Sacred Texts Native American Northwest Index Previous Next
The people in two villages are starving. Two sisters who live in these villages start to visit each other and meet half way. They make a small hut, and a supernatural being, "Good-luck," appears and marries the younger sister. Their son is named Asi-hwî'l. He receives from his father magic snowshoes, with which he can climb the steepest mountains, and two small dogs which can be made to grow large and to throw mountain goats down precipices. The boy goes hunting and meets a supernatural being who kills mountain goats by clapping his hands. The sisters, with their son, rejoin their people and become very rich. Asi-hwî'l tries in vain to kill a supernatural white bear which disappears in a cliff. He marries a Tsimshian girl. Her brothers become jealous of him on account of his prowess and
desert him on a sealion rock. When the tide rises he puts his staff in a crevice and sits down on top of it. When the tide recedes, he lies down and is called by a Mouse, which he observes through a hole in his blanket. He finds the house of the Sealions under a bunch of grass and cures their chief whom he himself had wounded. The Sealions send him back in a sealion stomach. He makes two artificial killer-whales, which kill his brothers-in-law.