How the Seaward-sqoā′ładas obtained the names of their gambling sticks
Reading edition
[Told by Walter McGregor of the Sealion-town people]
Then he took the grease out of his bladder, and he greased his insides. Then he put his head into the blue one. After he had drunk for a while, he lost consciousness. When he came to himself he was standing in front of a big house with a two-headed house pole. And they told him to come in. At once he entered.
Then he went out at the same place where he had started in. Below the stump from which he had defecated lay a sea otter. He looked at the sea. The sea otter was drifting shoreward. Then he went down to it, took it, and dried it. And he went from there to Sealion-town.
When he had almost reached it, he came to some dogs fighting with each other for a gambling-stick bag which lay on the left side of the place where the broad, red trail came out. The dogs fought for the fat which was in it. And he looked into it. A small copper was in it. He took it, and he came home.
And he came to the ten canoes of the Tsimshian who had arrived. He went in to his mother and ate as usual. He also drank water.
Next day gambling began. He went out and staked the sea otter. They tried to get ahead of one another in playing for it. The Tsimshian wanted to gamble with him. Then one came to gamble with him. The Tsimshian handled the sticks first. And he did not take the one which smoked. After he had counted seven he took the one which smoked. He got the djîl.
Then his father’s potlatch was over. They gave the Tsimshian their canoes. Then he had the breast of his son tattooed. He had the figure of a cormorant put on him. He had its neck run through him. He had its wings laid on each side of his shoulders. He had its beak put on his breast. On his back he had its tail put. He was the only Raven who had the cormorant for a crest. No one had it that way afterward. The Tsimshian went home.
He had his father’s house pole made like Djū′tcꜝîtga’s. At that time he named the house “Two-headed-house.” The Seaward-Sqoā′ładas own the gambling-stick names.
All Haida families do not have distinctive family myths as is the case among the Kwakiutl and Bella Coola. Some, however, have stories telling how they obtained the right to certain names, crests, etc., and the following is one of that number. It explains the origin of the names employed by the Seaward-Sqoā′ładas, a Raven family of Skidegate inlet, for the sticks in their gambling sets, and at the same time how the Sealion-town people, an Eagle family, obtained the right to a certain style of house pole with two heads. One of the old Kaisun houses, Na-qā′dji-stîns, “Two-headed-house,” was named from a pole of this kind which stood in front of it.
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