A kiúks and his old mother were living at Dokwa, near Klamath Lake. The
kiúks had a tall pole standing outside the house and on the top of the
pole was a dead eagle. Inside of the house he had a dead fish-hawk and
all kinds of dead birds.
The kiúks shouted and sang. The minute he stopped singing, the dead
eagle came to life and screamed; when the eagle stopped screaming, the
fish-hawk and all the dead birds inside the house came to life and
screamed together. As soon as they were through screaming, the kiúks
fed them. After they were fed, they died and remained dead till he
called them to life again.
This man was a terrible kiúks; he could kill anybody. Nobody ever went
to his house; everyone was afraid of him. When he called, and the eagle
and all the birds answered, the earth began to tremble, and it trembled
as long as the birds screamed. Everywhere people felt the earth shake,
and it scared them. At such times they said: “The kiúks is singing, and
the birds are screaming.”
Men began to talk and to try to think of some way to kill the kiúks.
One morning he hung up a wooden comb, and said to his mother: “I am
going to Gombät; if this comb falls, you may know that somebody has
killed me.” He had a ska (a sharp stone about three feet long); he gave
it to her and said: “As soon as the comb falls, take this ska and
strike the ground near the fire five times, and strike the fire five
times.”
People had been wishing that this kiúks would go somewhere, but he had
always stayed at home. There were men watching, and when he came out of
his house, they followed him. Before he got to Gombät, they killed him,
shot arrows into his body, and cut him to pieces with flint knives.
When the comb fell, the mother knew that her son was dead. She took the
ska and struck the ground five times, and the fire five times, as he
had told her to do. That minute the men who had killed him fell dead,
and the eagle and all the birds inside the house came to life and
screamed.
The old woman went to Gombät; she found the pieces of her son, carried
them home, and burned them; then his spirit went into her. She became
just such a kiúks as he had been. She had been only a common old woman;
now she used the eagle, fish-hawk, and birds just as her son had used
them. People were scared, but they said to her: “You mustn’t do as your
son did, you mustn’t kill people; if you do, we shall kill you as we
killed him.”
Her son gained strength when the birds screamed and the earth trembled,
but the people frightened the old woman so she was afraid to sing for
the birds; she grew weak and died. As soon as she was dead, the birds
came to life and flew off to the woods.
The people left her body in the house and burned the house and body
together.