Sacred Texts Native American Northwest Index Previous
A chief's daughter elopes with the chief of the Grouses, who appears as a man in fox skins. Their four children cross the river on the ice, intending to visit their grandfather. The children chase them away, but finally they enter the house of the chief, who suspects that they are his grandchildren and issues an invitation to the Grouse tribe to visit him. They all come, among them the lost woman. They bring as a present a pole covered with grease. The woman returns with them.
[file "TsEgu'ksku"}
A shaman has a carved squirrel, which comes to life and kills all the people of a village except TsEgu'ksku. He lies down on a painted board in a canoe, sings, sacrifices, and is taken down to the bottom of the sea, where he receives a box in the form of a killer-whale and a magical club. The box, by his orders, becomes a live whale, which breaks the ice and takes away all the women of his enemy's village when they come down to get water. Eventually the club and the box kill all these people. The Haida make war on the Nass river villages and kill TsEgu'ksku. His head is cut off and taken along, but it swims back to the body and joins it, and TsEgu'ksku revives. He is invited to a feast. He knows that he is to be poisoned and tells his friends to take out his intestines when he seems to be dead and to replace them with those of a dog. This is done and he revives. Another time he capsizes in his canoe, but is rescued by gulls, which carry him to the shore. An epidemic of smallpox visits the villages. He becomes sick. Four arrows are shot up to the sky, which do not return, and with each shot blood flows from TsEgu'ksku's cheek. This shows that he will die, but will afterward revive. He dies. His body is tied in a box, but revives and sits on the grave box in the shape of an owl. A painted pole which he has erected in front of his house falls over and is seen to be rotten. At the same time the owl falls back into the box dead.