CHARACTERS
| Blaiwas | Eagle | Kúja | Rat | |
| Galaíwa | Mouse | Kûlta | Otter | |
| Kaiutois | Wolf | Wŏn | Elk | |
| Kĕlaiwa | House Mouse | Yahyáhaäs | The One-legged Man |
Old Kúja and his five daughters lived in the mountains east of Tula Lake. The old man never went hunting, or went out of the house. His five daughters were hunters. When getting ready to hunt, they took off their clothes and became red from the waist up; then they put on breech clouts and went out as men. One of the sisters built a ring of fires around the mountain they wished to hunt on. The fire and smoke drove the deer toward the top of the mountain. The other sisters shot the deer with arrows; an arrow always went through a deer and came out.
Whenever the Kújas were hunting deer, people knew by the smoke which sister built the fire. The smoke from the fire built by the youngest sister went highest and straightest, for she was the strongest. The smoke from the fire built by the fourth sister was not as straight or as high; and so on. The eldest sister’s fire smoked the least, and the smoke spread everywhere, for she was the weakest.
The Kújas had always hunted on those mountains. Nobody else could hunt there, for when the sisters knew that a man was on one of their mountains they built fires around it, drove him toward the top, and killed him.
In old Kúja’s house there were many sacks of dried meat and of white roots. When the sisters went to dig roots, each one carried a basket on her back and had a long digging stick; they looked like old women. [[160]]
On a mountain southwest of where the Kújas hunted there was a large village. Blaiwas had a house there; he was chief of the village. One morning the Kúja sisters went to hunt deer on a mountain west of the one they lived on. In Blaiwas’ village men called to the women: “Come out and look at that mountain over there! The Kúja sisters are driving in deer!”
Some of the men said: “Let us go over there and see how those sisters look!” Others said: “Those sisters are wise; they can turn us or themselves into anything they want to. Let them alone!”
Blaiwas said: “Keep away from the Kúja sisters. From the waist up they are as red as blood. I have tried to get near them, but I couldn’t. Their fire was far away, but I was burning up.”
Old man Yahyáhaäs was visiting in Blaiwas’ village. He heard the men talking and he asked: “What are you talking about?”
“About the Kúja sisters,” said Blaiwas. “They don’t want to marry, and nobody can get near enough to see how they live. They are young girls, but when they are out hunting they look like men, and when they are digging roots, they are ugly, old women.”
“What are you afraid of?” asked Yahyáhaäs. “I came here for a wife; maybe I had better take one of those sisters; they would give me plenty of deer meat.”
“You’ll not get a wife here,” said Blaiwas. “My people have soft blankets and nice beads. Your blanket is stiff and so hard that it sticks out like a dry elk skin. The girls don’t like you.”
The next morning the sisters built a fire around Lokúmsis, a mountain in the west. Men called to Yahyáhaäs and said: “Look over there! That is what we were talking about yesterday. The Kúja sisters are out hunting.”
“I can go there and see how they look,” said Yahyáhaäs.
“Nobody can get near enough to see them,” said Blaiwas.
“I can go there and take their bows and arrows from them. They can’t hurt me, unless they throw me down.” [[161]]
“You had better stay away from those girls,” said Blaiwas, but Yahyáhaäs didn’t listen to what he said; he started off. He took a mountain at a step, but before he could get there, the sisters put out their fire and went home. They had heard everything the men said. Yahyáhaäs hunted for them all day, then he went back to Blaiwas’ village.
The next morning the sisters hunted on another mountain. Yahyáhaäs started again, but before he got there, they put their fire out and went home. Each time they saw Yahyáhaäs coming, they said to the mountain: “You are our friend; draw him away from us.” And it did.
Old woman Galaíwa lived in Blaiwas’ house; she was kin of the Kúja sisters. Now Blaiwas was mad at Yahyáhaäs. He was chief, and he didn’t want Yahyáhaäs to bother the Kúja girls. He knew they had power to do anything they wanted to. He was afraid they would get angry at his people. He said to Galaíwa: “I want you to try and go to old Kúja’s house. If you get there, ask the Kúja sisters if Yahyáhaäs bothers them. Tell them he says they are only common women, and he can do what he likes with them. Tell them how he talks.”
