CHARACTERS
| Góshgoise | Rabbit (small) | Skóla | Meadow Lark | |
| Juljulcus | Cricket | Tsmuk | Darkness | |
| Kaudokis | Worm | Yaukûl | Stone People | |
| Lóluk | Fire |
Five brothers lived together on the east side of Tula Lake; all had the same name, Yaukûl; the youngest was chief. Not far away lived the five Tcpun brothers, kin of the Yaukûls; each brother had one child. The wives of those men had been captured by the Yaukûl brothers, and made servants.
Each day old woman Yaukûl went to the top of her house and watched the trail. Whenever she saw people coming, she called to her sons, who sat by the fire, with long spears stuck in the ground around them. They went out, killed the men, and brought the women home. The brothers never left the house except when they went to kill people.
Each morning old Yaukûl went to every house in the village and sent the women to dig roots; then she watched them from the top of the house, and if a woman ate even one little root, she had her punished.
One morning, the old woman said to her sons: “There is snow on the ground.”
The youngest son said: “Tell the Tcpun brothers to go for rabbits.”
She went to the house of the five brothers, and said: “Go and hunt rabbits; my sons are hungry for meat.”
Four of the Tcpun brothers had been worked so hard that they were only skin and bones. The fifth brother was able to hunt, for while hunting he always stole and ate a rabbit. The brothers had only ragged bark blankets; the old woman took away the rabbit skins. [[170]]
The youngest brother got ready and started; as he went along, he picked up pieces of bark to tie on his feet to keep them from freezing. While hunting he kept saying: “I am hunting as though I were going to eat, but I never eat.”
Each day for three days an orphan boy heard those words. When he got home, the third night, he said: “Grandmother, in the woods I hear a man talking and crying. I thought no one lived around here.”
“What does he say?”
When the boy told, the old woman said: “That is my brother,” and she began to cry. Then she told Góshgoise, the boy, about the Yaukûl brothers. “To-morrow I am going to see that man,” thought Góshgoise. The grandmother knew his thoughts; she knew he would try to kill the Yaukûls.
The next morning old Yaukûl said to her sons: “There is snow on the ground.”
The youngest son said: “Tell the Tcpun brothers to go for rabbits.”
She went to their house and said: “This is a good day to hunt rabbits; my sons are hungry for meat.”
The youngest brother started off. He killed rabbits by calling them to him and dropping large stones on them. That day the boy was watching; he saw the man a long way off, saw him kill a rabbit, skin it, and then build a fire. He went toward him, and when near hid behind bushes. When the man turned to pick up sticks, he saw the boy and was scared. He said: “I never saw you before; I didn’t know there was any one like you living around here.”
“My grandmother and I live among the rocks,” said the boy. “I came to see you; I often hear you cry. Why can’t you eat what you kill? I wouldn’t kill, if I couldn’t eat.”
“Where I live, nobody can eat,” said the man; “the Yaukûls would kill them. They have killed your father and all your people. I am sorry you heard me crying. I don’t want them to find you; I want you to grow to be a man. That is why I never looked for you.”
“Why don’t you cook another rabbit?” [[171]]
“They will kill me if I carry home only a few. The old woman never has enough.”
The boy had his belt full of rabbits; he gave them to the man, and said: “Stay here and cook these; don’t go home till it is dark, don’t go till you are sure the old woman can’t see you. Then feed your brothers and the children. To-morrow I will come and see you.”
“It is a bad place; don’t come,” said the man. “The Yaukûls will kill you. You must stay away and grow up.”
When the boy got home, his grandmother said: “You are late, but you haven’t any rabbits.”
“I met my uncle and gave him my rabbits. I have found out why he cries so. He has to hunt rabbits for the Yaukûl brothers, but if they knew that he ate even one little rabbit they would kill him. To-morrow I am going to see my uncles.”
The grandmother said: “If you go, you will not come back; the Yaukûl people will kill you.”
“I am going,” said the boy. “Get my things ready.”
His grandmother gave him a spear like the spears used by the Yaukûl brothers.
“I don’t want that spear,” said the boy, “it will break.”
She gave him a thick axe, and he said: “That is too heavy.” She gave him a knife, made of wood and covered with pitch, and he said: “That is not strong enough; it will break.”
That night, while the boy was asleep, the old woman made a quiver out of her own hair. The quiver was blue and bright. Then she made a spear that would last always and never get old or break. At daylight she said to him: “Now, my grandson, it is time to get ready. Wash and eat, then I will tell you what to do.”
