Blaiwas Eagle
Dásläts California Lion
Djáudjau Flying Squirrel
Kai Jack Rabbit
Kékina Lizard
Kúja Rat
Kujasûp Rat’s Mother
Kówe Frog
Lok Bear
Pakol Deer
Sloä Wildcat
Tcakonŭs Duck (gray-headed)
Tcûskai Weasel
Tohós Duck
Tskel Mink
Wámanik Bull Snake
Wisnik Garter Snake
Wéwenkee Whip Snake
Wŏn Elk
Wûlkûtska Marten
A woman had two children, a boy and a girl. She lived with them at
Yáni.
The mother gave the boy dry red roots to eat, but she always fed the
little girl fresh white roots; for herself she pounded seeds. The boy
was jealous. One day, when his mother was digging roots, he said to his
sister: “Let us go and play. I am lonesome here.”
While they were playing, he kept saying to the little girl: “Our mother
loves you better than she does me.”
His sister said: “No, she doesn’t; but I am little.” The boy wouldn’t
give up; he kept saying: “Our mother loves you better than she does
me.”
At last the girl said: “I don’t want to play any longer; I want to go
back to the house.”
“All right,” said the boy, “but we will stay where we can see mother.”
When they got to the house, he told his sister to sit where she could
look out, then he began to sing: “Nénûm, nénûm!” (Up, up!) After a
while he asked: “What is our mother doing?”
The girl said: “She is down by the pond digging roots and putting them
in her basket.”
Again the boy sang: “Nénûm, nénûm!” then he said: “Look again. What is
our mother doing now?”
“She is putting the basket on her back.”
“Nénûm, nénûm!” sang the boy. “Look now.”
“She is starting for home.”
“Nénûm, nénûm! What is she doing now?”
“Oh! the pond is coming up!” screamed the girl. “Mother’s feet are in
the water! Rain is coming down just where she is!”
“Nénûm, nénûm!” sang the boy. “What is she doing now?”
“The water is up to her ankles.”
“Nénûm, nénûm! Look again, sister.”
“The water is up to her knees; she can’t walk!”
“Nénûm, nénûm! Look now.”
“Oh, the water is half-way to her body!” cried the little girl.
“Nénûm, nénûm! Look out again, sister.”
“The water is up to her arms.”
“Nénûm, nénûm! Look now.”
“Oh, it is up to her neck!” He kept singing.
“The water is rising fast now; I can only see mother’s eyes!” cried the
girl.
“Nénûm, nénûm! How is it now?”
“Our mother has gone down in the water; I can’t see her!” cried the
little girl, and she fell on the ground and screamed. She cried all
day, cried herself to sleep.
The boy was singing and fixing his arrows. He was glad that his mother
was dead.
The next morning, while his sister was sleeping, the boy shot an arrow
into her leg. When she cried, he said: “Get up! You are a young woman
now. You must go and hire somebody to sing for you, so you can dance
your maturity dance. You must dance five nights without sleeping.” He
gave her rattles, and said: “When you get to a spring, stand there till
Kówe comes for water. She will see you and take you home with her. When
the five nights are over, you can come back here. I will stay on the
mountains while you are gone.”
The girl started; with each step she took she grew a little taller.
When she got to the spring, she was a young woman. She was covered with
red bark. She drank water from the spring, then stood in the low grass
and waited.
Soon Kówe came to get water. As she was starting away, she saw a shadow
in the water and stopped to look at it. “Oh,” said she, “I didn’t know
I was so nice! I’m glad!” She looked a long time, then turned to go
away, but she came back and looked a second time. She looked a third
time, then she saw a beautiful girl dressed in red. She jumped at her,
caught hold of her arm, and said: “Oh, my grandchild, where did you
come from?”
She wrapped her blanket around the girl, took her under her arm, and
carried her home.
That night she called to Tohós and all the Kówe people to come and sing
for her grandchild to dance.—She called the girl grandchild, but she
was no kin to her.—When they came and began to sing, Kówe danced with
the girl to show her how.
Not far from old Kówe’s house there was a village where all kinds of
people lived. They heard Tohós and the Kówes singing and came to see
what young girl was dancing. Kówe hid the girl under her dress,
wouldn’t let them see her. Wámanik tried to peek at her; Kówe scolded
him and drove him away. Other men came, but they couldn’t see the girl.
Kówe hid her under her clothes, and Tohós and the Kówes stopped singing
as soon as they knew that some one was around.
