Blaiwas Eagle
Kalaslákkas
Kletcowas “He Goes Fast”
Komúchass Old Age
Kówe Frog
Ktsítco or Nän’ihlas Bat
Kumal Pelican
Leméis Thunder
Lok Bear
Ndukis Duck-hawk
Peltoquas
Súbbas Sun
Tusasás Joker (Skunk)
Kletcowas and his wife had a daughter and two sons. The mother loved
her sons but didn’t love her daughter; she abused the girl till at last
she made up her mind to go and ask Blaiwas to take care of her. Blaiwas
was chief of the village where Kletcowas lived. The girl was so
beautiful that Blaiwas put her in a basket and put the basket under the
ground.
An old woman and her grandson lived in a hut at the edge of the
village. The boy’s name was Kalaslákkas. He was a little fellow whose
father and mother had been killed.
Blaiwas had a big house and many people lived in it; among them was
Tusasás. Tusasás went often to see Kalaslákkas’ grandmother, for he
liked to tease the boy. One day he said to him: “If you will do as I
tell you, maybe you can get that nice-looking girl that Blaiwas keeps
in a basket under the ground.”
“I don’t like that,” said the old woman. “You shouldn’t say such things
to my grandson.” Other people scolded him for talking that way to a
little boy.
Tusasás said: “The old woman needn’t be so proud of her grandson; he
isn’t of much account.”
When the grandmother told Ktsítco what Tusasás had done, he said:
“Don’t feel badly. If my nephew will do as I tell him, he will get
power. On a mountain in the East there is an underground swimming
place. If Kalaslákkas goes there and piles up stones and swims, he will
get wisdom. He will grow quickly and will get that girl for a wife.”
The grandmother cried; she didn’t want the boy to go, but old Ktsítco
said to him: “If you do as I tell you, you will be a young man right
away. Rub your body with ashes and go.”
The grandmother felt badly; she thought the boy was too small to go off
alone, but she rubbed his body with ashes and gave him a rabbit-skin
blanket. And he started.
When Kalaslákkas got to the top of the mountain, he piled up stones;
then he went down in a hole where there was water and came out in a
pond that the hole led to. He swam around for a long time; then he lay
on the stones. He went to sleep and dreamed that somebody said: “Look
at that beautiful woman in the South; would you like her for a wife?”
When he woke up, he was tall and had beautiful long hair.
As soon as he got home, his grandmother said: “If you had a dream, you
mustn’t tell it; keep it in your head. If it was a good dream, you must
stay out of doors and not talk to any one.”
The next morning his grandmother said: “Now you must go to Yomaka, a
swimming pond that is always covered with thick ice. If the pond likes
the person who comes to it, it will open a place for him to swim.”
Kalaslákkas took his rabbit-skin blanket and started. When he was
climbing the mountain, he heard men singing and gambling. He followed
the sound till he came to the swimming place; then he listened and
heard the singing down under the water and under the ground. That was
because the pond was glad to see him. The ice melted, and there was
water for swimming. When the boy went into the water, he heard a great
noise, like many men shouting. That was because the pond was glad he
had come. He looked down in the water, but he saw only stones.
When Kalaslákkas was through swimming, he got out of the water and lay
down on the rocks. After a while he fell asleep and he dreamed that he
saw a man with a long white feather standing up in his hair and heard
him say: “I am the chief of gamblers!”
When Kalaslákkas told his grandmother what he had dreamed, she said:
“The earth and mountains have taught you many things. You will be a
strong man and a great gambler.” Then she told him of another swimming
place and said: “When you start from here, don’t look back or look
around; look straight at the mountain. If you don’t feel lazy, you will
get to the swimming place about dark. When you get there, sit down by
the pond and listen; listen till words come to you out of the water.
Somebody lives there.”
When the boy got to the pond, he piled up stones and then sat down to
listen. Soon he heard some one in the water say: “Why do you feel
lonesome? What do you want me to give you? Don’t wait for somebody to
put you in; come and swim.”
