Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
The little boy told his grandmother to tie a skin around him and roll
him up so he could go and meet the Skoks.
“My grandson,” said the old woman, “what can you do? You have no
power.” But she got a buckskin blanket, tied it around him, and said:
“Don’t let the Skoks pass on the right side; be sure that your left
shoulder is toward him. He will try to make you go on the other side,
but don’t you go.”
Every time the Skoks shouted, it was like throwing ice into the house,
and Tusasás cried out: “Oh, let me go under; I am cold.”
When the boy started, his grandmother said: “You must take some ordure
in your hand, and if the Skoks tries to make you go on the wrong side,
throw it at him.”
Soon the boy saw the Skoks. His head reached the sky and he looked as
if he were carrying a load of clouds. One side was painted white, the
other black. He came very fast. The boy had hard work to get by. When
he pushed into Skoks, Skoks darted forward. At last both fell, and
their bodies turned to rock, but their spirits came out of the rocks.
The boy was holding up the ordure, and that turned to rock, too.
When the sun rose the next morning, the boy’s spirit went home. He was
a young man now and wore a panther-skin blanket that came to his feet.
(After a person meets a Skoks, he looks strange; he loses his old
body.) As soon as the young man got home, it was warm; fires burned,
and right away it was summer. The people made him chief and he had
control of the place.
After that two men went north to visit their kin; one of the men was
killed. When the people heard about it, they asked the chief if they
should demand pay for the man’s life. He said: “Yes, and if they don’t
pay, I will punish them.” The men refused to pay, and messengers were
sent to the chief.
He took a long obsidian knife and started. When nearly there, he said
to his men: “Don’t be frightened; the Skoks is getting mad and ready to
move.” (The Skoks was the chief’s medicine.)
When the chief came to the enemy, they said: “We are men, not women; we
are not afraid of you. We won’t pay for the man we killed.”
Both sides were ready to fight. The chief said to his men: “When I
shout, fall on the ground and don’t move.” He shouted like Skoks and
all of his people fell. His enemies were terribly frightened. Right
away they were freezing.—The chief could see the Skoks, but nobody else
could see him.—The chief killed a great many men; they were so cold
they couldn’t run away; he cut them to pieces with his obsidian knife.
After that, there was no trouble with the northern people; they had
found that there was a powerful chief in the south, a man who could
kill them easily.
A DOCTOR STORY
CHARACTER
Kiúks Doctor
A kiúks and his old mother were living at Dokwa, near Klamath Lake. The
kiúks had a tall pole standing outside the house and on the top of the
pole was a dead eagle. Inside of the house he had a dead fish-hawk and
all kinds of dead birds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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