Chapter II: Part 2

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.

The sisters started toward Mlaiksi, and Yaulilik took Cogátkis to Duilas. Cogátkis could watch his sisters, and he could talk with his mother, though the house was a long way off.

The sisters gathered seeds all day. When it was nearly dark, the elder sister asked: “Shall we stay here to-night?”

“We have only a few seeds,” said the younger sister. “We can stay all night and fill our baskets in the morning.”

When Cogátkis saw them picking up wood, he went home. Early the next morning he went again to Duilas. The girls were busy gathering seeds, so Cogátkis called to his mother: “They are at work again!”

At midday the younger sister said: “I want water; where can we get some?”

“I don’t know. There is no water near here.”

They were at the foot of Mlaiksi. The younger sister looked at the mountain, and said: “High up there is a green place; maybe there is water there. I will go and see.”

She climbed the mountain till she came to soft ground, then went higher and came to a place where the ground was moist. She dug down and found mud, but no water; she went higher, and this time, when she came to moist earth and dug down, she found a little water. She called her sister, and both drank of the water and then filled their water baskets.

They gathered seeds a while. The younger sister kept going up the mountain. The elder sister said: “Don’t go so high; you won’t find any seeds up there. It is getting late. Let us go back to where we camped last night.”

The younger sister heard a strange noise and wanted to find out what made it. She thought: “I will go back now, but to-morrow I will go to that green place that I can see way up there. Maybe I will find out what that noise is.”

When they got to the foot of the mountain and began to pick up wood Cogátkis went home, and said to his mother: “My sisters have camped where they camped last night.”

That night the younger sister couldn’t sleep; she was thinking of the strange noise she had heard: she felt drawn toward the sound. The next morning they gathered seeds till their baskets were full, then the younger sister said: “I want water. I am going to the place where we got some yesterday.”

They left their baskets and climbed up to where they had dug the hole; there was no water in it. They went higher, came to moist ground, dug down and got a little water. The younger sister again heard the strange sound. She went higher and listened; then she heard, far away, a weak voice saying: “Kĕlmas popanwe. Kĕlmas popanwe!” (You are drinking nothing but tears. You are drinking nothing but tears.)

The girl followed the sound, and saw a bright red hair on the ground. When she picked it up she knew it was a hair from the head of the man who had killed her and her sister. The place where she found the hair was level and smooth, without a blade of grass or a weed on it. In the middle of that space was a skeleton. All the bones were dead but the eyes were living. It was Isis’ skeleton. Thousands of deer had been there and danced around the man who had killed so many of their people. With their hoofs they had stamped down the grass and beaten the ground level.

When the elder sister saw the skeleton she was frightened and wanted to run away, but the younger sister spread out her wolf skin blanket and put the skeleton on it.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked her sister. “It smells badly. It makes me sick.” She wanted to snatch the skeleton and break it up.

“Go away!” said the younger girl. “I will bring this to life.” She wrapped the bones up carefully and started down the mountain, her sister following.

When they got to their camp the elder said: “Let me have those bones; they are the bones of the man who killed us. I’ll pound them up and burn them.”

The younger sister didn’t listen to what the elder said. She got deer fat, rubbed the skeleton with it, and pushed some of the fat between the teeth. She worked over the skeleton all night. In the morning there was a little flesh on the bones; at midday the skeleton was a man again.

The younger sister fed him, and the elder gathered seeds for him, for she liked him now.

Cogátkis called to his mother: “I see two persons sitting in the shade while my elder sister gathers seeds.” The next morning he called to his mother: “The stranger is alone; both my sisters are gathering seeds.”

Isis drank water, then lay down and slept. While he was sleeping porcupines danced around him, and sang. The sisters came at midday, and when the porcupines saw them coming they ran away.

The next morning the younger sister said to Isis: “This is the last day we can gather seeds near by. We must go farther up the mountain.”

When Isis was left alone, he fell asleep. The porcupines came and danced around him and sang, and each one’s song was: “Who can cut off my feet and hands and eat them?”

Isis woke up, struck the chief of the porcupines with his cane, killed him, cut off his feet and hands, pulled the quills out of his back and tied them up in ten bunches. He wanted to give the quills to his wives and his mother-in-law. Isis was well now, and could hunt for deer.

