Part 29

The woman was a Skoks, and she came in a whirlwind. As the boy looked, she grew taller and taller. At last her head reached the sky. She screamed a second time. The boy’s eyes were big from looking at her. The third time she screamed, she was there by him. She tried to pass him on the right side, but he pushed hard to the other side. As she passed him, he fell on his back; blood came out of his mouth and he lost his mind. Skoks had pulled his heart out and carried it off. (If she had passed on the left side she would have taken his spirit and carried it to Skoksun Kalo.)

Skoks went off in the air till she came to where the sun goes down; she stopped there just above the earth. Her hand was shut tight, and she held the boy’s heart in it; she talked to the heart, and laughed.

She said: “Heart, I am trying you to see if you will be like me,” and she laughed again.

The boy lay on the ground as if dead, but his spirit heard the Skoks talk to his heart, as she sat on the air and held the heart in her hand. After a while she opened her hand and let go of the heart. Then the little boy thought he saw a bird coming from the west. It came to him and lighted on his breast. That moment he jumped up and went toward his sister’s house. He had changed; he wasn’t a little boy; he was a young man.

His sister didn’t know him. When he called her “sister,” she asked: “What has changed you so?” She was scared. He didn’t answer; he only laughed.

“Why don’t you speak?” she asked.

Then he said: “Out on the flat I saw a tall woman with a big pack of old ragged mats on her back.”

Right away the sister knew that he had seen a Skoks; she said: “My brother, why did you come so far alone?”

“My grandmother threw me out,” said the boy. “I thought I was going to die.”

The sister cried; she felt sorry for her brother.

He began to be sleepy. Skoks made him feel that way; she was coming to him again. She was going to be his medicine and make him a great doctor. He rubbed ashes on the right side of his face; on the left side he made stripes with a black coal, then he asked his sister to sing for him. She didn’t want to sing, for the first person who sings for a doctor must go with him always, and sing for him. When he asked the second time, she sang. They didn’t see the Skoks, but Ktilisúnak knew she was there.

Every evening the young man called out as Skoks called, when he met her on the flat; then he fell to the ground and was senseless till Skoks got through talking to him. Each time his sister asked: “What does your medicine want?”

“I see a crowd of medicines around me,” said he. “They want somebody to sing and talk for them. You must go and ask old men to come and talk five days for them.”

The sister went to Blaiwas’ village, where there were many old men. They came and sang and told the medicine spirits what they must do. They said: “If you want this young man to work for you, you must be good to him; you mustn’t make him crazy.” Then they asked each medicine what it wanted. Skoks wanted a cap made of tula grass, and two grass plates. Eagle medicine wanted eagle feathers, and fish-hawk medicine wanted fish-hawk feathers. Each bird medicine wanted its own kind of feathers.

The old men got all of those feathers, and tied them on a long pole. There is a dream medicine, and the man who has it can cure himself, but he can’t cure others. That medicine came to Ktilisúnak.

When the old men finished singing and talking, they said to the sister: “You mustn’t cook or sweep or have any dust around when your brother is in the house. In the evening don’t stir the ashes or let them fly up when you put wood on the fire; if you do, he will die; he is afraid of his medicines. Don’t tease him to eat; let him eat when he wants to. If his medicines trouble him, we will come and talk to them.”

The young man lay in the house day after day.—Doctors don’t go out often; they go only when sick people send for them.

Near the sister’s house there was a sick man who was only skin and bones. He sent for Ktilisúnak. The young man told his sister to sing for Skoks. Skoks came, but nobody could see her. When the three got to the house, the man was dying. Ktilisúnak put a hand each side of him, front and back, and caught his life, didn’t let it get out of his body. In half a day the man was well.

When the sister got home, the medicines heard her say: “Oh, I am tired!” In the night they said to the young man: “We didn’t think she would get tired of us so soon.”

The next morning Ktilisúnak asked his sister if she was tired of his medicines. She said: “I am tired of singing so much.”

“I am tired, too,” said the young man, “but I wouldn’t live long if I didn’t work for my medicines.”

