There is a place called
GânAxa' and a creek close by called GânAXa'hîn whither
many people used to go to dry salmon and do other work. One day some
women went out from there at low tide to a neighboring island to dig
shellfish. They brought their canoe to a place where there was a hole
in the side of the island, but, when they endeavored to land, a breaker
came in, upset the canoe, and drowned all of them except one. In former
times, when this woman went by in her father's canoe, she used to
think the birds here looked pretty and was in the habit of saying,
"I wish I could sit among those birds." These birds were
the ones that saved her. They felt so happy at having gotten her that
they flew about all the time.
Meanwhile drums were
beaten at the town to call people to the death feast, for they thought
that she was drowned.
One time a canoe from
the village containing her father happened to pass this place, and
they said to him, "Look among those birds. Your daughter is
sitting there."
The puffin chief had
ordered the lAgwâ'tc!, a bird which lives on the outer islands
and is the puffin's slave, to braid the woman's hair, and she always
sat on the edge of the cliff.
Her father was very rich,
so he filled many canoes with sea-otter, beaver, and marten skins
for the birds to settle on when they flew out. When they reached
the place, however, he could not see his daughter, for they had
taken her inside. Then he became angry. They carried all sorts of
things out there but in vain.
At last, about four days
afterward, the girl's mother thought of the white hair that had
belonged to her grandfather. In the morning she said to her husband,
"We have that old hair in a box. What can we do with it? We
ought to try a strategem with it. Suppose we put boards on the canoes,
spread the hair all over them, and take it out." They did this,
and, when they got to the cliff where their daughter used to be,
they saw her sitting on the edge with her hair hanging over. They
went close in. Then all the birds flew out to them, and each stuck
a white hair in its head where you may see it at this day. The girl,
however, remained where she was.
Then these birds flew
in to the puffin chief and told him about the hair. They thought
a great deal of it. Therefore the chief told them to carry the girl
back to her father. But before she went he said to her, "If
you are ever tired of staying with your father, come back to us."
At that time she had a nose just like one of these birds, because
she had wanted to be one of them.
The sea gull is also
the slave of the puffin. Therefore the Huna people say that when
anyone goes to that place it calls his name, because it was the
slave of the puffin at the time when this woman was there.
Because some of their
people were drowned at that island, all of the T!A'q!dentân
claim it. Later they built a house which they named after it.
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