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was another very powerful man. And the cannibal showed him where Tsa′maya lived.
Then Raven stayed with Tsa′maya, and they became good friends also. The latter lived all by himself at that time, all of his friends having been killed by Wolverine-man (NusgA-qa/). So he said to Raven, "I do not know what to do with him. I would like to kill him." And Raven said to him, "Do you see this spear? Go and get a bear skin and put it around yourself. Put the spear in such a position as to make him believe he has killed a bear." Tsa′maya did so, and by and by Wolverine-man came along. He was very glad when he saw the bear and said, "I have another." Then he picked the bear up, took out the spear and carried it home. After that he went to gather wood. While he was gone Raven made himself appear like a common blackbird and in that form said to Tsa′maya, "Wolverine-man's heart is in his foot." Then he took the little spear he had concealed in his long hair and gave it to Tsa′maya, who speared Wolverine-man in the foot as soon as he came in. He was hurt badly but ran away from them. When they caught up with him and told him they were going to kill him, he said, "All right." But every time they killed him he came to life again until finally they burned him. Then, when they were about to pulverize his bones, the bones spoke up and said to them, "Pulverize my bones and blow them away. They will always be a bother to you and everybody else. I shall always remain in the world." That is where the mosquitoes and gnats come from.[1]
Afterward Raven came to where a house was floating far out at sea, called K!u datAn kahi ti. Nas-cA ki-yeJ had been keeping it there, and in it were all kinds of fishes, but Raven did not know how to get at them. At the same place he also met a monster, called Qla iiAxgadayiye (which seems to mean "a thing that is in the way"), who had a spear like the arm of a devilfish called, "devil fish-arm spear." Raven wanted this, and obtained it by marrying the monster's daughter. Then he got into a canoe, paddled out near the house, and speared it. Inside he heard all kinds of songs sung by different voices. These were the songs people were to sing in the fishing season. When Raven threw his spear, it became very long and wrapped itself around the house so firmly that he was enabled to take his canoe ashore. He had great difficulty, however, for as he did so he had to sing continually, "I think so, I think so," a song known to all of the Raven people. Whenever he stopped singing, the house went back to the place where it had been at first. This happened three times and the fourth time he got it in.
- ↑ "This episode is referred to when a person takes after a bad father. They say to him, Why do you take after your father? Everybody knows that you are his child. Can't you take another road and do better than he did?" (From the writer's informant.)