Farther back than the memory of the oldest Red Man there once lived an old woman named Cowoh. She was very proud for she was the daughter of a great chief. She had three sons and one daughter. They lived in the village of Naha, which was built along one side of a creek. On the other side, the length of twenty canoes away, was the village of Tee-hi-ton (Cedar Bark).

Now in the time of falling leaves, as was their custom, the three sons went up on the mountain to hunt groundhogs. Each of the young men had his own lodge and a fine hunting ground in the valley. They set their traps and three days later the two younger brothers found their traps full, but those of the eldest brother, Koot-da-nah, were empty. This continued for as many days as there are fingers on both hands.

Then the hearts of the two young men were heavy and in sorrow for their brother they proposed that they should give up hunting groundhogs and hunt beavers instead.

So the next morning they went down to a nearby lake where the beavers had made a big dam with a great tree to keep it from breaking.

Koot-da-nah said, “I shall knock down the tree and you boys stand ready to club the animals when the water breaks and forces them out.”

His brothers were fearful and warned him to be careful, but as the tree fell Koot-da-nah caught his foot in its roots and, pitching forward into the lake, was drowned.

Atch-koog-tdoo-cha shook-ka (he-who-swims-like-a-fish) found the body face downward on the bottom of the lake. Sorrowfully the brothers carried it to their lodge. [6]

Then Too-ke-tni-ka (the-fearless-one) said, “Some evil has fallen upon my brother’s family in his absence and caused his death. I shall go down to the village and find out what has happened.”

So that night Too-ke-tni-ka stole down to the village and, unseen, crept into his mother’s house.

When Cowoh heard that her eldest son was drowned, she was full of trouble and said, “Koshu, son of Chief Yee-khoo, from the village of Tee-hi-ton has looked with evil eyes upon the wife of Koot-da-nah while he has been absent and has visited her every night.”

Then Too-ke-tni-ka said, “I shall kill this man. Do not tell anyone I am here. I shall hide in the forest and tomorrow I shall come limping into the village as if my leg were broken. I shall lie down beside the fire. Tell everyone I am suffering so they will go to bed early.”

The next day when the shadows lay short on the grass Too-ke-tni-ka appeared in the village with his leg bound about with the bark of the cedar tree and went to his mother’s lodge.

That night, when everyone was asleep, he wrapped himself in his blanket and waited with his eyes fixed on the door of the lodge.

Long after darkness like a black curtain had settled down over the village Too-ke-tni-ka crouched by the dying coals and his eyes were red in the darkness and his ears were like the ears of the deer in the forest.

At last there was a faint sound like the far-off cry of the night hawk in the woods. The door of the lodge was pushed open and a dark shadow stole across and entered the room of Kah-ook-too-ni, the Beautiful One.

Too-ke-tni-ka’s heart beat fast with anger. He listened long and then rose and crept noiselessly into the room of his brother’s wife. By the light of his beechwood stick he saw that indeed it was the chief’s son who lay sleeping by the side of Kah-ook-too-ni. Then he drew his hunting knife and cut off the head of the wicked one and taking it with him sped like the wind through the sleeping-village to the hunting lodge in the mountains where his brother awaited him.

Now Kah-ook-too-ni was awakened by the trickling of the warm blood across her hand. When she saw what had happened she was afraid. Knowing that when the chief’s son did not come home there would be a great outcry and searching parties would be sent out, she rose and in great haste dug a grave beneath the bed and buried the body. [7]

“To Left-Handed was given a Sun House”

[8]

Meanwhile, after Too-ke-tni-ka had told his brother all that had happened, the two young men went down to the village and placed the head of the chief’s son over the door of their lodge facing inside.

In the village of Tee-hi-ton there was much loud talking and angry looks directed toward Naha when the tidings spread that Koshu, the son of their chief, was missing. Searching parties were sent out, but as the waves wash out footsteps in the sand, so had disappeared Koshu, the fleet-footed.

