Tuesday 6 August 2019

Hey, look; episodic memory!

Searching for the meditative flash
Finding episodic memory
Go figure

1.  The existence of the “meditative flash”

At the centre of all types of human spirituality lay the meditative flash.  Liturgies are about engaging a series of “lessons” toward a transcendent meditative experience; the meditative flash.  Now; to me, “meditative flash” is a natural term emerging from the nature of the experience but, if i google it i don’t get anything solid.  Clicking on “what does a white light during meditation mean?” does mention a flash of white light and that experts agree ... . … Phh, experts; lol!

I suspected a meditative experience like a flash and went in search.  I found out that the apostle Thomas was particularly good at compelling flashes in others.  I even met a modern day Thomas and had a flash of my own.  As interesting as all that was, it doesn’t help with the scientific articulation of the existence of the meditative flash nor its physiological instantiation; i mention only so that you know i know.

There are a couple of good reasons to suspect the existence of the flash: the brain operates by firing rates and displays a cyclic brain wave, gestalt psychology speaks of a harmonic basis for neuropsychological function, other organs like the heart and gut use migrating electrical complexes to control their function.

So; there’s reason to think of it and, thinking of it i found it: i won’t argue its existence, the question is closed.


2.  The physiology of the meditative flash

The thing about the meditative flash as i imagine it that makes it self-identifying is the global harmonic nature of the event; it includes some kind of hypothetical wave traveling through the entire cortical environment in some fashion but, our traditional understanding of neural function is not a wave type of functioning.  As we understand it, a neuron will receive inputs from other firing neurons until it’s stimulated enough to fire itself: this is not a wave type dynamic.

What i mean by "wave type dynamics": two waves traveling in opposite directions can pass through each other without changing, as long as they stay within certain stability limits.  There is no immediate candidate environment for this to happen in the brain: i had to look and, you can guess what happened...

Now; i found a paper, “Solitonic conduction of electrotonic signals in neuronal branchlets with polarized microstructure” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5451471/).  With that i leverage the work of Stuart Hameroff with respect to microtubules being central to conscious awareness.  I’m suggesting that dendritic neural branchlets along the surface of the cortex heavily populated with microtubules would compel a sub threshold signal into the extracellular environment, like a transmitter. … There is an environment there; between the surface of the cortex and the Pia Mater, the innermost layer of the Dura.  I’m suggesting that our conscious experience is in fact electrotonic flow in this quasi-two dimensional region: i call it the noospace, between the Pia Mater and the surface of the cortex, where the noosphere is born.  The meditative flash would be a global harmonization of this noospace dynamic sufficient to drive some actual neural firing; in the visual cortex this would present as a universal flash of white.


3.  Voilà, episodic memory

Dendritic spines must sniff the extracellular electrotonic weather and compel the numerous microtubule control proteins to increase the population of microtubules in regions where a particular ionic flow is peaking in some sense or, perhaps it can incorporate (literally!) electrotonic flow direction and magnitude via polarity and density of population.  This is analogous to a needle transducing the incident air pressure to squiggles on a wax cylinder a la Thomas Edison: hence, i give you the electrotonograph that is episodic memory (before i new it was "episodic" i erroneously called it "short term" and, i had localized phosphorylation of microtubules where localized microtubule population and polarity ought to be):



Smell is more driving function than visceral input.  From a controlled systems perspective, the driving function makes up the memory addressing system.  The illusion of personal identity is a result of "your" recollections; different driving function=>different recollections=>different perceived identity. ... It makes sense to understand longterm potentiation as an incorporation of "episodic memory dynamics" into the driving function; the dogmatization of recurrent observation.


Thanks for your time.

Thursday 11 July 2019



On the issue of consciousness

1.  Why the physiology of consciousness matters
2.  Not reinventing the wheel
3.  The binding, real and imagined
4.  The fullness of conscious experience


1.
There is no such thing as the supernatural.  There is nothing beyond the sight of Science but the richness of our own mental experience.  Two points: that’s only because Science isn’t one of us and; the richness of mental experience IS available to the scientist, which is close enough, to be sure.  I leverage the humanity of the scientist quite a bit.

