually owned by a chief, and that only two or three have been found in shamans' graves (pl. 187).

Qadjusé had a rattle in the shape of a human hand (pl. 199). The other akA’ayi shaman had a “general dance rattle” (”chuk-ker huttar,” Emmons), and a second “general dance rattle” (”thlar-kate see-dee,” Emmons), the latter ornamented with deer hoofs and puffin beaks (pl. 205, cf. p. 563). In the grave of a shaman on the Alsek River there was a pair of rattles made of decorated spruce root basketry, to be held one in each hand (AMNH E/2515, 2516).

In the Yakutat grave there was a fine rattle with an oval head carved on one side to represent a chiton, symbolized by a face and stylized plates; on the other side are what appear to be five frog heads (pl. 177; Gunther, 1962, fig. 22, p. 58).

In the same series of field catalog numbers as the objects from the shaman's grave, although not so labeled specifically in the old records, were two plain rattles (pl. 176). One has a doughnut-shaped head; the other is cylindrical, and contains white glass beads to produce the noise.

Spirit Intrusions

It was very dangerous for a layman to approach a shaman's grave or to handle his things, especially any part of his paraphernalia that might be cached near his grave house. No one would dare to pick or eat berries growing in the vicinity, nor risk drinking water from a nearby stream. This was because such contact might result in a spirit intrusion (’Anełsín), 'something-inside-hiding.’

It will be remembered that the corpse of the shaman was not supposed to decay. That of Te- ‘ic, for example, was reported by those who repaired his grave house some years after his death, to smell like dried mountain goat flesh. “His meat was not even rotten, just dried up, yellow, like those cookies” (MJ). The corpse retained a fearful vitality, however, for Kardeetoo said that every blowfly that lit on Te- ‘ic's body dropped dead. A shaman's long hair and clawlike nails never stop growing. The fingernails of Te- ‘ic were said to have grown clear through the board on which he lay. According to Krause (1956, pp. 197–198), a dead shaman was preserved like a dried salmon because one of the first spirits which he had acquired was supposed to remain on guard at his grave house. When this structure eventually decayed, it was believed to collapse evenly, all parts falling simultaneously.

The spirit of the dead shaman which might inspire his legitimate successor could be fatal to one not prepared or authorized to receive it. Presumably a spirit was also associated with his belongings. My informants told about cases of illness and death resulting from touching such things. Swanton also states (1908, pp. 466–467) that a person who came upon a shaman's house in the woods “feared he would become sick and have his belly grow large. Then only another shaman could cure him.” This implies that even a man could develop a tumor from a spirit intrusion, although it was understood from my informants that only women were susceptible. The actual cases reported involved girls or women.

Thus, MJ told how she (then a small child) and her two little cousins, Old Sampson's children, came upon a box that had been set on top of a high rock in a pond, way back in the woods, near Sea Otter Bay, Khantaak Island. This was a heavy box, about 3 by 2 feet square, the cover and sides decorated with opercula, and all tied up with heavy spruce root cords. The children did not know anything about Indian doctors, she said, and out of curiosity managed to open the box. It was full of the bone pieces of a necklace, apparently belonging to a shaman of the Kwacqwan sib. Suddenly the older boy realized what it was and screamed. The other children also cried out with fright, and the parents came running. “Old Sampson's wife died because we found the box at Sea Otter Bay.” She was DjInUk-tła, Teqwedi (as, of course, were her children); my informant was Tł'UknaAdi. The woman apparently died long afterwards. MJ was evidently so impressed by this episode that she mentioned it on three different occasions, and further explained: “You mustn’t get near a doctor's things. It will make you sick—out of your mind. You will die of a spell.”

Although this Yakutat woman did not believe that a woman could get a tumor from going too near a shaman's grave, this was affirmed by informants from Dry Bay. One of them, for example, said that if a girl “fools around” with the belongings of a shaman, “the Indian doctor's spirit is going to be in your body. That's the way,” and she told us of her own experience when she was a little girl:

When a small child, she and another girl, KUnactła, found a box containing a doctor's outfit when they were picking berries near Cannery Creek, Dry Bay. Everything was in the box—mask, rattle, and a bone necklace like a chain. (I gathered that these had belonged to the TłukwaAdi shamans, SEtAn, UnanIstE, and utcda.) The other girl put on the mask, and my informant the necklace. Then they both became frightened and ran home. Here, the other girl fell down unconscious. When asked what had happened, my informant told her mother how they had found a big box containing a ‘bogey man’ (’uadji, something used to frighten naughty children), as she called the mask. The mother recognized this as belonging to a doctor, and at once she and the father took their daughter back to the box. Here the mother built a fire, made her daughter eat some dried salmon, and put the other half of the fish into the fire after rubbing it around her daughter's lips. Then the mother and father talked to the doctor:

“That's your daughter. [The shaman was TłukwaAdi, as was the girl's father.] Don’t get mad at her. łił duyIs an nugukw [łíł duyIs ande nuguk(?), ‘don’t because-of-her anger show’]. Put her into luck—tłaetł ku’adukAkwdjínAk.”

They also burned food for the other girl, but she was unconscious for 2 days and felt sick for a whole week. She finally died in Petersburg, but how long afterwards was never made clear.

The behavior of the parents reminds us of the custom reported by Swanton (1908, p. 467), when a Tlingit in a canoe passes a shaman's grave house on a point of land. Then he will put an offering of food and tobacco into the water and pray for good luck. My informant believed that her parents' prayers, and the fact that she herself had tried to prevent the other girl from putting on the masks had made her lucky, although she also told us that she was “sick all the time” because of this misadventure. When she was 24 years old she had to have an operation to remove a growth. This was an ‘Anełsin. The surgeon showed her what he had extracted: these were three bone rings, just like the links of the doctor's necklace. “That spirit went into me because I put on that necklace.” All told, she had to have four operations.

Jim Kardeetoo, the last assistant of Te-’ic, was credited with curing a similar spirit intrusion by virtue of the power he had acquired from association with the shaman. Thus, one woman told us:

“I got sick when I was 14. I feel sick all the time, can’t eat, just skinny, sharp pain in my side. My mother called Jim Kardee in…. He came alone; there were no other Teqwedi with him. My mother thought he was going to feel my side with his hands and see what was wrong with me. But he see a fishtail in me as soon as he opened the door. It was moving around.

“He said I was scared by ‘i things.

“They ask us kids what we see or what we do. Kardee said: ‘It's because she got scared of Indian doctor's things.’

“Then my sister recalled and said we found a wooden box right in back of where the cannery is now. It was high up. It was full of ‘i bones [i.e., for his outfit], in a box, rotten. My mother was asking her [and she remembered]. She knew she mustn’t touch it. I was smaller than she. I don’t know if I seen it, but I must have, I guess. There was a rattle in it, carved like a fish. The tail went down my back.

“It run away from his [Kardeetoo's] spirit; the fish tail hide away from him, when he came in the door.

[It was stuck in the girl's side, with the forked end up. Kardeetoo pushed the tail around to her back, and turned the end down, so it could come right out of her mouth. She did not feel it come out, but Kardeetoo saw it, and she felt better right away.]

“Kardee turned it up. It came out. I don’t get sick anymore.”

In these cases, those who found the doctor's things or who were afflicted with illness in consequence belonged, as far as could be ascertained, to a sib other than that of the shaman whose outfit was involved. I would suspect that the knife with the fishtail had belonged to a Kwacqwan (or possibly a Tł'UknaAdi) doctor, because this sib features the Humpback (or the Coho) Salmon as a crest. The children who found it belonged to the opposite moiety. Perhaps the real danger involved in all these cases was not due so much to lack of spiritual preparation for encountering shamanistic powers, as to the fact that members of another sib were not supposed to inherit a dead shaman's powers.

I was told of one man who became sick from too close an approach to a shaman's grave house, although this did not result in a tumor. This grave house was on Douglas Island, near Juneau, and was shaped like a small house with a shed roof (tłekde hIt, ‘one-side house’), enclosed on all sides. There was a big canoe on the ground in front of the house, with a “totem pole design” on it. The man was curious, thinking that the canoe might have been abandoned after a wreck, and went close to examine it. Afterwards, when he developed rheumatism, this was attributed to his having approached too close to the grave house of a strong Indian doctor.

THE SHAMAN AND HIS POWERS

Introduction

The powers of the shaman became manifest in the seance (’asán). These were awesome exhibitions, usually held in the main room of the house, often at night when the scene was illuminated only by the flickering light of the central fire. In emergencies, such as a grave illness, the shaman might perform during the daytime, and for several days in succession.

One informant (CW) said that the audience was exclusively male:

“Big house, all full up. No women there, just the men. That yek, he scared of women. The women in there, he see the women, the yek is die. That's why the yek is scared of women.”

He was probably referring to a seance of Te-’ic, perhaps a particular one from which women were barred. Certainly the presence of menstruating women was prohibited, but presumably in former days they would have been in the special “birth hut,” not in the big house. There seems to have been no exclusion of little girls and of women past menopause. Even the performances of Te-’ic were witnessed by women, for the mother of an informant had described to her daughter a seance she had watched through the partially open door of her sleeping room. One of his demonstrations was, in fact, rendered imperfect because a woman interfered (see p. 717).

Seances were held for a variety of purposes, sometimes when the spirits came of their own accord to the doctor, and sometimes when he summoned them. A seance might be held as a demonstration of power, as when the shaman wished to impress his own people or a professional rival. Sometimes these demonstrations were preliminaries to an attempted cure, an encouragement to both patient and doctor. Some seances were to announce an unexpected event or an impending disaster about which the shaman's spirits had brought a warning; others were held at the request of anxious relatives to obtain news of an absent kinsman or to discover and save those who were lost and captured by Land Otters (see pp. 751–754). Swanton (1908, pl. 465) also mentions that the shaman might send his spirits to find sources of food or to fight spirits belonging to a shaman of an enemy tribe. Most seances, perhaps, were to cure the sick, a procedure which often involved not simply treatment of the patient, but a public inquisition to expose the witch responsible and to force his confession (see pp. 736–738). Shamans were also truly doctors in that they possessed considerable medical and surgical skill which could be exercised without a formal seance. In addition, some dispensed amulets or ‘medicines’ that brought luck of particular kinds.

According to Krause (1956, p. 194), “The shaman cures the sick by driving out evil spirits, brings on good weather, brings about large fish runs and performs other similar acts.” Securing fish runs may involve being lowered on a rope from a canoe into deep water. A power demonstration by a Sitka shaman, described by Veniaminov, involved throwing the shaman into the sea, wrapped in a mat. He reappeared after 4 days. To cause better weather, a shaman might also go into the water, but if his hair became wet, that would bring rain (ibid., pp. 196–197). A shaman could also “throw his spirits into anyone who does not believe in him; and these people then get cramps or fall into a faint” (Krause, 1958, p. 196). Krause (ibid., pp. 202–203) discusses shamanistic cures and treatment of witches among the Hoonah, Chilkat, and Sitka Tlingit in 1881–82. While his reports, like Swanton's, indicate that the Tlingit shamans of southeastern Alaska had powers similar to those of Yakutat and Dry Bay, and held similar seances, the actual details varied tremendously. This is because the spirits, and in consequence the powers and procedures of the shamans, usually belonged to particular sibs. One would not expect duplication of a seance unless the one shaman had obtained his spirits from the other.

The Shaman's Assistants

In the seance the shaman relied upon his assistants to sing his songs, beat his drum and tapping sticks, and to handle his paraphernalia. The principal assistant might also be the subject on whom he demonstrated his skills or who played some equally necessary role in the exhibition. The latter also had to recognize which spirit was inspiring the shaman, or which the latter was summoning, in order to lead the correct song and also to interpret the words of the spirit who spoke through the mouth of its “master,” the shaman.

“When they become shaman, after they start in, his assistants have to know just what song to sing and how to beat the drum. If they misbeat the drum, the shaman just becomes normal right away [i.e., comes out of his trance]. Or, if they sing the wrong song, the same way. Even if they’re asleep, when the shaman wants to get the spirit, they all have to get up and get ready. Get those sticks and start beating. They don’t beat on the drum; they beat on something solid…fast like, some places just skip a beat…. The shaman himself uses that rattle.”

The same informant said on another occasion, also about the assistants to the shaman: “They always go along with him all the time. Sometimes when he's sleeping, the yek would come to him, and they have to get up and start singing these songs, and get his things.”

Another informant explained it:

“This Indian doctor makes a kind of funny noise, and the ‘i Anqawu—’the man next to him [shaman]’—understands it. He's the only one can understand what song the doctor calls for. He's the one that sings it, and the other ones join in…. He starts it. All the men know the songs, though, so when this man starts the song everybody joins in…. Lots of people sing it.

“Two are really close to this doctor. There's the ‘i Anqawu and the drummer, gau gwAłi [‘drum striker’]. The doctor shakes his rattle.”

Inspiration

When inspired, the sounds made by the shaman resemble those of the animal whose tongue he has cut, since the yek comes from that animal.

“Whenever it comes to them, they sound just like it,” one man explained. “Yek comes near them and makes a motion, but they say it speaks in them. Some people say [it's] just like looking through that window,” pointing to the glass covered by a plastic storm window. “You can’t see very good out of it. Sometimes that's the way you see. He [the shaman] can’t see either. He says, ‘ ’Ucke—I wonder.’ He's not sure inside. It puzzles me, too. When he says that, the yek speaks in him. Nobody can understand what he's saying.”

“When he gets that spirit, the people sing; ‘i Anqawu sings. And when that spirit talks in him [the shaman], he knows what yek comes. He [the assistant] knows what's coming—like kucda yek [land otter spirit]. There's lots of them…. [The assistant recognizes the particular spirit from the behavior of the shaman.] It depends on how he makes a move, and how he talks. The assistant knows. They claim he [the shaman] doesn’t talk—just the spirit talks. But it sounds funny. They can’t understand it. It sounds like animals. When the spirit goes away from him, the doctor starts telling just what he saw and what comes to him.”

The shaman possessed by the yek not only speaks like the animal, but imitates its actions. Thus, one who has the spirit of a bear may imitate the digging of a bear. Or, the assistants may dance like the spirits, as dutcda's people danced like jumping fish when he summoned his fish spirits and sang their songs (see p. 710). Among his many yek, utcda also had a dog spirit (ketł qu yek), and when inspired by it would go around “just like a dog,” barking “WA! WA! WA! WA!” For a peace ceremony, the name ‘Dog Deer’ (ketł kuwakan) was given by the TłukwaAdi to Frank Italio, their CAnkuqedi peace hostage, because the dog had been a yek of the TłukwaAdi shamans, including utcda. Apparently, the peace hostage in this ceremony danced “just like barking,” but it is not clear whether he imitated the same dance which the shaman would have performed when inspired by the dog.

In reporting what he had learned or seen in a trance, the shaman always preceded his pronouncements with the exclamation: “hak!” The message itself was always couched in vague language, which might permit of several interpretations. Therefore, the people might say of someone who never speaks so others can understand; ‘yek-like [he's] not-really-telling-the-story' (yek-yA hełyA ’Ułnik). “He never comes to the point.”

Spirit Warnings

A doctor's spirit may come to him unbidden. This is usually to foretell some disaster or to announce surprising news. The resulting seance in such a case is probably shorter than if the shaman had had to summon his spirit.

As PL put it: “The doctor knows what's going to happen. He warns people if someone is going to die or get lost. It comes in his mind when he sleeps. Sometimes he tells you when the boat is going to come.”

The shaman's spirit comes when there is to be an accident. “Sometimes something's going to happen, you know—that's the time…. That's the time that yek goes to that Indian doctor, you know. All that yek. Then they tell it: 'Something's going to happen.' When he feels better, you know, that yek go away from him.”

For example, the shaman might “see” that someone was to be drowned, even though this was to happen in Dry Bay and the shaman himself was in Yakutat. The omen would appear to him like a “big hole in the water—hin kiwa’a, they call it [‘water heaven,’ see pp. 766, 770]. Then he will say, 'Somebody's going to drown.’” When this informant was asked if the shaman could save the victim from this impending fate, she said that he could, provided “they give him something—money,” but not if he were not paid. “That's the law. Those yeks never help without paying, you know. It's just like a show, a movie, you know, that spirit,” because a fee is required.

Te-’ic was also called łagua, because he could tell when war (a) was coming. “If some boat coming to fight, he see it…. He tells about the war. Long ways to see it. He see it before it comes. I don’t know how he could do that. He start to sing. His power showed it.” This power was called utc ‘i, literally ‘wolf-shaman,’ but the informant may have used this expression because he did not know how better to explain it. When I remarked “utc du yegi—’wolf his spirit (was),' “ my informant was electrified. “She knows the word!” he exclaimed (CW).

When the spirit was warning Te-’ic of some “strange thing” that was going to happen, he was accustomed to go away from the other people in the house, and sit quietly. “Tell people in the house to be quiet for a while,” he would say. “Keep your kids quiet for a while.” He would turn his back to the fire—just sitting there. Then suddenly: “ !” he would burst out, and everybody would jump, startled. (MJ)

Sending the Spirits for News

On other occasions the shaman had to summon his spirits, as when he had been engaged by a patient or a client. Payment to the shaman was then essential, for without this, the spirit or power would not come to him. The fee, paid in advance, might be considerable. Thus, one might hold up a gun before the shaman, saying: “Yadu ‘inee—That's your pay.” Then the spirit or spirits would come to him quickly. “Otherwise they would never come,” my informant explained, and it would be futile for him to try to command them (MJ).

Those who had not heard from absent relatives for a long time, or who were anxious for the safety of a belated hunter or traveler, would hire the shaman to find out what had happened, or to discover and rescue the person who was presumed to be lost. The shaman would then hold a public seance, to summon his spirits, send them out, and to learn and report what they had seen and done. This required careful preparation and staging. As described by MJ, probably thinking of Te-’ic:

“He has to stop eating and drinking before he can find anything out. He gets big pay, or his spirit won’t tell him anything at all. He's got to announce to his spirit what he's getting.

“He sits by the fire. His back is to it. No woman can’t be around. He lets his hair down while he waits for an answer.

“They pack everything out of the house that his spirit won’t like, guns or women with their monthly. It's because the guns or breakable things would break. His spirit could tell if a woman with her monthly was inside….

“When he is doctoring he has a messenger—dut du yegi. [Does this refer to the little wooden image sometimes employed by Te-’ic? See p. 705]. When the doctor announce his word [i.e., the answer of the spirit], his helper just copies him and follows his word [i.e., interprets or explains].”

For what is perhaps a more specific account of the same or a similar seance, see “Stories about Shamans” (p. 716).

When the shaman had sent his spirit out and was waiting for its report, other persons had to be very careful of their conduct. Thus, one should not walk behind the shaman, otherwise he would not get the right answer. He would just make a noise—a growling, snuffling grunt, like that of a wild animal, which I gather could not be interpreted (MJ). Another informant, however, indicated that such rules of conduct should be observed at all times, not simply when the shaman was practicing.

The spirits were often unpredictable. Not only might they come unexpectedly of their own accord, but the shaman might or might not be able to call upon them.

“Sometimes it comes, sometimes not. The doctor watches all the time. Sometimes yek makes a motion to him. łukA [power], he knows it's coming. [If]something happens someplace else, that's the time it's coming to him.

“If somebody ask him for something, or some people come to him, then he has to call for it. Suppose some people went out to Dry Bay,” the informant suggested a hypothetical case, “and they should be here a long time ago. Well, you just wonder what happened to them. You call on this doctor and he send this łukA over there to see what's going on. The łukA works through something—the winds, the tide-rips, or the breakers. That's the way they work it. [When it returns] łukA reports to the doctor.”

I believe that the messenger spirit of each doctor has its own medium of travel, similar to the “lines” or routes used by Atna shamans when their souls travel or communicate with each other. Thus, when dutcda, the TłukwaAdi shaman, sent his spirits out to find someone who was lost, he apparently selected those appropriate to the region they were to visit. If the people were afraid that the missing person had drowned, “at-qwani yek [fish-people spirits] goes out to the water to look for him…. If he's lost in the woods, they send kucda yek [land otter spirits] after him.”

Ghostly Visits

Other methods of learning about events at a distance involved, not the sending of an attendant spirit (yek or dut), but the shaman's own spirit or soul. This seems to have occurred when he fell into a deep trance, or at least appeared to be dead. When his spirit returned from its ghostly journey, the shaman revived. This type of seance is very like the coma during which someone “dies” for a short time and visits the land of the dead, returning to tell of his experiences (see pp. 772, 775). Some “deaths” or journeys of this kind have been occasions on which a man acquires yek and thereby becomes a shaman (p. 713), but other similar experiences may have no further consequences. When such a ghostly or spiritual journey is undertaken by a shaman it is carried out as a kind of power demonstration. atgawet went on a visit of this kind to the Tsimshians, and returned with new powers (p. 711). In this way, also, Te-’ic “traveled” to Sitka.

“Te-’ic is the one who got news from Sitka long before the telephone.” He went to Sitka, I was told, in order to learn about two Teqwedi women from Yakutat who were married to Tł’uknaAdi men in Sitka. Apparently this visit was made by Te-’ic's spirit or “power,” while he lay, lifeless, under his “straw” (bark) mat (ate) in Yakutat. (The “power” that went to Sitka is evidently equated with the shaman himself.) In those days, news came by open canoe to Yakutat only twice a year, so the relatives of the women who were worried about them asked Te-’ic “to have his power go to Sitka.” For this performance he called all the Teqwedi into one house, and announced that he was going to go right to the edge of the salt water in order to travel to Sitka, and was then covered with his mat. “Within half an hour he is going to Sitka, and he comes back in an hour. That's a long ways.”

He had gone “under the salt water where the waves are coming in,” apparently along the edge of the underworld abyss (hayi–WAni). This was because he had a rival in Sitka, the Kagwantan shaman, Teci-’ic (or TAci-’ic), and the latter could not get at him there. If they had the chance, their powers would fight and kill each other. So the other doctor did not see him, even though Te-’ic stood right beside him in Sitka and told him: “wa'E 'ESKégE ‘a tAyI-yAdi?]”—”Do you know my little stone(?) child?”

Te-’ic also said that he wanted the two Yakutat women to be summoned. So they called everyone together in the house, and “showed their faces to that Indian power there,” that is, to Te-’ic. He looked at the two women, and the Sitka doctor told him, “They are all right.” But Te-’ic could see on the face of one that she had been in the habit of crying. He could see this for himself, without being told.

So when he returned to Yakutat and they removed the mat, and “when he's come back to life,” he got up and told the people that everyone was all right in Sitka, that the women were all right, but that one of them was crying because one of her children had died.

In the springtime, the people came from Sitka in canoes, and the first thing they told the Yakutat people was: “Your Indian doctor came over to Sitka. One of the women was crying. The Indian doctor saw it.”

The particular route that he, or his “power,” took in this case again suggests those that are used or controlled by individual Atna shamans.

Power Demonstrations

A number of performances have been described that seem to have been held for the primary purpose of discovering or demonstrating the extent of the shaman's powers. Sometimes these involve the acquisition of additional strength, although they may also be preliminary to a seance held for some particular purpose of a different kind, such as a cure. Since every seance was (deliberately) theatrical, full of suspense, animal mimicry, contortions, mysterious pronouncements, songs (perhaps in a foreign tongue) to a stirring, irregular, rattling beat—all manifestations of the awesome yek—it is probably wrong to try to draw too sharp a line between the various types of performances.

Some power demonstrations involved the lifelike movements of seemingly inanimate objects, not only the doctor's own hair, but his cane, a doll, or the garments of a rival. An arrow might penetrate a rock and be impossible to pull out, or a pole be held fast in the sand by the shaman's power. He might make a bag too heavy to lift, or his own wooden mask might defy gravity. Shamans could also handle burning hot objects unscathed, or restore the dead to life. (For examples, see “Stories about Shamans,” pp. 714, 715.)

With respect to the last type of demonstration, an informant said: “Sometimes they kill a person and bring him back alive, but whether they just hypnotize the person, I don’t know.” He also referred to “tricks” in this connection. A powerful shaman might himself die and then return to life, as in the cases already mentioned, or others might accompany the shaman on his ghostly journey.

A Dry Bay informant mentioned what seems to have been a power demonstration in which the shaman wore a mask on his face without tying the cords around his head with which it was usually supported. The assistant would “just throw it right on his face,” and his spirit was so strong that the mask would remain in place.[97]When inspired by a particular yek (name forgotten), the shaman could take a half-burned log or charcoal (xudzi) from the fire, and four times throw it all over the house. It would not hit anyone, but would just fall beside them. Nor was the shaman himself burned. One man had seen Te-’ic do this several times. He would take a big burning log, reportedly 2 or 3 feet in diameter, from the fire, toss it up in the air and catch it, without burning his hands. He did this just to prove his powers. “That's why everybody believe him” (CW).

Harrington in 1940 was told that there used to be an Indian doctor in Yakutat who could touch his tongue to a red hot iron, so that smoke came out, yet when he exhibited his tongue it was unhurt. The same doctor could “heal a cut instantly,” but the informant would not mention his name. This sounds much like Te-’ic, for the latter often demonstrated his ability to cure wounds miraculously.

One display given by Te-’ic involved a little wooden image, used as a messenger. This was described as “that piece of wood that goes from place to place. The Tewedi doctors had it.” It was about 12 or 18 inches high (SJ).

“He had a stick, about two and a half feet long, with a bear carved on it. That was his spirit—’it' Án yegi. It could walk. He eats shellfish [at certain seasons, see p. 683]. It goes on the beach and picks mussels for him, before the raven crows. When the raven crow, it fell down and turned to wood. He keeps it in a hollow hemlock in the woods. It would make people sick if they came to it.” (MJ)

The same informant occasionally called the image a “pole” or even a “totem pole” in a confusing fashion. The expression seems to refer, not to the shape, but to the representation of a sib crest or, as in this case, a spirit owned by a particular sib. According to a design (fig. 54b) which this informant had made, the object resembled a little man with a crown or headdress of radiating spikes.

“That pole…is the spirit of the Indian doctor. It's just about one foot high. They got it [kept it] in a hollow tree.

“They have the pole on top of the Killerwhale Drum during performances. [This is not the detachable “fin” shown in the photographs, but a figure which replaced it.] When his master [Te-’ic] go around receiving messages, and when they sing a song, the Agan-yAti song [’Children of the Sun' song], that little thing just stand all by itself, like a human. It just keep time. [In answer to a question:] The whole thing moved. I could tell you a lie and say that the feet moved.

“That kit [Killerwhale] drum is about that wide (3 feet) and that high (5 feet) off the floor. And they put the little thing on top. The drum is about as big as this table, only put on its side. Only it's narrower. There is a hollow at the end [see pl. 143 of the drum on the porch of Shark House]. They beat it inside. There is just room enough for a person's arm inside. They don’t drum at it [i.e., strike the painted outside]. The Tsimshian made it of precious red cedar.” (MJ)

The informant further indicated that it was on the shores of Port Mulgrave, in front of the village, where there were many clams and mussels, that “my mother see my uncle's little ‘totem pole,’ down on the beach eating mussels and cracking cockles like mad.” (MJ)

This wooden image represented the Children of the Sun (Agan-yAti). It was Te-’ic's messenger, since his power had been obtained from the Sun's children. My informant also called it ’i xan yegi, ‘the spirit near the shaman,’ or assistant spirit (MJ).

This shaman also owned a big copper knife, the Sun Dagger, which he seems to have used in demonstrations of his ability to heal wounds. To do this, he would stab his assistant with the knife, then miraculously close the wound in a minute, leaving an almost invisible scar. He seems to have practiced this way before attempting an actual cure, as for example before treating Bear Bit Billy of the wounds inflicted by a bear (see p. 717). The same demonstration was also undertaken simply as an exhibition of power. This would be held in his house on Khantaak Island. No women were allowed in the main room during his performance, but they could and did peer out of the sleeping rooms. No objection was made to the presence of a little girl. From the confused account of one man whose father, as a boy, had attended Te-’ic, we gather that the latter held one such seance either when he first received his power, or when he regained it after a humiliating encounter with łtuguwé, a Kwacqwan shaman. This demonstration was described more or less as follows:

“He make tricks—that doctor. He hit one of my uncles, when he got his power. He hit my father's oldest uncle…. That man was Charley Benson's father.” That is, the assistant on whom he demonstrated was Skin Canoe George Ki-ye-quat-kene. Te-’ic was apparently urged to strike someone with a knife. “It was a big cut. They [the shaman and his assistant] were next to my old man [father] and he see it. It was just like the knife hit rocks. It was to find out how much power he had, they do it.” Eagle down and the shaman's otter skin were put on the cut, and Te-’ic was taken by his other assistants clockwise around the fire four times. “When he got his power back, that cut was just a little black scar. After it's fixed, my old man used to look at it and touch it. That fast it healed up!”

Another informant described a similar demonstration when his assistant cut himself in the face. It was a long cut, but Te-’ic cured it with his medicine so that it was “just little bitsy” scar. In this case, “Te-’ic just clean it with his hand,” while admonishing his patient: “ ‘Don’t look for woman!' If he look at a woman it would spoil his power.” (CW)

The first demonstration of a new shaman's powers (see p. 681) may have been a formal seance with feasting of guests, like those described by Krause (1956, pp. 198–199) for the southeastern Alaska Tlingit, based upon accounts by Veniaminov and Holmberg:

“The great shamanistic performances are given only in the winter during a new or full moon. The shamans call ceremonially upon their spirits so that they may bring luck and ward off illness for the village, for the shaman himself, and for his relatives during the coming year” [Krause, 1956, p. 198.]

The relatives, men and women, who help the shaman by singing for him, and in other ways, take emetics for several days in advance, and also fast for 24 hours, from the morning of the day of the seance until the following morning. In preparation, Krause also reports, the house is cleaned, with new boards put by the fire. The shaman, as usual, runs around the fire, falls into a trance, and the spirit in him speaks. Then food and tobacco are served to the guests.

Erman also described such a performance held in November (Krause, 1956, pp. 198–199). The guests were high class men and women sitting on an upper bench in the big house. Hundreds of naked men with daggers (presumably the shaman's kinsmen) threatened the guests and pursued the shaman as he ran around the fire. The latter wore a helmetlike mask, representing an animal, and imitated its movements; he also pulled a burning log from the fire and tossed it about. He was finally caught, bound, covered with a mat, and dragged into the back room behind a curtain. This performance was repeated several times, each time with the shaman wearing a different animal costume, and it ended with him uttering a prophecy in the rear room.

Rivalry

When rival shamans met, this was often expressed in the form of competitive displays of their powers. Thus:

“Te-’ic sent his spirit to the Copper River doctor to see which one was stronger. He came to Yakutat and then Te-’ic learned those Copper River songs.

“The Copper River doctor could lick a red hot rock. Everyone sat around and he put on a performance to show how powerful his spirit was. My mother told me.” The informant gestured to indicate how the doctor rubbed his tongue on the hot rock; accompanying this was an imitation of the sizzling sound. “His tongue just smokes. But when he get over his performance, nothing is the matter with his tongue.

“That's why Tek-’ic stabbed his side-kick [Skin Canoe George] with that big copper knife. He fell right by the man who beat the drum. My mother see it. He was stabbed right here in the chest…[and as usual recovered at once], I think that Copper River doctor thought my uncle was more powerful.” (MJ)

They were fighting to see which was the stronger, the informant explained on another occasion.

Te-’ic in Yakutat and utcda in Dry Bay used to “talk to one another, [to see] who got the most power. They send the spirit back and forth.” This would be done in the wintertime when no one would be traveling between the settlements. The shamans would “just send a message…. They wanted to know who's the strongest Indian doctor that is” (MJ). One gathers that this kind of rivalry could hardly be resolved, and certainly no judgment of the doctor's clairvoyance could be made until people began to travel back and forth again in the spring.

Rival shamans sometimes fought to the death. The big strong one, that is, the man who practiced sexual abstinence and observed all the other taboos and whose sib was numerous, would kill the weak, little doctor, I was told. Both would be aware of the enmity of the other, because their watching yek would warn them, or they themselves would see the inimical spirit sent by their enemy. One informant thought that the Sitka Kagwantan shaman, TAci-’iC, was probably stronger than utcda of Dry Bay, and suggested that the latter might say, “TAci-’ic wants to kill me,” if he should see the latter's yek flying around up in the air.

The fight would actually be between the yek of the two shamans. One spirit would chase the other. If one yek were killed its master would die, no matter how many other yek that doctor might have.

When asked to tell about an actual killing of this kind, my informant said that TAci-’ic had once killed the yek of some other doctor, believed to be a CAtqwan man (of Wrangell), although his name was forgotten. This episode occurred in Sitka. In telling the story, the words yek and ‘i were used almost interchangeably, but we gather that the Wrangell ’i died when his yek was killed. Although no one could see it, TAci-’ic took the whole ‘i (yek) skin and hung it up. Then with his knife he scraped the oil from the skin, put it in his mouth, and spat it into the fire. The fire flared up and made a noise, “just like you put oil on it.” To perform this miraculous feat, TAci-’ic used a real knife.

Olson's Chilkat informant (1962, pp. 208, 212–214) also told of fights between shamans, which suggest that a kind of “cannibalism” may have been involved in this case. For example, during the first retreat of the novice, his yek may order him to go (in spirit) to “kill” another shaman, so that the yek may “eat the fat” of the latter. This unfortunate victim therefore wastes away, and will ultimately die, unless his spirits are strong enough to counteract the damage done. One story of a fight between a ashittan (Cow House Lineage) shaman of the Tanta-qwan and a Tł'UknaAdi shaman who lived “at the mouth of the Copper River” (Alsek?), tells how these two and their spirits fought each other to the death. First, a spirit sent from the Copper River shaman clubbed to “death” the ashittan shaman and “ate” him. “The victorious spirit and his master both became fat.” The ashittan shaman was not really dead, however, and was able to retaliate successfully. He was assisted by his colleagues at home, all of whom fought off the spirits of his rival with clubs. Finally, with knives they “cut the fat from the ‘body' [of the slain Tł'UknaAdi doctor], roasted it, and ate it. The watching laymen could see nothing of course.” In this way, the shaman at Copper River was killed.

We are further given to understand that a shaman may have to make himself get fat by “killing” and “eating” his rivals, for the spirits will not enter one who is too thin. Thus, the ashittan shaman got himself into condition to carry on the fight against his northern rival by sending his spirits to kill eight southern doctors, so that he could eat them.

This notion of “spiritual cannibalism” as practiced by rival shamans in different localities is common among the Atna of the Copper River (fieldnotes with Dr. McClellan, Copper Center, 1958, 1960). The Chilkat may have learned it from their interior neighbors, for it was not one that was heard at Yakutat, unless it was implied in the story about TAci-’iC.

The fight between TAci-’ic and the Wrangell shaman took place about the time of the war between the Sitka Kagwantan and the CAtqwan (pp. 279–284), and my informant compared the “’i sneaking around,” to military reconnaissance parties—”like the Americans, when they had a war, they go sneaking around.” The activities of shamans in wartime have been illustrated by the accounts of the war between the Tł'UknaAdi and the Tłaayik-Teqwedi (pp. 263, 264), and especially in one version of the war between the Tł'UknaAdi and the anAtedi of Chilkat (pp. 273–274).

Harrington was told that during a war between Indian groups at Sitka, before the days of the Russians, one “spirit doctor kept it from raining all summer to keep the Indians in the fort to top of the hill from getting any water.”

The touchiness of shamans was extreme. They were evidently inclined to ascribe any failure on their part, even any awkward motion in a seance (which, of course, would drive away their yek), to the machinations of a rival. At least we can so interpret the extreme (almost paranoid?) embarrassment suffered by the shaman who was humiliated by the Wrangell doctor (p. 715). A shaman might also feel bitter resentment if he thought that a layman had injured him, and he would use his powers for revenge in such a case. That a shaman could cause disaster, as well as prevent it, is illustrated by the following episode.

“Yeł-tłed [White Raven] was a doctor. He had that name even though he was a Teqwedi. His wife left him and he thought she was on a boat leaving Yakutat. As it was going around the point, he said: ‘That boat is not going to come back!' He was singing and making funny motions with his hands [to curse it]. And the boat sank and didn’t come back. But his wife had gotten off; she wasn’t on it.”

This man was Situk George (Qayakw-’ic) who died in 1921. He obtained the name White Raven in a peace ceremony. Although another informant denied scornfully that he had been a shaman, and this story would indicate that at best he achieved only limited success, he evidently did aspire to shamanistic powers, for others had witnessed him giving a seance.

Curing the Sick

One of the most important functions of the shaman was to cure the sick. The Indian doctor was usually not consulted except for a sudden violent illness or wound, or in cases where a lingering and serious affliction resisted the usual remedies. When called, it was customary for the doctor to go to his patient, and the curing session often took place in public in the main room of the patient's house. The cure was, in fact, simply a special kind of seance. The fee always had to be paid in advance to secure the cooperation of the spirits.

Sometimes the patient of a male shaman was a woman, but even then no woman would sing or beat the tapping sticks for the doctor. When he came to treat the sick woman, the doctor was always alone; there were no other men or women with him and his patient (CW). However, the shamanistic curing ceremonies witnessed by Seton-Karr and Professor Libbey at Yakutat in 1886 were held in the main room where there were persons of both sexes (see pp. 720–722).

When asked if a doctor could help a woman in childbirth, I was told: “Of course he can help a woman having a hard time with a baby. He isn’t called, but is notified. They paid him valuable stuff, and his spirit is going to help because his master's been paid.” (MJ)

Before attempting a cure, Te-’ic would fast and thirst for 8 days. In addition, he had to be paid. “Sometimes pretty sick man, they give 20 blankets.”

According to Swanton (1908, p. 464), the Tlingit shaman began his cure by running around the fire. He might blow on, or suck, or rub the afflicted parts with some item of his paraphernalia. Eagle down and red paint also had restorative virtues. A cure might be effected by extracting the object which had been sent into the patient. In such a case the shaman would indicate the witch responsible. Yakutat informants also reported that a variety of methods might be employed by shamans.

One man, for example, demonstrated how Te-’ic would seize the sick man by the shoulders and shake him, uttering a cry like a muffled shout. Sometimes the patient would exclaim, “Say it again, Te-’ic! Say it again!” And Te-’ic would go “Xw! xw! xw! xw!” Again the patient would cry, “Say it again!” The informant was stuttering and bouncing in his chair with excitement (CW).

Te-ic also had a song which he sang to the patient. Everyone, that is, all the men, but no women, helped him to sing.

He might cut a little piece from the garment of the sick man and put it into a bucket of water. He would look at it “to see it alive. He wants to save that man.” If it were put into the water, the patient would recover. (This account of the procedure was confused. Probably the informant was trying to explain that the man was sick because a witch had cut off part of his clothing, but that the patient would recover if the shaman washed another piece. See p. 723.)

Te-’ic also gave medicine to the sick man to eat, and “next day he's feeling good.” For example, the doctor might chew some devilclub first and then give it to the patient. The doctor had “lots of kinds of medicines,” but these were unspecified. There was also a suggestion that the patient offered food to the doctor. “Anything he wants to eat too, he gives to ‘it’. The next day he's feeling good.” As in the case of the devilclub, it is assumed that the shaman tasted the food before the patient ate some.

If a man had a bad headache, the shaman would grab the patient's head. “He's holding it like that,” in both hands. His song would be sung. “Good song! Strong song!” Then the patient would lie down while the doctor ran around him—”the same as the sun, eight times. Everybody sings.” (Swanton, 1908, p. 464, notes that the Tlingit think of the sun's course as directly opposite to what we consider sunwise.)

The same informant said he had seen Te-’ic curing a sick man. The latter was lying down, his chest bared, while the shaman leaned over him. “He's going to look for the things on sick man. Everything he has on, clean out…. I think he's got medicine in his hand to clean up. Sometimes 2, 3 days, he wake up, that sick man. I saw that one time on other side of Khantaak.” Apparently the shaman rubbed his hand around on the patient's chest and sang, using his rattle, while his assistants beat time with tapping sticks. On this occasion the doctor's face was daubed with black and his hair was piled up on his head. (CW)

Another method of curing the sick was for the doctor to make a ring of devilclubs (cf. pl. 198) and have the patient step through it. The informant was questioned about this because the method was one used by Eyak shamans in cases of witchcraft. (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 204–206.) My Yakutat informant said that they “do that here, too. ‘I has to do that for you. He makes it. You put it on. ‘I puts it on somebody that's sick…. Just once. Sometimes two times. Sometimes four times.” (CW) He was astonished to learn that an Eyak shaman was reported to have done it eight times. “Pretty bad sick—eight times!”

Krause (1958, pp. 202–203) describes a curing ceremony witnessed by his brother at a hunting camp of the Hoonah Tlingit on Lynn Canal in September 1882. A small boy was the patient, many women were present as silent witnesses, while several men beat time for the shaman with sticks on a board. The latter wore a crown of wooden rods and a dancing kilt, and used a rattle in the shape of a crane. He grasped the head and feet of the boy with a pair of wooden tongs, laid the child's hands on his own body, and finally led him around the fire, first in one direction, then in the other. Krause understood that the natives believed the illness to have been caused by “evil spirits,” which the shaman drove away.

The most famous examples of miraculous cures by shamans were the treatment by Cakwe of the boys who had been stabbed by their uncle (see pp. 714–715), and by Te-’ic of Bear Bit Billy (p. 716). Cases of shamanistic diagnosis of witchcraft are discussed in a later section. The attempt by a shaman to cure an Indian who was dying of arsenic poisoning was described both by Professor Libbey and by Seton-Karr, who witnessed this on Khantaak Island in August, 1886. This account is quoted in full (pp. 721–722).

There were definite limitations on a shaman's ability to cure or save. Thus, he could not help his own children if they were witched. Even though shamans of different sibs were extremely jealous of each other, a shaman had to stand aside if one of his own kinsmen were sick, while a shaman from a different sib was called in. A shaman could not cure a member of his own sib of an illness. This is probably because sickness was usually attributed to witchcraft from within the sib, and a shaman was never asked to expose a sib brother as a witch. Perhaps the shaman would be afraid, or his spirits would be powerless in such a case. I did not learn why he would not attempt the cure. “He can,” an informant hazarded, “but maybe there's a reason why he can’t.” In a similar way, the shaman would not know if something were going to happen to himself, that is, his spirits would not warn him of an impending accident or of his own death.

However, a shaman could cure his own sibmate or child of a wound, for the woman, Cakwe, healed her own sons whom her brother had stabbed, and Te-’ic used to stab and heal his assistant who was Teqwedi like himself. A shaman could also rescue a young sibmate from the Land Otter Men (see pp. 752–753). A shaman could help his brothers in hunting and protect them from wild animals (see pp. 712, 715).

Just as the shaman wore charms or amulets and might use these in treating a patient (see pp. 689, 708), so he might give or prescribe an amulet to prevent or ward off illness. I was told of a shaman who came from Wrangell to Yakutat and was hired by a local man to minister to his family. The shaman pronounced all the members well, except for one daughter. That little girl looked to him “like a tree, one side old.” He foretold that she would get “that sickness,” and would die. To prevent this, the doctor ordered that a rock from the lowest tide level (cAnya tei) be put “around her clothes, way down.” She was to keep this rock for 4 days, then put it in a tree. But the father misunderstood, and thought she was to keep the rock all her life. Later, when she was taking a bath in the house, she lost the amulet.

Some time after that, one warm summer day, when she was washing clothes at the pond behind the house, she saw an eagle flying around. It swooped down on her four times, and on the last time dropped the lost amulet right on her clothes. The bird circled round her four times and then flew away. Although the girl subsequently died, the mother still has the amulet, a little pebble as big as the tip of her finger. This is why she believes that shamans obtain their yek from birds and animals, and I was given to understand that the Wrangell shaman must have had an eagle spirit, since it was an eagle that returned the amulet.

Minor Ailments

The shaman Te-’ic was also called upon sometimes to minister to ailments of his brother's children. Twice the little girl had hurt her foot and he cured it, apparently by lancing the infected wound to let out the pus. He also cut and drained the swollen glands of her little brother when the latter had mumps. On these occasions, the children were so terrified of their uncle that they had to be blindfolded. Their father carried them to the shaman and held them while the latter operated. The doctor told the children's mother to leave and to tell the other people to go out, because he didn’t want them to know what he was doing. He did not need to have his assistant with him for such little cuts; only two men were on hand, but no women. The woman whose foot he had lanced when she was a little girl said: “He just make some kind of a noise, and felt around” the bottom of her foot. She herself could not feel what he did, and the next day the pain was gone.

I was able to discuss Te-’ic's lancing of mumps and a similar case I had seen among the West Greenland Eskimo in 1929 with the doctor on the U.S. Public Health Service vessel, Storis. The doctor told me that common diseases often struck natives with extraordinary virulence, producing abscesses with pus, and cited several horrible examples. He believed it quite possible for mumps to affect the glands in the neck in this fashion, in which event the shaman's surgery may not have been as bad a treatment as one might suppose.

A shaman might use a sharp knife, or in lancing a boil would use an eagle quill.

Epidemics

Far more serious than the illness of a single person or the poisoning of a few, were epidemics that devastated the Tlingit villages. These infectious diseases were all ones contracted from the Whites, and were especially terrible because the natives lacked any acquired immunity to them, or any knowledge of medical treatment which might have alleviated their symptoms. Epidemics were believed to be the work of spirits that came in boats, sometimes paddling in canoes, or riding in a sailing ship or even in a steamboat. They were invisible to any eyes but those of the shaman. In the boat were all those who had previously died of the disease, and in this way they traveled to the Land of the Dead, ‘way back,' where go the souls of those who died nonviolent deaths. Some persons received such disease spirits as their yek, and so became shamans (see pp. 713, 769). A shaman could see the ‘boat of sickness' (nikw yagu), containing all those who had died of the disease. As people died they entered the boat, and when the epidemic had run its course in one locality, the boat would sail away, perhaps to go to another. “That's the way the ‘i sees it.” Sometimes he could drive away the disease spirits, the ghosts of the dead, so that “sickness gets sent away in that boat.” I believe that this ability would depend upon his possession of the right kind of spirits.

The TłukwaAdi shamans, SEtAn, UnanIstE, and utcda had as yek the ‘Fish People' (at qwani) that were supposedly as effective in combating epidemics as they were in locating and rescuing persons feared drowned. This was because “sickness just comes from the water, not from the woods.” As explained by this informant, “When they got sickness around, that's the time they go to their master. Just like you got some kind of pets, that's the way it is.” These spirits would come to warn the shaman when “something's going to happen.”

“That at qwani—if there's going to be sickness, if they’re going to have bad luck, or some kind of sickness—that at qwani tells utcda. Then utcda tells the people: ‘There's going to be some sickness.’” To ward off the threatened epidemic, all the people would form a long line inside the house, sing the at qwani song (1954, 2–2–C, D; p. 1282), and dance, scattering eagle down with their hands, or “using that eagle tail,” “to chase that sickness away.” The officiating shaman was “all dressed up.” The informant liked these spirit songs, and their lively, jumping dance, like leaping salmon. Meantime, the shaman's two assistants, “that ‘i an qawu—two people go around with that ‘i all the time,”—would get devilclubs and fasten their thorny stems “on the door” of all the houses, to defend them against the entrance of the disease spirits. Spruce or hemlock branches would be put on the fire and, when the needles began to burn, the boughs were beaten on the floor. This also would help to drive away the sickness. “Every morning, too, they take that ashes; they throw it outside by the door. The sickness scared of that thing, they said.”

STORIES ABOUT SHAMANS

atgawet as Shaman

ATGAWET AND THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN

“atgawet was a big Indian doctor—the strongest and the biggest. And he's rich.”

He had many yek. The strongest was AganyAti, ‘the Children of the Sun,' the sun up in the sky. This was the same yek that Te-’ic had later. The brief account of how this yek was (were) obtained has been summarized on pages 679 and 680. It will be remembered that one of his yek was the spirit of an otter that had dropped dead at the waterhole. atgawet took its skin and fashioned this into a little canoe with eight copper crossbars. This was when he wanted to acquire the Children of the Sun. The canoe was called their boat (Agan-yAti yagu). They came to him, presumably because they found the little skin boat so attractive.

atgawet was a strong doctor because he made his spirit grow by taking care of himself, as a shaman is supposed to do. (HKB)

The song associated with the Children of the Sun was twice recorded (1954, 6–1–A and 6–1–J; p. 1280). The song is in two parts, the first with a fast irregular tempo, the second much slower and more regular. The words, which are evidently Tsimshian, were not understood by the singers. “I never understood what that does mean…it's spirit words. That's Indian doctor's spirit words.” (SW) This informant knew the song because it had been sung at potlatches as a mourning song by the Teqwedi.

Another singer gave a somewhat confused account of these spirits. “All Teqwedi ‘i have the Children of the Sun. Their mother was Teqwca. Te-’ic had it. The first one that got it was atgawet—big, rich man, used to be in Yakutat. He's the one got it first. After he died, another one coming up after him. He got it too.” The words of the song were definitely identified as Tsimshian. “The spirits were coming this way from that place, from southeast Alaska. They passed by all the different tribes there, Kagwantan—all. But they could see atgawet here in Yakutat from way down there. He got it from an Indian doctor. [Apparently the spirits passed by the shamans of other tribes because they] looked like a log-timber.” But atgawet, who was a big, rich man with lots of slaves, “looked better” to them. (NM, somewhat edited.)

ATGAWET AND THE TSIMSHIAN DOCTOR

[The following story was told by HKB. A shaman is supposed to take care of himself in order to make his power grow stronger.]

And that's the way that atgawet did at Diyaguna'Et.

And a Tsimshian [doctor's spirit] came, and his power was too strong, and the Indian doctor's spirit got atgawet. atgawet didn’t do anything. That Tsimshian spirit went back home, don’t do anything. [Apparently this power contest ended in a draw.]

So this spirit came back, and he invited atgawet and his wife, Tł’e’an [to visit him].

It's winter time. Early morning. atgawet got up.

The law is that way: A little while he don’t eat, for 4 days, no drink water or nothing. That's Indian doctor law. After 8 days he eat a little bit, but not much.

Then he told his people he had been invited by the Tsimshian doctor. He's going to go with his wife.

As soon as he said it, he just dropped dead, him and his wife. And they took the bodies to that place called gau t’a [drum room], just a special room where the Indian doctor keeps his drum and all his power, those masks and all. Those two bodies [were] in there. [They] put fine feathers on the mouth. Sometimes those people just fool, and play dead. If the feather don’t move, they know they’re dead. The feather never move. They’re invited.

He don’t eat about 2 days already. He don’t eat, him and his wife.

Just about starting getting dark, they’re coming back alive, him and his wife. Then he tell the story [about] where they [had been] invited.

[The wife had one hand cramped shut. She opened it.] She's got some berries in her hand. “That's the handout that the Tsimshians give us,” she says. They give it to her.

The Indian doctor's spirit dance in the Tlingit-way language they call it yek 'Ati—’the spirit dance.' That's what they see at the Tsimshian [place]. And that big Indian doctor was dancing, they said. That Indian doctor had a hat—Whale Killer Hat. And those Tsimshian Indians give it to this atgawet, and those songs.

And so they made one here at Yakutat, almost as big as this table [about 5 feet in diameter]. Make out of spruce roots like a basket. The top on it, just round, about that high [2 feet], with rings on it. First hat that came to Yakutat. They don’t see it before. His spirit see it. So they make it at Yakutat for atgawet. Kit axw [Killerwhale Hat], they call it.

And the songs, he learn all the songs.

So he gets his spirit from that Tsimshian yek…. They call him ‘Brave Man’—łIga qa. [The informant was not sure of the name.] He's got so many yeks and it's so long ago. Those songs, those yek songs, those spirit songs, I don’t know how many of them—so many. [They were Tsimshian songs with Tsimshian words. Now they are forgotten. The only one who used to sing them was Jim Kardeetoo. The informant had heard him sing one at a potlatch, presumably in memory of a dead Teqwedi shaman.]

WHEN ATGAWET'S WIFE BROKE THE RULES

[The following episode was told by HKB, to illustrate the fact that a shaman's wife had to follow the same rules about eating and drinking as her husband.]

Once atgawet went out. It's the time [of] special care—never eat. And he went.

When he was in the woods some place, one of his wives spilled the water. He knows it right away. The woman is so thirsty she steal water [i.e., took a forbidden drink]. He was in the woods. On the way back he finds a big river [where there had been none before]. He couldn’t get across. That woman's so thirsty, she can’t help it. She steal water.

He didn’t lose his power. [Probably in answer to a question.]

He said to his helpers, “One of my wives stealing water. It makes a big river.”

How a Man Acquired Land Otter Spirits

[The following was told by JE. This story should be compared with the story of Kaka, a shaman of Sitka, as recounted by Krause (1956, p. 197) and Swanton (1909, Tales 5 and 31, pp. 87–88); see pp. 749–750.]

[A man had been captured—or “saved”—by the land otter spirits.] These kucda qwani were taking him back in a boat. They were paddling. They’re supposed to go ashore before the crow [raven] makes a sound [at dawn]. But instead of that, they ask him to sing a song: “YAnde hat [xat?]—current ashore!” Instead of that, he start to sing “DAkde hat—current offshore!” They had a hard time [paddling against the current]; they tried to make it.

When they came ashore that crow already sounded.

They covered him with Atc [grass mat]. He's not supposed to look no place.

But when they came ashore, the raven already crowed. When he looks up, all those land otters were dead there. He turned into spirit—became ‘it’. He don’t cut no tongue—nothing. Those otters came to him.

du ‘inA yé’uwa'At—all those spirits ‘got in him.’

The land otter spirits are kucda qU yek. It's the same thing as hAs du yÚkwqahéyagu, ‘their spirits after they’re dead.’

[This story was recently enacted in a dramatic dance at Juneau, which was thus described by a visitor from Yakutat, SA.]

The man from Sitka was being brought back by land otters. They got to Baranoff Island and they died. He's on a high cliff. He hears something under him: “Jump on me!”

Three times it called. Then he jumped on it. It was a big log under the cliff. He jumped on it and then he didn’t know himself. That's how he became an Indian doctor (’i qusiti).

How a Man Acquired Disease Spirits

[The following was told by JE, March 22, 1954.]

[One type of spirit is called] kawayIk kUsAXA qwan—‘the people rowing around in space,' in the air.

This man heard something say, “Look, it's over there.”

He looked, and he saw those boats were coming up to him. He sat down [to hide?]. He sat down, and when he sat down, he didn’t know what to do, so he got up again.

And they, the kawayIk KUSAXA qwan, said the same thing: “He's over there.” [They were telling one another.]

He sat down again, and finally thought about running. Finally he started to run. He was running, and pretty soon those things came into him—just like ‘it’—the spirits came inside him.

But the last, I don’t know. John Williams told me a long time ago….

Human eyes can’t see that [the ‘people rowing around in space’], but this man can see them. This ‘it’, he claims that when these spirits spear a human, that's when they get pneumonia.

Daodzu, the Female Shaman

DAOdzu AND THE ARROW

[The following story is compiled from two versions told by EE, August 5, 1952 and March 21, 1954, and one version by JE, March 15, 1954, all of which were in substantial agreement. The latter prefaced the story by explaining:]

The last, best chief around here used to have an arrow called qácÀł [a blunt-headed arrow, made for children]. You can shoot anything with it. That chief never uses it until he's really ready to kill something. He used to take a lot of people out seal hunting, and when he picks up that one, the people tell each other that he picked up that qácÀł. It was a magic arrow—something to do with shamans. (JE)

Daodzu, sister to the Kwacqwan chief, Yaodaqet, was a powerful Indian doctor. She was a young girl when she received her spirit, reputedly from her uncle or a brother.

When she was becoming a shaman, she gave a blunt-headed arrow (qácÀł) to her brother, and told him to shoot at a seagull sitting on the rock. He shot at the seagull, but instead of hitting it, the arrow hit the rock, yet the seagull fell down. The arrow went into the rock and stayed there. When her brothers went over there, none of them could pull it out. Yaodaqet tried, but couldn’t do it.

His sister laughed. “What's the matter with you?” And she pulled it out. She gave it to him (Yaodaqet), and said, “That's going to be the one you use. This is sure kill.”

When they went out hunting sea otter, he used it. It goes right through the heart. She blessed the arrow. Other people would pay a thousand dollars for that arrow, but she gave it to her brother.

He never used it wrong; he always used it right. He could kill anything with it, but he had a limit—maybe two seals, or three. When he became a chief he had stream guards put on to see that nobody fools around—like now [i.e., like fish and game wardens]. When they start seal hunting up the bay, he sent a guard up there to see that nobody fools around [i.e., frightens away the game]. He lets everyone get satisfied first, then he hunts with his qácÀł. They claim he was one of the best chiefs in Yakutat.

DAODZU AND THE RUSSIANS

[This story was told by JE, March 25, 1954, and recorded by him in Tlingit; 1954, 2–1–A.]

Daodzu had “Spirit on Top of the Smoke above the Village”—’An kA eqi cAan yegi ['spirit on the top point of the smoke above the village’]. All the village smoke came up into one big point. Some people say it [the spirit] looks like an eagle. It always sits on top of the smoke.

Once she said: hak! waska dEn dzigit ‘an eqi cAan yegi?—“Hak! I wonder what he's doing, that spirit on top of the village smoke?”

It's just as if he's watching something coming under him. That's what it looks like to her. He's way up on top of that smoke and he sees something coming under him. [What he saw, it is made clear later, was the messenger coming to announce the arrival of the Russian ships.]

After she got over that, she said: Agan yunA xixnI, 'At ‘uła gAtu’a—”When the sun comes to that position, we’re going to hear [the cry of one announcing news].”

They claim that when somebody is bringing the news, they cry “hi· ho· hi· ho·.” They put their paddles back and forth. That's what that is—‘At ’uła.

“They’re going to hear it”—the signal that they’re bringing news.

So they were watching (’akat hAs yuden).

And then pretty soon the sun came to that position, and the canoe is coming in, the same thing like she said.

Then somebody says: yAn yeł nIkde—”Break the news now!” That's the way I interpret it.

So the messenger said: “‘an tłeu dziduk ’ixki—It looks as if the whole bay were covered with ships.” [Literally, 'ships look-like all-covered down-this-way.’] They call ships ‘an [‘village’] because there's so many people in them.

It was a lot of Russian ships anchored in the bay, so that story isn’t very old.

[The informant had forgotten the rest of the story. He added that Daodzu was supposed to have been descended from atgawet, the one who called the village on Knight Island “Old Town” (TłAkw–’an).]

Daodzu just said that something was coming to the village. She didn’t say anything about the ships. That yek never come to the point of what he's saying. [A person who never comes to the point is therefore compared to a spirit, see p. 702.]

[Another informant added that Daodzu's spirits were eventually inherited by the Kwacqwan shamans, DanAq-’ic and Céq. The Indian victory over the Russians was credited to her yek.] “Because when the time the ships left Russia, these Indian doctors knows it, and they wait for them, and told how many days it would be before they came.”

[According to some, Daodzu was said to have lived on Knight Island, and was even believed to have been the shaman whose grave was found in the woods back of the site of Old Town (de Laguna et al., 1964, pp. 35–36). The smoke from the village was supposed to have been so great that it would asphyxiate any raven attempting to fly over (see p. 66). One wonders, therefore, whether her “spirit on top of the village smoke” may not have been derived from such a raven, especially since the Kwacqwan have the Raven for a sib crest, and would be likely to have a raven yek.]

How QAłaetł Became a Shaman

[The following story was told by Mrs. CJ, June 7, 1954. It has been slightly edited.]

My father was CiyÚkw. His mother's father was a Kagwantan man named QAłaetł and łtune. He became a shaman after visiting “Disease Boat.”

This happened in Dry Bay, when sickness (łIngit ‘ani ‘Adi) or smallpox (kwan) killed everyone. He “died” from that sickness for 4 days. His children were crying and his wife watched the body. The next day [after he died?] he made a noise, and the next day he made a noise. And in 4 days he came back. That's yek business.

He said that he had seen this boat before he died. When he was dead, he was on the shore, and he saw a big black boat with sails, like a schooner. It wasn’t called “schooner” (’an), because that was before schooners. They just called it yakw-tłen [’large canoe’]. There were lots of people on it. A small canoe with four black men came to the shore to get him and take him to the schooner.

He went close to the big boat, but he was so lonesome for his wife and kids that he turned back again to the shore. The men in the boat told him, “You try the song. You [are] yek sAkw [‘destined to be a yek' or shaman]. You’re going to be yek yourself.”

He heard the song. The yek composed it. They said, “Go ahead, try it. That's for your daughter.”

When he came back to the shore and came alive, that was the end of the sickness. No more died. He just waved his hand—no more sickness.

The four black men became his yek. They were called łIngit-’ani-’Adi qu yek, “Disease Spirits” [literally, ‘Things-of-the-world spirits’]. He had four songs. [The narrator, summarizing this account in the Tlingit introduction, recorded two: 1954, 5-2-G and 5-2-H; p. 1282. The words of both are in Tsimshian.]

He lived one hundred years after that, so long that his bones became very small [that is, he became all hunched over].

My father inherited his grandfather's yek blanket. He tried to teach me to cure with my hands. I can do this a little.

The Female Shaman, Cak[w]e, and the Chief Who Stabbed His Nephews

[This account is compiled from five fragmentary versions told by two informants, one of whom is the daughter's daughter's daughter of Cakwe, and the other her sister's son's son (HB June 26, 1952, July 14, 1952, August 10, 1952, May 31, 1954; HKB May 2, 1954. These versions are all in substantial agreement except where indicated.]

This happened up north in Beaver House, at QAtalé [Okalee Spit, Controller Bay], where there was a camp.

Cakwé was the sister of the ałyI-Kagwantan chief, 'AaqUdułu. She was one of the strongest Indian doctors, and had cut eight tongues. She was young when she got her power, which came to her from her great-greatgrandfather.

She used to put on her girdles [ket, ‘apron’] with bones, and her brothers would sit around in the big community house. She jumps up all of a sudden; she puts her girdle on. All her assistants (male) start to beat the drum, and she jumps around the fire. And the brothers just sit and watch.

Her brother, the big chief, used to send his nephews into the water early in the morning. It was cold. Then he would beat them with brush.

In olden days they hit each other with alder branches, training for the war. No gun—knife, spear was what they used. So every morning they used to send the boys in the water, and hit them with the alder branches.

The uncles or brothers would take those kids down to the water in winter time to give them a bath, so they can be brave when they grow up. And they club one another with those icy branches. When one falls he has to stand up quickly, see how many strokes he can stand. Sometimes about 10, then he falls down. That's what they do for war.

That time, there were four boys who hid behind the bench in the house. Three or four of the boys ran behind the wall and hid. Those little, small Kagwantan boys, they hid in the back room where they keep food while the testing is going on.

The chief finds out his little nephews are cowards. And he don’t say anything until everybody comes up. They sit way down in the center [of the house]. He was sharpening his knife, just sharpening it. And he ask for his nephew. Just calm, he's not excited.

“Send them over,” he said. And they came over. And they don’t know what he's going to do. To the first one he called, “Come over here. Come here, my nephew.” The boy came. “You hiding.” The boy said, “Yes.”

“All right. I’ll give you the worst one!” He just cut him up—[two slashings across the chest]. Shove him away. And he called another one. “Come here.” And the other one—[he] just run toward him and grab him. Stab him. Push him away. Four of them.

Sitka Ned was there, too, but he belonged to another tribe, Teqwedi, and he didn’t want to hurt him, so he hit him with the back of his knife. Jim Kardeetoo was was there, too. [Not confirmed. If so, he would have been no more than a baby.]

[According to one version, the boys fell down dead at once. But according to another, they fell unconscious a little later, after their uncle had spoken to them.]

The chief told the boys: “This is what you’re training for. You can’t get away from it. Next time you hide away, I’ll cut your head off.”

Their mother, Cakwe, an Indian doctor, strongest doctor, cured them.

That's the time that Indian doctor, Cakwe, came along. They’re dead, they can’t do anything. They put them on boards, and she told them to put the kids up high on the shelf. Then she went into action, dancing singing, and running around the fire. Somebody beat the drum and she got more powerful. It was a man drummer. She has to work hard dancing. She ran around the fire, singing and making noises, and she made them come alive. She has somebody to watch those boys, see if they’re getting alive. Yes, they’re beginning to move. She start to run again until they were sitting up. And they came back alive. All the scars are just healed up in one minute. I don’t know how that could be, that they were healed right there.

Sitka Ned tells the story.

[A descendant of Cakwe was named for her brother, the chief, but later a scar or birthmark was noticed on his body. Then people realized that he was really a reincarnation of one of the boys who had been cut. The scar was his Ahai (see p. 766)].

How a Wrangell Shaman was Defeated

[The following story, told by JE, May 9, 1954, has been slightly edited. It resembles one told at Angoon, about a Daqł’awedi shaman from Hood Bay, Admiralty Island, who was embarrassed by a woman shaman in a challenge contest, but who later obtained his revenge (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 140 f.).]

Those people in Wrangell used to be a rough bunch…. They were a pretty friendly lot of people, but they always want to laugh at people—always want to fool around with people [i.e., play practical jokes]. They even fix up one shaman one time. Real close friends.

There was a woman shaman there living at Stikine, and this man, he's a shaman, he always goes over there and visits the Stikine people.

When a canoe comes over there, they all come down, grab the boat and try to push it in the water [to prevent it from landing]. They just fool around with it all the time. And after that, they pack the whole canoe, people and all, pack it up above the tide line. That's the way they do.

And pretty soon they hire this shaman [the visitor], and this woman shaman was there, too. But this woman shaman she fixed it so he’d make an awkward motion when he was running around the fire. His movements were all awkward, and when the spirit got away, he was really ashamed of himself. He don’t like it.

He went back and he worked so his spirit can be stronger.

Then pretty soon he was ready. He was going back again [to Wrangell]. And he filled up those skin bags with oil or something. [The informant forgot what kind of spirit he had, and apparently put into the bags.]

And when he was coming to those people, they were laughing at him. They said, “Here comes that shaman that makes an awkward movement.”

But before he came around there, he fixed it so a man there would get sick. And he's sick.

And when they come right close to shore, they just stuck that pole right on the bottom there. [This was apparently the one used to pole the shaman's canoe.] It just stick out, and they [the Wrangell people] try to pull it out, and they couldn’t make it. And that big bag of oil, too, they try to pull it from the boat. They couldn’t make it.

And when he started to walk up, those people gathered in front of a different house [from that of the patient, to fool the doctor]. That man who was sick was in a different house.

And he just take his stick [shaman's cane] and throw it down, and it start to crawl like a worm. Just crawl in front of him and went in that house where the man was sick. And that woman doctor was there, too, and she couldn’t find out what was wrong.

And then he [the shaman] told his nephew, “What's all that commotion down the beach?” His nephew went down there and just took that bag with one arm, and throw it over his shoulder, and went up. Pulled that pole out of the water, too. He was showing them how strong he is.

Finally they started in again, around that fire [i.e., both doctors were giving a seance]. When they started, that woman's dress just wrapped [itself] around her. And some people watching on the roof, too, where that smokehole is. And that woman's son was among them, too…. He was standing outside the house, looking down through that smoke skylight…. He got mad. He run out of there…. He fell down and that [canoe] pole pierced right through him—dead.

When they brought it [his body], he [the shaman] fix it, and brought it back to life again.

And after his spirit[s] all went away, this big man there got cured. [This was the man he had originally made sick.] And then he just took off. That's the last visit he made them, because he returned what they done to him.

[The narrator added that because of this episode, when they had the peace ceremony at Sitka (1852), they just killed off all the Wrangell people, instead of settling the matter peaceably (see pp. 279–284).]

The Stikine people, Cd;Atqwan were the biggest tribe. But they always want to fool around all the time.

Further Reminiscences of Tek’-’ic

TEK’-’IC AND THE BEARS

[The following story has been edited from the version haltingly told by CW, March 20, 1954.]

The three brothers, Te-’ic, my father d;adane, and Hatł’Is-nakw, were at the lake way up at the head of Situk River when they met a mother bear and her two cubs. Hatł’Is-nakw had a spear (tsaAł’), about 4 or 5 feet long, with a blade like a knife. He stripped and tied his shirt around his waist. As the mother bear charged, he held the butt of his spear against the ground, the blade, slanting forward. The bear jumped at him, but was stabbed in the throat.

“Xuts [brown bear] don’t touch the man, because ‘i helped him…. That's why he's not scared of the bear. No use the gun—just the knife [spear]…. Three bear he killing with knife.”

[Perhaps Te-’ic as a Teqwedi with the Bear as a sib crest also had the bear as a spirit, and hence had special powers over bears.]

HOW TEK’-’IC SENT HIS SPIRIT TO FIND HIS BROTHER'S SON

[The following episode was described several times by the sister of the man who was overdue on a hunting trip. On this occasion she had been describing her uncle's seances in general, MJ, May 20, 1954. (See also pp. 753–754.)]

…But any time they get paid for, they just send the spirit to find out.

He waits, and then he gets the people together, all his sidekicks, dut [stooge]. Get everything all ready, and then they have some kind of a—Gee, that's a wonderful thing! I’m scared of it, when I come to think about my uncle. You know how ugly he looks—long hair, Agan ganguc [Sun's Ears] on his head, hair all over himself. He looks just funny when he gets that spirit.

Big fire in the middle of the house. I was laying one night [on the bench in the main room], and I was peeking out from under my blanket. I was laying in there. My mother put me to sleep. I was asleep and I hear this noise. I got up and I dropped[?] the blanket off. I look around.

Big fire and the house is just lit up. All around the tad;—”lockers,” we call it—that's big long sticks all around. And my uncle sits right at the middle of the house [in the rear]. Got a box about that big [3 feet square], all painted. Sits right down on it, no clothes on, just his hair. [He was] sitting on the box. And I look at it. I want to squeal, but I can’t. Too scared.

All his relatives—my father, his brothers, his stooge—he's the one announce it. He [Te-’ic] talks funny, he [the assistant] is the only one understand it. Just like interpreter, you know. Gee, he looks ugly!

He got so much for sending his spirit, you know, otherwise he wouldn’t do it because his spirit wouldn’t go…. My uncles give him….

My brother [łdaxin] was out hunting, you know, and never show up for 2, 3 days. He was just going to Knight Island to our shack up there. And storm and calm, and never come back again. Takes a day to go up and a day to come down. So my mother and uncles got kind of worried.

My uncles [mother's brothers?] give him blankets, I don’t know how much. And he went through his performance and he find out if my brother's alive or if his canoe's upside down or something.

He [Łdaxin] was trying to be a great hunter. He goes by himself and tries to make my mother and father believe he's just going little ways and come right back. And that time he never show up. Stormy days and clear, he's supposed to come back and he never show up. You know what he done? He went clear up to the glaciers [at the head of Disenchantment Bay] and got some seals—lots of it. His canoe is just loaded. He stopped on Knight Island and camped there. And my uncle is just ready to send a big war canoe up there, but first he wants to find out where my brother is, whether he's upset or drowned, before they do that.

[In answer to a question, the informant denied that Te-’ic had sent his wooden image. Probably the question was misunderstood, for see below.]

No, that's another time [that he used his wooden image]…. That time he was sending his spirit and trying to locate my brother, he went through his performance and sent that spirit, and his spirit came back and told him the boy was all right. He's [camped] under the canoe that's upside down on the ground….

…Yeah, my youngest uncle and my brother Natsi and other young fellows went up there. And there's his canoe just loaded like that, and some of them went up there. He got black bear and all kinds of animals…. [He was camping under his canoe.] Yes, upset his canoe because he can’t make it down—heavy wind. He come to Knight Island late. He wait till morning.

And my uncle [Te-’ic] says, “Tomorrow morning will be just fine. You’ll see sunshine and you’ll see ‘a ati yAdi [my master's child].” That little wooden thing told him. “My boss's son is coming home tomorrow. He's perfectly safe. He's under his canoe. There's nothing wrong with him. He's not in the water, he's not upset.”

[And that was the way it turned out.]

HOW TEK’-’IC CURED BEAR BIT BILLY

[The following account was compiled from versions told by MJ in 1949, July 6, 1952, July 17, 1952, and August 8, 1952.]

B. B. Williams, Bear Bit Billy [Kwackqwan], was torn up by a bear. He had wounded the bear and run out of shells. He was torn up in that sealing camp near Egg Island, Tsa ‘ani ['seal's Town,’ in Disenchantment Bay].

The Indian doctor's spirit was in that woman that sewed him up…. He was so torn and chewed. His body was just cords. DeGraff took his picture when he was all wounded [see pl. 81].

Łagua cured him. He heals the wounds—tcun xukw [’hurt dry’]—”quick cure”—so there is no more bleeding.

He practiced on Skin Canoe George with a big copper knife to prove he could do it, that he had the power to cure him. He stabbed him right in the breast, and cured him right away with his rattle. There was drumming in the right corner of the house and he fell towards the drum. It was in my father's house and I saw it. He said, “No woman touch it!” He didn’t want any woman to see what he was doing. But that man's mother got scared and grabbed him. His mother jumped on him and grabbed his arm, so the doctor didn’t cure him right away. He cured him in a minute. So he got a little scar. It was all healed up but there was a scar. The women were peeking out of the sleeping-rooms. My mother thought it was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen.

Then he sent his spirit to the women who were sewing B. B. Williams, so his hurt wouldn’t poison. They took him into his own tribal house [Fort House, Khantaak Island] right away when they brought him back, and called in a woman of the opposite tribe to sew him up. But they got Mrs. Joseph, too, because she sews well. [She was the narrator's aunt, Tł'Uknaca.]

…If he had gotten to Bear Bit Billy right away he would have cured him all up [at once], but others had dragged him all the way from sealing camp to Khantaak….

…My mother is pretty handy sewing. She and my Aunt Joseph [both Tł'Uknaca], and Chief George's wife [Teqwca], and Tom Coxe [Kwacqwan] sewed up Bear Bit Billy. Tom Coxe's father was Te-’ic, so he was handy sewing. He was taught what to do when someone was hurt. Billy's ears were hanging right down. The cords on his arms were just falling. You should have seen it! I felt just like throwing up….

[Not the least interesting aspects of this case were the legal consequences.]

B. B. Billy was Kwacqwan. The bear knows he's made a mistake, that he's guilty. He stayed there, by that man he tore up, lets himself be killed. The [Kwacqwan kept the bear's head [actually the whole pelt, to judge by the photograph] till the Teqwedi paid them—because the bear was on the Teqwedi side. The Teqwedi gave them [Kwacqwan] plenty—blankets, money.

I was a little girl. I thought the whole town was going to be on the war path. I was scared.

[Later] the skin and head were kept in Atan hIt [Coward House] in the Old Village by Sitka Ned.

[The same incident is also told by the missionary, Albin Johnson (1924, pp. 104–106), under the title: “A Bear Story.”]

To hunt bears is a dangerous sport…. It was spring…and the natives were busily preparing for hunting and fishing. Seals and bears could now be killed…. A sad message came to us in those days. The other chief, George Na-kaa-nee [Yakutat Chief George], came to us and told a story, but it was difficult for us to understand him in the beginning, for he did not speak English and we did not understand Tlingit which he spoke. In the end the secret was revealed. One of those who had gone bear hunting had been bitten and torn by a bear. It had happened in this way:

Two men had wounded a big brown bear. The bear came running after them, seized one of the men, and tore and bit him and mutilated him quite severely. His comrade ran away a little before he turned around and shot the bear dead.

Sorrow and grief spread. The report spread fast among the people. In the greatest hurry he [the injured man] was taken in a large war canoe home to the village on Kantaak Island and placed in one of the largest Indian houses.

In Yakutat there was no doctor, but the people believed in the missionaries. We were therefore sent for, and with medicines in a hand bag, we started out for the village to help them sew up the wounds and stop the bleeding. We were quite startled when we saw the women sewing up the wounds with regular needles and black thread.

We helped as much as we could and as much as we were permitted. We washed the wounds with water in which we mixed carbolic acid. Then we prayed to God and gave the patient into God's hands. The people sat around the hurt man, looking very serious and quiet. They showed great gratitude to us missionaries for what we were able to do. We had only a little hope that this man would survive. But a miracle happened. After a long time in bed he became entirely sound again, and dared several other trials in bear hunts. This man gave himself to God, was baptized, and joined the congregation.

But what happened to his adventurous comrade? It was an embarrassing time for him. He showed cowardice and did not remain faithful to his comrade when he ran. For this their law condemned him to lose everything he owned. They took away his good gun and, worst of all, he also lost his wife. They took even that from him. They intended that he start life again from the beginning.

DEATH AND BURIAL OF TEK’-’IC

[A short mention of how Te-’ic committed suicide by having his hair cut has already been quoted on p. 685. This somewhat longer account was told by the same informant, MJ, July 1, 1952.]

My aunty's husband died in Sitka. He was the owner of Tu hIt or Xuts djIni hIt [Shark House or Bear Paw House]. He died of poison whiskey. His name was Daqusetc [Chief Minaman]. His daughter [osał] and her husband [Qata ‘ux] died the same day. [All of poisoned whiskey. This was in 1890.]

Te-’ic's spirit told him that bad news was coming.

“Daqusetc was going to take care of my dead body. Now, he's dead.”

His spirit said that bad news was coming. Sure enough, the schooner came in and reported it.

So he cut his hair. The next day he die. He called in all the people to see him cut his hair. They took my uncle out on the clean sand to cut his hair. He died right there, and they took him in.

He said he give up the Indian doctor business because there was no one to take his place. He got all his tribe together in Xuts hIt [Bear House, his own house]…. He wanted his picture taken before he cut his hair [see pl. 65]. All the tribe sang spirit songs—tłAgoko ciyi(?) [tłAgu-a ciyi(?)—'songs for long ago’(?)].

His brothers and my father took care of him when he died. They took his body to Guciné [Lost River]. They hired the opposite side to put up the grave house. It was fancy, all painted…. An Indian doctor is not supposed to be buried. They get dried up, just like a bone….

Guciné—they lived there once, and Guciné gets its name when they all moved away. It's the same as Diyaguna'Et.

I slipped on a xota [UA, adz] there, when my father is finishing his brother's grave. It's below Diyaguna‘Et [on Lost River]. They just build a house over his body that time. They never bury an ’i. They just put a house over the box.

So many years after [referring to the abandonment of Diyaguna'Et and to the murder of QadjAqdaqina, their uncle, also a shaman, whose body was first put in the grave house (see p. 320)], my father got that painting of a xuts [brown bear] in front of that grave house of his brother. Him and Ca-kuwakan and the other brothers got tools all around. They were having a lunch for the UnEtkAnai who were doing the work.

You got to feed them….

I remember when they were building that grave house for my uncle. I stepped on a sharp xota. My foot is just bleeding, and my mother and my aunt and them, they cooking for the workers. And Charley and I chasing one another, and I happened to run against my father's tools. Charley chase me against it. That's why my uncle carry me around on his shoulders. That's why I see it. A long ways—not too close….

…And it's wonderful. After my father died, all Teqwedi died off. And there's nobody to take care of that ‘ix body…. When my father died, nobody to look after it. His brother, Ca-kuwakan, [and] Kardee, and the bunch get together. Nobody to take care of that ‘i business, because they got the Mission here at that time. So they bury him, and that little wooden thing is with him [i.e., the little wooden image of the Sun's Child into which he used to put his power].

They claim that's why Teqwedi died off so quick, because they bury his spirit with him—killing all the Teqwedi's souls….

[Apparently the informant was present when the old grave house was opened and the shaman's body was buried in the ground.]

When they open it up, in the fancy Hudson Bay trunks—big ones—they put his body in there. Fancy blankets and valuable stuff with him….

…His meat is not even rotten. A child can’t even get near it lest they got some kind of sickness, fainting spells. But I was on my uncle's shoulder and I saw what's going on. [Does this refer to a repair of the grave house, see above, or has she confused the original ensepulture with the final inhumation?] They pick him up with a stick. His meat is not even rotten—just dried up, yellow, like those cookies [on the table]. Pick his body up and put it in those fancy trunks, those Hudson Bay trunks. And his spirit buried with him…. That time my uncle was buried and put in the coffin, his arms and legs come off like that. Skin just dried up—like this here wood [pointing to the arms of a chair]. Isn’t that funny, though? The other person, a common human being, the body gets decayed and rots away from the bones….

[On another occasion the informant referred to what must have been a repair to the grave house, MJ, July 7, 1952.]

I saw Te-’ic's body, my father's brother. Just his body, not his face. His legs was all dried up, no meat on it. They picked it up on a pitchfork, put him in a blanket. Father fixed up his grave. We had a picnic on the beach near his grave, and I stepped on a xota [adz], one of the carpenter tools.

[According to HKB, May 2, 1954, Kardeetoo, who was the last of Te-’ic's assistants and who should have inherited his powers, did participate in an attempt to restore or repair the grave house. Sitka Ned was also present. Perhaps it was on this same occasion that the shaman's body was interred. The final burial was explained by HB, July 20, 1952.]

Near Diyaguna‘Et there was a doctor's body, placed high up. The hair was growing long. Kardeetoo buried it. He has to be very strict with himself before he comes near it—for 8 months beforehand [sic]. Stay away from women, hardly eat much. and then only certain foods…. But he didn’t have to do anything afterwards.

He had Teqwedi helpers, because he's the head of Teqwedi. He wanted to bury the body because he wants to be respectable. That's why he do it. [The informant explained that they were becoming Christians, and didn’t want that doctor to be above ground, that is, where he might influence another to become a shaman.] His spirit, he, Kardee, can feel it. It's already in it…. He refused to ‘it’ [to become a shaman]. He just want to bury it, because it's getting to be modern days—about 1900, I guess…. That's the reason he came to Church and was chairman at the same time—so the spirit can be scared of him. He died a Christian; he died when he was still Church chairman.

REFUSING THE CALL

A Young Man Refuses to Become a Shaman

An account has already been given (see pp. 644–646) of the replacement of the shamans' grave houses, undertaken by Dry Bay Chief George at the time of the Tł‘UknaAdi potlatch at Dry Bay, 1909. At that time, the shamans’ spirit came to one woman, and another was slightly affected. On the same occasion, a young man also received the call, but rejected it. He was to pay for this with his life. The following account has been compiled from statements made by the latter's widow in 1952 and 1954.

A YOUNG MAN REFUSES THE CALL

My father's uncles were three ‘it’ in Dry Bay. When I was a little girl they died. [These were the TłukwaAdi shamans: SÉtÀn, UnanAstE, and utcda.]…When I first got married, 15 years old, my husband is working on that grave house…. They made little dead houses, qada kedi, over them…. D, my first husband, made two of the houses, fixed them up. They died long ago. [July 22, 1952.]

[The informant commented on how long the hair of the dead shamans' had grown, and how their bones were still held together by their dried skin. Evidently new grave houses were being provided, but the role of D is not clear, since he was also TłukwaAdi, like the dead shamans, and such labor is usually performed by members of the opposite moiety.]

…When they worked on them, they don’t eat. [This taboo applied to all participating in or associated in any way with the work, including their spouses.] We got 8 days we don’t eat, too. First one, “two days,” they say, they’re going to eat—go get water on the back side, way back. [That is, after 2 days they would break their fast and drink uncontaminated water from far away. But the young wives found thirsting the hardest.]

We take a bucket over there—young girls, you know. They’re going to eat, they said…. The young girls told me, “Let's drink that water!”

I told them, “No, we can’t drink it, this water. When everybody's drinking, that's the time we’re going to drink.”

We go on the other side [i.e., returned].

People said, “We’re not going to eat till tomorrow.” That water, they threw it away from us. Those girls worry about that water. I don’t care. I’m strong enough, I guess, not to eat….

That time everybody wants to get that Indian doctor's spirit, but my husband just fall down. He's unconscious. He got that spirit. All that thing is just coming from his mouth—just white, like a sponge. He's sore he got it. A young boy—about one year older than me—16. I was 15. [March 21, 1954]

…I’m not there when my uncle's fixing it, you know. I stay some place. I got my period. That's why I don’t go there, that time. They call it, that yek. After a while my husband, my first husband, got that Indian doctor spirit. He fall on the floor, just like he had fits…. Big things come out of his mouth [foam]. About half an hour he goes like that. I’m not there. I got my period. That's why I go away from there….

He just got up when he feel good. He got up.

[When asked why he had not then become a shaman, the informant explained:] He don’t go to the woods, that's why. If he go to the woods, he would be Indian doctor.

[Why didn’t he go? she was asked]. I don’t know. He's too young. He's about 16 years old, I guess. He's older than me. I was 15 years old that time.

[Can’t a young man become ‘it’?] Sure, if they’re strong, you know. If they feel strong, they go to the woods. Eight days, never eat. If they feel strong, they can go…. He don’t want it. That's why he died [about a year later, of TB]. Something happens to them if they don’t [May 24, 1954].

…He came to me [had intercourse].

His mother said, “Don’t come close to your wife.”

It sounds funny when they call ‘i's spirits. D called it. He dropped unconscious when he heard it. He got the spirit. White stuff, like a sponge, came out of his nose and mouth.

He don’t like it, so he came to me. That spoil it. He's going to be Indian doctor if he take care of that spirit…or if he cut kucda [land otter] or eagle tongue, or the tongue of anything that drops dead when he goes around in the woods….

The spirit bothers him all right. He got sick when he refused it. I don’t believe it [that he died in consequence], because those ‘it' were kind people. [July 22, 1952.]

A Woman Refuses the Call

A woman might receive a shaman's spirit on a similar occasion. One woman told me that she had been “getting a spirit,” but would not say whose. She did not want it, and was very sick. She slept with her husband. “That's the only way to get rid of it.” The last time it came to her was some 8 years ago, and she was afterwards hospitalized for TB, but I am not sure whether she connected the two events.

On another occasion she said that she had nearly gotten the spirit of three doctors of her father's people, and also that of a great shaman in her own sib. The anomaly of a doctor's spirit going to someone in the opposite moiety was explained by her belief that if there were no one of the correct sib to receive it, the spirit would go to a child of the dead shaman, or to a closely related child of his sib.

When asked how it felt to get the spirit, she explained that “if anything's going to happen, I used to feel it.” She still has such premonitions. Thus, before a fatal automobile accident in Yakutat, March 1954, she had known that some misfortune was coming, and had warned her grandchildren, she said: “Be careful. Something's going to happen. I feel it.”

The spirit began to come to her in 1930. She then began to follow the dietary rules imposed on a shaman and his family by ceasing to eat beach food. For 2 years she was sick. She did not want the spirit. When asked how she got rid of it, she laughed (embarrassed?):

“I don’t know. Every time I eat, I put it in the fire. I talks to my father's yek. That at-qwani [Fish People] and the other ones, I talks to them. That's the time I feel better…. I ask them to help me, to give me good luck or if I get well. That's the way I talks to them.”

She also saw her dead father and mother in a dream. Her father came in and addressed her by name. “CawAtu,” he said, “don’t think about yourself you’re going to die. My father's people [his own sib?, or his father's sib, i.e., her own?] sent me to you. You’re not going to die. You’re going to get lucky. You’re going to have good luck!”

Then she became lucky and received money. That was the way she had dreamed about her father. “He said, ‘Your father's people are going to send good luck to you.’ ”

“That's the time I pretty near got it [shaman's power].”

WHITE MEN'S VIEWS OF YAKUTAT SHAMANISM

A Yakutat Shaman, 1886

Both Professor Libbey and Seton-Karr have described the efforts made by a shaman at Yakutat in 1886 to cure a man who was dying of poison. The poison, it will be remembered, was arsenic which the Indians mistook for baking powder, since it was found in a can which the New York Times Expedition had thrown away (see pp. 193–194). The shamanistic seances were held in the house of the chief on Khantaak Island, that is, in Shark House of the Teqwedi chief “Yen-aht-setl” (Daqusetc, or Minaman). Presumably the principal patient, known as “the Bear Hunter,” was also Teqwedi, and we may surmise that the shaman, who would have been of another sib, was probably Kwacqwan. Since he neglected the man's stricken wife, it is reasonable to assume that she belonged to the doctor's own sib, and it would have been impossible for him to have saved her. Although the chief appeared callous in his “superstitious neglect” of the dying man, he told Libbey that “he was sorry to lose his friend.” It will be remembered that there was some reason to believe that the natives suspected witchcraft in this case.

ACCOUNT BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM S. LIBBEY

According to Professor Libbey (New York Times, November 16, 1886, p. 2), one child had already died. A Sitka native and two children had consented to follow the White men's prescription of hot coffee and an eagle feather down the throat to induce vomiting. They were already better, and the other two victims, Bear Hunter and his wife, were about to attempt the same treatment, when the medicine man and his attendants entered the house.

“Before the medicine man consented to help he received a fee from the hunter consisting of a musket and 20 yards of cotton cloth, representing a money value of $20. The medicine man and his attendants called twice a day for two days upon their patients. Their exercises were of peculiar interest to us. The medicine man, who reduced himself to a condition of almost complete nudity, seated himself close to the sick man, who was lying on the floor. He untied his hair, which is generally worn long by medicine men and is considered one of the secrets of their power, and let it fall down his back. He then took some of his charms, consisting of sea [land ?] otters carved from walrus tusks and teeth of various animals, and put them in the hands of the sufferer. Then one of the attendants picked eagles‘ or swans’ down from a skin, which the box contained, and, holding it aloft in their fingers, they blew it into the sick man's face and over his hair, giving him a very peculiar appearance. This is supposed to have an influence in driving away the ‘yakes‘, or evil spirits, which, while they are not charged with producing sickness, are credited with hovering around the sick and trying to make them worse. The medicine man is supposed to have power which is superior to that of a number of the ‘yakes’ and able to keep them away from the sufferer as long as the incantations are in progress.

“The next proceeding was for an able-bodied man to take a drum formed of a hide drawn over one side of a hoop and pound it vigorously. Arranged on either side of the fireplace in the center of the tent [house] were eight or ten Indians who assisted gratuitously. Their part of the performance consisted in making all the noise they could by beating paddles raised slightly from the floor with sticks, and accompanying the clatter produced with a monotonous and dismal chant. This they would keep up for 20 minutes at a time. When they stopped the medicine man would resume his incantations with redoubled energy, making motions with his arms as if 'shooing’ away the evil spirits and spitting in their supposed direction. While the men were beating the paddles he indulged in the most extraordinary gymnastic exercises. Seated upon his haunches he jumped up and down with his hands extended over the sick man, and shouted out the chant in which the others joined. Every now and then all would stop, and he would go through a series of special incantations.

“Each of these performances lasted about two hours, and when they were over I tried to do the best I could with what was left of the man. This lasted for two days, and on the morning of the third day the man died, which caused no diminution of faith in the medicine man's ability, as he had when first called in told the patient that he must die. I believe the man would not have died if he had followed our directions and the others had taken good care of him. Their systematic neglect of him, caused largely by a superstitious dread of touching a dying man or any of his effects, together with his weakened system, was what eventually caused his death.

“As an example of this neglect I would state that when he was suffering from cramps in the muscles of his limbs after one of the performances, we tried to get some hot water to apply to his feet but the chief would not allow us to use the ordinary tea kettles, then sitting by the fire for this purpose, for fear of their being contaminated by the touch of the supposed dying man. A further aggravation was provided in their refusal to supply him with light food at our request. When we ordered them to give him some tender meat they fed him with hard smoked salmon. After a great deal of persuasion we exacted a promise from some of them that they would go and get him some fresh salmon. It did not arrive until after the poor fellow was dead. His own son, who was sitting by the fire with his wife while they enjoyed a meal of boiled rice, refused to let the old man have any of it, fearing the contamination. Under the circumstances it is hardly to be wondered at that the man died, and that his wife, who met with similar treatment, shared his fate.”

Fresh killed meat or fish may have been refused the sick man because these were believed to be injurious to him, or because it was feared that if he ate them this would anger the souls of the animals, not for the reasons given by Professor Libbey.

ACCOUNT BY HEYWOOD W. SETON-KARR

Seton-Karr (1887) also describes the same events.

“On the evening of the 6th a great beating of drums and sticks, which continued nearly all night, was heard in the village. The noise seemed to issue from the last house. It was broken at times by the howling of wolf-like dogs which swarm, and yell in chorus like coyotes, generally clustering together for the purpose on some promontory or lonely and distant spot.

“We sallied out in a body to see what was doing. The interior of the house was lit up by the firelight. The shawaan was seated, naked to the waist, performing incantations and machinations over a sick child, though the child itself was nowhere visible. His long hair, always left uncut, was streaming behind him. He was shaking his charms, throwing his body into contortions, uttering shrill cries, hissing and extending his arms, groaning and breathing through his clenched teeth, jerking himself meantime in convulsive starts in cadence to the music. Seated round the fire, a dozen Yakutat Indians were beating drums and pieces of wood together, keeping time to the jerks of the shawaan's head and body. This old medicine-man is quite blind, having been deprived of his sight in a fight with another medicine-man. [1887, pp. 128–129.]

[I infer that the shaman was ministering to one who was sick from the arsenic. The professor tried to assist the patients, but was prevented by the other natives who were afraid of becoming contaminated. Nevertheless, those who had taken an emetic were recovering.]

“At intervals a distant drumming and yelling from the interior of the houses told us that the shawaan was busy at his work. [Ibid., p. 131.]

[By the morning of August 8, one child had died and had been cremated.]

“The usual sounds of drumming were issuing from the chief's house, where the sick people are lying. Entering the house, we found the blind shawaan again at his tricks. We was squatting by the side of our Indian, who was evidently better, for he was vomiting, having at length taken the emetic. The shawaan was neglecting the wife, and devoting his magic arts exclusively to the husband.

“Sitting down, I commenced to sketch the sightless savage, who, of course, was unaware that I was drawing him. The chief kept telling me not to be afraid, for he was blind. Perhaps he thought as I had sketched his daughter that it would prevent any ill effects if I did the same to the shawaan. Presently he stripped himself, and opening his box of charms took out a wooden figure of a crane with a frog clinging to its back [a rattle], and a bunch of sea-otter's teeth and carved walrus tusks. The latter he placed on the naked stomach of the dying man.

“Meantime the drums and sticks kept up the monotonous noise, and the heat and stench were increased by the fire. The shawaan grew more excited. His contortions and jerks grew more and more active. His favourite attitude seemed to be with the right arm drawn up, and hand half-clenched under the ear, the left arm extended, squatting in Eastern fashion, the body crouched and greasy with oil and the heat.

“At a sign his hair was uncoiled and unknotted by the assistant-magician. Its length was at least five feet, but might possibly have been added to artificially. At times in his leaps and jerks the ends came perilously near the fire. He seemed aware of this, for he occasionally drew them in. Every few minutes, too, white eagles' down was held between finger and thumb by the assistant, and blown over his head and shoulders, to which it adhered, giving hair and skin a hoary and ancient look, or as though he was covered with freshly fallen snow-flakes. The dying man paid but little regard to him, and before many hours had elapsed both he and his wife had passed away.

“Disgusted by the sight, and sickened by the stench, I sought the air…. ” [Ibid., pp. 132–133.]

A Missionary's Account of Yakutat Shamanism

Albin Johnson (1924, pp. 43–45) has left a rather brief account of shamanism as it was practiced at Yakutat during his residence at the mission, 1889–1906. I have quoted his description of the shaman's appearance (p. 684). His account is entitled “An Evil Side.” Of the shamans (trollgubbarna, or schamän) he also writes:

“The status they occupied among the people was egotistic, supercilious, self-important, hated, keeping the people in a certain fear and in the deepest darkness. One can say that they were the special representatives of Old Nick. If someone got sick, the shaman was sent for to investigate the cause of the illness. The sick person was placed on the floor on a skin or a blanket. The shaman appeared now wearing a blanket, with a long pole in his hand. He now started a dreadful scene with some sort of noisy hocus-pocus, running around the patient, shouting almost like the whistle of a steamship. Now and then some of the people were accused as being the cause of the sickness. One of them was therefore to be punished and tortured or killed. Anybody could be hit by such a judgment from the evil, mean shaman.

“After such a ‘cure’ by the sorcerer, the condition of the sick person was supposed to improve, and if anyone got well—for it happens that sick people get better—the people would sink deeper into superstitution and darkness. And then the relatives of the sick person had to pay many blankets to the sorcerer.

“Epidemics often ravaged the villages in Alaska. And as death took many people, the general situation was characterized by gloom and sorrow. Especially was this the case before the light of Christ had been able to enlighten the people. Before this, the people had to trust the sorcerers in their misery. They went around among the people and cut pieces off the clothes of the sick, which were tied on a long line, and with a rock as anchor, the shaman sunk it in the sea, and in this way the people thought that the sicknesses were kept at bay.

“In connection with this I will narrate a true ‘troll’ story. When I and brother H [Hendrickson] once were out and set a special kind of fishing line in the bay, in order to catch halibut, a ‘troll’ line [i.e., a line with bits of patients' clothing attached] became entangled in our fishing line and we had to cut it away in order to free our line from sorcery, so we would have luck and, of course fish. We got a big laugh out of it, mingled with a prayer to God for light and salvation for these people. [Ibid., pp 43–45.]

[Perhaps it was this method of cure that my informant (CW) was attempting to explain (see p. 708), or these may have been bits of clothing put into the water by a repentant witch (see pp. 730–731).

Albin Johnson and his wife succeeded in converting one shaman. His name is not given. Could it have been Te-’ic? (see p. 685).]

“My dear spouse often used to visit the Tlingit people in the village. In a miserable hut she one day found an old sorcerer, sitting and warming himself beside a little fire. She started a conversation with the man, and spoke to him about the love of Jesus and asked him to come to our church, and further asked him to cut the long evil hair and to wash, and come to the mission where he would be given clean, proper clothes. Some days later the fellow really came, washed and with newly cut hair. This was almost more than Mrs. Johnson had dared to hope. But now he received a whole suit of clean, nice clothes. Later he also came to the church and heard God's word being preached.” [Ibid., p. 49].

The only shaman mentioned by name was Dettion, who seems to have been an honored guest at the big funeral feast, also attended by the Teqwedi chief “Janaa-shoo' (Daqusetc, or Minaman), on Khantaak Island. Johnson did not remember the name of the dead man for whom the feast was being held. He had been an important personage, perhaps a Kwacqwan chief. The shaman Dettion, as a guest, must have been Teqwedi or alyI-Kagwantan.

THE SHAMANISTIC LEGACY

The spirits of the shaman we have seen compared to angels and to the Holy Ghost (p. 682), and the shaman is said to be able to speak in foreign languages, depending on the nature of his spirit, “just like in the Church of God,” an evangelistic sect established at Yakutat in 1951 or 1952, the inspired members of which “speak with tongues.”

The tradition of associating supernatural power with spirit possession has affected the ways in which Christianity was accepted by the Tlingit or has made certain manifestations or forms of religious practice particularly congenial to them. For example, Swanton (1909, Tale 30, p. 428), tells us: “A man returning to Sitka from the south told his people that Dek’anq’wo (God) [pp. 815–816] had come down from Heaven to help them, and the women dressed up and began dancing.” They danced until they fainted and were revived with salt water. This dancing was kept up for a whole year, and it was believed to prevent the women from getting smallpox.

The Yakutat people undoubtedly knew about this, and their response to the teachings of the missionaries was perhaps influenced by reports from Sitka. The Reverend Albin Johnson compares what happened during his second winter at Yakutat (1890) to what he had heard in his youth about the “Shouters” in Småland, Sweden, who fell into a trance and preached. This was, he said (1924, p. 36), the work of God through weak but God-loving souls.

“The Shouters in Alaska” (1890)

The Reverend Albin Johnson (1924, pp. 36–42) reports that during his second winter at Yakutat, he and Reverend K. J. Hendrickson were very busy with preaching, house visits, prayer meetings, talks, and school. “The people crowded to the church and heard the testimonial of Jesus, Savior of sinners” (ibid., p. 37).

One cold Sunday afternoon, after a meeting in the church, the missionaries were visited by a native youth, “Jeme Ka-kaa-shra.” This was evidently Qakaa, a Tł'UknaAdi man known as Ned James or Mission Jim. He was one of the first to be converted and sometimes acted as interpreter in the early days of the mission, “and told us how the people received the preaching of God's word. Now Ka-kaa-shra had a special message, we understood, and he tried to make it plain to us that on little Kantack Island, where there was still an Indian village with large, old houses and many inhabitants, a strange event had occurred, which had spread fear and excitement through the whole tribe…” (ibid., p. 37).

A boy they knew as Albert, who had visited the mission school and church, and who “was by nature an introvert,” had suddenly fallen asleep and while in a kind of trance was preaching to the people. James had come to fetch the missionaries to see and hear him.

(”Albert” I am not able to identify.)

“When we arrived at the village we went into a large house. Here were a great number of Indians sitting, silent and still. In the main room of the house a beautiful blanket was spread out, on which a youth lay as if asleep, speaking in a moderate voice [en lång stund] to a man who sat at his side. Afterwards this man interpreted it for everyone in a loud and clear voice and commented on what the sleeping boy had said. His speech made a strong impression on the assembled crowd….

“Albert spoke for a long while after we went into the house, but woke after an hour's talking, and sat silent and still, evidently somewhat exhausted and tired. He did not know what he had said, but he told us that he had seen some beautiful divine visions of angels and bliss…. He urged the people to put themselves in Jesus' care, go to Him, and let themselves be saved. As the Indians were living now, they were lost in their sins, big, bloody sins. Now the missionaries had come with a message from Jesus Christ who was mighty enough to save them and show them the road to Heaven. Jesus is coming soon. He can come any time, and if we are not saved we cannot follow Him into the eternal rest. Convert ye to the Lord!” [Ibid., pp. 38–39.]

[This was Albert's message. And usually] “after such a meeting, another meeting followed with prayers and shouts to the Lord for salvation, a meeting in which they took the initiative and led.” [Ibid., p. 39.]

[There were two young girls who visited the school and who often came to church with their parents. Now they also fell into a trance in the village near the mission, which made an even greater impression on the people.]

“One evening shortly after Albert's sleep, these girls fell into a trance and preached a powerful, urgent sermon to the people. Among what they said was: ‘Ask the missionaries to let us come to the mission for a while, as our people live in dark, dark sins. It is so sinful in the village.’ We promised them that they could come. They came and got a room. The first evening they went to bed quietly and silent. Somewhat later in the night we heard a thunderous sound. What was the matter? Yes, the girls had fallen into a trance and were preaching. A couple of native boys who were at the mission heard what the girls said: ‘Run to the village and tell the Indians that they must come to the mission at once, as there was something they wanted to tell them.’ Not long afterwards the mission was full of wondering and curious people….

“[In their trance, the girls] shouted the name of this one and that, and ordered them to come up to the sleepers and confess their sins. Some came willingly and confessed. Then they [the girls] were calm. When others, whose names they also mentioned and shouted to come forth to the sleepers, hesitated and refused to admit their sins, they became completely wild, so that strong men could hardly hold them. They twisted and beat violently with their arms, frightening the people. They ordered them to confess their sins, which the people subsequently did. One after the other, they openly admitted to grave, wicked, and black sins, and then they prayed to Jesus, that He should forgive them their sins. And as soon as those who were named came up to the two girls, the latter became calm.

“Later many others, both men and women, fell into this trance, and it continued a whole winter. Sometimes it happened in the homes of the Tlingit people. One evening I visited the village. A young man had fallen into a trance and the excitement among the people was great. Afterwards, a prayer meeting was held and the whole crowd in the house prayed in a state of great emotion and bliss, in a way figuratively besieging the throne of mercy. I was on the verge of losing my self-control, and prayed to God that we missionaries be able to lead the people properly.

During this time our services in the church were very popular and many came. There was rejoicing, confession of sins and admissions of faith. Many times while we were preaching, people fell on the floor and went into trance. We then had to stop preaching and listen to them and pray with them. These were revival meetings of the most powerful kind, and among rude heathens the power of the Spirit and the Mercy revealed itself.

“There was also a dark aspect of the movement. There were some of the 'sleeping preachers’ who spoke against us, partly in cases of minor importance, and then we opposed them, showing them what God's word says. Then they behaved as we told them to and according to what we told them was God's word.” [Ibid., pp. 39–42.]

Native Accounts of the “Shouters”

One of my informants (MJ), who was a little girl at the mission, told about these events. A Teqwedi woman named Jenny (1874–1918), and Lucy or Louise, a Tł'UknaAdi woman who was my informant's mother's younger sister (or cousin), were those who fainted in church during a prayer meeting. Several others fainted also.

“White stuff came out of their mouths [4 to 6 inches long]—pure white. Everybody thought they were dead, and dressed them [for burial]. Johnson just laid them out on boards, didn’t touch that white sponge on their mouths. He and Hendrickson and Miss Peterson and Miss Carlsen just knelt and prayed.