Soon the elder sister had a child. Isis stayed in the camp till the child was five days old; then he went out to hunt. He killed a deer, but he let it stay where it fell, for it wasn’t right to bring it home or say anything about it. The next day he killed two deer at a shot, left them and went home.

When the first child was seven days old, the younger sister had a little boy. When the last child was eight days old, Isis said to his wives: “Your mother and brother are lonesome, we must go and see them.”

The next day they started. The sisters complained of the weight of the seeds, and Isis said: “I will make them light.” As soon as he said that, their baskets were as light as feathers.

When Cogátkis saw his sisters and the stranger coming, he called to his mother: “My sisters are coming, and there is a beautiful blue man with them!”

Old Yaulilik spread out nice mats and her daughters’ bead dresses and ornaments. When near the house, Isis stopped and the sisters went on. Cogátkis ran to meet them; he was glad, but he was afraid of Isis. The sisters said: “Go and lead your brother-in-law into the house.”

When they were in the house, Cogátkis told Isis how deer ran around him while he was out on the mountain watching his sisters.

Isis said: “I want to go and hunt for deer, but I haven’t arrows enough.”

“I will give you all the arrows you want,” said old Yaulilik, and she gave him a quiverful that had been her husband’s. Isis killed two deer.

“How can we carry them home?” asked Cogátkis.

Isis picked up the deer and put them in his belt. On the way home he killed a third deer, and he put that in his belt also. When Cogátkis told his younger sister how many deer Isis had killed, she said: “Maybe he will go away. Maybe he doesn’t want to stay here.”

Isis pulled up six big trees, brought them to the house, and set them up to dry meat on. The next morning he killed a deer and said to Cogátkis: “Stay here and see that nobody steals the deer while I am gone.” When he came back, he had ten deer in his belt. He put the first deer with them and went home. Old Yaulilik cut up the meat and hung it on the trees to dry, and Isis stretched the skins.

The next day when he was going home, with his belt full of deer, he wanted water and went to Tsiwisa to get it. After he had drunk, he remembered that the spring was near the place where Kumush had made the tree, with the eagle’s nest on it, grow up to the sky. He didn’t like the place, for it made him feel lonesome. That night he said to the sisters: “I am going away. You have plenty of meat; you can stay here with your mother and brother.”

The elder sister didn’t want to stay, and Isis said: “I am going a long way. The children are heavy; you couldn’t carry them.”

“We can carry them easily,” said the elder sister. “I don’t want to stay here.”

“Then you can go,” said Isis, for he wasn’t willing to show that he wanted them to stay.

Her sister said: “He is going to a strange country; something may happen to me. I don’t want to go.”

“You must go with us, so get ready,” said the elder sister.

The younger sister said to her mother: “I didn’t ask to go with them; she makes me go.”

“You can stay with me,” said her mother.

“No, maybe they will be gone a long time. I will go with them, and it won’t be my fault if something happens.”

The three traveled one day, then camped at Blaiaga, the mountain where Isis and Kumush had lived. Isis said to his wives: “The spring here is bad. When you go for water you must take the children with you.”

Each day for three days Isis killed deer. The fourth day, while he was hunting, the younger sister put her child on her back and went for wood. The elder sister wanted water and she ran to the spring to get it. She forgot that Isis had told her not to leave her child alone. The boy was beginning to walk. He tried to follow his mother, but he fell and hit his head on a stone. He gave one loud scream and died. The younger sister heard the scream and ran to the child. The mother heard it, too, and came back quickly. Her sister said: “I told you we had better stay with our mother; that we didn’t know this country. See what trouble has come to us.” They set bushes on fire to let Isis know what had happened.

The moment the child fell, Isis struck his foot against a stone and stumbled. Right away he knew that something had happened to one of his boys. When he saw the smoke, he left the deer he had killed and went home.

When the younger sister told him that his child was dead, he said: “I didn’t think that my wives would cause me greater grief than my father did, but you have. I thought my children would live, that they would go to the swimming places and talk to the earth and mountains, that they would be wise and able to do things. If my first child is dead, I don’t want to live in this world. Bring me the other boy.”