So; no stone tablets, no virgin birth, no golden tablets; as a matter of fact.  This is very helpful to aid the discerning eye in distinguishing between good grounded spirituality and the manipulations of politics for power.  “Spelling” bespeaks a conflict between politics for power and the truth, a long time ago; fake noos, hehehe.

Where Nietzsche suggests a will to power, Frankl suggests a will to meaning: i’m very happy my wife suggested i read Frankl as i’ve been feeling this will to meaning for some time now.  Shove the power; you know where.

Walking with the Great Spirit; experiencing the Tao; “going to Heaven” in the sense of jewish meditation and Arjun’s journey in the Mahabharata; being visited by an angel; “blown out:” all are suggestive of a particular cognitive experience.  By understanding these meditative experiences physiologically new meaning is granted notions like truth and … meaning. Global harmonization of neural function in the cortex has been observed in buddhist monks and has significant implications on how one might interpret our spiritual record.  Descriptions of mental experiences are necessarily figurative; parables are all we have.

Descriptions of mental experiences are necessarily figurative; parables are all we have.  Claims to literal truth are lies, plain and simple; no offence to anyone, humans and dogmas just work this way.  Commentaries generally can be seen as one’s burning ego lighting in a most complimentary fashion the original articulations of those with something to say.

It seems to me that Jesus Barabbas had a meditative flash where he was actually the Truth (unique in the realm of recorded meditative flashes as far as i can see) and, according to predictions, a community will have a similar flash; not an individual, a community.  Sounds weird, i know but; it’s just the way it works out.  Update: thinking about it, all current (Sept. 15, 2020) things considered, it makes more sense if there is no literal Jesus, neither Christ nor Barabbas.  Judas had a flash: he's been made out the bad guy cuz he was *thee* guy; politics as it is.  His flash was typical: now things make sense.

Now, look; a description of the meditative flash as experiencing truth is, scientifically speaking, a possibility.  Describing it that way 2000 years ago should have brought cultures together.  The argument between Gnostic and Orthodox christianity was an argument between figurative and literal interpretations respectively and; the literalists won.  The liars won.  The fundamentalists won.  The dogmatists won.  1700 years ago the Truth suffered a temporary setback; fake news won the day, and most of the next.

Maybe we have a problem with “Islamic fundamentalism” because we’ve been living under christian fundamentalism for 1700 years?  Maybe we have a problem with misogyny and colonialism because we’ve been living under a misogynist, colonialist structure for so long it surrounds us completely and we can’t see it?  Like asking a fish; "how’s the water?"

Waiting for the “pop” as the two halves of the vacuum chamber separate. … … Maybe the halves are too big?  Maybe THIS is our structural problem?  There is ample opportunity for meaning.



2.
I’m a pipe fitter.  I tried postsecondary technical at N.A.I.T. after high school but, i couldn’t do it; no study ethic.  I want you to know; i’m no expert on any academic stuff: i did get two undergraduate degrees from the U of A, in electrical engineering and biological sciences; by making a job of it, 8 hours a day.  I’m not well versed in the precise language of cognitive science nor the depth of the computational theory behind neural function.  I see the brain as a feeling machine; a feeling generator (experience in the moment) and a feeling recorder (remembered experience).  Feelings are used to drive action: feelings about motive and things around motive and goal and such.  The brain is a feeling machine: feel it!  We spend a lot of time learning what and how to not feel.

To the point: the problems of consciousness; the hard problem, the easy problem, the binding problem and, their existence as actual or imagined; are dealt with to the nth degree by others.  For the purposes of this discussion it’s enough to understand that the solution to the binding problem has to explain why we have one coherent experience of daily life; the solution to the hard problem explains why we have any experience at all and; the solution to the easy problem is what the brain is doing, directed or incidental, to make the first two happen.

None of that speaks specifically to the meditative flash i mentioned; the one that allegedly grounds human spirituality.  I’m talking about a new wheel.  As i parse the domain of conscious functionally i find a number of new wheels: talking about new wheels is difficult.



