How
the Raven Brought Fire
by Makari
There was a large village called Urumiertuli (in Sheep Bay). There
were many people there, but they did not know how to build a fire.
They were rich and had all kinds of expensive furs. They saw a canoe
coming around the point, and all began to shout. The canoe turned
in to the village. It was Raven, all alone. It was in the fall of
the year, and Raven had gone out hunting. The villagers were well
pleased and took Raven up to their smoke house. They had no idea of
how to start a fire. Raven said: “I wish you would place all
your belongings under the smoke hole so I can see how they look –
all your pretty furs.” They had heard of fire and asked Raven
if he could go after it and get some of it. He asked if they had got
whole pieces of silver salmon with tails and all which had been put
in the ground to rot. “Yes, “ they answered.
Raven said: “Then I will go after fire to-morrow.” He left
early in the morning and told the people to wait a day and a night.
He would be back the next day. In the evening the next day he returned.
There was Phosphorescence on the water. He had taken a silver salmon
with him, and when he came back he stirred it in the water; it made
sparks like a fire. When he came ashore he left the salmon tail in
the canoe. He told the people not to touch it, he would use it in
the morning. The people were sitting there is the dark. “You
have to get up as soon as day breaks,” said Raven.
They all rose bright and early, they had listened to Raven. He got
up himself and took two young men with him. They carried the silver-salmon
tail and he also took a small seal stomach full of seal oil. He hit
the trees standing there will the stomach till the oil squirted out.
Then he beat the trees with the salmon tail, telling the men that
the trees would turn to fire and would bake anything. When he came
back he told the chief: “Make two sticks with a cord, and we
will have the fire started.” The wood was red cedar. Then he
told the chief to take the two young men and a weight to hold the
sticks down while they were drilling. As they did so, the sticks began
to smoke and sparks flew. Raven had had the men make dry shavings
to catch the fire. The shavings caught fire. They picked them up and
waved them, then threw dry grass on them to flame up. The pitch bubbles
on the spruce trees are the places where oil squirted. Raven said:
“This kind of tree will be for firewood.” And he said to
the spruce trees: “You will be firewood when I get through with
you.”
They will cook any kind of food because he hit them with the salmon
tail. The people did not know what an adze was. Raven said” “Go
down and look for greenstone, and you can make adzes out of them.”
They did not know about hunting, they ate only fish and shellfish,
but Raven told them how to make hunting implements out of stone. People
in other villages learned to build fires and to hunt from the inhabitants
of Urumiertuli. The loaded raven’s canoe with all kinds of furs
and skins, so he became rich. Then we went away, they did not know
where. He did not have his own village, but traveled all around.
The Mountain Goat Hunt in Sheep Bay
by Paul Eilah
The people from Port Wells and Chenega came to Sheep Bay and had a
big meeting in the smoke house. It was winter. They were getting ready
to hunt mountain goat next day. The Sheep Bay people said: “We
will go with you, but we are not going to hunt very hard.” They
knew the places and were just going to show the others the way. One
Chenega man said: “I am not going to let that Sheep bay man beat
me. He is eating red-salmon soup.” The
Sheep Bay man answered: “All right, you eat spruce-hen soup and
I don’t, but you will not leave me behind. I will beat you hunting.”
He
was a goat hunter. They
arranged to race up the mountain. They started at daybreak. They had
dogs will them when they climbed. All of them had snowshoes. The young
men put them on before they turned their dogs loose. Soon they heard
the dogs barking. A Chenega man shouted: “Go ahead, the dogs
have a goat.” The
Sheep Bay people were the last, while the men from Chenega and Kiniklik
were ahead. They were passing over a small peak on showshoes. The
hunter from Sheep Bay got to the goats first, even thought he had
been last. The dogs had the goats surrounded. He looked around, and
nobody was in sight. He killed the first goat he saw with an arrow.
Then he took off his basketry had, put it on the goat and left this
arrow in it and kept on going. The second one he shot with an arrow
he covered with his ground-squirrel coat. He killed a third…he
killed all the goats before anyone showed up. One the way back he
met the others [only] halfway up. The
old men from Sheep Bay started to sing out when they saw him: “Hi,
hi,hi! Even though we eat red-salmon soup, and those people eat spruce-hen
soup, they can’t beat us.” The
Chenega and Port Wells people were too ashamed to say anything. Then
the hunter from Sheep Bay said to them: “Here are some goats
for you. I got them so you could roast them in the fire.” He
gave all the goats to the Chenega and Port Wells people and just kept
enough for one meal for his own people. That
is why the others are all afraid of the men from Sheep Bay: they are
so swift.
How the Different Villages Started in Prince William Sound
by Stepan
There was an old village in Port Fidalgo. A man there had five nephews,
twelve sons, and two wives. He was sick and ready to die. He had a
fine spear with a throwing board which he gave to his youngest nephew.
Then he died. The nephews and the sons all went into one house. The
sons were dividing the dead man’s things among themselves and
the nephews. They gave each some bows or arrows or spears – all
the dead man’s hunting implements. The nephews were talking of
the throwing spear. The oldest son said that his father wanted to
give it to the youngest nephew, but the oldest nephew said, "No,
he gave it to me." Then they started to fight for the spear and
were hitting each other with it. The oldest son seized it and threw
it into the fire. Then they all quarreled and left. They went all
over [the Sound]. Some of the sons were to the Cordova side, some
went to Trhetla near Taukhtyuik and to all different places. Most
of the nephews with their families went to Palutat. They pulled their
bidarkas up and piled their hunting tools all together. Then they
sat up against the wall with their knees doubled up under their chins
- everybody, men and women, the women holding their babies. They died
that way and dried up. You could see them there long afterwards.
The sons and some of the nephews went to all different places in the
Sound, I don't remember all the names. That is how all the different
villages started. |
