Said Raven, “Gambling is not very good. There will always be hard feelings between gamblers, yet I will show you how. One of the sticks has a red mark around it. It will be named naq (devilfish). You will see the smoke of naq. When you get the devilfish, you are lucky. As long as it keeps away from you, you are unlucky.” Then he said to the, man, “Make a house for yourself out of devil’s clubs first and stay inside while you are fasting. After you have fasted four days, Greatest Gambler (Alqa’-sa’ti) will appear to you.”

When the man had fasted for three days, living on nothing but devil’s clubs, he started to look for more. Then he found a devil’s club, as big around as a large tree, covered with scars, and he took the bark off in eight different spots. Then he went to sleep and dreamed that a man came to him. He said, “Do you know that I am Greatest Gambler? You took the bark off from me in eight spots. It was I standing there.” Then Greatest Gambler said to him, “When you leave this place, look around down on the beach and you will find something. When you reach your own village do the same thing again, and you will find something else.”

Next morning a real person came to him and said, “I want to see your gambling sticks.” So he showed them to him, and he gave them their names. He gave all of them their names at that time. Each stick had a certain mark. One was named devilfish and the others were called after other kinds of animals and fish. They are the same today among both Tsimshian and Tlingit. [It appears from examples that no such uniformity really exists.] The two principal sticks besides the devilfish are tuq (a small bright fish found in the sand along shore) and anca’dji (a small gregarious bird which seems to feed on the tops of trees).

After Greatest Gambler had showed him how to gamble he prepared to return to his people. When he was getting ready he looked about upon the beach and found a sea otter lying there. When he reached the first place where he had camped on coming away he camped there again and on looking around as directed found a fur seal. He took off the two skins there and dried them. It took him a whole day.

When he at last entered the village everybody made fun of him, saying, “Aya’o Qonalgi’c” (said to be Haida words meaning “Come and let us gamble, Qonalgi’c”). He had made a shirt out of the sea otter and a blanket out of the fur seal, so they were anxious to gamble in order to win those things. When they first heard him speak of gambling they made fun of him, thinking to beat him as before, and the same one who had before won all of his goods sat down opposite. He was a fine gambler and therefore very rich. When they started to play, the poor man began to go through all kinds of performances, jumping up, running about, and saying funny things to his opponent, so that the latter became confused and could not do anything. The poor man began winning his goods, and, when he got tobacco, he would treat the crowd about him with it. Finally the poor man said, “That is enough. I am through,” but the rich man answered, “Stay and let us gamble more,” thinking that he would get all of his goods back. The poor man, however, said he was through but would be willing to gamble with him the next day, and he left his opponent sitting there feeling very badly. The same day, however, his opponent went over to him again and again asked him to gamble. “Oh! let us wait until tomorrow,” he said, and he spoke kindly to him. Finally they began again. Whatever words the poor man used toward his opponent at this time, people use at this day. By and by he said to the chief, “Let us gamble for food next. I want to feed my people.” Then the rich man was angry, sat down, and began gambling with him for food. Again his opponent won everything and said, “That is enough. We have plenty of time to gamble. We will gamble some other day.” So they stopped, although the chief would have persevered, and the poor man invited all of his friends in order to give them the food he had won.

Next day the chief again brought over his gambling sticks, and they recommenced. Whenever the poor man saw that his luck was turning, he would jump up, ran around the circle of people, who were watching him closely, run to a little creek near by, wash his hands very clean and return to gamble. He did that over and over again while he was gambling. Sometimes he would run off and chew upon a piece of dried salmon. Then he could see the devilfish smoke much better. This time they staked slaves, and he won quite a number, after which he jumped up, saying that he had gambled enough. The chief begged him to continue, but he said, “No, we have gambled long enough. I will gamble every day with you if you desire, but this is enough for today.”

Next morning they gambled again. A big crowd always followed him to the gambling place because the way he acted was new to them. He would jump up, call certain of his lucky sticks by name and say, “Now you come out.” Before he began gambling he mixed his sticks well together and said, “The asqanca’di sticks will come out.” So they came out, flew around and around his head and settled among the other sticks again. He was the only one who could see them.

