CHARACTERS
| Gäk | Crow | Skóŭks | Woodtick | |
| Kaiutois | Wolf | Tcûskai | Weasel | |
| Kaltsik | Spider | Tciwididik | Road Runner | |
| Kéwe | Eel | Tskel | Mink | |
| Pakol | Deer |
The eldest of the five Kaiutois brothers was a great man. The brothers were all good hunters; they had plenty to eat and to wear. Gäk lived near them, and when they went to hunt, he followed to find the game that ran off and died.
One day the brothers asked Gäk to go with them to visit Tskel and Tcûskai. They made deerskin moccasins to wear on the journey and told Gäk to make himself a pair out of antelope skin. They wanted to start before daylight. Gäk woke early and called the brothers.
They said: “We are up already,” but they were not.
Gäk said: “That isn’t true; nobody in the world can beat me in getting up.”
The brothers told Gäk to walk behind them. They traveled all day, then camped. That night Gäk’s medicine, slikwis (the fire-drill), woke him, and said: “Swallow me!” The youngest of the Kaiutois brothers thought: “How can Gäk swallow his fire-drill?” That minute the drill stuck in Gäk’s throat and choked him.
The eldest brother said: “Whoever thought this must unthink it, then Gäk will unchoke. If he dies, people will say we killed him. Who thought about his swallowing his slikwis?”
The youngest brother said: “I thought: ‘He can’t swallow such a long stick,’ but I don’t know how to unthink it, or how to talk the slikwis out of his throat.” [[208]]
For a minute Kaiutois held his head in his hands—Gäk was almost dead—then he said to Gäk: “Since that is your medicine, it must come out of your throat.” The drill came out right away.
Gäk’s mother knew that he was choking, for the little fire-drill, that he had hung up in the smoke hole at home, fell.
The next day they got to Tskel’s house. Tskel was glad to see them; he told Tcûskai not to play tricks with the Kaiutois brothers or Gäk, for they were his kin.
Tskel and Tcûskai got deer meat for their visitors and Skóŭks, Tskel’s wife, cooked it. Tcûskai watched the men.
Gäk was ashamed of his moccasins; he took down Tcûskai’s quiver and his own, and said: “Let’s go and hunt.”
Tcûskai wouldn’t go; he looked at Gäk’s feet, and began to bother him. Gäk tried to hide his feet, then Tcûskai asked one of the five brothers: “Why don’t that old fellow sit still?”
Gäk got mad and wanted to go home. The eldest Kaiutois told him not to feel badly, but to stay; for those men were his kin.
Tskel said: “I am glad you came. My brother is so full of mischief that I can’t go visiting. I hunt, but many deer get away from me and die in the woods.”
“Gäk can track deer,” said Kaiutois; “he always finds ours.”
Tskel said: “I will go and tell him where I killed a deer yesterday; maybe he can find it.”
Tcûskai wanted to go, but Tskel told him to stay at home, that they would come back as soon as they found the deer.
Gäk tracked the deer and found it among brush and fallen trees. He called to Tskel: “Here it is!”
They skinned the deer. It was as fresh as if just killed. They made a fire and cooked some of the meat, then they started for home.
Tskel asked Kaiutois if he would let Gäk stay with him a while.
Kaiutois said: “Your brother is bad; he would tease him. My brothers never meddle with him; your brother might make him mad and he would kill you.” [[209]]
Tcûskai ran out to meet them. He asked: “Did old Gäk find that deer?”
Tskel scolded him, told him not to talk so much.
At that time people softened deerskins by soaking them in water and then chewing them. Old man Kéwe lived near Tskel’s, and he always chewed skins for him. Tskel gave Gäk the skin for finding the deer, and Kéwe chewed it for him.
The next day Kaiutois said: “We must go home now.” While they were getting ready, Tcûskai stole Gäk’s fire-drill. He took it to a muddy place, stuck it in the ground, and tried to break it.
Gäk fell backwards, blood came out of his mouth, and he died.
The Kaiutois brothers were scared, they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know what had made Gäk die.
Tskel looked in Gäk’s quiver and saw that the fire-drill was gone; then he went to look for Tcûskai. He found him at the spring, trying to catch fish with Gäk’s fire-drill. Tskel caught hold of his brother, dragged him along, threw him into the house and pounded him till he killed him. Then he asked the brothers how Gäk could be brought to life. They didn’t know.
Tskel said: “If Gäk comes back to life, my brother will live again; but if he stays dead, my brother will stay dead. I never taught him to treat people this way.”
Tskel had red paint that was boiled; he gave it to the youngest brother and told him to paint Gäk’s fire-drill over, make it nice and red. When that was done, he laid the fire-drill on Gäk’s head.
After a long time, the drill brought Gäk to life; then he sang to the earth and wind, and tried to cure himself. When Tskel saw that Gäk was alive, he stepped five times over Tcûskai’s body. Then Tcûskai jumped up, and said: “Oh, I’ve slept a long time.”
