MYTHS OF THE MODOCS

[Contents]MYTHS OF THE MODOCSLÁTKAKÁWASCHARACTERSDáslätsCalifornia lionLátkakáwasDjakkonusA duckLokBearDohosA duckMówatwasSouth wind place peopleDútûteA duckMukusOwlIsisNadaA birdKaiJack rabbitSkakasFree toadKládoDuckTcíkasWrenKolsBadgerTókwaMoleKumushWálwilegasButterflyLátkakáwas and her five brothers lived on the south side of Klamath Lake. The brothers went every day to fish from an island in the middle of the lake. Látkakáwas stayed at home; she gathered wiwhi seeds and burned the down from them to prepare them as food for her brothers and for herself.When Látkakáwas was at work, she looked like a common old woman, but when she shook herself and went out of the house, she was young, blue and beautiful.The “Old Man” (Kumush) lived on the eastern side of Klamath Lake. On the western side of the lake lived many people. Those people often saw Látkakáwas standing on the top of her house, looking blue and nice, but as soon as they went toward her she changed to an old hunchback woman.The young men of the western village counseled together;[2]then each day they sent one of their number to try to steal up to Látkakáwas and catch her before she could make herself old and ugly. They wanted to talk to her; they wanted to ask her to take one of them for a husband.—Every young man in the western village tried, but Látkakáwas was never young when they came toward her.One man started before daybreak; he wanted to get near the house and hide till Látkakáwas came out. That day she stayed inside, an old hunchback woman stringing beads. She knew when people were looking at her or thinking of her; she even knew where they were.Each morning Látkakáwas’ brothers went to the island to catch salmon, and dry them, but as soon as it was dark they came home. One night Látkakáwas said to her eldest brother: “Men come here to watch me, and try to catch me; when they find me hunchback and ugly to look at, they make fun of me. I don’t like that. It makes me feel badly.”“How soon will you have seeds enough gathered?” asked her brother.“To-morrow,” said Látkakáwas.“When the seeds are ready, you will go with us to the island where nobody can bother you,” said her brother.On the west side of the lake there was a young man as blue and beautiful as Látkakáwas herself. His father kept him in an underground place; no one ever saw him except when he went out to bathe or swim. When all the other young men had tried to get near Látkakáwas, and had failed, the people said to this young man’s father: “Why don’t you send your son? Maybe he could catch that beautiful blue woman.”When the old man told his son about Látkakáwas, the young man said: “There is no use of my going there. If all the others have failed I should fail, too.”“You are as blue and nice to look at as Látkakáwas is,” said his father; “maybe she will like you and take you for a husband.”The old man took his son out of the underground place, washed him and got him ready, made him clothes from a wonderful cap, a cap that could never be destroyed. When the[3]young man put on those clothes, he was beautiful beyond anything in the world; he was blue and gold and green, like the clouds in the sky. He could run in the air and under the ground. He had great power.When he was ready to start, his father said to him: “When the sun comes to the edge of the sky, Látkakáwas shakes herself and goes to the top of the house to watch it. If you travel under the ground you will get near her before she sees you.”When Látkakáwas shook herself and stood on top of the house to watch the sun, the young man was near by, under the ground, with one eye looking out. She knew that he was there, but she didn’t change to an old woman. She said to herself: “This man pleases me; he is not like the others. He is the first man who hasn’t laughed and made fun of me.”The young man watched Látkakáwas for a time and then went home.When Látkakáwas’ brothers came, she said: “A young man, all blue and gold and green, nice to look at, has been here to watch me, but he didn’t make fun of me as the others did.”The eldest brother said: “We will move to the island to-morrow. Just at sundown we caught two big salmon; we will go early and dress them, then we’ll come for you. While we are gone, you must pack up the beads and skins.”In the morning, before it was light, the brothers started for the island. Just as the sun looked up over the edge of the sky, the young man from the west came again. As Látkakáwas shook herself and came out at the smoke hole on top of the house, a light shone in her face. It was so strong that it dazzled her and she turned back. The young man was brighter than before, for he was out of the ground.When Látkakáwas went into the house, he peeped through a crack and watched her. She knew he was there, but she didn’t turn old; she sat down and assorted her beads according to color. Then she picked up her mats and got ready to go to the island.Early in the forenoon the five brothers came and began to pull down the house.[4]The people on the west side of the lake saw them at work and asked one another: “Where are those brothers going? Why are they pulling down their house?”At midday, when the brothers were ready to start, they spread mats from the house to the canoe, for Látkakáwas to walk on. When she got into the canoe at the edge of the lake, she forgot all about the young man, forgot that she had fallen in love with him that morning.The brothers pushed the canoe to get it into the water, but they couldn’t move it; the young man was holding it. He was right there by them, but they didn’t see him. They worked for a long time. Finally he let go of the canoe, and it started, but he pulled it back. He let them push it out a second time, and a second time he pulled it back. They started many times but each time, before they could get out into the lake, they were back at the shore. They strove in that way till the middle of the afternoon, then the young man freed the canoe and the brothers rowed toward the island.As the canoe went on, the young man swam behind it in the form of a salmon. He was in love with Látkakáwas, and he wanted to look at her. She sat in the middle of the canoe with one of her brothers; two brothers sat at the end of the canoe and two in front.As they rowed along, one of the brothers saw a beautiful salmon, all blue and gold and green. He speared it and pulled it into the canoe, and that moment the salmon turned to a young man; but right away he died.Látkakáwas cried and blamed her brothers. She knew the young man, and she felt badly. The brothers felt badly, too. They went back to the shore and the next day they put their beads and mats in one big pile and burned them, together with the young man’s body. When the pile was burned, there was a bright disk in the ashes. The disk was as bright as the sun in the heavens. This was the crown of the young man’s head.Látkakáwas saw it, and said: “Look, what is that bright thing in the ashes?”The brother who had speared the salmon took up the disk, gave it to Látkakáwas, and said: “Take it to Kumush. He is[5]in his sweat-house at Nihlaksi. Kumush can bring a man to life if he has only one hair from his head.”Látkakáwas put the disk in her bosom, then she gave each of her brothers a bundle of bone head-scratchers, and said: “If Kumush doesn’t bring my husband to life, you will never see me again.”Látkakáwas traveled all day; when night came she camped at Koáskise, not far from Kumush’s sweat-house.The next morning, just as the sun came up, Látkakáwas gave birth to a child, a wonderfully beautiful boy. She strapped the baby on a board, put the board on her back and went to Kumush’s sweat-house.When Kumush asked why she came, she took the disk out of her bosom, and said: “I want you to bring this to life.”When Kumush saw the disk, he thought he had never seen anything that was half as bright and beautiful. Látkakáwas wanted to gather wood to build a fire in the sweat-house, but Kumush said: “You stay here; I will get the wood.”Right away he had a big fire; then he heated stones, and when they were ready to put in the basket of water, he said to Látkakáwas: “Take your baby and lie down in the corner; wrap yourself up and keep still.”When she was wrapped up tight, Kumush put the hot stones into the basket, and when the water boiled, he put in the disk. After a little while the disk came to life, and became the young man again.When Kumush saw how beautiful the man was, he wanted him to die, and never come to life again. He thought he would get the disk and the young man’s beauty. As Kumush wanted, so it was. The young man died.When Látkakáwas unwrapped herself and saw that her husband was dead, she cried, she felt so lonesome. She cried all the time Kumush was gathering wood to burn the body.When the body was half consumed, Látkakáwas asked Kumush to put more wood on the fire. While he was picking up the wood, she strapped the baby on to the board, put the board on her back and sprang into the fire. Kumush saw[6]her just in time to snatch the baby from her back. Látkakáwas and the young man’s body were burned to ashes.The baby cried and cried. Kumush called it by every name he could think of. He called it Wanaga, Lákana, Gailalam-tcaknoles. When he called it Isilámlĕs, it didn’t cry quite as hard; when he said Isis Uknóles, it cried only a little; when he said Isis, the child stopped crying. The name pleased it.Kumush put the child on the ground and looked in the ashes for the disk. He found it and was glad, but he didn’t know where to put it. He put it on his knee, under his arm, on his breast, on his forehead, and on his shoulders, but it wouldn’t stay anywhere. At last he put it on the small of his back. The minute he put it there it grew to his body, and right away he was beautiful and young and bright, the brightest person in the world. The disk had become a part of him, and he was the father of Isis, for the disk was the father of Isis.Then Kumush left Nihlaksi and traveled toward the north. On the road he kept thinking where he was to hide the baby. At last he hid it in his knee, where it appeared as a boil. That night he stayed with two old women who lived in a house at the edge of a village. All night he groaned and complained of the boil on his knee. In the morning he asked one of the old women to press the boil.As soon as she began to press it, she saw bright hair. “What is this?” asked she.