The third night the Wámanik people tried hard to see the girl, but Kówe
hid her in the straw of the house and put the fire out.
Kówe always knew when people were near. She heard Blaiwas as he went up
high in the air and looked down. Right away the singing stopped, and
the fire went out.
Tskel tried to steal up and look at the girl, but Kówe heard him and
hid her. Gäk said: “I shall see that girl!” But he talked so loud that
Kówe heard him as soon as he started from home. When he got to her
house, nobody was singing, and it was dark all around.
The fourth night Wisnik went to Kówe’s house. He went under the ground
and stuck out his head near her fireplace. It was early, and the Kówes
hadn’t begun to sing. He saw the girl and looked at her till his eyes
got dim. He couldn’t look enough. When he went home, he said: “There is
a beautiful girl in old Kówe’s house; I have spoiled my eyes looking at
her.”
Kówe knew that somebody had been in her house. The girl said: “I saw a
man, but I thought that you knew he was here.”
That morning they held a council in Wámanik’s village, to decide who
should go to Kówe’s house and get the girl for a wife.
Kówe knew of the council and she said to the girl: “Many men are coming
here to get you for a wife. You mustn’t have anything to say to the men
from that village over there. They are not the kind of people for you.
The Wámanik people and the Wéwenkee and Wisnik people live there.
Tcûskai and Tskel and Wŏn and Wus live there, too. You don’t want any
of those men. Far away from here there are five brothers; each one is a
chief and has great power. If they come, you mustn’t look at them,
unless you are willing to marry them.”
That evening all the men in the village went to Kówe’s house. When the
first one came, the house was a little grass hut, but right away it
began to grow big and nice-looking. As the people came, each man had
plenty of room. The largest and most important men came first: Wŏn,
Lok, Kaiutois, Blaiwas and Wámanik. The girl made fun of them all; she
said to Dásläts: “I don’t like you; you are too proud of your spotted
blanket.”
She told Tcûskai his mouth was too sharp! She laughed at Tskel, told
him his eyes were jumping out of his head; to Pakol she said: “You are
proud of your warm blanket.” She told Lok his hands and feet were too
big, and he ate too much. To Tcakonŭs she said: “You are proud of your
white hair.” When Wámanik came, she said: “You are proud of your
spotted blanket and your big mouth.” She told Wisnik that his eyes were
small and dim. When she saw Kékina, she laughed, and asked: “How could
a woman like your big flat feet and rough skin?”
When the five Wûlkûtska brothers came, they stood outside. The youngest
brother said: “Why should we go into this house? There is no woman
there that we want.” The eldest brother said: “I will go in and see
her; you can stay here.” When he went in, the girl looked up, but right
away she looked down again. She looked at four of the brothers in the
same way. The youngest brother stayed outside a good while, and when he
went in he sat down near the wall, but the girl looked at him; she was
glad to see him.
All the people from the village went away; then the five brothers went.
The eldest went first, then the second and the third and the fourth;
the youngest was the last one to go.
Kówe loosened the girl’s hair, took off her red bark dress, and put on
one covered with beads, then told her to follow Wûlkûtska. When the
girl overtook the young man, he said: “I don’t travel on the ground or
under it. You should have taken some other man. We were visiting Wus;
we didn’t go there to get a wife. Our home is a long way off; I don’t
think you can go there. We travel on the tops of trees; you will have
to look up all the time. You should have taken Kai or Sloä or Wámanik.”
The girl cried, and said: “I followed you because Kówe told me that I
belonged to you.”
The girl was beautiful. Her hair touched the ground and it was black
and glossy. The young man was sorry for her.
He said: “You can come if you can track us.” Then the brothers sprang
up and began to travel from one tree to another. The girl had to hurry;
she stumbled often, for she had to look up to see which way the
brothers went. When they camped, they waited a long time for her to
come up. The girl followed them for ten days; she was only skin and
bones. The brothers never hunted and never ate anything.
The tenth time they camped, the youngest brother said: “I feel badly. I
have a nice wife, and she is starving.” The elder brother said: “You
shouldn’t have gone to old Kówe’s. You knew that the girl didn’t live
as we do.”
The younger brother cried, but he said to his wife: “You can’t follow
us any longer. You are skin and bones; you will die soon. We are only
half-way home. Djáudjau is our cousin; he lives near here. You must go
to him; he is a great hunter, and will get you plenty to eat. He is as
good-looking as I am. You will forget me.”
