YAHYÁHAÄS AND THE KÚJA SISTERS
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!”