Part 6

Wus sent for all the people in the world. Every one came; every one thought: “What will Wus say?” But nobody talked; they all sat still waiting. At last Wus said: “There should be ten months of cold.” Then everybody began to talk. Nobody wanted ten months. Some said: “If there are ten months of cold, people will starve to death; they can’t lay up roots and seeds enough. Let us have five months.” Others said: “Two months are enough.” Wus kept saying: “There should be ten.” When they couldn’t agree, some one said: “Let the oldest man here decide.” There was one very old man there,—the oldest of all, but he only listened, he didn’t say a word. Again Wus said: “There should be ten months.”

The council lasted all night; then people asked: “Where is Kânoa? Why doesn’t he talk?” It was getting daylight, and Wus still insisted on ten months. “The months can be short,” said he, “not many days long.” Now the people said to Kânoa: “Speak, old man; maybe you have something in your mind to say.” He started to go, and just then he called out: “Danwacuk” (three months).

Wus was mad, but the other people were glad, and said: “The old man is right. There will be three months of winter.”

“I am afraid people will not be thankful for what we have done,” said Hedgehog, “and will eat us.” Porcupine was afraid, too, but others said: “We have got fire for them; we have killed five of the Súbbas brothers; we have made winter short; they will be thankful.”

The council broke up, and soon after all those people turned to common animals, for real people were coming.

The five Súbbas brothers lived in their house in the west, but they watched the world. And since then things have been as they are now.

HOW SICKNESS CAME INTO THE WORLD

CHARACTERS

Gletcówas Kéis Rattlesnake Nébăks Sickness Snoútiss Blowsnake Wéwenkee Whipsnake

Kéis and his brother, Snoútiss, lived on the southwest side of Little Shasta. The three Gletcówas brothers lived on the northwest side.

The Gletcówas brothers were great hunters; they made snares of grass ropes knotted and tied together, and fastened them between trees. Each morning they drove deer into the snares. As the brothers traveled, they called out their own name, “Gletcówas,” and they called it as they went home at night. When they had snared as many deer as they wanted, they packed them up and carried them to the house; they never skinned or cut up a deer in the woods. The Gletcówas brothers were so small that they looked like children, but they were young men.

Kéis, the elder of the two brothers who lived on the southwest side of the mountain, always sat at home making bows and arrows. Snoútiss, his little brother, dug roots, and while he was digging he listened to the Gletcówas brothers. He heard their song, and knew that they were great hunters. One day he said to Kéis: “The Gletcówas brothers have plenty of meat.”

“Let us go to their snares and get some,” said Kéis.

“They never cut up their deer in the woods,” said the younger brother; “if they did, they couldn’t catch any more; they carry them home whole. You might go to their house and ask for meat, but don’t go near their snares; if you do you will get into trouble.”

Kéis went, but he didn’t do as his brother told him. He went straight to the snares the Gletcówas brothers had set. In one of the snares was a large fat deer. Kéis tried to untie the knot in the rope around its neck; he couldn’t do it; so he pulled at it till he broke out all but two of his teeth.

“We will go to the snares, and see if we have caught anything,” said the eldest of the Gletcówas brothers.

“I will stay and dry meat,” said the youngest. There was a great deal of meat hanging on trees near the house.

When the two brothers came to where their snares were, they saw a man. “Who are you?” asked one of them.

Kéis didn’t answer, but as soon as they untied the deer he sprang upon it and cried: “This is mine!”

“No, it is ours!” said the eldest brother, “but if you will come with us, we will give you some of the meat. We can’t cut the deer up here; it would spoil our snares.”

Kéis didn’t listen to them; he went off. His mouth was bleeding, and he was mad. When he got home, he sat down and began to make poison—fever and black vomit and terrible things.

“What is the matter?” asked Snoútiss. “What makes your mouth bleed? Why are you working so hard over that bad stuff? It is wrong to make that. It may get out of our house and spread everywhere; then the people to come will have these terrible things and die.”

“Those brothers in the northwest took my deer from me,—a large, fat one,” said Kéis, and he kept on making the medicine.

