Tlingit

LONG ago, when we were first born, people hated us. Then the Sky People brought war upon us. They destroyed us completely. One woman saved herself; she hid in a hole which she dug under a log.

Afterward various people came to her. “I wonder who can tell me about things,” she said. Grizzly Bear came near her.

“What can you do?” she asked.

“Whenever I catch a man, I slap my paws down upon him.”

The woman said, “That is nothing.”

Some one in the sun spoke to her. “How am I?” said a voice.

“What can you do?”

“My father in the sun peeps out through the clouds—the mottled clouds.”

So the woman married the child of the sun. He lowered down from the sky a great fort to protect the woman and her children. When the enemy saw that, they came back. The father said, “When the enemy get too strong, put your minds on me.” So when the enemy became too strong, the woman and her children put their minds on Grandfather Sun. He peeped out through the clouds upon the enemy. It quickly became smoking hot. The sea water out there boiled. The enemy ran down quickly into the water and were all destroyed. Then the water stopped boiling. The grandchildren of Sun stayed inside their fort.