Then Chief Yee-khoo called a council of his people. It was decided that Wook-ya-koots (he-of-the-sharp-eyes) should be sent to Naha to get a fire and see if he could discover what had become of Koshu.

Wook-ya-koots walked boldly across the frozen creek and entered the lodge of Too-ke-tni-ka. As he bent over the fire to light his stick, he looked stealthily around but saw nothing. But as he paused by the door on his way out he felt the drip, drip of something on his feet. He went outside, and, stooping, touched it with his finger.

It was blood!

Pretending to stumble, he put out his fire and again returned to the lodge. As he bent over the coals with his hair falling over his eyes, he looked and saw the head of the chief’s son over the door.

Then he made great haste back to his village and told what he had seen. Chief Yee-khoo called all his braves together. They put on their war paint and brandishing their war clubs, rushed across the creek and fell upon the village, killing everyone in it and setting fire to their lodges.

Only Cowoh and her daughter, who had hid under their lodge, were saved. When at last the wild chant of the savage war dance of their enemies ceased, they stole like black shadows through the forest to the lodge in the mountains.

But after a time Cowoh’s heart was troubled.

“Who now will marry my daughter?” she asked herself. “There is no man of my people left for her to wed.”

One day as she walked in the forest with her daughter, At-ku-dakt (modest-little-one) she cried aloud, “Who now will marry my daughter?”

At once a little red bird came flying down and said: “I will marry your daughter.”

But Cowoh heeded him not.

Then a squirrel ran down from a tree, a rabbit came out of the woods, a deer paused in his flight, and each in turn said, “I will marry your daughter.” [9]

But Cowoh would have none of them.

Then Hoots, the great brown bear, came and said, “I can pull up huge trees by the roots. I can tear a man’s head and body apart. I shall marry your daughter.”

At-ku-dakh was terrified and hid behind her mother. Then the earth began to tremble and the lightning flashed, and in the midst of it appeared a handsome youth who said, “I shall marry your daughter and take her up to my father, the Almighty One. You, Cowoh, I shall take under one arm and At-ku-dakh under the other. Look not out or evil may come upon you.”

Cowoh heeded not the warning. When they were passing a cloud she heard a sound like the roaring of a waterfall and stuck out her head.

As quickly as thunder follows the lightning, they found themselves again upon the earth. The stranger was angry, and, pulling out one of the branches of a tree, put Cowoh in the hole, saying, “Here you shall stay as long as the world shall last. People shall always hear you crying in the wind.”

Taking the young girl, the youth flew up to heaven where the Almighty One welcomed her as his son’s wife.

When the first son was born, the grandfather, the Great Spirit, baptized him with water so he would have magic power. Then he put his feet on the feet of the child. Immediately the baby grew and grew until he was tall and straight like a young pine tree that grows on the hillside. He named the child Left-Handed.

Four boys and two girls were born and in the same way the grandfather endowed them each with magic power. He taught the boys how to use the spear and bow and arrow and the girls how to nurse the sick. He taught Left-Handed how to stick gamble until his skill was so great that none could equal him.

Then the grandfather built in the heavens a Sun House which he gave to Left-Handed. He built a Star House for the second boy. For the third boy he built a Rainbow House and for the fourth boy a Sky House. Each house had a round door. Within were blankets and food and rich robes of fur.

Calling his four grandsons to him the Almighty One gave them a small box “tsow” saying, “The time shall come when you will have to fight the wicked, worldly people of the earth. Then take this box, open one end of it and they will at once become as the dry leaves in autumn when the wind crumbles them into dust.”

The Almighty One took the Sun House with the eldest boy and his sister and dropped it upon the earth in the center of the deserted [10]village of Naha. Then he took the Moon, Star and Rainbow Houses and dropped them down beside the Sun House.

In Tee-hi-ton the people heard a loud noise like a clap of thunder. This they heard as many times as there are fingers on one hand.

The young people began to jeer, but the elders made them keep silent. “It is nothing,” they said. “It is only Skanson the thunder bird singing his war song.” So they wrapped themselves in their blankets and went to sleep.