“You must have gone to their snares,” said the boy. “They couldn’t cut the deer up there in the woods.”

Kéis didn’t answer, and Snoútiss thought: “I will go and find out what has made Kéis so mad.” When he got to the house of the three brothers, they said: “Come in, little boy. What is the trouble with your brother?”

“All his teeth are out, but two, and with those he is making bad medicine. He is mad; he says that you took a deer away from him.”

“We took our own deer. We told him to come and get some of the meat, but he wouldn’t; he went away without saying a word.”

The brothers gave Snoútiss meat; he took it and started for home. When he got to the house he looked in at the smoke hole and he was frightened. His brother was hard at work; the whole house was dripping with sores; there were aches and pains of all kinds, and terrible sickness.

“I can’t come in,” cried the little boy. “You have made those things and now they will be here always, and will make trouble. You got mad for nothing. I can’t stay with you; I will go to my uncle.”

When Snoútiss came in sight of Wéwenkee’s house, a little boy saw him, and called to his father: “A boy is coming!”

“That is Snoútiss,” said Wéwenkee. “He has never been here before; he wouldn’t come now if he wasn’t in trouble.”

When Snoútiss got to the house, he stood outside, crying.

“Tell him to come in,” said Wéwenkee to his son. Snoútiss went in. “What is the matter? Why do you cry?” asked his uncle.

“My brother is mad. He has made all kinds of terrible sores and sickness. I feel badly, for those things can never be got rid of; they will live always to trouble the people who are to come. It looks badly and smells badly in our house. My brother got mad for nothing.”

“Those Gletcówas brothers are mean men,” said Wéwenkee, “but if Kéis wanted meat he should have gone to their house. I am stronger than your brother; I have a wildcat skin blanket, all painted. I will go home with you. How far away is your house?”

“On the other side of a flat there are big rocks, our home is under those rocks. I don’t want to go there. I can’t go in the house, it smells so badly.”

“I will go alone,” said his uncle.

When Wéwenkee got to the house, he crawled in through a crack in the wall. His nephew didn’t see him, didn’t know that he was there. There was such a terrible smell in the house that Wéwenkee couldn’t stay; so he got out quickly. The only way he could look in was by painting red stripes across his forehead and around his wrists. When he got home, he said to Snoútiss: “You told me the truth. Hereafter there will be all kinds of sickness. Sickness will spread everywhere. Does Kéis think he is more powerful than I am? I can do all that he can do. I know that what he has made will live always. Will you go home now?” asked Wéwenkee.

“I don’t want to go,” said Snoútiss.

Wéwenkee started off again. After he had gone, his wife said to Snoútiss: “You should have gone with your uncle. Do you think that he has only one blanket? His blankets are doubled around his body, one over another, and one is worse than another. They are blankets of sickness and sores. Wéwenkee is chief of those things; he can make more bad medicine than your brother can. When he is mad, he can raise a terrible whirlwind. That is the kind of man he is. You should have gone with him.”

Snoútiss went out then and followed his uncle, but Wéwenkee didn’t see him. As the old man traveled, sores came out all over him. He cried, and his tears were drops of matter. When he went into his nephew’s house, he said: “You have done wrong; now all this bad stuff will soak into the earth and make great trouble.”

Wéwenkee made a big ball of soft bark, rolled it around and gathered on it all the sores and sickness that were on the top and sides of the house, and on the ground. “Don’t you wink again and let that stuff fall,” said he to his nephew.

He rolled the bark ball over Kéis’ body, cleaned him of sores, and then he squeezed the ball over his own head and said: “This is mine. How did you dare to let this out? Sickness belongs to Nébăks. It is only loaned to us; we had no right to let it out till he told us to. Now it has gone from us; I have saved some, but a great deal has scattered and gone through the world. You have frightened your brother so he won’t come back to you”—Wéwenkee didn’t know that Snoútiss was on top of the house listening to what he said.

“Will you change skins with me?” asked Wéwenkee.

“No,” said Kéis, “I want my own skin.”

“It is too bad I can’t get up all this sickness,” said Wéwenkee,—he was still rolling the bark ball,— “it has soaked into the ground, and in hot weather and in winter it will come out.”