He washed in the brook and ate pounded seeds. Then she gave him the spear, and said: “Go to the rock out there and try this spear. Stand on the right side of the rock and strike it five times.” He struck four times, and each time great pieces of rock fell; the fifth time the rock split in the center. Every time he struck, the spear looked like a flash of lightning. [[172]]
His grandmother said: “Look at your spear and see if it is hurt.”
“No,” said the boy, “it is as good as ever.”
“Well, put it in its quiver; then stand up straight.”
He stood up straight. She made him tall and covered his body with five kinds of rock. The outside cover was of granite.
Then the boy asked: “How many places are there where people kill folks?”
“The Yaukûl place is the worst of all,” said his grandmother, “but between that place and the end of the world in the north there are three bad places.”
“Don’t get frightened if I am gone a long time,” said the boy. “I am going to all those bad places.” And he started.
Old woman Yaukûl, from the top of her house, saw him coming. Her sons were lying on their backs and looking at her through the smoke hole; they thought she saw some one, and the chief called out: “Whom do you see?”
“I see a man who is just big enough to bring water. He has a rabbit-skin blanket, and he has something on his back, something that is nice and bright.”
“Go and get him,” said the chief, “and the thing he is carrying. I wonder who it is that has never heard of me!”
When the old woman got to Góshgoise, she said: “Give me your blanket and quiver.”
The boy walked along; he didn’t say a word.
She went back to her sons, and said: “He looks like a bad man; he won’t say a word, and he won’t give me what he has on his back.” She called him names; she was mad.
Her son said: “Go again!”
When she came to Góshgoise the second time, she said: “Give those things to me, quick; my son is mad.”
Góshgoise was lying on the ground with his head on his hands. He didn’t say a word, didn’t notice her. She talked and talked, but couldn’t get the things. She went and told her sons that the man wouldn’t give her his blanket and quiver, and wouldn’t speak to her.
The youngest son said: “Who can that man be? Has he [[173]]never heard of me? I thought every one knew about me. Go again, and this time be sure to get the things.”
The old woman ran to Góshgoise, and screamed: “Give me your blanket and quiver! This is the last time I’m going to ask for them! My sons are as strong as you are. You’ll give up your things when they come!” She was mad, she looked ready to fight. The Tcpun brothers were watching; they were scared. Still the boy didn’t say a word. When she couldn’t make him speak, she went back to the house.
Her son screamed: “Where are the things?”
“He won’t give them up.”
“I’ll go and kill him,” said the eldest brother. When he stood up, he was so tall and heavy that he shook the house. He thought he could kill the boy easily, so he didn’t put on his stone cover. With one step he reached Góshgoise. “Give me those things!” shouted he.
Góshgoise stood up. With his right hand he held his spear under his left arm, but his head was covered with his blanket, as if he didn’t hear or see the man.
When Góshgoise didn’t answer, Yaukûl screamed: “Don’t you hear?” and he raised his spear to strike. That minute Góshgoise’s spear flashed out and took Yaukûl’s head off with one blow.
Góshgoise threw the head over the house, and the body after it. The old woman cried out: “What is that? It looks like my son’s head!” and she ran around the house to see what had fallen.
Góshgoise went into his uncle’s house, and said: “Cut a hole through the wall, so that I can see out.”
When the Yaukûls saw that Góshgoise had killed their brother, they got ready to fight. They had a sister, who had never been out of the house, and had never spoken to any one. When the brothers were putting on their stone bodies, the sister said: “You will find that you are not the strongest people in this world,” and she began to cry. The brothers were frightened. They had never heard their sister’s voice before.
Góshgoise gave a spear to each of the five Tcpun brothers [[174]]and said: “If the last Yaukûl comes, you must help me fight him.”
When the second brother was half-way to the house Góshgoise met him, and the two began to fight. At the first blow the boy struck Yaukûl with his spear; the first kind of rock flew off. When Yaukûl struck the boy, only dust flew. The boy hit Yaukûl five blows. At each blow a different kind of rock was broken. When the fifth cover broke, Yaukûl died. Each blow of the boy’s spear was a flash of lightning. The third and fourth brother came out to fight. Every time they struck Góshgoise a blow, he said: “In another place,” so they never hit him twice in the same place. Góshgoise struck their covers off and killed them.
When the fifth brother came, he struck first, and raised a flash of fire that went through three of the boy’s stone covers. Góshgoise struck off two of Yaukûl’s stone covers, then told his uncles to strike right where he had struck. They broke all the covers and killed the man. As he died, the boy said to him: “Hereafter, you and your brothers will be nothing but water fowls, you will eat only dead fish. People will laugh at you, for you will always sit by the water, whichever way the wind blows.”