The five brothers and Gäk went home, and Tskel took a deerskin to old man Kéwe, to have him chew it soft. When he came back, he said to Tcûskai: “Stay in the house. Don’t go to old man Kéwe and bother him.” [[210]]
Tcûskai thought: “I wonder why Tskel don’t want me to go to Kéwe’s house.” As soon as he had a chance, he slipped out and went there.
Kéwe was chewing the skin; he had all of it in his mouth except one little end. Tcûskai took hold of that end and pulled the whole skin out of the old man’s mouth. At the same time he pulled out all of Kéwe’s teeth but two.
Kéwe was so mad that he said: “As long as people live, deerskins will be good as far as I have chewed this one, but the end I haven’t chewed will be hard and rough.” And as Kéwe said, so it is. And since that time Kéwe people have but two teeth.
Tcûskai carried the skin home, and said: “I found old Kéwe eating up our deerskin; I got it away from him.” Tskel was mad; he scolded Tcûskai and struck him with a stick.
When the five brothers got home, Gäk’s mother was crying. She said to Gäk: “You must never go away again; I have always told you that some one would find it easy to kill you.”
Old man Wus chewed deerskins for the Kaiutois brothers. One day when a skin was stretched out to dry, a coal fell on it and burned a hole. Wus was scared; he didn’t know what the brothers would do.
When they came home, they found him crying. The elder brother asked: “What are you crying for?”
“A coal fell on the deerskin, and burned it.”
The brothers laughed and made fun of Wus, said: “A man shouldn’t cry for such a thing; you will never be of much account. You will be poor and always be hunting for something to eat. Take the skin and make moccasins for yourself.”
Wus was glad to get the skin, for the brothers didn’t give him much. The next day he said: “I left my mother a long time ago, I must go and see her.”
The brothers gave him dried meat to carry to her, and told him to come back soon, and chew skins for them.
On the way home, Wus forgot about the Kaiutois brothers. His mother was almost starved; the dried meat didn’t last long; Wus and his mother were soon poor and hungry. Wus [[211]]hunted mice, but he gave only the smallest ones to his mother; sometimes he gave her only the heads.
One day, when Wus was hunting, a Pakol girl came to the house to borrow grass to make a cap.
Old woman Wus said to the house: “Grow small!”
The girl asked: “Why is the house getting small?”
The old woman said: “That is always the way it does when a stranger comes; you can creep out backwards.” She made the awl over the door grow long. It stuck in the girl’s head and killed her. The old woman cut up the body; then she thought: “I will pay my son for feeding me mouse heads.” She took a dry old piece of an intestine and talked to it; said: “Go out there on the flat and when it is dark burn like a camp fire, and talk as if there were a lot of people sitting by a fire. When you see Wus coming, go farther and farther, draw him away as far as the great water.”
The old woman cleaned up the blood, so Wus wouldn’t see that anything had been killed in the house; then she cooked a piece of meat and hid it under her blanket.
When Wus came with mice his mother cooked them for him. He ate the bodies and gave her the heads. While she crunched the heads, she ate meat, too.
Wus listened; he thought that his mother was eating something besides mouse heads. Right away he jumped up and asked: “What are you eating?”
“I am eating mouse heads. How could I get anything else to eat?” Again she ate heads and meat.
Wus searched till he found the piece of cooked meat.
“Where did you get this?” asked he.
“Your uncles were here a little while ago, they have plenty of deer meat.”
“Why didn’t they give you more?”
“They are near here now. If you look out, you will see their camp. They couldn’t go far, for they had a heavy load.”
Wus looked out; he saw the fire and heard people talking. “I am going over there!” said he, and he started off on a run. When he thought he was almost there, the fire and the talking [[212]]were farther off. He ran very fast, but couldn’t get to the fire; it was always a little ahead of him. Each time he said: “Now I shall jump right down by it,” but he never got any nearer than he was when he started.
Wus was a fast runner; from a flat, with one jump, he reached the top of a high mountain. When he wanted to run very fast, he called: “Wich! wich!” When he wanted to go slow, he said: “Hach! hach!” In one night he got near the great water. When the sun came up, he was on a high mountain. Looking down, he saw a fire, and men roasting meat and talking, and throwing knives at one another. Wus said: “Now I shall be there!” He called: “Wich! wich!” and made a running leap. He came down where he thought the camp was, but he found only sand; the fire was far off on the water. He turned back, but he was too weak to walk; he lay down on the ground, and began to cry.
Tciwididik heard him; she was his aunt. She came, pushed him with her foot, and said: “Your mother fooled you; she wanted to kill you. You shouldn’t always do what people tell you to.” She put Wus in her basket and took him to her house. When he was almost well, she carried him part way home. He traveled many days, camping each night. He spent the last night in Kaltsik’s house.
Wus’ mother had cut her hair off and covered her head with pitch; she was mourning. When she saw Wus, she screamed, she was so glad. She rubbed deer marrow on his body and cured him; he got fat. They moved to a new place where there were lots of black crickets. Sometimes Wus killed a basketful in a day, and he and his mother had plenty to eat. [[213]]