“I told you that wasn’t a boil,” said the other old woman.They both pressed, and soon the baby came out. The women washed the child, wrapped it up in a skin blanket and fed it.Right away people found out that old man Kumush had a baby and everybody wanted to know where he got it.Kumush said: “The earth is kind to me. The earth gave this baby to me.”Kumush took Isis and went to live on the southeast side of[7]Tula Lake,1and there he fished and worked and reared Isis.When Isis was old enough to marry, the Mówatwas, a people from the south, brought him a woman named Tókwa (mole). A great many people came with her, for she was a powerful woman, the best worker in the world.When the Mówatwas came, Kumush and Isis were at home. Isis was asleep; he had been fishing, and children were carrying fish from the canoe to the house. As the Mówatwas came in sight, Gäk saw them and said to the children: “I wonder where all those people came from? They will never come here again!”That minute the Mówatwas and Tókwa turned to stone. Kumush and Isis turned to stone, too, but their spirits came out and were men again. Their bodies and the body of Tókwa are at Tula Lake now, near the bodies of the Mówatwas people, who came with Tókwa.Kumush took Isis to Lĕklis,2where he had a house. Then he said to him:“You must be wise, you must be great and powerful and strong. You must go to the top of Lâniswi and swim in the pond of blue water that is there. When you get to the pond, you must pile up stones and then stand and talk to the mountain. Tell it what you think. The mountain will hear you. Everything in the world will hear you and understand you. After you have talked to the mountain, you must dive in the pond. Dive five times to the bottom, and each time drink of the lowest water. When you come out of the pond, build a fire, warm yourself and then sleep. If you dream, don’t tell the dream to any one. When you wake up, start for home. On the road don’t talk to any one, or drink any water. If you do as I tell you, you will be as great as I am and do the things that I do. You will live always. You will be the brightest[8]object in the world. If you endure these things, you will be able to bear every suffering.”Isis put on a dress made of the red bark of the teskot tree, and went to the swimming place on the mountain. At night he piled up stones till he was sleepy; then he stood by the pond and talked to the mountain. After that he dived five times in the swimming pond. The fourth time he felt something big and heavy, but he thought: “My father does not want me to have riches in this world; he wants me to have mind.” The fifth time he felt five kinds of gambling sticks and a large white feather.He came out of the pond, built a fire and warmed himself; then he lay down and went to sleep. He dreamed that he saw the gambling sticks and the feather that he had felt in the water. When he woke up, he started down the mountain. As soon as he got home, he began to tell his dream, but Kumush said: “Don’t tell your dream now. If you were to gamble with some one, then you might tell it.”After this Kumush sent Isis to Slákkosi, a swimming place in a deep basin on the top of a mountain. Kumush said: “When you get there, make a rope of willow bark, tie one end around a tree and the other around your body, and let yourself down into the whirlpool.”When Isis got to the top of the mountain, he went five times around the basin, then he made the rope and let himself down into the water. He went five times around inside the basin. Five times he saw a bright house that was nice to look at, and he saw lights burning in the water. After swimming, he drew himself up and started down the mountain.When Isis got home, Kumush sent him to Gewásni, a pond deep down among the rocks on the summit of Giwásyaina.3Kumush said: “Lok and Dásläts used to swim in Gewásni. When you get to the top of the mountain, you must hold your right hand up and talk to the mountain; ask it for mind and power. The mountain will hear you and great thoughts will go in through the top of your head. When you have talked to[9]Giwásyaina, you can talk all day to other mountains and not get tired or hoarse.”When Isis got to the swimming place, he let himself down with a bark rope, sat on a rock at the edge of the water and washed himself. Then he drew himself up to the top and lay down. He couldn’t go to sleep. He went to the place where he stood when he talked to the mountain, lay down there and tried to sleep, but couldn’t; so he started for home.When Kumush saw Isis coming, he washed himself, and used nice smelling roots; then he took food and went to meet him and fix a resting place for him.After Isis had eaten and rested, Kumush said: “I want you to go to Adáwa. You must go to all the gauwams (swimming places); you will find something in each one. Adáwa is Lok’s pond. He stays in the water there. You must swim on the western side.”When Isis got to the pond, he thought there was a great rock out in the water. He swam out and stood on it. It was Lok and right away he began to shake and move. Isis jumped into the water; into the middle of a terrible whirlpool; the whirlpool was Lok’s medicine. It made Isis’ head feel queer and dizzy. He swam to the western side of the pond, dived five times, got out of the water and went home.Kumush said: “Now you must go to old man Mukus. Before Gäk turned him into a rock Mukus was the greatest gambler in the world. Around him are many rocks, the men he was gambling with when Gäk’s word was spoken.”When Isis started, Kumush put the back of his hand across his forehead, looked toward the place and talked to Mukus, asking him to be good to Isis and give him whatever he had to give.When Isis got to the rock, he stood and waited. After a while old Mukus asked: “What did you come for?”Isis made no answer.Then the old man moved a little, and said: “I heard Kumush talking. I have nothing but gambling to give,—my work. I will give you that.”When Isis got home, he lay down. Kumush washed himself,[10]then gave his son food and drink. The next morning he sent him to get Tcok, the great gambling medicine.Kumush said: “Tcok is round and bright, like the sun. If a lazy man tries to catch it, it will show itself in two or three places at the same time, and he can’t overtake it; but if a strong man, who has been to the swimming ponds, follows it, it will let itself be caught.”Isis went for Tcok, caught it and brought it home. He held it so tightly in his hand that it burned him, and blistered his hand.Kumush said: “You must kill Tcok; if you don’t it will get away from you. You want it, for if a man has it when he is gambling, it gives him strength.”When Isis had killed Tcok, Kumush said: “Now you must go to Káimpeos. On the way you will come to a small pond. Don’t stop there, for it is a bad place. In Káimpeos there are five Kais; they belong to the pond.”When Isis got to Káimpeos, he saw the sun, the moon, the stars and big fires down under the water. He dived five times; each time he felt a Kai right near him. Under the arm of the fifth Kai there were gambling sticks. When Isis came out of the water, he lay down on a rock and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t, so he got up and went home.While Isis was gone, Kumush made a sweat-house, and when Isis returned, he said: “Take off your bark clothes and sweat, then paint your face and body red and put on buckskin clothes and nice beads. You have been to all the swimming places, and you might be a big chief, but I don’t want that. Other people will come and it will be bad here. We will go away where you can keep all the strength the mountains and swimming places have given you, where you won’t get bad and dirty from the earth and people.”They went to the top of a high mountain and built a house among the rocks. The house was red and nice to look at. Kumush thought that people around Tula Lake would see his house, but couldn’t climb up to it. Kumush had the north side, Isis the south side of the house; the door opened toward the east.[11]Kumush didn’t know that Skakas and Nada lived on that mountain, but they did, and both of them fell in love with Isis. They came to the house and neither one of them would go away.“What do you want?” asked Kumush.“I want Isis for a husband,” said Skakas. Nada gave the same answer.“Well,” said Kumush, “I will find out what you can do. Which of you can bring water first from that lake down there?”Both started. Skakas found water on the way, turned around and was back first. When Nada came, she said to Skakas: “I didn’t see you at the lake.”“I got there first; I took some water and came back. We were not there at the same time.”