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.