Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
Gáukos said: “I will kill the deer for you; I am a good hunter.” He put
the eleven deer in his belt, and they went home.
Dûnwa asked: “How many deer did my son-in-law kill?”
“Eleven,” said her daughter. The old woman was glad.
Gáukos cut open the deer and gave five of the livers to Lóluk; then he
gave the back and leg bones and all the other bones to his
mother-in-law; she pounded them fine and ate them.
The sisters cooked meat, for themselves and Gáukos, on their father’s
face, without scratching or hurting him.
When they were through eating, the elder sister asked: “Where shall we
hang meat to dry?”
Gáukos went off a little way, pulled up a big tree, brought it to the
house and stuck it down in the ground. On the branches of the tree they
hung the meat of the eleventh deer.
That night Gáukos said: “I will stay ten days and hunt, then I must go
and see my little sister.”
He killed eleven deer each day for ten days. As soon as they had ten
big trees full of meat, he started for home. He spent the first night
with the two old women. When they asked about his sister, he said:
“Lóluk ate her up.” That night he heard singing and the rattle of a
belt; Lĭsgaga was dancing her maturity dance. It was the fifth night.
When young men came to ask the old women where the singing was, Gáukos
told them.
Early the next morning Gáukos got home. Lĭsgaga was glad to see him;
she had on her buckskin dress and her face was painted red. He said: “I
have two wives now. I am going to make this house big enough for us
all. I am afraid to live in the house with old Lóluk and my
mother-in-law, for they know my thoughts. If I should think something
bad about them, they might kill me.” He thought hard, and right away
the house was big and full of nice things.
The next morning he started back. He spent the first night with the two
old women and was at Lóluk’s house in the evening. That night he told
Dûnwa’s daughters that he wanted to live in his old home. When he
talked, neither Lóluk nor his wife knew what he said, they knew only
when he thought. The elder sister told her mother in thought what
Gáukos said.
“Is he going to leave you here?” asked Dûnwa.
“No, he wants us to go with him.”
“Our married daughters don’t belong to us,” said the old woman. “We
keep them while they are single, but married they belong to another
house.”
The next morning the young man killed ten deer. For ten days he killed
ten deer each day, and on the eleventh day he killed many more.
Old Lóluk and his wife never went out; they stayed always in one place.
The girls went every day to dig roots. They put them in baskets of
different sizes and arranged the baskets in a row, a large basket at
one end, and a small one at the other end. The old woman put a cap on
the head of the largest basket.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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