Frog chieftainess (Tate’s account)

Overview

Asdilda, a prince at Dzi’gwa, destroys his valuable cormorant headdress in anger during a fishing trip. Later he kills a frog that has jumped onto the party’s cooked fish. A companion secretly removes its body. On the return journey, a beautiful young woman with a face blackened for mourning repeatedly asks to join their canoe. Whenever the prince approaches to embrace her, she vanishes and a frog leaps away.

When the men finally refuse her, she predicts that the prince and two companions will die at successive stages of the journey, while the steersman will survive only until he finishes telling what happened. All four predictions are fulfilled. The steersman’s account gives the community the details of the destroyed hat, killed frog and encounters before he too dies.

An elderly woman dreams of fire and helps protect Asdilda’s sister Omen underground. Fire descends upon the mountain and consumes the village. Afterwards Omen sees a chieftainess in a large green-painted spruce-root hat, carrying a cane with a living frog, a living person and a living eagle arranged upon it. The chieftainess explains that Asdilda burned her only child, and that she therefore burned the settlement. Her mourning song names the dead frog Dzila’°gans. The named child and the avenging mother are separate figures.

Omen survives, travels through further supernatural encounters, and eventually establishes a household near Metlakahtla. Her children reproduce the chieftainess’s cane among the crests associated with their mother’s experiences. The story concludes with descendants visiting Omen’s earlier homes and recovering property hidden before the fire. Thus the Frog Woman’s appearance matters both to the disaster and to the later account of inherited names, songs and crests. The surviving girl’s reception as a lost daughter returned in another village is not independently proof of literal resurrection.

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 40, The Story of Asdilda and Omen, complete narrative pp. 260–269 and closing printed songs p. 270; 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 40, The Story of Asdilda and Omen, complete narrative pp. 260–269 and closing printed songs p. 270; 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: Frog chieftainess (Tate’s account)Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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