Mosquito Legend

""Goo-Teekhl"" (Haida), The Mosquito Legend Pole. The Village Watchman sits at the top of this pole. The next figrure is Gooteekhl, who is associated with the creature from which mosquitos came from. Directly below is a bear. The bottom figure is a devilfish or octopus, recognized by the suction cup eyebrows. This is a reproduction recarved in the 1938-41 CCC Project. The following interpretation is based on a Tlingit legend. An unusual child was born to a chief's daughter, the child had a sharp arrow point on his head. One day, the mother angered him and he killed her by driving the arrow points into her breasts. He then fled into the woods where he continued to kill other villagers out hunting or collecting wood. One of the village men, the boy's uncle, set a trap for him and succeeded in wounding him with a poison arrow. The boy pleaded but his uncle killed him anyway due to the lives he had taken. The boy's body was burned, leaving only ashes, which were then blown about by the wind. These ashes becam the mosquitoes that still torment people to this day. (Recorded by J.R. Swanton at Wrangell AK, 1909).