Part 3
“Don’t come so near,” said Gáukos. “It is too hot,” and he pushed her away. She came again, and again he pushed her away. In the night when he woke up, she was lying by his side; and he rolled over toward his little sister. The next morning he said to Lĭsgaga: “Wash your face and comb your hair. I have brought you a new dress.”
He went to the creek and bathed, then he gave Lĭsgaga both dresses, and said: “Give this one to our sister.” He gave Lĭsgaga a belt to wear when she danced her maturity dance, and porcupine quills for her hair.
When the little girl put on her new dress, she looked very nice. She gave the other dress to her sister, and said: “This is how our brother pays you for throwing him out.”
“Why did you bring such a nice dress to this dirty child?” asked the sister. Gáukos didn’t answer.
While Lĭsgaga was gone for wood, the elder sister put pounded ges [5] in a basket and placed the basket in front of Gáukos. He asked: “Why do you do this? I heard, when I was a child, that young women, when in their father’s house, gave ges to their husbands. It should not be given to a brother.” He pushed the basket away. His sister didn’t say anything, but she was angry. When Gáukos went out, she said to Lĭsgaga: “He likes you, but he doesn’t care for me.”
“You threw him out,” said Lĭsgaga. “I have always been kind to him; but he likes you, for he brought you a nice dress.”
That night when Gáukos lay down on his mat, he told Lĭsgaga to lie near him, then he whispered to her, and told her his elder sister’s thoughts; he knew them all. Lĭsgaga listened, but she didn’t say anything.
In the night the elder sister tied three strands of her hair to Gáukos’ hair. When he woke up and wanted to turn over he couldn’t, for his hair was tied. In the morning he said to Lĭsgaga: “To-night I am going away; I can’t stay here.”
“If you go toward the east,” said Lĭsgaga, “you will be safe, and will find people to help you.”
When the elder sister came with water, and saw Gáukos talking to the little girl, she asked: “What are you saying to that child?” He did not reply. That night she again tied three strands of her hair to her brother’s hair.
When he woke up he said to himself: “Let her sleep till I reach the first house.” To Lĭsgaga he said: “I am going east and I must travel fast, for our sister will turn to a man-eater and follow me.”
Gáukos crossed a wide flat at a step, sprang from one mountain to another, and early in the morning came to the first house. There were many mountains between it and his sisters’ house. In that house lived two sisters, old women who were wise and had power; they could even make themselves young if they wanted to.
Gáukos said to the old women: “I am in trouble; you must save me.”
“We don’t know how to save you,” said the sisters. He begged hard, and at last they turned him into a baby, put him on a board and swaddled him.
When the girl woke up and found her brother gone, she turned to a man-eater and followed him. She tracked him across flats and over mountains. In the evening she came to the house where the old women lived, and asked: “Where is the young man who came here?”
“We haven’t seen a young man,” said the sisters. “Nobody comes here.”
“His tracks stop at your house,” said the sister. She looked in, saw the baby, and said: “Oh, you have a baby!” She went in, picked up the child, and said: “He looks like the man I am following.”
“That baby was born this morning,” said one of the sisters.
The woman put the baby back where it had been, then she lay down and went to sleep. She couldn’t help it, for the sisters made her sleep. One of them covered her, and said: “Let her sleep till her brother is near the place where he wants to go.”
As soon as the woman was asleep, the sisters unswaddled the baby. That minute he was a man and started off, saying: “If I live, I will not forget you.”
About daylight the sister woke up, and asked: “Where is your baby?”
“He has gone.”
“I thought so. I should have eaten him last night. When I come back I will pay you for this!” She started off quickly; she could step and jump as far as Gáukos could.
“Oh,” said the sisters, laughing, “you will not come back if you go where your brother is,” and they threw ashes after her, that fire might burn her up.
When Gáukos came to the house where old Lóluk and his wife, Dûnwa, lived, he asked Dûnwa to save him. Dûnwa didn’t speak. When Lóluk said “Um, um!” (he wanted his wife to save the young man) Dûnwa stood up and told Gáukos to go down in the hole where she had been sitting.
Gáukos thought: “Maybe she will sit on me and kill me.”
