🧚 A Bluejay Story · page 2

After a little time the boy went up to the beach, feeling very sad, and trying to think what he should do.107 At last he went into the house and took his arrows and started walking along the shore.108 He walked around a point, and saw a black eagle, and shot it.109 He skinned it and tried to put the skin on his body, but it was too small.110 It did not reach down as far as his knees.111 He took it off and left it there and went on.112 After a while he saw another eagle, and he shot it, and it fell down.113 Its head was partly white.114 He skinned it and put the skin on his body, but it was too small.115 It reached down only a little below his knees.116 Then he took it off and left it lying there, and went on a long way.117 At last he saw a bald-headed eagle.118 He shot it, and it fell down.119 Then he skinned it and put the skin on himself.120 Even this was too small, but it nearly fitted him.121 Then he tried to fly.122 At first he could only fly downward.123 He could not rise in the air.124 He tried again, and this time he found that he could turn, so he kept on trying, and pretty soon he could fly well.125

Now he flew towards the village, and when he had come near to this point he smelled smoke, and in that smoke he smelled fat cooking.126 So before he got to the village he turned and flew out to sea, following the smell of the smoke.127 Pretty soon he came to the rock of the sea-lions, and there he saw the men of his village.128 He alit on a tree far off and watched them, looking down on them below.129 He saw that they were cooking, and when the meat was done he saw them eating.130 When they had nearly finished eating, he flew towards them, and he thought, “I wish Bluejay would see me.”131 Bluejay did see the bird flying, and he said, “Ha! a bird is coming to get food from us.”132 The boy flew around them once, and then again.133 Five times he circled around them, all the time coming lower.134 Bluejay took a piece of meat and threw it out, and said to the bird, “I give you this to eat; take it.”135 The bird came down, and, grasping the piece of meat, flew away.136 Then Bluejay said, “Why, that bird has feet just like a person!”137

When Bluejay and the people had finished eating they went to sleep.138 Again the Raven hid a piece of meat.139 Towards evening Bluejay awoke, and then the people ate again, and afterwards Bluejay burned what they had left.140 Then they gathered mussels and started to go home.141 When they were close to the houses Bluejay called out, “Ah, Stikuá, get your mussels.”142 All the women ran down to the beach with a noise of feet, and carried up the mussels.143

When the boy got home he at once lay down.144 That evening the people tried to wake him, but he did not rise.145

The next morning, as soon as it became day, early, they began to get ready, and again they hauled their canoes into the water.146 The Chief’s son still lay in bed.147 He did not try to go with them, and they started off.148 After a while the sun rose.149 Then the boy got up.150 He called together all the women and children and said to them: “Quick, wash yourselves.151 Hurry; don’t be lazy.”152 They all washed themselves.153 Then he said, “Quick, comb your hair.”154 They did so.155

Then he put down a plank on the ground and took a piece of meat from under his blanket, and said to them, “All your husbands eat a great deal of this meat every day.”156 He put two pieces of the meat side by side on the plank.157 Then he cut off a piece of the meat and greased the heads of all the women and the children.158 Then he pulled out of the ground the wall planks of the houses and sharpened them.159 If a wall plank was wide, he split it.160 He sharpened all of them.161 The Raven’s house was the last house in the village.162 He did not pull down its planks.163 He fastened the planks on the backs of the women, and said to the women, “Now go to the beach and swim towards the sea, and as you go, swim five times around that rock and then go out to sea.164 After this you shall be killer whales.165 When you find sea-lions you shall always kill them, but do not give any of them to stingy people.166 When you kill a good whale you shall eat it, but do not give any of it to stingy people.167 I shall take these children with me.168 They shall live on the sea and be my relations.”169 Then he began to split sinews; he split a great many of them.170 He threw down the sinews that he had split on the stones where the people used to gather their mussels, and said to the mussels, “After this when Bluejay and these others go to take up you mussels, you shall always be tied fast to the rocks.”171

Now the women went down to the water’s edge and swam about, and began slowly to jump out of the water.172 Five times they swam backward and forward before the village; then they went seaward, swimming very fast.173 They kept on to the island where Bluejay and his fellows were cooking their food.174 Bluejay said to the men, “What is this that is coming?”175 The men looked at the things that were coming, and saw the women often jumping out of the water.176 Five times they swam around that rock, then they went out to sea.177 After a while birds came flying after them towards the sea—birds with red bills, just as if blood were on their beaks.178 They kept following one another, many of them.179 Bluejay said: “Do you see these birds, how they keep coming?180 Where do they come from?”181 Then the Raven said, “How is it that you do not recognize these as your children?”182 Five times the birds flew around the rock, just as the women had gone around it, and then they flew away out to sea.183

When Bluejay and his people were eating the meat that they had killed, that hunter said: “Quick, let us go home.184 I am afraid that we have seen bad spirits.185 We never before saw anything like this at this rock.”186 Then they gathered some mussels, and put in the canoes the meat that was left and carried it with them.187 Just at evening they came to the village, and Bluejay called out, “Ah, Stikuá, come and get your mussels.”188 There was no noise of people running.189 Five times he called to her, but no one came.190 It was all still.191 They went up on the beach, and then they saw that no one was there, and that the walls of the houses had disappeared.192 Then they began to cry, and Bluejay cried too.193 Some one said to him, “Be quiet, Bluejay; if you had not been bad, our Chief would not have done this to us.”194

Now they made only one house for all; all lived together.195 Only the Raven, who had been kind-hearted, had a house to himself.196 He often went along the beach looking for food, and was lucky, for sometimes he found a sturgeon; or again he went along the beach looking for food and he found a porpoise.197 Bluejay often went along the beach trying to find food, but he was always unlucky, for he found nothing, and often, while he was looking, suddenly it would begin to hail—big hailstones.198 Often he went out to gather mussels and tried to break them off from the rocks, but he could not do it.199 They were stuck fast to the stones.200 So he gave up and went home.201 He cried a great deal.202 Often the Raven looked for food along the beach and found a seal.203 The others had nothing to eat except roots.204

Thus these men who had not brought food to their families had now lost their women and children, their houses had been pulled down and taken away, and they had nothing to eat.205 So their Chief punished them for being stingy.206