Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 17, 2007 22:31:27 GMT -5
DJÎYÎ'N - Tlingit
While the Tlingit were still living at Klinkwan (Lînqo-ân) a famine broke
out. There was an orphan girl there named Djîyî'n who was taking care of
herself. Once in a while her father's sister would help her, but all were
starving, her father's sister also being poor.
One day some women were going off to dig ts!êt roots, and this orphan very
much wished to accompany them, but they would not take her. They said she
was dirty and would bring them bad luck. When she laid hold of the canoe
they struck her fingers to make her let go, but she was very hungry and very
persistent, so that her father's sister finally took her in. When they
encamped that night she did not come back, and they did not know what she
was living on. The women who were angry with her said, "What is the matter
with her? Why doesn't she come back to eat?" When they got ready to start
home the orphan had not returned, and they left her there alone. They also
threw water on the fire.
The girl's aunt, however, procured a coal and threw it into the brush house
where they had camped, along with a piece of dried salmon. She was careful
not to let the others see what she was doing. Then she went back and said to
the girl, "Are you coming?" "No," she replied, "since they don't want to
take me, I better stay." Then her aunt said, "I have put a live coal in that
brush house along with a piece of dried salmon."
As soon as the others had gone away the orphan made a big fire and cooked
her roots and salmon, but she did not feel like eating. Therefore, instead
of doing so, she went away and dug some more roots. In the evening she went
back to her brush house, thinking she could eat now, but found that she had
no appetite. So she lay down and went to sleep. Early in the morning she was
awakened by a great noise which she found on looking out was made by a flock
of brants (qên). She felt so tired that she lay down again and went to
sleep, and, when she awoke once more, she thought she would set out after
more roots. Going down to the flat where these roots grew, she found it
covered with brants feeding upon them. When they saw her they flew away.
Then she began removing the dead grass from the place where she was going to
dig, and to her surprise came upon several big canoes looking as if they had
been buried there, which were loaded with eulachon oil, dried eulachon,
dried halibut, and dried salmon. She felt very happy. She thought how lucky
it was that she had remained there when all of the village people were
starving.
Now the orphan thought that she would eat something, so she took some salmon
and a bundle of halibut home with her. On roasting a piece of salmon,
however, she found that she could not eat it. She did not know what had
gotten into her that she could not force herself to eat. She wished that her
aunt were with her. Next morning she discovered that the spirits were
keeping food away from her because she was becoming a shaman. The brants had
become her spirits. The brant spirits always come to Raven people like her.
So she became a great shaman and was possessed by spirits every day, while
sea gulls, crows, and all kinds of sea and woodland birds sang for her. This
happened every day. Two or three times a day she would go to see the buried
canoes, but she could not eat anything, and she gave up digging roots
because she had no way of sharpening her sticks. Meanwhile everyone in the
village thought that she had starved to death.
After some time had passed, the girl wished that someone would come to her
from the village, and the day after a canoe appeared in sight. This made her
very happy, especially when it got close and she found it contained some
people of her acquaintance from the village. She called them up to her brush
house and gave them some food from the canoes, and they remained there two
or three days. They were out hunting for food. After a while she told them
it was time for them
to go, and, when they were on the point of starting, she said, "Do not take
a bit of the food I have given you. Leave it all here. Tell the people of
our village that Djîyî'n is still living and is doing well. Tell my aunt
that she must try to get here as soon as she can."
When these people got back to the village and told what had happened to the
orphan, how much food she had and how lucky she had been, all the town
people who had been dying of starvation started off immediately for the
place where she was living. When they came in sight of her brush house they
saw that from the sky right down to it the air was filled with birds. There
were so many that one could not see through them. They could also hear men
and women singing and the shaman performing, but, when they came close, all
of the birds flew away.
As soon as the shaman heard that her people were coming she walked out to
meet them and asked, "Which canoe is my aunt in? Let her land here." All of
the food in one of her canoes she gave to her aunt. Then she said, "I want
two women to come ashore to help me with my singing." The high-caste women
in the canoes, who were all painted up, would rise one after the other, but
she would not have them, and finally called two who were orphans like
herself and had been treated very badly by their own people. All the others
then started to come ashore, and she told them where to camp. She had room
enough in her own house only for the two girls and her aunt.
These high-caste people had brought their slaves with them when they came to
her, and she got them herself in exchange for food. She had three brush
houses built to hold them. She also dressed up the two little orphans so
that they looked very pretty. After a long time the people left her to
return to their own village, and, when another long period had elapsed, her
spirit made the town chief sick, and they hired her to come and treat him.
