408 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS

dragged so that his head was thrust against her organs and his beak stuck
up her anus. She asked him what he was doing, and he replied:

“T cannot help it.”

In the same way he was carried to each of his other sisters and in each
case his beak was thrust far up her anus. Then the five were lifted and
bundled unceremoniously out of the house. As they hurried away,
Raven, looking back, saw that the goods which they had packed up had
returned to their original places.

RAVEN AND HIS SISTERS

Once upon a time Raven saw a large number of berries growing near
his house and determined to get a good supply.

“Get ready and we shall go berry-picking,”’ he said to his four Crow
sisters? Kakdmit?, Tewa-st, Wx, and A sgdntks.

The next morning they started off in Raven’s self-moving canoe,
Tobink?. Berries were plentiful, the Crow sisters were industrious, and
before long the craft was almost filled. There was ample for all, but
Raven, greedy as ever, began to scheme how he could defraud his sisters
of their share. The canoe was lying ina small inlet of the ocean, whence
they would have to pass close to one of the points on their way home.
Raven went to the end of this point and defecated. He had the power of
giving speech to anything, so told his excrement to call out as they
went by:

“Wina, wina djutxmé-nk.” “Raiders, raiders are coming.”

Raven returned before his sisters even noticed that he had been
absent. All day the pickers toiled, and when they set out for home at
dusk, the canoe was heavily loaded. As they were rounding the point,
they were startled by the warning cry, at which Raven pretended to be
terrified.

“There is great danger,” he called out. “You had better flee while I
will remain to guard the canoe.”

The four women fled up the mountain slope, leaving Raven alone in
the canoe. This was what he had wanted; he sat down comfortably,
gorging himself with the berries, and croaking happily. One of his sisters
heard this and wondered whether her brother might be deceiving them,
but she was afraid to return immediately to find out. When he had eaten
all that he could stuff into his stomach, Raven smeared himself with

crushed juice to resemble blood, and lay down motionless in the bottom.
se

"They were non-marriageable female relatives, not his own sisters.