Part 12
He felt badly about his children, he blamed himself. He said: “Somebody must have given me the thought to make those arrows; I did wrong.”
Now Wus and Nátcaktcókaskĭt and their five youngest children traveled north toward the end of the world. When they came to a large river Wus saw little fish in the water. “I am hungry,” said he. “I don’t want little fish; I want salmon.” That moment the river was full of salmon. He caught a good many and took their heads off. Then he said to his wife: “Cook these fish a long time, for if we eat them raw, we shall get sick and die. So it will be hereafter; people who eat this kind of fish raw will get thin and die.”
Nátcaktcókaskĭt said: “I saw deer tracks near the river; I want some deer meat to eat.” The next morning Wus went to Pakol Keni to hunt deer. Soon he saw a big stag. As he got near it, the stag hallooed like a person. Wus thought: “Who can be ahead of me?” The stag hallooed again. That time Wus heard the words, and he said: “I know who you are; I know all about you. I used to kill your people to get sinews out of their backs and strings out of their legs.”
Wus killed the stag and carried it to his camp. When he told his wife that the stag had hallooed at him, she said: “Something bad is going to happen to you.” She was angry at him for killing the deer.
Wus wanted her to eat some of the meat, but she wouldn’t and they began to quarrel.
Wus said: “Give me one of the children and I will go away.”
“No!” screamed the woman, “I will keep them all!” And jumping up, she said: “Hereafter you will be a black crow! You will no longer be a person. You will only be good to tell people where dead things are!”
Wus said: “You are like the wind that never stops blowing; you are always talking. Hereafter you will be a Dó-dó-la and sing all the time. You will watch for daylight so you can begin to sing, and you will sing till night comes, and your children will be like you!” And so it was.
FROST AND THUNDER
CHARACTERS
Blaiwas Eagle Gowwá Swallow Lok Bear Tsasgips Frost That Breaks Trees Wâhŭtus Wus Fox Yahyáhaäs (Always represented as a one-legged man)
Gowwá and Wâhŭtus were married to the same woman; she was kin to Gowwá.
One day the two men went hunting and left their wife at home. While they were gone Wus came along, and said to her: “Come to my house and be my wife. I have a big house and lots of nice blankets and beads. Why do you stay with these men? They are poor.”
“I don’t want to go with you,” said the woman. “Gowwá and Wâhŭtus will come right away. If you stay here, they will kill you.”
“I am not afraid of those men,” said Wus. “I am stronger than they are; I can kill them.” She couldn’t make him go away.
When the men came, each had a deer on his back. “Cook some deer meat,” they said to the woman. “We are hungry.” They didn’t see Wus.
She said: “A man is holding me; I can’t get up.”
“You are fooling us; nobody is holding you. Hurry up and cook for us.”
When the woman didn’t move Gowwá got mad and went toward her to jerk her up; then he saw Wus holding her down.
The fire had gone out, and it was dark in the house. Gowwá punched the fire and said to Wâhŭtus: “There is somebody over there with a nice skin on. We’ll kill him and make a blanket.” They caught Wus and pulled his skin off, then they threw him out.
The next morning, when Gowwá’s mother went for water, she saw Wus and she felt sorry for him; she went to a swamp, and got cattails and wrapped them around him. Right away the cattails turned to nice fur. Wus was cured; he went home.
That day, while the two men were off hunting, Lok came and stole their wife. She was afraid of him and had to go. There were five Lok brothers, living in a house under the rocks.
When Gowwá and Wâhŭtus came home and found their wife gone, their old mother-in-law said: “Lok, a big, nice-looking man, came and carried her off.”
The next morning Gowwá and Wâhŭtus started for Lok’s house. As they went along they practiced killing each other to see how they were going to kill Lok. Gowwá killed Wâhŭtus and went on a little way alone. Wâhŭtus came to life and overtook Gowwá. Then Wâhŭtus killed Gowwá and went on. Gowwá came to life and caught up with Wâhŭtus. So they kept on till they got to Lok’s house.
Gowwá climbed to the top of the house. Wâhŭtus went in at a hole on one side.
The five brothers were lying by the fire; one jumped up, tore Wâhŭtus into little pieces and threw the pieces out. Wâhŭtus grew together, came to life, and ran into the house. Five times Lok killed Wâhŭtus, tore him to pieces, and threw the pieces out; each time Wâhŭtus ran in again.
