Part 17

Sedit cut the sticks, did everything as Kele said, and lay by the fire, but he could not keep from looking up; the moment he looked all the sticks fell to the ground. Sedit put them in place again, lay by the fire, looked up. The sticks fell a second time; he put them up again, lay down, looked a third time. The sticks fell a third time. He was putting the sticks up till daylight, when he had to stop. Sedit went to Kele that day. "My sticks were falling all night," said he.

Kele knew what had happened already. "Why not do as I told you? I told you not to look up."

"I will not look any more," said Sedit.

Next night he put up sticks again and waited, took the blows till the last one of the second ten was giving him ten blows, then he sprang up and screamed. All the twenty sons dropped down and were sticks again. It was just daylight. Sedit gathered the sticks into a basket, and looked to see if the girls were awake. They were sticks as well as the others.

Sedit felt very sorry, could not tell what to do. He put the two sticks with the other twenty, took one at a time, held it up, and said, "This was my son, this was my daughter." He was sorry and wondered if he could make others. He went to Kele and said,--

"My brother, I could not stand it."

"What did I tell you?"

"Can I not make more?"

"Perhaps you cannot endure it." Kele did not want him to try.

"I am sorry for my girls," said Sedit, "I want them back; I was fond of them."

"You may try for sons, but those girls will not come back."

Sedit tried a third time. The beating was so hard that he almost screamed; but he held out this time, and had twenty sons. Sedit's house was full of sons, but he had no daughters; the sticks would not turn to girls again, though he did with them as he had the first time.

Sedit sent his sons to hunt. "Go wherever you like," said he. "On the west side is a ridge; go on that ridge, keep in one line, and when you turn some one may see you and think, 'What a crowd of nice boys!'"

Kele's boys were hunting that day, and saw Sedit's sons in a long line. "Look at that row of men on the ridge," said they. "Those are our cousins," said one of the smooth ten; "those are Sedit's sons."

Sedit's sons went to a flat, danced and played all the day, took yellow clay, made paste of it, painted themselves yellow--that is why coyotes are yellow to this day; the paint would not wash off. All went home in a line. Sedit had supper for them.

"Why do you come without deer?" asked Sedit.

"We danced on the flat and painted."

Sedit said nothing. All ate; then Sedit thought, "I wish you boys to sleep." All fell asleep. Sedit went to Kele, woke him up, and said,--

"My sons went to hunt, but came home without deer. What shall I do with them?"

"Let them hunt birds. Let them hunt gophers and grasshoppers in the meadows. Gophers are as good as deer."

"All right," said Sedit; and he went home and slept.

They brought grasshoppers and gophers from the hunt next day, and Sedit was satisfied.

"Let them live on that kind of food," thought he.

They told of their hunting that day. "We wanted water," said one of them, "and met an old woman. 'We are dry and cannot find water,' said we to her. 'I will give you water,' said the old woman; 'come with me.' We followed her a while. I was afraid and said to my brothers, 'Do not drink the water she gives.' One of my brothers shouted at the old woman and frightened her. She fell back and turned into a swamp with a spring in the middle of it. We didn't go near the spring, but were nearly lost in the swamp."

"That is a wicked old woman," said Sedit. "That is Tunhlucha Pokaila. She drowns people often. I met her once and she came near drowning me. Don't you go near her again. Hunt gophers and grasshoppers elsewhere."

"Now, my sons," said Sedit, some days later, "go and scatter around through this country. Whenever you want to see me come here to my sweat-house."

Sedit's sons scattered north, south, east, and west. They were at every ridge and point, in every valley and meadow, at every spring and river.

Kele's sons stayed at their great mountain sweat-house, doing the same things, living in the same way. The two sisters never married, and all Kele's people are in that mountain now. When they go out they look like wolves; but when inside, when at home in the mountain, they are people.

KOL TIBICHI

Kol Tibichi was born at Norpat Kodiheril on Wini Mem, just before daylight. When a small boy, he used to go out by himself. If he went to play with other boys sometimes, he would not stay with them. He went out of sight, disappeared, and was lost. Then his father or mother or others would find him in this place or that unexpectedly. Sometimes they found him at home, sometimes at a distance, far away in some gulch or on some mountain. It happened that his mother would look at his bed in the night-time and see him there sleeping. She would look again and find that he was gone. She would look a third time, and find him just as at first. In the day he would be seen in one place and be gone the next moment.

