People lived in Lituya Bay loooong (sic) ago. Smoke houses and other houses were there. There was a deserted place called Lituya Bay before the white man migrated in from the sea. At one point one morning a person went outside. Then there was a white object that could be seen way out on the sea bouncing on the waves and rocked by the waves. At one point it was coming closer to the people.

"What's that?"

"What's that, what's that?"

"It's something different!"

"It's something different!"

"Is it Raven?"

"Maybe that's what it is."

"I think that's what it is- Raven who created the world. He said he would come back again."

Some dangerous thing was happening. (Lituya Bay lay like a lake. there was a current; salt water flowed in when the tide was coming in. But when the tide was going out the sea water would also drain out.) So the thing went right on in with the flood tide. Then the people of the village ran scared right into the forest, all of them; the children too, were taken to the forest. They watched from the forest. At one point they heard strange sounds. Actually it was the anchor that was thrown in the water.

"Don't look at it!" they told the children. "Don't anybody look at it. If you look at it, you'll turn to stone. That's Raven, he's come by boat."

"Oh! People are running around on it!' Things are moving around on it."

Actually it was the sailors climbing around the mast. At one point after they had watched for a loooong (sic) time, they took blue hellebore and broke the stalks, blue hellebore. They poked holes through them so that they wouldn't turn to stone; they watched through them. When no one turned to stone while watching, someone said, "Let's go out there. We'll go out there."

"What's that?"

Then there were two young men; from the woods a canoe (the kind of canoe called "seet") was pulled down to the beach. They quickly went aboard. They quickly went out to it, paddled out to it. When they got out to it, a rope ladder was lowered. They they were beckoned to go aboard, they were beckoned over by the crewmen's fingers, the crewmen's fingers. Then they went up there. They examined it; they had not seen anything like it. Actually it was a huge sail boat. When the crew took them inside the cabin, they saw- they saw themselves. Actually it was a huge mirror inside there, a huge mirror. They gave this name then, to the thing an image of people could be seen on. Then they were given food. Worms were cooked for them, worms. They stared at it. White sand also. White sand was put in front of them. Then they spooned this white sand into the rice. Actually it was sugar. What they thought were worms, was rice. This was what they had just been staring at. At what point was it one of them took a spoonful?

"Hey! Look! Go ahead! Taste it!"

"It might be good."

So the other took a spoonful. Just as he did, he said "This is good food, these worms, maggots, this is good food." After they were fed all kinds of food, then they were given alcohol alcohol perhaps it was brandy. Then they began to feel very strange. Never before…

"Why am I beginning to feel this way? Look! I'm beginning to feel strange!"

And "I'm beginning to feel happiness settling through my body too," they said.

After they had taken them through the whole ship, they took them to the railing. They gave them some things. Rice and sugar and pilot bread were given to them to take along. They were told how to cook them. Now I wonder what it was cooked on. You know, people didn't have pots then…. There was no cooking pot for it. When they got ashore they told everyone: "There are many people in there. Strange things are in there too. A box of our images, this looking glass, a box of our images; we could just see ourselves. Next they cooked maggots for us to eat." They told everything. After that, they all went out on their canoes. This was the very first time the white man came ashore, through Lituya Bay; Ltu.áa is called Lituya Bay in Alaska.

Well! This is all of my story.

This story appears in a book by Richard and Nora Dauenhauer, two people who have devoted their professional lives since the 1970s to recording Tlingit elders. Nora is herself Tlingit, an Eagle of the Lukaxaadi clan. Her husband Richard has a Ph.D. in comparative literature. Together they have published a number of books of Tlingit oral tradition.

George Betts recorded this story with Constance Naish and Gillian Story in the 1960s. Nora Dauenhauer later translated it into English. It is a story of the coming of the Europeans to Lituya Bay more like a story than history. He uses many details and includes dialogue, as passed down to him from his ancestors who in turn heard the story from their ancestors. Mr. Betts introduces the first impressions the Tlingits had of European objects such as mirrors, and food and drink, in a humorous way.

* Published in: Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors, Tlingit Oral Narratives, pages 302-309. Editors Nora and Richard Dauenhauer, copyright 1987 by Sealaska Heritage Foundation