Kalaslákkas went into the water and began to swim around. Right away he
felt something drawing him under. He went down till he came to a
beautiful bright house; then he saw that a man was with him. The house
was full of all kinds of bright shells. The man opened a skin door, and
asked: “Do you want to see a beautiful woman?”
As Kalaslákkas looked at the woman, he felt himself going up to the top
of the water again.
The man said: “When you get to the top, dive five times and then go
home.”
When Kalaslákkas was near his grandmother’s house, he sat down to rest.
She washed herself and went to meet him. She asked: “Was the earth glad
to see you, and to have you walk on her? Do you think the earth is
satisfied with you?”
“I think the earth is good to me,” said Kalaslákkas.
“Do you want to go to another swimming place?”
“If it is right to go around more, I will go,” said the boy.
“There are more places and you will get strength from them,” said the
old woman.
“How shall I do at the next swimming place? One day I wanted to drink
some water.”
“You must dive in the pond, and when you are down deep, take five big
swallows of water. If you see water in any other place, you mustn’t
touch it.”
“What if I should choke?”
“You won’t choke. You must do what I tell you. This earth is my mother;
she has given everything for us to eat and drink. She is your
grandmother and the sun is your grandfather. You won’t die if you do
right. If you listen to the earth, the mountains, and the swimming
places, they will teach you what to do when you are a man. They will
make you strong, and you will live to be old.”
When Kalaslákkas went into the pond, he felt something under him. It
was a bear that lived in the water. As soon as he felt it, it was gone.
He swam around for a long time, then got out of the water and lay on
the rocks. Soon he heard a bird call; the bird belonged to that
swimming place. It was the strongest bird in the world. Kalaslákkas
fell asleep and dreamed that he heard a bear roar. The roar was like
heavy thunder, and Kalaslákkas was scared. He jumped up and ran home.
His grandmother pounded seeds and white roots for him to eat; then she
said: “Now you will climb that mountain in the south, and as you go
down on the other side, you must pile stones till you come to a lake.
If the lake doesn’t like a person to swim in it, great bumps of water
will come up on top, as if somebody under the water was angry. If the
wind blows from the south, it is a sign that you must go in and swim.”
The old woman made holes in her grandson’s ears and put little black
sticks through them and through his nose. When he started off, she put
her hand over her eyes, looked after him, and talked to the earth.
As Kalaslákkas went toward the mountain, he heard a girl singing and
dancing, and he said to himself: “I didn’t know that there were people
on this mountain. Some one must be camping here, and that girl is
dancing her maturity dance.” He was afraid to go along the trail, for
if she saw him it would spoil all he had done. He turned and followed
another trail.
When he got to the pond, he went into the water. While he was swimming,
he heard a noise like the dragging along of a dry elk-skin. It was made
by the water against a rock that looked like a man wearing an elk-skin
coat. While Kalaslákkas listened, the water began to roar and roll, and
there was a great noise. He was afraid, but he said: “I must do as my
grandmother told me. I mustn’t give up.”
Then he saw a mass of long black hair floating toward him. He followed
the hair till he came to a second rock standing up in the lake like a
big man wearing an elk-skin coat. Then he came to a third and a fourth.
The fifth was lying down in the water near the bank, and his coat was
just behind him. Those were the five Peltoquas brothers who had been
turned to stone by Komúchass. The fifth and youngest brother had just
thrown off his coat when Komúchass overtook him.
Kalaslákkas came out of the water and lay down on a rock. He fell
asleep and dreamed that a man with long black hair came to him, and
said: “I was a man once; I was a strong man, nobody ever beat me at
gambling.” When Kalaslákkas woke up, the waves were washing over him.
The old woman steamed and bathed herself, and watched for her grandson
to come. When he came, he was a young man; she hardly knew him. She
gave him pounded seeds to eat and went with him to a place where she
had a fire and hot stones. After he had steamed and sweated, she put
red sticks in his ears and nose, and said: “This is the last time you
will go to the mountains. You are working for yourself and for the
earth; you must be glad to do the work,” and she told him where to go.