This shaman had belonged to a very high-caste family, but they had died off
and left her very poor, and nothing remained of her uncle's house except the
posts. Grass grew all about inside of it, and when the shaman was entering
the village she saw the posts of her uncle's house and felt very sad. She
told them to land near by. Then she looked up, raised an eagle's tail in one
hand, blew upon it, and waved it back and forth in front of them. The fourth
time a fine house stood there. Then they carried all of her things into
this, and she had the slaves she had procured work for her, while the two
orphans she had taken were now considered high caste.
At that time the sick chief's daughter also fell sick. Then the spirits
turned all the minds of the chief's people away from her, and they paid
other shamans in the village. The sick ones, however, continued to get worse
and worse, until they finally remembered that she also was a shaman and sent
for her. When the messenger came one of the orphans asked, "How much will
they pay the shaman?" "Two slaves," they said. She thought that this was not
enough, and the messenger went back. When he came again, she again asked,
"How much are they going to pay the shaman?" "Two slaves and some goods."
Then she agreed, and, as soon as the messenger had left, Djîyî'n said to the
two girls, "Come on. Let us go."
As soon as she had arrived at the house she sat down between the two sick
people and worked very hard to cure them. Her spirits could see immediately
what the matter was. This house was crowded with people except around the
fire where the shaman was performing. Then Djîyî'n walked around and said,
"The witch that is killing you two has not come." They sent to all the
houses in the village and assembled those who were there in the house in
place of the previous occupants. Djîyî'n examined all of them again, and
again said, "The witch is not yet here." Finally the spirits in her began to
say, "The road of the witch is very clear now. The road of the witch is
straight for this house." Again they said, "The witch is coming." By and by
they began to hear a bird whistling in the woods back of the house, and she
said, "Yes, hear her. She is coming." And when the sound came near the door
she said, "Open the door and let her come in." So they opened the door, and
there sat a wild canary (s!âs!). Then the shaman told her to sit between the
two sick persons, and she did so. She was making a great deal of noise, and
the shaman said, "Tie her wings back." Not long afterward the people heard a
great noise like thunder which seemed a great distance off. Then the shaman
said, "Here are her children. They are offended and are coming in. Stop up
all of the holes so that they may not enter." The noise grew louder and
louder, however, and presently birds began to fly in right through the
boards. At last the house became so full of them as to be well nigh
suffocating, and very many of the people were injured. Whoever the birds
flew against would have a cut or bruise. All at once the house again became
empty, not a bird being left inside except the one that was tied.
By this time it was morning, the people having sat in that house all night,
and the bird made still more noise. "She is already telling about it," said
the shaman. "She wants to go to the place where she has the food and the
pieces of hair with which she is bewitching you." Finally she left the
house, but although they had untied her wings she walked along ahead of four
men instead of flying. She went up the way she had come down and began
scratching at the roots of some bushes some distance up in the woods. There
she came upon the top of a skull in which were some hair, food, and pieces
of clothing arranged in a certain manner along with different kinds of
leaves. She took these down to the beach and threw them out on the sea in
different directions. Afterward she went back to the house with the four men
still following her.
By and by the bird began making noises again, and the shaman, who alone
could understand her, said that she wanted to leave the place. She hated to
go back to her own place among the other birds because she knew that they
would be ashamed of her, so she asked them to take her to a town called
Close-along-the-beach (Yênq!asê'sîtciyî-ân). When they took down a canoe to
carry her off she flew right into it. Then the shaman said, "When you get
her to the place whither she wants to go, go ashore and put her there, and
turn right back." Then they started on with her, and after a time she made
so much noise that they said, "Let us put her ashore here. This must be the
place." They did so; and, as soon as they got close in, the bird flew out
upon the beach and started up it very fast. One man followed her to see
where she would go and saw her pass under a tree with protruding roots. This
was the town she had been talking about.
As soon as the witch put the skull and other things into the water the chief
and his daughter recovered. Before the events narrated in this story people
did not know anything about witchcraft, and the ancients used to say that it
was from this bird that they learned it years ago.
Footnotes:
Or better Djûn. Haida versions of the same will be found in Memoirs Amer.
Mus. Nat. Hist., VIII, 226, 247. Aqâ'nîq!ês is said to be in all probability
Kayâ'nîq!ês (For-the-leaves).
Abstract:
DJÎYÎ'N
An orphan girl named Djîyî'n was very badly treated. One time she determined
to stay on an island by herself, and while there she became a shaman and
discovered a great quantity of food which made her rich. By and by the town
chief's daughter fell sick and all kinds of shamans were summoned to no
purpose. Finally they called Djîyî'n, who found that the wild canary (s!âs!)
had bewitched her. She made this bird find the charm and throw it into the
sea. Then the bird was taken at its own request to a place some distance
from the village, where it disappeared.
Tlingit Myths and Texts, by John R. Swanton; Smithsonian Institution; Bureau
of American Ethnology Bulletin 39; Washington, Government Printing Office;
[1909] and is now in the public domain.