The next morning a thick fog hung over the creek so they could not see the length of their canoe in front of them. But when the mist lifted they shouted in amazement, for there among the ruins of the deserted village were four houses, painted with strange figures such as they had never seen before.

As they watched they saw young men and maidens going in and out of the houses. Then they crowded together, asking each other fearfully, “Are these the spirits of our enemies returned to punish us?”

After many days Wook-ya-koots, the keen-eyed, said, “I, Wook-ya-koots, shall go alone to Naha to speak with the strangers and learn from whence comes these lodges which glimmer in the dusk like the water when we paddle idly along in the moonlight.”

The people waited eagerly for Wook-ya-koots’ return, but the sun was high overhead before he appeared. Showing them a piece of meat he said, “Look, this is real meat. The strangers are not spirits. They gave me dried fish, the meat of the mountain sheep and berries to eat. They are lonely and invite you to a great feast tonight.”

The feast lasted until the moon hid her face and the stars began to fade from the sky. The next night Chief Yee-khoo and his braves came again and for many nights after.

Then Left-Handed said, “Are there any stick gamblers among you? Tomorrow you shall teach me how to stick gamble.”

The sun was slipping down behind the mountains when Chief Yee-khoo and his people arrived, for in those days the salmon might leap in the streams and the beavers build their dams unheeded while the Red Men gambled away their blankets and food and even their canoes.

[11]

“Within the Sky House were food and rich robes”

[12]

A great fire chased away the black shadows of night as the Red Men began the gamble stick chant. First low, then louder and faster, while they beat on drums made of logs.

There were six Indian braves on each side. On the ground in front of each were ten sticks, small and straight, made of cedar. Three long sticks lay beside them. These were to show how many times each side won. There were two gamble sticks the length of a man’s finger. The bark had been peeled from one leaving it smooth and round, while the other had a ring of bark around the middle.

Then Wook-ya-koots took the two gamble sticks, one in each hand, and while swinging them back and forth in front of him, changed them from one hand to the other so quickly that no eye could follow. But at last Left-Handed made a motion toward the hand he thought held the ring stick. The wild chanting stopped. Wook-ya-koots opened wide his hands and showed the sticks. Left-Handed had lost and threw one of the short sticks of cedar across to the other side. Wook-ya-koots took it and stuck it in the ground.

Then the Red Men again began the gamble stick chant. This time Left-Handed guessed the hand that held the gamble stick and Wook-ya-koots threw over a count stick and also the gamble sticks. Chief Yee-khoo and his braves became the guessers.

So the game went on until Chief Yee-khoo’s side had ten count sticks stuck in the ground before them. Then they took them all down and put up one large count stick. When Chief Yee-khoo’s men had three of these large count sticks the game ended and he and his braves carried off all the rich robes and food and blankets which they had gambled for. This they did the next night and for many nights after. Each night Left-Handed and his brothers and sisters made a great feast for them.

Always Left-Handed and his brothers lost until Chief Yee-khoo and his men had won everything they possessed except one small club made of bone.

Left-Handed took this and said, “This is the only thing we have left. It is worth many blankets, for with it we can kill our enemies. We shall gamble for this and this time we may be lucky and win.”

Chief Yee-khoo and his braves began to jeer and ask, “How can a bone you can cover with one hand kill anyone?”

At last Left-Handed said, “If you do not believe me I shall show you.”

He raised the little bone club and slew Chief Yee-khoo and [13]one after another all of his men except one who made his escape and aroused the people of Tee-hi-ton. They rushed across the creek and fell upon Left-Handed and his brothers and sisters with such fury that they were almost overpowered.

“Unheeded the salmon might leap in the stream while the Red Men played the Gamble Stick Game”

Then Left-Handed remembered the little box “tsow” which his grandfather, the Almighty One, had given them. He took the box and opened one end. At once the worldly people were as the “dry leaves in autumn when a puff of wind crumbles them into dust.” [14]

“And,” concluded the Story Teller, as we paddled lazily along, drinking in the mystic beauty of a starlit Northern night, “to me and my people the Sun, Moon, Sky and Rainbow are emblems the Almighty One has put in the heavens to show that the Red Men shall increase and prosper and people the earth for as long as the sun and moon shall shine.”