The next night Ktilisúnak sang for himself. Skoks was angry because the brother and sister were tired. The other medicines said to him: “We didn’t know you felt so. We thought you would be glad to have us for servants. Hereafter you will be a common man; you will have no power to cure people.”

The medicines left him. As soon as they were gone, he began to feel sick; he cried and sang for his medicines, but they didn’t hear him, they had gone far away. The old men came, and sang and called to them, but they didn’t come. When Ktilisúnak told the old men how he and his sister had got tired of singing, they said: “We will try once more.”

“It’s no use,” said Ktilisúnak. “Skoks has got my life.” He grew thin and died. People brought nice beads and mats and burned them with his body.

Blaiwas said to the sister: “It is as if you had killed your own brother. Haven’t old people told you that medicines listen to what we say and that they can hear, even when they are a long way off?”

The sister felt badly. She burned up her house and went to another place. As soon as Ktilisúnak died, his old grandmother knew it. She was sorry that she had thrown him out, and three times each night she walked around the sister’s house crying. Her voice sounded Like the voice of a spirit. The sister wrapped herself up tight when she heard her grandmother around. Once, when she saw her, there were red tears on one side of the old woman’s face and black tears on the other. At last she called out: “My granddaughter, I am going to the mountains. I don’t want to be a person any longer, and hereafter you will not be a person; you will be a bird, and appear to doctors.” They both became birds.

A MEDICINE STORY. NUMBER II

A man and his wife went off hunting and left their little boy at home. The mother said: “Stay here and watch things; don’t go away anywhere.”

The boy was afraid; he didn’t want to stay alone. The father and mother had not been gone long when the boy heard a noise like a whirlwind in tall grass. A Skoks had come for him, but he didn’t know that. He looked out, looked over his left shoulder, and saw a kind of grayish white fog. In that fog was a woman; one side of her face was painted in black streaks, the other side was the color of ashes. She called out to the boy: “Come here, little fellow!” The child didn’t go; he screamed and fell dead.

The mother heard him scream and she ran home. When she found the boy dead and cold as ice, she cried, and called for somebody to come.

Old Koé heard her and came; she took off the child’s clothes and rubbed his body with ashes, then she put black coal on one side of his face and white ashes on the other, and called for her Skoks. (Skoks was old Koé’s medicine.)

Koé said to the mother: “A Skoks came for your child, but the little fellow turned his left shoulder. If he had turned his right shoulder, the Skoks would have taken his spirit away; but she didn’t get hold of it; she called and it followed her. My Skoks will go for it.”

The boy’s spirit hadn’t gone far. Koé’s Skoks went right in front of it and brought it back, and the child came to life. When the mother asked how the Skoks looked, the boy said: “She had finger-nails longer than her hand. I couldn’t see her plainly, but I heard her call me.”

The mother wanted to give Koé nice things, beads and porcupine quills, but Koé said: “I don’t want any of those things; I only want to bring back as many spirits as I can.”

The little boy grew fast; he was a great kiúks. When men asked how his Skoks looked when she awakened him out of dreams, he said: “She has red eyes, like fire in the night, and her nails are longer than her fingers. She has hot ashes for her paint. One side of her face is white; on that side are black tears, on the other side are red tears, like blood.”

A SKOKS STORY

On the shore of Tula Lake many chiefs were living,—the first people. (They are now turned to fowls and animals.) With them lived an old woman and her grandson. The boy was called “Big Belly;” Tusasás rubbed dirt on him and laughed at him because he was small and fat.

A Skoks traveled every evening along the eastern side of the lake. The Skoks wore a straw blanket, and made a great noise, crying as he went along. The minute anybody saw him, he vanished. If he passed a man whose right shoulder was toward him, that man died at once, for the spirit stole his life, but if the spirit passed on the other side, the person was senseless a while and then came to life.

One evening people heard the Skoks coming. It made such a noise that they heard it when it was a long way off. They were scared; they crowded together and each person wanted to be inside. Tusasás wanted to be under all the rest; they pulled him up and threw him out, but he crawled under again. The people shivered; it was so cold they were nearly frozen. It was always cold when that Skoks screamed; he made it so. Fires went out and grass wouldn’t burn.

