"All the people said that Kopus was a good Hlahi. That is why I got
him; but he is not a good Hlahi for water. Now we will get Sanihas
Yupchi, the archer of daylight, who lives in the farthest east, he is
the son of Sanihas. He is small, but he is a great Hlahi. Lutchi, you
must go now for Sanihas Yupchi. Here are one hundred yellowhammer-wing
arrows for him, all red, and many others."
Lutchi went to the east end of the sweat-house, danced a little,
sprang onto the sweat-house, danced a little more, and then whizzed
away through the air. Lutchi travelled all day and all night, reached
the place about daylight next morning, and said to Sanihas,--
"Olelbis sent me here to ask your son to come and hlaha for him. He
sends you all these five hundred arrows made of kewit reed and one
hundred yellowhammer-wing arrows to come and hlaha."
"You must go," said Sanihas to her son, "and I will follow you.
Olelbis is a yapaitu himself; he ought to know where that woman
is,--he thinks that he knows everything; but you go and hlaha, and
hear what your yapaitu tells you."
Sanihas Yupchi started, and was at the sweat-house in Olelpanti next
morning just as the sun was rising. He went into the sweat-house, and
Olelbis gave him many things.
"Give me tobacco," said Sanihas Yupchi. "I am going to hlaha."
Olelbis gave him a pipe with tobacco; he smoked it out and was not
possessed. Olelbis gave him another pipeful, and he smoked it out, but
was not possessed. He smoked out ten pipefuls, and then people said,--
"I am afraid that the yapaitu will not come to him."
He smoked twenty more pipefuls, still he was not possessed; then
twenty more, did not hlaha.
"He is no Hlahi," cried people on all sides; "if he were, the yapaitu
would have come to him long ago."
"The yapaitu he is waiting for does not live near this sweat-house; he
is very far away," said Toko. "Give him more tobacco."
They gave him five pipefuls, then four, then one more,--sixty in all;
after that a yapaitu came to him.
"The yapaitu has come," said Olelbis. "I want you to look everywhere
and learn all you can; my children are nearly dead from lack of water;
you must tell where Mem Loimis is."
Sanihas Yupchi began to sing, and he said, "I will have the spirit
dance to-night; the two Tsudi girls may sing for me."
He danced twenty nights and days without saying a word,--danced twenty
days and nights more. The two Tsudi girls sang all the time. Then
Sanihas Yupchi sat down, said nothing; he had found out nothing.
Again he danced five days and nights, then four days and nights, then
one day and one night more. After that he sat down and said,--
"I am going to speak. The place of which I am going to tell is a long
way from here, but I am going to talk and let you hear what I say. Did
any one see which way this woman Mem Loimis went?"
One person answered: "She went west a short distance to get something.
That was the last seen of her."
"Was anything the matter with that woman?" asked Sanihas Yupchi. "Does
any one know?"
"Yes," said Olelbis, "she was with child."
"Well, while she was out, a man came to her and took her away with
him, took her far north and then east beyond the first Kolchiken Topi,
where the sky comes down, where the horizon is; he took her to the
place where he lives, and he lives in Waiti Kahi Pui Hlut. His name is
Kahit, and after he took her home they lived pleasantly together till
her child was born. Kahit did not claim that child as his. After a
while Mem Loimis grew angry at Kahit, left her child with him, and
went eastward, went to the other side of the second horizon. She
stayed there awhile, and gave birth to two sons, children of Kahit.
Then she went farther east to a third horizon, went to the other side
of that, stayed there, is living there now. The boy that was born when
she lived with Kahit was Sotchet. Sotchet's father was Olelbis. When
the child grew up a little, Kahit said to him: 'Your father lives in
Olelpanti.'"
Sanihas Yupchi told all this, and said to Wokwuk and Kut, the two sons
of Olelbis,--
"Your mother has gone a long way from here. Mem Loimis is far from
you. She is very far east. If I were at home, I could go to her
quickly, but I am here. Now you must go and see your mother. In the
far east you have two brothers, Kahit's sons. When you have passed
three Kolchiken Topis, three horizons, you will see them, and they
will know you. The way to your mother and brothers is long. That is
what my yapaitu says to me--my yapaitu is the Winishuyat of Patkilis."
Sanihas Yupchi was Tsaroki Sakahl, a great person.
Wokwuk and Kut, the two sons of Olelbis by Mem Loimis, went away east.
Patkilis's Winishuyat, the yapaitu of Sanihas Yupchi, said that he
would go and help them till they had passed the second horizon. They
did not see him. He was invisible.
They travelled one day, came to the first horizon, and passed that;
then travelled a second day, reached the second horizon, and passed
that. The yapaitu, Patkilis's Winishuyat, told them then how to pass
the third horizon, and, having given every useful direction, went back
to Sanihas Yupchi.
Sanihas Yupchi was waiting all this time in Olelpanti. Olelbis's elder
son, Wokwuk, had tied the hair on top of his head with a young
grapevine and thrust a chirtchihas bone through it--his father had
given him this bone at starting. With this bone he was to raise the
sky. He put it under the edge of the sky and raised it. When he and
his brother had passed through, the sky came down with a terrible
noise. When they had passed the third sky, they could see far east.
Everything was nice there and looked clear, just as it does here at
daylight when all is bright and beautiful. After going a short
distance they saw two boys coming toward them. Soon the four met.
"Hello, brothers!" called out the other two.
"Who are you?" asked Wokwuk. "How do you know that we are your
brothers?"
"We know because our mother talks about you always. She told us this
morning that we must go out and play to-day. 'Perhaps you will see
your brothers,' said she to us; 'perhaps they will come, we do not
know.' You have come, and now we will go to our mother."
When they reached the house, on the third evening, the two sons of
Olelbis stood by the door while Kahit's two sons ran in and said:
"Mother, our brothers have come!"
Mem Loimis was lying at the east end of the house. She was lying on a
mem terek, water buckskin; her blanket was a mem nikahl, a water
blanket.
"Well, tell them to come in."