{"collection":"Native American","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/nam/nw/tmt/tmt027.htm","path":"nam/nw/tmt/tmt027.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/nam/nw/tmt/tmt027.htm","text":"One time, when they were afraid of being attacked, all of the K\u00eeksA'd\u00ee and K\u00e2'gwAnt\u00e2n encamped on KAnAsq!\u00ea' (St. Lazaria island). There are two parts to this island separated at high tide, and the K\u00eeksA'd\u00ee encamped upon one, while the K\u00e2'gwAnt\u00e2n lived upon the other. On the same island there is also a small salt water pond at the bottom of which was a creature called L!\u00een, and, being pressed for food on account of their fear of the enemy, the allies often tried to bail out this pond when the tide left it, to get at the sea animal.\nWhile the people were there, a chief of the K\u00e2'gwAnt\u00e2n died, and, after he had been in the house among his friends for eight days, one of his friends said to the K\u00eeksA'd\u00ee, \"Take care of his dead body.\" All the\nK\u00e2'gwAnt\u00e2n chiefs marry K\u00eekca' (K\u00eeksA'd\u00ee women). But the real frog tribe thought they were the ones who were summoned, because they are also K\u00eekca'.\nThen all the K\u00eeksA'd\u00ee made ready to go ashore to burn his dead body. They chopped much wood and made a fire, while all of the K\u00eeksA'd\u00ee and K\u00e2'gwAnt\u00e2n stood around it, and everyone felt badly. All at once a big frog, as long as the hand and wrist, jumped out from the place where the fire was and began making a noise. All looked at it. It had come out because the frogs were the ones to whom the K\u00e2'gwAnt\u00e2n had spoken. After that it jumped into the fire and burned up.\nThen all the people tied themselves up (gA'xAn\u00ee) (i. e., tied their blankets around their waists, as they did when they were engaged in lifting the sun a) out of respect to the chief. All felt very badly about the dead man, and one person said, \"It will not be like draining out the L!\u00een lake (L!\u00een \u00e2'ya). Let us go to war.\" So they captured slaves and killed them for the dead man, and, when they put food into the fire for him, they also named the frog that it might receive some as well.\n55:a See Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 430.","title":"Tlingit Myths and Texts: Myths Recorded in English at Sitka: 23. How the Frogs Honored the Dead","type":"page"}