100. Moldy-end

p. 311

100. MOLDY-END ^a

The Sitka, KîksA'dî have a salmon stream called Daxê't and the father of Lively-frog-in-pond went there to camp. The boy was playing on the beach. Afterward Lively-frog-in-pond caught sea gulls by means of bait. Then lie was hungry, and went into the house. He cried for something to eat. He asked for a piece of dry salmon, and they gave him a piece of dry salmon that was half moldy. He said, "Why did you give me a piece that is half moldy?" Then he threw it into the corner of the house. Again he went to pull in a sea gull. When the sea gull swam out from him he waded out and fell into a hole. He was nowhere to be seen.

Now his father missed him and said, "Where is my child?" He said this to his wife. Then they got up. They looked outside. They called to him, "Lively-frog-in-pond, where are you?" They looked

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everywhere. They called to everything. Then they went to the place where he had baited his traps, and saw his tracks leading into the water. They wept, saying, "What has become of you, my son?" The man waded out, crying, looking for his son. Then they did not sleep looking for their son. They hunted everywhere for him. Next morning they went into the water and along the shore. They had not eaten anything since their son was lost. They hunted for him all summer. After they had hunted for him for months they gave up looking.

Lively-frog-in-pond had been captured by the salmon people, however, who swam out with him. They looked to him like human beings. Then they came to the salmon people's village with him. He pouted all the time because he was always hungry. Then the salmon people said, "Let us go with him to Amusement creek." So they went with him to the creek. They put his arms around the necks of sand-hill cranes at the creek's mouth.

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Afterward he was always hungry. But when he began to take some eggs from among those on the beach, they shouted, "Moldy-end is eating eggs along the beach of the town," ^a and he felt badly.

Next door to the place where he lived the people were always dancing. After awhile he looked into the house where they were dancing, and his face was all over fish eggs. It was the herring people dancing for joy. One woman called him aside and said to him, "Do you remember when you said something against the salmon people? That is why they have captured you." She said to him, "Do you know the creek over there? When you are hungry roast salmon from it in the fire and eat them there. After you have eaten, put all your leavings into the water and your roasting sticks also, in order to wash the leavings off." When he was hungry he did just the way he had been told. When he was very hungry again he went to get another salmon. He

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ate it. Just as he had been told, he put his leavings into the water. He washed off his roasting stick. That evening, however, the eye of the salmon people's chief was sore. He cried with it, and did not sleep. Then the woman said to him, "Do you know where you cooked? Perhaps you left the eye there." He found it, and when he had obeyed her directions the eye was cured.

After this the woman said to him, "They are going to start home with you." Then all of the salmon people started home with him. Afterward, while the salmon people were swimming along, they spoke of the sît, of which they were frightened. By and by they came in sight of the sît. It opened and shut. When the salmon went through it, some of them would be cut in two. Now they passed through. They saw canoes [of the herring people] coming to meet them. "We have done all of our work before you" [said they. They answered] "When will your cheek-flesh save the person that eats it?" "Our eggs are our cheek-flesh."

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Then the salmon gathered together. They said to one another, Where are you going?" and some said, "We to the Stikine," others, 'To Chilkat," others, "To Taku," others, "To Nass," others, "To Alsek." They mentioned all of these rivers. After that the canoe came to the mouth of the river. They said, "Stand up in the canoe and see where we are." Then one stood up in the canoe to look around. The salmon would say, "Is the fort ready?" and one would go up to look. What they called a fort was a salmon trap. Every time he came back he said, "It will soon be ready." By and by he said it was ready. Then the salmon people went thither. The salmon people entered the creek. They were very happy. The evening after they went to surround the fort. All the salmon went up in the creek in two schools. Then his mother, who was cutting down on the beach, saw Lively-frog-in-pond. He thought he was going to his mother. Then his mother called to his father to come and spear him. He

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swam close to her. Then she called out to him again, "A fine salmon is swimming around here." So his father speared him. He lost consciousness. Afterward the man said to his wife, "Cut it to use it fresh." But when she was trying to cut off its head it seemed hard for her to use her knife, and she saw the copper that had been about her son's neck. Then she cried out, "This is my little son. He must have been captured by the salmon people. Here is the copper ring that was around his neck." Now she took out a mat with feathers inside of it. She laid the mat down and put the feathers around the salmon. After that she put the mat on top of the house. In the house, however, they kept singing shamans' songs for him.

In the middle of the night something shook on top of the house. Looking at his son, the man saw that he had become a human being about his head. When he looked at him again, he saw that he had become a human being still farther down. Then he looked at him

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again. He was become entirely human. After that they heard a spirit talking to him. The spirit inside of him said, "I am Moldy-end-of-salmon. It is I." "It is I," said another spirit inside of him, "It is I, Sand-hill-crane-at-the-mouth-of-Amusement-creek." Another spirit in him said, "It is I, Sît spirit." And the woman that had helped him also became his spirit, saying, "It is I, Woman spirit." Another one said inside of him, "It is I, Herring spirit." Then another one spoke inside of him, saying, "It is I, Salmon-people's-canoe spirit, I."

After that his father came to him, and the shaman said, "Clean everything in the house thoroughly." Again he said, "The young women must never live in this house but in another." He also said, "Put clean sand around the fireplace inside. Never let a woman look at me." The spirit was singing in him. Then he went into a trance,

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wrapped in a mat. He was brought into the house. There they put eagle down upon his mouth. He sang in the house, walking around the fire. Then his spirit asked to have a rattle made for him. He also said an apron should be made for him. So his rattle was made like the s!ûs!, ^a abut his apron was designed like the sît. His drum was painted with the sand-hill crane. Afterward his bone necklace was made of pieces like salmon and herring. Then the spirit inside of him danced. He saw the salmon very plainly as if they were people about him. Then he would talk with the salmon people, and he became a very wonderful shaman. His friends learned to obey him absolutely. Whatever he foretold came to pass. He told them that there was going to be a death before it happened. If a person was going to be saved it happened according to his prediction. If he told them to go hunting in a canoe and informed them what they were going to get, they got it.

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Then he said, "Do not take me to town right away, but in the middle of winter." They did so. They stayed therewith him. They took him to the town in the very middle of winter. Then the town people were very anxious to go out to see him. He said that a fine man would be sick very soon, and they believed him. So a good man did fall sick, and they paid him to treat him. Then he became rich. The people of his town said, "Let whoever is going to look on, fast." All the town people fasted because they wanted to see what he would do. Then he would act like the salmon, the herring, the sand-hill crane, and the sît. They were surprised to see all the things he did. The young women, however, did not look at him. When be was going to eat, he ate only those things which his spirit had purified for him, and, when he was going to drink water, the spirit also made that clean for him. He ate only after his spirit had said, "You will eat this, my master." He did all things as his spirit directed him.

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He did not eat anything fresh. He was not married. Whatever the spirit told him to, do he did. For that reason he lived a long time. And although he lived to be very old his head did not become white. This is all.

Footnotes

311:a Wrangell version.

313:a This has been expurgated by the story-teller. For the proper wording, see last story.

318:a A water bird.