A spring day in Alaska! Since early dawn we had paddled swiftly along in a world wrapped in a blue haze. On our right tall fir trees rose mistily from the shore. On our left the faint line of lofty mountain ranges melted into the blue grey of a cloudless sky. The seagulls spiraled high overhead, then, swooping low, were lost in the white-capped waves. The tang of the sea filled our nostrils and the rising wind whipped the spray in our faces and sent the blood tingling through our veins.

We rounded a jutting point and came in sight of the deserted village of Kasaan. Lofty totem poles were etched against the sky. Some leaned drunkenly toward decaying lodges half buried in underbrush.

Gun used by Hydahs in the Last Big Fight with the Tsimpseans

“Here was fought the last great battle between the Tsimpseans and Hydahs,” said the Story Teller. “My mother has many times told me the tale as it was told to her by her grandfather, who took a Hydah maiden for his wife. She was a blood relation of Chief Skowel, he who was greatest of all the Hydah chiefs.”

The rain had begun to fall, so we landed and as we cooked our breakfast over the campfire he told me the story.

“You must know that some of my people came from far to the southward and settled near the Stikine River many, many moons ago. There the Hydahs came seeking safety from their enemies, the Tsimpseans. The streams were full of fish. There were deer in the forest and game was plentiful. They settled there and became rich and had many elaidi (slaves). [15]

 Courtesy Mrs. F. J. Hunt

“We came in sight of the deserted village of Kasaan”

[16]

“See how the totem poles in front of Chief Skowel’s lodge rise high above all the others! That tells how big a chief he was. In his lodge was danced the great peace dance which ended the long war between the Hydahs and the Tsimpseans.

“Farther back than my grandfather’s father can remember the Hydahs and the Tsimpseans had made war upon each other. They made raids at night and the maidens and young braves taken prisoners were treated as slaves. Every time a chief became sick or died, a totem pole was raised, or a potlatch given, some of these slaves were killed and their bodies thrown on the beach to be eaten by the crows. The number of holes in the ears of a chief told how many potlatches he had given.

“One day the Hydahs looked and saw that the water was black with canoes. The Tsimpseans were coming to make war upon them. Twenty young Hydah braves got into two big canoes and went to meet them. They offered to make peace with them. But the Tsimpseans had long looked with longing eyes on their rich hunting grounds, and refused.

“The Tsimpseans had seven canoes and over a hundred men. But the Hydahs had two guns which they had traded many furs for from the Pale Faces far to the Northward at Sheet-kah (Sitka). They shot off the guns and the noise was like the roar of thunder. Their enemies leaped backward in terror. Their canoes were overturned and so many were killed that the water was red with blood.

“They called upon Sha-nung-et-lag-e-das (God) but he heard them not.

“So the Tsimpseans surrendered and Chief Skowel gave a great peace dance. The two tribes were drawn up facing each other. Then a young brave from each side advanced and choosing one of his former foes carried him off to his side. He was not allowed to walk throughout the long ceremony and was treated with the greatest honor. This was to show that they would now treat each other as brothers and freely visit each other’s camp fires.

“If you will visit my lodge in Ketchikan, a day’s journey to the northward,” concluded the Story Teller, “I shall show you one of the guns used in that last big fight. It was given to me by my grandmother, she who was a blood relation of Chief Skowel. She told me it was made in Sheet-kah (Sitka) in the days when the Russians made many guns and cannons and built great ships to send over the Big Water. It is a flint lock and made fine and strong. Many come to see it and offer me plenty furs or bags of the white man’s money for it.” [17]

“The Star House had a round door”

[18]

The rain had ceased and the sun had swept aside the veil of mist disclosing a glorious panorama of sea and sky. We stepped into our canoe and turned its nose northward.