“I am a fast traveler,” said Nada. “It is strange that you got back first.”Isis drank the water Nada brought, but wouldn’t touch the water Skakas gave him.Nada said: “We will go again. This time we will take hold of hands.” They started in the morning, got the water and Nada flew back. Skakas didn’t get back till midday.Isis drank the water Nada brought, and said it was good, but he wouldn’t drink the water Skakas brought. Kumush tore Skakas in pieces and threw the pieces over the cliff into the lake. The pieces are in the lake now; they became rocks.Isis and Kumush didn’t want to live where people could come, so they left their home and traveled toward the northeast. Not far from the house they put down their baskets, fish-spears, canoes and everything they had used in fishing. Those things turned to stone and are there on the cliff to-day. Kumush and Isis traveled for a long time before they came to the river that is now called Lost River. Kumush made a basket and caught a salmon in it. Then he said: “I want salmon always to be in this river, and many of them, so people will have plenty to eat.” At Nusâltgăga he made a basket and caught small fish, and said the same thing, so that there[12]should always be plenty of small fish in the river. He multiplied the histis, a kind of fish which Klamath Indians like.When Isis and Kumush got to the third camping place, Kumush called it Bláielka and the mountain he called Ktáila­wetĕs. He said to Isis: “You must swim in the swimming pond on this mountain, and pile up stones, and talk to the mountain.”Isis went to the pond and while he was in the water he saw nice gambling sticks and felt them touch his body. When he was through swimming and was coming out, Gäk flew by. He saw Isis standing in the water, and he thought: “I wonder where that bright thing in the water came from. It won’t come here again!” That minute Isis was turned to stone, but his spirit escaped, and went to his father’s camping place.Isis and Kumush stayed a long time at Bláielka, then Kumush said: “I must travel around and work; you can stay here.” Kumush left Isis on Dúilast, a mountain on the eastern side of Tula Lake and he started off for the west.While Kumush was gone, many women came to live with Isis. Among his wives were Tókwa, Wéakûs, Djakkonus, Tcíktcikûs, Kládo, Tseks, Dohos, Dúdûte, Tcíkas, Kols, Nada and Wálwilegas. The first wife to have a child was Tcíkas, who had a little boy. Tcíkas was uneasy about Kumush; she was afraid something had happened to him.Isis said: “Nothing can hurt Kumush. He will be here soon. He can go around the world in two days.”The next morning Kumush came, bringing in his hands little bundles of seeds of every kind. He threw those seeds in different directions, and talked to the mountains, the hills, the rivers and springs, to all places, telling them to take the seeds, to care for them and keep them forever. And he told them not to harm his grandson.Isis’ wives were so nice to look at that Kumush fell in love with them and began to think how to get rid of Isis.One day when he was hunting, Isis used his last arrow. Kumush said: “I will make some arrows, but you must get eagle feathers to put on them. When I was coming home I saw an eagle’s nest on the top of a tree. There were eggs in it; the eggs[13]are hatched by this time. You can get some of the young eagles.” And he told him where the tree was.When Isis came to the tree, he took off his buckskin clothes and climbed up to the nest. He found the eagles and threw them to the ground. As he threw the last one, he looked down, and he nearly lost his mind, for at Kumush’s word the tree had grown so tall that it almost touched the sky. Isis’ clothes were under the tree. He saw Kumush come and put them on, then pick up the eagles, and start for home.Before leaving the house, Kumush had said to Isis’ wives: “I am going for wood.” When he came back, the women thought he was Isis. When he asked: “Where is Kumush?” they said: “He went for wood and hasn’t come back.”Kumush hurried the sun down and right away it was dark. All the women except Wálwilegas, Kols, Tcíkas and Tókwa thought he was Isis.The next morning Tcíkas asked Wálwilegas what she thought.“He isn’t Isis,” said Wálwilegas.“That is what I think,” said Tcíkas.Kols cried and tears ran down her cheeks. “Tears,” said she, “are a sign that Isis is in trouble.”“What are you talking about?” asked Kumush. “Hurry up and get me something to eat. I don’t want people to come here to gamble; we will go where they are.”After Kumush had eaten enough, he and all the women, except Wálwilegas, Kols and Tcíkas, started for Pitcowa, the place where Isis always went to gamble. (A broad flat northeast of Tula Lake.)As Kumush traveled, he set fire to the grass; the smoke went crooked. People saw it, and said: “That is not Isis. Isis’ smoke always goes straight up to the sky.”Kumush knew their thoughts. He tried to make the smoke go straight; part went straight and part went crooked.Then they said: “Maybe that is Isis.”When he got near, the people asked: “Where is Kumush?”“He stayed at home; he didn’t want to come.”[14]Some thought: “This man doesn’t look just like Isis,” but they began to gamble with him.When all the women had gone except Wálwilegas and Tcíkas and Kols, Kols began to track her husband. Wálwilegas followed her. Tcíkas put her baby on her back and started for Pitcowa. She felt lonesome. She traveled slowly, digging roots as she went along.Kols tracked Isis to the tree. Then she said: “He is up in this tree, but he must be dead.”“He is alive,” said Wálwilegas. “I hear him breathe. He loved his other wives and didn’t care for us. They have gone off with another man; now he will find out who loves him.”Kols tried to dig the tree up, but couldn’t; then Wálwilegas began to make a basket. When the basket was ready, Kols strapped it on her back and flew up part way to try it. She came back, got something for Isis to eat and bear’s fat to rub him with, then she started again. She flew in circles around the tree, camped one night and reached Isis the next night. He was almost dead. She gave him seeds and rubbed him with bear’s fat. The next morning she put him in the basket and started down; she got home at midday.Kols and Wálwilegas fed Isis well. Every night they rubbed him with bear’s fat and soon he was well again. Then they fixed a sweat-house and he sweated till his skin was nice and soft. It became rough while he was on the tree. After he had sweated, they put nice clothes on him.Isis asked: “How did Tókwa and Nada and the others act while I was lost?”“They didn’t care much,” said Kols; “they were not sorry.”When the people at Pitcowa had gambled long enough, they began to play ball. Some thought that the man they were playing with was Isis; others thought he was Kumush.Kumush had the disk on his back. It looked like a great scar. One day, while the people were disputing, some saying that he was Isis, others that he was Kumush, a man hired a doctor to make the south wind blow. When Kumush ran north after[15]the ball and stooped down to pick it up, the wind raised his blanket and everybody saw the scar. Then they knew Kumush. They shouted, whooped and laughed. They stopped the game and gathered around him.After Isis had sweated, he said: “We will go and see what Kumush is doing.” He went ahead of Kols and Wálwilegas, and as he traveled he set fire to the grass. The smoke went straight up to the sky. People saw the smoke, and said: “That is Isis! Isis is coming now!” Kumush saw the smoke and was scared; he trembled and almost lost his mind.Tcíkas had been camping and digging roots. She was mourning for Isis. The child saw Isis coming and called out “Tsutowas” (father).“Don’t call your father,” said Tcíkas, “your father is dead.”The boy called again, and again. Tcíkas shook him and scolded him.“Why do you do that?” asked Isis.Tcíkas turned and saw Isis. She was glad, for she thought he was lost or dead. “Where were you?” asked she. “How did you get back?”“Wálwilegas and Kols, the wives I didn’t care for, saved me.” Then he told her how Wálwilegas found him in the eagle’s nest, and how she and Kols carried him home and cured him.When Isis got to the gambling place, Kumush wanted to talk to him, wanted to be friendly. But Isis was angry; he wouldn’t let Kumush come near him. He had Kols and Wálwilegas gather wood and build a big fire; then he called to his wives who were with Kumush and told them to come to him. They wouldn’t come, for they were afraid. Then he willed that they should come, and they had to; his word drew them, and they couldn’t help going.He burned their feet and made them red; then he said: “You will no longer be people; you will be birds and will scatter over the world. People will kill you, for you will be good to eat.” They turned into ducks and water birds and flew away. Then Isis threw Kumush into the fire and covered[16]him with burning wood. He burned him to ashes, but in the ashes was the disk.The next morning the morning star, Kumush’s medicine, called out to the disk: “Why do you sleep so long? Get up, old man!” That minute Kumush was alive—he will last as long as the disk and the morning star.Isis knew now that Kumush would never die, that nothing could kill him. Isis wandered off among the mountains, and as he traveled he sang a beautiful song, that no one else could sing. People could imitate it, but they couldn’t repeat it or understand it.Kumush followed Isis everywhere for years. At last he overtook him. He wanted to be kind, and live as before, but Isis said: “After what you did to me you may go wherever you want to in the world, and I will go where I want to. You are not my father. I feel that. I hope that of the people, who are to come into the world hereafter, no father will ever treat his son as you have treated me.”Kumush went to Tula Lake to live. Then Isis turned one of his three faithful wives to a butterfly, another to a badger and the third to a wren, and then he went to live alone on Tcutgósi, a high mountain.[17]1Different 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.↑2The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.↑3A mountain in Oregon.↑

