In this story, a group of people camped to dry salmon, unaware of a devilfish lurking nearby. The fish destroyed their camp and swept everything into the sea. The hunters sought revenge, tracking the devilfish and ultimately killing it. Meanwhile, a boy who constantly cried was fed “blackberries” by a land-otter-man, which turned out to be poisonous creatures. These creatures consumed the boy’s flesh, and after a special broth was given, they were expelled, leaving only his skin.
Source:
Tlingit Myths and Texts
by John R. Swanton
[Smithsonian Institution]
Bureau of American Ethnology
Bulletin 39
Washington, 1909
► Themes of the story
Conflict with Nature: The narrative centers on a community’s encounter with a formidable devilfish that devastates their camp, highlighting the challenges humans face against natural forces.
Revenge and Justice: In response to the destruction, the hunters embark on a mission to track and kill the devilfish, seeking retribution for their lost community members.
Supernatural Beings: The tale features interactions with extraordinary entities, including the devilfish and a land-otter-man, reflecting the rich presence of supernatural elements in Tlingit folklore.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Tlingit people
Myth recorded in English at Sitka, Alaska
January-April 1904
Many people once went to a certain camp to dry salmon. They did not know that a big devilfish lived under a steep cliff not very far from this place. In olden times, besides using hooks, they caught salmon by means of traps (cal), and when the trap was full, they would take out the fish and hang them on drying frames. When these people had many fish on the frames, they took off their covers, so that the red color shone out on the ocean very distinctly.
A man and his two brothers living at this camp were fond of hunting, and one day, when very many salmon were on the frames, they started out. While they were gone the devilfish saw the glow on the water from the red salmon, threw his tentacles around the camp and swept every vestige of it into the sea.
► Continue reading…
In those times a hunter washed in urine before going out hunting and was then sure to kill something, but on that day everything the hunters speared got away. When they returned to the camp, they saw many pieces of canoes drifting about the bay. Then they were very sad on account of the loss of their friends, but they did not know what had destroyed them.
After they had remained there for four days, they told the youngest to climb to the top of a high hill and watch them. Then the eldest told his other brother to cut four young spruce trees, and he sharpened these, making two for himself and two for his brother. Early in the morning they loaded their canoe with rocks and prepared to meet the dangerous animal. They went out in front of the high cliff and began throwing rocks down there, the elder saying to his youngest brother, “Look down.”
After a while they saw the large devilfish coming up right under them. Then they took the sharpened sticks and began to pierce its flesh. The youngest watched all that happened. When their canoe was broken up, they climbed on top of the devilfish and continued running the sticks into it until it died. When that happened it carried them down along with it.
Then the youngest brother started off to find some settlement, and when he came to one, the people set out at once to look for his brothers. Finally they discovered the place to which the devilfish had floated, along with the hunters and their canoe. But it did not get the salmon it had destroyed so many people for. Then the people gave a death feast and all cut their hair off short.
In the town to which these people belonged once lived a little boy who was always crying. His parents tried to rear him properly, yet he cried, cried all the time. Finally his father shouted out, “Come this way Djinakaxwa’tsa [the name of some man that had been captured by land otters]. Pull this boy away, for he cries too much.” Toward evening he repeated the same words, and this time a land-otter-man behind the house shouted out stutteringly, “Bring my grandchild here and let him eat galkadaxa’ku to keep him quiet.” So the little boy was taken away and given what appeared to him to be blackberries.
Two days afterward they began searching for him, and they finally found him far up in the woods. When they brought him down he had a big belly and did not cry as loudly as he had before, so they thought that something was wrong. Then they boiled some dried salmon and gave him broth made from it. The heat of this broth expelled all of the small creatures that had been given him to eat under the appearance of blackberries. Spiders began running out of his mouth, cars, nose, eyes, and buttocks. His insides were filled with them, and they had eaten out all of his flesh. When these were expelled, nothing was left but the skin which they threw away.
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