_Chilcotin_
There were once three young men who spent most of their time with
their two dogs in hunting. They lived with their grandmother. When
they came in from hunting, they gave meat to her.
One day the hunters were gone all day without finding anything. In
the evening, for a joke, one of them gave grandmother a piece of
punk, saying, “Here is some caribou liver for you,” but when she put
it into her mouth, lo, it was punk wood! She was angry.
Now the next day, when the young men were out hunting, grandmother
heated a bear’s foot in the fire, and danced about the camp and sang
her song. So she turned them by this magic into stars, and they
lived up in Sky Land.
One day the young men were hunting in Sky Land, and they found the
tracks of a great moose. They followed him for several days. Then as
they were tracking the moose, they looked down and saw the Earth
Land far below them. The eldest brother said, “I am going to try to
get down to the earth again.”
Now this brother told the other two to cover themselves with their
blankets, and not to look down. Then he started down to the earth,
but he was only halfway down when the youngest brother looked
through a hole in his blanket. At once the eldest brother stopped.
He could go no further. So the three brothers have all lived in the
Sky Land among the stars. They live there with the great moose and
their dog. The Indians can see them even to this day. The morning
star is the old grandmother, with a torch, looking for the young
men.