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Overview
In Chief Mountain’s Grouses, a chief refuses all suitors for his daughter. A grouse alights on the roof and appears as a man wearing a fox blanket. The daughter agrees to leave with him for the Grouses’ town across the river. They have four children. When the river freezes, she sends the young birds to visit their grandfather, but people repeatedly drive them away with stones before finally allowing them into his house.
An elder suggests that these persistent visitors must be the missing daughter’s children. The human chief invites their parents and the entire bird community. Innumerable grouses cross the ice with the woman and crowd the house, perching on beams and posts as well as the floor. Some boys shake the posts and disturb them, yet the feast proceeds. The old chief asks his son-in-law to remain and help split wood. The birds answer in their own calls, and the daughter explains their intention to help.
The next day the birds fly out through the smoke-hole and return with fat that makes the hearth blaze. They also bring an enormous pole covered with fat. The chief distributes their gift among his people, who give presents and another feast in return. His daughter and her children then return with the birds to their own town. The ending preserves reciprocal kinship without dissolving the bird household into the human settlement.
Boas places this account among Chief Mountain’s English supplements and identifies it as a G’ispawaduwE’da legend. The human appearance of the suitor, speaking birds and extraordinary gift belong to the narrative. Its association with a living community does not classify that community as a supernatural species.
Origins & earliest records
Franz Boas, Tsimshian Texts, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 27 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902). Recorded at Kinkolith, at the Nass River’s mouth, in November–December 1894. Boas’s introduction, dated June 1899, names Philip, Moses, Chief Mountain and Moody as the collection’s narrators. The volume prints the language it calls Nîsqa’E alongside English translation; individual story headings identify their tellers.
Records & interpretation
Chief Mountain’s English supplement, The Grouses, pp.229–231, read in full. Introduction p.5 identifies the Nass River recording context; the supplement names this teller. Colonial-era transcription and English translation mediate the account.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
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Tsimshian Texts: Nass River Dialect
The Grouses, pp.229–231; Chief Mountain attribution and introduction p.5.
Family & connections
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References
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- Primary textBoas 1902 original Nass River collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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