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Saxman Native Totem Park
Ketchikan


Frog Borders
Frog Borders

Please note the logs with all the frog heads peering out. These frogs illustrate one of our Tlingit Legends, "The Princess and the Frog Clan People". They tell of a Tlngit Chief's daughter who was very vain about her beauty. One day she saw some frogs and made fun of them. They were not ordinary frogs; they were spirit-frogs. That night, the son of the Frog Clan Chief changed into his human form and asked the Tlingit woman to marry him. Taken by his manner, she agreed. He took her back to live with his people under the lake. To her it looked like an ordinary village. She had many children with her husband and her family mourned her as they thought she was dead.

One day, many years later, her brother was bathing in a creek and threw water over some frogs he saw. When the water hit the frogs, the man saw his long-lost sister sitting among them. He ran to tell his village and they brought many gifts to the Frog Clan people but the princess did not want to return. The Tlingits decided to drain the lake so that the frogs would die and the princess would be forced to return. The frog heads in the logs represent the frogs peeking out as the waters of the lake recede. To save the Frog Clan people, the princess returned to her village but she remained a frog on the inside and died.

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