Lok Bear
Kékina Lizard
Wus Fox
Five Lok brothers and their sister lived in a house on a mountain near
Klamath Lake; not far away lived old woman Wus with her two nephews,
the Kékina brothers. They were orphans; the Lok brothers had killed
their father and their mother. In summer Wus had had the children
gather roots and store them in a tree for winter. When winter came the
younger boy went three times each day to the top of the tree to eat a
few of the roots. As he went, he called out: “Spring is coming! Spring
is coming!”
Lok’s sister had a big pile of roots hidden under the ground. She never
gave any to Wus; she was always watching around to see what Wus taught
the boys. Wus didn’t teach them anything. She didn’t dare to; but the
elder boy knew how to make poison arrows.
One morning when little Kékina ran out to the tree, he cried: “Spring
is coming! Spring is coming!” and brought down a few roots for his
brother.
The Lok woman heard him, and asked: “Why do you tell such a lie? Spring
isn’t coming. It is winter. When you see smoke on the mountains, then
spring will come.” To the elder brother Lok said: “You are good for
nothing; you sit all day making arrows, but you can’t kill anything.”
Old woman Wus cried, but the boy told her and his little brother not to
answer Lok; if they did, Lok would tell her brothers, and they might
come and kill them.
Once when the little boy was outside, Lok said to him: “Little boy, I
feel mean toward you; you tell lies about spring coming.” That evening
Lok watched him and was mad when he called out: “Spring is coming!
Spring is coming!” for every time he called, it hurried spring along,
and she liked winter. She went to the tree where the roots were hidden,
spat on her hands, took hold of the top of the tree, pulled it down,
rolled the roots in a ball, and swallowed them.
The next morning, when little Kékina called: “Spring is coming! Spring
is coming!” and ran to the tree, he found that all his roots were gone.
He saw Lok’s tracks and knew that she had stolen them. He rolled around
on the ground and cried, he felt so badly. Then he went in and lay down
by his brother, who was making poison arrows. The brother said: “Keep
still, I am going to talk to my arrows and tell them what to do.” He
held the arrows over the fire, and said: “Arrows, you must go right
through the bodies of the big-handed people; the people that never get
enough to eat.”
Old woman Lok was listening around; she said: “You are talking about
the people who killed your father and mother, and will kill you.”
When her brothers came home, she said: “I hate to hear that Kékina boy
talk about killing you.”
The eldest brother said: “Somebody makes him mad; maybe you have been
boasting that we killed his father and mother.” He scolded the woman
till she said: “I am going off; I sha’n’t come back till night.”
While she was gone, old woman Wus stole half of her roots, dug a hole
and hid them, and then made mole tracks around, little hills of dirt.
In Lok’s house the chief slept in the middle, near the fire; two
brothers slept on one side of him and two on the other; the sister
slept by the ladder. That night, when the brothers were asleep, little
Kékina crept into their house. He passed his hands over them and they
all slept soundly, they couldn’t wake up. He cut off the chief’s foot,
put the end of his leg on the log in the fire, and said to it: “Don’t
you waken the chief till you are half burned up.” He took the foot
home. Wus roasted it, and she and her nephews ate it. Then she put out
the fire, rubbed ashes on her mouth to hide the grease, and began to
cry as if she were hungry.
When the leg was half consumed, the chief woke up and screamed: “My leg
is burning! My leg is burning!” His sister said: “This is Kékina’s
work,” but the chief said: “No, I went to sleep with my feet on the
log.” He died the next day.
When his brothers were going to burn the body, old woman Wus said:
“People will make fun of you if you burn your brother. You must put him
in the ground with his burnt leg sticking out. If you feel badly, you
can go away. I will watch, I won’t let anything come to eat him.”
When the Lok brothers had put the chief in the ground and gone off, Wus
dug up the body and cooked it for her nephews to eat; then she stuck a
chunk of burnt wood where the leg had been.
The next day old woman Lok said: “I am afraid Wus and those boys will
dig up our brother’s body and eat it.” And she went to see. She didn’t
go far, for she saw the chunk sticking up out of the ground and thought
it was the leg.