“About midnight, that sponge began to move and they came alive. Not one of them knew a word of English—couldn’t even say “Yes” or “No”—the mission was just established—but when they came to, they began to sing church songs with English words.” In answer to questions, MJ denied that they could have had any opportunity to learn them.

“And they spoke [apparently in Tlingit]. Their voices were way down in their chests so you had to put your ear close to their mouths to hear what they were saying. They said that ‘God should run Yakutat.’ [They actually said a good deal more which was not remembered.] It was a wonderful thing. And Johnson thought it was a wonderful thing….

“Jenny was the first to faint. They didn’t bark or sweat [like some inspired in the Church of God]—just passed out cold.”

Another informant said that her mother had told her about this fainting, but it was “just imitation.” The girls were copying a story they had heard. The latter was to the effect that:

“Before the church came, before missionaries, before they even heard of God, some one [sex unknown] fainted and died. When he sobered up, he said he had met God. He said he had talked to a Certain Person, who told him to get baptized. Then he would be saved. ‘There is another world beside this one, and if you are baptized and good, you can go there after you die and your soul won't be lost,’ He told him….

“Yes, later they believe he had talked with God. That was the only way God could get in touch with people then. There were no missionaries…. ”

But Jenny and the other girl (possibly Annie, a Kwacqwan woman, mother of M—) were just pretending.

“They were imitating that person when they fainted on church. Jenny was going with Jimmy Jackson, that funny man. [This was the Kwacqwan man known as “Gums,” p. 194.] Their boy friends tickled them, just to prove it, and they squirmed.

“Jenny and M—'s mother [the other girl] ran into someone who's solid feeling [p. 735]. He was laying down. They ran in and said, ‘Confess your sin!’ He chased them out of the house—‘Go away, you witchcraft!’ ”

Witches and Land Otter Men

WITCHCRAFT

Witches

The human being, man or woman, most abhorred and despised by the Tlingit, was the witch, ‘master of sickness’ (nukw ati). In speaking English, many Tlingit use the term “witchcraft” to designate the person, rather than his activities or practice. It was perhaps the most important and spectacular task of the shaman to unmask the witch and his accomplices, so that he could be rendered impotent or killed and his victims cured. Many items collected by Emmons from shamans' graves were specifically designated as worn or employed in dealing with cases of witchcraft.

The witch was feared and loathed because there was no antisocial, evil or unnatural act of which he was not believed capable: dishonesty, shamelessness, incest, mysterious powers of locomotion or of bodily transformation, and, above all, corroding spite and jealousy that made him cause the illness or death of those he envied. Because his victims were traditionally his own close relatives, true siblings or the immediate members of his own lineage and sometimes their spouses and children, the witch was the embodiment of treachery. Moreover, his evil influence was contagious, for he recruited as his assistants, “new witchcraft,” usually against their will or knowledge, other persons, such as a junior relative or a young wife. If not liberated in time, even a reluctant assistant was doomed to become a witch also.

The witch brought disgrace upon himself, upon all the members of his lineage, and upon his descendants.

It would appear that all known witches were originally ordinary persons who had been recruited by witches. There is no evidence that anyone was believed to have been born a witch, nor that anyone deliberately set out to become one, although many were believed to have submitted willingly to the evil influence of another. Once thoroughly infected, the new witch seems to have been controlled by his own evil power, helpless to desist from injuring others, even if he should desire to refrain. It is only through his confession after torture that he himself can be released and his victims rescued. His trial and sufferings are as necessary for his “cure” as for theirs. Presumably those witches who died under torture or were killed were ones who had not been “cured” through forced confession. Because the witch is victim as well as agent, and because the witch, the bewitched accomplice, and the bewitched victim are all traditionally members of the same lineage, there is material here for tragedy, although the Tlingit with whom I discussed this did not seem to recognize it. Horror of the witch, not pity, was felt.

Moreover, no relative dared to take the part of the witch at his “trial,” for if the witch had secretly put a curse upon the one who later tried to defend him, he would be powerless to remove it. The witch thus could have no friends while he was protesting his innocence. Yet, when he had expiated his guilt, released his victims, and had himself been purged of evil, he might eventually be restored to society. If he died or was executed, his sib would have to potlatch for him and so remove the stigma.

No guilt attached, however, to anyone who could prove that he or she had helped the witch under duress.

The witch might be either a man or a woman, yet almost all those mentioned as known or suspected at Yakutat were men. Swanton (1908, pp. 469–471) also recorded stories about several male witches but only one woman among the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska. Krause (1956, p. 203), however, reports as of 1882: “Witch hunts were conducted by the Tlingit until very recent times in spite of the efforts of the American authorities and the missionaries to discourage them. In the instances brought to our attention the accused were always women.” The majority of those accused of witchcraft by the Wrangell Tlingit in 1878 seem to have been women or children, especially girls, or slaves (Young, 1927, pp. 113–116, 119–120, 125). It would appear that important persons, especially men of high rank, were seldom publicly accused of witchcraft, for Krause (1956, p. 201) also reports: “Formerly the relatives of one accused of witchcraft were supposed to kill him in order not to have such a hated individual in their group of kin. But if someone of high class was suspected of witchcraft, his relatives would go to him secretly at night and beg him to heal the sick person because they were afraid to seize him and tie him down.” Presumably most of the unfortunates whose cases came to the attention of the early American authorities and missionaries were low class people, often women without protectors. Information from Yakutat would confirm that cases of witchcraft involving important persons, especially men of aristocratic position, might be discreetly handled in private.

According to Olson (1961, pp. 216–217), who gained his information from the Chilkat, the stigma of witchcraft “can never be washed away.” Even the victim, no matter how unwilling, was disgraced likewise, and although the original witch might have confessed, the descendants of both would be shamed. In a case of this kind, in which the victim was a girl, Olson writes:

If the sorcerer had not confessed, the sorcery would have remained in the girl and she would have passed it on to her daughters. If the bewitched girl had not been an only daughter and therefore the only one who could pass on the family's valued names and prerogatives, she would have been killed to wipe out the disgrace.

In this instance the sorcerer was also released after his confession because he belonged to a prominent lineage. Formerly, even the children of witches were likely to be killed, because of “the concept that sorcery is passed on within the family, inherited in the same way as hereditary traits” (ibid., p. 217).

Although informants were naturally reluctant to talk about witchcraft, I learned of a number of cases ranging in date from the 1880s to suspicions of the present. In none of these instances, however, even in the past century, did I hear of a witch being killed, although I was told that formerly a witch might indeed have been executed. Not all those suspected were accused by a shaman in a public “trial,” and forced through torture to confess. In some cases, the shaman revealed the identity of the witch in private, so that his sib-mates could warn him to desist from his evil ways. In other cases, the victim himself, or his relative, believed he knew who was guilty, since such knowledge might be revealed in a dream. He might then confront the witch, although such an overt accusation was likely to lead to bloody reprisal. Now that there are no more shamans and the torturing of suspected witches is prohibited, there is no way of “proving” the identity of the evildoer. Furthermore, most people profess not to “believe” in witchcraft. Yet old fears may still revive, especially when serious illness strikes or a stubborn ailment fails to yield to home remedies and orthodox medical treatment. Then gossip may diagnose the case as witchcraft, and friends of the sufferer whisper the accused's name. Rumor is especially likely to attach to any queer or unpopular person. Naturally, while the patient and his family may believe that their misfortune is due to witchcraft, the general public may accept the medical diagnosis of the White physician. The sufferer is most likely to suspect anyone whom he has injured or insulted, even unwittingly, for gestures of friendship could conceal a witch's grudge.

Swanton (1908, p. 469) found among the Tlingit a “widespread belief in witchcraft. In fact this notion had so taken possession of the Tlingit mind that natural sickness or death was scarcely believed in.” So too, one informant reported of former days that: “Every time they got sick, they say somebody witching you.”

“I don’t think there's anybody now that believes in such things. My dad tells me the stories, all kinds of stories about witchcraft. Just the same, I never believe it. He says if I believe my God, that's going to be stronger than that. If I believe in witchcraft, that's going to be my fate. But my mother, she believes lots of things. She believes shamans, she believes witchcraft.”

Another told me that people were dying off today because of witchcraft. In the past, Indian doctors could prevent it, and if the Whites had left the people their native doctors the population would be increasing—at least that was what her grandfather had told her. “This time we don’t believe it. We just just think about that Bible going to help…. Gee, sometimes I got scared when people talk about that thing,” and she proceeded to tell us “authenticated” cases of witchcraft at Sitka and Hoonah. “And that's why that native people died off…. That's why people fight about it in the first place when the Government stops that Indian doctors.”

Another woman who was in poor health said that a friend had suggested that she was a victim of witchcraft. She said that she consulted a shaman in another town, but that he ascribed her affliction to a natural cause. She herself was evidently uncertain, for she explained: “I don’t believe in witches. That's all done away with now. My mother believed in it and saw someone tied up for witchcraft. I wouldn’t believe in witchcraft unless I saw the witch doing it right in front of my eyes.” And she regaled us with accounts of recent fearful happenings of a suspiciously occult nature.

Stories about witchcraft are told in confidence, secretly, reluctantly, yet with fearful relish. “It's sure awful, I don’t like to talk about it,” will be followed by full details. Of course, one must be careful never to mention the incident to the witch's relatives or descendants. Presumably the Yakutat natives also concur in the saying current at Angoon that persons most vocal in expressing fears of witchcraft are themselves likely to be suspected (de Laguna, 1952, p. 8). Perhaps also the too vociferous doubters may even have been suspect at Yakutat, as they were at Angoon, where those accused during the hysterical outbreak of witchcraft fears in 1957 were all “nonbelievers” (de Laguna, 1960, p. 200, note 56). Certainly at Takutat there was also the suggestion that to know too much about witches was itself ground for suspicion. Thus one informant remarked in the course of a long account, “I ought not to talk about it or they will tie me up for witchcraft.” Perhaps this was half in jest, for jokes about witchcraft are popular. For example, in the old days people were afraid to visit the cemeteries for fear of being accused of witchcraft, and such behavior today, while suspect, may also provide the point of a joke. One widow joked that she had not been to the cemetery this year to visit her husband's grave, for she had no one to go with her, and if she went alone someone would tie her up as a witch. The same informant used to delight in teasing us because we had visited some of the graveyards to copy the inscriptions on the tombstones. She was just as ready to laugh, however, when I reminded her that she had accompanied us to the cemetery on Khantaak Island, where we had fallen into the graves, as she put it “up to our armpits.” Joking relatives might accuse each other of flying around like witches (p. 486).

Activities of Witches

The witch is an evildoer, primarily someone who is touchy, jealous, harboring a secret grudge. Whereas the layman may suspect him, it is usually only the shaman who can be sure.

The most serious crimes of the witch were bringing about the deaths through lingering illness or accident of his own relatives. These victims were usually persons of importance: the master of a house, the successful hunter, the wealthy aristocrat, often the uncle or older brother of the witch. Sometimes the latter attacked the successful rival who had married the person sought as a spouse; or out of spite, the witch might attack the lost loved one or the latter's children. Sometimes the precipitating incident was apparently trivial: a drunken man making noise which disturbed the witch's sleep, an uncle refusing to carry water for his nephew; but the underlying cause was deep-seated jealousy.

“In the old days, all sickness was due to witches. They don’t know about God then. Important people are the ones that got witched. Poor old people like Jenny and me they never bother to witch. They are trying to get even with the high-class people.”

The informant and the elderly Jenny burst out laughing at the thought that anyone might think they were witches, perhaps realizing that in former days they might indeed have been liable to suspicion just because they were old and poor.

Witches were commonly supposed to obtain “crumbs” or food leavings (du a ‘iti), ‘the imprint of his mouth,’ and also “dirt” or “witches' stuff” (da ‘itsedi), 'something from around the body.’ The latter included hair, nail parings, and bits of clothing (with the body's sweat on them). My informants did not specifically mention spittal (cf. Swanton, 1908, p. 470) or excreta, but these were presumably also used. The care with which the baby's diaper moss was destroyed suggests a fear that witches might use it (p. 504).

“A witch could use food leavings, or a piece of clothing. You get awfully sick if they take your hair—lose your hair and your eyesight. If they take your fingernail parings you will get paralyzed in your hand. Now we call it rheumatism, rheumatics.”

People were careful, therefore, to guard such things. For example, of food leavings, “something of his food,” an informant explained: “That's why before, they always put it on the fire—don’t just throw it any place.”

With these bits (da ‘itseti), the witch makes tiny dolls (si), about an inch long, twisted together, and sometimes tied up with the hair of the hairseal and thread. ‘He makes dolls by winding’ (qułasit wUdułIit). The witch usually makes many of these images, one for each of the many persons he wishes to injure, and the dolls are said to be fashioned to represent the ways in which the victims are to die. In a specific case, a doll was fixed with a bit of red flannel as a protruding tongue, which produced such a swollen throat that the victim could hardly swallow. Each of the dolls is named: “This is So-and-so. This is So-and-so,” the witch is supposed to say.

These dolls are usually taken to the graveyard and put with the remains of some dead person, formerly the ashes. Now that bodies are no longer cremated, witchcraft is said to be even more effective, for the little images can be stuffed right inside a corpse, and as this rots, so the victims fall sick. In one specific instance, the image made of clothing scraps was put inside the carcass of a puppy that was sunk in the water.

“You can’t have a dead dog in your possession or they will tie you up for witchcraft. A rotting dog is stronger than a dead person.”

In a recent case reported from Angoon a baby is said to have died because bits of its clothing were buried with dead cats under the house (de Laguna, 1960, p. 200, note 56). In another instance, reported as having occurred at Hoonah, a sore throat was caused by putting a bone (food leavings?) inside the mouth of a corpse. Swanton (1908, p. 470) reports that Tlingit witches might use the supposedly poisonous slime of a frog to make their victim's eyes and mouth bulge out like a frog's. Yakutat informants failed to mention this, although many had a horror of frogs.

As long as the little dolls remain in contact with the corpse or ashes, the persons from whose body leavings the images were made will suffer, falling sick and dying, usually one after another. The shaman may attempt a cure by performing over the patient, but he cannot be sure of success unless he discovers the identity of the witch and the latter can be forced to confess and to remove the images. The witch must do this himself. The dolls are put on a sheet of bark, and the witch must plunge into the water with them, leaving them in the sea or a pond. No one else may touch them. Nor may they be burned, or else the victims would surely die.

“That's witchcraft law, you know. They put it in the water, then they floating around. All that sickness washed away, I guess. I don’t know.”

“They catch them [witches]; they confess. They take them out to the graves, they bring out those things. Something just funny, small little straws. They tie them together, make it into like dolls. Take some hairseal hair and tie them together. How they do it, I don’t know.

“They used to put those coffins [for ashes] up high on stilts. They used to see sometimes the witchcraft flying up there, would catch them.

“There's one story: That Indian doctor caught that witchcraft and after he confessed they took him out there and told him to go up there. And he don’t climb like any normal person would. Just stick his tongue out on the pole and climb, stuck his tongue out, climb. And he moved up like that [i.e., he inched his way up the post, pulling himself up with his tongue]. He brought down that hairseal doll. He's the only one can untie it. After that, the person gets cured. If someone else does it [unties the witch's doll], he gets killed.”

And if the witch dies, “whoever he witched, he lines them up: this person first, next…. That's the people he witched are going to die off, even if he dies.”

The death of the witch is therefore not sought as an immediate end; he must remain alive to undo his spells. Yet the statement was also made by several informants that in the old days witches were killed.

There is also some slight indication that witches were believed able to kill simply through the power of their wicked thoughts. As one woman told me: “That's one thing that's not so good, some kind of those different spirits. I think you know about that. They call it witchcraft.” Her voice sank. “People wish: ‘I wish somebody dying!’ That's the way that Indian doctor told us.”

The informant cited a case in which one woman, angry because the young man she wanted had married another, therefore caused the deaths of all of the latter's seven children, except the oldest. The shaman named the witch and was able to save the oldest child but not the others. The unlucky mother had a dream in which the witch woman gave her a dead dog, telling her it was her baby. Apparently the guilty woman was never confronted by the shaman nor forced to confess, and the children she is accused of killing each died within a few weeks of their birth. It was believed that the witch was also responsible for the death of a grandchild of her original rival.

It will have been noted that witches are supposed to be capable of peculiar powers of locomotion, as in the case of the one who climbed the post of the gravebox with his tongue. More commonly witches “fly,” especially around the graves. They are also able to make themselves very small in order to pass in and out of the narrow cracks in the coffins or down a 6-inch-diameter hole into a grave. In so doing, the witch might simply vanish, leaving his clothing behind. One such example was described as follows:

“My grandfather was raised in Sitka, and a long time ago, when he was a small boy, he saw that thing flying around. It's moonlight. They say, 'see it flying around!’ ”

The informant made gestures of giant, light, hopping motions with the hands, as if they were feet that never touched the ground.

“He was hopping like a frog, just his feet moving, his arms held down to his sides. Everyone ran out of the houses and saw him go around, and right back into the cemetery of grave houses behind the dwelling houses. The people followed him. Then ‘pff!’ When they tried to catch him, he disappeared. Then he went around another grave house, apparently vanishing into that.

“My grandfather told us, ‘That crack is about that much open [about 1 inch wide and 18 inches long].’ How could that big man [go in and] come out of it? ‘That's the place they come out,’ the people said. They tried to catch him; that's why he went in different places.”

On this occasion the people were apparently unable to capture the witch.

Witches also can come and go through a locked door, it is said.

These Yakutat beliefs are similar to those reported by Veniaminov (1940, vol. 3, pp. 79–81) for the Sitka Tlingit: that witches fly through the air, not by turning into birds (however, cf. p. 732), but just as they are. They frequent the cemeteries just before dawn, where they talk with the dead. Therefore, when something strange is seen or heard in the graveyard, the Tlingit, especially the daring young men, will attempt to surround and capture the witch who is in one of the grave houses. However, the latter usually just flies away, and his pursuers will see only his blanket flapping in the wind. Moreover, even if tied up and confined in a house under guard, the witch may simply vanish, leaving behind only his bonds.

The Yakutat people reported that witches could change their shapes into the forms of animals or birds. Such creatures did not have the normal fear of human beings displayed by ordinary wild animals, so that any animal which approached human habitations too closely was suspected. Thus, the young sea lion, possibly ailing, that remained close to Yakutat for several days in September 1952, worried some people, especially when it sat on the rocks in front of the houses. One old woman fetched me in some agitation, telling me to take its picture, and later throwing rocks at it to drive it away. I was told that this woman “get suspicion town is going to get a sickness…. That's the warning to the town, she claims.” Another informant admitted that the strange sounds made by the animal frightened her so that she was not going to come down to the lower main road of the town that night. This was because it was too close to the water where the animal had been seen.

This conversation about the sea lion led to a discussion of witches in the form of a porpoise, a guise which they often assume.

“The porpoise is a friend of witchcraft. I noticed it in Hoonah,” one informant remarked and proceeded to tell about what occurred at a dance she had attended there. She was sitting with a friend, her uncle's young wife, watching the square dance, when people began to whisper. Although her companion was so embarrassed she didn’t want to explain, she finally admitted that a witch had just entered the hall. She had “come over from the graveyard as a porpoise.” This young woman, the “best dressed girl at the dance,” had previously slipped away from her boy friend and gone down to the beach. There she “got into a porpoise skin” and visited the graveyard. This is on the island opposite the town.

“Her boy friend went to the beach to look for her under the dock, and he saw the porpoise come from the graveyard and land right at the beach. And from the porpoise that sweetheart of his come out! There was no boat—moonlight and everything. He got so disgusted he quit her right there. He don’t come back to the dance. But she come in. ‘That young lady. Not even ashamed of herself. Dirty witchcraft!’ Everybody looking at her.—I think they just imagine it. How could that be?—’Aenaxwa ‘awłiIc—She take advantage of the dance and just sneaks out [to visit the graveyard]. She was just showing off that dirty business…. She didn’t even get ashamed in her face!”

My informant added that more recently a similar case had been seen in Hoonah.

On a different occasion another friend who was with us when some porpoises swam close to the shore also told us that such animals were often witches. She had heard it as a little girl when visiting her uncle's tribal house in Hoonah. One evening, she and her little cousin went to the outhouse which was built over the beach, and they heard a porpoise making a noise underneath them. They were so scared they just dropped their lantern and ran back to the house. They told her uncle, the house chief, what they had heard, and he went running down to the shore, calling out “Nukw ati! nukw ati! [witch! witch!]” However, he didn’t see anything. The reason he did that was because if some animal is acting strangely, or is where it ought not to be, then if it is a witch, it will turn into a human form when you call it nukw ati.

Confrontation and public accusation are evidently effective in such instances. Perhaps the frequent association of wereporpoises and witches at Hoonah may be due to the fact that the TcukAnedi, “Grass People,” a Wolf sib of Hoonah, claim the Porpoise as a crest.

Swanton (1908, p. 471) also tells of a TcukAnedi man who used to “lie on a sealskin and let it swim out of the house with him, and he would go out to sea just like a porpoise…. ” Still, this case was different, because the man apparently retained his human shape, and the people used to attach a line to him. This demonstration of power seems, in fact, more like the act of a shaman than of the witch, as Swanton reported it.

Witches may also assume the form of birds in order to fly about the graveyards. Swanton (1908, p. 471) tells of one who was shot in the guise of an owl(?), but when wounded resumed his human form. At Yakutat, witches are likely to become cranes.

“X and his nephew sneaked out to Ankau [cemetery] the night that Y was buried, and watched. They heard a big crane by the lake. That's one of the shapes they take. When they came back and told about it, people told them, ‘That's a witchcraft.’ They didn’t know that at the time, but they were so scared they held on to one another. The evening of the day that P was buried, Q was standing outside and he heard that big crane over by the Ankau. I hear they always hear that after they bury somebody.”

Dogs will give warning that witches are about by barking toward the graveyard.

It is characteristic of witches to wander about at night, or to disappear for several days at a time from their homes. Such wanderers were drawn irresistibly to the cemetery, without knowing how they got there. Even though it might have been stormy weather, the witch would be quite dry when he reappeared, but might carry a graveyard stench from sleeping in a grave. Sometimes a witch has been seen dancing naked on a grave. Although witches under such conditions had not changed their shape, they were described by those who had seen them as pale and looking queer. A witch returning from such an excursion would be afraid of the cross on top of the Church and might not be able to pass by on the road.

Olson (1961, p. 218) also reports that sorcerers (witches) visit the graves of the recently deceased because they are “impelled by a ‘feeling’ or a spirit within them.” “Two motives compel the sorcerers: Either they wish to have intercourse with the dead or to work magic against some person they wish to harm.” They may bewitch an individual of the opposite sex in order to have intercourse with him or her, flying to the lover at night, undeterred by distance or locked doors. However, witches themselves are reported to say that the dead call them to the cemetery, and that “intercourse with the (spirits of) the dead was more pleasurable than sexual relations with the living.”

Origin of Witches

According to one informant, witchcraft originated among the Tsimshian. A man of this tribe had “a fit or something” and began to act as if he were becoming a shaman, but others laughed at him. Determined to become the greatest shaman of all, he took a human skull, filled it up with water and drank from it. When he first drank, “it started to affect him,” so he tried it again. Soon a spirit began coming to him, and he exclaimed:

“HÁ! ‘Coming-to-the-Village’ (’ankA na yAqagut da!).” That was the name of the spirit he thought he was going to acquire. The spirit came, but it was an evil spirit, and instead of becoming a shaman, he became “an evil witchcraft.” He started to go to the graves and to witch others. That is how it began—because he drank from a human skull. It was, we understand, from this first witch that all others were created through a kind of infection.

The association of witchcraft power with human bones is clearly shown in this story (see also p. 734), and seems to confirm Swanton's deduction (1908, p. 470): “It is probable that the bones of a human being were also employed in witchcraft, as among the Kwakiutl, but the writer has no direct statement to that effect.” My narrator denied that a shaman who simply made a mistake in his noviciate would become a witch. Rather, he would go “crazy” (insane) and die.

Swanton (1909, Tale 85) also records the story of an ‘AnakhIttan man of Killisnoo who sought to become a witch in order to seek revenge on his faithless wife and her lover. At first, he played in vain with the bodies and bones in two graveyards, but when he fanned and rubbed himself with two shoulder blades he fainted and was successful. He could fly by flapping the scapulae like wings. There is, however, no indication that he was supposed to have been the first witch.

According to Krause (1956, p. 200): “Witches, both men and women, are called ‘nakutsati’ and are supposed to have learned their skills from Raven while he lived on earth.” Swanton's Wrangell informant, Katishan (1909, Tale 31, pp. 134–135), attributed the origin of witchcraft to the Haida where two dissolute youths learned how to acquire the power from a slave. The latter told them to sleep among the driftwood on the beach. Here they were visited by a mouse in the guise of a fine looking woman who taught them the black arts. One adopted the shape of a goose, the other that of a brant. One man discovered their identity in a dream, but they bribed him to silence by offering to let him win 10 slaves by gambling. A Tlingit man who visited the Queen Charlotte Islands was told this story and repeated it when he returned home, “and wherever he told it there began to be wizards. Therefore witchcraft came to Alaska through the sons of Ay’yI and through the Haida.” Ay’yI, said to be a Haida name, was a cannibal at Yakutat (ŁAaI’k) who ate his brothers-in-law. Raven taught his sons how to avenge their dead uncles, by making a canoe of the dead men's skins, sewn with human hair, and a drum of human skin. When they came to their father's town in their canoe and beat on the drum, the entire town sank with all its inhabitants. Today, there are shells marking the site. Then Raven taught the sons how to restore their dead uncles to life. Although this last is clearly a different story, Katishan included it in his long narrative (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 89–91).

According to the story told by an old man from Kake about Djīyī’n or Djn, a female shaman (Swanton, 1909, Tale 42, and Haida versions), the first witch was a wild canary (s!s!) who made a chief and his daughter sick by putting their hair, food leavings, and scraps of clothing, together with certain leaves, inside a human skull. “Before the events narrated in this story people did not know anything about witchcraft, and the ancients used to say that it was from this bird that they learned it years ago” (ibid., p. 186). It may be significant that the story is localized at Klinkwan, a town on Prince of Wales Island, formerly Tlingit but later occupied by the Kaigani Haida.

Thus, except for some tendency to ascribe witchcraft, like all arts, to Raven, the Tlingit, including the Yakutat people, are inclined to think of their southern neighbors as responsible for witchcraft, as well as for much of shamanism.

The witch derives his power from a spirit (hixw). This is not a yek, like the spirit of the shaman, but “an evil spirit.” It may also be called ‘master of sickness’ (nukw ati), like the witch himself. In fact, there seems to be no clear terminological distinction between the man and the spirit that possesses him, just as we saw that the shaman (’i) could also be called 'spirit’ (yek) (p. 707).

Thus, as one informant put it: “Boss of sickness—nukw ati. They’re not themselves when they witching people. I can prove that,” and went on to tell of a case in which a shaman was called on to reveal “anybody's got witch in them.”

When asked for further details about the spirit, the informant said:

“I don’t know the name of the witch spirit. Witch is the thing that goes to the graveyard and handles the dead…. You’re not yourself when that witch spirit comes on you. You don’t even know what you’re doing. [This seems to apply both to the veteran witch and to his new recruit.] If you got a husband, wife, sister, brother, you just come to them. You see it in the funny paper nowadays. [Obscure reference to “Superman.”] Looks like a living person, but you got that spirit. You got evil spirit, you go to them [to bewitch them]. That's why they’re not scared of people that call them witchcraft.”

This seems to indicate that the witch acts under compulsion of the evil spirit possessing him to bewitch (harm or recruit) his relative. Because he is unconscious of his act, he is not afraid to be accused of witchcraft(?). From the context of this account, it would seem that the “witch spirit” helps his protege to defend his innocence if the latter is accused, by telling him of the tests which the shaman may impose.

Another informant explained the witch's spirit:

“That's dead people spirit…I don’t know what kind. They says some kind of spirit they got—evil spirits, they says. That's as far as I know. Or dog spirit, or something. Some people says if they witch with that dogskin, that dog spirit they got it. That's the way they says. And if they witch with that cat or someting, they got that spirit.”

This statement refers to the belief that witches obtain power over others (make a new witch), by touching them with a dogskin, dog's paw, or another part of a dead dog. The same informant also said that a witch might hit someone with a human bone. The body of a dead dog or the ashes or corpse of a human being were used also in bringing illness to someone. No specific instance involving the use of a cat was mentioned at Yakutat, but cats figured largely in the recent witchcraft cases at Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, p. 200, n. 56). Is the witch spirit (hixw) the ghost of the dead or the spirit (qwani) of the dog or cat, in the same way that the 'spirit of a dog' (ketł qU yek) became the familiar of the shaman utcda? Or is the human corpse or the body of the domestic animal only the medium by means of which the evil spirit (hixw) or power of witchcraft may be transferred?

The witch usually tried to harm others through their food leavings or “dirt,” and since it was often difficult for an adult to obtain these, the witch would attempt to obtain a young relative as his assistant. This was given as the major reason why youngsters were so often bewitched, and why witchcraft was likely to spread in the same family line. Thus, first the uncle might be a witch, then his nephew. “That's the way it is, one family.”

“See, if I got a witchcraft spirit,” a woman said, “my daughter's kids, my side [would get it]. ‘I’itqca ‘descended from you people, related to you’ [would get yours]. They give them that evil spirit. It keeps going in the family.”

The witch would seek out as novices and assistants the children in his own lineage. “They always wanted to get their own—mostly kids. That's why they don’t want kids to go out in the dark, because it's always in the dark [that it happens; cf. p. 508]. And the way they witch them is they use this dog pelts. They throw it on them. Or dog bones, something, they always use…. They just get unconscious, and when they start to come to, he [the witch] always tells them what to do, instructs them, to do something, mostly to their uncles,” that is, to procure some of his food leavings.

“They got dogskin and dog's paw—put it on you and it put you to sleep.”

Two girls at Angoon, who claimed to have been bewitched, not only said that they had seen a witch turn into a cat, but also testified that they themselves had been transformed into cats on several occasions when touched by a human(?) bone held by one of the witches during midnight rites in the cemetery (de Laguna, 1960, p. 200, n. 56). Association of witches with cats is probably a European concept, readily adopted by the Tlingit because of their aboriginal beliefs concerning dogs. The use of the dogskin or of the human bone, indeed practically all of Tlingit or Yakutat beliefs about witchcraft, are shared with the Eyak (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 207).

At Yakutat or Dry Bay, the witch might use “that people's bones, or something” to hit his victim. The one bewitched can’t tell. “You know that little girl or little boy, when they throw something on him—just like they sleep, you know, lay down. They don’t know nothing. After while, they wake up. They see that man or woman standing there [the witch]…. They don’t know what they doing, you know. When they go out nighttime, just like somebody grab that witchcraft spirits. They can’t help it, you know.” The informant compared the bewitched child to one who has been “saved” by the Land Otter People, and who has to follow them and becomes a similarly transformed person (cf. pp. 744–755). Apparently the bewitched discovers his condition when he experiences the feeling of attraction for the graveyard.

Witches, it would seem, appear to be under compulsion to congregate in the graveyard at night, and the newly bewitched is forced to join them there.

“When a witchcraft [the novice] walks out in the dark, he can hear them in the graveyard. And they always call him. Qada-’itsedi-qwani ['spirits of human leavings’]—that's the people that takes the stuff [clothing bits] from people. They want to get hold of them. Take it over to the graveyard. They say there's always big show going on over there. The new witchcraft just get helpless, they have to go over there…. That's why they [the newly bewitched, or those fearing it] don’t go out in the dark. They’re afraid. Whenever they go out in the dark, they can get hold of it [i.e., the witches can get the unwilling novice]. Whenever they go out in the woods, they always tell the bushes, trees, anything, what they do. Just like confession, so they get over it…. Wherever he goes, he tells anything—bushes, stumps, trees—he tells them that he's a witchcraft.”

Apparently this voluntary confession frees the unwilling novice from the evil influence. Similarly in a witchcraft trial, one who could claim to have helped a witch only under duress was judged innocent. As was reported in one case which perhaps occurred in 1895:

“She spoke up and told how they’d beaten her like a rag. She was a young girl and could go anywhere to get food leavings but the old people couldn’t. They wanted her to fetch dirt. They used to bang her around, knock her off the bench. utcda [the shaman] said she was innocent, because she said she didn’t want to be a witchcraft. ‘They tried to do it to her, but there's nothing of it inside of her.’ ”

In other cases the shaman might counteract the witchcraft, if consulted in time. He does this by extracting the tiny objects like quills which have entered the victim's forehead when the witch struck him with the dogskin or other object.

“’Ita; can cure it in the first place. When somebody hits you, you going to go to ‘ita;. It's right over there [center of forehead]—just like that porcupine's fur, that needles, it looks like it…. That Indian doctor can take it out [provided] it's not go in yet, this thing.”

This extraction is called wudułIawAq—”he takes away that evil spirit, witchcraft spirit, like they pull out fur.” [98] If, however, the quills have really gone inside, then the victim is “already a witchcraft,” beyond cure. He will then try to make someone else a witch like himself, and “he's going to go to that dead bodies.” A specific case of this kind was cited as having happened to a Chilkat boy from Haines who was visiting Juneau. Swanton (1908, p. 469) may also be referring to a similar instance when he reports that the shaman who has gone to his patient and performed over him, would then announce “who had bewitched him, at the same time pretending to draw out a spear, or something of the kind, from the affected part, while making a noise with his lips.”

According to Katishan of Wrangell (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 135), the Tlingit “also learned from the Haida that witchcraft may be imparted by means of berries. When women are gathering these, they do not pick up the ones that are dropped accidentally, no matter how many they may be, because that is what witches do.” This taboo was certainly being observed at Angoon in 1950, and though not specifically recorded at Yakutat, it was probably also held there.

Some persons are just “solid” (dUk), or impenetrable, and cannot be witched. Of such a person one would say: ‘the surface of his mind is impenetrable’ (tuwu dak dzI-dUk), “just solid like rock. Nothing can get into them.” A witch would see this quality and would not bother him. Nor can one persuade a solid person to do wrong.

“If he's solid, you can’t make him do wrong. If he's not solid, right away he's going to do it.”

This solid feeling is like physical strength (łAtsín) and is achieved through the same hardening exercises, icy baths, and similar activity. Thus the wife of a witch may be solid:

“If she find out, she's going to tell on him, and he's always afraid…. He can’t witch her. She's going to tell…. If a person is solid, if his feelings is solid, he's going to tell right away…. Some people he can’t do anything about them. Even if he try to witch her, right away she catch on, and she's going to tell them [the people]. Right away they’re going to tie him up, kick that evil stuff out of him.”

The brother of a witch or even his own mother might be solid, and such an upright, incorruptable person would at once denounce the witch. In fact, such an accusation of a relative establishes one's own honesty and innocence. “That way they can prove it.”

Despite the fact, therefore, that the witch and the bewitched accomplice are both victims, their condition does involve some element of consent or of moral weakness, and hence of guilt. All, even the frightened child with the quills in his forehead, must make confession to be saved. For the hardened witch such confession can only be extracted through torture. The evil must be beaten out of him.

Identifying the Witch and Destroying His Power

The witch betrayed himself or herself by many signs, some of which could be detected or interpreted only by a shaman, although any antisocial or abnormal behavior rendered a person suspect.

“If anybody did lie or steal, they thought he was witchcraft, and they killed him. They had to kill the witchcraft. If they don’t kill the first one, then another person would be witchcraft, and then another. Soon there would be lots. That's why they killed a witchcraft right away. After they killed off the witchcraft, then they give a potlatch to respect him.”

Grown brothers and sisters who broke the rule of respectful avoidance and spoke to each other “would go crazy. They would get tied up for witchcraft. A girl, when they mature and are not even ashamed of anything …that shows she's a witchcraft…. They tie you up for witchcraft if you talk to your brother. But if you have to, it's OK. They didn’t think the mission kids were witches.”

Persons who had sexual relations with a fellow sibmate or who were promiscuous were like witches. To be “crazy” is a euphemistic expression in English which designates the witch or one who acts like one. Thus the witch or the bewitched is “crazy, or fooling around…. [She] go around with different man all the time, never get ashamed about it. Even they get married, go around with different man. That's witchcraft. Never stay in one place with her husband—go around all the time.”

While actual incest would certainly be taken as proof of witchcraft, suspects may be simply those who “don’t listen, they don’t have respect of people…. That's the kind of people they no good, they says, olden times.”

A man whose conduct brought disgrace and trouble to his lineage might be called “a 'slave’—no good for anything. Sometimes they call them a witchcraft. They have no respect for him—kick him out of the way.” However, no one would dare do this to a true witch! “If he's a real witchcraft, and a guy kicked him out of the way, he [the kicker] begins to get ill.” Then the people would know that he had been witched and would attempt to seize the culprit.

The use of “poison” to harm another, or recourse to love magic if the user were a girl, are said to be characteristic of witches.

It should, however, be noted that the epithet “witchcraft” may be applied to the delinquent, antisocial, or no-account person without crediting him or her with occult powers. While a dreadful insult, such an accusation may be exchanged between persons in the heat of a quarrel.

If an important person falls sick; if there is a serious lingering illness that does not respond to the usual cures; if several members of a family are afflicted, especially if several babies die in succession; then witchcraft is legitmately suspected. The same might be the case if someone suffered a series of mysterious accidents, such as cutting one's foot, spraining an ankle, and then breaking an arm:

“That's witchcraft…. They go to Indian doctor, then Indian doctor tells who did it. Then they tie up [the witch]. Then afterwards they tell [the witch confesses].”

The shaman who was summoned had, however, to belong to a different sib from that of the suspected witch. This was because “the doctor in his own tribe is the first thing he's [the witch] going to work on, so he wouldn’t see it.” It should also be remembered that the witch and victim are, or traditionally were, members of the same sib or lineage, unless the witch is attacking his enemy through his wife or child. Therefore, the shaman should not belong to the sib of the patient; ideally he should not be related to him at all, and should preferably come from a different tribe. Probably this was the reason why utcda, the TłukwaAdi shaman from Dry Bay, seems to have been called in several cases at Yakutat in the 1890s, and why Athabaskan shamans from the upper Alsek River or Tlingit doctors from southeastern Alaska were consulted by Dry Bay and Yakutat people. While one informant maintained that a shaman could not cure his own child of witchcraft, another mentioned such a case (p. 743).

My informants did not report the practice described by both Krause (1956, p. 200) and Swanton (1908, p. 469) of sending a messenger to summon the shaman by calling to him four times in front of his house, although this was probably also the Yakutat practice. According to Veniaminov (1840, vol. III, p. 76), the doctor could hear in the tones of the messenger the voice of the one who had bewitched the sick man.

At the house of the patient, assuming it to be a case of illness, all the relatives would be gathered, and there, after being paid his fee, the doctor would summon his spirits and go into a trance. He would apparently attempt to cure the patient directly and also to ascertain the identity of the witch responsible, a person who was probably present among the spectators. The shaman also tried to discover the associates or accomplices of the witch. Often these seances had to be repeated several times before the shaman was sure who was guilty. Then the spirit in him pronounced their names, not directly, but in punning fashion, or indicated them by some descriptive phrase. My Yakutat informants did not mention that a live crab might be used to determine the witch, as in a case at Haines (reported by Dr. McClellan). Rather, the shaman himself is led by his spirit around the circle of spectators until he comes to the guilty one. Thus, utcda used to summon his Dog Spirit (ketł qU yek). “When the Indian doctor sends his spirit around to find out the witch, he [utcda] goes around in a circle, barking like a dog. He stops in front of that witch and barks like anything.” It will be remembered that the shaman Te-’ic used a cane called “Witchcraft Dog” which would point out the witch (p. 696). In a seance at Wrangell in 1878, vividly described by Young (1927, p. 125), the shaman yelps like a dog, pretends to haul in an invisible rope, and is led by this to the terrified slave whom he denounces as a witch, then falls in convulsions.

Then the witch is seized, and tied up, his hands behind his back and fastened to his hair, so that his head is strained back. Since he naturally resists and those who handle him are the husky young male relatives of the patient, he is usually badly mauled in the process. Strong women similarly seize and tie up a female witch or accomplice. The witch is confined without food or water until he confesses. He may be further beaten, and the rope connecting his hands and his hair tightened, in order to hasten the process. It traditionally takes 8 days, in some cases 10. Swanton (1908, pp. 469–470) reports that: “If he refused to confess he was liberated at the end of the time given, but not infrequently he died before its expiration. Sometimes, however, his friends interfered and bloodshed resulted.” Hope of survival or escape with out admitting guilt and incurring the resultant stigma, as well as fear that he will be killed anyway, even if he does confess, may explain why witches held out against such torture. Some persons were no doubt convinced of their innocence, or knew that they would be unable to find the witch's dolls or be competent to deal with them.

In addition to the treatment described at Yakutat, Krause (1956, pp. 200, 203) mentioned forcing the witch to drink sea water to aggravate his thirst, holding her under water until she nearly drowned, and then laying her naked on hot ashes, or beating her with fir branches and devilclubs. One of two girls so treated died, the other was later hanged. Young (1927, p. 114) describes similar treatment of witches at Wrangell.

While this torture undoubtedly satisfied the sadistic and vengeful feelings of the patient's relatives, it was also believed necessary to bring about a cure of the patient. This is made clear in the story of the girl who witched herself (p. 739). As explained by one informant:

“They grab him [the witch], they tie him up. It's not easy. When they tie him up, they cut a hole in his head [scalp?] and put devilclubs through it. Tie his hands behind him with ropes (dzas). If they [the witch] don’t talk, they claim they have lids, about eight of them, one above the other. So in order to make him talk, they have to knock one off another. As long as that thing don’t fall off, he can’t talk. He can’t until it's all opened up. Then he starts to talk.”

The eight lids on the witch are knocked off by beatings and by tightening the rope between his bound hands and his hair. Since the torture was apt to last 8 days, we may infer that it took a day for each lid to fall. If he did not confess for 10 days, presumably there were 10 lids. As to the nature of these coverings, our informant could tell nothing further. “It's just the way it looks to these Indian doctors.”

However, I gather from a specific case (p. 741), the number of days the witch had to suffer might be determined in advance by the shaman (perhaps because he could see and count the lids?), and that these days corresponded in number to the number of times that the witch himself had been bewitched.

According to Olson (1962, pp. 216–217), the witch or sorcerer has “eight ‘covers,’ like skins, inside his body. These are called duhtuyi’k ga’tkli [dutuyIk gatł’i], ‘inside him (or her) clam,’…. ” “Only another and stronger sorcerer can make these open and cure the person of sorcery.” No matter how much a witch might want to confess it would be impossible unless these eight covers were opened, and Olson tells the pitiful story of a witch woman who committed suicide because she was unable to confess, since the sorcerer who was working to open her covers was thwarted by a still stronger witch.

The concept that only another witch can open the covers, or remove the lids, is certainly at variance with my information, which clearly indicates that this was done by the shaman. Does Olson's information mean, however, that only the shaman who has some of the same power as the witch—one who perhaps has a dog for a yek, as the witch has a dog spirit for his hixw—can deal with witches?

There are also a number of signs by means of which the shaman can recognize a witch, while the latter attempts to use the lids to hide his identity.

“These Indian doctors can tell it. They claim this witchcraft, they have to cover their head. Mostly in the morning, smoke coming out of the top of his head—du CAki ee [’his head-top smoke-of’]. Sometimes it's hard for the doctor to see. Morning's the only time he can see them. Only doctors see it. Later in the day the witch sinks himself to the bottom of a pond, nukw ati ‘ayi [‘witches’ lake’]…. The Indian doctor can’t see him then. Early in the morning it's easy to see them; later in the day they are hidden in the pond.”

This “lake” is not an actual one, like that in which the confessed witch will plunge with his images to wash; it is a metaphorical one. “It just looks to them [shamans] like a pond of water.”

One might also deduce from the statement quoted above that when shamans attempted to discover witches, they held their seances in the morning, but Veniaminov (1840, vol. III, p. 76) specified the evening. During these performances the shaman apparently sees or recognizes in turn a series of witchcraft signs, each of which appears to him as a kind of water. “That's the way they look. That's the way these Indian doctors always find out…. It's the water, the one he looks through.”

The process is called “he is tracing the witch” (nukw ati ‘acu yEnatin), or “one by one he is tracing the witch” (nukw ati ya ‘acuyUk qatinin).

“That word [’acu], it sounds like you wash your clothes, then put one up on the line, next one you put up like that. He puts one up, then the next one, that shaman,” commented the informant.

Among the various “water” signs examined in this way was ‘Water-of towards-the-town his-name’ (’ande du sakw[?] hini). “He wants his name to be mentioned all the time. No matter what he does, his name's got to be mentioned. He wants to be noticed, to be conspicuous.”

Another sign was ‘Water-of to-the-end-he-tells-a- story’ (CUxIłnik hini). “When he hears a story he always add some more to it—people get in trouble, or something,” that is, he spreads slander and bears false witness, embroidering rumor.

There is also ‘Water-of desire-for-one-another’ (wucdatuwu hini), that is, incestuous desires. “That's the one not ashamed of fooling around with his own tribe's sisters, things like that.”

‘Water of theft’ (taw hini)—”Stealing is another sign.”

Laziness was also a water sign, but the informant was not sure how to say it (’ucka hini?).

The witch also “mumbles” and mutters (a tł'Unk), although this is not associated with water. “He mumbles. He don’t come out with his words. You can’t joke with him. If you try to joke with him, he gets mad.”

The witch also shrinks away from people (tu ya Utk). “He shrinks right away if you say something to him. Even if you say good things to him…. ”

The informant mentioned that there were many more water signs which he had forgotten.

These ideas were shared with the Southern Tlingit. Thus, Katishan of Wrangell told Swanton (1909, Tale 31, p. 134), referring to the first two Haida witches who learned their art by sleeping on the beach and afterwards flew about like birds:

“Nowadays a person among the natives who sleeps much is said to be of no account, for it was through sleep that witchcraft started. They also say that a wizard has no respect for anything and never speaks to his neighbors.”

He also explained (ibid., p. 135):

“The shamans say it is this way: A man claims that he sees a large creek. It is witchcraft. A smaller creek flows into this. It is the lying creek. Another creek comes into it. It is the stealing creek. Still another comes into it. It is the profligates' creek. All these are in witchcraft.”

The shaman can also detect the witch from the sound of his footsteps, a Yakutat informant reported:

“When he got his spirit on any one that's witch, it's like you walk on thin ice. It's like walking in crystals of ice. It cracks. It sounds that way to him [the shaman] when the witch is walking.”

Two Haida methods of discovering and dealing with witches were described. In these, mice were slowly killed, and as they died, the witch exhibited the same symptoms of distress and died at the same time as the mice (p. 739). The connection between the witch and mouse was not, however, explained, except that the animal was believed in some way to be connected with witchcraft. According to Swanton (1908, p. 471) mice are supposed to help the witch by stealing people's things for him, or they may go inside the body of a corpse or of a living man and eat out the inside. However, as indicated by a shaman's mask found by Emmons as Dry Bay (pl. 186), mice may also help the doctor. This mask represents the face of a man with figures of mice on the cheeks, and was worn by the shaman when practicing about the sick and bewitched. In this case, the mice are believed to eat out the secrets of witchcraft and of the spirits of the dead, according to Emmons' notes. The association of mice and witchcraft appear to be of Haida derivation.

The evil spirit in the witch appears to resist detection as long as possible. For example, when one Yakutat man was tied up as a witch, utcda confirmed his diagnosis by offering him a drink of apparently clear water (p. 741). The evil spirit knew it had been taken from a footstep and “told” the witch, who therefore rejected the proffered drink, and thereby betrayed himself. Although no explanation was given, one might conclude that drinking such water would have exorcised the spirit.

Finally, after the witch has confessed and secured the images of his victims, the evil is washed away from these and also from the witch himself, when he plunges with the dolls into the water.

WITCHCRAFT STORIES

The Girl who Witched Herself

This girl goes picking berries with her mother, and she doesn’t like it—she works too hard. Well, anyway, she had this evil spirit. One night she got up and she took that shoe and she took part of the heel off from it and took it out in the grave and fixed it just like nukw ati [witches] would fix it.

It was her own shoe; she thought it was her mother's.

Pretty soon it start to affect her. They ask her what happened. All she says is:

“GwA, ta hixwu da ga—’Well, just like praying to evil.’”

He [the shaman] ask why, what's happening to her. That's how they find out, she witched herself. She's getting worse, and after this Indian doctor find out she done that to herself, they ask her how come she don’t get it back [i.e., the piece of her shoe from the grave]. She says she can’t; she tried.

They tie up the witchcraft, and she can’t get it back [because she wasn’t tied up]. They have to suffer for it, I guess…. I think she died, I don’t know.

[The narrator explained that the witch must suffer before he can undo his spells, and confirmed the statement that if someone defends a person suspected of witchcraft, the witch cannot save him if he happens to be one of the victims.]

Haida Methods: the Woman who Witched Her Own Son

This woman witched her own son.

Her son was a great hunter, he gets everything that he can. And pretty soon he got ill. And they don’t know what's wrong with him, and his mother talks like somebody was doing that.

Finally they got this hewa [magic], called Dekina hewa, “Haida's hewa.”

And that there was a skull, human skull. And they caught little mice, those field mice [only one?], And they put it inside. And that little mice, that's going to be the witchcraft who was doing that, and they put it close to the fire, just so far away, and then this man's mother says:

“Now we’re going to find out who's doing all these things to my son,”—Just like she don’t do it.

So pretty soon they move it a little closer and she begin to talk faster and faster, and pretty soon they start moving it, and those little mice start sweating and moving around, and she start sweating, too.

Then she break down and can’t do anything. The effect was too much for her. Her son saw it and turned around and said:

“Go ahead, move it closer.”

And they moved it closer. The little mice died and she died, too. He got strong. He got over that ill.

…There's another one, [prompted by the suggestion that the Haida put the witch into water to drive out the witchcraft mouse, cf. Murdock, 1938, pp. 260–261]:

They put a mouse tied on the beach. And the tide coming up on it. And when whoever it was [was the witch] start running back and forth, just walk in front of the village, just keep walking. And pretty soon just dropped dead when the tide went over it [the mouse].

That's one of those Dekina hew stuff, I guess.

[The informant went on to explain a Haida method for detecting a thief, and while he was careful to state that the following case did not involve witchcraft, the means used certainly are similar to those employed by witches.]

There was a young man who liked to gamble, but pretty soon he was losing, and so he began to steal his uncle's things. [If he had told his uncle what he was doing, this would have been excused, even though the latter had not given permission.] When the uncle discovered that his property was missing, he wanted to find out who had stolen it. So they took some charcoal from a funeral pyre (qayiuzi). They fixed it to look like a man and put it in front of the village. Then they began to put little sticks into the eyes, and said they were going to destroy the face.

The young thief was sleeping all through it. He didn’t get up, he just covered his face, and at first they didn’t know what had happened. Then they discovered that his face was all spoiling. [The narrator did not know whether the magical destruction was then ended, or whether the young man's face was restored, but in any case he admitted his guilt.]

The Witching of adanek' and his Relatives

[The following summary has been compiled from many statements made by the same informant, 1952 and 1954.]

adane (1843–88), a Teqwedi man of Bear House on Khantaak Island and of Coward House at Situk, was witched to death by his older brother, Ca-kuwakan (1831–99). The latter was the uncle and father-in-law of Sitka Ned (see pp. 740–743). adane knew that his older brother was guilty because he dreamed that the latter had told him to shoot a sea otter for him in Icy Bay [and he had not done so?]. Although Te-’ic was the oldest brother of both men, and head of Bear House, he was, of course, not able to help. Apparently it was the Dry Bay shaman, utcda, who made adane dream of the witch, or else interpreted the dream for him. He also told the dying man that Tanu, another Teqwedi man (see p. 741), was acting as partner to Ca-kuwakan. adane had been a fine hunter of bear and sea otter, but his brother witched him out of jealousy, and also because he wanted to marry his wife. He first crippled him, so that the younger man had to go on crutches, leaning on his wife, and could hardly sit in a canoe. Later, his limbs seemed almost to come apart at the joints, he could not speak above a whisper, and could not swallow water.

When adane knew that he was dying, he sent his oldest son and his wife's young brother to fetch Ca-kuwakan from Port Mulgrave to Situk. For some days, the witch avoided them. Finally he accompanied them back to Situk. His face was blackened, and he was weeping, pretending to grieve for his brother. The dying man was lying by the fire in the middle of the house, with a gun hidden under his blanket. He intended to shoot his brother so that he would not be able to kill any more people. No one knew his intentions but the witch. The latter sat down at the foot of his bedding and took his brother's little daughter in his lap, so that the father did not dare shoot. Finally, the latter drew out the gun, but their sister stood right in the line of fire and refused to move. She knew that the sick man would die and did not want to lose the other brother also.

So the dying man threw the gun away.

He told his brother his dream and that he knew he had witched him by putting his personal leavings in the shaman's grave house at Guciné (as the site of Diyaguna'Et was then called). He said that he had been going to kill him so that he could not be accused of witchcraft and thus bring disgrace on all his relatives, and on all the Teqwedi. But he could not do it because the witch was holding his little girl. He made his brother promise to support his children after his death. And Ca-kuwakan promised also not to do any more witching.

adane died that night. But no one did anything to Ca-kuwakan.

When the widow had divided up her dead husband's things among his brothers and sisters, Ca-kuwakan again wanted to marry her, so that he could care for her children, he said, but she rejected him. At the potlatch for the dead man, his relatives gave the widow a lot of money and blankets. This made Ca-kuwakan jealous. He hated to see the woman become wealthy.

Some years later, perhaps about 1896, the dead man's 12-year-old daughter was ailing. She had fainting spells, sweatings, and palpitations. Her maternal uncles, suspecting witchcraft, called in utcda. The latter sent his spirit and determined that Ca-kuwakan was guilty. The shaman called the patient's mother and her aunt and uncles outside the house to tell them, because he did not want the child to overhear. utcda said that Ca-kuwakan had made an image of his niece out of her things and had put it inside the doubled-up carcass of a little puppy, tied head down in the water. He was going to leave it there until she died in a similar manner. utcda did nothing further, only cautioned the relatives to watch the same person that had witched the little girl's father.

Then the child's maternal uncles went quietly to the guilty man, their brother-in-law, and told him to throw away the witch's stuff and to leave the girl and her mother alone. Otherwise, he would be tied up.

The little girl recovered.

[Curious that on this occasion the witch could undo his spells without suffering torture or without confession.]

But Ca-kuwakan was still jealous of his brother's widow. [By this time he had become head of Bear House on Khantaak Island, after the death of his brother, Te-’ic. He was later to help his nephew and son-in-law, Sitka Ned, build Coward House in the Old Village, named for the house at Situk.]

Then the widow's second husband, another Teqwedi man, died (about 1902?). It was suggested that a witch and his wife were responsible. The young second husband rarely got drunk, but one night when he was intoxicated he made a noise going past the house of the witch. When the witch complained, the young man's wife lost her temper and said insulting things: “Can’t they lose their sleep for once?” That was why the witch killed this young man, her second husband.

Finally, this woman herself died (about 1912?). Although she was not sick for more than 2 or 3 days, her her illness was so severe that she had to sit with her head between her knees. She could not lie down, and if she straightened her head, her heart pounded.

Although the identity of the witch was known, no one tried to do anything about it. The dead woman had been so kind to everybody that no one wanted to make further trouble.

[My informant must be mistaken in identifying Ca-kuwakan as the witch responsible for these last two deaths, since he had died in 1899.]

The Witching of Sitka Ned

[The following account has been compiled from statements made by various anonymous informants.]

Sitka Ned, Qáctàn, who had helped his uncle and father-in-law, Ca-kuwakan build Coward House in the Old Village, became the owner of this house when his uncle died. He was living in it when he was witched. He just wasted away and could not eat. They had to twist his head around to the side to enable him to swallow water. He had been a skilled carpenter, but his hands were crippled, like claws. When they thought he was dying, they carried him into the Teqwedi's Shark House, and sent to Dry Bay for the TłukwaAdi shaman, utcda.

utcda came with all his paraphernalia, and went to Sitka Ned. He tried to cure him but at first could do nothing. He held a seance to determine who was the witch. For this performance, utcda wore his long hair hanging down, put on a crown of animal claws and a necklace of bones, painted his face, but went naked except for his apron with its fringe of rattling bones. He imitated his Dog Spirit (ketł qU yek), going around the circle of spectators, barking like a dog. When he came to the witch and his associates he sat up like a dog and barked furiously. He spoke, as if his spirit were speaking through him, indicating the names of the witch and his accomplices, “in shorthand like, initials in Tlingit.”

Thus, he named Tanu (Jim Itinisku), owner of Golden Eagle House, and Sitka Ned's own nephew:

“I’m the hunter. I shoot the spear but it doesn’t kill anything. Can you make that out, Itinisku?”

Also implicated was another Teqwedi man, En, an “uncle” of Sitka Ned, formerly of Bear House who now lived in Coward House; and Enk's pretty young Kwacqwan wife, Duc-tła, or ‘Pussy Cat's Mother,’ nicknamed for her pet cat. In naming the last, utcda announced:

“I’m the one, I’m a good-looking woman, but I have no respect for myself.”

He also accused a young Kwacqwan girl, CkIk, a “sister-cousin” of Duc-tła, who lived in Bear House.

utcda seems to have held four such seances, but it is not clear whether they were all held before the witches were named, or whether some were attempts to cure Sitka Ned after the witches had been apprehended. Perhaps it took several attempts to discover the principal witch and his accomplices.

It was Sunday (a week after the first seance), that a group of husky young relatives of the patient went to Golden Eagle House to seize Tanu. The latter knew they were coming and tried to defend himself with a sharp knife. But the men threw him down, bloodied his head, and tied his hands behind his back. He was dragged over to Shark House, where Sitka Ned lay ill, and was put in a corner behind a tent rigged up as a screen.

Tanu at first protested his innocence, then apparently implicated his confederates. “Don’t just tie me up—I’m not the only one guilty!” He named the two Kwacqwan women and En.

Immediately, the Teqwedi women went to apprehend the two female accomplices. They were dragging Duc-tła into Shark House when she suddenly flew right out of their hands, and the women saw only her red blanket disappearing into Coward House. When they caught her again, she laughed and said she had just gone home to take off her gold bracelets so she would not lose them when they tied her up. So the women dragged her by the hair and hands. They were not going to confine her, however, it is said; they just wanted her to confess. [It is not clear whether or not she was tied up.]

The other young woman, CkIk, whom Duc-tła had treated as a younger sister, did not try to escape. She confessed that her own people had tried to bewitch her to make her act as a scavenger for Tanu in fetching food leavings and other “dirt.” She had refused, and so they had beaten her. No one, therefore, thought her guilty, and utcda pronounced her innocent.

Eventually En was released. He had been willing to help Tanu and was believed to have taught his own wife, Duc-tła, how to bewitch people, but he himself had not done the actual witching.

As a test, to prove that he had named the correct person, utcda got some water scooped up from the heel part of a footprint and sent it to Tanu. Although it appeared clean, the thirsting witch rejected it, because his witchcraft spirit told him it was from a footstep. When this was reported to utcda, the latter announced that Tanu must be kept bound, without food or water for 10 days. Then he would confess. Because he had been bewitched 10 times, his spirit was strong, and he must suffer for 10 days. He would not die.

Duc-tła was, however, smart because she confessed (immediately?) that she had been bewitched so that she would get bits of clothing, hair, and so on. “Why don’t you tell it,” she asked Tanu, “we are the ones made Sitka Ned sick?”

Tanu was apparently confined, tied up, for “eight or nine days,” until he admitted his guilt. On the fifth day, according to an eyewitness, he seems to have wanted snuff more than anything else, and begged for a little.

It would seem that utcda continued his seances, trying to make the witch confess. On the fourth night, the missionaries, the Reverends Johnson and Hendrickson, came into Shark House to beg for the release of the captive. They cried, prayed, and threatened ultimate legal punishment, but the Indians threw them out. Hendrickson came back two or three times, but was shoved out the door. It was felt, even by a witness who was horrified and frightened, to be a purely native affair in which the missionaries had no business to interfere. On their part, the White men refused to listen to the explanations about witchcraft made by their native interpreters.

Finally, the witch confessed.

Then the Teqwedi took Tanu, still tied up, and EN and Duc-tła over to the graveyard on Khantaak Island. They did not take CkIk because she was not to blame, but EN had to go with his wife or she would have escaped again. The men escorted Tanu, and the Teqwca guarded Duc-tła.

They all went over in a big skiff: Reverends Johnson and Hendrickson went with them. The interpreter, Mission Jim, told the missionaries to row, because he was going to prove to them that there was such a thing as witchcraft, and that Tanu was a witch and would do something to them.

So while they rowed, Tanu was ordered under pain of death to put them to sleep. Although the missionaries both fell unconscious (until the witch was ordered to revive them?), and the skiff drifted a long way before the north wind, so that it was hard work to row to the island, still Hendrickson refused to believe in witchcraft.

When the party reached the graveyard on Khantaak Island—no one lived there then—Tanu pointed out the corpse into which he had stuffed his victim's things (da ‘itseti). His captors told him to get it all out and clean it up, that they could kill him, but did not want to harm him if he would cure Sitka Ned.

So Tanu ordered the young men to fetch two big sheets of spruce bark from the trees, one for himself and one for Duc-tła. These were pieces, about 24 by 18 inches, folded in two. And he also ordered them to make a hole in the ice in the pond behind the cemetery. Then, while all the people crowded close to watch, he went down a tiny hole beside the grave and came up with a sack full of bits of clothing, hair, and so forth, all from the people that he had witched and that he had buried beside the dead body. The hole was only 6 inches in diameter! He warned that no one was to touch these little dolls that he had brought up from the grave in the folded piece of bark.

He began to cry and said that he had witched Sitka Ned because the latter had refused to give him a bucket of water. Therefore he had fixed him so he couldn’t drink. He showed them the doll he had named Sitka Ned: it had a little bit of red flannel in the throat, like a swollen tongue.

Then he took off all his clothes and plunged into the lake with the bark and all his witch's dirt. When he came out of the water he left all that stuff behind. That was the end of the witchcraft. He was quit of it then. They didn’t tie up his wounded head until he promised never to practice witchcraft again.

Then Duc-tła vanished down her own hole, and all the people could see was her red blanket on top of the grave. [Presumably she removed and disposed of the witch's dirt in the same manner as Tanu, although the accounts were not specific.] The people made her promise she wouldn’t witch any more by threatening to kill her and to make her suffer as Sitka Ned had suffered.

Even though Johnson and Hendrickson saw all this, they still didn’t believe.

Then Sitka Ned recovered and lived for years after that, until he drowned in 1926.

Because Tanu was such a disgrace to the Teqwedi, his people didn’t want him around, so they sent him away to the “West Coast” on the next sealing schooner. The Teqwedi, however, gave him many expensive things. Even Sitka Ned and his family gave him a Chilkat blanket and a button blanket, because Tanu had cured Sitka Ned.

Tanu stayed away for years, married a West Coast Indian woman, and learned to talk Chinook Jargon. Finally he became lonesome and wanted to come back to Yakutat. The Teqwedi agreed, and Sitka Ned paid his passage. While he was away he had lost his two former wives, but when he returned he married another woman.

Tanu was still alive in 1916, when he was photographed with other Teqwedi guests at a potlatch, including his old uncle and former victim, Sitka Ned [pl. 214f]. He died before 1925.

According to some accounts, Tanu had been jealous of his uncle because the latter was a successful hunter and carpenter, while he was not lucky. They were both men of the same class, but Sitka Ned was becoming more wealthy. He had refused to give his nephew a sea otter pelt which the latter had requested.

According to another version, a man who lived on the Ankau lagoon where fish was put up, was also suspected of witching Sitka Ned. This was because the man was a worthless person. When the shaman sent men to get him and they called to him to come out of his house, he shot himself. He did this because he was a “witchcraft.” [The narrator refused to identify this individual, and another informant denied that any such incident was connected with the witching of Sitka Ned.]

THE MISSIONARY'S VERSION OF THE WITCHING OF SITKA NED

The following account is based upon what the Reverend Albin Johnson told Hardy Trefzger, former United States Commissioner at Yakutat. “Benson” is D. S. Benson, the interpreter; “Mr. Henderson” is Hendrickson, the missionary; while “Eetilishkuh” is the native pronunciation of Itinisku.

“The missionaries' hardest job was trying to stamp out the native belief in witchcraft, and often their lives were in danger. He [Reverend Johnson] told me of one evening when he and Mr. Henderson were walking home from the mill, they heard the most pitiful screams coming from the Chaad Hit, the Salmon House [p. 322]. When they went inside they found Eetilishkuh bound hand and foot and lying on the floor. The shaman (witch doctor) was dancing around him with a smoking stick in one hand and the shiashuch (rattle) in the other. Old Ned, another native, was lying naked on a featherbed, on his right side a black spot as big as a hat, and he was groaning. When they made the witch doctor stop poking Ned with the stick, the witch doctor let out a yelp. At that two natives came at Johnson and Henderson with a bear spear. Ned said something in Tlingit and the commotion stopped. Someone had got hold of Benson, who told them to release Eetilishkuh or they would send for the gunboat. After looking old Ned over, they decided there was nothing they could do about the black spot but promised to get some medicine for him.

“The next morning Benson told Johnson and Henderson that, the morning before, some natives had come early, wakened him, taken him and the witch doctor to the graveyard, dug up a coffin and opened it. Eetilishkuh had taken two rags from the right side of the corpse and gave them to the witch doctor. It seemed that to be able to bewitch Ned, Eetilishkuh must have had something that had belonged to Ned and had planted those two rags on the dead man for that reason. Eetilishkuh was very jealous of Ned because Ned was the better hunter who always got more sea otters and seals than he.” [Trefzger, 1963, p. 29.]

The Witching of unak[w]

unakw (1870–1938), was the CAnkuqedi son of utcda. When he was a young man, apparently about 1895, he was bewitched by Tanu, or by a relative of the latter. Unakw and this young Teqwedi man were out hunting and both saw a bear. They chased it, but Unakw was a good runner and shot it before his rival could kill it. Therefore the latter made him sick. This was what they said when they tied him up. Unakw became nothing but skin and bones, and his heart bothered him. However, after 3 or 4 days, his father, utcda, worked on him and he felt all right. The witch cleaned the dolls he had made out of the grave.

[This episode is told as if it were a separate incident that occurred after the witching of Sitka Ned, and as if the same man were guilty. The account may, however, have been misunderstood or the narrator confused. If Tanu were guilty of both witchings, that of Unakw must have been cleared up at the same time as Sitka Ned's, for there there is no corroborative evidence to suggest that he was tried twice and twice undid his spells. Furthermore, any suspected recidivist would almost certainly have been executed. Probably a different person was involved and the incident was carelessly attributed to Tanu.]

Witchcraft Accusations

1. In the early days of the mission, an old Kwacqwan man of Moon House was accused of witching the Kagwantan wife of a sibmate. However, the former violently protested his innocence, and while the whole town watched and listened, took out a sharp knife and cut his own throat. For some reason, not explained, this precipitated trouble between the Kwacqwan and the Teqwedi. To settle the matter, Situk George, Qayakw-’ic, was chosen as a peace dancer. That was when he obtained the name White Raven (Yeł tłd). My informants did not remember the name of his Kwacqwan opposite (cf. p. 603).

2. In 1919, “Larry,” a Kagwantan man originally from Sitka who had married a Yakutat woman, shot and killed “Ben,” also a Kagwantan man from Sitka. This was because Ben was accusing Larry of witching his wife, “Elsie.” She was only 16, but Ben was twice as old, which was why, the informant claimed, all their children died but one. At the time of the accusation, Elsie had just lost one baby and was sick in bed. Her husband suspected Larry because the latter had wanted to marry Elsie. It was jealousy.

After her husband was killed, Elsie died soon. Larry was jailed for a while, but was let off easy “because it's only witchcraft talk.” Furthermore, he was supposed to have used “dope” to influence the judge to pass a light sentence.

A cross near the road, where the creek runs out half way between Yakutat and the Old Village, marked the site of the shooting.

[Since witches, by definition, kill in secret, recourse to violence was a demonstration of innocence.]

3. About 1907, almost all the members of one family were drowned in the Alsek River. They were in two canoes that capsized. The only ones who escaped were the few who had remained on shore. It was sunshine, clear weather, and suddenly there came two waves (from melting snow up the river?), and the two canoes rolled over. Afterwards, the river was again just glassy. People wondered why this had happened. “It's hewa [magic],” they said. “Somebody wish it.”

4. One man was believed by some to have been killed by witchcraft, that is, by love medicine improperly handled by a young girl. She had put some of his hair and clothing with a root [the kind not specified], and this was found by others. Normally, when some one has used love magic of this nature, the personal leavings are removed after a time and the root itself is buried. In this case, however, people pulled the root apart to see what it was, and later the whole little bundle was burned. This injured the man and finally made him die of a fever. He knew from prophetic dreams that he was to die.

Since women are not supposed to use love magic, this may be why this was called a case of “witchcraft.”

5. Other accusations of witchcraft, about which I heard, seem to have been simply angry words, uttered in the heat of a quarrel.

LAND OTTER MEN

Fear of Land Otters

Land otters (kucda), unlike ordinary animals, are really transformed persons. If, in theory, not all are such Land Otter Men (kucda-qa), yet the natives, even today, are ready to behave towards them as if they were. The land otter is feared more then the brown grizzly. The latter “don’t do nothing.” He only “fights you,” and if you appeal to him for pity, he won’t even “bother you.” The land otter, however, is lurking to “save,” that is, to capture those who drown, who are lost or who wander in the woods, and such unfortunates are are taken by these Land Otter Men to their homes or dens, and unless rescued in time by a shaman are in their turn transformed into land otters (cf. also Swanton, 1908, pp. 456–457). Land otters are particularly apt to kidnap children (p. 746). In the last analysis, there seems to be no clear distinction between the indwelling spirits or “souls” of land otters, or ‘land otter people’ (kucda-qwani), and Land Otter Men (kucda-qa) Tlingit mythology is full of tales about these creatures (Swanton, 1909, Tales 5, 6, 7, 45, 46, 31: pp. 87–88, 142–144; Krause, 1956, p. 197), and everyone, myself included, has had some personal experience of a sudden or startling encounter with a land otter.

Tlingit mythology also has many episodes of persons who were captured and married by animals, usually as a punishment because in some way they had insulted these creatures. These stories may, of course, serve to instill the proper respectful attitude toward animals, but they do not seem to make people fearful of them. The danger of capture by a land otter is something much more terrible, perhaps because of the association of land otters with the occult power of the shaman (p. 678). Nevertheless, it is hard to understand why land otters should be so anxious to kidnap people.

The reason that land otters want to take human beings, I was told, was because people have killed them, and they wish in this way to obtain new members of their families. “The people are killing them off, so they want to make people suffer, to make even” (CW). That is why they try to catch anyone whom they find alone. “Land otters want to get even with people for killing so many of them to make blankets” (MJ).

Yet, it was also said that in the old days the people did not hunt land otters, did not eat their flesh (cf. Swanton, 1909, Tale 18, for the adventures of a Hoonah man who did), nor did the Tlingit use their pelts.

The aversion to land otter fur was due, it was said, to the belief that if one had anything of an otter about one's person, this would facilitate capture by the Land Otter Men.

This is made clear in the story of QakA (pp. 749–750; cf. Krause, 1956, p. 197; Swanton, 1909, Tale 5). Yet, in another story (Swanton, Tale 26, p. 62), a wealthy man from Yakutat visiting an Awk chief near Juneau, presented his host with “land-otter skins, martin skins, skins of all kinds,” suggesting that the fear of wearing land otter fur was not as great as my informants had given me to suppose.

That human beings and land otters are perpetually opposed to each other is suggested by another story (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 142–144). This tells how four boys from Klawak were captured by land otters when their canoe overturned. In revenge, the people made fires at the dens of the land otters and killed all but a few. After the surviving land otters had made war on the people, sending illness and injury by means of their poisonous arrows made of spider crab shells, peace was finally made. A somewhat confused story with a similar theme was told by a Dry Bay woman (pp. 750–751), but not as an explanation of the land otter's enmity, which was taken for granted.

I was also told that land otters may follow any canoe that appears to be in distress. One reason why they do this is because they think they may find crabs in the canoe, and “Kucda want the back of crab shells for drums.” According to Krause's version (1956, pp. 186–188) of the story of the “Land-Otter Sister” (Swanton, 1909, Tales 6 and 45), this transformed woman told her brother that “nothing had as high a value among the Land Otter people as the shells and mandibles of crabs because they make dance rattles of them. That is why the Land Otter people always try to rescue drowned Indians in the hope that they may get crab shells and mandibles from them.”

That crab shells are in actuality found at land otter holes is suggested by a passage from Gavin Maxwell's “Ring of Bright Water” (1960, p. 154) describing the burrows of otters in Scotland. “There is a lavatory at every otter holt, and the excrement (which is known as 'spraint,’ and has no offensive odor, being composed almost entirely of crunched fish bones, or in the case of shore-living otters, of fragments of crab carapace) often forms a high pyramidal pile…. ” If their own excrement has little odor, this may also explain why land otters are supposed to be so frightened of that of human beings (see p. 747).

According to Katishan of Wrangell (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 86) it was Raven who determined the habits of land otters as he did that of the birds and fish. He told the Land Otter: “ ‘You will always have your house on a point where there is plenty of breeze from either side. Whenever a canoe capsizes with people in it you will save them and make them your friends.' The land-otter-man (k’cta-q) originated from Raven telling this to the land otter. All Alaskans know about the land-otter-man but very few tell the story of Raven correctly.

“If the friends of those who have been taken away by the land otters get them back, they become shamans, therefore it was through the land otters that shamans were first known. Shamans can see one another by means of the land-otter spirits although others can not.”

After telling the story of KAka' (cf. p. 749; Krause, 1958, p. 197; Swanton, 1909, Tales 5 and 31, pp. 87–88), Katishan explained: “This story of KAka' is a true story, and it is from him that the Tlingit believe in shamans' spirits (yēk),” and also in Land Otter Men.

The land otter yek was the most common and powerful spirit acquired by shamans (pp. 678–680). I was also told of a particularly lucky, wealth-bringing amulet that had been made from land otter hair, but this may have been the only one of its kind (cf. p. 667).

Land otters were considered to be excellent halibut fishermen and it was from them that the Kagwantan shaman, GAgá’n, from Grouse Fort in Icy Strait, learned how to make halibut hooks (cf. 389).

Land otters were also believed to have some connection with the weather, perhaps because drownings, when they made their captures, most often happened during storms. At any rate, it was said that stormy weather, shifting to a calm sunny day, was the sign that Land Otter Men had been about (see p. 754).

In one episode of the Sitka story about “The Alsek River People” (Swanton, 1909, Tale 27, p. 65), land otters send an avalanche into a lake to drown the people who had spoken insultingly about their stuttering. This episode suggests the story of the destruction of the town in Lituya Bay (p. 276).

My informants agreed that in the old days no one wore land otter fur, for fear that this would put them in the animals' power, although otters are now trapped for their pelts which are sold to the Whites. “It's pretty danger to have the kucda [land otter fur]. If you have kucda around you, you’re going to get lost. That's the way they always talk.”

Nor was mink (łUkciyan) used in former times. “It is a low class skin…. Even today the Indians never wear mink. They’re wicked. Because they are the paddles of kucda.”

When the land otters travel, the skate (titqa) is supposed to be their canoe, and they use live mink as their paddles (kucda ayi). In one personal account (see p. 754), mink are represented as the children of a drowned woman by her new husband, the chief of the land otters. In another similar narrative (p. 751), mink are the slaves of the land otters.

Capture by Land Otters and Protection from Them

If someone is drowning and calls for help, the ‘land otter people' (kucda-qwani) are going to save him, it is said. Before he drowns, the kucda-qwani will catch him and take him to their place. They appear to him in the guise of his own relatives or friends, and the place to which they take him looks just like his own house. Here they offer him some of their food. But if he eats it, he can never come back to his own home again. He will go “crazy” and become a land otter. However, the shaman can “see” him and rescue him. This he does by holding a seance as he would for a sick person. He sings and puts food in the fire, as for the dead. “He put everything—seal oil and seal fat, and everything to eat—and putting on the fire.” Then the captured person does not want to eat the land otters' food. “That's why ‘it' put it in the fire, everything…. That's why he don’t feel like to eat [presumably because, like the ghost, he eats the food in the fire]…. If he eat kucda food, he's going to be kucda” (CW). According to Swanton (1908, p. 364, n. a), the fire serves as “a medium of communication between the two worlds;” that of ordinary men and that of supernatural beings. The shaman must act fast, before the lost human being has become irrevocably committed to the other world.

Many persons are believed lost to these creatures, for Harrington reported (1939–40) that about one fisherman a season drowns at Yakutat. The natives believe that they are rescued and captured by “khwałayeł-khwaanii” (qwałayeł-qwani) that live in the woods. This expression, which was not one that we recorded, refers to the land otters as ‘inhabitants of the point’(?).

Land otters will also try to takesomeone they find alone in the woods, to whom they appear like his own parents or close relatives, attempting to lure him away by imitating their human voices. Such a person feels numb and dizzy, and may fall unconscious (see pp. 751–753). It is obviously the person lost in the woods, rather than the one who has fallen into the stormy water, who has the best chance of rescue, either by the actions of the shaman or by the defensive precautions which he may take himself.

Harrington was also told about creatures, apparently some kind of animal or fish, that live in the ocean, never in lakes and rivers, and are therefore called ‘inhabitants of the ocean deep' or “khuyyii khwâannI” (quyi qwani). Since they “save” drowning persons by transforming them, I suspect that they are simply Land Otter Men under another name.

One sure protection against land otters is to carry something made of metal—money, a ring, a knife, a gun, any kind of metal tool, even a nail. If you have money in your pocket or a ring on your finger, you should put it in your mouth, I was told, because the Land Otter Man is afraid of it, and will be forced to “show himself” in his animal form, so that you are no longer in danger of being deceived by him.

“You go picking berries, you see something like a man or a woman. He don’t look like a native [i.e., White ethnologists would see a White person?]. Just put any kind of money or ring [in your mouth]—he's going to show himself like kucda. He want to take you; he make you crazy. [But] you put this in your mouth—you don’t make [become] crazy. The kucda, she's scared that iron, that money, too.” (CW)

“Land Otter Men (kucda-qa) turn you crazy, turn you crazy into their own kind…but not if you have a silver ring. You can put it in your mouth. Then you can talk straight. It protects you.” (MJ)

Or, to hold an ax or saw in the hand is also a protection. “ŁIta [knife]—you’re going to hold it good,” reported another.

In our version of the story of QakA, the cuts made by iron nails (not by dog bones, as in the corresponding version in Swanton, 1909, Tale 46) are used to cure a man whom the land otters had taken. “If he gets hurt by anything iron, he comes to himself. If you got iron,” our narrator added, “you never go unconscious” when you encounter a land otter (MJ).

Swanton (1908, p. 456) also explained that the Land Otter Men eat evil-smelling things (cAkw) on the beaches and therefore when they breathe on someone their foul breath makes the person faint. However, “if one put native tobacco, iron, or lead into his mouth it counteracted the influence.” This use of tobacco was not mentioned at Yakutat.

The Tlingit of southeastern Alaska seem to have used an infusion of hellebore roots (Ikc) to counteract the loss of consciousness or reason induced by the Land Otter Men, as is indicated in the story of the war with the land otters (Swanton, 1908, p. 143), and in the story of a woman who married a land otter (Swanton, 1909, Tale 45). It probably also figured in the treatment of a hysterical girl, recounted by Krause (1956, p. 188). The girl had encountered Land Otter Men in the woods and returned “half crazed and raging, she attacked everyone, struck and bit those who tried to hold her, and tearing off her own clothes, ran around naked. She even threw a stone at the shaman who tried to cure her by dancing before her with a drum and rattle.” She was finally cured when what I interpret as crushed hellebore roots in water were rubbed into four cuts in her scalp. The description of the girl's frenzy corresponds with what Yakutat informants had to say about the behavior of persons who had been captured by land otters, although they did not mention the prophylactic use of hellebore. In introducing this account, Krause states (ibid.) that: “All Tlingit girls are afraid to go in the woods alone for fear that the Land Otter people will seize them.”

Since Land Otter Men are known to be able to induce girls to have sexual relations with them (see pp. 750–751), it may be that this was what had happened to the girl described by Krause, or at least that this was what Tlingit girls feared might happen.

Dogs are a real protection against land otters, for not only are the animals afraid of them, but their barking will force the Land Otter Men to reveal themselves. “That's how you know they are kucda-qa. They look like human beings, but they are really kucda-qa, and a dog isn’t fooled.” At least two Yakutat men were saved by dogs from Land Otter Men.

Small children are considered to be in the most danger of being kidnapped by Land Otter Men, and are constantly warned not to wander off from berrying parties or to venture alone away from the settlement or camp (pp. 508, 509). Children were also supposed to keep close to the house, even when they went out to urinate. “My mother told us, ‘Don’t go too far in the dark, in the night time!' “ (MJ)

Young parents were also warned by their elders to keep close watch over their small children: “Sitka Jack, my mother's uncle, told my mother and aunt in Sitka. He told my mother: ‘Don’t let the kids go to the lakes by themselves, or go to washroom [urinate, defecate] themselves, alongside the lakes. That's where they [land otters] get them easy.' “ (MJ)

Children are cautioned that Land Otter Men may appear to them in the form of their own parents: “We were taught by my mother. If you meet anybody looks like your mother or your dad, get hold of their hand and bite…. If they were kucda-qa, their skin move like that [quivers], like live fish. They would turn into kucda then. They don’t take you away.” If anyone comes to save you, “bite the skin. If it's a human being you can tell. Kucda skin wiggles.” (MJ).

Children should be cautious of accepting food from such Land Otter Men. “If they start to eat the grub, it's the end! That's why my mother tells me, ‘Don’t accept food from anybody you meet!' “ (MJ)

Children were also taught to carry a metal object for protection, and because a crying child was especially likely to attract the Land Otter Men, children were cautioned to be quiet, or the kucda-qa would get them (MJ; cf. Swanton, 1909, Tale 11).

The child, however, who was fooled by the Land Otter Men would willingly accompany his unnatural captors, thinking they were his parents come to take him home. Instead, they would drag him through swamps and mud, through streams and lakes, and under the roots of trees to their den, ‘the land otters' home' (kucda ‘ani). This would appear to the child like his own house. According to one account of such an experience, at night the monsters would resume their animal forms, and the home appear like their hole.

If children are missing, the immediate suspicion is that the Land Otter Men have stolen them. In former times, in addition to organizing a search party, preferably accompanied by dogs to follow the scent and also to frighten away the kucda-qa, worried parents would consult a shaman. He would send his spirit to locate the child and to guide the searchers, and also to drive away the child's captors. This last might be accomplished if the shaman caused the child to defecate, for the unpleasant smell was supposed to frighten the land otters. In telling how utcda rescued two little boys who were lost at Akwe, the narrator explained (cf. also pp. 751–752): “The dogs found the first one 4 days later. The boys did something in their pants. They found the other boy a week later. The doctor made them do something in their pants. That dirt in their pants had a bad smell that made the kucda throw him away.” (EE)

Te-’ic also rescued his little cousin by the same means (see pp. 752–753).

There is, in fact, some evidence to suggest that children may even have been instructed to dirty themselves or to urinate if they encountered a land otter:

“You’re going to tell her to go to toilet, and he's [land otter is] scared, too. He don’t want to smell it. That's what he do, that boy in Dry Bay [cf. p. 752]. He do it inside [the den], that's why. That's what my dad told us a long time ago. That's why they don’t want us to go looking for strawberries in Dry Bay. Take the gun [for iron].” (JW)

When anyone, adult or child, has been rescued from land otters, it is necessary to remove the contamination—”all that funny stuff of kucda” (MJ)—from his body. This restores him to his senses and also serves to protect him from further capture. As an additional precaution, the shaman or another person will cut the palms of his hands and rub urine into the cuts. Urine is also put into any scratches which the land otters may have made or which he may have received while being dragged to their den.

Swanton also reports (1908, p. 456): “To restore a land-otter man to his senses live coals were thrown upon him, and after he fainted slits were made with a knife on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, into which urine was rubbed.”

Land Otter Men

Because those who die of drowning or from exposure when lost become Land Otter Men, one of my informants referred to the latter as “the ghosts, kucda-qa,” and another called the land otter spirits “their spirits after they’re dead” or revenants (hASdu yÚkwqahéyagu; cf. pp. 765–766). For such dead persons, potlatches are given, and at memorial feasts food is put into the water for them, not into the fire, as for the ordinary dead (pp. 536, 547).

Yet in another sense, such persons do not die but are believed to continue their existence on this earth, not in the afterworlds to which go the souls of those who have died ordinary deaths or deaths by violence. We know something about the Land Otters' World (kucda ‘ani) from those who have visited it and returned; it is essentially a den in the woods or on a point of land. Those who go to the home of the land otters' spirits will perceive it to be, as already indicated, like an ordinary house, perhaps their own home, and the inhabitants as ordinary human beings. Here marriages take place and children are born. Ties of kinship may be recognized between land otters or Land Otter Men and human beings. Among the Land Otter Men there are also chiefs or rich men and slaves. Peace ceremonies to conclude wars between land otters and human beings are possible (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 142–144), and both sides can also potlatch to each other (see p. 751). There are inconsistencies in the accounts as to whether or not Land Otter Men can be killed.

Transformation into a land otter does not apparently take place immediately for those who have been captured. Thus, QakA's aunt (p. 749), who had lived for a long time among the land otters, was all covered with fur except for her face, while QakA, who had been captured much more recently, did not have much hair on his body. His still human hands and feet were bruised, and his mouth torn from the land otters' diet of codfish bones (cf. also Swanton, 1909, Tale 6). This partial transformation from fully human to animal form is portrayed in shaman's masks that symbolize the spirit of a drowned man as a Land Otter Man with human countenance but heavy mustache and beard of bear fur around the protruding lips.

While Land Otter Men in general are considered to be inimical to human beings, yet we should note that individual ones help their own relatives. Thus, QakA's aunt helped the latter to escape and return home (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 87; Tale 46), in much the same way that relatives in the Land of the Dead have been known to assist kinsmen to return to the living. Furthermore, drowned persons may visit their human relatives and bring them good fortune. In Swanton's myths these are a land otter sister (1909, Tales 6 and 45), and a land otter son (Tale 7). An informant was given good fortune by her dead mother and father, who appeared to her in dreams (pp. 754, 759). Another informant whose son had drowned was said to have seen his ghost in human form. However, the Angoon Tlingit told me that the recently drowned might return to visit their village in the form of land otters, and cited an instance which occurred while a potlatch was being held. Probably the same belief was held at Yakutat. Some persons who are captured by land otters and who return thereby acquire supernatural powers and become shamans.

When trying to capture human beings, the Land Otter Men may assume any disguise. These may involve, as we have seen, the shapes, features, and voices of living persons, the close relatives of the intended victim. Since White persons are said to have been deceived in this fashion, Land Otter Men are presumed capable of speaking English. On other occasions they seem only to utter animal cries. “When the land otters talk we hear only whistles” (MJ).

In the last analysis, it would seem that the transformed Land Otter Man (kucda-qa), the “ghost” or revenant of the drowned person (yÚkwqahéyagu), the “soul” of the land otter (kucda-qwani), and the shaman's land otter spirit (kucda yek, or kucda qU yek), were all actually or potentially one and the same entity, that which one ordinarily encounters in its animal form or fleshly “clothing” as a land otter (kucda).

Present Beliefs About Land Otters

Despite the persistence of traditional beliefs and fears about land otters, they and their evil associates, mink, are shot or trapped for their furs. Thus, one woman who had been telling terrifying stories about Land Otter Men, went on to complain how a young man had borrowed her shotgun, promising to give her a share of his game.

“He shot two land otters and two minks. He killed the she one and the he stays by it. He comes up the same hole and looks for his wife. There were two minks in that old log there. He used my gun but I never got a smell of it.” (MJ)

When Swanton (1908, p. 457) was with the Tlingit in 1904, he found that “As among the Haida, belief in these beings [Land Otter Men] is deeply rooted, and persons are easily deceived by practical jokers who imitate the sounds and actions attributed to land-otter men.”

This would also seem to be the case some 40 years later, as is suggested by the adventures of a boy from Yakutat who was attending school in Sitka during World War II. There was a blackout and the boys had to be on watch at night against a possible Japanese attack. One night when the Yakutat youth was on guard duty, he heard something way back in the woods whistling at him. When he reported this to his superior, and the latter told him that he was “just hearing things,” the boy thought that someone had been whistling to tease him.

However, the episode admitted of a more sinister interpretation, since, later than night, at four in the morning, the youth heard a noise in the boiler room; the steam pressure was too high. He investigated and found the janitor dead of heart failure. He phoned for help and when others came, the whistling was gone. “It was somebody warning him.”

“People still believe that land otters take drowned people and can appear in human form,” an informant said. All of our friends were able to tell of personal encounters with Land Otter Men that involved a near relative, a parent, an uncle, a husband, a brother, a sister, a son, or a nephew. Some of these adventures had occurred to persons long since dead, others to those who were still living. A number of these stories were told to illustrate the powers of shamans; others were prompted by seeing land otters or their signs near the town, by hearing about our own encounters with otters (at Basket Bay near Angoon in 1949; on the ocean beach near the Ankau lagoons in 1952), or by the news that a child was lost and people were hunting for it (September 1952). Once the conversation had turned to the subject, one tale or experience was likely to prompt recital of another. The first mention of land otters was made by MJ on the evening of July 4, 1949, when I visited her in her house. There was a queer tapping noise outside. Although she said this was only the radio wire beating in the wind against the wall, I suggested that it sounded like ghosts. “Kucda, maybe,” she replied, and began to tell the story of how her father's little brother had been stolen (pp. 752–753).

After an evening of such talk, or when land otters had been reported in the bay or in a pond close behind the village, some elderly women preferred not to walk home in the dark unescorted. Yet perhaps their attitude was best expressed by the following answer given by one such timid woman to another who had asked if it were really true that land otters could turn into human beings:

“Yes, certainly. They say so.” Then after reflection, “If you don’t believe it, it won’t happen!”

STORIES ABOUT LAND OTTER MEN

The Story of QàkÁ

[The following version of the story of KAka' (see Krause, 1956, p. 197, and Swanton, 1909, Tale 5, and Tale 31, pp. 87–88) was told by MJ, August 24, 1952. It has been slightly edited to bring some explanatory remarks into proper context. The story was told to illustrate the activities of land otters and Land Otter Men.]

There was a woman who put land otter tail sinew in her husband's ear. His name was QàkÁ, ‘Man on Top.’…I hear people talk about it. I read about the rock in the “Sportsman Magazine.” It happened lately in Sitka….

That lady is crooked. She wants to get rid of her husband…. That woman wants to get rid of him so she can have a young husband. He's not so old but she's tired of him…. The woman went to work. She is jealous because her husband is going around with another woman. She got the cord from a kucda [land otter] tail. By fooling around like man and wife, his head was on her lap. She put it in his ear [in the hole for an ear ornament?].

So the kucda took him away, captured him. After they find it out, they have a feast over him [i.e., his relatives gave a potlatch for him]. He was rich man's nephew. He disappeared for months. They got a search warrant. Parties is sending all over [looking for him].

Finally he find himself. They go under tree roots, way deep. Three rock points under there. He thought they were the roots of trees, [but] they go under the points. [That is, the land otters dragged him under three rocky points near Sitka.]

They took him way, way out. Finally he knows it isn’t his home. But everything looks like his home. His father's servant [a Land Otter Man in disguise] came and got him and take him “home.” He's with kucda because he got that kucda tail sinew in his ear. He thought their burrow was his own home.

One afternoon all the kucda went out hunting, and the old lady in the corner whisper to him, “Come here. I’m going to tell you something. You’re my nephew. I got captured years ago.” Her hands look terrible. She's hairy all over but her face. “I’m going to put you wise to it, to what happen.”

He [she] took that thread from his ear and he came to. He's married to a young girl, too [a young Land Otter Woman]. He sober up. He get uneasy, cranky, get so mean. He wants to go home. Anything they try to feed him—it looks like they try to feed him with good food—but it's only codfish head and bones to pick at.

His mouth is all disfigured, filled with codfish bones. He always hides his face behind his hands. [The narrator held one hand above the other to cover her face.] His mouth is disfigured [gesture of pulling out the lips] from eating codfish bones and from eating that raw stuff kucda eats.

And he gets uneasy and knows they caught him. And finally he tells his [Land Otter] wife: “You tell your people to return me, or I’ll kill all of them!” But he can’t. He's got no feeling in his body as soon as he lifts his arms.

The head of kucda gets all his wife's brothers. His wife's brothers get their canoe together. He [QàkÁ] gets an order not to look up. He's got his face covered up not to see what kucda are doing. He's in the canoe, and his wife's brothers are paddling. Before the daylight they travel with him. So he knows. They sleep in the daytime, just travel in the nighttime. 'At skAnE! [’Horrors!’] They travel and build fire and camp like. Lunch is nothing but codfish bones.

Well, he knows that he was near to his home, Sitka….

They claim he belongs to ‘i's nephew [was a shaman's nephew]. ‘I goes in search of him. Sent his spirit to get him back. But the people all give up. They think he's in the woods or drowned. But every time the spirit tells him [the shaman] that he's alive [i.e., the lost man]. But being he's so close a relation, he don’t believe his spirit any more. So he gives up.

One morning they [the Land Otter brothers-in-law] overslept. Old Raven crow before they reached the water and that canoe turned into a skate. The four men that's delivering him home ran to the lakes in all directions—ka! ka! [or qax! qax!]—No more wife and no more brother-in-law!

When he comes to town, he don’t want to show himself. He's just taking things [to eat]. People hear him, but he don’t want to notify them. He either get killed or show his face. [Presumably this means that he would starve to death unless he finally revealed himself. In answer to a query:] They got no way to kill him. He just shows himself and everybody goes to sleep. The minute they see his shadow, everybody gets knocked out.

He gets so tired of it. They try to capture him and give him back to the family.

He fool around with their clotheslines in the dark—back and forth [evidently the kind on pulleys]. They can’t kill him, because they’re pretty sure he's turned into kucda.

They watch the clotheslines in the moonlight. Sure enough, every night when the people go to bed and sleep, sure enough, he runs it back and forth with his hands on the clothesline. Finally they get nails sharpened on both sides [ends]. They just go to work to try to fool him. If he gets hurt by anything iron, he comes to himself. If you got iron on you [when you encounter a land otter], you never go unconscious. They got sharp things on that clothesline so his hands got cut. First thing they know he got caught. He fell down. They packed him home on a stretcher.

His uncle's spirit is making him come to. Hismother's family is trying to feed him with their own food. No, he won’t eat. They got a tray (qéłà) of fish, but he just goes like that: he lifts it up and turns it back [over]—”a!” He push it away and hide his face. He sits by the fire, though. And he never eats. Just hide his face.

That's why [how] that lady make that man suffer. His body's covered up with fur a little, not much, but his hands and feet is terrible. He's bruised from crawling on the sharp rocks without shoes. Funny, it takes him a long, long time before he gets used to his own food. They get Indian doctors from all directions. They get precious food and put it on trays, and he just lift them up and say “a!” And his lips is just full of bones and all swelled up from eating codfish bones.

This was before the Russians came to Sitka. They name the rock at Sitka after that woman that done that trick. That's the name for the rock in the “Sportsman.” They ground the woman's face on it.

Sitka Jack [Katsex], my mother's uncle, told my mother and aunt in Sitka. He told my mother: “Don’t let the kids go to the lakes by themselves, or go to washroom themselves long side the lakes. That's where they [kucda] get them easy.”

The Girls who had Land Otter Men as Lovers

[Told by EE June 22, 1952. The original narrative has been slightly edited. It resembles rather closely part of the story of “The Alsek River People” recorded by Swanton in Sitka (1909, Tale 27, pp. 64–65).]

My grandfather was a boy when it happened. It was in DiyayE [or Diáì, on the east side of Dry Bay].

Two people got boy friend with dead Kucda-qa.

Two girls, wetedi [adolescents], stayed in the room for one year: just go around when it's bad weather.

Some holes in the tree are kucda holes. The girls sit on it. They hear some songs down there.

“Go down with us. You’re going to marry us,” they say by accident [in fun?].

The people hear it all over, those kucda. “Pi! pi!” [imitating the land otter's whistle]. The girls in the room were laughing. The kucda were playing with them….

My grandfather played with the kucda. [Does the informant refer to utcda, her grandfather's brother; or was her grand mother one of the girls?] No one can see them. They hear them and feel them and talk to them, but they can’t see them.

The kucda spirit go to those two girls. They called out “Ouch! Ouch! Don’t kill us!” when the girls grabbed their hands. [Or are the girls pleading with their unnatural lovers?]

…The doctor fasted. The fast is called ‘akaqanahin [referring to not ‘drinking' yA-na, ‘water' hin?].

They take the bark off the devilclubs. [It is not clear whether the shaman swallowed an infusion of the bark.] The doctor give the devilclub to the kucda [apparently reaching it around the corner of the house or room].

“ ’Aqut—we don’t like it!” So they went away.

The girls were unconscious.

We were going to kill the slave [for the Land Otter People, is implied]. The fathers and uncles of the girls made a pile of blankets and stand the wetedi on it. So they kill the slave. The next day they see two łukciyan [mink] outside. They killed them. These were their slaves [sacrificed in a return potlatch by the Land Otter People].

The kucda said: “Don’t fight with us. We’re going to do something for you. All you people going to go in the mud [i.e., a threat if they fought]. Now we’re ready to fight.”

The kucda tried to drown the man up to his hips in the mud.

The ‘it' [shaman] said “Go to the kucda holes—kucda ‘anikA [’on top of the land otters' village’]—to make a fire on it.”

The kucda said, “Don’t! We’re going to die off.”

But they made the fire and by this time the ‘angukci [?] burned down.

They take pitch from the trees with a small hammer. Put it together and make a fire on top [on the land otter holes]. Since then, no more. We don’t see kucda there till this time.

Two Little Boys Rescued from the Land Otter People

[A short account was first told by EE on June 22, 1952 (see p. 747) and a longer version on March 7, 1954.]

My uncles, my mother's brothers, two of them got lost. Kucda-qa got them, those two boys, in Akwe. My mother used to live in Akwe [with her] seven sisters, their mother and father, and those two boys….

Their mother goes picking strawberries, and they [the two little boys] go after her…. They got lots of berries. They eat lots of strawberries when they go on the Akwe. Just a little ways, you know, they go.

They meet kucda-qa….

After a while they meet their “mother” and their “sisters” [i.e., Land Otter Men in these disguises].

“What's the matter with you? Why don’t you stay home with your father? Kucda-qa gonna get you!”—But it's kucda-qa take them!

[The narrator explained that the Land Otter Men always look like the children's own parents, and that in this case they went so far in their deception as to warn the boys that the Land Otter Men would steal them.]

…Then they take them…. That's why they [the little boys] walked with them…. Four days they go around under the water and the trees….

…As soon as she got home, she [their mother] asked my grandfather—he's blind, you know, just stay in the house. She asked her husband, my grandfather, “Where's the boys?”

“I don’t know. They just play around in this house.”

“They go long time ago?”

They looking all over. Look long time. They don’t find them….

Two of my father's [maternal] uncles were ‘ixt' [shamans]…. My grandmother and (?) went to my father's uncle, utcda. He used to be a strong Indian doctor. He say, “Kucda-qa have those boys.” So my grandma gave him something to catch them.

“I got it,” he says. “I got it.” [He had found one of the boys.] But not that other one. He's far from the house. The youngest one, they’re going to find him right away.

“Take a dog. Go look for him. They got him in a hole, a hole under a tree.”

They look for him, all those people. About 3 days, I guess—I forgot that—the youngest, they found him. He's got those pants, you know, right down here [fallen down around his legs]. He make something in his pants. That's why the kucda-qa leave him. The Indian doctor do it like that. That's how he save him.

All over, you know, spiders and everything. (?) and mud all over. That Indian doctor made him to come to alive again.

The other one, 7 days, one week, he goes around. “The hardest, that one,” he says. “I’m going to try.”

Looking all over. Then somebody goes over there. She hears in that flowers, kantÁqw [lupin or bear root]—”mm-mm-mm”—funny. [The narrator made a low moaning sound.] In that, sounds funny, you know.

Those two women, they just look at it. After while a she hears it again. They give up already, you know, that boy. The little boy unconscious and rolling around. That's the sound they heard.

Then she goes over there. That little boy over there. Nothing on him, just his pants is down, that shirt off. All over mud and everything. [He had also defecated and dirtied himself.] Is just all over like that. She put cloth around him.

My grandmother don’t believe it. That boy—just white. That Indian doctor makes him to alive again. He looks different, too. He sure look different, that boy. utcda make alive that little thing.

“I don’t believe it,” I tell my mother. “Seven days he don’t eat. Seven days he's going to starve to death.” Sometimes I told my mother, “Maybe you just told a lie.”

They don’t understand it. It's just that Indian doctor. That's why he don’t die, that boy.

They got two of them. That Indian doctor take them back. They grow up. That Indian doctor takes care of them. He take away all that thing, kucda-qa spirit around them. That's why they [were] unconscious like that. That Indian doctor takes it away. [It was something slimy?] That's why they’re coming to alive again.

A Boy Rescued from Land Otters

[Told by JW, April 5, 1954. The narrator's father was Lituya Bay George (1854–1926), akA’ai sib. Possibly this story refers to the same incident as the preceeding.]

My father's uncle—my mother's father's uncle akA’ai tribe—same thing in Dry Bay long time ago. He went down after strawberries, his mother and his father, too. My dad told me. He just want to go down looking for his mother, and he stayed. Long ways, and he find strawberries. He's a little boy, about ten or fourteen years—I don’t know how old he is.

And nighttime—pretty dark. And he see his mother and his father. “What's the matter you want to come here for?” [they asked him].

“I looking for you” [he said].

It's kucda-qwani [land otter spirits] dressed like his mother! She takes him to his house—kucda house!

That time, utcda, he alive yet.

And he takes the same house to look like his mother's house and his family. Just like his family. [The land otter spirits] look just like his family.

That time he dies.

That ‘i put everything on the fire—seal oil and seal fat and bear fat—everything. All night. Dry fish—everything. All night he's singing. ‘I says it's to save him. All night he's singing.

In the morning he look for him. Everybody looking for him, and he don’t save. All day looking for him.

And he eats lots of strawberries, too, that boy. And he's sleeping this side his mother, and this side his daddy [i.e., between the land otters disguised as his parents]. Nighttime, everybody sleeping, just like his own house.

And he wake up. He want to go to pee outside, and he move this way [put out his hand]. And he feel like kucda feathers [land otter fur]. And he feel his “mother”—same thing. And he's scared…. He see good that kucda. That's why he's scared. He cry…. Morning, he don’t know what he's going to do.

And every morning, same thing, his family. [In the day time the Land Otter People reappeared as his family.] He [they] get up, everybody. They made a fire. He [the boy] try to get out. He can’t. And he see everything, nighttime—kucda. And he get up. He want to…we told it. [The informant was embarrassed.] That's why he go to toilet inside. And he's scared, and he's stinking.

Kucda scared. That's why kucda running.

He sees it, that kucda home [as the otter's den]. He tried to get out, he tie it like that. Stuck. He want to go out, see? [The boy was stuck by his waist in the land otter's hole.]

Kucda—he's scared. He doing it inside. [The boy was forced to urinate inside the hole.] Just one hole—he stuck…. But kucda, he's scared. He pee in that kucda house….

[Finally his family found him.]

He don’t know what he's going to do. He just grab his own sister. She found him. Everybody looking for him. ‘I try to save him. ‘I save his life.

All day they looking for him.

They took him home to tie him up. Don’t know what he's going to do. Just like he's crazy. He running for his own sister find him that family. ‘I save him for him. [This seems to mean that they had to tie up the boy, who was crazy, and who was trying to run from his sister back to the land otters, not realizing that he was home safe, but thinking he still had to find his family.]

The ‘i had to watch him. Just man—no woman [was allowed to be present during the cure.]

NéInte' Rescued from Land Otters

[The following account is compiled from versions told by MJ on July 4, 1949, August 24, 1952, September 4, 1952, and April 22, 1954.]

