"Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay was born in the Haida village of Qquuna about 1827 and lived most of his adult life in the village of Ttanuu. He survived the epidemics that annihilated more than nine-tenths of the Haida population, and at the dawn of the twentieth century he was living in the mission village of Skidegate, revered for his knowledge of the myths." "In September 1900 a young American linguist named John Swanton came to the Haida country, determined to learn everything he could of Haida culture. Two weeks after he arrived he and Skaay were introduced, and in October and November 1900 Skaay dictated to John Swanton, in the classical Haida language, the contents of this book." "Being in Being includes all the surviving works of this master Haida storyteller: (1) The Qquuna Cycle, which at 5,500 lines is the longest extant work of Haida poetry and one of the great monuments of Native American literature; (2) Raven Travelling, the longest and most complex trickster story ever recorded on the Northwest Coast, and (3) The Qquuna Qiighawaay, which is the brief and poignant story of Skaay's maternal lineage."--BOOK JACKET.