Page:Tlingit Myths and Texts.djvu/101

The first man captured (or " saved") by the land otters was a KiksA di named KAka . The land otters kept coming to him in large canoes looking like his mother or his sister or other dear relation, and pretending that tfiey had been looking for him for a long time. But they could not control themselves as well as he, and at such times he would discover who they were and that their canoe was nothing but a skate. Finally, when KAka found that he could not see his friends, he thought that he might as well give himself up to the land otters. Then they named him Qowulka , a word in the land-otter language now applied to a kind of fishhook which the halibut are thought to like better than all others. Nowadays, when a figure of Qowulka is made, it is covered with a dog skin, because it was by means of a dog skin that he frightened the land otters, and they also hang his apron about with dog bones. The shaman who is possessed by him dresses in the same manner. From KAka the people learned that the land otters affect the minds of those who have been with them for a long time so as to turn them against their own friends. They also learned from him that there are shamans among the land otters, and that the land otters have a language of their own.

For two years KAka /; s friends hunted for him, fasting at the same time and remaining away from their wives. At the end of this period the land otters went to an island about 50 miles from Sitka and took KAka with them. The land-otter tribe goes to this place every year. Then an old land-otter-woman called *to KAka : "My nephew, I see that you are worrying about the people at your home. When you get to the place whither we are going place yourself astride of the first log you see lying on the beach and sit there as long as you can." And her husband said to him: "Keep your head covered over. Do not look around." They gave him this direction because they thought, "If this human being sees all of our ways and learns all of our habits, we shall die." On the way across the land-otter-people sang a song, really a kind of prayer, of which the words are, "May we get on the current running to the shore."

The moment they came to land the land-otter-people disappeared and he did not know what had become of them. They may have run into some den. Then he ran up the sandy beach and sat on the first log he came to, as he had been directed. The instant his body touched it he became unconscious. It was a shaman s spirit that made him so.

By and by KAka"s friends, who were at that time hunting for fur seals, an occupation that carries one far out to sea, suddenly heard the noise of a shaman s drum and people beating for him with batons. They followed the sound seaward until they saw thousands and thousands of sea birds flying about something floating upon the ocean a mile or two ahead of them. Arrived there they saw that it