"The Chinooks are among the most remarkable of the flat-headed Indians, and carry the process of cranial distortion to the greatest excess. They are in some respects a superior race, making slaves of other tribes, and evincing considerable skill in such arts as are required in their wild forest and coast life. Their chief war-implements are bows and arrows, the former made from the yew-tree, and the latter feathered and pointed with bone. Their canoes are hollowed out of the trunk of the cedar-tree, which attains to a great size in that region, and are frequently ornamented with much taste and skill. In such a canoe the dead Chinook chief is deposited, surrounded with all the requisites for war, or the favourite occupations of life: presenting a correspondence in his sepulchral rites to the ancient pagan viking, who, as appears alike from the contents of the Scandinavian _Skibssaetninger_ and from the narratives of the sagas, was interred or consumed in his war-galley, and the form of that favourite scene of ocean triumphs perpetuated in the earth-work that covered his ashes." {323} The Story of Blue Jay and Ioi The Chinooks tell many stories of Blue Jay, the tricky, mischievous totem-bird, and among these tales there are three which are concerned with his sister Ioi. Blue Jay, whose disposition resembled that of the bird he symbolized, delighted in tormenting Ioi by deliberately misinterpreting her commands, and by repeating at every opportunity his favourite phrase, "Ioi is always telling lies." In the first of the trilogy Ioi requested her brother to take a wife from among the dead, to help her with her work in house and field. To this Blue Jay readily assented, and he took for his spouse a chieftain's daughter who had been recently buried. But Ioi's request that his wife should be an old one he disregarded. "Take her to the Land of the Supernatural People," said Ioi, when she had seen her brother's bride, "and they will restore her to life." Blue Jay set out on his errand, and after a day's journey arrived with his wife at a town inhabited by the Supernatural Folk. "How long has she been dead?" they asked him, when he stated his purpose in visiting them. "A day," he replied. The Supernatural People shook their heads. "We cannot help you," said they. "You must travel to the town where people are restored who have been dead for a day." Blue Jay obediently resumed his journey, and at the end of another day he reached the town to which he had been directed, and told its inhabitants why he had come. "How long has she been dead?" they asked. {324} "Two days," said he. "Then we can do nothing," replied the Supernatural Folk, "for we can only restore people who have been dead one day. However, you can go to the town where those are brought to life who have been dead two days."