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Overview

Moses’s account places olachen under a chief’s control in a house where people gamble. Txa’msEm obtains two fish by forcing a gull to vomit, then spreads their spawn inside his canoe and hides the tails. At the gambling house he pretends to be exhausted from an early fish run. The claim is challenged because the olachen should not come for six months, but young men inspect his canoe and accept the planted evidence.

The chief consults three named figures whose translated names refer to a canoe captain, fish storage and cooking grease. After their agreement he tells the people in the four corners to break the corners of the house. The fish leap into the water. Txa’msEm directs them upriver and receives a meal from people fishing there. His apparent triumph is followed by gulls eating the roasting fish and his retaliatory burning of their wing tips.

Philip’s separately printed alternative begins with a small herring rather than the two fish taken from the gull. Its roe supplies the false evidence. The gambling house is called Supernatural place or Tabued place, and its four corner attendants hold strings of olachen. Ordered to release them, they let the shoal go. Txa’msEm’s canoe fills without his using a rake. At Crab-apple place he smooths a stone to prevent the fish from disappearing; the gull episode then concludes this telling too.

The shared structure is a guarded abundance released through a deception, but the bait species, house mechanism and extra place episode differ. Boas identifies Moses with episode2 and Philip with alternative2a of the second Txa’msEm sequence. The chief and attendants are grouped as one narrative household; their names do not justify separate invented species or a universal fish deity.

Fish held within a houseFour corner attendantsFabricated early-season catchTwo attributed release mechanisms
01

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.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete second Txa’msEm English sequence, following pp.25–34, read including alternatives and final gull episode; main episode2 belongs to Moses, alternative2a to Philip. Introductory heading assigns remaining episodes separately.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Tsimshian Texts: Nass River Dialect

    Moses and Philip, tellers; Franz Boas, recorder and translator · 1902

    Second Txa’msEm sequence, episodes2 and2a, pp.27–34; explicit heading attribution 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

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