3.
I’ve been thinking about consciousness for a long time.  I’ve come to a place of particular interest; between the Pia Mater, the innermost layer of the meninges, and the surface of the cortex… 

…and i realize i’m not on the trail of consciousness generally but, of the tentative binding in particular.  The idea is that the coexistence of ideas is instantiated by a coherent electrotonic flow dynamic between the Pia mater and the surface of the cortex, or an adequate simulation there of.  When i say “coherent electrotonic flow dynamic” i mean a way for charged ions to move around in a continuous (fluid rather than stilted (i looked up “stilted” and found “angular” amongst literary stuff and i thought “dogmatic” and that works perfectly!)) fashion in response to electrotonic fields and concentration gradients, as opposed to chaotic or random motion.  A central feature of the idea is that reasoning and meditation are the brain feeling out the situation toward a coherence of electrotonic flow dynamics; i.e. a good idea (the “eurika” moment).

I’m considering a place of particular interest because i’m looking at a particular cognitive event; a meditative flash.  If dogmatic assertions are abandoned and what’s left is coherent then, hypothetically, a global event can occur over the whole cortex and one’s experience becomes “other worldly”; coherent electrotonic flows persist in the absence of or in spite of grounded visceral inputs and constitute personal meditative experience of some sort.  I ended up looking at the space between Pia mater and cortex because coherent flow doesn’t happen in firing neurons.  The more i think of it, the more i see this space, or simulation there of, as a chosen product of evolution; this feeling machine.

It is important to note, and a subject of much discussion in recent years, that the organism is bound fundamentally by bodily integrity; the unity of the corpus.  Generally, one might switch consideration from one to the other, as though they were mutually exclusive: they are not; the constancy of the one provides a platform for the other.  The tentative cognitive binding i find myself considering is not a requirement of living; not even of thinking: to make sense (understanding) is something we might strive for if we have time; and it leads to invention.



4.
Daily conscious experience is rich with colour and form and the rest, the tentative binding has almost none of it; it must be that qualitative experience is additive.  Personal identity and multiple personality disorder can be understood from a “control systems” perspective if there is a “driving function” like the migrating myoelectric complex in the stomach and the similar migrating complex in the heart.  From the same perspective; the flash can be seen as a delta function or similar and, the meditative experience as a very complex transient ringing of the system.

The fundamental qualia driver, the solution to the hard problem, remains elusive but; if i’m right about the meditative flash being global electrotonic harmonization, we can say it is at least present in electrotonic flow dynamics.  It might be as simple as the tension, compression, and shear experienced by any particle.  Understanding the human animal as a low energy particle might provide the basis of the summing, the ontological binding.  You have one example of what it is like to be something: how to extrapolate that?  At least to all humans.

It’s interesting to note: the space between cortex and Pia mater through time ostensibly presents a quasi-three dimensional wave chamber; practically, two spatial dimensions plus time.  Call it the noospace; the home of the noosphere.

How consciousness grounds spirituality

1.  The ubiquity of the meditative flash
2.  Christianity; literal vs. figurative


1.
Science is awesome; it provides me all the answers i need.  I was going to be atheist; in 1987 i thought i should finally put on the atheist’s mantle but, it seemed entirely natural to first have a look.  I couldn’t proclaim myself an atheist without first looking and seeing nothing but manipulation in the spiritual record.  There is indeed much of that in some of it: a lot of it is entirely well-meaning.

The question that i had to answer was; is there anything in nature that could be any of these “spiritual items?”  It was surprising how quickly obvious errors arose, not in the record but in our understanding of it.  Also surprising was how easy it is to overcome these errors.  Consider the idea of ghosts; there is nothing in the spiritual record that claims there are ghosts yet, here we are with weekly shows on Science channel about the paranormal.  Curiously; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lent a lot of credibility to certain spiritual deceptions.  So it doesn’t take long to get to the point of realizing there is nothing supernatural going on: a soul is a living body; there are no disembodied souls, a soul is an animated body, it’s as simple as that.  Sir Arthur was duped, like so many other people.

And what of “going to heaven” or “being visited by an angel” or even “the virgin birth of Christ?”  Now, i’ve had a meditative flash; i can tell you it was very much like going to Arcadia, from the Greek experience; i heard a voice; i saw a character that became two characters; i was inside the Trojan horse; i was trodden on by the entire roman army after being buried under cobblestones: a solid week of visions and if i were from another time i would indeed testify to my presence in those places.  I am from this time and, the experience doesn't even rate as data;…“anicdata.”  The way i see it; the goal for the spiritualist, the spirituality in each of us, is to achieve that predicted collective flash with little idea what it might look like.