My father's oldest brother get captured by land otters out at Situk. He's about 4 years old. My mother told us, “Don’t go too far in the dark, in the nighttime.”

…His name is NéInté [’Little Green Paint Stone’], [and] SAqwantia-’ic. I think his mother was cousin to my father. He lived in the house at Situk with his mother and father….

When he was about that big [3 feet tall], he went out and roam around, you know with the canoe, and he keep on going so far away from Situk. And he didn’t come back….

In Situk there's a gravel spit, and ponds right close to the shore. He's fishing with a little fishhook and getting sockeye and silver salmon fry, little bits of fish, till late. All at once he gets disappeared….

He was playing on the gravel bar at Situk. The land otters stole him….

He disappeared pretty soon there, and no one knows where he is…. They hunt him. They been hunting him with that pitch [wood] off the tree—just like a lantern. They went through the woods, looking for him…. The whole village hunt for him, unEtkAnai and his own people….

And they got a doctor, my father's brother. He's witch doctor, Te-’ic. He's the one followed his foot tracks and made the kucda-qa give him up. Poor little fellow, he's all undressed, his clothes all torn…. My uncle's spirit followed the tracks of that little boy….

In just a few hours time the kucda-qa got him way up the Situk—halfways up at Goxotła’ak, “Deep Water.”

…He was found 2 days later, caught between the roots of a tree. When he came to, it was dark, pouring down rain, and he had no clothes on or anything….

That Indian doctor's spirit caught him. He go under the trees. The kucda-qa drag him through the roots. They let him drop right between them. He pooped all over himself and they don’t want to handle him…. That little boy, they let him go between the roots of a big tree, stripped naked, all soaking wet. My uncle's spirit got hold of him, brought him back. They sent a search party for him, and they all hear him crying, way up, pretty near the head of Situk. See how far that confounded things dragged the little one?

The Indian doctor just get hold of him. They have to cut through all the roots in order to get him out. If the Indian doctor don’t get ahold of him, he would have died. The kucda-qa would have captured him for good….

The Teqwedi carved a big tree with his own face there where they found him….

They brought him back. He had no food. He's just gone 2 or 3 days…. [The narrator explained that if he had eaten land otter food, rescue would have been impossible, and repeated her mother's warnings, see p. 747.]

The kucda-qa looks like his mother. It looks so natural. His mother went down to the gravel pond to pack him home, is what it looks like to him.

And they took all the clothes off him. He's just in his bare skin, and all soaked. And they must have dragged him through ponds and lakes. He thinks he's walking, I think.

Look what they did to my oldest brother! They made him think that's my mother, father, and uncle who came to him. [See the story of Łdaxin and the Land Otters, below.]

Łdaxin and the Land Otters

[This story is compiled from accounts told by MJ on June 9, 1952 and July 6, 1952. For another version, see “How Te-’ic sent his spirit to find his brother's son” (p. 716), told May 20, 1954. The incident occurred before 1888.]

My oldest brother, Łdaxin, went to [Point] Latouche, seal hunting. [On his way back, he was delayed by storms and had to camp on Knight Island.] The kucdaqa, kucda-qwani nearly got him.

He sleep under his canoe at Knight Island. He would hear my mother and father coming up from the beach. “My son, my son, we worry so much about you. We worry so much about you.” Every night. [The narrator imitated their whistling, whispering voices.]

Sometimes those kucda-qa, they would pat on his canoe. They were imitating my father and mother. He just lay quiet. He can’t shoot. When he gets his gun, his hands get numb and he gets dizzy. He could hear them patting their hands on the canoe. He was strong-minded, but he couldn’t pull the trigger.

Finally he wait until they pat the canoe, and got close enough. He put the canoe right side up [turned it over], and look around. He gets mad, mad at himself and at his imagination.

Every time he tries to sleep, they come around. He gets so mad.

The man in the story [QakewtE, cf. pp. 271, 272] imagines he sees the men coming toward him, but they disappear. It's the same thing.

My brother don’t believe it. He don’t pay attention when they tell him [about Land Otter Men]. But he sees it. But it's proved. If it wasn’t for my uncle's spirit [Agan-yAti of Te-’ic] he would go with my “father” and “mother.” The spirit was protecting him….

My father's brother could send his spirit a long ways. He had his hair down to his heels…. They asked my uncle to find out where he [Łdaxin] was. He sent all of the women out of the house. I stayed behind and peeked at him. He let his hair down. I was afraid to scream. His hair was alive and walking around. Charley saw it, too. [Confirmed by CW, who was listening to the story.]

His spirit said: “My master's son is not in danger. He is sleeping under his canoe. He has lots of grub. He has his canoe half loaded down with seals and bears.”

The ghosts, kucda-qa, packed his canoe down to the beach. They acted like his mother and father. But my uncle's spirit drove away the kucda-qa. He was too numb to shoot his gun.

The spirit said: “He’ll be home pretty soon now.”

He had more than he could pack [i.e., his small canoe was overloaded with bears and seals.] So much uncle went up from Khantaak and helped him back. We were living at Khantaak then….

Łagua [the shaman, Te-’ic] appoint someone to go get him. They took my father's big family canoe.

He [Łdaxin] nearly takes a shot at them when they came [thinking they were again the Land Otter Men].

[The narrator went on to explain how one should bite the skin as a test, and that a silver ring held in the mouth would be protection.]

My brother, when he comes back, he don’t believe in that or in my uncle's spirit. He's a big tall man, and bashful—just says, “Sh—, Sh—, You believe in that?”

When he come back, my uncle call a meeting. He feel everything on my brother's body. He rub all that funny stuff of kucda away from my brother's body. There was just him and my brother in the house, the evening my brother come back. And Skin Canoe George [the shaman's assistant]. He has to be there all the time [when Te-’ic was doctoring]. He answers the spirit. He cut just as many tongues as my uncle. He was there that night. All the Teqwedi were in there…. My uncles had already paid the doctor before that.

The next day is fine. They got so many seals. I watch them cutting them up and preserving the meat and oil.

The Drowned Woman

[Compiled from accounts by the same informant on June 22, 1952, and April 27, 1954.]

I lost my mother and father in 1907 when I was 11 years old, in Unao [Dry Bay]…. [They, together with others, were drowned when two canoes capsized; see p. 743.]

I always dream of my father's people when I’m going to be lucky…. My mother is among the kucda-qa.

One time, Lituya Bay George, estin, comes in from trapping. He is Jenny White's father, at’kA’ai tribe, and is just like my grandfather's nephew, my grandfather's younger brother (TłukwaAdi sib]. He was trapping for mink and fox and kucda. He put up a stick. They always got a stick like this: [a stake to hold the chain of the commercial steel trap, qata cUkA tAkayi]. And he saw two footsteps on either side of it, and there were garters on that stick….

When he comes home, he ask me. “Take off your shoes, CawAt-u, I want to see your feet.”

Then his wife says, “What's the matter with you? She's going to get shamed about it.”

“I just want to see it. I see funny things. It's just like your footsteps, those feet…. It's just like your foot, those footsteps.”

[The girl recognized the garters.]

“It's my mother's,” I said. “It's my mother's garters.” [I had seen them.] She put it in her pocket [before she got into the canoe.] My father buy it from here [at Yakutat]—brand new things. It don’t get dirty, you know….

[These were yellow garters. The dead woman had recognized Lituya Bay George's trap and slipped her garters over the stake so people would know she was among the Land Otter People.]

I dreamed in 1930 that my mother wants to see me. There is a big stump right by that house and she was sitting right on that stump. She gives me two minks.

“These are your two brothers,” she said. “Kucda ‘anqawu [land otter chief]—they marry me. Don’t think [worry] about yourself. You’re going to be lucky.”

After that we got lots of money.

My mother said, “I’m lucky. I’m married to a big man among the land otters.” The two mink were her children. This was the first time I dream about my mother.

A Girl Captured by Land Otters

[This account is condensed from versions told by MJ on August 24, 1952, and September 3, 1952.]

Since the Church is established here there is no such a thing as Land Otter Men. They believe in that stuff long ago, but now I never hear nobody make a complaint anybody disappeared—only they get drowned.

They honestly believe my 12-year old sister who disappeared got caught by them. In 1905, the kucda-qa got her….

[The little girl had disappeared from a log cabin near the mouth of the Ankau, opposite the present site of the ANB Cemetery. She had perhaps attempted to walk back to Yakutat along the shore for she was anxious to attend the mission school the next day. But no trace of her was ever found.]

People thought she was stolen by land otters, because when a search party went over in a big canoe to look for her, they heard people hollering by the lake back of the bluff on the east side of the Ankau entrance. They thought that people had found her and were calling to announce it, but all they found when they landed were lots of land otter tracks where they had been sliding into the lake. It was stormy the evening she disappeared, but the next day was calm and sunny. It's always that way when land otters are up to something.

Small Boys Saved by Dogs

[The following episodes were told by HB, SH, and ANH in conversation, July 20, 1952.]

When K was a young boy at Yakataga (1907–10), he was nearly kidnapped by land otters. The men were all out on the ocean, hunting sea otters, and had left all the women and children on shore. They were expecting a canoe from Yakutat with K's foster-parents.

The women looked up and saw a canoe with men sitting in it and the captain standing up. It was apparently landing, and the boy went down to meet it, thinking it contained his relatives. Fortunately, he had two big dogs, of the type called SAwak, and they went down to the beach, barking. And that canoe was just a stump! [That is, the dogs' barks made the “canoe” that the land otter “relatives” were using turn back into a stump. It is not clear what happened to the land otters.]

This happened twice. The people on shore were frightened, but the dogs saved them.

[About 1930?], S and another man were out at Situk fish camp. One day, G (born 1928), the little nephew of S, accompanied his uncle and the other man to the beach, where they were tending their gill net. When they returned to camp, the mother asked them where G was. The men said they thought he’d come back to camp ahead of them. But since he wasn’t there, they knew he must be back on the beach. It's half tide coming in on the beach already. They both ran.

The dogs had been under the house but they passed the men, going full tilt.

The men could hear the little boy talking to someone ahead of them. He looked like Henry Shada (1865?-1935?), the boy's paternal “uncle”. But when the dogs jumped on him, he turned into a land otter and ran away!

Just last year [1951], G was reminiscing about this experience and told S that he really thought he was talking to Henry Shada until the dogs came and scared the land otter away. He has been thinking about this thing that happened to him when he was a little boy, and now he knows that the dogs saved him.

Two Boys Lost in the Woods

[Edited from an account by CW and JW, April 5, 1954.]

One night in 1940, two small boys from Yakutat, (J and E) went after school into the forest to get wood. They both became lost, didn’t know which way to go, and walked around in circles. One held an ax, the other a crosscut saw. That's why they didn’t go crazy. That's why the kucda were scared.

They were walking all night. Sometimes they were walking way down on the beach. But they came back to the same place.

It was in the fall. All night people were looking for them. They tried shooting, but the boys didn’t hear.

In the morning they came to the ocean, and were found on the other side of the mouth of the Ankau. They didn’t know what was the matter. When they tried to come home, they just went on the ocean beach. That's how kucda fools people.

They had a hard time that night, those two boys. But the land otters didn’t get them because they held onto the ax and the saw.

Adventures of White Men With Land Otter Men

[The following is from a letter to me, December 22, 1955.]

[Two men drowned near Knight Island in a big storm, November 17, 1955.]

Big Bill E that lives across by Ben T [near the head of Monti Bay] also capsized; was lost on his way to Yakutat from Situk. He left on his own skiff, 15-horsepower outboard motor, and was lost out on the big ocean. Three days after the big storm, one of the boys, Butch, went out on his plane, searching, and he saw him rolling around on the sand beach of Point Manby. No skiff. Butch was landed by him and trying to help him up to the plane. Bill refused to go. He saw so many slim mans around him. He saw them himself. Those slim mens were talking excited. That was Land Otter Men. His story's so interesting. He saw pretty looking girl, too. He even see big truck come by to pick him up, but he refuse to go or refuse to talk to them. He even saw his skiff dry up and later smashed by the slim men. When he was picked up by plane, his skiff just disappeared.

I heard Gil S [another White man] saw the same things when his skiff capsized with him two summers ago. He saw a skiff rushing to him but didn’t reach him. Only one big land otter there.

Looks like Bill is out of his mind when he was first brought out….

The Tlingit Individual

For the Tlingit, the individual person is apparently conceived as made of or having three aspects: the body; a virtually sexless, immortal spirit or soul which is reincarnated in a series of bodies, yet leaves behind some ghostly essence with the corpse; and the name or names which indicate and also establish personal identity.[99]

This identity involves membership in lineage and sib, by virtue of which the individual is allied through totemic “kinship” bonds with animals, birds, and fish. The role he plays as a person is determined by all of these factors, including his social status which is in part controlled by his own acts. The exact nature of these different aspects of the person have probably never been clearly conceptualized by the Tlingit themselves, and the relationships between them never consistently formulated. Today, of course, it is exceedingly difficult to recover aboriginal notions uncontaminated by Christian doctrine or Western science, and if I appear to draw too heavily upon mythological examples and linguistic expressions in attempting to elucidate native ideas, it is because my most thoughtful informants themselves cited such material in answer to philosophical questions, and because traditional myth and legend have actually colored the personal experiences of many still living.

THE BODY

Man's body is, in essence, the covering of the spirit or “soul” which the latter leaves behind permanently in death and may leave temporarily in coma. We do not know exactly what occurs in sleep, since information is equivocal.

There is no simple word for the body as a whole. Rather, one calls one's body as ‘me around blanket’(?), or ‘my surrounding flesh’(?) (’a da tł'íyI).[1] The terms for ‘flesh’ and ‘blanket’ are phonetically so similar that I could not be sure of distinguishing them. In myth, furthermore, the bodies of the animals are the fur blankets they wore in their earlier human form. Another term for ‘my body’ is ‘my outer side’ (’a da), as in the expression ‘my body twitches’ (’a da łI-hAtc). This word is comparable to the term for the bark on a tree, or ‘covering of a tree’ (’as dai).[2] There are also separate terms for corpse, hide taken from the carcass, and for bark of various kinds when stripped from the trees.

When asked about the body, one informant explained: “The Bible says our spirit house is our body. That's the way my mother's grandfather's brother says: That's a house he wants to go in.” This is a reference to the experience of łxakunik who “died” when a little boy but returned from the Land of the Dead. At first he was unable to reenter his body. “Then he gives up. He stand in a corner,” that is, outside the corner of his “house” or body. And then suddenly he found himself inside, and so came back to life. The symbolism is a double one, for the “corner of the house” also represented the special opening made in the corner of the house through which the corpse is carried out, in order not to use the door. (See the Story of łxakunik, pp. 775–776.)

The same informant used a similar metaphor in telling about a fainting spell:

“My daughter, L-, is unconscience all night. She tell me [when later describing her experience] they [she?] open a window in the place. That's their body. That's the way the body looks to the spirit. Our spirit's house is body, like Bible tells us…. The body is the house of the spirit. L—[in her coma] opens that window. ‘Nobody inside our house,' she says. She can’t open the window [i.e., far enough to enter]. After a while she gives up. She stand in the corner,” and thereby reentered her body and returned to consciousness. A few months later she died.

The metaphor of the house was also applied to the shaman's body when it was entered by his familiar spirit (yek):

“Some people say it's just like looking through that window, how you can't see very good out of it. Sometimes that's the way you see. He can't see either. He says, “Ucke—I wonder.' He's not sure inside…. The yek speaks in him.”

The shaman's own “soul” may also leave his body and journey to far places. He “comes alive again” when his “soul” returns, and he then reports what he has seen (pp. 703–704). Yet his body, too, is involved in some way, for the Yakutat shaman and his wife whose “souls” visited the land of the Tsimshian were clutching Tsimshian berries in their hands when they returned to life (p. 711). Sometimes the temporary “death” of the shaman marks his initial acquisition of power(p. 713).

The living body itself could suffer transformations during some supernatural adventures, as when the captive of the Land Otter Men sees fur growing on his skin and his nails turning into animal claws (p. 748). The witch, too, may assume animal form (pp. 731–732), just as in myth time animals could doff and resume their hairy “blankets.” The witch's body also had the extraordinary ability to move in a flash or to change in size (p. 731). Conversely, wounds or mutilations of the body in life, or the rotting of the corpse, may be reflected in the appearance of the ghost or of the new body entered by the reincarnated soul.

Sleep and Dreams

Normal sleep (ta) was also conceived as something like death. In fact, ‘he's sleeping’ or ‘he's falling asleep’ is expressed as ‘by sleep he was killed’ (tate 'uwadjAq).[3] There is also the saying: 'sleep lives face to face with death’ (naná kika 'aya 'u ta).

“That's sleep, sleep living right face-to-face with the dead. If a person sleeps too much he's bringing himself closer to death. I think they had a limit to how long they had [were allowed] to sleep, too. If they yawn too much they want to go there…because in the dead people's village, anybody yawning, they [the dead] always say, ‘A person wants to come.’”

I am not, however, sure that the soul or spirit leaves the body in sleep, although it would appear that the dreamer may actually be visited by the spirits of those who have died, or who are about to be reborn, and others may also dream about someone who is being reincarnated in a baby. One who is being witched may dream of the person who is injuring him, but it is not clear that the witch is doing this by means of the dream. Rather, the dream reveals the triumphant face of the witch, mocking the victim, and this foretells death. Sometimes a shaman who has been consulted by the sick person may “put” the witch's spirit into the patient's dream (djun) or sleep: ‘Your sleep inside his spirit will be’ (’itayi tudE du yAkwqwahéyagu qUqati), the shaman would say. In this way the victim knows who is guilty, or the shaman may interpret the dream and name the witch. Dreams of this kind are considered as sufficient evidence to justify action: I know of one dying man who tried to shoot his own brother because a dream had revealed this brother as the witch who was killing him (p. 740). Forewarned by the dream, a shaman may be able in some cases to thwart the witch.

That there may be other methods of dealing with dreams that bring misfortune is suggested by the report made by a widow about the dreams her husband had had shortly before his death. “Other bad dreams he could kill by talking them into a glass jar in the morning.” Or, in his dream, he had been able to kill the animals that were pursuing him. However, in one of the last dreams, he was chased up the outside of the house by a lot of pigs who took away the ladder and left him hanging by his hands. The head pig then turned into the witch woman. “Where's your wife? Aren't you going to come down?” she taunted. “You're going to stay up there forever.” He woke screaming, and died the next week. Here we can again see the obvious symbolism of the house which he cannot reenter.

The same meaning is to be read into a dream in which the widow saw her recently deceased husband who still seemed to be alive but was prophesying his own death. In the dream he held her hand, as he had often done in life, and said: “M—, in the first place, I tell you that wind's going to be a March wind, a strong wind. That's why all my things, I pack them away, take all my boats ashore. It is always a strong wind in March.” In her dream she saw the wind blowing something (shingles) from the roof, and he pounded it with his hand to fix it. “M—, you always get sorry about things. That's why I don't want to tell you. Some pieces are rotting from our house,” he said. “Some pieces are rotting from our house.”

Some dreams about a dead person's spirit, especially if he had been mean in life, pressage death or other misfortune.

“But I don’t dream about my mother or father that way. [They were dead.] I dream them for good luck…. My mother I always dream when I’m going to have good luck.” And the same informant said on another occasion: “I always dream my father's people—then I’m going to be lucky. In one dream, my father is coming through the door. ‘You're going to be lucky’. he said. ‘You're not going broke. Your father's side is going to take care of you.’’’

“If you descended from Indian doctor, if you got Indian doctor spirit, that's the time you dream good, you know. It's coming true.”

I have already noted how artistic inspiration may come in the form of a dream (p. 576).

To dream about an adult as a child means that he will get sick: it is implied that he will die and be reborn (MJ). To see a living person in the company of a dead person also seems to be a sign that the former will die, another told me, and to dream of an absent friend means that he is returning. “When you handle fish in a dream that means good luck. The spirit of money is coming to you—like silver scales.” (MJ) Several dreams of this kind were recorded. For example, a widow repeatedly dreamed that her dead husband came to her with a king salmon in each hand, telling her that he was bringing her good luck. Then something good always happened (see also p. 720).

Thus it would appear that some dreams, if not all, are to be considered as experiences of the self, even though it is never made completely clear what portion of the dreamer's person is involved. He does not appear to leave his body when dreaming, yet the dream seems to affect it. It is more likely that it is the spirits or souls of others, even the “spirit of money,” that enter into his dream or sleep. Thus one could say about the dream of the witch which the shaman had induced: “someone put his spirit into my sleep” (du yAwqwahé- yagu à tayi tut wuduwatÍ—‘his spirit my sleep into someone put’).

However, the dreamer's own activities in his dream may be as decisive as what he might do in waking life. Thus, a widow dreamed that her dead husband wished her to go with him to Juneau. She went on board the steamer, but as she sat in the cabin she remembered that there would be no one to care for their children. The ship was already moving from the dock when she jumped ashore. As she was hurrying home, her husband overtook her. “C—, why did you go away? I was only going to take you to Juneau for a few days.” Although my informant did not offer an interpretation of this dream, I believe that the Juneau steamer was a symbolic counterpart of the “Disease Boat” (see p. 769), and had she sailed on it, she would have died. To remember one's children and one's obligation to them is a theme appearing in other accounts of return from the dead. This seems to be the traditional motive for living.

Body Parts and Functions

Although I secured the terms for many parts of the body, I was not able to explore the full extent of Tlingit knowledge about anatomy and physiology. It is my impression that the Tlingit in general have a far less accurate understanding of such matters than, for example, the Eskimo, and I have already (de Laguna, 1960, p. 16) suggested that the conventionalizations of their highly symbolic art may indicate a lack of interest in anatomical detail, or even have hindered accurate perception. Yet midwives were certainly skilled, and since post mortem operations were performed to remove the baby from a woman who had died in childbirth (p. 535), we may assume that there was a good deal of practical lore. Surgical and medical procedures in treating wounds, burns, and other sores have been described (pp. 655–659).

In magical and ceremonial ritual, a part of the body may stand for the whole or retain a mystic connection with it even when detached. Thus the treatment of the afterbirth, umbilical cord, and nail parings of a child can affect the development of character and skills (pp. 506–507), and nails, hair, bits of clothing (with the body's sweat upon them), or the crumbs from the mouth may be used as witch's dirt to cause sickness or death (pp. 730–731). At the same time, specific parts of the body are considered to have specific functions or powers.

The effluvia of the body have a special potency. One informant as a child saw her grandfather use mucus (cAtItc) to kill a big mud shark, which he had unintentionally caught on a halibut hook. “If you club that shark, it never die. But blow your nose and throw snot at his face and he die right away.” (MJ; p. 391.) Human urine (kwAs) and excrement (hatł’) are protection against the mysterious and terrible Land Otter People, since these creatures cannot endure the smell (pp. 747, etc.). Furthermore, mountain or glacier spirits that are attracted by the savory odors of cooking food are afraid of the smell made by burning old clothes, probably because of the human sweat clinging to them. It was denied that these had to be bloody rags.

Menstrual blood and childbirth discharges were, of course exceedingly potent, and so repellent to animals fish, and spirits that menstruants and parturients had to bo isolated from men and from their hunting and fishing gear, and especially from shamans and their paraphernalia. Such women were also prohibited from approaching salmon streams because their presence was thought to contaminate the water (pp. 501, 528, 659).[4] As far as I know, however, no use was made of such discharges to drive away evil spirits or to cause death by witchcraft.[5] Because of the contamination involved in physiological functions, eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse were either completely prohibited or avoided as far as possible, and the body cleansed inside and out, before something dangerous or uncertain was undertaken.

Life was associated with breathing (yÁ-sà, Boas 1917, p. 138) or breath (du segu). This is illustrated by the words of the song by Dry Bay George (1954, 6-2-G; p. 1298): ‘The world is turning with our breath [or life]’ (hada segu, or tu yadasekw). A feather might be laid on the lips of a moribund person, and when it ceased to move this showed that he had died. When he took his last breath the door of the house was supposed to be opened to facilitate the departure of his spirit. There seems also to be a native expression, “It's in the breath,” to indicate inherited family resemblances. Here, the term also implies, I believe, the notion of the personal name (also designated by the same root, -sa), since the name is inherited along with the reincarnated spirit.

The body is conceptualized in terms of eight bones (or joints) which symbolize the living person as a whole. These bones were said to be counted “from the head down,” but were enumerated by MJ in what appeared to be a sunwise order as: R forearm, R upper arm, L upper arm, L forearm, L thigh, L lower leg, R lower leg, R thigh.

It should be noted that the femur is designated as ‘the bone inside his thigh’ (du kac tu aqe), and the humerus as ‘the bone inside his upper arm’ (du ik tu aqe). The radius and ulna are treated as a single bone, ‘the bone inside his hand’ (du djm tu qe), while the tibia and fibula combined are ‘the bone inside his shin’ (du i tu aqe). This method of “counting” is facilitated by the fact that Tlingit nouns have no plural form, yet it also suggests a fine disregard for anatomical detail.

Another informant listed the joints, even though she spoke of “eight bones.” These were: L elbow, L shoulder, R shoulder, R elbow, R hip, R knee, L knee, and L hip. (‘Elbow’ t'iycu; 'shoulder’ íkcÁ, ‘hip’ kac or qac, ‘knee,’ kícÁ.) In this case also, it was specified that one should begin with the left side.

A third informant insisted: “It's the bones not the joints. ‘Eight bones’ (nEkAducu q)…. You see that eight. The reason why they have limit to that eight [for ceremonial or magical acts] is the bones on the limbs. That's why when they stop eating, it's got to be 8 days. It's always eight; everything's eight. The rules come from the human limb, I guess. Four in the leg and four in the arm.”

The eight-fold symbolism of the bones is ritually manipulated to secure reincarnation, and I have already noted its importance in the magical exercises and abstinences of the adolescent, the widowed, the peace hostage, and the shamanistic novice, and even in the number of house-building potlatches attempted by the chief.

In other contexts the head or face was the most important part of the body. For example, it received the most adornment, with hat or headdress, mask or face paint, usually representing the sib or lineage crest. There were ornaments in the hair, nose, ears, lips, and about the neck, depending upon the sex and the occasion. The hair was cut or singed off in mourning (except that of a shaman and his wife). After death, the heads and scalps, at least of distinguished persons, and especially of chiefs and warriors slain in battle, were saved as mementos. There are suggestions that in the 18th century there may have been something akin to a trophy head cult. An actual injury to the face called for heavy damages; an insult hurled at one or the shameful act of a kinsman was like a “black mark on the face” which had to be wiped off. I have already noted the baleful power in the glance of the adolescent girl.

Symbolism of the Body in Art and Language

The head or face was the most important motif in art. This not only represented the actual head of a person or animal, but when repeated on other parts of the animal's body signified the indwelling anthropomorphic soul (qwani). Faces or heads were also used to symbolize the spirits of mountains, rivers, glaciers, rocks, raindrops or hailstones, and other entities which we conceive as wholly inanimate objects or natural forces. Sometimes each eye of a creature was treated as a whole face (or even as a whole body), just as all joints were visualized as ball-and-socket joints and represented by eyelike motifs, often by true eye designs. According to Emmons (notes), this is to convey the notion of vitality, movement, intelligence, or skill associated with these parts. To this extent they were conceived as independent of the organism as a whole. Sometimes the part was represented as an independent animal, but Holm (1965, pp. 89–91) cautions us that not all such artistic conceits involve double meaning.

It is an artistic convention that dismembers bodies into heads, ears, teeth, eyes, claws, beaks, limbs, fins, tails, and other parts characteristically shaped for each species, and that manipulates these like separate design elements to fit the given space. For symmetrical balance, an animal body may be split in two through the head or tail to produce two individuals, like Siamese twins seen in profile; or the same individual may be duplicated, like the two separate representations of the same CAnkuqedi boy on the screen of the Yakutat Thunderbird House (pl. 91).

The culmination of this Northwest Coast style, in which faces, eyes, mouths, teeth and other parts are reduplicated until the original form is dissolved and recreated again, is achieved in the geometrically ordered intricacies of the Chilkat blanket (pls. 148, 149). This was an art form peculiar to, or at least most highly developed by, the Tlingit (Osborne in de Laguna et al., 1964, pp. 187–199), and finds parallels in Tlingit mythology and symbolic thought, as well as in Tlingit verbal usages, in which body parts are treated as separable units or are reified.

Tlingit speech makes a distinction between body parts when considered as portions of the living body and when detatched from it. In both instances the word for the body part must follow a noun or a possessive pronoun, or even the indefinite pronouns indicating 'someone's’ (qa) or 'something's’ (’At), to specify human or animal. When designating a portion of the living body, the word for the part, like a kinship term, is unmodified, since this serves to stress an inalienable status. Thus, ‘his eye’ (du wAq) like ‘his father’ (du ’ic). If, however, one wishes to emphasize that the part has been detached from the body, it would be treated grammatically like an alienable possession, and given the suffix which indicates its subordinate position as something belonging to a possessor. Thus, du yágú ‘his canoe,’ from yàkw ‘canoe’; and du wAE ‘his gouged-out eye.’ 'someone's head’ would be qaca, but qacaI (Swanton, 1909, p. 275) is a 'severed human head.’ Similarly a cannibal picked out ‘people’s eyes' (qwq), but ate a belly full of ‘human eyes’ (q'wage) (Swanton, 1909, p. 292.5 and 292.8). There are a few exceptions to this general rule (Boas, 1917, pp. 88–89).

Similarly, what Boas calls “local nouns,” when suffixed to a pronoun or noun to indicate such ideas as ‘on, under, inside,’ etc., are likewise unmodified, as if to emphasize their close dependence. Thus, ‘place beneath’ (yÌ) and ‘under me’ (’A yÌ, Boas 1917, p. 90): ‘Inside’ (U) ‘in me’ (’A U), but ‘my inner self’ (’Au-wÚ, Boas 1917, p. 107) or ‘my mind,’ ‘my thoughts,’ or ‘my feelings’ (Swanton, 1909, p. 415.101). The last is not a fixed portion of me, but something that can roam. The term ‘my body’ (’a da) employs a “local noun” of this type, and may mean equally ‘around me,’ depending on the context.

In fact, the names for body parts and terms indicating special position are frequently indistinguishable, and both may function “like rather indefinite adverbial elements”(Boas, 1917, p. 68). When incorporated in a verbal complex, they may sometimes have an instrumental meaning (’with the hand, with the mouth’) or, in other cases, may be objective or locative (‘on the head,’ ‘in front of,’ ‘to the hand,’ etc.).

In this way, words for some body parts become, as it were, detached from any organism and may function as locative or even as formal syntactic elements in verbal or nominal complexes.

Thus the same Tlingit word [6] (ya or yA) is used for ‘face,‘ ‘front’ (as ‘in front of’), or mountain-side.’ Another Tlingit term (cÁ, cà), with slight modification in pitch, signifies ‘head,’ ‘top (of something),’ and ‘mountain.’ These, and the Tlingit terms for ‘mouth’ (a), ‘hand’ (djI), and 'surface’ (kÁ) are used in the same way as the more strictly positional elements, such as the Tlingit forms meaning ‘bottom’ (tA), ‘top’ (kí), ‘front’ (cù), ‘back’ (á), ‘behind’ (e), ‘in the house’ (nèł), ‘out of the canoe’ (yè), and so on (Boas 1917, pp. 67–77, 103–110). They may be combined with one another and again with locative suffixes indicating motion ‘toward’ (-t, -dE), or ‘through’ (-nÁ), or completed motion ‘at’ (-, -). These clusters may be suffixed to nouns or pronouns to form new adverbial expressions or new nouns, such as ‘across a mountain’ (càkAnÁ ‘mountain-surface-through’), or ‘valley’ (canA). These elements may also be parts of verbal complexes, and Boas (1917, p. 71) must explain, “I am not able to distinguish between adverbial prefixes and locative nouns.” (See also ibid., pp. 93–102.)

This idiomatic usage is, perhaps, not out of harmony with the artistic convention of representing geographical features by detached and formalized heads and faces, or of arbitrarily combining body parts like abstract geometric units into the formal composition of blanket designs. But these suggestive analogies must not be pressed too far.

We must always remember that the main canons of Northwest Coast art, like the main folkloristic themes of the area, are common to all the northern Northwest Coast tribes, even though each tribe had its own artistic conventions and achievements. It is impossible to define these with accuracy because of the widespread exchange of decorated objects, the too-often-inadequate information accompanying museum collections, and the fact that individual artists developed their own distinctive styles (Holm, 1965, pp. 20–24). Nevertheless, the two-dimensional art of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian form one unit, with the Bella Bella (Northern Kwakiutl) similar but suggesting a transition to the Kwakiutl “who were late-comers to the system” (ibid., p. 29). We must also recognize that on the northern Northwest Coast three unrelated language stocks were spoken: Na-Dene (Tlingit and Haida); Tsimshian; Wakashan (Kwakiutl-Nootka) and Salish (Bella Coola). The grammatical usages of Haida are, of course, very similar to Tlingit (Swanton in Boas, 1911). Although Tsimshian and Kwakiutl both make use of rich repertories of particles affixed to verbs or nouns, or capable of being themselves nominalized, and which include forms indicating location and parts of the body, these two languages are very different from Tlingit, especially since these affixes, even when suggesting a place on the body, seem to be derived from a different stem from the independent word for body part. While Kwakiutl makes no distinction between alienable and inalienable possession, Tsimshian (especially the coastal dialect) does so, even to handling body parts, kinship terms, and spatial relations as inseparable possessions, and distinguishing grammatically between animate and inanimate alienable possessions. Among the many devices for indicating the plural, those of what Boas (1911, p. 377) calls the “fourth group” include “many names of parts of the body; adjectives expressing states of the body, such as BLIND, DEAF; words of location; and a miscellaneous group of words.” It would appear, therefore, that in certain respects Tsimshian is more like Tlingit in handling certain ideas, than is Kwakiutl.

Reified Body Parts and Functions

The Tlingit reify certain bodily aspects or functions both in ordinary speech and thought, and in myth. Thus, ‘one’s insides or mind' (qa tuwu), the seat of the emotions, may take the form of a chickadee. If you see one flying around you, that means that your friend or an absent relative is thinking about you—is perhaps even on his way to see you. The name for the chickadee is, in fact, 'someone’s thoughts’ (qatuwu).

A spider, also, that spins its web or thread close to one's head embodies the loving thoughts of a friend: ‘his mind still around me he turns, or spins, downward’ (du tuwu tu ‘a da yéyeti). One informant reported that about 2 weeks after her husband's death a spider “went around” her and, on a later occasion, when the man toward whom she was romantically inclined had gone away, she also saw a spider. “Then I put it in my hand. ‘Oh D—, what’s the matter with you?' I talk to that spider…. About four times he goes around me…. I don’t kill it. If you kill it, they’re going to die [i.e., this would kill the man whose thoughts were the spider]. It’s against the law, you know (’agè dè sÍti).” ‘Against it to be’ implies that the act would be contrary to the very nature of things. The spider, like the bird, may be called qatuwu although this is not the ordinary word for spider.

In these instances, the bird or spider is like a projection of a friend's personality, and while its behavior may have something of a prophetic quality, this is not to be confused with the birds that come to announce some happening but which are not themselves an embodiment of a person (p. 829). Moreover, the chickadee and the spider are not to be confused with the person; they are not people who have been transformed into animal guise.

Although Swanton (1908, p. 460) wrote: “The soul of a living person was called qtuwu' or w'sa-tu’watÎ (‘what feels’), ‘because when a person’s feeling is gone he is dead’…,” I do not believe that these words indicate the very innermost “self” or that spiritual part which is supposed to become reincarnated.

It is only a further step to conceptualize general qualities, as well as aspects of particular persons, in terms of the same kind of embodiment or reified form as those of chickadee and spider. Thus, in the myth, the man QakewtE killed his own sleep which, in the form of a “bob white” [whip-poor-will?], had been flying around his head (p. 271; Swanton, 1909, Tale 104, pp. 326–328; and Tale 32, p. 154). But this was also the Sleep Bird, the death of which affected not only himself but all the others in his village. He gave this bird as a crest to his wife's people, the Tł'UknaAdi, whereby they acquired the right to Sleep House (Ta hIt). In a related story (see p. 884), the Sleep Bird is killed by the man Tagu, but seems to have no personal connection with him. Rather this act puts every one in the village to sleep, enabling the man to kill them and eat their eyes.

Similarly, we must think of Strength, in the myths recorded by Swanton (1909, Tale 31 p. 146; Tale 93, p. 290; see also the allusion in a speech, p. 387), as a universal human quality in anthropomorphic form who comes to a deserving youth. In the Yakutat version, the supernatural being is described as “some kind of a spirit of a man. They called him ŁAtsÍn ati—‘Master of Strength.’” This is linguistically the equivalent to the supernatural ‘Master of Gambling’ (’Ałqa ati) or “greatest gambler” in another of Swanton's myths (cf. p. 553). I have already noted the “Lazy” that sits on the shoulder of an indolent person, and which is both Sloth itself and one's own personal laziness (du ‘uska). There is also Poverty (łA-‘ican) that sucks the fingers of the idle (p. 513). Note also the graceful poetic conceit in Dry Bay Chief George’s song to the young girl who had rejected him, in which Old Age (wUdAcan) is personified as the old chief himself (p. 574).

An extreme instance of the complete transformation of a body part into an independent entity occurs in the story of a man who had been captured by land otters. Although he tried to return home, he kept wandering way. “He looked at his feet. His feet was two halibuts; that's why he couldn’t make it. He poked a stick or cane into their eye. When he [be]came normal, it was right in his feet. He came back home.” The small carving of the guardian spirit left at a shaman's grave illustrates something of the same idea with the figures of animals or animal heads carved on the head, breast, shoulders, hips, knees, or under the feet (p. 687; see also Gunther, 1962, fig. 4, p. 52.)

A similar independence of body part, but without transformation, is illustrated in one of the Raven stories in which his anus serves as a separate speaking mouth. “When anything serious is going to happen his behind-hole (du tuq) tells him.” (Boas, 1917, p. 125, oq‘.) From this is derived the scornful retort of the skeptic: “Who’s telling you this? Your ass hole?” (MJ)

Although these examples seem to be only verbal metaphors or mythical elaborations, yet they find their parallels in actual personal experience. Not only do the long snaky locks of the shaman supposedly move of themselves during seances, but they have actually been seen to do so by some of my informants. These locks are not only associated with manifestations of his power, but in another sense hold it or embody it. If they are shorn he loses his power and also his life. Even the hair of his wife is associated with his power and life, and thus ultimately with the lives of his whole sib. In addition to historical traditions about the cutting of shamans' hair, MJ's uncle, Te-’ic, actually sought his own death, she said, by having his hair cut (pp. 685, 718). Conversely, the hair and fingernails of a shaman retain their own vitality after his death and continue to grow in the grave house. This phenomenon has actually been “seen” (p. 699).

Again, in a somewhat similar but less dramatic fashion than that affected by Raven, parts of the human body may give warnings about the future. Thus, a ringing in the left ear indicates fine weather, but in the right ear foretells bad weather and rain because one carries a water bucket in the right hand. Łuso the grandfather of MJ could also prophesy rain by a feeling of water running down inside his hair. His hand had a special feeling when he was going to kill a sea otter. A twitch of the eye means that one will see a stranger, a strange boat, or something new and unfamiliar. A twitch of the leg means that a stranger will touch you. However, a twitch of the body, like an uncontrollable sigh, may indicate the touch of a ghostly hand, as in the story of ‘Askadut (see p. 767). Not all individuals, of course, have such gifts—”only Indian doctors or spiritual people” (MJ). There seems to be no general term for body portents of this kind. It is also believed that the sneeze betrays the liar, or indicates that what one hopes for will not come true. Swanton (1908, p. 459) was told that twitching on the right side of the mouth means good luck; on the left side, bad luck.

A somewhat similar prophetic ability attaches to the humerus of the seal or sea otter used in divination, yet does not pertain to the live animal (pp. 521, 807–808).

Although in these instances, bodily functions or parts were conceived apart from the total personality or organism, or as somehow separable from it, in other situations or instances we can see how thoroughly the part is linked to the whole, as when the essential spirit or life is bound up with some particular portion. This is, of course, the principle of “contagious magic,” which makes the manipulation of witch's dirt effective, and which can be used to secure the reincarnation of the human soul (see p. 777). The same principle dictates what parts of the animal should be specially handled or saved to secure the animal's perpetuation and thus maintain the hunter's luck. A number of food taboos and magical procedures, already cited in connection with the hewa used for babies, children, and adolescent girls and also some ‘medicines’ or amulets, are based upon the special powers attributed to certain parts of animals (pp. 506, 514, 520–522, 661, 664).

The Tree of Life

The individual's life as a whole is symbolized by a tree in magical ritual, although the tree is neither called his life nor apparently considered as an external receptacle for his spirit or vital force.

We have already seen how the baby's diaper moss is carefully carried “way back,” that is, safely back from the water or from the village, and buried in the earth “under an old rotten fallen tree” or “an old stump,” the enduring remains of a long-lived tree. Here, too, are buried the dishes used by the adolescent girl, the ashes of the clothes she has worn and the stone from the beach with which she rubbed her mouth during the first fateful days of her confinement. To insure continence in old age she has also defecated and urinated during that period on old, soft, rotten wood. Again, as a widow, her mouth-rubbing stone and some of her hair are put under a stump, and her rope belt is slipped over it. All these acts preserve the life of the baby, the girl, and widow, as well as those of her relatives and future husband (pp. 504, 520, 521, 522, 528, 538). The stone and string used by the peace hostage are also put under or on a stump (p. 598).

Just as the growth of the little girl's hair and of the girl herself are promoted when her hair with its heavy beaded ornament swings like the swaying of vigorous young saplings and bushes in the wind, so some of the shorn locks of the widow are put on bushes or in the cleft shoot of a bush so that her hair will grow again quickly and her people will live long (pp. 446, 537). If part of what one eats is put into the split branch of an alder(?) or elderberry(?) bush, this will prevent greediness (p. 815). If the adolescent girl picks berries she will get a shaky head in old age, “because the wind blows the bushes” (p. 522).

In these last two instances, as in the use of rotten wood in the girl's privy, we see that the tree or bush influences not simply the length of life but character and well being. One wonders whether there can be any further significance in the fact that the most famous men to visit the Land of the Dead and to be reborn (see pp. 767, 774) were called “Center of the Tree” and “Near the Spruce Branch.”

As we shall see (p. 766), when one has once been in danger of drowning, one's life is forfeit to the water, so that there will be a fatal repetition of the “same trouble” if ritual precautions are not taken. These also involved the symbolism of the tree and would insure a long life. As soon as the person was pulled from the water or managed to reach safety through his own efforts, all the wet clothing, a lock cut from his hair, the towel or grass (or whatever had been used to dry his body) were all taken way back and tied securely to an old tree, while the rescued person uttered the wish: “Let me be old (yEnatiAta can). Don't drown again!” In the case of a child, the mother (or any other person), could tie up the clothing and make the wish for him. If this is done, “he don't trouble same thing—hewa…. Don‘t do it like that—same thing again, he’s died.” These precautions had been effectively taken for one informant when she was a little girl.

AFTERLIFE AND THE SPIRIT

The “Soul” and the “Ghost”

With death, the body becomes a corpse (qánàwu ‘human dead’). The last breath has been taken and life is gone. But what has become of the “soul,” or what my informants call the “spirit”? What has happened to the self?

It would appear that the Tlingit make a distinction between the “ghost” that is associated with the corpse and the graveyard, and the “spirit” which is a non-material reflection of the person as he was in life, and is also the self that is to be reborn again as a baby. Swanton (1908, p. 430) also cites “the dead spirit or ghost, as distinguished from the living soul which travels on into the other world…. ” Yet this distinction between ghost and spirit is not consistently maintained. Furthermore, there is evidence that some persons have more than one “spirit” or “soul” and that one “spirit” can go to more than one baby. It is not completely clear to what extent a shaman's familiar spirits (yek) may actually merge with his own spirit or self or, finally, how much of himself remains in his paraphernalia and grave house to inspire new shamans or to infect trespassing laymen.

“Ghosts” or dead people are ee qawu, or Ae qawu. The land or town of the dead, in reality the “town” of grave houses, is ee qawu ‘ani. It was impossible to analyze or translate the first word (ee) of the expression, which takes the form of ‘-?- people (or man) of.‘ My informants denied that the root was 'smoke’ (èq), and did not recognize it as ‘bone’ (aq), but rather insisted that the word (ee) could not be translated. “S’ee qawu is just the name for a ghost. That's all.” Swanton (1908, p. 460) similarly reports that “…the ghost or spirit of the dead body was called s!A′g. Rather inconsistently, as it would appear, the last word is that applied to the place where souls go after death, SA′g q’wu ’nÎ (”ghosts' home”).”

Boas (1917, p. 128) gives the expression ùłIłcan as ‘ghost,’ but since it also means ‘dangerous’ or ‘hideous’ (ibid., pp. 67, 128), we may assume that this refers to the terrifying appearance of the ghost. I did not hear this term used at Yakutat.

The “soul” or “spirit” is called yAkwqwahéyagu or yUkwqahéyagu, and is preceded by a possessive pronoun or by the indefinite 'someone's’ (qa). (Harrington has recorded 'A-γAkkAhhêeyykkuu, i.e., 'A AqAhéygu for ‘my soul;’ and the term ‘AyyAkw-kwA-heéyyAku for ‘a spirit,‘ literally, ‘his or it’s spirit.’ Swanton [1908, p. 460] gives the forms y’kwAh’Aku and kayk-wah’aku for “the soul after death.”) I have been unable to work out the etymology of this term but suspect that it means something like ‘his entity that is able to return,’ analogous to the French word revenant. In any case, it denotes the entity which “lives” after death, which returns to visit the living in dreams, and which becomes reincarnated. It would appear, therefore, to apply to the essential “self” of the person. The term is also used for the “spirit” of the witch which a shaman “puts into your sleep” (pp. 759, 760), but it does not otherwise seem to be used for a living person seen in a dream(?). The same word, curiously enough, was used for ‘reflection,’ in naming a basket design called ‘reflection of trees (in the water)’ (MJ).

Another term which may be used for the reincarnated “spirit,” and which may also mean ‘picture, shadow, hallucination (in human form)’ is Ahai or ahaI, as in 'someone’s picture' (qa Ahai), or ‘her mother's spirit’ (du tła ahaI). (Harrington records 'A-Ah-haii, i.e., A Ahai, as meaning (1) “my shadow” and (2) “my photograph.” He also wrote the form yahhayí as “anything's duplicate, or effigy, picture, shadow.” Swanton [1908, p. 460] also records qaahÎ' as 'shadow’ or ‘picture,‘ also used for the soul after death.) The basic idea is thus that of ‘image,’ or visible likeness or simulacrum, and is especially appropriate in describing a child as being or having ‘the image of her grandmother’ when that child is the woman's reincarnation. A similar concept of simulacrum is involved in the explanation given to me that the fisherman catches and eats the same fish over again, provided that he burns their bones and so enables them to live and return in the next year's run. “When you get that fish, it's not the real fish. It’s just the picture of it—ta ‘aahaí” (cf. Swanton 1909, p. 310.9, ’ya haÎ' ‘its shadow’). Here we can see definitely that the body is the ‘picture,’ which indicates that the term Ahai (or yahaI) is not properly a synonym for 'soul' or 'spirit.’ In the last example, the fishes’ souls would have been rendered as ‘Fish People’ (at qwani).

Forms of Death

The ordinary term for ‘death’ or ‘dying’ is nana, and ‘to die’ is Á-nà (cf. Boas, 1917, pp. 26, 141). This is the word that would be used in referring to one's own death, for example in songs, as ‘if, or when I die’ (At wUnawu), or ‘I will die’ (At quAna). It is also used in referring to others, as, for example, ‘my long-dead uncle’ (Swanton, 1909, p. 357.7, tc!ku un’wU ak′k). Yet the Tlingit distinguish sharply between different forms of dying, since these determine the fate of the soul in the afterlife.

Thus, when one has died of old age it is said that ‘by old age he was killed’ (cantc ‘uwadjAq); if it were a case of sickness, then ‘by sickness he was killed’ (nukwtc ‘uwadjAq). Since sickness was often caused by witchcraft, one might also say of the last that ‘he was killed by someone's thought’ (qa tuwutc ‘uwadjAq). Again, a man who had died as a result of drinking bad liquor was ‘killed by whiskey’ (nautc ‘uwadjAq).

The spirit of a person who has died from sickness, old age, or such common (natural) causes goes to the ordinary land of the dead (ee qawu 'ani) when he is buried or cremated. Since the graveyard or cemetery was often inland (dAq), back behind the village and away from the homes of the living, the land of the dead was sometimes called dAq An qU and the dead themselves referred to as ‘in’ or ‘among’ this place (dAq An tu, or dAq An o). Because the dead had to cross a river or lake (or other body of water), a euphemism for ‘he died’ was ‘he went across’ (’akanÁ ‘anuwAgut).

Although the same verb ‘to kill’ (yÁ-djaq) is used to designate the deaths of those slain by another, by a bear, or by an accident like a falling tree or an automobile crash, the soul of one who has met such a violent death goes to “Heaven” or ‘Land Above‘ (kiwa’a). There was some disagreement among informants as to whether the one who takes his own life goes to this same Kiwa’a, or whether he goes with murderers, thieves, witches, and other bad people to a special ‘Dog Heaven’ (ketł kiwa’a).

Those who drown, however, do not die in any ordinary sense, for they are transformed into Land Otter People, and the same fate befalls those who are lost in the woods (and presumably die of exposure). One says of a drowned person that ‘he was taken by the water’ (hintc yéwusiní). “They don’t have that djAq [‘kill’] in there. The reason why, I guess is because when a person falls in the water, they claim he gets saved by the Kucda qwani [Land Otter People]…. They wouldn’t let him go because they got a claim on him. Even when another human being saved him from drowning, he has to pay for his life…. They claim if I capsize once, my life is already to the water, and once it happens it keeps on going like that till I am really drowned.”

Other expressions meaning ‘he drowned’ are ‘he moved inside’ (tuyí ‘uwaha) or ‘to the water he was given’ (hin djIt wuti yé’a).

The afterlife of those who have died can be described in some detail, but the fate of those who drowned or were lost in the woods has received confused and conflicting interpretations. This was not death since these unfortunates were believed to have been taken (“captured” or “saved”) alive by the Land Otter Men and transformed into beings like their captors. While they were believed to live among the Land Otter People, perhaps marrying and having children by the latter (p. 747), yet in another sense they were dead. The corpse, if recovered, was given an ordinary funeral; the individual was mourned at potlatches and nourished by food and drink placed into the water. The various notions implied by these practices suggest that the drowned person was thought of both as a land otter and also as a ghost or spirit.

The Story of ‘Askadut who Visited the Land of the Dead

[Knowledge of the afterlife is supposd to have come from the reports of those who either visited the land of the dead in a deep faint, or who died and could remember their experiences after their reincarnation. The most famous story is that of ‘Askadut, of which I was told many partial versions (MJ July 8, 1952, August 3, 1952, April 22, 1954, April 23, 1954; EE March 7, 1954, March 10, 1954; JE April 15, 1954). Because these were so consistent and agreed so well with each other, the following account has been compiled from them. Harrington also recorded two incomplete but similar versions of this story from two informants, GJ and Jack E. He transcribed the name as ‘aaskhAtt’úut, said to mean “Center of the Tree.”]

’Askadut was a Sitka man who died (of smallpox, one informant believed). He did not know that he was dead. He could see his own body, sitting propped up, as they used to prop up a body before burning it. He tried in vain to get back inside his body, “to get under his cover,” but he couldn’t.

His young wife, his father and mother, his sister and brother-in-law were all in the house grieving for him. ‘Askadut tried to tell his mother and his wife that he was still alive, but they couldn’t hear him, and when he put his arms around them, they just sighed “uh, uh, uh,” with dry sobs (tuqatxwanuk). He became angry when he found himself unable to sleep with his wife as formerly.

His relatives had called different tribes (sibs) to come to comfort them, and they were having a feast together. ‘Askadut knew that this feast was for him, but he couldn’t eat it. He became hungry and touched his brother-in-law. “Why didn’t you give me anything to eat?” This man exclaimed: “Ha, my body twitches and at the same time the fire also makes a noise” (ha, ‘a da ‘ułihatc tłe yu an tu de’a).

The fire sparked whenever the dead man spoke, but ‘Askadut was unable to take any of the food until they put some of what his wife was eating or drinking into a dish and set this in the fire.

Then they took the body out to where they were going to burn it. He followed, and was afraid that it would hurt him, but when they started to burn his body it felt to him just as if he were getting warm. He watched them burning it.

When it was all consumed, the people left, but ‘Askadut was unable to follow them. He didn’t know what was holding him back, but he stayed by the ashes until he began to think of the place where the dead people go.

So he started to walk there—in the rain and sleet, through devilclubs and underbrush with thorns. He had a hard time, without rough clothes, or shoes or gloves to protect him. His hands became scratched and sore. He had a hard time because he had waited too long at the pyre.

Finally he came to the bank of a river, a muddy river that he couldn’t cross, and yet he knew that he was supposed to go to the other side, where he could see the village and the people. He called and called to them, but they couldn’t hear. Finally he became tired and yawned. Then immediately the people heard him and became excited. They fetched him across the river in a canoe.

There were many people, a big town. He went inside one of the houses.

“Some of the old ones that's dead long time ago, they get so old that the moss grow over their face. The trees grow from the top of their heads. And the eyes sunk way in. Just funny-looking bunch of people. The ones that died just lately look just like human beings that's not even dead.” (MJ)

“Those people that were died long time ago were sitting way back in the back side. It just looks funny. Seems like there's hardly anything left of them. But those that had died just recently were just sitting toward the fire.” (JE)

[Compare these descriptions of the moldy skeleton dead with Swanton's story about Mossy-eyes and Dried-out-eyes, 1908, p. 462.]

It is not quite clear why or how ‘Askadut left the land of the dead. MJ said it was because “he wanted to come back to his family so bad.” According to EE, his aunt was among the recent dead and recognized him. She told him to go back and helped him across the river. [This was probably his father's sister, since this relative plays a similar role in other stories of escapes from the land of the dead or from the Land Otter People, pp. 749, 776.]

He followed the river and after a hard time finally got back (near his home?). He was tired, and sat down at the foot of a tree near the riverbank. The tree began to drip, so he moved to another, and found a dry one with a branch sticking out and a nice mossy place under it. Here he sat down, leaning against the tree. He fell asleep right there.

Here he remained for nine days. Each day the riverbank caved in, a little bit at a time, and he heard the splash (cAkA łIwał) of the mud and sand falling into the water. Soon it came close to his foot, and he thought, “I'll wait till it comes closer, then I'll move away.” But he couldn’t move anymore. And then it was caving away almost under him, and he thought, “Well, wait till I fall down that one, then I’ll climb out of there.”

And then it caved underneath him, and he fell down the bank into the water. And he heard someone say, “He's born already!”

They took the baby up. He looked around for his mother, and it was his true sister!

And his (true) mother said, “Oh, my son came back! That's ‘Askadut's spirit!”

“Yes that's me. My name is ‘Askadut,” the baby said. “I came back. You cried so much, and I heard my wife weeping, so I came back.”

His wife recognized the baby as her husband, apparently by a cut or scar on his foot. And he reached for his wife with a smile.

But he was so ashamed of his sister that he wouldn't suck her breast, and they had to get a woman of a different tribe (sib, in the opposite moiety) to suckle him.

So it was from ‘Askadut that they learned about the dead, and what to do when people die.

INTERPRETATION

There is an illogical element in the last remark of the narrator, because most of the customs—cremation, feeding the dead through the fire, and so forth—were evidently already being practised, even though their institution was ascribed to the teachings of ‘Askadut when he returned from the dead. However this inconsistency may or may not be resolved, I have already noted (pp. 532–533) how the treatment of the corpse and the behavior of the living are supposed to affect the spirit or ghost.

Thus, the corpse is propped up in a seated position during the wake so that the spirit can more easily get up; the clothing and ornaments put on the corpse at that time will be worn by the ghost in the village of the dead; and the rough clothes, mittens or gloves, and the shoes in which the corpse is dressed for cremation protect the spirit from the thorny underbrush, through which the singing of the UnEtkAnai clears a path. This is now also done by prayers. The tears of the bereaved are the rain, sleet, and snow that fall on the ghost. Cremation warms the spirit and does not defile it as would the grave, out of which the spirit must struggle. Furthermore, the dead can eat only when food is put in the fire by the UnEtkAnai at the funeral feast, or later by the relatives, and the deceased is called by name. Care must be taken not to set the dish in the flames where the spirit would burn his hands. Water, too, must be poured at the edge of the fire. ‘Askadut also reported that those whose relatives neglected to provide a dish for them “sit way back, their tongues just sticking out, wishing for a bite of what the lucky Ae qawu eats” (MJ).

Harrington's informants mentioned the difficulty experienced by ‘Askadut to “get through a pile of logs,” that is, to leave the cremation pyre, and they also stressed how he wandered lost in the woods, with nothing to eat and unable to drink water. One narrator concluded:

“Sometimes when I am eating, my dead brother or some dead relation comes into my mind, then suddenly I take my food and throw it in the fire, and pour water in the fire, and I mention the name of my dead brother. That's the only time he can eat, and the only time he can drink water. That ‘aaskhAtt’úut was telling the story all about this.” The informant had been taught the story when a small boy, but since then had forgotten most of the details.

While there is clearly a corporeal aspect to the spirit or ghost, especially since it resembles the living body if recently deceased, and later grows moss and rots away as the latter decays, yet the dead in some respects have clearly reversed characteristics. To them a shout is inaudible, yet a yawn is a loud sound, and when they call to each other they do so in whispers. For this reason, perhaps, they are unable to communicate with the living except by inducing sighs and by making the fire spark.

Another informant gave additional information on the fate of the dead:

“The Indians believed that when a person died [a normal death], their spirit was still on earth, didn’t go no place…. When they died, the spirits are walking in the woods, stumps and everything. They got lost. Dark. And sometimes they’re lucky; they’re coming to a big lake. And across [on the other] side is ee qawu ‘ani. And some of them find it right away. But [that's] just a story—it's just a graveyard.”

In similar vein, Swanton (1908, p. 461) also reports: “All of the grave houses are named by the spirits, who give the same names to their houses in the ghost country.” Yet he errs in confusing the terrestrial land of the dead with the after world above (Kiwa’a).

The same informant discussed the fate of the soul on another occasion when he was perhaps trying to reconcile Christian beliefs with various native conceptions, themselves not altogether consistent. He described the journey of those who died a natural death, and who go neither to the “Heaven” of the slain, nor to the “Dog Heaven” of the wicked, but who “stay on earth…. ”

“They have to travel. The very first day they dead, it's lost out in the woods….

“If you‘re dead and I’m dead, and I’m your friend and you’re my friend, you know my voice. I go ‘Oooo!’ You do the same thing, just like lost in the fog. It’s very lucky [if] we come to the bank of the river where we are to be born again. Very lucky if we meet together again there. I just say ‘Hoooo!’ and you answer again ‘Hoooo!’ [This is a reference to the story of ‘AsdjIwAn, see pp. 774–775.]

“Then you sit down, and it's raining and bad weather. But you're looking for the place where it's going to get dry so it won't rain on you. If I find a place where I’m going to stay, I can’t move any more, and if you find a place for yourself, you don’t move any more. It takes 8 months. But on your days, it's only 8 days.

“From the river, it's a big slide. Each day it slides. Another day, a big slide again. Ten days. It takes 9 days. It slides to your feet. Across the river is a beautiful place for you to go, but you can’t. After 10 days, they take you away, but you find yourself born again.

“But you can get to the other side, only if you’ve been good. It's a great big river. If you are good honest boy and man, after you die you can find yourself on the other side. But if just a little crooked you done, just a little lie, you get born again. You can’t go over, you stay on this side….

“You get born again seven times. If you no good, then your spirit is lost, lost forever [and goes to Dog Heaven].

“My grandma used to tell me, ‘Don’t steal and don’t tell a lie. Then you’re going to go across the river.’

“A person can’t walk across. You can’t be across the river unless you be honest and true enough from [the time] you were born, and not crooked. You have to be born seven times before you can go across the river. Be honest and never tell a lie and never do anything crooked. It’s God take care of you, you see…. If you die—not killed—you go across the lake and across the river, if you’re a good honest person. And you’re reborn again seven times. But if you’re dishonest, your spirit is lost.”

The distinction made here between the spirits who sit by the riverbank to be born again and those who cross to remain forever in the land of the dead avoids the inconsistency of picturing the ghosts of the long- dead like moss-grown corpses in ee qawu ‘ani, to be mourned at potlatches and fed through the fire, while recognizing at the same time that their spirits have been reborn in the descendants who bear their names. However, the rebirth seven times before the wandering spirit can enter the beautiful land across the river does not sound like an aboriginal concept, but may reflect the attempt to harmonize several different ideas.

The river or lake which the dead try to cross is called ‘Lake of Dying' (nanA ‘ayi), or the ‘River One Cannot Cross' [?] (łeyÁx ‘aduwAta hin) (cf. Swanton, Tale 87, p. 249). It should be noted that graveyards are as often at deserted village sites, across the water from present- day settlements, as they are back in the woods behind the houses.

But the river is also connected with the symbolism of rebirth. It is “the water that comes when the baby is born.” Thus, the leaking tree which ‘Askadut avoided was a unEtkAnai woman to whom he should not be reborn, while the dry tree was his sister. What appeared to him as a day was in reality a month, and the caving down each day of the bank was the baby changing his position in the mother's womb each month (so it is believed), and it was also his mother's labor. He fell down at birth, because in the old days women gave birth “sitting on top of a hole” (MJ). Perhaps the mossy spot under the tree also represented the moss in this hole, for another woman said: “Olden people says baby's not going to be born if they don’t use that moss. That’s why they used it. The baby, when it born, it fall in that.” And she added that the use of moss was established by Raven himself (see p. 854).

A very similar account of the afterlife appears in the story of the Death and Reincarnation of ‘AsdjIwAn and his Partner (see p. 774), which is perhaps only a variation of the story of ‘Askadut. Of greater interest is the story of łxakunik (p. 775) who died for 12 hours, went to the land of the dead across the river and returned, since this man was actually the father's father's brother of the woman who told the story.

The Disease Boat

While all informants were in essential agreement about the land of the dead (ee qawu ‘ani) and the painful journey to it through the woods which was taken by all who died a “natural” death, there is evidence that death from the epidemic diseases introduced by the White man might involve a different kind of journey.

The epidemic itself is believed to come by boat, although only the shaman can see this craft (p. 710). “Sickness just comes from the water, not the woods. All those people [who] died, they take it [them] in the boat. It looks like a boat to him [the shaman].”

In this ‘Canoe of Sickness’ (nikw yagu) the shaman can see the ghosts of those who had died of fever, perhaps those who had died in Sitka if the epidemic were spreading from there, and he would try to drive the boat away. “The one they died, they going to go in that boat. When they leaving, that's the time the sickness is over. That's the way the ‘it’ [shaman] sees it.” The boat eventually takes the ghosts to the village of the dead, “way back.”

One informant said that the “Disease Boat” looks “just like a big steamboat.” According to another, whose greatgrandfather had seen it, the boat was a big black schooner, and four black men, really Disease Spirits, came in a canoe to fetch to the ship the souls of those who had died (p. 714).

In the last story, the Disease Spirits (yek) became the familiars of the man who refused to accompany them, and who, as a result of his experience, acquired shamanistic powers. The distinction remains unclear, however, between the Disease Spirits, responsible for the epidemic, and the ghosts of their victims. Probably they are one and the same, and the whole concept may be an attempt to understand the germ theory of disease.

Afterlife in Kiwa’a

Those who die by violence go to an afterworld or ‘Land Above' up in the sky, or more properly above the vault of the sky, called Kiwa’a or Kiwa qawu ‘ani, where they become the Northern Lights (gItuq). We know something about this world from those who have been slain and later reincarnated (see pp. 772–774).

This sky realm was in some respects confused with the Christian Heaven, for it was a happy world from which the wicked were excluded. It has been described as a beautiful green grassy place, even though on the way up what appear to be salmonberry bushes are really clots of blood.

“All they do in heaven, they have games. Like White man's golf [more accurately, shinny]. That's all they do up in Heaven. The Tlingit story says up in Heaven, no [bare] land, just grass. They go out in night time, just play games.”

These are the Northern Lights. And the people on earth say:

“‘Oh, that's my uncle in a game. That's my uncle up there. Before I was born, my mother used to say, ‘That’s my uncle up there.’ [7] The ones that get killed is the only ones that go. The ones that is dead [of normal causes] stay on earth.”

The game played by the spirits was described as “something like hockey (a)” [p. 558]. There was also another that involved jumping over or between many sharp rocks of greenstone, set up like tacks. Or the spirits roll something like a wooden disk (top? or quoits?, p. 556). Another informant spoke of a ball game. When the dead play, people see the Northern Lights. The ghosts play all the time, one informant explained, or go to fetch water. “People going after water, that's the Northern Lights.”

The entrance to Kiwa’a is through a hole (guwuł ‘cloud hole,’ or kiwa gu wuł), which opens when someone has died by violence. Then it closes again. One informant added, “The ones that die naturally, they go beyond. Just the ones that got killed go through gu wuł.” This curious statement may involve the same confusion between ee qawu ‘ani and Kiwa’a that we note in Swanton, or it may be an attempt to reconcile Christian notions of Heaven with confused recollections of several sky layers.

Swanton (1908, p. 460) reports that ‘ghosts‘ home’ (SA′gÎ q′′w nÎ′) was “an entirely happy region, elevated above the plane of this world,” and that above this was a still higher region, ki’waA (’way up’) for “those who died by violence.” He mentions the hole (ndaqê’n wł), reached by a ladder, the guard (djAqt!'Iq!-qa) [’man who announces the slain’?], and the grizzly bears along the way (andaqê’n qa’ts!I). Those who had died unavenged could not climb the ladder, but drifted around on the clouds, a notion which my informants did not corroborate.

When asked about this statement, my informant said that when a man is to die, the souls in Kiwa’a know about it in advance. His own relatives try to cover up the hole. The implication is that if they should succeed, the death would be prevented.

“If anything's going to happen to a person, his spirit would be up there 3 days before time, and they always try to stop it. Sometimes they can’t make it. But the opposite tribe [moiety] always try to open the way…. They want more of the others in there.”

In the story of the Chilkat man who visited Kiwa’a (see p. 772), we learn that when a new arrival is expected, the ghosts light a fire and begin to cook a meal for him. Since this man was not expected, that is, it was not time for him to die, he was sent back home, together with his slave.

The hole into Kiwa’a is apparently guarded by a watchman who announces the arrival of the new ghost. “A person came up,” he calls, and gives out his name.

“And when he pass that hole, they judge him why he came up. If he say he get killed they welcome him, but if he don’t get killed, ‘You not belong here. You belong down to earth. You lost and your spirit is lost.’…But sometimes a person comes up there by mistake…if they get killed on earth for their own mistakes. [If such a wicked person came] the Heaven [i.e., the chief of Kiwa’a] told him, ‘You not belong here. You belong over there some place…. You belong to Dog Heaven.’ ”

As part of the training of children: “The chief used to tell the little ones, ‘If you crooked you going to Dog Heaven after you die, but if you are honest you going to Heaven. After you go to Heaven, you be happy all your life [sic], and you become to the Northern Lights. That's what the Bible say: ‘Be happy…[evermore?].’

“Every time the old Indians see the Northern Lights, they say, ‘That's my cousin. That's my brother.' I believe it myself. But if you don't go up to Heaven, you lost and nobody can find you any more. They can’t find your spirit if you’re crooked or steal.

“That's why to every child that grows up, they say, ‘Don't lose your spirit. Be the Northern Lights. Everytime the Northern Lights show up, it's a sign. Your mother knows it's yours.”

This informant explained that he had recently learned of the death of an old friend, and had seen the Northern Lights over Yakutat the day before the funeral. His grandchildren had called to them to go away, but he rebuked them: “Leave them alone. I know them. Don't bother them. They're my friends.” It was his dead friend's spirit “come to say hello to me.” Yet there is something terrifying about the lights, for he went on to explain: “The only time you see Northern Lights right close to you is when your brother or sister get killed. You see the lights one day before.”

Another corroborated: “When we see lots of Northern Lights, we always say, ‘That's the people of Kiwa’a playing ball.' And then they [we] watch it. Sometimes they see kind of reddish in it, and they tell each other, ‘You better watch out. There will be blood in this town.‘ The red shows it. Sometimes they [the fights] all come together, [as] if the lights make a ball. Then they say, ‘They’re making gue wul. They want somebody up there.’ ”

Since Kiwa‘a is sometimes called “Heaven” and partly confused with the Christian Heaven, we might note that one of my informants did dream of her dead daughter in Heaven. This occurred on Easter Sunday, about a year after the girl’s death. In her dream, Heaven appeared as a beautiful garden, where the daughter reported that each good person has his or her own flower garden, the success of which depends upon the moral conduct of living relatives. When the door of Heaven opens (a sunshiny Sunday), the people in Heaven can look down and see what those on earth are doing. Every day they open a big book in which writing appears of itself to record all the bad things done by the living. The daughter (in the dream) informed her mother that she was not going to come back to earth because she wanted to care for her flowers and was all alone in the garden. However, in the same dream there also appeared a living man who stood beside the dead girl, and this foretold his own death (p. 759). He died, and some years later the girl was supposed to have been reincarnated.

“Dog Heaven”

‘Dog Heaven’ (ketł kiwa’a) is rather similar to Hell as we imagine it, a concept with which the Tlingit are familiar and which they call the ‘place below’ (hai). Yet Dog Heaven appears to represent an aboriginal concept of some antiquity and is located above, not under, the earth.

“If you kill yourself, you go there. Old time, when they’re bad, (they) go there.” The informant added that her grandfather used to say that the spirits of the wicked “floated up into the sky and moved around on the clouds—got no place to go.” Another said that long ago people believed that there were several layers in the sky: “There's two or three layers…. A person who kills himself goes to the lowest. Not so good. The clouds move around with him. They [the elders] explain this to the people so they won’t kill themselves.” Another specified that suicides, along with “any bad people,” including witches and murderers, go to Dog Heaven. “It’s between Earth and where the Northern Lights are.”

Harrington was told: “Khiiwwaa’âa is a good place, but cold.” Jack E also informed him:

“The people who get killed in war or in accident go to the real khiiwwaa’aa, way up above and the spirits are seen in the Northern Lights playing shinny…. Then between them and the earth, right on the clouds, the clouds going all around with them—this is where the dog spirits go, and they live among the dogs, suicides, and witch doctors [witches?] who are killed go to kheetł-khíi-waa’âa.” Here the wicked will be “among the dogs.”

One man divulged fuller information:

“It's almost like the Bible, what they used to teach the young child when he was just learning to talk. They would say that bad people who kill a man, or who steal, will go to Dog Heaven, ketł kiwa'a. Just the bad people. That's why people are afraid to do anything wrong…. I’m surprised when I start to read the Bible. It’s just what my grandma taught me.”

Sometimes, as has already been noted, persons who had been killed for their misdeeds came by mistake to Kiwa’a but were sent away to Dog Heaven. Here, too, went those who had wasted food: killed what they did not need, especially small animals and little birds. On another occasion the same informant said that if a man were convicted of theft his hands were cut off, and when he died his spirit had no hands. This was a serious mutilation, since in Dog Heaven men walked upside down on their hands, and women went on all fours. Later, however, he denied that a thief was mutilated. “They just tie him up.” There is also some uncertainty as to whether the spirit of the beheaded warrior will be without a head in Kiwa’a (p. 584).

Undoubtedly the horror of Dog Heaven is due in part to the mystery that surrounds it, since no one is believed to have returned to tell about it. My informants could not say whether there is supposed to be a chief there who punishes the wicked, or indeed whether the spirits who went there could ever be reborn.

Swanton (1908, p. 461) also reports:

“According to Katishan [a chief of Wrangell and also a church member], a bad person after death went to Ył qwaq‘wo (‘Raven’s home’), where Raven lives. It was not learned whether this belief is due to white influence or not.” This is evidently the same place as Dog Heaven, although no one at Yakutat seemed to associate it in any way with Raven. Also according to Chief Katishan, “wicked people are to be dogs and such low animals hereafter,” whereas “the place for good people is above,” according to the decree of Raven-at- the-head of-Nass, whom the chief identified with God, the Creator (see p. 815; Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 81).

VISITS TO THE LAND OF THE DEAD

The Chilkat Man who Visited Kiwa’a

[The following story was told by HKB, May 2, 1954, in response to questions about the Land Above of the dead. He had been asked if there were a chief or boss in Kiwa'a.]

Yes. I don't know what he's called. I don't remember the name of that man come back here. He went up with his slave. That happened in Haines.

[In reply to a question]: I don't know the name of that man, I forget it. Just crazy story, I don‘t know. He went up there looking for totem pole [i.e., a crest object]. Looked for them [it], and didn’t find them and came back again.

[The lost object was a] pole—wútsaá [a carved chiefs staff]. It was just small…like a cane…but they make it so fancy.

It's lost. They looking for it and they can't find it, so the Indian doctor begin looking for it. They can find anything from way on the ground, but this one they can't find it. So that man, he's ‘anyAdi [aristocrat]—they said, “You're going to look for it up in Kiwa’a.”

But he had a slave. Those princes, soon as they born, they had a baby slave with them. They raise it together. So he had one, a young man, same age as him.

And the slave said, “I‘m going to go with my master.” And the young fellow said, “That’s all right. Slave can go, too.”

So when they‘re going to look, they’re going to go up, they shoot him—shoot both of them. So the spirit can go up to Kiwa’a. That man, he was leading. He was the first one get shot, that’s why he was first. His slave was right behind him.

What he see is some berry bushes—salmonberries, thick, as big as the hand, ripe. Oh, he like to eat some, but his slave is right behind him, pushing him. “Don’t touch that berries!” But he like to eat some. It looks good.

They go up there. Green grass—beautiful! And the watchman standing there, guard. Right away the wratch-out man mention his name, that he come up. He see everybody run to where he come up—just a hole. Just green grass—beautiful! Woman and man running, everybody, to meet them.

They take him to the house. That house owner, the head man, she [he] mention his name, that man. “We didn’t expect this man up here,” he said. “We didn’t expect him. We keep the fire burning for—”. I forgot his name—. “We keep the fire burning for—.” He mention a different name—”ísanał. We keep the fire burning for ísanał.” It's a different name, he mention it. “But we didn’t expect this man to come. We keep the fire burning for ísanał.”

That's what the chief said—anyway, the head house owner.

And they got a pot on the fire. I don‘t know the name of that ducks, in the water, diving all the time—tsax [murrelet, cf. p. 45]—small ducks like saw bills. But they stay in the sea all the time. That’s the meat, they boiling it.

“But we didn’t expect you,” he said.

Then he said, “I didn’t expect to come up here myself,” he said. “I’m looking for that totem pole.”

And that man answers him again, that house owner. “We don’t know anything like a totem pole up here. The only thing we know is ísanał is going to come, so we keep the fire burning until he come.”

And that there totem pole [crest figure] in that house—it's a big man. His hands reaching clear to that place—long hands, like this. [The narrator indicated that the figure was carved at the rear of the house, with long arms that reached around the sidewalls toward or to the door.] And his legs the same way. From here right in front of the ta [bench], reaching to the door—that totem pole [crest figure].

[It was the figure of a] man sitting in back of the house [with arms and legs extending around the sides of the bench to the door.].[8]

And those men ask him, the house owner, “What's the name of that totem pole?” he said.

And the house owner said, “A man roasting the eel.”

You know that eel in the water? [Blenny or prickle- back, p. 54.] He roasting, he cooking it. That's the name of it—lui kAlt’ue qa [’eel cooking man’].

Soon as they finish this story, that slave of that man just grab it [him] on the shoulder, that man. “Let's go!”

The slave push him ahead. They run, they jump down where they come from. On the way down they see that salmonberry bushes. It's blood. When they coming up it looks like berries, but it's all blood clots. The slave knows it. He's smarter than this fellow.

And they come down and the bodies come back alive. They don’t find him, that totem pole.

See, that's the way they know how it's up in Heaven….

After they come back alive, little bit afterwards, that man get killed. That's what they expect, they keep the fire burning. [I.e., the man who was expected in Kiwa’a got killed.]

They build that house in Haines. And from that time, soon as they finish that house—kill, kill, kill, kill. It's no other village in Alaska as much as kill in Haines after they built that house. That's what you’ll find up there, they built it. And they give it the same name [’Man Cooking Eels’]. Kill, kill, kill, pretty near every day.

[Query as to who did the killing]: Other people—the whole town kills.

[The house described by the narrator is actually the famous Whale House of the anAtedi which Emmons saw at Klukwan in 1885, and which was said to have been built about 1835 by a chief called “Kate-stu” (Emmons, 1916, p. 18). Emmons (p. 22) reports that the retaining walls of the lower bench were “carved in low relief to represent a remarkable extended figure, neither wholly human nor animal, with widely outstretched arms and legs, painted in red…. The old chief, Yehlh-guou, ‘Raven's slave’ [Yeł guu], said that the figure symbolized ‘kee-war-kow’ the highest heaven where those who were killed in war and died violent deaths went, and are seen at play in the Aurora Borealis. Another explanation is that it merely represented a man warming himself before the central fire.”]

The Man who Visited Kiwa’a

[The following, which sounds like a variant of the previous story, was told by JE, April 15, 1954, after explaining how the relatives of someone who was to be slain would try to close the hole into Kiwa’a (p. 770).]

I heard a story…. Some people were missing and they just couldn‘t find out what had become of them. And one shaman, he went around the fire, and he start asking who's going to go up. And finally he point out a person, and I think he stabbed him or something. Anyway, he dropped dead. And he took this feather and put it on the dead person’s mouth.

And he start going up.

And right away, they start yelling up there. They said: “łeuwuti qa ‘akeyagut—‘not-expected man is-coming- up!’ ”

He asked if those persons were up there, and they told him “No.”

So he came back down. And when he came back down, this person that was dead, breathed up that feather. That feather just flew up, and it sounded loud when he lets his breath out.

[When did this happen?] I don't know. They told me the full story, but I forgot.

When he came back down he said he didn't see them up there. “They're not up there.”

Death and Reincarnation of Qawua

[This partial version was told by JE, April 15, 1954, in explaining what the afterlife was like in Kiwa’a.]

Qawua—Sam George's father [Dry Bay Chief George, 18507–1916]—he never did finish that story, because whenever he started to tell it, always some accident happened.

There were two of them. When they shot them, it was like blood splashed on them…. It was his grandfather [i.e., the grandfather of Qawusa] and another man [who were killed].

When they looked around them, there were steps coming down. They started to walk on those steps. When they came up there, they found a lot of people who had been shot before. There's nothing going on there but playing around, playing around all the time. And most of them going after water. People going after water—that's the Northern Lights.

It's cold. It's always cold up there.

They are playing something like that hockey. They call it a [p. 558]. Sometimes they jump around this—they call it ‘In [‘greenstone’]. That’s the hardest rocks, kind of green color. They [the rocks] just sticks out. They jump through that, just jumping between them—just sticking out like tacks.

[To a query:] Yes, that's a game. There's lots of games going on. All they do is play around.

And this man [Qawua], he jumped on one [sharp stone]. And they kicked him out for that [down from Kiwa’a].

He remembered when he started to fall, and somebody said he was born again. They recognized him. They said his name, and he said something, but they were scared, so he never said nothing.

When he was born, they find some birthmarks.

When he started to talk, he started telling the story, and every time he started telling the story, there's always some accident happens, so he has to stop. My mother knows that story pretty well. And he never did finish that story.

[When he was shot, who was he then?] I think he was his father or his grandfather…. I think he was his grandfather…. He was shot in a war. I don't know who shot him. They didn’t say.

[Another version was told by EE, March 10, 1954.]

That Sam George's father—he knows he's killed. He knows it. His name is Qawua. After he grows up he told it to everybody.

They were on that Tciłqat [Chilkat]. There's a war over there. That's the time they kill that Qawua. When they shoot him, it's just like breath, you know, they put it on him. That's what it looks like to him…. [Answer to query:] Somebody puts that breath on you. That's what it looks like. [It was as if he were muffed in fog?]

He goes way up to Kiwa qawu ‘ani—that land. Northern Lights. He goes way up there. He says when they play around sometimes they roll something like that [the narrator pointed to the round tabletop]. That's the time they see it, he says. [That's when the people see the Northern Lights.]

[In answer to a query:] Roll something, you know, like this [tabletop]. Wood. Roll it around like this…. Like a wheel, not a ball…. I don’t know what they call it. [This may be a reference to playing with tops, cf. p. 558.]

And he's got a cut on his foot. That's some kind of iron around up there [i.e., the spikes of greenstone]. You know, it goes like this. They jumping around like this, jumping around. He cut his foot on the iron up above.

Then when he got a cut on his foot, they kick him out, kick it down.

All that tsààł [spear]—some kind of knife, that long [stretches both arms out]—That's the way it look to him, these trees down here, you know. They kick him out; he fall.

He got it in his sister; his sister got it [his spirit as a baby]. He don't want to suck his sister's breast, you know, that boy.

When they shoot him over here [indicates the right breast], it's still there when he's born, just like it's new. He's got a scar on.

He was reborn as Sam George's father. It was his real sister he came back to, own father and mother.

[Who was fighting at Chilkat?] Tł'UknaAdi and anAtedi. They're still fighting each other…. jealous of each other…. War was long time ago, before I was born. He's way older than me, that man. Long time ago.

[HB commented that whenever Dry Bay Chief George tried to tell about his experiences, “there always used to be bloodshed on the same day he tells it.” Therefore, he was never able to recount them fully.]

Death and Reincarnation of ‘AsdjIwAn and His Partner

[This story was told by HKB, May 2, 1954.]

I forget the name of that one man was two persons…. [Then the narrator recalled it.] Fellow's name is 'ÀsdjÍwÁ·n [‘Near the Spruce Branch‘]. I don’t know what happened, but it’s a story.

Him and his partner, they died. They get killed. They find themselves in a strange country.

They just walking, keep on walking, those two. And they so tired they want to sit down. And 'AsdjiwAn, that's the one that said, “Let's keep on walking until we find a good dry place where we can rest.” It's swampy, something like a prairie, no trees.

Then they came to a big river—far across. And then his partner sit down under a small tree, not a good tree. But him, he's tired already, but he still keep on going until he find a good big tree—branches are long—good and dry. Then he sit down under that tree.

That riverbank is quite a ways from him. But all one night—at night—first night, he heard a big noise. That bank is breaking. Next night, same thing. Every night, there's just one big piece break off that bank. Pretty soon it's not very far from him. Eight—close to him already. Nine—right close at his feet. But he can't move any more. He can‘t stand up, he can’t move. He knows tomorrow night he’s going to fall in the water.

And the 10th night he went, he went in the big river. He tried to holler for help. And here he finds himself, he's crying. He's a baby. He find himself in somebody's arms.

Somebody said, “This is a boy born!”

He look at it. It's his sister.

And the very first time in that history the people heard baby talk. He ask for his partner. He wonder if his partner's born, too. The same day his partner is born, and asked where he is. So they put those babies together. They talking to each other.

[Answer to queries:] The other one I don't know…. Maybe born to his sister.

Reincarnation of Joseph

[This story was told by HKB immediately after the story about 'AsdjIWAn.]

There's lots more stories about that same thing.

And when I was working in Juneau, there's an old man working with me. His name is Joseph; I forget his first name. He's Kagwantan. Bunch of us working in there. I was young yet, that time. And every lunch time they telling a story—one-hour lunch.

And this man, Joseph, he told me he know when he was born. He said the same thing [as 'AsdjIWAn]. He find himself crying as a baby cries—with his own sister.

In olden days, he never talk to his sister—shamed to talk. And that was his own sister, and he start to cry.

And everybody talking, “He knows it.” And one woman said, “I think he wants to see his father.” They mention his name, his own name—he heard it.

They take that baby to his father. Give him to the old man. He look up—there's his father, his own father.

The old man, his father, talks to him· “Son, is that you?” “Ah—yes,” he says.

And that old man had berries in the dish. And he took one up and squeeze it to his mouth, and he said, “You want to eat berries, son?”

And he taste it. Taste just the same. How can he make the story up? It's funny.

[Answer to a query:] The man was his old father, not his new one.

…That Joseph, he can‘t get no feed [at first]. He's ashamed of his sister. He don’t know it for all that time; just that first day he know it. But that first day he don’t want to take no feed from his sister. After that he forgot it. That's Joseph’s story. Just that first day he know it [that his new mother was really his sister.]

The Story of Łxakunik who Visited the Land of the Dead

[The following account was told by EE, March 7, 1954, immediately after telling the Story of ‘Askadut. Some details are inserted from the shorter version told June 22, 1952.]

And one of my grandfathers—I told you that one before [1952]—he died. [She was urged to tell the story again.]

His name was łxakunik. His mother's name is my name, CawAt u [‘Woman Club’]. I’m named after her. [He was my father's father’s brother.] He was dead for 12 hours and later came alive again. He was a little boy then….

I don‘t know how big he is. His mother spank him, that boy. He’s big. Then chase him in the room. My mother used to do it when they do against it [break the rules]. Chase him in a room, and he stays without eating….

His mother cooks….

Then afterwards she goes over there. She calls her son. My, he's just like this [stiff like the chair arm]. He's dead, that boy…. He was stiff like wood, that little boy.

She cried. Everybody cried. They dressed him up…. So the people put the blanket over him, across his face just under his eyes, so he looked as if he were sleeping sitting up, and that CAki'At [wooden headdress] on his head…. Olden times, they got CAki'At on, and that blanket, they got it on. They dressed the body in it. [My impression was that the narrator meant a Chilkat blanket, although the narrator did not mention this specifically.]

He sits over there [the narrator pointed to a box against the back wall of the room.]

Then he goes around, that little boy. Running like that—he goes around. It's half raining and half snow…. It was sleeting and raining, he said [when he returned to life]. All the people were singing…. Then afterwards, you know, are songs, singing it like that—just like they pray this time.

He goes. Then he sees the road, a little trail. After a while he sees a river like that. He sits right by it. He sees people on the other side. They got CAki'At on too, and blanket.

He called them, “Go over here. I want to go on the other side.” Nobody listen to him.

Then after while, he's getting sleepy. That's his spirit. His body's way back inside his mother's house. He's yawning.

They hear it. “Somebody on the other side!” they said. “Where's the boat?…Take a boat and bring him in the house.”

[The narrator whispered these words of the ghosts, but when asked if they were whispering, she said, “They talk loud. They hollering.” However, when she repeated their words, her voice again dropped to a whisper.]

“Somebody on the other side. Where's the boat?”

They got the boat. They take him on the other side.

First house they came in, his aunty's there. His aunt is right by the door over here. She's standing over here…. All the people were sitting in four circles around the house, the oldest in back.

The girl said, “Sit down. I’m going to tell you something.” She didn’t lose her mind. She thought about her people in the world…. “Sit down,” says that woman. She just fresh yet, you know [recently dead]. “Don’t eat anything from these people. I’m going to help you get back on the other side. You’re going home.” That's what she said, that woman. “Sit down here. Don’t go away from me. It's by accident I stay here…. I ate something, so I’m here…. These people is no good,” she says, his father’s sister. He sat beside her….

After a while, people were running around, like crazy. [The boy asked his aunt what they were doing, and she explained.]

When people eat and put something in the fire, these people were trying to get it—to beat each other…. Sometimes they always fight like that. When they got something in the fire, they ask, ‘What's the matter with them?‘ Well, that's when you left the food. When you left, that's what they put in the fire. When they put something in the fire—When it’s left[-over food of the living]—they’re going to get it.

“Don't eat anything. If you eat anything from them you’re going to stay here.”

After a while, everybody sleepy. When they were sleeping, she sneaks him over to the other side.

“Run as fast as you can. Don’t think of us. After that crow [raven] sounds, you aren’t going to come back.” [I.e., he had to return home before the raven called, or he would never be able to do so.] He runs.

Afterwards he sees that house [his own home]. He sees that corner. He wants to come in. He can't make it. After a while he stands against the corner, and they say, “He's coming to alive! He's coming to alive!”

[The narrator demonstrated with her hands that he stood against the corner outside the house and then found himself in the corner inside the house. He evidently could not enter through the door.]

He see that thing on him [the headdress]. He take it off and throw it off. Everybody go away from him…. People were afraid. He was coming alive. He took off all those things [his death clothes]….

That evening they find out he died, and next morning—daylight just coming up—that's the time he coming to alive again.

He takes everything and throw it on the floor. He takes all his clothes off and throw them on the floor.

His name was Łxakunik. When I was born, he died, old, very old…. He wasn‘t a doctor, but he feeds the dead people. “That's the way you’re going to feed the dead people,” he said. Anything he eats or drinks, he always puts it [part of it] on the fire. Every day, once a day, he does that…. He didn’t say anything to the dead people when he did that…. Every time he feel like it, he takes dried fish and everything, all kinds of berries, puts it on the fire. And seal oil. That’s the way he does.

CawAt u is his mother's name, same as mine. I got łAkt [wooden box] and that little Russian stewing pot from him that used to be his mother's….

It's true.

REINCARNATION

Every baby embodies the spirit of a deceased relative who has returned to the living. A person referring to a time before his birth would say: ‘Then ashes I was; not yet was I born’ (yesu kełt At siti; keł quxqAstit). Reincarnation can easily be “proved” when the parents of the child or other relatives see the returning spirit in a dream, when the child is born with birthmarks or other physical characteristics derived from a previous incarnation, or when the child “remembers” his former life and, like ‘Askadut, even as a baby “recognizes” his former parents, spouse, or siblings.

“What you dream when you sick with the child, his spirit come to you” (MJ). “Sometimes they find markings on them [the baby], and then they know it is the same spirit. That's when they always call them by that same name,” explained another. “One of my mother's sister's spirits I got…so I call my mother ‘my sister.‘ After a while they told me she’s my mother. I used to call my [maternal] grandmother ‘my mother,’ “ said a woman.

Thus dreams and signs, winning ways and baby talk, or the first efforts of a child to use the kin terms he hears others employ, all help to assuage the grief of an earlier bereavement with proof that the dead has returned as a beloved child.

Although there was some question as to whether “souls” in Dog Heaven could be reborn, I can cite the case of a former witch (albeit one who had repented and in the course of time been reinstated, pp. 740–743) who was reborn even though the new mother was reluctant to admit him. He achieved this by a threat, for it is said that when she was about to have her baby, she saw the dead witch sitting by the bed every time she opened her eyes. She had to name the child after him, for: “If you refuse to take him in, the spirit will leave the mother and the baby dies” (MJ). Belief in the origin of the spirit in no way affected the mother's love for her son, nor can I see that it affected his subsequent career.

There might also be some question whether those who were taken by the Land Otter Men could be reincarnated, since they themselves had become kucda qa. I was told by one man that “after they died as kucda qa, then they are reborn…. They claim that if people drown, when they are reborn they will stammer and stutter.” This is because water had choked off the cries of the drowning man. The same informant also hazarded that “After 2 years the kucda [land otters] let them go,” but it was not clear whether this was to become reborn. While the names of those who have drowned and whose bodies were never recovered have been given to children at Yakutat, indicating the belief that the drowned had been reborn, I must admit that there is also the notion that the lost people are in some way still among the Land Otter People (p. 747).

In reincarnation, the dead person's spirit is said to return to the “nearest relative” to be reborn as her child. This woman most properly belongs to the same lineage and sib as the deceased, and to judge by alleged instances may be a sister, sister's daughter, daughter's daughter, or sister's daughter's daughter, or sometimes a son's daughter or even a sib “sister” whose relationship is so remote that I could not trace it. The mother may even be a woman in an allied sib in the same moiety. The same baby may also be born repeatedly to the same mother, after dying in infancy. In all of these instances, the personal name or names of the deceased were given to the new incarnation. Complications arise from the beliefs that one individual could be reincarnated simultaneously in two children, that one person might have, not one, but several “souls” or returned spirits, and even that a spirit might be reborn to a woman in the wrong moiety. Examples of these are discussed later. While rebirth is conceived as due primarily to the wish of the spirit, there are devices to assist or insure the reincarnation of the departed.

Insuring Reincarnation

Normally, “when you lose a precious one to you…if you want the spirit to come back, you get his right hand and put it on your bare skin, let it feel your titty. Then the spirit comes back as a baby to that mother…. You have to do it yourself.” (MJ)

That is, the woman who wishes the dead to be reborn as her child must take the hand of the corpse and lay it on her breast, while she makes a silent wish. When the body has been cremated or buried, a unEtkAnayi woman would lead the future mother eight times around the grave or pyre, once for each of the eight bones of the body. Then the one who hopes to be the mother sketches a little path from the grave, about an inch deep and 6 or 7 feet long. She squats at the end of this and urinates (opening the womb?), while she calls on the dead spirit to return. Then the unEtkAnai woman leads her away. She dare not look back lest this drive back the spirit she has called (MJ).

In addition, especially if the deceased was a little child, the grieving mother may cut a lock from the right side of her dead baby's head and sew this into a tiny bag which she wears on her waistband next to her skin. A fingernail from the right hand may also be used, and these methods are considered equally effective for older persons who had died.

Swanton (1908, p. 429) reports a similar practice:

“If a very dear relative had passed away, people often took the nail from the little finger of his right hand and a lock of hair from the right side of his head and put them into the belt of a young girl of his clan just reaching maturity. Afterwards she had to lead a very quiet life for 8 months and fast for as many days, unless she were delicate, when half as many sufficed. In the former case she fasted steadily for four days, rested two days, then fasted for the remaining four. [This is a careful observance of the normal puberty practice, in which the 8 months and 8 days reflect the body's “eight bones.”] After her fast was over, and just before she ate, she prayed that the dead person would be born again from her and also that she would marry well and live a good life.”

It was also suggested that to save something belonging to the deceased might help his return. “Long time ago, they keep something precious to him. They never bury it. They keep it so his spirit comes back quick.” (MJ) This practice would explain the eagerness of relatives to retain some possessions of the dead as keepsakes, when most of his property is put into the fire for him or is given to the unEtknai in his name.

An additional method used to attract the spirit is for a unEtkAnai woman to make a tiny basket, the size of one's thumb, into which are put fragments of the food which the dead person liked best to eat, or which is usually given to babies. The deceased would be called by name, and the basket hung by the bed or put under the pillow of the would-be-mother. This is done so that the dead person will hurry back to eat the food. In one instance the basket was not made until the woman was already 3 or 4 months with child. When the baby was born, the UnEtkAnai took the basket into the woods, and put it into a cleft made at the top of a strong tree, so that the child would grow strong as the tree waved in the wind (MJ).

The only way known to control the sex of the baby was to invite back the spirit of a specific relative. Sometimes, however, when the soul of the dead person comes back, the sex is changed. The mother “may lose the boy just at birth,” when he becomes a girl. My informant has seen it happen. “The private parts breaks open and stuff running out.” They call such a girl wucitc, and say of her 'someone's place below became female’(?) (qaiyi ‘awe wucitc) [9] (MJ). Another woman reported: “Many times it happens. It happened to B—. She looks like a boy. So they say she's a little boy. He [sic] sure looks like a boy.”

It was denied that the change from girl to boy could occur at the moment of birth. Yet Swanton (1908, p. 402) translates the name, KcĪ’tc, as “woman turning into a man.” It belonged to the chief of the Q’tcAdÎ Frog House of the Stikine Tlingit at Wrangell. Perhaps in southeastern Alaska this transformation is not believed impossible.

Choosing One's Parents

The initiative could be made by the individual concerned, either before his death or after it. MJ commented: “‘Askadut's spirit picked good people. It's like adopting a child,” but readily agreed that it was really the other way around: he adopted his parents. “Yes, they plan way ahead of time. But nowadays they don’t do that any more,” that is, a person does not decide in advance who his future parents are to be. This had happened in the informant's own family. Her brother, Charley, was the Tł’UknaAdi reincarnation of a TłukwaAdi man named Big Rabbit (p. 276). The latter had announced before his death that he was “coming to my father and mother, because my father is handy, and ‘I wouldn‘t be starved,’ he said. ‘The reason I come to you, uncle’—he called my father ‘uncle’ [sAni] not ‘father’—’is because you kill lots of animals…. . But please don’t prohibit me from using tobacco. All GA-tłen [Big Rabbit] cared about was using leaf tobacco and snuff. Charley [the speaker's brother] was a little boy when he was using tobacco…. My mother made a little bag for him, and he has his tobacco can in it. The tobacco didn't bother him at all. Up to this time he'd do anything for snuff.”

The same woman explained how her own father, adane, before his death, told a group of his nieces that he was not going to be born to any of them, because they had hot tempers.

“You Teqwca [Teqwedi women] think I’m coming back to you. You’re crazy. I don’t like you. If you are going to have a boy baby, don’t name the baby after me!” Instead, he announced that he would be born to another “niece” in his sib, “because she was a lady…. She was a nice quiet woman, never got into trouble with any one. That’s why he wanted to come back to her…. She was a nice Christian woman. Her husband, B. B. Billy [p. 324] was a good hunter.”

So after his death, this woman performed the correct rites, and soon became pregnant. Before that time she had born only girls, but this baby was a son. He was, of course named for his previous incarnation, adane. MJ explained further:

“I called him ‘father,‘ and Bear Bit Billy said that anything we need, we could come and they would give it to us, because that baby was named for my father. When he got big, they got scared of him. He remembered my mother, and said, ‘That's my wife.’ Only he couldn't say ‘wife,’ he said ‘maf.’ He noticed [recognized] her voice.” In his turn, this man’s son acknowledges the informant (MJ) as his “sister.”

However, the father's spirit did, in a way, come back to two women. This was because one of the nieces also had a son, NM, a few months later, and gave her baby another one of her uncle's names, WAna-‘ic. This, as a near relative, she had a right to do. MJ hazarded that her father's spirit had come to both women. “I don’t know. They imagine that, I suppose, and besides they didn’t want to waste the name.”

NM (WAna-‘ic), the man in question, told us that he was like a father to his greatuncle's children, Charley and Minnie. “You know, Tlingit people always die off and then they give the same name again, like he’s still alive” (NM). Charley, the son of the original adane and WAna-’ic, refers to NM as his “step-father.” The first reincarnation, B. B. Billy, Jr., died some time ago, and the second man is now known by both names.

This case illustrates clearly the importance of the name as “validating” the reincarnation, even determining as well as identifying the spirit. It indicates, too, the extent to which such namesakes are equated in kinship terminology and usages, yet further shows that personal “identity” may be duplicated in two contemporary reincarnations.

Choosing One's Sex

Just as a spirit may choose its future parents, so it is believed that it may choose the sex of its future incarnation. Although one knowledgeable Yakutat informant said that she had never heard of a man wanting to be reborn as a woman (MJ), a Dry Bay woman cited several instances of this kind in her own family. Possibly this attitude was derived from the interior (cf. de Laguna, 1954, p. 183). This latter informant said that her dead husband had told her in a dream that because people had been so mean to him in his former life, he was going to be reborn as a girl. They could tell which baby he was by the hands. (The hands as an inherited feature were mentioned in several dreams.) When this child was born, he said, she was to be good to it. The informant was, in fact, convinced that a particular little girl, born into her husband's sib, was actually the husband who had died 3 years before, even though the baby's hands were not distinctive. All the people had dreamed this, she said, the child resembled him, and had “talked” to her. However, she was afraid that her husband may have become displeased with her, since he no longer visited her in dreams as before. This last observation indicates that reincarnation does not mean the earthly reembodiment of the entire spiritual entity of the deceased person.

Multiple Souls

The little girl just mentioned as the alleged reincarnation of a man, is claimed, on equally good evidence (her paternal grandfather's dream), to be the reincarnation of her father's father's mother's sister, for whom she has been accordingly named. The dead woman in this case was Kwacqwan, and the baby is Tł'UnknaAdi, members of different sibs within the Raven moiety. A third person (MJ), however, was convinced that her old aunt, also Tł'Uknaca, had returned to the little girl as a second spirit. To further complicate the situation, a second Tł'UknaAdi girl, born 7 months after the first, was named for the old aunt in question, because the latter had “worried so much about how she was going to come back to this world.” It would thus appear that the old lady has secured a double renewal of life.

In any case, the first child is believed to be certainly the reincarnation of someone, if not of several persons, for she was born with a great deal of hair and also, it is alleged, with holes all around the lobe and helix of the ears. This is proof that “she's the spirit of the old people,” for long ago the well-to-do would give potlatches to have a baby's ears so pierced (MJ).

This example illustrates some of the difficulties of determining who has been reborn.

But if the living are anxious to claim an attractive baby as the reincarnation of some relative, it is also believed that the spirits of the dead may fight one another for the chance to be reborn. A second spirit may attempt to drive out the one that has already claimed the foetus, and may or may not succeed. “That's the time they dream two people's spirits are fighting.”

Sometimes this struggle results in multiple births. “They believe that twins was two persons' spirits. They fight one another over which one is going to that tribe. They both get there then.” (MJ) “Twins always come back in the family. They’re bound to come back.” Many examples of twins born at or near Yakutat were cited. The deaths of many persons at the same time obviously precipitated such struggles between rival spirits. “After the big war in Sitka [1852; p. 279], lots of people were killed from Wrangell. Two Wrangell women had four kids and one had three.” (MJ and friend.)

One dramatic episode was described. A Tł'UknaAdi man, Big Weasel (Da-tłen, 1857–1933), died of “tonsillitis.” About two or three months later, a TłukwaAdi woman in labor saw the dead man's spirit sitting at her feet. According to my informant who was present, the mother cried out:

” “Tell him to get away from there! Big Weasel is just sitting against my feet. That's why I hold it back [the birth]. I don’t want him to see me give birth to my child.’

“She wasn‘t sleeping, but her eyes were closed. That's his spirit came to her. She’s afraid of him. She don’t want him.

” ‘Tell him to get away. He's sitting right by my feet. Tell him to stand in a corner. That's why I hold it back. I don‘t want him to see me naked when they undress me. I don’t want him to see what’s going on!’

“…Big Weasel was fighting with another spirit. That's why he is camped right there, along side of her, don’t want to leave.”

The baby, also named Big Weasel, was said to have been born without a soft palate, because his namesake's “tonsils rot away.”

In discussing the same episode on another occasion, MJ denied that one baby could have two spirits.

“Two spirits fight one another. One is got to win. But not two spirits in one baby.” By this statement she reversed the opinion she had expressed 2 months earlier when she said that the little girl (p. 779) had two spirits.

From another woman I learned that “in olden times” one baby could have two spirits.

“That's what they told us. Just sometimes, I guess it goes like that. Olden times, you know, everything is different…. I hear it like that when my mother talks about it. That's why they got two names…. ”

It was even claimed, she reported, that some people had four spirits; but this she dismissed with a laugh, adding, “maybe. I don‘t know…. Strong Indian doctor—they say he’s got four spirits.” From the context, this would seem to mean four reincarnated souls, not four assistant spirits (yek), yet we might be wrong to imply that this distinction was clear cut and absolute. The same informant explained another time that if a child has two cowlicks, ‘eyes or whirlpools on top of you’ (’ikA wAq), it means that he has two spirits, and she cited her own grandchild in illustration. There would normally be a separate name to correspond to each inherited spirit.

Perhaps because many persons have several names this fact provides an explanation for, or a way of thinking about, the splitting up of a personality, Thus, Dry Bay Chief George had obtained two names from his grandfather, a shaman (p. 645): “That Qawua—and his other name is Qusun—before he died or even took sick, he said his spirit will be divided in two. One will go to his son's wife.”

This woman, then, became the mother of Qawua. But the chief also had another son by a different mother, and the wife of his second son became the mother of Qusun. The two babies are said to have been born 2 months apart (1916).

The grandfather had also predicted: “The only thing you can tell me by, it's my spirit got a birthmark on his forehead.” This may have been a scar derived from the incarnation in which an earlier Qawua was killed in battle (see p. 774). This mark apparently reappeared on one of the boys.

“I think it was really the same spirit that came back to each,” said the mother of one. “They were very close to each other. Yes, they were like each other, just like one boy”. “Qawua said [to me], ‘one year after I die, I’m going to come back to you.’ They gave Mrs. F—[the other daughter-in-law] a hair and a fingernail from his right hand. And she sew it up and wear it. He told me he was coming back to me, every time I feed him.”

