Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
The women cried: “Run away; he will kill you!”
“No, he won’t,” said Góshgoise, and he covered his head with his
blanket. Mole was Góshgoise’s medicine, and was always with him. He
said to Mole: “Make holes around here!”
Mole made a great many holes. When Kaudokis came rushing along with a
spear in his hand, he fell into one of the holes, and Góshgoise cut his
head off. The second brother came and was killed in the same way. The
women were watching; they were glad. Each time they called out:
“Another is coming!”
As the third brother came near, he called out: “Where did you come
from? What do you want here? Nobody can beat me!”
That minute he fell into a hole, and Góshgoise cut his head off. Each
time Góshgoise killed a Kaudokis, he pulled off his elk-skin blanket,
and put it on himself.
The women said: “Now the youngest brother is coming! He is stronger
than the others.”
The fifth brother came in a terrible whirlwind. Góshgoise thought:
“Maybe he will kill me,” and he cried to Mole: “Dig deeper holes!” Just
as Kaudokis raised his spear to strike, he stumbled and fell into a
hole. Góshgoise cut his head off, put on his elk-skin blanket, and
said: “Hereafter, you and your brothers will be nothing but creeping
things.” That minute the souls of the Kaudokis brothers flew out and
became worms.
Góshgoise took the eldest brother’s wife for his own wife; then he
freed all the captives and sent them, with his wife and his aunt, to
stay with his grandmother, while he went farther.
His aunt said: “As you travel, you will come to a high mountain; from
the top of the mountain you will see a large village. Old man Juljulcus
lives there. He has one son and one daughter, and if any man falls in
love with the girl, her brother kills him.”
Góshgoise traveled very fast; that night he camped on a high mountain,
and the next morning he looked down into the valley. There was a river
in the valley, and many women were walking along the bank; they were
hunting for roots. Behind them all, Góshgoise saw Skóla, one of his
aunts. As he went down the mountain, he stopped often to listen, for
all those women were singing. He could hear his aunt’s voice. She was
cleaning roots and throwing them into a basket that she had on her
back. When Góshgoise came behind her, she saw two shadows. She turned
around and looked up; when she saw who it was, she cried out: “Why did
you come here? This is a bad place.”
“Do you know me?” asked Góshgoise.
“You are my nephew. How did you pass the house of the five Kaudokis
brothers?”
“I killed them.”
When Góshgoise saw the daughter of old Juljulcus, he told his aunt he
was going to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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