When he started she spoke to the earth, screamed out, as if calling to
somebody, said: “You know my grandchild. He walks on you every day. He
wants to be strong. I am not selfish, I give my grandson to you; you
must teach him.” She talked to the mountains, to the trees, to the
rocks, and to everything, said: “You know my grandson. He wants to
learn from you.”
When Kalaslákkas got to the mountain, he piled up stones till they
stood around the swimming place like people. He went back and forth at
work till after dark; then he sat down by the pond. He saw stars way
down in the water and he thought: “People are under there with
torches.”
In that pond were five Kai brothers turned to rock; each rock was like
a tall man. When those brothers lived they were great gamblers.
Kalaslákkas went into the water and rubbed against each one of the five
rocks; then he came out and lay down to sleep. In his dream he saw the
brothers; they were dressed in buckskin. Each one had a long feather in
his hair and a gambling plate in his hands. The eldest said to him: “If
you want to be our brother, and be like us, we will give you what we
have.” He thought they threw him a long feather and a gambling plate.
Kalaslákkas woke up and went home. His grandmother made a sweat-house
and heated rocks, and he bathed and sweated, then she dressed him. He
was tall and beautiful; she told him he must not touch food for five
days. “You must give yourself to the earth,” said she. “If you do, you
will live long in this world; but if you eat meat or fish now, you will
die soon. You must remember Tusasás and try to be strong.”
Kalaslákkas had forgotten Tusasás.
Tusasás came again to the grandmother’s house, which was dirty and old
in the daytime, but beautiful at night. When he saw Kalaslákkas, he
said: “I wouldn’t travel over the mountains and try to grow up just to
get a woman!” and he laughed.
The grandmother said: “You think you can do what my grandson has done.
You never can. You think you can do everything. You can do nothing but
talk and boast, you will always be called Tusasás.”
Old man Kletcowas and his sons used to gamble with the chief and his
people. Sometimes, when gambling, Blaiwas would have the basket taken
out of the ground and Kletcowas’ daughter put on a gambling plate where
he could see her.
Blaiwas and his people gambled with Kletcowas and his sons and old
Kumal till they had nothing left, were naked. All their blankets and
skins were gone, and they had only grass to wrap around themselves at
night. Then Blaiwas told Ndukis to go and ask the old woman’s grandson
to come and gamble for him.
When Kalaslákkas’ grandmother told him that his kinfolks wanted him to
play for them, she said: “Your uncle is naked. He has lost everything.”
Kalaslákkas thought in his heart: “Why does Blaiwas send for me now? He
has never taken any notice of me. I didn’t know he was my uncle.”
His grandmother asked: “Why don’t you speak out, not think all the
time? You must tell me if you will go.”
“Where is Tusasás?” asked the young man. “Why doesn’t he play for
Blaiwas’ people? I won’t go there.”
The next day Blaiwas’ people and old Kumal and his friends began to
quarrel. The old woman fixed up her house tight, with her grandson
inside; she didn’t want him to see the fight. After a while they made
up, stopped fighting, and began to gamble. Ndukis came to the old
woman’s, and said to the young man: “Your uncle has a bead shirt, made
when he was a young man; he will give it to you if you will come and
gamble for him.”
Kalaslákkas didn’t speak. His grandmother said: “You must say whether
you will go or not. How do you feel?”
He didn’t speak. Ndukis went back and told Blaiwas that the young man
wouldn’t come.
“What ails him?” asked Tusasás. “Is he proud? Does he think that he is
chief? I will go and bring him here by the hair.”
Blaiwas scolded Tusasás, told him to stop talking.
Ndukis said: “What is the use in sending me all the time? Kalaslákkas
won’t come and he won’t speak to me. You chiefs speak right out and
talk, but he won’t. He isn’t willing to talk to everybody. You must go
to him.”