Does she here refer to a sparking of the fire when she put food into it? Her son, Qusun, is dead, but lives again in her grandchild. This boy calls her ‘mother,’ not ‘grandma,’ and has the crushed fingers and scar on the forehead of the old Qusun-Qawua. The old man (Dry Bay Chief George, 1850?–1916) was Tł'UknaAdi; young Qawua is TłukwaAdi; young Qusun (1916–1941) and the little boy (born 1942) are Tł'UknaAdi.

Rebirth in the Wrong Sib

It will be remembered that a spirit seeking rebirth should avoid the dripping tree, that is, a unEtkAnai mother (p. 769). Yet the spirit has not always done so. In such a case, its identity may be revealed by the strong family resemblance to the deceased. While the same English name may be freely given to the baby, it is impossible to give a Tlingit name to someone in the opposite moiety, because these names are inherited through the matrilineal line, so that the reborn spirit cannot be fully acknowledged.

MJ seemed to be a little uncertain whether or not she has her paternal grandmother's spirit, along with others. Once she said, “I’m the dead image of my father's mother, but not her spirit. My people can't name me after my grandma because it's opposite tribe.” But on other occasions she reported that her father believed, or half-believed, that she was his beloved mother, whom she so closely resembled, and therefore would not allow her to be punished when she was naughty. He even used to call her ‘my mother' (’a tła) (see p. 511).

The most striking examples of rebirth in the opposite moiety seem to have involved Dry Bay lines that were dying out. There was a TłukwaAdi man, apparently subject to seizures (pp. 603, 671), who told his brother's wife that he was going to be reborn as her daughter, because she was a good woman and he would learn everything from her. She was then 40 years old and did not expect another baby, but when she dreamed that her husband's brother said he was coming to her, she immediately became pregnant. In this way, the paternal uncle of my informant was reborn as her younger sister. He was, of course, given a girl's name belonging to his new mother's sib, the Kagwantan. When this child was only a year old, “she” terrified her older sister (my informant) by addressing her as ‘my little daughter’ (’a si), just as the uncle had done. This new incarnation also had seizures, and after her death, my informant's husband dreamed that she was again reborn to his wife as their daughter. (This last was a normal reincarnation from aunt to niece within the close maternal line.) This girl again died, and was reincarnated as a ałyi-Kagwantan girl, according to the dream of her maternal grandmother. (This again is a normal reincarnation, since the Dry Bay Kagwantan and ałyi-Kagwantan sibs are closely allied.)

This same informant also believes that her own son is her father, whom the young man closely resembles. “I dreamed about it, that my father wants to stay with us when I carry that J—…. I never know I carry around baby, then I dream about my father. Then I miss my monthly that time.” In this case, the father did not achieve his reported wish of being reborn as a girl.

In these two cases, the two TłukwaxAdi brothers (both of whom drowned) had to come back as Kagwantan, it was alleged, because all the women of their sib had died and their spirits had nowhere else to go.

Perhaps a similar scarcity of Kagwantan mothers accounts for my informant's belief that one of her own daughters has been reborn as her son's daughter. She had dreamed a month before the child's birth that someone was giving her back her own daughter, and when she asked whose baby it was to be, she was told in her dream that it was her son's. This child is the one with the two cowlicks and two spirits: one her paternal aunt's; the other, in more orthodox fashion, is that of her maternal aunt.

It is clear, however, that a number of persons fear that the extinction or near extinction of family and sib lines will prevent the return of the beloved dead and destroy their own hopes for reincarnation. When MJ was asked to whom she was going to be reborn, she answered, “I've got no close relation. I’m going to die out of this world for good when I die.”

Names

Personal names (sa; cf. Boas, 1917, p. 138, yÀ-sà ‘to name, to breathe‘) are an important aspect of one’s identity. Every individual has several: one or more “real names” “inherited from generation to generation” within the lineage and sib, perhaps a “pet name” used when he was a child, or a nickname coined for some personal peculiarity or idiosyncrasy, probably also a teknonymous name (referring to his child, or even inherited as a “real name”), and lastly a “big name” or “potlatch name” given or assumed at a potlatch. Some of the latter were rather like titles, since they were borne by the chiefs of lineage and sib; others were simply the honorable appellations of more humble persons. In addition, special symbolic titles were given to those who served as peace hostages, and special names (always those of their spirits?) were assumed by shamans. In ordinary conversation, parents might address their children by their “real names” or by pet names; small children in the same family or friends of the same age might call each other by their “real names” or by nicknames in informal talk; otherwise, kinship terms were more common and more polite. At potlatches, however, persons were announced or formally addressed by their “big names.”

“Real Names”

“Real names,” as we have seen, indicate what spirit or spirits have been reincarnated in an individual. These names are given at birth and are normally inherited within the close maternal line. They can also pass from the father's father (or his siblings) to his son's children, since the latter are reckoned as close relatives, even though they may belong to another sib within the same moiety as the grandfather. It is rather doubtful, however, if such names would be further inherited within the grandchild's sib, since they belong properly to that of his parental grandfather. My records do show that some names are actually owned by two sibs, and informants interpret this as proof of the common origin of these sibs.

I believe that a similar sharing of names may also result when a declining sib becomes allied to or identified with a stronger: when, for example, the Tłaayik- Teqwedi became absorbed by the Teqwedi proper from southeastern Alaska, the latter also took over some of the names of the former. Whatever the process involved, such closely related sibs as the Tł'UknaAdi and the nearly extinct TłukwaAdi seem to possess a considerable stock of names in common, which probably explains the disagreements between informants in determining the sib affiliations of some individuals who bear these names. On the other hand, while the Sitka Kagwantan at Yakutat and the ałyi-Kagwantan share some names, there is no such confusion over the sib affiliations of their bearers.

The stock of names and titles belonging to the different sibs and lineages are said to be familiar to all properly informed persons, so that to hear the name of an individual is to know his sib and house, and often, too, his geographical origin, since lineage and family lines tend to be localized. The sex is also indicated by the name, although I was unable to discover any principle on which the distinction might be based, except when the name explicitly contains an element meaning ‘man‘ or ‘woman.’ A person’s name not only identifies him, but in so doing serves as a passport in a strange community, showing what rights he has in claiming kinship ties with the residents.

Because names belong to house lines which, in turn, are of different social standing, and because names are, if feasible, kept within the immediate maternal line, it was probably possible in the old days to tell something of a person's social rank from his inherited birth name, quite apart from what would be indicated by his “big name.” Now that so many distinguished lines have become extinct and potlatching almost obsolete, many names that were formerly like titles to be assumed late in life at potlatches and implying, therefore, only the inheritance of prerogatives, not the reincarnation of a spirit, are now being given as “real names” to children of the present generation.

Naming the Child

A given individual frequently, perhaps always, possesses several “real names,” assigned at birth. In most cases, the whole group of such names would be passed on from a single predecessor to the little namesake. Nicknames are usually included, and so may become “real names.” Thus, the little Tł'UknaAdi girl already mentioned (p. 779) was given as her “real name” the nickname of her father's father's mother's sister (a Kwacqwan woman) who was called 'Someone's Mother' (Qa-tła), in the sense of “Everybody's Mother” because she had been so beloved. The child has also inherited the woman's “real name,” Tłe‘an (translated as “Together with the Town”). Since this name also belonged to a Tł’UknaAdi woman, Mrs. Daqusetc, who may be considered as the baby's own maternal great-grandmother's aunt, the choice was particularly appropriate. In other cases, the different names given to one person might be those of several different deceased relatives and would presumably imply the reincarnation in one body of several spirits.

Obviously, when the identity of the reincarnated spirit (or spirits) was known, this determined the name (except in the aberrant instances of rebirth into the wrong moiety). Sometimes mistakes were made, as when the name of a distinguished chief, 'Aaqudułu, was given to a descendant (son of his daughter's son, and of his sister's maternal greatgranddaughter), although a birthmark (”scar”) revealed that the boy was really one of the chief's nephews whom the chief had stabbed (p. 714). Although the parents realized the mistake, the boy's name was not changed.

In a good many cases the identity of the reborn soul is in doubt and then the act of naming, in effect, achieves the reincarnation. Thus, “Te-‘ic [the famous shaman] is still alive. But he didn’t choose his mother. They just named the boy.” (MJ) It is usually the mother who names her child, although the maternal grandmother or some older woman in the lineage might select the name if the young mother were not sufficiently informed in genealogical lore. (One wonders how often the choice of a name was justified by appeal to an ambigious dream.)

The right to appropriate a name for one's child properly belongs to the closest female relative of the deceased: a sister, daughter (of a woman), sister's child, etc. Thus, MJ, in telling how her father had designated a distant “niece,” Mrs. Bear Bit Billy, as his future mother, rather than one of his sister's daughters, admitted that the latter “had first right to name her son after my father.” The true niece, mother of NM, could not use the name, adane, in this case, simply because her uncle had forbidden it, but also because, at his express request, Mrs. B. B. Billy had already named her son adane, and to use the same name for another child under these circumstances would cause bad feeling. Under normal conditions, it was explained, you can name your baby for any close relative to whom you are attached, “as many names as you can get ahold of.” As a hypothetical example, my informant suggested that she could name a daughter after a particular friend in her own sib, a young woman whom she seems to consider as a rather distant “niece.”

“And her daughter can have the name [for her baby] at the same time I have. You think just as much [of the dead woman as her own daughter does], and you don't want to waste the name. You don’t want to have not close relative have that name.” (MJ)

In other words, a somewhat distant relative is entitled through bonds of affection to share with a close relative the use of a name which should not be allowed to lapse or to go to someone who could claim neither close kinship nor friendship with the deceased. In citing this hypothetical example, MJ seemed to forget or ignore, or perhaps deny, the question of whether the dead woman's spirit would go to both of the babies named for her.

Also governing the choice of names for children is the feeling that a whole family of siblings should be duplicated in successive generations. Thus, baby Tłe'an has an older sister, Gayu-tła, just as did her long-dead Tł'UknaAdi namesake, and her mother has been hoping for a son whom she can name Ckinan after their brother.

Similarly, the Yakutat adane had a namesake at Dry Bay, and it was the latter's son, Big Rabbit (GA-tłen, the TłukwaAdi shaman), who became reincarnated as the Tł'UknaAdi son (Charley White) of the Yakutat adane Johnstone (p. 778). This meant that Minnie Johnson, the sister of the young Big Rabbit, was called ŁItqwe (in addition to her other names), after the sister of the old Big Rabbit. That this repetition of names was partly playful, rather than serious, is suggested by the fact that the son of the old łitqwe was called Ketłuna (’strange Dog People’?)[10]and that this name was given to the pets of her small namesake.

“That's why my brother, łdaxin, would capture baby animals for me. He would say, ‘Here's a baby for you, Ketłuna-tła [Mother of Ketłuna]. Here's Ketłuna for you.'…GA-tłen [Big Rabbit] and łitqwe and Ketłuna were TłukwaAdi, but we were named for them because our father had the same name as the father of Big Rabbit.” (MJ)

The names, ŁItqwe and GA-tłen, were subsequently given to other members of the TłukwaAdi, who are presumably the “true” reincarnations of Big Rabbit and his sister, if one may hazard this expression for such a vaguely formulated notion.

Namesakes

Even though the sharing or inheriting of a name may not have been consciously recognized at all times as involving the sharing or inheriting of a spirit, possession of the same name frequently resulted in the same social consequences. When the Wrangell natives were killed by the Kagwantan at Sitka in 1852, there was only one survivor, a small boy who succeeded in hiding for a time. The man who found him asked, “What is your name?” On being told that it was Qa-tłen (‘Big Man’), the Kagwantan warrior was unable to kill the boy, because this was the name of his own father (p. 280). The sentiment here is parallel to that expressed by MJ who said of a man named Qani-‘ic—”He's my grandfather. He’s named for my grandfather.”

One would normally use the same kin terms for the new namesake as were appropriate for the old. For example, a man addresses both his son and his brother's son as “father” because these boys bear his father's names. I cannot say, however, that he does not also address them as “son,” which would be the term normally applied. Similar examples of a woman addressing her sons as “uncle,” and her granddaughter as “mother” have been cited (p. 468).

Other relatives may also be drawn into this fictitious web of kinship.

“My aunty [father's sib sister], Mrs. B. B. Billy, got a son named after my father, so she is my ‘grandmother.‘ Because she named her son after my father she used to bring me lots of things. ' ’A ‘ic tła [my father's mother]’ we called her.” (MJ)

In this case the dead father was usually described as having been actually reincarnated in this woman's son, his namesake (p. 778). MJ cited another similar case: “That lady, NAxtłenA [or NeinA], married my oldest brother. Her first husband had been YandAs-’ic. When my mother had a baby boy and named him YandAs-‘ic after that woman's husband, she is supposed to give a present to her [husband’s] namesake, and to help my mother take care of the baby. She calls the baby ‘my little husband’ (’a ow gAtsu).”

Similar duties owed to a former husband's little namesake and to his new mother were described by another informant.

Sometimes it may happen that two persons with the same name meet face to face. They are likely to belong to different, though allied sibs, or to different lineages, in another tribe. Traditionally such persons greet each other with special warmth, perhaps calling each other ‘my darling’ (a’i). My namesake (’a sai, literally ‘my name’) is my other self, his family my family, and I will address all his relatives and (ideally) behave toward them as if I were in his place, and they were in fact my own (p. 476).

It is because of this strong affectionate bond between namesakes that the assumption of another's name, as when Chief Yen-aht-setl took that of Captain “Billy Minaman,” is such a gesture of friendship and respect. The same is true when an older person shares a name with a younger. It is indeed something closer than an adoption.

Teknonymy

It will have been noticed (p. 783) that the teknonymous name, ‘Father of YandAs’ (YandAs-’ic), was given to a small baby, just as WAna-’ic or ‘Father of WAna,' the other name of d;adane, was given to one of the two boys who inherited his spirit (p. 778). In similar fashion, the name ‘Little Stone's Father’ (Te-’ic) was given to a small boy, born after the death of the shaman. Names such as Te-tła, ‘Mother of Little Stone,’ and WAna-tła have also been given at birth to little girls.

Normally, or perhaps I should say originally, such teknonymous names were like nicknames derived from the name of the oldest or the favorite child. Thus, an old aunt of one of my informants had a son, Stagwan, a name said to be of Russian origin and one held long ago by a builder of the Tł’uknaAdi Frog House at Gue (p. 273). This woman was, therefore, nicknamed Stagwan-tła. My informant inherited her spirit and in consequence all her names, including her “real names” and this teknonymous one. I can also cite the parents of a son, Kutsina, who were known as Kutsina-’ic and Kutsina-tła, respectively.

A woman who had inherited a teknonymous name was entitled to make use of it in naming a child of the appropriate sex. I was told that if a girl inherited the name Xuts[1]-tła, ‘Bear Cub's Mother’ (a łyI- Kagwantan name), she would be expected to name her first son ‘Bear Cub’ (Xuts[1]). Her Raven husband, no matter what his particular sib, would be known as ‘Bear Cub's Father’ (Xuts[1]-‘ic). My informant thought at first that the father's name would stop with him, then suggested that it might be inherited by a close maternal relative, perhaps his nephew. But if it were once established as an inherited man’s name in a particular Raven sib, say the Kwacqwan, it is unlikely that the name ‘Bear Cub's Father‘ could be given at birth to a Tł’uknaAdi boy, even though, as a father, he might assume it if he had a son, ‘Bear Cub,' by a ałyI-Kagwantan wife.

There is only one case to suggest that a father's teknonymous name might be inherited outside the sib of the original father. The name Qani-’ic was that of a TłukwaAdi shaman long ago, who later had a Tł’uknaAdi namesake; in an intermediate generation the name was given to a Kwacqwan man. (These men were an uncle of utcda who presumably died long ago and who was father of a Kagwantan son, Qani; Bear Bit Billy, 1862–1902; and Charley White, 1879–1964). Although this name, Qani-’ic, is that by which the Kwacqwan man, Bear Bit Billy, is generally known, it may have been only a nickname or have been derived from a son of whom I never heard. I cannot explain this anomaly.

With the possible exception of the name just cited, I know of no examples of a teknonymous name for a father or for a mother appearing as inherited names in two distinct sibs of the same moiety. There are, of course, a few cases in which such a name seems to have passed from the nearly extinct TłukwaAdi to the closely allied TłUknaAdi. However, the name for the child on which the teknonymous name is based may be transferred from one sib to another. Thus, there was a Kwacqwan Stagwan (chief of Moon House), who had been named for his TłUknaAdi grandfather. Stagwan was properly a TłUknaAdi name and the only women whom I know to have been called Stagwan-tła were Tł'Uknaca. Similarly, osał and Xosał-tla seem to be girls' names belonging to the Kwacqwan, even though the Teqwedi chief, Minaman, had a Tł'Ukna-Adi dauhter, osał, and was himself called osał-’ic after her birth (p. 459). As in the case of Stagwan, there was probably an actual blood relationship between a Kwacqwan and the TłUknaAdi Xosał to explain why the name passed from one sib to the other, even though my genealogies are too defective to reveal it. In neither case, apparently, did the transfer of the child's name give the mother a teknonymous name based on her child's. Perhaps this is because the sibs are too remotely connected, or the mothers may already have taken names from earlier babies. I do not know whether the assumption of the name osał-’ic depended at all upon the fact that the father was Teqwedi, since I do not know the parentage of the earlier osał. However, this case is not to be confused with those in which the child's name is derived from the father's.

In one unusual case a woman's teknonymous name is known to be dependent upon that of her husband. She is an Athabaskan woman from northern Alaska who married a Yakutat man with the inherited name, ‘Little Slave Girl's Father' (Cat[1]-guw-‘ic), and she was therefore given the complementary mother’s name, Cat[1]-guw-tła, as a nickname or courtesy designation, since she has no Tlingit name. The couple have no daughter. I have no record of any other ‘Little Slave Girl's Mother‘ so do not know whether it is a “real” name or, if so, to what sib it may belong. The man’s name sounds as if it had originated as a nickname.

While it may happen that a man and a woman have inherited complementary teknonymous names, there does not seem to be a strong feeling at Yakutat, as among the Interior Tlingit (information from Dr. McClellan), that such a couple should marry. There may have been in the past, for this practice would serve to perpetuate symbolically the original conjugal family in its descendants, and this sentiment certainly supports other Yakutat practices.

A woman may “name a child for herself,” that is, if she has inherited the Tł’UknaAdi name Ckman-tła, she may name her Tł’UknaAdi son Ckman, irrespective of the father's sib. Yet there might perhaps be a hesitancy to do so if her husband did not belong to the same sib as the father of the earlier CkInan whom she remembers. When this is the case, however, to use the same name for the child is felt to be peculiarly appropriate. But there are many examples of women with inherited teknonymous names who have not used these in naming their children, although I do not know why.

Where a man is concerned, there is a very definite rule that he must marry a woman of the correct sib if he is to beget and “name a child after himself.” Thus, adane or WAna-’ic could have no son WAna because that is a Kwacqwan name and his wives were Tł'UknaAdi. (His first wife had been Kwacqwan, but bore him no son.) Rather, one of his dogs was WAna, “named after him” (MJ). When his teknonymous name passed to his nephew, the latter was able to name his son WAna, because the mother was Kwacqwan. I do not know if she has ever been called WAna-tła, for there is another younger woman who has inherited that name.

The custom of giving a potential child's name to a dog because a man cannot “name a child after himself” explains the custom described by early writers as naming a man for his dog (Krause, 1956, p.152, from Holmberg, 1856, p. 38). This is playfully paralleled by the little girl and her pets (p. 783), yet something analogous might happen if a woman were childless or lacked a child of the right sex. Thus, one woman told me that she was going to name a doll in accordance with her own teknonymous name, for she had passed the child-bearing age without a daughter to whom she could have given the name and she was afraid that no one would want to use it.

Additional complications attach to a father's utilization of his teknonymous name, as may be illustrated by the following case cited by my informant: A Tł'UknaAdi man was named Yaniki and Qadjusa-‘ic, after his mother's mother’s brother who had a Sitka Kagwantan son, Qadjusa, for whom he had been named. In order to have a son of that name, the young Qadjusa-’ic would normally have to marry a Sitka Kagwantan woman. However, he could beget a son, Qadjusa, by a CAnkuqedi woman, because “CAnkuqedi and Kagwantan is pretty near the same thing,” and the mother could then be called Qadjusa-tła. (Presumably the same would apply to a ałyI-Kagwantan woman.) “But Kagwantan and Teqwedi are different.” There is also a similar affinity between Tł'UknaAdi and Tł'UkwaAdi because of their ancient association in the Akwe—Dry Bay area. But although Tł'UknaAdi and KIksAdi have both been long established at Sitka, the former do not extend such privileges of sharing their names to the KIksAdi, “because they’re our enemies.” The Kwacqwan are also probably too remote.

However, in the case given above, even a Teqwedi woman married to Qadjusa-‘ic could name her son Qadjusa, provided that she were the daughter of a Tł’UknaAdi man, for the mother of the long-dead Qadjusa was Tł'UknaAdi, and all children of the same sib are “brothers and sisters.” Yet even then, the Teqwedi mother would have to “get consent from Kagwantan,” since the names Qadjusa and Qadjusa- tła belong to them (MJ). I doubt that such permission would justify further use of these names by the Teqwedi.

This case, and others, suggests that for Qadjusa to be truly “himself” in the fullest sense of his name, he should be the Kagwantan son of a Tł'UknaAdi father, and grandson of a Tł'UknaAdi maternal grandfather. Since the ideal noble marriage involves the interweaving of only two lineages, father and maternal grandfather would be of one line (perhaps as nephew and uncle), while paternal grandfather, mother, and the individual himself would belong to the other. The same name (and social personality) could most properly recur when the same lines crossed again in the same way in a later generation.

Obviously the naming of a child might require the jucidious balancing of factors: a possible sign or even conflicting signs (dreams, birthmarks) that might indicate which spirit had returned; the parents' rights to use certain names; the degree of affection in which certain deceased relatives were held; and the social pretensions and affluence of the family.

“Big Names”

In addition to the “real names” that belonged to the reincarnated spirit, individuals in even minor social positions possessed at least one “big name.” Such names are also called “potlatch names” since it is by these appellations that persons are announced when it is their turn to contribute as a host or to receive property as a guest. These honorable names include what might be called “titles,” assumed by house chiefs in the different sibs and passed down from older to younger brother, maternal uncle to nephew, paternal grandfather to grandson in the same lineage. They were usually assumed by the heir at the funeral potlatch for his predecessor, validated by the distribution of gifts to the guests, and established when members of the opposite moiety addressed the heir by his new honorific appellation. Such names did not, in theory, mean the reincarnation of the deceased's spirit, although with the passage of time and the blurring of memories, people might cease to distinguish clearly between the various holders of the title. With the extinction of many lineages and the desire to keep alive famous great names, a number of these have been given to children as their “real names.”

As an illustration of the succession of noble names we can cite the following list of chiefs of Raven's Bones House, the senior lineage of the Kwacqwan, now extinct.

1. Yaodaqet, “Yakutat Chief,” who lived at the time of the Russians.

2. His nephew, S'AłWU or Catłeyu, a name later associated with Moon House.

3. Yaodaqet, grandson of the first.

4. Yaodaqet, Yakutat Chief George, nephew of the third chief, builder of Raven's Bones House in the Old Village, and said to have been “the last real chief at Yakutat.” He died in 1903.

5. Cada of Fort House on Khantaak Island, which was also called Raven's Bones House.

6. Yaodaqet, Old Moses, DjInUk-’ic, younger brother of Yakutat Chief George, who assumed the name, Yaodaqet, in 1905 at a potlatch dedicating Raven's Bones House in the Old Village, given in honor of his brother (pp. 619–620).

7. Yaodaqet, Tom Coxe, Qatsiti, cousin of Old Moses; known as T’aw ka (’Chicken Feathers’). He was the last house head. The date of his death is not known.

8. Yaodaqet, the present holder of the name, born in 1905, told me that “it used to be a chief's name,” and was of Copper River (Atna) origin, although he had forgotten the meaning. He belongs to Fort House. Presumably he was given the name after the death of Tom Coxe, probably at a potlatch, for it is unlikely that he inherited it at birth.

These examples indicate that the new house chief did not necessarily assume the “big name” or “potlatch name” of his predecessor. It was not, therefore, strictly a “title.” In fact, most chiefs had several great names, acquired at successive potlatches (p. 635). I do not know what rules governed the choice of name except that the previous noble holder must have been a deceased relative, and presumably the living relatives must have approved the choice. In some cases, the name may have been too precious to have been assumed at the heir's first potlatch, but have required several house buildings for validation. Because the fur trade and later salmon fishing brought new forms of wealth to lucky and energetic men, some junior relative might have been able to ennoble a lesser “big name” through his own potlatching, before the death of his house chief left vacant the latter's name, now no longer so valuable. This would certainly spur on the heir to repeated potlatching and repeated assumption of noble names. Perhaps it was in this way that Chief Minaman of the Teqwedi acquired so many (p. 200).

The most highly prized and aristocratic appellations grade into the less exalted “big names,” also kept within the sib or lineage to be acquired at potlatches by persons of less noble status. I do not know exactly how these were transmitted, or whether anyone might acquire a name of this kind. There are presumably more examples in our genealogies than were specifically mentioned as such. For example, Qudenaha ‘[Bear] Goes in his Den,‘ belonged to a Bear House Teqwedi man and was assumed by his younger brother after the former’s death. In the same lineage, Kat, the name of the mythical sib ancestor who married a she bear, passed in the same way from an older to a younger brother, and still later became a “real name” given to a child.

Women, too, appear to have such honorable names. ‘Frog's Daughter’ (Xixt-Si), referring to the frog found beside the corpse of ‘Andùł, a Kwacqwan wife of the great Teqwedi shaman, atgawet, seems to have been held by a number of distinguished women of her line, and it is now described as a “potlatch name” of a Kwacqwan woman.

“Big names” could also be given to paternal grandchildren (including the children of a brother's son or of a sib-brother's son). A number of such names given by the hosts at a potlatch have been cited (pp. 635–636). The recipients might or might not belong to the donor's sib (most frequently did not) but, of course, were members of the same moiety. Names of this kind given to men usually referred to the donor's sib or lineage crest; those given to women most commonly referred to the new house or grave for which the potlatch was given, although there was no absolute rule. A single individual might receive a new name at each potlatch given by his or her “grandparents,” beginning as a small child and continuing to old age, since he or she would always be eligible as a sib-grandchild. Similar potlatch names were given by maternal uncles.

In discussing names, Krause (1956, p. 152) reports:

“Soon after birth the child is given the name of a maternal ancestor. Later, by giving a great feast in honor of his dead relatives a Tlingit obtains the right to acquire a second name, one from his father's family. Wealthy chiefs are supposed to give this second name to their sons right after birth, thus obligating them to give great feasts.”

The first name is, of course, what informants have called the “real name.” The second name is not, however, one belonging to the father's sib or lineage, since that cannot pass to the opposite moiety (except perhaps through war), but it is an honorable name belonging to the mother's line which, like all sib prerogatives, has no value or legitimacy unless publicly acknowledged by the father's line or opposite moiety. Presumably at Yakutat also, “big names” would be conferred on children or acknowledged by their fathers in this fashion, although my informants became confused when they attempted to explain how a father was able to honor his own children at a potlatch (p. 637). Perhaps, too, a noble name of this kind, if given to a very small child, might become confused with the “real name” of his reincarnated spirit, especially since it would be appropriate for the new incarnation to assume or be given all of the social attributes of the old.

Swanton (1908, p. 423) does not make a distinction between “real names” and “potlatch names,” but reports:

“At a feast a man would give his own clan names to his son's children, but the right to them seems usually to have been confined to the individuals so honored, unless, of course, they belonged to the same clan as the first owner. Sometimes, however, a new name might be coined and applied during a potlatch—one, for instance, referring to the noise made by putting on the main timbers of a house—and in that case the grandchild's clan could keep it.”

As MJ explained:

“[They give the children names] when they’re having a feast. The head of the tribe calls on you like a toastmaster. When my time comes to give away, I name her [referring to a grandchild] KAnegełtin after my grandmother. I announce it…. The dead spirit knows it then. Then she knows who she is, whose spirit she belongs to. After I announce it, she knows it, and the spirit knows it, too.”

In this case, all three women involved belonged to the same sib, and it may be irrelevant to ask whether the name in question is an ordinary name or a “big name,” since to confer it at a potlatch when wealth is given away is to ennoble it. I do not know whether the girl has already received one of her ancestress' names and so her spirit. Perhaps not, and this is a belated way of insuring the reincarnation of the old lady. But we can see here how the distinction between “real names” and “potlatch names” becomes blurred.

It is also possible, I believe, for a person to give away at a potlatch his or her own name which had been received at a potlatch. Perhaps this could also be done on another occasion. Unfortunately in the only cases known the recipients were White persons, although I was given to understand that this might also have been done in earlier days when the donor was an old person, incapacitated by poverty or infirmity, who wished to give the name to a younger person who could “do something” for the sib.

Among honorable names which could be acquired later in life are those of shamans and of peace hostages. It would appear that the shaman assumed his when he finished his novitiate, or perhaps when he first acquired the spirit. Thus, Te-’ic, as shaman, became łagua, ‘Tells about War,‘ referring to his ability (or that of one of his spirits) to see approaching war parties. One informant translated it as “Spy.” The shaman’s name was likely to be associated with a particular spirit (yek), and so be inherited with that spirit by his successor, as was the name SEtAn. This was actually the name of the spirit itself, which was announced by the shaman while in a trance.

We have noted how men or women of rank were captured as ‘deer' and given special names by their captors during peace ceremonies. These names often referred to some crest or well-known possession of the captors, so that the names of peace hostages frequently suggested the crests of the opposite moiety (p. 599). Most names of this kind seen to have been used only during the actual ceremonies. At least two Teqwedi men, however, became commonly known by their peace names: Ca kuwakan (’Mountain Deer’) or Jack Shawcoo-kawn (1831–99), referring to Mount Saint Elias; and Yeł-tłed (’White Raven’) or Situk George. Both received their names from the Kwacqwan. These symbolic names were not inherited nor were they used a second time. New names would be invented for each peace ceremony, although perhaps the same individual might serve another time as a ‘deer.’

Pet Names and Nicknames

Little children were often called by pet names which their mothers had coined. One boy was called “Stinker” or TcEnio. “TcEn [or tcAn] means 'stink or stinker,' so I just add -O to it so nobody won’t notice,” explained the mother (MJ). A baby girl was called CAtAtU tii, translated as “stinking little girl” (cf. Boas, 1917, p. 141, tcé ‘dirty’). Another girl was called Dácana (perhaps ‘naughty’) from the exhortation ‘Behave!’ (da). This name was “a love word…meaning ‘good for nothing’—wouldn’t let me change your diapers, just roll” (MJ). A third girl was called TIkina, “my little lover.” A boy was called “Tiny” (Skina or SkInaw) because he was so small. “Any small tiny thing, they call it 'skin.' “ This last pet name suggests the Atna word for 'small child’ (sEn ai).

Such pet names and bits of baby talk were frequently made into songs for the children (p. 571).

Very occasionally an older person might continue to be known by a childhood name, but he was more likely to acquire a nickname when he became older. Nicknames in time may be passed on to a descendant and so become “real names,” implying reincarnation; or the nickname may be turned into an honorable “potlatch name.” I have mentioned the nickname ‘Everybody's Mother’ that has become a real name (p. 782). Rather similar to this is the nickname ‘Cute Little Woman’ (CawAt), although, as far as I know, it has not been inherited. The pet name of Chief Daknaqin's first wife, 'Stingy Woman' (CawAt ege), was later inherited by a female relative in her sib. Similar in form and perhaps in origin are such names as 'Stingy Daughter' (si-ege), ‘Big Woman’ (CawAt-tłen), “Tiny Woman' (CawAt xit), “Stinker” (a girl, T’ixge or, more probably, Tie), ‘Foreign Woman’ (una-ca), ‘Big Man’ (Qa-tłen), and ‘Big Fat Man’ (Qa-netł).

The progenitress of the present Drum House lineage, who is said to have been suckled by her uncle because all their relatives were dead, was nicknamed “Man's Titty [nipple]” (Qa tł’a cawAt). “They called her [this] when they got mad at her” (MJ). The origin of the nickname atgawet, from ‘Is it me?’ (At gaWE), was mentioned in describing the public joking between a man and his daughter-in-law (p. 494). Yet it was a noble name assumed by the Teqwedi Bear House chief, Jim Kardeetoo (1862–1937), only after he had given several house-building potlatches. The name by which he was commonly known, KAidutu or ‘Counts the Measure’ (i.e., uses a ruler), sounds like a nickname.

Some nicknames refer to a possession of which the owner is very fond, and are often teknonymous in form. Thus a Kwacqwan woman who had obtained a cat (duc) from a schooner in the 1880's or 1890's, was called ‘Cat's Mother’ (Duc-tła). The name has since been inherited. Similarly, among the Tcicqedi a man was nicknamed ‘Long-Eared Dog’ (SAwák), and his mother was SAWak-tła. The latter nickname was applied to Catharine McClellan because of her cocker spaniel. Anyone with long ears (guk kudAát) might be nicknamed 'Spaniel Ears' (Guk SAWák). A Kagwantan chief of Hoonah was called ‘Flathead’ (oyat) for his Kwakiutl slave (see also de Laguna, 1960, p. 153 and n. 33). Probably the Yakutat name, ‘Little Slave Girl's Father,’ had a similar origin.

Chief John, ałyi-Kagwantan, was called ałyA-’ic, ‘Father of Kaliakh,’ because of his love of that locality, and this name has been inherited. A White man, “George de Graff” (Edward De Groff), of the Northwest Trading Company, who used to come in a schooner to trade at Yakutat, was called ‘Father of Killisnoo’ (KEnisnu-’ic), for the island near Angoon where his company had established a store in 1878 (see de Laguna, 1960, p. 162). In similar fashion, another White man was known by the traditional nickname for a trader, ‘Father of Mink’ (łUkciyan-’ic), referring to the furs he was so anxious to acquire. This name has a derogatory connotation since the natives themselves despise mink, interpreting these animals as the paddles of the horrible Land Otter People (p. 745). A stingy White man was nicknamed ‘Child of a Mink's Scent Glands’ (łUkciyan kutIci-yAdi), “because you have to cut them so carefully” on account of the nasty smell.

Origin of Names

One has the impression that all Tlingit names are supposed to have a meaning, even though that has been forgotten. This can easily come about since the proper name usually involves an alteration of form from the original word or phrase, and in rapid speech the original pronunciation may be still further changed. (See de Laguna 1960, p. 135, for examples of how derogatory remarks were turned into honorable names at Angoon.)

The meaning of potlatch names or the names of the nobility are probably the most likely to be remembered, since their symbolic significance may be recalled at potlatches or on other formal occasions when sib history or prerogatives are cited. In any case, we are better acquainted with the meanings of “big names,” than with those of ordinary names. Unfortunately it was not possible to question my informants about the possible translations of the thousand-odd names that we recorded, and this information was not often volunteered. In ordinary contexts, perhaps the Tlingit are no more conscious of the etymology of a name than we are of such surnames as Smith, Shepardson, or Cartwright. Swanton (1908, pp. 402–407, 421–423) has collected and translated a number of Tlingit names, most if not all of which were the names of chiefs. Some of these were the same as those belonging to persons at Yakutat.

“The great majority of Tlingit personal names referred to some animal, especially that animal whose emblem was particularly valued by the clan to which the bearer belonged.” (Swanton, 1908, p. 421.) “Where different clans have the same emblem their names referring to it may nevertheless differ, and this distinction runs through all of their other personal names as well, so that wherever a man goes his social position [sib affiliation] is known by his name.” (Ibid., p. 422.)

Swanton indicates the predilection of certain Raven sibs, including the TlukwaAdi, for names drawn from the Raven, and also explains which crests were the favorites among a number of southeastern Alaskan sibs. One of my informants observed that the YAnyedi of Taku derived most of their names from “birds and small ducks,” like the murrelet (tci). Swanton also recorded that mountains or islands that are used as crests can suggest names, as do sib emblems, or property such as coppers, fishing streams, or totem poles. Even an event might inspire a new name to be given to a child. (Ibid., pp. 422–423.)

The Yakutat material corroborates Swanton's, suggesting that many names had been originally coined as a joking reference to some personal characteristic, or as an honorable reference to the sib's totemic animal or to something else especially associated with the sib or lineage. In many cases, even though the translation was given, the allusion was not explained. The following names belonging to the different sibs are given in free translation, since it was usually impossible to discover their precise etymology. Unless otherwise indicated, they belong to men:

There are for the CAnkuqedi: He Paddles Toward the Shore, Again Two (woman), Noisy Feather (?), Dirty Little Wolf. The names which they give to their grandchildren at potlatches refer almost invariably to the Thunderbird.

For the ałyI-Kagwantan: Makes It Smaller, Bear Cub, Making a Nice Cave (like a bear). For the Sitka Kagwantan: Brass (woman), Woman Club (woman), Flathead, Man Sealion, Smells Good.

For the Teqwedi: Firing a Gun, (Eagle) Crying Around a Dead Man, Little Green Paint Stone, Pillow, Head (?, woman), Dust (woman), Picking Strawberries (woman), Swimming Wolf, (Bear) Showing his Face Outside, (Bear) Entering his Den, (Killerwhale) Tearing up the Water, (Killerwhales) Continually Jumping on One Another, (Sun's) Excrement Medicine, No Eyes, Is Never Lost, Clean(?) Around the Mouth, Alongside Itself (woman), Heavy Wings, and Sealion Tooth.

The Tł'UknaAdi and TłukwaAdi together have: That's Enough Raven!, (Raven's) Silver Eyes, Big Raven, Tailless Raven, Dead Raven, Big Rabbit, Big Weasel, Wolf-Weasel, (Silver Salmon) Skimming the Surface, King Salmon in Fresh Water, Drowning (Frog), Old Frog, Opposite Side (woman), Buying His Head, Throws Down (a Copper), Buys Two (Coppers or Slaves) at a Time, Top of the World, Someone Bites Her (woman), Putting It Away (in Hiding, a woman).

Kwacqwan names include: Dying Off, Afraid of the Yek, Raven Hat (woman), Chicken Feather, Dangerous to Handle, Big Trail, Too Heavy For Me, No Smoke.

It can be seen that a number of these names refer specifically to such crest animals as the Bear, Wolf, Killerwhale, Raven, Eagle, Salmon, and Frog. How many of these may be “potlatch names” I cannot tell.

Note also that some “real names” are teknonymous in form, although there is apparently no associated child's name. Thus we have: Raven's Father (CAnkuqedi); Black-Duck's Mother and Wolf's Mother (Teqwedi); Tall-Tree Father, Bell (or Bell-Sounding) Mother, Dried-Hand Father, Easily-Blown-Away Father (Kwacqwan); and Branches' Mother, In-Each-Other's-Arms Father (Tł’uknaadi). Similar in style of composition are: Awl's Aunt (CAnkuqedi), Berry-Bushes' Daughter (Tł'UknaAdi), and Frog's Daughter (Kwacqwan).

A few names are derived from geographical features of particular significance in the history of the sib. Thus, a Kwacqwan woman has the name ‘On Its Surface All Died,‘ referring to those who perished on Mount Saint Elias during the journey from the Copper River country. A Tł’UknaAdi man, who may have been given the name from his Kwacqwan grandfather was called łtahín, or łdaÉn as it was usually pronounced. This is the Tlingit form for the Atna name for the Tana River, which also figured in the journey. The Atna name is Łá’-nà, ‘Point-of-land River.’ One man said that the Kwacqwan man's name, Cada, meant ‘Around the Mountain,’ referring to Mount Saint Elias, although others said it was Russian.

Some names are of foreign origin. Many belonging to the Kwacqwan are said to be in the “Copper River” language, presumably Atna. These include the men's names: Yaodaqet, WAtdAł (said to refer to a white peeled rod), WAtUq, łA’a (said to mean “man”), and Gudiłta’. (The last is now actually a surname, Goodlataw, at Chitina.) For women there are: Di-’ałAdzu (said to mean “pretty woman”), ac, Duqeł, Qełcaki (said to mean “little woman”), and al (translated as “little island”). It has been impossible to check these etymologies, and some of the names may be Eyak, not Atna.

One Tł'UknaAdi woman said that she had two Eyak names: Qate’E, translated as “Pretty Flower” by an Eyak-speaker; the other is Tuda-tła. The latter is a teknonymous form, ‘mother of,’ although my informant did not know what tuda means, or even to what sex it refers. It is almost certainly the Atna word for ‘my cross-cousin’ (sudä).

There are probably other names based upon foreign kinship terms, for one woman told me: “Tcuca is ‘grandma’ in Eyak language. When we came from Katella and called by grandma ‘tcuca’ they thought it was her name. When she died I named my daughter after her, and people began to call her that.”

Eyak names are common among the ałyI-Kagwantan, to judge by the long consonantal clusters which are characteristic of that language but are almost absent from Tlingit.

Names said to be Russian in origin are Stagwan and Cada (Shada).

CONCLUSION: PERSONAL IDENTITY

It is through his name, and the meaning of his name, that a Tlingit knows himself. His name or names identifies the spirit or spirits, formerly animating a long line of forebears, that have come to five again in him, shaping his body or lending character to his personality. Sometimes he may even fancy that he catches a fleeting memory of this past. Through the transfer of his name to some child as yet unborn he can hope to live again, and once more “stay with” those that loved him. His name may reflect not only his own foibles, but those of his predecessors, as well as the glorious or mysterious deeds of those who founded his lineage or sib. Without a sense of this participation in the past of his maternal line, or a knowledge of his share in it, he is accounted a nobody, a lost and ignorant wanderer, a “child of the empty beach” as truly as if he were a bastard. For if he does not know his name and those of his father, his uncle, his grandfather, to whom can he turn for succor when he finds himself among strangers? If he knows who he is, there is no Tlingit village in which he cannot claim some kinsman.

Consciousness of the house and crests upon which his name is based not only remind him of his own maternal lineage, but often that of his “grandfathers.” The teknonymous name he has inherited or that he acquired from his child bind him in turn to the new generation; he fulfills himself through naming a child for himself.

The occasions on which an honorable name has been called out by the nakani at a potlatch have summoned his father's people, the UnEtkAnai, as witnesses to his social rank and status, serving to justify the claim he may later make upon them, and affirming his position among his own people. Through honoring his own “grandchildren” and the juniors in his own sib with appropriate names, and by assuming new ones for himself, if he can distribute the wealth necessary to validate these acts, he may hope to outshine the rivals in his own sib and moiety, and to emulate more closely the distinguished record of his ancestors.

If he serves in the elaborate ritual of peace, his new name will record the mending of severed ties, and will symbolize the most precious gift which one group can give another—some claim upon or comfort from the use of their own crest. As a shaman, he will summon and receive into himself all those spirits that have served his predecessors, for a time losing his ordinary identity, and speaking in their names.

But above all, he is identified with the origin and destiny (cAgun) of his sib and lineage, which was determined long ago, perhaps in myth time when the world was not yet established, when his ancestors had miraculous encounters with animals, birds, fishes, even with mountains, streams, or rocks. These sib ancestors and their supernatural adventures are symbolized and immortalized in the names that have been handed down from generation to generation to their descendants, who thereby acknowledge and claim kinship with the animating forces of the universe.

Man and the Forces of Nature

COSMOLOGY

Many scattered insights into Yakutat ideas about cosmology, about the world and man's place in it, have already been encountered, but we must endeavor to draw these together and to study these matters in a more systematic fashion. It becomes immediately apparent, however, that the Tlingit have no consistent set of notions which can be invoked to explain the nature of the world and the ordinary regularities of natural events that take place in it. There seems to be no developed cosmological scheme. Rather, there are various uncoordinated sets of notions that are presented in the myths, some of which deal explicitly with the origins of certain natural features or human customs while others, in apparent unconcern with temporal sequence, take these natural conditions and social institutions as already established, while explaining the creation of others which appear logically antecedent. Even within a single story one encounters the inconsistent or illogical as well as the inexplicable.

When questioned directly about aboriginal notions of cosmology, or about the forces controlling nature and human destiny, informants often could answer only by citing one or another of these myths. This is in part because, for them, aboriginal belief consists of the sayings of their parents and grandparents, and what they may have been able to puzzle out from these stories; it is not their own universe of thought. Even if we were able to go back in time until we had reached informants who were not influenced by the broader horizons of Western knowledge and science or of Christian belief, I do not believe that we should ever have been able to find a really consistent cosmology. Yet the main outlines of many early Tlingit concepts seem clear. Their nature is to be understood primarily through narrative or customary act, rather than through philosophical exposition.

The world, the ‘land or home of human beings' (lingit ‘ani), is supposed to have been created by Raven (Yeł), at least according to one story told about him. He is said to have made the water first, and then the land. The earth was originally covered only with moss but, through a trick, Raven obtained the roots or seeds for trees and bushes from the Sea Otters. Then Raven made fish and men, the latter apparently after several tries, and then obtained women from an island so that men could marry them. According to other stories, Raven is also responsible for the movement of the tides, for the existence of lakes and streams, for putting the stars and moon in the sky, and for liberating daylight. Many particular features of the landscape are due to his activities. He brought ashore all the animals and birds now on the land, he determined the present form and habits of many species, or he created them from transformed men, according to the various stories. He was responsible for obtaining fire from the sun. He also taught men all or many of the useful arts, and he originated many customs. Yet the world existed before Raven was born; his uncle was a powerful being, the owner of daylight was Raven-at- the-Head-of-Nass, and Ganuk (Petrel) claimed to have been older than Raven. If Raven is not the creator, as some believe, he is, nevertheless, a transformer responsible for much of the present order, and to understand it one must turn to the tales of the Raven cycle.

It is impossible to fit these stories into any logical or coherent sequence; each episode of the Raven cycle stands alone, as it were, assuming the prior existence of some things which are only created at a supposedly later time. Even the intelligent Chief Katishan of Wrangell, Swanton's most thoughtful and learned informant, attempted without success to weave Raven stories and other myths into one coherent Genesis (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31). Others have apparently been little troubled by even the most glaring inconsistencies: the Moon, in the story of Raven's Birth and the Flood, is Raven's uncle, while in the story of Raven's Theft of Daylight, the moon is a round object in a box.

The Earth

“As usual among primitive people, the earth was conceived of as flat and the sky as a solid vault” (Swanton, 1908, p. 451).

In former times the Tlingit had apparently no idea that the earth was round or that it turned, yet the latter notion seems to have been accepted by the late 19th century and incorporated into songs recorded at Yakutat. Thus, Dry Bay George, who died about 1888, sang: “The world is rolling around with our breath (life); therefore let us have sympathy with one another” (1954, 6–2–G; p. 1298). Another song, composed at Sitka or by Bear Bit Billy of Yakutat who died in 1902, begins: “The world is rolling around for all the young people; therefore let us not love our life too much, hold ourselves back from dying” (1954, 3–1–G; p. 1313). Jimmy Jackson (1861–1948) composed a song in 1904 that goes: “Let someone roll it [the world] around with kindness. It makes one happy” (1954, 7–2–D). There was also a song referring to Haines and presumably composed by a Chilkat man: “I never believed the world goes round. It thought it was still. Now, because of that girl, the whole town is turning upside down.”

The verb (yAnagwAł’) in the expression ‘the world is turning or rolling' (łIngit ‘ani yAnagwAł’), is said to be a word which might be applied to a rolling stone or to a plate, “anything round or spinning.” Although Boas' Chilkat informant applied the word (Boas, 1917, p. 144, -gwł´, ‘to roll’) to a stone, it is impossible to tell whether the world is conceived as a flat disk or as a sphere.

In earlier times, however, the world was supposed to be flat, supported from below by a pole or post. The latter was made of bamboo, with which the Yakutat people were familiar in the form of driftwood. When this post was shaken, an earthquake (yu ‘´nkà’a) occurred.

“They claim there's something like bamboo (hayi ‘úù) growing under this earth, and this old lady, Tayi canUk, sits there; and for some reason Yeł [Raven] tries to pull her away, and she grabs hold of the pole—causes the earthquake,” reported one man.

“Yeł makes earthquakes. He appointed old, old man [woman?] to set a pole under the earth, to watch him so the earth won’t fall down. The old man is ayí canUqù…Yeł get mad at Hayí canUqù, try to pull him out and fire him. She holds onto that post that Yeł gave her…. I don’t know why he [Raven] wants to get the earth to fall down in the water. Only the Lord knows!” (MJ)

Swanton (1908, p. 452; 1909, p. 20) heard the same story and, in addition, a Sitka version to the effect that, after trying out all kinds of materials, Raven made the post under the earth out of the foreleg of a beaver. The “Old Woman Underneath” (ha’i c’nak!u) attends to the post, but it shakes when she is hungry, so people put food in the fire for her in order to stop the earthquake. Another version is that when people anger her an earthquake is caused by the shaking of her pot lid.

Harrington (MS.) translated the word, haayyii, as “literally, at the bottom of us, meaning at the bottom of the world, or at the bottom of the ocean. The Tlingits say the world is supported by a pole, and an old woman is always near, watching, and sometimes the Raven tries to pull her away from that pole foundation of the earth, and that is what shakes the earth and causes earthquakes.”

Thus, it would appear that the earth is balanced above the surface of the water; perhaps there is water under the world, into which it is in danger of tipping from a severe earthquake. The last idea would help to explain the giant earthquake waves so often felt along the coast. Although the Yakutat area is subject to tremors—one was felt on the evening of September 9, 1952, which provoked a discussion of earthquakes the next day—and although a number of informants remember the great earthquake of 1899, they had nothing to say about aboriginal methods of controlling such events.

One elderly informant was asked whether the turning of the world mentioned in the songs could refer to the movement of the earth on its prop. He clearly specified:

“In the story, tłagu [‘myth’], the world is on a pole. An old lady guards it. Raven tries to pull her away and the earth shakes. But the world turning, yAnagwAł’, that's the latest idea. Maybe they meant they were dizzy,” but he evidently doubted that explanation. “In the old days they didn’t know the world was turning. They learned that in school. Never heard about it long ago, or in old stories.”

When SJ was asked what the old people believed you would reach if you traveled over the land as far as you could go, he said that they spoke only about ‘behind the mountain’ (ca ’é). “That's all they say. They don’t say how far. Or they call it ‘on the other side of the mountain’ (ca tłiy´n ’AA).” Another replied: “You would get to the water. They believe the earth is surrounded by water.”

The sea, surrounding the land, is simply called 'salt water’ (’éł’), the same word that is applied to table salt. There is no special name for the Gulf of Alaska to distinguish it from bays, although the latter are named. One expression, used for the ocean, evidently means ‘among the waves’ (titatU). There are, of course, a variety of special terms for bay, channel, lagoon, deep place, breakers, foam, and so on. Although the ocean may have been thought to surround the land, yet its actual position stretching south of the mainland is important to the orientation of the Yakutat people, for many of their directional terms refer to the relation between the ocean and the land.

According to one myth, there was originally only salt water, but Raven stole fresh water from anuk (Petrel), and flew away with it in his beak. Little lakes and streams were formed where he spilled water (MJ). The water in the bay is salty because Raven held it in his mouth so long that it became stinking (JE).

The tide, or flood, is called qi. According to Harrington this word is applied only to the salt water tides and does not indicate whether the tide is high or low. At high tide one would say ‘all the surface (shore) is flooded’ (yAnkA duwuda; or yAnnkhÂth-’uuwwAttâa, according to Harrington). Low tide is when the water ‘is out’ (wułà) or ‘when it is out’ (łen, or yé kA łenIn). (Harrington gives the form yAnn-’uuwwAłâa.)

The tides were believed to be controlled by an old woman (or an old man, in some versions of the myth) called “Old Lady Who Watches the Tides” (qi ‘acuwu katsinuq gu canUkw). Once, according to the story, she seems to have kept the tide up all the time. Raven obtained a sea urchin by climbing a kelp stem down under the water, but she refused to believe him. So he became angry and rubbed her bare buttocks with the prickly spines until she made the tide go down. “Raven only rubbed her bottom once, but it's still sore. That's why she can’t sit still, and keeps moving…. That old woman don’t sit still; the tide moves up and down.”

Not only are the moving tides important to the Tlingit in facilitating or preventing travel, covering or uncovering the rich harvests of beach foods, but they also symbolize important magical forces which human beings may utilize. There is thus something especially potent about the things of the lowest tide level. They must be handled with caution (pp. 405, 806). and the stone from the lowest tide (cAnya tei) is a poweful amulet.

Once there was a great Flood, believed to have been the same as that described in the Bible. This was like an abnormally high tide that covered all the earth. It was caused by Raven's jealous uncle who became angry when his beautiful wife was molested by Raven. This personage is equated with Noah by some, and was called in Tlingit QIngA (or QInE), and also ‘He Who Orders the Tide’ (qí kuqék). In two versions of the myth, this person is identified with the Moon (dIs). He became so angry at what happened to his wife that he went up into the sky, and his slaves accompanied him as the Stars.

The great Flood forced people into canoes and onto the tops of the highest mountains, where they built shelters or “nests”. “A nest was built on Mount Fairweather during the Flood. It was called qi kanAda, ‘high tide all around.’ ” There was also a nest on Mount Saint Elias. No other mountains were mentioned, although many are known to the Angoon Tlingit (de Laguna, 1960, p. 52). The great Flood not only drowned many, but was responsible for the dispersal of the survivors, so that a number of sib origin stories begin with this event.

At the horizon, the sky touches the water.

“When you look at the horizon, that's where the water and clouds meet…. The Russians were called Gu-iya-qwan…. It means ‘[people] next to the clouds.’ That's where they come from first, come right straight. So they call them that,” said one man. “White people were called Gu-Ayi-qwan because they came from way out under the clouds. The people thought they lived beyond the clouds. When you look at the ocean you see nothing but clouds.” (SJ) (See p. 217.)

Other things came from the edge of the world, perhaps from islands out of sight of land, or from the mysterious realm beyond the barrier of the horizon. These were drift iron, bamboo, and all the exciting flotsam bought by the Japanese Current from across the world and strewn along the ocean beach. There are stories of men who tried to go out to the places from which these treasures came, but in vain. One man from Sitka, Qaxatguk, drifted out to sea, beyond sight of land. He came to an island where he lived among the sea otters. After a year he was able to return, steering by the sun. Presumably he came close to the edge of the world.

At the horizon there was supposed to be an opening, ‘cloud hole’ (gu wuł), and the Russians were believed to have come through this.

“Before that, it's where the fish come from…. That opens up and all the fish just comes right out. When you see those scars on that fish, they say there's something that close up on them, leave those marks on them. All those fish just rush right through when it opens up. I think the reason they say they come through there is because they come in schools—first a bunch, then none, then another bunch…. They often wondered what was going on where the horizon is. They thought you would fall off the edge of the water. You would drop off the edge…. Just like Columbus.”

Harrington also recorded:

“When a run of salmon of any species arrives at a river mouth it is as much of a mystery to scientists today as it was to the superstitious and thankful Native fisherman of old. When at Dry Bay, Raven wanted to find out where the salmon and herring come from. It is just like a great fish-weir out in the ocean, and from this the fish are released by xáat aathii [át ati], the ‘Keeper of the Fish.’ ”

Not only are major features of cosmology associated with Raven, even ascribed to his activities, but he is held responsible for important landmarks. These are particularly numerous in the areas about Controller Bay and Dry Bay. Thus, at Controller Bay, Kayak Island is the whale that Raven tried to kill. Cape Saint Elias is its head. The black rocks of the island are the flesh, and the white rock the fat, which is said even to smell like blubber. A place on the east side where the surf dashes in among the boulders is said to be the blowhole. Raven's harpoon is in the whale. (According to another version, Raven tried to kill the whale by throwing rocks at it. These missed and formed a reef.) Wingham Island is Raven's kayak. Okalee Spit is his harpoon line (or his spear); a reef or rock nearby is his buoy. All these things, except Raven, turned to stone because his wife disobeyed him and looked out while Raven was spearing the whale.

There is a cliff (near Cape Saint Elias?) down which pebbles fall, but they never hit anyone walking past because Raven commanded them not to do so. He is also said to have carved human faces, arms and legs on the cliffs behind Cape Suckling. “He did a lot of funny things there, shaping the land.”

At Yakataga is Raven's landing place, ‘canoe road’ (yAkw deyi). The waves do not break here, because Raven assured his timid wife that they would not do so. When embarking, he quarreled with his wife; she threw his adz on the beach, thus forming Cape Yakataga. In return, he threw her sewing (or berry) basket overboard, where it is now a rocky basin filled with clams and sea urchins. Scratches in the rocks were caused by Raven dragging planks or a fishrack down to the canoe. The Eyak of the Copper River delta have the same beliefs about this locality (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 259).

Similar names and explanations are given for features near Dry Bay and Lituya Bay. Thus, there is a place up the Alsek River (near Gateway Knob?) from which pebbles fall, but because Raven assured his wife that they would fall outside the canoe they never hit a canoe unless someone is going to die. An island near the head of Dry Bay is the whale in which Raven floated ashore, a rock on the island is its fin. The sandy flats here were created in accordance with Raven's wish that the whale drift ashore on a good beach. It was in Dry Bay that Raven opened the box of Daylight, frightening away the rocks and mountains. Here also he pulled ashore the “Ark” or box filled with animals and birds, and his footprints are still visible on the west side of the bay. Raven also lured ashore the first king salmon in Dry Bay. The mountain down which Raven was thrown in a box is above the Akwe River. Near the second glacier ascending the Alsek, Raven threw away his wife's basket and a big king salmon.

The cave or house of stone in which Raven lived was southeast of Lituya Bay, and so too is the mountain he slashed when angry at Echo. In this area Raven obtained the first plants and trees from the Sea Otters. There is also another of his landing places near Cape Fairweather or Lituya Bay (cf. Swanton, 1908, pl. LIII b).

These and other details of terrain have been discussed (pp. 81–91, 98–106). Here we can see how the very surface of the land was shaped in primordial time.

The Sky

Above the earth, and meeting the sea on the horizon, is the sky (atkAtU—”just up in the sky”).[11] The lower surface is presumably like an inverted hard bowl. When the Flood came, Raven donned the skin of a snipe or other long-billed bird, and flew to the sky, where he suspended himself by sticking his bill into the bottom of the sky. The upper surface of the sky is a world, not dissimilar to this, which can be entered through a hole in the clouds (gu wuł), possibly the same as that at the horizon. Clouds apparently float around below the sky or form its lower surface. No clear notion was obtained as to where the Sun, Moon, and Stars are supposed to be located with reference to the sky.

Some informants believed that there were two or even three layers to the sky. The souls of the wicked went at death to the lowest, where they floated around on the clouds. This abode is also called ‘Dog Heaven,’ and was described by one man as “between earth and where the Northern Lights are.” Other informants made no distinction between the layers.

I have already discussed (pp. 770–771) the notion that the Land Above in the sky (Kiwa’a) was a “Heaven” for those who had died violent or bloody deaths. When viewed from this point of view, it seems to be a relatively pleasant place, of beautiful green grass, where the playful activities of the dead are visible to the living down below as the Northern Lights. There is apparently a chief, who has a fine decorated house, and a watchman to guard the entrance to this land of the dead from unauthorized souls. Any attempt to imitate the features of this upper land of the dead (see the Whale House at Klukwan), or to recount one's experiences here, results in violence and death on earth.

The land above the sky is also pictured in a different way. It is reached by many steps and it is always cold up there. This reflects the concept of a sky world which is not an abode of the dead, but is the land visited by the mythical ancestor of the ałyI-Kagwantan, Łayaw, whose 'snowshoe tracks’ form the Milky Way (djadji uiti). This famous story, of which I heard only several incomplete versions (see Swanton, 1909, Tales 3, 31, pp. 99–106, and Tale 97), tells how several brothers, the youngest of whom was Łayaw, followed their dog up through a hole into Sky Land. This happened because the youngest had made fun of the Northern Lights or said he wished his dog would hunt a cloud. Here he became separated from, or abandoned by, his brothers and had a series of adventures, meeting tiny dwarfs that were only reflections in the eye. He finally became “lonely for the lower earth,” and eventually reached it by descending a stream, guided by a little bird, in a canoe made of bark or of the skeleton of a shaman. The other brothers came down by making a chain of arrows shot into the earth below, an interesting reversal of the usual method of reaching the sky encountered in Indian mythology. The ground of Sky Land is covered with a hard frost, across which we can trace the tracks of Łayaw on snowshoes. Because of the cold of this land in the sky, to tell this story always brings the north wind. One has the impression that Sky Land (Kiwa’a) is pictured in both versions much like the interior country behind the Saint Elias Range. It is open; grassy in summer and bitter cold in winter. Although one must climb to reach it, streams flow from it and eventually reach the ordinary world.

There seems to be no notion of a lower world to correspond to that above. The place ‘below us’ (hayi) where the old woman guards the prop of the earth is not clearly depicted. It is not an abode of the dead.

Sun, Moon, and Stars

The usual concept of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, is that they were objects kept in three boxes by a chief who lived at the head of Nass River. There is, however, some uncertainty as to whether he had the Sun (Agan) or Daylight (qe’a) in the third box; usually the latter is specified. At this time the world was dark. Raven transformed himself into a hemlock needle and was swallowed by the chief's daughter, to whom he was born as a baby. He cried for his grandfather's treasures, obtaining first the Stars and Moon, which he threw out of the house so that they went up into the sky. When he got the box of Daylight, he resumed his Raven shape and flew away with it to Dry Bay. When he opened the box there, the people were so frightened that they ran away, those wearing the skins of land animals ran into the woods and mountains, while those with sealskin clothing ran into the water, and all were apparently transformed into the various animals. The mountains also moved back, and rocks ran away.

One informant, when questioned about the nature of the Sun, answered:

“They know the sun's burning. Yeł [Raven] sent this hawk to bring in the fire, and he flew out and got this fire, and his beak started burning. He used to have a long beak. His beak was burning, and Yeł said, ‘Just keep on coming. I got something to put in place of your beak.’ And he had a piece of old rotten wood instead of a good beak. That's why his beak is so short. And he [Raven] put fire in all the wood, and that's why wood burns.” (See p. 865.)

In another story, the Sun appears as a fine, good-looking young man with light hair, who marries the daughter of a widow (p. 874). The women are Teqwca and this explains why the five Children of the Sun (Agan-yAti) are claimed by Teqwedi shamans as their familiar spirits. Four of them were boys and the fifth a berdache (gAtan). In another version, the Sun marries a CAnkuqedi woman whose relatives had all been killed by the Tsimshian, and their offspring were seven sons and a berdache. In both cases, the women belong to the Wolf-Eagle moiety, and the Sun, by inference, to the Raven side. The children, with their father's help, secure revenge on the enemies who had killed the mother's relatives. There is obviously no way of connecting this concept of the Sun with that which makes it a small object which could be put in a box, or even with something burning.

The Moon (dIs) also is sometimes conceived as Raven's jealous uncle who is the Controller of the Tide or Flood. Still another conception of the Moon was illustrated in the carvings on the four posts of Moon House, which Emmons photographed at Yakutat about 1901 (pl. 88). These evidently represent four phases of the Moon, crescents and half moons. According to Emmons’ notes (AMNH, accompanying the photograph), two of the carvings “represent a boy that when going out after water in a storm was blown up to the moon where he can be seen today.” In the other two carvings of the Moon are animal figures which Emmons identifies as bears (although it seems unlikely that the Kwacqwan should made use of the totem of the Teqwedi sib). None of my informants mentioned this story of the boy in the Moon. At Sitka, Swanton recorded a story that two girls were carried off by the Moon. One who had compared it to her grandmother's labret was smashed to pieces on the Moon, but on its surface one can still see the other with her water bucket (Swanton, 1908, p. 453).

I learned nothing about what is done at eclipses of the Sun or Moon. Swanton (ibid.) reports that during an eclipse of the Moon, people blew toward it in order to blow away sickness, thinking that the Moon would take it away as it had the two girls.

According to Harrington (MS), the people said of an eclipse of the Moon, ‘the Moon is lost’ (tís khwAthkhoowwtIkkÚt). His informant told him that “the old time Indians used to say that at the time of an eclipse there is a very low tide and the ocean is waveless like a lake, and that only when the eclipse gets over does the tide start coming in…. You can get all the clams you want then.”

I learned little about the nature of the Stars, other than that already mentioned. There is a story about the Great Dipper (yAtE), but my informants had forgotten it. (See Swanton, 1909, Tale 26, which recounts the origin of the house in Juneau named for this constellation.) The name, yAtE, was analyzed by one informant as: yA—”all, like all the time,” and tE—”stone or stones, maybe because it stays there all the time.” The North Star (tee cugu) was apparently of no importance, for one elderly informant did not even know that it was always to the North. I learned nothing to the effect that the stars were towns or houses, or that shooting stars were burning coals thrown out of the fires in Kiwa’a (Swanton, 1908, p. 452). The word for star, as I heard it (qUt ’AyÉnaha), seemed to imply a falling star (qUt—from space, ’A—it, yÉna—down-ward, ha—moves). However, Harrington recorded the form khút-’AyyAnnAhhÁ or khwAt ‘ÁAnnAhhAh, to mean any star —apparently unable to analyze it.

In addition to recording the same name for the Great Dipper, Swanton (1908, p. 427) noted a few additional names for particular stars or constellations: the Pleiades are 'sculpin;’ the three stars of Orion's Belt(?) are ‘Three Men in a Line;’ Jupiter as Evening Star is ‘Marten's Moon’ (corroborated by Harrington at Yakutat); and Venus as Morning Star is ‘Morning Round Thing’ (Keq!AcAguLÎ’). Harrington derives the Yakutat name for the Morning Star (kheeyyA-é) from the verb ‘to dawn,’ as in the expression ‘it is getting daylight’ (kheexé).

SPACE AND TIME

Spatial Orientation and Measurement

If the Yakutat people do not seem to speculate much about the nature of the heavenly bodies and the lands far away from the regions they have actually visited themselves, they know their own country well. They differ from the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska, at least from those of Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 19–30), in the extent to which the world in which they actually live includes more than the narrow ribbon along the shore, or the canoe routes across bays and inlets between landfalls. Perhaps it is their closer Athabaskan connections that make them more at home on land. Thus, the country behind the ocean beach or the shores of the bay are visited and traversed much more freely and confidently by hunting parties than was the interior of Admiralty Island by those who lived at Angoon. The outwash plains with their prairies, sloughs, streams and lakes, and the steep mountainsides above and behind the lowlands are all parts of the world which the Gulf Coast Indians have made their own. Formerly they even ventured on arduous and dangerous journeys up the swift rivers and across the great plains of ice into the homelands of the unana behind the mountains.

The Yakutat people orient themselves primarily with reference to known, named, landmarks. Of these the most important are the two great peaks, Mounts Fairweather and Saint Elias, although every striking rock formation, reef, island, point of land, bay, stream, or lake serves as a guide to location. Although I encountered no one as skilled in drawing a map as some of the Eskimos I have known, all of the men and most of the women at Yakutat could read maps well. They were interested in my topographic maps and sailing charts, pointed out and named various features on them, and sometimes noted certain inaccuracies. On the whole, however, information about particular spots had to be gained when these were visited or at least within sight. My knowledge of place names falls off sharply, therefore, beyond the limits of Yakutat Bay.

There are a number of terms which designate directions, and which are also used for spatial orientation. However, the Tlingit do not apparently have expressions referring specifically to the cardinal points. Rather, directions and regions, if not themselves named, are designated with reference to the major geographical features and the prevailing winds. At Yakutat, north lies beyond the mountains in the interior, and south is over the open sea. The coastline, however, runs from southeast to northwest between Cross Sound and Yakutat; then it swings around until it runs almost due east and west between Cape Yakataga and Controller Bay. “Oceanward” and “inland,” therefore, do not refer to the same absolute directions along different parts of the Gulf Coast. Similarly, while many of the terms used at Yakutat for directions and winds are the same as those recorded in southeastern Alaska, it should not be assumed that they designate the same regions or winds, since the trend of the coast, and the direction of stream flow and of the prevailing winds vary somewhat from locality to locality.

Analysis of the directional terms indicates that they are composed of some of the demonstratives which Boas (1917, p. 113) has listed: ‘near me’ (yá), ‘near thee’ (WÉ), ‘near him, but nearer than you’ (hÉ), ‘near him, but farther than you’ (yú), and há, the exact meaning of which Boas is uncertain. Other terms include ‘inland’ (dÁq), ‘up-river’ (nÁndE), ‘downriver’ (’ÍdÉ), and ‘way out’ (deki). Other locatives are: ‘towards’ (-dE), ‘through’ (-nA), ‘at’ (-, -), ‘on’ (kÁ), and 'side’ (-nà). (See Boas, 1917, pp. 94–110.)

North, therefore, may be designated by a number of expressions translated by my informants as “back, way back, in the interior” (dAq, WE dAq, dAqkA, hada). Northward is ‘toward the interior,’ or ‘upstream’ (hadadE, nAndE). People living in the north could be called ‘those who live upstream’ (nAndE qAnAsúwu).

South is designated as “way out” (deki), and the peoples who live on islands far out in the sea (Klawak or Haida, or both) are the “tribe way out” (Dekina). Southward (or southeastward?) may be called “over there, out to sea” (hagunkAdE). Or southward may be “down river” (’ike) and in the south may be “at down-river” (’ike).

Harrington also recorded the following directional terms: ‘Oceanward, or outside-toward-the-ocean’ (’Att’IkkhÁ); the ocean beach or ‘to the ocean side’ (IkkhÁ nnAA); ‘inland-ward’ (ÁnnA-'Áh); ‘downriver’ (’IxkhÍi), ‘further down-stream’ or ‘toward the mouth of the bay’ (’ÍxxÍnnàa); ‘up-river’ (naakkhÍi); ‘upstream’ or ‘up toward the head of the bay’ (naanyaa); ‘further up-river’ (náannáa).

Terms for east and west are said to refer to the winds. Thus westward (tł’akak ‘InadÉ) may be translated as ‘west-wind towards-the-side-of’(?). Another term, applied to both the north and the west, but probably referring to the northwest, was hénaa for the direction, and hénaa for the region. Persons living there could be called hénaa qwan.

Eastward or southeastward (sanÁ ‘InadE) evidently means 'southeast-wind toward-the-side-of’(?).

East and west, however, may have more of a cardinal reference since east may be designated as ‘the place where the sun rises’ (Agan ’AnA kexix djiyÉ), and west as ‘the place where the sun sets’ (Agan ‘AnA yexÍx djiyÉ). In these latitudes, however, these points vary greatly during the year. Harrington (MS.) noted that the Tlingit customarily marked the positions from their own particular homes where the sun and moon rise at different times of the year.

Other directional terms used by the Yakutat people refer to such topographic features as the ‘mountain top’ (cacAki), ‘river mouth’ (hin wAt), etc.

I do not know how distances may have been designated. It seems unlikely that there were any measurements of long distances except in terms of the time it would take to travel, such as a day, two days, or half a day. These are now expressed in terms of miles, often with great accuracy.

Actual measurements of such manufactured things as planks, canoes, boxes, and so forth, were made by stretching out the arms and hands. I have already noted some of these terms in discussing the measurements of coppers (p. 353). These seem to correspond to the length of the hand, of the forearm to the elbow, of the arm to the armpit, and of the whole arm from fingertips to the averted chin. A longer measurement was the full span of both arms. While such linear measurements are now specified in English in terms of fathoms, yards, feet, and inches, many informants preferred to show size by gestures. In one version of the story of Raven, the amount by which the tide had fallen was described as “half a human long.” This was explained as equivalent to a “yard,” or the length of one arm stretched out (MJ).

Temporal Orientation

The past, as we have seen (pp. 210–211), could be conceived as belonging to two different epochs: ‘long ago’ (tłAkw), the time of myth (tłagu) when the world was not yet as it is today; and the more recent time of ‘history’ (ckAlnik). Yet my efforts to separate the events belonging to these two realms of time show how far they overlap; sometimes we seem to be dealing with what might constitute a third, intermediate, period of legendary history. However, it is neither possible to arrange mythical events in any temporal sequence, nor can one tell when historical time began. ‘Mythical’ and ‘historical’ events are often equally miraculous from our point of view, and not all natives agree on the distinctions between them. In some sense, ‘myth’ time is a timeless eternity.

The whole temporal scheme for the Tlingit is very loose. Events in the recent past usually are dated by referring them to the stage of growth of the narrator, as “when I was a little boy,” or “when I was as big as that child.” Still earlier happenings are placed in the lifetime of a grandparent or of a noted chief. A few major events—such as the coming of the Russians and the brief period of their settlement at Yakutat (1795–1805), the smallpox epidemic (probably that of 1838–40, although this is not always clear because there were others), the establishment of the mission at Yakutat (1889), the great earthquake (1899), the building of the saltery (later converted into the cannery) and of the dock (1902), World War II with the quartering of so many men at the airfield—also serve as temporal points to which previous or subsequent occurrences may be referred. Some informants, however, seem to be very conscious of our methods of dating, and are presumably accurate when citing dates in our calendar. Others are vague, or confused and inconsistent when attempting to give the date or to estimate the number of years since an event.

Quite a few of the older people could not give their age in years, nor could they say how old they were at the time of some happening which they were describing.

“A long time ago they don’t know how old they are…. Now this new generation begun to realize they have to know for the Old Age Pension how old they are. The reason I know how old I am—they ask my mother. And my mother say I was born when they finish putting up the salmon. That's all they [the old people] can remember. That's the only thing they tell their age by…. They count my age at the mission. They ask my mother how old I was when we come back from fishing. I’m not a baby—I’m three or four…. [The missionaries] asked when I was born. It was in the fall, my aunts say. I was four or five…. The others just say they were born when the fish turn red, or when the blueberries are ripe.” “They go by the season…. Nobody knows how old they are.” (MJ)

This informant, as might be expected, found it almost impossible to measure time by years or to give a date. Nor could she explain why the old people made a point of recalling the season of their birth.

Most of my dating of events in Yakutat history has had to be as loosely relative as that of my informants, except that it was sometimes possible to make a closer estimate by checking dates on tombstones. Whereas the date of death can be presumed accurate, that of birth must often have been guessed from the supposed age of the deceased; in fact, usually it is the age at death that is marked on the stone. Some very old people are believed to have lived over 100 years. A detailed census made by the schoolteacher in 1938 was also a great help to me, although informants claimed that there were errors in the birth dates of a few older persons. A list of members of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, compiled in 1921, also served as a check. The records of the mission, if available, would have given most valuable data.

There is little indication that the Tlingit were ever interested in keeping a count of the years, although there are hints that notched sticks were once made as mnemonic devices to commemorate events. Durations were sometimes expressed in terms of years or days, as in Swanton's version of the Kwacqwan migration (1909, Tale 105, pp. 356.7, 354.8), where a stay of 20 years is called a long time, or when a journey of 40 days is expressed by saying that they camped 40 times. Phrases of my informants, such as “two hundred years ago,” or “three hundred years old,” cannot be taken literally, but simply refer to a really distant past or to a very great age.

Divisions of the Year

Most of my information about time pertains to the divisions of the year (takw).

“They have four seasons in Tlingit.” These are winter (takw), called by the same word as that for year; spring, “when snow is melting,” is called ‘the place where winter was’ (takw ‘ití); summer (qÚtàn); and fall (yes). The seasons are obviously of unequal lengths at this latitude, and so I was told: “Winter and fall are 10 months; summer is 2 months.”

The year was divided into months or lunations, literally ‘moons’ (dIs). A lunation began with the first appearance of the new crescent. “They count the moon when it first show up, not beforehand, like the Whites” (MJ).

Names for phases of the moon were unfortunately obtained only from a rather poor informant, and were not checked with others. These were recorded as: full moon, ‘big moon’ (dIs-tłen); half moon, ‘dark on the moon’ (dIskA uc); first quarter, “first one you see” (dIs awe ‘moon's hairs’?); last quarter—”don’t know; maybe there's no word for it;” ‘no moon’ is literally that (łek dIs, probably tłe dIs).

In telling about recent experiences or events, it is more customary to indicate in what month or season they occurred than to say how many months ago.

The “months” or lunations were both numbered and named.

“Middle of summer, it's a year. New Year starts. Now the White people, they got January, but the Indians, it's the middle of summer.”

When I asked if the new year began with the summer solstice, or longest day, I was told: “Something like that. I don’t know what day. From the middle of summer they counted the months: One, Two, Three, up to Twelve…. Some people just call them One, Two, Three, up to Twelve, but they had names.”

Tlingit months are now equated with those of our calendar, and the consensus of opinion is that the first month was July, while January was the seventh, although one informant designated August as the first and another hesitated between December and July. Actually, of course, it is impossible to fit lunations to calendar months, since a year contains 12 lunations and a fraction. These natural discrepancies account for the confusions and uncertainties in informants’ minds. Furthermore, without carefully determining the position of the sun at the solstices, such as observing when it had reached the northernmost or southernmost points of its rising, it would be impossible to fix any particular day as the beginning of the year. Although Harrington's notes (p. 798) suggest that something of this kind was formerly done by each household for itself, I do not know whether there was ever any clear consensus about the solstitial days. Probably the lunation following or coinciding with the period of the longest days of summer was simply selected as the first month of the year.

The numerical terms used in naming months seem to be cardinal numbers; indeed, it is doubtful whether the Tlingit distinguish between cardinal and ordinal numbers. The word ‘moon’ (dIs) or ‘thing’ (’a) may follow the month number. When months are named, these terms may also follow the descriptive term, but the more usual designation is to append the expression ‘moon of’ (dIsi).

The following list is arbitrarily arranged according to our own calendar, since there was no clear agreement on that of any aboriginal calendar. Nor was there complete agreement on the month names or their sequence. Unfortunately two of my best informants could remember only a few names. It is obvious that the majority of the designations refer to the annual cycle of plant growth and animal activity.

JANUARY

No term obtained except Seventh Month.

FEBRUARY

Sik dIsi—”That means black bear's month. The reason they call them that, January is the coldest month. All that trees—spruce and hemlock branches—they dropped off down to the snow. It looks on top of the snow like a black bear's skin. It don’t snow so much that time, it don’t rain so much, just north wind blow all the time. And all that needles and branches fall off the trees. It looks like a black bear's skin.” (HKB)

MARCH

“March is the eighth month. From the eighth month you’re going to watch. There will be lots of things, fish and things coming. Easy to go out hunting. You look for animals.” (S for OA). “March—that's the time the water greens come [see month name for May, below], the ninth month. And we knows just when the things that grow. In the ninth month, the water greens. In the ninth month, that's the first time the swans come.” (MH) “Swans come the fifteenth” (MH).

APRIL

“In April, the tenth one, the geese come from the south” (MH).

MAY

Kaaní dIsi—‘month of green leaves.’ “Blossom month—see, that's the blooming month…. That kaaní dIsi, that's the time they [the geese] lay their eggs. It started in May, but June is the time everything lays eggs.” (MH, MJ)

’AyÁt ‘atítł [or ‘adIł] wA—’at this they lay (?) eggs.’ “When they lay eggs—flying things is laying eggs.” (MH, MJ)

CanA dIs—’from the head month.’ “This month now [May 2], I think they call them ‘from the head.’ The seals, the little ones, you know, they start to change the hair from the nose. They take that baby seal hairs—they got to come off from the head. That's why they call them.” (HKB)

Hin tanA kaaní dIsi—‘month of green leaves from the bottom of the water.’ “May—month of green things growing in the water…. When they get herring eggs.” “Things growing on the rocks in the water. All the seaweeds is growing. This [June 23] is the right time to eat them. We don’t eat clams now, we just eat cockles. The clams are mating now—not just spawning—they mate. Kaaní dIsi is next month.” (MJ)

JUNE

’AtkAtAxét dIsi—“Bleeding month, when everything was born” (MH). (Swanton, 1908, p. 426, records this as At A’daxet dÎ'si.)

’AyÁt ’AtAXEti ’á—“Birth month” (MJ). “When things are born—seagulls, everything” (Mrs. CJ).

JULY

’At qAta dIsi—“Moulting month,” from “can't fly” (qát ‘moult’?). “You know everything lost—they shed. Birds and things and them never flies. They lost all their feathers.” (MH) (Swanton, 1908, p. 426, renders this as At ata’ dÎ'si, “month when the geese can’t fly,” or “month when everything born commences to fatten,” assigned to July and part of August.)

“Everything is changing. They got diarrhea-like that month. Everything got diarrhea then.” My informants were too embarrassed to tell me the name (MH, MJ), although on another occasion I had been told the word for diarrhea (te).

AUGUST

Caxeyí (or càxéyé?)—“That's a hard one. I don’t know what it means.” “This is not our language” (MH). (Swanton, 1908, p. 426, gives this as cĪÎ’ for August, when the birds come down from the mountains; also as caxeê’ of unknown meaning.)

CA dIsi—‘high bush currants month.’ “The gray currants grow on that. I believe that's the way it is…. [Not cranberries]—gray currants, CA. It ripes on that.” (MH)

DIs yAdi—‘moon's child, baby moon.’ (OA)

SEPTEMBER

DIs tłen—‘big moon’ (OA). (According to Swanton's lists from both Sitka and Wrangell, September is dÎs A’dÎ 'small moon,’ and October is dÎs Ln ‘big moon,’ 1908, p. 426.) I feel certain that my informants have confused these names.

DIs tłen or qU-qa-ha dIs—‘digging moon.’ “Animals start to go in their caves. Groundhogs put up food for the winter.” (MJ)

OCTOBER

DIs yAdi. “Groundhogs is getting all their stuff out to air them and dry them for winter time in the north wind, a dry wind” (MJ).

DIs tłen. “That's when I was born. That's the largest moon. Large moon, they call it.” (MH)

QU-qa-ha dIs—‘digging moon.’ “That's the month the bears begin to clean out their house or cave, digging out. That's the month the bears take their old nest out and work on the new one. That's the time people likes to go mostly hunting—looking for where the bear's working. Lucky fellows go out and find them there. Go to the cave.” (S for OA) It was not clear whether the bears are killed then or their dens are marked for spring hunting.

NOVEMBER

QU-qa-ha dIs. “That's the time the bear digs up the den to go in. When all the bears digging their holes to go in” (MH) “Animals go in the hole—xuts kudi [‘bear's nest’]” (MH, MJ).

DECEMBER

Łiyi qé’e—errors in transcription make it impossible to analyze this expression, despite the several versions obtained, although I suspect that it means “no light in the middle of the day.” “It's from the shortest day” (MH). “Shortest day month” (MH, MJ).

As can be seen from the listing given above, there was no name assigned to our January, except “seventh month,” and even this numerical term was not accepted by everyone. The order of the other month names and their correlation with our months varied from informant to informant. Some of the same names were collected by Swanton at Sitka and at Wrangell, and he also noted a lack of correspondence between his two lists, although he accepted the Sitka calendar with 13 names as probably more accurate (Swanton, 1908, pp. 425–427).

If we combine his lists with mine, accepting the points of agreement as probably representing the original calendar, we would have:

January:

Month of Geese

February:

Month of Black Bear

March:

Month of Green Leaves Growing from the Bottom of the Water

April:

Month of Green Leaves

May

June

July

Month of Births, Month of Laying Eggs, Month of Moulting, etc. fall here.

August:

caxeyí, and Month of High Bush Currants

September:

Small Moon

October:

Large Moon

November:

Digging Month

December:

?

Counting Days

A calendrical device, “a big square board with holes and two pegs, just like a cribbage board,” had evidently been adopted from the Russians, although my informants believed it to have been aboriginal. There was apparently only one of these, that owned by Yakutat Chief Yaodaqet (the second of that name).

“One peg was for the day and one for the month…. He moved the pegs himself, each day, and wouldn’t let anyone else touch it…. He's the only one use it—just him, nobody else…. That chief, he looks after it. Nobody else, just one person. Every day he moves the stick. Every day. Then he knows it.” (HKB)

The holes were arranged in groups of three rows of 10 holes each to make a month, explained one informant, counting in Tlingit to 10, and then adding, “twenty, thirty,” in English. Apparently the two sticks or pegs were colored differently. The board was compared to a punchboard (a favorite device for wagering small sums, found in the stores at Yakutat), or a Chinese abacus, and was called ‘place of the moon's teeth’ (?, dIs ‘uei) (S and OA).

This calendar was evidently something very impressive, for all my informants mentioned, almost with awe, how the chief used it to name the very day on which the eulachon or geese were expected.

“He would say: ‘This time we have the hooligans [eulachon] in Dry Bay or Situk.’ He would tell his brothers to go over to get it. Sure enough, they get it. When geese or swans going to come, he mentions the day. No mistake. He would say: ‘Tomorrow, you will see the geese,’ and they would come.” (HKB)

That this calendar was not the only counting device used at Yakutat is evident from the fact that Emmons obtained there a “counting board” (pl. 139). This is a thin slab of wood, with a main area of 16 by 12 cm., and a small flange, 2 cm. wide and 8.5 cm. long, along one side like a grip. In it are 16 rows of 26 small pits, not very evenly spaced. Its exact use is unknown.

One would suppose that talley sticks would also have been used in counting days, although I have no direct evidence to that effect. Such things were, however, used for other mathematical computations, not simply to record points in gambling games, and they would have been available for keeping a day count. One of Harrington's informants told how his father, who could neither read nor write, and who found it hard to speak English, used to figure how much he had made fishing and how this should be divided among his crew. “This was all computed by beans and sticks. He worked it by working first in thousands, then dollars, then cents, dividing each separately…. He was smart, and the oldtimers used to go to him for advice.”

In counting days, ‘midday’ (yIiÍ) or simply ‘middle’ (ii) would be used. (Harrington renders ‘day’ as yAkh-y-yii.) For example, “the wind was blowing three days” would be rendered as ‘three days between (or through) it was then blowing’ (nAs yIiyÍ anA ‘ayÀ ‘Áwuditi).

Although the Russian Church was never established at Yakutat, it was probably from the Russians that the natives adopted the notion of the week. The days are simply numbered from Monday to Sunday: i.e., Monday is ‘one day’ (tłe ii), etc. (TJ).

Other expressions recorded were: yesterday (tatgÉ), last night (nEsdat), three of four days ago (ya tatgÉ), tomorrow (seen or séAn; Boas, 1917, p. 151, sèÀn), a few days from tomorrow or ‘tomorrow a little way opposite’ (seAn ‘A tłéyà kÁdi kÁtIn), and “day after day” (xe, or yanAx xe).

Divisions of the Day

The time of day is expressed with reference to the daylight (qé’a; Harrington, khII’Ah). Boas distinguishes between daylight (qe.), dawn (q’éa), dusk (e) and night (t’at’) as the essential divisions (Boas, 1917, pp. 70, 124, 128).

“Night (tat). Really means dark. Tat comes when people sleep. Ta is sleep, so dark is when they sleep.” (JE)

“Midnight (tat dje yÍn). It's in the dark, after it's dark.” (JE) “Midnight” (OA).

“Before midnight” (nEs dat, see also “last night,” above). “They talk about dat, ‘point.’” (JE)

“After midnight” (tu tat) (JE). (Both Boas, 1917, p. 126, tu t’át’ and Harrington, tu thaat, translate this word as ‘morning.’)

“Towards morning” (qexka) (OA).

“When dawn is showing” (yaqena ‘En) (OA). (Boas, 1917, p. 70, gives yàqe·nÀÉn ‘daylight is coming,’ and dèqe·k’ wAát’ ‘it will be daylight’.)

“Dawn” (qee). “They sit up. They start talking or something like that. Sound like they already sit up, eating or talking. That's why they put that ‘mouth,’ e, in.” (JE) This etymology is dubious. “Early morning, when the sun is coming up, early in the morning. This is when Raven calls.” (OA)

“The sun is coming up” (kAkkàan kheenAxxÍx, Harrington).

Apparently no further subdivisions of the morning are felt necessary.

“Noon (yIií). Daytime towards noon…. Sun's right in the middle.” (OA) (Boas, 1917, p. 105, yàgII, ‘noon,’ i.e., ‘middle of time,’ i.).

Again, there seem to be no terms to define time in the afternoon until one nears sunset.

Evening (xá·nà; Harrington, xaana; Boas, 1917, p. 129, ana). “Sun going down, sun is setting” (OA).

“Sun has set already” (Agán de yEnaxwuxi) (TJ).

The sun is going down now (kAkkáan AnnAyéennAxxIx, Harrington).

“Sun is set (de yEnAwusi). It's already disappearing. Went down. Just when the sun went down. The color's showing already [still?]—just like fading color.” (OA).

“The sun has already set (Agán denA wuxix). It's moving out of sight. After the sun sets.” (JE)

“It's getting dark (yakugAnAsIt), after the sun's gone down” (OA). (Boas, 1917, p. 145, k’Á-cÌt-et, ‘it's dark.’)

“About seven o’clock at night” (yae·nA’át) (TJ). (Boas, 1917, p. 70, yàe·nÀÁt’ ‘it is getting dusk.’)

“All over the surface is dark” (kA wudjeÍt) (JE, TJ, OA).

The passage of the night and the approach of dawn were ascertained from the movements of the stars.

“Long time ago the people don’t have no watches. YAtE [Big Dipper]—that's their time. That Dipper, that's got a tail. Tail is moving. Certain place in the morning—the people know where it points to at four o’clock in the morning. They know it. Mostly dark all the time. When they look up, they see what time it is. Mostly people get up at four or five o’clock in the morning. They see how far it's moving, know morning is coming soon.” (S for OA)

Mariners, perhaps the Russians, were responsible for introducing the notion of telling time by the clock, although clocks and watches could not have been available to the natives until much later. Presumably because the ship's bell strikes the hours, the clock and the hour (o’clock) are called ‘drum’ or ‘bell’ (gau). Thus, one may ask: ‘How many times clock is it?)’ (Un gawu sé’yà [sI-’a]). The answer may be simply ‘Ten o’clock’ (djInkat gau, ‘10 drums’), or, ‘Ten o’clock from it-is-passed’ (djInkat gau dÁ dakudihIt), or ‘Ten o’clock along-towards-it-is’ (djInkat gau yAÁn-dEhIt), and for half-past ten, ‘Ten o’clock-on half-of’ (djInkat gaukA cuwu). Such expressions are now in common use in telling the time, so much so that when one man (OA) was explaining to his wife how the tail of the Dipper was used to tell time he used the Tlingit terms for ‘four o’clock’ and ‘five o’clock’ (daun gau, kèdjIn gau). (See her translation above.)

THE WEATHER

The weather is that aspect of what we call “nature” which has perhaps the most direct and continuous effect upon human well-being. For a people like the Yakutat Tlingit who hunted in the mountains, who fished in the rivers and in the bay, and who pursued the sea otter on the open ocean almost out of sight of land, it was of supreme importance to be able to forecast the weather. Prolonged snowstorms and cold, especially in the latter part of winter when stores of preserved foods were low, might result in starvation by preventing hunting and fishing, or by driving away the game and delaying the expected fish runs. In forecasting the weather we can see the wise application of a great deal of observation of natural conditions, as well as the intermingling of less empirical lore. In the explanations of the causes for bad weather and in the attempts to change it, we gain insight into the ways in which the forces controlling nature were conceived.

Predicting the Weather

A weather prophet, ‘outside one-who-is-watching’ or ‘outside one-who-tells’ (gán łA-tínì, gánkA nigi), was not a shaman but rather an expert whose advice was sought and respected. “The people consulted him before going hunting. He could tell by the clouds. He was just a wise man [not a doctor],” said MJ of her uncle Ckinan who was such an expert.

Yakutat Chief Yaodaqet was a noted prophet:

“It's him, too, who knows so much about the weather. That man always get up early in the morning, mostly when they’re living at ‘AkA, where the Coast Guard is now. [This was a summer camp on Aka Lake near the present Loran station.] That's where he live in a big cabin. He go on the ocean beach early in the morning. He know what star is coming up next, before the daylight. He just know which one's going to disappear when morning come. He knows it. When he come home he tells: ‘The stars are all here. It's going to be good day.’ When he comes home some mornings, he say: ‘Going to be bad weather. The star told it.’ How does he know? It [the star] just move. Sometimes in the evening, he sit and watches the evening star. When he comes in he calls his servant or his slave, ‘Gicwexc [the slave's name], straighten everything outside! Put something in a dry place! It's going to be bad weather before morning. One star is lost.’ He's smart, that man.” (S and OA).

The position of the Milky Way was also mentioned as a weather sign. When it points from north to south, “way down to the sea,” this is an indication of good weather, but when it runs east and west there will be bad weather.

The weather could also be predicted from the position of the new crescent moon:

“They watch it pretty close when it appear. When the moon is showing up, upside down, it's bad weather. That's the sign of it. [They say:] 'spill the world's water—‘akA wusiá łIngit ‘ani hini.’ When the moon show up, rightside up, it will be calm, no rough waters [They say:] 'scoop up all the water in the world—łIngit ‘ani hini.’awusihin.’ ” (MJ)

Harrington was told that the Indian could predict rain when they saw the sun's rays, “like the fingers of an octopus,” sucking up the ocean. They would say, ‘the sun is sucking up the water’ (kÀkkàan híin khée khAnnAÀk), and know that rain would come within a few hours or in 2 or 3 days.

Body portents, that is peculiar feelings or twitchings, may indicate the coming weather (p. 764).

The most common method of foretelling the weather was to watch the clouds on the mountains, especially on Mount Saint Elias and on Mount Fairweather. One evening when I commented on a flat cloud that was streaming from the top of Mount Saint Elias, I was told:

“In the old days they used to tell the weather from it. Sometimes it puts on a sou’wester [rainhat] and then it means a bad storm. Sometimes the cloud is sidewise, as it is tonight, and then it means a westerly wind, good weather.” “They tell the weather from Mount Saint Elias. My father learned it from his father's father who can read it. My father's grandfather was Yaodaqet. My sister now can tell the weather the same way. She learned from my father. She looks at the mountain and says what the weather will be from the cloud on it. I never heard that pointing at certain mountains causes bad weather.” (HB)

This last belief was one encountered at Angoon, where clouds on the mountains also served as weather signs (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 29, 131).

A woman who had lived in Dry Bay reported: “When it's going to be fair, there is no cloud around it,” referring to Mount Fairweather.

“All the sea otter hunters used to come to that place [Cape Fairweather?], the other side of Lituya Bay. But that mountain [Fairweather] that they go by—they see something that give them warning. That showed when a storm is coming up. That's the only thing they travel by.” (MJ)

The mountain might also give a sign presaging other disasters.

Animals Associated with the Weather

A few animals are associated with rain:

When sparrows cheep in the spring, they are said to be “calling for rain, 'síu, síu!,’ because they want berries. How mad I used to get to hear them call that when I was young!”

Bats (egedí-tan, ‘beaver-sea lion’) are not feared. “When it's kind of dark, you know, that's the time they flying around, when it's going to be bad weather.”

“The groundhog whistles when it's going to rain…. It will rain if you eat the knee bones of a groundhog.” (MJ) The groundhog, like the porcupine, is essentially an animal of the interior, rarely encountered on the Gulf Coast. This belief about the “knee bones” is probably derived from the Athabaskans, and may be related to the Atna story of the porcupine that could not be restored to life until a missing bone from its leg had been returned (fieldnotes with McClellan, Copper Center, 1954).

The Thunderbird is, of course, associated with thunderstorms. Although Jack Ellis told Harrington that “the thunder is caused by the thunderbird flapping its wings,” I am doubtful that this correctly expressed Tlingit thought. Both thunder and the Thunderbird are designated by the same Tlingit word (xétł), and in speaking English my informants usually called the bird “Thunder,” making no distinction between the great bird and the meteorological phenomenon, but whether there were supposed to be one or several birds was never clear. One would say, however, ‘the Thunder-[bird] makes a noise’ (xétł duwA’Á;tc), meaning the thunder, while the lightning is its wink (xétł tł'Úgu).

The Thunderbird has a curved beak like an eagle's and lives in a cave in the mountains. “When it comes out, that's when you see the bright lightning…. Whenever the Thunderbird makes a big noise the wolves always stop. They get stuck in one place.” (HB for FI) These birds are so enormous that they catch whales and carry them off into the mountains to eat. The Reverend Axelson told Harrington that there are supposed to be the bones of such a whale in a glacier on a mountain near Katalla.

We have seen (pp. 249–251) that the Thunderbird was claimed as a crest by the CAnkuqedi because a small boy of that sib had been rescued or captured by them. When he returned to his own people as a grown man, he built a house with a painted screen to commemorate his adventures. A screen of this type from Thunderbird House at Yakutat (pl. 91) shows the bird in the center, surrounded by clouds and raindrops and by the faces that were on the walls of the Thunder- birds’ house. Below, are two representations of the rescued boy. Despite this totemic relationship, neither the CAnkuqedi, nor any others, make any attempt to control or propitiate the Thunderbird. In southeastern Alaska, stories are told of various persons who have actually seen these birds, or found one of their feathers, but I did not hear any of these tales at Yakutat. Swanton (1908, p. 454) also records the belief that to see a Thunderbird or have any communication with it makes one rich.

The Winds

The weather is known to be controlled by the wind (xet, kéłtcÀ or iłtca). The winds predominating at Yakutat have been discussed (p. 29). Judging from the native names, the Yakutat people recognize four major winds or directions from which or to which winds blow; other winds are described with reference to these or given geographical names. Since cardinal directions are not recognized or named in Tlingit, the names for winds do not refer to these. The following list was, however, given (chiefly volunteered) by a man who was thoroughly familiar with compass and chart, and who used the familiar English designations in translation.

Southwest wind (AndÉ ‘At, or wAndÉ ‘At)—“something coming ashore.” It brings showers. It “comes from the sea lions.”

Southeast wind (sanAxet, probably a contraction of sanA xet). This brings bad weather. (Boas, 1917, p. 125 from Swanton, renders sanaet as 'south wind.’)

South wind—There is no word for south wind, I was told, but it is possible to designate it as “outside of the southeast wind” (sanÁ t’e kAnÀ, ‘from behind(?) the southeast wind’).

East wind—“dry southeast wind” (sanAet xuk), so called “because when the east wind is blowing, it's just like the west wind. It is always dry.”

West wind (tł'AkAkA’Axét, or tł’AkAxét). This brings good weather. Sometimes it is designated by the term for southwest wind.

Northwest wind is called either west wind or north wind.

North wind (xún) brings cold.

Winds may also be designated by reference to the regions from which they blow, and northerly winds have many such names, as for example, ‘wind from the mountains’ (ca nA xet), or ‘wind from the valley between the mountains’ (ca anA xet). The northwest wind is ‘the wind from the Copper River’ (’Iq hini nA xet). Other northerly winds blow from the Alsek (’ałse xe yudIti), or from the Ahrnklin (’antłen xe yudIti), or from Disenchantment Bay. These are sudden, strong winds, feared by seal hunters up the bay because they start without warning. The northeast wind is ‘blowing from the surface of the glacier’ (sít’ kA nA nùkw).

Winds may be conceived as animate. Light breezes just blowing on the water (kA wusInukw) are “arguing to see which is the strongest, which is going to start” (wuc e yu get [git?] hAs ’AtkA wUdIník—‘together mouths moving their on-it are-speaking’ ?). (MJ)

The north wind “blows 8 days. Starts from Mount Saint Elias—that's westward. Then keep agoing. North wind blew. Then southeaster. Takes a turn at a time. Weather don’t get laid up till they all get through that…When the wind first blows from Mount Saint Elias they call it cawAt-xun, ‘lady's part of the northwest wind.’ It takes 4 days to blow.” (MJ)

“The north wind lasts 8 days…. They claim the first, each one, looks for food. The male goes first, then the woman goes, and then the kids…. They say to the wind: ‘I hope your kids will eat up all the food in your place!’ (’i yAti ’Akci ‘i’itix ’At yA-sA-à, ‘your children maybe in-your-place everything-devour’). [This is] so that the wind will stop.” (JE)

CONTROLLING THE WINDS

There were various techniques for controlling the wind and thereby the weather.

“Some time, this west wind, if it don’t get right and keeps on blowing, they give a present to the wind. They save it for that—all new things, new clean clothing. They keep it just for that. Then they lay it on the water and they call for any kind of wind they want, and they used to get the wind then. But anything dirty I throw, it's going to be my life, if I give it away to the world. Sometimes the boats are lost. They used to call it ‘a kina yé;gi [my spirit above].”

The informant went on to talk about the Spirit Above (quoted p. 813). It is thus not clear from the context whether the offering was made to the Wind, the Sea, the World, or to the Spirit Above, or indeed whether any clear distinction was made.

“I saw them make something for calling the wind. I saw that the old things work. I prove it. They make it out of a cottonwood tree. It's like a totem pole. It had a face and eyes and brown roots from the beach, from the clear mud. The roots dry like hair and they fasten it to the top for hair…. The name for those fine roots is kit. It's like that okum they use for calking boats [and for tinder]…. And they put a mountain goat bone in. They stick it in the left eye and face it to the west and then they leave it right by the tide mark so it will drift away [when the tide rises]. If it isn’t put right there it will blow all the time. Early in the morning they put that thing on the eye. It's like a needle. Then towards morning on the west side it start blowing…. ”

It was not necessary to say anything when the image was erected. It, or the method, was called ao or aox. This is not a Tlingit word, and the informant doubted if it were EyAk.

“I think that name originate from the people who made it first…. You put it [the wooden image] at the tide mark because the wind will blow forever if the tide doesn’t knock it down. The wind will try to knock it down.”

The informant (born 1911) had seen this method successfully employed by his father and uncles at Icy Bay where they were stranded for 2 weeks. This must have been before 1932 or 1936, when his father died.

Storm, bad weather, and wind were in some way associated with the things of low tide. Thus, one could call the wind by blowing through the tube of a kelp stalk.

“They used to believe if you blow through the kelp stem the wind comes. Holler through the kelp to get a southeast wind, sanAxet. Sometimes they want it when it's cold weather, you know.”

We discovered this when I happened to show a photograph of one of our party using a piece of kelp as a trumpet. This was one of the men who had been excavating at Knight Island, and he was blamed for the bad weather we had recently experienced:

“Kelp stems—that's why it rains. They didn’t allow it. You have to wipe your mouth and burn it up [the kelp or the material used in wiping?] in a big bonfire. To make a noise inside a kelp stem is łíàs. gic tudE a-wu-’i łíàs—[’kelp into to-invite-(or shout)-with-the-mouth is-taboo’]” (MJ)

“In olden days you never blow through the kelp. They believe it would rain. My mother always says, ‘Don’t use it for a horn. Bad weather will come, a southeaster.’”(HB)

Weather Taboos

Bad weather, storms, rain or snow, might be caused by breaches of taboo, for example if an adolescent girl looked at the sky (p. 522). There is also a suggestion of a taboo involving a woman who had just given birth, although my informant was unable to explain. Children's noise might bring storms, also.

“Sometimes they got the kids, she [they] playing outside, she [they] too much holler. The people say that's why she's going to make bad weather.”

“If you fool around with the little [baby] birds, and hurt or trap them, that's going to bring a lot of rain,” said another.

If children play with a top (one), this is said to bring the north wind (xun), either because of the similarity between the names or between the sounds made by the top and by the wind (MJ).

To tell the story of Łayaw, whose snowshoe tracks form the Milky Way, also brings the north wind, a man told me. “They have seasons for those stories, but Old Raven stories can come any time.” In fact, whatever the weather implied in a myth, the recital of the story will produce it. “If you tell any story about bad weather, it will be stormy next day. If you tell about fair weather, it will be fine.”

Handling certain things will produce rain or bad weather. For example, there are small toadstools called “moss rain hats” (iqa síu duwet Aw), from the appearance of their hat-shaped tops (p. 31). “It rains if you touch it. They don’t let us touch it.” (MJ)

These rules apply particularly to things in salt water, according to a man.

“Anything you touch it, and it is where the tide is hitting, it change the weather. It will be stormy if you touch it—cost your life and your uncles’ lives. It is a punishment. Anything you touch it and the tide hits it, if you are way back on the land—on the sandbank—if you touch anything on the beach, it's against God. But if you belong to the beach, like Yakutat, it belongs to you.”

This obscure statement would seem to indicate that the taboo applies only to people from the interior or, perhaps, to any stranger to the Yakutat beaches, or else that if broken by them the consequences would be more serious than if the transgressors were the local coastal inhabitants. It is obvious, however, that the rule has to be broken whenever beach food is gathered. Thus, picking seaweed in spring and early summer brings bad weather (MJ). There is no doubt that many Tlingit feel horror at looking at or touching things from the lowest tide levels (cf. de Laguna, 1960, p. 16).