2.
What does appear unique is the Christ event; going somewhere, being visited by someone, or even experiencing something (the Tao) is always the way; except for the one time, as far as i can see, when the one experiencing the flash actually claimed to be the someone who is visiting rather than the one experiencing some sort of visit or journey.  Update: No longer unique in presentation.

There is precedent for virgin birth in the stories of the Greeks; Athena from the mind of Zeus, like victory from the mind of a General.  The canonical gospels never struck me as reliable history so i began to consider “the Christ event.”

I was lucky; early days of the internet saw much free information: I found a digital copy of a letter by Origen; i can’t find it on the web these days, only allusions to it.  In it, this early church “father” makes an argument for removing the first name “Jesus” from “Jesus Barabbas.”  I don’t know if you’re familiar but, to put the name “Jesus Barabbas” next to “Jesus Christ” in that context profoundly changes the meaning.  The way i read this bit; the Jews present were for the most part his disciples, at least two of the 12 were women, and the question to choose was between them meeting again in Hebrew meditation (Jesus Christ as collective Truth) or them saving Jesus Barabbas.  All of Christ’s “body part in place of body part” parables make a lot more sense if Jesus himself was missing those parts, like a thief in roman times that finally had to go straight for fear of loosing another of the things you have two of: Christ available to the lowest of the low.  Update: I got nothin.

Seems Judas was particularly good at motivating a flash; i don’t think he was hung.  There is the Gospel of Judas Didymous Thomas; “didymous” and “thomas” both mean “twin,” one in Greek and the other in Aramaic.  I’ll wager that the gospel of Thomas is actually the gospel of Judas and Judas was shanghaied to India where he started the Mar Thoma church.  You can see ground for the “twin” label in “the Acts of Thomas.”

The popularity of early christianity, given that there are no supernatural events, is something that has to be explained.  No literal virgin birth, no water to wine; how did it get so popular?  Part of it’s early success i think was due to the cosmopolitan nature of mediterranean culture at that time and the cultural ubiquity of the meditative flash,“experiencing the Tao”, “blown out”, “going to heaven”, “being visited by an angel” and i think the promethean gift of fire and walking with the Great Spirit, in a figurative sense all come together in the Truth of Christ.  This would explain a philosophical movement toward christianity but, i don’t think that is sufficient to make it so popular as to compel a fake flash like Constantine’s.  

There has to be a more pragmatic plus to early christianity if it’s early success is to make sense.  There is a statement from Christ in the Gospel of Thomas; “this heaven shall roll away and so shall the next; the two become one and the one becomes two.”  Now, i get the impression that spirituality at that time was generally a yogic exercise.  King Yuddhister at one point in the Mahabharata speaks of how “every leaf on the tree that protects you is respectful.”  Mohammed in a contemporary story ensures a young boy have a tree for shelter; same motif.  Even Odysseus and Penelope were anchored by a tree.  If we relate the figurative imagery to the human body, we get practical core strengthening exercises; i’ll wager much of the success of the original Christianity was due to a coupling of strong spiritual and physical truth.


How grounded spirituality informs political considerations

1.  What we call spirituality
2.  The politics of ~1700 yrs ago
3.  The politics of today


1.
What we in North America call “spirituality” is actually colonialism and misogyny; new age spirituality is popular because old age spirituality isn’t actually spirituality.  Fundamentally; grounded spirituality is about non-literal “things.”  An idea, a feeling, words, discussions, meditations; this is the realm of real spirituality.  Real spirituality is necessarily figurative; we can’t talk literally about an idea or a feeling; spiritual considerations are simply not available in a physical, literal space.  Orthodox Churches are politics, not spirituality.  The Catholic Church has the keys to the kingdom on their flag; do they use them?  No.  Will they let me use them?  No.  Will i use them anyhow: damn straight!

“Religion” is about being bound by the Word.  By your word?  By thee Word?  Looks like both; definitely a dichotomy.  I ask the reader to consider a public servant that has sworn an oath to serve a group of people before the citizens the public service is sworn to serve.  Can you imagine the inequity of such a structure?  Can you recognize that inequity around you?  Can you imagine a nation’s motive to eliminate such inequity?  Then you can imagine nascent communism.