The elder Kékina brother said to Wus: “You must go and find out what
the Loks are doing. You can tell them that I have driven you away.”
When Wus got where the Loks were camped, she began to cry.
They asked: “What are you crying for?”
“My nephews have driven me out,” said Wus; “they won’t let me stay with
them.”
The Loks believed her and let her stay around. When they asked: “Where
are you going to live?” she said: “I have other kin, I am going to
them. Their house is straight east.”
That night Lok had a dream. The dream said: “Your brother’s body has
been stolen.” In the morning she started off to find out if it had.
When she got back, she said: “Just as my dream told me, somebody has
carried off our brother.”
Wus said: “I know nothing about it.”
Lok said: “Yes, you do; those boys did it.”
Wus said: “No, they moved away when you did. You can go and kill them
if you want to. I am going east.”
She started, but when she was a little way off, she turned and went
west. When she got home, she said to her nephews: “The Loks are coming
to fight you.”
“I’m not afraid of the Loks,” said the elder brother. “You must go off
to the mountain. I will put my brother in a crack of the house, then I
will fight the Loks with knives.” He had five knives under one arm; his
bow and arrows were hanging up.
When the four Lok brothers and their sister came, one of the brothers
caught Kékina in his mouth and swallowed him. Kékina stuck a knife in
Lok’s heart, killed him, and came out. The second brother swallowed
him; he killed him and came out; the third swallowed him and was
killed. The fourth brother bit Kékina, then swallowed him. Kékina was
hurt; he stayed in Lok’s body a good while before he could get strength
enough to stick his knife in Lok’s heart and run out. He didn’t cut
Lok’s heart open, and Lok jumped up and swallowed him again. That time
Lok choked, and Kékina nearly smothered; but he made himself small and
rolled out of Lok’s throat.
Old woman Lok said: “I told you those boys would kill you. Now all our
brothers are dead.” Just then Lok saw Kékina. He caught him and
swallowed him again. That time Kékina cut Lok’s heart open and he died.
Old woman Lok jumped at Kékina to bite him, but he ran down her throat
before she could bite; he ran out, and she caught him; again she was
going to bite him, but he ran down her throat and came out. The next
time he slipped down quickly; he cut her heart open, and she died.
Wus came home; they had lots of meat now, and she was glad. When spring
came, little Kékina wanted to dig roots. Wus said: “Don’t go far. The
Lok brothers had a great many kin. You must keep away from them.”
Kékina said: “When I find sweet roots, I want to lie down by them, and
eat them; sometimes I feel like staying all night.”
“You must be careful,” said Wus. “The Loks like the same things that
you do. One might come along and eat the roots and you with them,
without knowing that you were there.”
One night little Kékina didn’t come home. The next morning his brother
began to hunt for him. Off on a flat he saw men digging roots; they
were Loks. He went up to one of them, and asked: “Have you seen my
brother?”
“No,” said Lok, “he hasn’t been here.”
He asked ever so many men, and each one said: “He hasn’t been here.”
One man said: “We could eat him and not know it; for sometimes we dig
up great roots with our hands, and he might be with them. There is a
Lok over there; he came ahead of us. Maybe he saw your brother.”
When Kékina asked him, he said: “What makes you ask questions? I don’t
want to talk,” and he started off.
Kékina followed him, and said: “Open your mouth.”
“Why should I open my mouth? I am sick. Let me alone.”
Kékina kept following him. At last Lok opened one side of his mouth;
then Kékina made him open the other side. In Lok’s teeth he had found
one of little Kékina’s hairs; he got it out and wound it around the
head of his arrow. Then he began to fight with the Loks. One after
another they swallowed him; he cut each one’s heart open and killed
him. He left only one Lok alive,—the poorest and oldest. He said to
that one: “I will not kill you, but you will no longer be a person; you
will be a common bear and scare people.”
Kékina took the hair home. Wus told him to sprinkle her medicine basket
and put it over the hair, then step over the basket five times. He did,
and his brother came to life. Then the two brothers and Wus lived
together as before.