The sun was setting in a riot of gorgeous colors as we rounded Pinnoch Island and saw the thriving little city of Ketchikan stretching for miles along the waterfront. “Ketch-kaw” the Indians named it, meaning wedged in between two mountains. The harbor was crowded with ships. Great concrete buildings rose against the sky. One by one lights began to flash out from pretty homes crowding hillside and waterfront and were reflected in the waters of Tongass Narrows. As lovely a scene as any famed Venice can boast.

Then the Story Teller broke the long silence.

“It was here that the Thlingets fought and conquered the Tsimpseans. It ended the war that began so long ago that no one can remember. One, two, perhaps three hundred years ago.

“Before that time the Thlingets and the Tsimpseans were brothers. They visited and feasted and danced together. So it happened that two Thlinget princes looked with favor upon a fair Tsimpsean maiden. They quarreled. Their blood relations took up the quarrel. There were angry looks and loud words and much fighting. In one of these fights one of the Thlinget princes was killed.

“An Old Indian War Canoe”

“Then the Thlingets hated the Tsimpseans with a fierce hatred because one of their maidens had brought this evil upon them. In those days the Indian believed in an eye for an eye, a life for a life. So they fell upon the Tsimpseans and slew one of the sons of their chief. Then for many, many moons they made war upon each other.

“The Thlingets made a big camp at Ketch-kah. They built three great log forts. One was where Chief Johnson’s lodge now stands. [19]

 Courtesy Mrs. F. J. Hunt

“The Thlingets built a fort where Chief Johnson’s lodge now stands”

[20]

“The Thlingets called the Tsimpseans Klah-neets (sand fleas) because they would pop up and shoot at them, then disappear in the sand and underbrush, or would steal into their camp and carry off their young men and maidens and make slaves of them. They came noiselessly and were gone, leaving no footprints.

“The Tsimpseans had one small cannon. They had gotten it from the Hudson Bay Company, far to the southward, in exchange for furs. While their enemies slept, they carried the cannon to the top of the hill and fired on the fort. Then a terrible battle was fought. The Thlingets seized their war clubs and fell upon the Tsimpseans with such fury that almost all of them were either killed or taken prisoner. Then the Tsimpsean tribe laid down their war clubs and again lived in peace with the Thlingets.

“But,” said the Story Teller, “my people were still at war with a Thlinget clan that made their camp at Sheet-kah. It started longer, much longer ago than the war with the Tsimpseans. They fought with bows and arrows and with clubs made of bone.

“This was the way the big fight started. Every year my people would take plenty salmon over to Pinnock Island and hang it there to dry for their winter food.

“The Sheet-kah Indians had fine big canoes. They made them of rotten spruce logs, which they hollowed out with sharp stones. Some of them held thirty or forty people. In them they would paddle as far south as Dixon’s Entrance fishing and trading. Once they landed on Pinnock Island and carried off all the salmon they found there.

“That winter was long and cold and there was very little food. The old and many young children died. Then the hearts of my people grew hot with anger. There was a big fight and Chief Nah-goot was killed by Schook-klatch, chief of the Sheet-kah tribe. Then they fight, fight, all the time fight until Captain Cook came. He was the first Pale Face my people had ever seen. Soon the Red Men began trading furs for guns with which to fight each other.

“But at last the great white chief in Washington sent his soldiers to tell the Red Men that they must live in peace with each other. There must be no more fighting.

“Now,” said the Store Teller proudly, “my people live like their white brothers. Our children go to school. We have fine big fishing boats. Our lodges are like the white men’s lodges.

“There,” pointing to where half a mile away a long pier extended far out from the little village of Saxman, “I hope some day to see an Indian village like the white men’s villages, where [21]my people will be able to do all that my white brothers do. Its harbor will be crowded with fishing boats. There shall be canneries and sawmills so our children need not seek work in the villages of the white men. The Indian will no longer be a child. He will be a man.

“But,” the Story Teller ended sadly, “the young look not with the eyes of the old. I dream, but my dreams may not come true.”