Góshgoise killed old woman Yaukûl and threw her body off; she became the same kind of bird as her sons. The daughter he took for a wife. Among the captives in Yaukûl’s house he found his mother and aunts.
“I am going away,” said Góshgoise to his uncles. “You mustn’t stay here; you and all these women must go to my grandmother’s place.” He knew that his grandmother would have a big house ready for them.
He asked his mother how many people there were at the next bad place.
“There are five brothers,” said she. “The eldest brother has a beautiful wife. Those brothers have killed all the men and children in that country. The women are captives and have to dig roots for the five brothers. The eldest brother’s wife goes with them to watch them while they dig.”
Góshgoise traveled on. He went to the top of a high mountain, [[175]]looked down on the other side, and saw, on the flat below, women digging roots. The first woman was his father’s sister; her head was covered with pitch, for she was mourning for her husband. When Góshgoise got near, he crept along quietly till he stood behind his aunt. She saw a second shadow and turned around to see what made it. The minute she saw Góshgoise, she knew he was her nephew; she cried out: “Go away! Why did you come here? This is a bad place!” Góshgoise didn’t answer. “How did you pass the Yaukûl brothers?” asked his aunt.
“I killed them.”
“The five Kaudokis brothers live here,” said the woman. “We have to work for them. If we didn’t work, they would cut our legs or ears off and make us eat them. The eldest brother has a beautiful wife—that bright woman over there—she looks like the moon.”
“I have come here for a wife,” said Góshgoise. “Have those men sisters?”
“Oh, my nephew,” said his aunt, “go away, you will be killed. We are all captives. There is no woman here for you.”
“I want that bright woman,” said Góshgoise, “and I’m going to fight for her.”
He ran to the woman, caught hold of her, and made her sit down; then he put his head on her knees.
“Who are you?” cried the woman. “Go away! The five brothers will see you and they will kill you. Go away!”
She cried, and all the women cried and begged Góshgoise to go away; but he stayed there; he wouldn’t get up, and he wouldn’t let the woman get up.
The Kaudokis brothers wore blankets made of untanned elk-skin. Góshgoise heard the noise of some one running and at the same time pounding a dry, stiff hide. The eldest brother was coming.
The women cried: “Run away; he will kill you!”
“No, he won’t,” said Góshgoise, and he covered his head with his blanket. Mole was Góshgoise’s medicine, and was always with him. He said to Mole: “Make holes around here!” [[176]]
Mole made a great many holes. When Kaudokis came rushing along with a spear in his hand, he fell into one of the holes, and Góshgoise cut his head off. The second brother came and was killed in the same way. The women were watching; they were glad. Each time they called out: “Another is coming!”
As the third brother came near, he called out: “Where did you come from? What do you want here? Nobody can beat me!”
That minute he fell into a hole, and Góshgoise cut his head off. Each time Góshgoise killed a Kaudokis, he pulled off his elk-skin blanket, and put it on himself.
The women said: “Now the youngest brother is coming! He is stronger than the others.”
The fifth brother came in a terrible whirlwind. Góshgoise thought: “Maybe he will kill me,” and he cried to Mole: “Dig deeper holes!” Just as Kaudokis raised his spear to strike, he stumbled and fell into a hole. Góshgoise cut his head off, put on his elk-skin blanket, and said: “Hereafter, you and your brothers will be nothing but creeping things.” That minute the souls of the Kaudokis brothers flew out and became worms.
Góshgoise took the eldest brother’s wife for his own wife; then he freed all the captives and sent them, with his wife and his aunt, to stay with his grandmother, while he went farther.
His aunt said: “As you travel, you will come to a high mountain; from the top of the mountain you will see a large village. Old man Juljulcus lives there. He has one son and one daughter, and if any man falls in love with the girl, her brother kills him.”
Góshgoise traveled very fast; that night he camped on a high mountain, and the next morning he looked down into the valley. There was a river in the valley, and many women were walking along the bank; they were hunting for roots. Behind them all, Góshgoise saw Skóla, one of his aunts. As he went down the mountain, he stopped often to listen, for all those women were singing. He could hear his aunt’s voice. She was cleaning roots and throwing them into a basket that she had on her back. When Góshgoise came behind her, she saw [[177]]two shadows. She turned around and looked up; when she saw who it was, she cried out: “Why did you come here? This is a bad place.”
“Do you know me?” asked Góshgoise.
“You are my nephew. How did you pass the house of the five Kaudokis brothers?”
“I killed them.”
When Góshgoise saw the daughter of old Juljulcus, he told his aunt he was going to her.
