Page:Tlingit Myths and Texts.djvu/102

was a log with Kaka′ lying upon it clothed only in a kelp apron. The people were delighted to find even his body, and took it into their canoe. He looked very wild and strange. He did not open his eyes, yet he seemed to know who had possession of him, and without having his lips stir a voice far down in his chest said, "It is I my masters." It was a shaman's spirit that said this, and to the present day a shaman's spirit will call the shaman's relations "my masters."

The old woman that saved him and told him to sit astride of the log was his spirit and so was her husband. The log was the spirit's canoe. This woman and her husband had been captured by the land otters long before, but Kaka′ was so strong-minded a fellow that they felt they could do nothing with him, so they let him go and became his spirits. They could not turn him into a land otter because he did not believe that land otters are stronger than human beings.

After the people had brought Kaka′ to a place just around the point from their village, he said, "Leave me here for a little while." So most of his relations remained with him, while two went home to tell the people who were there. They were not allowed to keep it from the women. Then they made a house for him out of devil clubs and he was left there for two days while the people of the town fasted. They believed in these spirits as we now believe in God. Before he was brought home the house and the people in it had to be very clean, because he would not go where there was filth. After they got him home they heard the spirit saying far down within him, "It is I, Old-land-otter-spirit (Kū′cta-koca′nqo-yek)." This was the name of the old woman who first told him what to do. The next spirit was The-spirit-that-saves (Qōsîne′xe-yek). He sang inside of him the same song that the land otters sang. It was his spirit's song and has many words to it.

All the birds that assembled around him when he was floating upon the sea were also his spirits. Even the wind and waves that first upset him were his spirits. Everything strange that he had seen at the time when the land otters got possession of him were his spirits. There are always sea birds sitting on a floating log, and from Kaka′ people learned that these are shamans spirits. It is from his experience that all Alaskans Tlingit, Haida, even Eskimo and Athapascans believe in the land-otter-men (kū′cta-qa). By means of his spirits Kaka′ was able to stand going naked for two years. This story of Kaka′ is a true story, and it is from him that the Tlingit believe in shamans spirits (yēk).^[1]