By this time the chief opposing him had become fairly crazy. He had nothing left but his house, his sisters’ children, his wife, and himself. He wanted to stake his sisters’ children, but his opponent said, that he would not gamble for people. Then the chief caught hold of him and begged him, and his own friends came to him and said, “Why don’t you gamble and win those friends of his? You are very foolish not to.” “I do not want to gamble unless I can win something,” he said. “What good will those people be to me? I can not, do anything with them after I win them.” “You will have the name of having won them. Remember what he did to you. He did not have pity on you. When he won your wife’s clothes did he give them back?” Then the poor man moved a piece of painted moose hide, called ckute’, around in front of the chief. It made him very angry, but he dared not say anything. The chief lost his nephews, his house, and his wife’s clothes and offered to stake his wife, but his opponent refused until his cousin said, “Go on and get everything he has. If you do not want them you can give them back.” So he won his wife also. Then he put his gambling sticks away, refusing to gamble for the chief himself, because he knew that there is always trouble at the bottom of gambling. But his friends said, “If he is foolish enough to stake himself and his wife, go on and gamble. After a while he will feel it in his face (i.e., be ashamed).” So he played once more and won his opponent also.

Then he said, “Since you have staked everything and I have won, I suppose that this is all. Do you remember how you won everything from me? You were very hard on me. You even won my wife’s clothing, and you did not give me anything back. You left me in such a condition that I could not do a thing to help myself and my wife. You know that I have won you. You belong to me. You might be my slave, but I will not be that hard upon you. I have won you and your wife, but I don’t want to claim you. Take your wife also. She is yours and I don’t want to claim her either.”

High-caste people did not become gamblers, because they always remembered this saying. They always told their children that gambling belonged to lower people and was not work for an honest person. On account of what happened at that time a gambler will now get crazy over the game, and think, when he is using the last money in his purse, “I am going to win it back. I may win it back with the last cent I have.” So he keeps on and on until he goes through with everything. The whole town knows that he is going crazy over gambling, but he thinks that he is doing the right thing. When a gambler wins a lot of things from anyone nowadays, he remembers Qonalgi’c and gives some of them back. He is not as hard on him as the chief was to the poor man. [In this paragraph are seen the effects of missionary teachings.]

It is from Qonalgi’c also that the gambling sticks have different names and that there are different kinds of naqs and different sorts of cicts. These cicts are lucky gambling sticks, but the lucky medicine that a gambler obtains is also called cict. In order to get it he has to fast, remain away from his wife, and keep what he is doing secret. At that time he wishes for whatever he desires. This medicine also makes a person brave and is used when preparing for some important action. The name cict is said to have come from a wolf which had something stuck between its teeth. When a certain man got this out, the wolf said, “I will show you my cict. I will tell you what it is.”

People who cheat have gambling sticks like birds that are able to fly away, and they keep the names of these sticks to themselves.

It is since the time of this first gambler, too, that people have had the custom of saying to a gambler, “Why don’t you give a feast with the food you have won?”

Gamblers claim that when the sticks move in a certain way while they are gambling, it means death in the family. If they keep the rules of their cict it will tell them what animal they are going to kill when they are out hunting.

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To this day they call that spring Water-that-makes-one-grow. The woman bathed him as directed and he soon grew up into a man very skilful at work of all kinds. Finally he asked his mother: “Mother, is this the way you have always been? Didn’t you have a father, mother, and friends?” But she said, “We have always been this way.” He was so bright that she would not tell him. Then the child went on asking, “Whose houses are those? I think that you had friends who have all died off, and you will not tell me.” So his grandmother finally told him what had happened.

This boy was a good shot with arrows, but he said, “What can I do? All the canoes lying here are old and broken.” In the night, however, his father, Fire-drill, appeared to him in a dream and said, “Take one of those old canoes up into the woods and cover it with brush. No matter how old it is. Do it.” The morning after he had done this, he went there and found a very pretty little canoe with all things in it that he needed. Then his father appeared to him again, pulled the root of a burned tree out of the ground and made it into a little dog for him. He called it Gant (Burnt), and it could scent things from a great distance. Although small it was as powerful as a bear. He also gave his son a bow, and arrows pointed with obsidian(?). Finally he gave him a very powerful club called Qotaca’yi-qus.