The old woman took the hull of seeds and made a fire for the little boy. She cried while she was making it, and said: “My grandson, all the people here are going to die.” The little boy didn’t seem to know what she meant; he got up and stood by the fire. She said: “Sit down, my grandson, you mustn’t stand up or go out; if you meet this Skoks, you are sure to die.” The old woman threw ashes toward the voice of the Skoks.

The little boy told his grandmother to tie a skin around him and roll him up so he could go and meet the Skoks.

“My grandson,” said the old woman, “what can you do? You have no power.” But she got a buckskin blanket, tied it around him, and said: “Don’t let the Skoks pass on the right side; be sure that your left shoulder is toward him. He will try to make you go on the other side, but don’t you go.”

Every time the Skoks shouted, it was like throwing ice into the house, and Tusasás cried out: “Oh, let me go under; I am cold.”

When the boy started, his grandmother said: “You must take some ordure in your hand, and if the Skoks tries to make you go on the wrong side, throw it at him.”

Soon the boy saw the Skoks. His head reached the sky and he looked as if he were carrying a load of clouds. One side was painted white, the other black. He came very fast. The boy had hard work to get by. When he pushed into Skoks, Skoks darted forward. At last both fell, and their bodies turned to rock, but their spirits came out of the rocks. The boy was holding up the ordure, and that turned to rock, too.

When the sun rose the next morning, the boy’s spirit went home. He was a young man now and wore a panther-skin blanket that came to his feet. (After a person meets a Skoks, he looks strange; he loses his old body.) As soon as the young man got home, it was warm; fires burned, and right away it was summer. The people made him chief and he had control of the place.

After that two men went north to visit their kin; one of the men was killed. When the people heard about it, they asked the chief if they should demand pay for the man’s life. He said: “Yes, and if they don’t pay, I will punish them.” The men refused to pay, and messengers were sent to the chief.

He took a long obsidian knife and started. When nearly there, he said to his men: “Don’t be frightened; the Skoks is getting mad and ready to move.” (The Skoks was the chief’s medicine.)

When the chief came to the enemy, they said: “We are men, not women; we are not afraid of you. We won’t pay for the man we killed.”

Both sides were ready to fight. The chief said to his men: “When I shout, fall on the ground and don’t move.” He shouted like Skoks and all of his people fell. His enemies were terribly frightened. Right away they were freezing.—The chief could see the Skoks, but nobody else could see him.—The chief killed a great many men; they were so cold they couldn’t run away; he cut them to pieces with his obsidian knife.

After that, there was no trouble with the northern people; they had found that there was a powerful chief in the south, a man who could kill them easily.

A DOCTOR STORY

CHARACTER

Kiúks Doctor

A kiúks and his old mother were living at Dokwa, near Klamath Lake. The kiúks had a tall pole standing outside the house and on the top of the pole was a dead eagle. Inside of the house he had a dead fish-hawk and all kinds of dead birds.

The kiúks shouted and sang. The minute he stopped singing, the dead eagle came to life and screamed; when the eagle stopped screaming, the fish-hawk and all the dead birds inside the house came to life and screamed together. As soon as they were through screaming, the kiúks fed them. After they were fed, they died and remained dead till he called them to life again.

This man was a terrible kiúks; he could kill anybody. Nobody ever went to his house; everyone was afraid of him. When he called, and the eagle and all the birds answered, the earth began to tremble, and it trembled as long as the birds screamed. Everywhere people felt the earth shake, and it scared them. At such times they said: “The kiúks is singing, and the birds are screaming.”

Men began to talk and to try to think of some way to kill the kiúks. One morning he hung up a wooden comb, and said to his mother: “I am going to Gombät; if this comb falls, you may know that somebody has killed me.” He had a ska (a sharp stone about three feet long); he gave it to her and said: “As soon as the comb falls, take this ska and strike the ground near the fire five times, and strike the fire five times.”

