A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Chief Mountain’s continuation of Rotten-feathers places Chieftainess Knife-hand across a canyon, beyond a bridge said to collapse beneath travelers. Great-goose warns the arriving hero that the chieftainess has a beautiful daughter and cuts off the heads of her suitors with her hands. Rotten-feathers nevertheless crosses safely, trusting the feather he carries. Knife-hand laughs at his arrival and directs her daughter to prepare a bed.

That night the hero changes the arrangement of their hair after the daughter falls asleep. He lets his own hair resemble a woman’s and ties hers into the topknot that previously identified him. Knife-hand comes in the dark and feels the sleepers’ heads. Mistaking her daughter for the visitor, she kills her. The hero restores his own topknot, takes the dead woman’s labret and escapes across the river by means of his feather. The narration gives him the new name Labret at this point.

The following morning Knife-hand crosses the river lamenting her child. She addresses Great-goose as sister and asks how the latter’s child became so powerful. Great-goose replies with an explanation involving clear heavens at birth. This exchange is preserved as the story gives it; it does not establish a complete literal family tree for all the figures.

This hostile mother must be distinguished from Little-knife, the girl who cuts the sky’s feather to rescue her brothers earlier in the volume. Their shared cutting imagery does not make them one character. Boas explicitly credits Chief Mountain with the continuation on pages 234–235. The earlier Rotten-feathers section, pages 94–101, has no individual teller heading, and its family details should not silently acquire that later attribution.

Hands decapitate suitorsNighttime identification by touchFatal reversal through exchanged hairstylesDistinct from the helpful knife-girl
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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.

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Records & interpretation

Complete English Rotten-feathers continuation, pp.234–235, explicitly attributed to Chief Mountain; the earlier section pp.94–101 and collection introduction p.5 also read. No individual teller heading appears at p.94.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Tsimshian Texts: Nass River Dialect

    Chief Mountain, teller of continuation; Franz Boas, recorder and translator · 1902

    Rotten-feathers continuation, complete pp.234–235; earlier text pp.94–101 and introduction p.5.

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 1902 original Nass River collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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