Now he thought of what his grandmother had told him, took his canoe down, and prepared to go away. He told his mother that he might be gone for two days and said, “Take care of this fire drill. Hang it in a safe place overhead, and, if I am killed, it will fall.” He went along on the water shooting at birds and suddenly saw a canoe coming toward him. “There is the thing that has killed all of my mother’s friends,” he thought. Then he began talking to his dog, his club, and his bow and arrows, all of which could understand him.

The man coming toward him had only one eye, placed in the middle of his face and from this fact was called Lecawa’gi (Man-with-one-eye). He was a very big man whose home was in a cliff. Then he said to the boy, “Is this you, my nephew?” He answered, “It is I.” “Where did you come from?” “From my uncle’s village.” “Yes, I know you.” The one-eyed man could read the boy’s thoughts and said to him, “It was not I who killed your uncles and your mother’s friends. It was the East wind and the North wind.” He mentioned all of the winds. But the boy knew that this big man was after him, and he knew what he meant by talking to him so kindly. Then the big man said, “Let us trade arrows.” “Oh! no, my arrows are better than yours. They cost a great deal.” One of the boy’s arrows was named Heart-stopper (Teq-gots), because a person’s heart stopped beating the instant it touched his body. Another was pointed with porcupine quills, and a third with bark. The big man made the boy believe that his arrow points were sea urchin spines, but in reality they were only the seed vessels of fireweed. This man was a bad shaman. He held his arrow points up, and said, “Do you see these arrows?” He could see that the points were all moving. Then the boy said, “It is wonderful, but my arrows are not like that. They are only good for shooting birds.” Now the shaman’s object was to get Heart-stopper. Finally the boy said to the shaman, “Look here, you call yourself my uncle. That is how you did away with my uncles and my mother’s friends, is it? You will never make away with me so.” That angered the big man, and before they knew it both had their arrows in hand, but the boy was the quicker and killed his antagonist; the dog helped him. Then the boy took the big man’s tongue out and burned his body. All this time his mother was worrying about him.

Then he paddled along by the shore and heard some one calling to him. He thought, “There is another bad man.” So he went to the place and discovered on a very steep cliff falling sheer into the water an aperture with red paint around it and devil clubs tied into a ring hanging close by. Some one inside of this invited him in, and, as he was very brave and cared for nothing, he went up to the entrance. The person who lived there was the wife of the man he had killed. She had seen his canoe passing and thought, “He must have killed my husband.” So she said, “Your aunt’s husband went across that way.” And the boy said, “I have seen your husband.” This woman’s name was Knife-hand (Djiwan-yis), because she had a knife on each hand. She said to the boy, “You better come in here and let me give you food before you go on.” “All right,” he said. So he entered and found her cooking the parts of a human being. She called the ends of its fingers, “crab apples,” its eyes, “berries,” etc. When he told her that he did not eat that sort of food, she at once said, “Well! let us have a fight then. We will kill each other.” He agreed and she went to a large rock where he could hear her drawing both hands back and forth to sharpen them. As soon as she had finished, she threw her hand at him, but he jumped aside so quickly that it stuck in the spot where he had been sitting, and, when she drew her hand away, the knife remained there. Then the boy jumped forward, seized it, and threw it back with such good aim that it killed her. He also cut her tongue out. He had no more than finished with her, however, than he noticed that the entrance hole was growing smaller and smaller. So he made himself small also, crept into one of the ermine skins he had tied in his hair, and ran out. When he came home again with his canoe loaded down with seal and deer, his mother and grandmother were very glad to see him, for they had been weeping for him and worrying about him ever since he left. Now he told them not to worry any longer because he had killed the bad people who destroyed their friends.