2.
1700 years ago, what is now Turkey was wallowing in ~300 yrs of Roman subjugation.  Around 70 B.C.E., Mithridates the 6th was losing the Mithridatic wars.  When Saul had his flash; seems to me a good and grounded flash; the imagery available to him was mithraic so, there was opportunity for mithraists 300 yrs later to take control of the political dynamic and, they did by turning figurative stories into literal.  That was a big mistake.  So, Mohammed saw paganism.  Orthodox apologists point out that there is no virgin birth in mithraism; i don’t know there isn’t but, i don’t need there to be because the virgin birth thing is explicable from the Greek, as i’ve mentioned.  What i find interesting is bullfighting: Why did bullfighting become popular in Spain, the place where there was a frontier between Christianity and Islam?  There’s a story there for sure.

Mithraism was popular among roman soldiers, probably because the losing side in the mithridatic wars supplied a lot of mercenaries to the roman empire.  The popularization of christianity, by Constantine’s testifying to a fake flash (fake news), and the subsequent literalization of its founding documents provided an opportunity for military type all-male groups to gain more power.  The oppression of women and the glorification of war and fascist colonialism found their way into christianity here.

And i gotta say; as i studied the issue, i got the impression that “Baal” was “owner” and “mithras” was “lawyer.”  On top of which we have the Antikythera mechanism; if you haven’t heard of it, check it out.  So, functionally, we had an environment very similar to today; spiritually, nothing has changed.  To predict an eclipse while the plebeians remain ignorant is power; similar to free market capitalism and family money in the place of social democracy (or, as i call it, fair and guided market capitalism) today.



3.
Today, each church has its all-male group.  We have a problem with misogyny because these all-male structures lack articulated mechanisms to prevent it.  From the Mahabharata, we are warned against conspiracy; from Haida lore, we are warned against tyrant/cohort structure; and from the Bible we males are told to leave our father and mother and become one with our wife, not one with an all-male group.  If one takes up a spiritual notion of gender then what is generally understood as a directive against homosexuality can be understood as a recommendation against conspiracy, against a joining of agencies.

By self-serving secret oath, these groups make meaningful democracy impossible.  The Chinese saw the heinous actions of these groups and went communist and; they guard against the dynamics that make these groups strong: one political party and if you want in, no affiliations to other groups.  Power in Canada has switched through the round, from Orangeman to Knight of Columbus to Freemason, for the duration i’ll wager.


How Science informs Meaning

1.  Motion and thought; place, meaning and genre
2.  You and me and trust


1.
Rodolfo Llinás wrote an excellent book about the evolution of the brain: “I of the vortex: from neurons to self.”  The author makes a compelling argument suggesting that the brain evolved to guide one’s motion through the world toward a viable anchorage.  I personally find this helpful and grounding because, i’ve come to understand my world view as a “semantic landscape.”  Every idea must have a coherent “inside,” it must be internally consistent and; a coherent functional relationships with “surrounding” ideas.  Where it is is what it does and it has its local semantic landscape.  To suggest that the brain is essentially a cartographer would miss the point of its being; to find a comfortable place.  Yes; the brain is a cartographer but, it’s essentially a comfort finder.  Evolution built a feeling machine to act as a comfort finder.

It’s fine that an idea should mean what it does with the ideas around it, that it should be where it is but; for one to consider the internal consistency of an idea they must step inside it; let it take the whole of the noospace.  I consider this a genre shift; a changing of the map: apparently, i can do only one map at a time.  That this is actually the case seems likely to me: there are errors of logic that entail failing to change out the map entirely.  I met these errors years ago, referred to as “category mistakes.”



2.
So, meaning is place.  Who i am is where i am.  If i were in your place, i would be exactly you.  To say, “if i were in that position i would blah blah blah” makes no sense at all.

I trust you.  I know that if i were in your place i would do as you do; exactly as you do.  Maybe i know something that could inform your motive; maybe likewise.

Sunday 29 April 2012

Sharp Old Talons

 What follows is an excerpt from public domain texts scanned by Google.  I first read the story in

A Story As Sharp As a Knife:

The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World
Which i believe contains a more lively translation of the first telling that follows; it might have both of these, translated with a more modern understanding of the dialogue.