Kéis didn’t say much, for he didn’t want Wéwenkee to see that his teeth were gone.

“The Gletcówas brothers are bad men, but you should have asked them for meat, not tried to steal it,” said Wéwenkee.

“They wanted to kill me.”

“How many teeth have you?” asked Wéwenkee.

“Two.”

“Let me have them for a little while.”

“No, I want them myself; people will always hate me, these teeth will defend me. If I want to kill any one I can do it with my teeth. I can throw medicine at them and kill them. I shall keep poison medicine in the ends of my teeth; I will be as bad as others are.”

“I will always be good, unless somebody makes me mad,” said Wéwenkee. “In later times people will like my skin and want to take it. Maybe they will throw dirt at me so they can hide my face and eyes from them, but they can do me no harm. I will not be a servant to any one; but those who go to the swimming ponds on the mountains, and those who are willing to travel at night, I will like. I will give them my skin, and the earth will give me another. [7] I shall never appear to any one, who is not a doctor.”

“I will do just as I have done,” said Kéis. “If I get mad, I will kill people by throwing out sickness.”

“If you do, you will be hated, and you will always be in trouble,” said Wéwenkee. And he begged hard for Kéis to put away sickness. “You are my nephew,” said he; “you should do as I say. I am a chief, too. I am sorry for the people who are to come, and you ought to think of them. Let us put sickness back in our bodies, and never use it unless this earth tells us to. It won’t be long that we shall be persons; soon we shall live under rocks and in holes in the ground. When the people to come take our places, they will hate you. I am sorry for your little brother. I would go away now, but I don’t want to be changed till some one comes to tell me what I shall be.”

So Wéwenkee talked to his nephew, and at last Kéis took off all his sicknesses and tied them up in a bundle. He put the bundle in his quiver, and said: “I will only take these out when people abuse me.” Then he told his brother to come in.

“My little nephew,” said Wéwenkee, “those Gletcówas can turn to anything; sometimes they are fish and sometimes they are bugs or ticks. You might catch one of them and think that you were holding him in your hand, but he would be gone. You can remember better than Kéis; that is why I tell you about those brothers. Sometimes they are large animals, sometimes they are a straw on a trail, or a stump of burnt wood, or lice. Often, in the night, they are wind; or they are mole hills for men to fall over. I can’t tell you all that they turn to. I know they are going to kill your brother, for he has tried to kill them.” Then he said to Kéis: “Stand up.” When his nephew stood up, Wéwenkee turned him around, looked at him on every side, and said: “I don’t like any part of your skin, and your mind is mean. What part of my skin do you like?”

Kéis said: “I like the spots on your breast and the gloss on your body.”

“Lie down,” said Wéwenkee, “and cover yourself up and sleep all day; then maybe your mind will be better and you won’t get mad so easily.” He told him over and over not to open the bundle of sickness, then he told Snoútiss to watch Kéis, and if he started to untie the bundle to come and tell him. He said: “Nobody will be able to kill sickness; your brother has spoiled the world. In later times we may have no mind, but we may want to go near houses. People will hate Kéis, but they will say: ‘His uncle was chief before we came,’ and they will know that I won’t hurt them.”

Kéis slept till night, then he woke up and sent his brother for water. “I wonder why he sent me for water when there was water in the house,” thought Snoútiss, and he hurried back and looked in at the smoke hole. Kéis was sitting by the fire, untying his bundle. When he heard Snoútiss on the top of the house, he tied up the bundle and pulled his blanket around him.

“What were you doing?” asked Snoútiss.

“I was covering myself up.”

“I know what you were doing,” said the boy; “you were letting out sickness. Our uncle told you never to untie that bundle.”

Snoútiss ran off to his uncle’s house and told him what Kéis had done. Wéwenkee was so mad at his nephew that he stretched himself out full length; then he made a circle around the world and pressed everything together, but Kéis went in among rocks and Wéwenkee couldn’t press hard enough to break them.

“What are you doing?” asked Wéwenkee.

“What I want to,” said Kéis.

