Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
The man hid by the side of the trail Wiĕs came on. He hunted for his
most poisonous arrow and was going to shoot him. Then he thought: “No,
I will just watch them to-day.” Soon he heard Djáhdjai singing. When he
saw a big man stand on the rocks and look down at her, he was so
jealous that he cried. After a while he went home.
That day Djáhdjai said to Wiĕs: “My husband hunts all the time. I am
afraid he will see you.”
The next morning the man got up early and went to the mountain. As he
went, he talked to the mountain and to the earth; said: “Draw him
toward me. You, Earth, see everything; you know everything; you know
what Wiĕs has done. I want to punish him. Draw him to me.”
That day Djáhdjai wanted to stay at home. She didn’t know why her
husband went off so early mornings, but Djihens said: “I am sick. One
of us must dig roots; you had better go.”
The man tracked Wiĕs, then sat down to watch him and see where his life
was. As Wiĕs went toward the top of the mountain, the man saw that he
kept his life in his neck. He shot at him. Wiĕs ran off northeast and
fell among the trees. The man found him, cut up his body, and carried
home some of the flesh.
Djáhdjai looked up at the mountain and sang her love song; she sang a
long time, but Wiĕs didn’t come. When she got home, she said to her
husband: “You have killed a deer. Why don’t you cook some meat for me?”
He gave her a plateful. She ate it all; she liked it. Then he said:
“That was Wiĕs’ flesh. Did you like it?” The woman was scared. When she
tried to run away, the man shot her through the body. The arrow went in
under one arm, and came out under the other. It left a hole in each
side.
Then he said: “Hereafter you will be nothing but a grasshopper, but
your name will be what it is now, Djáhdjai. I hope that in later times
a man will never have such a wife as you were.”
To this day grasshoppers have a hole in each side.
KAI AND HIS FATHER-IN-LAW, NATANATAS
CHARACTERS
Kai Rabbit (Jack)
Góshgoise Rabbit (Small)
Natanatas
Kai and his little brother, Góshgoise, went to Natanatas’ house. Kai
wanted to marry Natanatas’ daughter. He left Góshgoise outside. Old
woman Natanatas gave Góshgoise seeds and roots, but he wouldn’t eat
them.
“What does Góshgoise eat?” she asked.
“He likes the tips of grass and of weeds,” said Kai. She gathered some
and gave them to him; then he ate.
Old man Natanatas thought: “My sons want something to eat. I don’t like
this man Kai; I will kill him, and they can eat him.” He knew that Kai
didn’t eat fish and never went to catch them; but he said: “Sometimes I
get so many fish that I can’t make the canoe go; the net is too heavy.
I want you to come and help me.”
Kai went with his father-in-law; he didn’t like to refuse. When they
got to the lake, Natanatas said: “Get into the canoe; I fish out in the
lake.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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