"It accomplishes nothing to ask the poem to come to us.  We must try to make the pilgrimage to the poem." -Robert Bringhurst

I've corrected what looked like obvious scanner errors & left the rest.  John Swanton is the guy who recorded the stories c. 1900.

[SWANTON] HAIDA TEXTS AND MYTH p.271



HOW SOMETHING PULLED A ROW OF EAGLES INTO THE WATER

[Told by the chief of Kloo, of ThoHe-boni-Ht-Skedanfi]

There lay the town of Skedans. The nephew of the town chief there sat around whittling. He came to have many boxes of arrows.  And one day he put shavings into the fire in front of his uncle's wife.  Then and there she propositioned him by flashing.

Then he looked on as they were gambling. His uncle also sat there. By and by a flicker came flying about. It showed red when it spread it’s wings.  Then he said “Just now I saw something in the house exactly like that," whereupon his uncle became ashamed.

Then his uncle had a block of cedar cut out, and they shaped it like a canoe.  Then they scraped off some pitch, put it into the cedar, warmed it, and made him sit on it. Then they went out with him to the open sea and put him in it. He was crying. He cried himself to sleep.

Night and day the wind blew from the ocean.  After he had floated for a time he floated ashore at Broken-shells-of-the-supernatural-beings.*  Then he put his back to the sunshine, and the heat melted him off.

Now he rose and came to a town. And at evening he peered into the houses.  After he had looked about for a while he looked into the chiefs house and [saw] a woman sitting between the screens which pointed toward each other.  She was pretty.  He looked in at her.

And, when they all were gone to bed, he went in to her.  And the woman asked him: "Who are you? My father keeps me for him alone whom his uncle had taken toward the open sea."  And he said to her: "I am he."  Then she let him lie with her.  While he was lying with her, her father overheard.

Next day her father said: “Come! let us see who was talking with my child."  Then he said: "I wonder what supernatural being got in that way.  I was keeping my daughter for him whom they said his uncle had carried toward the open sea."
-"It is he, father, he says."
-"Come down to the fire with your husband, child."  Then she went down with him, and his father-in-law gave him food.

And, after he had stayed with her for a while, he told his wife that he wanted to see his uncle's town.  Then his wife told her father.
And he told his son-in-law to bring him a box which was near the wall.  And, when he brought it over to him, he took four out of it in succession, and began pulling from the inmost the feather clothing of an eagle.  Then he gave him one among them in which fine black feathers were mixed with white.

Then he went outside, put it on (lit., went into it), and flew up to a high frame in front of the house.  He flew easily. Then he flew down.  Soon he looked down upon his uncle's town.  Then he sat at Skedans point.  He looked from where he sat at his uncle's town.

By and by some children came to him. And the children shot up at him with blunt arrows.  But every time they shot at him he sat lower down. In the inside of [the skin] he made himself small.  He changed himself many times in a way his father-in-law had given him directions.  For that purpose he had given him one all of fine feathers.

Presently the boys were forbidden to shoot, and the grown people began shooting at him. Every time they shot at him he came lower.  When a big crowd was about him, he seized one person by the top of his head {This is Jeff: I’m compelled to mention; in Bringhurst’s “A Story as Sharp as a Knife” this “top of his head” is likely translated as “overgrown topknot”, referring to long hair on the “town mother” or Chief, the protagonist’s uncle.}  And, when he flew up with him, some one else seized his feet.  When he also went up another seized his feet.  In the same way they all seized one another's feet until he flew up with the whole town. Then he flew seaward with them and let them fall there.  They became islands.  The town of Skedans became empty.  Then he flew up.

And all the time he was at this town they entered their feather clothing just before daybreak and sat in line upon a kind of pole, which was in front of the town.  After they had discussed the place they should go to they flew away.  In the evening they flew back.  They returned with all kinds of things.  They took whale tails, white porpoises, porpoises; and halibut, red cod, spring salmon — everything one can think of.

One time he told his wife he wanted to go out for food with them.  He wanted to go for the things they brought in.  Then his father-in-law again gave him a [skin].  He gave him one that belonged to a young person.  Then he put it on, flew seaward with them, and caught spring salmon.  His father-in-law was pleased with him.