Gowwá stood on the top of the house and waited. When they had killed Wâhŭtus five times, he crept down and began throwing flint at the brothers. He was a great doctor, and right away all five of the brothers were dead. Then Wâhŭtus and Gowwá took their wife and went home.
The next day while they were off hunting Yahyáhaäs came and stole their wife, and carried her off to his house. Whenever Yahyáhaäs saw a nice woman, he took her; he stole everybody’s wife. Five great rocks were around his house, and he lived underground, in the middle. The name of the house was Hwălis; nobody but Yahyáhaäs could get into it. There were many women there; he carried them in on his shoulders.
Wâhŭtus and Gowwá didn’t know how to get their wife back. At last they sent to all the people in the world and asked them to come and help break the rocks around Yahyáhaäs’ house. Everybody came, and each man tried, but no one could break off even a small piece of a rock.
Then Tsasgips (Frost) came. He was such a small man they had forgotten to ask him. He said: “I can break those rocks.”
The people didn’t listen to him; they kept on trying to break them. Then somebody asked: “What does that little fellow say? He talks all the time!”
“He says that he can break these rocks,” said Blaiwas.
Then men began to talk about Tsasgips, and to say: “Maybe he had better try. Maybe he is a kiúks [13] and can do something.”
The people got him ready, sprinkled him with white paint, so he was all white spots in front. He made, with his mouth, a noise like blowing; the first rock crumbled to pieces. He made the same noise with his mouth and struck against the second rock; the rock fell into small pieces. He broke all five rocks in the same way. Then the people killed Yahyáhaäs with arrows, but his spirit went up in the air and became Thunder. They shot a great many times at the spirit as it flew up, for they saw it rising, but they couldn’t hit it; they missed it every time.
YAHYÁHAÄS
CHARACTERS
Gäk Crow Skóŭks Woodtick. (In every story Tick is a Shasta woman.) Tcûskai Weasel Tskel Mink Yahyáhaäs
Southeast of the Modoc country there was a large village. The people of that village lived on seeds and roots. One day a man came from the south, and said: “Seeds are ripe. It is time to gather them.”
The people were glad. All went; only four persons were left at home. In one house there was a sick woman, the chief’s wife. She had a little girl and a baby. In another house was a very old woman.
The chief’s wife was afraid of Yahyáhaäs. She said to the little girl: “There is a Yahyáhaäs around. I have often seen him near the river. When he travels, he hops with his one leg and keeps calling his own name. He has a great bushy head. He is awful tall and is always naked. He comes from the rocks and mountains off in the north. You must watch for him, and if he comes here, we will run away.”
One day the little girl saw a man coming. She called to her mother to come and see him. The mother said: “That is Yahyáhaäs! Take the baby on your back and run as fast as you can to where the men are. Tell them to come home and save me.”
The little girl put the baby in the water basket, but Yahyáhaäs was in the house before she could start. She said: “I am going for water.” She took the basket and went to the creek, then she ran off as fast as she could; she couldn’t go very fast, for the baby was heavy.
The old woman knew that Yahyáhaäs was in the sick woman’s house, but she didn’t go there; she took her grass blankets and hid herself in the bushes. When Yahyáhaäs went into the house, the sun began to go down fast; he made it go.
The sick woman thought: “If I am good to him, maybe he will let me live.” She gave him salmon, and said: “Eat this.”
“Eat this,” repeated the man.
She gave him an eel; he kicked it away. She gave him white roots, and said: “Eat these.”
“Eat these,” said he, and kicked them away.
She gave him dry manzanita berries, and said: “Eat these; they are good.”
“Eat these, they are good,” said the man, and he threw them in her face.
She gave him a blanket; he threw it at her, and said: “Use it yourself.” She was frightened. She thought: “I will say I am going for wood, then I will run away.”
“I am going for wood,” said Yahyáhaäs. He was right behind her.
She went for water; he was there by the creek. She stayed out of doors; he did, too. Every time she said: “Go away!” he said: “Go away!” When she cried; he cried. She went to the bushes where the old woman was; he followed.
When the sun was down, Yahyáhaäs rubbed his forehead with his hand and made the woman sleep as if dead. At daylight he began to tickle her; she laughed till the sun was high, laughed till she died. Yahyáhaäs cut off her little finger and put it on a string of fingers he wore around his neck; then he went off to the mountain, where he lived under a great flat rock. He had children under the rocks, but he had no wife.
