serpent, but it was just bones. Xwechtáal then took one of the vertebrae of the serpent and acquired magical supernatural powers with it. On his journey back home, Xwechtáal encountered some mountain goats. He waved his serpent-bone one way and said magical words. As he did this, the mountain goats all fell dead. Cleaning and skinning what he needed, the fed himself and gathered the skins. He then took the bone and waved it the other way, reviving the dead mountain goats and bringing them back to life. Xwechtáal continued on his journey until he hit a village on the furthest part of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh territory. As he approached, the people came to see who the man was. The people watched as used his magical powers again, killing all the villagers. He then revived them like had done before, bringing them back to life. Seeing his magical powers and abilities, they welcomed him. The siyam or leader of the village then gave Xwechtáal his daughter as a wife. He continued on, encountering village after village, doing as he had done before and he was given a wife every time. Xwechtáal received wives from all the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh until he finally returned home to Stá7mes. Just as before, the village came forward and watched as he used his magical powers. This time was different. Xwechtáal had noticed that his first wife, from before he left on his journey, had remarried. He also realized he was not gone four days like he expected, but 10 years had passed. Instead of reviving the entire village, he left his ex-wife and her husband dead. The name was passed down to others through the generations, including Andy Paull. Before official contact: Time immemorial-1790 During the 1770s, smallpox (variola major) eradicated at least 30 percent of the indigenous population on the Northwest coast of North America, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh. This disease was one of the most deadly that hit the region over the next 80 to 100 years. During the 80-year period from the 1770s to 1850, smallpox, measles, influenza, and other diseases had killed many villages and communities. In oral histories that survived, describes the 1770s epidemic. An "aged informant" of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, in the 1890s, related the history of a catastrophic illness to ethnographer Charles Hill-Tout. He wrote: "[A] dreadful misfortune befell them. ... One salmon season the fish were found to be covered with running