Duration of Life
Tlingit (Wrangell)
Raven-at-the-head-of-nass tried to make human beings, at the same time, out of a rock and out of a leaf. But he created human beings out of the leaf first. Then Raven showed a leaf to people. He said, “You see this leaf. You are to be like it. When it falls off the branch and rots there is nothing left of it.”
That is why there is death in the world. If men had come from the hard rocks there would be no death. Years ago, when people were getting old, they would say, “It is unlucky that we did not come from the rock. We are made from leaves; therefore we must die.”