And at daybreak his father-in-law warned him.  He told him not to touch a thing which stuck out of the water at Skedans point.  And one day, when he flew out with them, he looked at a whale, thought it easy, and seized it in his talons.  He did not feel it. At that time his father-in-law was still more pleased with him.

And when day broke he told him all the places upon this island where they get things.  Then he sat with them in front of the house, and even to the south end of the island the things under the waters, fish and sea mammals,* were plainly visible to him.

One day he flew downward and nearly touched the thing sticking out.  And, when he did the same thing again, he siezed it.  He flapped his wings to pull it up. It acted like a solid object and nearly carried him under the water. Another took hold of the end of his wing. He, too, was drawn under, and another seized his wing.  As soon as they saw him they flew toward him from the south end of the island and from the north end of the island. All flew about above him.  They also saw him from the town.  The first were drawn in.  They were nearly all pulled in one after the other, holding each other's wings, when the town people, too, came flying thither.  Those, too, were at once drawn in.

Then his father-in-law and his wife dressed themselves. And, when those also were almost drawn under, and his wife was nearly drawn under with them, his wife's grandmother also dressed herself.  She sharpened her claws which were dull. At the same time she said: '”Ha-i ha-i, what things happen by means of the claws of my child's husband, ha-i ha-i."  She was very old, they say.

By and by she flew out and seized her.  After she had flapped her wings for a while she saw one coming up.  As she saw another one come up something cracked at the bottom of the island.  Then she pulled them out.  The thing came up with them.  That was Greatest-clam (stAn),*^ they say.

Then the town was restored.  And he again began getting food for his father-in-law as formerly.  But Skedans continued to lie empty.
That is why the same thing keeps happening to it, they say.*

[Another version of this story, obtained by Prof. Franz Boas from Charlie Edenshaw, chief of the StA'stas, a prominent Masset family.]

At Laltg'iwas,^ near Skida'ns, lived a chief and his sister, who had a son. This young man loved the chief’s wife.  When the chief discovered this he became jealous and thought of killing his nephew.
He sent his slaves to fetch gum.  The slaves went and bought a canoe load of gum, which the chief boiled.  Then he covered the board which covers the bow of the canoe with the gum.  After this was done he sent his slaves to shoot eagles, and he spread the down over the gum so as to make it invisible.  After he had thus prepared his canoe he called his nephew.  His slaves went into his house to call him. He obeyed their summons, and went to his uncle's house, who requested him to go out to sea, hunting. The young man took his quiver, which contained two bows and many arrows. The young man asked his uncle: “What kind of a blanket shall I wear when I go hunting?”  Then the chief gave him two marten blankets.  He continued: “What kind of ear ornament shall I wear when I go hunting?” His uncle gave him ear ornaments made of caribou skin
(t^^'EniiCjal = caribou).

When the weather was clear and calm he started hunting seals (xot).
Before they started the chief said to his slaves: “When he harpoons a seal push him so that he will fall on the board in the bow of the canoe.  He will stick to it, and then throw him overboard.”  They went out to sea, and, when the young man was about to harpoon a seal, the slave pushed him so that he fell down on the board. He was unable to free himself because the gum was holding him. Then the slaves took the board, threw it overboard, and returned home. They said that the young man had fallen overboard and that they had been unable to save him.  Then all the people were sad.

The young man drifted about on the sea, and the wind drifted the board ashore near a town.  He crawled up toward the houses, but, when the sun was shining warmly, the gum softened, and he was able to free himself.  He dried his blankets in the warm sunshine.

Now he heard two women singing.  Their voices were very beautiful.  After a while they approached him.  They were very beautiful.  They addressed him, saying: “We know that your uncle is jealous of you, and therefore he ordered his slaves to throw you into the sea.  Accompany us to our father’s country.  It is not far from here.  We will look after you."  Then he accompanied them, and soon they arrived at a large town.  One of the girls was the chief's daughter, while the other one was her slave.  She was the daughter of the Eagle.