When the little girl found the men and told them that Yahyáhaäs was going to kill her mother, they left their seeds and went home. They found the woman dead and they began to hunt for Yahyáhaäs to kill him.
Two brothers, Tcûskai and Tskel, lived near a swimming-place on the top of a high mountain. Skóŭks, a Shasta woman, was Tskel’s wife. She went to visit her kin in Shasta, and took her baby with her. Tcûskai was lonesome; he missed the baby. One day when he was out on the rocks, he heard people mourning. He wanted to go where they were, but Tskel said: “Stay in the house. Don’t run around everywhere.”
Tcûskai said: “I am watching for Skóŭks; I want to see if she is coming.”
He went high up on the rocks and listened; then he went in and said to his brother: “There are lots of people crying in the village down at the foot of the mountain.”
“Stay in the house,” said Tskel.
“I am going to sit by the smoke hole and watch for Skóŭks,” said Tcûskai. After a while Tskel asked: “Are you there?”
“I’m right here,” said Tcûskai’s voice. Tcûskai was at the foot of the mountain, but the next minute he was in the house and teasing to go and see why people were crying.
Tskel said: “Well, go and find out what the trouble is; then come back. Don’t let them hire you to do anything.”
Tskel dressed his brother up in the clothes he had worn himself when he was a boy, and he started. As soon as he was outside of the house, he was in the village.
The people were ready to burn the dead woman; men were piling up nice things to burn with her,—beads and shells and blankets. When they saw Tcûskai, some of the men asked: “Who is that nice-looking young man?” Others said: “There is Tcûskai; maybe he can make this woman alive again. His brother is strong; he can do anything he likes.”
They talked to Tcûskai, promised him many wives and nice shells and beads. At last he said: “I can bring the woman to life if I can find Yahyáhaäs and kill him. Then you will give me the chief’s daughter.”
He began to hunt for Yahyáhaäs. He went to the edge of the world, then traveled in circles, working in all the time. He ran on every mountain, every hill, and every tree. He ran under the ground and under rocks and into holes. In one day he went all over the world, but he didn’t find Yahyáhaäs.
The next day Tcûskai listened at every hole, as one would listen at a door to hear people talk or snore. Under a great flat rock on the top of a high mountain he heard Yahyáhaäs snore. He crept under and saw him; then he went to the village, and said: “I have found him under a rock. Bring lots of wood and dry grass and pile up around the rock; when the rock is out of sight, set fire to the wood. Then stand around and throw in every stick and coal that falls out.”
They did this, and soon there was a terrible noise under the rock. The hills and rocks and the whole country shook. Yahyáhaäs burst; the rock blew into little pieces, and a big bird flew up to the sky. It was Yahyáhaäs’ spirit. The people went back to the village. Tcûskai stepped five times over the dead woman, and she got up. She was glad to be alive. The chief gave Tcûskai nice things, and gave him his daughter.
The next day Tcûskai went home. Soon he saw Skóŭks coming. She had on a Shasta dress, and had Shasta things in a bundle on her back, and on top of the bundle was the baby. Tcûskai went to meet her. He took the baby and ran around with it; he was glad.
Tskel said: “Don’t be silly. Act like a man!” Skóŭks laughed, for she liked Tcûskai.
Tcûskai told Skóŭks: “The chief’s daughter is my wife. Maybe they will come here to-day.”
Tskel was glad; he said: “My little brother is going to be a strong man; he will be stronger than I am.”
“Our house is too small,” said Skóŭks.
“Go out and walk around it in a big circle,” said Tcûskai. “Each time you take a step, put your foot down hard.” Skóŭks did so, and when she got around there was a large house instead of the small one.
Skóŭks cooked plenty of deer meat. Tcûskai lay down on one side of the house and wrapped himself in a panther skin blanket.
When the people came, the girl stopped a good way from the house. Skóŭks brought her in and seated her by Tcûskai. The girl’s mother had two small bones; she tied one in each side of Tcûskai’s hair. Skóŭks fed the people deer meat, then she put a Shasta cap on each woman’s head, and said to Tskel: “Tcûskai must give these people nice things.”
Tskel took a buckskin shirt and pounded it to powder, rolled the powder in a deer skin, and wet the skin. Then he thought hard, and said: “I want many buckskin shirts,” and he drew out of the skin a buckskin shirt for each man. Now they all had a plenty of nice things to carry home. The mother-in-law’s sister was the last one to go, and she said to her niece, “I haven’t enough to carry home. I am ashamed of you; you gave yourself away for nothing.”