“When the boys go out hunting and get ahold of those little fishes, bullheads (wE), sometimes they cracking their heads with the rocks—cause the storm. One thing, too, they call it spirit of the wind (iłtcÀ-yAdi) [’wind's child’], kind of flounderlike, drift ashore sometimes from the ocean. Mustn’t touch that either—cause a storm.” The fish was further described as “a little fish, big as your hand, dried up. I never see any of them alive, but it's dried, float up on the ocean beach.” (MJ) This is probably a small flatfish (p. 53) from deep water, found only dead and desiccated on the beach when cast up by storm tides.

When I asked about handling a dead starfish, I was told: “Mustn’t touch anything from the ocean. Sea jelly (takwan’Asi) [jellyfish?], too, you mustn’t touch—cause lots of surf.” (MJ)

To eat beach food at night, such as sea urchins, brings nightmares and bad weather.

Apparently, bad weather was also associated with certain localities. To approach the rocks on “Whale Island” in Dry Bay that are transformed persons would bring rain and storms, according to a woman who had lived in the area. Disenchantment Bay also seems to be an area where precautions must be taken. When going above Point Latouche, people used to rub charcoal rings around their eyes, undoubtedly as a protection against glare on the water and ice but also to ward off rain (p. 67). “At sealing camp [above Point Latouche], if you turn the frames over [i.e., the frames for drying sealskins], it's going to rain” (MJ). These beliefs seem to be, in part at least, associated with proximity to the glaciers and mountains, the spirits of which are very sensitive (see pp. 818–819). Gathering certain types of rocks or minerals in their vicinity was likely to cause fog, bad weather, and other misfortunes. However, the dangers may have been inherent in the minerals themselves, and sometimes could be avoided by “paying for them” (pp. 69, 416).

Continued storms, especially in winter, have resulted in periods of starvation, one of which occurred in the late 1880's (pp. 399, 513). It is therefore no wonder that there is a story about how snow once fell in the middle of summer (cf. Swanton, 1909, Tale 14). This was a “double winter” (wucU takw, or wucu tagu). “Old people did something wrong. That's what caused it.” (TJ)

Bringing Fair Weather

A number of methods for controlling the weather involved the use of fire, as was done in warding off the consequences of blowing through a kelp stem. One of these was successfully employed at Italio River to end a southeast storm, and was witnessed by one informant. Apparently eight figures of ptarmigan were made of sand. In front of the line of birds was set up a row of sticks, with a gap in front of each bird (like the gap in the brush fence in which ptarmigan snares are hung, although no actual or model snares were used in this case). There was a fire a little distance away, and the performer called for good weather, although I did not learn what he said. One might suppose that the storm had resulted from some breach of taboo connected with ptarmigans, but I could learn nothing about this or about what was burned in the fire.

“If it storms,” said another man, “to clear the weather up, you take branches [and make a fire]. You make like a human doll out of grass. You put a man's blanket on it [and also over a real person], and you say, ‘We burn this.’ And then you just steal the man out of the smoke into the house. You do that if it is a bad storm.”

The man who had described the ptarmigan method also attempted to explain the mock cremation or sacrifice, and specified that alder branches were used for the fire. The doll, I gathered, was supposed to represent a newborn child, for the informant was apparently thinking of childbed taboos. While someone calls for fine weather, the person who had been in the smoke goes into the house and gets quickly into bed. Then the man who had called for fine weather comes in and says, “Get up! What's the matter? What you dreaming?” The one in bed answers, “I dream the fine weather for tomorrow.”

Krause (1956, p. 161) reported how the severe winter of 1881–82 was blamed by the Chilkat on the burial of a child (instigated by the missionary who condemned cremation). “Great fires were lighted on the beach and effigies were burnt in order symbolically to atone for the burial.” When this did not help, the child was exhumed and cremated. These practices suggest the Yakutat magic described above. There is also an Eyak story about a terrible period of bad weather and starvation that was caused when a girl gave birth to an illegitimate child and concealed the event. Good weather was restored only when mother and child had both been cremated (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 321).

A fire was also employed when storms were caused by breaches of the taboos that surround the adolescent girl (wetedi) during her puberty confinement, for example by walking on the ground or looking at the sky.

“They say Agan [the Sun] smelled the mistakes in this world. They wipe her body and take their clothes [hers?] and throw it in the fire. And they call for good weather. They do it if it's wetedi's fault.” (MJ).

“When it's bad weather, too, they put branches in the fire, that fire. And devilclub, they put it in the fire and smoke it [make a smoke]. When they smoke it, just clears up like this [a fine sunny day].” The fire was lit out of doors. “My mother told me in Dry Bay that one [girl]…had their first monthly, you know. This north wind—it's windy in Dry Bay. Some of the trees—one side is just old, you know. That trees…how that strong wind is all the time.

[The north wind, she explained later, had been blowing for about 2 months and had killed all the branches on the exposed side of the trees. The people were starving because the eulachon had not come. The famous shaman, utcda, was called.]

“Then they give that utcda something. ‘What's the matter with that weather? It never stops.’ He tells people, my grandfather's uncle [utcda tells them], to get that girl, cut the hair, put it in the fire outside. Everything—put branches—everything, devilclubs. They do it like that. Put girl in the room afterwards. That sky is just clear up like this.”

And that same night that the girl was secluded, the eulachon came. The storms and the absence of the fish were both caused because the girl had not been properly confined.

DIVINATION

In addition to dreams, body portents, weather signs, the mutterings of the shaman inspired by his spirits, or the cries of certain birds (pp. 702–704, 759–760, 763–764, 803–804, 829–831), there were a few techniques of divination which might be employed by one who wished to discover the future. Although there was a special term for ‘prophet’ (aakhuuttzI-kéeyyAkkhâa, according to Harrington, i.e., aqutzI-kéAqa), anyone might attempt divination.

One method involved the right(?) humerus of the seal or sea otter, the “fortune-telling bone.” Since one noted sea otter hunter, the grandfather of MJ and CW, saved all of the right humeri of all the sea otter that he had killed, so that they filled a sizable box, I believe that the bone may have had further powers as an amulet.

To use the humerus, it is held by the longitudinal ridge, a question is asked by speaking into the hole or “ear” at the distal end, and the bone is flipped with a quick jerk of the wrist, just as one throws “chair dice” (p. 555). If the bone falls on either of the two flatter sides, the answer is “No”; if it balances on the edge, this means “Yes”; and if, miraculously, it stands upright on the proximal end, this means “Yes, it's God's truth!” Fortunately, if the first reply is negative or unfavorable, one can “just ask and ask until the seal bone comes out right” (MJ).

A sea otter bone may be used in the same way. “It works, but sometimes it never tells the truth. If it doesn’t tell the truth, get a stick and put it in the ‘ear.’…That's how they punish it,” a man said.

The adolescent girl would perform such divination during her confinement, after she had done the other magical exercises which she would begin as soon as she woke in the morning (p. 521).

“They take the shoulder bone [humerus] of a seal. Ask it a question, then you throw it. You do that before you eat. It has a little hole. You puff into it: ‘What kind of man am I going to marry? What kind of luck am I going to have?’…Hewa is what they call it” (MJ).

Another form of divination is performed with a sawed-off section of large animal bone with a hole (part of the pelvis?). Holding this “wish bone” above the head with the left hand, one tries to poke the right forefinger through the hole, without looking. If successful, this means an affirmative answer to one's wish or question. But if one misses on the first attempt, “it's never going to come true” (MJ).

Informants denied knowledge of scapulimancy.

The Yakutat people determined if a husband long absent on a trip were safe, by observing what happened to fragments of his clothing when these were put into the fire.

“Just take a piece of cloth off his clothes, put it by the fire and burn it up to see if he's still alive yet, and if he's coming home. Light it by the fire. That's the way they used to do, but I never do that myself.” Nor did the informant know how the results were interpreted.

This last method is evidently similar to that used in the interior, whereby the condition of the absent man could be determined by roasting a piece of the fringe from his skin clothing in which eight knots had been tied (information from Dr. McClellan).

THE FORCES OF NATURE

A Statement of Problems

It is not only exceedingly difficult to discover what were the aboriginal Tlingit notions about the nature of the world and the forces that control it, but it is also difficult to express what one knows or suspects, since the English words at our disposal are already heavily loaded with the connotations of our own science and relion. Thus, if we speak of “animate” or “inanimate” in relation to the way some object in nature appears to the Tlingit, these words cannot denote exactly the distinctions we recognize, but rather that the Tlingit conception is “more like what we mean by animate than inanimate,” or vice versa. The same qualifications will apply to “supernatural” versus “natural.” These categories may be only approximations of our own, but further, in using them, native thought not only draws the lines in different places, classifying as “animate” or as “supernatural” phenomena which we would classify as “inanimate” or “natural,” but also may blur the sharpness of the distinctions.

Moreover, the context of the situation or the personality of the individual thinker may to some extent determine how the phenomenon is classified, what kind of action is taken, and what sorts of results are expected. It is not so much that there are two sorts of causality operating simultaneously, at different levels, so to speak, to explain good luck or misfortune, but rather that there are always available a range of possible causes or explanations, neither concurrent factors nor exclusive alternatives, but possibilities which may be thought of at different times. The mind may range over these explanations, accepting each one as probable, one after the other in quick succession.

Even when informants use English words: “God,” “Heaven,” “spirit,” or “against the law,” for example, we cannot assume that these are accurate translations of the Tlingit expressions or native ideas. In speaking English they naturally tend to shift to the world of missionary teaching, in which man sins, endangering his soul, by breaking the laws proclaimed by a God up in Heaven, from whom one must obtain forgiveness through prayer and confession, or suffer punishment in Hell. Nevertheless, the attempt to explain native belief through these English words, as well as the attempt to use them in translating the Tlingit expressions, may be very suggestive.

We may never find full answers to our questions about aboriginal beliefs, but we must pose the queries:

What were the kinds of forces or powers that made things happen, or that were responsible for human fortunes? Was there the expectation of a regular order, akin to our conceptualization of “the order of nature,” in which the events happened simply because that was the way things happened, and where the forces were impersonal, impartial, and inanimate? Or, were the events of the world due to “interventions” of Powers with desires, whims, or even personalities? How can man deal with the events and the forces that control them? Is there power which he can direct to his advantage, or acquire for his own use, or must he be careful to placate and please, or at least not arouse the animosity of more powerful Beings?

It will be noted that in this book I have reserved no chapter or section entitled simply “Religion,” yet clearly a great deal of the material already discussed might have been gathered together under such a rubric, if we understand by “religion” that which would include the magical preparation of the hunter or warrior, the propitiation of slain animals, the restrictions and rites attendant upon life crises, and the activities of the shaman. Yet to have made such a major chapter would have meant a fractioning of almost every aspect of daily life, from the icy bath before the raven calls at dawn to the recital by the chief of sacred mythology beside the evening fire. Nor would it be easy to fit these various practices and their underlying beliefs into a religious system. Each, like the respectful plea to the medicinal plant gathered by the UnEtkAnai woman to cure the illness of her “opposite,” seems to belong to this or that particular type of situation, not to a segment of life that stands apart as “religion.” Religion and the old customs were all of one piece, as the missionaries recognized when they condemned face paint, plural wives, potlatching, puberty seclusion, cremation, totemic representations and native music, along with shamanism and the torture of witches.

Even the earliest explorers were puzzled as to what might be the religion of the people of Lituya Bay and Port Mulgrave. Naturally, the 18th-century navigators looked for evidences of worship of some Supreme Being, and evidently did find something which could be so interpreted. We must ask, therefore, whether there was any notion corresponding to God, or gods, and whether or not the spirits recognized by the Tlingit were ranged in an order suggestive of a pantheon.

18th-Century Observations

RELIGION, LITUYA BAY, 1786

It is hardly to be expected that foreigners who could not speak the native language would be able to learn much about religious beliefs or practices, nor understand those rituals which they might happen to observe. Nevertheless, the following meager observations are suggestive, if not of the worship of the Sun, at least of appeal to some spirit above.

Though whole villages went in and out of the entrance to Lituya Bay, the Indians were careful never to approach the entrance except at slack water, and evidently did so with considerable caution.

“By the help of our glasses we distinctly perceived, that, when they were between the two points, the chief, or at least the principal Indian, arose, stretched out his arms towards the sun, to which he appeared to address a prayer, while the rest paddled away with all their strength.” [LaPérouse, 1799, vol. 1, p. 390.]

“No doubt the sun is the god of these people; they frequently address prayers to him; but I saw neither temple, nor priest, nor trace of regular worship.” [Ibid., p. 404.]

RELIGION, YAKUTAT, 1788

It is difficult to know how to interpret the following passage in Shelikov's report:

“These people have neither laws nor religion. They worship, however, crows, from which they affect to be descended. They invoke these birds in their magic incantations, and pretend to receive their assistance in cases of distress. They make iron images resembling the heads of crows, with copper eyes, which they carry about with them as charms, to render them successful and to preserve their health.” [Coxe, 1803, p. 327.]

Obviously, members of the Raven moiety trace their totemic affiliation (not genetic descent) to Raven. My informants, with whom this report was discussed, denied that one ever prayed to Raven. While pet ravens might have been kept then (as they are now), I was told that no one would have consulted them or appealed to them. Iron, no matter in what shape, is a magical protection against Land Otter Men, and therefore useful for hunters to carry on the water or in the woods, but my informants knew no tradition of making iron amulets in the shape of Raven heads. I have already offered the tentative suggestion that these “amulets” in the shape of crow's heads may have been the detachable barbed heads of harpoons (p. 377).

RELIGION, YAKUTAT, 1791

Malaspina was very much puzzled by the apparent lack of religion at Port Mulgrave. Yet he noted that the natives “in approaching places where there are corpses,…exhibit a timid repugnance and superstition…” as was observed on several occasions by members of the expedition, and this surely indicated some religious notions, he argued (Malaspina, 1849, p. 290; 1885, p. 348).

“…That this people, we say, should lack ideas of religion and be persuaded of the total anihilation of man by death, is difficult to believe. Yet we did not see among them idols, altars, sacrifices, nor other positive signs of their belief and submission to any superior being, almighty and immortal.” [Malaspina, 1849, p. 290.]

[In an effort to stimulate some response from the natives, the Spaniards pretended that their astronomical and cartographic observations were religious:]

“We flattered ourselves that the use of our astronomical instruments directed toward the Sun would unravel one or another truth in this matter. We actually tried to add to it the idea of a religious observance, but it was all in vain, for having been previously introduced by Captain Dixon to the use of the telescope, they associated the one idea with the other, and even their curiosity was only moderate. We did in fact notice that, every afternoon near sunset, the Ankau, walking alone along the beach near the huts, would harangue for a while with great solemnity; but we were never able to determine whether this harangue was an exortation to his people to take care of themselves, or to the Supreme Being to preserve them…. .” [Malaspina, 1885, p. 348.]

These addresses would seem to me to be more likely to have been homilies or what my informants called “preachings” from the chief to the people of his sib. Nevertheless, at Port Mulgrave, as at Lituya Bay, there is some indication that a spirit above was addressed in prayer. As Malaspina relates:

“Finally Don Felipo Bausá, when accompied by a native on his hydrographic excursions, observed that the latter, raising his eyes to the sky, began to entone a mournful and pathetic chant, accompanying it by a fervent joining of the hands, and even urged him [Bausá] to add his voice; but ignorance of the language did not permit him to clarify these primitive ideas, and he could only infer that it was not the Sun to which his prayers were addressed.” [Malaspina 1885, p. 349.]

[SurÍa, however, believed that the Sun might have been worshiped:]

“We could not find any trace of their religion although to me it appears that they bestow some worship on the sun. I am of this opinion because in order for the chief to make us understand that our commander was taking observations on shore, he told us that Ankau (which is the same as Señor), our commander, was looking at Ankau. Therefore if this word means a superior, as so they name their chiefs, and the same word is used to speak of the sun, it seems possible that they are rendering it adoration.” [Wagner, 1936, p. 257.]

Swanton's Contribution

The Tlingit view of the world was, I believe, an essentially animistic one, and all the “elements” and natural features, probably even the World itself, were vaguely conceived as animate, or as inhabited by souls (qwani, or qu-hani, see p. 823), or as controlled by spirits (yek). The same was true of mountains, glaciers, rocks, plants, animals, even manufactured objects, and also certain activities (Strength, Gambling, etc.). Swanton has discussed Tlingit notions at some length, and I quote his statement and comment on it:

“Inside of and between these [the flat earth and the vaulted sky] everything was alive with spirits called yēk, and some also resided upon the sky itself.

“[Footnote:] This statement is in accordance with the idea first derived by a person of European lineage, but if one were to delve deeper into Indian philosophy it would probably be found to give a somewhat erroneous impression. Most Indian languages, at any rate the Tlingit, do not have a true plural but usually a distributive and occasionally a collective. This means that instead of thinking of so many different objects they think of one diffused into many. Therefore the Tlingit do not divide the universe arbitrarily into so many different quarters ruled by so many supernatural beings. On the contrary, supernatural power impresses them as a vast immensity, one in kind and impersonal, inscrutable as to its nature, but whenever manifesting itself to men taking a personal, and it might be said a human personal, form in whatever object it displays itself. Thus the sky spirit is the ocean of supernatural energy as it manifests itself in the sky, the sea spirit as it manifests itself in the sea, the bear spirit as it manifests itself in the bear, the rock spirit as it manifests itself in the rock, etc. It is not meant that the Tlingit consciously reasons this out thus, or formulates a unity in the supernatural, but such appears to be his unexpressed feeling. For this reason there is but one name for this spiritual power, yēk, a name which is affixed to any specific personal manifestation of it, and it is to this perception or feeling reduced to personality that the ‘Great Spirit’ idea seems usually to have affixed itself. It is true that, as among some other tribes, one of the personal manifestations of this supernatural energy, Nas-cAki-yēł, has so far asserted or maintained an ascendency over the rest as to exercise a certain control over them, but such authority is far from complete. It finds its expression also in the heaven god of the Haida and Tsimshian.

“This supernatural energy must be differentiated from natural energy and never confused with it. It is true that the former is supposed to bring about results similar to the latter, but in the mind of the Tlingit the conceived differences between these two is as great as with us. A rock rolling down hill or an animal running is by no means a manifestation of supernatural energy, although if something peculiar be associated with these actions, something outside of the Indian's usual experience of such phenomena, they may be thought of as such. Although the Indian has, in this latter case, reasoned to an erroneous cause, the difference in his mental attitude is none the less great. The one ac ion he conceives of as natural, the product of purely physical forces; the other as a manifestation of supernatural energy, although in a manner superficially resembling that in which a physical phenomenon presents itself.” [Swanton, 1908, p. 451 and note c.]

The Tlingit rarely express a plural of any kind, even when linguistic devices make it possible, except in the case of personal pronouns or collective kinship terms, and in the latter example the plural form may be only a poetic way of referring to an individual. This then explains why there should be no clear idea about the number of yek associated with a particular phenomenon or thing.

On the other hand, I do not believe that the Tlingit have the notion of physical force or energy or of impersonal, inanimate power. My attempts to explain the classic notion of mana, as distinct from the power of some spirit, were not understood by my informants. Instead, my discussion yielded only statements about plant ‘medicines’ (kaaní), or about taboos (łíàs) and magical “exercises” (hewa). While such substances, or human acts and words, appear to act automatically or at least appear to produce certain results, there, seems to be no underlying concept of power which was not ultimately associated with living things, persons, or spirits. Rather, all force is vital force, the expression of animate energy wherever or however it is manifested. This is also reflected in the Tlingit language, which has no genders of animate and inanimate, even in its pronouns, nor suggested in the use of transitive, intransitive and impersonal verbs. The only clear distinction appears to be between human and non-human, and even this is not always made. Thus, the common word for ‘thing’ (’At) applies equally both to living and non-living things, in distinction to ‘person’ or ‘man’ (qà, or qá). When, as we shall see, there are no categories of nature—cosmological entities or forces, geographical features, stones, plants, animals, even manufactured objects—that do not have souls or spiritual controllers, we should probably conclude that the Tlingit do not make our distinction between animate and inanimate.

Furthermore, I do not believe that the Tlingit make a sharp distinction between natural and supernatural. There is instead a difference between ordinary and extraordinary, between the commonplace and the mysterious, or between the safe and what we would call the “supernaturally” dangerous. In discussing the last, that is, tabooed acts and things, the common term for “taboo” (łíàs ‘be careful’) was translated by two informants as “against nature.” I heard a similar expression in Angoon where rules of that kind were called “laws of nature.” While transgressions bring disaster to the transgressor and his kinsmen in ways that usually are not, or cannot be, explained, some punishments were specifically said to have been due to the angered soul of some animal or other offended spirit. Yet it is significant that the rules themselves should be referred to as “nature” and that the term “religion” was not used. From our point of view, the “natural” world of the Tlingit is permeated by the “supernatural.”

To return to Swanton's statement—I am not at all sure that the notion of a high god or supreme spirit, such as Nas-cAki-yeł (Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass), is one that all Tlingit entertained, but was rather a vague notion toward which only a few native philosophers were groping. Katishan, the Wrangell chief, who endeavored to fit together Raven stories and other myths into a coherent history of the beginning of the world, was such a man, and it is he who identified Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass (Owner of the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Daylight) with the Creator, and also with the Controller of the Flood, with personal Destiny (’a cAgún), and with a personal Spirit Above (’a kina yegi) that was invoked in prayer (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31; discussed on pp. 815–816). My own informants referred to such beings or entities in quite separate contexts, and I received only meager hints of attempts to equate any one with any other. Even these may have been due to ignorance and confusion about the old beliefs. Therefore, while there is no doubt that a few thoughtful Tlingit were trying to integrate mythological, cosmological and religious concepts into a consistent schema, these efforts were neither perfectly successful nor generally adopted. To what extent native thinkers may have been stimulated or hindered by contact with Christianity, I cannot say, nor what might have been the ultimate results if native culture had not been shattered during the last half century.

Swanton's following statement (1908, p. 452), therefore, is more in accord with Tlingit beliefs, as far as I could ascertain them:

“The number of spirits with which this world was peopled was simply limitless. According to Katishan, there was one principal and several subordinate spirits in everything, and this idea seems to be reflected in shamans’ masks, each of which represents one main spirit and usually contains effigies of several subsidiary spirits as well. There is said to have been a spirit in every trail on which one traveled, and one around every fire; one was connected with everything one did. So in olden times people were afraid of employing trifling words because they thought that everything was full of eyes looking at them and ears listening to what they said.”

In illustration, Swanton (1908, pp. 451–454) mentions the Sun and Moon as the abode of spirits, the Stars as houses, and the Northern Lights as the souls of the dead. Other spirits in the sky he calls “Fair-girls-of-the-Sky,” although the Tlingit expression (”gūs! tokoha’nI“) means simply ‘inhabitants of the clouds’ (gutu-qu-hani). The wind, sea, bays, rivers, lakes, swamps, hot springs, mountains, glaciers, and other places he also mentions as alive or as containing spirits. I encountered many of the same notions at Yakutat, as well as special rules for behavior based upon such ideas, yet my information cannot be considered as exhaustive.

It is these spirits or animating souls that may become the familiars of shamans and, to judge by the names of such familiars as have been recorded, the spirits must have been innumerable and might be obtained by the shamans from almost anything.

The ideas about animate nature or animated natural features are undoubtedly related to the Tlingit artistic convention of representing the latter by faces, heads, or even anthropomorphic bodies. At Yakutat there are, or were until recently, drums, dance paddles, blankets, and house screens on which clouds, rain, mountains, rivers, and rocks were represented in this fashion.

It is interesting that despite this predominant animism the Tlingit do not seem to have developed any notion of an opposition or complementation of male and female beings in nature. This, again, is in accordance with linguistic usage in which no distinction is made between male and female unless absolutely necessary. The human soul is essentially sexless, for example, and even some kinship terms denoting one sex may be manipulated to override sex distinctions. It is for this reason, perhaps, that informants were uncertain whether an old man or an old woman watched the prop under the earth or controlled the tides. Even Raven changed his sex in one story. There is rarely any indication of the sex of a shaman's spirit, except as it may be depicted by the face of a man or of a woman on his mask.

The Spirit Above

I have already noted that in Sky Land or Kiwa’a there is a chief, and perhaps also a watchman at the entrance hole, who turns away souls that may wander there by mistake or who are too wicked to merit entrance. The names of these personages were not remembered by the informant who told us most about them, but on one occasion he referred to “the Heaven” as the one who determined the fate of the soul, which suggests that this character may have been conceived as the animating spirit in the sky.

It is not clear whether this chief of Kiwa’a is or is not the same as the Spirit Above. Were the Indians observed by LaPérouse and Malaspina's companions praying to the latter, or to the Sun?

Informants were questioned about the nature of the Spirit Above (kina yegi). Available information indicates that there is a difference of opinion as to whether there is only one such spirit to whom all pray, or an individual guardian for each single person. There is also disagreement or uncertainty as to whether the spirit or spirits should be addressed as ‘my’ (’a) or ‘our’ (ha). Furthermore, there seem to be several descriptive terms which may or may not be designations of this same spirit (or spirits), since they could be used in similar contexts, although their differences in meaning apparently denote different aspects or powers. While at the present time there is certainly a tendency to equate all of these with the Christian God, the earlier belief seems to have been that there was a Spirit Above for each individual.

“Our spirit up in the sky—ha kina yégi—is what every tribe believes in, because if they do something wrong, they don’t live long, always have bad luck…. There's just one [Spirit Above]. Everybody believe in it. If they don’t do right, ha kina yé di qIskit—sh them. [They say:] łíàs, ha kina yégi tuge It means you doing something against that Spirit up above.”

I can translate the last as: ‘Be careful! (taboo). Our Spirit Above (or the Spirit Above us) against something-is-being-done.’ This did not mean to “disobey,” the informant explained, but to act “against nature—łíàs,” and he gave as an example the torturing of baby seagulls (see below, p. 814). When questioned further about the Spirit Above, he said that the latter was always referred to as ‘our’ (ha), never as ‘my’ (’a). “They never talk to him; just try to obey rules.” No one knows where the spirit lives or what he looks like. He did not make the world, but people “know that he makes rules that all persons and things have to live by. If they do anything against that, they get bad luck—something happens.”

A woman said: “’i kina yegi, God, ‘your Spirit up Above,’ will punish you if you steal or lie. They aren’t going to help you. Even if we’re living they’re not going to help us.” One would pray: ‘My Spirit Above, pity me!’ (’a kina yegi, ‘ican At).”

Another man, who had described how a gift might be put in the water to bring favorable weather (see p. 805), continued:

“They used to call it ‘a kina yégi. They never used to call it God before. That's why they always believe on something and can’t do crooked work. It seems like we’re just half-way [now]. It doesn’t come out true. [That is, we have abandoned the old ways and beliefs and are not yet true Christians.] It seems like each one would have one spirit when they prayed, yet it was really the same. It is just like each Christian prays to God.”

According to Veniaminov (1940, p. 57), each person is supposed to have his own ‘kina yek’ [yegi], which always stays with him. But that of a wicked or impure man leaves him or kills him, so that the Tlingit say, “If I do evil, my ‘ax kina yek [yegi] will slay me.” In time of misfortune or sickness, however, Veniaminov (1940, p. 60) reports that the Tlingit will pray for help “to the chief yek, who belongs to some renowned or famed shaman.”

Emmons (MS.) also reported of the Tlingit that each individual had a personal guardian spirit, called ‘ax kina yégi, if we translate Emmons’ orthography into the system used here. The only prayers made by the Tlingit were addressed to it. The spirit tried to safeguard its ward, but if the latter were wicked, the spirit might abandon him and this could even lead to his death.

Still another man told me that the hunter, after killing an animal, would pray: “The Spirit Above me, I need to eat the animal I kill.” He also said:

“In the old days—I don’t know—I think some of it was good and some of it was bad. People didn’t steal and lie. Each person had a spirit protector, and whenever they are in danger or going to do something, they would call on it. ‘Help me, my spirit!’ They called the spirit ‘a SAgínA.”

On another occasion, he explained:

“If you are out on the ocean, in danger, you call to Savior to help: ‘ ’a SAgínA At Asní [Àsnè?]—My Savior, save me!’ There are powerful spirits above you. Powerful magic man above each person. If you do anything against SAgínA, you get punished—like God. It's just a spirit. Nobody see it…. Same as ha kina yégi—but just a little bit different. SAgínA is more like God.”[12]

While the nature of this aboriginal deity or deities remains obscure, it is obvious that the native religion was an ethical one and that the “laws of nature” which this spirit or spirits sanctioned were as much moral laws as “supernatural” rules. Before exploring further the notions about the spirits and the ways in which aboriginal beliefs have been reconciled with the concept of the Christian God, we should try to examine what were the Tlingit ideas about these rules.

Fate, Moral Law, Taboo, and Luck

According to the last informant quoted, ‘a SAgínA “sounds almost like ‘a cAgún.” This last is a term meaning “origin and destiny,” or “fate,” perhaps as determined by “ancestry,” or by the sib “totem.” All of these meanings might apply to this word (p. 455). But again there is disagreement as to whether it could be something personal and individual, ‘my’ (’a), or was always collective, pertaining to a sib, as ‘our’ (ha) or ‘their’ (du hAs).

It could mean “your background, your forefathers in back of you…either your father's side or your mother's side. I’m going to tell you where I born from—that's my ‘a cAgún.”

Although the ordinary word for ‘my future’ was ‘a cUkA, another informant explained:

“CAgún could be future, could be past…. In the future—that's what's going to happen, like who's going to be born through us, and where we’re going to move to, and what's going to happen…. ” In answer to a question: “No, you can’t change it.”

The ordinary person does not know what is coming. ‘I don’t know what is coming in the future’ (tłeł xUsa kU wasÀ ‘a cAgún yaka kUdeyayí). But a fortuneteller is ‘one who can tell the future’ (qa cAgún kAnigi).

Thus, we see CAgún meaning or implying the destiny of a people (or individual), established in the past by the ancestors and extending to the descendants. It is one way of expressing “the way things are.”

It is in this latter meaning that it comes closer to the conception of an order established or maintained by a spirit or deity.

“Ha [our] cAgún is God. It's just like you believe in God. It means it's just that's the way it works. If you done wrong, if you not kind to other people, it's against ha CAgún—like you done something wrong against God. ‘a ha CAgún—it's God,” explained a woman.

Although this last phrase is grammatically impossible—’my our CAgún’—it may have been used to imply a personal share or relationship to this common moral force or destiny.

The rules which have been established are taboos and moral prohibitions, which men must not go “against.” When asked to give specific examples, informants vary as to whether they would cite primarily wrongs against other persons (lying, stealing, being unkind, being a witch), or cruelty to animals, or what we might describe as more “mechanical breaches of taboo” (for example, failure by a menstruant to keep away from men's hunting gear); and the specific penalties mentioned might also vary.

We have seen that the punishment for the first kind of offense means an afterlife in “Dog Heaven.” This may also be the fate of those who transgress against animals, although other penalties may (also?) be incurred, and involve the same general range of misfortunes as those which may be visited upon the careless menstruant and her relatives.

Lying and stealing, even being a witch, were never described as involving breaches of taboo (łIas). But the latter does apply to the cruel and wanton killing of animals. For example, Harrington recorded that:

“The word is łIkkâas, it-should-not-be-done, it-is-wrong-to-do-it.” Or, “Don’t do that, don’t do any foolish things!” “It is taboo, you must not do it. They had a custom that aninals must be obtained for food and killed in a regular and sensible way. To jab a stick down a fish's throat and then let the fish swim away was taboo…. It is against nature, and they believed there would be a punishment for such an action.” (Jack Ellis)

It may be significant that the notes were taken on a trip into Disenchantment Bay, when the same story of cruelty to young seagulls as was told to Harrington, was told to me. For, when I asked for an example of “doing something against the Spirit Above,” (p. 812), I was told:

“łÍàs—against nature. Like if I fool around with birds, choke those birds and let them go, just as they are about to die, somebody will come along and say, ‘łÍàs!’

“Little seagulls, chicks, around Disenchantment Bay, they throw on the fire while they are still alive and laugh at it while they burn. The old man come to them and say ‘łÍàs.’ That same night a big glacier broke loose and started a tidal wave and washed all those people away. The only person that survived was that old man.”

[Harrington was told the same story by Jack Ellis (p. 287), The people were camped at WuganiyE above Point Latouche, and the glacier that fell was apparently Hanging Glacier across the bay.]

“Just about the same time, same thing happen in Dry Bay, too. They put the fire on the head of that little seagull, little chicks (eyaA) ‘young yet.’ They put that on the head and [it] start running, and they just laugh. That same time the river [Alsek] just flooded and just wash them away.”

It will be remembered that this informant believed that the “rules of nature” were made by ha kina yegi, who also punished the transgressor with “bad luck” (pp. 812–813).

Another man, telling about ‘Tabooed Lake’ (łIàsÀ ‘a) near Icy Bay, where one was not allowed to make a noise, called it “Bad Luck Lake” and further explained that “łÍàs means against nature,” but did not specify what would happen if one broke the taboo associated with this lake (cf. p. 97).

A woman used the English expression “it's against the law,” with reference to killing the spider that embodies the thoughts of a friend (p. 763). The Tlingit phrase given as a translation of “it's against the law” seems to mean ‘the-way against (or toward) to-be’ (’agÉ dé sti).

“That's łàs,” she explained. “That's the same thing…. If you kill it, that spider, that man or somebody going to die, they says. Or some kind of trouble they’re going to have.”

On another occasion, the same woman indicated that these rules were pronounced or explained by the shamans:

“Tlingit, they says, olden times they go by that rules for that Indian doctors’ rules…. Like Indian doctors’ rules, that's the way.”

The examples given were the prohibitions and restrictions to be observed by young persons, especially the adolescent girl, and by menstruants. To break them means: “You going to be bad luck all your life, or your husband going to die, or your brother, or somebody.” Or, “You never make any money…. That's bad luck.” Of all these taboos—”That's the rules. All these are łàs. ‘You musn’t do it’ (keł tu ‘adÉ yé ‘ISAnI’iyÉ).”

As she conceived it, most of the penalties seemed to come in automatic fashion, and there was no mention of an angered Spirit Above. However, we could interpret the bad luck as due to the unwillingness of animals and fish to come to the taboo-breaker. Furthermore, she said that Poverty (łA-’ican) would “suck the hand” of the lazy child; and the “spirit of money” shuns the one who drinks too much water, for this looks like a big river to this spirit (pp. 513, 519).

Luck (tłaétł) may be the reward of careful observance of the “rules.” The same informant defined it as: “If you get some kind of job, good job, you know, or get money all the time—that's tłaétł.” It is conceived as a personal alienable possession for one can say ‘my luck’ (’a tłaétłi). The cut animal tongue of the shaman is referred to as “luck,” and his land otter skin as 'skin of luck’ (tłaétł dugu).

Luck is actively pursued by magical means, through the use of ‘medicines,’ amulets, and magical “exercises” (hewa). Some of these means seem to operate automatically, like the transference of the wolf's hunting endurance to the little hunter-to-be (p. 506); others involve physical purification (with its implications of spiritual and even moral purity and toughness, see p. 517). Still others involved uttering or thinking a wish, or praying, or at least talking to some spirit or animate being, perhaps including Luck itself.

Some hewa involved goading or taunting the being into the desired activity, as when the fisherman urges his halibut hook to provoke the fish to bite (p. 390). Still another form meant the violation of the taboo against torturing animals, as when the magic to make a good hunting dog involved putting a stick into the bill of a bluejay to keep it open (p. 363). Perhaps this last magic is effective simply because it involves such a terrible act.

Whereas many informants were inclined to interpret the acquisition of good luck as primarily due to the favor of some spirit, the woman who stressed the more automatic penalties for taboo breaking also inclined to emphasize the purely magical rites, rather than more animistic means for obtaining good fortune:

“Hewa means luck, olden times. The one you eat over here, you’re going to take some part of it. You’re going to put it in the alderberries. They put it in that alderberries tree. They open it a little bit [split the branch], they put it in, because [so that] you’re not going to eat too much. If you eat too much, you’re going to have bad luck. Your husband's going to have legs about that short [2 feet long], if you eat too much…. [Other examples were cited; to cure babies of crying too much, p. 507; to make boys fast runners like wolves, p. 506.]—That's hewa. It's sure good, they says.”

On another occasion the same person observed that her mother used to tell her: “ ‘Money is just like human being. If you steal it, you aren’t going to have the luck.’…She tells me, ‘Try to be good. Then ‘i kina yégi [God, your Spirit Above] going to help you.’ You get good luck.”

From these examples and statements we can see how complex or inchoate are native notions about human destiny, about the relation of human conduct to possible good and bad fortune, and whether these are to be considered the automatic, inevitable consequences of “nature”, or the rewards and punishments of some spirit or Being.

Even when punishment for cruelty to animals is clearly implied, it is not always easy to tell who does the punishing:

“A Tł'UknaAdi man, ‘Little Slave Girl's Father (CAt^1 guw-’ic), used to fight with cats and dogs. He was mean to them. When he was dying, he jumped up and ran around the fire, calling out, ‘Please don’t! ‘ican At! [Pity me!]. They punish me. I been fighting with cats and dogs. God punishes me. I hate them. I used to club them.’ After he confessed, he died.”

In this case perhaps we are to interpret the punishment as being administered both by God and by the spirits of the cats and dogs which the man had clubbed to death. Is it a foretaste of “Dog Heaven”?

God

Chief Katishan of Wrangell attempted to fit all of these notions into a coherent system, evidently influenced in part by Christian ideas. Of him Swanton wrote (1909, p. 1) that he “has been a church member and shows a moralizing tendency; at the same time he was considered the best speaker at feasts in past times, and is supposed to have a better knowledge of the myths than anyone else in Wrangell.” He was evidently of a philosophical nature, and even though he seems to have constructed a more elaborate schema than any other native, I believe that there has been a rather general effort to syncretize aboriginal beliefs and the concepts in the Biblical Genesis. Certainly, the various ideas which he brought together are all ones which were in general circulation and which I encountered among my own informants at Yakutat. The only exception is that they are relatively unfamiliar with ‘Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass’ (Nas-cAki-yeł), probably because they did not associate the Owner of Daylight, who lived at the head of the Nass River, with a bird form. Yet at Yakutat, also, there was certainly a tendency to equate the important mythological figures with God. Thus, one of my informants identified the Owner of Daylight (Raven's grandfather) with the Controller of the Flood (Raven's uncle), just as did Katishan; another called both Raven and the Controller of the Flood “the Creator.”

For Chief Katishan there was clearly only one “principal deity to whom the Tlingit formerly prayed,” and that was Nas-cAki-yeł. Yet to Swanton he “admitted that he had concluded that this must be the case, because there were no bad stories about Ns-cA’kÎ-ył.” According to Katishan's myth (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, esp. pp. 80–81), Nas-CAki-yeł was addressed in prayer as “my Creator,” which is how the narrator evidently translated the Tlingit terms for ‘my destiny’ (’a CAgún) and ‘my Spirit Above’ (’a kina yegi). He was also addressed as ‘Invisible-rich-man’ (WayI^gêna’łxe). He was apparently not the Sun, for he was the being that owned the Sun, together with the Moon, Stars, and Daylight. He was, however, responsible for putting the old woman under the earth to watch the post on which it rests. He created all living creatures, including men, to whom he announced that death would come because he had made men from leaves. He also decreed that good people, who were not witches, and who did not lie or steal, should go above to a good place after death, whereas those that had been wicked were to be “dogs and such low animals” in the hereafter. Yet he was evidently not himself the chief or guardian of Kiwa’a. He not only saw or knew what lives people lived and judged them accordingly, but with him were two omniscient old men, to one of whom, ‘He-who-knows-everything-that-happens’ (łiu’wAt-uwadjī’gÎ-can), the Tlingit also prayed. (My informants knew of the latter as a wise old ‘woman that has nothing to worry about’ because she knows everything, łyú’At kuwAdjiki cawAt.)

Nas-cAki-yeł was, in a way, also the creator of Raven, because he wished for the latter to be born as his grandchild in order that he might take the Daylight to people. Raven went around the world, apparently finishing the job of creation, and telling people and animals what they should do. He was in part the instrument of the Creator, a transformer, and a bringer of culture, although he was also responsible for a good deal of mischief.

The most general view at Yakutat also seems to be that:

“Raven is not a god; he is created. Sometimes he creates things. There were people living before Raven.” (Jack E to Harrington.)

Harrington reports that his Yakutat informants (Jack E and JG) both said that God was called ‘my Spirit Above’ (’A-khinnayyêekii), a term given by the Indian doctors. “If you laugh before a man who is sore or try to throw rocks at an old man who can’t see, you are doing this against my God.” After the missionaries came, they changed the word for God to “our king” (haa-’aankha´awwuu, i.e., ha ‘anqawu ‘our aristocrat, nobleman, rich man’), or to “the king up in heaven” (tIkkhíi ‘aankhâawwuu, i.e., diki ‘anqawu), “our savior” (haa-kkAnniiíI), “my master above” (tIkkhíi-’A-aatthíi), and “our father way up” (tikhii-haa-'Îic). Of these terms, the one in common use today, for example when praying in church, I heard as dekí ‘anq´wú (”Lord in Heaven”).

According to Harrington, the Devil is the ‘bad man’ (ł’UccIkéeyyI kkhâ´a), or more commonly ‘the bad rich man’ (ł’UccIkêeyyI-’aan kh´awuu; i.e., ł’UcIéyI ‘anqÁwu). The modern Tlingit, however, use the English term and, as far as I could see, show little interest in either the Devil or in Hell.

Spirits and Beings in the World

In addition to the Spirit (or spirits) Above, there were innumerable spirits (yeł), indwelling souls (qwani), and mythological Beings (like the Thunderbird, or Property Woman, see pp. 821–822), in the clouds, in the air, on the earth, and in the water. Everything—living creatures, natural features, objects, human activities—had its spirit, or even, as Katishan told Swanton, a principal spirit and a set of subordinates (pp. 810–812). Tlingit ideas in these respects resemble somewhat the Eskimo notion of spirit “owners” (cua) of the land, the sea, the sky, and also of each creature or object. At the same time the Tlingit ideas suggest the Atna Athabaskan concept of a set of spirit “bosses” each under its “head boss” that controlled each species as a whole (fieldnotes with Dr. McClellan, Copper Center, 1958). In a way, the mythological figures—Controller of the Flood, Old Woman (or Man) in Charge of the Tides, Owner of the Daylight, Owner of Fresh Water (Petrel), Master of the Fish (who keeps them in his trap far out at sea)—correspond more closely to the Eskimo Owner of the Land, Owner of the Sea, and Owner of the Sky, and also to some of the Atna “bosses.” These mythological Beings or spirits, however, cannot be said to form a pantheon for the Tlingit. Any one of these spirits or souls might come to a shaman as his familiar, and almost anyone might be lucky enough to encounter a wealth-bringing Being.

THE WORLD

The World itself is sometimes thought of as alive. Dry Bay Chief George mourning his drowned relatives in 1909 sings: “Calm down a little, O World [łIngit ‘ani]. It's your fault, my sorrow” (1952, 1–1–A, p. 1162; translation by MJ). Similarly, the gift laid on the water when praying for a favorable wind was said to be given “to the wind,” or “to the world” (p. 805). In these contexts the “world” seems to be identified with the “elements.” We should, of course, be cautious in identifying what may be only poetic language or an expression in English as a clearly formulated Tlingit concept.

Nevertheless, Swanton (1908, p. 452) could also write: “The earth was in a measure conceived of as a live thing, and a ‘great liver of the world’ is spoken of.”

The Sun, Moon, and Stars were sometimes personified, and the Sun was said to “smell the mistakes in this world,” that is, sins or taboo breaches, and to send bad weather as punishment (p. 807).

THE WINDS

The winds, too, were personified, since one could speak or call to them (p. 805). In mythology, they are even more clearly defined. For example, in Swanton's version of the story of the Kwacqwan (1909, Tale 105, esp. p. 365; summarized on pp. 241–242), Heavy-wings, who was storm-bound, is visited in a dream by the North Wind (′n) or North Wind Man (′n-q′) who demands that Heavy-wings give him his daughter as the price for calm weather. While he is having intercourse with her, the wind and waves become calm. From this comes the saying: “Did you give [your daughter to North Wind] that you are not afraid of all the winds of the world?” (Swanton's translation has here been made more literal.) I did not hear this saying at Yakutat however.

In the Yakutat version of another story, Fair Weather or ‘Calm’ (kayeł’; cf. Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 99, Kayë’tł!I^) is pictured as a chief with a marriageable daughter, and a slave named 'sculpin’ (we). He also owns a self-paddling canoe called 'southeast Wind Canoe,’ that is always hungry and that must be fed to make it go fast. One informant hazarded that the canoe might be a sea lion.

That winds and clouds are controlled by spirits is suggested by the names of some shaman's spirits, mentioned by my informants. These were ‘Woman behind the clouds’ (gu dAkan cawu), and ‘Calm weather woman’ (kayeł’ cawAt, said to be a contraction of 'stop wind’ kaduwayeł’).

ECHO

In one of the Raven stories, Echo (Akduqa) is represented as an invisible being that imitates the noises made by Raven. There is also a suggestion that all echoes were believed to be the voice of this being.

SPIRITS IN SPACE

There were other spirits in the sky or in space, such as ‘the people rowing [paddling] around in space’ (kawayik qu-sA-XA qwan). These are harmful to human beings. When one man was shown some tiny barbed points that had been excavated on Knight Island (de Laguna et al., 1964, pl. 15, a–e), he remarked:

“They usually found two of these kAt [barbed spear head] in the mountain goat, on the joints. Looks like it's infected. They were shot by people that used to be on the earth before—kawayIk qu-sA-XA qwan. It's them when you feel a quick pain. Sometimes they find tiny things stuck in the joints of a mountain goat.”

When asked what these Beings were like, he suggested:

“Maybe to scare the kids. Look for barbed points to prove the stories. Nobody see them [the Beings]. People think they were small from the points they see. Lots of things happen in the old days—80 years ago. Don’t see things like that now. After they believe in God, things is changed.”

These spirits may be the same as the ‘Things of the world’ (łIngit-’ani ‘Adi), the spirits of disease that travel about in a ‘canoe of sickness’ (nikw yagu), in which are all the souls of those who have previously died in the epidemics.

BODIES OF WATER

The sea, and other bodies of water, might also be considered as alive, or as animated by spirits, for it was possible to appeal to them. In speaking of one of the Raven sibs, an informant indicated that the ocean was even the totem of the Tł'UknaAdi:

“Tł'UknaAdi, see, that's all they do—go around on those canoes—go around, come back, trade. They call the Ocean and the Breakers their friend. They always talk to it: ‘Don’t think I’m a different man’ (tA ut [una?] qa tsa at nidjí).”

The Alsek River was also alive, and related to the Tł'UknaAdi and TłukwaAdi. Therefore, when two girls were crossing the tidal flats of Dry Bay at the mouth of the river, looking for seagull eggs, and were overwhelmed by a sudden flood of water from melting snow up the Alsek River, or fell into an unexpectedly deep pool, one saved herself by appealing to the water. She was herself Tł'Uknaca and the grandchild of a Tł'UknaAdi man.

“That's why she says, 'save me grandfather!’ That's that water she says, she means it. ‘Bring me ashore!’ That's what she wishes; she talks to that water. Funny, that girl, she got saved.”

Her companion, a CAnkuqedi girl, was drowned. This happened in 1901 or 1902, and precipitated a lawsuit between the CAnkuqedi and the TłukwaAdi because the drowned girl was inattentive through an unhappy love affair with a TłukwaAdi man (p. 604, Case 10).

The girl who was saved addressed the river as “grandfather” because she identified it as a member of her own and her grandfather's sib, and could therefore appeal to it as a relative or totemic “friend.” Although anyone might address a dangerous stretch of water, the examples given above, as well as information from Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, p. 40), would indicate that the appeal is particularly effective when coming from a member of the sib that owns the locality.

Each body of water, of course, had its own indwelling spirit or soul, or perhaps even two; one at the headwaters and another at the mouth, to judge from the way the Ahrnklin River is depicted on the Teqwedi's blanket (pl. 151). These river spirits were evidently supposed to have something to do with salmon runs, for Swanton (1908, p. 453) reports the belief that the fish endeavor to reach the old woman who is at the head of every creek, and Harrington evidently heard something of the kind at Yakutat. Thus he wrote:

“One man owns the light, moon, and stars. One man owns the water (híin aatthii), the owner of the water. One man owns the salmon. The salmon used to spawn in the ocean, [but] Raven got the salmon to come up the rivers to spawn.” “Raven…first caused the salmon to enter fresh waters, their entry into which had hitherto been forbidden by the owners or masters of fresh water.”

GLACIERS

Other important spirits or beings were those inhabiting mountains, rocks, and glaciers.

Glacier spirits were the ‘inhabitants of inside the glacier’ (sit; tu qwani).

“I hear that thing,” one woman told me. “They come out from that mountains. Just like frosting on the ground, they says. I hear them. When we got to that place on the other side [of Dry Bay]—they call it KantUq hini [p. 91]…. We go over there, my mother and father and me and two of my aunts—that's five—and my little sister. We go up look for mountain goats. My father wants to kill one because we got no meat in Dry Bay. After while he kills two. Gee, we cooking away. It's good, that smell like that. When you cooking it smells good. It goes towards that glacier. The wind goes that way. After while we heard that people talking.

“My father says, ‘Be careful! Put that rags [old clothes] in the fire. That's si tu qwani,’ he says. That's the people from that glacier…. If they come to you—bad thing, or you’re going to die. That's why my father's scared of it…. Those rags, they’re scared of it, they says. [The glacier spirits were afraid of the smell of burning clothes.]

“That's 2 years afterwards, I guess. All died. I just saved. That's the way it is, they says. That's a bad luck, that thing [glacier spirits]. I don’t believe that, first thing when my father tells us. When they come close to you, [you’re] going to die. They talk just like humans…. They just white.”

Jack E explained to Harrington that there were both male and female glaciers, and that it was the former that were dangerous:

“The Natives were afraid of the ‘people’ who lived in a male glacier. You cannot cook near a male glacier for if you do, these ‘people’ will come out of the glacier and come over and bother you and the only way to stop them coming is to burn all that you have in the fire. But from a female glacier the spirits do not come, so one can cook near a female glacier without being troubled.”

It is obvious from the description given by this informant that the “female glacier” is one that has a large medial moraine and is retreating; the “male glacier” is presumably a cleaner whiter body of ice that is either actively advancing or apparently ready to do so. Thus, Nunatak Glacier, which had been rapidly retreating since 1910 (p. 69), is a “female glacier,” and the broad, dark streak down the center of the ice was said to be “a woman's hair, which was formerly parted in the middle and fell down each side of the head.” The correct expression for “female glacier” (ciit sí) uses the term that designates the female of any animal (cit); although Harrington's informant hazarded that it might also be possible to call it ‘woman glacier’ (cawAt sí).

Glaciers, like other spirits, were apparently very sensitive to what people said. When one wished to pass them safely, it was formerly the custom to speak to them (MJ), but I did not learn what words were used. The advance of the glacier in Icy Bay which overwhelmed a village was ascribed to the playful invitation given by some young men to the glacier to eat the king salmon which they were cooking (p. 286). Swanton (1909, Tale 104) records how a glacier in anger once overwhelmed a town on the mainland north of Cross Sound. It is natural, therefore, that when descending the Alsek River, people used to put on their best clothing in order to pass under the glaciers that formerly arched over the river. After they were safe beyond the ice, they would sing, and it would break behind them in response to their cries of joy (p. 87).

“One should not speak in a bad way of animals, glaciers, or of such things,” Harrington was told.

Glaciers and mountains are also sensitive to the looks of human beings, according to Jack E, who volunteered the following to Harrington; when they were in Disenchantment Bay:

“When a southeaster comes or bad weather when one is looking at the glaciers or mountains up here, it is because a stranger does not wear dark glasses and the mountains and glaciers do not like to have one looking at them, so the glaciers and mountains cause bad weather to cover up, or in hopes the expedition will turn back.”

Although not expressly stated in Harrington's notes, it is evident that the natives hope to avoid these consequences through the use of the black, pitchy, sunburn protection which they rub around their eyes and on their faces (p. 806), for on the next page Harrington recorded 'she has pitch on her face’ in both Tlingit and Eyak.

Not only were glacier spirits repelled by the stench of old clothes burning, but the great glacier that formerly covered Yakutat Bay was supposed to have retreated because a dead dog was thrown into a crevasse (p. 239), and the glacier in Icy Bay melted back because the entrails of a Tsimshian Indian were buried in the ice (p. 286). In these cases, the dead dog and the decaying human flesh acted to waste away the glaciers in ways similar to those employed by witches to injure human beings.

A similar explanation was given by Jack E to Harrington to account for the retreat of Nunatak and Hidden Glaciers:

“They believed that a glacier was clean and that if a man fell into a crack of a glacier and rotted, the glacier would retreat.” At the time of the “Nunatak Gold Rush,” when prospectors were using the great “through glacier” to travel between Nunatak Fiord and the Alsek River, a White man fell down a crevasse in Nunatak Glacier, and that is why it has retreated 6 miles between 1910 and 1940.

According to a Yakutat story told by the Reverend Hendrickson to Lieutenant Emmons, the glaciers near Yakutat were formerly selfish and nasty children whom an angry mother turned into ice because they had been unkind to her little daughter (see p. 894).

MOUNTAINS

“Not only does a glacier have its khwaan (people), but a mountain, caa, has its people, too, called caa khwaan,” Harrington wrote.

Mountain spirits were ‘inhabitants in the mountains’ (ca tu qwani). The mountain itself, or these beings within it, are supposed to be the grandparents of mountain goats. The mountain tells the goats whether or not to release the hunter who has climbed into a dangerous place (p. 366).

In Swanton's story about the Kwacqwan, told by a Yakutat man (Tale 105, esp. pp. 356–357), there is a “being of the mountain” (ct-wuqoa’nî, i.e., ca-tu-qwani) that comes to help an unlucky hunter. This spirit has rooms full of all different kinds of game in his home in the mountain (see summary, p. 242).

There was also(?) an anthropomorphic being, “Mountain Man” (cakAnái), who lived in the mountains, and who married the girls who stole their mother's mountain goat tallow. According to one informant, he “looks like the sunbeam.” Another (MJ) called him “the mountaineer,” and “the spirit of the mountain,” specifying that the locale of the story was near the headwaters of the Ahrnklin River. Swanton has also recorded two versions of the story of Mountain Dweller (1909, Tales 65 and 92), in which he is called CqAnay’ and CAkAn′î. Mount Saint Elias (wae ta ca, or ae ta ca) ‘mountain at the bottom (head) of Icy Bay,’ a pyramidal peak, is the last and most impressive of the snowcapped range northwest of Yakutat. Mount Fairweather (tSAłán), although far southeast of Dry Bay, is visible from the coastal plain east of Yakutat. Because they are landmarks for travelers and hunters on the sea, and are important in forecasting the weather (p. 803), it is natural that they should have become crests of two Raven sibs, the Kwacqwan and the Tł'UknaAdi. In addition, “Mount Fairweather gives a sign when something terrible is going to happen,” said one informant, commenting on the portent (given too late?) that presaged the drownings in Lituya Bay (p. 273). There may even be a vague notion that these mountains can control the weather, for Mount Saint Elias is said, in the song, to have “opened the world” by sending sunshine, thereby making people happy, and so is told to be happy, also (1954, 5–1–A; p. 1303).

Hendrickson told Emmons that:

“The Indians believe that the mountains were people in the olden times and St. Elias and Fairweather were married. Fairweather was the woman and St. Elias the man. They had lots of slaves, work people and children. During a family quarrel they separated, Mt. St. Elias travelled west and took a lot of slaves and men with him and from these the range of mountains were formed between Mt. St. Elias and Fairweather. The mountains to the east of Fairweather are their children.” [Emmons, notes.]

I was also told that a mountain at the head of Akwe or Italio River, Mount Raeburn or a nearby peak, called Taca, is the slave of Mount Saint Elias and Mount Fairweather, whom the owners used to send back and forth with messages.

ROCKS

When one woman was asked if rocks had souls, she explained:

“Yes, tE qwani, they call it.”

“Can they hear what people say?”

“Used to be, they says.”

“What about mountains?”

“It's just like that, they says, you know—used to be. They hear things, they says. When it's daylight, everything is just a rock, you know. It's turned to a rock. That's the way they says. That's a story.”

While this last was a reference to the myth of Raven's theft of Daylight, which she had just been telling, it seems to reflect a latent belief which could come to consciousness and influence action, just like the belief in glacier spirits. It will be remembered that there are no rocks or mountains near Dry Bay because they were all frightened away when Raven opened the Box of Daylight. Moreover, the hallucinations—shadows (qaahai), or spirits—that QakewtE saw on his journey from Hoonah country to Dry Bay, and which were only rocks, not people coming to meet him, were I believe, the “souls” of the rocks (tE qwani) (see pp. 271, 272). Others have also seen what they thought were persons, only to discover that they were rocks, not their dead relatives (see p. 574).

Just as there were spirits associated with mountains and rocks on land that were the “grandparents” of mountain goats, so in one story there is a “monster” that lived in a cave under a sea lion rock. He was “the spirit of that sea lion rock” (tan tEyi tu qu-hani), 'sea-lion rock inside inhabitant-of.’ He was the chief of the sea lions (MJ; see also Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 145–150, and Tale 93). Quite possibly this spirit inhabited the sea lion rock at the entrance to Lituya Bay.

“In olden times people talked to anything that was carved like or in any way resembled a human being. If they saw such an object when they were traveling about, they spoke to it.” (Swanton, 1908, p. 459.)

These objects were, I believe, most likely to be those curiously shaped rocks that are often said to have once been persons, or even animals, that were turned to stone by Raven, or because some menstruating woman or girl had looked at them. Examples of this kind were numerous in Kootznahoo Inlet, near Angoon, in southeastern Alaska (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 40–43). There were similar rocks on the shores of Dry Bay and Yakutat Bay that were said to be persons or animals turned to stone, but I heard nothing to the effect that these are now alive, or that they are addressed, but this may have been true in the past. Such rocks were the bear at Canoe Pass and the girl whose glance had petrified him; two old ladies quarreling on the shores between Redfield Bay and Humpback Salmon Creek; and an adolescent girl on the Ahrnklin River. On “Whale Island” at the mouth of the Alsek, there is a rock like an adolescent girl wearing her hood; coming toward her are her two brothers and their two dogs, all turned to stone. I have mentioned other rocks or caves on the Alsek River or near Dry Bay, from which Swanton's informants indicated that benefits could be obtained by prayers or gifts (pp. 89–91).

Monsters and Wealth-Bringing Beings

Other Beings on the land or in the sea are important because they are associated with luck (tłaétł). Some of these are “monsters” (qusiti ‘At, or qusitin ‘At). They seem to appear in the water, or at least disappear into it. They may be giant devilfish (naqw), dragon- flies (łqacAsaw, ‘they steal hair’),[13] or other enormous creatures.

“Sometimes it happens they grow big. Sometimes it happens—like frog. Could even be mouse. They just grow real big. And when they see it, after they go down, they just go right to their place and take that water and rub it over themselves and they will be lucky. Even the mouse, if you see it, when it goes down…. They are afraid of those things, but just being a man [i.e., a brave man], they go over there, take that water and rub it on them. One story—around Lituya Bay where that little island is [Cenotaph Island]—an octpus came over there. One man saw it and jumped over, and just started bathing himself, and he got lucky…. I don’t know his name. That's a long time ago.”

In one of Swanton's stories (1909, Tale 32, cf. p. 275) I gather that a giant rat or mouse was supposed to live under Mount Saint Elias, for a helmet was made to represent it.

Point Carew, at the entrance to Monti Bay, is called ‘the place where a monster emerged’ (’anA dAq ‘At qutsitiye). “A big monster came out of there. That's what it sounds like.” The informant was puzzled. “But there's no monster around here [now], because Old Raven talked to them. He told them all to go away. Those that are here don’t bother people. If they see them, they don’t bother humans. Those monsters go after people, but over here he told them not to do it…. Monsters like octopus. They don’t bother people. They don’t do anything against what he told them to do.”

The most important sea monster was the huge, wealth-bringing UnaqadEt (or onaqadet). Swanton has recorded several stories about this creature (1909, Tales 33 and 34). One was supposed to have been seen in Monti Bay between Yakutat and the mouth of Ankau Creek. “It looked like a box and was almost as big as a house. It's lucky to see it.” But my informant did not know whether or not it had eyes. Johnstone Passage northeast of Yakutat is called UnaqadEt Channel (guanqadEt sidE) because one was once seen here, and a cliff on the west side of Russell Fiord is called UnaqadEt Cliff (getł’i), for a similar reason. My informants did not describe it.

Harrington's informant also told him there was a story about the cliff (KúnnaaqhAtteet Kíttł’II), but gave no specific details. Only a lucky man will see this monster.

“It is a thing like a fish, that comes to the top of the water, a large fish, big enough to scare you, and like a foghorn—and always makes such a noise, and comes mostly when it's foggy, and some people see it and others gaze and do not see it. My people [Katalla] claim it has a sharp nose [gesture of holding two hands to show a V]. It was seen sometimes at this place, hence the name of the place. Informant wishes he could see one—would be lucky…. ” The Eyak name of the monster (kAłłAkkhâa) “means like hollerer. They say when they come up on top of the water, they holler, you know; the only time they come up is when it is foggy. They bring the luck to the people. They say pretty sharp in the head; they say big, they are big ones. It looks like a halibut, it looks like a skate—a skate has a sharp nose, you know. They do not come up horizontally, but at a sharp angle. They just stick the nose up, you know, and they holler.” (GJ to Harrington.)

On land there were two important Beings that brought luck. One of these was Property Woman (tł’EnAxídÀq, or łenAhídÙq). (Swanton, 1909, Tale 94, renders this name as L!ê’nAx’dAq.) This is a woman who wanders in the woods with her child on her back. The baby is “healed onto her back,” that is, grown fast to it, as if by scar tissue. The baby cries, “aé, aé,” and the mother sings a lullaby to it, “awwwwÉ, awwwwÉ,” to make it stop crying. “When you hear any noise like ‘awwww wé,’ she's trying to quiet that baby stuck to her back. You’re lucky when you hear that.”

The person who hears the baby must take off his clothes, bathe, run after the woman and grab the child. The mother has long nails and scratches the man who tries to tear her baby from her. He must make her defecate to gain power from her, one informant said, but how this was to be accomplished was not specified. To be scratched by the woman brings supreme good fortune, for the scab (ít) is a valuable amulet. The man who is scratched must make a wish for luck and wealth, but must be careful to word this properly, for there are stories of a man who made a “wrong wish” and later suffered a fatal accident (see p. 885, and Swanton, 1909, Tale 105, pp. 365–368. Tales 35 and 94 deal with the origin of this woman).

“If they hear łenAxídAq and catch it, they be lucky. Have to make a wish. It don’t happen to any ordinary person. Have to live right—every move just so—obey rules…. If they don’t live right, they go crazy, get poor.”

These rules apparently involved abstaining from any work for the ritual 8 days after the encounter, and then bathing and washing the hair with the scabs early in the morning, before the raven calls.

The only man who was identified as having been scratched by Property Woman was Heavy Wings (KitciłdAłx), a Teqwedi man who caught her on the other side of Lituya Bay. Although he worded his wish improperly and died in consequence, his descendants in both the male and female lines are supposed to have been lucky. He sold some of the scabs to his cousins, said one woman. This man lived there generations back, and a woman now living at Yakutat is believed to have inherited one of the scabs from her Teqwedi father.

Still a third informant specified, however, that the man in question was Tł'UknaAdi. “That's why they claim the Tł'UknaAdi tribe were rich. They took the scabs out and made something like dope and get rich.” The “dope” was “made of scabs (kaan kigi). They put it on the side and bind it [bandaged it to their own side]. That's why they were the richest tribe.”

In the story recorded by Swanton from a Yakutat informant (1909, Tale 105; see summary herein, p. 242), both Heavy Wings and his nephew, atgawet, caught Property Woman, but the nephew was more fortunate than his uncle and made no disastrous mistakes. It was the nephew, of course, who was the famous wealthy shaman.

It will also be remembered that Property Woman is associated with the good fortune of the shaman, for he and his family may eat beach food only during the season when she goes on the beach at low tide to gather her own. Then the shaman will eat some and give it to his people as a kind of blessing or sacrament (p. 683). (Because of her association with food at low tide, I have wondered whether her name might not be łen (low tide) nA (from) hi or xi (?), dAq (appeared), which is how one informant pronounced it.)

The other wealth-bringing Being is a man, TagwÁ or Tagú. According to one informant he was the brother of Property Woman, and was also the man who caught Sleep in the form of a bird. Since all the people of his town were asleep, he scratched out all their eyes, leaving alive only his sister and her baby. Then he took her adz and went into the woods, as she did. He still chops wood in the forest.

“Any person going to have luck is the one who hears it—sound like chopping wood, or something. And he always look for it. Sometimes he find it in a tree.”

This man also had long claws like his sister, and MJ said that as a child she had seen his claw marks (TagwÁtA [tAw?] ‘iti). “They took me to where TagwÁ scratched the bark off the cottonwood tree—way big patch, and underneath deep scratches.” This was at the head of Situk River, some time in the 1890's.

Other miraculous personages or Beings appear, of course, in the stories, but these seem to be purely mythological characters who belong to the remote past and who play no part in the experiences or expectations of people.

Manufactured Objects

Manufactured objects also had souls or spirits. Clothing was burned with the dead so that the ghost could have the “spirit” of these articles, and when food was put into the fire for him, “the spirit of the fire” waited on him.

According to Swanton (1908, p. 459), the halibut fisherman prays for luck to “the spirit of the fire,” when it crackles. In a number of stories, when Raven is flying out of the house after some trick, the owner calls to the “spirit of the smokehole” to hold Raven. The smokehole does so, and Raven is blackened in the smoke before he can escape (see p. 847).

The Yakutat people formerly addressed their hooks, lines, and buoys when setting them out to catch halibut. The buoy is said to speak to the fisherman when it has caught a fish. So too, the barbs on a harpoon head were said to talk to each other (pp. 377, 390). Swanton (1908, p. 459) reports that a seal hunter who had failed to get anything would soak the bow of his canoe with hot fat (feed it?), and would talk to it. He would also tell his spear, “You will do great work today” (ibid., p. 460).

The individual names given to houses, canoes, fishtraps, feast dishes, and ceremonial regalia, although in a way descriptive insofar as the name matched the crest decoration on the object, may, nevertheless, indicate that there was a vague feeling that such inanimate things had a personality or life, similar to that of their owners. These names were “hereditary” within the sib, since they were passed on from the wornout object to the new one that replaced it. It is difficult to determine how much this usage reflected only a linguistic or even a poetic style of treating the inanimate as alive, similar to tendencies observable among ourselves. Perhaps it would be safest to say that the Yakutat people did not generally or all the time think of inanimate or manufactured objects as having souls, but that this idea was one which might suddenly dominate thought and actions at any occasion of crisis or excitement or solemnity. Unfortunately, the acculturated natives of today are too remote from the attitudes and beliefs of their ancestors to be able to inform us.

Plants

All living things had souls or indwelling anthropomorphic spirits. Those of animals, birds, and fish were the most important to the Tlingit and beliefs about them are discussed in the following sections. It will be sufficient here to mention the souls of trees and bushes.

When questioned about the souls of trees, a woman said:

“If you dream about them, that's lucky, they says. It's just like a human being, they says, that ‘as qwani [’tree inhabitants-of’]. But I don’t know. That's why in olden times they don’t fooling around trees.”

“But they have to cut trees,” I objected.

“They don’t hurt them—just when they’re going to use it for wood…. No, they don’t talk to them. They just cut it, you know, if they need it.”

Her son, however, said that people formerly spoke to the tree that they were cutting down for a canoe:

“That's mostly wishes, just wishing all the time. I don’t know just what they say. When they cut into that center of the core, they take that one out, and they wish on it. They wish. I guess those people, they don’t just go along the shore; they used to go miles and miles out in the ocean,” implying that seaworthy canoes were necessary, although he could not tell whether the maker specifically wished for a safe canoe.

Swanton (1908, p. 454) reports that the Tlingit would tell the tree they were chopping down that it was to fall on the black bear skins which they had placed for it, even though they had put nothing on the ground. Emmons (MS.) reports that before trees were cut down for a house, a fire was lit nearby and oil or other food thrown on it as an offering to the tree spirits. Eagle down was scattered as a sign of peace so that the trees in falling would not injure their fellows. When logs were brought to the site of the house, the future owner again put food into the fire to feed the tree spirits at the same time that he feasted those who had worked for him.

Bushes, too, had souls. Thus, when a hunter finds a bear's den he should bribe the nearby bushes with bits pulled from his clothing and ask them not to warn the bear (p. 364). A person who has been bewitched and is being forced to aid a witch may escape by confessing to the “bushes, stumps, trees” (p. 735).

Some of the most powerful medicinal plants, perhaps originally all of them, had to be addressed when gathered. Payment was put in the place from which their roots had been dug and they were asked to cure the patient (p. 657). While the devilclub had many medicinal and magical virtues (p. 658), its bushes were, however, supposed to gloat over the miseries of those whom they had pricked:

“When people coming in from hunting, and get those thorns on them, they always say these devilclubs say, ‘Gee, his bone joint I clubbed! Maybe he's already laying down sick.’ When they see those thorns and they hurt so much [that is what people believe the devilclubs are saying]. When you’re out in the woods, you’re cold and numb and you never feel it, but when you come home you feel it. They say that's what the devilclubs are saying.”

The devilclub was believed to be effective protection against epidemics: Disease Spirits also fear its sharp spines.

THE WORLD OF ANIMALS

Animal Souls

Animals have souls essentially like those of human beings. In fact, animals were once men, according to the myth that explains that their present bodies are derived from the fur robes they were wearing when they were frightened away into the woods and sea by the Daylight that Raven let out of the box. In their own homes under the sea or in the mountains, animals may apparently doff or change their bodies, and have even appeared before men in human form. If this no longer happens, it frequently occurred in the past of myth, especially when animals or fish became angry at someone and therefore assumed a pleasant human guise in order to lure him or her to their homes. Now, however, it seems that only the Land Otter has this ability, but perhaps this is because these animals are really persons who have recently drowned or died of exposure. We should note, however, that the Land Otter Men may assume the shape of any person, usually choosing that of a close relative of the one whom they wish to kidnap. Their captive eventually becomes a land otter himself, just as in the past those persons who went to live with animals or fish were themselves transformed if they remained long enough in the unnatural world of their captors, and especially if they ate their food.

Whether or not people still believe that such transformations are possible, though unlikely, they treat animals, birds, and fish as powerful beings. We have already seen the precautions that must be taken by the hunter to bring them to him, to appease them after death, and to make their reincarnations willing to yield themselves again (pp. 361–363). These rules were most strictly enjoined for the hunter of bears, mountain goats, groundhogs (hoary marmot), sea otters and other sea mammals—in fact for the hunter of all animals that were themselves dangerous or the pursuit of which led men into dangerous areas. Fish, particularly salmon, were also to be treated with respectful care (p. 384), while the halibut fisherman tried both to please the fish and also to provoke it to attack his hook (pp. 389–390). Animals are susceptible to the same ‘medicines’ that can influence the wills of men, while their greater or special powers make it appropriate to employ extra precautions (łìàs), magic (hewa), and amulets (danakw) in dealing with them.

Animal souls are called qwani or qU-hani, ‘inhabitants of,’ since they are conceived as being inside the creature's fleshly body. Qwani is probably a contraction of the qU-hani of poetry, and both forms may also be translated as ‘people’ as, for example, ‘Fish People’ (at qwani) or ‘Mussel People’ (yak qU-hani). One informant believed that one might say łIngit qU-hani to mean the 'souls of human beings,’ but one cannot say either Yakutat qU-hani or Yakutat qwani, only Yakutat-qwan, for the village has inhabitants (qwan) but not an indwelling soul (qwani).[14]

Spirits that are associated with various localities are specified as ‘the inhabitants inside the mountain’ (catu qwani), or ‘the inhabitants above Yakutat Bay’ (tłaa kina qwani). We must remember that the Tlingit words give us no clue as to how many souls or spirits are implied by these expressions. Thus, when one informant told me that the body of the killerwhale was regarded as a canoe for the killerwhale qwani, he did not know whether one or several spirits was supposed to ride around in a killerwhale.

Attitudes Toward Animals

The world of animals, to an even greater extent than that of plants and the rest of personified nature, was part of man's moral world. Through the relationship between sib and totem, many species were also drawn into the human social order and were, in a sense, members of the sibs that claimed them as “friends.” Particular species also played distinctive roles because of their importance in shamanism, in foretelling the future, or because they were supposed to possess some other special character or power. Only the dog occupied an anomalous position.

Cruelty to animals, torturing or insulting them and laughing at them, or even wanton killing, was believed to bring misfortune, death, and punishment in the afterlife. Conversely, careful avoidance of what was forbidden, as well as many positive acts, brought success to the hunter. Even though this good fortune could be explained as due to the proper use of amulets, correct performance of ritual acts, or as due to the favor of Beings such as the Spirit Above, there is also implied the concept that animals could be killed only if they were willing; that their deaths were favors granted only to those who came to them purified and who treated their bodies with respect. It is in dealing with animals and their immortal souls that we find most clearly expressed a religious or devotional attitude.

“There's a rule when they kill something. They don’t just split it or cut it up and take it home. They have to work it in just right. Like bear—when they cut the head off, they take it back. They bury it with the face towards the mountain…. Then they sing a song to it…. They have respect for it…. They sing a song to anything they kill—different songs for different animals…. When they kill something, they always fix it up, prepare it and clean it, then put it away so they can use it. They can’t leave it overnight.

“Like fish—if they eat fish, they take all the bones and burn it. They can’t do anything else with it…. When you get that fish, it's not the real fish. It's just the picture of it—ta ‘ayahaI. [That is, the fish's body is the image of the true fish, which is its soul, cf. p. 766] If you don’t burn the bones [to liberate the spirit] that fish going to really suffer—the fish will really die. The fish so plentiful, and the only thing they live on. They take the fish and use it for food, but there's still more coming in. If they don’t burn the bones, pretty soon, no more fish. [They will not be reincarnated.] “It's the same reason they don’t leave things overnight.”

One deeply religious and sensitive man explained the attitude toward animals:

“The old Indians never just shot animals for no purpose. They just shot what they needed, and every animal they killed, they talked to it and explained why they had to kill it. They showed the animals respect. After they kill it—bear, goat, any animal—they bring the head in by the fire to warm it. They hang the skin up on the wall and talk to it, explaining why they have to kill it. My father always faced the head of the dead animal toward the mountain. I still do it when I can. When you finish with the head, cover it up with boughs….

“We don’t kill any kind animal for nothing, unless we need it….

“In the old days, when we kill anything, even a little trout, we pray to it. We explain why we kill it. We sing a song to it. There is a song to the brown and the black bear—same one—and a song to the mountain goat—that's a different song, and a song to things in the water—that's different, too. When we kill an animal, we make a good fire. Cut the head off and set it by the fire before we go to sleep. Make a song that night [explaining] why we kill it.

“Either water animal, either mountain animal—tell him why you kill it. Tell the whole water animals why you kill it. You tell them story [the reason], same time you sing the song:—your family left at home is hungry. [This is what you explain, and although it is addressed to the slain animal, it is heard by all the other animals of the water, or of the mountain, as the case may be.]”

My informant went on to explain about the punishment of the wicked in Dog Heaven (pp. 771–772).

“That's why every Indian say every time he kill the fish”—he bent his head, putting his hands on his forehead and prayed in a reverent voice—” ‘Why I kill that fish? I need it to eat to myself.’ And any time he kills an animal, even a little bird, he always worship: ‘The Spirit Above Me, I need to eat the animal I kill. I don’t kill it for nothing.’ Every time he killed an animal, even a little bird, he always put his hands on his forehead: ‘The bird, I kill it. Why I kill it? I’m hungry. I need to eat. Forgive!’”

Only the good man, the one who prays and tells truthfully why he has killed, can hope to cross the river into the Land of the Dead or gain access to Kiwa’a.

“He's the only one who go across the river. He wants to get across the dead river. That's the Indian story. The one who never made no mistake, he's the only one who cross the dead river. If any Indian made a mistake, tells a lie about why he killed that bird, or didn’t pray, he knows he don’t make it; he knows he didn’t going to cross. I’m surprised to see in the Bible it's the same thing.”

He told how he had been taught to pray when he killed a squirrel and a little bird with a bow and arrow when he was a child, and how difficult it was for him to shoot his first game animal when he was taken on his first hunting trip. He shot, but did not know if he had hit the mountain goat.

“I do just what my grandfather told me. I worship:

“’Whether I kill you, or whether I didn’t kill you—will you forgive to send me to Dog Heaven? I don’t want to go to Dog Heaven. Whether I kill you or not, forgive me to go to the Dog Heaven.’

“…This is the way they used to believe it before. We believe it even today now.”

Not only was it taboo to kill animals needlessly, but it was wrong to make them suffer or to laugh at their pain. While I was visiting at one house, the father brought home a paper bag filled with small fish like smelt. His granddaughter took one out, still living, and started to play with it as it died. Her grandmother said that in the old days they would never let children do this. It was łàs, and would bring bad luck. It was also wrong to kill a wounded animal, although this does not apply to dispatching an animal that has been wounded in the course of hunting it.

“In olden days people never killed anything that was wounded. They believed that if they helped the wounded animal, that gives them luck,” said one young man.

This observation was made with reference to the story of how the Drum House Teqwedi obtained the Golden Eagle as a crest, because a man of this lineage found an injured golden eagle and set its broken wing, receiving from the grateful bird the right to sing its song and, by inference, the right to represent the bird as a totemic crest (p. 253).

This informant was much interested in the story of Androcles and the Lion which I told him, remarking that he had seen it in the movie “Ben Hur.”

“Even after the cannery was here,” he went on, “they found an eagle that was choked. They worked to get the thing off its neck that was choking it, and gave it a drink of water and put it in a safe place. Next day, they went to look for it and found it sitting on a stump at the mouth of Lost River. There never had been sockeyes in Lost River before, but that day they came in for the first time and they caught fifty to sixty thousand.” In answer to a question, “If an animal is wounded too bad, so it can’t be saved, they kill it, because they don’t like to see it suffer. But if it's not too badly hurt, they give it back its life.”

Gold on the Klondike was discovered, according to the version told at Yakutat, because the finder had rescued a dying frog (see pp. 900–901).

Another informant, in trying to explain the nature of an amulet (wÙ), suggested that it might be something given by a bird to the one who had helped to cure its beak or claw. This reward would be equivalent to that given by the grateful slave to Łkettitc (p. 244), although the bird, like the frog, would communicate with its benefactor by means of a dream.

In the story of the discovery of copper (p. 899), the Atna youth was first visited in his sleep by a spirit that told him to go beyond the mountains. When he came there, an eagle was soaring over him—perhaps the embodiment of the spirit? The youth killed some mountain sheep and cut open the carcasses for the birds. Later, after further dreams, he discovered copper. The implication is that feeding the birds brought, or helped to bring, luck.

Totem Animals and Other Animals

Totem animals would seem to occupy a somewhat different place from that of other animals. Thus, when an elderly Teqwedi man was asked if killerwhales were hunted, he said:

“Nobody liked to bother them. They aren’t useful. They go in a bunch [school or pack], and if you shoot one the others take the dead one away.”

He went on to explain that they don’t kill animals that are their CAgún, mentioning the Eagle, Raven, and Killerwhale. He also mentioned Bear and Wolf (the totems of his own sib), and was brought up short when it was pointed out that people did kill bears and wolves. It was impossible to secure a further explanation, since this topic was unfortunately broached late in the evening of my last day at Yakutat. The impression given was that bears and wolves were only or should only be killed if people need them; or was need only a rationalization that might override a sense of more intimate friendship for one's totem?

The informant did make clear, however, that the totem animal of a sib is held responsible for an injury done to a member of the opposite moiety, in just the same way that a human being would be held responsible, and the sib of the offender would have to pay damages.

“If a Raven man goes for brown bear and gets hurt the Eagle tribe has to pay. The same for wolf. But no one pays if Teqwedi gets hurt.”

Nor could damages be exacted for injuries done by a person to another member of his own moiety, according to the Yakutat code.

The legal responsibility of a sib for the acts of its totem animal explains by the Teqwedi made a payment when Bear Bit Billy, a Kwacqwan man, was mangled by a bear when on a hunting trip with Teqwedi friends. Not only was a Teqwedi shaman called in to assist in his recovery, but his relatives held the hide of the bear, as one might the scalp or head of a human enemy or the crest heirloom of a debtor, until it was redeemed (p. 717). This also explains why a Raven woman of Angoon who had been hurt by a pet eagle suggested that she be paid an indemnity by the Eagle moiety (fieldnotes with Dr. McClellan, 1950).

There were also special reciprocal obligations on the part of sib members to protect their own totem animals from wanton misuse. This seemed to be implied by the statement that in the old days, people would not dare to make bird-foot baskets (p. 430) with the feet of an eagle, because the people who owned the Eagle as totem would object. The informant was evidently thinking particularly of the case if Raven women were the offenders:

“Old days they can’t fooling around like that. They’re going to get punished…. Kagwantan people going to fight about it if they see that sAni foot [i.e., the foot of the father's brother, since the Eagle would be the father's brother to Kagwantan-children].” The Swan belongs to a′kA’ayi, “so can’t fooling around with swan's foot.”

While the Yakutat people seem to enjoy keeping ravens as pets—I saw a young one with clipped wings on a perch outside one house, and another that flew in and out of the open attic window of another—I was told that no member of the Eagle-Wolf moiety would be permitted to keep a raven captive. The bird would have to be free to come and go at will. Otherwise it would be like holding a member of the opposite moiety as a slave. One bird I saw certainly was free, and it might be noted that the bird with clipped wings belonged to an unusual family where both husband and wife were Ravens. Unfortunately, I can cite no more examples of this kind. The bear cubs which MJ in her childhood had as pets were caught for her both by her Teqwedi father and her Tł'UknaAdi brother, and her mother suckled them like a child (p. 515). We must conclude either that such pets were not really captives or that the rules against taking animals as “slaves” permitted flexible interpretation.

When in danger of an attack by an animal, anyone, even a White person, can appeal to it for pity, but we might infer from the story of Bear Bit Billy that the man who could claim totemic kinship with an animal would have a better chance of escaping injury, for the Teqwedi men on the hunting party with B.B. Billy were not hurt. Furthermore, it is said that Teqwedi men were particularly successful as bear hunters!

“My father was good at killing bears. They say he had some kind of dope, he killed bears so easy. And of course he belonged to the Bear Tribe [Teqwedi] and he would talk to the bears.” (MJ) (See p. 365.)

However, the child-of-Teqwedi also has a special claim on his father's sib and its totem and, through the extension of kinship ties, anyone can claim the totemic animal as a relative.

The bear is, of course, the most dangerous of such animals, the one most ardently hunted by adventurous men, and the one most likely to be encountered in the berry bushes by unarmed women. I, therefore, learned more about proper behavior in dealing with bears than about procedures for any other animal except the land otter. It would be wrong, however, to say that the Tlingit had a special Bear Cult, or that they hold the bear in special reverence. Rather the general attitude toward any animal is intensified toward the brown grizzly because the latter is big and powerful, intelligent and manlike in appearance and behavior, and is a totem belonging to most sibs in the Eagle-Wolf moiety, so that most people can claim close relationship.

I would further suggest that the particular attitudes displayed toward totem animals represent a later and specialized manifestation of the feelings and ideas about all animals. Northwest Coast totemism seems to be, in part, an extension of the type of bond that links the shaman and the animals whose spirits become his familiars. Thus, the original encounter of a human being with the animal which became thereby the totem of his sib is an experience not unlike in supernatural quality that in which the novice shaman acquires his yek from an animal. However, while the members of every sib probably feel much the same way about their totem or totems as sib crests, they feel and act in very different ways toward the actual living representatives of the totem, and their behavior toward the actual animals often bears no relationship to their particular sib affiliations and crest ownership. This is more clearly shown in the information to follow.

BEARS

“Bears can understand what people say.”

Bears know what people at home are doing and may imitate any angry or violent actions of the hunter's relatives (p. 365). They not only understand human speech but are aware of what people at home may say about them. They also know if the hunters “cheat” on the ritual observances or taboos they should observe. Even after death, bears can be angered or moved to forgiveness by the hunters’ words and treatment of their bodies; they can see their slayer unless he mutilates their eyes.

“Bears are like people, you can talk to them.” In this way the hunter can manage to get very close to one, even a big brown grizzly.

There is no doubt, as I myself experienced in 1949 when we were followed by a 2-year old brown bear at Situk, that the bear is responsive to the tones of the human voice, for one of the Government men working on the Situk weir was able to persuade the young bear not to follow us out onto the weir where we had taken refuge. Bears also dislike noise. We were therefore advised to beat on an empty gas can, or to drag behind us a rattling string of cans, when we went out into the woods. Women out picking berries cry shrilly to one another to keep the bears away. These methods are actually effective, because when we employed them in making an exploration of Little Lost River, we came upon a series of bears’ “nests” in the tall grass where the animals had been sleeping. The grass and bushes were still reeking with the musty odor of the brown grizzlies, but the bears themselves had disappeared.

However, the berry picker or hunter may encounter a bear unexpectedly and then it is important to know how to address it. One should say, “Pity me! (’ican At),” and add the proper relationship term. Thus, a woman of the Kagwantan sib who claim the Brown Bear as a totem, when surprised by a mother bear and her cubs, addressed them as ‘my siblings’ (’a hwáyiÀn). She could also have used the collective term, ‘my brothers’ (’a ‘i hAs). A Teqwedi woman would do the same. The daughter of a Teqwedi man, whose father's sib claims the Bear, would say ‘Pity me, my big father’ (’ican At ‘a ‘ic tłen), ‘from me stay away’ (’a kAdA gUidanAq). (MJ) A Dry Bay CAnkuqedi woman, whose sib does not claim the Bear although it belongs to the Eagle-Wolf moiety, told me that she used to say, “ ‘ican At nAnAgoo,” a form of address which she was unable to translate. It may well be Athabaskan.

Many stories are told of escapes from bears, due probably to the quiet demeanor of the women who remained motionless, speaking in gentle tones.

My informants had never heard that blowing through one's labret hole would be effective. I do not know if women believed that to uncover their breasts and genitals would pacify a bear, although I have noted the idea that a bear would give up if shot by a gun that had been handled by a woman (p. 364).

Bears can even “hear what you think.” In illustration, I was told the story of a strong brave man who caught a bear by the ears. For a time he held him off, then fell and the animal began to bite his arm. The nephew who had taken refuge in a tree “heard the bones crunching.” But the man who was “being eaten by the bear was so brave that he wouldn’t call out ‘’ican At!’ to the bear.” Finally, as the bear was leaving, he called the animal back, “by thinking, ‘come back, you old thing!’ So the bear came back and chewed him some more. When the bear finally left, he said, ‘That's enough.’ “ The nephew came down from the tree, crying, but so frightened that he did not even help his uncle to reach their canoe. When they arrived home, the wounded man was unable to climb out of the canoe. “He was biting his arm because he was so mad that his nephew was a coward.”

It was the Teqwedi man, Kat, who married a she-Bear and taught people proper observances toward dead bears, and never to laugh at them, according to one myth (p. 880). According to another Teqwedi sib story, “A Teqwedi woman married a Bear. That's why you can talk to them.” This story credits the woman with teaching hunters what to do for a dead bear.

Bears, of course, make their homes in caves in the mountains. According to the stories, they fish and bring the catch home to their children. They also put up food for the winter.

“Bears put up stuff in the winter, the story tells—strawberries. I guess dogs is the only thing that don’t put up grub for winter time…. Story tells about bears living off their paws. Raven's Bear aunty cut her paw to feed Raven…. They go out and rustle for their kids in winter time. They are just like human beings. Look at all that stuff Yeł's [Raven's] aunt put up—dried fish and all that…. ” (MJ)

The delicious mixture of preserved strawberries, eulachon oil and snow (p. 409) was called ‘Raven's food’ (yeł ‘At ái) because this was what the she-Bear gave him to eat. In the same story we are told that the bears also had a lot of dried fish, and boxes full of oil. To procure the latter, the male Bear would simply cut his hand, hold it near the fire, and let the grease drip into a dish. He also toasted the skin cut from his wrist. (MJ; p. 869).

When asked what bears live on in winter, another informant said that “in February the black bears begin to suck their paws. [See the month name, p. 800.] They eat the skin on their paws.”

Some of my informants had heard that the word InEt could be applied both to the brown grizzly and to the small black bear, but denied that it was a special respect term as it is in the interior. When Dr. McClellan asked about InEt-tła, the general “Mother of Animals” of the interior, the only reaction of our Yakutat informants was that this term might be used if “you thought the bear was a special one” but no further information could be obtained. (See p. 828, however.)

WOLVES

In late winter and early spring, when the snows lie heavy, hungry wolves approach the village or look for food along the beaches. One may see them on the road to the airfield or hear them howling in the woods close behind the houses at night. A lone wolf, no matter how large, even a ‘chief’ (utc łIngit tłen), would not attack a person, I was told. He would run if you called out ‘tanA, tanA.’ This is the name for the gaff hook, now made of iron, with which devilfish (squid) for bait are pulled out of the rocks. A man once killed a wolf with such a modest weapon, which is why wolves are now afraid even of the word.

It is, however, very dangerous to encounter a pack. Then they will circle around you, each one jumping at you from a different direction. They will kill you easily. Even the hunters are afraid of a wolf pack (TJ). This ‘circling’ (qU-łA-’i) was compared to ‘cooking’ (qU-łA-’i), or stirring a boiling pot. “They can make you lose your mind, get dizzy. Animals can hypnotize you that way, but humans can’t do it.” said a man.

“When they paralyze you like that [by circling], they just bite you there [Achilles tendon in the heel]. They paralyze it. Even that bear, they kill it, too,” explained a woman.

Because wolves are totem animals they may be addressed as relatives. Thus, I was told that as a (fictitious) child-of-Kagwantan, I should say to a wolf, ‘Pity me, my paternal uncle’ (’ican At ‘a sAni). “They go away from you and not hurt you.” Such relationships could even be claimed by a White man through marriage to a native wife. For example, Charley Johnson (deceased) was called “Kagwantan” because of his marriage to a TłukwaAdi woman, the aunt of an informant. When he was in Dry Bay he was circled by a pack of wolves, but said to them, ‘Pity me, my relatives’ (’ican At ‘a oni), addressing them as “friends” or moiety-mates (p. 485). The wolves went away, but he was still dizzy from their circling when he came home. He told his wife, “I don’t feel so good…. Wolf packs all around me.”

A Drum House Teqwedi man, claiming the Wolf as the special totem of his lineage, denied that these animals ever attacked people. They may circle children, and he admitted that this had happened to adults, but they did not hurt them. He cited the case of a White man and a native who had been surrounded by wolves in 1924. The two men sat down back to back, and were unharmed.

“ute [wolves] don’t do nothing,” he said. “They are the kindest animals.”

He was evidently thinking of what had happened to his mother's brother, the brother-in-law of Yakutat Chief Yaodaqet, a man called QaUgu and Yanan-’ic, who was drowned way up the Ahrnklin River. He had previously told the story through interpreters:

“The Ahrnklin floods when it starts to rain. It's like a high tide. There were at least two men who crossed it safely, but when they were coming back the river was too deep. The man who drowned was using a spear to support himself against the current, but his foot gave way, so he fell in. The river was running very swift. He had a full pack on, too. They didn’t find his body until the rain stopped and the river fell….

“The body floated down to the mouth of the river. They dragged his body ashore on a sandbar….

“When they picked up his body along the river, they had nothing to carry his body on, and so they had to leave it. Before they left, they talked to the four winds, and mostly to the wolves, to guard that body.”

[It was denied that they actually addressed personified winds by name.] “They just faced East and then North and so on. It's just a manner of speaking…. They spoke that way, just so their voices will carry. So if there's anything within earshot it will hear…. ”

The wolves did hear and came to guard the body.

“When they came back with a stretcher to get the body, they saw a lot of wolves take off. And they could see the places where a wolf had been sleeping at the head and another one at his feet.”

They prayed to the wolves because they “had the Wolf,” my informant explained through his interpreter.

“This is all true,” another member of the lineage said (SJ). A marker at the mouth of the river to commemorate the dead man was erected about 1900 (p. 545). The two wolves that guarded his body are shown on the Ahrnklin River Blanket, a sib heirloom made about 1909 (?). (See pl. 151.)

OTHER LAND ANIMALS

Nothing further was learned about other land animals (mountain goat, moose, deer, wolverine, beaver, muskrat, marten, mink, land otter and groundhog) than has already been reported, especially in the sections dealing with how these were hunted. In the special relationship between goats and their “grandparents,” the spirits in the mountain (pp. 366, 819), we approach the notion of an “owner” of game animals. This idea is confused, however, for one very large mountain sheep, was called “the mother of the bears” (yetsī’net-La, see p. 827, m Et-tła). She was killed and eaten by the Yakutat man who had been befriended by the Mountain Being (ca-tu-qa). It was as if the narrator of this Yakutat story (Swanton, 1909, Tale 105, esp. p. 362) had heard something about “Animal Mother” but did not understand this traditional concept of the interior. To club a groundsquirrel makes it foggy, we learn in the same story (ibid., p. 348).

Mice are associated with shamanism and witchcraft. They are clever, crafty, and able to steal. They are provident, storing food for the winter, and very wise. In fact one informant (JR), whose English was poor and who confused the sounds of M with W, and Z with S, thought the the English word “mice” was the same as “wise,” and that the mice were so called because they were so “wiseful.”

SEA MAMMALS

In the story of Black Skin (see also Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 145–150, and Tale 93), the monster that lives in the sea lion rock (tan tei tu qu-háni) is the chief of the sea lions (tan qwani).

Sea lions were believed to have eight stones in their stomachs and were feared because they were supposed to throw them at people. A smooth rock from the site at Knight Island was identified by one woman as a 'stone from inside a sea lion’ (tan-yIkdA tE). “This stone is from a sea lion's stomach. It's just a rock, but when they shoot him, that sea lion throws it back. Some of the people ducked. I think they got eight in their stomach. That's the one. They spit it out and try to hit people. The old people use it for something [amulet?]. It looks like it. It's painted [has patina] because it's been in the stomach for a while. That sea lion throw it to people.”

The killerwhale is the only other dangerous animal that is also a sib totem. It is not hunted, either because it is “a friend of man…and will never kill a human,” as Harrington recorded, or because it is feared, as my informants implied. They believed that killerwhales might attack a canoe, and were avoided for this reason, but I did not learn whether they were ever addressed by kin terms. Like the sea lion that is hunted, the killerwhale is supposed to throw stones with its mouth. According to one of Harrington's informants, the leader of the killerwhales has two holes through his dorsal fin. The Killerwhale as a crest is always represented with one hole through the high fin (guctuwuł). The Yakutat people were evidently acquainted with the story that the first killerwhales were carved of yellow cedar by a man who was abandoned on an island and had no means to get back to shore (Swanton, 1909, Tale 71). GJ mentioned it to Harrington and said further that “you cut off a piece of killerwhale fat and throw it on the water, and it crackles and resembles yellow cedar.”

RAVENS

There seems little to link the common ravens seen today on beaches or hopping in ungainly style around the village with the Raven of mythology. Nevertheless, ravens and crows are recognized as the totemic birds of one moiety. Furthermore, ravens talk to people, even though one informant confessed that she could not understand them because they speak in a foreign language! Others, however, knew what they said. People would not only listen to ravens but would question them, because these birds brought news and foretold the future (see Shelikov's observations, quoted p. 809).

In the old days, before radios and planes, people were always anxious to know when the boats were coming. Two or three days before the steamer arrived, a raven would circle over the village, calling ‘boat, boat’ (yakw, yakw). Then the people were happy. The raven could fly out over the ocean and see the ship.

Often, however, the raven cries to signify bad luck. If he cries and hangs upside down in a tree, this means ‘they will cut off a scalp’ (qacadugú ‘ałye) and hang it up in the same way, and so this is a sign of war. Little crows, too, may also signify bad luck if they sound like someone weeping and wailing.

Once two sisters went down on the beach in the evening to relieve themselves. (There were no privies at that time.) They heard a raven crying. It was sitting on a stump, just crying like a woman, heaving sobs. No raven flies around at night. So the women were worried. One came home and told her husband, who went out to look. The raven was still there, but didn’t say anything. Two days later the woman's uncle shot himself. At least they said it was suicide, but only the wife was a witness, and the gun was in a peculiar position, it was rumored.

The only thing to do when a raven is making such sounds is to shoot it dead—”to shoot the bad luck away.”

One old man (JR) told me: “Hunting men can tell luck by the crow and the seagull. They listen to the seagull and the raven. They can tell when something is close to one. The raven is a friend, because you feed him. You can call to him, ‘á, á, á.’ The seagull is the same.”

Harrington reports how ravens can bring good luck:

“It is a rare sight indeed to see Ravens bathing, and the sight brings good luck. Once MA was near No. 2 Camp by the Seetuk River, when she beheld, for the only time in her life, two Ravens bathing in the water at the edge of the slough near a cut-off stump. One week later her son caught 1,500 sockeyes in the Seetuck River straight across from the stump.”

Although the Eagle is also a moiety totem, I heard nothing about it as a prophet or as a friend of man. While the raven was never hunted, the eagle was killed to procure its down and plumes, and more recently to collect the bounty on its claws. Today neither bird is killed.

OWLS

Owls are terrifying creatures. Not only are children taught that if they cry too much an owl will take them away, as in the story told for their edification (p. 510), but adults also fear them. “They talk and tell bad news.” In fact, they never come to tell about good luck, only to warn of misfortune, a killing, a sickness, a fire, usually in some other place.

“They only come when there's bad news. They talk just as plain as we do. You got to ask them what place there's trouble.” (MJ) For example, when the CAnkuqedi from Dry Bay were invited to Yakutat for a potlatch at Moon House in 1905 or 1909 (pp. 323–324), the owls prophesied that the Dry Bay people were all going to die. “There's nobody there now,” a former resident said.

“Owls come only to notify the townspeople that there's trouble in other cities. They ask them where it will be and he tells them.” (MJ)

“When owls call you answer them. They report bad news from some other place…. It uses my language. It might say, ‘Trouble at Chilkat. People dying off like sheep.’ The owl would say, ‘Everybody going’ (qut qa cuwuxix) [’all destroyed’]; ‘There's trouble going on.’ So you ask where. The owl says ‘TcIłqat.’ “ [This was probably a hypothetical case.] (MJ)

One was supposed to obey any instructions given by the owl.

“The owl talks all languages, it seems to me. If anything serious happens, he starts to cry. He give you warning if anything's going to happen—like a fire…. You just have to follow what he say—move out if he tells you.” (MJ)

For example, three owls visited a fishcamp at Situk, said another woman. “They talk our language. They tell us to stay in the woods. Shucks, the kids didn’t believe it. They warn us about an accident.” The informant implied that this was a theft which occurred in town shortly after.

Sometimes the owl does not give the warning in words but “makes a sign of it—cries, imitating the person—going to get hurt or something” (MJ).

Owls may also repeat what they hear, imitating their interlocutor. “When you talk to them they always say it back to you,” another reported.

“You know, one time we were way up at the head of ‘Antłen—lots of owls. They can copy anything you say. They just follow you…. My brother Charley and this O—, when they were up to ‘Antłen, there was a owl sitting up there and it imitated them…. They stand outside and quarrel with that owl. They finally called it a witchcraft.” (MJ)

Although the Owl is one of the crests of the Raven moiety—”Kwacqwan belong to it”—there seems to be no attempt to address it by relationship terms. Its hoot, however, is used as death cry by the Kwacqwan.

OTHER BIRDS

A woodpecker flying around the house is a sign of bad luck, said a Dry Bay woman, an omen of death which can be escaped only by shooting the bird. “You have to kill it…. It means somebody's going to die. If they shoot it they change the luck. They kill it in place of that one that's going to die. Dogs, too…. [see p. 833].”

The kingfisher (tłÁAnÉŚ) is noted for sitting on the branch of a tree overlooking the water. When a canoe comes down the river, the bird always flies away. But if he should chance to remain on his perch while the canoe passes, the occupant will become rich. “If he stays still, so the boat passes him, it's going to be a rich man that comes down, that boat. Other boats can’t pass that thing…. You going to get rich if you pass it.”

The magpie (teené) is “a pretty bird. The story about this, I think—He refused to eat sockeye spawn. He [disappears in the spring] and never comes until the silvers are spawning. I just overheard that, that anybody refused to do anything, they say, ‘Oh, you’re going to be like the magpie.’ He refused to eat the sockeye spawn. So he just quit eating until the silver start to spawn…. ” (MJ)

The golden-crowned sparrow (CAki de tInna) and the fox sparrow (xixtć wusani or ut tItkw) are both supposed to use words in their songs. They talk, and in fact are believed to have learned their songs from human beings! The same things are said first about one species, then about the other, by the different informants to whom I played recordings of Yakutat bird songs made in April 1954 (1954, 7-1-A).

Skina or Skinaw, from ‘tiny’ (skin), was the nickname given to a baby boy born in 1922. When the father's sister was putting him to sleep she was singing to him. The window was open and the bird sitting outside learned the song from her. Next morning it entered the house, singing it. The words were said to be: “yé Skinaw qainu—that you don’t love me. yé Skinaw—you’re going to cry when I’m gone.” I heard essentially the same story from both the boy's mother and another woman.

The golden-crowned sparrow's three descending notes were supposed to be calling that the ice-hunting sealing canoes (gudiyE, p. 339) were returning, words which they had learned from children in Disenchantment Bay. One woman, however, ascribed their song to the fox sparrow:

“Xixt wusani also sings and talks. When the people go up to that little mountain up the bay, the kids are looking for the canoe. When they’re going to come back, the kids see it. ‘That canoe is coming down!’ Just the women—they in the camp—and the kids watch it. And when they see it coming, the kids say: ‘gudiyE we yéyÁnagwEn.’ And the birds hear it. That's old-fashioned words. That's old, old words—no White people in Yakutat that time. And that bird still singing it. They learn it from each other.

“But I don’t know if that CAki de tInna [golden-crowned sparrow] talking. But the xixt wusani [fox sparrow] talking so much in Yakutat. He learn it easy, the native people's words. Even if they singing, they catch half of it.”

Other informants said it was the golden-crowned sparrow that sang “gudiyi yé’anagwEn” especially up in Disenchantment Bay, or that, “up the bay, the birds talk. They tells everything. And they mentions the stranger, too, when the first stranger comes.”

MJ, who had listened to the recordings of bird songs (varied thrush, robin, song sparrow, yellow warbler, and golden-crowned sparrow) remarked:

“Makes me feel sleepy. Up there at the sealing camp, first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. Early in the morning—WuganiyE [the camp above Point Latouche, p. 67] birds, they copy you, anything you say. Us kids always say—you know seal hunters got canoes made special for ice; they got big jigger sticking out. They call it gudiyE—And ‘gudiyE yuanagwEn’ we used to say; ‘here comes that gudiyE loaded with seal.’ And the birds copy us all over the camps—first camp, second, third. And us at WuganiyE—my father's along. Sound so pretty and so plain, and they said, ‘gudiyE yuanagwEn.” A man who heard my recordings said that one bird was singing (in English!), “on the lay ball,” which the boys say when they throw a ball over the roof of a house.

The chickadee and the spider, as noted (p. 763), give news of absent friends or loved ones, because they are the embodiment of someone's thoughts.

FROGS

The Frog is a crest of several Raven sibs (Tł'UknaAdi, and KIksAdI, etc., see Swanton, 1908, p. 416), and figures in a number of myths (Swanton, 1909, Tales 22, 73, 76; McClellan, 1963) where it appears as extremely sensitive to human slights or injuries, and also very grateful for kindness. Although small and harmless in our eyes, the frog was considered a dangerous animal. This is because, according to Swanton (1908, p. 457), “The slime exuding from a frog's skin was thought to be very poisonous and fatal to smaller creatures.” The frog could, however, be addressed and appealed to for help.

Many Tlingit have such a real horror of frogs that they cannot explain why they fear them. For example, when a little girl came into the house and told her grandmother, MJ, that she and a friend had collected a dairy can full of frogs which they planned to sell, the effect was electric. The elderly woman screamed at her, “Throw them away! Don’t let them suffer! Take them to a swampy place!…I’ll make you eat it! I’ll sell them for you! I’ll buy some!” and so forth in an almost incoherent stream. When the child had departed, she said that the soles of her feet were “just itching” from horror. And the reputed can of frogs had not even been brought near the house! The same woman also squealed “eek!” at a picture of a frog. On at least four different occasions she commented on her horror of the animals, even though she was ready to defend the claim of her sib, Tł'UknaAdi, to the Frog.

