Part 20
The boy didn’t like Kówe now. He felt sorry for his father and mother; he didn’t want to play. He went where the Kówe people were gambling with sticks and watched them. He grew fast. After a while men taught him to gamble; then he wanted to gamble all the time.
Kówe said: “You should stay at home. It isn’t right to gamble every day.”
But the boy wouldn’t listen to her; he was thinking: “When I win enough, I will go away from here.”
Kówe sat by and boasted: “You can’t beat my son; you can’t beat my son! He is the best gambler in the world!”
Soon Swaiä won all the beads and shells the people had; then he stole away in the night, left the Kówe people. While he was going along the river, he saw Tcoóks. The old man sat by the water trying to catch fish with a flint-pointed spear. Swaiä shouted to him; called him “Uncle.” Just as he shouted, a big fish got away from the spear.
“You are not my nephew,” said Tcoóks. He was cross, for he had lost the fish. He wouldn’t talk with Swaiä; he got up and went off toward the hill.
Swaiä traveled on till he came to the edge of a village, then he turned himself into an old man, and his shells and beads into dirty old trinkets, and sat down by the trail.
Ndukis’ daughter saw the old man and right away she knew he was young. She took him home and pounded seeds for him. Her sisters were angry at her for bringing such a dirty old man into the house.
He made a pillow of his pack and lay down. He looked old and wretched. The Ndukis people were nice-looking, and each one of them had a duckskin blanket.
As soon as it was dark in Ndukis’ house, the old man became young and bright and beautiful, and his bundle began to shine. The house was full of light from Swaiä and his bundle.
When the people heard that the old man had changed, that he was young and fine-looking, they came to see him. They asked him to run a race with them. Blaiwas, Tcûskai, Tskel, Lok, Wekwek, Tokwa, Wámanik, Tcíkas, Kāhkaas, Tusasás, were at the race; everybody was there.
When Swaiä began to run, he made himself old. As the runners passed him, they laughed, and called out: “We can beat you easily! We can beat you easily!” They ran around a hill. The first time around the old man was behind. Then he became a young, fine-looking man and won the race each time. He beat Tskel, a great runner, and Lok (whose name was Kĭc—to look far off), for Swaiä could run faster than eyes could look.
Swaiä liked the Ndukis people. He stayed with them always.
HOW KALASLÁKKAS WON HIS WIFE
CHARACTERS
Blaiwas Eagle Kalaslákkas Kletcowas “He Goes Fast” Komúchass Old Age Kówe Frog Ktsítco or Nän’ihlas Bat Kumal Pelican Leméis Thunder Lok Bear Ndukis Duck-hawk Peltoquas Súbbas Sun Tusasás Joker (Skunk)
Kletcowas and his wife had a daughter and two sons. The mother loved her sons but didn’t love her daughter; she abused the girl till at last she made up her mind to go and ask Blaiwas to take care of her. Blaiwas was chief of the village where Kletcowas lived. The girl was so beautiful that Blaiwas put her in a basket and put the basket under the ground.
An old woman and her grandson lived in a hut at the edge of the village. The boy’s name was Kalaslákkas. He was a little fellow whose father and mother had been killed.
Blaiwas had a big house and many people lived in it; among them was Tusasás. Tusasás went often to see Kalaslákkas’ grandmother, for he liked to tease the boy. One day he said to him: “If you will do as I tell you, maybe you can get that nice-looking girl that Blaiwas keeps in a basket under the ground.”
“I don’t like that,” said the old woman. “You shouldn’t say such things to my grandson.” Other people scolded him for talking that way to a little boy.
Tusasás said: “The old woman needn’t be so proud of her grandson; he isn’t of much account.”
When the grandmother told Ktsítco what Tusasás had done, he said: “Don’t feel badly. If my nephew will do as I tell him, he will get power. On a mountain in the East there is an underground swimming place. If Kalaslákkas goes there and piles up stones and swims, he will get wisdom. He will grow quickly and will get that girl for a wife.”
The grandmother cried; she didn’t want the boy to go, but old Ktsítco said to him: “If you do as I tell you, you will be a young man right away. Rub your body with ashes and go.”
