101. Now the two boys came there.[97] Then they argued what they should do first. The two boys wanted Halye'anekītše to make his trial first. The people who lived there wanted Takse to be first. Then Takse tried first. He took the rock, but could not throw it and it fell down just where he stood. So the people who lived there lost. Now Halye'anekītše was ready to climb: they told him to try. He climbed and brought down the scalp. So the two boys won again. The people there had lost everything. But they did not give up everything that they had lost; they gave up only part. They gave up their clothes and dishes and property but they did not give up their bodies. (1 song.)
[97] Where the others lived "at Avikwame" or Avi-mota (note [98]). Subsequently, the narrator said that when he threw his fire, the hero stood at Tšohatave and δokupīta-tuδūmpe, two spots at the east end of Avi-mota. Presumably this is where the contest took place. It is not clear why the localization of this important scene was not given spontaneously.
102. Then they said they wanted to bet again. They wanted to bet their bodies. They too had lightning. Ahta-hane's lightning (horrave) was not like theirs. They said to him, "Show yours." He said, "No, show yours." Then they showed it. It was only light and did no harm. Then he showed his: it was brighter than theirs, and quick, and struck the ground, and entered it. So he won everything that they had bet. Then he started to go away. But before that he had sent the five women back, his four wives and his mother; and Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše and Axta-hane (sic, for Ahta-kwasume); seven people in all. Now, when he went, he took one of his four pieces of cane and threw it west over Avi-mota.[98] It burned up everything and killed every one: Pukehane, Nume-peta, Kwatša-kwatša, Tinya-kwaθpi, and their people. Then he ran to the south. The fire had nearly overtaken his seven people. Only a plant like bulrushes, nyaveδi-ny-ipa, ghost arrow, did not burn. It stopped the fire at I ō-kuva'ire and saved those seven people. (2 songs.)
[98] It was on Avi-mota, not on Avikwame, that these people lived, the narrator said later, in explanation. Cf. note [97].
K. Transformation
103. Ahta-hane had made this plant grow. Now his brother stood by him, and Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše, and the five women in a row. They wanted to know what he would do. He took off the covering of his cane, showed it to them, put the pieces of cane together between his hands, and it thundered. He wanted to turn them into something. Then the five women flew up to the sky. They stayed there and were the Pleiades, hatša. Then he wanted to do something for his brother. "I think it will be best if I take him to a little lake full of mud and throw him in to be a bird and he will shake his head, and we shall call him teristeris."[99] Then he did that, and now Ahta-kwasume was that sort of a bird. Then he wanted to do something with the old man, Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše. He thought, "I will throw him into the same place. I want him to be called soθêrqe."[100] Then he did that with the old man. (10 songs.)
[99] With a banded neck, in flocks. Elsewhere recorded as mīn-turīs-turīs. Perhaps a snipe.
[100] Probably the snowy owl; with "gray" feathers.
104. Now he alone was left. No one was there. He thought, "What am I going to be? I think I will fly up and go through the air. I will be a meteor, kwayū,[101] and fly into the sea." Then he changed his mind. He thought, "No, I will not go into the sea. When I fly up I will go south." Then he went south. Just below Mukiampeve is Kway-ū-namau,[102] where Kwayū's father's mother had turned to rock. He went by there southward a little, jumped into the water, and sank to the bottom, to stay there. But, "I do not think it is good here," he said, came out, and went to the east side of the river. There he sat down. He is sticking up there now. He has been there forever, turned to rock. We call it Mêkoaṭa. (2 songs.)
[101] A checked start toward another doublet name.