[Contents]MYTHS OF THE MODOCSLÁTKAKÁWASCHARACTERSDáslätsCalifornia lionLátkakáwasDjakkonusA duckLokBearDohosA duckMówatwasSouth wind place peopleDútûteA duckMukusOwlIsisNadaA birdKaiJack rabbitSkakasFree toadKládoDuckTcíkasWrenKolsBadgerTókwaMoleKumushWálwilegasButterflyLátkakáwas and her five brothers lived on the south side of Klamath Lake. The brothers went every day to fish from an island in the middle of the lake. Látkakáwas stayed at home; she gathered wiwhi seeds and burned the down from them to prepare them as food for her brothers and for herself.When Látkakáwas was at work, she looked like a common old woman, but when she shook herself and went out of the house, she was young, blue and beautiful.The “Old Man” (Kumush) lived on the eastern side of Klamath Lake. On the western side of the lake lived many people. Those people often saw Látkakáwas standing on the top of her house, looking blue and nice, but as soon as they went toward her she changed to an old hunchback woman.The young men of the western village counseled together;[2]then each day they sent one of their number to try to steal up to Látkakáwas and catch her before she could make herself old and ugly. They wanted to talk to her; they wanted to ask her to take one of them for a husband.—Every young man in the western village tried, but Látkakáwas was never young when they came toward her.One man started before daybreak; he wanted to get near the house and hide till Látkakáwas came out. That day she stayed inside, an old hunchback woman stringing beads. She knew when people were looking at her or thinking of her; she even knew where they were.Each morning Látkakáwas’ brothers went to the island to catch salmon, and dry them, but as soon as it was dark they came home. One night Látkakáwas said to her eldest brother: “Men come here to watch me, and try to catch me; when they find me hunchback and ugly to look at, they make fun of me. I don’t like that. It makes me feel badly.”“How soon will you have seeds enough gathered?” asked her brother.“To-morrow,” said Látkakáwas.“When the seeds are ready, you will go with us to the island where nobody can bother you,” said her brother.On the west side of the lake there was a young man as blue and beautiful as Látkakáwas herself. His father kept him in an underground place; no one ever saw him except when he went out to bathe or swim. When all the other young men had tried to get near Látkakáwas, and had failed, the people said to this young man’s father: “Why don’t you send your son? Maybe he could catch that beautiful blue woman.”When the old man told his son about Látkakáwas, the young man said: “There is no use of my going there. If all the others have failed I should fail, too.”“You are as blue and nice to look at as Látkakáwas is,” said his father; “maybe she will like you and take you for a husband.”The old man took his son out of the underground place, washed him and got him ready, made him clothes from a wonderful cap, a cap that could never be destroyed. When the[3]young man put on those clothes, he was beautiful beyond anything in the world; he was blue and gold and green, like the clouds in the sky. He could run in the air and under the ground. He had great power.When he was ready to start, his father said to him: “When the sun comes to the edge of the sky, Látkakáwas shakes herself and goes to the top of the house to watch it. If you travel under the ground you will get near her before she sees you.”When Látkakáwas shook herself and stood on top of the house to watch the sun, the young man was near by, under the ground, with one eye looking out. She knew that he was there, but she didn’t change to an old woman. She said to herself: “This man pleases me; he is not like the others. He is the first man who hasn’t laughed and made fun of me.”The young man watched Látkakáwas for a time and then went home.When Látkakáwas’ brothers came, she said: “A young man, all blue and gold and green, nice to look at, has been here to watch me, but he didn’t make fun of me as the others did.”The eldest brother said: “We will move to the island to-morrow. Just at sundown we caught two big salmon; we will go early and dress them, then we’ll come for you. While we are gone, you must pack up the beads and skins.”In the morning, before it was light, the brothers started for the island. Just as the sun looked up over the edge of the sky, the young man from the west came again. As Látkakáwas shook herself and came out at the smoke hole on top of the house, a light shone in her face. It was so strong that it dazzled her and she turned back. The young man was brighter than before, for he was out of the ground.When Látkakáwas went into the house, he peeped through a crack and watched her. She knew he was there, but she didn’t turn old; she sat down and assorted her beads according to color. Then she picked up her mats and got ready to go to the island.Early in the forenoon the five brothers came and began to pull down the house.[4]The people on the west side of the lake saw them at work and asked one another: “Where are those brothers going? Why are they pulling down their house?”At midday, when the brothers were ready to start, they spread mats from the house to the canoe, for Látkakáwas to walk on. When she got into the canoe at the edge of the lake, she forgot all about the young man, forgot that she had fallen in love with him that morning.The brothers pushed the canoe to get it into the water, but they couldn’t move it; the young man was holding it. He was right there by them, but they didn’t see him. They worked for a long time. Finally he let go of the canoe, and it started, but he pulled it back. He let them push it out a second time, and a second time he pulled it back. They started many times but each time, before they could get out into the lake, they were back at the shore. They strove in that way till the middle of the afternoon, then the young man freed the canoe and the brothers rowed toward the island.As the canoe went on, the young man swam behind it in the form of a salmon. He was in love with Látkakáwas, and he wanted to look at her. She sat in the middle of the canoe with one of her brothers; two brothers sat at the end of the canoe and two in front.As they rowed along, one of the brothers saw a beautiful salmon, all blue and gold and green. He speared it and pulled it into the canoe, and that moment the salmon turned to a young man; but right away he died.Látkakáwas cried and blamed her brothers. She knew the young man, and she felt badly. The brothers felt badly, too. They went back to the shore and the next day they put their beads and mats in one big pile and burned them, together with the young man’s body. When the pile was burned, there was a bright disk in the ashes. The disk was as bright as the sun in the heavens. This was the crown of the young man’s head.Látkakáwas saw it, and said: “Look, what is that bright thing in the ashes?”The brother who had speared the salmon took up the disk, gave it to Látkakáwas, and said: “Take it to Kumush. He is[5]in his sweat-house at Nihlaksi. Kumush can bring a man to life if he has only one hair from his head.”Látkakáwas put the disk in her bosom, then she gave each of her brothers a bundle of bone head-scratchers, and said: “If Kumush doesn’t bring my husband to life, you will never see me again.”Látkakáwas traveled all day; when night came she camped at Koáskise, not far from Kumush’s sweat-house.The next morning, just as the sun came up, Látkakáwas gave birth to a child, a wonderfully beautiful boy. She strapped the baby on a board, put the board on her back and went to Kumush’s sweat-house.When Kumush asked why she came, she took the disk out of her bosom, and said: “I want you to bring this to life.”When Kumush saw the disk, he thought he had never seen anything that was half as bright and beautiful. Látkakáwas wanted to gather wood to build a fire in the sweat-house, but Kumush said: “You stay here; I will get the wood.”Right away he had a big fire; then he heated stones, and when they were ready to put in the basket of water, he said to Látkakáwas: “Take your baby and lie down in the corner; wrap yourself up and keep still.”When she was wrapped up tight, Kumush put the hot stones into the basket, and when the water boiled, he put in the disk. After a little while the disk came to life, and became the young man again.When Kumush saw how beautiful the man was, he wanted him to die, and never come to life again. He thought he would get the disk and the young man’s beauty. As Kumush wanted, so it was. The young man died.When Látkakáwas unwrapped herself and saw that her husband was dead, she cried, she felt so lonesome. She cried all the time Kumush was gathering wood to burn the body.When the body was half consumed, Látkakáwas asked Kumush to put more wood on the fire. While he was picking up the wood, she strapped the baby on to the board, put the board on her back and sprang into the fire. Kumush saw[6]her just in time to snatch the baby from her back. Látkakáwas and the young man’s body were burned to ashes.The baby cried and cried. Kumush called it by every name he could think of. He called it Wanaga, Lákana, Gailalam-tcaknoles. When he called it Isilámlĕs, it didn’t cry quite as hard; when he said Isis Uknóles, it cried only a little; when he said Isis, the child stopped crying. The name pleased it.Kumush put the child on the ground and looked in the ashes for the disk. He found it and was glad, but he didn’t know where to put it. He put it on his knee, under his arm, on his breast, on his forehead, and on his shoulders, but it wouldn’t stay anywhere. At last he put it on the small of his back. The minute he put it there it grew to his body, and right away he was beautiful and young and bright, the brightest person in the world. The disk had become a part of him, and he was the father of Isis, for the disk was the father of Isis.Then Kumush left Nihlaksi and traveled toward the north. On the road he kept thinking where he was to hide the baby. At last he hid it in his knee, where it appeared as a boil. That night he stayed with two old women who lived in a house at the edge of a village. All night he groaned and complained of the boil on his knee. In the morning he asked one of the old women to press the boil.As soon as she began to press it, she saw bright hair. “What is this?” asked she.