A Ka’gwantan man befriended a wolf by removing a bone stuck in its teeth, leading to a dream where the wolf revealed secrets of luck and friendship. This established the Ka’gwantan’s use of the wolf as a symbol. Similarly, after bears attacked Ka’gwantan fishers, the people avenged the deaths, killing the bears and preserving their skins, thus adopting the grizzly bear as another important symbol.
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: Interactions with animals possessing human-like qualities and the ability to communicate through dreams.
Cultural Heroes: Figures whose actions lead to the establishment of important clan symbols and traditions.
Transformation: The symbolic change in the clan’s identity through the adoption of new crests following significant events.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Tlingit people
Myth recorded in English at Wrangell, Alaska, in January-April 1904
A man belonging to the Ka’gwantan was out camping, and saw a wolf coming toward him, showing its teeth as though it were laughing. On looking more closely, he saw that it had a bone stuck between its teeth. Then he took the bone out and said, “Now you must show me what makes you so lucky.” The wolf turned right round and walked away, but next night the man dreamed he had come to a very fine town. It was the wolf town, and the wolf he had befriended came to him and told him something to make him lucky, saying, “I am your friend.” He was grateful for what the man had done to him. Since then, the Ka’gwantan have used the wolf.
Another time when some Ka’gwantan were getting herring at Town-at-mouth-of-lake (luqa’ceik-an), a bear came to the place where they were, reached down through the smoke hole and took away the herring they were drying.
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Then the people said, “Who is this thief that is stealing all the fish?” For that he killed all of them. Then the Ka’gwantan seized their spears and set out to kill the bears in that neighborhood. When they discovered those bears they were lying in holes they had dug for themselves, and the people said to them, “Come out here and let us fight it out.” Then the bears did so, and the people killed them. They took the skins from the heads of the bears and preserved them. The bears so killed were Kats’s children. This is how the Ka’gwantan came to use the grizzly bear.
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Dreamtime Whispers 