Once he was playing with children; they turned aside to see something, then looked at him. He was gone. After a while they saw him in the water under the salmon-house. Another time he disappeared.

"Where has he gone?" asked one boy.

"I cannot tell," answered another.

Soon they heard singing.

One asked, "Do you hear that?"

"Yes," said the other; "where is it?"

They listened and looked. Soon they saw Kol Tibichi sitting near the north bank of the river, under water.

"We must run and tell his father and mother."

Two of the boys ran to tell his father and mother. "We lost your son," said they. "He went away from us. We looked for him a long time and could not find him. Now we have found him; we have seen him sitting under water; we don't know what he is doing."

His mother hurried out; ran to the river.

"We think he must be dead," said people who had gathered there. "We think that some yapaitu [spirit] has killed him."

They soon saw that he was alive; he was moving. "Come, my son," called his mother, stretching her hands to him,--"come, my son; come out, come to me." But he stayed there, sitting under water.

A quarter of an hour later they saw that the boy had gone from the river. The people heard singing in some place between them and the village. They looked up and saw that the boy was half-way home and going from the river.

"That is your son," called they to the woman.

"Oh, no," said the woman; but she ran up and found that it was her son.

Another time the boy goes south with some children. These lose him, just as the others had. In half an hour they hear singing.

"Where is he?" ask some.

"On this side," says one.

"On that," says another.

South of the river is a great sugar-pine on a steep bank. They look, and high on a limb pointing northward they see him hanging, head downward, singing.

They run to his mother. "We see your son hanging by his feet from a tree."

The woman hurries to the river, runs in among the rocks and rubbish around the tree, reaches toward the boy, throws herself on the rocks, crying, "Oh, my child, you'll be killed!"

In a moment he is gone; there is no sign of him on the tree. Soon a shouting is heard at the house: "My wife, come up; don't cry, our son is here!"

She crawls out of the rocks and dirt, runs home, finds the boy safe with his father.

The people began now to talk of the wonderful boy. Soon every one was talking of him. There were many people in the place. Norpat Kodiheril was a very big village.

"Some yapaitu is going to take that boy's life," said they; "some yapaitu will kill him."

One morning the boy went down on the north side of the river with children, but apart from them, behind, by himself. He looked up, saw a great bird in the air flying above him. "Oh, if I had those wing feathers!" thought the boy. Then he blew upward and wished (olpuhlcha). That moment the great bird Komos Kulit fell down before him. Just after the bird fell he heard a voice in the sky, a voice high, very high up, crying,--

"Now, you little man, you must call yourself Kol Tibichi. You are to be the greatest Hlahi [doctor] on Wini Mem."

"Look at that boy!" cried the other boys. "See! he has something."

They were afraid when they saw the great bird, and the boy stretching the wings and handling the wonderful Komos Kulit. Some of them ran to his mother and said to her,--

"Your son has a very big bird. It fell down from the sky to him. We are afraid of that bird. We could not lift such a big bird."

Old people ran down; saw the boy handling Komos Kulit. "How did you get that bird?" asked they. "Did he fall to you?"

"Yes. I saw the shadow of a big bird on the ground. I looked up. It fell, and was here."

The old people talked,--talked much, talked a long time. There were many of them.

"We do not know what to do; we do not know what to think. We do not know why that bird fell," said some. "We ought not to talk about the bird, but we ought to think about this boy, find out what he is doing."

"Oh," said others, "he made that bird fall by blowing at it. That boy will be a great Hlahi."

The boy killed the bird with a yapaitu dokos (spirit flint); he wanted its wings.

The father and mother of the boy said: "Two wise men should pull out the longest wing feathers for the boy. He wants them; he wants them to keep."

"Let that be done," said the people; and they found two men to pull out the two longest wing feathers. The boy went to one side while they were pulling them, pretended not to see or care what they were doing; but the two men knew that he knew why he did so. When the two men had pulled out the feathers, the boy said to his father,--

"I like those feathers; save them for me; I want them."

His father took the feathers home and saved them.

