31. Raven, Part IX

Afterward they bathed the girl to take all the devilfish off of her, and put fine clothing on her. Her face was very pretty, so that all the neighboring chiefs wanted to marry her. In olden times a good looking woman was considered high-caste, for they knew she would marry well, and a good looking woman among the high-caste people was considered very high.

Among those who wanted to marry this girl was Man-that-eats-the-leavings. He lived in a brush house at a place where garbage was thrown out. He was a fine shot, however, and one day he went to a lake behind the town where a loon was swimming about and shot it. When the arrow struck it gave forth a sound like a bell and swam right up to the shore. Then he went down to it and found, instead of a loon, a canoe made out of copper. This was, in fact, the grizzly-bear canoe that had belonged to his grandfather. It had long since been forgotten. Next he found a piece of a painted house front (q!ên) and shook it, upon which a grand house stood there with four horizontal house timbers, and he lined the inside of this house with copper-plates made out of the copper canoe. Then he married the chief's daughter without her father's consent and took her to his house.

By and by the chief's daughter was missed, and they hunted for her through all of the houses, but they did not look into the old brush house, for they thought she would never go there. They thought

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that she might have gone back to the rocks again, and they dug up all of the large rocks to look underneath them. Finally, however, they saw her going into the brush house and told her parents, and her parents felt very badly on her account. All got out spears to kill her husband, but her mother said, "I am going there to see her first." So she went down in great anger, but found the door already open for her, and, when she went in, each side of the house shone so brightly that she could hardly keep her eyes open. She saw that the house was full of very nice things, so she said to her daughter, "Daughter, are you married?" "Yes, mother, I am married." Her mother had intended to take her home and have her husband killed, but instead she put the fire out and sat in the ashes, as was customary in the case of a woman whose daughter married without her consent. It meant that she wanted property. And before she had sat there very long, her new son-in-law handed out eight bright copper plates and sent her home, and she told her husband all that she had seen. Then they laid their spears aside, and the following morning they saw a beautifully painted house standing where the brush house had been. Now the chief invited his daughter and her husband to a feast. The servants that were sent with the invitation were finely dressed. When they got there, they said to the girl, "We are sent after you by your father; he wants you to come to a feast, you and your husband." They did so, and, after food had been served, he gave his son-in-law eight slaves, one for every copper plate his wife had received. And to this day, when a girl runs off with some one, and her people find he is all right, they do all they can for her. a

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