Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
Then the five brothers jumped up and ran at them with knives. They
killed every man, threw the bodies into the pond, and started off to
hunt for their sister. They hunted a long time. At last they found her
body and burned it; then the eldest brother said: “Let us leave this
country and kill every man we can find.”
They started and traveled toward the west. They killed every man or
woman they met. When people saw them coming they ran and hid, they were
so afraid of them. The brothers traveled a long time, and killed a
great many people. At last they came to a big lake. They made a canoe
and started to cross it, but before they got to land, the canoe sank.
It went under the water and under a mountain and out into another lake.
There they met Storm.
He was a man then and could kill anybody he could catch and draw into
the water. He tried to kill the five brothers, but the youngest brother
fought with him, cut him to pieces with his knife, and said: “You will
be a person no longer; you will only be something to scare people,” and
he drove him away. All the people under the water hid, for they were
afraid of the brothers.
When the brothers couldn’t find any one to kill, they turned toward the
east and traveled till they came to a country where they found a very
old man and a very old woman. They said: “We have come to fight you.”
“I don’t want to fight,” said the old man. “We have always lived here,
this is our place; nobody ever came here before to trouble us. We don’t
bother any one. Go away and leave us.”
“You must fight,” said the brothers. “If you don’t, we will kill you;
we kill every one we meet.”
“You can’t kill us or harm us, no matter what you do,” said the old
man. “We are Komúchass (Old Age). We shall live always.”
The five brothers were mad; they didn’t listen to the old man, but shot
at him with arrows, and pounded him with clubs; then they built a fire
and tried to burn him. When they couldn’t kill him in any way, they got
scared and ran off.
The old man called to them to stop, but they didn’t listen; then he
said: “We shall follow you; you cannot get away; wherever you go we
shall go. You will never get home.”
The old man and old woman followed the brothers for a long time, and at
last they caught up with the eldest brother. Right away he was old and
weak. He stumbled along for a little way, then fell to the ground and
died.
They overtook the second brother; he also grew old and weak, fell to
the ground and died. The third brother reached the lake; he was running
on the ice when Komúchass overtook him; he grew weak and fell; the ice
broke and he was drowned. The fourth brother died in the same manner.
The youngest brother thought he was going to get away from the old man;
he was only a few steps from home when Komúchass overtook him. Right
off he was an old man; he stumbled along a step or two, then fell to
the ground and died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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