The grandmother felt badly; she thought the boy was too small to go off alone, but she rubbed his body with ashes and gave him a rabbit-skin blanket. And he started.
When Kalaslákkas got to the top of the mountain, he piled up stones; then he went down in a hole where there was water and came out in a pond that the hole led to. He swam around for a long time; then he lay on the stones. He went to sleep and dreamed that somebody said: “Look at that beautiful woman in the South; would you like her for a wife?” When he woke up, he was tall and had beautiful long hair.
As soon as he got home, his grandmother said: “If you had a dream, you mustn’t tell it; keep it in your head. If it was a good dream, you must stay out of doors and not talk to any one.”
The next morning his grandmother said: “Now you must go to Yomaka, a swimming pond that is always covered with thick ice. If the pond likes the person who comes to it, it will open a place for him to swim.”
Kalaslákkas took his rabbit-skin blanket and started. When he was climbing the mountain, he heard men singing and gambling. He followed the sound till he came to the swimming place; then he listened and heard the singing down under the water and under the ground. That was because the pond was glad to see him. The ice melted, and there was water for swimming. When the boy went into the water, he heard a great noise, like many men shouting. That was because the pond was glad he had come. He looked down in the water, but he saw only stones.
When Kalaslákkas was through swimming, he got out of the water and lay down on the rocks. After a while he fell asleep and he dreamed that he saw a man with a long white feather standing up in his hair and heard him say: “I am the chief of gamblers!”
When Kalaslákkas told his grandmother what he had dreamed, she said: “The earth and mountains have taught you many things. You will be a strong man and a great gambler.” Then she told him of another swimming place and said: “When you start from here, don’t look back or look around; look straight at the mountain. If you don’t feel lazy, you will get to the swimming place about dark. When you get there, sit down by the pond and listen; listen till words come to you out of the water. Somebody lives there.”
When the boy got to the pond, he piled up stones and then sat down to listen. Soon he heard some one in the water say: “Why do you feel lonesome? What do you want me to give you? Don’t wait for somebody to put you in; come and swim.”
Kalaslákkas went into the water and began to swim around. Right away he felt something drawing him under. He went down till he came to a beautiful bright house; then he saw that a man was with him. The house was full of all kinds of bright shells. The man opened a skin door, and asked: “Do you want to see a beautiful woman?”
As Kalaslákkas looked at the woman, he felt himself going up to the top of the water again.
The man said: “When you get to the top, dive five times and then go home.”
When Kalaslákkas was near his grandmother’s house, he sat down to rest. She washed herself and went to meet him. She asked: “Was the earth glad to see you, and to have you walk on her? Do you think the earth is satisfied with you?”
“I think the earth is good to me,” said Kalaslákkas.
“Do you want to go to another swimming place?”
“If it is right to go around more, I will go,” said the boy.
“There are more places and you will get strength from them,” said the old woman.
“How shall I do at the next swimming place? One day I wanted to drink some water.”
“You must dive in the pond, and when you are down deep, take five big swallows of water. If you see water in any other place, you mustn’t touch it.”
“What if I should choke?”
“You won’t choke. You must do what I tell you. This earth is my mother; she has given everything for us to eat and drink. She is your grandmother and the sun is your grandfather. You won’t die if you do right. If you listen to the earth, the mountains, and the swimming places, they will teach you what to do when you are a man. They will make you strong, and you will live to be old.”
When Kalaslákkas went into the pond, he felt something under him. It was a bear that lived in the water. As soon as he felt it, it was gone. He swam around for a long time, then got out of the water and lay on the rocks. Soon he heard a bird call; the bird belonged to that swimming place. It was the strongest bird in the world. Kalaslákkas fell asleep and dreamed that he heard a bear roar. The roar was like heavy thunder, and Kalaslákkas was scared. He jumped up and ran home.
His grandmother pounded seeds and white roots for him to eat; then she said: “Now you will climb that mountain in the south, and as you go down on the other side, you must pile stones till you come to a lake. If the lake doesn’t like a person to swim in it, great bumps of water will come up on top, as if somebody under the water was angry. If the wind blows from the south, it is a sign that you must go in and swim.” The old woman made holes in her grandson’s ears and put little black sticks through them and through his nose. When he started off, she put her hand over her eyes, looked after him, and talked to the earth.