“I told you that wasn’t a boil,” said the other old woman.They both pressed, and soon the baby came out. The women washed the child, wrapped it up in a skin blanket and fed it.Right away people found out that old man Kumush had a baby and everybody wanted to know where he got it.Kumush said: “The earth is kind to me. The earth gave this baby to me.”Kumush took Isis and went to live on the southeast side of[7]Tula Lake,1and there he fished and worked and reared Isis.When Isis was old enough to marry, the Mówatwas, a people from the south, brought him a woman named Tókwa (mole). A great many people came with her, for she was a powerful woman, the best worker in the world.When the Mówatwas came, Kumush and Isis were at home. Isis was asleep; he had been fishing, and children were carrying fish from the canoe to the house. As the Mówatwas came in sight, Gäk saw them and said to the children: “I wonder where all those people came from? They will never come here again!”That minute the Mówatwas and Tókwa turned to stone. Kumush and Isis turned to stone, too, but their spirits came out and were men again. Their bodies and the body of Tókwa are at Tula Lake now, near the bodies of the Mówatwas people, who came with Tókwa.Kumush took Isis to Lĕklis,2where he had a house. Then he said to him:“You must be wise, you must be great and powerful and strong. You must go to the top of Lâniswi and swim in the pond of blue water that is there. When you get to the pond, you must pile up stones and then stand and talk to the mountain. Tell it what you think. The mountain will hear you. Everything in the world will hear you and understand you. After you have talked to the mountain, you must dive in the pond. Dive five times to the bottom, and each time drink of the lowest water. When you come out of the pond, build a fire, warm yourself and then sleep. If you dream, don’t tell the dream to any one. When you wake up, start for home. On the road don’t talk to any one, or drink any water. If you do as I tell you, you will be as great as I am and do the things that I do. You will live always. You will be the brightest[8]object in the world. If you endure these things, you will be able to bear every suffering.”Isis put on a dress made of the red bark of the teskot tree, and went to the swimming place on the mountain. At night he piled up stones till he was sleepy; then he stood by the pond and talked to the mountain. After that he dived five times in the swimming pond. The fourth time he felt something big and heavy, but he thought: “My father does not want me to have riches in this world; he wants me to have mind.” The fifth time he felt five kinds of gambling sticks and a large white feather.He came out of the pond, built a fire and warmed himself; then he lay down and went to sleep. He dreamed that he saw the gambling sticks and the feather that he had felt in the water. When he woke up, he started down the mountain. As soon as he got home, he began to tell his dream, but Kumush said: “Don’t tell your dream now. If you were to gamble with some one, then you might tell it.”After this Kumush sent Isis to Slákkosi, a swimming place in a deep basin on the top of a mountain. Kumush said: “When you get there, make a rope of willow bark, tie one end around a tree and the other around your body, and let yourself down into the whirlpool.”When Isis got to the top of the mountain, he went five times around the basin, then he made the rope and let himself down into the water. He went five times around inside the basin. Five times he saw a bright house that was nice to look at, and he saw lights burning in the water. After swimming, he drew himself up and started down the mountain.When Isis got home, Kumush sent him to Gewásni, a pond deep down among the rocks on the summit of Giwásyaina.3Kumush said: “Lok and Dásläts used to swim in Gewásni. When you get to the top of the mountain, you must hold your right hand up and talk to the mountain; ask it for mind and power. The mountain will hear you and great thoughts will go in through the top of your head. When you have talked to[9]Giwásyaina, you can talk all day to other mountains and not get tired or hoarse.”When Isis got to the swimming place, he let himself down with a bark rope, sat on a rock at the edge of the water and washed himself. Then he drew himself up to the top and lay down. He couldn’t go to sleep. He went to the place where he stood when he talked to the mountain, lay down there and tried to sleep, but couldn’t; so he started for home.When Kumush saw Isis coming, he washed himself, and used nice smelling roots; then he took food and went to meet him and fix a resting place for him.After Isis had eaten and rested, Kumush said: “I want you to go to Adáwa. You must go to all the gauwams (swimming places); you will find something in each one. Adáwa is Lok’s pond. He stays in the water there. You must swim on the western side.”When Isis got to the pond, he thought there was a great rock out in the water. He swam out and stood on it. It was Lok and right away he began to shake and move. Isis jumped into the water; into the middle of a terrible whirlpool; the whirlpool was Lok’s medicine. It made Isis’ head feel queer and dizzy. He swam to the western side of the pond, dived five times, got out of the water and went home.Kumush said: “Now you must go to old man Mukus. Before Gäk turned him into a rock Mukus was the greatest gambler in the world. Around him are many rocks, the men he was gambling with when Gäk’s word was spoken.”When Isis started, Kumush put the back of his hand across his forehead, looked toward the place and talked to Mukus, asking him to be good to Isis and give him whatever he had to give.When Isis got to the rock, he stood and waited. After a while old Mukus asked: “What did you come for?”Isis made no answer.Then the old man moved a little, and said: “I heard Kumush talking. I have nothing but gambling to give,—my work. I will give you that.”When Isis got home, he lay down. Kumush washed himself,[10]then gave his son food and drink. The next morning he sent him to get Tcok, the great gambling medicine.Kumush said: “Tcok is round and bright, like the sun. If a lazy man tries to catch it, it will show itself in two or three places at the same time, and he can’t overtake it; but if a strong man, who has been to the swimming ponds, follows it, it will let itself be caught.”Isis went for Tcok, caught it and brought it home. He held it so tightly in his hand that it burned him, and blistered his hand.Kumush said: “You must kill Tcok; if you don’t it will get away from you. You want it, for if a man has it when he is gambling, it gives him strength.”When Isis had killed Tcok, Kumush said: “Now you must go to Káimpeos. On the way you will come to a small pond. Don’t stop there, for it is a bad place. In Káimpeos there are five Kais; they belong to the pond.”When Isis got to Káimpeos, he saw the sun, the moon, the stars and big fires down under the water. He dived five times; each time he felt a Kai right near him. Under the arm of the fifth Kai there were gambling sticks. When Isis came out of the water, he lay down on a rock and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t, so he got up and went home.While Isis was gone, Kumush made a sweat-house, and when Isis returned, he said: “Take off your bark clothes and sweat, then paint your face and body red and put on buckskin clothes and nice beads. You have been to all the swimming places, and you might be a big chief, but I don’t want that. Other people will come and it will be bad here. We will go away where you can keep all the strength the mountains and swimming places have given you, where you won’t get bad and dirty from the earth and people.”They went to the top of a high mountain and built a house among the rocks. The house was red and nice to look at. Kumush thought that people around Tula Lake would see his house, but couldn’t climb up to it. Kumush had the north side, Isis the south side of the house; the door opened toward the east.[11]Kumush didn’t know that Skakas and Nada lived on that mountain, but they did, and both of them fell in love with Isis. They came to the house and neither one of them would go away.“What do you want?” asked Kumush.“I want Isis for a husband,” said Skakas. Nada gave the same answer.“Well,” said Kumush, “I will find out what you can do. Which of you can bring water first from that lake down there?”Both started. Skakas found water on the way, turned around and was back first. When Nada came, she said to Skakas: “I didn’t see you at the lake.”“I got there first; I took some water and came back. We were not there at the same time.”“I am a fast traveler,” said Nada. “It is strange that you got back first.”Isis drank the water Nada brought, but wouldn’t touch the water Skakas gave him.Nada said: “We will go again. This time we will take hold of hands.” They started in the morning, got the water and Nada flew back. Skakas didn’t get back till midday.Isis drank the water Nada brought, and said it was good, but he wouldn’t drink the water Skakas brought. Kumush tore Skakas in pieces and threw the pieces over the cliff into the lake. The pieces are in the lake now; they became rocks.Isis and Kumush didn’t want to live where people could come, so they left their home and traveled toward the northeast. Not far from the house they put down their baskets, fish-spears, canoes and everything they had used in fishing. Those things turned to stone and are there on the cliff to-day. Kumush and Isis traveled for a long time before they came to the river that is now called Lost River. Kumush made a basket and caught a salmon in it. Then he said: “I want salmon always to be in this river, and many of them, so people will have plenty to eat.” At Nusâltgăga he made a basket and caught small fish, and said the same thing, so that there[12]should always be plenty of small fish in the river. He multiplied the histis, a kind of fish which Klamath Indians like.When Isis and Kumush got to the third camping place, Kumush called it Bláielka and the mountain he called Ktáila­wetĕs. He said to Isis: “You must swim in the swimming pond on this mountain, and pile up stones, and talk to the mountain.”Isis went to the pond and while he was in the water he saw nice gambling sticks and felt them touch his body. When he was through swimming and was coming out, Gäk flew by. He saw Isis standing in the water, and he thought: “I wonder where that bright thing in the water came from. It won’t come here again!” That minute Isis was turned to stone, but his spirit escaped, and went to his father’s camping place.Isis and Kumush stayed a long time at Bláielka, then Kumush said: “I must travel around and work; you can stay here.” Kumush left Isis on Dúilast, a mountain on the eastern side of Tula Lake and he started off for the west.While Kumush was gone, many women came to live with Isis. Among his wives were Tókwa, Wéakûs, Djakkonus, Tcíktcikûs, Kládo, Tseks, Dohos, Dúdûte, Tcíkas, Kols, Nada and Wálwilegas. The first wife to have a child was Tcíkas, who had a little boy. Tcíkas was uneasy about Kumush; she was afraid something had happened to him.Isis said: “Nothing can hurt Kumush. He will be here soon. He can go around the world in two days.”The next morning Kumush came, bringing in his hands little bundles of seeds of every kind. He threw those seeds in different directions, and talked to the mountains, the hills, the rivers and springs, to all places, telling them to take the seeds, to care for them and keep them forever. And he told them not to harm his grandson.Isis’ wives were so nice to look at that Kumush fell in love with them and began to think how to get rid of Isis.One day when he was hunting, Isis used his last arrow. Kumush said: “I will make some arrows, but you must get eagle feathers to put on them. When I was coming home I saw an eagle’s nest on the top of a tree. There were eggs in it; the eggs[13]are hatched by this time. You can get some of the young eagles.” And he told him where the tree was.When Isis came to the tree, he took off his buckskin clothes and climbed up to the nest. He found the eagles and threw them to the ground. As he threw the last one, he looked down, and he nearly lost his mind, for at Kumush’s word the tree had grown so tall that it almost touched the sky. Isis’ clothes were under the tree. He saw Kumush come and put them on, then pick up the eagles, and start for home.Before leaving the house, Kumush had said to Isis’ wives: “I am going for wood.” When he came back, the women thought he was Isis. When he asked: “Where is Kumush?” they said: “He went for wood and hasn’t come back.”Kumush hurried the sun down and right away it was dark. All the women except Wálwilegas, Kols, Tcíkas and Tókwa thought he was Isis.The next morning Tcíkas asked Wálwilegas what she thought.