The young man felt lonesome; he liked the girl and didn’t want to leave
her.
The eldest brother said: “Djáudjau’s mother wears a cap made of deer
fat. She is digging roots. You will see her a long way off, for her cap
is white and bright. But the Kújas live around there, and maybe old
woman Kúja will be out digging roots, too. She is thin, and wears an
old cap. When she sees you, she will jump and be afraid; she will think
you are the ugliest thing she has ever seen. But Djáudjau’s mother will
take hold of your hand and lead you to her house.”
When the brothers started off, the youngest one was crying; he turned
back and called to his wife: “You mustn’t care for that man; he eats
only horns. But his mother will be good to you and feed you.”
When the girl looked far off she saw two houses, one was covered with
deer meat, the other was made of sticks and dry grass. The first woman
she saw was Kúja’s mother; she walked up behind her. When the old woman
saw her shadow she jumped and ran away. Then the girl saw Djáudjau’s
mother; she knew her by her white cap. Djáudjausûp took her by the hand
and was glad to see her. She took off her cap, turned it inside out,
and rubbed the girl’s body with it; then she took her to the house and
fed her deer marrow.
Kujasûp stood a little way off and watched; when she saw the marrow,
she said: “That belongs to me!”
Kúja went to the house, and said: “That girl is for me; she didn’t come
here to get your son.”
The old woman said: “You are a thief. You come here every night to
steal our deer meat,” and she drove him away.
When Djáudjau came, he lay down in the house. The girl saw that he was
white and nice-looking, and had long black hair; she liked him.
Old Kujasûp began to quarrel with Djáudjau’s mother; she said: “That
girl must go with me; she is my son’s wife.”
Djáudjausûp said: “You have lived here always. Nobody ever came to see
you or your son. My nephews sent this girl to us. She followed them,
but they travel on the tops of trees. She couldn’t live as they do, and
they sent her to my son.” The Kújas called the old woman names, said
she didn’t tell the truth, said the girl belonged to them.
Djáudjausûp got so mad she called her son and told him to kill Kúja.
The young man shot Kúja in the breast, and said: “You will no longer be
a person; you will be a rat, and you will be a thief, as you have
always been. You will make little houses of sticks, and people will
call them Stcäkaltis (stick houses).”
Kúja and his mother and all their kin became common rats and ran off to
the mountains.
Not long after that, the young woman had a baby. Her husband asked her
if she had a father or a mother. She told him how her brother got
jealous and killed her mother. Djáudjau said: “I want to see my
brother-in-law.”
His mother gave them a bundle of dried deer meat and they started. When
they came to the pond where her mother was drowned, the young woman
cried; she felt badly. Her brother was living in the house where they
had lived with their mother. He was married and had two children. When
they got to the house, he was off on the mountain hunting deer.
The woman said: “He hunts all the time, but he never kills a deer;
sometimes he gets a rabbit or a squirrel.”
The sister put her bundle of dried meat on the ground. It got big;
there was a great pile, plenty for everybody to eat. Soon the brother
came; he was old and thin. He didn’t say much to his sister or his
brother-in-law.
The next morning Djáudjau went to hunt deer. The brother asked: “Why
does he go? He won’t kill a deer. I am a good hunter, but I never find
a deer.”
That evening Djáudjau came home with ten deer in his belt. He carried
them as other men carried rabbits. The brother looked mad. He didn’t
like his brother in-law.
The sister said to Djáudjau: “We must go home. I want to start now. My
brother doesn’t like you: I am afraid to stay here.”
They started in the night, and early the next morning they came to a
swimming place on top of a high mountain. Djáudjau got some green
twigs, rubbed himself all over with them, then he rubbed the twigs on
the ground, and said: “I have been to see my bad brother-in-law; I have
brought away some of his bad thoughts. Now, earth, take them all.” Then
he swam in the pond and talked to the mountain. The mountain talked to
him like a living person, and he forgot his brother-in-law.
When they got home, the five Wûlkûtska brothers were there. They all
claimed the child.
Old woman Djáudjau said: “It isn’t right for you to take my
daughter-in-law’s child away from her.”
The young woman said: “You didn’t care for me. You thought you were
better than I was, because you could travel on trees and I had to
travel on the ground. Now you want my baby. Hereafter you will travel
slow, and it will make you sweat; you will no longer be persons.”
The brothers said: “Hereafter you and your husband and his kin will be
Djáudjaus and roam around in the mountains.”
And so it was.