23. Fisher's Wife; or Marten and Fisher.
(Lower Uta’mqt.)
(cont.)Fisher cut up the quiver and glued it on to Marten; but it was not quite sufficient to cover all his body a piece was left uncovered at his throat where the white spot of the marten is at the present day. This is said to be the reason why the marten has a white spot on its throat at the present day. If the skin of the quiver had been large enough to cover Marten, martens would now have no white spots on their throats.
Next day they waited until Woodpecker should arrive again. As soon as he appeared, they shot arrows at him, but were unable to hit him. They kept shooting at him without success until he reached the entrance of the underground house, where an arrow from Fisher killed it; but when they went to pull out the arrow, they found they had only shot some excrement.
Now the woman invited them inside, and they entered. She offered them some fat to eat, and handed it in a mat to them across the fire, at the same time asking them to take a firm hold of it. Fisher took it, and, as the woman pulled back, he let go, so she fell on her back, with her legs up in the air. Then Fisher jumped on top of her, and had sexual intercourse with her; but Marten threw earth at her privates, and called her nasty names. She agreed to become Fisher's wife and to go to their house next day.
As Fisher was going hunting next morning, he told Marten, when his wife came, to treat her kindly, give her good meat to eat, and a nice soft skin for a robe, and another for an apron or kilt. Instead of doing this, however, he gave her sinew to eat, and a badly-dressed skin of his own to make her clothes out of. When Fisher came home, he changed these for well-dressed soft skins of his own manufacture. He made her comfortable, and they lived happily together; while 'Marten did all the heavy work, and fetched all the wood and water.
Fisher said to him, "'My wife must on no account go to fetch water. When she wants water, you must fetch it for her." So Marten did as directed, and always fetched water; but he did not like his brother's wife much, and often mocked and made fun of her, and called her names when he whistled. One day he was whistling the words "red privates" in derision of the woman, when Fisher heard him, and asked him what he was saying. He answered, "I was just whistling, and saying that it was fine weather."
After some time the woman bore a son to Fisher, and the boy grew rapidly. One day Marten got lazy and would not fetch water, so the woman went for it herself. When she reached the watering-place, she put her child down beside the water-buckets, and, taking off her clothes, she went into the water to bathe. A large fish appeared swimming around, and then disappeared. It was the king or Tyhee salmon (kwoi'a), and he went ashore and changed himself into a man.
Then he addressed her from the shore, saying, "I have wished to see you for a long time, and have now come for you to become my wife." She was struck with his handsome appearance, and consented to go with him.