When the younger wife brought her child, Isis took it in his arms, put the top of its head to his mouth and drew a long breath. He took the breath out of the child and it was dead. He put the second child by the first, and said:

“These children are half mine, and half yours. The breath is mine, the body is yours. I have taken the breath into myself. You can have the bodies. This is the last time I will have a wife. If I live forever I shall never have a woman again. This place where my children died will be called Yaulilikumwas. People who come in after times will find you under the bushes. They will make sport of you and call you Yaulilikumwas. You will die from the cold and snow which you yourselves make. Your brother will run around the world and be Kĕngkong’kongis (a medicine) and doctors will dream of him.”

Right away Isis’ wives and their mother turned to snowbirds and Cogátkis became Kĕngkong’kongis. Sometimes ordinary people see him in their dreams. Doctors always see him in the country where his mother and sisters lived. Isis went north, went far away.

KUMUSH AND HIS DAUGHTER

CHARACTERS

Kumush The Creator, according to Indian myths
Skoks Spirit

Kumush (our Father) left Tula Lake and wandered over the earth. He went to the edge of the world and was gone a great many years; then he came back to Nihlaksi, where his sweat-house had been; where Látkakáwas brought the disk; where the body of the beautiful blue man was burned, and where Isis was saved.

Kumush brought his daughter with him from the edge of the world. Where he got her, no one knows. When he came back, Isis and all the people he had made were dead; he and his daughter were alone. The first thing he did was to give the young girl ten dresses, which he made by his word. The finest dress of all was the burial dress; it was made of buckskin, and so covered with bright shells that not a point of the buckskin could be seen.

The first of the ten dresses was for a young girl; the second was the maturity dress, to be worn while dancing the maturity dance; the third was the dress to be put on after coming from the sweat-house, the day the maturity dance ended; the fourth was to be worn on the fifth day after the dance; the fifth dress was the common, everyday dress; the sixth was to wear when getting wood; the seventh when digging roots; the eighth was to be used when on a journey; the ninth was to wear at a ball game; the tenth was the burial dress.

When they came to Nihlaksi Kumush’s daughter was within a few days of maturity. In the old time, when he was making rules for his people, Kumush had said that at maturity a girl should dance five days and five nights, and while she was dancing an old woman, a good singer, should sing for her. When the five days and nights were over she should bathe in the sweat-house, and then carry wood for five days. If the girl grew sleepy while she was dancing, stopped for a moment, nodded and dreamed, or if she fell asleep while in the sweat-house and dreamed of some one’s death, she would die herself.

Kumush was the only one to help his daughter; he sang while she danced. When the dance was over and the girl was in the sweat-house, she fell asleep and dreamed of some one’s death. She came out of the sweat-house with her face and hands and body painted with wáginte. [6] As she stood by the fire to dry the paint, she said to her father: “While I was in the sweat-house I fell asleep and I dreamed that as soon as I came out some one would die.”

“That means your own death,” said Kumush. “You dreamed of yourself.”

Kumush was frightened; he felt lonesome. When his daughter asked for her burial dress he gave her the dress to be worn after coming from the sweat-house, but she wouldn’t take it. Then he gave her the dress to be worn five days later, and she refused it. One after another he offered her eight dresses—he could not give her the one she had worn when she was a little girl, for it was too small. He held the tenth dress tight under his arm; he did not want to give it to her, for as soon as she put it on the spirit would leave her body.

“Why don’t you give me my dress?” asked she. “You made it before you made the other dresses, and told me what it was for; why don’t you give it to me now? You made everything in the world as you wanted it to be.”

He gave her the dress, but he clung to it and cried. When she began to put it on he tried to pull it away. She said: “Father, you must not cry. What has happened to me is your will; you made it to be this way. My spirit will leave the body and go west.”

At last Kumush let go of the dress, though he knew her spirit would depart as soon as she had it on. He was crying as he said: “I will go with you; I will leave my body here, and go.”

“No,” said the daughter, “my spirit will go west without touching the ground as it goes. How could you go with me?”

“I know what to do,” said Kumush. “I know all things above, below, and in the world of ghosts; whatever is, I know.”