Tcûskai was mad; he began to break off little bits of the bones his mother-in-law had tied in his hair; soon he had a great pile of beautiful beads. Then he took five bites out of his panther skin blanket, and he had five beautiful blankets. He gave the beads and the blankets to the aunt, and she went home.
After a day or two, Tcûskai’s wife said: “I’m lonesome here; I wasn’t made to live in the mountains. I want to go home.”
Tcûskai and Tskel were mad. Tcûskai said: “Go home and never think of me again. I hope our women won’t be like you and get tired of their husbands so soon.”
Skóŭks asked: “Is she going to stay always?”
“She will not live long,” said Tcûskai, “and I will not live always; I don’t want a wife.”
Skóŭks took a handful of dirt, threw it into the air, and said: “Let her be a bird!” She threw a second handful toward the woman, and she flew off to the mountains, a bird.
Then Skóŭks asked Tskel: “Is there anybody who can go to that woman’s village and turn all the people into birds?”
“Yes,” said Tskel. “Old man Gäk can do it. He lives on a mountain in the east. He is a great doctor.”
Tcûskai went to old Gäk’s house and told him how his wife had treated him. Gäk flew to the village, in the form of a crow.
When the people saw him, they called out: “See that great black bird. Maybe he has come to eat dead fish.”
Gäk said: “I didn’t come to eat dead fish; I always eat deer meat.” Then he shouted: “Let all these people be birds and creeping things, not be persons any longer.” And so it was.
YAHYÁHAÄS
CHARACTERS
Blaiwas Eagle Tusasás Joker (Skunk)
Five Blaiwas brothers started off to hunt for deer. When they got to the top of the first high mountain, they took out their fire-drill to make a fire. As they turned the drill they talked to the mountains, to the trees, to the rocks and the bushes, and asked for good luck, but they forgot to ask the drill to keep Yahyáhaäs away. They made a fire, cooked their meat, and then got ready to hunt. When they were leaving the camp, they hung their dry meat and their seeds on a tree where they could get them when they came back in the evening.
After they had gone some distance, one of the brothers said: “That is the place where Yahyáhaäs comes. He starts from the east; when he sees any one he walks slowly, but he can go around and come up in front of a person. He can disappear like a flash. Sometimes his face is painted red, and he carries a red cane with red feathers on the end of it. Maybe he will come while we are gone and will eat our meat and seeds.”
The men were sorry that they had forgotten to tell the drill to keep Yahyáhaäs away.
Just then one of them looked east, and said: “There he is; he is coming now!”
The men were scared; they didn’t dare to run away, so they sat down and waited. When Yahyáhaäs came to them, he said:
“Well, well, I thought I would never see people again, but I see them now. I am glad you are here. Why don’t you start a fire?”
“We forgot our drill.”
“I thought people never forgot their drills. What are you here for?”
“We came to hunt for deer and rabbits.”
“I have looked around all the morning,” said Yahyáhaäs; “I have been everywhere, but I haven’t seen a deer track.”
“We may as well give up hunting and go home,” said one man to another.
“Can’t you feed me smoke?” asked Yahyáhaäs.
“We have no tobacco.”
“This earth will make people trouble if they don’t carry a fire-drill and tobacco,” said Yahyáhaäs. “If you can’t feed me with smoke, you must wrestle with me.”
“We have no pipe or fire-drill to make smoke with,” said the eldest Blaiwas brother. “How can we feed you with smoke when we can’t start a fire? We are in a hurry. We didn’t come here to wrestle or play games, we came to hunt.”
“This is my way,” said Yahyáhaäs. “If people don’t feed me smoke and make me glad. I wrestle with them and throw them; then I am glad. Will you feed me smoke?”
“We can’t,” said Blaiwas. “We have no tobacco.”
“Then we will wrestle,” said Yahyáhaäs.
The men didn’t want to wrestle; they said they didn’t know how. But Yahyáhaäs kept talking about wrestling, talked till half a day was gone.
Yahyáhaäs was red from head to foot. His red cane was sharp at both ends, and on his back was a red quiver full of red, sharp-pointed arrows.
At last Blaiwas said to his brothers: “We had better wrestle with him. It is just as well for us all to die here. If we start for home, he will kill us.”
