A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
A chief on the northwest side of Xlen Island sends hunters to seek wives from the Robin and Sawbill Duck peoples. The mountain party reaches Robin’s village, where Mouse Woman identifies the household and advises that its chief may entrust his daughter to them if they promise good care. After public consultation, her father agrees. He gives her two small baskets of meat, fat and berries and invites a winter return for provisions. The daughter guides the travellers home across mountains, valleys and rivers.
Unpacked at her new home, the baskets provide enough food for a great wedding feast and gifts to visiting communities. The husband favours Robin Woman over his other wife. When winter scarcity arrives, Robin remembers her father’s invitation and travels with two canoe crews toward the Skeena. Standing in the bow, she sings; the river ice melts before them. Repeated songs open successive stretches of water. The narrative connects this episode with the robin’s spring song and seasonal thaw.
Her father’s house contains snow and ice on one side and a flowering, berry-covered hill on the other, with birds moving among the blossoms. A salmon-filled river lies behind it. Chief Robin sings from his roof to summon his people, who fly out and gather abundant food. They load the canoes with provisions, and his daughter again sings a passage through the ice. The chief at Xlen shares the fresh foods with neighbouring communities during their famine.
The concluding episode follows Sawbill-Duck Woman’s separate attempt to provide equally rich gifts. Her husband mistakes a visible pile of mussels for her entire contribution and destroys the laden canoes; the lost cargo becomes shore rocks. Robin Woman is not said to order this mistreatment. Her powers concern spring song, passage and access to her bird community’s provisions; her father’s seasonal house is not an invented universal kingdom of all seasons.
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 24, The Chief who Married the Robin and the Sawbill Duck, complete pp. 179–185; preface pp. 31–32.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Tsimshian Mythology
Story 24, The Chief who Married the Robin and the Sawbill Duck, complete pp. 179–185; preface pp. 31–32.
- 02
Tsimshian Mythology — 24. The Chief who Married the Robin and the Sawbill Duck
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1916; Thirty-first Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1909–1910. Complete selected narrative 24, pp.179–185. Preface pp.31–32 recording and translation provenance previously read.
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.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Tsimshian Mythology — 24. The Chief who Married the Robin and the Sawbill Duck
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1916; Thirty-first Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1909–1910. Complete selected narrative 24, pp.179–185. Preface pp.31–32 recording and translation provenance previously read.
- The chief chooses two bird women as wives and favours Robin Woman. Her father sends abundant food in two small baskets. During winter scarcity she leads her husband’s people upstream, where her singing clears river ice. Her father’s house contains winter on one side and summer on the other; his people gather provisions for the journey home. This account presents seasonal powers and a specifically narrated household, rather than biological observations about ordinary robins.
24. The Chief who Married the Robin and the Sawbill Duck, complete pp.179–185
No whole-volume claim, independent original-language translation or additional named individual teller. The editor’s comparative note is not an independently inspected Kwakiutl witness; no ritual or song text reproduced.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textBoas/Tate 1916: Robin Woman (Tate’s account)Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.