Creation Myths of Primitive America Part 40

Sedit's sons went to a flat, danced and played all the day, took yellow clay, made paste of it, painted themselves yellow--that is why coyotes are yellow to this day; the paint would not wash off. All went home in a line. Sedit had supper for them.

"Why do you come without deer?" asked Sedit.

"We danced on the flat and painted."

Sedit said nothing. All ate; then Sedit thought, "I wish you boys to sleep." All fell asleep. Sedit went to Kele, woke him up, and said,--

"My sons went to hunt, but came home without deer. What shall I do with them?"

"Let them hunt birds. Let them hunt gophers and gra.s.shoppers in the meadows. Gophers are as good as deer."

"All right," said Sedit; and he went home and slept.

They brought gra.s.shoppers and gophers from the hunt next day, and Sedit was satisfied.

"Let them live on that kind of food," thought he.

They told of their hunting that day. "We wanted water," said one of them, "and met an old woman. 'We are dry and cannot find water,' said we to her. 'I will give you water,' said the old woman; 'come with me.' We followed her a while. I was afraid and said to my brothers, 'Do not drink the water she gives.' One of my brothers shouted at the old woman and frightened her. She fell back and turned into a swamp with a spring in the middle of it. We didn't go near the spring, but were nearly lost in the swamp."

"That is a wicked old woman," said Sedit. "That is Tunhlucha Pokaila.

She drowns people often. I met her once and she came near drowning me.

Don't you go near her again. Hunt gophers and gra.s.shoppers elsewhere."

"Now, my sons," said Sedit, some days later, "go and scatter around through this country. Whenever you want to see me come here to my sweat-house."

Sedit's sons scattered north, south, east, and west. They were at every ridge and point, in every valley and meadow, at every spring and river.

Kele's sons stayed at their great mountain sweat-house, doing the same things, living in the same way. The two sisters never married, and all Kele's people are in that mountain now. When they go out they look like wolves; but when inside, when at home in the mountain, they are people.

KOL TIb.i.+.c.hI

Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi was born at Norpat Kodiheril on Wini Mem, just before daylight. When a small boy, he used to go out by himself. If he went to play with other boys sometimes, he would not stay with them. He went out of sight, disappeared, and was lost. Then his father or mother or others would find him in this place or that unexpectedly.

Sometimes they found him at home, sometimes at a distance, far away in some gulch or on some mountain. It happened that his mother would look at his bed in the night-time and see him there sleeping. She would look again and find that he was gone. She would look a third time, and find him just as at first. In the day he would be seen in one place and be gone the next moment.

Once he was playing with children; they turned aside to see something, then looked at him. He was gone. After a while they saw him in the water under the salmon-house. Another time he disappeared.

"Where has he gone?" asked one boy.

"I cannot tell," answered another.

Soon they heard singing.

One asked, "Do you hear that?"

"Yes," said the other; "where is it?"

They listened and looked. Soon they saw Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi sitting near the north bank of the river, under water.

"We must run and tell his father and mother."

Two of the boys ran to tell his father and mother. "We lost your son,"

said they. "He went away from us. We looked for him a long time and could not find him. Now we have found him; we have seen him sitting under water; we don't know what he is doing."

His mother hurried out; ran to the river.

"We think he must be dead," said people who had gathered there. "We think that some yapaitu [spirit] has killed him."

They soon saw that he was alive; he was moving. "Come, my son," called his mother, stretching her hands to him,--"come, my son; come out, come to me." But he stayed there, sitting under water.

A quarter of an hour later they saw that the boy had gone from the river. The people heard singing in some place between them and the village. They looked up and saw that the boy was half-way home and going from the river.

"That is your son," called they to the woman.

"Oh, no," said the woman; but she ran up and found that it was her son.

Another time the boy goes south with some children. These lose him, just as the others had. In half an hour they hear singing.

"Where is he?" ask some.

"On this side," says one.

"On that," says another.

South of the river is a great sugar-pine on a steep bank. They look, and high on a limb pointing northward they see him hanging, head downward, singing.

They run to his mother. "We see your son hanging by his feet from a tree."

The woman hurries to the river, runs in among the rocks and rubbish around the tree, reaches toward the boy, throws herself on the rocks, crying, "Oh, my child, you'll be killed!"

In a moment he is gone; there is no sign of him on the tree. Soon a shouting is heard at the house: "My wife, come up; don't cry, our son is here!"

She crawls out of the rocks and dirt, runs home, finds the boy safe with his father.

The people began now to talk of the wonderful boy. Soon every one was talking of him. There were many people in the place. Norpat Kodiheril was a very big village.

"Some yapaitu is going to take that boy's life," said they; "some yapaitu will kill him."

One morning the boy went down on the north side of the river with children, but apart from them, behind, by himself. He looked up, saw a great bird in the air flying above him. "Oh, if I had those wing feathers!" thought the boy. Then he blew upward and wished (olpuhlcha). That moment the great bird Komos Kulit fell down before him. Just after the bird fell he heard a voice in the sky, a voice high, very high up, crying,--

"Now, you little man, you must call yourself Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi. You are to be the greatest Hlahi [doctor] on Wini Mem."

"Look at that boy!" cried the other boys. "See! he has something."

They were afraid when they saw the great bird, and the boy stretching the wings and handling the wonderful Komos Kulit. Some of them ran to his mother and said to her,--