SONGS 295

siathi iyuktemisandax | Tiaowtka’ lis Tixugusuméisandax
all, everywhere, know of | Tfaowika’lis(ee). They(#) crossed repeatedly

940 otdutcawétsudax
to Tcawat(gg).

(a) The first four parts of this song were recorded as song VII D 7a, National
Museum of Canada; singer, Jim Pollard. It is said to have been composed about
1870 for a chief whose son had been drowned. It was later used for a nephew
of Qowi, and will henceforth be employed only by members of that family.

(4) That is: Why has my son died?

(c) It was impossible to obtain translations of each subdivision.

(d) Referring to the dead son.

(e) That is: The supernatural being, the chief, has taken him. The reference
is to the deceased’s crest animal, a common rhetorical device in songs.

(f) An ancestor of the deceased and one of the first settlers of the world. He
came down to Rivers Inlet.

(g) Tiakwakila is said to have widened, or even to have made, the principal river
at Rivers Inlet.

(4) Trakwakila came in the form of a raven.

(#4) Referring to Qwinao.

(j) It was impossible to obtain translations of these two subdivisions. Qwinao,
now dead, will be irremovably connected with the scenes of his first ancestor.

(k) Meaning Raven.

(4) The mother of Qwinao who had died several years earlier.

(m) The theme now changes as if Qowi were addressing Qwinao.

(m) Referring to Qwinao.

(0) Refers to the supernatural beings who rouse the sun and moon and thus cause
their light to shine on earth. Mention is made of these in Qwinao’s origin myth.

(p) The theme changes again from direct address to Qwinao to a description of
what he will be doing owing to his ancestral history.

(g) That is: He will be in the form of one of the guardians of light when his life
descends, at a memorial potlatch, to Rivers Inlet.

(r) That is: That was what Wadks brought. Wadks, another of Qwinao’s
first ancestors, could not find a suitable place to settle in the beginning of time.
After fruitless wandering, a whale emerged, vomited violently, and was changed
to stone. The animal thus became Goose Island, and its vomit the rugged rocks
atoneend. Wadékts settled on that island.

(s) This song has three third parts.

(¢) That is: The first people, with their shaman-like power, had just appeared.

(u) Referring to ux-winaisa, another of Qwinao’s first ancestors, who also came to
earth at Rivers Inlet.

(2) At that time the routes between different settlements had not been dis-
covered.

(w) More specifically, the coarse, long breast feathers.

(x) ux-wenaisa used a supernatural canoe which frequently changed to eagle
feathers.

(y) Refers to Sea-lion Island where he and his descendants used to hunt.

(z) Refers to the Bella Bella; several of Qwinao’s relatives had married members
of that tribe.