Dûnwa said: “You mustn’t think that; I won’t hurt you.”
He went into the hole, and Dûnwa sat down again.
Old Lóluk’s daughters were out hunting. When they went off to track deer they left their clothes at home and wore only a breech-clout. The minute Gáukos hid in the hole, each sister’s bowstring broke. The girls were frightened, for they knew that something had happened, and right away they started for the house. When they were putting on their clothes, the elder sister said: “I feel as if somebody were looking at me.”
“I feel so, too,” said the younger sister.
They went into the house. Just then Gáukos’ sister came in like a whirlwind.
“Tell me where my brother is!” screamed she.
Nobody answered. The sisters didn’t know what she meant.
“Where is he?” cried she. “I have tracked him to your house. Tell me where he is!”
The elder sister put back her hair, and said: “We have been hunting; we don’t know anything about your brother. Ask our father or our mother.”
Gáukos’ sister didn’t ask but she began to poke the fire around. That made the girls angry, for she was scratching their father’s face.
“Why do you scratch my father?” screamed the elder sister.
“This is not a living person; it is nothing but fire. I want to warm myself.”
“That isn’t a common fire,” said the girl. “That’s our father! Let him alone!” She pushed her away.
Gáukos’ sister jumped on the girl, opened her mouth and was going to chew her up and swallow her but the younger sister pulled her back by the hair. Old Lóluk said “Um! um!” Dûnwa raised herself up, rolled over on the girl and broke her legs. The old man opened his mouth wide, like two walls, the sisters caught hold of the girl and threw her into his mouth. Lóluk swallowed her.
The elder sister said: “You will not do such things again. You will no longer be a person; you will be a bird, and lay eggs in the holes of cedar trees. People will kill you, for you will be good to eat.”
Old Lóluk called Gáukos out of his hiding-place and fixed him a place between his two daughters. Dûnwa brought him seeds to eat; he was her son-in-law now.
The next morning Gáukos asked for a bow and arrows. The elder sister brought him hers.
He tried the string of the bow, and said: “This is not strong enough.”
The younger sister brought her bow; he tried the string and said: “This will do.” Then he started.
Dûnwa said to her elder daughter: “You must go, too. This place is new for him; he may have bad luck.”
The young woman took her bow and arrows and followed Gáukos. When he looked back and saw her coming, he stopped and asked: “Why have you come?”
“I came to show you where the deer are.”
Right away they saw under a tree two deer hiding from flies. Gáukos crept up and shot both of them with one arrow. Then he told the woman to stay by the two while he looked for others. Soon he shot two more, and again two, and farther on he killed five; he put the nine deer in his belt and went back to his wife.
“Put the deer down,” said she, “I want to tell you about my father and mother. My sister and I kill ten deer each day. Each night our mother eats all the bones of those ten deer and in the morning not a bone is left; our father eats the meat and the livers. As soon as we get home, we cut the deer open, take out the livers and put five of them in our father’s mouth. We give him meat three times each day. You mustn’t think about my father or my mother, for they know your thoughts.”
Gáukos said: “I will kill the deer for you; I am a good hunter.” He put the eleven deer in his belt, and they went home.
Dûnwa asked: “How many deer did my son-in-law kill?”
“Eleven,” said her daughter. The old woman was glad.
Gáukos cut open the deer and gave five of the livers to Lóluk; then he gave the back and leg bones and all the other bones to his mother-in-law; she pounded them fine and ate them.
The sisters cooked meat, for themselves and Gáukos, on their father’s face, without scratching or hurting him.
When they were through eating, the elder sister asked: “Where shall we hang meat to dry?”
Gáukos went off a little way, pulled up a big tree, brought it to the house and stuck it down in the ground. On the branches of the tree they hung the meat of the eleventh deer.
That night Gáukos said: “I will stay ten days and hunt, then I must go and see my little sister.”
He killed eleven deer each day for ten days. As soon as they had ten big trees full of meat, he started for home. He spent the first night with the two old women. When they asked about his sister, he said: “Lóluk ate her up.” That night he heard singing and the rattle of a belt; Lĭsgaga was dancing her maturity dance. It was the fifth night. When young men came to ask the old women where the singing was, Gáukos told them.