Now they entered the chiefs house.  He was offered a seat and was given to eat. The chief was glad to see him. The girls mother, whose name was G.otso'na, was very old.  She was quite bald. Early every morning the Eagles went out hunting whales.  When they returned they gave the whales to the old woman.  One day the youth desired to accompany the hunters.  He said to his wife: “Tell your father that I wish to see how he hunts whales.”  The young woman told her father, who replied: "Here is an eagle skin. Give it to your husband."  He put it on and flew out with the Eagles.  Before he started, the old woman warned him, saying: “Don't try to catch a clam.  Its head looks just like that of a sea otter.  A long time ago one of our hunters tried to catch it, and it drowned him.  For this reason we are afraid of it.”

They went out to sea and saw many whales.  The young man caught one.  He did not find it difficult to lift it.  The eagle skin which he had on was one the chief had used when he was a young man. For that reason it made him very strong.  In the evening they returned, and he gave his whale to the old woman.  He was so eager to go out again whaling that he was unable to sleep.  Early next morning he started and continued to catch whales.  Thus he continued to do for many years.  The old woman warned him frequently, saying: “Don't try to catch that small black animal whose head looks like that of a sea otter.”

One morning, when he started, he thought: “To-day I shall try to catch two whales, one in each hand." When he saw two whales he swooped down and took one in each talon.  He did not find them too heavy and carried them home. He gave them to the old woman.
When he found that he was strong enough to lift two whales, he thought he would be able to conquer the animal of which the old woman had warned him.  He started early in the morning, and, as soon as he saw the clam, he swooped down on it and succeeded in lifting it.  But soon he felt his strength leaving him, and he began to sink down lower and lower.  Now the clam had dragged him down to the surface of the water.
Then one of the Eagles came to his assistance.  He took hold of his wings and tried to pull him up, but in vain.  The clam pulled him down.  Another Eagle came to their help, but they were unable to overcome the clam.  All the whale hunters came to their assistance, but all of them were dragged down under the water.

Now only one of the Eagles was left.  He returned home and told the old woman what had happened. Then she said: “Ngai,ngai,ngai!" She sharpened her nails and put on her skin, which looked very old and ragged. Now she was an old Eagle, who had lost many feathers.  She flew out to sea, and sang: "Why did my son-in-law disobey me? Ngai, ngai, ngai!" When she came to the place where the clam had drowned the Eagles, she saw the wings of one Eagle only above the surface of the water.  She took hold of them and tried to lift them.  She was almost dragged under water; but gradually she began to rise.  She tried three times.  The fourth time she succeeded in raising the Eagle.  Again she sang: "Why did my son-in-law disobey me? Ngai, ngai, ngai!"
Then she heard a noise under water, “Ox!"  Then she lifted all the Eagles, and took them back home.

Now the young man resolved to take revenge on the people who had killed him.  He put on his eagle skin and flew to his uncle's village.  There he alight on the top of a tree.  When the people saw him they attempted to shoot him, because they were desirous of obtaining the Eagle's feathers for winging their arrows; but they were unable to hit him.  Now his uncle's son attempted to shoot him.  At once he swooped down, grasped him, and carried him upward.  One of the men of the village tried to hold the boy, but he also was lifted upward; and thus he raised all the men of the village. He carried them but to sea and dropped them into the water, where they were drowned.

The young man continued to live there for many years, but finally he became homesick.  He did not laugh and stayed at home all the time.  Then the old woman asked her daughter: “Why is your husband sad?”  His wife replied: “He wishes to return to his uncle's village."  Then the old woman gave him the skin of the bird t'En. [It has a red throat, and is eaten by the whites].* He put it on and flew back.  The village was entirely deserted, because he had killed all the people.  Only his two younger sisters remained, who had been hidden at the time of his former visit.  They were crying all the time.  When they saw the bird they made a noose of their own hair, and he allowed himself to be caught.

* See the story of Stone-ribs.

* So as not to be hurt by the arrows.
' See the story of Upward, note 35.

* The distinction shows that Haida zoology was fairly well advanced in at least one respect.

* Identified by Doctor Newcombe, of Victoria, as Tresus Xuttalli, Conv.
*That is, Skedans continues to be occupied and abandoned alternately.
' La^llglx.iwas, another name for Many-ledges.

*The western robin; see the story of Raven traveling, note 97.