The next day Blaiwas went to the young man and said: “My nephew, I have
lost everything; will you come and play for me?”
“When I was small,” said Kalaslákkas, “you never looked after me or
were sorry for me. You didn’t call me nephew. It is no use for you to
try and hire me now; but I will go and play.”
Blaiwas said to the grandmother: “Kalaslákkas is going to play for me
to-morrow. Give him a nice feather and a shirt.”
“No,” said the young man, “my body will do as well naked as dressed. I
will go as I am. But you must make an opening in the ground where the
men are sitting; I won’t go in by the smoke hole.”
When the people saw Kalaslákkas, they began to talk and whisper and to
ask one another where such a beautiful young man came from.
Tusasás said to the old woman: “Your grandson wouldn’t come in at the
smoke hole; he thinks that he is the biggest chief in the world, that
he is made out of something nice. He has a body just like mine; he
needn’t be so proud.”
“Keep still!” said the old woman, and she told Blaiwas that Tusasás was
abusing her grandson.
“Go and help the women cook meat,” said Blaiwas.
“I won’t do it,” said Tusasás; “I wouldn’t do it if Leméis or Súbbas
told me to.”
“Throw him out!” cried Blaiwas.
Men took hold of Tusasás by his thick hair and pulled him out of the
house. His hair was as long as he was himself. It was all of the same
length; not one hair was sticking up. It was black and glossy and stood
out around him.
Kalaslákkas won the first game. Kumal was frightened; he said: “Some
great gambler has come; maybe we shall get beaten.”
Tusasás put his mouth against a crack, and called out: “That game
wasn’t hard to win; I could have won it myself.”
“Go and bring water for the women,” screamed Blaiwas. “Keep away from
here!”
The women pounded Tusasás, pulled him away and told him not to make
Kalaslákkas mad.
The young man began to sing the song he had heard the gamblers sing at
the swimming place. The song made every one happy. It sounded like many
persons singing. It was beautiful, but nobody could learn it. Blaiwas
had the girl brought on a gambling plate and put down with her face
turned to the wall. When she looked over her shoulder at the gamblers,
she saw Kalaslákkas and looked at him so long that her eyes ached.
Before midday he had won back half of all Blaiwas and his men had lost.
When they stopped to rest, he said: “No one on either side can eat meat
or fish till we are through gambling.”
While the gamblers were resting, the young man went home. His
grandmother said: “Take some good smelling leaves and put in your nose,
so you won’t smell what the women are cooking, for it isn’t long since
you were at the swimming places and traveling on the mountains. Every
morning, while you are gambling, you must go, before the sun is up, and
swim in the lake.”
When they began to gamble again, Ndukis said to the chief: “You should
drive Tusasás away. If he makes Kalaslákkas mad, we shall be naked
again. You don’t know what kind of a man he is. He has been to all the
swimming places on the mountains.”
They gambled all night. Kalaslákkas won every game. The next day he
said to Blaiwas: “My swimming place said that just before midday you
must say to me: ‘Now be strong. Be like the chief of gamblers’!”
At midday the chief said: “My nephew, you must be strong; you must be
like the chief of gamblers at the swimming place.”
Those words frightened Kumal’s people. Tusasás looked through an
opening, and called out: “He can’t do more than I can!” Men ran after
him, drove him away, and said: “You will lose your life if you meddle
with that man. His grandmother can do anything.”
At dark they stopped playing. Kumal’s people were naked; they had lost
everything they had.
Old Kletcowas and his five sons were ashamed. The eldest said: “I don’t
want any one to have our nice things; we will bet our sister. If
Kalaslákkas wins her, we will get everything back.”
The old man said: “That is what our girls are for;” then he said to
Blaiwas: “I want that young man to play for my daughter. If he wins her
he can have her for a wife.”
“Will you play for the girl?” asked Blaiwas.
Kalaslákkas didn’t speak; he hung down his head. He was ashamed.