People had been wishing that this kiúks would go somewhere, but he had always stayed at home. There were men watching, and when he came out of his house, they followed him. Before he got to Gombät, they killed him, shot arrows into his body, and cut him to pieces with flint knives.

When the comb fell, the mother knew that her son was dead. She took the ska and struck the ground five times, and the fire five times, as he had told her to do. That minute the men who had killed him fell dead, and the eagle and all the birds inside the house came to life and screamed.

The old woman went to Gombät; she found the pieces of her son, carried them home, and burned them; then his spirit went into her. She became just such a kiúks as he had been. She had been only a common old woman; now she used the eagle, fish-hawk, and birds just as her son had used them. People were scared, but they said to her: “You mustn’t do as your son did, you mustn’t kill people; if you do, we shall kill you as we killed him.”

Her son gained strength when the birds screamed and the earth trembled, but the people frightened the old woman so she was afraid to sing for the birds; she grew weak and died. As soon as she was dead, the birds came to life and flew off to the woods.

The people left her body in the house and burned the house and body together.

THE END.

NOTES

LÁTKAKÁWAS

Látkakáwas is evidently a sun myth. The young man who wooed Látkakáwas could run in the air and under the ground (Indians thought that the sun traveled from west to east underground). He was beautiful and bright, brighter than anything else in the world. He was immortal while he had the disk. When Kumush stole the disk Látkakáwas’ husband died. The disk became a part of Kumush and he was immortal. His body was reduced to ashes, but he rose up anew, for the disk remained.

There is a condition, however, incident to the resurrection of the sun; he must be called. Some one must rouse him. The morning star has that duty, and will never be freed from it. While the sun exists, the morning star must call him. At the summons of the star the disk springs from the pile of ashes; the sun (represented as Kumush) is renewed completely and goes forth to run his course till consumed again.

Kumush is killed and his body is eaten by crows; only the disk remains. The morning star sees the disk, and calls out: “What are you doing, old man? Get up!” Kumush springs up, through virtue of the immortal disk and the compelling word of the star.

Many Indian tribes have myths in which the morning star figures as the Light-bearer.

The morning star of the Modocs is the same character as the Lucifer of the Latins.

THE FIVE BROTHERS OF LÁTKAKÁWAS

The five brothers marry and nothing more is known about them. Gáukos, the orphan boy, becomes the principal character.

At sunset Gáukos—the moon—is thrown out of his sister’s house. He is a little boy, but as soon as he is outside he increases in size. He enters a ravine, and when he comes out at the opposite end he is a full-grown man. Later every one sees him; his body is bright and beautiful. When pursued by his sister, he crosses a valley at a step, springs from one mountain to another, and early in the morning reaches the first house, the home of two women, who have the power of making themselves young.

The Modocs have lost the name of Gáukos’ elder sister, and they do not know the meaning of the name of the younger sister, Lĭsgaga. The elder sister is, probably, Daylight; she travels as Gáukos does, a valley at a step. In a Wintu creation myth, Sanihas (Daylight) is one of the principal characters. In a Gaelic myth, the son of the King of Light is Day or Daylight, the Lady of Green Insh is Night, and her yellow-haired son is Dawn.

In this Modoc myth the power of the word was with Gäk. He said to Lóluk: “Hereafter, you will be kin to no man, you will burn all alike,” and as he spoke Lóluk became common fire.

ISIS AND YAULILIK’S DAUGHTERS

Isis, the son of Látkakáwas, is the son of Kumush because Kumush has the disk, and the disk is Isis’ father. The Indians do not know the meaning of the word Isis—or Áisis, as pronounced by some of the Modocs—or of Látkakáwas.—These names occur only in the myths connected with the disk.—Isis is the greatest hunter and the greatest runner in the world. He has long, bright red hair. When he builds a fire the smoke from it goes straight up; it does not scatter, or waver. Isis has some of the attributes of his father, the sun.

Kumush personates Isis and deceives Yaulilik’s elder daughter. In mythology one character frequently personates another.—There is an example of this in Wintu: Klakherrit (Lightning) personates Pitis (Quail), deceives Pitis’ family, and kills every member of it.