Early the next morning Gáukos got home. Lĭsgaga was glad to see him; she had on her buckskin dress and her face was painted red. He said: “I have two wives now. I am going to make this house big enough for us all. I am afraid to live in the house with old Lóluk and my mother-in-law, for they know my thoughts. If I should think something bad about them, they might kill me.” He thought hard, and right away the house was big and full of nice things.
The next morning he started back. He spent the first night with the two old women and was at Lóluk’s house in the evening. That night he told Dûnwa’s daughters that he wanted to live in his old home. When he talked, neither Lóluk nor his wife knew what he said, they knew only when he thought. The elder sister told her mother in thought what Gáukos said.
“Is he going to leave you here?” asked Dûnwa.
“No, he wants us to go with him.”
“Our married daughters don’t belong to us,” said the old woman. “We keep them while they are single, but married they belong to another house.”
The next morning the young man killed ten deer. For ten days he killed ten deer each day, and on the eleventh day he killed many more.
Old Lóluk and his wife never went out; they stayed always in one place. The girls went every day to dig roots. They put them in baskets of different sizes and arranged the baskets in a row, a large basket at one end, and a small one at the other end. The old woman put a cap on the head of the largest basket.
When Gáukos and the two sisters were ready to start, Dûnwa asked if they would come back. When her son-in-law said that one of her daughters would come and bring her deer meat, she was satisfied.
The three started and all the baskets followed; the basket with the cap went ahead.
Gáukos and the two sisters spent the first night with the old women. Gáukos gave the woman who had turned him into a baby and saved him from his sister, the second basket. It was full of roots that were sweet and tasted good.
The next morning the three went on, and the baskets followed. When Gáukos got home, Lĭsgaga stored away the roots and put up the baskets.
Gáukos hunted deer for ten days and killed twenty each day. In the largest basket, the one with the cap, he put all the bones; in the other baskets he put livers and meat. Then he said to the elder sister: “You must take these baskets to your father and mother.”
The younger sister said: “She can stay here, I will go with the baskets.”
“We had better do as we are told,” said the elder.
“Make the journey in one day and don’t camp anywhere,” said Gáukos.
The elder sister started, and the baskets followed, walking one behind the other. The younger sister cried, for she was lonesome.
Gáukos said: “When we left your father and mother, I promised that one of you should go back with meat; that is why I sent your sister. If you want to go, get ready.”
She started and overtook her sister. The elder sister went ahead of the baskets, the younger walked behind them. When the sisters were near Lóluk’s house, old man Gäk saw them and was scared. He said: “Be-e-au! Where did all those baskets come from? And why are they walking? They will never do that again. Hereafter people will carry on their backs whatever they put into baskets. Baskets will not walk like that.” Right away the baskets turned to stone.
Then Gäk said to the sisters: “You will no longer be living women; you will be rocks, and stay right here on the trail.” When he came to Lóluk’s house, he said: “Old woman Dûnwa, you will no longer be great. In later times people will pound roots on you.” To old man Lóluk he said: “Hereafter you will be kin to no man; you will burn all alike.” As Gäk spoke, Lóluk became common fire.
When Gáukos’ wives were turned to stone his bowstring broke, and right away he knew what had happened.
ISIS AND YAULILIK’S DAUGHTERS
CHARACTERS
Isis Kumush Yaulilik Snowbird
Isis built a house on Teutgosi and lived there many years. Each day that he hunted for deer he killed three or four. He hung the deer on his belt as though they were rabbits and carried them home; then he cut up the meat and dried it.
Isis had so much deer meat that if all the people in the world had eaten of it there would have been plenty left.
While hunting Isis always sang, and his song was heard everywhere in the world. It was so beautiful that any one listening to it might have dropped asleep.
On one side of Isis’ mountain lived old Yaulilik with her two daughters and her son. Yaulilik was so poor that she had to beg meat for herself and children. One day she said to her daughters:
“You ought to be sorry that your mother has to work so hard. For many years I’ve begged meat for you to eat. I am old now. You should find a good hunter to kill deer for us. I can’t work for you much longer. You are old enough to have a husband.”
