Corey Bulpitt Haida Swan Drum

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A chiefs son was out hunting birds when he heard geese calling.  He went to investigate and saw two beautiful women bathing in a lake.  On the shore two goose skins were hanging over a log.  They were supernatural geese in human form.  He sat on their skins to capture them.  When they asked for their skins back, he said he wanted to marry one of them.  He gave the other sister her skin.  She put it on while swimming into the lake.  She flew around above them then disappeared up through the sky.

The hunter wrapped his wife in a marten skin blanket and took her to his father’s house, hanging her goose skin in a cedar tree.  His father organized a marriage feast but the bride wouldn’t eat the food until the Chief’s wife gave her some silverweed which she was happy to consume.  She began quietly going out at night.  She’d put on her goose skin and fly to the lake to eat stalks of eelgrass.  Then she’d return to her bed but with cold skin. 

A famine developed and the people were starving. The wife’s father sent down food to her. A flock of geese made a lot of noise coming down behind town and the people discovered heaps of food there, including silverweed and clover roots.  But a woman made a remark criticizing the food which offended the hunters wife.  She put on her skin and flew up.  She flew around not really wanting to leave her husband but then flew and vanished through the sky.

The hunter set out on the trail to find his wife.  Aided by wisemen and supernatural beings he arrived at his wife’s house in the sky.  She was happy to see him and brought her into her father, the Chief’s house.  He stayed there and lived with them as her husband.  After a while he wanted to return to his home.  Raven flew him down but when he landed he was a seagull.