When Galaíwa got to Kúja’s house, the sisters were out digging roots. Old man Kúja said: “My daughters can’t hunt any more. A one-legged man, with a big head and bushy red hair, is always trying to get near them. They see his head first. He has a straw quiver on his back and carries a cane sharp at both ends; the feathers of a red-headed woodpecker are tied around it in two places.” (The feathers were Yahyáhaäs’ medicine.) “With one step he crosses a high mountain. Do you know anything about that man?”
Galaíwa told him all that Blaiwas had said about Yahyáhaäs.
When the girls came, their father said: “The one-legged man boasts that he can come where you are and take your arrows away from you.”
Each of the five sisters cried out: “I will not run away from him again. I will stay and see if he can get my arrows!” [[162]]
Old Kúja said: “I am afraid Blaiwas will get mad if you do anything to Yahyáhaäs.”
“No,” said Galaíwa, “the chief and his sons hate Yahyáhaäs. They don’t want him to stay in their village.”
“Are the chief’s sons like us?” asked the sisters.
Galaíwa didn’t answer; she said: “It is late, I must go home.”
The Kúja sisters said: “We will fix your eyes so no matter how dark it is, you will see the trail and get home. We will open our eyes wide, and give you some of our light.” The youngest sister opened her eyes wide and looked into Galaíwa’s eyes. Right away a little black spot came inside each of the old woman’s eyes. Then everywhere it seemed bright and light to her; she traveled fast; she didn’t have to look for the trail. Since then all of her kin can see as well at night as in the daytime.
Early the next morning the Kúja sisters went to hunt for deer. The youngest sister started the fires around a mountain, then they sat down on flat rocks and waited for Yahyáhaäs to come. While they were sitting there, they asked one another: “Which of us will try first?” The eldest sister said: “I will.” The youngest sister said: “You must fix your mind on what you are going to do, then think of nothing else.” She got red all over; her arms and legs and eyes were as red as fire.
They saw Yahyáhaäs coming. He started in the southwest, went toward the north, then turned west, and came to their mountain. They watched him all the time. When he saw them, he squatted down and began to creep toward them. He crept behind every tree and stone and every blade of grass. Every step he took he thrust his cane down under the earth.
Each sister had a bunch of woodpecker’s feathers in a hole in her nose. As Yahyáhaäs came along, the eldest sister took a feather out of her nose and stuck it under the ground. It came up a streak of fire in Yahyáhaäs’ cane; he was so scared he almost lost his mind. When he got near, she took out a second feather, put it under the ground, and it also came [[163]]out a streak of fire in Yahyáhaäs’ cane. That time he was so scared that he dropped his cane and called out: “What are you doing? This is my cane!”
“What do you think now?” asked the eldest sister. “You boasted that we had no power, that you could take our bows and arrows away from us.”
“You must wrestle with me,” said Yahyáhaäs. “That is the way I find out how strong people are.”
“You must make a fire first,” said the sisters.
Yahyáhaäs took his fire-drill out of his quiver and tried to start a fire.
The sisters laughed, and said: “You must make it with your own power, not with a drill; anybody can use a drill.”
“How can I do it?” asked Yahyáhaäs.
“Do as I do,” said the eldest sister. She pulled up a spear of grass and threw it into the air. It came down blazing. Then she said to a big rock: “Stand apart far enough for a leg to go between you.” Right away the rock opened. Then the sisters said to Yahyáhaäs: “Put your leg in there and get ready to wrestle.”
Yahyáhaäs painted his face straight up through the middle; then he asked: “Which sister is going to wrestle with me first?”
“I am,” said the eldest. “I will wrestle a while for fun, and then in earnest.” As she spoke a bunch of red-headed woodpecker’s feathers came out of her head. She began to wrestle with Yahyáhaäs. Soon he said: “That is enough. Let the next one try.”
The eldest said to the second sister: “Put your foot in where his leg is.” Then she said to Yahyáhaäs: “Hurry, now! It is getting late!”