“Where can we find a good hunter?” asked the elder sister.
“There is one on this mountain; I often hear his song. If you didn’t always stay in the house, you would hear it. It is the song of a great hunter.”
“Where is his house?” asked the elder sister.
“In the north. You will camp one night before you get there.”
The sisters didn’t want to go, for they didn’t know about Isis; they were afraid and wanted to stay with their mother.
Old Yaulilik said: “Isis is the son of Kumush. He is the greatest hunter, the greatest ball player and the greatest runner in the world. He can run down deer and catch them.” When the sisters heard this they were willing to go.
Yaulilik filled two baskets with roots and seeds, gave one to each of her daughters, and said: “Old man Kumush lives with Isis, and sometimes he pretends that he is Isis. He puts on Isis’ clothes and tries to sing his song. You mustn’t let him fool you. When Isis is at home there is always fresh deer meat hanging on the trees near the house.”
The sisters traveled till the sun went down; then they camped. They started early the next morning and soon came to a large village. Blaiwas was chief of that village.
All the Blaiwas people came out of their houses to watch the sisters and see where they were going. When they got to Isis’ house, they put their baskets down outside the door and listened; somebody inside was playing on a flute.
The elder sister said: “Isis is at home.”
“That’s not Isis,” said the younger sister.
“How do you know?”
“Mother said that if Isis was at home there would be fresh deer meat hanging on the trees near the house. All the meat on these trees is dry.”
“Don’t you hear the nice music?”
“Yes, but mother said that Isis’ song was so beautiful that one might fall asleep when they heard it.”
The sisters disputed for a long time, then the elder one went in and sat down by the man who was playing on the flute; the younger followed her, but she was crying, for she knew that the man was not Isis.
Isis was away hunting for deer and just at the moment the girls put down their baskets outside his door his bowstring broke, then he knew that young women had come to him. He started for home, singing as he traveled. When he was on the top of a mountain where the sky came to the ground, all the people in the world heard his song, and said: “Isis is coming.”
The old man kept playing on the flute. After a while he said to the girls: “I wonder why Kumush doesn’t come?”
The elder sister nudged the younger, and said: “This man is Isis; Kumush has gone for wood.”
“No,” said the younger, “Isis is coming. I hear his song.”
Soon Isis came in with his belt full of deer. He stood still and didn’t know where to go, for the younger sister sat in his place. At last he went to the old man’s side of the house, put down the deer, cut up one and cooked the ribs, then he asked Kumush if he had given the girls anything to eat.
“No,” said Kumush. “I was playing on the flute.”
Isis gave the girls meat. The elder ate, but the younger couldn’t, for she was crying.
When it was growing dark, Isis said to Kumush: “Take off my clothes; you will break the beads if you sleep on them.”
The girls went outside; then Isis gave Kumush a large mat and said: “Go outside with your young women.”
The old man took his blanket and the mat and went outside.
The elder sister was angry; she knew now that she had been fooled. When Kumush lay down, she and her sister held him to the ground and began to scratch him with their bone head-scratchers. He screamed and called to Isis that the girls were killing him, but Isis didn’t care. The girls scratched harder and harder; they wanted to scratch all the flesh off his bones. At daybreak, when they started for home, there was nothing left of old Kumush but bones and the disk.
Isis stayed in the house all night. He heard Kumush scream and knew that the girls were abusing him, but he was angry at the old man and wouldn’t help him. In the morning when he went out to see what had happened, he found only a pile of bones and a disk. The girls were gone.
Isis felt badly; he was lonesome for his father. He strung his bow and shot an arrow through the air. The arrow struck the side of a mountain, split the mountain apart, and through the opening came a river so deep and wide that the girls couldn’t cross it. They sat down on the bank, for they didn’t know what to do. Soon Isis came and sat down near them. He called the elder sister to him, caught hold of her hair and cut her head off. Then he killed the younger sister and threw both bodies into the river.
Isis felt badly. He went to Mlaiksi (Mt. Shasta), lay on the top of the mountain and cried. He didn’t want to go home.
