Page:Tlingit Myths and Texts.djvu/94

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MYTHS RECORDED IN ENGLISH AT WRANGELL

31. RAVEN[1]

In olden times only high-caste people knew the story of Raven properly because only they had time to learn it.

At the beginning of things there was no daylight and the world lay in blackness. Then there lived in a house at the head of Nass river a being called Raven-at-the-head-of-Nass (Nās-ca′kî-yēł), the principal deity to whom the Tlingit formerly prayed,[2] but whom no one had seen; and in his house were all kinds of things including sun, moon, stars, and daylight. He was addressed in prayers as axcagū′n, or Axkînaye′gî, My Creator, and Wayîgêna′lxe, Invisible-rich-man. With him were two old men called Old-man-who-foresees-all-troubles-in-the-world (Adawū′ł!-ca′naku!) - and He-who-knows-everything-that-happens (Łiu′wat-uwadjī′gî-can). Next to Nās-ca′kî-yēł, they prayed to the latter of these. Under the earth was a third old person, Old-woman-underneath (Hayi-ca′naku!), placed under the world by Nās-ca′kî-yēł.[3] Nās-ca′kî-yēł was unmarried and lived alone with these two old men, and yet he had a daughter, a thing no one is able to explain. Nor do people know what this daughter was. The two old persons took care of her like servants, and especially they always looked into the water before she drank to see that it was perfectly clean.

First of all beings Nās-ca′kî-yēł created the Heron (Łaq!) as a very tall and very wise man and after him the Raven (Yēł), who was also a very good and very wise man at that time.

Raven came into being in this wise. His first mother had many children, but they all died young, and she cried over them continually. According to some, this woman was Nās-ca′kî-yēł's sister and it was Nās-ca′kî-yēł who was doing this because he did not wish her to have any male children. By and by Heron came to her and said, "What is it that you are crying about all the time?" She answered, "I am always losing my children. I can not bring them up." Then he said, "Go down on the beach when the tide is lowest, get a small, smooth stone, and put it into the fire. When it is red hot, swallow it. Do

  1. ↑ See story 1. Into this story, as will be seen, the writer's informant has woven a large portion of the sacred myths of his people.
  2. ↑ In another place the writer's informant admitted that he had concluded this must be the case, because there were no bad stories about Nās-ca′kî-yēł.
  3. ↑ See Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 454.
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