All the time the sisters were gathering wood and putting it on the fire. Yahyáhaäs tried four of the sisters. He couldn’t do anything with them; only the eldest moved a little, three of them stood as firm as a rock.
The youngest sister said to the others: “It is my turn now. Make the fire blaze up high! Put on more wood, then stand with your backs toward me.” She said to Yahyáhaäs, [[164]]“I’m ready!” That minute she put her arms around him. She broke his leg off and threw him into the fire. They punched the fire around him, made it blaze up high—it was a great pile—then they ran away as fast as they could.
Yahyáhaäs’ spirit called: “Come back, old Kúja’s daughters, come back! You haven’t killed me. Come back and wrestle with me.”
“You are killed,” said the sisters. “You will never be a person again, but your spirit will always roam around on high mountains.”
He called till they got back to the house.
Old Kúja asked: “Where are my deer entrails?”—He never ate any other part of the deer.
“We didn’t hunt for deer to-day,” said the youngest daughter. “We are going to swim and then dig roots.”
After that the sisters hunted deer for five days. On the fifth day, Blaiwas and his sons sent old woman Galaíwa to ask if they had seen Yahyáhaäs. When she got to the house, she said: “Blaiwas and his five sons want to know if Yahyáhaäs has been here to bother you. He has gone away, and they don’t know where he is.”
“We haven’t seen him,” said the sisters. “Maybe he ran into our fire and got burned up. Why does Blaiwas send you to ask us questions? Do those young chiefs want to marry us?”
Galaíwa didn’t answer. She knew now that they had killed Yahyáhaäs.
Old Kúja said to his daughters: “I feel lonesome. I am hungry all the time. You don’t kill deer enough. Why don’t you marry some of those men in Blaiwas’ village? They would hunt for me, and I would have plenty to eat.”
The sisters said: “There are many men in that village; which shall we go to?”
“The eldest must go to Blaiwas’ son; the second to Kaiutois’ son; the third to Wûlkûtska’s son; the fourth to Wŏn’s son.” To his youngest daughter he said: “You must get Kûlta’s son, for he can make a road under the ground, and can go under the water and get different kinds of fish. He can [[165]]make a road to the ocean and drive fish into the river. I want to eat such fish as he catches.”
The girls started early; when they got near Blaiwas’ village they met old Galaíwa and she told them which houses to go to. The first house was Kûlta’s. The youngest sister stopped there; the others went on.
Tusasás lived in that village. When he saw the sisters coming, he began to make fun of them and tell lies about them. “Why do you let those girls come into your houses?” asked he. “They don’t smell good; you should drive them away.” He made such a fuss that young Blaiwas and Kaiutois and Wûlkûtska and Wŏn ran off and hid.
The next morning all the people gathered in Lok’s house to talk and make up their minds what to do.
Old Galaíwa asked Blaiwas’ son: “Why didn’t you stay with your wife? She will get mad and kill you. Those sisters have great power. They can do anything.”
Lok said: “I am afraid of those sisters. My home was on a high mountain; I never lived where the land was flat. Those sisters took my mountain and drove me away. You should have let them alone; you shouldn’t have sent Galaíwa to ask questions.”
The people talked a long time; they didn’t know what to do.
The next morning the eldest sister went to the second and together they went to the third and the fourth sister. They found that each sister had stayed alone; then they went to Kûlta’s house to see their youngest sister. Her husband had stayed with her; he liked her, and she was glad. She didn’t want to go home with her sisters, but they said: “Our father will feel lonesome if we come home without you,” so she went.
As soon as they left Blaiwas’ village, Tusasás got on top of a house and called out: “Old Kúja’s daughters came to hunt for husbands, but they have gone home without them.” He called the girls names and made sport of them. He kept screaming: “Look at them! See them go home!”
Some of the people said: “Old Tusasás ought to be killed; [[166]]he will get us into trouble.” At last Blaiwas made him stop screaming and talking.
The sisters turned back; they looked like men. They made a circle around Blaiwas’ house and danced a war dance. The people were terribly scared; they ran into their houses and looked through the cracks. When the dance was over, the sisters started for home. All the way they made a great noise. When they went into the house, they pounded their father on the head and back with their fists, and said: “Old man, to please you we have tried to get husbands. They ran away from us!” They pounded him again, almost killed him.