While the Tlingit were still living at Klinkwan (Lînqo-ân) a famine broke
out. There was an orphan girl there named Djîyî'n who was taking care of
herself. Once in a while her father's sister would help her, but all were
starving, her father's sister also being poor.
One day some women were going off to dig ts!êt roots, and this orphan very
much wished to accompany them, but they would not take her. They said she
was dirty and would bring them bad luck. When she laid hold of the canoe
they struck her fingers to make her let go, but she was very hungry and very
persistent, so that her father's sister finally took her in. When they
encamped that night she did not come back, and they did not know what she
was living on. The women who were angry with her said, "What is the matter
with her? Why doesn't she come back to eat?" When they got ready to start
home the orphan had not returned, and they left her there alone. They also
threw water on the fire.
The girl's aunt, however, procured a coal and threw it into the brush house
where they had camped, along with a piece of dried salmon. She was careful
not to let the others see what she was doing. Then she went back and said to
the girl, "Are you coming?" "No," she replied, "since they don't want to
take me, I better stay." Then her aunt said, "I have put a live coal in that
brush house along with a piece of dried salmon."
As soon as the others had gone away the orphan made a big fire and cooked
her roots and salmon, but she did not feel like eating. Therefore, instead
of doing so, she went away and dug some more roots. In the evening she went
back to her brush house, thinking she could eat now, but found that she had
no appetite. So she lay down and went to sleep. Early in the morning she was
awakened by a great noise which she found on looking out was made by a flock
of brants (qên). She felt so tired that she lay down again and went to
sleep, and, when she awoke once more, she thought she would set out after
more roots. Going down to the flat where these roots grew, she found it
covered with brants feeding upon them. When they saw her they flew away.
Then she began removing the dead grass from the place where she was going to
dig, and to her surprise came upon several big canoes looking as if they had
been buried there, which were loaded with eulachon oil, dried eulachon,
dried halibut, and dried salmon. She felt very happy. She thought how lucky
it was that she had remained there when all of the village people were
starving.
Now the orphan thought that she would eat something, so she took some salmon
and a bundle of halibut home with her. On roasting a piece of salmon,
however, she found that she could not eat it. She did not know what had
gotten into her that she could not force herself to eat. She wished that her
aunt were with her. Next morning she discovered that the spirits were
keeping food away from her because she was becoming a shaman. The brants had
become her spirits. The brant spirits always come to Raven people like her.
So she became a great shaman and was possessed by spirits every day, while
sea gulls, crows, and all kinds of sea and woodland birds sang for her. This
happened every day. Two or three times a day she would go to see the buried
canoes, but she could not eat anything, and she gave up digging roots
because she had no way of sharpening her sticks. Meanwhile everyone in the
village thought that she had starved to death.
After some time had passed, the girl wished that someone would come to her
from the village, and the day after a canoe appeared in sight. This made her
very happy, especially when it got close and she found it contained some
people of her acquaintance from the village. She called them up to her brush
house and gave them some food from the canoes, and they remained there two
or three days. They were out hunting for food. After a while she told them
it was time for them
to go, and, when they were on the point of starting, she said, "Do not take
a bit of the food I have given you. Leave it all here. Tell the people of
our village that Djîyî'n is still living and is doing well. Tell my aunt
that she must try to get here as soon as she can."
When these people got back to the village and told what had happened to the
orphan, how much food she had and how lucky she had been, all the town
people who had been dying of starvation started off immediately for the
place where she was living. When they came in sight of her brush house they
saw that from the sky right down to it the air was filled with birds. There
were so many that one could not see through them. They could also hear men
and women singing and the shaman performing, but, when they came close, all
of the birds flew away.
As soon as the shaman heard that her people were coming she walked out to
meet them and asked, "Which canoe is my aunt in? Let her land here." All of
the food in one of her canoes she gave to her aunt. Then she said, "I want
two women to come ashore to help me with my singing." The high-caste women
in the canoes, who were all painted up, would rise one after the other, but
she would not have them, and finally called two who were orphans like
herself and had been treated very badly by their own people. All the others
then started to come ashore, and she told them where to camp. She had room
enough in her own house only for the two girls and her aunt.
These high-caste people had brought their slaves with them when they came to
her, and she got them herself in exchange for food. She had three brush
houses built to hold them. She also dressed up the two little orphans so
that they looked very pretty. After a long time the people left her to
return to their own village, and, when another long period had elapsed, her
spirit made the town chief sick, and they hired her to come and treat him.
