Part 30

For ages the reverence and enthusiasm of primitive men have been given to elemental heroes, and they are given them yet by every tribe which preserves its ancient beliefs and ideas.

Fortunately we know all of the characters in this story of the elements.

Tcûskai, who represents spring, thought that he could cut off North Wind’s head. When Wind put his head out Tcûskai died.

Tskel killed South Wind, made a cap of his skin, put it on and went to North Wind’s house and killed him.

Since the death of North Wind and South Wind the wind that comes from the south is South Wind’s spirit, and the wind that comes from the north is North Wind’s spirit.

The Warm Spring Indians of Oregon have a beautiful myth about the Southwest Wind brothers and the Northeast Wind brothers and their sister, Tekstye. When Southwest Wind had killed Tekstye’s brothers she ran away. Southwest Wind overtook her just as she reached a river; he struck her and she fell into the water. Then he said: “You’ll no longer be a person and freeze people. You can blow once in a while, then I will come and overpower you. Rain will be your enemy, too. You will blow and freeze up everything, then he and I will come, we will thaw out the ground, warm it up, and make it green and beautiful.”

GÁUKOS AND KÛLTA

Gáukos, the moon, is afraid of the big-mouthed people, the grizzly bears (clouds). He takes Weketas to protect him. He says: “If only a bit of me is left in Lok’s mouth Weketas can bring me to life.” In the old time nearly every tribe of Indians on the western continent believed that an eclipse was caused by an animal’s attempt to swallow the sun, or the moon. Some tribes believe it yet and think that the animal is a grizzly bear. In Guatemala, when there is an eclipse, the Indians assemble in their villages, beat on drums, scream and make as much noise as possible, “to scare the bear away.”

In “Tulchuherris,” a Wintu myth, Olelbis, the creator, warns Sas, the Sun, against the grizzlies; he says: “While coming from the east you will see thick brush along the road. In that brush are grizzly bears. Be on your guard against them; they will kill you if they can.”

DJÁKALIPS—RED CLOUDS

In this myth it is not told who the two sisters are, but in most myths that describe rope-makers it is stated that when the great change came they turned to spiders. The Kaltsik (spider) people play a prominent part in “The Star Brothers.” In a Wintu Myth Norwanchakus hires the spider people to go to Sun’s house and ask where Keriha is. In Látkakáwas they made a basket and would have fastened it to the sky, but misfortune came from looking back.

MOASÄM BEPS, THE DAUGHTER OF SOUTH WIND

Moasäm Beps is a myth in which Winter and Spring are the characters. The fate of Tsákiak is pathetic, but we may be sure that if we knew what he represented, and had all the details of the myth, we should find it consistent, and true to nature.

WEST WIND’S WIVES

Is a beautiful myth. The mind that conceived it was full of poetic thought.

THE STAR BROTHERS

Ko-a-lák-ak-a, the woman who told this myth-tale, thought that Tekewas was a cloud—the red cloud that in morning heralds a storm, for she was often seen, a red cloud, lying on the top of a mountain watching the valley below. Her family were afraid of her. Even the sun feared her.

There are valuable elements in the myth: hastening the course of the sun; the destruction caused by looking back; two newly born children pressed into one (we do not know what phenomena or force the children represent); the one, by the blow of an arrow, made two.

The heroes had many adventures. The elder wrestled with Yahyáhaäs, killed him, and condemned his spirit to wander forever on mountains, and along rivers and brooks. The moment the victor pronounced the curse the conquered said: “You will no longer be a person. You and your brother will be stars.” Thereupon they became what their opponent had made them. When the word had been uttered nothing in the universe could turn it aside or resist it.

Ko-a-lák-ak-a thought that Yahyáhaäs personified fog. Captain John said that Yahyáhaäs was lightning, and the people who wrestled with him were clouds.

Yahyáhaäs appears in a number of myths. He always has the same characteristics and the same power. His only way of killing an enemy is by wrestling with him. His spirit goes to the sky and becomes Leméis, thunder.

THE RAINMAKER

The people who lived in the world before this had all the weaknesses of the people of the twentieth century; they were jealous, unfaithful, and revengeful. But not in the beginning. For untold ages those “first people” lived in peace and harmony. “No man knows, no man can tell, how long they lived in that way.” Then, by degrees, a change came.

Gáhga, old, and blind, and jealous, “could have destroyed” (drowned) “all the people in the world had he so willed.” He was Rain. A similar character in Gaelic mythology is called “Wet Mantle.” His power was in his mantle, which was rain itself.

