Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
They looked around as they climbed the mountain, but Ndúkis was sitting
on the highest rocks and they didn’t look high enough to see him. When
they were on the other side of the mountain, the younger sister looked
back. She saw Ndúkis and screamed. She ran one way, and her sister ran
another. They were frightened. They went into thick bushes and stayed
there a long time. Ndúkis sat on the rocks and laughed to see how
frightened they were. He sat there till midday, then went home.
That day young man Moi was out hunting for deer. He was fine-looking.
He wore a beaded buckskin band around his head. All at once he came
upon the Wískäk girls hiding in the bushes. “Who are you?” asked he.
“You scared me.”
The elder sister said: “I know you; you are the little chief who lives
by the river. You are our kin.”
“Come out of the bushes,” said Moi. “Who frightened you?”
“We saw Ndúkis watching us,” the elder sister said.
“He is a nice young man,” said Moi. “He won’t hurt you, but you can go
with me if you are afraid of him.”
“No,” said the elder sister, “we are going to Mlaiksi.” And they
traveled on.
When Ndúkis passed Tcoóks’ house, the old man asked: “Where have you
been?”
“I have just been walking around,” said Ndúkis. “I met the two sisters.
They were scared and ran into the bushes. I don’t like them.”
When Tcoóks told Wískäk that Ndúkis was mad at her daughters, she
cried; she thought maybe he had killed them.
On the way home from Mlaiksi, the girls saw people digging roots in
places where they had always dug.
When they told their mother, she said: “Stay in the house. I will go
and see why they are digging around here.”
She took five steps and was there. The people were scared. They had
never seen Wískäk, for she always stayed at home and sent her daughters
to dig. When she found that they were getting all the roots, she went
home, and said: “Come and help me; we must dig fast and get as many
roots as we can.”
Those people lived near Shasta River. When they started, they sent word
to all their kin that they were going off to dig roots, but they forgot
to tell young man Wámanik, who lived on the north side of the digging
place, so he started off alone.
The elder Wískäk girl said to her mother: “You go straight ahead: we
will go on the north side, where there are nice long roots.” When they
got there, the ground was turned up and all the roots were gone.
Wámanik was there. When he found that the roots had been dug, he was
mad. He stood up tall and looked bright. The elder sister didn’t see
him. The younger one saw him and ran.
Wámanik fell in love with her right away. He thought she was so
nice-looking that he would like her for a wife, and in some way he took
hold of her heart, so she wouldn’t get frightened. He followed her to
the spring where she went to get water to drink.
Her sister was there. The younger asked: “Did you pass anybody?”
“No.”
“Then your eyes are poor, for I saw a nice-looking young man.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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