Bagus’s household (Tate’s account)

Overview

Towards the end of Tate’s Great Shaman narrative, Chief Bagus sends three messengers for Only One. The healer’s supernatural helper warns him that these escorts are dangerous animals and must not be allowed to make him lose consciousness. They take him overnight in a new-looking canoe, but his protection allows him to remain awake. The narrative leaves their particular animal species unnamed. At Bagus’s house he finds a sick prince attended by an old shaman.

Only One recognizes and removes an arrow lodged between the prince’s ribs, and the young man recovers. The earlier attendant explains that he was summoned in youth but has grown old there; part of his body has become stone, preventing his return home. Other shamans who failed to cure the prince have been thrown into a lake of blood and remain there. The chief’s invitation therefore offers both an opportunity for reward and the danger of permanent captivity.

Before Only One leaves, the recovered prince catches a child playing outside and gives it to him as an additional supernatural power. Only One places this helper in his long hair. The same three escorts take him home; when the canoe touches shore at sunrise, both it and the men become a driftwood log. He subsequently lives for many years before the cave powers of his original initiation take him into their own home.

Boas’s footnote at printed page 335 compares Bagus with the Kwakiutl being he spells BekIus, described there as taking away hunters. That is the editor’s cross-cultural identification, while the episode itself belongs to the Tsimshian texts recorded by Henry W. Tate. The profile keeps this distinction explicit rather than importing every trait of a separately recorded Bakwas tradition into Bagus’s household. Neither the old healer nor the child helper is assigned an invented personal name.

Origins & earliest records

Franz Boas, Tsimshian Mythology, based on texts recorded by Henry W. Tate, published in 1916 in the Bureau of American Ethnology’s thirty-first report for 1909–1910. Boas translated Tate’s free interlinear English renderings of his Tsimshian texts. The preface notes Tate’s editorial choices and some influence from published collections; the 1916 volume omits the original-language text.

Records & interpretation

Story 55, Great Shaman, complete pp. 331–336; preface pp. 31–32.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Tsimshian Mythology

   Henry W. Tate, recorder; Franz Boas, translator and editor · 1916

   Story 55, Great Shaman, complete pp. 331–336; preface pp. 31–32.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textBoas/Tate 1916: Great ShamanResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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