“He isn’t Isis,” said Wálwilegas.“That is what I think,” said Tcíkas.Kols cried and tears ran down her cheeks. “Tears,” said she, “are a sign that Isis is in trouble.”“What are you talking about?” asked Kumush. “Hurry up and get me something to eat. I don’t want people to come here to gamble; we will go where they are.”After Kumush had eaten enough, he and all the women, except Wálwilegas, Kols and Tcíkas, started for Pitcowa, the place where Isis always went to gamble. (A broad flat northeast of Tula Lake.)As Kumush traveled, he set fire to the grass; the smoke went crooked. People saw it, and said: “That is not Isis. Isis’ smoke always goes straight up to the sky.”Kumush knew their thoughts. He tried to make the smoke go straight; part went straight and part went crooked.Then they said: “Maybe that is Isis.”When he got near, the people asked: “Where is Kumush?”“He stayed at home; he didn’t want to come.”[14]Some thought: “This man doesn’t look just like Isis,” but they began to gamble with him.When all the women had gone except Wálwilegas and Tcíkas and Kols, Kols began to track her husband. Wálwilegas followed her. Tcíkas put her baby on her back and started for Pitcowa. She felt lonesome. She traveled slowly, digging roots as she went along.Kols tracked Isis to the tree. Then she said: “He is up in this tree, but he must be dead.”“He is alive,” said Wálwilegas. “I hear him breathe. He loved his other wives and didn’t care for us. They have gone off with another man; now he will find out who loves him.”Kols tried to dig the tree up, but couldn’t; then Wálwilegas began to make a basket. When the basket was ready, Kols strapped it on her back and flew up part way to try it. She came back, got something for Isis to eat and bear’s fat to rub him with, then she started again. She flew in circles around the tree, camped one night and reached Isis the next night. He was almost dead. She gave him seeds and rubbed him with bear’s fat. The next morning she put him in the basket and started down; she got home at midday.Kols and Wálwilegas fed Isis well. Every night they rubbed him with bear’s fat and soon he was well again. Then they fixed a sweat-house and he sweated till his skin was nice and soft. It became rough while he was on the tree. After he had sweated, they put nice clothes on him.Isis asked: “How did Tókwa and Nada and the others act while I was lost?”“They didn’t care much,” said Kols; “they were not sorry.”When the people at Pitcowa had gambled long enough, they began to play ball. Some thought that the man they were playing with was Isis; others thought he was Kumush.Kumush had the disk on his back. It looked like a great scar. One day, while the people were disputing, some saying that he was Isis, others that he was Kumush, a man hired a doctor to make the south wind blow. When Kumush ran north after[15]the ball and stooped down to pick it up, the wind raised his blanket and everybody saw the scar. Then they knew Kumush. They shouted, whooped and laughed. They stopped the game and gathered around him.After Isis had sweated, he said: “We will go and see what Kumush is doing.” He went ahead of Kols and Wálwilegas, and as he traveled he set fire to the grass. The smoke went straight up to the sky. People saw the smoke, and said: “That is Isis! Isis is coming now!” Kumush saw the smoke and was scared; he trembled and almost lost his mind.Tcíkas had been camping and digging roots. She was mourning for Isis. The child saw Isis coming and called out “Tsutowas” (father).“Don’t call your father,” said Tcíkas, “your father is dead.”The boy called again, and again. Tcíkas shook him and scolded him.“Why do you do that?” asked Isis.Tcíkas turned and saw Isis. She was glad, for she thought he was lost or dead. “Where were you?” asked she. “How did you get back?”“Wálwilegas and Kols, the wives I didn’t care for, saved me.” Then he told her how Wálwilegas found him in the eagle’s nest, and how she and Kols carried him home and cured him.When Isis got to the gambling place, Kumush wanted to talk to him, wanted to be friendly. But Isis was angry; he wouldn’t let Kumush come near him. He had Kols and Wálwilegas gather wood and build a big fire; then he called to his wives who were with Kumush and told them to come to him. They wouldn’t come, for they were afraid. Then he willed that they should come, and they had to; his word drew them, and they couldn’t help going.He burned their feet and made them red; then he said: “You will no longer be people; you will be birds and will scatter over the world. People will kill you, for you will be good to eat.” They turned into ducks and water birds and flew away. Then Isis threw Kumush into the fire and covered[16]him with burning wood. He burned him to ashes, but in the ashes was the disk.The next morning the morning star, Kumush’s medicine, called out to the disk: “Why do you sleep so long? Get up, old man!” That minute Kumush was alive—he will last as long as the disk and the morning star.Isis knew now that Kumush would never die, that nothing could kill him. Isis wandered off among the mountains, and as he traveled he sang a beautiful song, that no one else could sing. People could imitate it, but they couldn’t repeat it or understand it.Kumush followed Isis everywhere for years. At last he overtook him. He wanted to be kind, and live as before, but Isis said: “After what you did to me you may go wherever you want to in the world, and I will go where I want to. You are not my father. I feel that. I hope that of the people, who are to come into the world hereafter, no father will ever treat his son as you have treated me.”Kumush went to Tula Lake to live. Then Isis turned one of his three faithful wives to a butterfly, another to a badger and the third to a wren, and then he went to live alone on Tcutgósi, a high mountain.[17]1Different 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.↑2The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.↑3A mountain in Oregon.↑

MYTHS OF THE MODOCSLÁTKAKÁWAS

CHARACTERSDáslätsCalifornia lionLátkakáwasDjakkonusA duckLokBearDohosA duckMówatwasSouth wind place peopleDútûteA duckMukusOwlIsisNadaA birdKaiJack rabbitSkakasFree toadKládoDuckTcíkasWrenKolsBadgerTókwaMoleKumushWálwilegasButterflyLátkakáwas and her five brothers lived on the south side of Klamath Lake. The brothers went every day to fish from an island in the middle of the lake. Látkakáwas stayed at home; she gathered wiwhi seeds and burned the down from them to prepare them as food for her brothers and for herself.When Látkakáwas was at work, she looked like a common old woman, but when she shook herself and went out of the house, she was young, blue and beautiful.The “Old Man” (Kumush) lived on the eastern side of Klamath Lake. On the western side of the lake lived many people. Those people often saw Látkakáwas standing on the top of her house, looking blue and nice, but as soon as they went toward her she changed to an old hunchback woman.The young men of the western village counseled together;[2]then each day they sent one of their number to try to steal up to Látkakáwas and catch her before she could make herself old and ugly. They wanted to talk to her; they wanted to ask her to take one of them for a husband.—Every young man in the western village tried, but Látkakáwas was never young when they came toward her.One man started before daybreak; he wanted to get near the house and hide till Látkakáwas came out. That day she stayed inside, an old hunchback woman stringing beads. She knew when people were looking at her or thinking of her; she even knew where they were.Each morning Látkakáwas’ brothers went to the island to catch salmon, and dry them, but as soon as it was dark they came home. One night Látkakáwas said to her eldest brother: “Men come here to watch me, and try to catch me; when they find me hunchback and ugly to look at, they make fun of me. I don’t like that. It makes me feel badly.”“How soon will you have seeds enough gathered?” asked her brother.“To-morrow,” said Látkakáwas.“When the seeds are ready, you will go with us to the island where nobody can bother you,” said her brother.On the west side of the lake there was a young man as blue and beautiful as Látkakáwas herself. His father kept him in an underground place; no one ever saw him except when he went out to bathe or swim. When all the other young men had tried to get near Látkakáwas, and had failed, the people said to this young man’s father: “Why don’t you send your son? Maybe he could catch that beautiful blue woman.”When the old man told his son about Látkakáwas, the young man said: “There is no use of my going there. If all the others have failed I should fail, too.”