Tcutûk Rock Squirrel
Witsduk Snow that the Wind Blows and Drifts
Wus Fox
When Witsduk was a person, her home was in the Modoc country; she and
her family were that snow which the wind carries in every direction.
Wherever they went, they made people shiver, blinded them, and took
their breath away. Everybody was tired of the Witsduks and wanted to
get rid of them.
At last Tcutûk, an old medicine woman, said: “I can destroy Witsduk and
her family, but I am afraid of Wus. He is a bad man; he likes to tease
people, and he is always around. I can put Witsduk and her family in my
bag and hide them under rocks where they can’t get out, but if I meet
Wus he will take the bag away from me, and untie it. Then the Witsduks
will kill us.”
The people were glad when Tcutûk said she could destroy the Witsduks;
they promised to watch for Wus and kill him if he tried to get the bag
away from her.
Tcutûk went to the mountain where the Witsduks lived. She opened her
bag and waited for a long time. The Witsduks were going back and forth
in every direction; Tcutûks was so cold that she was almost frozen. At
last they came near her hiding-place, but they didn’t see her. When
they were right there, Tcutûk said magic words and the Witsduks began
to go into the bag. They couldn’t help going; Tcutûk pushed them down,
crowded them, packed them solid. When they were all in and her bag was
full, she tied it with a buckskin string, took it on her back, and went
toward the rocks; she traveled fast.
When Tcutûk got to the foot of the mountain, she said to the people
waiting for her: “I have every Witsduk in the world in this bag on my
back; now you must come with me to the rocks where I am going to hide
them. I am afraid of Wus; I am afraid that I will meet him. If he
should open my bag and let the Witsduks out, I should feel badly, for
then no one would be safe. The Witsduks are mad; they would come out
and kill everybody. Then they would live forever; they would scatter
and be everywhere.”
The people said: “If we meet Wus, we will kill him,” but they were
afraid. They went a little way, then turned back. Tcutûk traveled on
alone till she came to a log; when she was climbing over the log, she
saw Wus; he was hunting for mice. Tcutûk stood still, for she didn’t
know what to do. As soon as Wus saw her, he came up, and right away he
began to tease her to tell him what was in her bag, to open it and let
him see.
At last Tcutûk said: “I am carrying off people you have met, and they
have made you shiver. I am going to destroy them.”
“Let me have them,” said Wus, “I will eat them. I can eat anything in
the world, all the people that crawl, or fly. I can eat Wind and Air.
You haven’t anything in that bag that I can’t eat. I can eat Clouds and
Rain,—everything.”
“Are you sure that you can eat all kinds of people?” asked Tcutûk.
“There isn’t anything in the world that I can’t eat.”
“I am carrying the Witsduks; you don’t want to eat them, do you?”
“Yes. Open the bag and let them out; I will eat them right away.”
Wus talked and teased. Tcutûk tried to make him let her pass. He got
mad and caught hold of her head-strap and pulled on it till it cut her
forehead. When she couldn’t keep the bag any longer, she said: “Take
the bag and untie it! But don’t untie it till I am across the flat over
there.”
She dropped the bag from her back and ran as fast as she could, but
before she was half-way across the flat Wus loosened the string. Right
away the Witsduks began to come out. Wus caught them, one by one, and
ate them. Before Tcutûk reached the end of the plain, he loosened the
string a little more; then the Witsduks came out fast. Wus caught them
all; he ran around, snapped his mouth in every direction, ate as fast
as he could,—ate till he was so full he couldn’t eat any more. The
string came off from the bag, and the rest of the Witsduks rushed out
in a crowd. They were mad; they went everywhere, covered the whole
world. Wus ran away, but they overtook him and killed him. The Witsduks
he had eaten came out through his mouth and ears and nose and eyes.
All the people Tcutûk had tried to save, by catching the Witsduks in
her bag, were killed. Tcutûk turned to a squirrel and hid among the
rocks.
The Witsduks scattered everywhere, and they will live forever. Wus did
this. If Tcutûk had hidden them under the rocks, there would have been
no more Witsduks in the world. At the place where Wus was killed nobody
can live to this day; every one dies from cold or starvation, for old
woman Witsduk lives there yet.