One day, when old Yaulilik was fishing in the river that Isis had made, the head of one of her daughters floated into the net. When she sent Cogátkis, her little boy, to see if there were fish in the net he ran back crying: “There is something in the net that looks like my sister’s head.”
Yaulilik ran to the river, took the head out of the net and saw that it was the head of her elder daughter. She put the head in a basket and carried it home, then she sent Cogátkis to look for the body. Soon he called out: “Come quick, my sister’s body is in the net!”
They carried the body to the house, then old Yaulilik sent the boy to watch for the head of his younger sister, and after a time her head and body floated into the net. Then the mother made a sweat-house, and built a big fire in it. She put the two heads and two bodies into a basket, and put the basket and Cogátkis into the sweat-house. She wrapped up Cogátkis, so that he couldn’t move, and said: “No matter what your sisters say or do, you mustn’t answer them or speak to them.” She shut the sweat-house up tight, and started for Blaiwas’ village to ask Blaiwas if he knew who had killed her daughters.
As Yaulilik traveled, she sang her snow song, and a great snow-storm came. When she stopped singing the snow stopped falling. When she got to Blaiwas’ village she went into the first house.
The people living there asked: “Why did you come here? What do you want?”
Yaulilik said: “I came to find out who killed my daughters.”
The people didn’t know, but they gave her as much deer meat as they could lift. Yaulilik made it small by her power, put it in her bosom and went on. She began to sing; snow fell again. She stopped at each house in the village, and asked: “Do you know who killed my daughters?”
At each house she got the same answer, and a gift of deer meat.
At the end of the village three houses stood near together. Blaiwas lived in the first house, Gäk in the second, and Ndúkis in the third. When Yaulilik asked Blaiwas who had killed her daughters, he said: “I don’t know, you had better ask old man Gäk; he lives in the next house; maybe he will know.”
Gäk didn’t know, but told her to ask the old man who lived in the next house.
When Yaulilik went into the third house old Ndúkis looked up, and asked: “What have you come here for?” When she told him he asked: “What man did you send your daughters to?”
Yaulilik didn’t answer.
“Well,” said Ndúkis, “the man you sent them to killed them. Just after daylight I heard one woman scream and then another. The second screamed louder and longer than the first. The sound came from the northwest.”
Yaulilik said: “I know now who killed my daughters.” She thanked old Ndúkis and started for home. As soon as she started the snow disappeared, the ground was dry and the air warm and pleasant.
When half-way home Yaulilik took the deer meat out of her bosom, made it large and carried it on her back. When she was near the sweat-house she heard talking and laughing.
Yaulilik hadn’t been gone long when the girls began to be noisy and to try to make their brother talk to them. The elder sister’s voice called from the basket:
“Little brother, don’t you want to see me? I have come back.”
The younger one said: “Get up, little brother, and talk with us.”
Cogátkis didn’t look toward the basket or speak.
When Yaulilik was almost home, the girls got out of the basket and began to unwrap their brother, but he jumped up and ran away. He was afraid if he spoke his sisters would die again. When Yaulilik opened the sweat-house door, the three ran out; they were glad to see her. The girls were well, but their bodies were tender, and Yaulilik wouldn’t let them go far from the house. One day, when the younger sister was digging roots, she looked toward Mlaiksi, and right away she wanted to go there. When she carried her roots home, she said to her mother: “To-morrow I am going to Mlaiksi to gather seeds.”
Yaulilik said: “You can’t go there; you are not strong enough.”
The elder sister said: “Your feet are too tender to climb that mountain.”
The girl waited two days, then she said: “To-morrow I am going to Mlaiksi to gather seeds.” In the morning she asked her mother to feed her.
The elder sister said: “If you go, I shall go.”
Then Cogátkis began to cry; he wanted to go with his sisters. When his mother gave each of the girls water for the road he screamed.
Yaulilik said to her daughters: “Your brother feels lonesome; let him go with you.”
The elder sister said: “If the lolus seeds are not ripe, we shall come home. He is little; he can’t travel fast.”
The younger sister was sorry for her brother, so she tied his hair in a knot on the top of his head and told her mother to take him to Duilas (Little Shasta). From Duilas, through the power of his hair, he could see them when they were on the mountain.