“You are as blue and nice to look at as Látkakáwas is,” said his father; “maybe she will like you and take you for a husband.”The old man took his son out of the underground place, washed him and got him ready, made him clothes from a wonderful cap, a cap that could never be destroyed. When the[3]young man put on those clothes, he was beautiful beyond anything in the world; he was blue and gold and green, like the clouds in the sky. He could run in the air and under the ground. He had great power.When he was ready to start, his father said to him: “When the sun comes to the edge of the sky, Látkakáwas shakes herself and goes to the top of the house to watch it. If you travel under the ground you will get near her before she sees you.”When Látkakáwas shook herself and stood on top of the house to watch the sun, the young man was near by, under the ground, with one eye looking out. She knew that he was there, but she didn’t change to an old woman. She said to herself: “This man pleases me; he is not like the others. He is the first man who hasn’t laughed and made fun of me.”The young man watched Látkakáwas for a time and then went home.When Látkakáwas’ brothers came, she said: “A young man, all blue and gold and green, nice to look at, has been here to watch me, but he didn’t make fun of me as the others did.”The eldest brother said: “We will move to the island to-morrow. Just at sundown we caught two big salmon; we will go early and dress them, then we’ll come for you. While we are gone, you must pack up the beads and skins.”In the morning, before it was light, the brothers started for the island. Just as the sun looked up over the edge of the sky, the young man from the west came again. As Látkakáwas shook herself and came out at the smoke hole on top of the house, a light shone in her face. It was so strong that it dazzled her and she turned back. The young man was brighter than before, for he was out of the ground.When Látkakáwas went into the house, he peeped through a crack and watched her. She knew he was there, but she didn’t turn old; she sat down and assorted her beads according to color. Then she picked up her mats and got ready to go to the island.Early in the forenoon the five brothers came and began to pull down the house.[4]The people on the west side of the lake saw them at work and asked one another: “Where are those brothers going? Why are they pulling down their house?”At midday, when the brothers were ready to start, they spread mats from the house to the canoe, for Látkakáwas to walk on. When she got into the canoe at the edge of the lake, she forgot all about the young man, forgot that she had fallen in love with him that morning.The brothers pushed the canoe to get it into the water, but they couldn’t move it; the young man was holding it. He was right there by them, but they didn’t see him. They worked for a long time. Finally he let go of the canoe, and it started, but he pulled it back. He let them push it out a second time, and a second time he pulled it back. They started many times but each time, before they could get out into the lake, they were back at the shore. They strove in that way till the middle of the afternoon, then the young man freed the canoe and the brothers rowed toward the island.As the canoe went on, the young man swam behind it in the form of a salmon. He was in love with Látkakáwas, and he wanted to look at her. She sat in the middle of the canoe with one of her brothers; two brothers sat at the end of the canoe and two in front.As they rowed along, one of the brothers saw a beautiful salmon, all blue and gold and green. He speared it and pulled it into the canoe, and that moment the salmon turned to a young man; but right away he died.Látkakáwas cried and blamed her brothers. She knew the young man, and she felt badly. The brothers felt badly, too. They went back to the shore and the next day they put their beads and mats in one big pile and burned them, together with the young man’s body. When the pile was burned, there was a bright disk in the ashes. The disk was as bright as the sun in the heavens. This was the crown of the young man’s head.Látkakáwas saw it, and said: “Look, what is that bright thing in the ashes?”The brother who had speared the salmon took up the disk, gave it to Látkakáwas, and said: “Take it to Kumush. He is[5]in his sweat-house at Nihlaksi. Kumush can bring a man to life if he has only one hair from his head.”Látkakáwas put the disk in her bosom, then she gave each of her brothers a bundle of bone head-scratchers, and said: “If Kumush doesn’t bring my husband to life, you will never see me again.”Látkakáwas traveled all day; when night came she camped at Koáskise, not far from Kumush’s sweat-house.The next morning, just as the sun came up, Látkakáwas gave birth to a child, a wonderfully beautiful boy. She strapped the baby on a board, put the board on her back and went to Kumush’s sweat-house.When Kumush asked why she came, she took the disk out of her bosom, and said: “I want you to bring this to life.”When Kumush saw the disk, he thought he had never seen anything that was half as bright and beautiful. Látkakáwas wanted to gather wood to build a fire in the sweat-house, but Kumush said: “You stay here; I will get the wood.”Right away he had a big fire; then he heated stones, and when they were ready to put in the basket of water, he said to Látkakáwas: “Take your baby and lie down in the corner; wrap yourself up and keep still.”When she was wrapped up tight, Kumush put the hot stones into the basket, and when the water boiled, he put in the disk. After a little while the disk came to life, and became the young man again.When Kumush saw how beautiful the man was, he wanted him to die, and never come to life again. He thought he would get the disk and the young man’s beauty. As Kumush wanted, so it was. The young man died.When Látkakáwas unwrapped herself and saw that her husband was dead, she cried, she felt so lonesome. She cried all the time Kumush was gathering wood to burn the body.When the body was half consumed, Látkakáwas asked Kumush to put more wood on the fire. While he was picking up the wood, she strapped the baby on to the board, put the board on her back and sprang into the fire. Kumush saw[6]her just in time to snatch the baby from her back. Látkakáwas and the young man’s body were burned to ashes.The baby cried and cried. Kumush called it by every name he could think of. He called it Wanaga, Lákana, Gailalam-tcaknoles. When he called it Isilámlĕs, it didn’t cry quite as hard; when he said Isis Uknóles, it cried only a little; when he said Isis, the child stopped crying. The name pleased it.Kumush put the child on the ground and looked in the ashes for the disk. He found it and was glad, but he didn’t know where to put it. He put it on his knee, under his arm, on his breast, on his forehead, and on his shoulders, but it wouldn’t stay anywhere. At last he put it on the small of his back. The minute he put it there it grew to his body, and right away he was beautiful and young and bright, the brightest person in the world. The disk had become a part of him, and he was the father of Isis, for the disk was the father of Isis.Then Kumush left Nihlaksi and traveled toward the north. On the road he kept thinking where he was to hide the baby. At last he hid it in his knee, where it appeared as a boil. That night he stayed with two old women who lived in a house at the edge of a village. All night he groaned and complained of the boil on his knee. In the morning he asked one of the old women to press the boil.As soon as she began to press it, she saw bright hair. “What is this?” asked she.“I told you that wasn’t a boil,” said the other old woman.They both pressed, and soon the baby came out. The women washed the child, wrapped it up in a skin blanket and fed it.Right away people found out that old man Kumush had a baby and everybody wanted to know where he got it.Kumush said: “The earth is kind to me. The earth gave this baby to me.”Kumush took Isis and went to live on the southeast side of[7]Tula Lake,1and there he fished and worked and reared Isis.When Isis was old enough to marry, the Mówatwas, a people from the south, brought him a woman named Tókwa (mole). A great many people came with her, for she was a powerful woman, the best worker in the world.When the Mówatwas came, Kumush and Isis were at home. Isis was asleep; he had been fishing, and children were carrying fish from the canoe to the house. As the Mówatwas came in sight, Gäk saw them and said to the children: “I wonder where all those people came from? They will never come here again!”That minute the Mówatwas and Tókwa turned to stone. Kumush and Isis turned to stone, too, but their spirits came out and were men again. Their bodies and the body of Tókwa are at Tula Lake now, near the bodies of the Mówatwas people, who came with Tókwa.Kumush took Isis to Lĕklis,2where he had a house. Then he said to him:“You must be wise, you must be great and powerful and strong. You must go to the top of Lâniswi and swim in the pond of blue water that is there. When you get to the pond, you must pile up stones and then stand and talk to the mountain. Tell it what you think. The mountain will hear you. Everything in the world will hear you and understand you. After you have talked to the mountain, you must dive in the pond. Dive five times to the bottom, and each time drink of the lowest water. When you come out of the pond, build a fire, warm yourself and then sleep. If you dream, don’t tell the dream to any one. When you wake up, start for home. On the road don’t talk to any one, or drink any water. If you do as I tell you, you will be as great as I am and do the things that I do. You will live always. You will be the brightest[8]object in the world. If you endure these things, you will be able to bear every suffering.”Isis put on a dress made of the red bark of the teskot tree, and went to the swimming place on the mountain. At night he piled up stones till he was sleepy; then he stood by the pond and talked to the mountain. After that he dived five times in the swimming pond. The fourth time he felt something big and heavy, but he thought: “My father does not want me to have riches in this world; he wants me to have mind.” The fifth time he felt five kinds of gambling sticks and a large white feather.He came out of the pond, built a fire and warmed himself; then he lay down and went to sleep. He dreamed that he saw the gambling sticks and the feather that he had felt in the water. When he woke