Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
Kéis didn’t say much, for he didn’t want Wéwenkee to see that his teeth
were gone.
“The Gletcówas brothers are bad men, but you should have asked them for
meat, not tried to steal it,” said Wéwenkee.
“They wanted to kill me.”
“How many teeth have you?” asked Wéwenkee.
“Two.”
“Let me have them for a little while.”
“No, I want them myself; people will always hate me, these teeth will
defend me. If I want to kill any one I can do it with my teeth. I can
throw medicine at them and kill them. I shall keep poison medicine in
the ends of my teeth; I will be as bad as others are.”
“I will always be good, unless somebody makes me mad,” said Wéwenkee.
“In later times people will like my skin and want to take it. Maybe
they will throw dirt at me so they can hide my face and eyes from them,
but they can do me no harm. I will not be a servant to any one; but
those who go to the swimming ponds on the mountains, and those who are
willing to travel at night, I will like. I will give them my skin, and
the earth will give me another. [7] I shall never appear to any one,
who is not a doctor.”
“I will do just as I have done,” said Kéis. “If I get mad, I will kill
people by throwing out sickness.”
“If you do, you will be hated, and you will always be in trouble,” said
Wéwenkee. And he begged hard for Kéis to put away sickness. “You are my
nephew,” said he; “you should do as I say. I am a chief, too. I am
sorry for the people who are to come, and you ought to think of them.
Let us put sickness back in our bodies, and never use it unless this
earth tells us to. It won’t be long that we shall be persons; soon we
shall live under rocks and in holes in the ground. When the people to
come take our places, they will hate you. I am sorry for your little
brother. I would go away now, but I don’t want to be changed till some
one comes to tell me what I shall be.”
So Wéwenkee talked to his nephew, and at last Kéis took off all his
sicknesses and tied them up in a bundle. He put the bundle in his
quiver, and said: “I will only take these out when people abuse me.”
Then he told his brother to come in.
“My little nephew,” said Wéwenkee, “those Gletcówas can turn to
anything; sometimes they are fish and sometimes they are bugs or ticks.
You might catch one of them and think that you were holding him in your
hand, but he would be gone. You can remember better than Kéis; that is
why I tell you about those brothers. Sometimes they are large animals,
sometimes they are a straw on a trail, or a stump of burnt wood, or
lice. Often, in the night, they are wind; or they are mole hills for
men to fall over. I can’t tell you all that they turn to. I know they
are going to kill your brother, for he has tried to kill them.” Then he
said to Kéis: “Stand up.” When his nephew stood up, Wéwenkee turned him
around, looked at him on every side, and said: “I don’t like any part
of your skin, and your mind is mean. What part of my skin do you like?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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