WUS KUMUSH AND TSMUK

Tsmuk is darkness, and his daughter, whose name is given in another version of the story, is Iúnika, Twilight.

In this myth there is a fine description of Wus. He could make people old; he could change them to animals or to anything he chose. He was the greatest trickster in the world; he delighted in deceiving people. He made Tsmuk look toward the east; immediately Tsmuk’s body became a black cloud. A west wind came and carried the cloud away; it was daylight. Wus said to Tsmuk, “You’ll no longer be a person. You’ll be darkness, and people will sleep when you are here. But I shall not sleep. I will sleep in the daytime and travel at night.” The last part of Wus’ declaration must be an interpolation, for Wus is connected with light. In the mythology of one of the Pacific coast tribes a personage with many of the characteristics of Wus is known to be that warm light which in fine weather we see waving and dancing above the earth. He leads persons astray, and is full of mischief and deceit.

FROST AND THUNDER (YAHYÁHAÄS).

This is the only myth in the collection in which Frost is a known character. Wus steals Gowwá’s wife, Gowwá gets her back, then the Lok people (clouds) steal her, Gowwá kills the Loks and rescues his wife only to have her stolen by Yahyáhaäs, who carries her to his home under the rocks. All the strong people in the world assemble to aid Gowwá, but they cannot break the rocks. Then Tckumhûs, or Tsasgips, as he is familiarly called,—a little man who looks puny and powerless,—says that he can break the rocks. He blows on them and they fall apart.

YAHYÁHAÄS

Yahyáhaäs makes the sun hasten its course. In this myth the misfortune which results from looking back is clearly stated: “If you look back you will die.”—Usually the person who looks back is turned to stone, as in the Bible Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.

YAHYÁHAÄS AND THE KÚJA SISTERS

As usual in Indian myth-tales, the younger sister has the most power.

Yahyáhaäs boasted that he could conquer the Kúja sisters. The eldest, to show her power, stuck a woodpecker’s feather in the ground and it came up a streak of fire in Yahyáhaäs’ cane.

Kûlta had been dead a long time. Kúja washed his body and stretched it, then, by stepping over it, brought it to life.

Bringing to life is one of the most familiar performances in American and in Oriental mythology. The Mongolian hero sprinkles a pile of bones with the Water of Life taken from a spring near a silver-leafed aspen tree. Immediately the bones resume their old connections and take on flesh; the man rises and proceeds on his journey as though nothing had happened.

It should be remembered that, whatever be the names of the myth-tale heroes at present, the original heroes were not human; they perform deeds which no man could perform, which only one of the forces of nature could perform, if it had the volition and desires of a person. In a beautiful myth of the Warm Spring Indians of California, Summer, a long time dead, is brought to life by the South Wind.

TSMUK AND GÓSHGOISE

When asked who the Yaukûl people were the story-teller said: “They were stone people.” The Modoc word for stone is bondak, that for rock is gowan. In a fragment of a variant of this myth Frost is one of the characters. The Modocs had a name for the different manifestations of frost; it is possible that Yaukûl is one of those names.

Góshgoise personifies spring. His grandmother made him a bright blue quiver out of her own hair. Then she made a spear that would last always and never get old,—lightning. He killed the Yaukûl people, then battled with the Kaudokis and the Juljulcus. He gave his spear, long lightning, to Juljulcus, and took Juljulcus’ spear, heat lightning, “that lightning which flashes around the sky in warm weather.” He went to Tsmuk’s house, and Iúnika (Twilight), Tsmuk’s daughter, who owned the moon, became his wife.

In this myth the idea that “bad thoughts” bring misfortune is brought out very strongly. A bad thought causes much trouble.

WAR BETWEEN BEASTS AND BIRDS

This myth recalls the fables of the great Russian writer, Kriloff. Whoever determines to be always, right or wrong, with the winning side, is likely to be left alone, as was Bat, who has no friend either among those that fly or those that walk.

LOK SNEWÉDJAS

Lok Snewédjas was a cloud, a snow storm and a whirlwind. The mountain was her father and the earth was her mother. In Wintu Wimaloimis, the grizzly-bear cloud woman, was not as good a mother as Lok Snewédjas, for she tried to eat her sons, Thunder and Lightning. Lok Snewédjas, when her child was in danger, rushed down the mountain in a whirlwind that tore big rocks from under the ground and threw them around as though they were tiny stones.