Next he said to his mother, “Mother, do not be afraid to tell me. What was it that killed my uncles when they went back here hunting?” By and by he went back into the woods to hunt and saw smoke rising a long distance off. He came to a house and entered. There he saw a very old woman called Old-mole-woman (Kaga’kqo ca’naku). As soon as she saw the boy this woman said, “My grandson what is it that you are after?” The boy felt that she was an honest old woman and said, “I am looking for the person that killed my uncles and all of my mother’s friends.” Then she told him to come in and eat. She picked a small piece of salmon out from between her teeth which at once turned into a whole salmon. That was the way she got anything she wanted, and it was the only way she got her food. Then she said to the boy, “Grandson, it is pretty hard to get at the beings that murdered your uncles. They are the hawks (kidju’k). You must find their nests, which are very high up, and watch until the old birds go away, leaving their two young ones.” When he came to the nest, however, he saw that the old birds were away, so he went up to the young ones and said to them, “What do you live on?” The birds showed him numbers of human skulls and other human bones lying about the base of the tree and said, “That is what we live on.” They also said, “Our father and our mother always come just at daybreak. You can not see them because they come in clouds. Our mother comes over the mountain in a yellow cloud and our father comes in a black cloud.” Then he said to the birds, “Do not tell about me or I will kill you,” and they believed he would do it.

Suddenly the boy saw the yellow cloud coming. He distinguished the mother bird bringing a human body for her children to eat. Then he killed her and threw her down to the foot of the tree along with the body she was carrying. After that he saw the black cloud coming and presently distinguished the father bird. The father bird said to the young ones, “Where is your mother?” and they answered, “Our mother dropped the dead body she was bringing and went down after it.” As he was sitting there talking the boy killed him also and threw his body down. Then he said to the little birds, “You must never kill people any more or live on human flesh. I will go and get something for you to eat until you are strong enough.” So he went out hunting and brought them a lot of ground hogs, saying to them, “This is what you are to live upon.” So these birds now live only on ground-hog meat. They do not live on human flesh any more. They kill their victims with rocks, and a person who is about to become rich will see them throw one of these. Then he picks it up and it brings him good luck.

After that he went back to the old woman and told her what he had done, and she was very happy to learn that these dangerous birds were killed. He said to her, “I am going back to my mother and grandmother. I and my dog have obtained a great deal of food for them.” He also gave a quantity of food to the old woman who had helped him. His mother and grandmother were very glad when they saw him come back with the skins of those birds and a quantity of provisions.

Now Fire-drill’s son collected enough food and grease in boxes to last his mother and grandmother all their lives and said, “Mother, I am going to leave you forever. I was not put here to be with you always. I have done what I wanted to do. If what you have hanging overhead falls, you may know that you will never see me again. But do not worry, for it is my duty to leave you.” Then he went away.

As he was traveling along from that place, Fire-drill’s son saw some one ahead of him called Dry-cloud (Gus-xuk). He was able to travel very fast, and he chased it. As he was running along he came to the mink people. He ran along again and came to the marten people. Both kept saying to him, “We want you to be our friend,” but he paid no attention to them and kept on pursuing Dry-cloud. Then he came to the wolf people and stayed there.

One of the wolf chiefs thought a great deal of Fire-drill’s son. One time the wolves began talking about all those things that can run very fast, and finally they spoke about the mountain goats, how they can travel about easily among the cliffs, and said that they were going out to hunt them. When they set out, all ran hard to see who could kill the first one, but Fire-drill’s son’s dog killed a great number before anyone could get near them, so many, in fact, that Fire-drill’s son took only the leaf lard home to show how many he had gotten. Then the wolves all went up and brought down the dead goats, and they felt very much ashamed that they, who were noted runners and hunters, had gotten nothing. They wondered what they could do to get even with Fire-drill’s son. Then they took a quantity of long stringy vines called mountain-eel (cayali’ti), made them into rings and began playing with them. They would let these roll down the sides of the mountains and jump through them when they were at full speed. Anyone who got caught in one of these would be cut in two.

