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TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS
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Finally all the northern warriors got into the big canoe and they started south. It took probably ten days to get there. At the first camp they reached they killed all the men and put the women and children down on the sharpened limb alive. Of one woman who was saved they asked where the other people were, and she said that they were scattered everywhere in camps which she named. After they had destroyed the second camp they enslaved more women, whom they also put upon the sharpened limb. As they never took any off, the number on this increased continually. Then they asked the woman: "Didn't you expect any war party to come down here?" She said, No one expected another raid down here, so they built no forts."

The big canoe went around everywhere, killing people, destroying property, and enslaving women. The women captured at each place told them where others were to be found, and so they continued from place to place. They destroyed more of the southern people than were killed up this way. When they thought that they had killed everybody they started north, stopping at a certain place to scalp the bodies. Then they reached home, and everybody felt happy. They not only brought numbers of slaves but liberated those of their own people who had been taken south. Since that time people have been freer to camp where they please, and, although the northern and southern people fought against each other for a long time, more slaves were taken up this way, so the northern people did not esteem the southern people very highly. This is said to have been the very oldest war.


30. HOW PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY WAS FIRST HEARD OF AT SITKA[1]

A man went south from Sitka and returned after two months. When he came ashore he called all the people to a dance and told them that God (Dekī′-anqā′wo, Distant-chief) had come down from heaven to help them.

Then all the women made beadwork for their hair and ears. One evening, when they were through with that, they again began dancing. While the women danced they would fall flat on their backs. When this happened, in accordance with directions the man had received below, they brought up salt water, wet part of each woman's blanket and flapped it against her breast to make her come to. This prevented the smallpox from having any effect upon her. They kept on dancing a whole year.

  1. It is possible, however, that this was the result of Jesuit teaching on the upper Skeena