She put on the dress, Kumush took her hand, and they started, leaving their bodies behind. Kumush was not dead but his spirit left the body.

As soon as the daughter died, she knew all about the spirit world. When they started she said to her father: “Keep your eyes closed; if you open them you will not be able to follow me, you will have to go back and leave me alone.”

The road they were traveling led west to where the sun sets. Along that road were three nice things to eat: goose eggs, wild cherries and crawfish. If a spirit ate of the wild cherries it would be sent back to this world, a spirit without a body, to wander about homeless, eating wild cherries and other kinds of wild fruit. If it ate of the goose eggs, it would wander around the world, digging goose eggs out of the ground, like roots. It would have to carry the eggs in a basket without a bottom, and would always be trying to mend the basket with plaited grass. If it ate of the crawfish it would have to dig crawfish in the same way.

A Skoks offered Kumush’s daughter these three harmful things, but she did not look at them; she went straight on toward the west, very fast.

After a time Kumush asked: “How far have we gone now?”

“We are almost there,” said the girl. “Far away I see beautiful roses. Spirits that have been good in life take one of those roses with the leaves, those that have been bad do not see the roses.”

Again Kumush asked: “How far are we now?”

“We are passing the place of roses.”

Kumush thought: “She should take one of those roses.”

The girl always knew her father’s thoughts. As soon as that thought came into his mind, she put back her hand and, without turning, pulled a rose and two leaves. Kumush did not take one. He could not even see them, for he was not dead.

After a time they came to a road so steep that they could slide down it. At the beginning of the descent there was a willow rope. The girl pulled the rope and that minute music and voices were heard. Kumush and his daughter slipped down and came out on a beautiful plain with high walls all around it. It was a great house, and the plain was its floor. That house is the whole underground world, but only spirits know the way to it.

Kumush’s daughter was greeted by spirits that were glad to see her, but to Kumush they said “Sonk!” (raw, not ripe), and they felt sorry for him that he was not dead.

Kumush and his daughter went around together, and Kumush asked: “How far is it to any side?”

“It is very far, twice as far as I can see. There is one road down,—the road we came,—and another up. No one can come in by the way leading up, and no one can go up by the way leading down.”

The place was beautiful and full of spirits; there were so many that if every star of the sky, and all the hairs on the head of every man and all the hairs on all the animals were counted they would not equal in number the spirits in that great house.

When Kumush and his daughter first got there they couldn’t see the spirits though they could hear voices, but after sunset, when darkness was in the world above, it was light in that house below.

“Keep your eyes closed,” said Kumush’s daughter. “If you open them, you will have to leave me and go back.”

At sunset Kumush made himself small, smaller than any thing living in the world. His daughter put him in a crack, high up in a corner of the broad house, and made a mist before his eyes.

When it was dark, Wus-Kumush, the keeper of the house, said: “I want a fire!” Right away a big, round, bright fire sprang up in the center, and there was light everywhere in the house. Then spirits came from all sides, and there were so many that no one could have counted them. They made a great circle around Kumush’s daughter, who stood by the fire, and then they danced a dance not of this world, and sang a song not of this world. Kumush watched them from the corner of the house. They danced each night, for five nights. All the spirits sang, but only those in the circle danced. As daylight came they disappeared. They went away to their own places, lay down and became dry, disjointed bones.

Wus-Kumush gave Kumush’s daughter goose eggs and crawfish. She ate them and became bones. All newcomers became bones, but those who had been tried for five years, and hadn’t eaten anything the Skoks gave them, lived in shining settlements outside, in circles around the big house. Kumush’s daughter became bones, but her spirit went to her father in the corner.

On the sixth night she moved him to the eastern side of the house. That night he grew tired of staying with the spirits; he wanted to leave the underground world, but he wanted to take some of the spirits with him to people the upper world. “Afterward,” said he, “I am going to the place where the sun rises. I shall travel on the sun’s road till I come to where he stops at midday. There I will build a house.”

“Some of the spirits are angry with you,” said Wus-Kumush. “Because you are not dead they want to kill you; you must be careful.”

