STORIES 509

A MURDERER AND HIS PUNISHMENT

For many generations, the name Sekakmdn-a has been transmitted
among the Chilkotin. It seems to embody an inheritable tendency to
lawlessness and killing, for almost all who have been so designated have
been murderers. About 1860 or 1870, a certain Sekakmdn-a married a
Bella Coola woman, which brought his activities to the attention of her
relatives. He used to do considerable trading at the Hudson’s Bay
Company’s post, although his manner of obtaining furs was extremely
pernicious. He had a wide knowledge of the interior and of the routes
by which hunters were likely to bring pelts to Bella Coola. If he could
learn that a stranger was likely to be travelling along a trail, it was
Sekakmdn-a’s custom to set out, unarmed, to meet him. He would ex-
plain to the hunter that he had come to buy furs and the latter would
always make him welcome. The price was argued in a friendly manner
and the two would prepare to camp together for the night. Then
Sckakmén-a would say:

“Perhaps you do not know what a dangerous place Bella Coola is?
Even now [am running away. I do not think I will be pursued, though
I wish I had a musket to lay beside me as I sleep.”

An unsuspicious hunter would usually offer to lend his to Sekakmdn-a
who, protesting his gratitude, would load it and go to sleep with it beside
him. Early in the morning he would rise, shoot his sleeping companion,
steal his furs and sell them at the trading post. Sometimes he would
murder two or even three hunters on a single trip; thus in course of time
he had amassed great riches, but had also made enemies over a wide area.
Whenever it became too dangerous for him in the interior he would re-
treat to Bella Coola and live with his wife’s relatives. People sometimes
asked him why he continued his nefarious work, but he always answered
that it was involuntary, his parents having smeared him with ashes from
a wasp’s nest when an infant.

On one occasion, Sekakmén-a set out for Salmon House, on the Dean
River, where there was always an encampment of Carriers. He travelled
up the valley of the Necleetsconnay and had just reached the open lands
above the timber-line when he met two Carriers, bound for Bella Coola
with furs. At once he began scheming to kill them and steal the pelts.
Sekakmén-a greeted the two by saying:

with the details, though the old man from whom the account was obtained dis-
cussed it with his wife and with several of his friends who were confident that it
was related in the same form as it had been told to them by a Bella Bella many
years before. Since it is not the type of theme to be invented as a story, it must
be left as an unexplained incident, half-buried in the mists of tradition.