In Indian myths, whenever two sisters are sent to some place and warned by father or mother against a deceiver, who is likely to meet them on the way, the elder sister is generally ready to become a victim, the younger is the wise one.

Cogátkis is an interesting character; like Samson, his strength was in his hair. Through the power of his hair, he could see at a great distance, and he could talk to his mother though she was far away.

I have never found a myth in which the method of taking life is similar to that described in this myth. Isis had two children; the elder died; he took the younger in his arms, put the top of its head to his mouth and drew a long breath, drew the child’s breath, its life, into himself. He said to his wives, “The children are half mine, and half yours. I have taken their breath into myself; you may have their bodies.”

In an Algonkin myth a character similar to Látkakáwas is the “Earth maiden.” The Sun looks at her and she brings forth a daughter, who becomes the mother of a great hero.

KUMUSH AND HIS DAUGHTER

Many of the Modocs firmly believe that their tribe originated as described in this myth. They call Kumush father, and live by the rules he laid down for them. They believe that he gave the race all gifts that support existence, that it is through him that the Indians live and prosper. He has many of the attributes of Zeus.

This myth and many of the myths in this volume are as sacred for Indians as Bible stories are for Christians. When old men are asked what their ideas are regarding life hereafter they tell of Kumush’s visit to the great house in the underground world; of what he saw there, and of the terrible effort he made to bring spirits to the upper world, and create Indians.

The underground house of the Modoc dead is in the West.

When Kumush had done all that he could for mankind he went to the place where the sun rises. He traveled on Sun’s road till he came to the middle of the sky, and there he built his house.

STEALING FIRE

This tale belongs to the first cycle of Indian myth-tales, tales which relate the adventures of living creatures, plants, elements, objects and phenomena in this world before they became what they are as we see them. Among living creatures man is not reckoned, for man does not appear in any of these myths.

In most cases the tales are simple and transparent; it is easy to recognize the heroes either by their names or their actions or both. The value of Indian myths lies in the fact that they represent the mental labor of men who lived ages before those who recorded their thoughts on papyrus, baked brick or burnt cylinders.

Sickness was a person and owned fire. Sun, whose home was in the West, also owned fire. A council was called and the first people sent Wus to secure fire for “the people who are to come.” The first people knew that another race was coming and that they themselves were to be changed.

Many mythologies give an account of the stealing of fire.—In Nosa, Au Mujaupa, the master of fire, lived in the South. Ahalamila went there and stole a few coals. The struggle to escape with the coals was as strenuous as that described in the Modoc tale, but the Nosas do not know who Au Mujaupa was.

HOW SICKNESS CAME INTO THE WORLD

This version of how sickness scattered over the world is noteworthy. It is not known who the Gletcówas brothers were. When asked, the Modocs said: “Gletcówas is just a name.” The little men possessed great power; they could turn into any conceivable thing. Kéis got angry and made poisonous diseases. Wéwenkee reproached him, told him that sickness belonged to Nébăks, that it was only loaned to him, that he had no right to let it out. Kéis did not listen, and, as a result of his rage, sickness spread over the world.

HOW OLD AGE CAME INTO THE WORLD

It would be interesting to know who the five brothers were, but the knowledge is lost. Their first notable encounter was with Storm, a person who could kill any one whom he could catch and draw under water.

The brothers traveled till they came to a country where they found only one man and one woman. The man said: “You cannot destroy us. We shall live always.” When the brothers tried to kill him, and could not, they were frightened and ran away. Komúchass followed them to their own country, and killed them. The Indian woman who related this myth believed that if the brothers had let Komúchass alone, there would have been no such thing as old age.

LEMÉIS AND NUL-WE

In this myth Leméis is described as a man-eater. In Indian myths lightning, thunder, earthquake, and cyclone are man-eaters. Every effort was made to find out who Nul-we and his grandmother were. Old Ko-a-lák-ak-a, who told the story, said that when she was young she knew, but she had forgotten. In a Nosa myth, somewhat similar in construction, but where Lightning is the chief personage, the old grandmother is Pom, the earth.

WIND AND THUNDER