“If you want to be great of your own strength, I will leave you,” said Wéwenkee, and he started for home.

Now Kéis began to sing like a doctor; the three Gletcówas brothers heard his song, and wondered who was around among the rocks singing.

“I will find out,” said the eldest brother, and he went toward the rocks.

The second brother followed him. When near they smelt smoke,—Kéis was smoking Indian tobacco,—and they knew who was singing. “I wonder what that man is doing,” said one of the brothers; “we must think how to kill him.”

Now Wéwenkee sent Snoútiss to see what Kéis was doing; he came back, and said: “My brother is among the rocks, singing.”

Wéwenkee rubbed himself around in the dirt, and said: “This is what I knew would happen when he went by his own strength. All that I have talked to your brother I will take off and give to the dirt. I will rub off all that I promised to help him, and give it back to the ground. We will no longer be living persons. You will remember me in later times, for I have been a great chief. You will be near me always, for you will be my brother. Hereafter you will be only a little snake and blow with your mouth.” Right away Snoútiss became a common little snake. Then Wéwenkee turned himself into a whipsnake.

The youngest of the Gletcówas brothers listened to Kéis’ song and watched for him to come out from among the rocks. As he ran back and forth he called: “Gletcówas! Gletcówas!”

“What is the matter?” asked his brothers.

“I have no father or mother; that is why I cry all the time.”

The brothers said to one another: “Kéis is the man who killed our father and mother; we must kill him.”

As Gletcówas went toward the rocks, he hit against a mole hill and fell; then he talked to the earth, and said: “You shouldn’t treat me in this way. I have no father or mother; you should carry me safely.”

As Gletcówas fell, Kéis came out from among the rocks. He had grown so tall that he almost touched the sky. His song was loud and nice.

The brothers hid behind rocks and tied cross sticks to their arrows. “Go up to the sky,” called they to their youngest brother, for Kéis was just going to throw his medicine at him.

The brothers shot their arrows and hit Kéis. He fell, but he kept singing. The eldest brother pulled up a tree stump and pounded him on the head till he died. They cut Kéis into small pieces, threw the pieces over the rocks, and said: “You will no longer be great; even old women will kill you.” The pieces became rattlesnakes.

Then the three brothers went north. Kéis had made them lose their minds. They crossed the Shasta River and became birds.

HOW OLD AGE CAME INTO THE WORLD

CHARACTERS

Komúchass Old Age Nébăks Sickness

Five brothers and their sister lived alone on a mountain; the brothers had killed a great many people in the country around.

The sister gathered the wood and cooked the meat. When it was time for her maturity dance, she asked: “How can I dance when there is nobody to sing for me?”

“Walk around all the time,” said her eldest brother; “pile stones, and don’t sleep for five nights.”

The girl kept awake four nights, then she was so tired that she fell asleep. She dreamed that her brothers were covered with sores and were starving. When she woke up, she cried and said: “I wish I had died long ago, then I shouldn’t have brought trouble on my brothers. I have done this by not dancing and by going to sleep.”

When she got home, she found that Sickness had been in the house. Sickness came every day for five days. Then each one of the five brothers had great sores on his body. There was nobody to hunt for deer, or rabbits, and soon the brothers were starving. The sister brought wood and kept the fire, but she couldn’t find anything to eat. Everybody was glad that the brothers were sick and hoped they would die.

One of the brothers saw two swans on a pond near the house, and when the sister came with a load of wood on her back, he said: “I wish we could kill one of those swans.”

“Maybe I can kill one,” said the sister. She got her brothers’ bows and tried the strings to see which string was the strongest. She put down one bow after another, saying: “That isn’t strong.” The strings had been strong enough for her brothers, but for her they were weak. She took the bow that belonged to her youngest brother, pulled the string, and said: “This will do.”

When she started for the pond, one of the brothers watched her, he said: “Now she is near the pond; now she is sitting down on the bank!” She drew the bow, and when he thought she had missed the swan, he nearly fell, he was so sorry. He didn’t look out again. The arrow went through both swans.

