Sacred Texts Native American Northwest Index Previous Next
Txä'msEm is born, but can not be induced to eat. Two old men chew salmon for him, and put a scab into it. Then he becomes voracious and is deserted. He tries to catch a bullhead but can not, so he curses it and makes its tail thin. Believing that he sees a beautiful dancing-blanket in the woods, be tears his raven blanket and finds that what he believed to be a blanket is moss. Then he takes a slave. They reach a chief's house. The slave says that Txä'msEm does not like food that has been offered, and eats it all himself. Txä'msEm induces his slave to cross a canyon on a bridge made of the stalk of a skunk cabbage. The bridge breaks, the slave falls down, his belly bursts, and Txä'msEm eats the contents of his stomach. He finds children playing ball with a slice of blubber, and eats it. The children tell him that they obtain blubber by throwing themselves down from a tree and shouting "Piles of blubber!" He does so and kills himself. He comes to life again and goes fishing with Cormorant, takes a louse from his neck, and pretends that he wants to put it on his tongue. He tears out Cormorant's tongue and steals the fish that Cormorant has caught. He exchanges the chief's club for one of rotten wood, and induces the chief to strike him with the club, but in an ensuing fight he kills the chief with his own club. Seal invites Txä'msEm into his house and lets grease drip from his hands into a dish. A bird strikes its ankle and pulls out fish roe. Another bird makes salmon berries by his song. Txä'msEm tries in vain to imitate his hosts. He steals bait of the fishermen from their hooks. His jaw is caught and torn off, but he recovers it. He calls a salmon and kills it. He is advised by his excrements to steam the salmon in a hole. A stump sits down on the hole and eats the salmon. Txä'msEm then invites Grizzly Bear to go fishing with him. He pretends to use his own testicles for bait and induces the bear to cut off his testicles for bait, thus killing himself. He makes the wife of Grizzly Bear swallow red-hot stones to secure good luck for her husband, and thus kills her. He asks Pitch to go fishing and lets him melt in the hot sun. Pitch runs over a halibut and makes one side black. When he reaches the town of the air, he tries to steal provisions, but is beaten off by invisible hands. He asks Deer to accompany him and split wood. He kills Deer by striking his head with a hammer. He then enters the house of smoke-hole, who prevents his escape by ordering the door and the smoke-hole to close. Txä'msEm, caught in the smoke-hole, puts
his voice as an echo into a cliff and scolds the chief, who allows the smoke-hole to open again. Txä'msEm flies away in the shape of a raven. He catches seals and steams them. A stump eats them. Txä'msEm makes the stump his slave, and finally he calls all the fish ashore and kills them.