“What are you going to her for?” asked Skóla. “Don’t go there; you will get killed. Don’t you see that great pile of bones there by the house? Those are the bones of men who have come for old Juljulcus’ daughter.” That minute the wind began to blow, and Skóla said: “They know that you are here. They know everything. The brother is coming to kill you.”
“Who is ‘Two-Tongued’ talking to?” asked one woman of another. (They called Skóla two-tongued, because she could talk two ways.) “He is a nice-looking man, but Juljulcus will kill him.”
Góshgoise ran to old Juljulcus’ daughter, caught hold of her, drew her down, and put his head on her knees.
She was scared and tried to get away. “Let me go!” said she. “No man can fall in love with me; if he does, my brother will kill him.”
The brother was coming in the middle of a whirlwind. His blanket, made of the dried skin of people, rattled terribly.
The sister bent over Góshgoise to save him. He said: “You mustn’t do that; you might kill me.” He told Mole to dig a great hole right there near him. The wind blew so hard that the women fell down and were blown along over the flat, but Góshgoise held himself and the girl to the ground.
Just as Juljulcus’ son lifted his spear to strike, he fell into the hole Mole had made, and Góshgoise killed him. “Hereafter,” said Góshgoise, “you will be small and weak; nothing but a cricket. You will lie near roots, and wherever people put their seeds and dried roots under the ground, there you will be.” [[178]]
Juljulcus’ spirit came out and was a cricket. When the girl stepped over her brother’s body, the cricket jumped on Góshgoise; it seemed to like him.
Góshgoise spent the night at old Juljulcus’ house; in the morning he asked his wife: “Are all the great fighters dead?”
She asked her father, and he said: “My son-in-law, bad people live near the ocean. As you travel, you will come to a high mountain; from the top of that mountain, if you look toward the ocean, you will see a village, with smoke rising from each house. You must get to that village after dark. Don’t go there in daylight.”
Góshgoise told his father-in-law and all the women to go to his grandmother’s place and stay there till he came.
“How far away is your grandmother’s house?” asked the old man.
“It is on the other side of the world, in the south,” said Góshgoise.
Old Juljulcus’ spear was the little lightning that flashes all around the sky. Góshgoise gave his spear, long lightning, to his father-in-law, and took the old man’s spear. His wife gave him seed to eat on the road, and they started. Old Juljulcus looked back, and said: “Son-in-law, don’t forget what I have told you.”
It took Góshgoise two days to reach the mountain, but his wife and his father-in-law camped a good many times before they got to his grandmother’s house.
When Góshgoise reached the top of the mountain, he found a spring; he talked to the spring, and to the earth, and to the trees, and to the rocks; asked them not to hurt him. When he looked toward the ocean he saw many houses and smoke coming out of each house; then he remembered what his father-in-law had told him. As soon as he saw the smoke, the sun went down.
The village was full of people; they looked like lightning bugs, throwing fire, for each person had a lighted torch. When Góshgoise got to the village, he found the people killing one another. He crept up carefully, and with his short lightning [[179]]spear began to cut off heads. All night he killed people and burned houses. At daybreak, when there was no one left to kill, Góshgoise went to the mountain, and standing on the top, looked down. Only one house was left; that was the house of old Tsmuk. (The people he had killed were Lóluks.) Góshgoise stayed all day on the mountain, and when night came he went to Tsmuk’s house. (Day was night for the people who lived with Tsmuk and night was day.)
In Tsmuk’s house there was a great ball of light; the light was so strong that no one could look at it. Góshgoise held his lightning spear in front of the ball, and said: “My spear is as bright as this ball; my long spear would be stronger and brighter than the ball.”
Tsmuk’s daughter was near the door. She had the bright ball right there at her side. Góshgoise sat down by her and turned his spear over. It frightened those in the house, and one man called out: “What is that? I saw something flash.” Góshgoise held the spear near his head, and they didn’t see it again.
There were six persons in the house,—the old grandmother, Tsmuk, his wife, his two sons, and his daughter. When the elder son was going to make a fire, Góshgoise held out his spear. The young man saw it and was scared. In the morning it was night for him, and he could see Góshgoise. He pushed his brother, and said: “That is what came in here last night.” He pushed his father, and said: “That is what came in here last night!”
Old Tsmuk and his family were terribly scared, for lightning was darting among them, and it was red like fire. The three men ran out of the house, for they were afraid the thing would kill them.
Gushwean, an orphan, who had run away when Góshgoise was killing the Lóluk people, came to the old man’s house. “Something strange got into our house last night,” said old Tsmuk; “we didn’t know it was there. It is bright and nice, but it scares us.” Then the old man asked: “Where did you come from?” [[180]]
“I live near here. Some one has killed all my people.”
