Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
“I am,” said the eldest. “I will wrestle a while for fun, and then in
earnest.” As she spoke a bunch of red-headed woodpecker’s feathers came
out of her head. She began to wrestle with Yahyáhaäs. Soon he said:
“That is enough. Let the next one try.”
The eldest said to the second sister: “Put your foot in where his leg
is.” Then she said to Yahyáhaäs: “Hurry, now! It is getting late!”
All the time the sisters were gathering wood and putting it on the
fire. Yahyáhaäs tried four of the sisters. He couldn’t do anything with
them; only the eldest moved a little, three of them stood as firm as a
rock.
The youngest sister said to the others: “It is my turn now. Make the
fire blaze up high! Put on more wood, then stand with your backs toward
me.” She said to Yahyáhaäs, “I’m ready!” That minute she put her arms
around him. She broke his leg off and threw him into the fire. They
punched the fire around him, made it blaze up high—it was a great
pile—then they ran away as fast as they could.
Yahyáhaäs’ spirit called: “Come back, old Kúja’s daughters, come back!
You haven’t killed me. Come back and wrestle with me.”
“You are killed,” said the sisters. “You will never be a person again,
but your spirit will always roam around on high mountains.”
He called till they got back to the house.
Old Kúja asked: “Where are my deer entrails?”—He never ate any other
part of the deer.
“We didn’t hunt for deer to-day,” said the youngest daughter. “We are
going to swim and then dig roots.”
After that the sisters hunted deer for five days. On the fifth day,
Blaiwas and his sons sent old woman Galaíwa to ask if they had seen
Yahyáhaäs. When she got to the house, she said: “Blaiwas and his five
sons want to know if Yahyáhaäs has been here to bother you. He has gone
away, and they don’t know where he is.”
“We haven’t seen him,” said the sisters. “Maybe he ran into our fire
and got burned up. Why does Blaiwas send you to ask us questions? Do
those young chiefs want to marry us?”
Galaíwa didn’t answer. She knew now that they had killed Yahyáhaäs.
Old Kúja said to his daughters: “I feel lonesome. I am hungry all the
time. You don’t kill deer enough. Why don’t you marry some of those men
in Blaiwas’ village? They would hunt for me, and I would have plenty to
eat.”
The sisters said: “There are many men in that village; which shall we
go to?”
“The eldest must go to Blaiwas’ son; the second to Kaiutois’ son; the
third to Wûlkûtska’s son; the fourth to Wŏn’s son.” To his youngest
daughter he said: “You must get Kûlta’s son, for he can make a road
under the ground, and can go under the water and get different kinds of
fish. He can make a road to the ocean and drive fish into the river. I
want to eat such fish as he catches.”
The girls started early; when they got near Blaiwas’ village they met
old Galaíwa and she told them which houses to go to. The first house
was Kûlta’s. The youngest sister stopped there; the others went on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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