Page:Myths and Legends of British North America.djvu/23

This page has been validated.

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA

lie in numberless inlets, near the water, just as the Haida towns on earth do.

When food or grease is put into the fire in the family of a man who has just died, it comes to him at once; therefore he is not hungry. And if his family sing songs loudly when he dies, then he enters Ghost Land proudly, with his head up. It gives him a good name in that country. But if they do not, then he enters Ghost Land with his head hanging down, and people do not think so much of him. When a man enters Ghost Land there is always a dance given in his honor.

People who are drowned go to Killer-Whale Country. But first they go to The-One-in-the-Sea who gives them their fins and then they go into the houses of the other Killer Whales. When killer whales gather in front of a town, it is thought they are human beings who have been drowned and take this way of informing the people.

One man who went to the Ghost Land, after he had been there for some time, put all his property in his canoe and went to Xada, which is the second Ghost Land. Then he went on to a third one, and later to a fourth, and then came back to earth as a blue fly. Therefore when a blue fly bumps into a man on earth, he says, "This is my friend, who thus shows me that he recognizes me."

3