Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
“What are you going to her for?” asked Skóla. “Don’t go there; you will
get killed. Don’t you see that great pile of bones there by the house?
Those are the bones of men who have come for old Juljulcus’ daughter.”
That minute the wind began to blow, and Skóla said: “They know that you
are here. They know everything. The brother is coming to kill you.”
“Who is ‘Two-Tongued’ talking to?” asked one woman of another. (They
called Skóla two-tongued, because she could talk two ways.) “He is a
nice-looking man, but Juljulcus will kill him.”
Góshgoise ran to old Juljulcus’ daughter, caught hold of her, drew her
down, and put his head on her knees.
She was scared and tried to get away. “Let me go!” said she. “No man
can fall in love with me; if he does, my brother will kill him.”
The brother was coming in the middle of a whirlwind. His blanket, made
of the dried skin of people, rattled terribly.
The sister bent over Góshgoise to save him. He said: “You mustn’t do
that; you might kill me.” He told Mole to dig a great hole right there
near him. The wind blew so hard that the women fell down and were blown
along over the flat, but Góshgoise held himself and the girl to the
ground.
Just as Juljulcus’ son lifted his spear to strike, he fell into the
hole Mole had made, and Góshgoise killed him. “Hereafter,” said
Góshgoise, “you will be small and weak; nothing but a cricket. You will
lie near roots, and wherever people put their seeds and dried roots
under the ground, there you will be.”
Juljulcus’ spirit came out and was a cricket. When the girl stepped
over her brother’s body, the cricket jumped on Góshgoise; it seemed to
like him.
Góshgoise spent the night at old Juljulcus’ house; in the morning he
asked his wife: “Are all the great fighters dead?”
She asked her father, and he said: “My son-in-law, bad people live near
the ocean. As you travel, you will come to a high mountain; from the
top of that mountain, if you look toward the ocean, you will see a
village, with smoke rising from each house. You must get to that
village after dark. Don’t go there in daylight.”
Góshgoise told his father-in-law and all the women to go to his
grandmother’s place and stay there till he came.
“How far away is your grandmother’s house?” asked the old man.
“It is on the other side of the world, in the south,” said Góshgoise.
Old Juljulcus’ spear was the little lightning that flashes all around
the sky. Góshgoise gave his spear, long lightning, to his
father-in-law, and took the old man’s spear. His wife gave him seed to
eat on the road, and they started. Old Juljulcus looked back, and said:
“Son-in-law, don’t forget what I have told you.”
It took Góshgoise two days to reach the mountain, but his wife and his
father-in-law camped a good many times before they got to his
grandmother’s house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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