Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
Old Kāhkaas had two servants, Kéis and Lok. Kéis guarded the landing.
When Tskel got out of the canoe, Kéis wanted to spring at him, but
Tskel said: “Don’t touch me. I am your master!” He said the same to
Lok, who was sitting by the smoke hole on top of the house, and Lok let
him go down the ladder into the house. As soon as he was at the foot of
the ladder, he saw Tcûskai hanging over the fire. Old woman Kāhkaas was
smoking him. He cut Tcûskai down and put him under his arm. Then he
caught Kāhkaas and tore her to pieces. He threw the pieces off in
different directions, and they became hills and mountains. He took
Tcûskai home and cured him.
After a time Tskel said to his brother: “We will go and hunt for
Wŏn.”—Wŏn was so large that he had to bend down to cut off the branches
of trees.—When Skóŭks gave them seeds to eat, Tskel said: “If we don’t
come back soon, you will know that we have killed Wŏn.”
They hadn’t gone far when Tcûskai cried out: “I see a big deer!”
“Keep still,” said Tskel, “and go on till we see Wŏn.” In a little
while Tskel saw Wŏn, and, not far from him, a deer. He called to
Tcûskai: “Keep still! You mustn’t eat seed; if you do Wŏn will get
away.”
Tcûskai thought: “I wonder what Tskel is doing. I hope he will kill the
deer, too.” Tskel went between the two. Just as he was ready to shoot
Tcûskai thought: “I’m hungry, I’m going to eat a few of our seeds.
Tskel won’t miss them.”
That moment Tskel’s bow and bowstring broke. He knew that Tcûskai had
eaten seeds. Tcûskai was scared; he ran to a spring and washed out his
mouth, then came back to his brother. Tskel scolded. Tcûskai said:
“What makes you so mad? I didn’t eat any seed. Look in my mouth,” and
he opened it.
Tskel struck his brother. He had a deer’s head on; he took it off, put
it on Tcûskai’s head, and said: “Now go and hunt for Wŏn.”
“I can kill him easily,” said Tcûskai.
Tskel said: “You think that Wŏn runs on the ground. So he does, but he
runs in the air, too. He goes on all kinds of trees and he goes back
and forth in the sky. You will have to follow him around the world
before he will stop running.” When Tcûskai was ready to go, Tskel said:
“Take some seeds,” but it was too late. Tcûskai had started.
Before Tcûskai had gone very far, he saw Wŏn and began to follow him.
He ran across rocky places, ran five times over the tops of pine trees,
and five times over the top of high grass, five times across
mole-hills, five times across the sky, and five times around the world,
then he ran east on the sky till he came near a village where Blaiwas
was chief.
Kékina and Gapni were Blaiwas’ servants; they were on top of the house
sunning themselves. Kékina said: “It sounds as if my cousin were
coming;” again he said: “It sounds like my brother, blowing on his
medicine stick. Tell the people to come out and look.”
When Gapni told them, Gäk said: “You can’t see much with your little
eyes; you are not like me. I can see all over the world.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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