Fire-drill’s son’s wolf friend said to him, however, “My friend, don’t go near those people that are playing. You do not know anything about the things they are using. They will kill you.” He answered, “No, I will not play with them, but let us watch them.” So they went out and watched them. Then Fire-drill’s son said to his dog, “Now, you play there and throw it as high as you can.” So the dog played with it and threw it as high as he could. It was a fine moonlight night, and the ring rolled right up to the moon, where it became the ring you see there whenever there is going to be a change in weather. After that his friend, the wolf chief, said to the rest of the wolves, “You know that this son of Fire-drill is a wonderful fellow. He can do anything. Do not try to injure him in anyway, but treat him as a friend. “

This story is referred to in drawing the moral that one should never do anything spiteful or try to get ahead of one who knows better. If he does he will always get the worst of it. This is why in olden times the Indians looked up to the chiefs and those of high caste, knowing that they had been brought up and instructed better than themselves, and never tried to get ahead of them.

It is also brought up to the people how Fire-drill’s son fed the young hawks instead of killing them. If a young person is very cruel they say to him, ‘If the hawk can be made a friend of mankind, why can not you make friends with your enemies? If you want to be respected do not make enemies, but friends always.’

They tell the young people that a bad fellow is always like the one-eyed man, trying to get advantage of a good person. He is quick to say whatever comes into his mind, while the good man always thinks first. Therefore whatever the latter says people know is right. They ask their children to choose which of the two they would rather resemble.

Because the one-eyed man said, ‘I did not kill your uncles or your mother’s friends,’ a murderer nowadays will never come out and say, ‘I am the one who killed that man.’ He always tries to make an innocent person suffer. As the one-eyed man’s wife invited this boy to have something to eat in order to kill him, so a bad person says whatever he chooses to a good one. But they tell their children, ‘This will not kill you. They are doing themselves injury instead of you. So turn and walk away from them.’

If a poor person has self-respect, he will have good fortune some time, just as in the case of the two old women to whom Raven brought fortune.

The example of Fire-drill’s son is commended because he did not use his power meanly. He knew that he was very powerful, but when all the animals tried his power he did not do them any harm. He did not want to show his strength at once. If he had been a mean man he might have killed the old woman that lived back in the woods instead of helping her and getting her food.

After that Fire-drill’s son and his wolf friend went off together, and the wolf said, “Some strange being walks around here. Don’t run after him or he will take your life.” It was Dry-cloud that he meant. “Don’t mind me,” said Fire-drill’s son, “I know what he is. I only play with him. I know that this fellow can’t be killed, and I know that he can not kill anybody else, but I have to follow him. That was my father’s advice to me.” So they kept on after Dry-cloud and the wolf had to run with all his might, but it did not seem to Fire-drill’s son that he was going rapidly at all. Whenever the wolf got his tail wet in crossing a stream he was too much tired out to shake it, so he simply yelped and Fire-drill’s son shook it for him. By and by they saw smoke far ahead of them and presently came to where an old woman lived alone by herself. They stayed with her for some time, and could see Dry-cloud as long as they were there, for he lived in the neighborhood of her house. Then they helped the old woman and collected a quantity of wood for her. After that she said to the boy, “Grandson, there is a big fish over yonder. It killed all of my friends in this town. That is why I am all alone here.” He went to the place where she said the monster lived and found a red cod. He said to her, “Grandmother, that is not a monster fish. It is good to eat.” So he took his bow and arrows and told his friend to watch him. Then he went to the red cod and killed it, and, seeing that there were numbers of sharp spines upon it, he took off its skin and dried it. He said to the wolf: “My friend, do you know this woman? She is really Daughter-of-the-calm (Kaye’li-si). She is a very nice, pretty girl.” Afterward Fire-drill’s son married Daughter-of-the-calm and had a child by her named Lakitcine’. He gave this boy his dog and put the red-cod skin upon him as a shirt. Then he said to his wife: “This is going to be a very bad boy.”

Katishan added that once while Fire-drill’s son was chasing Dry-cloud he was pulled into a village in the sky for some offense and punished there. Since then people have believed that the stars are inhabited. They were thought to be towns and the light the reflection of the sea.

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