As Kalaslákkas went toward the mountain, he heard a girl singing and dancing, and he said to himself: “I didn’t know that there were people on this mountain. Some one must be camping here, and that girl is dancing her maturity dance.” He was afraid to go along the trail, for if she saw him it would spoil all he had done. He turned and followed another trail.
When he got to the pond, he went into the water. While he was swimming, he heard a noise like the dragging along of a dry elk-skin. It was made by the water against a rock that looked like a man wearing an elk-skin coat. While Kalaslákkas listened, the water began to roar and roll, and there was a great noise. He was afraid, but he said: “I must do as my grandmother told me. I mustn’t give up.”
Then he saw a mass of long black hair floating toward him. He followed the hair till he came to a second rock standing up in the lake like a big man wearing an elk-skin coat. Then he came to a third and a fourth. The fifth was lying down in the water near the bank, and his coat was just behind him. Those were the five Peltoquas brothers who had been turned to stone by Komúchass. The fifth and youngest brother had just thrown off his coat when Komúchass overtook him.
Kalaslákkas came out of the water and lay down on a rock. He fell asleep and dreamed that a man with long black hair came to him, and said: “I was a man once; I was a strong man, nobody ever beat me at gambling.” When Kalaslákkas woke up, the waves were washing over him.
The old woman steamed and bathed herself, and watched for her grandson to come. When he came, he was a young man; she hardly knew him. She gave him pounded seeds to eat and went with him to a place where she had a fire and hot stones. After he had steamed and sweated, she put red sticks in his ears and nose, and said: “This is the last time you will go to the mountains. You are working for yourself and for the earth; you must be glad to do the work,” and she told him where to go.
When he started she spoke to the earth, screamed out, as if calling to somebody, said: “You know my grandchild. He walks on you every day. He wants to be strong. I am not selfish, I give my grandson to you; you must teach him.” She talked to the mountains, to the trees, to the rocks, and to everything, said: “You know my grandson. He wants to learn from you.”
When Kalaslákkas got to the mountain, he piled up stones till they stood around the swimming place like people. He went back and forth at work till after dark; then he sat down by the pond. He saw stars way down in the water and he thought: “People are under there with torches.”
In that pond were five Kai brothers turned to rock; each rock was like a tall man. When those brothers lived they were great gamblers.
Kalaslákkas went into the water and rubbed against each one of the five rocks; then he came out and lay down to sleep. In his dream he saw the brothers; they were dressed in buckskin. Each one had a long feather in his hair and a gambling plate in his hands. The eldest said to him: “If you want to be our brother, and be like us, we will give you what we have.” He thought they threw him a long feather and a gambling plate.
Kalaslákkas woke up and went home. His grandmother made a sweat-house and heated rocks, and he bathed and sweated, then she dressed him. He was tall and beautiful; she told him he must not touch food for five days. “You must give yourself to the earth,” said she. “If you do, you will live long in this world; but if you eat meat or fish now, you will die soon. You must remember Tusasás and try to be strong.”
Kalaslákkas had forgotten Tusasás.
Tusasás came again to the grandmother’s house, which was dirty and old in the daytime, but beautiful at night. When he saw Kalaslákkas, he said: “I wouldn’t travel over the mountains and try to grow up just to get a woman!” and he laughed.
The grandmother said: “You think you can do what my grandson has done. You never can. You think you can do everything. You can do nothing but talk and boast, you will always be called Tusasás.”
Old man Kletcowas and his sons used to gamble with the chief and his people. Sometimes, when gambling, Blaiwas would have the basket taken out of the ground and Kletcowas’ daughter put on a gambling plate where he could see her.
Blaiwas and his people gambled with Kletcowas and his sons and old Kumal till they had nothing left, were naked. All their blankets and skins were gone, and they had only grass to wrap around themselves at night. Then Blaiwas told Ndukis to go and ask the old woman’s grandson to come and gamble for him.
When Kalaslákkas’ grandmother told him that his kinfolks wanted him to play for them, she said: “Your uncle is naked. He has lost everything.”