Another time this boy was walking up Wini Mem--some time before he had been at a Hlahi dance, and had seen there beautiful collars of flicker-tail feathers, and remembered them. He walked forward and said to himself,--

"I wonder where that man found those feathers. I would like to have feathers like them."

"Pluck a bunch of grass with your mouth," said the yapaitu, "drop it into your hand, and look at it."

He did so, and flicker feathers were in his hands. He counted them, and found five hundred. "These are nice feathers; I will keep them," said the boy.

"Kol Tibichi is your name," said the yapaitu. "You will be the greatest Hlahi on Wini Mem, but you must obey us. You must listen to our words, you must do what we tell you."

Kol Tibichi took the flicker feathers and walked westward, walked across a wide gulch till he came to a black-oak tree above Norpat Kodiheril.

"I like that oak-tree," said Kol Tibichi. "I think that is a good place for my mother to get acorns." He blew then, and said: "You must be very big, wide, and high, give many acorns every fall. I will call your place Olpuhlchiton" (blowing upward place, _i. e._ wishing place).

He went home then, and gave the flicker-tail feathers to his mother. "Now, my mother," said he, "I wish you to keep these feathers for me."

"Where did you find them, my son?" asked she. "You are always doing something. You did not find these yourself; the yapaitu got them. I will keep them. I am sorry for you, but I cannot stop what you are doing. You cannot stop it yourself. But I will keep these feathers for you; I will keep them safely."

All the people talked much of Kol Tibichi now.

Once there was a doctor's dance, and the boy remained at home till one night when the yapaitu came to him and he began to hlaha. His father and mother did not know what the trouble was.

"Bring him here," said the oldest doctor.

"He is a Hlahi," said the doctors, when they saw him. "Sak hikai [the rainbow] is his yapaitu. You must give him to us till the yapaitu leaves him. While the yapaitu is with him, let him stay inside."

They were five or six days making Hlahis (doctors). The boy stayed in the sweat-house six days, never eating, never drinking; some others ate and drank, but Kol Tibichi neither ate nor drank.

"Something must be done to make that yapaitu leave him. You must put a band around Kol Tibichi's head," said the chief, "and the yapaitu will leave him."

They got a white wolf-tail headband. The yapaitu did not go. "This is not the right kind of a headband," said the doctor, after a while. They tried fox, wildcat, coyote, a white-deer band, without effect.

"We don't know what he wants," said some Hlahis.

Next they tried otter, fisher, coon, badger, black bear, grizzly bear, silver-gray fox, mink, beaver, rabbit, red-headed woodpecker.

"What does he want?" asked some.

"Now," said the old doctor, "you ought to know that this boy should have food and drink, and he cannot have them till the yapaitu goes. You should know that the headband that his yapaitu wants is a tsahai loiyas" (woman's front apron made of maple bark, painted red).

They brought this apron, made the headband, and tied it on his head.

"This is the one," said the yapaitu.

Kol Tibichi began to sing; the Hlahi danced a few minutes. The boy blew then, and the yapaitu left him. Kol Tibichi ate venison first and drank water, then took other kinds of food. From that time on Kol Tibichi was a Hlahi.

Soon after the great Hlahi dance, perhaps two weeks, Notisa, chief of Norpat Kodiheril, fell sick; he began to have a bad feeling at midday, and in the evening all his friends thought he would die. In the early night people in Norpat Kodi saw a light going to Kol Tibichi's house.

"People are coming; there must be some one sick in the village," said the boy's father and mother. "People are coming. See, there is a big light moving this way."

Two men came to the door. "Come in," said Kol Tibichi's father. "We thought some one was sick when we saw your light coming."

"We are here because Notisa is sick," said the men. "He got sick at noon."

The two men spread out a marten skin and said: "We brought this to show it to you and your son. We have heard that he is a powerful Hlahi. The chief gave us this skin to show you. We are afraid that Notisa will die. We want your son to go with us to see him."

They gave the skin to Kol Tibichi. It was the best skin in the chief's house.

"We will go," said Kol Tibichi's father. "I do not say that my son is a Hlahi, but he can do something."

They waked the boy, made him ready to go. "Come," said his mother; and she carried him to the chief's house.

