The Hoh River, called Chalak'At'sit, meaning "The Southern River," is central to Hoh tribal identity, folk-history, and traditional economic patterns. The Hoh people, who call themselves Chalat', or Those-Who-Live-on-the-Hoh, hold that they were created along the river. In mythic narratives called kixl', their ancestors were created by transformation at the Time of Beginnings by K'wati, the shape-shifting Changer who traveled the world making things as they are today. When K'wati came to the Hoh River, he found the inhabitants upside down, walking on their hands and using their smelt dip nets clumsily with their feet, leaving them famished and skinny. He turned them right-side up and taught them to use their hands for the nets, which is why Hoh elders sometimes refer to themselves as p'ip'isodat'sili, or "Upside down people." K'wati then told the ancestors to use their feet to walk and to go fish smelt, and ever since then there has been a bounty of smelt at Hoh. Hoh tradition also holds that K'wati created the Hoh River and the headlands along the beaches, Toleak Point and Hoh Head. After killing the chief of the wolves, K'wati fled from pursuing wolves with his carved comb and a container of oil. As the wolves nearly overtook him along the beach, he struck the ground with the comb and a cliff appeared, forcing the wolves to swim around it. When they closed in again, he spilled the oil and a river appeared, forcing them to swim across. Continuing in this way, K'wati made cliffs and rivers across the country and was never overtaken, and from that time there have been cliffs and rivers.