Legend of the Thunderbird #4

"Hoho Thunderbird", Charles B. Greul. Photo: University of BC. (www.rrncommunity.org/items/26393/print)

​“Thunderbird lives with the other spirits in heaven and works with them to control the affairs of men.  His thunder and lightning warn of the death of a member of his sign and Killerwhale called ‘Spouting-at-Mouth-of-River’ comes to take away a dead person.  He takes him aboard a small canoe, which then becomes a killer whale.  The dead one is told to spout, and if he does he goes to heaven with Thunderbird and Killerwhale.  If he does not, he is taken back to his grave and left there”.

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• ​Franz Boas, Kwakiutl Culture as Reflected in Mythology (1969)

​(As published in The Thunderbird Journal, Autumn 1983)