Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
When the woman was through vomiting, she found the snake and killed it.
She said: “Hereafter, you will have no power. You will want to bite
people, but you will tell them where you are; you can’t help it. They
will kill you with stones but will never eat your head; they will say
you are dirty.”
Every day the woman heard little Ilyúyu crying on the mountain. She
felt so sorry that Kûlta said: “I will find him and bring him home.”
When he got near the place where his brother-in-law’s sack grew heavy
and he put it down to throw away some of the beads, he saw Ilyúyu
sitting by the trail, but when the little fellow saw Kûlta he ran off,
crying like a person. Kûlta saw him at the place where his
brother-in-law had thrown away his quiver. He called: “Come here,
Ilyúyu! Don’t be afraid! Come and go home with me.” But Ilyúyu ran
away. Kûlta followed him all day but couldn’t catch him. When he went
home, he said to his wife: “To-morrow you must go for Ilyúyu. Maybe he
will come when you call him.”
The next morning Kûlta heated stones and his wife sweated. Then she
listened. She heard Ilyúyu’s cry and followed the sound, calling all
the time: “Ilyúyu, Ilyúyu!” He would stop and wait for her to come up
near him, but when she put out her hands to catch him he ran away. She
followed him a good many days. When she camped he would come and lie
down near her, but when she moved he would go away. She followed him
till she was only skin and bones, then she said to him: “I am going
home now. If you want to be wild you can. You will kill deer, and
people will say, ‘Ilyúyu, Kûlta’s brother-in-law, did that.’”
Ilyúyu ran off to the mountains and Kûlta’s wife never heard his cry
again.
NÄNÍHLÄS [17]
CHARACTERS
Blaiwas Eagle
Kaiutois Wolf
Näníhläs Bat
Maûk Fly
Múkus Owl
Two Näníhläs brothers and their sister lived together. The brothers
were small men. They had no way of killing deer, so they tried to trap
them. They dug a hole so deep that if a deer fell into it, it couldn’t
get out.
One morning when the brothers went to their trap, they found a deer in
it. “We don’t want to shoot this deer,” said the elder brother.
“Why not?” asked the younger.
“Because we want the skin for a dress for our sister. If we make a hole
in it, her body will show through. We must catch the deer by the throat
and choke him to death.”
“I don’t think we can kill him in that way,” said the elder brother,
“but we can try.”
They caught hold of the deer’s throat. The deer ran around in the pit
and tried to get out.
“Hold on tight,” said the younger brother. “He will soon die.”
After a while the deer got out of the pit and ran off, but the brothers
held on. The deer ran to a mountain where there were trees and tall
brush; the blankets and caps of the Näníhläs brothers were torn off and
their bodies were scratched, but the younger brother kept calling:
“Hold on tight; we will kill him.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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