sea. Northeast Wind abides along the northern mountains.

There are many tribes of Ocean People. Now in Haida Land, that is, the Queen Charlotte Islands, the land and sea are entangled in an extraordinary way.

Just so it is with the lands of the Ocean People—the Devilfish People, the Porpoise People, the Killer-Whale People, and the Black-Whale People. Of all the Ocean People the Killer-Whale People are the most powerful. They have towns scattered along the shore beneath the water, just as the Indians have their towns along the shore above the water.

When a man dies in Haida Land, he follows a trail until he reaches the shore of a bay. On the other side of the bay lies the Ghost Land. Then he calls across, and soon a person appears who pushes a raft from the farther side. This raft is made of fine cedar bark, such as is used in the rings of the secret society. Then the raft comes of itself to where the man is standing, and ferries him over.

Now in Ghost Land there are many towns, and many houses in each town. So if a man is looking for his wife there, it may take him a long time. These towns lie in numberless inlets, near the water, just as the Haida towns on earth do.

When food or grease is put into the fire in the family of a man who has just died, it comes to him at once; therefore he is not hungry. And if his family sing songs loudly when he dies, then he enters Ghost Land proudly, with his head up. It gives him a good name in that country. But if they do not, then he enters Ghost Land with his head hanging down, and people do not think so much of him. When a man enters Ghost Land there is always a dance given in his honor.

People who are drowned go to Killer-Whale Country. But first they go to The-One-in-the-Sea who gives them their fins and then they go into the houses of the other Killer Whales. When killer whales gather in front of a town, it is thought they are human beings who have been drowned and take this way of informing the people.

One man who went to the Ghost Land, after he had been there for some time, put all his property in his canoe and went to Xada, which is the second Ghost Land. Then he went on to a third one, and later to a fourth, and then came back to earth as a blue fly. Therefore when a blue fly bumps into a man on earth, he says, “This is my friend, who thus shows me that he recognizes me.”

At a place beyond the Ghost Land, and just visible from it, lives a chief called Great Moving Cloud. He owns all the dog salmon. Once when a gambler died, he went there and gambled with him. The stakes were the dog salmon, and ghosts. When Great Moving Cloud won, many ghosts came into Ghost Land. When the gambler won, there was a great run of salmon.

BELIEFS

Eastern Eskimo

No man can ever go into the Sky Land until he is dead; so all the people say. The sky that we see is a hard, blue stone, built up over the earth just as the igloo is built with snow, rounding, over the Eskimo family. But where the land and sea meet are high precipices which slope inward so that no one can climb up in the Sky Land. This blue dome is very cold, and sometimes it is covered with crystals of frost which fall as snow, and then the sky becomes clear.

The clouds are large bags of water, owned by two old women who push them across the sky. The thunder is their voice and the lightning their torch. When water leaks out of the seams of the bags, it rains on earth. If a spark of lightning falls upon anyone, he has to go to the Ghost Land.

At each corner of the Earth World there lives a mighty being, with a very large head. When any one of these breathes, the wind blows. Some breathe violent storms and others summer breezes. Each wind spirit has many powerful servants.

At the edge of the Earth World, and beyond the precipices, is a great abyss. A narrow pathway leads across it to a land of brightness and plenty and abundance and warmth. To this place none but Raven and the dead can go. When spirits wish to speak to people on earth, they make a whistling noise and people answer only in whispers. Auroras are the torches held in the hands of spirits to guide the newly dead over the abyss.

BELIEFS

Bella Coola

The Bella Coola believe there are five worlds, one above the other. The middle one is our own world, the earth. Above it are two upper worlds, one the home of Afraid of Nothing, and the one below that is the House of the Sun. Below our earth are two lower worlds. The first is the Ghost Land; the second is the home of those who die a second time.

The upper heaven, which is the home of “Our Woman,” or Afraid of Nothing, as others call her, is a prairie without any trees upon it. In order to reach it, one must pass through the House of the Sun; though some people say that the sky is rent and one must pass through the great hole to reach the upper world.

The house of Afraid of Nothing stands in the far east. A strong wind blows always toward it across the open prairie so that everything rolls to her house; but immediately around the house it is quite calm. In front of the house stands a post in the shape of a large winged monster, and its mouth is the entrance.

Afraid of Nothing created the whole world. A long time ago she also had a great war with the mountains. In the beginning of the world the mountains were of great height. They were human, and they made the world uninhabitable. Afraid of Nothing made war upon them and defeated them. She made them much smaller than they used to be. During this fight she broke off the nose of one mountain, and its face may be recognized even now. It is near the Bella Coola River.

There were two mountains near the headwaters of the Bella Coola River, and one kept always a fire burning in his house. One could see the smoke, and this fire warned its master, the mountain, whenever an enemy appeared. When Afraid of Nothing came down in her canoe, the fire gave warning. When she approached, the mountain broke her canoe and turned it into stone. So she returned to heaven. The canoe is still there at the foot of the mountain.

Afraid of Nothing is a great warrior. She visits the earth now and then; but when she does, her visits cause sickness and death.

Under the world where she lives is the House of the Sun. Our own earth is an island swimming in the ocean.

CREATION OF THE WORLD

Wyandot

The people were living beyond the sky. They were Wyandots. One day the shaman told the people to dig around the roots of the wild apple tree standing by the chief’s lodge and Indians at once began to dig. The chief’s daughter was lying near by. As the men dug, a sudden noise startled them. They jumped back. They had broken through the floor of the Sky Land, and the tree and the chief’s daughter fell through.

Now the world beneath was a great sheet of water. There was no land anywhere. Swans swimming about on the water heard a peal of thunder. It was the first peal ever heard in this world. When they looked upward, they saw the tree and the strange woman falling from the Sky Land. One of them said, “What strange thing is falling down?” Then he added, “The water will not hold her up. Let us swim together so she will fall upon our backs.” So the chief’s daughter fell upon their backs, and rested there.

After a while one swan said, “What shall we do with her? We cannot swim about this way very long.” The other said, “Let us ask Big Turtle. He will probably call a council. Then we shall know what to do.”