“I’m scared of frogs,” MJ admitted. “I take after my grandfather, I guess. [This was her mother's father, Teqwedi.] My grandfather says to the frogs, ‘Aunties, don’t get near me, I’m scared of you!’ (’a ‘at-hAs’akAdA kUdanAq—’my father's-sisters from-me stand!’ ‘i’ikU-łI-e—’of-you I’m-afraid’).

“[When out camping] he put spruce stakes around his bed so the frogs wouldn’t get in. “Ican At xixt-ca [Pity me, frog women]’ he used to say to the frogs….

“He gets spruce limbs so that nothing crawls around. He never lays down till he gets that pile of spruce limbs [around his bed].

“My grandmother always makes fun of him. ‘A little thing like that you scared of? You not scared somebody shoot you or stab you. A little thing like that won’t hurt you!’

“My grandmother's not scared of frogs. I don’t know why I am. I took after my grandfather—my mother's father. He's powerful scared of little frogs.”

The same informant also said that her father's sister was terrified of frogs. She had been given a new silk dress by her paternal aunt, QadjInt (”Princess Thom,” a Kwacca, who had “married into Sitka natives,” see p. 191).

“Because it was hot, she didn’t expect frogs. She had the front of her dress open because it was hot, and she was leaning over digging [Kamachatka lily roots]. A frog jumped inside her brand new dress!

“My aunty squealed. She grabbed it in her dress and held it out. [The narrator bunched up the front of her own dress and held it away from her body.] She went full speed to the tent where her husband was. She can’t let that frog go because she’ll feel it falling down. She can’t let anyone reach in. Her husband don’t know what to do. She finally decided to let him cut the new dress open. She has her eyes tight shut holding that frog. He did it before she opened her eyes.” (MJ)

The narrator's mother used to tell her, when she saw that her daughter was so afraid of frogs, “ ‘You shouldn’t be like your aunty. That's who you took after!’”

FISH AND MISCELLANEOUS INVERTEBRATES

Fish, of course, also have souls, and salmon are particular about how their bodies are handled. I heard several versions of the story of Salmon Boy, a Sitka boy who was captured by the fish that he had insulted (p. 889). This was held not to be a myth, but a true story. When finally restored to human form he became a shaman, with the fish spirits (at qwani) as his yek. These were also among the familiars belonging to utcda of Dry Bay. I have already discussed the ritual procedures appropriate to catching, killing, and handling salmon (pp. 384, 400), halibut (pp. 388–390), shark (p. 391), and the connection of various fish, including the sanddab(?) and sculpin with the weather.

Harrington reports that devilfish sometimes actually come on land to get food. This is an unusual occurrence, and once Peter Lawrence told the Reverend Axelson that he saw a devilfish eating salmonberries. This was a sign that something was going to happen.

Swanton reports (1908, p. 459) that the Tlingit used to talk to clams and mussels, and other beach foods, asking them not to bring sickness to those who ate them. They might also say while digging clams, “Do not go down so fast or you will hit your mother-in-law in the face.” I did not hear of these customs, although they were probably known at Yakutat.

Clams, mussels, and in fact all types of “beach food,” were tabooed under certain conditions: at night; when a girl is adolescent; before hunting sea otter; and to a shaman and his family except at certain seasons (pp. 379, 405, 683). However, as far as I know, the penalties—bad weather, poverty, or general misfortune—were not ascribed to outraged spirits.

Curiously enough, for a people plagued with biting mosquitoes and even fiercer gnats, the Yakutat people have little to say about them. They are apparently accepted with much the same attitude with which we submit to a common cold. I heard nothing about ways of placating or driving away mosquitoes or of taboos that might be associated with them, even though Chilkat and Wrangell stories explain that biting gnats and mosquitoes are the ashes of cannibals or mankillers, such as Wolverine Man, and the boy with arrowpoints on his head (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 93; Tale 58, p. 214; Tale 91, pp. 278–279; Boas, 1917, p. 179). Presumably the Yakutat people were familiar with these stories, even though the only versions they told did not specifically mention the origin of these troublesome insects.

Swanton (1908, p. 459) reports that the Tlingit appealed to blowflies not to let worms get into the salmon when they were cutting fish for drying. These maggots were believed to be poisonous. My informant did not mention addressing the flies, but said that people kept their heads covered when working under the fishracks lest the worms fall and enter their heads. I also heard nothing to the effect that the water beetle would steal anyone who urinated into the ponds where it lives (ibid.).

Dogs

Dogs occupy a peculiar position in the animal world, being aboriginally the only domesticated species known to the Tlingit. They were given personal names, often those which their owners might have given to their children, the names belonging to the sib from which the owner might have chosen a wife (p. 785). Other dogs’ names seem to have been made up specifically for them.[15] The hunter prepared his dogs with hunting magic, just as he might have prepared his own sons or nephews (p. 363). While dogs were often regarded with considerable affection and pride, and bitterly mourned when dead, the treatment of dogs in the old days was very casual. Thus, they usually had to do a good deal of scavenging for themselves (Topham, quoted p. 195), and at times might be abandoned to fend for themselves when their owners deserted the village for the various hunting and fishing camps (see Lieutenant Puget's observations in 1794, quoted p. 155). My informants were fond of telling about the cleverness of their dogs, even when this involved the stealing of whole pots of stew.

There seem to have been few taboos to prevent dogs from eating animal bones, except that they were not allowed to gnaw the “tail parts” of seals or foxes, since it was forbidden for them, as for people, to “pull the bones out of the tail” (MJ). Conversely, there was no food that was supposed to be especially suitable for dogs. “Dogs themselves know what they should eat and what they should not eat” (MJ).

The dog was not only a valued hunting companion but a protection against Land Otter Men (pp. 746, 755). Perhaps because the dog was never fooled by these creatures, no matter what shape they assumed, that made the Dog Spirit (ketł qu yek) an appropriate one to assist the shaman in the detection of witches (pp. 696, 702, 732, 736).

There is, moreover, a taboo against killing a dog. At Yakutat, as in southeastern Alaska, if one kills a dog one will lose a close relative, or one's own life, in the same manner, or “always have bad luck.” The natives, therefore, try to pursuade some foreigner who does not share this belief to shoot unwanted animals. There is, as we have seen from Harrington's notes, an indication that the souls or spirits of dogs go to Dog Heaven, along with the souls of the wicked.

People were afraid to have near them the body of a dead dog, for its carcass, pelt, and paw, were the diabolical paraphernalia of the witch (pp. 734, 740), used in much the same way that he might employ a human corpse or human bones. I have suggested that some of these associations have been transferred from the dog to the cat and pig (pp. 734, 759) probably because these animals, also, are domesticated.

There were, however, occasions on which it might be necessary to kill a dog to avoid a worse misfortune. When the animal begins to speak like a human being, prophesying a death in his master's family, or when the dog begins to walk on his hind legs like a man, the only way to save the lives of those who are doomed is to kill the unnatural animal. A Dry Bay woman gave the following account:

“When they talking to you, that's the time they kill it [the dog]. Sometimes they talking to you just like Tlingit, you know. ‘WasawÉ gusu?’ they always say.

“See, that young man, HS's younger brother, CAyet (’Pillow’)—They play around outside in the dark—moonlight. That dog is sitting over there. It says, ‘Go on home now! (nełdé niyAde) [’into-the-house go-ye!’]. Go home now!’ That's the way that dog says. Next day he shot himself, that man…. Nice-looking, that boy!

“It's no good, when they walk, too, like that [on their hind legs]. That's when everybody's going to die off from the place. That's when they go like that.

“We had a big dog, gray, a kind of gray. We go outside, my aunt and I, as soon as we see that ‘man’ walking—about that high [gesture of 4 feet]. That dog—that's a dog!

“See, that Dry Bay, nobody's over there [now]. They all die off.

“That's bad luck, they says. This time White people teach them [otherwise?]. Sometimes it's just like talking…. If they do wrong like that, talking to somebody or walking around, they kill it.

“But my father doesn’t like that his dog to kill it. He don’t believe it. My grandfather told my father to kill that dog. No, he wouldn’t do it.”

CONCLUSION: THE ORDERING OF THE WORLD

Totemism

Although only certain animals were claimed at Yakutat as the totems of sibs, we may ask, however, to what extent the Tlingit believe that all animals, or all natural entities, belong to groups like their own sibs, and whether these are divided into moieties. Perhaps something of the kind is hinted in the enigmatic fragment of a creation myth: Having created men and women, Raven tried to make a “brotherhood” of all the creatures of the world. But the Wolf was against him, so he doomed the latter to howl for help.

If we range all the creatures or natural entities claimed in one way or another as crests by the Yakutat and Dry Bay peoples (pp. 452–455), and include those of all the Northern Tlingit (Chilkat, Auk, Hoonah, Sitka, Angoon), because they are familiar with those of their neighbors (Swanton, 1908), we obtain the following list:

Raven Moiety

Eagle-Wolf Moiety

Raven

Eagle

Crow

Golden Eagle [”Hawk”]

Swan

Petrel

Goose

Murrelet

Crane

[Flicker, of Kuiu and Tongas]

Owl

Seagull

[Puffin, of Kuiu]

Cow (Buffalo or Moose?)

Wolf

(Mouse of Koskē’dî, of Kos!ē’x, or Gue?)

Bear

Beaver

Beaver

Whale

Killerwhale

Sea Lion

Porpoise

Coho Salmon

Shark

Humpback Salmon

Halibut

Dog Salmon

[Sculpin, of Sanya]

Herring

Devilfish

Woodworm

Frog

Sleep Bird

Thunder[bird]

Sun

Big Dipper

Moon

[Star, of Kuiu]

Ocean and breakers

Ahrnklin River

Certain mountains and rocks

(Probably other landmarks)

The list, even with the addition of a few southern Tlingit crests given in brackets, does not cover all, or even the majority of the important animal species, and we should note that plants are entirely excluded. On the other hand, all the major celestial bodies are claimed. To be sure, the Sun, Moon, Ocean, etc., are not representatives of natural classes as Raven is the representative of all ravens. But are we to consider the Sun, Moon, Big Dipper and Star as forming a kind of class of their own, with the Children of the Sun as their opposites? Is the Ocean in our list to be taken as representative of all the particular waves of the sea? However the celestial bodies and the Ocean are to be classed when taken as totems, they are all considered as animate beings or as endowed with souls or spirits. The various mountains, rocks, rivers, and other landmarks that have become crests do, however, come or tend to come in natural groups or sets, for they are all localities within the present or past territory of the sib that claims them as its crests. It is this geographical grouping which corresponds in this case to the “species.” Moreover, each of these natural landmarks has its own indwelling spirit, and it is the spirit that is represented in the crest.

Although there are many species that have never (or should we say, not yet?) become totems, I believe that the Tlingit are inclined to think of the species of living things as comparable to the “nations” or “tribes” of men, that is to the sibs (na). I use the English terms advisedly, because the same concept of sib or quasisib is applied to non-Indian nations: Americans, Russians, English, Japanese, Germans, and so forth. The United States, like the Teqwedi, Kagwantan, and CAnkuqedi, “has” the bald-headed Eagle; why then, the Yakutat people ask us, should we set bounties on our own bird and try to exterminate it? [16]

Tlingit sibs have their own territories (’an), with their own islands, bays, rivers, and mountains, features from which some groups take their names or use as crests, so also foreign nations have their own lands, and natural species have their own particular habitats or homes. No one, Tlingit or ethnographer, can say accurately how many sibs there are among the Tlingit, for we would not know whether to rate many small localized kin groups as sibs or as subdivisions of sibs. Of the Tlingit living far away in the south, the Yakutat people may have heard only vague references to the localities they occupy, but do not know the names of their sibs. Yet all Tlingit (as well as many other tribes) are known to belong to sibs, and to be divided into Raven and Wolf-Eagle, even though one has never heard their names. No doubt, too, they have their own particular crests and totems, about which the Yakutat people know nothing. These perhaps include species which are not among the totems with which the Yakutat people are familiar. Furthermore, it was acknowledged by one man (SJ) that it still might be possible to meet a new animal or bird in the fateful encounter which would establish this as the cAgún of one's sib.

Thus, the Tlingit have in their own sib and moiety system a scheme right at hand by which they can categorize all of nature: men, living species, natural features, and celestial bodies or even activities (Sleep) are, or may be, conceived as forming one universal social order.

Of this order, the most important aspect in human society is the division into “opposites,” who marry each other, father each other's children, settle disputes between themselves by the ritual of peace, and perform all crucial, ceremonial services for each other. Unfortunately, it is difficult if not impossible to extend this notion of “opposites” to the relations established between men and animal species, as told in the sib origin stories, nor is it possible to trace consistently the relationship of “opposites” between the animal protagonists in the myths.

Thus, while Raven and Killerwhale are ranged neatly on opposite sides in several stories, and Flicker is appropriately the wife of Moon (Raven's mother's brother), where do we place the Bears? Raven addressed the Bear wife as “father's sister,” and the Bear husband as “aunt's husband” or “brother-in-law,” yet we find the male and female Bears married to each other. This is, of course, exactly the situation among human nations, where Russians marry each other, and Germans marry Germans, etc. Sometimes the marriage between a human being and a sib totem involves the proper sort of marriage between opposites, as when an Eagle-Wolf woman marries the Sun (a crest of the Raven KiksAdi), and their children appropriately enough belong to the moiety of their human mother. But how can a totem be obtained for one's own sib by marrying that totem animal? This anomaly obviously puzzled one informant who became confused as to whether the woman who married the Bear was Teqwca or Kwackca, since this was one marriage through which the Teqwedi obtained the Bear. The other was the marriage between a Teqwedi man, Kats, and a she-Bear. The Beaver belongs to the alyi-Kagwantan because it was adopted by them, as later freed slaves were to be adopted as members of the sibs of their masters. It also belongs to the Raven Decitan of Angoon because it led that sib to their present home, and to the Raven sib of Basket Bay because a captive beaver destroyed their town. “The little Beaver got around,” it was remarked.

We are obviously dealing here with beliefs of different ages and origins, which have been put together. The notions of marriage with an animal and of transformation into animal form, or even of receiving supernatural help from an animal, are obviously much more widespread and ancient than the concept of obtaining from an animal the right to it as a totem and a crest. If an earlier generation could tell the sib origin stories in the traditional form, unconcerned by inconsistencies but accepting the myths as they had come down to them, the present generation has not only begun to forget but to question and become confused. Kat is even identified as the bearlike son of the woman by her Bear husband!

The World of Spirits

We should not, however, overemphasize the similarity between the world of spirits, including animal souls, and that of men. In the former, as in the land of the dead, there are elements of contrast and opposition to the everyday human world. Night is the time for ghosts, spirits, and animals; if man is to triumph over them he must perform the first crucial acts of ritual before raven's cries herald the approach of dawn. If he is to escape from the land of the dead back to that of the living, he must hurry and reach home before the raven calls (p. 776). If land otters have assumed human form and the skate has become their canoe, they will resume their animal shapes when the raven cries. It was, of course, the sudden burst of Daylight when Raven opened his box that turned the animals into their present forms and that frightened away the living rocks and mountains.

One may not eat the food of animals or of ghosts in their homes, lest one forfeit the chance to escape as a human being back to the world of men. Conversely, when out hunting one should not eat one's own food. If the spirits of the sea otters (yuxt qwani) see the hunter eating in the canoe, he will have no luck (p. 378).

Fasting is enjoyed before and during any possible contact with animal souls, spirits, or the dead. Some spirits, of course, seem to crave human food; for this reason the dangerous spirits of the glaciers must not be allowed to smell cooking or be invited to a feast. Spirits, like the human dead, are usually invisible and cannot communicate with living men except in a dream. It is through the fire that the dead are fed, and food is also put into the fire for the spirits of trees that one has cut down (p. 822), and also to feed certain amulets (or the spirits in them, p. 665).

According to a Wrangell version of the girl who married a Bear, in the home of these animals only wet wood can be used for a fire; dry wood will not burn (Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 126–127). This detail of the story may not have been known at Yakutat, but it suggests the same kind of reversal that is encountered in the land of the dead, where the ghosts cannot hear a shout, but interpret a sigh or yawn as a loud noise.

When wild animals approach human beings too closely and fearlessly, or act in some unnatural way, this may be a sign of impending misfortune. Often they speak to men in human voices only to foretell death.

Time also is distorted in this other world. For ‘Askadut and others who have died and are to be reborn again, a month seems to them only one day. In the Sitka story, the man who visited the Wolves was gone 2 years, but he thought it was only 2 nights (Swanton, 1909, p. 35). To the Yakutat man who lived with the Spirit of the Mountain what was really a month seemed only a single night.

It is into this other world that the living pass at death, or when they become bewitched and turn into witches; and it is from it that the shaman draws his awesome powers.

According to Veniaminov (1840, pp. 56–60), the yek or spirits, among whom are those that come to the shaman, are divided into three classes. The Kiyegi or “upper spirits,” (from ki ‘top’), live in the sky, and also manifest themselves as Northern Lights. The Takyegi (probably from dAq ‘inland’) live “somewhere on the mainland,” “at Takank, in the north.” The third group is the Tekyegi or “water-spirits” (from tAk ‘at the bottom,’ or e ‘behind’?). The Kiyegi, or spirits above, are the souls of human beings who have been slain in battle, and they appear to the shaman as fully armed warriors. The Takyegi are the ghosts of those who have died ordinary deaths, and they appear before shamans “in the guise of land animals,” such as the wolf, in which case it would be called a Wolf yek. The Tekyegi take the form of sea animals, such as whales, killerwhales, etc. Curiously enough, Veniaminov does not mention the land otter in this connection, nor specify that the “water spirits” are the ghosts of those who have drowned, although this would follow.

I have noted already that the spirits of those who have died in epidemics become spirits in the air. Furthermore, to the categories described by Veniaminov, should be added the realm of Dog Heaven, with the spirits of “dogs and other low animals” who seem to be identical with the ghosts of malefactors. Is it from these that witches gain their power?

While Veniaminov, of course, reports the common, orthodox Tlingit belief that the spirits of the dead are reborn always in human form, and denies that there is any belief in the transmigration of souls into animals, one wonders whether the last statement can apply strictly to the spirits acquired by shamans. We know specifically that some are the spirits of the dead, for the ghost of ŁucwAk became a “yek against the TłuknaAdi” (p. 267), and some shamans acquired Disease Spirits as their yek (pp. 712, 713). Yet were not the last the souls of those who had died of the disease? Furthermore, the majority of known shaman's masks from the Yakutat and Dry Bay areas are like portraits; many are said to be of dead or drowning persons, some already with the land otter hair on their faces (pp. 690–693). Some of the yek come to the shaman directly in human form, but if Veniaminov is correct, the ghosts of those who have died ordinary deaths (or drowned) appear to the shaman in animal guise. This would account for the fact that even those masks identified by Emmons as representing animal spirits are essentially anthropomorphic, showing a human face with some parts or features only that suggest the animal; few actually portray the animal or bird head. Yet the spirit (yek) obtained from the animal is its soul (quani) (p. 678). Thus it would appear that in these cases the soul of the dead man has entered the body of the animal and become its ‘inhabitant’ if only as a temporary stage in becoming the yek of the shaman, which is achieved when he cuts its tongue. In other cases the spirit of the dead comes directly to his “master,” for there are shamans who received power without cutting tongues.

Just as the shaman himself acquires a new professional name (indicative of his powers?), so the spirit becoming a shaman's yek seems to acquire a name of the same kind: 'spirit on Top of the Village Smoke,’ ‘Town-Rover,’ 'spirit of the Canoe Bailing Place,’ ‘Angry Man’ 'spirit of the Doctor Below the Earth,’ and so forth. These names disguise the animal form and the identity of the previous human incarnation. A single spirit was sometimes known by two names, as was one that belonged to atgawet, what was both ‘Land Otter Yek,’ and ‘Yek that Came to the Village of Itself.’

Undoubtedly there are other yek who are the anthropomorphic spirits of places, like the Spirit Above Alsek (’ałse kina qwani), and who have never lived as men. Yet who can say that they did not, when the dead łucwAk manifests himself now as the Spirit Above Yakutat Bay? According to Veniaminov (1940, pp. 82–85), there is the Tlingit belief that the Thunder and the Woman Under the Earth were formerly brother and sister, who for some unknown reason left their human homes and have taken up their present abodes; the same is true of the Sun and Moon, who fled in disgrace from earth and from each other. One can see here a readiness to believe that any or all spirits of natural phenomena were once human beings.

In the last analysis it may be futile to attempt to distinguish between the shaman's own spirit (or “soul”) and those which he has inherited from his predecessor or obtained from animals, from the dead, and from earth, water, and sky, and which guard, serve, and possess him, thereby becoming somehow “himself.”

Man does not stand apart from nature: in the Tlingit mind there is no dichotomy between the human moral world and a nonmoral world of natural forces, inanimate phenomena and dumb brutes. Man's essential self or spirit is identical in essence with the spirits or souls of animals, birds, plants, rocks, and winds, and as they can or could at times assume human form, or perhaps once possessed it, so some men have the awful power of appearing in animal guise, or may suffer this transformation. Man acknowledges his moral obligations toward these other selves in the world about him. He speaks to them and they to him. He fears their powers, greater than his own, yet relies upon their conformity to the common law and upon their reciprocal goodwill for his own happiness and survival.

Myths and Tales

INTRODUCTION

In the following pages are those myths, legends, and true stories which have not already been given in preceding sections. These include some 19 incidents of the Raven Cycle and 26 additional myths and tales. References have already been made to a number of these, or parts have been quoted to illustrate some particular point. Here, however, they appear in full and as faithfully as possible in the narrator's own words, except for some corrections of grammar which might have impeded easy understanding. The observations made about the native histories (pp. 230–231) apply here also, except that these stories are even less edited. The only change which I have made consistently is to write “gonna” as “going to,” since the slurred colloquial form seemed to give an impression of poorer speech than was actually the case. On the other hand, I have tried to include the questions, interjected remarks, and other indications of the circumstances in which the stories were told, whenever these were recorded in our notes. There are also some versions taken from the notes of Dr. John P. Harrington, made in 1939–40. Those tales which I recorded in 1949 are unfortunately not always verbatim, but are versions in part reconstructed from notes. Those told in 1952 were written from dictation by both Dr. Catharine McClellan and myself, and are therefore much closer to the original words of the narrator, although repetitions and other phrases have doubtless been omitted by accident. The stories of 1954 were taken down in shorthand by Mary Jane Downs and are therefore the most accurate of all, except for a few narratives dictated to the tape recorder.

The relations between myth, historical tradition, and accounts of personal experience have already been discussed (pp. 210–211), and I have drawn attention to story telling as part of the life of the household (pp. 310, 509, 512). Cautionary tales and stories with a moral, legends and myths about heroic exploits, traditions of the origin and history of one's own sib and of others were an important aspect of the education of children, particularly of boys destined to be chiefs or advisors (pp. 465–466, 510–511, 516). Such tales served as warnings against wrong or foolish behavior and pointed out the benefits of correct conduct, stimulating (so it was believed) pride in one's sib and its prerogatives and a proper desire to emulate one's illustrious forebears.

A considerable number of myths and tales have already been quoted as illustrations of Yakutat attitudes and understandings. These deal with geographical features or the scenes of important happenings that were perhaps created or brought into their present forms by these events (pp. 84, 87, 100, 102, etc.). The native histories of Yakutat (pp. 231–291) have ranged in character from mythology to chronicles of 20th-century events, illuminating the people's conception of themselves and of their neighbors.

Historical traditions and personal reminiscences, the stuff from which oral literature develops, have been cited or quoted to explain aboriginal control of hunting territories (pp. 374, 379), the conduct of war and settlement of disputes (pp. 580–584, 603–604), and the giving of potlatches (see especially pp. 619–621, 641–649). Our understanding of shamanism would have been incomplete without the traditional stories about shamans, as well as accounts based on personal experiences (pp. 710–720). Knowledge of amulets (p. 665), of witches (pp. 738–744), of land otters (pp. 749–755), of the fate of the spirit after death in the lands of the dead or reborn again (pp. 767–768, 772–776) is transmitted in the form of stories, and these subjects, like cosmological notions (pp. 792–796, etc.), could not be explored without constant reference to the “true stories” of the remote past or that which informants had seen with their own eyes.

All of the stories that were told to us in answer to our questions about the nature of things—for example, about making halibut hooks, the decoration of a house, the ritual of a funeral, the power of a shaman—were the stories that would have been told by an earlier generation to instruct the young in such matters. The only major difference was that we asked questions to elicit explanation or narrative, whereas the Tlingit youngster traditionally sat silent, waiting to hear what his elders might volunteer for his benefit. Furthermore, what we might consider as eavesdropping was expected of children and young people (p. 512), while betraying curiosity through questioning was not approved.

Much of knowledge was not only transmitted but formulated through stories. The nature of the world, of animals, of men, of customs, of ritual—all were understood in terms of how they came to be or how they acted. Tlingit thought deals with events more than with qualities or essences. Narrative, rather than exposition or abstract explanation, was the form in which the conceptual schema and the values of the social and moral order were verbally expressed. Stories, therefore, comprise an essential part of Tlingit culture, and are more than comments upon it.

The time for storytelling was in the evening when the day's work was over, the meal had been cooked and eaten, and people gathered near the central fire in the big house. Storytellers were the elderly; perhaps the owner of the house or another wise old man or woman. Invariably, when an informant indicated how he or she had learned a myth or legend it was from a grandmother or grandfather, less often from a father or mother (although an uncle would often “preach” to his nephew). It was the elderly people, who had lived with their grandparents and old uncles when they were little children in the 1880's and 1890's, who were both the best storytellers and those most ready to display their skill, perhaps because this was a way of reliving their childhood. Stories were told not only to instruct the young, but to amuse and entertain the adults. Thus they might be told simply to pass the time, for example, when storm-bound in the sealing camps, just as people then might gossip and sing when loafing or waiting for good weather.

There is no question but that people enjoyed (and still enjoy) telling and listening to stories, even and perhaps especially the old familiar incidents of the Raven Cycle.

Although many traditions were very serious, explaining the origin of a precious sib prerogative, these stories were not told at potlatches when the prerogative was displayed. It was not necessary, for educated persons already knew them. Rather, the myths form the background for oratorical allusions (p. 466, and Swanton, 1909, pp. 374–389), for songs (pp. 565–566, 568) and for the dramatic dances which might accompany them. Totemic carvings and paintings or the crest decorations on ceremonial garments and paraphernalia were like illustrations of sib myths, to be fully understood and appreciated only if these tales were already familiar. It was for this reason, of course, that chiefs and persons of nobility had to be well drilled in the traditions of their own sibs and of those they were likely to encounter as rivals in their own moiety, or as their guests or their hosts in the opposite moiety.

Some myths were embellished with songs which might be sung by the narrator as part of the story, or which could be sung and acted out on ceremonial occasions without the narrative. Myths and traditions also seem to have stimulated new musical and dramatic compositions. No doubt there was creative inspiration and interaction between narration, singing and dancing, and the making of totemic art.

Witty remarks, moral admonitions, and apt proverbs were also based upon myth and legend (cf. footnotes to Swanton, 1909, Tale 31). For example, when something turns out badly because one has “botched” a job, someone may say: “Nas dulix SkAnA—the Nass turned into SkAnA,” referring to Raven's efforts to turn a bay into a nice river like the Nass, but instead it became “only a clam-spitting place” (MJ, cf. Swanton, 1909, Tale 1, p. 15). When the bulldozer brought to improve the main road through Yakutat succeeded (for a time) in creating only a quagmire with a large boulder in the middle, we convulsed our friends by quoting this proverb.

The collection of stories ranges from myths (tłagu) to trivial tales or accounts of recent events. An understanding of what oral literature means to the Yakutat people could be gained from an analysis of these. Even though the stories are in English, something could also be learned about their literary character, especially when there is more than one version of the same tale. No such analysis will be attempted here; the stories must speak for themselves. Yet because so many of the myths concern Raven and seem to have been the most popular, some observations about the Raven Cycle should be made, and no doubt some of these are equally applicable to other stories.

THE RAVEN CYCLE

Three more or less connected versions of the Raven Cycle were told, all directly or in part affected by the way in which Frank Italio put the stories together. These versions certainly were not supposed to contain all the incidents known at Yakutat, or even all that Frank Italio might have told. His interpreter, Minnie Johnson, remarked after telling the first of the series (June 23, 1952):

“Frank Italio says it would take him 4 days from the first, if I interpret. He knows how the Raven starts, until the end.”

Some 19 episodes were either told or mentioned by informants. It is, of course, impossible to list them in a “correct” order, for no such standardized sequence was discernible. Most of the episodes were told as separate stories (see pp. 857–873). The numbering of these 19 episodes is therefore arbitrary.

Episode 1: The Birth of Raven and the Flood (six versions)

Episode 2: Raven and Echo (one version)

Episode 3: Raven and the Controller of the Tides (five versions)

Episode 4: Raven Deceives his Partner (two versions)

Episode 5: Raven in the Whale (four versions)

Episode 6: Raven and the Theft of Daylight (seven versions)

Episode 7: Raven Makes the Earth (one version)

Episode 8: Raven Deceives the Sea Otters and Obtains Plants (two versions)

Episode 9: Raven Makes Geographical Features (four versions)

Episode 10: Raven Steals Water (two versions)

Episode 11: Raven Obtains Fire (one version)

Episode 12: Raven and the Ark (four or five versions)

Episode 13: Raven and the King Salmon (three versions)

Episode 14: Raven Cheats the Little Birds (three versions)

Episode 15: Raven and Bear Go Fishing (four versions)

Episode 16: Raven Goes to a Potlatch (four versions)

Episode 17: Raven Steals Bait and Loses His Nose (two versions)

Episode 18: Raven Turns Himself into a Woman to Marry the Killerwhale (one comment)

Episode 19: Raven Becomes Drunk on Russian Whiskey (one version)

In addition, comments referring to Raven's activities in making geographical features will be found on pages 84–90 dealing with the Alsek River, and on pages 101–103 describing Cape Suckling and Controller Bay.

It should be noted that the titles given above have been assigned to the various incidents for our convenience; they were not ones given by the natives themselves. The most coherent sequence of stories was that recorded by Frank Italio on August 8 and September 13, 1952, and translated by Minnie Johnson on September 2, 13, and 14. In this, Episodes 1–6, from the Birth of Raven to the Theft of Daylight, were presented as one story. It should be noted that 2 years later, when Frank Italio was obviously failing, and skipped about in his narrative, he told Episodes 1, 3, 6, and 9, the last dealing with how “Raven Makes Geographical Features.” No doubt he was prepared, or was once prepared, to tell other incidents connected with Raven's creative or cosmological activities, since Minnie Johnson, on June 23, 1952, after Frank Italio had been telling Raven stories to her all morning, that afternoon and evening repeated Episodes 1, 3, 5, 4, 9, 10, 14, 13. The last two, however, were suggested by my questions about the Eyak story of how Raven had cheated the little birds. This incident (Episode 14) clearly appears as the conclusion to Episode 13, which tells how Raven got the king salmon, but we do not know where Minnie Johnson might have fitted them into a longer cycle if she had undertaken to tell all the Raven stories she knew.

These three versions of the cycle are presented below in the order in which the episodes were told. In a later section are given all the versions of each episode that were told as separate stories, so that these versions may be compared.

While Episodes 1 through 6 form a connected narrative, at least as told by Frank Italio, it should be noted that the last, “Raven's Theft of Daylight,” in subject matter forms a transition to the isolated incidents which I have numbered 7 through 12. The latter fall into a group because they deal with the creation and ordering of the world. On the whole, they are more serious in tone, even though that part of Episode 7 which deals with the creation of women is evidently both lewd and funny.

Episodes 13 to 18 seem to form still another group in that they show Raven as a trickster and a cheat, and are primarily funny stories. Perhaps the last incident of all, Episode 19 in which Raven gets drunk on Russian whiskey, should be added to these, even though it would seem to be of much more recent origin than the rest.

By far the greatest number of stories in general, as well as incidents of the Raven Cycle, were told by Minnie Johnson. The latter were either told independently or when she was translating for her brother, Charley White, for Frank Italio, or for Mrs. Frank Dick. The only episodes which she did not tell at all were 7 and 11, both dealing with creation and primarily serious in character. When telling stories of her own choosing, she gave us Episodes 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13–14, 15 (three times), 16 (twice), 17 (twice), and 18, obviously preferring those that exhibited Raven's cleverness. This collection of Raven tales reflects, therefore, the stamp of her personality and vivid narrative style more than it does the style of any other individual, especially since we have only her versions for Episodes 17, 18, and 19. She was also the most ready to comment on the stories or on Raven's character. She seems, moreover, to have been an able translator, rarely adding to, omitting, or changing what another had said, even though her translations tended to be rather free. This was tested when AG challenged her translation of Mrs. Frank Dick's version of Episode 6, doubting that the latter had referred to Raven's excrement. Since the story had been recorded on tape, it was easy to satisfy her friend that her translation was correct.

It is difficult to judge to what extent her versions of the stories may have been influenced by those told to her by Frank Italio or recorded by him in 1952 when she acted as his interpreter. She evidently did not accept him as a final authority, for we note that she and AG agreed that he was wrong on one point (cf. Episode 1, p. 848). In 1949, when she told a few incidents of the cycle, she also remarked that she owned Swanton's book (1909), which she prized and was fond of reading, although she noted that her version of the stories was “a bit different—still it's the same.” She said she had learned them from her grandfather and grandmother. Although, as might be expected, the various Yakutat versions on the whole resemble the long Raven Cycle recorded in English at Sitka (Swanton, 1909, Tale 1) more than that recorded at Wrangell (ibid., Tale 31, which also includes unrelated myths), nevertheless Minnie Johnson's own stories do not seem to have been influenced by what she read. This can be seen by comparing her 1949 versions of Episodes 13 and 14 with the corresponding incidents in Swanton (1909, pp. 5–6).

To Minnie Johnson's great distress, the book was lost in the fire which destroyed her house in 1950. Catherine McClellan and I gave her a new copy for Christmas in 1952, which she was reading in 1954, but not accepting this as more than a collection of variant versions from other tribes, and she was very scornful of Swanton's phonetic spelling (which she did not understand). Some of the stories in the book were right, she indicated, the same way they tell them here in Yakutat. But some of them were different. In the story of how Raven was born (see both Episodes 1 and 6), it was true about the girl who went down to the beach and swallowed the stone (see Swanton, 1909 Tale 31, pp. 80–81), and it was right about the high-class girl to whom her servant brought water. But Raven changed himself into a hemlock leaf and hid under the rim of the water box. In the book (Tale 1, p. 1) he became a piece of dirt that the girl swallowed, but “up here they say it was a hemlock leaf” (as indeed it is also in Tale 31, p. 81, from Wrangell).

JE translated the Raven Cycle recorded by Frank Italio on May 7, 1954, consisting of Episodes 1, 3, 6, and 9. He also told Episodes 3, 6, 9, 10, and 11 independently. Although he said he used to read the stories in Swanton's book before it burned up, I doubt that he remembered them very clearly or that they affected the versions he told in 1952 (Episode 9) or in March 1954 (Episodes 3, 6, 10, and 11), since he said he had learned these from his father and mother. He also mentioned that Raven had destroyed monsters (p. 820), probably implying a story about this, although he did not tell it.

Other informants who told Raven stories were Peter Lawrence (Episodes 5 and 12, and discussions of 9); Jack Ellis (Episode 15); Mrs. Frank Dick (Episode 6 in connection with a song); EE (Episodes 6, 16, and two versions of 12); MH (Episodes 1 and 6); GJ (comments on 1 and 9, and possibly on 12); HKB (Episodes 8–7, and 13, the last to explain a house screen); and SW (Episode 16 in connection with songs).

Although my sample of independent stories is not very large, I would judge that Episode 6 (The Theft of Daylight) and 15 (Raven and Bear Go Fishing) were the most popular. No doubt the particular incidents chosen by individual narrators reflect in part their personal bents; thus the incidents dealing with creation and cosmological explanations were ones told by my most serious informants.

Why were the stories told? In some cases, our questions prompted the recital, as when we might ask about the meaning of a song or when the recording itself caused the singer or interpreter to volunteer the accompanying story (Episodes 16, 17, 19, and one version of 6). The rather fragmentary remarks about geographical features (Episode 9) were in response to questions about places and their native names. We should also note that Episodes 2, 5, 6, and 12 are also localized and serve to explain geography, although they were not told to us for this purpose. Other stories were volunteered to answer questions about cosmology (Episodes 3, 6, 10, 11). Still others were told because the narrator was asked if he or she knew the tale, or because a story told by ourselves (perhaps an Eyak or Chugach or interior version) sparked the recital.

Thus, while stories were considered to be important for our understanding, in the last analysis they were told because the narrators enjoyed telling them. This was why Minnie Johnson repeated to us all afternoon and evening the stories that Frank Italio had spent the morning in telling her: “Frank and I just die laughing” (p. 844). And Frank had apparently called on her just for the purpose of telling Raven stories. Later that summer, he recorded them for us with gusto, introducing the most energetic sound effects: tappings, slups, belches, explosive pows, and dramatic dialogue. Two years later, even when assured by an interpreter that we already knew the stories, he insisted on retelling them for the tape recorder, and we were informed that the old man had spent the previous day happily rehearsing the stories he planned to record. Peter Lawrence also enjoyed telling the stories, perhaps partly because, like Frank Italio, he was lonesome for a sympathetic audience. Yet this motivation could not apply to busy, happy Minnie Johnson, although she certainly enjoyed our attention.

The appeal of the Raven stories lies, I believe, in the character of Raven himself and the meaning his activities have for the Tlingit.

For those who are curious, the myths have an obvious explanatory function, not only recounting how things came to be as they are now, but also serving to justify the familiar. For example, when commenting on the way Raven was conceived (Episode 6), MJ said: “That's why people on earth have so many fatherless kids. Raven is the one to get that started.” And when his crying made his “grandfather” give him the box of Daylight: “That's why up to this day a person thinks more of their grandchildren than of their own child—because Raven taught them how.” Or again: “From that time on that people think so much of their grandchildren because of that man” (pp. 853, 854, 862). We see here an obvious identification with Raven and with his grandfather.

This identification is made particularly easy for members of the Raven moity: “Raven is the head of our tribe, you know” (MJ p. 873). And this justifies the use of Raven and the King Salmon for the decoration of the Kwacqwan Moon House (Episode 13, p. 867), the TłukwaAdi of Dry Bay naming a house for the Ark that Raven dragged ashore (p. 866), and the related Tł'UknaAdi use of a Devilfish Pole for the song leader similar to that used by Raven for this feat (Episode 12). “That's why we imitate Yel in a potlatch and sing that song” (MJ p. 867), because Raven sang it as he pulled in the Ark. The songs about Daylight are also used by the Tł'UknaAdi: “That's our song composed by Yel. Every Raven tribe can sing that song that Yel compose it: the Kwacqwan, Kosedi, and anAtedi. All the Raven tribes use that, but us is more titled to it.” (MJ p. 855) And because Raven cheated the little birds (Episode 14): “That's why we're such liars, us Crows!” (MJ p. 868).

For those of serious intellectual or religious bent, Raven myths can serve as a bridge between the old traditional ways and the new life, for the mythology is interpreted so that it can be reconciled with the teachings of the mission and thus show that the old-time natives were not unenlightened savages living in darkness, as supercilious Whites have imagined. Thus, Raven sometimes, and for some narrators, appears in noble or impressive guise as the Creator. (Or his uncle or grandfather is identified with the Creator.) “Some of the stories of Raven is pretty near the same thing you get from the Bible” (MJ). “When I come to read the Bible, it has the same thing as Raven story in some places. You see was no light.” And when he released daylight: “So it's just the same as the Bible. ‘God make the sun to shine by day and the moon and stars by night’ “ (MJ p. 855.) “Raven stories are just like the Bible, only it was Yel. He made lakes, made people, turned the animals [into their present forms], and told them which way to go.” (MJ p. 860). Another informant (SW) said, “They got a big story for that Crow. Just like God sometimes. When they punished in the world, that's Yel story [i.e., the Flood of Episode 1]—same story named in the Bible. They got a big stories on that Crow.”

The Flood was obviously that of Noah, commented one narrator (MH p. 858) who explained that although the Yakutat people had learned the Biblical version only 75 years before, their own story of the Flood had been handed down orally from generation to generation. This same informant also compared Raven to Superman of the comics, that character who has served as a symbol of wish fulfillment for millions because he can change from a meek, unimpressive ordinary young man to someone of incredible powers. Despite a confusion of Raven with his jealous uncle, both of whom were called “the Creator,” this informant saw Raven as bringing daylight and the first salmon to Dry Bay, killing dangerous monsters, creating men out of rotten wood (wherefore they are mortal, it is implied), and teaching men how to put up fish. “The Creator was a bird” (p. 858). Raven himself is immortal because he is made of stone (FI p. 856), and the story of his birth was “just like the Virgin Mary” (EE p. 861).

The clearest expression of the Biblical equivalence of the Raven stories was expressed in the versions of Episodes 7 and 8 and comments on them by a truly religious man (HKB pp. 863–864):

“Noah—Grandma and grandfather told me just like Bible, but White people's history is a little bit different from Indians’. Raven's uncle is Noah. Raven's uncle make a flood to cover the world. But Bible says it's a devil. But it's the same name…. It's just like the Old Testament and after that it's New Testament…. But in the first place it's a story says Old Raven created the world. It's the Raven, but they call him Yeł…. After we learn it from the Bible, it's the same story. But the only thing is different—that God created the world in about a week. But the Creator got no rest in the week. He keep a going…. It's the beginning of created the world. Creator and Raven story is almost the same.”

Sometimes Raven acts from altruistic motives (like Superman), or is presented with approval and admiration in the stories. This is shown most clearly in the “Theft of Daylight” (Episode 6). “Because the people need daylight, they have to work all that and go through all that red tape to get it [i.e., Raven had to get himself born as grandchild to the owner]. It's a good deed he's doing, though…. Frank Italio this afternoon said, ‘I wish everybody grow up fast as Raven, just like the minutes go round the clock, the way he wants to give the people daylight.’…[And when he refuses to be born on fur] Raven looks after the poor ones. That's why the babies not born on precious furs.” (MJ pp. 853, 854.) “Yel think of poor people who can't afford furs and Yel won't come out until they get moss and stuff around. He helps the poor when he was born.” (MJ p. 860.) “Therefore today poor people can be born just like Raven, the son of God” (MH p. 860). He is compared to the Christ Child not only because his mother was a virgin when she conceived him, but because he was born in moss, as in a lowly manger!

Yet even this episode has humor, as when Minnie Johnson and Frank Italio laugh, supposing everyone had to be born on expensive furs. “We wouldn't be grow up!” (p. 854).

When Raven pulled the Ark of fish and animals ashore, he did this to provide “food for his tribe. He wants to see people get their share instead of getting tied up with AnA-qat-wayá. Keep everything to himself and make all the others suffer,” a character who was compared to the arrogant and selfish anAtedi (MJ p. 867; cf. Harrington's version of 1940).

Thus it is the poor, ordinary people who find Raven one of themselves, mindful of their problems.

As Creator (or Transformer), Raven is, of course, also responsible for: the earth itself; daylight; bodies of fresh and salt water; the disposition of the land; the movements of tides; earthquakes; the combustible properties of firewood; the plants on the earth; the appearance and to some extent the habits of birds, fish, and animals; sex; and many human customs.

Yet it is not these superior creative or well-meaning acts of Raven, nor the worthy functions of Raven stories as mythological explanations, moral homilies, or charters of sib prerogatives that can explain the popularity of Raven stories. Raven is enjoyed because he embodies all the worst faults and failings of humanity, and he is funny because he does all the things that people would really like to do, but dare not attempt, and sometimes dare not even think.

For example, Raven is motivated by gluttony, again and again able to satisfy it, usually by trickery and at the expense of others. He eats a whole whale and all the provisions of an entire village. “Ain't that a hog? Raven is so small, but turns himself into human being,” in order to deceive the people into abandoning their stores. “My goodness, the way the people believes him! I would cut his head off!” (MJ Episode 5, p. 853.) And when he deceived and ate the Bears, “I bet Raven got lots to eat then—such a hog!” “Isn't he smart? He came right there and ate up all the provisions.” (MJ Episode 15, p. 869.) And how enviable and amusing his ability to consume oil. “Where in the world did he put all that? It's wonderful!” (MJ Episode 4, p. 851.)

This delightful wickedness can be fully savored only by a people who from childhood impose upon themselves severe food taboos in the midst of plenty, for whom frugality and restraint in eating is a virtue of magicoreligious efficacy, and who must share their favorite feast dishes with housemates, relatives, or visitors.

To be able to steal, to gorge, to drink to excess (and not to get sick), to cheat one's partners, to be able to refuse to take part in a potlatch and then to dance into it as the most honored guest (who later cheats and kills his hosts), to kill one's brother-in-law (or the husband of one's paternal aunt) and eat him up (the Bear), to rob one's chiefly uncle of his young wife, to change sex and thereby indulge in a homosexual adventure, to confound doubters through a public display of one's own cleverness that turns them into animals—these are all acts that embody the suppressed desires of the Tlingit.

Raven's trickery is admired and condemned and found funny, all at the same time. “Now see how smart he is! He find out things pretty quick. That's why he's pretty smart!” (MJ Epsiode 5, p. 846.) “You listen, hear how smart it is!” (Epsiode 4, p. 852). “See how witchcraft he is!” (Episode 17, p. 872). “That Old Raven, when it's anything serious, it's always ‘brother-in-law,’ or ‘father-in-law’ just to deceive people” (Episode 8, p. 864). “They believe him. Oh that confounded Raven!” (Episode 16, p. 870.) “Raven always gets into mischief, you know,” and everyone laughed (MJ Episode 8, p. 864).

When Raven overreaches himself and suffers the consequences, he is pitied because the audience identifies with him, yet at the same time he is an object of fun. Minnie Johnson laughs at his predicament inside the whale (Episode 5, p. 864): “He's stuck inside! [laughs]…. And he's still inside and he cooks [laughs].” Then when he finally makes his escape, “He's all greased up—just with that fat all over his feathers. Just like a drowned rat he looked! [laughs].”

And when he attempted to imitate the reputed ability of bears to get grease from their paws:

“ ‘Ican Yeł! He gets his hands all slashed up. He been hiding that piece of king salmon. He wants to treat the Brown Bear and his wife. He tried to slice it and nothing but bubbles came out.” (MJ Episode 15.)

He is pitied when he tries to escape with the stolen water: “Poor Old Raven! He's full of water. He's got a mouth and belly full. And he get smoked and he's black,” because he was caught and held in the smokehole. (Episode 10, MJ, p. 847.) When the people he had cheated and robbed of food, caught him: “They made a fun of him. They torch him. Crow was white before but they smoked him. They torch it—poor Crow!” (PL Episode 5, p. 859.) Yet even this incident leads to the funny peace song, “Raven Washes Himself in Vain,” which when recorded provoked gales of laughter (1954, 6–1–K; p. 1259).

In the stories one can also enjoy the humor of the risque or obscene, using words or talking about things which would never be mentioned under other circumstances, or which were so indelicate that some informants did not tell them either to Swanton (1909, p. 92, note d) or to ourselves. This was especially true of “the comical story” about how Raven endowed women with sex organs (that part of Episode 7 which we did not hear). People relished the incidents in which Raven cut off the Bear's penis as bait (Episode 15), when he stuck canes up the anuses of the Killerwhales (Episode 16, p. 870), and when he took a prickly sea urchin and rubbed the bare backside of the old woman who controls the tides (Episode 3). There is also humor in one version in which Raven's mother becomes “knocked up” (impregnated) through the anus (Episode 6, p. 860). The embarrassment of some informants who dealt with these incidents in gingerly fashion testifies to their appeal.

Furthermore, for a people who know that they must be careful in their speech to others, what fun to repeat all the insults that Raven pretended the green stone had hurled at the king salmon! That the stone was actually mute in the story only adds to the amusement. “The little green stone don't know nothing about it!” followed by gales of laughter (MJ Episode 13, p. 848). That one informant refused to repeat these insults indicates something of their true character. The storyteller can also have the pleasure or repeating the dirty names given to Raven himself: “Raven's poop” (i.e., ‘Raven's excrement’) by the Controller of the Tide (MJ p. 850), or “You dirty old poop-pants! You dirty old poop!” by the people who did not believe that he had brought the daylight (Episode 6, p. 862).

“And you know the old Crow—That's a funny story! When anything serious is going to happen, his behind hole tells him. Sometimes they say to people: ‘Who's telling you this? Your ass hole?’ And anybody who get into things, they say: ‘Oh, you're too ugly. Oh, you're just like Raven!’ ” (MJ)

Raven is, in fact, the epitome of dirtiness.

Other characters may appear also in humorous guise, especially those who are foolish enough to be fooled by Raven's deceits or who exhibit other failings. For example, MJ laughed heartily when Raven pacified the angry Bears by addressing them in mincing tones as relatives: “That female Bear ought to know Raven wasn't her brother!” (MJ p. 868). Or, “Frank and I just die laughing…. Moon is so jealous…. You know he's so confounded jealous…. He got so mad he give an order to have the flood—just over that hair from under [his wife's] arms!” and the narrator burst into hearty laughter. (MJ pp. 844, 845.) In fact, one is ready to find anything funny when a Raven story is told. Nevertheless, the Bear and the Moon must be considered only as supporting cast. Raven probably reflects most accurately the complex aspects of Tlingit character, and in this lies his appeal.

Three Connected Versions of the Raven Cycle

(First Version)

[Minnie Johnson prefaced this first series of stories by referring to a visit she had received that morning (June 23, 1952) from old Frank Italio. He had been “preaching” to her that morning—evidently telling these stories. She spent much of the afternoon telling them to us and laughing. Again in the evening, she dropped into our house after the moving picture show to make arrangements for an excursion the next day; but after general conversation she continued the stories.]

EPISODE 1: THE BIRTH OF RAVEN AND THE FLOOD

Frank and I just die laughing. Yeł [Raven] is DIs's [Moon's] nephew. Moon is so jealous! Every time he goes hunting anywhere, he puts his wife in a box and hoists her to the ceiling so his nephews don't bother her [a euphemism for sexual relations].

You know he's so confounded jealous he don't want nobody around his wife. He don't want no nephew to bother her.

Moon had a sister. And he's order his slaves to kill his sister's children whenever she had one.

Finally the sister of the Moon just sit behind the point and just weep, you know, and just grind her teeth in sorrow.

So a fellow came to her—“Why does she weep all the time?” You know, somebody's spirit come all the time. “Why does she weep?”

“Because I had so many children and my brother always kill them. I had such hard times—I went through misery to bear them. And he always get them and kill them.”

“When the tide goes out, you go way down to the water's edge. And you pick up a rock just big enough to swallow.”

So before anybody get up, she went to the beach and pick up a rock.

“You heat it up. Don't get scared and frighten you get your mouth burned and your throat. Don't you get scared.”

So she did [get the rock]. She went and got a round solid rock—an ‘itc. And she put it in the fire. And it's hot enough to swallow, and she swallow it. [A belongs here, see below.]

She's quite old and she won't bear any more children, she thought. But she got that way pretty soon. And finally that woman give birth to a child, a baby boy. [See B below.] And she dig herself a cave far away some place so her brother wouldn't give the order to kill him.

He began to grow up, and that fellow is big enough to use a bow and arrow. [The narrator interrupted the story to fill in details.]

[A] When she swallow that hot rock, she don't seem to feel the effect at all. [B] That was Raven. That's why he's so tough. He's made out of tough rock.

He get hold of a pretty duck—a mud duck, or whatever you call it. He tell his mother to be careful and skin it. He shook the skin of the duck and he shook it, and he tried his mother to go in there [i.e., he tried it on her for the fit]. He had just enough to cover her up. [The mud duck was called tU, probably the Harlequin Duck, U.]

So these people around DIs [Moon] were scared that he give an order to flood, you know.

So Raven go to work when he know his uncle is out. He's got the skin of some kind of sharp-nosed bird, and he hangs it up for hours and hours, and he practice, and then twists and get free. [This bird was called łu-'ádà, a snipe, curlew or avocet, p. 44].

Then when his uncle is gone he goes in there and asks the other people, “Where does my uncle keep his wife?”

“Right up there in a box all tied up tight with ropes and roots.”

Then he ordered the people to get the box down. He got the woman out and he pulled out all the hair from under her arms. And then he threw it up the smokestack [i.e., smokehole. The hair was flicker feathers (kun we)].

Then DIs see the kun feathers.

“Somebody's got my precious stuff!”

His wife's hair was flying in his face. He just got so mad he give an order to have the flood—just over that hair from under her arms! [Hearty laughter by Minnie Johnson and ourselves.]

Raven just want to show his uncle how strong he is, I guess. Then after the flood come and he got his mother under that duck skin, and she just float around. And that Raven just hang in the sky. He got the bird's bill just stuck there. No flood can bother him.

Finally, when it's time—after he thinks it's over [i.e., the flood has subsided], he let go himself. He come out of that skin and he look for his mother. He find her.

EPISODE 3: RAVEN AND THE CONTROLLER OF THE TIDES

That's still high tide. Nobody get any sea shells. The tide is still high. He is just going around. He see a big bunch of kelp; it's floating.

And he fly from place to place.

Finally he find a kelp with a long string on it. He turn to Raven that time, I guess. He see everything good down there—something to eat when the tide is out. Finally he see the big pile of sea urchins in the rock. He thought he crawl down in the kelp—he don't care if he die.

He went and get his pocket full of ni [sea urchins]. [The narrator laughed.] Where did Raven get a pocket!

And he went to a place where the smoke is coming out. There's a little hit [house], you know.

He went in. “Ah!” he said, “I’m so cold. I got chilled. I eat too much ni.”

That old woman is just taking her nap, and she got her back to the fire. And Raven just lift the piece of wood and got all the warmth for himself, so the old lady can't get hers.

“Ah, I get cold eating sea urchins!”

“Ah, shut up! What's the matter? Where you get ni? You know very well you can't get ni in high tide.”

“Ah, my hands are just cold! My hands are just cold!” Raven kept saying it.

Finally the old lady get mad. She knows it's true. She's the Head of the Tide [qi acuwu katsinuq gu canukw—old lady who watches the tide].

Then he get her upside down, and he get her behind with sea eggs.

Finally she give up and say, “There's going to be the tide go out.” That old lady just squeals. Finally she give in. “That's enough, Raven! That's enough, Raven! The tide will be low.” [Much laughter.]

That's why some of our people say: “Łdi Yeł, de awa Yeł—That's enough, Raven!” [It is now used by a boy when he's crying “enough” in a fight, the narrator explained later.]

So the Moon is up there. All his slaves is the stars. They used to be the Moon's slaves. It was just over his wife's hair he got mad.

EPISODE 5: RAVEN IN THE WHALE

Raven walk a little further on. And he fly a little ways. He turn into Crow, you know.

He sees this big whale goes up and down. You know that air hole in the whale? He sees it looks fat inside. He just wonders if he can duck in there when the whale comes out of the water.

He went in. And all over there is fat; it's kind of comb like. There's lots of fat. He could live for days and days. He build a fire. How come he could build a fire? Why didn't he suffocate?

When he came to, his feet is upside down and his head bang around, but he got all the fats he wanted. With all that smoke inside he's not feeling very good.

Finally he got banging back and forth and it's just about all he can stand. So I think the whale is dead. That's what everybody think. He knows he's bound to go ashore, so he just wish:

[The narrator sings.] He try to compose a song. He wish for a good sandy beach. So I guess he wash right down to the Alsek. That's where he come ashore. That's why the Alsek is our place [i.e., territory of the Tł'UknaAdi and TłukwaAdi]. [See music, p. 1152.]

He wash ashore, and he's got no way to get out. He's stuck inside! [Laughs.]

And you know a long time ago the people live on fat and on the meat of the whale. And they think they got to put up plenty of grub: berries, and fish, and oil. There's no White man's food.

So the person who finds his yay [whale] think's he's pretty lucky. So he report to the other people.

There's a place at Dry Bay—the other side of the Alsek from here. They call it Ya tai—that place [‘Whale's Fat’]. It's the other side of Dry Bay where they cut up that whale.

Raven knows it's pretty close to an open place and near to the shore.

Somebody come to the whale and says, “Tłaetł ‘a tłaetł—it's lucky. We get lucky this time. We got the whale's washed ashore.”

Pretty soon all the townspeople is starting to get lots of meat and fat. And they drag it up before it get wash away.

And he's still inside and he cook. [Laughs.] Finally, he's trying to make some kind of noise, and he say, “I wish some kind of high-class man or woman would open this place for me so I can get out of here.”

He sing in there. “I wish I had somebody as high- class as I am knock a hole in this whale.”

And those people get scare. They hear the noise. They have a meeting about it. “Somebody make a noise,” they say. They have no idea Raven is inside. They all get scared and left that whale there. But they got to get the meat before it float away. That thread in the tail is the best kind of sinew. It's long, you know; you don't have to splice it. But at all that noise they get scared. Raven is in there 2 or 3 days.

Finally they come back and the people chop away the meat. He lay there just still, till they make a hole big enough. When he knows it's big enough, he just fly right up.

“Q'áw!” he says.

He fly just as far in the sky as he can. And he's all greased up—just with that fat all over his feathers. Just like a drowned rat he looked! [Laughs.]

He's just getting his breath back, and he's resting on the limb of a tree. He just rested there for a while, and after he rest for a while he went and cleaned himself up. He dare not let the townspeople see him.

So he get all cleaned up. Then he combed the town, questioning the people.

“Ah, I wonder if this is the town where they found the whale. I wonder if it's my kind of whale.”

Now see how smart he is! He find out things pretty quick. That's why he's pretty smart. That's the way Old Raven say it.

He go from house to house. “I wonder if anybody hear anything, any cry inside that whale?”

“We don't know anything! We don't know anything.” The people in the houses are so busy they don't bother to tell him.

Finally he comes to the chief's house. He says, “I wonder if anybody ever hear a noise inside that whale.”

“Yes, yes!” the chief say.

“What kind of language did you hear?”

“Our language.”

“What did it sound like?”

“It sound like somebody is so helpless in the whale and want to come out. Somebody wish a high-class person would knock a hole and let him out.”

“That's not the whale! That's no good to eat at all. That whale—I’m sorry, you’re not supposed to eat that kind of stuff after you hear that sound. That kind of stuff cause the whole town to die off.”

So they had some kind of meeting over it. Then they packed away and moved, and Raven got everything to eat—the inside of the whale and what the whole town packed up for food!

[A to Q:] I forgot the name of the village. GAłtsenewa [Áłtcinuwu?, p. 84] is where the whale drift ashore. It's a sand island.

EPISODE 4: RAVEN DECEIVES HIS PARTNER

Finally he got the right kind of fellow for his brother. He's just looking for a stooge. He named him.

“You're my brother. Your name is Xacaow [ACAgAkkw].[17]

He calls him his brother. It's just for his stooge. He make him do anything.

He went to this place where they put up lots of seal meat in wooden boxes. And Xacaow knows Raven is drinking all that seal oil. The last one [box of oil] Raven drink, he just got hold of him and shoved him in the box.

He [Raven] knows he's pretty guilty. “Brother, brother, will you tie me up?”

And he tie him up and throw him in the oil.

And Raven ask him, “What you tying me up for?”

He's trying to tie him with kelp string. That's too strong.

“Just use that old straw.”—So when he throw that box off the cliff, it's just broke easy, and he just flew out.

“Use that old green grass. That would last a long time. That's what our grandparents been using.”

So he's going to get rid of Raven himself. He's tired of him being so hoggish and everything. So he just dump him off the mountain. The first thing, that box bust open. He go out of it. He don't suffer very long. He's smart!

…Tł'eyani—kelp string. It's what our grandfathers been using [p. 427].

[That evening, the narrator again returned to this episode, after telling about how Raven stole water and made various landmarks.]

He's so much alone. He find a stick of wood. He need a brother because he's got that whale meat and all that stuff he put up—fat and oil in big wooden boxes. And that whale meat that the people leave. That's why he pick that driftwood to be his brother.

And his brother is going to get rid of him. The last one of that oil box—he just put Raven in that box.

He [Raven] knows that he is tying him up.

“What are you tying me up for? WTiat are you using?”

“What do you want to know for?”

“Oh, no! Our forefathers never use that kelp string. Our tribe would all be dead [if they had]. Take it out and get hold of that dry weed that used to be green grass. Tie the cover on with that!”

Then—when the box touch the mountain—just at at the bang of it, that box was easy to break.

But that kelp string, it's pretty strong.

EPISODE 9: RAVEN MAKES GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES

Raven's rock house was on the other side of Lituya Bay.

Raven came up this way from Dry Bay. Raven gets so mad at his wife. And he throws his wife's sewing basket (Yeł nai' ayi). He just throw that overboard. It's up to the Westward. This side of that Yay [whale], the rock. This side of Katalla, just a little way. [Cf. p. 100.]

You see that big rock there? That's where Raven is trying to kill the whale [p. 102; i.e. Kayak Island]. He throw that rock at him. He try to kill that whale. There's rocks all the way. You can see where he missed. It's a whole string of rocks. The yay [whale] itself is a big mountain.

The string of rocks is Yeł tsinAi.

Just before you go into Katalla—'that's the longest point sticking out [Cape Saint Elias on Kayak Island]. That's what they call Yaca [Whale head].

EPISODE 10: RAVEN STEALS WATER

There's no water to be had at that time—just salt water.

He [Raven] went to anuk [Petrel], and said he was so dry.

“I got a long walk and my mouth is so dry!”

And that anuk, he owns a well. Raven went and takes out ah the water he can drink. And he try to drain that well. anuk find it out.

Raven was going to go through the smokehole.

anuk says to his spirit [i.e., the spirit of the smoke- hole], “Get hold of that man who steals my water. Get hold of him!”

He get a lot of pitch and put it on the fire.

Poor old Raven! He's full of water. He's got a mouth and belly full. And he get smoked and he's black.

And he's got to notify the people in the morning. [Is this his regular duty?]

The little lakes, like Situk, is the water dropping from his mouth. The little drops run out of the sides of Old Raven's mouth.

EPISODE 14: RAVEN CHEATS THE LITTLE BIRDS

[This was told in response to a question as to whether Minnie Johnson knew the Eyak story of Raven and Magpie (cf. Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, Incident 11 of the Raven Cycle). The bird as described below sounds more like the crested Stellar jay than a magpie, however. This incident evidently suggested Episode 13, “Raven and the King Salmon,” which usually explains how Raven got the food out of which he cheated the other birds, although the narrator did not make the connection explicit.]

Crow cheated out Magpie. And [s]he's just weeping and weeping. So Magpie's grandma got hold of him [her]. And she fix her hair—just like I do in my childhood. And she fix her hair and tie it up in back. That's what make her hair stand up.

[A to Q as to why Magpie cried:] She done all the work one time and got cheated. [This evidently suggested the beginning of the story.]

EPISODE 13: RAVEN AND THE KING SALMON

Raven makes the king salmon come ashore.

He pick it up, a little green stone. And he give it a shook and put it on a driftlog when he see this big king salmon jumping up and down.

He pretend to listen and listen.

“Look what the little green stone say—‘You’re no good' and ‘You got such a big nose and black mouth!’ ”

He tries to make the salmon think the green stone talks about him.

Then he goes up and he says that the king salmon says to that green stone, “You're good for nothing. You just sit around and are no good.”

“Why don't you get mad enough and come ashore and lick the stuffing out of that little green stone?” [Raven asks the salmon.]

Then the Raven says, “Wait a minute, ’a yAqawu [my partner]. I want to go to the washroom first.”

He try to make believe he's going to do that, but he go get a club and hide instead.

“Hey, this thing [stone] start again! He make my ear sore. Come ashore and lick the stuffing out of him!”

So the king salmon come ashore, and Crow just club him.

The little green stone don't know nothing about it! [Laughs.]

(Second Version)

[The second series was recorded by Frank Italio, August 29, 1952 (Reel 4, side 2), and on September 13 (Reel 7, side 2). This translation was given by Minnie Johnson on September 2 and 13, 1952. For texts of the accompanying songs see pp. 1152 ff.]

EPISODE l: THE BIRTH OF RAVEN AND THE FLOOD

[Minnie Johnson was asked to tell what Frank Italio had recorded. Her friend AG was present.]

He start from what Yel is made out of.

The Killerwhale come ashore and get acquainted with her in order to save the baby. So he promise her….

[Minnie Johnson and AG had evidently been discussing Frank Italio's recording. They both agreed that he had made a mistake on only one point, and that was when he said that the child who was to become Raven was the actual child of the Killerwhale. Rather, the child was the rock which the woman swallowed. This settled, the story was resumed.]

The Moon is down on the ground at that time. That's him—that woman that bear the baby [lives with him? is his sister?]. All the people come to that man. He's Moon. He's in charge of the water, the whole thing. So in order to get away from being killed, they come to him and serve him as a slave. Everybody in that town come to him. [See A below, which logically belongs here.]

Every time that woman, his sister, give birth to a child, he send one of his slaves out to find out whether it's a boy or a girl. If it's a boy, he give orders to kill it. And when it's a girl, he order them to kill it anyhow. He's afraid the girl will be some messenger to his wife, he's so jealous. And he's afraid the boy would mix in and his wife wouldn't care for him.

That woman think she's giving the last birth to a baby, and she's afraid her brother is going to give orders to kill the baby. So she goes to the shore, out on the point, and is crying and weeping.

And the Killerwhale comes—guctuwuł [‘hole in dorsal fin’]. There's a hole right in his fin. So Raven is the son of Killerwhale. He is the head of the Killerwhales.

Then after the Killerwhale come ashore and ask her why she cry and weep, and she explain. So the Killerwhale gives her orders the first thing in the morning when the tide goes way out—

[A] They call that brother yu qÍś kuqek ['that tide, or flood, who orders’]—”in charge of the tides.” And people are afraid of him, that he might get the tides stay up and destroy the whole thing. That's why the people who come to him have been slaves…. [There followed a rapid exchange in Tlingit between the two women, Minnie Johnson evidently defending her version of the story.]

So she did. Early in the morning, when the tide is way out, she went down as the Killerwhale ordered her to.

“Just swallow a rock small enough to swallow. Pick it up from way down at low tide” [the Killerwhale had told her].

She follow the instructions the Killerwhale gave her. She heat up the rock as he told her to and swallow it right down. She got something to scoop it up from the fire—’inA [p. 417]. And she swallow it right down. It didn't hurt. She didn't even feel the effect of it.

Shortly after—she's pregnant. She keep it secret from her brother and the bunch. And shortly after, she had a boy.

Pretty soon the boy start to creep and walk. And pretty soon he start to make a bow and arrow out of the bushes. His mother taught him how to do it and he practice. He make a strong bow and arrow out of oak or something.

[A to Q about where the oak came from:] It drifted up from the West Coast shore. And he make sAqs [bow] out of it—Akw “oak, hard to break” [cf. p. 413].

[Our mispronunciation of the word caused much laughter.]

So he make an arrow out of this red cedar.

So that boy is strong enough to use his gAkw sAqs.

After he got it finish, he walk to the beach, and there's a duck on the water. And he took a shot at it and kill it. It drift ashore for him, and he pick it up and take it home and shows it to his mother.

His uncle don't know yet he's a big boy. His mother explain everything what he done to her children, so he [the boy] is going to fix him [his uncle] good and plenty.

And then he show it to his mother, and he get a knife and stab it on the back and he cut open on the back of the duck and he skin it from the head to the foot. After he got it done he told his mother to get in there.

“Get into that duck skin.” And she did.

He told his mother to go down on the beach and get into the water. She did what her son instruct her. And then when the water breaks over her, it don't hurt her. She comes out on top and she keeps going on top of the water. She floats—just like she's on top of the ground to her. It don't seem to feel any different to her.

And when his mother get off the water and come home, he asks his mother, “How does it feel to be on top of the water?”

She went and answer, “It don't make any difference. It's just the same as walking on the ground. It's all right,” she told her son.

And then he knows that he's got everything all fixed up for his mother.

And he took his bow and arrow and he went around on the beach. He run onto the snipes and killed the biggest snipe amongst them. And he done the same thing as he done to the duck. He cut it on the back, and after he got through skinning he got into it.

And he fly and fly up high, and finally he get to the sky and he just stick his bill into the solid part of the sky. And he hang there and swing back and forth, and he swing back and forth. And he thinks that will work.

And finally he give a sudden jerk and his bill come loose, and he fell down on the ground. So he thinks that it will work. He got he and his mother prepared for the flood that the Moon is going to make.

And he's laying around and watch his uncle. He's [the uncle is] a great one to go on board his canoe with his slaves. He get his slaves to pull him around and he visit around the other towns.

He watched him. Finally he see his uncle get his big canoe down on the water, and everything they’re going to use on the way on the trip to the other town. He watched his uncle pretty close.

He watched his uncle. And as soon as Moon, he got around the point, so he couldn't see his nephew going into his house, then he went to work and he started to visit his uncle's house.

And he require [inquire], “Where's uncle?”

“He's out for a trip.”

“What does he do with his wife?”

And that man's slaves—there's a whole pile of them—the house is full of them—they got so fear of this man come to visit there—they point to the box up in the ceiling.

And he got a ladder and take the box down and take it outside and tear up all the lines that man tie up the box with. And he tear it up and get hold of his uncle's wife. And she's one of these expensive birds. That precious bird—they use it for expensive costumes and stuff. There's none here. It's kind of yellowish.

[AG:] They use it for CAki'At [headdress, pp. 422–423].

It's kun, ‘flicker.' They put in part of that sea lion [i.e., sea lion whiskers and flicker feathers are used]. And they just trim it, it's short shiny feathers, just about 4 inches long. The bird is kun.

He went to work and pull all her feathers off, and he just throw [them] up in the air, and it all fly around the air.

Finally this here uncle know, and he's suspicious and he gets hold of his mouth [gesture of covering his mouth with his hand, cf. p. 480].

“My precious stuff! My wife's feather! Turn back, I want to go back. I want to see what condition my wife's in.”

[AG, interrupting:] Her feathers were under her arms.

[MJ, continuing:] And he was so surprised that his wife is taken down from the box, and the box is taken outside, and he find out what condition his wife is in.

And so he got so disgusted, and he start to pack his belongings up. And he told all his slaves he's leaving his home

So that's why the Moon went up to the sky. And he stayed there, and the tide start to come up and destroy all the people but that boy and his mother.

He [the boy] went up to the sky as he practiced. He stick his bill in the sky and he seem to stay, and his mother is in the water.

And the Moon think he kill his sister and that boy and that everything is destroyed.

And then the tide is gone out a little bit, half-way out. And so he said to himself that's room for him and his mother to be on the ground.

EPISODE 2: RAVEN AND ECHO

He finally fell to the ground, and he start to walk and he see a bunch of kelp. And he went and tried to get down on the string of it. No, he can't make it! He get float to the top of the water.

He see the sea eggs [sea urchins] way down deep in the water and he try to reach it.

Finally—he tried two or three times—and finally he make it. [He climbed down the kelp stem.] He get to the place where there's a bunch of sea eggs and he get everything, all in his pockets, all he can hold.

He come up to the top of the water and then he come ashore.

And then when he come ashore, and he knows a place where he can eat some. And he make some kind of a can opener—we call it niA [p. 405]—just like the table knife. I don't know what it's made of. They used to use it. It's got a round point that goes in the back of the sea egg and it twist open. I saw them made of a stick.

And he thinks it tastes so delicious! He makes some kind of noise, and somebody around back of him echoes him.

“What's making that noise?”

Just for that, he does it again—every ni [sea urchin] he opens, he says, “Ah!” he says. It taste so delicious to him. He looks around and he don't see a soul around, but something imitates him.

He gets so mad! And get a few [?], and he goes to part of the mountain and he makes cuts here and there on the mountain. It's on the other side of Lituya Bay. They call it Yelstrock niA kawulstrockica [or, Yelstrock niA kuxlstrockitA CA, cf. p. 93]. It shows on the mountain on the other side of Lituya Bay today. They call it, Yelstrock ‘a’awE niiyA—“where Raven eat ni and cut the mountain up in strips.”

[The narrator explained later:] It's his own echoes. The sound goes around in every place and he thinks somebody is watching him. That's why when you go to a large place and make a loud noise, you think somebody is copying you. You say, “X6,” and it's like somebody is answering you, imitating you. That's what they believe a long time ago. [A to Q:] Echo is Akduqa.

Finally he give up. He didn't see a soul. He didn't even find out who's imitating his swallowing ni ‘ayE.

EPISODE 3: RAVEN AND THE CONTROLLER OF THE TIDES

He start to walk from there. As he is walking he see a smoke coming out from under the moss. He keep staring at it, and he start for that. He want to find out if it's a house where the smoke seem to be coming out from that moss. He went there and found out. Then he entered. That's a house, but there's moss on top so that nobody can't see.

When he enter there he see a real old, old lady. She's all by herself. And the old lady ask him what he wants; what is he looking for, she ask him.

“I wonder—I just want to find out who's in charge of the tide. Are you the one who's in charge of the tide?” he ask the old lady.

And she said, “No, there's an old man not so very far from here. He's the one in charge of the tide.”

He follow the old lady's instructions to find that old man. So he's bound for that. So he come to this old man and he find it out that he's got a fire going. He's laying down and he turn his back. He turn his back to the heat. And this here snipe [Raven still wearing the snipe skin] went there, and he's a man to that old man.

So he went there. He turn the wood. He turn it around so the old man wouldn't get heat. He want some heat and he start to warm up his hands.

“Oh, gee, that sea egg meat sure makes me chilly!” He wants to get warm up.

[A to Q:] It's true it makes you chilly.

He just try to make him believe it, but the man don't believe him.

“En, En!” he say, “Since when the tides went out and you get sea eggs? When was that the tide went out?”

He was never called Yelstroke that time. It was that old man called him Yelstroke.

That man never believed him yet. That old man says, “Since when the tide goes out? You’re nothing but Raven's poop!—Yelstrock itlstrocki [or tlstrock’itlstrock’i].”—Excuse me for mentioning this!

That's how that old man named that Yelstrock. That's the first time he heard his own name.

Finally he keep it up, and he said, because it hurt him that way how that man calls him—he get hold of him, and he hit him hard with that ni stickers on his back.

“Łdi Yeł, Istrockdi Yeł!” he say. “Raven, that's enough—de ‘AWA, Yeł. That's enough—degoqwOacutełagrave, Yeł!” And the tide's going out slow but sure.

He told Yeł, “degoqwOacutełagrave, Yeł!” and then the servant….

[MJ and AG had a consultation in Tlingit.]

He's got a servant sent down.

“How far's the tide out?”

“Oh, about half a human long!” [When asked, MJ and AG explained that “half a human” was a yard, demonstrating by stretching out one arm full length.]

“The tide is going out pretty far—the whole length of a human being [stretching out both arms]—tłe wAt [one -?-].”

And he keep it up. That old man still squeals, “The tide is going out, the tide going out! Just leave me alone!”

He sent his servant out again. Yeł want to prove it.

“The tide is getting pretty low now.”

He told his servant to watch it, if the tide is way out.

“Everything is pretty dry.” It's dry enough for them to get in.

EPISODE 4: RAVEN DECEIVES HIS PARTNER

Well, the tide is running out, and he went beachcombing.

He pick it up—this driftwood, and talk to it, and says, “You stand up and walk. I lost my brother. His name is Xacuguw. I want to pick you in his place.”

So that driftwood stand up and start to walk, and start to walk lame. No, that won't do. He throw it down. He goes a little further and picks up another piece of driftwood for his brother—anything hard he can use for his brother, du kik [his younger sibling].

At the same time the tide is running out. He figure it out pretty close, du kik.

And he come to a place where he pick up some kind of hard wood that drift from a long ways—must be from the Hawaiian Islands or some place—That hardwood, you can't hardly cut it with a knife. It's just as hard! A bamboo tree, piece of hayik ‘uu [’below-here Peg’].

[AG] u [or t’u]. [Cf. p. 413.]

[MJ] Wherever it grows, that kind of wood, that's supposed to be growing underneath of the ground. [A to Q:] No, it's very seldom they find it on the beach…. [There was an interchange in Tlingit between the two women.] They used to use it for the tin [girl's hair ornament, p. 446], for the body part. They put beadwork on it. It's only that long [3 or 4 inches]. It rolls back and forth on my neck. I swing my head back and forth to feel it….

[AG interrupts:] Is that Yeł story?

[MJ eventually continues:] And that's the one Yeł picks up for his brother. So he called him Hayik ‘uu. That's his brother's namesake. [MJ evidently meant to say Xacuuw.]

Then Yeł told him, “The tide is low enough now, we’ll go down and see what we can pick.”

And then he told him to string up all the whales, all the big animals there's lots of fat on it. Hayik ‘uu just got bust dragging up all those heavy things above high tide. He himself is packing up some codfish, devilfish—just stripping it up. And Hayik ‘uu strip up all that whale and everything that's lots of fat on it.

He himself [Yeł] just pick up a, codfish [p. 53], and naqw, devilfish.

And when Yeł and them got done with the work and Hayik ‘uu and he get busy and render the fat off the whale and fills up all them łAkt [wooden boxes] with oil and preserve them for the time being. They put up enough to last them.

He himself is putting up and rendering the fat off the codfish and devilfish. They used to be fat, but that's why there is nothing but loose skin on it now—because Raven render all the fat.

And they got done with it, and Raven put away all the oil from the codfish and devilfish.

And the tide change. It don't go out very far to pick up more stuff [i.e, not far enough to get it]. So Raven lays down and blows up some of the stomach parts of the codfish and fills it with oil. And he poke a bone, a sharp bone, to the stomach part of the codfish he fills with oil. And he opens it just enough to let it drip. He lay under it and he got his mouth open.

Finally he's coming short of that oil of his own, that last part of the stomach of the codfish he fill up with oil. And he consider to himself he must tell some kind of story to Hayik ‘uu. And he lay down alongside of the fire. And he dream he walk out and pick up a bird, and every kind of living bird. And he tell them what to do:

“I’m going to dream. I’m going to dream there's a war on. And just when I demonstrate to my brother Hayik ‘uu you come on top of the house and make believe the war is on.”

Then he went home and lay down. That way he dream the war is on. And he make Hayik ‘uu believe he's dreaming.

“Mmm, mmm,” he's talking in his sleep. “Mmm, mmm,” he went.

Hayik ‘uu went over there and shook him. “What's wrong with you?”

He make Hayik ‘uu believe he just get awake from dreaming.

“I got a funny dream, the funniest dream I ever dreamt. There's a war on top of us, and we’re going to get destroyed.”

Just then those birds come on top of the house and make a noise.

“Go outside, go outside and try to kill them all! I going to do my [spirit?] work inside. I going to kill them inside.”

No sooner does Hayik ‘uu go out than he open one of the łAkt and drink it all up. And the next one! Where in the world did he put all that? It's wonderful! [MJ had also referred to Raven's extraordinary capacity when we were making the recording.]

Once in a while he make a noise and pretend he's doing the work, too. He got one of them ‘inA [tongs]. There is no […. ?] on it, but he just snap it. It sounds like a gun went off.

“Ha, ha, ha, qat ‘aedułihadut[?],” he said in his own language. “I got him in the legs and broke the legs.” He makes believe that he is killing with the bow and arrow.

Hayik ‘uu was wondering how in the world he never come out and never help him kill the birds and stuff that is on top of the house. He just begin to wonder what Raven doing. He went inside, and there Raven is just finishing the last box of oil.

“What in the world are you doing?”

He got mad and got hold of his brother and just push him into a box half full of oil. When he is going to cover him in there, Yeł ask him what he is doing that crooked work for, what for he's going to tie him him in that box.

And here's where it run out [i.e. the recording tape, after 24:15 minutes].

EPISODE 4 (CONCLUDED)

[On September 13, Frank Italio was asked to tell the rest of the Raven stories from where he had ended before. He did so, and this recording lasted a little over 27 minutes. Minnie Johnson was again present, and that evening told us what he had said, adding a few additional explanations the following day, September 14, 1952.]

From there on, Hacaguk is tying him with the roots rope.

“Hacaguk, what you tying me with?”

“Rope, of course.”

“No, that ain't the rope they use, my old uncle[s].”

So Hacaguk cut the rope. You listen, hear how smart it is! He get a line of the kelp string. Frank didn't tell that.

“What kind of line?” [Raven asked].

“Tł’eyani [kelp cord].”

“No, no, no! That ain't the thing our uncles tied one another with. I’ll tell you what to do. Go down to the water's edge. Get one of the green grass stems. When anything caves in you can see the roots hanging down.”

The reason Raven said that was because that root rope he wouldn't get out of so easy, or that tłeyani.So he gave Hacaguk an order to use the grass.

I forget the mountain back of Akwe—no, it's Taca. So Hacaguk went way back on top of the mountain, want to get rid of his uncle, Raven, because he tells lies, makes trouble.

He dump him right off the cliff, and sure enough, the first bit of touch, that łAkt burst right open and Raven flew away.

EPISODE 5: RAVEN IN THE WHALE

Then he went beach combing—łenitixugut, wAncukA ugut, ‘around-the-beach he-went.’

Then he run into the big whale just taking a swim, diving up and down, just schooling. Raven sit on a stump and just watch. Don't know what to do to get ahold of him. Finally he come to conclusion, fly around and watch. Fly around and round. Every time that whale come up to breathe, that big hole get wide open. He scoop all the fresh air down in that hole.

It looks pretty good to him [Raven]. He watch the whale come up and go down.

Raven watch his chance, and when the whale comes up, he flies into that hole.

He find himself in a big house, full of fat. He don't know which way he come into there. And he went in there, start a fire. Everything is just roasting in there. He don't even know what way to go out. He just build a fire, eat and sleep, eat and sleep.

Finally, fat is just about disappear. He lay down, and is getting up to eat. Toast the fat. Finally he begin to bounce up and down—whale goes up and down. It is getting sick and wounded. Whale is restless.

First thing he know, Raven's head goes this way and that way [gestures of head shaken from side to side]. Raven's head bang back and forth. Finally it stop. Raven is wondering which way he's going to get out and that thing is start to roll. Raven is starting to sing:

“Łkwedi—nice sandy beach!”

[See comments, p. 846.]

He notice that thing is going to touch. He just keep still and sing that song. He cut the last part, the heart, and the whale die. He drift ashore. He toast that heart. Lay down and rest.

He hear human being outside. He's not so sure, but he can understand them. Pretty soon he realize whale is on the ground. Talk disappeared. In a few hours they come back again.

He start to sing, “Oh, I wonder who be so high-class like myself, kind enough to cut the whale so I can get out free…. I wish somebody high-class like me cut a place open so I can go.”

He could hear them saying they’re puzzled, never heard whale making that noise before. Then they walked away, but it's too big and valuable meat to let it go. Then they come back again with the hatchet. Yeł is patiently waiting.

When they’re cutting, he's dodging [word supplied], so he can get out unbeknownst. Whalebone is pretty hard to cut, and that fat is so thick [about 12 inches, gesture].

Sure enough, a person cut that wide open enough. He flew right up to the sky. And he start to sing that song, spins around and went up to the sky.

“Yayyik-dAx one” [whale-inside-from top, or “spinning wheel”]. He just give himself that name so they won't know he's Yels.

[Q:] That thing sounds like xun, North wind. Do they say it brings it if kids play with it?

[A:] Yes, but I don't believe it. [MJ then mentioned some Eskimo or “Aleut” gadget, but refused to repeat the native word or explain.]

Raven got above the clouds and come down. Rest on limb of spruce roots, clean himself up. People is busy putting up lsAkt of oil and fat. He flies around and watch that. After they get everything put up, he get to one end of the town and go to each house.

“I wonder if anybody hear anything in that whale that drift ashore?”

“No, no, not in this house. Maybe in next one.”

He went to the next house and asked the same question.

“No, nobody from this house. Go to next one.”

Next one, same thing.

Next one to the last, he requiring if they ever hear noise inside of that whale—

See, how he wished for that sand so he won't get hurt. If he drift ashore in the rocks he get banged pretty bad—

This time he question [the one who had heard him inside the whale].

They answer him right away. “That's right.” The person what heard him is the one he question. “I notify the others I hear it.” Raven come to the right place then.

“Oh, my!” He put his hand to side of his face [MJ covered her mouth, and said it meant surprise.] “That's a dangerous thing. So you fellows just have to pack and leave town. That's the sign the whole town is going to die off if you hear sound inside of animals that drift ashore, especially whale.”

Ain't that a hog? Raven is so small, but he turns himself into human being.

So the people get scared and move away. From that on, he live in there by himself, and all the fat and things put up, he ate them all.

My goodness, the way the people believes him! I would cut his head off!

[At some other time the same evening, MJ said:]

After Yels gets through with that whale business, I almost get into argue with Frank [Italio].

“Łeyun we.de—wish for good sandy beach” is correct. But Frank Italio say it that way: “yeyi lseyude.”

…When he drift ashore from the whale, he flew out, but Frank Italio didn't tell that part of it. He sing a song, flew way up so nobody notice him, and sing: “YayyikdA one” he call himself. Tls’uknaxAdi have that name, “Doné.”

EPISODE 6: RAVEN AND THE THEFT OF DAYLIGHT

So after he gets through eating all the whale fat, he went around the beach. After he get through with that whale trouble and eat it all up, he went up to the place where the noise is going on. He hear the noise is going on and he watch what's going on in the pitch dark. He could just hear the noise.

They scoop up little driftwoods. I don't know how they do it. Them caq-yAti; [’driftwood children’, i.e., small pieces], it drifts ashore. I don't know what they done, the people in the dark, whether they get it for firewood or not.

And he's howling and he call someone to come across and get him, otherwise he's going to break daylight on them. The old ones, the old people, get puzzled and wonder what he meant.

“Qe’a yekuauts—I’ll break daylight on you!”

So all the persons you know that's somebody old, like Frank Italio, I—kind of puzzle about it, and they says, “Since when you were up at the head of Nass and get daylight?”

They don't believe him. The old people give him an idea, just give him a hint. The person who hides daylight and the stars and moon lives at the head of the Nass.

Raven get an idea in his head and went up there. And he find a big house. Raven study up and down what to do to hold of daylight and the stars.

Raven study up and down. That man's servant generally goes down to the well and gets a bucket of water in a lsAkt diica, square wooden bucket.

He order one of his servants to go down there and get a drink of water for his daughter. Generally they use that pitch for a flashlight.

That man say, “Gee, look at the water—it's got pitch all over!”

Raven turns into a feather first. That man looks at the water by light, by the pitch, and the feather is floating. At first Raven just stand by the door and then he turns into a feather so the girl can swallow him.

“That's no good! Dump the water!”

That's what Frank Italio laughed at [referring to the recording]. Raven got dumped again!

He get up before the servant come back and he hid behind the door and when the servant comes by, he turns himself into dirt—on a spruce limb, that sticker, qItqa [needle]. He turn himself into a sticker off that spruce limb. This time he study up and down and he knows the easiest way to get inside the girl. That place where the bucket gets together—the three corners are just bent; the fourth corner is wooden pegs—he watches for that. And he turns to spruce sticker in the crack in the little square bucket.

And that man just examines the water. There's nothing on top nowhere, but Raven is inside in the corner of the bucket. And the minute the girl is taking a big swallow, down he went—down.

And after she swallow she says, “En, En!” And she try to get it out. “En, I swallow something funny,” she says. “I swallow something funny!”

Her father and mother and the bunch get busy. They even make her vomit. That's why people on earth have so many fatherless kids. Raven is the one to get that started.

Because the people need daylight, they have to work all that and go through all that red tape to get it. It's a good deed he's doing, though.

They try to get her to puke it up, but nothing come up. She can't puke up.

“Daughter, it's nothing danger you swallow. It's going to be all right.”

They didn't say anything more about it and they forget it. The first thing she knows she begins to feel funny. And she don't feel right. And she never had connections with a man. How come? She is getting tight as a kite.

Pretty soon Raven began to grow.—Frank Italio this afternoon said, “I wish everybody grow up as fast as Raven, just like minutes go round the clock, the way he wants to give the people daylight.”

So she is carrying and getting heavy when she start to get labor pains.

“Ah, something's the matter with my daughter!”

And they know what's happening, and he order his servants to get a place fixed up.

Funny! I saw my grandmother fix it up for my mother lots of times! They dig a square hole about a foot deep [extends hands about 12 inches apart], and they fill it with moss all around, spongy soft moss. There are two boards on each side of the moss, on the sides. They put a cloth of any soft kind over the moss.

And that's where he was born. At first her father give orders to line that place with marten skins. That makes Frank laugh! Suppose we all have to be born like that! We wouldn't be grow up! Poor people—Raven looks after the poor ones. That's why the babies not born on precious skins like that girl's father had.

Now that woman is suffering. They have to sit like that, kneeling. And every time she sits on that place the baby should be lying, the pain stops. The minute she moves out she gets the pain again. It keep on like that. That old man is wondering why his daughter should suffer that long.

He sent for a little old lady, a wise old lady: ł; LtuwAt ‘uwAdjigi canuw [cf. p. 816]. There is not one thing you ask her she doesn't know. Ask her any question—she knows just how to answer it. She knows everything. So that man sent for her.

When they brought her back to that girl, and—”My granddaughter!” She's surprised. “Maybe that marten skins doesn't agree with the baby.”

Yeł in there is moving around. He stops and gives his mother a rest for a while, till he hear what the old lady's going to say. She's pretty wise.

Finally the old lady tell them, “Take away the marten skins and put in moss!”

Down come Raven right away!

—And I was going to show the way they used to wrap up the first born baby. You know a cloth called “Capital”?—a tough white cloth, they call it. It's a thick white cloth. They make a long string of it. My mother used to make two or three yards of it. They arrange the whole body with the hands down. They fill it with moss all around. They put a blanket then. If you haven't got an outside cover ready, use that long strips for temporary, until you make a fancy uq [uk, baby carrier, pp. 503–504]—until that navel [cord] comes off the baby. It's easy to get at him. By that time the uq will be ready.

And Yeł was tied up like that.

They straighten out the arms and legs after the bath, and then wrap it up. And when the uq is ready, by that time the navel will come off—

And here's the Old Raven and that wise old lady. And they pass him around and see what he looks like. That man is so proud of his grandson!

That old lady get ahold of him pretty soon. “My grandson,” she said. “Oh,” she said. “He's got nothing but Raven's eyes! Oh, it puzzles me. How come his eyes is just like Raven?”

Raven's heart is just beating! He just feel like slapping that little old lady. His eyes just roll around—the skins of his eyes is just showing.

“That's Raven's eyes!”

I bet anything he's just mad at that old lady!

So it's all over—they all forget it. The old lady goes home. Nobody mention it.

That man is in his glory. Raven grows like a weed and the old man is proud as anything and give him this and that.

Pretty soon Raven is beginning to crawl. Raven, he got crying. And he has spells of crying—cry, cry, cry his eyes out. He just die crying. His grandfather and his grandfather's servants walk around and pick him up. And he won't stop.

Between times he got his eyes open, looking for the boxes of stars, daylight and the moon.

Pretty soon one of the servants says, “Why, that baby is pointing at that thing there and he wants to get hold of it.”

“If that's the cause, why, give it to him,” the grandfather said.

Raven is more than tickled. He crawl on the floor. That roll of stars is just like a ball. Raven roll it around the floor and wait until the door is open. He get against ‘em and shove. And the stars went up into the sky.

“Oh my! Why should my grandson cry for that?”

Well, he quit crying.

In two or three days, he see another box. And he start crying for it. He make a motion that he wants to get hold of it. They couldn't make him stop. He cry and cry. The old man gets nervous.

“Oh, for goodness sake, give that to him!”

That smokehouse hole, like a cap on the stove—ganyéłi, they call it, because Raven fly through there—it's like a pipe or a cap…. [Does this refer to the smokehole screen rather than the hole itself?]

And he cry for that, and they give it to him. The same thing. He play it around the floor, the moon, until he [the old man] gets sleepy. And then he waited for his chance to get the ganyełi open. The minute he get his chance, he bounce that moon out through there and it go to the sky.

Then he want to get done with it in a hurry. Then he holler. He wants to make people believe he's a baby.

He knows there's a box of daylight. And the servants do all kinds of things to make him stop crying, but he act like he's going to cry himself to death. It's the last thing his grandfather got. That's why up to this day a person thinks more of their grandchildren than of their own child—because Raven taught them how. That man gave his precious stuff to please his grandchild.

So he roll it around. He got a box of qe’a [daylight] under his wing. Whee! He flew right through the ganyełi!

“Ganyełi, catch hold of him!”

Too late. Old Raven went through a whole lot of things, lots of experience.

So he went to this here people, in the dark, and he said, “Come across and get me, come across! Otherwise I break the daylight on you.”

“No!” they answer him funny. That's why he got that daylight right on the riverbank. He sit down and he compose that song [1952, 7–2-A, B].

Daylight, daylight, daylight,

Pretty soon will be break.

That's all he says, but he got a tune to that song. He's all ready to get the daybreak on them.

“If you don't come and get me, I’m going to break daylight on you! Pretty soon I got to break it open!”

Two songs he compose—the last one. The old people amongst them [who] scoop up driftwood caught on all right. Old people is pretty wise, They thought that he went to Nass and they all get scared, but it's too late. The minute they heard those last words, they said,

“Yeł went up Nass for daylight. Now he's going to bust it open.”

Yeł went up to the head of the Nass And got daylight. Pretty soon, pretty soon, He's going to get that break open.

The old people caught on, but they don't believe nobody get daylight. But he knows. He's sitting on daylight and compose these songs.

“Get it out.”

“You want to find out whether I break daylight on you?”

Yeł open that łAkt [box] and then shut it quick again. They are all getting scared. They believe it.

And then he went and open it! Daylight, the sun, goes one way, and everything just come out!

All those who been scooping up driftwood were scared and scattered. Some who been wearing sealskin coats go in the water. Others with bearskins on—everyone for themselves scattered. The sealskin coats go down on the beach; the mountain goats go up in the mountains; the groundhogs go up in the mountains, as soon as he open daylight. It happened right in Akwe, in nao [Dry Bay].

A part of the trees stick out from the mountains like that. There are sandbanks there. That's where the whale drift ashore [Episode 5]. And he walk this way [towards Yakutat]. At Akwe is where he get daylight. And because he break daylight on them all, the rocks went that way and that way. From the other side of Dry Bay the rocks, and up this way. But the sand is there, because Raven wished for it. Everything get scattered, the rocks and all, when he opened daylight. That sand is Raven's wish. He holler for it.

So the groundhog went to the mountains. And that was the end.

[A to Q:] Yeah, they were people. I don't know why they were scooping up driftwood.

So it's just the same as the Bible. “God make the sun to shine by day and the moon and stars by night.”

That's our song [Tł’uknaxAdi], composed by Yeł. Every Raven tribe can sing that song that Yeł compose it. The Kwackqwan, Koskedi and anAxtedi. All the Raven tribes use that, but us is more titled to it.

FURTHER COMMENTS ON EPISODE 6

[These were made the following evening, when we asked for more information about the songs Frank Italio had sung.]

First he [Frank Italio] start how Raven got name Yeł and all that….

Raven made a song after he got that daylight. He sat on a box and compose the song. He made two songs.

[The first song was:] “Daylight, daylight, daylight.”

The next song that Yeł made is that he went up to the Nass and try to make people believe he can splash daylight on them.

“Since when you were up to the Nass and get the daylight? Nascak [i.e. Nas-cAki-yeł]—he's the only one that got the daylight.”

So after he's born, he cry for the daylight and his grandfather gave it to him.

“I sure went to Nass and get it.”

And now he get it. He's sitting on the bank on the box of daylight. And all at once when he gets to the last word of the daylight song he is making, he moved the lid off the box.

Now, I’m going to show the people

How I can break the daylight on them.

The Raven had to go way up to the head of the Nass

And get the daylight.

I’m pretty sure I can break the daylight on them.

“Get me across or else I’ll break the daylight on you!”

He move the lid a little and daylight flash, and they get scared. They start to come across to get Raven. But Raven went and open the box. Daylight came out on them and they get scared. Those who were wearing sealskins go in the water.

(Third version)

[Series three, as recorded by Frank Italio, May 7, 1954; Reel 2–2-E. Translated by JE from the tape. Knowing that he was coming to make recordings for me, old Frank Italio had told the Raven stories to a friend the day before. However, as recorded, the episodes were not told in a very connected fashion, for the old man was “mixed up,” according to the translator, and skipped about from one episode to the other. These incidents are here organized and summarized, although as far as possible in the language of the translator.]

He was asking if you know about [how] that Yeł [was] born in this world. She [HB, who was acting as interpreter during the recording] just said yes, they know.

[Nevertheless, Frank Italio went on to tell the story].

EPISODE 1: THE BIRTH OF RAVEN AND THE FLOOD

There was a woman, and her brother never let her kids grow. The Moon was that one, her brother. He always killed her kids because he's afraid that they might talk to his wife. But that tide, he controls the tide [flood]; that's why she's scared of him. Even when she have little baby girls, he always kills them because they might carry a message to his wife.

Guc-tu-wuł [Killerwhale with a ‘Hole in the Fin’]—that's Raven's father—kit-qwani [Killerwhale spirit.] CAnya tEyi—that's the rock at the lowest tide. That's where he pick up the little stones. He brought it out from the lowest tide. [He gave the stone to the grieving mother.] And she put those little stones in a secret place. And the Killerwhale told her the way to take care of it. It grows.

[The stone she swallowed became her child. That was Yeł.] He's made of stone. That's why he never get old and he wouldn't die…. But his mother was not the one who called him Yeł.

His uncle, the Moon, was married to some kind of a bird. And Raven did something in revenge, too, because some of his brothers and sisters were always killed off. That's why he did that. He broke Moon's wife to pieces, and they all start flying…[It is implied that this was the origin of the people who were fishing in the dark at Dry Bay, see below.]

His uncle tried to kill him by making a flood. The tide was just about halfway up the mountain. Flooded all over (yu qi kanada). That's when he was trying to kill that Yeł….

EPISODE 3: RAVEN AND THE CONTROLLER OF THE TIDES

Then Raven came in to this old man. And he says [eating] the sea urchins is what made him get cold. And he lay right close to the fire. And he [the old man] took that fire off; he push him away from it. He lay too close to it.

And the old man asked him, “What low tide was that [on which you] got those sea urchins? What tide was that you got those sea urchins?”

That's why Raven throw him over. He hit him with that sea urchin. Pretty soon the tide start going down. He was telling him to stop it, the tide might run out. That's when they first called him “Yeł.” De Yeł de oqała—’he's the one called him Yeł first.’

The tide run out on everything—whale, and everything that's in the water. That tide way up there, way up on the mountain, and now the tide was going almost dry.

EPISODE 6: RAVEN AND THE THEFT OF DAYLIGHT

He break daylight over that Akwe, near Dry Bay. He came to those YIXtat-tu-qwani—that's ‘People in the Dark.' Raven didn't know where the daylight is, but just by something, just by what they were saying, that's how he find out.

He was calling to them to come and pick him up, and they said:

“Who's that Nas-CAki-YIt to have the daylight?”

That YIt is like ‘child-of' [sic].

That's why he went over to that Nass River….

He went up, to above Nass River. He became a child. That's when he got in that little pine needle and that woman drink water with him.

He wanted everything, he wanted everything in that house. He's calling for everything.

First he got that stars and he throw it outside. It was all over in the sky. Then he just cries after it, and his grandfather loves him so much, and he just don't care, he had to give him another one. He don't want to give it to him, but he love him so much, he just has to let it go. He's crying for it….

Then Raven came back to the People in the Dark at Akwe. He try it over again. He came back and told them to pick him up again. That's his own song, and he's singing about himself.

The song [1954, 2-2-E a] refers to breaking open the box of daylight. At first he was sitting on that container of that daylight, and asked if he should leave it that way, or let the daylight out.

He slipped the cover off and just like a lightning…. [The narrator's explosive “pow!” can be heard on the recording. Then follows song b.]

Everybody was frightened, and some were wearing sealskins and others like fox blankets. After he opens the daylight, that's when they all run out. People using that sealskin start running in the water, and the people wearing land animal furs running into the mountains.

From Situk all the way to Seaweed Point, west of Cape Fairweather, it's just the way those rocks are running that way. [I.e., there are no rocks, because they were all frightened away.]

After he breaks daylight, and then it gets dark and daylight, they call him “Yeł,” just the way the old man called him “Yeł.”

EPISODE 9: RAVEN MAKES GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES

He did everything, all over the world. That “Kayak” [Wingham Island]—that's Yeł's boat—deyagułet—that's the kayaks they use. I guess it's made out of skins. [Cf. pp. 330–332.]

Kayak Island supposed to be a whale. Something sticks out of a nearby one—it's a spear. He cut some of the blubber out of it [the whale], and some of it drift up on that shore. His house (Yeł hIdi) is on that side—Cape Suckling, I think.

Something drifted up at Katalla (Qatana)—those little islands [Martin Islands].

The buoy (kAis) was sticking out; they were sailing right by it.

Raven is up westward, right at the end (’acu). His house is a rock, where he's staying—Aleutian Islands, I guess [added the translator].

Yeł is still alive. It's up westward some place. He's made of stone, that's why he never get old and he wouldn't die. He went all over the world. Even when he went in that whale he didn't die, but came ashore with him.

Isolated Incidents of the Raven Cycle

EPISODE 1: THE BIRTH OF RAVEN AND THE FLOOD

[Comments by GJ to Harrington, 1940]

CAnyaa-ttheeyyíi—name of Raven's uncle [sic!].

The old people, 200 years ago, mebbe, used to call the beach cAny`a, but now we call the beach łèen- ‘iitthíi [’low tide place of’]. The name of Raven's uncle [sic!] means 'stone of the beach.’ He meditates: “I wonder what they use for that stone.”

CAnyaa—’down at the beach.’

[The informant was obviously referring to the stone from the lowest tide level on the beach which the Killerwhale told Raven's mother to swallow so that she might conceive.]

Raven's mother was Nass River chief's daughter. Nass is Prince Rupert. Raven is born without a man. Call him N´as ‘aankhaawwuu.

[This version was told by MH, August 24, 1952.]

Those comic books—the Indians had stories like that. We used to have people like Superman long ago.

The Creator talks on the wire from Nass to Dry Bay—talks into the air. He coaxed the salmon into Dry Bay [cf. Episode 14]. The first day breaks into Dry Bay [cf. Episode 6].

The Creator is a powerful man with a beautiful woman as a wife, and one sister. And each time she [the sister] find she had a child, her brother would kill it. He had a cage and kept his wife in it, hanging from the roof.

People came from birds. Kun [flicker] is his first wife. He keeps her in a cage; and it's just bright, like the sun comes out, when he takes her out of the cage.

Kun—we don't see that kind of a bird [i.e., near Yakutat]. They have that kind of feathers on cAki’AT [headdress, pp. 442–443]. Very seldom we see those birds. The feathers are gold and black and yellow. Any man that find them get rich. It costs many slaves for just a few feathers.

The Creator is called QmgA[or QmgE] or yu qíkuqék “he can make a flood” [yu qÍś quqék?].

He destroyed his sister's boys every time when they came to 15. He tells his sister he takes them out to do some work, but he comes back without them. His sister wants a baby, but always has a boy, so finally, last time he kills the boys, she is walking on the beach and crying:

“I wonder what can help me to save my babies.”

Then something came to her—

Poor M—! [The narrator apostrophized herself]. I forgot some of it. I forgot what came to her. I don't want to tell a lie. [The narrator was upset at her lapse of memory.]

Something—this man came to her. “Why crying, lady?”

“Well, every time I have a baby, that my brother destroys him.”

“Go clear down the beach where the tide reaches. Take four little rocks, real round, no bump or anything on it, and swallow it.”

And she did.

She do just what that man told her to do it. Then after that she a had a boy, real pretty, white—a white bird.

And when he became a young man he asks his mother what is hanging up there because his uncle always sent him somewhere before he opens that cage.

When he grow up, she warning him: “Please, son, if your uncle ask you to go, don't go with him. He destroy all your brothers.”

He told his mother not to worry. “I’m going to destroy him this time. I’ll get even with him.”

Then the same thing happened one day. He [the uncle] told him: “Now,” he says, “my nephew, let's go out and chop that tree down there.”