"My mother, put me down," said Kol Tibichi, when they had come near the house.

"I do not like to put you down," said the mother.

"Put me down, put me down a moment," said the boy.

His mother put him down. Then he saw some one looking around Notisa's house, pushing about, looking, watching in the dark, lurking around, holding arrows. This was a yapaitu, ready to shoot Notisa and kill him.

Kol Tibichi called his own yapaitu, who went to the one who was watching and said: "What are you doing here? What do you want at this house?"

"I am doing nothing," answered the yapaitu.

"You are waiting to do something. You want to do harm."

"Oh, no; I am only looking around here, just trying to find the door. I wanted to see some one."

"You are ready to shoot a yapaitu dokos. You want to kill Notisa. You are watching around here to kill him."

"Oh, no, I am not. I am just looking around, not doing anything."

"You are ready to kill Notisa, the chief. You are waiting to kill him," said Kol Tibichi's yapaitu, who just took hold of the strange yapaitu, twisted him, killed him right there, and buried him.

Kol Tibichi's mother took her son into the chief's house. The boy knew what had been done. His yapaitu told him what he had done, and came in with him. The boy sat down near Notisa.

People thought the chief ready to die, thought that he might die any moment. "Let the boy put his hand on the sick man," said they.

"Put your hand on the chief," said the father. "You must do what you can. You must try, do your best to cure him."

Kol Tibichi spat on his hands, passed them over Notisa's breast and face. "I am sleepy, my mother, oh, I am so sleepy," said the boy, when he had passed his hands over the chief.

"He cannot do more to-night," said the father. "We will go home."

Next morning people in the sweat-house heard a man talking outside. He came in and said, "I am well!" This was Notisa.

"We are glad," said the people. "Kol Tibichi has saved you."

The boy grew up and became a great Hlahi. When twenty years old, he was the greatest Hlahi on Wini Mem.

One year there was a Hlahi dance in El Hakam. Kol Tibichi was a man. He was thirty years old then. He went to the dance. Tulitot was the great Hlahi in that place, and he thought himself better than Kol Tibichi. While dancing, Tulitot took a snake from his mouth, a large rattlesnake, and held it in both hands as he danced. The snake was his own child. Kol Tibichi looked, and thought he could do better; and, dancing forward, he blew, as Hlahis do, and threw out long burning flames on both sides of his mouth. All present were afraid, and with Tulitot ran back before him in fear.

When the dance was over, Kol Tibichi went to Norpat Kodi and lived on, a great Hlahi: lived till he was a hundred years of age and more. He could not walk any longer. He knew that he could not live. "I cannot live any more," said he. "My yapaitu tells me this,--I cannot walk. I cannot do anything. My yapaitu tells me that I must leave Norpat Kodiheril. [He was not sick, but decrepit.] My yapaitu is going to take me and leave my bones in this place with you. When I go from my body, do not bury it. Leave it on the ground out there. Let it lie one night. Next morning you will see a large rock in place of it. When people are sick, let them come and take a piece of the rock, or some earth, or some moss from it; that will cure them."

"We will not do that," said Notisa, a son of the first chief; "we bury every body, and we will bury yours like all others."

"Do not bury my bones," said Kol Tibichi.

"We should not like to see your bones all the time. We have no wish to see a rock in place of them."

"Well, take my body to the black-oak tree, put it eight or ten feet from the ground, leave it there one night; next morning you will see water in a hollow of the oak. Any man may come and get that water, rub it on his body, and drink some. It will cure him."

"No," said the chief, "we don't want to see the tree there every day. We do not wish to look at it all the time."

"Dig a deep grave, then," said Kol Tibichi; "put my body in with nothing around it. When you come to mourn, do not stand east of the grave-mound. On the morning after my burial you will see a rainbow coming out of the grave."

Kol Tibichi died. They did everything just as he told them. All saw the rainbow and said, "We ought to have left his body above ground, and to have done all that he asked of us at first. The yapaitu is mourning for him."

