Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
“Those Gletcówas brothers are mean men,” said Wéwenkee, “but if Kéis
wanted meat he should have gone to their house. I am stronger than your
brother; I have a wildcat skin blanket, all painted. I will go home
with you. How far away is your house?”
“On the other side of a flat there are big rocks, our home is under
those rocks. I don’t want to go there. I can’t go in the house, it
smells so badly.”
“I will go alone,” said his uncle.
When Wéwenkee got to the house, he crawled in through a crack in the
wall. His nephew didn’t see him, didn’t know that he was there. There
was such a terrible smell in the house that Wéwenkee couldn’t stay; so
he got out quickly. The only way he could look in was by painting red
stripes across his forehead and around his wrists. When he got home, he
said to Snoútiss: “You told me the truth. Hereafter there will be all
kinds of sickness. Sickness will spread everywhere. Does Kéis think he
is more powerful than I am? I can do all that he can do. I know that
what he has made will live always. Will you go home now?” asked
Wéwenkee.
“I don’t want to go,” said Snoútiss.
Wéwenkee started off again. After he had gone, his wife said to
Snoútiss: “You should have gone with your uncle. Do you think that he
has only one blanket? His blankets are doubled around his body, one
over another, and one is worse than another. They are blankets of
sickness and sores. Wéwenkee is chief of those things; he can make more
bad medicine than your brother can. When he is mad, he can raise a
terrible whirlwind. That is the kind of man he is. You should have gone
with him.”
Snoútiss went out then and followed his uncle, but Wéwenkee didn’t see
him. As the old man traveled, sores came out all over him. He cried,
and his tears were drops of matter. When he went into his nephew’s
house, he said: “You have done wrong; now all this bad stuff will soak
into the earth and make great trouble.”
Wéwenkee made a big ball of soft bark, rolled it around and gathered on
it all the sores and sickness that were on the top and sides of the
house, and on the ground. “Don’t you wink again and let that stuff
fall,” said he to his nephew.
He rolled the bark ball over Kéis’ body, cleaned him of sores, and then
he squeezed the ball over his own head and said: “This is mine. How did
you dare to let this out? Sickness belongs to Nébăks. It is only loaned
to us; we had no right to let it out till he told us to. Now it has
gone from us; I have saved some, but a great deal has scattered and
gone through the world. You have frightened your brother so he won’t
come back to you”—Wéwenkee didn’t know that Snoútiss was on top of the
house listening to what he said.
“Will you change skins with me?” asked Wéwenkee.
“No,” said Kéis, “I want my own skin.”
“It is too bad I can’t get up all this sickness,” said Wéwenkee,—he was
still rolling the bark ball,— “it has soaked into the ground, and in
hot weather and in winter it will come out.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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