“They may try as hard as they like,” said Kumush; “they can’t kill me. They haven’t the power. They are my children; they are all from me. If they should kill me it would only be for a little while. I should come to life again.”

The spirits, though they were bones then, heard this, and said: “We will crush the old man’s heart out, with our elbows.”

Kumush left Wus-Kumush and went back to the eastern side of the house. In his corner was a pile of bones. Every bone in the pile rose up and tried to kill him, but they couldn’t hit him, for he dodged them. Each day his daughter moved him, but the bones knew where he was, because they could see him. Every night the spirits in the form of living people danced and sang; at daylight they lay down and became disconnected bones.

“I am going away from this place,” said Kumush, “I am tired of being here.” At daybreak he took his daughter’s bones, and went around selecting bones according to their quality, thinking which would do for one tribe and which for another. He filled a basket with them, taking only shin-bones and wrist-bones. He put the basket on his back and started to go up the eastern road, the road out. The path was steep and slippery, and his load was heavy. He slipped and stumbled but kept climbing. When he was half-way up, the bones began to elbow him in the back and neck, struggling to kill him. When near the top the strap slipped from his forehead and the basket fell. The bones became spirits, and, whooping and shouting, fell down into the big house and became bones again.

“I’ll not give up,” said Kumush; “I’ll try again.” He went back, filled the basket with bones and started a second time. When he was half-way up he said: “You’ll see that I will get to the upper world with you bones!” That minute he slipped, his cane broke and he fell. Again the bones became spirits and went whooping and shouting back to the big house.

Kumush went down a second time, and filled the basket. He was angry, and he chucked the bones in hard. “You want to stay here,” said he, “but when you know my place up there, where the sun is, you’ll want to stay there always and never come back to this place. I feel lonesome when I see no people up there; that is why I want to take you there. If I can’t get you up now, you will never come where I am.”

When he put the basket on his back the third time, he had no cane, so he thought: “I wish I had a good, strong cane.” Right away he had it. Then he said: “I wish I could get up with this basketful of bones.”

When half-way up the bones again tried to kill him. He struggled and tugged hard. At last he got near the edge of the slope, and with one big lift he threw the basket up on to level ground. “Maklaksûm káko!” (Indian bones) said he.

He opened the basket and threw the bones in different directions. As he threw them, he named the tribe and kind of Indians they would be. When he named the Shastas he said: “You will be good fighters.” To the Pitt River and the Warm Spring Indians he said: “You will be brave warriors, too.” But to the Klamath Indians he said: “You will be like women, easy to frighten.” The bones for the Modoc Indians he threw last, and he said to them: “You will eat what I eat, you will keep my place when I am gone, you will be bravest of all. Though you may be few, even if many and many people come against you, you will kill them.” And he said to each handful of bones as he threw it: “You must find power to save yourselves, find men to go and ask the mountains for help. Those who go to the mountains must ask to be made wise, or brave, or a doctor. They must swim in the gauwams and dream. When you are sure that a doctor has tried to kill some one, or that he won’t put his medicine in the path of a spirit and turn it back, you will kill him. If an innocent doctor is killed, you must kill the man who killed him, or he must pay for the dead man.”

Then Kumush named the different kinds of food those people should eat,—catfish, salmon, deer and rabbit. He named more than two hundred different things, and as he named them they appeared in the rivers and the forests and the flats. He thought, and they were there. He said: “Women shall dig roots, get wood and water, and cook. Men shall hunt and fish and fight. It shall be this way in later times. This is all I will tell you.”

When he had finished everything Kumush took his daughter, and went to the edge of the world, to the place where the sun rises. He traveled on the sun’s road till he came to the middle of the sky; there he stopped and built his house, and there he lives now.

WANAGA BECOMES WUS-KUMUSH

Two brothers, Kumush and Wanaga, lived east of Tula Lake. Wanaga was uneasy; he didn’t want to be always with Kumush, so one day he started off toward the northwest to hunt for woodchucks. When he had killed five, he took out the intestines, cleaned them, filled them with fat and cooked them in front of the fire. The bodies he cooked on hot stones. He was eating the intestines when his brother came up to the fire. Kumush’s face was wet, he had run so fast.