The rainbow stood there two days and two nights at the grave, then moved two feet eastward. Next morning it was four feet away, then eight, going farther day by day till it was at the salmon-house where Kol Tibichi used to go when a boy. It stood there by the salmon-house five days. Next it was on the north bank of the river, then on the hillside beyond, then on the hilltop, then on the mountain-slope, then on the mountain-top. Next all the people in Norpat Kodiheril heard a noise and knocking in the grave-mound one night, and early next morning they saw an immense bird rising out of Kol Tibichi's grave. First the head came, and then the body. At sunrise it came out altogether, and flew to the sugar-pine from which Kol Tibichi had hung head downward in childhood. It perched on the tree, stayed five minutes, and then flew away, flew to the mountain, to the rainbow, went into the rainbow. The bird and rainbow went away, disappeared together. The bird was Komus Kulit. The rainbow was Kol Tibichi's yapaitu.

THE WINNING OF HALAI AUNA AT THE HOUSE OF TUINA

This myth and all that follow it belong to the Yanas, a nation of Indians described in the notes. The nine preceding myths are of the Wintus, neighbors of the Yanas.

The languages of these two nations are radically different.

PERSONAGES

After each name is given that of the creature or thing into which the personage was changed subsequently.

=Chuhna=, spider; =Halai Auna=, morning star; =Igupa Topa=, ----; =Ochúl Márimi=, mountain lion; =Pul Miauna=, colored bow, the rainbow; =Pun Miaupa=, son of rainbow; =Tuina=, the sun; =Utjamhji=, mock sun; =Wakara=, the moon; =Wediko=, meteor; =Marimi= means woman.

* * * * *

Old Pul Miauna had a son, Pun Miaupa, a wife, and two daughters.

Pun Miaupa had a quarrel with his father and made up his mind to leave him. "I am going away," said he to his father and mother one day. "I am tired of living here."

The mother began to cry.

"Which way are you going?" asked the father.

Pun Miaupa gave no answer; wouldn't tell his father where he was going. The father stood up and walked out of the house. The mother stopped crying and said,--

"I want you to go straight to my brother, your uncle Igupa Topa. Tell him where you are going. Do not go without seeing him."

Pun Miaupa left his mother, went to his uncle's, stood on the roof of the sweat-house. The old man was very busy throwing out grass that day. A great many people had gambled at his house a day earlier; they had left much grass in it.

"Uncle, are you alive?" asked Pun Miaupa.

The old uncle looked up and saw his nephew, who said,--

"Uncle, I am full grown. I am going on a very long journey, I am going far away. My mother told me to come here and see you."

"Where are you going, my nephew?"

"To the north."

"I thought so," said the old man, who knew that his nephew would go to get Wakara's youngest daughter.

Wakara took all his daughter's suitors to Tuina's sweat-house, and they were killed there. Igupa Topa knew this and said, "Wait a little, nephew, I will go with you."

"Uncle," said Pun Miaupa, "you are too old. I don't want you to go; the journey would kill you. I want to travel very fast on this journey."

"I will go at my own pace, I will go as I like," said the uncle.

"Well, come with me if you can go fast."

Igupa Topa dressed, took a staff, and looked very old. "Go on, I am ready," said he.

Pun Miaupa started. He turned around to look at his uncle, and saw the old man; saw him fall while coming out of the sweat-house. Pun Miaupa stopped, held down his head, and thought, "He will not go, even as far as Wajami."

The uncle rose and followed on.

"You are too old, uncle; you cannot walk well. Stay at home; that is better for you."

"Go ahead," said the old man; "walk fast. I will come as I can."

Pun Miaupa went on; his uncle followed. Igupa Topa stumbled every few steps, fell, hurt himself, tore his skin. Pun Miaupa looked back very often. The uncle was always tumbling. "He must be bruised and broken from these falls," thought the nephew.

Pun Miaupa was on a hill beyond Chichipana. He sat down and smoked. His uncle came up while he was sitting there.

"Let me smoke; then I want to see you jump to that mountain over there," said the old man, pointing to it.

"I shall leave you behind if I do that."

"Leave me to myself," said the old man.

Pun Miaupa put on deerskin leggings and a beaded shirt,--a splendid dress. He went then with one spring to the top of the opposite mountain and looked back to see his uncle; but old Igupa Topa had jumped too. He was just passing Pun Miaupa and went far beyond him.

"I thought you were too old to jump," said Pun Miaupa, coming up to him.