COYOTE WAS HAVING VERY bad luck hunting. He couldn’t catch anything. He was coming along through the woods next to the ocean when he saw a lot of people had gathered around a big whale that had beached on the sand. It was a good fat whale with plenty of meat. Coyote changed himself into a raven and flew over the people, saying “Gulage, aga dze el ban!”
The people stopped cutting away the meat and looked up at the raven. They became very worried. Coyote flew around staring down at them.
The next day a number of gamblers got together at one place in the village. Coyote was sitting in with them but they didn’t recognize him. He had changed himself. They thought he was a stranger from another tribe.
The gamblers began to talk about what the raven had said the day before. Coyote asked what it was the raven had said. One of the gamblers said, “He flew over the dead whale yesterday in a circle and said, ‘Gulage, aga dze el ban!’ He did this two or three times, then flew away to the east.”
“Oh, I see, I know what this means. Where I come from we are always talking to the ravens. He was saying ‘Maybe a disease will come to this village in a few days.’”
People were troubled when they heard this. The chief sent a crier out to tell all the people they were moving the village. They all got ready and the next morning they moved away.
After that, Coyote made his home in the chief’s lodge. He cut up the whale meat and fat and stored it in the other lodges. He filled up the four biggest ones. Coyote stayed around there for a long time eating whale meat and fat.