When the sun rose the next morning, the boy’s spirit went home. He was a young man now and wore a panther-skin blanket that came to his feet. (After a person meets a Skoks, he looks strange; he loses his old body.) As soon as the young man got home, it was warm; fires burned, and right away it was summer. The people made him chief and he had control of the place.
After that two men went north to visit their kin; one of the men was killed. When the people heard about it, they asked the chief if they should demand pay for the man’s life. He said: “Yes, and if they don’t pay, I will punish them.” The men refused to pay, and messengers were sent to the chief.
He took a long obsidian knife and started. When nearly there, he said to his men: “Don’t be frightened; the Skoks is getting mad and ready to move.” (The Skoks was the chief’s medicine.)
When the chief came to the enemy, they said: “We are men, not women; we are not afraid of you. We won’t pay for the man we killed.”
Both sides were ready to fight. The chief said to his men: “When I shout, fall on the ground and don’t move.” He shouted like Skoks and all of his people fell. His enemies [[378]]were terribly frightened. Right away they were freezing.—The chief could see the Skoks, but nobody else could see him.—The chief killed a great many men; they were so cold they couldn’t run away; he cut them to pieces with his obsidian knife.
After that, there was no trouble with the northern people; they had found that there was a powerful chief in the south, a man who could kill them easily. [[379]]
A DOCTOR STORY
CHARACTER
| Kiúks | Doctor |