When Kûlta’s son found that his wife was gone, he felt badly and cried.
“Why didn’t you catch her when she went out?” asked his father. “She is a good daughter-in-law; I like her.”
“I didn’t know that she was going,” said the young man.
Kûlta was frightened; he was afraid of the sisters. He went to old man Witkátkis, and said: “You must come and talk to my son.”—Witkátkis was a great kiúks.
When Witkátkis looked at the young man, blood came out of his own mouth, and he said: “You are going to die. You will follow your wife, and when you get where those sisters live your blood will spread over the ground.”
The next morning the sisters told their father to make them bark sticks. He made five, and gave one to each girl. “Why didn’t you talk to them over the fire?” asked the youngest sister.
“You can talk to them yourself,” said the old man.
They built fires around the mountain, then they put the sticks on one of the fires, and said: “Draw to us those men who made fun of us.” The eldest sister said to her stick: “I want Blaiwas’ son to be here before me.” Each sister, except the youngest, talked to her stick in the same way; then they asked the youngest sister: “Why don’t you talk to your stick?”
“I have nothing to tell it,” said she. While they were hunting, her bowstring broke. She felt lonesome; she knew something was going to happen.
Kûlta’s father tied a stone knife on his son’s arm, and said: [[167]]“Don’t let old Kúja have this unless he will take you for his son-in-law.”
When the young man got to the house, the old woman hurried off to tell her daughters that he had come. The youngest sister began to cry; the eldest sister said: “We will kill him and throw him out.” The old woman screamed: “Let him alone! He isn’t one of the men who made fun of you.” But they ran in, caught hold of Kûlta, pounded him hard; pounded him till he died, then they threw him out.
The youngest sister put ashes on her head and tied a blanket around herself, as a woman does when she mourns for her husband. She told her mother to take Kûlta’s body off and put sticks over it.
Down in Blaiwas’ village, old Witkátkis said: “In a dream I saw fresh blood spread on the ground. Kûlta is dead!”
Blaiwas said to Galaíwa: “You must go to old Kúja’s and find out what they have done to Kûlta.”
When Galaíwa was near the house, she saw Kûlta’s wife mourning, and she asked: “Have you killed Kûlta?”
“My sisters have killed him,” said the young woman. “You must make his father think he is alive. I want the other men to come here. Then I will show my sisters what I can do.”
When Galaíwa got home, the people asked: “Is Kûlta alive?”
She said: “I didn’t see him; he was off hunting for deer.”
Blaiwas didn’t want his son to go to Kúja’s house, but the young man was drawn there; he couldn’t help going.
That day the eldest sister’s bow broke. She sat down with it in her hand; she felt lonesome. The youngest sister asked: “Why do you feel lonesome? Why don’t you mend your bow?”
“How can I? It is broken.”
The sister took it, and right away it was whole. She threw it into her sister’s lap, and said: “You think you have as much power as I have. You have killed Kûlta. Wait a while; you will find out what I can do.”
When they got home, young Blaiwas was there. The eldest [[168]]sister went in and sat down by him. The next day Kaiutois came, and then Wûlkûtska’s son, and Wŏn’s son. The four sisters wanted to stay with their husbands, but the youngest sister made them go with her to hunt for deer.
That night Galaíwa came again.
“Why do you come here so often?” asked Kûlta’s wife.
“Blaiwas sends me to see if his people are alive yet.”
“They are people yet,” said the young woman, “but I feel worse and worse all the time.”
Galaíwa said: “You have power; why don’t you bring Kûlta to life?”
“His body is spoiled,” said the woman. But she told her mother to uncover the body and put it in water.
Old woman Kúja said: “You always tell me if anybody kills you to put your body in water, but that won’t bring Kûlta to life.” She put the body in water, washed it, then stretched it out and stepped over it a good many times. At last it moved. She washed it and stepped over it again. Then Kûlta stood up. He was glad to be alive, and to see his wife.
Kûlta’s wife said: “Hereafter, my sisters and their husbands will not be persons. They will be spirits and will roam around on the mountains.” [[169]]