A boy from Auk learns of a mysterious woman in a nearby lake and, after seeing her, abducts one of her children. The child retaliates by blinding and killing the entire village except a sick woman, who narrowly survives. Later, a man named Heavy Wings encounters the woman, receives riches after returning her child, and gains a magical wound that enriches his family.
Source:
Tlingit Myths and Texts
by John R. Swanton
[Smithsonian Institution]
Bureau of American Ethnology
Bulletin 39
Washington, 1909
► Themes of the story
Supernatural Beings: The narrative features a mysterious woman residing in a lake and her extraordinary child, highlighting interactions with otherworldly entities.
Divine Punishment: The abduction of the woman’s child leads to a catastrophic retribution, where the child blinds and kills the villagers, illustrating the consequences of transgressing against supernatural forces.
Transformation: The tale concludes with Heavy Wings encountering the woman, returning her child, and receiving riches along with a magical wound, symbolizing a transformative experience that brings prosperity to his family.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Tlingit people
Myth recorded in English at Wrangell, Alaska, in January-April 1904
A boy at Auk (A’ku) heard that a woman lived in the lake back of his village. He heard this so often that he was very anxious to see her. One day, therefore, he went up to the lake and watched there all day, but he did not see anything. Next day he did the same thing again, and late in the afternoon he thought that he would sit down in the high grass. The sun was shining on the lake, making it look very pretty.
After some time the youth noticed ripples on the water, and, jumping up to look, saw a beautiful woman come up and begin playing around in it. After her came up her two babies. Then the man waded out into the lake, caught one of the babies, rolled it up in his skin coat, and carried it home. All that night he had to watch the child very closely, for she kept trying to get away, but at last he became so sleepy that he rolled the child up once more and fell asleep.
► Continue reading…
Now the child got up, dug out the eyes of everybody in that house, beginning with the man who had captured her, and went from house to house throughout the entire village doing the same thing.
There was a sick woman in that place for whom they had made a small house back of her own, and, when this child came in to her, she tried to make out whose it was. She said to herself that she thought she knew every child in the village, yet she did not recognize this one. The child had the people’s eyes rolled up in some leaves. As it sat close to the fire eating them the woman thought, “What is that child eating?” She would throw them into the fire and then take them out and eat them. Finally the woman sat up, looked to see what the child was devouring, and discovered they were human eyes. After she was through with what she had the child would go out again after more. The woman watched her closely.
Now the sick woman felt very sleepy but she did not dare to sleep for, every time she began to doze off, she felt the child coming toward her face. She had a little child beside her. Finally the sick woman determined that she would stay awake, so she placed her walking stick very close to her, and, as soon as the child came too close, she would strike it and make it run away. This continued until daylight when the child disappeared.
Now the woman was surprised to hear no noises about the town and wondered what was wrong. She thought she would go out to look. First she went to her own house and saw that all the people there were dead, with their eyes gouged out, and she saw the same thing in all the other houses. Then the woman felt very sad. She threw her marten-skin robes about herself, took a copper plate on each side, placed her baby on her back and started off. She is the le’naxi’daq, which a person sees when he is going to become very wealthy. (The le’naxi’daq is therefore one of the lene’di.)
One time after this a man of the Wolf clan named Heavy Wings (Kitcida’lq) was out hunting and heard a child cry somewhere in the woods. He ran toward the sound very rapidly, but, although the child’s voice seemed to be very close to him, he could not see what caused it. Then he stopped by the side of a creek, tore his clothes off, and bathed in the cold water, rubbing himself down with sand. Afterward he felt very light and, although the voice had gotten some distance away, he reached it, and saw a woman with an infant on her back. He pulled the child off and started to run away with it, but he did not escape before the woman had given him a severe scratch upon his back with her long copper finger nails. By and by he came to a tree that hung out over the edge of a high cliff and ran out to the end of it with the child in his arms. Then the woman begged very hard for her baby saying, “Give me my baby.” As she spoke she put her hand inside of her blanket and handed him a copper. When he still refused to give her the child she handed him another. Then he gave the child back, and she said, “That scratch I made on your back will be a long time in healing. If you give a scab from it to any one of your people who is poor, he will become very rich. Do not give it to anybody but your very near relations.”
And so in fact it turned out. The sore did not heal for along time, not even after he had become very rich. Everything that he put his hand to prospered, and the relations to whom he had given scabs became the richest ones next to him.
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