After each name is given that of the creature or thing into which the
personage was changed subsequently.
=Chuhna=, spider; =Haka hasi=, loon; =Hitchinna=, wildcat; =Jamuka=,
acorn worm; =Juka=, silkworm; =Metsi=, coyote; =Tsanunewa=, fisher (a
bird); =Tsore Jowa=, eagle.
* * * * *
At some distance east of Jigul matu lived old Juka. He had a great
many sons and two daughters--a big house full of children.
Juka's two daughters were Tsore Jowa, the elder, and Haka Lasi, the
younger. After a time Haka Lasi fell in love with her brother
Hitchinna. One day she fell asleep and dreamed that he had married
her.
Metsi lived, too, in Juka's house. He was no relative; he just lived
as a guest there.
One day all the men were out hunting. It was then that Haka Lasi saw
Hitchinna in a dream. She began to sing about him, and she sang: "I
dream of Hitchinna; I dream that he is my husband. I dream of
Hitchinna; I dream that he is my husband."
All the men came back from the hunt at night. At daylight next morning
they went to swim, and Tsore Jowa made ready food for them. Haka Lasi
took a very nice staff in her hand, and went on top of the
sweat-house. She looked in and sang,--
"Where is my husband? Send him up here to me. I will take him away. We
must go on a journey. Where is my husband? Send him up here to me."
All knew that she had no husband.
"You have no husband," said they.
Hitchinna was lying in one corner wrapped up in the skin of a wildcat.
"You have no husband in this house; all here are your brothers," said
Juka.
"I have a husband, and I want him to come here to me," answered Haka
Lasi.
"Well," said the eldest son, "I will go up to her. Let us hear what
she will say." He went up.
"You are not my husband," said Haka Lasi. "Do not come near me."
She drove that one down, and called again: "Where is my husband? Send
him up to me."
"Go you," said Juka to the second son.
"I don't want you," said Haka Lasi to the second son.
She refused one after another, and drove them away until none was left
but Hitchinna. Juka went then to Hitchinna and said,--
"My son, get up and go to her; it looks as though you were the one she
wants."
"He is the one," said Haka Lasi; "he is my husband. I want him to go
away with me."
Hitchinna said not a word, but rose, washed, dressed himself nicely,
and went to the woman.
"The sun is high now," said Haka Lasi; "we must go quickly."
She was glad when taking away the one she wanted. They travelled
along, and she sang of Hitchinna as they travelled, sang of him all
the time. They went a long distance, and at night she fixed a bed and
they lay down on it.
Young Hitchinna could not sleep, he was frightened. When Haka Lasi was
asleep, he rose very quickly, took a piece of soft rotten wood, put it
on her arm where she had held his head, covered it, and then ran away
quickly, hurried back toward Juka's sweat-house with all his might.
About daylight he was at the sweat-house.
Now Chuhna, Juka's sister, lived with him. She was the greatest person
in the world to spin threads and twist ropes. She had a willow basket
as big as a house, and a rope which reached up to the sky and was
fastened there.
"My nephew," said she to Hitchinna, "I will save you and save all from
your terrible sister. She will be here very soon; she may come any
moment. She will kill all in this house; she will kill every one if
she finds us here. Let all go into my basket. I will take you up to
the sky. She cannot find us there; she cannot follow us to that
place."
"I will lie lowest," said Metsi. "I am a good man, I will go in first,
I will go in before others; I will be at the bottom of the basket."
Metsi went in first; every one in the sweat-house followed him. Then
Chuhna ran up, rose on her rope, and pulled the basket after her.
The sweat-house was empty; no one stayed behind. Chuhna kept rising
and rising, going higher and higher.
When Haka Lasi woke up and saw that she had a block of rotten wood on
her arm instead of Hitchinna, she said,--
"You won't get away from me, I will catch you wherever you are."
She rushed back to the sweat-house. It was empty; no one there. She
ran around in every direction looking for tracks, to find which way
they had gone. She found nothing on the ground; then she looked into
the sky, and far up, very high, close to the sun, she saw the basket
rising, going up steadily.
Haka Lasi was raging; she was so awfully angry that she set fire to
the house. It burned quickly, was soon a heap of coals.
The basket was almost at the sky when Metsi said to himself, "I wonder
how far up we are; I want to see." And he made a little hole in the
bottom of the basket to peep through and look down.
That instant the basket burst open; all came out, poured down, a great
stream of people, and all fell straight into the fire of the
sweat-house.
Now, Tsore Jowa was outside on top of the basket. She caught at the
sun, held to it, and saved herself.
Hitchinna went down with the rest, fell into the burning coals, and
was burned like his brothers.
Haka Lasi was glad that they had not escaped her; she took a stick,
fixed a net on it, and watched.
All were in the fire now and were burning. After a while one body
burst, and the heart flew out of it. Haka Lasi caught this heart in
her net. Soon a second and a third body burst, and two more hearts
flew out. She caught those as well as the first one. She caught all
the hearts except two,--Juka's own heart and his eldest son's heart.
Juka's heart flew high, went away far in the sky, and came down on the
island of a river near Klamath Lake. It turned into Juka himself
there. He sank in the ground to his chin; only his head was sticking
out.
The heart of the eldest son flew off to the foot of Wahkalu and turned
to be himself again. He fell so deep into the earth that only his face
was sticking out on the surface.
Now Haka Lasi put all the hearts which she had caught on a string,
hung them around her neck, and went to a lake east of Jigulmatu. She
wanted to live at the bottom of the lake, but could not find a place
deep enough. So she went northwest of Klamath Lake to Crater Lake,
where she could live in deep water.
Two Tsanunewa brothers lived near the lake with their old grandmother.
One morning early these brothers were out catching ducks, and just at
daybreak they heard some one call.
"Who is that?" asked the elder brother.
"I don't know," answered the younger.
Soon they saw Haka Lasi spring up on the water and call. She had a
large string of hearts around her neck. Then she sank again in the
water. Again she came up at some distance and called a second time.
Now Tsore Jowa came down from the sun and went to the old sweat-house,
where she found nothing but a heap of bones and ashes. Putting pitch
on her head and on her arms, and strips of deerskin around her neck
with pitch on them, she cried and went around mourning. After a time
she began to look for her sister. She went everywhere; went to Klamath
Lake.