“It was one of my people, Thle-da, the most skillful carver of all the Thlinget nation, who carved that totem in honor of the great white chief, Abraham Lincoln,” said the Story Teller proudly as he pointed to a lofty totem pole from which the benign face of the great emancipator looked down upon a deserted Indian village.

The setting sun had changed the misty blue of Northern skies into a marvelous canopy of red and gold. It bathed the distant snow-capped mountains in a rosy light and sent a warm golden glow over the quiet waters of Nakat Bay as he told the story of how over fifty years ago his tribe had sought shelter under the Stars and Stripes and been saved from slavery or complete extermination.

“My people are of the Tongass tribe of the Thlingets,” he went on. “They are of the Raven clan. Long before the Pale Faces journeyed to the land which the white man calls Alaska, they were at war with the Kok-wan-tans, who belonged to the Eagle clan of the Thlingets and were always on the war path. They burned our lodges. They carried off our fairest maidens and our young men and made slaves of them.

“At last only a few stalwart braves were left to guard our old men and women and children. They were driven farther and farther away until they found shelter on a low, sandy island a day’s journey from their old hunting grounds near Dixon’s Entrance.

“There their enemies could not fall upon them unawares, for the land was level as the palm of my hand. They built a great fort of logs and slept always with their clubs by their side.

“But the Kok-wan-tans knew that on the island there were no springs of water and little wood for their campfires. So they waited with the watchful patience of the Red Man for the time when no longer the smoke of their campfires should curl upward.

“One day Kayak, a friendly Indian, noiselessly paddled into the [22]little cove near the lodge and landed. He told them of a strange ship, like a great bird, that had come from far to the southward. On it were many Pale Faces. They had built a big fort on the island of Kut-tuk-wah and the Red Men were no longer allowed to make war on each other.

“They had been sent, Kayak said, by their chief, Abraham Lincoln. He had freed the Black Men who had been slaves to the Pale Faces for many moons. Now he had sent his soldiers to free the Red Men. The Kok-wan-tans must wash off their war paint and bury their war clubs.

“So,” continued the Story Teller, “my people watched and when their enemies were sleeping they took their canoes and fled to this island, which the white men now call Tongass Island. Here, guarded by the great ship “Lincoln,” Chief Ebbetts and his people built their lodges and again raised their totem poles.

“For many years they lived in peace and prospered.

“But the Red Man forgets not. The Tongass Indians were grateful to their white brothers. They listened when Chief Sewrard visited them and told them of the great white chief who loved the Red Man.

“ ‘We are thankful,’ they said. ‘Our hearts salute him. No longer need we fear lest we be made slaves and buried beneath the totem poles of our enemies.’

“One day Chief Ebbetts summoned his sub-chief Tsa-kad and said, ‘I am weary. Soon I shall sleep the long sleep of the old. But my heart turns to my brother, the great white chief Abraham Lincoln, for what he has done for my people. We shall make a lofty totem pole and above the Raven, the crest of our tribe, we shall carve a statue of Chief Lincoln.’

“So Thle-da, my father’s brother—he who could talk so marvelously with his fingers—was given a picture of Chief Lincoln from which to carve the statue. He worked while others slept and in the moon of nesting birds it was finished.

“Then Chief Ebbetts gave a big potlatch to which all the people in the village were invited. The great totem pole was erected and for many days there was dancing and feasting. Around the camp fire the elders again told how Abraham Lincoln had stretched out his hands to them and saved them.

“But,” and the Story Teller shook his head mournfully, “the ancient village of my people is now deserted. Their lodges are overgrown with weeds. Even our Abraham Lincoln totem is crumbling away.

“In these days when men fly like birds and the voice travels swifter than an arrow to its mark, surely Alaska is no longer [23]thought a shak-nah-ahm (foreign) country, and our white chief in Washington will listen and grant the wish of his children that this island with the first statue ever erected to Abraham Lincoln be cared for so we may bring our children’s children to look upon it.”

“We shall erect a totem in honor of the great white chief, Lincoln”

[24]

“He carves totem poles which tell the history of his people”

[25]