Kalaslákkas thought in his heart: “Why does Blaiwas send for me now? He has never taken any notice of me. I didn’t know he was my uncle.”
His grandmother asked: “Why don’t you speak out, not think all the time? You must tell me if you will go.”
“Where is Tusasás?” asked the young man. “Why doesn’t he play for Blaiwas’ people? I won’t go there.”
The next day Blaiwas’ people and old Kumal and his friends began to quarrel. The old woman fixed up her house tight, with her grandson inside; she didn’t want him to see the fight. After a while they made up, stopped fighting, and began to gamble. Ndukis came to the old woman’s, and said to the young man: “Your uncle has a bead shirt, made when he was a young man; he will give it to you if you will come and gamble for him.”
Kalaslákkas didn’t speak. His grandmother said: “You must say whether you will go or not. How do you feel?”
He didn’t speak. Ndukis went back and told Blaiwas that the young man wouldn’t come.
“What ails him?” asked Tusasás. “Is he proud? Does he think that he is chief? I will go and bring him here by the hair.”
Blaiwas scolded Tusasás, told him to stop talking.
Ndukis said: “What is the use in sending me all the time? Kalaslákkas won’t come and he won’t speak to me. You chiefs speak right out and talk, but he won’t. He isn’t willing to talk to everybody. You must go to him.”
The next day Blaiwas went to the young man and said: “My nephew, I have lost everything; will you come and play for me?”
“When I was small,” said Kalaslákkas, “you never looked after me or were sorry for me. You didn’t call me nephew. It is no use for you to try and hire me now; but I will go and play.”
Blaiwas said to the grandmother: “Kalaslákkas is going to play for me to-morrow. Give him a nice feather and a shirt.”
“No,” said the young man, “my body will do as well naked as dressed. I will go as I am. But you must make an opening in the ground where the men are sitting; I won’t go in by the smoke hole.”
When the people saw Kalaslákkas, they began to talk and whisper and to ask one another where such a beautiful young man came from.
Tusasás said to the old woman: “Your grandson wouldn’t come in at the smoke hole; he thinks that he is the biggest chief in the world, that he is made out of something nice. He has a body just like mine; he needn’t be so proud.”
“Keep still!” said the old woman, and she told Blaiwas that Tusasás was abusing her grandson.
“Go and help the women cook meat,” said Blaiwas.
“I won’t do it,” said Tusasás; “I wouldn’t do it if Leméis or Súbbas told me to.”
“Throw him out!” cried Blaiwas.
Men took hold of Tusasás by his thick hair and pulled him out of the house. His hair was as long as he was himself. It was all of the same length; not one hair was sticking up. It was black and glossy and stood out around him.
Kalaslákkas won the first game. Kumal was frightened; he said: “Some great gambler has come; maybe we shall get beaten.”
Tusasás put his mouth against a crack, and called out: “That game wasn’t hard to win; I could have won it myself.”
“Go and bring water for the women,” screamed Blaiwas. “Keep away from here!”
The women pounded Tusasás, pulled him away and told him not to make Kalaslákkas mad.
The young man began to sing the song he had heard the gamblers sing at the swimming place. The song made every one happy. It sounded like many persons singing. It was beautiful, but nobody could learn it. Blaiwas had the girl brought on a gambling plate and put down with her face turned to the wall. When she looked over her shoulder at the gamblers, she saw Kalaslákkas and looked at him so long that her eyes ached.
Before midday he had won back half of all Blaiwas and his men had lost. When they stopped to rest, he said: “No one on either side can eat meat or fish till we are through gambling.”
While the gamblers were resting, the young man went home. His grandmother said: “Take some good smelling leaves and put in your nose, so you won’t smell what the women are cooking, for it isn’t long since you were at the swimming places and traveling on the mountains. Every morning, while you are gambling, you must go, before the sun is up, and swim in the lake.”
When they began to gamble again, Ndukis said to the chief: “You should drive Tusasás away. If he makes Kalaslákkas mad, we shall be naked again. You don’t know what kind of a man he is. He has been to all the swimming places on the mountains.”
They gambled all night. Kalaslákkas won every game. The next day he said to Blaiwas: “My swimming place said that just before midday you must say to me: ‘Now be strong. Be like the chief of gamblers’!”