Blaiwas asked him a second time. He didn’t answer. Then Blaiwas asked
for the last time: “Well, what will you do?”
“I will play for her,” said the young man, “but if I win I will stop
playing; I will never gamble again.”
“If you win her, I shall be glad,” said his grandmother. “My body is
worn out; she will take care of me.”
“How many games must I play to get her?” asked Kalaslákkas.
“You must win ten games from us,” said old Kletcowas.
Kalaslákkas played the ten games and won the girl.
Tusasás said: “I could have won the girl long ago, if they had let me
play.”
“Keep still,” said Dúduois, “or you will no longer be a living person.”
“Let him say all he wants to,” said the old woman. “This earth will
punish him. This earth hears every word he says, and when a man says
bad things, she throws them back to him.”
The next day Tusasás was sick. He begged of Blaiwas not to let him die.
“I have no power to save you,” said Blaiwas.
Kalaslákkas gave old man Kletcowas and his sons all the things he had
won from them, and they went home. He took the girl to his
grandmother’s house; she was his wife.
The next day Kalaslákkas went with Blaiwas and his people to hunt deer.
“Can you call deer to the mountains?” asked Kalaslákkas.
“There is no way to call them,” said Blaiwas.
“I will call them,” said the young man. He tied his hair up in a bunch
on the top of his head, then he whistled like an elk.
Down where the elks were they talked to one another. Kalaslákkas heard
them ask: “Are any of our people gone? Somebody, our brother or sister,
is calling us. We must go and see who it is.”
All the elks went in a crowd toward the place where they heard the
whistle; when they saw Kalaslákkas they ran off. As the last one was
getting out of sight, the young man shot at him and killed the whole
line; only two were left.
All night Blaiwas’ people were cutting up meat. In the morning,
Kalaslákkas told his wife to carry some deer meat to her father and
brothers. When the youngest brother saw his sister coming with
something on her back, he called out: “Our sister is coming!”
The brothers were glad, and the father said: “That is what daughters
and sisters are for, to feed us from whatever family they marry into.”
They got ready and went back with her. When the old man saw the meat
and skins, he said: “My son-in-law is the strongest man in the world,”
and he began to boast.
Blaiwas’ people made elk-skin coats, then they made sharp arrows to see
which man could send an arrow through the skins. Soon they got mad at
one another and began to fight.
Now Kalaslákkas’ wife had a little boy. The father, to keep awake five
days and five nights, went off to the mountains to roam around. When
the grandmother came, she asked: “Is the baby a boy or a girl?”
“A boy,” said the mother.
“Oh, my poor grandson,” cried the old woman, “he will lose his life.
For a girl, it is right to go to the mountains, but for a boy he should
have stayed here. What mountain did he go to?”
“To Sláptcatcak.”
“Oh, my grandson, my poor grandson,” cried the old woman, “he is lost.”
That night the mother shut her eyes and nodded; she thought some one
said to her: “Look this way.” She looked and saw men in elk-skin coats
fighting, and the man who talked to her said: “This will grow and grow.
Hereafter people will always fight.” When she woke up, she cried:
“Grandmother, I couldn’t keep awake; I nodded and dreamed,” and she
told the dream.
“You have brought great misfortune on your people,” said the old woman.
The mother couldn’t help closing her eyes again. This time she saw the
elk-skin coats lying piled up; their wearers were dead.
Kalaslákkas walked around the swimming place on the mountain; he piled
up stones and then sat down to rest. He couldn’t keep his eyes open; he
fell asleep and dreamed that the great bear of the swimming place was
angry with him, and said: “If your child had been a girl, you could
have come here, but it is wrong to come here when a boy is born.” The
bear roared at him terribly, then the young man saw his grandmother
there by him. The bear sprang at her and tore her to pieces.
When Kalaslákkas woke up, he knew that he had done wrong. He sat on the
mountain all day, afraid to go anywhere. He thought: “My grandmother
told me that whenever I dreamed of my kin it meant me.” Toward dark he
got up and started for home; when he got to the house, he found his
wife and grandmother crying.
