At that time the woman was pregnant, and presently she gave birth to a boy. He was very smart like his father, though they did not let him know who his father was. When he grew larger, he was a fine shot with bow and arrows, bringing in all sorts of small animals, and the other boys were jealous of him.
One time, when he was out in a canoe with other boys, hunting, he began shooting at a cormorant (yûq), which kept going farther and farther out. All of a sudden it became foggy and they could not see their way, so they fastened their canoe to the end of a drifting log which was sticking out of the water, and waited. Then some one came to them and said to the boy, "I am after you. Your father wants you." At once the boy lost consciousness, and, when he came to, found himself in a very fine house on the mainland. The chief living there said, "Do you know that you are my son?" He also gave him a name, CAmgigê'tk, and he thought a great deal of him, but the boy thought it strange that he never inquired for his mother. Then he gave his son abalone shells and sharks' teeth (CAxdA'q) as presents. He also made him a club and said to him, "Whenever you are among wild animals and find there are too many, put this club down and it will fight for you. When you see seals or sea lions sitting on the rocks, put it down and it will kill
Then his grandmother said to him, "Grandson, do not go over in that direction. None of the village people go there, and those who have done so never returned." This, however, only made the boy anxious to see what was the trouble, so he went there and, killing some seals and halibut, put them into the water to entice the creature up. Finally he saw a gigantic crab (s!a-u) coming up in the sea, so he put his club into the ocean, and it broke the crab's shell and killed it. Then he and his slave pulled the big crab ashore, and he took a load of its flesh home to his grandparents. His grandparents had worried all the time he was away, but his mother knew that her son had power over all kinds of fish, because his father is chief of the sea. Everything in the sea is under him. Another time his grandmother said to him, "There is a place over in this direction where lives a big mussel (yîs!). No canoe can pass it without being chewed up." So he went to the mussel and killed that. He took all of its shell home, and the people throughout the village bought it of him for spears, arrow points, and knives. At the same time he also brought home a load of cockles, clams, and other shellfish. In the Tsimshian country the shellfish are fine, and the mussels are not poisonous as they are here. In April the Alaskans do not dare to eat shellfish, especially mussels, claiming that they are poisonous. It is because he killed the big mussel that they are all poisonous here. Since his time, too, boys and girls have done whatever their fathers used to do. After that the boy married and had a son who was very unlike him. His name was Man-that-eats-the-leavings (Q!a-î'tê-cûka-qâ), and, when he grew up, he was worthless. He seemed to see the shellfish, however, and understood the shellfish language. At the same time the daughter of the chief in a certain village not far away went out of doors and slipped on slime which had dropped from a devilfish hung up in front. She said, "Oh! the dirty thing." About the middle of the following night a fine-looking young man Now the chief felt very badly, for he knew what had happened to his daughter, so he said to the people in his house, "Go down and invite my daughter, and say, 'Your father wants you to come to dinner.'" So they went down and said, "Your father has sent us to invite you, your children, and your husband to come to dinner at his house." "We are coming," said the woman from under the beach, "so go back. We will be there soon." She knew the voices of all of her husband's servants. When these came back to the chief, he said, "Did you ask her? Did you go there?" "Yes, we were there." "What did you say to her?" "We told her just what you wanted us to say to her. She said that her husband, her children and herself would be here soon." So the people watched for her, and by and by she came up along with her devilfish husband and with the two little devilfishes right behind her. Her marten-skin robe was rotten, all sorts of sea weeds were in her hair, and she looked badly, although she had formerly been very pretty. Her father and mother were very sorry. Then they set out food for them and afterward took the trays down to the place where the little ones had gone under the rock. Now the chief invited all of the people into his house, gave them tobacco to chew, and told them how badly he felt. After they had Just then Man-that-eats-the-leavings came to that town, and they told him what a bard time they were having every night with the devilfish, so he stayed with them until evening. When they came in this time he seemed to have control over them, and they ceased bothering the people. The large devilfishes are called dAgasâ'. The small ones, which they threw down on the beach, are those that the Alaskan Indians see, but these do not injure anyone now because their grandfather was a human being. ________________ 129:a "I have always wondered what this part of the story means but was never told. It must have been because we were going to have steamboats. Every now and then at the present time something happens like things in the stories. The poor people always had luck in those days, and I have always wondered what it meant. Years ago, too, we used to hear the old people say, 'There will be no slaves. Those that have been slaves are going to feel themselves above the real high-caste Indians.' And sure enough nowadays the people that have come from slaves are very proud, while the race of nobles is dying out. They are protected by law and know that nothing harmful can be said to them. We heard of this years ago." (From the writer's informant.) 129:b "Some people are like this nowadays. They are very poor but are so used to the life that they can not see it, and so used to filth that they do not notice it." (From the writer's informant.)
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