Wealth Woman
The Wealth Woman, in older ethnographic literature called Property Woman, is a female counterpart to the Gonakadet among the wealth-bringing beings of the Tlingit. She haunts the forest and the beach carrying an infant, and the fortunate person who hears the baby's cry, glimpses her, or succeeds in laying hold of the child is destined to become rich. Swanton took down a Wrangell tale of the L!ê'naxî'daq in 1904, Frederica de Laguna recorded extensive beliefs about Property Woman at Yakutat, and Catharine McClellan devoted a study to Wealth Woman traditions among the neighboring Tagish and Inland Tlingit, where the good luck of the family of Skookum Jim, co-discoverer of Klondike gold, was traced to such an encounter. Under the modern spelling Tl'anaxéedáḵw, 'Wealth-Bringing Woman', she is registered as a crest of the L'eeneidí clan and appears on totem poles carrying her baby.
Domains
- wealth
- good fortune
Powers
- to destine for wealth those who hear her child's cry and manage to take hold of it
- to appear on the forest edge or shore as a portent of coming fortune
Sources
- Swanton, John R., Tlingit Myths and Texts, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 39 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909)
- de Laguna, Frederica, Under Mount Saint Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 7 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972)
- McClellan, Catharine, 'Wealth Woman and Frogs among the Tagish Indians', Anthropos 58, no. 1/2 (1963), pp. 121–128
- Sealaska Heritage Institute, Tlingit Clan Crest Registry (Juneau: Sealaska Heritage Institute, 2024)