The sister brought the swans home and left them outside; she took the bow and arrow in and put them away. Her brothers felt badly; they were disappointed. When she asked: “Shall I cook them in the house?” they were glad. They tried to get up, but they couldn’t stand on their feet, they were so weak.

The girl cooked the swans and gave her brothers some of the meat. She said: “Eat a little at a time, so it will last longer.” She saved the fat and rubbed her brothers with it, to heal their sores.

“Now I am stronger,” said the eldest brother. “Give me my bow; I feel as if I could shoot something.” Each brother said the same.

When the people at the foot of the mountain heard that the five brothers were sick, they were glad and sent a young man to find if it were true. He came back, and said: “They are sick and are going to die.”

When the sister had gone for wood, the eldest brother said: “I know that somebody is coming; I want to be strong.” They all had the same feeling, and each one tried his bowstring. When the sister came back, the eldest brother said: “You must roll us up in our blankets, and tie them around us as though we were dead. Put our bows and arrows and beads near us.”

When she had done that, she went off to the mountains, for she felt badly and didn’t want to stay with her brothers; she didn’t want to live any longer.

The brothers waited for her, and when it was dark and she didn’t come, one said: “Our sister is always talking about dying; maybe she is dead.”

Now the people at the foot of the mountain sent a little boy to see if the five brothers were alive. He crossed the pond in a canoe; he rowed the canoe by saying: “Peldack! Peldack!” (Go fast). When the boy saw the men tied up in their blankets, he went back, and said: “They are dead. In their house there are bows and arrows and nice beads. You must go and get them.”

The chief said: “Get ready; we will go and scalp those men, and take their things.”

When the brothers saw the men coming, they said: “We will lie here as if we were dead, and when they pack up our things and start away, we will spring up and fight them with knives.”

The men came into the house. They unrolled the brothers and kicked them around; they took their blankets, bows, arrows and beads, took everything they could find, and started off.

Then the five brothers jumped up and ran at them with knives. They killed every man, threw the bodies into the pond, and started off to hunt for their sister. They hunted a long time. At last they found her body and burned it; then the eldest brother said: “Let us leave this country and kill every man we can find.”

They started and traveled toward the west. They killed every man or woman they met. When people saw them coming they ran and hid, they were so afraid of them. The brothers traveled a long time, and killed a great many people. At last they came to a big lake. They made a canoe and started to cross it, but before they got to land, the canoe sank. It went under the water and under a mountain and out into another lake. There they met Storm.

He was a man then and could kill anybody he could catch and draw into the water. He tried to kill the five brothers, but the youngest brother fought with him, cut him to pieces with his knife, and said: “You will be a person no longer; you will only be something to scare people,” and he drove him away. All the people under the water hid, for they were afraid of the brothers.

When the brothers couldn’t find any one to kill, they turned toward the east and traveled till they came to a country where they found a very old man and a very old woman. They said: “We have come to fight you.”

“I don’t want to fight,” said the old man. “We have always lived here, this is our place; nobody ever came here before to trouble us. We don’t bother any one. Go away and leave us.”

“You must fight,” said the brothers. “If you don’t, we will kill you; we kill every one we meet.”

“You can’t kill us or harm us, no matter what you do,” said the old man. “We are Komúchass (Old Age). We shall live always.”

The five brothers were mad; they didn’t listen to the old man, but shot at him with arrows, and pounded him with clubs; then they built a fire and tried to burn him. When they couldn’t kill him in any way, they got scared and ran off.

The old man called to them to stop, but they didn’t listen; then he said: “We shall follow you; you cannot get away; wherever you go we shall go. You will never get home.”

The old man and old woman followed the brothers for a long time, and at last they caught up with the eldest brother. Right away he was old and weak. He stumbled along for a little way, then fell to the ground and died.

They overtook the second brother; he also grew old and weak, fell to the ground and died. The third brother reached the lake; he was running on the ice when Komúchass overtook him; he grew weak and fell; the ice broke and he was drowned. The fourth brother died in the same manner. The youngest brother thought he was going to get away from the old man; he was only a few steps from home when Komúchass overtook him. Right off he was an old man; he stumbled along a step or two, then fell to the ground and died.