At midday the chief said: “My nephew, you must be strong; you must be like the chief of gamblers at the swimming place.”
Those words frightened Kumal’s people. Tusasás looked through an opening, and called out: “He can’t do more than I can!” Men ran after him, drove him away, and said: “You will lose your life if you meddle with that man. His grandmother can do anything.”
At dark they stopped playing. Kumal’s people were naked; they had lost everything they had.
Old Kletcowas and his five sons were ashamed. The eldest said: “I don’t want any one to have our nice things; we will bet our sister. If Kalaslákkas wins her, we will get everything back.”
The old man said: “That is what our girls are for;” then he said to Blaiwas: “I want that young man to play for my daughter. If he wins her he can have her for a wife.”
“Will you play for the girl?” asked Blaiwas.
Kalaslákkas didn’t speak; he hung down his head. He was ashamed. Blaiwas asked him a second time. He didn’t answer. Then Blaiwas asked for the last time: “Well, what will you do?”
“I will play for her,” said the young man, “but if I win I will stop playing; I will never gamble again.”
“If you win her, I shall be glad,” said his grandmother. “My body is worn out; she will take care of me.”
“How many games must I play to get her?” asked Kalaslákkas.
“You must win ten games from us,” said old Kletcowas.
Kalaslákkas played the ten games and won the girl.
Tusasás said: “I could have won the girl long ago, if they had let me play.”
“Keep still,” said Dúduois, “or you will no longer be a living person.”
“Let him say all he wants to,” said the old woman. “This earth will punish him. This earth hears every word he says, and when a man says bad things, she throws them back to him.”
The next day Tusasás was sick. He begged of Blaiwas not to let him die. “I have no power to save you,” said Blaiwas.
Kalaslákkas gave old man Kletcowas and his sons all the things he had won from them, and they went home. He took the girl to his grandmother’s house; she was his wife.
The next day Kalaslákkas went with Blaiwas and his people to hunt deer. “Can you call deer to the mountains?” asked Kalaslákkas.
“There is no way to call them,” said Blaiwas.
“I will call them,” said the young man. He tied his hair up in a bunch on the top of his head, then he whistled like an elk.
Down where the elks were they talked to one another. Kalaslákkas heard them ask: “Are any of our people gone? Somebody, our brother or sister, is calling us. We must go and see who it is.”
All the elks went in a crowd toward the place where they heard the whistle; when they saw Kalaslákkas they ran off. As the last one was getting out of sight, the young man shot at him and killed the whole line; only two were left.
All night Blaiwas’ people were cutting up meat. In the morning, Kalaslákkas told his wife to carry some deer meat to her father and brothers. When the youngest brother saw his sister coming with something on her back, he called out: “Our sister is coming!”
The brothers were glad, and the father said: “That is what daughters and sisters are for, to feed us from whatever family they marry into.”
They got ready and went back with her. When the old man saw the meat and skins, he said: “My son-in-law is the strongest man in the world,” and he began to boast.
Blaiwas’ people made elk-skin coats, then they made sharp arrows to see which man could send an arrow through the skins. Soon they got mad at one another and began to fight.
Now Kalaslákkas’ wife had a little boy. The father, to keep awake five days and five nights, went off to the mountains to roam around. When the grandmother came, she asked: “Is the baby a boy or a girl?”
“A boy,” said the mother.
“Oh, my poor grandson,” cried the old woman, “he will lose his life. For a girl, it is right to go to the mountains, but for a boy he should have stayed here. What mountain did he go to?”
“To Sláptcatcak.”
“Oh, my grandson, my poor grandson,” cried the old woman, “he is lost.”
That night the mother shut her eyes and nodded; she thought some one said to her: “Look this way.” She looked and saw men in elk-skin coats fighting, and the man who talked to her said: “This will grow and grow. Hereafter people will always fight.” When she woke up, she cried: “Grandmother, I couldn’t keep awake; I nodded and dreamed,” and she told the dream.
“You have brought great misfortune on your people,” said the old woman.
The mother couldn’t help closing her eyes again. This time she saw the elk-skin coats lying piled up; their wearers were dead.