This shaman had belonged to a very high-caste family, but they had died off
and left her very poor, and nothing remained of her uncle's house except the
posts. Grass grew all about inside of it, and when the shaman was entering
the village she saw the posts of her uncle's house and felt very sad. She
told them to land near by. Then she looked up, raised an eagle's tail in one
hand, blew upon it, and waved it back and forth in front of them. The fourth
time a fine house stood there. Then they carried all of her things into
this, and she had the slaves she had procured work for her, while the two
orphans she had taken were now considered high caste.
At that time the sick chief's daughter also fell sick. Then the spirits
turned all the minds of the chief's people away from her, and they paid
other shamans in the village. The sick ones, however, continued to get worse
and worse, until they finally remembered that she also was a shaman and sent
for her. When the messenger came one of the orphans asked, "How much will
they pay the shaman?" "Two slaves," they said. She thought that this was not
enough, and the messenger went back. When he came again, she again asked,
"How much are they going to pay the shaman?" "Two slaves and some goods."
Then she agreed, and, as soon as the messenger had left, Djîyî'n said to the
two girls, "Come on. Let us go."
As soon as she had arrived at the house she sat down between the two sick
people and worked very hard to cure them. Her spirits could see immediately
what the matter was. This house was crowded with people except around the
fire where the shaman was performing. Then Djîyî'n walked around and said,
"The witch that is killing you two has not come." They sent to all the
houses in the village and assembled those who were there in the house in
place of the previous occupants. Djîyî'n examined all of them again, and
again said, "The witch is not yet here." Finally the spirits in her began to
say, "The road of the witch is very clear now. The road of the witch is
straight for this house." Again they said, "The witch is coming." By and by
they began to hear a bird whistling in the woods back of the house, and she
said, "Yes, hear her. She is coming." And when the sound came near the door
she said, "Open the door and let her come in." So they opened the door, and
there sat a wild canary (s!âs!). Then the shaman told her to sit between the
two sick persons, and she did so. She was making a great deal of noise, and
the shaman said, "Tie her wings back." Not long afterward the people heard a
great noise like thunder which seemed a great distance off. Then the shaman
said, "Here are her children. They are offended and are coming in. Stop up
all of the holes so that they may not enter." The noise grew louder and
louder, however, and presently birds began to fly in right through the
boards. At last the house became so full of them as to be well nigh
suffocating, and very many of the people were injured. Whoever the birds
flew against would have a cut or bruise. All at once the house again became
empty, not a bird being left inside except the one that was tied.
By this time it was morning, the people having sat in that house all night,
and the bird made still more noise. "She is already telling about it," said
the shaman. "She wants to go to the place where she has the food and the
pieces of hair with which she is bewitching you." Finally she left the
house, but although they had untied her wings she walked along ahead of four
men instead of flying. She went up the way she had come down and began
scratching at the roots of some bushes some distance up in the woods. There
she came upon the top of a skull in which were some hair, food, and pieces
of clothing arranged in a certain manner along with different kinds of
leaves. She took these down to the beach and threw them out on the sea in
different directions. Afterward she went back to the house with the four men
still following her.
By and by the bird began making noises again, and the shaman, who alone
could understand her, said that she wanted to leave the place. She hated to
go back to her own place among the other birds because she knew that they
would be ashamed of her, so she asked them to take her to a town called
Close-along-the-beach (Yênq!asê'sîtciyî-ân). When they took down a canoe to
carry her off she flew right into it. Then the shaman said, "When you get
her to the place whither she wants to go, go ashore and put her there, and
turn right back." Then they started on with her, and after a time she made
so much noise that they said, "Let us put her ashore here. This must be the
place." They did so; and, as soon as they got close in, the bird flew out
upon the beach and started up it very fast. One man followed her to see
where she would go and saw her pass under a tree with protruding roots. This
was the town she had been talking about.
As soon as the witch put the skull and other things into the water the chief
and his daughter recovered. Before the events narrated in this story people
did not know anything about witchcraft, and the ancients used to say that it
was from this bird that they learned it years ago.
Footnotes:
Or better Djûn. Haida versions of the same will be found in Memoirs Amer.
Mus. Nat. Hist., VIII, 226, 247. Aqâ'nîq!ês is said to be in all probability
Kayâ'nîq!ês (For-the-leaves).
Abstract:
DJÎYÎ'N
An orphan girl named Djîyî'n was very badly treated. One time she determined
to stay on an island by herself, and while there she became a shaman and
discovered a great quantity of food which made her rich. By and by the town
chief's daughter fell sick and all kinds of shamans were summoned to no
purpose. Finally they called Djîyî'n, who found that the wild canary (s!âs!)
had bewitched her. She made this bird find the charm and throw it into the
sea. Then the bird was taken at its own request to a place some distance
from the village, where it disappeared.
Tlingit Myths and Texts, by John R. Swanton; Smithsonian Institution; Bureau
of American Ethnology Bulletin 39; Washington, Government Printing Office;
[1909] and is now in the public domain.