That's the beginning. He knows what his uncle's going to do. He knows his uncle's going to try to kill him. That tree is like ‘in, hard like glass [cf. p. 413]. Then if you chop it, the chips fly all around, and it cuts you, if you hit it with tayis [splitting adz, p. 414]. And the chips killed his brothers.

Then his mother start to cry and he told his mother not to worry. “I’m coming back, mother. Don't worry.”

The first thing, he took him to this tree. Then he said, “You chop this tree down, ‘akełł [my nephew].”

And all that thing just flies. The chips fly all over—[But they don't hit him, or they don't hurt him].

That's the way Indians make fire. D`tsí [strike-a- light] they call it. That's why the Indians make fire from it. [The narrator refers to the use of flint or chert, ‘In, which were used for striking sparks to light a fire, cf. p. 307.]

He fall that tree. He [the uncle] don't know what to think. His uncle came home before, and his mother start to worry, but here he knock that thing down and come home.

His uncle asks, “You chop that tree down?”

“Yes.”

“How come?”

“Well, I chop this tree down.”

[There was a break in the narrative, while MH explained how she had learned the story, cf. p. 514. After discussing a number of other subjects, the narrator resumed.]

The next treatment he gives his nephew is his boat, canoe. It is made out of the tree. They make the frame. He took his nephew out the next day. The canoe is half finished. He told him:

“You go inside the canoe.”

“Why?”

“Well, you go in. I’ll fix it up with you.”

He took the cross sticks out [i.e., that were spreading the sides, cf. p. 343]. He went in, and then it just goes [snap!]. It closes up tight with him. He stays still until his uncle left him. Then he takes his elbows up [gesture of pushing the sides of the canoe apart with the elbows], opens it, and goes out.

Then he gets mad. He took that cage down when he came home, smashed it in small pieces, and take the kun out.

“Now you can fly up to the country where you can be the kun.”

—You can see them [flickers] on the ground. Even today, it's very hard to see it.—

After his nephew killed his wife, he floods the world—the first flood in world. And then you know, when he [Raven] knows the water coming up, he hid his mother in one, so she wouldn't drown. [He hid her in a duck skin.] The duck is Tcá. It has a small neck and is gray and white spotted. She turned into a duck…. Tc´ is a salt water duck like a grebe—color like a loon, like a kił [loon, cf. p. 42]. It lays eggs in Hazel and Coronation Island [cf. p. 46]….

After that, he killed all the danger things [monsters].

When he couldn't see the earth, he fly to the sky. I guess Noah got that Flood. We know that Bible 75 years ago [i.e., when the missionaries came], but we know that story from generation to generation….

[With reference to the complex process of drying fish, pp. 399–401, when C McC asked how people had ever learned to do it, the narrator said:]

The Creator was a bird. He taught people how to dry fish.

He created people. He tried rocks [etc.], and then tried a rotten wood. We’re made out of the rotten limb from under the ground of a stump—HAcaguw [acagukw?] was the first man. Yeł was the creator.

EPISODE 1: THE BIRTH OF RAVEN

[Told by Minnie Johnson, February 16, 1954.]

The Killerwhale heard a girl weeping and crying because she lost all her children. Her brother killed them. He came ashore and turned into a human being. He gave her instructions on how to take care of her children next time she get that way. That's how Raven was born. He's Killerwhale's son. He gave her instructions to go down the beach where the tide goes way out and pick up a rock and heat it up and swallow it. Then things would turn out all right. Her brother wouldn't hurt the baby.

Afterwards Raven killed his uncle and everything to him…. [This seems to be a reference to his uncle's wife that the uncle kept tied up in a box.] Raven was a great one to go from village to village.

EPISODE 3: RAVEN AND THE CONTROLLER OF THE TIDES

[After prompting with the Chugach story of how the Blackfish stole Raven's wife, and how Raven had to go under the sea to rescue her (Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 167–170), Minnie Johnson told the following story, in somewhat inverted order, June 1949.]

Before he come to that old lady, (”Boss of the Tide”), he walks—that's what they say, but he was flying—around the beach. People getting to be wise to him. He met people fishing halibut. He went on the kelp. He just wondering how he can go on the bottom of the sea to catch fish. He went down the kelp and so got the sea egg [sea urchin], he later used to hit the old woman with. She always kept the tide up, and so she was surprised that he had one.

Raven met old, old woman resting by the fire. Her bare backside was next the fire. Raven sneaks in and beats her up. [At first, the narrator said it was with a club; later she added the first paragraph given above, and explained it was with the sea urchin.]

Raven had a special song he made up: “Let the tide go out!” He sang as he beat the old woman.

Finally she gave in. “Tide's going out,” she said.

Raven had a partner, named ACAgAkkw, “half- man.” [18] He sends his sidekick out to see how low the tide is.

“The tide's coming down,” the partner reported.

It was halfway down, so Raven kept beating the old woman, and she kept calling, “Raven, Raven, enough! The tide's going out. Diyeł, diyeł, deqAq wstła!”

David H's name is Diyeł—a high-class name.

The old woman was Boss of the Tides. Raven kept beating her until he got it the way the low tide is. That was the first time it was low tide. So he got his supply from the beach: shellfish, sea eggs [sea urchins], fish…. [The narrator made an obscure reference to devilfish.]

[Told by JE, March 3, 1954, when asked what makes the tides.]

He [Raven] got down in these kelps and he had these sea shells and that there woman was sitting on it. That old woman don't sit still, the tide moves up and down.

[A to Q:] She was sitting on the tide, but not at the edge of the water. She control it right in her home.

He got this woman over and start hitting her seat on the sea shell—ni [sea urchin], and that's why she couldn't sit still no more. Keeps moving.

[In answer to questions he made it clear that the old woman's backside is still sore. That's why she can't sit still, and why the tides continue to go up and down.]

…I don't remember that old woman's name.

Tayi canUk—[is] old lady that controls earthquakes, yu ‘ankA ‘Á (earthquake). They claim there's something like bamboo growing under this earth, and this old lady sits there, and for some reason Yeł tries to pull her away, and she grabs hold of the pole—causes the earthquake.

EPISODE 5: RAVEN IN THE WHALE

[Told by Peter Lawrence, July 4, 1949. This version has been edited from notes.]

After Raven created the world, people said, “What you going to eat?”

So he went out to sea, and saw a pretty big whale. As soon as it blew out, Raven flew right in the blowhole—kill the whale. He stays inside. He stuck his head out.

Raven made a wish. “I wish this whale go to sand beach—not rocky.”

And the whale drift ashore at a sand beach. This was in Dry Bay. The whole tribe then took lots of meat out, and fat [from the dead whale]. After they took the meat and fat out, they put it up for winter supply. After they took everything out, an old man came down to see if he could get some meat from the whale.

Crow stick his head out of the ribs. The old man hear something: “I wish somebody cut a hole—princes like me—so I could get out of the whale, so I can fly out.”

[This phrase was always repeated in Tlingit, but I was unable to record it.]

And the old man went to the people. He surprised the people with what he hear. [Tlingit phrase repeated.]

Everything was cooked—enough for 5 or 10 years. Crow goes sneaking around the house. Somebody gives him fat and fish with it, and dried meat.

And he asked the people, “Did you hear anything inside?”

“Yes.”

“What did you hear?”

[The people repeated the Tlingit phrase.]

Crow put down the dish. “This happened before. I wouldn't eat that. My father and my grandfather and my uncles eat a whale like that and die.” He began to cry, “i.i.i.i!” He told the people, “The whale meat is danger.”

He told the people if they all went to the woods, they live today; if they wanted whale meat they all die.

After everyone goes, he took the meat in the woods to hide it. He wanted all the whale meat himself. The people caught him at it, hiding it.

[A to Q:] They made a fun of him. They torch him. Crow was white before but they smoked him. They torch it—poor Crow!

[Told by Minnie Johnson, April 6, 1954. I had asked her about the words of the song which Raven sang at the potlatch, cf. Episode 16, but mention of the Killerwhales led MJ to speak about this episode first.]

Well, he went to the town, that killerwhale, you know. They call it the fat of the killerwhale, and he get the łAkt [box] all full of oil and fat. And they having a feast. After they get that put up, Raven come around and tell them, you know, he's been in that whale himself and he's wishing to be washed ashore, and he did. When the people come down they think they pretty lucky to find that whale floated ashore. Raven was singing a song inside. He kicked at the inside of the whale.

[Q: He sang the song wishing it would float ashore?]

No, he wish for somebody cut the whale open so he can be free. Lucky when he find out something inside of that whale.

“I wish some lucky high-class person the same as I am would cut the whale open so I can fly out of there.”

And finally gets somebody to cut that whale open and he flew out. After he got that, he flew out of there and he clean himself, and then, after them people cut that fat up, he went through the houses and he's requiring [inquiring]—you know how he is—smart talk. He's requiring if anybody ever hears funny noise inside of that whale. So the townspeople admit that, sure enough, something sound funny inside of that whale. I think that's a raven, but he turn himself into human being.

So them people he told them that, “Oh my goodness! A whale like that? Hear funny noise inside? Cause of the townspeople there all dead, it sounds like to me.”

Townspeople get scared and move out and left all that fat and stuff to him, so he lives on it.

He sing a song in there and he says he wish that whale…

“’AdúskE [’adúsgI, who perhaps] gaye [qayA, a man like] ’anyAdi [high-class person] sÚk [sAkw, destined to be] qaqanÁ ‘anqUxáx [?-to cut open], yay-yIk-dA [out of the whale] keduqin [I will fly out].”

That's the song he's singing inside there. He wishing: “I wish somebody as high-class as I am, I wish somebody come around as high-class as I am, so to cut that whale open so I can fly out.”

[Comment made on April 6, 1954:]

The man that come to that whale, he went home and notify the rest. When they come down they hear that song inside the whale. They get personal about that, they never hear anything like that before.

EPISODE 6: RAVEN AND THE THEFT OF DAYLIGHT

[Told by MH to Harrington in 1940.]

Raven saw a beautiful girl and wanted to be a human. He wanted to be a little bug in the water, but when the girl went to wash, she saw the Raven and threw him out. Then Raven got into the shape of a hemlock leaf and the girl wiped her arse and she got knocked up. Her monthly passed and no menstruation, she was worried, she did not know why. Her mother swore she was a virgin, the slaves swore she was a virgin. She was living in her big castle place. The time came for the child to be birthed, the father got beaver skins, mink skins to lay the baby in—very valuable, cost lots of money. But the baby would not come. They called in the old woman prophet. The old woman said: “No, baby won’t come with all the furs; get moss off the trees.” Therefore today poor people can be born just like Raven, the son of God.

The Raven went out and found the sun and the moon in a house, hidden way in the back and he grabbed the sun. The lady says that “below” [i.e., S.E. of (JPH)]Yakutat, was where a piece of the light hit. That is the reason there are no hooters [grouse (JPH)], no deer, no moose, here at Yakutat.

[Comments made by Minnie Johnson, July 16, 1952.]

Raven stories are just like the Bible, only it was Yeł. He made lakes, made people, turned the animals [into their present forms], and told them which way to go….

He was born to a rich man's daughter. The rich man had moon and stars and daylight.

His grandfather ordered a fur for the hole, the size of the baby. He ordered fur to line the hole for Yeł when he's going to be born. He got it all fixed up.

And that woman have a baby without a husband. She swallow a sticker off a tree.

Yeł think of poor people who can't afford furs and Yeł won't come out until they got moss and stuff around. He helps the poor when he was born.

His eyes is familiar with [to] the people that looks at him. His eyes roll around too far, they rolls right around. That's why Yeł get kind of a skinny like eye. He rolls it around and size things up, what he's going to do next….

[The story was never finished.]

[Told by JE, March 3, 1954, when asked: What did they think the moon was made of?]

This man, they call him yu qí kuqek, “person who controls the tides.” He had all the moon and stars in a box. Raven wants to get it.

They were dipping these hooligans in the river. He come around there and he ask them to give him some. Nobody pay any attention to him, so he says, “I might break the daylight on you.”

What he was really trying to find out was who had all these things, you know.

Pretty soon somebody says, “Who's that man controlling the tides—yu qí kuqèk?”

The way he said it, this man, he had a daughter. She's all ready to get married, but sits in a room where nobody can see her. They believe anything she sees, looks at, turn into stone. [I.e., she was adolescent.]

And he find out, and then he tried to get into that family some way, so he can get those things. And he try that green stuff on the tree—evergreen tree. [The narrator asked for the English word.] QItqa—needle.

He got into that, and when one of the slaves went after water, he got in there. And when she took water, they always examine it real good to make sure there's no dirt in it. He gets in there under the edge, hide under the rim. First they see it and throw it out. Next time he get in.

Then this woman's going to have a baby. When this baby's going to born, they try all kinds of expensive stuff, because this man's rich man. But he don’t get born.

Finally they send for a woman, łyú’At kuwAdjiki cawAt, a ‘woman that has nothing to worry about' because she knows everything. There's nothing she can't think about.

She's the one they send after. And then she says, “Maybe this moss, sí, would work.”

And then that baby was born.

And this łyú’At kuwAdjiki cawAt, she looks at it, you know, and pretty soon that baby opens his eyes, and she says:

“DetA Yeł wAq xa se ‘a datcÁn—looks like Raven's eye.” [Indeed Raven's eye -?- my grandchild.]

And then pretty soon this baby start growing up and then he start crying about this moon that was up there in some place—They call it yáckA—something like a platform [cf. p. 296]. Some people stay [sleep] up there.

He start crying for that. [A to Q:] I don’t know which one he got first. I think he got stars first, and he throw it into the air. Throw it up through the smokehole, gankAnA, and then they got these stars in the sky.

And then he crying for the moon, but they wouldn't give it to him. Finally he start calling “DIs! [moon].” He cry and cry, and finally got that moon and start rolling it around that fire. Then he took off with it.

[Q: Did he cry for the sun, too?] It wasn’t the sun he was going to get, it was the daylight. It was dark all the time, and he was fooling around for a while, and pretty soon he just pushed [or pulled?] that thing open, and it came like lightning all of a sudden. And that's when he took off with it.

He went back to this same bunch [of eulachon fishermen] and kept telling it [i.e., threatening to break daylight on them]. Pretty soon he opened this box and daylight came, and everybody got scared. People wearing sealskin ran out into the water. The mountains moved back. All these rocks in Yakutat area moved back. That's why it is all flat [referring to the coastal plain]. Maybe it's true.

[The narrator then referred to a story about a monster devilfish which he also thought might be true, but did not tell it.]

[A to Q:] He threw the moon through the smokehole and let it go. Took off with daylight because that's the main thing he was trying to get.

[The narrator did not know how the men were catching fish in the dark, when asked if they used torches]. I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t know about fire then, because they just got the daylight then. One story comes after another. [See Episode 11: Raven Obtains Fire, which the narrator had already told.]

[Told by EE, March 31, and April 1, 1954. This story was told when the narrator was asked why Raven's mother wasn’t disgraced because she had a baby without a husband (cf. p. 523). The narrator said this was just like the Virgin Mary, and then began the story.]

That's ’anyAdi, that woman—big, high-class woman. Nass—I think around Vancouver. Way up there they stayed, that big, high-class woman. And he's got the daylight, you know. Used to be so it's dark like that. They got stars and they got moon—in the box like this [measuring about 30 inches] they got daylight.

Then afterwards, he goes over there, he tells it. He goes over there and he sees that ‘anyAdi, and she likes to drink water. That bucket, you know. He goes in. When he takes it in, the water, that guw [slave], he jump. He goes in the corner.

“Oh dear, I swallow some kind of dirt—a stick or something. I swallow it.”

“Did it stick in your throat?”

“No, I swallow it already.”

“Throw away that water, get another one.” That guw takes it again. He takes another water.

After while she got a big stomach. Then because she's ‘anyAdi, that's why they put that marten (ux), like minks, and some other good high-class skin, they put it underneath her.

It don't born, that baby.

Then after while they call like fortuneteller, that one.

“That baby never borns, such a hard time, that girl!”

Then that one says, “You can use moss on the trees, you know. They’re going to born.”

They get that moss. That baby's born. He sure grows fast! [The story ended here abruptly.]

[The narrator returned the next afternoon, as she had promised, and then offered to continue the Raven story. As usual, the pronouns were confused: he-she, he-they. A sample is given, then the rest are corrected as far as possible.]

That stars and moon, they call it. They cry; they want that stars. He want it [correcting herself]. He crawling around, that baby. He want it. After while they give it to him.

His grandfather says, “Give it to him.”

They give him that star first. He roll it around on the floor. After while he open it. It's all over [gesture toward the sky], that stars.

Then he just take it easy, you know, that Yeł. After while he call for that moon again. He likes it.

“No.” They don’t listen to him.

After while they got tired [of his] crying. Then they give it to him. He rolling it around. “No.” After while he opens it. That moon is just in the sky, you know.

[Q: What was the moon in?] Just like a box. They had it in this. They hang it [gesturing to the ceiling]. The star and the moon, and the last one is qe’á—‘daylight’ he calls it.

It's dark all the time. All that animals and all that seagulls and eagles [obviously trying to remember the word “birds”], they all together in a dark place in Dry Bay.

Then after while he just crying, crying about that qe'á. He likes it. For about 2 weeks he cries. His grandpa don’t want to give it to him. After while, gee, he got tired, that man! His grandpa and grandma they give it to him. He takes it around. When he got tired, he sleeps. Then after while he flies with it.

His grandpa says, “Tł’iciéyi Yeł—Bad Raven! He takes all my property away.” That's the way he says.

Then he takes that to Dry Bay. Then he sees everybody dipping that—I don't know what's that: small sticks they dipping in—in Dry Bay, you know, in a dark place. That xuts [bear] and everything, you know, over there together. They got good time dipping that thing, maybe hooligans or something. Those sticks—caq-yAti [driftwood ‘babies’]. That's the one they dipping, they says.

[Q: They were trying to catch fish with those little sticks?] I guess so. They were putting them in the water in the dark place.

Then he says, “Come to me! Take me over on the other side!”

“No.” They don't listen.

“I’m going to open the daylight.”

“You're not Nas-cAki-yAt [sic],” they says.

“Qe'a dakEt ’Ana’u—Daylight box belongs to me.”

[Q: Raven said that?] No, the people dipping.

“I’m going to open the daylight.”

They says, “GudÁ Nas-cAki-yAt qe'a dakEt du tciyEn ati [du djit? yEngati].” [Where-from Nass-head-of-place daylight box to-his-hands did-he-carry?].

Nobody can't do anything. They can't get it from that man, you know. He's got it. It's his own, his own property. Just because he's the grandchild of the Nass—that's why he got it.

Then the second one, he says, “I’m going to open the daylight.”

He got it a little bit open, you know. That daylight just a little bit open [gesture of opening the box a crack].

“Xeeee!!” they says. They're scared of that daylight.

After while he open that daylight. That's the time it's daylight. Everything go in the woods, the people that's human beings. [I.e., those who ran away had been human.] They got bearskin on—man goes to the woods, woman goes to the woods. And fox goes to the woods, and all that rabbit, squirrel, everything—they goes to the woods.

That fur of that squirrel, they use it for that skin, a blanket like clothes—that's the kind of people goes to the woods.

And that sealskin blanket they using—they going in the water. Everything they wearing, they go in the right place.

The rocks go away. You never see rocks at Dry Bay.

[Q: The rocks were human beings too?] Even the rocks go away. [Later the narrator said specifically that rocks now have indwelling spirits, tE-qwani, that can hear what people say. They turned into rocks when the daylight came.]

[Translated by Minnie Johnson from the recorded Tlingit introduction by Mrs. Frank Dick to the Raven and Daylight song (1954, 6–2–B), May 17, 1954 (p. 1155).]

She [Mrs. Frank Dick] claim that Raven compose that song himself.

He went to a place where they were fishing and scooping up some fish. Them days it's dark—no daylight.

He went right across [he wanted to go across?], and he's begging them to take him across. And he said, “Come ashore and get me. Come over and get me. Or else I'll break the daylight over you. i-kAk qe'a nAqwaut [On-you (pl.) daylight I'll-break].”

And he keep saying that, “Come over and get me!”

And they finally, they send for a wise old lady. And then they said, “Who in the deuce is that, that owns the light? There's nobody got the daylight, except Nas-CAk [head of Nass River] has got the daylight. And they go way up to Nass, you dirty old poop pants! [The translator laughed.] You dirty old poop!”

Raven go up to head of Nass and get the daylight. He's the only one got the daylight. That's how Yeł—that wise old woman. There's no such thing as Yeł that time [as a name]. She the one give him that Yeł business. Ever since that they call him “Yeł”…“Yeł itłi.” [‘Raven's excrement’; cf. Boas, 1917, p. 149 from Swanton, yÁ-tł'itł’, ‘to defecate.’] That's all she said.

But Yeł went up there. That song is composed like that. He went up. You know the story about it, the Owner of the Daylight up at Nass. He [she, his daughter] start to swallow that dirt, he [Raven] turn into baby. That's how come Yeł went up there, because that wise old lady told him to go up there, because he's the only one got that daylight. Raven is just wondering how he's going to go up there so he can get ahold of that stars and moon. That man has everything. The only way he could do it is to turn himself into dirt and let the Owner of the light and stuff—you know how that is.

From that time on that people think so much of their grandchildren because of that man. Raven holler for that stuff. He's just got a house and living there with that business [i.e., the stars, moon, and daylight]. He's got them all….

She [Mrs. Frank Dick] can’t demonstrate the whole thing because she get so short-winded. She can't carry the whole story. But that song is composed by Yeł:

At the head of Nass was the daylight.

Untie the box for him.

His grandchild cried for the daylight.

EPISODE 7: RAVEN MAKES THE EARTH

[As told by HKB, September 2, 1952. The order of the incidents, 7 and 8, was inverted in the telling, although Episode 7, dealing with creation obviously came first, and is here so presented.]

It's just like the Old Testament and after that it's New Testament…. [The narrator implied that the Raven stories were like the Old Testament, whereas stories telling about the movements of sibs after the Flood were like those in the New Testament. He mentioned how the people had come north from Tanyedaq, “way down around Ketchikan, below Ketchikan.”]

And after that we find ourselves up here. It's a story continued to the Christ born. We don't know ourselves how we are created.

But in the first place, it's a story says that Old Raven created the world. It's the Raven, but they call him Yeł.

[Q: How did he create the world?]

Nobody knows it, but he created the world. After we learn it from the Bible it's the same story. But the only thing [that] is different—that God created the world in about a week. But the Creator got no rest in the week. He keep agoing.

At the very first Raven created the world, what is water, and then the earth. After the earth, then the seeds, you know, for the spruce and bushes and everything. And the Old Raven get no rest until he get the fish, the fish of all kinds. No rest for Old Raven.

After the Old Raven got the earth and everything, then he notify the Man, “I am the man that created for you.” He made the Man before the Woman.

And then he went out, so many miles nobody knows how far, to a woman island. And he notifies the women, “I created the world for you, but you got to be among the men.”

“But it's an island,” they said.

Then he try everything in the world he can find to bring that women to the mainland from that island. But he can’t find nobody.

Then at last he became to a pitch, spruce pitch, the spirit of it—kwu [k’u]. That's all the spirit he can get to the island of the women to bring it [them] to the world. At last he get it, he bring it to the world—pitch—the women, for the men to get married with it. Then he did it, and that's why these days you got to have a woman to love. Before that, we never get it.

And from that day up, the world is growing, everything is having a child and there is more of everything.

[The “comical story” of how Raven obtained women was never told. Apparently it involved making female sex organs from the pitch, and the narrator did not want this recorded. This probably involves transforming a gAtan or homosexual into a woman, cf. Swanton, 1909, Tale 1, p. 16.]

And then he asked himself, “What is my tribe going to be?” he asked himself.

And an answer came back to him, “Raven,” he said, “Raven—Yeł.”

Then he keep on going creating the world—the Creator of the world. After so much of working hard, he is coming back where he started the world. He found out that it's a very strong nationality, he found against him, against himself. That was a Wolf, Bear, and Kit [Killerwhale].

And then after he found out all the strong nations against himself, he tried to make a brotherhood. And he tried to make a brotherhood of all the people in Alaska—I mean, in the world. He try to make them all be a brotherhood, but they are all against him.

And at last he said, “You be all against me.”

…It's all in favor with him, Brown Bear and Wolf and everything what's in the water is in favor of him. And the only thing against him was the Wolf.

And then he said, Old Raven said, “All right, all right, you be against me. We’ll be all in the brotherhood, and you are the only one against it. From now on you are going to be heard all over the world—your voice in the country, calling for help. It's going to be that way all the time. It's your own sin.”

That's what Old Raven said.

And right now, every place you go, you’re going to hear Old Wolf: “Uuu!” [The narrator gave a very realistic howl.] That's what Old Raven says.

That's what you call in the Bible “Creator of the World.” But after we come to Christians, I never tell you yet….

EPISODE 8: RAVEN DECEIVES THE SEA OTTERS AND OBTAINS PLANTS

[As told by HKB, September 2, 1952. This episode preceded Episode 7 as narrated.]

Raven goes around the world. He sees just a little bit of smoke coming out of the moss. No trees or bushes. He comes to the smoke. Introduces himself. Sometimes they say [it] is a spider, living like us [that he came to]. Once, it's the last, coming to under the water, sea otter. Had a big family, the sea otter.

Raven came to groundhogs, all kinds of birds and animals, but it's nothing to the Raven unless it's under the water or under the land.

I don't tell you the story…. [The narrator meant that he was omitting incidents. These evidently involved Raven's visits to all the different animals and the reasons for his search.]

He say he's sick, but he ain't sick at all. He was just fooling, wanted to fool the chief of the Sea Otters. He said he was a prince from the earth. He said he run down from the hills, and he bumped his knee on all kinds of trees and bushes. But there weren't any. [There was only moss on earth then.]

The Sea Otter said to his wife, “Why not marry this prince to our daughter?”

She said, “It's all right for me.”

So they did.

Sea Otter got all those roots that Raven never found on the earth. Raven said, “These spruce roots would help [i.e., help his injured knee]. This root, and this root, and this root—.”

He get them all. They were laid on his knee, and then Raven get them in his mouth. He flew away with them, spit them all out over the earth.

It's the beginning of created the world. Creator and Raven story is almost the same.

[This explanation was given in English by Minnie Johnson before the song was recorded which belongs to the story (1952, 1–1–C) [p. 1158]. We were not permitted to tape this English version, although Jack Reed recorded the story in Tlingit as introduction to the song, June 21, 1952.]

At a potlatch, the TłukaAdi invited the Dry Bay over here. That house is still standing. It belong to Sitka Ned [i.e., the Teqwedi Coward House, No. 8 in the Old Village, p. 324].

[I interpret these confused remarks to mean that the Teqwedi gave the potlatch, perhaps in 1910, to which the Dry Bay Tł’uknaAdi were invited, and at which they sang this song.]

The song they're going to sing, it's composed a long time ago.

Yeł when he walk around on the beach—there is no land or anything. And there's some kind of a mix-up. He hurt his leg or something. He just walk around on the beach and he see a big coil of kelp.

Well, you know, he's a human being, and he turn into Crow when nobody is looking. And here he come upon a sea otter. That's where the sea otter live, in a big coil of kelp.

So Crow went and ask, “What's good for someone that's wounded? What's good for my leg?”

They don't even say in the song what they give him for medicine. It's just a song composed about Raven. The sea otter give him something. Crow just get the inside news. He's not really hurt. He just want to get wise to what the sea otter use.

That's what Raven found out.

…The words to the song are what the sea otter told Raven:

Steer for that sand dune

And that ci (real hard wood) grows there

And you'll have the luck.

…Raven always gets into mischief. [The other singers laughed.] That's a good one.

…That Old Raven—when it's anything serious, it's always “brother-in-law,” “father-in-law!” [i.e., Raven appeals to others as relatives, in order to deceive them.]

EPISODE 9: RAVEN MAKES GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES

[From notes of Harrington, 1939.]

[PL, WM, and GJ were evidently discussing the geography of the Controller Bay area, which was illustrated by a sketch map, probably drawn by one of them, to which Harrington attached the native names. These scattered notes are here summarized. See also pp. 100–103.]

[GJ] There are two islands in front of Katalla. One is called Big Kayak Island and the other is Small Kayak Island. The biggest lighthouse in all Alaska is on the coast end of Big Kayak, at an elevation that is called in Indian ‘the whale's head,' yaa-CÁ, and the Indians used to camp there and look for the sea otter before the lighthouse was erected there.

[PL] The whole island is called YaayykhÁ, ‘Whale Island.’ [GJ agrees.] Steam from that island comes up like a whale spouting. That island looks like a whale.

[GJ] The old Raven, when he saw the small whale, he went in his canoe, he was going to spear that whale. And he told his wife, “Don't you be going to look at me when I spear that whale!” And he went out there, he was going to meet the whale. The whale was heading west, that whale was. Old Raven had everything in the boat: a spear, and a line, (xuk.ł), and a buoy (khAttshíis).

When he speared, he was going to throw the buoy overboard. He speared him all right, and the whale headed west, and Raven in his canoe to the right of the whale…[references here to the map].

Raven's wife was far in shore, at her home, not looking…. The buoy is at the end of the spit…The line is now petrified and is called Katalla Spit….

When the old man was busy out there with the whale, the old lady looked out there (as she had been told not to). She went outdoors and looked, and as she looked, everything that was there turned into rock. Only the old man did not turn into rock. The buoy turned into a spherical rock like a mushbowl, sticking up out of the water, and is at the west end of the spit….

Yáa tAsséekuu is the name of a rock 200 yards westward of the whale's nose [i.e., of the lighthouse at Cape Saint Elias]. That rock is 300 feet high and is quite sizable, just like an island. This Yakutat name means ‘whale's spout.’

[WM] Rocks offshore around Kayak Island are pieces of the whale.

[Told by JE and WT, July 4, 1952, to explain geographical features at Cape Yakataga (p. 100).]

They call these breakers here, these real ground swells, Yeł ut [Raven's black?]—them big breakers that stand up high.

At this place [Cape Yakataga] they call Taís [Little adz]. It is because it is an adz-shaped point.

Yakw dei is Raven's ‘canoe-landing place.’ Raven made it dragging his canoe down there. He dragged his rack.

There is a story about that: Raven was moving out from that place, and him and his wife had berry baskets and a tool box. And they had a quarrel and he threw the basket overboard. Now it's a rock there with sea urchins and clams—just like strawberries.

And he was mad, so he drag his canoe down. So they call it yakw dei [‘canoe's road’]. And the sticks on the bottom rack, and you can see where they dragged. And that's what they call Yełagu [Raven's claws? or rack?]

And when they were going out, they see the big breakers coming in. His wife is scared and is kind of backing out. WAdinAq—breakers start to break [i.e., rise up]. His wife says to stop. But Yeł said they wouldn’t break. They didn’t. This day it's just the same. You start out and the breakers are high, and then they go down and there is a calm wind.

EPISODE 10: RAVEN STEALS WATER

[Told by JE, March 3, 1954, in answer to questions about the nature of salt water.]

They just call it ’eł’—salt water, just like salt. Call table salt that, too. [A to Q:] No special name for Gulf of Alaska. But all the streams, they got a name. There's a story:

Old Raven, he stole the water. I forget who he stole it from. Then he start going to some places [making rivers and lakes]. And the part that gets stinking in his mouth, he pour it right in the bay by the ocean. That's why it's salty. Some of the people in southeast Alaska know the place he stole it from, and that mark is still there….

EPISODE 11: RAVEN OBTAINS FIRE

[Q: What did they think about the sun?]

[JE] They know the sun's burning.

Yeł sent this hawk out to bring in the fire. And he flew out and got this fire and his beak started burning. He used to have a long beak. His beak burning, and Yeł said, “Just keep on coming. I got something to put in place of your beak.”

And he had a piece of old rotten wood instead of a good beak. That's why his beak is so short.

And he [Raven] put fire in all the wood. And that's why wood burns.

EPISODE 12: RAVEN AND THE ARK

[From MS. by Harrington.]

The mystery of the whence coming of the salmon was explained by the Indians only in myth. It is said that very much out in the ocean there is a place, khatathankhaahiti [i.e., kada tanka hIdi]. This is conceived of as a weir, popularly spoken of in English by the Indians as a fishtrap. It is like a vertical staked corral. All the fish live there. Once this khatathankhaahiti came close to Dry Bay. The place was all full of fish, some of them jumping out of the water. Hooligans, smelt, candlefish, and the like, were swimming into and out of the place; birds of various sorts were catching fish inside of the place. The larger fish were inside, there was no way whatever for them to get out. The place moved to its regular situation after people at Dry Bay had seen it. Salmon and the like are released from this place, and then it is that they make their run to the coast and up the rivers. Since the salmon inside had not yet been released at the time the Dry Bay people saw it, that is why the salmon are later in the north than they are in the south, mostly only Humpbacks and Dog Salmon running anymore in southeastern Alaska, anyway. Everything had its owner, and the chief service of Raven to mankind was to establish new laws which did away with the tyranical sway of owners of various places. The owner of the salmon…was xaatd aathi, literally “salmon master.”

[Unfortunately we are not told how Raven liberated the salmon from this trap or ark.]

[Told by Peter Lawrence July 4, 1949. This version has been edited from notes. Part of the story could not be understood because of the narrator's imperfect English. This followed Episode 5, as he told it.]

Same place—Dry Bay. Same man—Crow.

Big tribe out there. A man, ÁnA-qat-wayá, had walking cane like me—[the narrator had a cane with a sharp point, bound with wire]—made out of part of a devilfish. He get up in the morning put cane out, he hooked it. Whatever he see, he hooked with his cane.

Crow he hear AnA-qat-wayá had a good cane. He says, “I’m going over there.” He wanted to get the cane.

And Crow, he find a skate in the water. It's got two tails. Crow cut the tails off the skate. He fix a stick, and stick it into the skate, right where the tail was. He made a walking stick out of the tanned skate. It has little sharp bones. Crow went on towards Dry Bay.

Soon by Akwe [River], he hide it by the big tree.

AnA-qat-wayá comes with his walking cane and Crow is ready for him. He stick his walking cane into AnA-qat-wayá and pulls it out all bloody!

Crow says, “People going to catch you. They would kill you like a shot.”

He took the bark off the tree and tied it on AnA-qat-wayá with spruce roots on his hand where he hurt him.

AnA-qat-wayá, said, “You go with me.”

Crow said, “No, unless we change the walking stick.” Crow wanted to trap otter but had no way to get it, no boat, nothing. [He evidently proposed that they trade canes. They seem to have gone to the house of AnA-qat-wayá.]

AnA-qat-wayá put his walking cane up and said, “Don't let anybody get up in the house or that cane will get him.”

“How's chance to trade walking cane with me?” asked Crow.

“O.K., all right.” [The exchange was made.]

“Qa! Goodby,” and Crow flew out again.

There was a big trap with a big fishtrap out on the ocean, but they couldn’t get the halibut, black cod [that were in the fishtrap]. They couldn’t get it back to shore. Pretty soon Crow try, hooked on the trap, pull it ashore, break the moose string of the trap. [Apparently this attempt to secure the trap was a failure because the moosehide thong broke.]

Crow went to sleep, make a big fire. Little bird beside the fire said, “Take the string off my heel. Use it. Use the walking cane. You try.”

So Crow tried it. It worked. Crow sing…. [I was unable to record the song.]

[A to Q:] AnA-qat-wayá was helping Crow to get the trap. He was a big, heavy-set fellow. Crow make apologies to him. The fish in the trap was for the birds, for the elements. The people of Dry Bay got some fish too, some hooligans. AnA-qat-wayá also got some fish.

[Told by EE, June 22, 1952.]

The name of my father's house was CÀka hít [Canoe Prow House of the TłukwaAdi]. There's a story. That Raven see it on the sea, a thing just like a house, just like Noah's scow. That Crow see it and he take it. He drag it ashore, and his footsteps they say you can see. They are around Dry Bay on the sand mounds….

Then he put it ashore, you know, and that's why they call it CAka hIt. Everything in there, he got….

He used bird muscles to pull it ashore, they say. And everything is in there. Crow used that devilfish arm that time. The end of that boat, there's a house over there. That's why they call it CAka hIt. Good things are in there—all kinds of animals—like Noah's Ark. But there are no people. In the front [of the boat] is that house.

[Told by EE, February 21, 1954.]

The house of my father's uncle at Dry Bay was called CAka hIt….

That Crow, you know, he seen that house was out there in Dry Bay, way out, between ‘Ałse and ‘Akwe. Between that, there is a house out there floating. Then he tried to get it. He uses that little bird's muscles—tċitw tAsi [murrelet sinew thread].

He used that to drag that house ashore. It was a boat but on the end in front was a house there. All the birds and everything, they fill it up. Full of all kinds of birds and animals. When they opened it, all the birds and everything go away, all over. That's why they call it CAka hIt. So they name the house for that.

Crow's footsteps are still there on the big sand mountain [indicating a spot on the map between Dry Bay and Akwe River].

[Boas (1917, p. 109) renders “bow of canoe” as cÀkÁ. Another informant said that the house Raven dragged ashore at Dry Bay was called yAntAka hIdi. It was full of food. According to Swanton's Sitka version (1909, Tale 1, p. 11), Raven carved a cane that looked like two tentacles of a devilfish and drew ashore “an everlasting house, containing everything that was to be in the waters of the world.” With the fish thus obtained, he gave a feast for his dead mother. It is obvious that none of the versions obtained by Swanton, Harrington, or myself is complete.]

[Told by Minnie Johnson, May 1, 1954, to justify the claim of the Tł'UknaAdi to the Devilfish Pole as a crest object.]

Tan [sea lion]—that's our tribal affair [i.e., a crest of the Tł'UknaAdi]. And KIsAdi got it, too. But our private business, they claim it now.

That Ya aw [Whale Hat] I saw in your book one time [Swanton, 1908, p. 417]—that's our tribal affair. And Devilfish Pole—naqw ł’eqE wutsaa [devilfish finger cane]—because Yeł used that [pole] for that bunch of birds, all kinds of animals, that floats around the bay off that Alsek. That's why they got that song made. He made it himself. I want Charley [White] to sing it for you.

He hooked onto that thing that floated around the bay, and he trying to pull. And he talked nice to him; “ ‘a yAqawu—my intimate friend,” he call it, when Yeł come to him. He knows something about that sea otter and all that stuff. Big bunch of kelp and all that stuff in there.

Yeł call it “YAkAdAtAn kA hIdi ’An’awsiyAq.”

He borrowed that devilfish cane and hooked onto that big coil of kelp. And all that junk [birds, animals, etc.] is in it. And Raven know that AnA-qat-wayá [the owner of the cane] is getting mad at him for using his cane, and get that precious stuff.

[The narrator sang part of the song associated with the story:]

ÁAcute;nA-qat-wayá

i a hi a a hiya a hi iya

Hade dici Yeł…. “Help!”

Yeł called for help when he hooked that thing on. There's nobody around and he knows that man is getting mad at him because that [thing?] belong to him, or something.

That's why we imitate Yeł in a potlatch and sing that song.

That's why all our tribal—an old one, I think it's from generation to generation. That's in Ya hIt [Whale House] in Sitka yet. And Sitka Charley sold all that stuff to museum. [See pl. 212f; also pl. 211b]. My brother Charley had one [Devilfish Pole]. When he was out fishing somebody went in and broke it up, just for meanness [cf. model in pl. 163]. [A to Q:] D. S. Benson made it. When he [Charley White] got appointed for song leader he use that, because that belong to our tribe. Raven use that when he pulled that [ark] ashore.

All that Raven's footmarks still on the beach down there. Never goes away. The more the sea washes up—When he's pulling that in he makes such marks on the sand. He makes a foothold and he calls for AnA-qat-wayá to help him. Because it belongs to him, that's why.

[Q: Did he help?] He doesn't like to, but Raven make him. He's all in. Raven makes believe he's all in, so he has to help him. That stuff was going to get [washed?] out to sea.

Because he loan him the devilfish limbs [the cane like two tentacles], that's why we got everything—birds. Got everything in there you can think of in Alaska—sea otter, sea lion—None of them until Yeł—You see, every kind of animals come from that house. They call it YAkAdAtAn-kA hIdi. Because that thing just going alongside, toward the shore, when he pull it. All that stuff that was on that kelp, that's why sea otter goes in salt water, all seals goes in.

[The narrator agreed that the “house” or coil of kelp was like Noah's Ark full of animals. When asked why Raven was getting the house, she explained:]

He wanted it for his tribe. He wants to see people get their share instead of getting tied up by AnA-qat-wayá. Keep everything to himself and make all the others suffer. That's why he [Raven] wants to do that. I think he's [-is] anAtedi or something.

[The narrator immediately went on to tell about a potlatch given in Sitka by Sitka Jake when he build Whale House and which she had attended in 1901 or 1902.]

EPISODE 13: RAVEN AND THE KING SALMON

[Told by Minnie Johnson, June 1949, in response to a query about Raven and the king salmon, apparently suggested to me by Swanton's Sitka version (1909, Tale 1, p. 5):]

Raven found a little green stone. He saw the king salmon and pretended to quote the insults of the stone—the stone didn’t really talk—telling the salmon how dirty and ugly he is.

“You got a big mouth—all black inside. And your teeth are so short they couldn’t bite anything.”

The king salmon wanted to come ashore and fight the stone, but Raven told him to wait while he got a stick to hit the stone.

So when the salmon finally came ashore Raven hit him and killed him.

[Episode 14 followed without a break.]

[This episode was told by HKB, May 2, 1954, in order to explain the painted screen that was once in the Kwacqwan Moon House, #5 in the Old Village (p. 323).]

[The design of the screen was] Raven. It's pretty good. [It was in] DIs hIt. [After asking if I wanted to hear the story, the narrator explained:]

In Tlingit the name they call it—ťa, king salmon. T'a Ana ku-łI-ťul Yeł—“Raven Makes the King Salmon Come Ashore.” That's the name of it [the screen].

The story of it: When Old Raven created the world, he see the king salmon fin [moving], and he put up a green stone on top of the rock, and he tell the king salmon:

“That green stone tell you this and that, and name or everything.” That's what he tell the king salmon. That's the story.

[The narrator evidently did not want to repeat the dirty insults, for when asked said only:] Mean things. So the king salmon could get mad and come in to shore.

King salmon swim in again and Raven ask him, “You not going to do anything to that stone?” And Old Raven said, “I’m going to help you fight that stone if you coming ashore.”

He got his club in his hand, Old Raven. When the king salmon coming ashore to fight that stone, Old Raven hit him, the king salmon, on the head. He kill it. That's the ot;in [screen].

EPISODE 14: RAVEN CHEATS THE LITTLE BIRDS

[Told by Minnie Johnson, June 1949, as the conclusion O Episode 13.]

Raven had lots of servants to carry the king salmon to the pit where he was going to cook him. His partners were made out of sticks and chips of driftwood, turned into “humans.” [In the next moment, the narrator refers to them as birds.]

Raven told them to go to the top of the mountain for skunk cabbage leaves to line the pit. If they didn't find any there, they were to go beyond the mountain.

While they were gone, Raven cooked and ate the fish himself. He had pretended there were no skunk cabbage leaves nearby—“That's why we're such liars, us Crows.”

When the partners came back—no salmon left. All the rest pick at the bones. But Red Breast (Robin) was so cold and hungry, he sat by Raven's fire and burned his breast. That's why it's red. He started to weep and cry, “It's better to eat worms than go to the mountain to get skunk cabbage.”

The others picked out what kind of birds they would be.

[Told by JE, March 3, 1954, after giving the native name for the golden-crowned sparrow.]

When this Old Crow was trying to roast king salmon, he sent his crew out to go over two mountains to get those leaves, something like skunk cabbage [to wrap the fish in].

That's why they were hitting this bird over the head. That's why he got the mark over the head [i.e., the yellow stripe].

The Robin got too close to the fire, and burned his belly.

Bluejay—his grandmother was putting ribbon on his head [i.e., making his crest].

I don't know the whole story of that….

[The birds were sent to get skunk cabbage leaves.] When they came back there was nothing but bones left. He [Raven] said it burned up, but he really ate it up himself. And they were so disappointed they don’t know what to do. Sure, lots of things happen.

EPISODE 15: RAVEN AND BEAR GO FISHING

[Told by Jack Ellis to Harrington in 1940.]

Raven cut the Bear's pecker off….

Raven and old papa Bear were out halibut fishing. Raven was catching; Bear was catching nothing. The old Bear said:

“What are you using for bait?”

“Cutting off a little part of my prick. But it is going to hurt you a little.”

Then the Raven cut off the Bear's pecker. The Bear was jumping around in the canoe. Then the Bear died.

Raven left the Bear just behind the point. They arrived at female Bear's.

“What were you doing?”

“Cutting limbs of spruce.”

The “duck” cut his tongue out.

[Cut off penis which caused tremendous hemorrhage (JRH).]

The Raven started talking, telling how the male Bear had been acting in the canoes. The Raven ate both the male Bear and the female Bear up.

[Told by Minnie Johnson, June 1949.]

Raven met Brown Bear. “Brother-in-law, I’m pleased to meet you.” These kind words calmed the bear down.

Bear and his partner set halibut hooks, but Bear can't catch any. Raven wants to eat Bear and his wife; they were good and fat. Raven has a little bird for a partner—a kind that sits on rocks. [MJ was unable to identify it, but Swanton (1909, Tale 1, pp. 6–7) identifies the bird as a cormorant.]

“That female bear ought to know Raven wasn't her brother!” [the narrator interjected].

Bear goes fishing with him [Raven]. Bear asks to use his hook. Raven had some kind of a fish on his hook. Unseen by his “brother-in-law” he puts it on his hook. He told Bear he would take him fishing, “just us two in the canoe—nobody else.” As soon as Raven's hook got to the bottom he was catching halibut right and left. His brother-in-law is wondering what he use for bait. Raven tells him it's a piece of his skin—”the bottom part of that man's tool” [i.e., penis]. They brought back enough halibut to fill the smokehouse.

They go fishing again, and Raven catches more fish. And Bear doesn't have any luck, so he asks Raven to cut him. So Raven cuts him. Bear upsets the canoe and run for the shore. Brown Bear died on him. Raven had killed him. Raven tied a rope to his neck and pulled him in the woods, so his wife wouldn't see him. He went back fishing.

The female Bear asked, “Where's my husband? Ain’t he coming home for dinner?”

“No, he's around the point in the alder bushes, cutting wood, making halibut spear and club to go fishing.”

The poor Brown Bear believed him, but she's getting suspicious.

Raven goes out fishing. They had lots of seal and halibut oil but he wants to do away with that family.

“Aunty, give me a chance to cook for you,” says Raven.

So she went down to cut up the halibut. Raven took a halibut stomach, filled it with hot rocks, and roasted it by the fire on a stick until it was nice and brown. She was hungry when she comes home.

“Everything is all ready, aunty. Come on in the house.”

So she comes home. That halibut stomach looks good to her. She gobbles the stomach whole. She didn't chew it because Raven told her not to chew it. If she did, he said he wouldn't catch any more halibut. He got some water ready for her. So he made her drink water. It boiled in her stomach on those hot rocks. She ran around the smokehouse, busting everything up. Raven ran outside. She tried to run out the door, but she fell dead in the door.

I bet Raven got lots to eat then—such a hog!

[Told by Minnie Johnson, June 9, 1952. I asked Charley White, via his sister as interpreter, how people caught halibut in the old days, and this story preceded a description of the rig (cf. p. 388–389).]

Yeł [Raven] taught people how to catch halibut, to make nAxw, halibut hook.

He met a family [of] bear. Yeł called the lady Bear “aunty, ’a ’at,” and the Bear “aunt's husband, ‘a’at o.”

Part of the hook is made of alder, other side of yellow cedar. Halibut goes for the smell of the yellow cedar.

The Bear start to get angry, but when he call them that, [relatives], they calm down. They build a fire in the middle of the smokehouse. The bears know how to make the halibut hook. Raven was scared, but he wanted to learn how.

Raven said, “I know a deep place. I wish I had a halibut hook.” The bears' house was chock-a-block full of grub.

Aunt told the Bear to go with Raven to catch some halibut. So the Bear took Yeł in his canoe.

Yeł had Duł (Crane) as his partner [dut]. He went in the stern of the canoe. Raven got a canoe full. Bear asked what he used for bait. Bear caught nothing. They went ashore to unload the canoe. Went out again—same thing. Bear get angry. Yeł said he had bait of his own but wouldn’t tell anybody.

[Minnie Johnson was embarrassed here, because her brother was present. It should be remembered that this was the first occasion since puberty when she had addressed him directly, and only did so because I had hired them both as informant and interpreter. She remarked on her embarrassment afterwards, but indicated that:]

Raven told him he uses his private part. Raven cut it off Bear and kill him.

Raven went out with Dut [partner]. Was taking louse off Dut'shead. Told him to stick out his tongue to eat the louse. But Raven pulled his tongue off, so Dut couldn’t tell on him. He made him try to talk and the Crane just went: [gabbling].

“That's the way young fellows talk. I like to hear young fellows talk.” Raven threw him out on the reef. Raven went home. Aunty was splitting fish.

“Where is your uncle?”

“He's around the point, making fishhook.”

Yeł wanted to cook stomach part of halibut. He cooked hot rocks. Filled the stomach with hot rocks and called his aunty home. He gave them to her.

“Don't chew. Just swallow right down” [he said], so she wouldn't taste the rocks.

So she did. He gave her a drink of water and it boiled in her. And she died.

Isn't he smart? He came right there and ate up all the provisions.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON EPISODE 15

[Although these were made by Minnie Johnson on July 1, 1952, she was thinking of the story she had told on June 9.]

They called those preserved strawberries mixed with snow and oelachon oil “Yeł ’At ái—Raven's food.” It's because it's all colors. [Cf. p. 409.]

This was because Yeł come to see his aunt and his aunt's husband feast him with that. That's the berries his aunt put up. And his aunt's husband feast him with what they put up.

He's got boxes full of oil of all kinds. But just to show Yeł he just split up his hand. After he dried the fish, he just hold his hand against the fire. And he got a dish under it, and just enough grease run out of his hand. He stripped the skin on his wrist and toast it on the fire. It's enough xuts [bear] oil for the fish. Bear oil—xuts ’ei.

When Raven come there, “Hello, Aunty,” he said [in mincing tones]. They were all getting mad and ruffling up their hair, and they were going to chew Yeł up.

“Hello, Aunty, I didn’t know you got a home here!”

Then they start to feast him with that stuff, with that Yeł ‘At ai.

EPISODE 16: RAVEN GOES TO A POTLATCH

[Told by Minnie Johnson, August 13, 1952, when she and Annie Johnson recorded the funny song “Raven and Snipes” (1952, 3-1-B) (p. 1257).]

[Minnie Johnson and Annie Johnson talked together in Tlingit and both went off into gales of laughter. Minnie Johnson then attempted a partial summary of the story about how Raven went to the potlatch. A longer version was given after the song was recorded, but she would not let the story be taped.]

This is Yeł song.

Crow got all kinds of things, driftwood—Everybody is invited. And they put up a party, and that's a song he dance for [to] it. He pick up driftwood and birds of all kinds. He even got a block of wood—chopping block, they call it—just because a family of bears invite him to the feast….

And Raven showed that snipes floating all over—all kinds of birds…. And he sing that song for the Bear tribe [i.e., for the potlatch hosts who, of course, belonged to the opposite moiety].

The song is called Yeł àku [Raven's claw, i.e., tracks].

[The song was recorded by both ladies.]

The young Crows were having a feast. They got all kinds of food put up. They were having a good feast, but Yeł himself was just laying on his bed with his blanket over his head, so he won't hear anything.

He had a servant and he sent him out. “What are they eating at that feast?”

His servant was called acaow [ACAgAkkw]. He came back and reported, “My goodness, they are having all kinds of good eats. All native foods, even native rice. They are having every good eats.”

Raven is not invited. He don't know where he can get in there. He get his blanket off his face and order acaow to gather up all the things that fly.

He gathered them all together, anything that have wings.

I know that story. It's long.

acaow come back. And Raven is so afraid he is going to miss that good eats. He gathers up those birds and trained them. And he sent a messenger in. Raven called himself “unanałxE—somebody's rich man” [i.e., ‘rich stranger’].

“A wealthy man is coming. Where is the wealthy man going to sit?” Raven asked.

They didn't invite Raven because they have no right to invite Raven. But they get scared and made a seat for him and give him a big dish full of food.

Usually they get up and sing and dance in return for what stuff they got for a potlatch. Yeł compose this song:

The snipes are his servants—all the birds.

When they find the footprints of Raven,

They always follow him.

People at the feast wonder how he get the flying birds to obey his orders. They wonder why they mind that Yeł. And he get up to get that snipes. All the birds come in when he is going to sing and dance for all that eats. What's the little birds to get out of it? What benefit they going to get?

He got a chopping block. He kick at that chopping block and then that block can’t dance. Every once in a while he kick it, and then it roll right over.

They believe him. Oh that confounded Raven!

That is the town of Kit [Killerwhales]. They are all nice and fat, having a feast. The reason he got that chopping block he give a kick to is to fool that Kit. He didn't fix them, but Raven claims that's why all those little birds can fly. But of course they fly by themselves. He says [however] that he plugs up their behinds. He takes a sharp stick and he pokes their ass hole up till it touches their heart. Raven explained that the chopping block wouldn't get cleaned up, so he don't dance. So then the Kits wants to be fixed up like the birds.

This is the song composed by Yeł.

[This version recombines several incidents that appear disconnected in Swanton's versions. For example: Raven gets sulky and refuses to go to a feast; then goes looking for a seat as an important man (1909, p. 118). Raven invites the Killerwhales to a feast and kills them by sticking canes in their heads (1909, p. 12). Raven gets the birds together and invites the Bears as guests. The birds fly up the bears' anuses (1909, p. 17).]

[The following version was told by Minnie Johnson on April 6, 1954, when she was questioned about the song “Raven and Snipes” which I was learning (1954, 5-1-E).]

[Q: When did Raven sing about the Snipes?]

Well, he get it up, you know. And them people is going to feast. And everybody's invited, and he's not invited, Raven. That don’t—He was asked to come but he's just on a strike like, I guess, something like. And feasting going on, and he sent one of his servants over to that feast place and just says [asks] why he don't get invited.

They don't pay attention to him at all. Just keep on feasting. Because he was asked to come, and he don’t seem to show up, so they go on without him. He get invited once and he don’t want to go. When he see all this feast and all kinds of meat and stuff they put, Raven wish to go, and he get all the snipes and all the things that fly around, and he just plead like everything, they got to take him in!

That's all my uncles; my mother used to have a picture of it, but it burned up. [This is probably a reference to a photograph of her uncles dancing to this song which was destroyed when her house burned down in 1950.]

One of his servants on each side, and he just get the door open when they feasting:

“Where's this unanałxE going to sit?”

[A to Q:] That means “somebody else's rich man.” [The narrator later explained that this means a rich man of the opposite moiety. “They’re on Tł'UknaxAdi side. He call himself GunanałxE because he's a Raven. He call himself that GunanałxE 'somebody else's rich man' ”.]

And they just keep on passing that oil and meat and stuff. They don't pay no attention to him.

Finally he start to sing that song. All that snipes and that long-nosed bird, łu-’ada [‘nose-spear’], he just let all in at once, and that place is just full. And then Raven start to sing this song, and they all flew around. They turn around and everything just turn out so lively, so they find a place for Raven to sit down.

[Q: Who was giving the feast?] I suppose opposite tribe give feast. They’re Yeł and Eagle; they invite Yeł. Somebody on the Eagle side is giving a feast.

[Q: Was that the Killerwhales?] Yes. That Kit tribe is giving the feast.

[Q: When do they sing that song?] When they give a feast. All the little ones want to go in, to imitate that ‘At a da idjAi [’things that fly around the island' see p. 44]. They just flew around. “TsAna' “ [at the end of the song] means ‘old rotten fish.’

[Told by EE, February 21, 1954, after giving the native names for the magpie and bluejay.]

I heard all those birds are Crow's partners. Crow gets invited by the Land Otters. [At first he refused to go to the potlatch, then went.]

He takes all these teené and ecw [magpies and bluejays] and snipes. They go over there.

First, Yeł he refuse it. Afterwards he thinks about it—maybe they eat good over there. So he takes the birds to dance.

So they eat all that good things: mountain goat meat. Then they dance.

[From the narrator's attitude it was apparent that the story remained unfinished, and that she felt some embarrassment.]

[Told by SW to explain two funny Raven songs: “Raven and the Herring Heads,” and “Raven and Snipes,” May 10, 1954 [see p. 1257]. The order of some sentences in the story has been changed to correspond to the sequence in which the songs were sung.]

The Sea Otters were having a party and they invited Raven…. He get mad, when he go to the potlatch [because] the Sea Otter people give him codfish head and he don't want to eat it. That's why he get mad and he says he isn’t going to go to that nation's potlatch any more.

[So when he was invited again, he said:]

“I don't want to eat codfish heads. I always get codfish heads.”

[So he sent XAcAgAkkw to find out what they were serving.]

“Run in that potlatch.”

They gave him all kinds of different food. [So when Raven learned this, he wanted to go, and he sent XAcAgAkkw back.]

And Yeł say it: “Go run in there and tell it to that people.” [And ask them where he would be seated.]

He ran in there, that XAcAgAkkw. He open that door and he said, “Where is that Unanałxe [wealthy stranger] going to sit?” And nobody listen to him.

And he run back and run in to the Yeł.

“Nobody listen to me.”

And he go in there, that Crow [Raven]. And he dancing. And he take those Snipes. That's Crow's nephews…. He make up this song, this Crow, and he dancing. And he pick up that Snipes, his nephews. They sing this one first [1954, 6-1-E (a)]:

“Those herring heads, Raven eat it good.” [See Tlingit text, p. 1257.]

Raven sang and danced…. [The song.] It's way back generations, this one. It's from that bird song. The Crow says “Kaw!” That come from those words: “Crow ate it up, that herring head. They [he] ate it up. He likes it. Crow eat it good.” That's what that means….

That was the first song they sang after they go into that potlatch, when he don't want to go…. He going into that house first, and he dancing first himself. And he eat herring heads from that box.

And the second one [1952, 3-1-B; 1954, 5-1-E; 1954, 6-1-E (b); see text, p. 1257]. That bird's nephews come in and singing that song. He get in the middle of the box, then the other ones coming in….

“See, I’m [we're] just stepping here in your tracks this time. I don't know my uncle's songs and just help him, just follow him.” That's what they say, that Snipes. Whatever Crow do, they follow him. That's why they make up that song.

They dancing, all that Snipes. At the party, they dancing…. That chief Crow dancing, and the nephews dancing at the same time, and they eating that herring heads in the lunch box (łAkt)….

EPISODE 17: RAVEN STEALS BAIT AND LOSES HIS NOSE

[This brief version was told by Minnie Johnson on May 23, 1954, to explain the funny song which she had been singing for AG and ourselves. A few days later she recorded it (1954, 7-2-K).]

Raven went under the water to get the fat. His nose got caught. His nose is caught in the hook. And when he come out he's got no nose at all.

He gets an old rotten log and puts his nose on [i.e., makes a false nose out of wood], and his old hat on, so nobody notice it. And he go through all the houses and require [inquire] if anybody got a nose of some kind.

“Next house—Next house,” they told him.

“I wonder what house is that that's got UnEt łuwu?” He calls himself unÉt at that time. “Where is that place they have that?”

“Next house—Next house.”

He hate to show off his nose; he's got that little hat over his nose.

And when he start to examine it [his real nose], you know, he says he can’t see very good, he's nearsighted. He wants the smokehole open a little bit so he can see a little better.

He went through the middle of the village. And all that feather down [i.e., down feathers attached to his nose in the house], he knows something's strange. He wants to be chief of that town. That's a feather down, and tied up to the ceiling. Some kind of a rock, you know, they think—but it's Raven's nose. He orders the people to get the smokehole a little wider so he can see it.

[AG] He was white long time ago, until he got into that łAkt, drink up that grease [Episode 4]. That's why he's black.

[MJ] That smokehole open wide enough, so he stuck his nose in there and said “QAW!” That song composed without it, that's why I put it in.

[Minnie Johnson again sang the song and explained it more fully, May 29, 1954.]

That Raven—there's a song about it. Went down to the bottom of the sea. [She sang the song.]

You know, AG and I were just singing away about that. The Raven is thinking and thinking. His mind is never rested in one place. So he made up his mind to go underneath of the water. When he go underneath, then he went to a place where they fishing, they use nothing but fat for a bait. When they call it nAxw [halibut hook] comes down, and tied fat onto it, he carefully takes the fat off it and swallow it and let the line go. The other one comes down, he does the same thing. Finally when he's tried to take the fat off, it get caught on his nose and just pull him right up. Hook right in his nose. And when he got just so close to the canoe, he take both his hands and feet and try to pull away. Out go the nose! It went on the hook.

And then that ‘fish,’ that fishing halibut man take it home. They’re just wondering what it is. Well, all the townspeople gathering up together and they never see such a funny stuff that a man take on a hook. So they went to chief's house, and just get a feather—the down on it—and just tie a string to it, and hang it by the in [decorated house screen], and wonder what that thing is. They keeping it for good luck.

But finally he come ashore. He go from under the water. He just walk the beach. He's just wondering why, what he's got to do and [to] get his nose back.

He got hold of an old log and got an old piece of old log, and he shaved it up and stick it on his nose. And stick that piece of old rotten tree with pitch. And he got roots hat. Just put it on over his nose so nobody notice that he's got funny nose.

Then he start from one end of the town. He called into all the houses and says:

“Say, did this townspeople ever caught any nose of a person named UnEt? UnEt łuwu?” [i.e., 'strange being's nose’].

“No, not in here. The other house—next house—next house!”

He go there. He does the same thing.

“I wonder how that is that that UnEt łuwu fish up from the bottom?”

“Next door.”

Then he go to the next door and finally he come to the place. And he done the same thing.

“I wonder what house is that UnEt łuwu hooked up from the bottom of the sea, is caught. I wonder what house?”

“Right here.”

“Oh, I wish I could see it!”

The chief says, “Untie it and take it down and show it to him.”

And then he says, “Oh, my eyesight is getting poor!”

He got that át axw—little spruce hat—over his nose because he doesn't want to show anybody he's got artificial nose.

And then he says, “Oh, my eyesight is getting poor. I wish somebody open that smokehole a little wider so I have a little daylight.”

See how witchcraft he is!

“Go ahead,” the chief says. “Open it up so the gentleman can see the nose.”

“Oh, I never see anything like it! A person is lucky enough to catch this!”

When they look another way he stuck his nose on and flew right through the smokehole.

That's how that song is made like that: “…went through the houses.”

[The narrator then dictated the words of the song, cf. p. 1258.]

Stop right there. It says Raven's mind is so uncertain and he went under the water. From there his nose caught in the hook and hoist him up. When it comes too close to the bottom of the canoe he doesn’t want to be seen that was him. And, so he kick against the bottom of the canoe with all his might. They just pull his nose up. So he don’t know what on earth to do. He just make artificial nose out of an old log. Stick it back on with the pitch off the tree. So he started out from one end of the town. House after house, he went through the town. He calls himself Anuk [sic]. “I wonder where they caught Anuk's nose?”

They always tell him, “Next door, next door.” Then he goes there. “Not in here—the next door,” they keep saying that to him. Finally he comes to the chief's house.

[Q: Is the chief the utc, ‘Wolf’? (The song is addressed to or refers to the Wolf moiety.)] No, there must be—The man, the chief must be UnEtkAnai [opposite moiety] or else he wouldn’t sing like that:

“The Anuk go from house to house. Take a drink of whiskey and then you'll feel better and you can go from house to house.”

He done the same way with utci tuwu [his Wolf's feelings]. He swiped his utci tuwu and fly right through the smokehole.

But I says, “Why don’t you take a drink of whiskey and then you’ll feel good enough to go through them and then you got your utci tuwu? Take a drink of whiskey and then you feel good enough to go through the houses and then you find your utci tuwu right there.”

That's him going down on the kelp [indicating one of the beaded moccasin designs she had stitched, cf. pl. 126].

Gan means ‘outside' [referring to the words of the song]. “With his nose he flew through the smokehole.”

And when I sing it for AG, I end with that “QaÁ!” It's not in the song. AG get more kick out of it.

EPISODE 18: RAVEN TURNS HIMSELF INTO A WOMAN TO MARRY THE KILLERWHALE

[The following brief reference to another incident in the Raven Cycle was suggested by recording the song of how Raven stole bait and lost his nose. It is illustrated by a beaded moccasin pattern, and was discussed by Minnie Johnson and HB on May 31, 1954, but never told in full.]

Raven turned himself to woman to marry Kit-qwani [Killerwhale spirit].

He [Raven] killed her husband. She was married to Kit ‘anyAdi [Killerwhale noble], something like that. He got that lady [i.e., Raven was a woman]. Got mink for baby. He [Raven] pinches it to make it cry for more fat [as a pacifier]. But he swallows it. He takes it away from the baby. Makes the Kit-qwani believe that was the baby crying for the fat.

So that's the way he lost his nose [Episode 18]. He's crazy about fat.

EPISODE 19: RAVEN BECOMES DRUNK ON RUSSIAN WHISKEY

[The following story was told and recorded by Minnie Johnson to explain the funny dance song composed by Dry Bay Chief George, and recorded on June 21, 1952 (1952, 1-1-B) (cf. p. 1260).]

Well, friends, I’m going to try to explain the words to the song composed by Qawua, Dry Bay Chief George. He composed this song himself. The man that sings this song is my brother, Charley [White]. He can’t very well explain himself, so they got me over here so I can 'splain a little bit, these ladies—.

Old Raven was living the other end of the town. And he was alone living in the ‘curve’ [cave]. He got it fixed up like a house, Ta hIt [probably tE hIt, 'stone House’]. He use a rock for a chair. Then he was alone there, and comes the schooner. A Russian schooner anchored right in front of this rock house.

And Old Raven is kind of suspicious. They lowered a boat, three or four men aboard that boat. And the captain ordered a keg of whiskey put in the boat to bring it ashore to Raven, to try to get him to feel good because he's so much alone.

But Raven is kind of suspicious. He don't like that boat, and he turn the boat to rock and all the people in the boat. Because Raven is kind of suspicious.

Nobody turn up at the ship [i.e., returns on board], but the captain want to be friends with Raven, and he order another boat ashore. And Raven decides to let that boat come ashore. It lands in front of his house.

And they got another keg of whiskey to try to give to Raven. They try to give it to Raven. He drink it.

Another round coming. He took it. It don’t affect him at all. Then people off the schooner want to see him feel good. He don’t feel the effect.

Finally he feel the effect of the drinks. He don’t make a sound of any kind. He just make his foot go. [Charley White tapped his foot when telling the story in Tlingit, and this can be heard on the tape.] He's feeling good.

Raven is head of our tribe, you know, Tł'UknaAdi.

OTHER MYTHS AND TALES

The Children of the Sun

[Told by Frank Italio, 18 June 1949, Helen Bremner interpreting.]

Near Nass, that's where the CAnkuqedi had their hometown. The Tsimshian had a war with them and burned them alive. Just one woman and her child, a girl, were saved.

The mother went around all by herself, walking around and crying. There wasn't anybody there, but the woman was talking to herself as if she were talking to someone. “I wonder who can marry my daughter?” She keeps on walking and crying.

Brown Bear hears her and stands right up in front of her and says “How about me?”

And the lady asks “What can you do?”

“I can upset anything—logs from the earth—pull the trees.”

And the woman says “That's nothing.” She doesn’t care for that.

She keeps on going. She met the willow bushes.

Willow says “How about me?”

“What can you do?”

“After they chop me down I can always come back.”

“Well, that's nothing to me.” She almost take that one.

Finally she sees the Sun.

The Sun asks “How about me?”

“What can you do?”

And the Sun says, “I always be proud of myself. After the big storm I come out from the black cloud and look around the earth. When I look through the black cloud I can bust anything on the sea or on the land.”

That lady says “I’m satisfied.” She gave him her daughter. The Sun took them to his home in the sky.

That's where she and her daughter stayed, and [the daughter] had many kids by the Sun. There were eight children: seven brothers and the eighth was a half-girl half-boy, called GAtan, “Coward.” That Coward, half-girl and half-boy always comes back in this tribe. [That is, the CAnkuqedi always have berdaches or transvestites.]

When the kids were big, the mother made a basket as big as her finger [i.e., like a thimble], but the Sun shook it and made it big. This basket is now in Klukwan. [This reference is to the “Mother Basket” of the Chilkat anAtedi.] The Sun sent his children down in the basket to take revenge on the Tsimshian. The sons had revenge on the Tsimshian and got even with them. They killed even men [i.e., just as many as the enemy had killed of their people].

The reason they win the battle was because the Sun helps them. It gets hot. It was hard on the enemy, but easy for the children. The half-girl half-boy just quarrels with the enemy. He does nothing but quarreling while his brothers are fighting. Coward was just dancing with feathers in his hands and on his head. He did good.

Afterwards they went in a canoe out on the ocean; nobody knows where they went.

Their mother came down from the sky. The Sun sent the woman back. I don’t know whom she married but that's where the CAnkuqedi came from. They moved up to Chilkat near Haines. That belongs to them. One of them married a Tł'UknaAdi, so they came here. They married in Dry Bay long before the Russians came.

Nobody knows what happened to the mother of the woman who married the Sun. Maybe she stayed in the sky.[19]

[Told by Minnie Johnson, June 20, 1952. This story was told in the morning, as the sun was coming out and MJ was remarking that we needed rain for the berries. FdeL commented on the alders having blisters received from a fight with the Sun's children (a Chugach story, see Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 172–175). So MJ told the story, with relish, punctuated by chasing away the dog from her drying seal meat and scolding her older granddaughters for letting the little ones squabble. The story was written from memory immediately afterwards.]

There was a widow with a daughter. All her people had been killed. All the Teqwedi were descended from her. She was looking for someone to marry her daughter. She went from village to village, and all the birds and animals, and humans, too, came to her to ask “How about me? How's the chance?”

She would ask them “What do you do for a living?” She wanted to get a husband that would take care of them.

The Bear said “When human beings come around, I get angry and tear up all the forest.” She nearly took him.

The little bird said “I pick up all the worms early in the morning before the other birds.”

Finally she met the Sun. He looked like a human being, a fine young man. It's just a story, but they say the Sun was looking like a human. He used to come down to earth, a good-looking young man with light hair.

She asked “What can you do?”

He said “I don't do much. But I take credit when I come out between the clouds and make it smoke. I do what I want with the weather.”

So she gave him her daughter.

He promised her [the daughter] a fine house with everything. Early next morning before the crow called she was to look for it and she would find it. She crawled that night into a cubbyhole in the woods, and early next morning walked up golden steps and found a palace. The old woman was taken care of, too.

Pretty soon the daughter was going to have children. They were five boys. The daughter made a basket, just as big as her little finger. The Sun shook it and it became big. Then the Sun lowered the five boys in it to the place where everyone had been killed. They made a place to keep everyone out—nu [fort], made of rock piles. Their father helped them. Whenever they came to a big tree, they made a wish and shook the line. Their father kept the other end of the line, so he could hear the sound, and he made the big trees fall over, that they used for the foundations of that place. The power traveled like electricity.

Te-’ic [MJ's father's brother, the shaman] had the same spirit as the Son's sons, because the Teqwedi originated from them.

Anything they wished for they could get. They said “hwooo! hwooo!” and the trees fell down. If they were too heavy to move they called on their father. The Sun was helping them.

Then the enemy came in big war canoes. They said “There can't be anybody there. We killed all the people.”

Then the sons called on their father, and the hot Sun came out and burned the enemy, so that the handles of their paddles were so hot their hands were crisped right on the paddles [gesture], and they fell over dead and were cooked, one by one [laughter].

The fifth son was a coward (GAtan) [half-man half-woman, MJ admitted on questioning]. He stayed up on top of the fort, and his father protected him. He was bawling the enemy out, and they got so excited their canoes turned over.

The old lady was taken care of, and from time to time her son visited her. He was like a young man, but it was hard to look at his face; it was so bright it would blind you.

[These comments were made by Nick Milton, May 12, 1954, to explain the origin of the shaman's spirits (Agan-yAti) and the song connected with them (1954, 6-1-A and 6-1-J; p. 1280). The narrator regretted that he did not know much of the story, but when asked if it was about the woman whose relatives were all killed, and whose daughter married the Sun, he exclaimed:]

That's it, that's the one! That's from Southeast Alaska, you know. Come up this way, I hear.

…And they ask—all kinds of animals ask to marry the daughter—bear, birds, brown bear. But they [the mother] don't like it. They come around to her, “How about me?” Those little birds come around, and they don't like it.

Till the Sun do the turn. “How about me? When I come out between the clouds, I boil all the water.”

So he came out from behind a cloud and boiled the salt water, and it's hot.

She liked it then. She give her daughter to the Sun. So when the children come, then he's [she] got plenty enough to start a war with—make it even [avenge the dead].

[The narrator did not know who were the enemy:] Some kind of spirit, I guess.

The mother was named Qu'E, and she and her daughter were Teqwca. That's why all Teqwedi shamans have the Agan-yAti [Children of the Sun] for their yek.

The Story of łaya[w][20]

[This was told to Harrington by GJ in 1939–40 to explain why the Milky Way is represented as snowshoe tracks on the house screen in Wolf Den House.]

When I ask who did the walking, he [GJ] says they say in the story that there were eight brothers, and the oldest brother was named K’Àckhètłkh; he was the leader. In the story, all of these eight brothers were great hunters when they were in the land here.

The eight brothers started from the southeast towards the north. It is a long story but GJ will make it short. They were great hunters. If there was anything they wanted, they always killed that; they always killed what they wanted. And they had a good dog (kheetł) for hunting, a little dog, always found a bear or anything, and he would bark at it and the hunters would follow the dog around, and the hunter would follow the dog and pretty soon would find what the dog was barking at and would always kill that.

And the youngest brother was always kind of half crazy, would always say something wrong or bad, and the older fellows would always say not to say anything wrong like that. ŁkAwwáak'w was the name of the youngest brother. These eight boys were always walking around together. They want to find out everything what was in this world.

The youngest brother said—(you know when the first sunshine comes up in the morning time it always looks red, always looks a little cloudy though it may be fine weather, but looks red and cloudy.) And the youngest brother said: “I wish our dog would find that red cloud.”

And after a while that dog found something, and the brothers always followed the dog to see always what he was barking at; they always followed the dog to see what he was barking at. And they kept a-following, a-following the dog around a long while. And when they found him, they found themselves up in the sky. It was the red cloud, that was what the dog found and was barking at. And they found themselves up in the sky! The youngest brother made a mistake in making that remark (cf. guarantee of Poland),[21] and that is how they were up there.

And that was the snowshoe track, k’Ackheetłk tutjóotjii k’o’iithii, [Acketłk du djadji u ‘iti]—K”s snowshoe track, the Milky Way.

[This story was told by MH, June 1949, to explain the painted house screen in Wolf Bath House. The Milky Way is ascribed to the snowshoe tracks of łayaw, not to those of his older brother. This story is from notes. (See pl. 85.)

łayaw was one of four brothers and a sister, half-dog and half-human. They never raised any children.

The father [i.e., husband of their mother] was very mean. He never let his kids grow. The mother was fond of children but the father killed his own children when they reached the age of five. He likes halibut and doesn’t want his children to eat them. He had a large dog as a pet.

One day a young man came to the woman and asked what she was crying about. She told him that every time her husband killed her children. He put the child in a grindstone [mortar] and wields him [pounds with a pestle] until the child is all in pieces.

The young fellow told her, “You better come along with me. You’re going to have children by me.”

She had children, but they were pups—just like little dogs. When she told him, that boy told her to destroy them. “Don't raise them!”

Second time she had these boys—four boys and one girl—all at the same time, like the Dionne quintuplets. And the young fellow appeared again, and he told the girl, “When your husband is coming home, you take the children out and I'll take care of them.” So he did.

After the kids were 4 years old, the man coming home saw those little children playing on the beach. She had told the kids to hide when they saw the canoe coming [but they didn't]. And when he came home, he asked his wife, “I saw children playing on the beach.”

And his wife told him, “Maybe just the dog playing.”

But he say, “I hear them call your name and they say your own children going to kill you.” [I.e., he had heard them planning to kill him?] She denied it [apparently successfully].

That dog appeared—that young man was the dog. He say to the lady, “You are my master. I’m leaving now. Your kids are big now.” He put his hands down [got down on all fours], and turned into a dog.

The kids stay home when father goes out hunting. So finally when they come to be a man, he was coming home and they was ready for him. And them four boys gets ahold of him and grind him as he had done to their brothers.

After they killed their father, they became famous hunters. This one [in the painted screen] is simply crazy. He made lots of trouble for his brothers.

The boys are traveling all over. They kill all kinds of monsters and also every kind of animal on four feet. They treated them as enemies; they were killing them all.

This happened near the mountain, Devil's Thumb, near Wrangell—

They killed a big brown bear with two heads, and another bear with one leg. These bears were half-human. The father was human. When people tried to kill the bears, thousand people would try, but they couldn’t kill him because his heart was between his heads. They called him “Two-faced Bear,” and the other the “One-leg Bear.”

The young kid, łayaw, had a dog for a pet. When he make trouble for his brothers, he monkey around with his little dog. He was like crazy.

[This is obviously the conclusion to the story:] They killed all kinds of dangerous things, but they would have killed all the animals with four legs if their sister hadn't turned them into stone. [Then followed an obscure reference to “Stony Hip Man.”] She turned to stone, too. The four brothers are boulders in the Stikine River.

…The screen shows the man in the sky when his dog was chasing the clouds. He finds himself in the sky. He didn't know how to come down. All his brothers were up there. They shot arrows down to the earth [each one sticking in the butt of the last arrow, explained by gestures]. I don't know how many hundred arrows they made and shoot down. They shot arrows, one after another, to make a rope down. The three brothers climb down and leave him behind. His brothers never find the people who live up there, but he did. They was the smallest people that ever lived.

The last one [of his brothers to climb down] said, “This is the last job you have done for us. You stay here until you can find your way down for yourself.”

So he stayed by himself with his little dog. One night he was sleeping in his bear cape. He heard people's voices calling one another. He never moved. And he says [evidently in relating his adventure] “the largest man is as big as your finger.” They had got lost in his bear fur. He took the little people [between thumb and forefinger] and put them on the ground [one by one]. He was nice to them; he never hurt them at all. He was sleeping near their village. They was like real people, only so small. He says it was the finest fun he ever sees.

After that, when he sleep, his dog bring him a piece of raw fish. It was the first meal he ever had [since he came to the sky]. He tried to follow the little dog [to see where he got the fish], but he couldn’t follow the tracks. The ground was all like frosting on a cake.

He put red powder on the little dog's feet. The next day he followed the little dog's tracks, and when he came there, he see the stream coming down. And he saw a tree, and he took the bark off, and made a canoe out of it. And he was thinking very hard, “How I’m going to get down on this river?” [i.e., follow it down to the earth]. It was pretty swift. He thought he was the bravest man, but he was the coward in the family. When he get on his boat, he was hanging onto a piece of alder tree, and couldn’t let it go because he was so afraid.

A little bird was sitting on the rock below his canoe [downstream]. Blueing used in washing is named after those birds—tł’e. [p. 48]—”blue or blue bird.” And he was wishing, “I wonder if that little bird can lead me down.” And he let that alder go.

And the little bird flies to a different rock ahead of him. [The little bird kept flying ahead of him as he came down the river, alighting on different rocks in turn to guide him.] And the bird flies onto a different rock when he comes to real dangers. It leads him down to his brothers.

That was the last real job he done. When he came back to earth he told the people and that's how people learned about the sky.

I left out lots so I could get to the end.

[The story was told in Tlingit by Frank Italio, September 13, 1952, and recorded as 7-1-C, together with the alyi-Kagwantan songs attributed to łayaw (p. 1170). The translation was recorded by Minnie Johnson (1952, 7-1-D). Minnie Johnson had been explaining about the Beaver (pp. 254–255, and now continued:]

…There was eight boys that belong to that Kagwantan. They generate from that łqawAq [łayaw], they call it in our language. He's outspoken he's all the time making trouble through his mouth, and his brothers prohibited from it. But he made a fun of that people—the spirit goes up to the Heaven, like—he's making fun of the Northern Lights—Whenever they see, and the youngest one, he's just butt into everything. He's mischievous and outspoken fellow. Seems so he made fun of that there Northern Lights. They wish they would he's one of them; they’ll [be?] playing golf, like. They see it moving up there then in the sky. They see they’re playing some kind of a game. And he wished that he's one of them.

So, then the whole all eight of them get into kind of mixup, get lost, went right up there.

[She asks Frank Italio in Tlingit what something is called, “Wasa duwasak?” and he answers, explaining something about Kiwa qawu, i.e. the ghosts above.]

And that fellow by name of Gu-XUKw—That means ‘Dry Sky’—They finally get ahold—well, to close in on them.

They got a dog, and they followed the track of the dog. When, first thing they know, they were above the sky. And all his brothers all scattered around, but himself alone. But that young fellow, his talk is the cause of all his brothers—. He didn’t even know where they went to. He's left alone up there. Finally, he break down, he's sitting all by himself, and weeping and crying.

Finally, he entered with a big house where he see that—I don’t know what you call it—you know, the reflection of a person that you can see it in your side on your eye—That's what they call qa wAq łtak łmgidi [’People inside the human eye’].[22] First thing he know, he was mixed in among them. He didn’t even know where his brothers were. He went right to work, and łqawAq marry right into that people up above.

So one time, one time, he got kind of downhearted; he's pretty well content at first going off. But he start to worry and worry about the rest of his brothers. He's just wondering where they are. He find out where he, where way up there above, but he want, he's just wondering where his brothers are. So he get down and out, and—.

This girl that he marry into, he's [her father] kind of suspicious. Finally he [the father] ask his daughter, “What's wrong with your husband, daughter? He's kind of out of order, like. He's feel downhearted, isn’t it?”

And his daughter answered, “Yes. He's kind of downhearted. He's worrying. He's starting to worry about the rest of his brothers.”

Finally that girl's father give an order to get the human body, skeleton—and he ordered to get that in the water. And, so they did. They get that in the water. And the father of that girl order a bird—a little bird—you know, the little bird that's always hang around the river, white breast. We call it in our language hínyIk tł’eI [p. 48]. All the time in the river, hangs around, always swims against the current—hínyIktł’eI we call it in our language.

He, that man ordered that little bird to go in the bow so he can steer that boat that man ŁqaWAq was in.

But he composed the song before he leave the place up there. It says that: “Brothers, they made a mistake. Brothers, they made a mistake.” That's why he's worrying about his brothers may be in that big house they call Kiwa qawu [ghosts]. Person that died is supposed to go up there. Kiwa’a they call it in our language—way up there. He think his brothers is way up there in that big house. That song is composed like that. And he's started to wondering why they were there in there. Maybe they’re down, down here on the earth. That's the way he composed that song.

And the next words to that song, that—[hesitation]—That man ordered that skeleton for a canoe; the river's starting to run down to this earth from way up where they were. That's why they got that little bird that they [put?] in the bow of the canoe and so he can steer that canoe. That's why that song is composed like that:

“Give the canoe a shove, the spirit of the Indian doctor. Give the spirit of the Indian doctor a shove, so he wouldn’t get lost on the way down.”

That's the first words, of the second verse, of the second words…[correction:] the first words of the second song that man composed. And you know the reason why that, that man ordered that skeleton of that Indian doctor, as we call ‘it’ in our language, because he doesn’t want anything happen to that fellow. He wants to come down to earth safe. That's why he—But it seems to łqaWAq that's a canoe, but it isn’t a canoe. It's the skeleton of an Indian doctor.

That little bird, that bird was along with him so he can stear down here. And, he, he said, he sing that song: “Give a shove to the canoe,” because he's just wondering which way he's going to come. And he thinks that's the last of his life. So that's practically goodby song.

That's why they belong to, the ałyi-Kagwantan belong to łqaWAq family. That's why they used that song that łqaWAq composed. They claim that song is belong to them, belong to ałyI-Kagwantan, because this thing is happened up there. That's why they claim it.

That's as far as I can remember.

[Again that same day, referring to the recording Minnie Johnson remarked:]

His brother doesn’t know what in the world they come to. You see, he's just looking at the lightning up in the sky, wished he was among them. So the Kiwa qawu [ghosts] gets ahold of them…Northern Lights.

They hunt together. They’re great hunters. Their dog leads them to that place, the other side of the sky. They follow, follow that dog, see what he's barking at.

[As told by JE, March 3, 1954. The order of incidents has been reversed here. The story was begun when the narrator was asked the name of the man who went up into the sky.]

Łayaw—He's the one that traveled with snowshoes that formed the Milky Way. I forget that story…. If I tell that story, going to be north wind. They have seasons for those stories, but Old Raven stories can come any time.

[FdeL jokingly suggested that he had better not tell the story, because we had already had too much wind. However, he continued.]

Łayaw is crazy one. His brother is shaman—doctor. They’re the ones got spear from xuts qwani [Bear Spirits or People].

Xuts qwani—bear people, like people. Like they go in a boat or a train [i.e. the indwelling souls of the bears]. They claim kit [killerwhale] is a boat, with people in it—the clothes they put on [i.e., the animal flesh is clothing for their spirits]. Kit qwani.

Xuts qwani—when they hibernate, they really doing something. That's why they never get skinny. They have fire and everything.

[In answer to the question whether there was just one qwani in each animal, or several, he said:] They don’t say. They never explain.

That's when they got this spear—dénà [a toggling harpoon head, see pp. 384–385]. They got into fish swimming up like that. [One gathers that Łayaw and his brother either concealed themselves inside a fishskin or swam among the fish.] First they talk how they’re going to duck from the point of that dénà. They practice how they’re going to duck it. Xuts qwani [bear spirit] was spearing the fish. So when he spear it, he missed [the hidden brothers], and they got the dénà, cut it off. And they hide away.

Xuts qwani take a feather, and he start pointing in trees, trying to find out where they were hiding, and when he find them, the slimy stuff come right out on the feather.

I forget what happens next, but anyway that's how they got that.

That Łayaw is always getting into trouble, and his brother always has to piece him together, and he comes back alive again.

This man always kills his kids—that's the way it started—because this man, the father, always goes halibut fishing. Right next to the fins it's always fat. This man likes to eat that, and he thought the kids might eat it from him. That's why he always kills them.

Something like fairy told this woman what to do, so the kids turn into dogs.

[The narrator digressed in an attempt to explain what was like a “fairy.” It was not a yek, or shaman's spirit. He did not know who or what it was. In explanation, he told the story of the “Blind Man and the Loon,” p. 888.]

Every time their father go out fishing, they turn into humans again. They get out of these…[dog skins, or dog shapes]…turned into humans again. That man's getting curious, because he's positive that he heard kids hollering and playing around. But when he come back, there's nothing. The woman always tells him, “It's those dogs making that noise.”

Then after they grow old enough, they just turn into human. Their father got pretty furious, so they had to kill him. And from there, they start going around.

After they killed the father, this shaman [brother of łayaw] took that grindstone, something like this oil-stone, and that's what he used to kill a lot of things. Smooth grindstone—yayénA [p. 415]. Ya refers to “face”—it's smooth.

When he made that snowshoe, he was married to some little people. How he got there, I don’t know. The little people were called qa wAq łtak łingídi—”in your eye people.”

I don't know what tribe he belonged to. My mother knows that story. She's the one used to tell me about it.

[These comments were made by SA, Kwacca and daughter of a ałyI-Kagwantan man. She had heard the recording made by Frank Italio (1952, 7–1–C), and gave the following version on March 8, 1954.]

I like the way they telling that story. It's a long story. Just the first part where the song comes in they have there [in the recording].

It's a fairy tale. Long time ago, they hear there are two or three levels [gestures with hands]. The lowest is Kiwa’a. A person that kills himself doesn’t go clear to the [upper level?]. This was before we know about the Bible…. A person kills himself goes there—not so good. The clouds move around with him. They explain it to the people, so they won’t kill themselves.

You see the Milky Way up there? That's łayaw's snowshoe tracks…łayaw djadji ya ‘iti.

[In answer to questions about the levels in the sky:] There might be some other as they tell it in the fairy tale, but I don’t know. They just explain it to us you are going to the upper land. They just say that Łayaw got lonely for the lower earth.

It's just the way the tribe of Kagwantan coming from that man, what happened to them. How many brothers? It's eight of them.

’Ałketsk is the oldest. He's an Indian doctor. He's the one that protects all the younger brothers. Sounds mostly they’re [some] kind of a spirit. They do anything like the doctor have [says?]. That dog like that. When that older brother wants it small, makes it small and put it in his pocket. Off they go. Easy to do.

When this happened—it's a long story—just before they’re going to go up there, they got Indian paint on the bottom of its feet, so they can see that dog running on the snow—make it red. It look so pretty when the dog is running on the snow.

By accident, Łayaw say: “I wish that dog was barking at the cloud flying so fast above. Fly up like that.”

Every time the dog see something they’re going to hear the dog's barking at it. Keep on barking, the dog, never catch up with it. Keep on going, keep on barking, running, barking [etc.]. Never end. Keep on barking….

Pretty soon they found themselves up at the Kiwa'a.

[OA then said something about the hole into Sky Land: gu wuł. SA had difficulty in hearing this, or the question about it.]

Maybe dog went through gu wuł. It opens when somebody die, has accident and is killed, they go through it. Just the time it opens, just when they’re dead. Then it closes again. The one that die naturally, they go beyond [sic]. Just the one that [is] killed go through gu wuł. I think that time it must have opened.

[The rest of the story was not told, because the informants began to explain about the afterlife in Kiwa’a, see pp. 770–771.]

The Story of Kat Who Married a Bear[23]

[As told by Jack Reed, June 1949. This brief version was told to explain the model of a totem pole that had been made by B. A. Jack (pl. 168), representing a bear holding a little man. This story is from notes.]

Kat, a man near Sitka, went hunting with dogs. Found bears in a den. The she bear was out in front. The dog went in the den. The young man slipped on snowslide with his moccasins. The male bear [the narrator asked for the English word] caught the man and threw him to his wife.

[The narrator explained with gestures how the man grabbed the she bear, pulled her to him, and copulated with her. He apologized for the story, and was relieved when no shock or disapproval was expressed.]

The she bear liked that and didn’t want to kill the man.

His two brothers were waiting outside the den.

“Did you eat the man?” the male bear asked, and [to fool him] the she bear threw out the man's gloves. The male bear was killed [by the brothers?].

Sometimes the man would talk to his brothers, but he didn’t want to leave his wife. The man and bear lived together and had kids, half-bear and half-human.

[As told by WT, July 4, 1952. This was told to explain how people learned the proper way of treating dead bears. The incidents have here been arranged in their logical sequence.]

The man went hunting. It was in the fall time, and he had a dog. The dog went into the cave and that man followed. That's when the she bear got him….

He finally got into trouble. He used to come down to Situk all the time. After he started to know himself, he used to come to his people for that dried fish for his kids. They say his kids had real thick ribs (ukw—rib).

One day the man came down here and he smile at his [human] wife. As soon as he came back his kids tore him up, because their mama is mad. She knew he had smiled at his wife.

After that—he got brothers, too—and after the bears killed that man, the people was ready for her [the she bear]. It was like they get ready for the July race—they stay away from anything. They keep clean. It's like the Christian life. They stay away from their wives, and so on.

It comes in like beams, if a man is not a strong enemy [knowledge of the hunter comes to the bear like a sunbeam.] The bear can throw him out because he is not fit enough to come around. But that bear can’t do anything if a good man comes. Like if you are a good Christian, any sin can’t hurt you.

And that man used to tell the people how to do it, treat the bear's head, and so on. The people think it is pretty dangerous. The bears can hear. When I talk, they listen. That man used to tell the people. That is why they are good and never laugh at the bears.

That is the song when they are going to kill her [see p. 366]. I don’t know if they shot her, or what. Maybe they used a knife.

When you are going to do something against it [the bear], when you are going to kill it, then you sing [to it]. Sometimes you don’t kill it, you keep it for guw [slave, i.e., a pet cub].

[The man who married the she bear was Teqwedi.]

The Story of the Woman who Married a Bear[24]

[As told by Minnie Johnson, August 6 and 7, 1952, with comments by AG of Dry Bay.]

A Teqwedi woman married a brown bear. She was a rich man's daughter, went out picking berries; a servant went to pack them for her.

[AG] She was getting celery, yana’Et.

[MJ] She was picking berries—that's the way I heard it.

She step on brown bear's manure. She fell down on it.

She cursed, “Big fat—Big flappy foot, always pooping in [a] place where you can step on it!”

So the young fellow came—the bear turned into human being.

She had a basket full of berries. She spilled it and keep on spilling it. She picked the berries up, and it happen again. It keep on like that till it get kind of dark.

She met a fine looking young fellow.

[AG] Dressed up like Unana [Athabaskan].

[MJ] “Want any help?” he ask.

“It's all right if you want to help me.”

Instead of that he took her to the curve [cave] of the mountains. She didn’t notice until she was ready to go to bed that she was between the roots of the trees. She wants to go to her own home.

She has a gopher robe. Every place she went she tie a little tail so people will notice where she went. [This evidently refers to her journey to the cave, when she began to be suspicious.]

She disappeared. They had a potlatch over her…. I don’t know her name.

[AG] The Teqwedi always talk about her at potlatches.

[MJ] The bear's name is Kat. She had a family with him. He goes out hunting fish for his kids.

[MJ broke off the story here. The next day she was reminded that she had not finished the story begun the previous evening.]

Dry Bay got a different story. They claim that girl go after yana’Et [wild celery]. I didn’t finish because I don’t want to get into dispute. It's the same story, but different.

[I began to read to her the version previously recorded, but she interrupted.] The girl who married a bear wasn’t Teqwca. Seems to me she was Kwacca. I forget her name. My grandpa and grandma say her name and it sounds like it was Kwacqwan name. [She then began the story from the beginning.]

Her father's a well-to-do man. She get hungry for berries. So he say, “All right, you can pick your own

berries.” She went with the rest of the young girls. He let one of his servants go with her.

She step on that thing, slide right on it.

“Big flapper foot, never get out of the way to do his job, right on the road!”

Spirit of that brown bear heard. A young fellow appeared. [This obviously refers ahead in the story.]

Then they begin to make up their mind to go home. They got enough berries. Her berry basket strings start to get broken, and spills the berries. It's getting dark. She gets her father's servant to give her a hand to pick them up. They go a little ways, and it broke again. And go a little ways, and it broke again. It's getting dark.

Finally her father's nephew appeared. “Can I help you?”

Well, she can’t very well refuse. She's very well disgusted. So, he took her home. Well, she know it was her home, but when bedtime come and she wants to lay down in her own bed, she found herself right between the roots of a tree. She look around and found herself in a cave.

[Q: Was she afraid?]

She was just more than scared and disgusted. She don’t dare do anything or be tore to pieces. Just have to lie quiet.

It keeps on going like that. When bedtime comes, he turn into human being. When he goes out hunting, he turns into that business—fur coat—that's his fur. [The narrator agreed that he put on his fur coat and turned into a bear.]

Pretty soon she get in a family way. She got five children.

They hunt and hunt and hunt [i.e., her people search for her]. The reason her brothers find her is because that gopher robe—she cuts the tails off and ties them on the bushes on the way [going to the cave]. They find her in the cave of brown bear. Can’t do anything.

Finally, one fine sunny day, sun comes into the cave.

Her husband used to say when he went out hunting, “Don’t open the door for anybody. Don’t let anyone in, whatever you do.”

Her relatives and brothers hunting for her find this brown bear cave. Sun is striking right at her eye. She moved to get away from the sun in her face. Her brother was looking in the cave. It was the sight of her brother's eye. She was in the cave.

One time her husband is at home, and that husband goes out hunting. He comes home with fish and all kinds of stuff for his children. And they were sitting there. Long time ago they never put shoes on. She knows what she's up against, but she can’t get away.

They were sitting together. That man [male bear] felt somebody's coming near. Finally they come to the cave; they followed that gopher tail. They find her, but aren’t sure. They are prepared for that bear, going to kill it.

And all at once, while she's sitting, the tcunet [arrow] struck her foot. “Ah—’ada [spear]. Watch what you’re doing! You hit my foot.”

They just mooch around that place—not sure if it was the right cave. But they recognize her voice then.

It was after a big potlatch over her disappearing.

[A to Q:] They can’t go right in. They just find out she's in there….

Then she come out and took her children out. [She met her brothers.] Brown bear is suspicious. He smell human smell around her. She try to make him believe she never met anybody.

He question her: “Who was you meeting?”

“Nobody. I’m just taking the kids out.”

Then he's training the kids. He took them down to the water and taught them how to catch fish for themselves. One of her sons is old enough to go and meet the people—his own people [her sib]—she can’t go herself. His father always just growls at him.

[A to Q:] Her five sons look like bears.

People get ready to kill the bear. The first bunch [that] try to get hold of her get all tore to pieces. She fight for her brother. She told her husband, “That's my brother. Don’t hurt him.”

Her sons were big brown bears. “You tell my people to leave this man of mine alone. Don’t kill him. I’ve got five sons.”

That's how Teqwedi got those names from bears.

[Q: What names?] The oldest son is Kat.

She taught them [her children] that's their uncle is coming. “Don’t hurt them.”

Finally they all scared of him. They want to get acquainted. Five bears come, but people get scared and turn back.

Her people come down and met her children, but their mother taught them who [the sib] they belong to.

After those big brown bears is grown up, the people killed the old bear. They wanted to get her home. She give them instructions how to take care of him when he die—get his head part to face the sun.

[A to Q:] They cut off his head. Got his face towards the sun. [MJ did not know what they did with the hide.] Hunters do that to bears now. Otherwise the brown bears would notice…. Or the bear would get mad and go after him.

Them brown bears, people so scared of them, she tell them where to go. “See that smoke coming from round the mountains. It's your grandfather and your grandmother. Go there. Don’t forget where your father is buried. Come see him some time.”

[A to Q:] They buried the bear with his head against the sun.

Her uncles and all her relatives got her home. They had big potlatch over her.

Her sons sometimes wanted to visit their mother. They [her relatives] get scared and get guns. They have a saying: “The brave one is going to sit at the stern of Kat canoe” [to] see if he's going to get scared. [25]

She give her family the name of them, but they can’t remember. [After hesitation, the narrator corrected herself.] No, she named the bears after her own people. Kat was name in her family before.

[A to Q:] Yes, that's how they learn that bears gets home in the cave.

TcunEt [arrow] goes right in the breast under the arm. When he [the wounded bear] moves, it goes right in. That's the way they kill Kat du kani [the brother-in-law of Kat, i. e., bears].

Bears put up stuff in the winter, the story tells—strawberries…. [The informant went on to tell how bears live in winter, quoted p. 827.]

The Story of the Woman who Married a Bear and Comments on the Story of Kat

[As told by Sheldon James, Sr., and his wife, Mary, April 21, 1954. These stories were suggested by a discussion of destiny (cAgun) and fate, or the future (cUkA), especially as they affected the Teqwedi sib (see pp. 813, 834). Sheldon James said he got rather mixed up on the two stories of people who married bears.]

[SJ] A girl was picking berries. On the way back she stepped on something in the path and said bad things about it.

[M] Bear made a mistake in the path and she stepped in it.

[SJ] Then the strings of her basket [gesture to indicate shoulder straps] broke and kept breaking. The other women with her got tired of waiting and went home without her. Probably they were close to home.

Then this young man came to her. What I can’t understand is how she came to go with him.

[M] She’d never seen him before.

[SJ] He told her to follow him. They went a long way. Then she began to get suspicious and began to tie something so they could follow her. [The narrator made gestures of plucking something small from the front of his coat.]

After a while the man turned around. “Look at my feet that you called so wide.” She’d said something about wide feet.

[M] She said, “Why does that thing with big, wide feet have to step in the path where people walk?”

[SJ] Then she knew what was happening, who it was.

He took her way up in the mountains. She married him and had two brown bear cubs.

Her brothers knew in some way what had happened. [The narrator was puzzled as to how they knew.] They did something to make themselves strong, because they used spears then, not guns. They went in the icy water and stayed away from their wives all winter. The older ones—there were three of them, I think—kind of cheated. But the younger one, he was honest, and used to go away from his wife to sleep.

When they went out to look for their sister, they threw their thoughts like an arrow, like a ray of sunlight. They came into that brown bear's den. He picked them up and threw them out. The thoughts of the older brothers didn’t come back, but the younger brother was strong-minded and his thoughts came back again. So the brown bear knew he was going to kill him.

He told his wife her brothers were coming and what to do after he was dead. I don’t remember it all, but he told her to take his head [gesture of cutting it off at the neck], and put it under a waterfall so no birds could get at it.

Before he died, he took her outside, and asked, pointing, “Can you see that smoke up there?” But she couldn’t.

So he put [passed] his paw over her eyes and asked, “Can you see it now?”

“Yes, I can see it.”

“That's where the children's grandparents are living. When I die you are to take them over there.”

[M] She was to take them over there because they were brown bears. She was going home to her people and couldn’t take them with her.

[SJ] Before her brothers took her home, they threw some clothes into the brown bear den for her to wear.

[M] They brought clothes along for her because she was naked. Her old clothes were all torn up. She’d been living in the mountains so long.

[Neither had heard of a version in which she told her brothers about the location of bears' dens, so they became great hunters.]

[SJ] Kat—That's another story, I guess. I don’t know how it happened that he got acquainted with that brown bear. Maybe he was out hunting and they were fighting. I think she recognized him as a man and sort of protected him. Anyway, they got acquainted enough to get married. He was already a married man.

They had children. [A to Q:] Two brown bears.

When he went back to his people, his bear wife told him not to have anything to do with his human wife. He used to come back [to the shore near the bear's den] and bring things, throw them ashore for his children to eat.

One time his human wife said to him, “Why don’t you come near me? It's because of that bear wife!”

That time when he went to feed his children, they were mad. He could see they were angry at him, and they tore him up…. I think the man in the stern of the canoe escaped.

[The narrator and his wife listened with avid interest to the Chugach story of the deserted wife who turned into a brown bear (Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 154–155).]

Other people got different stories.

The Story of the Woman who Raised the Worm [26]

[As told by Minnie Johnson, April 6, 1954. These remarks were suggested by her granddaughter who spoke of a native dance she had seen in Juneau. A woman there had done the Worm Dance. She was dancing with a stocking with a face on the end of it.]

Tł’u [worm] ‘ausiwAdi [raised] cawAt [woman]—the woman that raised the worm.

The story says that woman is left alone. All her townspeople is all killed. And she's got that worm. He begin to grow. Get big one. Dug under the town.

That's why that totem pole, they make that story about it—”The woman that raised the worm.” [This may be a reference to the anAtedi tombstone at Klukwan, which I had described.]

[The informant showed me a moccasin pattern of a woman's head, with the worm draped over the top like a cap.]

The Man who Married Fair Weather's Daughter [27]

[As told by EE, July 22, 1954. CMcC had told parts of the story of the Trojan War and of the Argonauts, which produced the following reaction:]

We have all kinds of stories. In olden times, that man go away from his wife. He use that 'Ałqa, gambling sticks [pp. 553–555], and that woman don’t like it.

She cooks for her husband, and he don’t want to eat it. So she says—that Kayeł’-si, Fair Weather's daughter—she's going to cook for her husband [see p. 817].

“You’re going to eat from that Kayeł’-si,” she says. That man don’t like to eat with his wife, so she says, “You’re going to eat from that Fair Weather's daughter.”

Then he goes, that man. He goes, and after a while he goes to an island, you know. There's somebody there, a slave called We. That means ‘Bullhead,' a fish. It's a story, you know.

He is chopping wood, that slave. He used a stone ax [adz].

The man thought, “I hope he broke it, that stone ax.”

Then after a while, that guw [slave] broke that thing.

The man came out and said to him, “What's the matter that you are crying?”

“Well, my master's going to get mad at me because that thing broke.”

That man said, “How does she sleep, your master's daughter?”

The guw said “She sleeps upstairs on the yac [the platform above the sleeping rooms, p. 296].”

“Who takes the steps away?”

“I’m the one that takes it away,” he told that man.

“Well, are you going to help me?”

“Yes, I’m going to help you.”

“I’m going to give you this thing, that stone hatchet [adz], that tayís [p. 414].”

He gave it to him. Oh, he's so glad, that slave! “I’m going to help you,” he said.

That evening the slave puts a big fire. Then he takes that łAkt, wooden box. He wants to get water, that guw. He comes down those steps from way up at the door. When he's coming down, he falls down and that water goes all on the fire. That's the way he helps that man. It's dark in there. Then that man went in and goes under the steps.

