TEXTS a

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89. THE ORIGIN OF COPPER ^b

A chief lived in the middle of a very long town. His daughter was fond of picking berries. Once she went for berries with her father's slaves, and while picking far up in the woods she stepped upon some grizzly-bear's dung. "They always leave things under people's feet, those wide anuses," she said. When they wanted to go down her basket broke, and her father's slaves picked up the berries and put them back for her. Very close to her father's house it broke again. Then one said to her, "Now pick them up yourself." While she was putting them in a man came to her whirling a stick in his hand. "Let me marry you," he said to her. Then he started off with her. He went up toward the woods with her and passed under two logs. These things which looked like logs were mountains.

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The people missed this woman. For that the people were called together, and they searched everywhere for her. It was the grizzly bear to which the high-caste woman had spoken angrily that married her. The grizzly-bear people kept going after salmon. After they had gone her husband went out after wet wood. She, however, always collected dry wood. When they came up from the salmon place they threw off their coats. They shook them. Something in these like grease would burn in the soaked wood. The woman's dry wood, however, always went out. It was not long before they did something to the high-caste woman on account of it.

When they went out again, the woman saw smoke right under her foot. A grandmother mouse was coming out from under a little hill. It was that which was going to help her. "Come in, grandchild," she said, "These are very dangerous animals you are among. The grizzly-bear people have carried you away." She told her the truth. Then she gave her advice. "Over there is your father's home." So next

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morning when they were gone after salmon she started running in the, opposite direction. When they came home at midday the grizzly-bear people missed her. The woman's dress had rotted up there. After she had crossed one mountain she glanced behind her. It looked dark with grizzly bears. When they gained on her she began crying for her life. She came out on the edge of a lake. In the middle of this big lake a canoe was floating wearing a dance hat. It said to her, "Run this way into the water." Then she ran into the water toward it. She was pulled in, and it went up with her into the sun.

The sun's sons had married a cannibal. ^a Whomsoever they married never lasted long before they killed her. Now, however, they liked the one they had just married. To make way for her they killed the cannibal. They killed her over a Tsimshian town. They chopped her into very fine pieces. This is why there came to be so many cannibals there. They could see the Tsimshian town. When the sun got straight up over her father's town they said, "Here is your father's

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town." Very soon they had a child. Their father's canoe, a grizzly-bear canoe, stood at the end of this town. The canoe could hear. They loaded it with things. They put grease inside of it for their father-in-law. Then it walked away with them. After it had walked on for a long time it would stop suddenly. This was because it was hungry, and they would then break up a box of grease in front of the bow. They came in front of their father-in-law's house. Then she recognized her father's house, and went up in front of it. Then her brother came into the house and said, "My sister has come and is outside." But his mother beat him because he claimed to see his sister who had been long dead. His mother went out. It was indeed true, and they were coming ashore. They did not see them (her husbands), however, for they were like streaks of moonlight. Now, after they had brought all their things up, one went out and said, "There is nothing there." The wife said, "That moonlight down there is they. Tell

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them to come up." So people went to tell them. They came up. Then the sunbeams lay alongside of the woman in streaks, and their little son in front of them was also like a sunbeam. After they were seated inside of the house they began to appear as if coming out of a fog. "Eat something, my daughter," said the chief. Then a very young man ran to get water for them. But her husband took a fishhawk's quill out, and put this into it. If it bent over on account of the wet the man had not behaved himself. After they had examined everyone she sent her little brother, and her little brother always brought water for them. When her brother went away she took her husband's bucket for the water herself. But after she had been twice a man near the water seized her hand. And, when she brought it into the house and set it close beside her husbands, they put the fishhawk's quill into it. This time, after her hand had been caught, the quill bent over with slime. Then they started to getup to go outside, away from

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her. She would catch first one and then the other, but her hands passed right through them. Then they ceased to see them. Their canoe, however, ran about on the lake.

After that the sun's children began to wish that filth would kill their son. This is why poverty always kills a little boy when his father dies. After her little child had begun to suffer very much they compelled him. to go outside with his mother. She made a house with branches at the other end of the town. There she stayed with her little child. She continually bathed her little child inside of the house of branches, and he grew larger there. People kept throwing the leavings of food on top of their house. They always called him" This man living here." They would laugh at him. Whenever the little boy ran out among the boys who were playing they said "Uh! Garbage-man." Now he said to his mother, "Make a bow and arrows for me." And, after she had made them, he went out shooting just at daybreak. He shot all kinds of things. When he was getting to be a man, he kept going up close by the lake.

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After he had gone up there many times something came up quickly toward him. Its mouth was red. After it had done so twice he asked his mother, "What is that, mother?" Then he prepared anew spear. "When it opens its mouth for you and puts its forefeet up on land run down to it. It is your father's canoe." So he went there and it opened its mouth for him. His mother had said, "Shoot it in the mouth," and, when he had shot it, it was heard to say "Ga," like a raven. It was as if its seats had been all cut off. It was a copper canoe in which were wide seats. The canoe was nothing but copper and broke entirely up. Throughout the night he carried it into his house to his mother. No person knew of it.

Now he began making a big house out of copper. He would pound out spears and bracelets under the branches. In those days there was no iron or copper. He also pounded out copper plates. Then he set them all round the inside of the house. When they threw garbage upon his house [they kept calling him] "Pounding-chief." After he

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had finished the house there were plenty of copper plates which he kept pounding out. When they laughed at him and he ran outside they would say, "Uh! Garbage-man." There was a chief's daughter whom they would let no one marry. After people from all places had tried to get her he prepared himself. He dressed himself at night. He took a piece of twisted copper. He knew where the chief's daughter slept. He poked the woman through a hole with this copper roll, and the woman caught hold of it. She smelt it. She did not know what the copper was, no person in the world having ever seen copper. Then he called to her saying, "Come outside," and she went outside to him. "Go down to my house with me. With me you shall stay," he said to her. She did not know whence the man came. The man that used to be called dirty was only going to the beach with her. Just before she touched the door it opened inward. The copper door shone in her face. Whence were all those coppers that stood around inside of the house? Then he married her in his house.

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By and by the people began searching for that woman. They missed her for many days. Two days were passed in searching for her. Then her father said to a slave, "Search below here." The slave searched there for her. When he had looked into the house the slave backed out. It began shining in his face. Then the woman's husband from inside the house said to him, "Come in. Do not tell about my house," he said. "Say Garbage-man has married her." When he came into the house he told about it. He said, "Garbage-man has married her." Then they started to rush out. Her mother cried, "My daughter!" Then they rushed to his door. They kicked into the house, under the house made of branches. "DAm" it sounded. It shone out into her face, and they started back from the house door. Where was their anger against him? Then she became ashamed. After they got home he sent for his father-in-law, and he put eight coppers on him because he had married his daughter. Then they

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threw the branch house away, letting the copper shine out. But his father had done this purposely to him in order to help him. So even now, when a man is poor, something comes to help him. This shows how valuable copper was at the place where this happened. Even lately a copper plate used to cost two slaves. It has since become an everlasting thing there (i. e., it, is now used there all the time).

Footnotes

252:a All these stories, with the exception of nos. 100 and 106, were obtained at Sitka.

252:b Another version is incorporated into story 31.

254:a LuqAna', probably equivalent to Kwakiutl Lô'koala.