Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
[1] Different events in the lives of Isis and Kumush are represented by
rocks on that side of Tula Lake. Half-way up a high mountain is the
house in which Kumush and Isis lived (a large rock); near Deus (Stork’s
bill), is Isis (a rock of peculiar shape), and at the northwest corner
of Tula Lake is Kumush himself.
[2] The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.
[3] A mountain in Oregon.
[4] Gauwams, a pond or small lake.
[5] The seed of a certain kind of weed.
[6] A red root.
[7] Doctors often rub a whipsnake in dust and pull off his skin, then
he gets a new skin, so what Wéwenkee said was true.
[8] Obsidian knife.
[9] A grass that grows in the water.
[10] The edge or rim; meaning the end of the story.
[11] A certain root. English name unknown.
[12] A vegetable like an onion.
[13] A “medicine man.”
[14] Mount Shasta.
[15] The relator of this story said that after telling it there would
be heavy wind, for the story always brought a wind-storm.
[16] A medicine basket is made of tckula, a kind of willow, and is
painted red. When the basket is not a medicine, it is used as a sieve.
The old Indian woman who related this Gäk myth said: “The basket is a
good medicine. If a man is wounded, and the basket is put over him, he
gets well.”
[17] When Indians tell this story, they talk down in their throats, to
imitate the Näníhläs people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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