Old Wískäk was willing Ndúkis should kill her son-in-law, for she didn’t like him. She said to her daughters: “I am going to leave you; I have lived with you long enough. I don’t like your husband. When he wanted you, why didn’t you say that you couldn’t live under the ground, that you would smother? You should have taken Ndúkis; he is your kind.” As she talked, she turned to a bird, and when she was through talking, she flew off to the mountains. She did it herself; she didn’t want to be a person any longer. But each day she came back and talked to her daughters; she wanted to make them willing to turn to birds and go with her to the mountains, for she could not go far away while they were persons. People heard Wískäk talk as she flew around. The youngest daughter said: “I wouldn’t talk so much. You wanted us to marry. Wámanik is as good as Ndúkis.” “Ndúkis doesn’t turn to a snake every time he goes out of the house,” said the old woman. The elder daughter cried all the time, and didn’t eat anything. She didn’t want to go to the mountains; she didn’t want to stay with Wámanik, and she didn’t want to marry Ndúkis. She said to her mother: “You mustn’t come around where people live; you must hide among the brush and trees.” Wískäk didn’t like that. She said: “I will turn you into a snake, and when you cross the road in front of people they will throw dirt in your face. You will deceive people; you will pretend to be kind, then you will bite them.” She turned her daughters into snakes, and then flew off toward the east. As she started, she called out to her son-in-law: “You will never be a man again; you will be a snake, with a body like your panther-skin blanket.” The old woman kept going east till she came to a place where there were low cedar trees; she made her home there. She talks like a person yet, and that place is full of her kin. LOK AND HER CHILDREN CHARACTER Lok Bear Lok was a widow with two children; she lived with her mother. The old woman took care of the roots. She put them in a hole and slept with her head near it. When her daughter brought roots home and poured them into the hole, the children wanted some of them to eat, but the old woman said: “First I must give roots to the fire, to the mountains, the trees, the house, and the springs.” (This is the custom.) The daughter said: “My children are hungry; you must give them some of the roots.” Lok said: “You don’t know about these things. If they get sick, you will blame me.”