TULCHUHERRIS
PERSONAGES
After each name is given that of the creature or thing into which the personage was changed subsequently.
Hawt, lamprey eel; Kúlitek, a white feather in the tail of Komos Kulit, the black vulture; Nomhawena, an earthworm; Pom Pokaila, earth old woman; Sas, sun; Tichelis, ground squirrel; Tulchuherris, etymologically, a person or thing that has been dug up; Winishuyat, foresight.
IT was not in the east, nor the north, nor the south, but in the west, on a flat called Eli-Tsarauton (root flat), that a little old woman lived very long ago. No person lived on that flat but this old woman, whose name was Nomhawena Pokaila. She was called also Pom Pokaila.
This old woman had lived ten summers and ten winters on that flat, and one summer more; she dug roots there all this time, for roots were her food. The flat was broad, and she had dug, beginning at the edge and going round and round, till at last there was only a small piece left undug, and that was in the middle.
One morning, when she thrust her stick into the ground deeply, she heard a cry like that of a little child. She stopped and listened; heard the cry far down in the earth. She didn’t know what to make of it, but thought: “Whatever this is I will dig it out.”
She thrust her root stick down as far as she could at one side of the spot where the noise was, and worked hard, took much earth out; then she heard the cry a little forward, and dug forward. She went next to the opposite side and dug all around the cry, dug till the middle of the afternoon, but found nothing. Then she dug around again, thrust the stick deeper in the first spot, and said, “I must find that, I must have it.”
She thrust the stick down deeper,—got nothing. She went on the other side, pushed the stick still deeper, and turned over the great lump of earth that was in the middle. Under this she found a little boy. The moment she saw him she heard a noise like thunder far off in the east, at Saskewil, the place where Sas lives. When she raised him to the surface, she heard this noise a second time.