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TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS
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would float up on a good sandy beach." After he had wished this many times, the whale began to drift along, and it finally floated ashore on a long sandy beach.

After a while some young fellows who were always shooting about in this neighborhood with their bows and arrows, heard a voice on the beach say, "I wonder who will make a hole on the top so that he can be my friend." The boys ran home to the town and reported, "We heard a queer noise. Something floated ashore not far from this place, and a person inside said, I wish that somebody would make a hole above me so that he can be my friend. " Then the people assembled around the whale and heard Raven s words very clearly. They began to cut a hole just over the place these came from and presently they heard some one inside say, "Xone -e." When the hole was large enough, Raven flew straight up out of it until he was lost to sight. And they said to him, "Fly to any place where you would like to go." After that they cut the whale up and in course of time came to the spot where Raven had lighted his fire to make oil.

Meanwhile Raven flew back of their camp to a large dead tree that had crumbled into fine pieces and began rubbing on it to dry himself. When he thought that the people were through making oil, he dressed himself up well and repaired to the town. There he said to the people, "Was anything heard in that tclan (his word for whale)?" and one answered, "Yes, a queer noise was heard inside of the whale." "I wonder what it was," said Raven.

After their food was all prepared Raven said to the people, "Long ago, when a sound was heard inside of a tclan, all the people moved out of their town so as not to be killed. All who remained were destroyed. So you better move from this town." Then all of the people said, "All of us better move from this town rather than be destroyed." So they went off leaving all of their things, and Raven promptly took possession of them.

Raven once went to a certain place outside of here (Sitka) in his canoe. It was calm there, but he began rocking the canoe up and down with his feet until he had made a great many waves. Therefore there are many waves there now even when it is calm outside, and a canoe going in thither always gets lost.

By and by Raven came to a sea gull standing at the mouth cf a creek and said to it, "What are you sitting in this way for? How do you call your new month?" " YAdiiq!o l,"[1] a replied the sea gull. Raven was questioning him in this way because he saw many her ring out at sea. So he said, "I don t believe at all what you say. Fly out and see if you can bring in a herring." This is why, until

  1. This name does not occur in the list given by this same man (Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 426.) He said it was the eighth month and according to his list the eighth month is March, which he calls Kin ta nxx kaya ni di si, "Month when things under the sea begin to grow."