Note 61 — Raven Traveling

They all got then into the canoe. And it set off. It went. It went. It went. It went. They stopped in front of the Halibut people. Hu-hu-hu-hu-hu,61 they came down to the beach in crowds. “Raven is going to war,” they said one to another as they came down to meet him. And he asked them to go, too, as companions, and they went. They fixed themselves along the bottom of the canoe like skids62 and started. They went. They went. And before daylight they landed at the end of his (the enemy’s) town. Then his Halibut people lay [in two rows], with their heads outward, along the path which extended down from the house. Outside of them the birds also stood in lines. They hid themselves behind the halibut. After they had been there a while he came out wearing his dancing hat. When he came out one of the halibut flopped his tail at him. He fell down. The next one, too, wriggled his tail. So they continued to do until they brought him in.63 Then he asked them why they did this to him. And they said they did it because he blew too long. They then let him go. And they started back. This was Southeast-wind, they say. After they had gone along for a while they set down the halibut at their homes, and the birds also went away.