Legends of the Thunderbird #5

"Thunderbird Totem", Henry Hunt, 1969. Photo: Pegasus Gallery (www.pegasusgallery.ca/artist/Henry_Hunt.html)

​“There once was a woman named Gauo who had four grandsons.  Each of these grandsons began one of the four great Tsimshian tribes that we know today and men have wondered why they should have done so and where they received their crests of the Thunderbird as Thunderbird-World-Shaker, Thunderbird-Whale-Killer, Thunderbird-at-End-of-World and Thunderbird-Spirit-Corner.  This came to pass when Gauo’s father could find no husband for her and he call all men and leaders of the animals about him.  One by one he asked the men to marry his daughter but they would not.  Then he went to more and more powerful animals, each of whom told him what they could do, but would not marry his daughter.  Finally, a stroke of lightning came down from heaven and Thunderbird appeared in the guise of the handsomest and strongest of men and he took Gauo with him to heaven and they had many children.  But Gauo wished her kind to return to earth so she besought Thunderbird who permitted four grand-sons to return and these are the forebears of the Tsimshian today”.

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• Old Tsimshian Legend
  

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