Tsauda and Halus (Tate’s account)

Overview

Tsauda descends through a smoke hole in a shining garment and asks a princess at Metlakahtla to marry him. He sends his enslaved messenger Halus to complete the arrangement, but she mistakes Halus for the original visitor. Halus accepts the position of bridegroom and describes his master as his own servant. When Tsauda discovers the deception, he predicts Halus’s failure and chooses the princess’s younger sister, whose difficulty walking has made others disparage her.

Tsauda carries his wife under a shining wing to his father’s heavenly home. There the father washes her four times and she becomes radiant; he also gives Tsauda a sling and four stones. Back among the human family, Tsauda repeatedly sabotages Halus’s attempts to help, causing smoky firewood and misdirected sling-stones. His own stone opens a passage through coastal rock, allowing the fleet to travel onwards. Another knocks loose a mountain copper, whose division the narrative connects with copper in Alaska and Skeena headwaters.

During fishing, Tsauda causes Halus’s net to gather mud and debris while his own fills with fish. Humiliated and refused help, Halus enters the water and catches Tsauda’s net from below. Tsauda’s further curse makes him a red cod. Halus’s wife becomes a blue-side cod; recognising her in his catch, Tsauda releases her. Their mother mourns but fears protesting. The narrative’s transformations and account of fish posture are not modern zoological explanations, and Tsauda’s material success does not erase his cruelty towards his rival.

Tsauda subsequently gives two daughters to his wife’s parents. He identifies the first as the return of their lost elder daughter; the second is named Moon and grows to adulthood during the flight to her grandparents. Later episodes follow the girls’ husbands. One obtains a remarkable fragrant tree; the other dies after obtaining living copper. Tsauda returns to the grieving Moon in a shining appearance at a white-pine tree and restores her husband to life.

The final movement establishes privileged transmission of copper-working knowledge to Moon’s household and descendants. Her husband prospers and ultimately receives the name Around The Heavens. The earlier statement that Tsauda never returned is followed within the same text by his restorative visit; this narrative sequence is preserved without discarding the ending. The source calls this a Wolf-family story. Tsauda’s brightness and flight do not by themselves identify him as the Sun or as the unnamed Sun’s son in another tale.

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 51, Tsauda and Halus, complete pp. 297–306; 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 51, Tsauda and Halus, complete pp. 297–306; preface pp. 31–32.

Family & connections

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textBoas/Tate 1916: Tsauda and HalusResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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