Yahyáhaäs fixed a place for his leg and piled up stones on a cliff above the lake. The eldest brother was chief; he was the first man to wrestle. He said: “Be strong, my brothers, you can’t save yourselves. If he throws me over the cliff into the lake, don’t get weak. Be strong and all die together.” Then he sent a young boy to the village to tell the people that Yahyáhaäs was going to kill him and his brothers.
Right away Yahyáhaäs threw Blaiwas over the cliff. As he sank in the lake, his bones boiled up to the top of the water, washed against the rocks, and rattled terribly.
Yahyáhaäs threw over one man after another. As each man sank, he turned to bones and the bones floated against the rocks, struck hard and made a great noise.
In Blaiwas’ house there was an old medicine woman. She woke up, and said: “I dreamed that I saw people crying and putting ashes on their heads. Our men have been killed. At noon to-morrow we shall get word of it.”
“Women always have bad dreams,” said Tusasás. “There is nobody in the world strong enough to kill the five brothers.” At noon the next day a boy came along the trail; he was crying and screaming. When he got to Blaiwas’ house, he said: “The five brothers are killed. By this time not one of them is alive.” He went to the next village and told the same news.
Tusasás threw dirt on his head and rolled in the ashes. The people cut off their hair and mourned. The next morning they said: “Let us go and see the place where our men were killed.”
Blaiwas’ little boy was sleeping by the fire; his sister shook him, and said: “Wake up and wash your face; we are going to see the place where Yahyáhaäs killed our people.”
When his face was washed, the boy said: “Fix my feet; I want to go too.”
“You are too small,” said his mother. “Why do you want to go?”
“I want to die with my uncles. I am lonesome; I don’t want to live any longer.”
“You are too small to go. Yahyáhaäs could take you up with one finger and throw you over the cliff.”
“I am going where my uncles were killed,” said the boy. “Paint me with red paint right in the center of my head, where my thoughts come in and teach me.”
They painted him and got him ready to go. Tusasás cut a long cedar tree, tied it on his head, and went with the others. He started off as if going to gamble; he laughed, jumped, and whooped. The people said: “Yahyáhaäs will hear you and he will kill us all.”
“It won’t be hard for me to kill Yahyáhaäs,” boasted Tusasás. “I will throw him over the cliff quickly.” Then he said to the boy: “Why are you here? I sha’n’t need your help. You are too small to go to the mountains; you had better go home.”
The boy didn’t look at Tusasás; he said to his mother: “You must stop crying. I want all the people to stop crying and follow me.” He went ahead.
The people looked at him and stopped crying. When they got to the lake, Yahyáhaäs was not there, but he was not far off. The people hunted for the place where the men had been killed, but they couldn’t find it. Then the little boy said: “Here it is! Yahyáhaäs is coming. You can’t see him, but I can. He will soon show himself in the east.”
Tusasás said: “I will be the first man to wrestle with him; I will throw him into the lake.”
The people said: “It is bad to make fun of our chief and the men that were killed here. You will make trouble for us.”
Right away they saw Yahyáhaäs coming from the east. He had on a pale yellow coat that rattled as he hopped along. He had a yellow cane, and his face was painted yellow. When he came to the people, he said: “I like to see men and women. I don’t like to walk around and see no one; it makes me lonesome. Will you feed me smoke?”
“We have nothing to make smoke with,” said one of the men.
“Did you come to play with me?” asked Yahyáhaäs. “I like to wrestle. The last man I saw threw me, and went away somewhere.”
The little boy sat on the edge of the cliff; he didn’t say anything, just looked at the water. At last he began to see men swimming around under the surface; then he saw the five brothers and lots of other men,—his own people. He felt strong and glad when he saw them.
Tusasás said: “You want to fight, don’t you? You think you can kill Yahyáhaäs, don’t you?”
“Let the boy alone,” said his mother. “Don’t make fun of him; maybe he can teach us things.”
Yahyáhaäs kept asking the men to wrestle with him. At last they said: “We may as well get killed here. If we start for home, he will follow us.” And they began to wrestle. Soon every man was over the cliff, except Tusasás. One man was very strong; he nearly broke Yahyáhaäs’ leg. Yahyáhaäs screamed out: “That is not the way to wrestle. You shouldn’t twist my leg!”
“It is right for me to throw you any way I can,” said the man. “You have killed a great many of my people.” Yahyáhaäs laughed, threw the man,—took him up with one hand, and flung him over the cliff.
When Tusasás began to wrestle, he held tight to Yahyáhaäs.