CULTURAL EXCHANGE- Native Account of the Meeting Between La Prouse and the Tlingit* Click here to close window.

As published in Under Mt. St. Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit, Part One, page 259, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Volume 7 [In Three Parts]. Frederica de Laguna. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972 [The following account, obtained by Emmons from "Cowee," the main chief of the Awk people at "Sintaka"hini on Gastineaux Channel, was published in 1911. The summary is given here and the names are transcribed according to the orthography used in Emmons' monograph.] Before the White man came, the people of Chilkat and Hoonah used to go to Yakutat to get copper from the Tlaxayik people. One spring a large party of Tiuknaxadi went from the big village at Kaxnuwu [Grouse Fort] in Icy Straits, under three chiefs: Cadasiktc, Lkettitc, and Yenucatik. Four canoes were lost at the entrance to Lituya Bay, and the first chief was drowned. [is this the episode which was supposed to have led to the abandonment of Gusex?] While the survivors were still mourning, two ships entered the bay. The Indians thought they were two great birds with white wings, perhaps Raven himself, and fled to the woods. After a time they came back to the shore and looked through tubes of rolled up skunk cabbage leaves, like telescopes, for if they looked directly at Raven they might turn to stone. When the sails were made fast, they thought the birds folded their wings and they imagined they saw a flock of crows fly up from the ships, so they ran back into the woods again. One family of warriors dressed in armor and helmets, and took their copper knives, bows and arrows, and launched a canoe. They were so frightened when thunder and smoke came from the ship that their canoe overturned and they scrambled ashore. Then a nearly blind old man said his life was behind him, and that he would see if Raven really turned men to stone. He dressed in sea-otter furs, and induced two of his slaves to paddle him to the ship. When he got on board, his eyesight was so poor that he mistook the sailors for crows, and threw away the rice that was offered him, thinking it was worms. He traded his fur coat for a tin pan and returned to shore laden with gifts of food. The people were surprised to see him alive, smelled him to make sure of his identity [that he had not been transformed into a Land Otter Man?], and refused to eat the food he had brought. The old man finally decided that it must be ships and people, so the Indians visited the ships and traded their furs. Then the White men lost two boats at the mouth of the inlet and many were drowned. George Emmons reports the same story as do Charlie and Jenny White and George R. Betts, but with a few differences. Note that he spells the clan name "Tiuknaxadi", because he could not spell L'uknax.ádi correctly. The Tlingit language has many sounds that are not made in English, which makes spelling very difficult for an English speaker.

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