“Maybe this thing killed them,” said the old man; “it is bloody. Look in and see it.”
“No,” said the boy. “It will kill me.”
Old Tsmuk and his sons were afraid to look in. The mother and daughter were in the house. The girl was crying; she was sorry for her father and brothers. When she cried, Góshgoise asked: “Why do you cry?”
“This is the first time my father and brothers have ever been out of the house.”
“Tell them to come in,” said Góshgoise. She told them, but they wouldn’t come; they were afraid.
Old Tsmuk asked: “Can I live if I come in?” His voice trembled. “If you will put that thing away, I will come.” Old woman Tsmuk told him that the stranger had put his spear under his arm. Then Tsmuk said: “Ask the stranger if he has come for my daughter.”
“I have come for her,” said Góshgoise.
Then the old woman asked: “Where will you stay?”
“I won’t stay here; my old grandmother is far away in the north. I will take my wife to that place.”
When old man Tsmuk came in, Góshgoise put lightning above his head, and it shot through the house and up to the sky. He did this to let his grandmother know that he was at the end of his journey. Then he gave the spear to his father-in-law to pay him for his daughter. Since that time old Tsmuk has had short lightning.
Tsmuk took hold of Góshgoise’s hand, called him son-in-law, and began to cry because he had nothing to give him. Tsmuk and his family were naked; they had no beads or blankets.
“Why do you cry?” asked his wife. (She was a powerful old woman; she could do anything.) When he told her, she said: “There is an island off in the water; my brother lives there. You can go to that island and get shells for our son-in-law. I will make you an elk-skin canoe.” She cut an elk-skin into four pieces; one piece was for the bottom of the canoe, one for the top and one for each side. “This canoe is strong,” [[181]]said she. “Don’t be afraid, and don’t think of anything bad. If a storm comes, it will go around the canoe.”
Tsmuk and his younger son got into the canoe; the old woman raised a strong wind behind it, and the canoe flew over the water. When it was going very fast, old Tsmuk thought: “What would happen if a storm came?” That minute a terrible whirlwind struck the canoe and drove it back to the shore.
Then the water was calm. The old woman felt badly; she knew Tsmuk had thought of a storm. She told him again not to think of anything, not to be afraid, then she made a strong wind behind the canoe, and that time it reached the island.
“What did you come for?” asked the brother-in-law.
“A man has come for my sister,” said Tsmuk’s son. “My father has nothing to give him.”
The uncle brought beautiful shells and beads. As he loaded them into the canoe, the canoe grew larger and larger, till Tsmuk had as many shells and beads as he wanted.
The day that Tsmuk started for the island, his daughter had a little girl. After fasting, Góshgoise wanted to go to his own home, for he was hungry. He was a great hunter, but he couldn’t hunt in Tsmuk’s country, and he couldn’t eat what the Tsmuk people ate.
“You mustn’t go,” said his mother-in-law; “you must wait for the canoe.”
He went to the top of the high mountain, and looking off, saw on the water something as big as a hill. “That must be an island,” thought he. When he went back to Tsmuk’s house, he said to his mother-in-law: “In the water there is an island as big as a hill.”
“That must be the canoe,” said the mother-in-law, and she went out to see.
As soon as Tsmuk and his son left the island, they fell asleep, and they slept till they were near land. Old Tsmuk woke up first. He wanted to talk; he shook his son, and asked: “What do you think of your brother-in-law?”
“I like him,” said the son. [[182]]
That moment the canoe stopped; it was sinking, but the old woman spoke to it, called: “Come farther! Come farther!” The canoe stopped sinking. She made a rope of deerskin, threw one end of it to Tsmuk and began to pull the canoe toward land. Under her arm she had her daughter’s baby.
When Tsmuk saw the baby, he was glad; he wanted to get ashore quickly. He went to the end of the canoe and ran forward to jump, but he hit the canoe and pushed it away. The old woman had to talk a long time and make the wind blow in every direction, before she could get it back again. Old Tsmuk was so scared that he couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t hear.
His wife was scared and mad; she screamed to him: “You have made lots of trouble. You will no longer be a person; you will be darkness, to be used when people want to sleep!” And so it was.
Góshgoise and his wife went to his grandmother’s house, and old woman Tsmuk and her sons went with them. The daughter kept the ball of light by her side, and when people saw them coming they were scared, and said: “Those people are coming to kill us.” But as soon as the grandmother saw them, she said: “That man is my grandson!” Then every one was glad.
After that, Góshgoise lived in his own country, with his wives, his grandmother, and all his kin. [[183]]