Otter Tales: Stories of the Land Otter Man and Other Spirit Stories based on the Folklore of the Tlingit of Southeastern Alaska

The purpose of Otter Tales is to introduce the myths and legends, passed along from one generation to the next as a way of transmitting the core values and beliefs of the Tlingit culture. The Kushtaka is at once the nemesis of the Tlingit people as well as the source of wonder and inspiration, and these tales illuminate the relationship between use of allegory and the truth it reveals, which is especially intriguing here, as we are excavating a culture of the past.

There are several common scenarios in these tales, most of which describe a transition between the realm of humans and that of the Kushaka: and the change entailed by it: Here are several examples: man is taken by the land otters comes back and becomes a shaman. Upon death, he show more returns to the land of the land otters to heal or rescue someone. He is resurrected to the realm of the living, bringing special gifts. The thin border between realms—the human and animal realms, the dead and the living—is tested and stretched in many symbolic ways.

I feel indebted to Dennis Waller for bringing these tales, resurrecting them from an earlier publication by John R. Swanson, which I see as an act of passing them from one generation to the next.

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