Lok Snewédjas owned all the yĕlalwek there was in the world. “No one had ever eaten any seed like it, or will ever eat any like it again.” No matter how much was eaten the same amount remained. From a handful all the people in a village were fed and the handful remained.

This myth shows what power the Indians thought their “medicine men” possessed: if they called to the spirit of a dead man before the spirit reached the place where the sun goes down, it would came back to the body.

HOW KALASLÁKKAS WON HIS WIFE

In this myth-tale Tusasás, who, wherever he appears, is always the same worthless, shiftless mischief-maker and boaster, is well described. The importance of dreams is also well brought out.

THE BAD BROTHER

The hero is Rain. He drowns his mother, then sends his sister to Kówe, who in other myths is described as having control of all the springs in the world: “She lives under the water, she is in every spring. She is our grandmother. If she gets mad she can dry up the deepest water.” The sister marries Djáudjau. Djáudjau visits his brother-in-law, and on leaving he gets green twigs, rubs himself with them, then rubs the twigs on the ground, and says: “I have brought away some of my brother-in-law’s bad thoughts; now, Earth, take them all.” He talks to the mountains and forgets his brother-in-law. A description of a similar act appears in several Modoc myths.

MINK AND WEASEL

Tskel and Tcûskai are great characters. In every myth in which they appear they are brothers and Skóŭks is Tskel’s wife; Tcûskai is always small, mischievous and inquisitive. Tskel, to punish Tcûskai for giving his blanket to Gopher (Pshagéknik), who is North Wind, hid water. Tcûskai found it and was drinking it up when Tskel came. Had he drunk it all there would be no water in the world. Tskel made a cap of the skin of Gopher’s head, and putting it on, went to Thunder’s house and killed the five brothers.

Tcûskai, though he was so small that he could camp in a woodpecker’s hole, pursued Wŏn, a creature that had to bend down to bite off the tops of trees. He wrestled with Sukas, a man-eater, who drew people in with his breath and swallowed them.—A wave.

PITOÍOIS

Pitoíois is now a bird (English name unknown). The old father-in-law is lightning. His life is in the stone mortar which he throws at persons whom he wishes to kill. If the mortar is broken he presses the pieces to his breast and it is whole again, but if it is buried in the ground under water he dies.

ILYÚYU

Ilyúyu became a head. The head crossed a mountain at a bound and rolled along in the air; it flew at men and killed them.—Among the Iroquois a cyclone is represented as a great head, the name of which, in Seneca, is Dagua Noenyent.

LOK AND KÉKINA

Is an attractive myth. Kékina is early Spring. Every time the little fellow calls: “Spring is coming. Spring is coming!” he hurries Spring along. The Loks are clouds; they prefer winter.

GRASSHOPPER IN LOVE WITH DEER

Is an illustration of unfaithfulness and deceit.

KAI AND HIS FATHER-IN-LAW

Old Ko-a-lák-ak-a, who told this myth, did not know who Natanatas was, but she thought that he represented Wind. He could cause a storm, and when a storm was raging, by wishing hard he could quell it. Natanatas gave his son-in-law what he thought to be impossible tasks.—The giving of tasks to a new son-in-law is a feature in many Indian myths, and also in Aryan myths.

NOTES

[1] Different events in the lives of Isis and Kumush are represented by rocks on that side of Tula Lake. Half-way up a high mountain is the house in which Kumush and Isis lived (a large rock); near Deus (Stork’s bill), is Isis (a rock of peculiar shape), and at the northwest corner of Tula Lake is Kumush himself.

[2] The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.

[3] A mountain in Oregon.

[4] Gauwams, a pond or small lake.

[5] The seed of a certain kind of weed.

[6] A red root.

[7] Doctors often rub a whipsnake in dust and pull off his skin, then he gets a new skin, so what Wéwenkee said was true.

[8] Obsidian knife.

[9] A grass that grows in the water.

[10] The edge or rim; meaning the end of the story.

[11] A certain root. English name unknown.

[12] A vegetable like an onion.

[13] A “medicine man.”

[14] Mount Shasta.

[15] The relator of this story said that after telling it there would be heavy wind, for the story always brought a wind-storm.

[16] A medicine basket is made of tckula, a kind of willow, and is painted red. When the basket is not a medicine, it is used as a sieve. The old Indian woman who related this Gäk myth said: “The basket is a good medicine. If a man is wounded, and the basket is put over him, he gets well.”

[17] When Indians tell this story, they talk down in their throats, to imitate the Näníhläs people.