After a while the man [of the house] feels it. “There is somebody in here!” He feels it [senses it].

“No, there's nobody in here,” that guw says.

After a while when everybody went to sleep, he took out those steps. Then the man watched it and after he come to get that girl. He come up beside that girl, and he wants to ask that girl. And the guw takes the steps.

Then that man asks if she wants to marry him. She can’t do anything, you know. He just stays with her, that man.

After a while, that guw wakes them. After a while he tells the girl's mother, “There's a man over there.”

“Who's that?”

Well, they can’t do anything.

“Tell them to get up” [the girl's parents said]. So they eat. They were married already.

Then the man start to chop wood. He got another taís [stone adz]—another one besides the one he gave to the slave. That man chopped wood for his mother-in-law and his father-in-law. He chop that wood just full around the house.

After a while that man was beginning to get Ionesome. His father-in-law said, “Well, you can go to your place.” That girl's father said, “There's a boat over there, sanAxet yakw, 'southeaster' “ [Southeast Wind Canoe].

That boat is always hungry.

So they go back to that man's place. Whenever the boat is hungry they look back and give it something to eat. Then it goes fast again. It's something alive and it paddles itself. Maybe it's a sea lion or something, but they don’t say.

Then after a while they came to that man's place. His old wife wants to see him. His wife got so lonesome about her husband. They got a girl.

When they sit down, his new wife is like a sunbeam, when they sit by the fire. The other people see her like a sunbeam, and they don’t see her like a human. When she moves it's just like that [gesture with waving fingers to indicate a beam of light moving along]. It's like the sunshine moving.

After a while that man takes a bucket. He wants to get water for his wife. Then he sees his old wife. She wants to get her husband and she grabs him.

Whenever he brings water, that new wife has a feather and she dips it in, and when she brings it out it is just as clean [as] in the first place.

After his old wife grab that man, his new wife put the feather in, and that time there is something slimy all over it.

Then she goes away from her husband like a sunbeam. He tries to catch it, and there is nothing there. All that boat, too, it goes away. He lost his wife.

He turns to some kind of animal, that man. He turns to something, I forget what. I think it's a shark. It was when he tried to grab his wife.

They don’t say that girl's got a mother. They just say she's got a father, but maybe he's got a wife.

The Story of Tł'EnAxídÁq[28]

[As told by JE, March 14, 1954. This was told after the informant had translated the story of QakewtE who killed his own sleep [pp. 271–272, 1952, 1-2-1).

I know a story a little bit different from that one, but I can’t tell it because I don’t know the whole thing. I used to hear it when I was small. I suppose you can ask some older person about ŁenAhídúq [cf. p. 821; pronunciation of the name varies].

[The story was told, but some of the incidents are in inverted order.]

Ta gú—that's her brother. He took that adz and any person going to have luck is the one that hears it. Sound like cutting wood or something, and he [the hearer] always look for it. Sometimes find it in a tree.

She had a baby, and that baby was healed [grown] to her back. Every time they hear a baby cry “aé, aé,” if they hear it they try to grab it.

There's a story that this Tł'UknaAdi tribe caught the baby once. She turned around and just scratched right across his breast. And that man made a wrong wish. He said:

“kA da Át kA łA náł” was the way he made the wish. “When he coming in, keep fair weather.”

When the canoe came in, it ran right over his breast and split him wide open. He fell back (nał kudakca) and the canoe run right over him on the beach.

He was wishing for luck, wishing to be rich. But that wish sounded wrong. That's why it happened. It's a different story from this one [i.e., the story of the man who made the wrong wish is a different story from the one that connects ŁenAhidUq with the Sleep Bird?]. Fell back, and the canoe ran right over him.

This man he caught it once [ŁenAhidUq's baby]. This was way after [the story of her origin], but the story was going at the time he said [referring to Jack Reed's story of QakewtE]. If they hear ŁenAhidUq and catch it, they be lucky. Have to make a wish. It don’t happen to any ordinary person. Have to live right, every move just so, obey rules….

ŁenAhidUq gave Tagu the adz. They went away because nobody left; everybody died off…. That man he caught ta [Sleep].

Tagu caught the Sleep Bird. He didn’t shoot it, he caught it. That night when people were all asleep he took their eyes out. I don’t know why he scratched their eyes out—maybe he wanted to eat them. He had long claws. A woman and a little baby were the only ones left alive. They went into the woods and just wandered around. She went into the woods with the baby on her back and wandered around. The baby healed onto her back. He took her adz and went in the opposite direction. If you hear him or the baby crying, you will be lucky. [A to Q:] Don’t know where it happened.

[As told by EE, April 8, 1954.]

That Tł’enAxidAq descended for that Jack Ellis. [Jack Ellis is descended from someone who met her.]

That's the man that got KitcidAłk—’Heavy Wings' [kitcidAł]. He caught that Tł’enAxidAq.

Then he hears that baby, you know. “Awwwwwwwwè!” He try to get it. And he don’t get it. After while he takes off all his clothes, you know, takes it off. After while he see it. There's a woman walking around; there's a baby on her back. He make mistake, you know. He grab that little baby like this [gesture]. “Ahn!” he says. All over that TłenAxidAq scratch his chest. She's got big finger ends, that TłenAxidAq. He's got big long ones [scratches].

Then he came to his wife, that KitcidAłk. Then he's just like he's sick, you know. That thing, that scratch is right down deep.

“What's the matter, you look so different?” his wife ask. And he don’t tell his wife.

Then after while the daughter's going to get married. That's all he got [for a dowry] that big djiAn’At—big copper knife [p. 588]. That's copper, about that big [30 inches], I guess. That's a big knife. That's all they got.

He ask his wife, “Let my daughter take that djIAn 'At.” Goes to her husband, you know, the woman they going to marry to. “Take it, she can take it.”

“No!”—That's his wife. “I don’t like it.” [It's the] only thing, the high-price thing they got.

Then he says, “’agé wucut kU-sI-tayé ya ‘awé.” [’AgÉ ‘here ' wucút ‘together,' kU-sI-tayé 'sleeping,' ya ‘whales,' ‘awÉ ‘that it was.’]

Just like he put it together, that whale[s]—that's the way he says. Because he's got that luck, you know, already. He got it together, that whale[s], you know. Just like he's got two [whales sleeping together] like that, you know. That's the way he talks about it. That ya [whale] is the luckiest thing the people found it. He's got two of them already. That's the way he says.

Like two whales drifted ashore—wucút ‘akuwudiha—another way to say it. [wucut ‘akA wudIha.]

After while he takes it out [the scab]. After that he show it to his wife. “Look at that.”

“WasAwé ‘iwaniyu?—What's the matter with you?” she says.

“Well, I’m going to tell you after while,” he says.

Then 8 days he don’t do anything. Then he wash in the water. Early in the morning he got up before that crow sounds—funny, you know. Before yeł [raven] flying around. He got up, he wash his hair with that thing you know. [Q: The scabs?] Yes. Then he give it to his cousins, he give it to him. And some of them comes to him, give it blankets, change it [in exchange for a scab]. Just that thing, you know. Because they lucky when they got it, somebody got it, that's why.

But he wishes, he's so excited, that's why he wishes like that:

“kA wAn dAq At kU-łI-nał” [Swanton, 1909, p. 397.2: Dqx xAt kAxlana’łx q!wAn—’Let me burst open with riches!’]—Rich, you know. But he wishes different way, you know.

That's why that big boat—big boat they using it for olden times—ła yakw [red cedar canoe]—all full of duwuwEt [riches] and guw [slaves]—just full, that boat. And it goes on him; then he got bust open, see? He died. He's so excited. That's why he says like that.

That's around Lituya Bay, on the other side. That's the same place, I guess, he caught that TłenAxidAq….

That's Teqwedi. That Old Doc [Ned Daknaqin] used to call it like that [was also named KitcidAł]. That's why all that Jack's family got luck, I guess. [Jack Ellis, 1892–1952, Tł'UknaAdi, was the son of Elizabeth, DAgwEtc, the daughter of Ned Daknaqin, Teqwedi.]

Stories About Hemlock Child and Spruce Root Child [29]

[As told by EE, March 4, 1954. These stories were suggested by questions about tree spirits (’as qwani, see p. 822).]

One man one time he chopped that wood. Then he hears something—baby crying, a little baby. He found it in that tree.

GAn-tU-yAdi [hemlock inside baby] they call it.

There's a nest in there, you know, That's a good nest in there. A little baby, about that big [the length of a finger], just a tiny little thing. And when they [he] grow, that thing big husky man. That's as far as I know that. When he goes he hears everything. He gets everything. He sure lucky, that man. And that other one—that's a woman. She got that roots, you know. She's all alone, that woman. All her family died off. That's all she do, take some of that roots for baskets. After while she hears a baby crying. Again she hears it. Then she takes it, that root. After while she found it out.

There's a big round thing on the end of that root—just round. Then she open it, she cut it open, that thing. When she open it, baby's in there. at-tu-yAdi [root inside baby].

Then she take it home. She's all alone; all her people, you know, died off.

Then every morning, she put it in the water. Takes her bath, you know [bathes the child]. And in the evening, she put it to bed. It grows so fast! After while he's big.

Then he asks his mother, “Mama, how come you always crying? How come there's no people over here?”

She don’t want to tell it, how come she's all alone. They goes on the boat, his uncles, brothers—they never come back again. They goes to the woods, they never come back again. She don’t know what's happened to them. That's why she's all alone.

After while he goes, that little boy. He's big now. He try to kill that squirrel. He chase it around. After while he see it, that big tsagAł [spear]—right in the snow [sticking up]—right over here. He see it. He look at it. That's different thing [something unusual].

[Q:It was in the snowslide?] Yes. He slide down like this, that boy. After while he see it. That's the one all that family kills off of that.

You know that wolverine?—nuskw—He's the one that does that, kills all his people.

He just look at it [the spear]. After while he thinks about it. “What I’m going to do?” Then he hide himself some place. “Somebody coming.”

“Hu!” he says, that nuskw. “Hu! There's nothing in there. There's nothing in that tsaAł. It don’t catch anything,” that nuskw says. “It don’t catch anything, my tsaAł. There's nothing in there,” he says.

That's why he [the boy] thinks about it. “What I’m going to do next time?” he talks it this way.

After while he kills that squirrel; he got two. Then he take it to his mother. He thinks about it, that thing what he seen, and what he says, what the nuskw says. He going back. He kills that rabbit, wild one.

After while, “I’m going to stop over there.”

He use his coat like this, just like he does on that thing. [The narrator demonstrated with her coat how the boy jabbed his coat down over the spear, as if he had been speared.] He holds it, that thing. That's that at-tU-yAdi.

Then he [wolverine] come. “Oh boy!” he says. “Oh boy! He kills big meat. Tł’i tłen ‘a’awAdjaq ‘a tsaAtłi [big meat has killed my spear].”

Then after while he [the boy] just pretended like he's all stiff. He's strong that thing. [This is because] he goes in the water. His mother puts him in the water all the time. When he's grow up his mother puts him in the cold water sometimes; sometimes he sit in the snow. That's why he's strong.

After while he [wolverine] takes it [the boy] home. His wife and kids in there in that house. He put it by the fire—make it a little bit softer, you know. “It's icy, that's why it's stiff,” he says.

Little one, his children, they says, “He open his eyes! Look, papa, he open his eyes!—wuc ya ‘awłIen [’out of both he looks’?].”

“Don’t you say that! I’m going to kill that other one. I’m going to kill that other one,” says nuskw—”tsAtA dakA cU ‘awE wuc yá awłIen—that's why he opens his eyes. I’m going to kill the other one…. That's why it look like that to them. I’m going to kill the other one, that's why he open his eyes.”

[The narrator was unable to explain why the wolverine told his children that the dead man opened his eyes because he intended to kill “the other one.”]

This was just the way the story went.

Then afterwards, he jump up, that man. The one he kills. He takes all his u [club] made of that horn of that moose. He takes it out, that boy. Then he kills all of that nuskw- Just one little one run out. That's why that nuskw is not so many, they says. He kills all that nuskw.

Then all the things in the woods, he kills it.

[A to Q:] He kills that wolverine (nuskw), and that bear—some bear, just one foot, tłle tłe łA usi [one-?- foot]—he kills it…. Something that was eating his people. That's only two.

They used to eat human being, they says, that nuskw, they says. “You’re not going to kill any human being,” he says.

“I’m not going to kill human being again,” said that baby wolverine. “Yes, I’m not going to bother human being.”

“You’re going to eat rags.” Like this—that's why that nusk w steal things.

You see that nuskw—some designs on it [i.e., pattern on the back of the pelt]—that's a tcunEt bag [quiver].

Then all that things in the woods, he kills it. He kills all that, and after while he takes just a head, you know. He takes it to his mother. She looks at it. Then she takes that kinfe, cut their face off like this [the narrator demonstrated with her hand as if slicing off her own face], because they kill all her family, his relations. That mother of that boy cuts the face like this. She crying, cutting the face like that. It's a blessing she's got that boy.

After while he says, “Mother, how come you’re always crying when you cuts it like that?”

Then she says, “My son, that's the people, I guess, your uncles and your brothers, they kill it out of that people.” That's the way she says.

Then that boy says, “Mother, why didn’t you tell me in the first place? I just found it out myself. I see that things. That's why I kill it—all of it.” That's at-tu-yAdi.

After a while he takes a boat. “Mama, I want to go on a boat.” There's a good one, his uncle's boat. She give it to him. He go around.

First thing he see a smoke some place. There's a woman there.

She says, “Aaa, where you been?”

[The narrator did not know the woman's name.]

I know the name of that thing. They eats eyes, you know. Just one woman—eats eyes.

“Hw? Aaa, ‘a datcAn—my grandchild,” she says. “What you want? What you doing around here? Come in. You want something to eat?” she says. “Dry fish. That's dry fish,” she says.

Then he sits over there. That's a skin of human being, that dry fish. He just look at it. After while he push it.

Then she says, “You want to eat fish eggs?” That's human beings' eyes—that's the one, that fish eggs. “You want to eat some?”

“Yes,” he says.

She give it to him. That's the eyes. He push it again.

After while she says, “You want to eat that berries?” They got fish eggs in there. “You want to eat kané- gwAł’?” [See p. 409: mixed berries cooked with salmon eggs.]

He says, “Yes.”

That's galls, that's the one. [Later corrected to:]—that brains. He push it again.

After while she says, “What’re you going to eat?”

“I don’t want to eat anything like that. Łe ‘a tuwasigu łingít tł’iyi a ayi—No. I don’t want to eat people's meat.”

Then she takes that big knife—big knife like wEkc [ulo]—big one. She's got it. Then she sharp it, like this. That's what she kills that people with. He watch it, that boy. He sits like this—[the narrator knelt to sit on one heel, the same pose that had been demonstrated by a man as the way boys should sit “ready to get up all the time,” p. 513].

When he sees that thing, he jump up and it goes under him. After while he goes on the other side, she do it again. After while that boy grab it. He kills that woman. I forget the name for it [her]. Maybe I think of it. [It was not cannibal, qU-sA-ha-qwan.]

All that bay side just full, that bones. All full of human being's bones.

She takes it up, that eyes, you know. She put it on the fire. You know that fire—it's hot, that sand. She puts it around like that. Then she eats it. [The narrator claps her hands and exclaims “hah!”]

Qawage qwAtcxe—people's-eyes roasted [the woman's name?]

She's roasting it. She eat it. If you got fish or something, you’re going to cook the meat of it. That's they way they are. That's the one [way] they eat it [i.e. she baked the eyes in hot sand].

But that at-cugu-tłi—that's the boy's name. He got two names: at-tu-yAdi. Cuguti is ‘knot at the end’; ‘At cu—’its end’; tłi—’knot’. GAn cugu ti—‘hemlock end-of knot.’

He kill it off—all those things. He cuts her head off and gives it to his mother. She cuts it in two, that face. She throws it away. [The narrator demonstrated with gestures that she sliced off the face and then slashed it across.]

Then she feels better.

[As told by Charley and Jenny White, March 20, 1954. The story was told antiphonally by the Whites, as indicated. There has been some editing, especially of pronouns.]

[JW] There was a baby and someone found it. Long time ago, about a thousand years ago, woman found a baby. You know, she make baskets.

[CW] Roots—fall out—take it out of the roots. Just about that big [as big as his hand], the roots.

[JW] She was taking it out; inside, the baby, she hear a cry. That baby cry. [The baby was in a swelling on the spruce roots which the woman was digging for baskets.]

Something kill all her families, all the town. She's the only one alive. That woman cry because she stay alone. In that house there's nobody in there. He went after wood, the man, or hunting. Nobody came home again. Just old woman left. Only old woman saved herself.

Sometimes she start to cry, night, morning. Can’t do nothing. That time she found that little boy. That small [as big as the hand]. She call it atcAgutłí [little-knot-at-root-end]. And she save it, and going home she put something to it—blankets.

And he grow fast, that boy.

[Q: What happened next?]

[JW] And she made tcunEt [bow and arrow] for him. That big boy, he used that tcunEt. He went out and with that he killed everything.

And he asked his mother, “What you crying for, mama?”

And she don’t tell him at first. He's big man that time she tell him.

“All your uncles and your brothers they lost. I don’t know what happen. Some go after wood, they don’t come home; and hunting, they don’t come home. And somebody kill them.”

[CW] That big boy now going out hunting, and everything he kill with that tcunEt. No gun—no use gun.

[JW] He want to found out all his family—he kill something [i.e., he wanted to find out what was killing his family]. Just go down in the woods.

[There was a discussion as to what he had found]—Qu-sA-ha-qwan [‘cannibal’]. Man, he's eating that big man.

[CW] He see man, he kill, he eat.

[JW] First he's looking for his, he's found him [i.e., this was the first monster the youth was seeking?]. He kill it, that man.

[CW] That man, that boy, he kill that big man.

[JW] He take off the head. He packed that home to his mother to show that big man's head.

Next time he looking again and he saw it, a big nus [nuskw, wolverine], live, that big [wide gesture with arms]. He put his tsaAł' [spear] on snow, deep snow. [The wolverine set the spear in the snow.] Big spear. He [the youth] just saw it, just like that.

[CW] Put it in on the snow—mountain. TsaAł’. Coming down. He want that. Man coming down to tsaAł’.

[He explained with gestures that the wolverine set his spear (”knife”) in the snow at the foot of the steep mountainside, so that a man coming down would slip on it unseen, and be killed.]

[JW] Easy to see, that boy; that's why he don’t died. [The boy saw the spear easily and so was not killed.]

[CW] He see that knife, that boy. He see somebody coming down—slip—[if] he don’t see it, that knife—kill him. [A to Q:] That boy doesn’t get killed. He stay on tsaAł’, that boy. He watch him, he hide. And night time he [wolverine] come after it. He think, nuskw, has died that boy. When he pack that big sack, he got in there.

[The boy pretended to have been killed by the spear. The wolverine came that night with a big sack and carried him home.]

[JW] He think he died, that boy, and just put it in big sack and pack it home. And he just watching to lose that knife, that nuskw knife. [He was wishing for the wolverine to lose his knife.] He's just going to cut his meat. He's watching [wishing] to lose it. That boy he don’t died. He just want to know nuskw knife for his own town. That's why he looking for it.

He got a club in his pocket, and tcunEt, too. He hide it. Nuskw don’t see it. He watching it. [The boy watched the wolverine.] He just opened for the eyes. Before he don’t find it, that knife, he just get up and jump on him—that nuskw woman, too—small one, too.

[CW, with relish] Nuskw he kill!

[JW] And he take that head back, packed [it] to his mama.

[CW] That's nice boy!

[JW] Everything he kill. That's all I know of it.

[CW, in answer to questions about the name, a- tcAgutłí] You see that roots in the ground. Some place get big, like that.

[JW] Just like a ball. Just got that little boy. She don’t know what she's going to do, that old woman. She can’t do nothing. She just stay here alone. That's why she call him that. [Agreed that the name meant he came out of the roots, át.]…Don’t know which tribe the boy belonged to—not TłUknaAdi, not CAnkuqedi.

[CW] Unana [Athabaskan], I guess.

The Story of the Blind Man and the Loon

(EPISODE 1)

[As told by Minnie Johnson, July 22, 1952.]

I hear a story. He and his wife are starving. They got children.

They call moose łAwan. And a big moose come out on the other side of the creek. This man been a hunter, and he could smell animals a long ways off. He was a crack shooter.

The woman says, “I wish you would get your eyesight and one shot kills the animal you been hunting for.”

He's got a sack just like a golfball bag [a quiver.] And he's got all his dénàs in there hanging on the wall. [This informant interpreted déná as a big arrowhead with barbs, see p. 369, fig. 31a.]

“How near is the animal?”

“Just across the creek—not far.”

“Well, give me my dénà.”

“How can you shoot it?”

“Give me my dénà.”

The whole town was starving. And then he let go. My goodness, that thing fell there!

And see how crooked a woman could be. “Ah, you didn’t even hit it,” she said. And here the animal fell across the creek.

She got all her brothers' families and her relations to get part of that moose. But the blind fellow kill it.

“I wish you could shoot straight,” she told him.

My parents preach to me about it, so I won’t cheat.

That poor old blind man is starving, and the woman have a good time. He knows he killed it. He feels it inside of him.

“I told you, you missed it. I wish you could still kill it,” she told him.

Djin qutini—’hand can see' [the man's name?]

My grandparents preach to my mother about it.

[This is only the first episode of a longer story.]

(EPISODE 2)

[As told by JE, March 3, 1954. This fragment of the story was interjected when trying to explain the nature of the “fairy” that came to help the mother of Łayaw (see p. 879).]

Big duck, like loon, came to a man and told him, “Jump on my back.” They took off. This man got [was] blind.

That's what they say, “du ‘igawusù—he got a blessing.”

He had a blessing from this loon. Well, this here [”fairy”] is the same kind, but it isn’t a loon.

[A to Q:] Well, like supposing you really need help. Just then somebody show up and do it for you. If he does it for you, you say: “a gawu ‘iwasù—it's a blessing you came.”

[He continues the story:] He dove down with him so many times and he received his eyesight again. I forget the rest. There's so many stories I never did tell people [so I now don’t remember them].

The Story of Salmon Boy [30]

[As told by EE, May 22, 1954. The story was prompted by a remark that some shamans must have been better than others.]

In Sitka, that boy, you know that boy, he's hungry. He ask his mother for food. She gives him some dry fish. It's moldy. He doesn’t want to eat moldy fish.

“This dry fish is moldy,” he says. He throws it away. He was crying.

After while, he went by the water. He was using a hook to catch that seagulls, you know. That herring, you know. He puts it on the hook to catch the seagull. After while he drowned.

Then the fish saves him. They take him way out there [pointing toward the bay]. Maybe under the water. He just knows it's way out there. Big place—lots of houses, lots of people.

He started to get hungry. He sees some fish eggs on the roots, over by the side. He takes some. He eats. They [the fish people] see it.

They says, “cAnyakw tla —That fish is half molded.”[31]

They call it [the boy] like that [because] he says, “The dry fish is half moldy.” Half-moldy boy! [laughs].

He says, “I’m hungry.”

He has a friend there. This friend says, “Go over and play with the people and throw one of them down. That's fish.” He see it. “Then you’re going to go way back there and make a fire and cook it. Put all the bones in the fire. Whole thing. Don’t leave any of it on the ground.”

One bone he left by the fire. When he came in that man got sick. He's awful sick. He's got a backache. He goes to him.

“You left a backbone, that's why he got sick.”

He looks around and found that backbone—little tiny bone [the narrator measured about half an inch with thumb and forefinger]. He put it in the fire. After while he's okay.

After that, fish coming in like now. That's the time they ask you, “Where you going to stay?” They say: Situk, Dry Bay, other places; some of them, Copper River they going to stay.

They ask him, “Where you going to stay?”

He says same place they got it [him], you know, around Dagraveeacutet, a river near Sitka…. Small river. I don’t know what that means.

Finally he sees his mother. She's cutting fish. You know how they cut fish, cut the head off? [The narrator made a slicing motion.] He wants to talk to his mother.

After while she stand up. [Or, he stand up, i.e., jump?].

“What's the matter with that fish?” He went close to her.

She said to her husband, “Go kill fish so we can cook it, roast it.”

Then the man takes a spear. He kills that fish. He takes it up on the ground. When he cut the head off there was something on it—a necklace. That's on the fish, copper necklace.

The man calls his wife. “What's the matter?” she says. She run.

“Look,” he says.

“Oh, my son, What we going to do?” she says. Then she just think about it.

“Get feather!”

She goes in the house, that woman. Puts feathers around, then put it [the fish] on clean board. It's still alive, you know—kicking. Its tail is moving. She puts it on that eyatu. [This was apparently a platform or ledge just below the ceiling.] Put that fish on it.

After while they hear something. Next morning they hear something over there. That's why that man says, “I’m going to go to Indian doctor.” He go, that man.

They [the doctor] says, “That's right, he's going to coming to alive, that thing…. Leave it like that, he's going to be Indian doctor, that man.”

After while, he hears sounds like Indian doctor. After while he got up, that man. He turn into man, that fish.

He says, “Take me to the woods.” He choose two people. “Two people going to go with me.” Then they go….

Gee, he's strong Indian doctor, that man!

[This man was KiksAdi, which is why this sib has shamans with the Fish People, Xat qwani, as their spirits. In some way which the narrator could not explain, this event also was responsible for the fact that Gutcda and other TlsukwaxAdi shamans of Dry Bay had Fish People for their yek.]

[As told by W, August 1, 1952. This brief version was prompted by a discussion of Government fishing regulations.]

The Fish Commissioner thinks he knows a lot about fish, but we know more. In the old days we used to take care of the fish…. [See the discussion of control of hunting and fishing territories, pp. 361, 374, 379.]

There is a wonderful story that explains how we know about fish.

There was a boy who made fun of the fish; he laughed at them. It was a moldy fish. And he fell overboard and the fish rescued him. Saved his life. It was when they were putting up fish. He saw the fish. They were like people, and traveled in canoes. They would call out to each other, saying where they were going, the different tribes of salmon.

So they came back to the same place where he fell in, where his mother and father were getting fish. He looked up out of the water—he was a fish then—but he recognized the place. He tried to come ashore, kept getting closer to the bank.

And his mother recognized him, or something. She got her husband to catch and club him. He put him on the cutting board that big fish.

[The narrator was not sure just how it ended, but the boy became human.] He told the people about the fish.

[Rules for treating fish were discussed, p. 384, evidently learned from this boy as ways of showing respect for the salmon.]

[As told by Sheldon James, Sr., on May 25, 1954. This story was volunteered after an explanation of catching salmon in fishtraps, and the care one should take not to offend animal qwani (souls).]

A person was once saved by a fish. [The narrator was urged to tell the story, so continued:] He became an Indian doctor.

A woman told her husband to spear the fish for fresh fish. When he did that, she's starting to cut the head off, and she recognized the chain that used to be on her little boy's neck on the fish. They put feathers on the fish and put it over the door. At midnight they hear noise up there like a person starting to come to.

What he did was to throw away a piece of moldy fish. Sunaw gutlsa—”moldy” he was called. The fish qwani didn’t like it, so they took him.

He was fishing for seagulls. They used nutA—fishhook for seagulls [a gorge, p. 373]. Put salmon eggs on it for bait.

He went down. He caught a seagull. The seagull start to go out to deep water. All at once he fell in.

First thing, he find himself among some kind of people. They looked to him like human beings. They were out playing.

He was hungry. He didn’t see anything to eat. Once he saw what looked like cooked fish eggs. Finally he took some.

“’Anka hagravelse [hadlis?] ‘ayaagrave—human beings' dirt!” someone hollered. But it looked to him like eggs.

They called him by what he had said about the dried fish [i.e., “moldy”].

When they were coming back to his own people…. [The narrator said he was not sure about this part.] He's kind of lonesome, one time.

When they were coming back, to the river, they were all talking. They spoke like war is going on. They talked about the forts in the river. They were going to try to break it down. That's that thing we talked about [i.e., the fishtrap].

When they came to the mouth of a river, they sent one or two young people to see if the fort is ready. When it's ready, they start to go up. Sometimes a big run of salmon breaks it down.

When they were coming up the river, they tell some, “You stand up in the canoe.” That's when the fish jump. They told him, “eacutehaw!”

They [people] said, “’ihinuw xals' nAside—your little creek runs through the grass.” You say that to fish, makes fun of them, because a big run clears the grass. They say that when the first fish jump to coax them to come.

He feel lonesome. He knows there's something wrong. When he heard that—”Your little creek runs through the grass”—then he knew he was among a strange people, because that's what he used to say.

…There's some more to that story, but I can’t say…. Xat qwani yek [Fish People Spirits] came from there. They pass it on to one another. If someone in my family got one, then if another one becomes a doctor, he's got the same yek. Yeah, I think that's true. Because I know the song—Gutcda from Dry Bay. He's a pretty good doctor. [See 1954, 2–2-C and 2–2-D; p. 1282.]

The Story of Black Skin [32]

[As told by Peter Lawrence, June 1949.]

There was a strong man, stronger than Sampson. His names were Dukdutls' [Black Skin], ‘Atqaxace [’At kahagravesgraveI, “no account”], and K’ickadi. He had three names. He went in the water before dawn and stayed until dawn. Then he climbed in under the fireplace. He picked up two sea lions and threw them on the rock. He tore the biggest one in two. His picture is in Kake and other places. He belonged to the Tenedi tribe [Bark House People, a Raven sib].

[As told by Minnie Johnson, March 16, 1954. The story was prompted by seeing the picture of the Mud Bight house posts in Garfield and Forrest, 1948, fig. 33.]

That's a powerful man. The man that got trained. So many brothers he got. They call him ‘At kahagravesgraveI [’At kahagravesgraveI “something useless”]. He's kind of lazy. He don’t get up. The others were training to go to that sea lion island.

[A Dry Bay friend intervened:] That's not his name! [There was an interchange in Tlingit, in which the friend was arguing about the name, but was overruled by the narrator, who went on:]

His brothers wanted him to get trained up in icy water. He sleeps all day but he gets up when his brothers is sleeping and go to the water.

[I tried to discover from the friend what name she thought the man had, but she wouldn’t say. “I used to know, but she got different way. Frank Italio used to tell the story.”]

[MJ] I know my grandpeople preaching to Charley White [the narrator's brother]. A boy ain’t supposed to stay with his mother. Supposed to be raised by his uncle in olden days. Every time Charley refused to go anywhere, they all preached to him about it.

[She was asked to proceed with the story.] The story tells like that, that some brothers—all the whole townspeople getting disappeared, get aboard the boat, the war canoe, and go to that sea lion island,—never return. Just that family…[was left].

That's why they ask their mother where all their relatives went to, so their mother told them: “There's something wrong somewhere in that sea lion rock, or something.”

So that brothers get trained for it. They think the rest of them is too weak; they can’t stand to get punished.

So their mother told them that when they require [inquire] about their relatives, where all the townspeople went to. Take the canoe load after canoe load.

They were training for that. I got that in my history book, too. [This is evidently a reference to Swanton's “Tlingit Myths and Texts,” 1909, which she was fond of reading.]

[A to Q about training:] You know, they training on the biggest tree knot that sticking out, that nobody got the power to break it off with the hand. Nobody can do that. They get trained enough, they can do that.

But that ‘At kahaI, he sleeps all day, and then that's why they call him that way, because he's “useless.” Only be in the way.

His brothers told him to go ahead and go in the water. He can train himself and go along. So that fellow, they kicked him and called him all kinds of names, and tell him: “Get up and go in the icy water, and get strong.”

But he's training himself.

Well, while he was in the water, that icy water, some kind of a spirit of a man, big, came to him. He hears something, some kind of a noise.

And he got his strength from that fellow; he told him what to do.

[Q: Who was the big man?] They called him ŁAtsìn atí—he's the Master of Strength.

When he get out of the water, he got ahold of that big strong tree knot. He pull it right off—That's a dirty story to tell in here [with relish].—And he urinated and stuck it back on, and tried to make his brothers believe they got strength enough to go on to that sea lion rock.

So before daybreak they get up, do the same thing. First one get out of the water and pull that knot away like nobody's business. Well, that ‘At kahai fooled them.

[The friend interrupted in Tlingit. The narrator answered, then went on.]

So they got the big canoe down and then got aboard the boat and went to the sea lion rock. But there's some kind of a monster underneath of that rock, that doesn’t want anybody to appear on that rock.

[A to Q:] The sea lion rock is tan tei. The monster is tan tei tU qU-háni [inhabitant inside the sea lion rock, i.e., its spirit].

Big monster belong to that sea lion rock. The spirit of that sea lion rock.

When they arrive on that rock, they take that ‘At kahaI along just to bail the canoe with—for a bailer, you know. And that big sea lion rock is just covered up with big ones—can tear them to pieces and throw them down and drown them.

But before that, ‘At kahaI get up. He went ashore. You know that crosspiece on the big war canoe? He touch it with his knees and it break in two all the way up, he's so powerful. [A to Q:] He broke it when he's going ashore on that rock.

First sea lion he get ahold of, he tear that in two, throw him overboard…. [And he did the same to the others.] And when he is almost clear up, and something appear—big monster—and asked him why he do that, killing all his…[the narrator's voice trailed off]. And he tell him why, that they clean the town themselves.

[A to Q:] That big monster was getting all his people, you know, just like human beings—tan qwani [sea lion people]. When he come to that last one, that monster told him, “Why…?”

“You kill my townspeople too. You return them or else I’ll clean it all [kill them all].”

And the head man of that sea lion business got a cave right underneath of the sea lion rock, where skeletons piled up high and dry, all the boy's townspeople. So he just get hold of that rattle—cècú, you know, we call it—get that over that skeleton and he promise that strong man he's going to return them.

So ‘At kahaI win the case.

Maybe there's more to it, but that's as near as I understand. [A to Q:] I don’t know what tribe that strong man belonged to.

[The Dry Bay friend:] We’re going to ask Frank Italio what tribe he was and what's his name.

[MJ] That story, that's as far as I go, because my mother and them preached to Charley. In Situk, Charley hates to go in the water. They had to drag him in. My uncle and them had to drag him down in the water. That's how they come to tell him that story. [See p. 516.]

[Comment by HB, April 20, 1954.]

HB, who admired the picture of the house posts at Mud Bight illustrating the story of the man who killed the sea lions, said that she had read the story in “that green book,” i.e., Swanton's, which Minnie Johnson had evidently loaned her. The hero's name was Éckadi; and his other name was maybe Duktu ut.—ut is ‘black.’

Wolverine Man [33]

[As told by JE, March 30, 1954, when discussing laziness.]

Wolverine–Man, nuskw-quqaw, ‘wolverine stout man,’—they say about him:

te’a hU ckUdaqa—”he's sending himself around (all the time).”

He sends himself around, like he says, “Go get some water!—Go get some wood!” All by himself he's staying in that canA [valley]. That's where he stays, that Wolverine-Man.

I don’t know what he was cooking. He had tik [spit] for roasting. I don’t know if it's meat or hooligans [eulachon]. But anyway, he's cooking something. And while he's sending himself around, pretty soon Fox comes along. And that fox ate up all the meat.

When he came back, he asked himself, “What happened to that meat?” What became of that things he was cooking? Then he ask himself, “Maybe I eat it up?” Then he says, “How come it don’t fill me up?”

And that's the way they want some young bunch, you know—tell themselves, keep pushing themselves. That's why they keep telling that story.

[The moral would appear to be against overdoing, even industriousness.]

The Story of the Girls who Stole Mountain Goat Tallow [34]

[As told by Minnie Johnson, August 8, 1952. This story had evidently been told to the narrator by her mother as a moral warning, when she and her brother were little children and ate the provisions that their mother had been saving for their older brother [p. 510]. She was asked if she knew the story of the boy who was stolen by owls and fed ants and bugs that ate up his insides. (Swanton, 1909, Tale 11 p. 41, is similar.)]

Yes, I heard that one, and about the two girls who get into their mother's food. She scratched the inside of their mouth for stealing mountain goat tallow. So they went to the Mountaineer [Mountain Dweller]. So the two sisters went in the woods. They cry and holler.

“If you so fond of mountain goat tallow, go to the Mountaineer and marry him,” their mother said.

So they keep on going and wish for that.

[A belongs here, see below.]

Finally they found the cabin, buried in the moss. Smoke is coming out. They think they can get anything they want. They stay there.

They [their people] hunt all over for them. They get to the place.

Dried up strawberries is the main living for the people, beat up with hooligan [eulachen] oil.

After they are full grown, he turned them loose to go back.

[B belongs here, see below.]

They get all the mountain goats and fed their parents, till their mother and father busted open. There was mountain goats galore, piled in front of their house.

[A] They hide themselves in the hollow of the tree. The older one is scared. “Let's go back sister!”

“How do your mouth feel like?”

“Pretty sore.”

“What do you want to go back for?” So they keep on going. [All of this seems to refer to their journey to the woods to Mountain Dweller.]

[B] After they got home, Mountaineer delivered all the girls put up [i.e., mountain goat tallow] to their mother.

[The story is given here in the order in which it was told, but sections A and B are obviously out of place.]

That's why people lick the stuffing out of kids when they do something wrong.

[As told by Minnie Johnson, February 28, 1954.]

There was a family a long, long time ago. That was happen in ‘Antłen. They [two sisters] went to work and steal that mountain goat tallow and preserved stuff when their mother's busy with something else. Their mother punish them and she scratches their mouth. The mother got so mad and just scratch the mouth up so they won’t do it any more.

Her and her sister went to the woods, because they bad girls. That's what that bird owl is. That's the word they use. They’re just warning, “Hu. hu. hu. hu.” That's their cry they’re imitating, them two girls.

That's what I was told. When I get bad girl, then the owls going to get me, take me to the woods…. That's what they call tIsw [owl].

They went by themselves until they come to a place, in the woods, to the mountains. Because they steal that mountain goat tallow and all that preserved stuff. They went across from prairie to prairie until they come at a place where smoke is coming out. Well—sure enough they look they don’t find it. A spirit of a mountain, a man, come to them, and let them in. That's when they turn into owl.

They try to come back. The youngest one wanted to come back home.

And her sister ask her, “Well, how do your mouth feel?”

“Pretty sore,” she said.

“Well, why do you want to go back to your mother after what she done to you?”

And that mountain spirit get acquainted with that oldest girl. She told him the story of why they left their home.

And she give her mother all the mountain goat and all kinds of animal meat pile up there after their return…. [A to Q:] The spirit give all that stuff to their father and mother. And supply with all kinds of meat and stuff. [A to Q:] He did marry the oldest girl.

[The narrator did not know what happened to the younger sister.] They did come back to the parents.

That's why my mother and them preached to me.

[Comment by EE, July 22, 1952.]

I hear that's the same story about that cakAnáyÈ [’inside the mountain' being]. That's pretty near the same story. [The comparison is with the daughter of Chief Fair Weather who looks like a sunbeam.]

Two girls were married with that man. That man looks like the sunbeam, and he marry them. They eat their mother's mountain goat fat.

That fat is good. It is hard and white—like china. I used to eat it with crackers.

The Story of the Girl who Turned into an Owl [35]

[As told by EE, April 18, 1954. The narrator was looking at pictures of owls in Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide, and commented: “I never know it's different, these owls.” The story was then volunteered. Confusions in pronouns are corrected.]

Did you hear about this story? KIksAdi—that's KIksAdi, this thing. See he [she] hurts her mother-in-law, this girl.

She don’t like her mother-in-law. She always quarrel with….

Then after while that old lady got hungry, and this girl over here, her husband got lots of herrings. He's got lots, he bring it in, then he go away, her husband.

Then her mother-in-law says, “Gee, I’m hungry! Give me some of that herrings.”

“Let me put it in your hand. Give me your hand,” says that girl.

Then she put hot herrings—they’re hot, you know, from the pot. They just take the hot dish—she just take it, then put it in her mother-in-law's hand. It's hot.

Then that woman throw it away. Half of it. Then you know these muscles in her hand is just scorched, like this in her hand, because it's hot, that thing. It just go like this [the narrator curled up her fingers as if her hand were cramped].

Then she got sore, then she go out. Her son's coming in. She see him. Then she [the daughter-in-law] ask for something. Ask her daughter-in-law [the girl asked her mother-in-law], “Give me that bucket.”

You know, just a basket, the one they using for bucket. They don’t put it together [weave the meshes tight together], just like they net, you know…. It's made out of roots. They call it kàt [p. 429]. Just like a net, you know. It's small about that…[the holes in the open weave were small]. They don’t put it together. Little holes in there. They make it just like that net. They don’t hold water, just put that dry things in there…. [It was not carried on the back, but] just like a bucket.

Then they [the girl] ask it: “Give me that kàt,” she says. “Hadé wAdí kàt!”

“No.” Nobody listen to.

“Give me that kàt!”

“No.” Nobody listen.

After while they [she] turn it to this owl. The way it sounds—”hu. hu. hu. hu.”

“Hadé Wadí kàt!” she says. Then after while she fly away. It turn to owl, that girl. That daughter-in- law turn into that owl.

That mother-in-law, her hand like that [fingers cramped up]. She can’t do anything. She's [the girl] going to pack herrings. That husband bring lots of herrings. That's why she ask that mother-in-law to bring that bucket.

That's why they always says, “Don’t hurt your mother-in-law, you going to turn into owl.”

Łił ‘icaneq (don’t hurt!) ‘itcan (your mother-in- law); tIsw (owl) guikusati (you will become).

Tlingit people always say that. Some girls, you know, don’t want their mother-in-law. Some crazy girls. Because they always watch, their mother-in-law [watch them]. They say it's true. That girl—she turn into owl.

The Braggart Gambler

[Told by JE, May 14, 1954, slightly edited.]

There is this story about a gambler. He belonged to the Tł’uknaxAdi tribe. I don’t know the other one. The other bet a rifle, and they brought it out.

He said [free translation]: “What is there that I can’t put before you? (tIdat [’A]sgI ‘iyayEn qacat).”

He said this about himself, that he had everything.

And so they started to bring it out. He brought out a rifle, but that was an old rifle, almost ready to be thrown away—rust and everything.

And this other young man, Tł'UknaAdi, he brought out a rifle, and he said: “Like a bluejay feather (Ecwawu yAsIti).” Like a brand new rifle, because it still had the blueing on it.

And then he [the braggart] brought out a box (łAkt), and it was just native built. And he [the young Tł'UknaAdi] brought out one from this they call nAngmAn—That's Canadian-made. Some people call them “KIn- djadjwAn—King George Men,” but older people call them “nAngInAn.”

And then they brought out a blanket. And same thing—. It came from Canada. I don’t know what they call it. Many more things they brought out, but I forget.

Anyway, the Tł'UknaAdi man always beat this other one. He's the one made a fool of himself, and they don’t even start to gamble—just took everything back.

In Tlingit [the TłUknaAdi youth] said:

“qacde´tA ‘A’At’i’u ' awe ‘ayAt ‘ithłIna”—’I-thought just the-things you-claim (you had) were (what) in- front-of-me you-were-going-to-put.' That's a free translation. Or, ‘I thought you had more than what you put before me.’

But the things he brought out weren’t considered valuable, see? Something you can throw away. But the things he [the other] brought out were something that's valuable to them. Because lots of places for one rifle you have to pile up those skins one or one-and-a-half, or sometimes twice the length of a rifle. See, if that man didn’t come out and try to say he had everything, he could have been considered rich—all the things he owned. But after that they just laughed at him, because somebody beat him.

Legend of Glaciers at Yakutat

[As told by Rev. J. K. Hendrickson to Lt. G. T. Emmons (MS. in B.C. Archives).]

It appears that years ago everybody died belonging to one tribe excepting a woman and her daughter. This little girl was in the habit of going into the woods with the children of the other tribe to play with their dolls, and on one occasion she gave all her lunch away to the other children. When she found she had nothing to eat, she asked them what she was going to eat, when they got angry and threw what she gave them at her.

This made the little girl cry, and she went and told her mother, when she found her in shedding tears, but being a woman she wanted revenge, so she blew her nose in her hand and threw it towards the other children with the wish that they be turned into ice.

And they were immediately turned into the glaciers that are around Yakutat. She also took one of the rocks she used to heat water with and threw it in the same direction, with the wish that it turn into stones on the glacier. This acccounts for the soft [sic] stones on the glacier, so the Indians say.

The Moral of Chief Shakes [36]

[As told by MH, August 24, 1952.]

Chief Shakes is next to King Solomon—one of the smartest men that ever lived.

Ten or fifteen slaves take him to Stikine and Nass. A poor fisherman in Georgia Inlet is fishing all the time. Shakes is a high man. He stop, he's just passing.

This fisherman told him, “’a kani [my brother-in- law], I got a fine harbor right next to me.” That's the first time.

The chief feels pretty big. He says, “There's plenty of fine harbors ahead. Go ahead, fellows!”

The poor man said, “There's a good harbor right here.” The poor man takes up his buoy. Sometimes they were carved like a bird in the old days. “My buoy, why you worry about other people? You worry about me!”

Shakes knows he's in danger. “xxa!” he said. It's like a person hit him [a body portent, p. 764], but he went ahead.

That night a big southeast storm comes—hail, rain, and wind. He's lost everything he's got. It even smash his boat. He has nothing to sleep on or to eat.

He tied his boat with red cedar rope, and came to the poor man's camp early in the morning. He said, “’akani, I’m in trouble now.”

But the poor man just snored like sixty and put the blanket over his head.

And he left.

Then Chief Shakes, when he makes a lecture back home, he invite 10 tribes. There were 20,000 people in Wrangell, 10,000 Indians in Wrangell before the Whites came. He called all the people together.

“Keep my word. No matter how poor a man is, listen when he warns of danger. Don’t think you’re better. He's 10 times better than I am.”

After that, the chief never put his feet even over a dog. He had the lesson from the poor man. He never forget. He warning his people.

[A man from Wrangell cited this moral tale in a speech at Yakutat, the narrator explained.]

The Lying and Truthful Brothers in Sitka

[As told by Jack Reed, July 24, 1952. This is the gist of a very garbled story which the old man was anxious to tell.]

One hundred years ago, there were two brothers of the ‘Anegayakhittan in Sitka, a Kagwantan House. [According to Swanton, 1908, p. 406, this was “House below the rest of the houses,” whose chief was Qałä's! “precious parts of an eagle.”]

Qała is smart, told the truth. He watched somebody's eyes, and could tell who was lying.

The other was ‘InasItA. He said, “I’m smart man,” ·just for bluff. He lied when he claimed he could tell when someone was telling the truth by looking into their guts.

Nobody see that stomach today?

Stories About a Transvestite [37]

[Told by GJ to Harrington, 1940.]

K’Atáan [cf. gAtan, p. 499] means (1) joto, (2) coward. [It is a man.] They said there will always be one among a brave tribe. They are strong, understand everything wrong…. If a woman plays a piano, Ataan wants to play piano. He has a prick, small breast. Is built like a man, acts like a woman….

The common people wore groundhog skins for blankets…. This was up in the mountains. They wanted to put this up for the winter. In the fall it is awfully fat, too fat to eat.

“Yée khínteeSAłA’Ah—you set the fall traps [deadfalls]” they said. [But the joto thought they said:] “ ‘AttłhAyyì—you make shavings.” The last syllable sounds like yée, “fall trap” [pp. 370–371].

This was where the joto got stuck, misunderstood. So he made a mistake. He cuts down alders, just outside a groundhog's hole, he put shavings in there. Then he would go, find another hole, cut another alder, make shavings in there, etc. And he thought he was going to kill that groundhog. And all the rest of the people were putting fall traps. And that crazy thing was just cutting down big alder trees and making shavings. It's hard on your arm, you know, when you make shavings.

He always did wrong. Crazy man!

And early in the morning, you look over your falltraps, and everybody had one, but that fellow had none…. He thought the groundhog would sit on those shavings and [he] would then club the groundhog on the head.

That “coward” (joto) and his friend were going out hunting in a boat and it was moonlight that night. It was night time, it was clear weather, the moon was up. And his friend told him before he left camp: “If you see anything, you wiggle the boat and you point your finger at what you see.”

And the friend had gotten only a little ways away from the camp when the coward wiggled the boat, and his partner asked him: “What did you see?” (subdued voice), and the coward pointed his finger in the water (gesture).

And he said: “híin tháakkuu ‘aattíS—(I see) a moon in the water.”

And he saw the moon up in the sky—he saw two moons at one time. Ha, ha, the crazy thing.

And he said: “tikkhíi ‘àa tshUUttÍS—up there is another moon up there in the sky.”

You know when the moon is shining, when there is no wind, you see a moon in the water.

They had a big canoe and they don’t pull it up. They told the joto: “WA’éh yÁnciiłtshÍS yáayyaakw—you anchor this boat!”

[He thought they said:] “’AtthAiinnÁ Átniiłtshiis—You dive swimming submerged back and forth under the boat!”

And the poor fellow was cold and shaking when they came back.

And they ask him: “What are you doing?”

And he said: “When you fellows said to dive back and forth under the boat, and that is what I am doing.”

He was pretty near frozen to death.

He always wanted to get among the men, to act just like a wife; and the young fellows he just won’t let them alone till they f…ed him.

[As told by JE, May 9, 1954. These stories were introduced because the narrator said that he had heard the song to a dead groundhog when his father was telling stories about a gAtan.]

It's a man mostly acts like a woman. That's the one they call gAtan. That's when I used to hear that song, when they tell that story about gAtan.

He's one of those people that's hunting. And that deadfall, they call it yé.

When they first started out, they [were] talking about they’re going to stay all year. One whole year. And this man, he run back and told their wives that their husbands are going to stay out one whole year. But it's just the way those trappers talk. They said that way so anything they’re going to kill give up. But if they say they’re going just to stay short time, those things just wait, they don’t come in the trap. “They come back in a year,” he told them. “They just sitting around, nothing's going to happen. Your husbands’re going to be out all winter.” That's the way they talk all the time.

And he run back again.

After they camp, they’re going to make this deadfall, and he went out too. And he take a big stick and he's making shavings. And he make it like a nest. And he's thinking that groundhog would come and just sit there, and when he finds it he would kill it.

That ye [deadfall]. When they making shavings they call it: ka-ye-tAgu. That's the way they name it. They just make shavings.

And next time they went through the deadfall, everybody kill something but him. He didn’t. Pretty soon he followed somebody and he find out how they make it. When he made one just like it, he got one all right.

When he came home he had to skin him again. Takes the head off and puts it on something. That's when he sing that song. [p. 367: “Wake up that young man! The thing he killed is lying away from its head.”] He start singing. And he didn’t like the way the song goes, and he takes up a stick and beats that animal's head around, and said: “You’re the one got it easy; you’re the one that's lazy—I have to work for a living. Us overworked like everything to make our living.”

And then he went out on the point, real high place, that's where he start singing that thing again. There's nothing behind him, and they sneaked up behind him and they just push him off there.

[Q: Who?] The hunters. They try to kill him, but he wouldn’t die, because they don’t like him.

And he come home and he was pretty bothered about what happened to him. They ask him what happened. He said he was singing on that point, and something pushed him off.

And they said: “That's the luck. That's big luck.”

tłAxetł tAn—big luck. ‘akyu łAyé łAtsin—Is that so strong? [A to Q:] That is what they told him. The luck is going to kill a lot more of him. He wondered how come that luck was so strong.

[The narrator did not know to what sib the gAtan belonged, but reported the belief that the last of 13 children would be one.]

There's pretty big story about that. I forget that man, they claim it's his husband. All kinds of stories, kind of funny, crazy like.

Another time when they were going hunting on the canoe, that man told him every time he see something just shake the canoe. And while they were down it was already dark, and it shook the boat, and this man he hide.

Pretty soon he ask, “What you see?”

He point to the moon. There was one moon in the sky and another moon in the water. That man thought he saw something they could use for food.

This man, he was hiding, thought he was going to kill something.

[What's another story?]

There's another time, they left him out on the island…. And he pretended he died. He grabbed his throat. He ask that man what's the name of the place, and he told him, and he thought that man was insulting him. That's why he grabbed his throat and pretended he died.

And he buried him. Piled everything on him.

He dug his way out of there. And he dug this—that round thing on the tree, is [burl, knot?]—That's what he find, and he paddle to shore with that. Everytime he paddles with that, it spins around…. Anyway, he reach the shore. When he called that man—his name was CAnde, the one he claims that's his husband—he tells him he came back alive.

“De kUadegut—I came back alive.”

[There was an episode about a boat—is yakw—but it was not remembered; possibly the episode of swimming under the boat instead of anchoring it.]

[The gAtan acts like a woman, although it was not known whether he wore woman's clothes. He is supposed to be very strong, so no matter what they do, he won’t die. Although there may have been others, there is only one about whom stories are told. “It's more funny when they tell it in Tlingit…. That story is always funny. And the way he talks, too, he's always funny.”]

The Visitor to Yakutat

[Told by Minnie Johnson August 6, 1952.]

’AiyUk went to Yakutat from Haines. He was impressed by the way the Yakutat people stretched old red sockeyes to dry them. They were cut open up the back, with sticks put across to spread them. A fish split up the back is called tłak.

So ‘AiyUk called us atIcqwan, “fish stretchers.”

He took back an ulo with a handle—quite a novelty to Southeast of Alaska. He called all the people together to see the things he's brought back and to hear him speak Eyak. A man announced that ‘Aiyuk was going to speak the atIcqwan language, but when he got all the people together, his ulo swinging from his neck on a string, all he could say was just one word.

“ÍłwÀck ‘ÍdàyInè ‘Aiyuk—What's wrong with you, ‘Aiyuk?”

It's like ‘ícan ‘Aiyuk in Tlingit—’Pity ‘AiyUk,' or “it's too bad, ‘AiyUk.” But he didn’t know what it meant.

[The narrator chuckled over this ludicrous story.]

People used to walk here on the glacier from Haines. This [the incident] happened after the Russians. It was true. My grandparents told me.

[The method of stretching salmon with sticks is one still employed by the Copper River Atna. The name given to the Yakutat people is evidently derived from 'salmon' (át), and ‘to string on a thong' (’Íc, Boas, 1917, p. 131).]

A Story About the Big-Breasted Woman

[As told by Minnie Johnson, August 22, 1952.]

Ketchikan man came to visit GauhIttan [Drum House] tribe. They were telling funny stories. “Wait till you hear mine,” he said.

His name was Q’eyay. He was a TanedA [spelling?] Teqwedi. That means “Sea Lion Point,” the longest point sticking out from Sitka.

He's telling them he was down below, and he's been seeing lots of things. He comes to some kind of tribe of native. He, she's got his baby on the swing. She is weaving the basket. He told her the baby was crying, the baby was hungry.

She didn’t pay any attention at first. But then she opened her dress, and took her breast out, and threw it at the baby. It was so long, it didn’t even miss the baby's mouth!

They all clapped.

How in the world did she have such a long breast? [The narrator pondered.] It must be just her nature.

The Race Between the Fox and the Crab

[As told by Jack Reed, June 12, 1952. The old man stopped me on the cannery dock to tell this fable, evidently suggested by the boatloads of crabs that were being brought in. This version is from notes.]

The fox and the crab were going to have a race.

That táw [crab] told the fox, “You run ahead; I’ll follow you.”

So the fox ran—he's pretty swift. But that táw bite the fox's tail and hang on.

After while the fox looked around. “Where's that táw?” he ask.

But the crab had swung past the fox as the latter turned around, and was ahead of him.

[I asked what the animals had bet, but JR said it was just a story; the crab didn’t win anything.]

The Land Otter's Halibut Hook

[The following story was told by HKB, February 19, 1954, to explain the origin for the design of a halibut hook that he was making. It was carved to represent a man wearing a big hat, holding a knife in front of his body, and standing on an animal's head. “That's his spirit.”]

Long ago the people didn’t know how to make halibut hooks. The people down in Southeast Alaska were in a war with a tribe called Dekina, “people living way out.” [The narrator rejected the suggestion that they were the Haida, but thought they might be the Tlingit of Klawak.]

Only one man was left alive. He was a doctor, Kagwantan, called GAgán. He went into the woods with his four nephews to get more power, to complete his power. They came to a land otter village. It looked just like they were coming to a real village, and the land otters looked like people.

The doctor married one of the women. He didn’t know she was a land otter.

So the oldest land otter, his brother-in-law, gave him the halibut hook. The land otter used to catch lots of halibut with it.

The land otter also gave him his name, GAgán. It doesn’t mean “little sun” [as I had suggested]. It's not his real name.

The man went back home. He had the spirit of the hook. It was carved like a man with a hat, axw ati [’Master of the Hat’].

He went back to KAnuwu, Grouse Fort on Icy Straits, his home. He told someone to make a hook like that. Then he told his nephews, “One of you that's the bravest can go halibut fishing with it. Going to get a giant halibut.”

So one of them, Qatan [’Man Sealion’], went fishing. But when he pulled up that halibut it was so big his canoe was going in its mouth, so he had to cut it loose to save his life.

After that all the people could make hooks to catch halibut.

About the Land Far Out to Sea [38]

[As told by Peter Lawrence to Harrington, 1940.]

[There is] a petrograph in a cave near Sitka illustrating an old legend about three men being out fishing and getting lost in the fog. They found some land 100 miles off the coast. They killed seals, made an inflated bladder, and caught rain water in a joint of bamboo which had washed ashore, and drank the water and ate the seal meat, and made an anchor of a seal hide filled with sand, and anchored every night and got back to Sitka.

The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in very recent years found that reef way west of Sitka, and the pictograph writing in the cave tells the story.

[As told by JE, 1954.]

There is one story about one man. He couldn’t go against the north wind. He drift way out and he found an island. They claim there is bamboo on it. And he come back to the same spot he take off from. That's from Sitka, it used to be—about the people we hear it.

Bamboo—hayi ‘úd;ù.

The Story of a Copper River Potlatch

[As told by HKB, May 2, 1954. The narrator had mentioned this incident in 1952, and was asked to tell the story more fully, since it had to do with the peace songs that were composed by the two rival groups of guests at a potlatch (pp. 570, 613–615).]

That's just old, the story of that one, those songs.

Chitina chief, our opposite tribe, he invited that Chitina tribe—what they call Kwacqwan before we left there—GIneqwan. He invite our tribe, Kwacqwan, and he invited other one from McCarthy—some place up the river. [These last were probably a group of Nabesna or Upper Tanana Indians, who would come to Chitina on the Copper River over a pass into the Chitina River valley, near McCarthy.]

Kwacqwan is invited. They stay at one village [i.e., lived in the same village as the Eagle chief who gave the potlatch]. Town is not restrict. Just like in those days now. My tribe—Diyaguna ‘Et—anybody can come to town—welcome—all is peace—anybody. Over at Chitina they stay together. Kwacqwan—GIneqwan they call them that time—[and] opposite tribe, they stay in same town.

And this Kwacqwan, opposite tribe invited from his own town invited. [And he invited] another one, way up the river, place now they call McCarthy, where they discovered the copper. And those people up there is enemies. They all big, tall giants. They had a war with Chitina Kwacqwan.

So they’re going to come. All those Chitina Kwacqwan town[smen] is afraid of them, because they’re enemies. But they can’t stop it. The opposite tribe invited them. It's Indian law, we have to dance against this one. We try to beat them in dance, they try to beat us in dance. Just like those days you win a prize.

But the same time, we afraid of it, they’re going to kill us.

So that GIneqwan, that Kwacqwan, they had a meeting. The chief opened the meeting. “What we going to do?”

And they decide at that meeting, they’re going to use spear. But spearhead they’re going to cover with eagle feathers so nobody see it. It's against the Indian law to use anything like that, any kind of knife, when you dancing. But Kwacqwan chief said they’re going to cover with eagle feathers, so nobody see. That's the way.

That spear is about 2 fathoms long. They hunting bear, anything, with it.

That's what they did. They put spear on it—spearheads, but they covered with the feathers. And they composed the songs just for that dance, all the songs they’re going to use it.

And when that—They always reported before, one year before [the potlatch].

It's this way: suppose any tribe going to invite my tribe, they notify me, my chief, one year before—”You’re going to be invited next year.”

So they went up to that McCarthy. They well prepared. The same thing—they’re afraid we’re going to have a war with them in that dance. This one—they called when they kill anything, they use it to kill things with it—they call them kéu [war or hunting pick, pp. 588–589].

[A to Q:] Something like a mattock. About that long [2 feet]. Same thing you see down States Indian [FdeL supplied “tomahawk”]. But they use moosehorn or sheep horn for that cross piece. Handle out of wood, I don’t know how long it is, but moose on the end, or sheep on the end.

And they do the same thing—they cover with the feathers so nobody will see, and they dancing with it. But us at Chitina dancing with that spear.

When they reported, they always go out, so far up and down [the river]—They always have guards, every village. Then the guard reported the McCarthy people coming down already. And my tribe, they all run to our opposite tribe's house, they so scared.

The law was there's going to be no killing. That's why my tribe run into the opposite tribe house [i.e., the house of their hosts, who would be obliged to protect their guests].

When the canoes is come down, they don’t landed. They anchored out so much, so many feet away from the land.

That's the time Kwacqwan walk out from that opposite tribe's house with a spear in their hand, walking like that: [The narrator gestured as if holding a spear vertically in his two hands, point up, and tilting it from side to side in time to the march.]

The head is up, spearheads is up. The song—I forget the song—[then he remembered and sang a little].

hayu é hu hu é

Walking like this [same motion]—womens behind, mans in the front. Until they get to where they’re going to dance, right at the edge of the water. Then they change right away. That time they start a real war song.

They brave that time. They know they’re going to be in a war. A real war dance they start, they change the song. Gee, I forget that one—[Finally he sang a snatch.]

’ał gUnak cInde…wiii!

They hold it this way, ready to spear [points of spears forward]. When they said wiii! [or hwiii], everybody charge for that canoe. But they stop just on the water's edge and they change it again [i.e., the song?]. The song is that way:

wiiii! wiiii!

They hold the spear up again. That means no war. So the other ones in the water knows it then, there's no war, just a dance.

And after this one at Indian dances, it's just a popular song.

Four, always four [popular songs by the guests at potlatches, pp. 624–626]. But that time, it's two, just two popular songs, the ones they use it for a dance. That's when they still be using it [these Chitina Gmeqwan songs], when they have a potlatch at Yakutat. [That is, the Kwacqwan sing these Copper River Atna songs.]

The Discovery of Copper

[Told by HKB, September 2, 1952.]

A long time before we [Kwacqwan] had that trouble, a long time before that chief died and we came to AnAWAs [Knight Island, see pp. 231–233], there was a mother and her son living in the village. There were just the two of them. He was a little boy. They were poor and low down. They called him coward. His mother was a slave, because the chief denied him [refused to recognize him?]. He was a coward.

So the mother and son went away for 4 years. The chief didn’t care if they went away. They went way back in the mountains. They passed way the other side of the range, way inside. They stayed 4 years. Then the boy was grown up, 18 years old, and a strong hunter.

He went to sleep. A spirit came to him and said: “Pass one mountain more. Stay up there.” It was just a dream.

When he woke up he forgot the dream. But when he went hunting, he went on past the last little mountain just the same. There were six mountain sheep on it. It was just a little round mountain, and the plain was like a big tide all round. He see the big mountains behind him. He killed the mountain sheep and cut them open with his flint knife for the birds. Then he went back to the foot of the mountain.

He went to sleep, and the dream came to him again. “If you see four blue flames on the fire, that's me.”

Again, he forgot the dream.

Later he followed moose tracks for 4 days. He dreamed again about the blue flames, but he forgot it again.

He made fire with a flint. [The narrator demonstrated how he held one piece of flint steady in his left hand and gave a sharp downward blow with the flint in his right hand. He cupped his hands around the spark to blow on it. The spark falls on dry grass that you keep in your pocket, he explained.]

The young man struck the flints four times. It never spark. Then the spark falls on the moss. He blows on it and then put shavings on it. Before he cooks, he sees four blue flames standing up on the fire.

He prays: “ ‘A SAgínA At Asní—Person above me, help me!”

He's falling asleep. The fire is gone when he wakes up. He digs, pokes around in the ashes, where he see the four blue flames. He dug out four coppers as big as his fist. He don’t know what it is. He cuts a little piece off for an arrowhead, and kills a moose with it.

He went to tell his mother. She said, “Go back. We’re not going to be coward any more.”

They went back to the village. The chief is so happy when he sees the copper. He asks, “When you going to tell us where you find it?”

The woman says, “No. Unless you call us a brave.”

The chief says, “We call you a brave.” So they showed him.

Every spring they look for it. They can’t find it unless the boy's mother shows you where to find it.

This was a long time before we came to AnAWAS.

The True Story of the Discovery of Gold[39]

[As told by Minnie Johnson, July 9, 1952. Minnie Johnson had been telling about her fear of frogs [p. 831]. Catharine McClellan remarked that sometimes frogs brought good luck, like the frog that helped the man discover gold [see McClellan, 1963]. MJ asked if she knew the story, and when CMcC told an abbreviated version, was impelled to tell the correct one.]

It was Ceke [Shakes] who discovered gold. [This name was corrected to Kukec, i.e., Skookum Jim.] My grandma's cousin was married into this man [married to his relative] who was right there when this gold business happened. He told me about it.

That man was disabled and almost gone with TB. They don’t want to drag him around, so they left him behind when they go out to fishcamp. He's pretty sick, just able to move around. He says to the people, “Go ahead.”

His brothers and relatives leave him there. That night they left him, he heard a woman crying, someone just quietly crying. There is not a soul around him.

That man heard that pitiful cry every night. He said to himself when he suffered, “I might as well die tonight as tomorrow.”

Whenever he sits up, the crying stops.

They had dug a big hole for him for a toilet, not so very far from the house, because he's so weak, you know.

So he gets mad every night for 3 nights. The woman don’t cry until the nighttime. Finally he just keep awake, and he looks all over. [Apparently he was unable to find the woman.]

Then he laid down. The minute he put his head on the pillow that lady start to cry again. Where does it come from? Where is it crying?

Finally, he heard it through the day. He went to the toilet. Before he sit down, he looked down. There was a frog about that big [size indicated by gesture not recorded]. It was beginning to swell with that mess.

He's puzzled what he's going to do with it. He got a wooden shovel like they used to have, and a stick. The frog hold onto that stick. That man's sick, but just the same he dragged that frog to a swampy place. He talked to it. He tied something from his body around its neck [as a gift].

He talks to the frog: “Wish me all kinds of good luck. Wish that I get well.”

That night he heard no more crying. He dreamed a white lady come to him. She is beautiful, she has shiny things on her that sparkles. She shines like gold.

“I’m your aunty. I’m the head woman of this nation of frogs. I’m discouraged, but you saved my life. I’ll see that you get paid.”

The woman told him, “In the morning before the raven calls, you sit alongside of the canoe and wish for good luck. You are going to get it before morning.”

So that morning he wished for something to cook and for something to eat. He was kind of hungry. The next morning [ie., later the same morning], when he gets awake, everything from all directions is piled in front of his door. He almost fainted.

Every night that lady come to visit him. “I’m going to take care of you from now on,” she said. “I’m going to send my relatives over to take care of you.”

That canoe disappeared. And then he got a load of meat and things. He thinks it's his brothers who bring it, and they were trying to make him believe he's got his luck.

Every night a different person would come to cook for him. He could see the dishes move around, but there were no hands moving them. When he closes his eyes, he sees white ladies, white people.

The man picks up [in health]. He can chop his own kindling. He doesn’t cough no more. He gets stronger every day. Then he can take care of his own meat and stuff.

Finally one of his brothers come back. The lady told him mustn’t mention any names. If he tells on them, there will be no more help.

His brother come to see if he's alive or dead. He's getting well rapidly. Every night the white people come, his house gets full of them. They talk to him and make him feel good.

One of his brothers comes and finds out that he's up and around. They question him how he get that stuff. He never answer. “I just get it.”

He went and took the canoe; he gets lonely. He knows where his people are putting up fish. “I’m going to surprise them.”

That big fat lady—the first one he saw—gave him orders. After he got strong enough this here fat lady come to him and tell him what to do.

“Your folks are going to move in and try to be friendly with you. And don’t you be too familiar with them. They leave you here without food and without grub, so when they flock around you and question you, don’t pay any attention. When you’re well enough, make believe that you go out hunting. You go the direction where there's a creek running out of the mountain. When you see a reddish streak (taq'watłi) running out, where it runs down from the mountain not too high,” she told him, “at first you’ll see this creek running out.” She said, “You’ll see this creek running out, and whether you like it or not, take a mouthful of water. Just dip your face in there and you’ll see something at the bottom of the water. After you take a drink of water, just pound down at the side of it. You’ll find something good for you.”

Sure enough, when he drinks, there he saw an opening in the creek, and something shining in it. It's about 4 inches wide, and it's all gold—the whole way down that creek. It's just like a bee's nest—all that gold is just sticking out. And he took his knife and took out a nugget the size of his thumb. He didn’t know what to make of that.

See what he done and what he got for helping that frog. He just take a piece and wonder what it is.

That lady told him, “If you do drink and find that, don’t let anybody know.” So he did.

Then he show it to some of the prospectors, and they rush in there and bought him out. They show him the way below—new scenery, you know. And they buy him a whole outfit, because he find that gold. He's an Interior Indian, you know.

After he sold his gold place—he don’t know what that gold's for—he come back and he have a little shack of his own. That paper money he thought was just common paper, so he thought he’d tack some all around on the walls. When he was down below and staying in a hotel, he throw all his bills on the street. He don’t even know what money mean. That's what that man tell me.

The prospectors came and asked him what he's going to do with all the money on the wall. He said, “I tack up all the can labels, any kind of money, to make my shack decent because people laugh.” He had $20 bills tacked on the wall!

That's why the people down below always look for an Interior [Indian] to come, because they got lots of money.

The man who told me this story was old Gilbert Jackson. His native name is DAnawAq-’ic [Father of Silver-Eyes]. He's Kagwantan's son. He was chief at Kluckwan. [DanawAq was the anAtedi chief; his father was Kagwantan.]

Kukec lived in Whitehorse, I guess.

[Comment by Jack Reed, July 24, 1952.]

Skookom Jim's daughter is married to Kec[?].

Everybody like that fellow [i.e., Skookum Jim]. He's living right. He was a poor guy—kind for everybody—just like he believed in God. That's why that frog—

There was a dump place. He see the frog in there. He [it] couldn’t make it [i.e., get out]. He take that frog in the stream. He [it] think about it; that frog think about being saved. Frog go-go-go-go [hopped]. After he sleeped, he dreamed woman is coming. That's his story.

[JR appealed to CMcC for confirmation:] That's right?

[When asked if Tł’enaxidAq had anything to do with Jim's luck, JR said] No Tł’enaxidAq. Is different. I know the true story. I see his grandfather, his wife's father, Skookum Jim, and ec and his wife.

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ERMAN, A., EDITOR

1849.   Ueber die Sprache des russischen Amerika's, nach Wenjaminow. In “Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland,” vol. 7, pp. 126–143. Berlin.

FAREWELL, GEORGE E.

1909.   Heroism on the Alsek. Sunset Magazine, vol. 22, pp. 531–536.

FERNO, B. E.

1902.   Forests of Alaska. In “Harriman Alaska Expedition,” vol. 2, pp. 235–256. New York.

FILIPPI, FILIPPO DE

1900.   The ascent of Mount St. Elias by H.R.H. Prince Luigi Amadeo di Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi, narrated by…. Illustrated by Vittorio Sella and translated by Signora Linda Villari with the author's supervision. Westminster, England.

FLEURIEU, CHARLES P. C., EDITOR

1801.   A voyage round the world performed during the years 1790, 1791, and 1792, performed by Etienne Marchand…. Translated from the French of C. P. Claret Fleurieu [Paris, 1798–1800, 4 vols.]. 2 vols. London.

FUNSTON, FREDERICK, see COVILLE, FREDERICK V.

GABRIELSON, IRA N. AND LINCOLN, FREDERICK

1959.   The birds of Alaska. Wildlife Management Institute. Washington, D.C.

GALIANO, DON DIONISION ALCALA

1802.   Relacion del Viaje hecho por las goletas Sutyl y Mexicana…. Madrid. [Accompanied by an atlas containing Malaspina's charts, 1791; MS. translation made for the author by Sue Nattall Roark.]

GARFIELD, VIOLA E.

1947.   Historical aspects of Tlingit clans in Angoon, Alaska. Amer. Anthrop., n.s., vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 438–542.

GARFIELD, VIOLA E., AND FORREST, LINN A.

1948.   The wolf and the raven. Univ. Washington Press, Seattle.

GLASS, COMMANDER HENRY

1880–1882. Report of United States Naval officers cruising in Alaska waters. Part I, October 11, 1880, to June 8, 1881. Part III, November 14, 1881, to January 10, 1882. Exec. Doc. no. 81, 47th Congress, 1st Session. Washington.

GLAVE, E. J.

1890–1891. Our Alaska expedition. Exploration of the unknown Alseck River region. 9 parts. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper vol. 71. New York. [no. 1825, November 15, 1890, p. 266; no. 1836, November 22, pp. 286–287; no. 1837, November 29, p. 310; no. 1838, December 6, p. 332; no. 1839, December 13, p. 352; no. 1840, December 20, p. 376; no. 1841, December 27, pp. 396–397; no. 1842, January 3, 1891, p. 414; no. 1843, January 10, p. 438.]

1892.   Pioneer packhorses in Alaska. Century Mag., n.s., vol. 22, pp. 671–682, 869–881.

GOLDER, FRANK A.

1922–1925. Bering's voyages; an account of the efforts of the Russians to determine the relation of Asia and America. 2 vols. Amer. Geogr. Soc. Res. ser., nos. 1–2. New York.

GOLDSCHMIDT, WALTER R., AND HASS, THEODORE R.

1946.   Possessory rites of the natives of southeastern Alaska, a report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. [Mimeographed.] Washington, D.C.

GOLOVNIN, LIEUT.-CAPT. PAVL NIKOLAIËVICH

1861.   Review of the Russian colonies in North America. In “Materials for the history of the Russian settlements on the shores of the Pacific Ocean,” pt. 2. Supplement to Norskoi Sbornik. Marine Ministerium Printing Office, St. Petersburg. [In Russian. MS. translation by Ivan Petroff quoted by permission of the Director of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.]

GORMLY, MARY

1955.   Spanish documentary material pertaining to the Northwest Coast Indians. Davidson Journ. Anthrop., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 21–41. Seattle, Wash.

GRIFFIN, GEORGE B., TRANSLATOR

1891.   Diary of Fray Tomás de la Peña kept during the voyage of the Santiago, August 26, 1774. (and) Journal of Fray Juan Crespi kept during the same voyage, October 5, 1774. In “Documents from the Sutro Collection.” Hist. Soc. Southern Calif. Publ., vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 111–143 and 177–213. Los Angeles.

GRINNELL, GEORGE B.

1901.   Natives of the Alaska Coast region. In “Harriman Alaska Expedition,” vol. 1, pp. 137–183. New York.

1902.   The salmon industry. In “Harriman Alaska Expedition,” vol. 2, pp. 337–355. New York.

GROSVENOR, ELSIE MAY BELL

1956.   Alaska's warmer side. National Geogr. Mag., vol. 90, no. 6, pp. 737–774.

GUILLÉN Y TATO, JULIO FERNANDO, EDITOR

1932.   Reportorio de los mss., cartas, planos y dibujos relativos a las Californias existentes en esto Museo. Museo Naval Publ. no. 1. Madrid. [Contains sketches made by Tomás de SurÍa at Yakutat in 1791.]

GUNTHER, ERNA

1962.   Northwest Coast Indian art: an exhibit at the Seattle World's Fair Fine Arts Pavilion, April 21–October 21, 1962. Seattle, Wash.

HALL, E. RAYMOND, AND KELSON, KEITH R.

1959.   The mammals of North America. 2 vols. New York.

HARRINGTON, JOHN

—–. MS. Unpublished notes and vocabulary from George Johnson, Alaska, 1940. [A portfolio and two boxes.] Document No. 4100. Archives, Smithsonian Office of Anthropology.

—–. MS. Unpublished notes and vocabulary from George Johnson, Jack Ellis, and others, Sitka and Juneau, 1939–40. [One portfolio.] Document No. 4103. Archives, Smithsonian Office of Anthropology.

HIGGINSON, ELLA

1906.   Alaska: the dream-voyage. Alaska-Yukon Mag., vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 15–23.

HOLM, BILL

1965.   Northwest Coast Indian art: an analysis of form. Seattle, Wash., and London.

HOLMBERG, HEINRICH J.

1855.   Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des russischen Amerikas. pt. I, Die Thlinkithen—Die Konjagen. Helsinki. [Also in Acta Soc. Sci. Fennicae, vol. 4, pp. 281–421. Helsinki, 1856.]

1863.   Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des russischen Amerikas, pt. II, Entwicklung des Russisch-Amerikanische Companie. Acta Soc. Sci. Fennicae, vol. 7, pp. 37–101. Helsinki.

INVERARITY, ROBERT BRUCE

1950.   Art of the Northwest Coast Indians. Berkeley, Calif.

JACKSON, REV. SHELDON

1894.   Facts about Alaska; its people, villages, missions, schools. Women's Executive Committee of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. New York.

1903.   Facts about Alaska. New York Women's Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

JACOBSEN, CAPT. JOHAN A.

1884.   Reise an der Nordwestküste Amerikas, 1881–1883. [Ed. by A. Woldt.] Leipzig.

JOHNSON, ALBIN

1924.   Sjutton år in Alaska. En skildring av livet bland indianerna i Yakutat. Chicago. [In Swedish. MS. translation for the author by Harald Laskemoen.]

JOHNSON, MYRTLE-ELIZABETH, AND SNOOK, HARRY JAMES

1927.   Seashore animals of the Pacific Coast. New York.

JONES, LIVINGSTON F.

1914.   A study of the Thlingets of Alaska. New York, Chicago, Toronto, London, and Edinburgh.

JORDAN, GEORGE F.

1958.   Pamplona Searidge, 1779–1957. Intern. Hydro. Rev., vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 147–157. Monte Carlo.

KEELER, CHARLES

1902.   Days among Alaska birds. In “Harriman Alaska Expedition,” vol. 4, pp. 205–234. New York.

KEITHAHN, EDWARD L.

1954.   Human hair as a decorative feature in Tlingit ceremonial paraphernalia. Univ. Alaska Anthrop. Pap., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 17–20.

1963.   Monuments in cedar, the authentic story of the totem pole. [Rev. ed.] Seattle, Wash.

1964.   Origin of the “chief's copper” or “tinneh.” Univ. Alaska Anthrop. Pap., vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 59–78.

KELLY, WILLIAM A., AND WILLARD, FRANCES H.

1905.   Grammar and vocabulary of the Tlingit language of southeastern Alaska. In “Report of the Commissioner for Education for 1904,” pp. 715–766. Washington, D.C. [Advance sheets of chap. 10.]

KHLEBNIKOV, see KHLIEBNIKOFF.

KHLIEBNIKOFF, KYRIL TIMOFEËVICH

1861 a. Letters on America, 3d ed. In “Materials for the history of the Russian settlements on the shores of the Pacific Ocean,” pt. 3. Supplement to the Norskoi Sbornik. Marine Ministerium Printing Office, St. Petersburg. [In Russian. MS. translation by Ivan Petroff quoted by permission of the Director of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.]

1861 b. First settlement of the Russians in America. In “Materials for the history of the Russian settlements on the shores of the Pacific Ocean,” pt. 4, no. 1, pp. 40–56. Supplement to the Norskoi Sbornik. Marine Ministerium Printing Office, St. Petersburg. [In Russian. MS. translation by Ivan Petroff quoted by permission of the Director of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.]

KNAPP, FRANCES, AND CHILDE, RHETA LOUISE

1896.   The Thlinkets of southeastern Alaska. Chicago.

KRAUSE, AUREL

1956.   The Tlingit Indians; results of a trip to the northwest coast of American and the Bering Straits. Trans. by Erna Gunther. Amer. Ethnol. Soc., Seattle, Wash. [1st German edition, Jena, 1885.]

LAGUNA, FREDERICA DE

1933.   Mummified heads from Alaska. Amer. Anthrop., n.s., vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 742–744.

1947.   The prehistory of northern North America as seen from the Yukon. Soc. Amer. Archaeol., Mem. no. 3.

1952.   Some dynamic forces in Tlingit society. Southwestern Journ. Anthrop., vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1–12.

1953.   Some problems in the relationship between Tlingit archaeology and ethnology. Soc. Amer. Archaeol., Mem. no. 9, pp. 53–57.

1954.   Tlingit ideas about the individual. Southwestern Journ. Anthrop., vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 172–191.

1956.   Chugach prehistory: the archaeology of Prince William Sound, Alaska. Univ. Washington, Publ. Anthrop., vol. 13. Seattle, Wash.

1958.   Geological confirmation of native traditions, Yakutat, Alaska. Amer. Antiq., vol. 23, no. 4, p. 434.

1960.   The story of a Tlingit community: a problem in the relationship between archeological, ethnological, and historical methods. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 172.

1963.   Yakutat canoes. In “Essays presented to Kaj Birket-Smith on his seventieth birthday, January 20th, 1963.” Folk, vol. 5, pp. 219–229. Copenhagen.

1965.   Childhood among the Yakutat Tlingit. In “Context and meaning in cultural anthropology,” ed. by Melford E. Spiro, in honor of A. Irving Hallowell, pp. 3–23. New York.

LAGUNA, FREDERICA, ET AL.

1963.   Archeology of the Yakutat Bay area, Alaska. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 192.

LANGSDORFF, GEORG H. VON

1814.   Voyages and travels in various parts of the world, during the years 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, and 1807. Part 2. London. [Part 1, 1813.]

LAPÉROUSE, JEAN FRANÇOIS DE GALAUP, COMTE DE

1798.   Voyage de LaPérouse autour du monde…rédigé par M. L. A. Milet-Mureau. 4 vols. and atlas. Paris.

1799.   A voyage round the world, performed in the years 1785, 1786, 1786, and 1788…. 2 vols. and atlas. London. [Translation of above.]

1937.   See also CHINARD, GILBERT.

LAWRENCE, DONALD B.

1958.   Glaciers and vegetation in southeastern Alaska. Amer. Scientist, vol. 46, pp. 89–122.

LIBBEY, WILLIAM

1886.   Superstitious neglect. Killed by the treatment of the medicine man. New York Times, vol. 36, no. 10,985 (November 16), p. 2.

LINCOLN, F. C.

1950.   Migration of birds. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Circ. no. 16. Washington, D.C.

LISIANSKY, UREY

1814.   A voyage round the world in the years 1803, 4, 5, and 6…. London.

LOGIER, E. B. S., AND TONER, G. C.

1961.   Check list of the amphibians and reptiles of Canada and Alaska. Royal Ontario Mus., Life Sci. Div., Contrib. no. 53. Toronto.

LULL, CAPT. EDWARD P.

1880–1882. Report of the United States Naval Officers cruising in Alaska waters. Part II, June 28, 1881, to October 18, 1881. Exec. Doc. no. 81, 47th Congress, 1st Session.

LÜTKE, FEODOR

1835.   Voyage autour du Monde, 1826–29. Partie Historique. 3 vols. Paris.

McCLELLAN, CATHARINE

1953.   The Inland Tlingit. Soc. Amer. Archaeol., Mem. no. 9, pp. 47–52.

1954.   The interrelations of social structure with northern Tlingit ceremonialism. Southwestern Journ. Anthrop., vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 75–96.

1963.   Wealth woman and frogs among the Tagish Indians. Anthropos, vol. 58, pp. 121–128. St. Augustin, Germany.

1964.   Culture contacts in the early historic period in northwestern North America. Arctic Anthrop., vol. 2, pp. 3–15. Madison, Wisc.

MACDOWELL, LLOYD WARREN

1907.   Indian curios. Alaska-Yukon Mag., vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 185–189.

MADDREN, A. G.

1914.   Mineral deposits of the Yakataga district. U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. 592-E, pp. 131–132.

MALASPINA, ALEJANDRO

1802.   See GALLIANO, 1802.

1849.   Viaje de…Documentos no. 6, pp. 268–320. In “Examen histórico-crítico de los viajes y descubrimientos apócritos del Capital Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, de Juan de Fuca y de Almirante Bartolome de Fonte.” vol. 15 of “Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España,” por D. Miguel Salvá y D. Pedro Sainz de Baranda. Madrid.

1885.   Viaje político-cientifico Alrededor del Mundo…1789 á 1794. 2d ed. Madrid. [MS. translation for the author by Sue Nuttall Roark and William Douglas. Quotations also from MS. translation by Carl Robinson, used by permission of the Provincial Librarian and Archivist, Victoria, B. C.]

MALIN, EDWARD, AND FEDER, NORMAN

1962.   Indian art of the Northwest Coast. Denver Art Mus. Winter Quart., Leaflet nos. 148–171. Denver.

MALINOWSKI, BRONISLAW

1922.   Argonauts of the western Pacific. London.

MARCHAND, ÉTIENNE, see FLEURIEU, C. P. CLARET.

MARTIN G. C.

1907.   Petroleum at Controller Bay. In “Report on progress of investigations of mineral resources of Alaska in 1906,” by Alfred H. Brooks et al. U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. no. 314, pp. 89–103. Washington, D.C.

MAURELLE, DON FRANCISCO ANTONIO

1798.   Extrait de la relation d’un voyage fait en 1779…par don Francois-Antoine Maurelle…. In LaPérouse, vol. 1, pp. 345–364. Paris. [The Spanish original of this account was sent home by LaPérouse, The French translation is by A. G. Pingre.]

1799.   Journal of a voyage in 1799 to explore the coast of America, northward of California. In LaPérouse, vol. 1, pp. 242–255. London.

1920.   Voyage of the Sonora in the second Bucarelli expedition…the journal kept in 1775 on the Sonora by Don Francisco Antonio Mourelle. Translated by the Hon. Daniel Barrington…reprinted line for line and page by page from Barrington, 1781, pp. 469–534; edited by Thomas C. Russell. San Francisco. [German translation in Pallas, 1782, vol. 3, no. 9, pp. 198–273.]

MAXWELL, GAVIN

1960.   Ring of bright water. New York.

MEARES, JOHN

1790.   Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789, from China to the N.W. coast of America…. London.

MENZIES, ARCHIBALD

1923.   Menzies' journal of Vancouver's voyage, April to October 1792. Edited, with botanical and ethnological notes, by C. F. Newcombe, M.D., and a biographical note by J. Forsyth. Archives British Columbia, Mem. no. 5. Victoria, B.C.

MERTIE, J. B., JR.

1931.   Notes on the geography and geology of Lituya Bay. U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. 836–B, pp. 117–135.

MILET-MUREAU, L. A., see LAPÉROUSE.

MILLER, DON J.

1960.   Giant waves in Lituya Bay, Alaska, U.S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap. no. 453–C.

MOFFIT, F. H.

1918.   The Upper Chitina Valley, Alaska. U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. 675.

MORRIS, MRS. JAMES EDWIN

1901.   A Pacific Coast vacation. New York.

MORRIS, WILLIAM GOUVERNEUR

1879.   Report upon the customs district, public service, and resources of Alaska Territory. Sen. Exec Doc. no. 59, 45th Congress, 3d Session.

MOSER, JEFFERSON F.

1899.   The salmon and salmon fisheries of Alaska. U.S. Fish Commission, Bull. 18, pp. 1–178.

1901.   Alaska salmon investigations in 1900 and 1901. U.S. Fish Commission, Bull. 21, pp. 173–398.

MOURELLE, see MAURELLE.

MUIR, JOHN

1901.   Notes on the Pacific Coast glaciers. In “Harriman Alaska Expedition.” vol. 1, pp. 119–135. New York.

MURDOCK, GEORGE PETER

1938.   Our primitive contemporaries. New York.

1949.   Social structure, New York.

NAISH, CONSTANCE, AND STORY, GILLIAN

1963.   English-Tlingit dictionary: nouns. Summer Inst. Ling. Fairbanks, Alaska.

NAVARRETE, MARTÍN FERNÁNDEZ, AND NAVARETTE, EUSTAQUIO FERNÁNDEZ

1849.   Examen histórico-crítico de los viajes y descubrimientos apócritos…. Coleccion de documentos inéditos para la historia de España, por D. Miguel Salvá y D. Pedro Sainz de Baranda, vol. 15. Madrid.

NIBLACK, ALBERT P.

1850.   The coast Indians of southern Alaska and northern British Columbia. U.S. Nat. Mus. Ann. Rep. for 1887–1888, pp. 225–386.

OBERG, KALVERO

1934.   Crime and punishment in Tlingit society. Amer. Anthrop., n.s., vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 145–156.

OKUN, S. B.

1951.   The Russian-American Company. Ed. by B. D. Grekov; trans. from Russian by Carl Ginsberg. Cambridge, Mass.

OLSON, RONALD L.

1936.   Some trading customs of the Chilkat Tlingit. In “Essays in anthropology presented to A. L. Kroeber,” ed. by Robert H. Lowie, pp. 211–214. Berkeley, Calif.

1956.   Channeling of character in Tlingit society. In “Personal character and cultural milieu,” ed. by Douglas G. Haring, pp. 675–687. [3d rev. ed.] Syracuse, N.Y.

1961.   Tlingit shamanism and sorcery. Kroeber Anthrop. Soc., Pap., no. 25, pp. 207–220. Berkeley, Calif.

ORTH, DONALD J.

1967.   Dictionary of Alaska place names. Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap. no. 567.

PALLAS, PETER SIMON

1781–1783. Neue nordische Beyträge zur physikalischen und geographischen Erd-und Völkerbeschreibung, Naturgeschichte und Oekonomie. 4 vols. St. Petersburg and Leipzig.

1793–1796. Neueste nordische Beyträge…3 vols. [These are also vols 5–7 of “Neue nordische Beyträge…. ”] St. Petersburg and Leipzig.

PAUL, FRANCES

1944.   Spruce root basketry of the Alaska Tlingit. Haskell Institute, Indian Handicrafts Pamphlet no. 8. [Ed. by Willard W. Beatty, Dir. of Education, U.S. Indian Service.] Lawrence, Kans.

PETERSON, ROGER TORY

1941.   A field guide to western birds. Boston.

PETROFF, IVAN

1884.   Report on the population, industries, and resources of Alaska. U.S. Dept. Interior, 10th census (1880), vol. 8. [Also in “Compilations of narratives of explorations in Alaska,” pp. 55–281.]

PLAFKER, GEORGE, AND MILLER, DON J.

1958.   Glacial features and surficial deposits of the Malaspina District, Alaska. U.S. Geol. Surv. Mis. Geol. Inves., Map I–271 with text.

PORTER, ROBERT R., EDITOR

1893.   Report on population and resources of Alaska at the eleventh census: 1890. U.S. Bureau of the Census. [Contains: The first district from Prince Frederick Sound to Yakutat Bay, by Eliza R. Scidmore, pp. 42–53; Additional to first district: the natives, from notes of Henry Boursin, special agent eleventh census, pp. 54–63.]

PORTLOCK, NATHANIEL

1789.   A voyage round the world; but more particularly to the north-west coast of America: performed in 1786, 1787, and 1788, in the King George and Queen Charlotte, Captains Portlock and Dixon. London.

RADLOFF, LEOPOLD (RADLOV, VASIL V.)

1859.   Ueber die Sprache der Ugalachmut. [1857.] Melanges Russes, vol. 3, pp. 468–542. St. Petersburg.

RHODE, CLARENCE J., AND BARKER, WILL

1953.   Alaska's fish and wildlife. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serv., Circ. 17.

RICH, WILLIS H., AND BELL, EDWARD M.

1935.   Statistical review of the Alaska salmon fisheries, part IV, southeastern Alaska. U.S. Dept. Commerce, Bur. Fisheries Bull. 13 (1933), in vol. 47, pp. 437–673.

RICKARD, T. A.

1939.   The use of iron and copper by the Indians of British Columbia. British Columbia Hist. Quart., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 25–50.

RIGGS, THOMAS, JR.

1920.   Report of the Governor of Alaska on the Alaska game law, 1919. U.S. Dept. Agric., Dept. Circ.

ROBSON, RALPH E.

1910.   The conquest of the Alsek. Alaska-Yukon Mag., vol. 10, pp. 163–173.

RUSSELL, ISRAEL C.

1891 a. The expedition of the National Geographic Society and the United States Geological Survey (1890). The Century Mag., n.s., vol. 19, pp. 872–884.

1891 b. An expedition to Mount St. Elias, Alaska. Nat. Geogr. Mag., vol. 3, pp. 53–203.

1892.   Mt. St. Elias and its glaciers. Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, no. 43.

1893.   Second expedition to Mount St. Elias in 1891. U.S. Geol. Surv. 13th Ann. Rep. for 1891–1892, pt. II, pp. 3–9.

RUSSELL, THOMAS C., see MAURELLE, DON FRANCISCO ANTONIO.

SCHWATKA, FREDERICK

1886.   The secrets of Alaska. New York Times, vol. 36, no. 10,858, June 21, pp. 1–2. The Yakutats of Alaska. vol. 36, no. 10,947, October 3, pp. 1–2. From Icy Bay to Yakutat. vol. 36, no. 10,962, October 20, pp. 1–2. The St. Elias flat lands. vol. 36, no. 10,967, October 26, p. 3.

1891.   The expedition of “The New York Times” (1886). The Century Mag., n.s., vol. 19, pp. 865–872.

1893.   A summer in Alaska. St. Louis.

SCIDMORE, ELIZA R.

1884.   See PORTER, ROBERT P.

1885.   Alaska: its southern coast and the Sitkan Archipelago. Boston.

1893.   Appleton's guide-book to Alaska and the Northwest Coast. New York.

SETON-KARR, HEYWOOD W.

1887.   Shores and alps of Alaska. London.

1891.   Explorations in Alaska and north-west British Columbia. Royal Geogr. Soc. Proceed., vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 65–84.

SHARPLESS, ADA W.

1958.   Alaska wild flowers. Stanford Univ. [1st ed. 1938.] Stanford, Calif.

SHELIKHOV, GREGORII I.

1793.   Gregor Schelechof's Fortsetzung der Reise von Ochotsk nach America…unter Anfürung der beyden Steurermänner Ismailof und Botscharof im J. 1788 und 1789. In “Neue Nordische Beyträge,” ed. by Peter Simon Pallas, vol. 6, pp. 167–249. [Also in Coxe, 1803, pp. 269–343.] St. Petersburg and Leipzig.

SHEPARD, ISABEL S.

1889.   The cruise of the U.S. steamer “Rush” in Behring Sea—summer of 1889. San Francisco.

SHORTT, TERENCE MICHAEL

1939.   The summer birds of Yakutat Bay, Alaska. Royal Ontario Mus., Zool. Contr. no. 17, pp. 1–30. Toronto.

SMITH, HARLAN I.

1899.   Stone hammers or pestles of the Northwest Coast Indians. Amer. Anthrop., n.s., vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 363–368.

STAIR, LESLIE, AND PENNEL, FRANCIS W.

1946.   A collection of plants from Yakutat, Alaska. Bartonia, no. 24, pp. 9–21. Philadelphia. [Issued 1947.]

STEVENSON, JOHN J.

1893.   Some notes on southeastern Alaska and its people. Scottish Geogr. Mag., pp. 66–83.

SURÍA, TOMÁS DE, see GUILLÉN Y TATO; WAGNER, 1936.

SWANTON, JOHN R.

1908.   Social condition, beliefs, and linguistic relationship of the Tlingit Indians. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. twenty-sixth Ann. Rep. for 1904–1905, pp. 391–485.

1909.   Tlingit myths and texts. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 39.

SWINEFORD, HON. A. P.

1898.   Alaska, its history, climate and natural resources. Chicago and New York.

TARR, RALPH S., AND BUTLER, BERT S.

1909.   The Yakutat Bay region, Alaska. U.S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap. no. 64.

TARR, RALPH S., AND MARTIN, LAWRENCE

1910.   The National Geographic Society's Alaskan expedition of 1909. Nat. Geogr. Mag., vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 1–54.

1914.   Alaskan glacier studies. Nat. Geogr. Soc. Washington, D.C.

TEBENKOV, M.

1852.   Atlas of the northwest coast of America from Bering Strait to Cape Corrientes and the Aleutian Islands. St. Petersburg. [In Russian. The maps were engraved in Sitka in 1849.]

THORNTON, C. W.

1898.   The ascent of Mount St. Elias (1897). Overland Monthly, vol. 31, ser. 2, no. 184, pp. 291–300.

THORNTON, WALTER, S. J., TRANSLATOR

1918.   An account of the voyage made by Father John Riobo…. Catholic Hist. Rev., vol. 4, no. 2.

TIKHMENEV, PETR A.

1861–1863 Historical review of the organization of the Russian American Company and its doings up to the present time. 2 vols. St. Petersburg. [In Russian. MS. translation by Ivan Petroff quoted by permission of the Director of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. MS. translation by Michael Dobrynin, in the Bancroft Library, was also consulted.]

TOCHER, DON, EDITOR

1960.   The Alaska earthquake of July 10, 1958. Seismolog. Soc. Amer. Bull., vol. 50, no. 2.

TOPHAM, HAROLD W.

1889 a. A visit to the glaciers of Alaska and Mount St. Elias. Royal Geogr. Soc. Proceed. and Monthly

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[87] Cf. McClellan, 1954, pp. 78–82, whose account differs slightly because it is based also on Inland and southeastern Alaskan Tlingit practices.

[88] Swanton (1908, p. 438) reports, almost in the words of his informant, “When people invite others they say, ‘We will have a war dance together,' in order to scare them, meaning thereby that they will have a dancing and singing contest.”

[89] Swanton observes (1908, p. 437): “A feast was prefaced by considerable fasting, in order to bring good luck to the various persons concerned.”

[90] Swanton (1908, p. 440) gives an example of such contrary speech when the host at the feast announces that no one will eat that day, meaning exactly the opposite.

[91] This ceremony is evidently a repetition of what would be done at the funeral of any important person (cf. Swanton, 1908, p. 430).

[92] These “canoes” were probably long, narrow, shallow plank river boats, see p. 345.

[93] Several of the more wealthy Tlingit owned handcars on the railroad at this time.

[94] However, according to Krause (1956, p. 196, based upon Veniaminov and Holmberg), the shaman “seldom inherits the spirits of ancestors, but they do occasionally appear to him and then the shaman makes a practice of entertaining them cordially.” This is at variance with my information.

[95] Krause (1956, p. 195) says that the new shaman begins his practice as soon as he returns from his spirit quest, very lean from fasting.

[96] In one story told to Olson (1962, p. 210), the father “killed two slaves in honor of his son's becoming a shaman.”

[97] This same feat was ascribed to an Alsek River shaman who visited K!AKAnuwū. He could also stab a man and cure the wound without leaving a scar (Swanton, 1909, Tale 27, p. 66).

[98] Boas, 1917. p. 129, àw, hair.

[99] See de Laguna, 1954. This chapter is a fuller discussion of the data which pertain especially to Yakutat.

[1] The expression may refer to meat, flesh (Ìy, i.e., dlÌy), rather than to blanket (łí) (Boas, 1917, p. 130). Kelley and Willard (1905, pp. 753, 755, 756, 760) render body as “kä-dlē-yĕ' (flesh)” to be transliterated as qa-l’iyÉ. Yet they also give the same term (dle, i.e., ł’i) for blanket, flesh, meat, muscle.

[2]According to Boas (1917, pp. 106, 124), dà is a locative noun, often used as a suffix, meaning circumference, outer side of a round object, place around something, as in around him (dùdà), or memorial post for ashes (dakét). See also the Yakutat word for grave house (qadakedi).

[3]See also Boas (1917, pp. 45, 140): Átc ‘uwÀdjÁq’—sleep killed him orhe fell asleep.

[4]The great sensitivity of salmon to human odors has been established by experimentation. If a hand or foot is placed in the water of a fish ladder, the spawning salmon will not move, or the run is drastically reduced. Other odors, noises, lights, are of much less effect (Brett and Mackinnon, 1952).

[5] However, a Wrangell story (Swanton, Tale 86, pp. 247–248), tells how two dead men that were coming back to life were killed for good when a jealous girl marked their accustomed sitting places with blood, although it is not specifically stated that this was menstrual discharge.

[6]Pitch and vowel quality of this and similar words vary according to position.

[7] Does the informant imply that he is the reincarnation of one of his mother's uncles who had died a violent death?

[8] See the illustration of the Whale House (Emmons, 1916, p. 22, pl. 1).

[9] See Kelley and Willard, 1905, p. 763, shēch (i.e., citc,) emale of animals.

[10] The name was also heard as Qelkanax, which would render this translation impossible. The informant said that the name implied “Little Bear Cub.”

[11] Boas, 1917, p. 129, xAtt’u ‘in the sky. 265–517—72—vol. VII, pt. 2 18

[12] See Boas, 1917, p. 142, SI-né ‘to save someone supernaturally’; Swanton, ‘A cAgínA ‘my future life.'

[13] Boas, 1917, p. 130, łacìeáw ‘no body

[14] See the exceptions permitted in poetry, p. 565.

[15] When Catherine McClellan asked MJ to suggest a Tlingit name for her dog, a slave's name, unátsàt, was mentioned. “No one would mind that.” But to appropriate a Tlingit name to which one had no claim and assign it to a dog would have been an insult.

[16] The eagle was erroneously believed to kill too many salmon and waterfowl. “During the period from 1917 to 1953 bounties were paid by the Territory on 90,776 eagles. Fortunately, the Bounty Act was repealed by the Territorial Legislature on March 2, 1953.” (Gabrielson and Lincoln, 1959, p. 272.)

[17] The transliteration of this native name is unsatisfactory. Other variants areacikoq) (1949), HAcaguw,acaguw Xacaow, Xacukukkw, Xacigu (1952), and ACAgAkkw 1954). It probably means a mannikin (”half-man”) carved from driftwood.

[18] I give here the form of the name recorded in 1954.

[19] See Swanton (1909, Tale 31, pp. 122–126) in which this story is greatly expanded and is treated as an episode in the Raven Cycle, and (Tale 96) a version which links the Children of the Sun with łayaw. See Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, Tale 16.

[20] See Swanton, 1909, Tale 3; Tale 31, pp. 99–106; Tale 96, p. 296; and Tale 97, pp. 297–298.

[21] It would appear that the informant referred to the treaty by which Great Britain and France guaranteed the integrity of the Danzig Free Corridor in Poland, violation of which by the Nazis in 1939 precipitated World War II.

[22] According to a Sitka myth (Swanton, 1909, Tale 1, p. 18), Raven put these tiny dwarfs, which he shook out of a bearskin, into people's eyes to be the pupils.

[23] See Swanton, 1909, Tales 19 and 69.

[24] See Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 126–128, and Tale 89; Birket-Smith and de Laguna, Tales 6A and B.

[25] See Swanton, 1909, Tale 19, p. 49: On account of the roughness of these cubs it came to be a saying in Sitka, “If you think you are brave, be steersman for Kts!” My informant has, of course, confused two stories.

[26] See Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 151–152.

[27] See Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, Tale 17; Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, p. 99, and Tale 84, pp. 244–245. 265–517–72—vol. VII, pt. 2—–23

[28] See Swanton, 1909, Tales 35, 94, and 105 (pp. 366–368); summarized herein, p. 242.

[29] See Swanton, 1909, Tales 13, 31 (p. 95), and 49.

[30] See Swanton, 1909, Tales 99 and 100; Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, Tales 4A and B.

[31] Swanton, 1909, p. 301, CAnyamacr’klu Lamacrx ‘moldy-cornered ones,' p. 302 “moldy-end.”

[32] See Swanton, 1909, Tale 31, pp. 145–150, and Tale 93; Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, Tale 25.

[33] This is not Swanton, 1909, Tale 9 of the same title. See Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, Tale 3, “Wolverine Man.”

[34] See Swanton, 1909, Tales 65 and 92.

[35] Swanton, 1909, Tales 37 and 98.

[36] Shakes is identified by Swanton (1908, p. 402) as chief of Hit Lën, of the Nanyạ’ayi, a Wolf-Eagle sib at Wrangell.

[37] The Coward (Q!Atxä’n) is the companion of Wolverine-man when they go to trap groundhogs, and the former makes shavings instead of setting up a deadfall, according to a story recorded by Swanton (1909, Tale 9, p. 58).

[38] See Swanton, 1909, Tales 67 and 101; herein p. 794.

[39] This was the discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek, Yukon Territory, in the summer of 1896, by George Carmacks (a White man), his Indian brother-in-law, Skookum Jim, and the latter's nephew, Dawson Charlie. This started the famous Klondike Gold Rush of 1898.