The grandmother said: “I am sorry that I raised you and tried to teach
you our laws. It was wrong for you to go to the mountain without asking
me. I have been long in this world. You will die soon unless the child
dies. If he dies he will take the dream back. You must build a fire on
top of the mountain and talk to the mountain, tell it everything, tell
it how sorry you are. If you make a big fire in the evening and it
burns bright and fast, it is a sign that your dream will soon come to
pass. But if you have to work a long time to get the fire lighted, it
is a sign that the drill delays the dream, and the earth wants you to
live a little longer.”
Kalaslákkas took his drill out of his quiver and started. At sundown he
got to the top of the mountain and began to build a fire. The drill
worked hard and the fire was long in kindling. Then he said to the
mountain: “My mountain where I traveled when I was a boy, be good to
me. Fire, you can burn up everything; I want you to burn up my dream
and my wife’s dream. My earth and wind, I want you to let me live a
little longer.” He talked to everything, talked a long time. Then he
started for home. He had gone to the mountain slowly, for he was sorry
to die, but he went home quickly, for he felt stronger.
Blaiwas and his people had moved away, scattered to different places.
Kalaslákkas camped by a spring. “Who owns this spring?” asked he. “The
one who made it,” said his grandmother. “Old Kówe lives way down under
the water; she is in every spring in the world. She is our grandmother.
If she gets mad at anybody, she can dry up the deepest water.”
“There are many roots around here,” said Kalaslákkas; “we had better
stay and dig them.”
“I am afraid here,” said the old woman. “Nobody can stop a dream. This
is a dangerous place.”
“What can I do?” asked the young man. “We must have something to eat.”
He went to a small lake, not far away, to hunt for duck eggs. He found
all he could carry.
“Don’t go on the south side of the lake,” said his grandmother; “that
is the side that Lok always comes on.”
That day Kalaslákkas’ wife broke her digging stick. Kalaslákkas said:
“I will go to the mountain and get you another.”
“You mustn’t go,” said his grandmother, “I will go.”
But the young man went. His wife and grandmother cried: they were
afraid. He went to the top of the mountain, where there were large pine
trees. He cut two long sticks, then started for home. There were trees
and brush on the side of the mountain. As Kalaslákkas was coming out of
a clump of brush, he heard something following him. He looked and saw a
great bear right there near him. He ran to a tree, caught hold of a
limb, and was pulling himself up, but the bear sprang at him, pulled
him down, and tore him to pieces.
When he didn’t come home, the grandmother knew that the dream had come
to pass. As soon as it was daylight, they tracked him to the tree where
he cut the digging sticks. Not far away the old woman saw crows and she
screamed: “There is where my grandson is!” They found only bones. The
old woman said to the bones, “You see what this earth can do when she
gets mad with us. She has large eyes, she can always see us. You didn’t
do as I told you.”
They gathered up the bones and put them in their basket. As they went
down the mountain, they built fires to let old Kletcowas know that they
were in trouble.
Kalaslákkas couldn’t be brought to life while his child lived. The
mother wanted to have the child killed, but Blaiwas said: “He is too
old to kill.”
When the boy heard people talk about killing him, he laughed, and said:
“Do you think my father would come to life if I died? No, he will never
come to life. I will not die, but I will turn to something else, and I
will live on the mountains. I killed my father and I shall kill many
people. My life will last always in this world.”
Right away he lost his mind and went off to the mountains. Every
evening he ran around the place where his grandmother lived and called
out to her, but he wouldn’t go into the house.
Kalaslákkas’ son is on the mountains yet, a little person, so small
that he can scarcely be seen, but he often appears to doctors. He can
throw an arrow into a person’s body. The arrow is so small that a man
cannot see it, but it hits his life and kills him.
If Kalaslákkas’ son meets a man, he turns him to a bird or a creeping
thing.