up, he started down the mountain. As soon as he got home, he began to tell his dream, but Kumush said: “Don’t tell your dream now. If you were to gamble with some one, then you might tell it.”After this Kumush sent Isis to Slákkosi, a swimming place in a deep basin on the top of a mountain. Kumush said: “When you get there, make a rope of willow bark, tie one end around a tree and the other around your body, and let yourself down into the whirlpool.”When Isis got to the top of the mountain, he went five times around the basin, then he made the rope and let himself down into the water. He went five times around inside the basin. Five times he saw a bright house that was nice to look at, and he saw lights burning in the water. After swimming, he drew himself up and started down the mountain.When Isis got home, Kumush sent him to Gewásni, a pond deep down among the rocks on the summit of Giwásyaina.3Kumush said: “Lok and Dásläts used to swim in Gewásni. When you get to the top of the mountain, you must hold your right hand up and talk to the mountain; ask it for mind and power. The mountain will hear you and great thoughts will go in through the top of your head. When you have talked to[9]Giwásyaina, you can talk all day to other mountains and not get tired or hoarse.”When Isis got to the swimming place, he let himself down with a bark rope, sat on a rock at the edge of the water and washed himself. Then he drew himself up to the top and lay down. He couldn’t go to sleep. He went to the place where he stood when he talked to the mountain, lay down there and tried to sleep, but couldn’t; so he started for home.When Kumush saw Isis coming, he washed himself, and used nice smelling roots; then he took food and went to meet him and fix a resting place for him.After Isis had eaten and rested, Kumush said: “I want you to go to Adáwa. You must go to all the gauwams (swimming places); you will find something in each one. Adáwa is Lok’s pond. He stays in the water there. You must swim on the western side.”When Isis got to the pond, he thought there was a great rock out in the water. He swam out and stood on it. It was Lok and right away he began to shake and move. Isis jumped into the water; into the middle of a terrible whirlpool; the whirlpool was Lok’s medicine. It made Isis’ head feel queer and dizzy. He swam to the western side of the pond, dived five times, got out of the water and went home.Kumush said: “Now you must go to old man Mukus. Before Gäk turned him into a rock Mukus was the greatest gambler in the world. Around him are many rocks, the men he was gambling with when Gäk’s word was spoken.”When Isis started, Kumush put the back of his hand across his forehead, looked toward the place and talked to Mukus, asking him to be good to Isis and give him whatever he had to give.When Isis got to the rock, he stood and waited. After a while old Mukus asked: “What did you come for?”Isis made no answer.Then the old man moved a little, and said: “I heard Kumush talking. I have nothing but gambling to give,—my work. I will give you that.”When Isis got home, he lay down. Kumush washed himself,[10]then gave his son food and drink. The next morning he sent him to get Tcok, the great gambling medicine.Kumush said: “Tcok is round and bright, like the sun. If a lazy man tries to catch it, it will show itself in two or three places at the same time, and he can’t overtake it; but if a strong man, who has been to the swimming ponds, follows it, it will let itself be caught.”Isis went for Tcok, caught it and brought it home. He held it so tightly in his hand that it burned him, and blistered his hand.Kumush said: “You must kill Tcok; if you don’t it will get away from you. You want it, for if a man has it when he is gambling, it gives him strength.”When Isis had killed Tcok, Kumush said: “Now you must go to Káimpeos. On the way you will come to a small pond. Don’t stop there, for it is a bad place. In Káimpeos there are five Kais; they belong to the pond.”When Isis got to Káimpeos, he saw the sun, the moon, the stars and big fires down under the water. He dived five times; each time he felt a Kai right near him. Under the arm of the fifth Kai there were gambling sticks. When Isis came out of the water, he lay down on a rock and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t, so he got up and went home.While Isis was gone, Kumush made a sweat-house, and when Isis returned, he said: “Take off your bark clothes and sweat, then paint your face and body red and put on buckskin clothes and nice beads. You have been to all the swimming places, and you might be a big chief, but I don’t want that. Other people will come and it will be bad here. We will go away where you can keep all the strength the mountains and swimming places have given you, where you won’t get bad and dirty from the earth and people.”They went to the top of a high mountain and built a house among the rocks. The house was red and nice to look at. Kumush thought that people around Tula Lake would see his house, but couldn’t climb up to it. Kumush had the north side, Isis the south side of the house; the door opened toward the east.[11]Kumush didn’t know that Skakas and Nada lived on that mountain, but they did, and both of them fell in love with Isis. They came to the house and neither one of them would go away.“What do you want?” asked Kumush.“I want Isis for a husband,” said Skakas. Nada gave the same answer.“Well,” said Kumush, “I will find out what you can do. Which of you can bring water first from that lake down there?”Both started. Skakas found water on the way, turned around and was back first. When Nada came, she said to Skakas: “I didn’t see you at the lake.”“I got there first; I took some water and came back. We were not there at the same time.”“I am a fast traveler,” said Nada. “It is strange that you got back first.”Isis drank the water Nada brought, but wouldn’t touch the water Skakas gave him.Nada said: “We will go again. This time we will take hold of hands.” They started in the morning, got the water and Nada flew back. Skakas didn’t get back till midday.Isis drank the water Nada brought, and said it was good, but he wouldn’t drink the water Skakas brought. Kumush tore Skakas in pieces and threw the pieces over the cliff into the lake. The pieces are in the lake now; they became rocks.Isis and Kumush didn’t want to live where people could come, so they left their home and traveled toward the northeast. Not far from the house they put down their baskets, fish-spears, canoes and everything they had used in fishing. Those things turned to stone and are there on the cliff to-day. Kumush and Isis traveled for a long time before they came to the river that is now called Lost River. Kumush made a basket and caught a salmon in it. Then he said: “I want salmon always to be in this river, and many of them, so people will have plenty to eat.” At Nusâltgăga he made a basket and caught small fish, and said the same thing, so that there[12]should always be plenty of small fish in the river. He multiplied the histis, a kind of fish which Klamath Indians like.When Isis and Kumush got to the third camping place, Kumush called it Bláielka and the mountain he called Ktáila­wetĕs. He said to Isis: “You must swim in the swimming pond on this mountain, and pile up stones, and talk to the mountain.”Isis went to the pond and while he was in the water he saw nice gambling sticks and felt them touch his body. When he was through swimming and was coming out, Gäk flew by. He saw Isis standing in the water, and he thought: “I wonder where that bright thing in the water came from. It won’t come here again!” That minute Isis was turned to stone, but his spirit escaped, and went to his father’s camping place.Isis and Kumush stayed a long time at Bláielka, then Kumush said: “I must travel around and work; you can stay here.” Kumush left Isis on Dúilast, a mountain on the eastern side of Tula Lake and he started off for the west.While Kumush was gone, many women came to live with Isis. Among his wives were Tókwa, Wéakûs, Djakkonus, Tcíktcikûs, Kládo, Tseks, Dohos, Dúdûte, Tcíkas, Kols, Nada and Wálwilegas. The first wife to have a child was Tcíkas, who had a little boy. Tcíkas was uneasy about Kumush; she was afraid something had happened to him.Isis said: “Nothing can hurt Kumush. He will be here soon. He can go around the world in two days.”The next morning Kumush came, bringing in his hands little bundles of seeds of every kind. He threw those seeds in different directions, and talked to the mountains, the hills, the rivers and springs, to all places, telling them to take the seeds, to care for them and keep them forever. And he told them not to harm his grandson.Isis’ wives were so nice to look at that Kumush fell in love with them and began to think how to get rid of Isis.One day when he was hunting, Isis used his last arrow. Kumush said: “I will make some arrows, but you must get eagle feathers to put on them. When I was coming home I saw an eagle’s nest on the top of a tree. There were eggs in it; the eggs[13]are hatched by this time. You can get some of the young eagles.” And he told him where the tree was.When Isis came to the tree, he took off his buckskin clothes and climbed up to the nest. He found the eagles and threw them to the ground. As he threw the last one, he looked down, and he nearly lost his mind, for at Kumush’s word the tree had grown so tall that it almost touched the sky. Isis’ clothes were under the tree. He saw Kumush come and put them on, then pick up the eagles, and start for home.Before leaving the house, Kumush had said to Isis’ wives: “I am going for wood.” When he came back, the women thought he was Isis. When he asked: “Where is Kumush?” they said: “He went for wood and hasn’t come back.”Kumush hurried the sun down and right away it was dark. All the women except Wálwilegas, Kols, Tcíkas and Tókwa thought he was Isis.The next morning Tcíkas asked Wálwilegas what she thought.“He isn’t Isis,” said Wálwilegas.“That is what I think,” said Tcíkas.Kols cried and tears ran down her cheeks. “Tears,” said she, “are a sign that Isis is in trouble.”“What are you talking about?” asked Kumush. “Hurry up and get me something to eat. I don’t want people to come here to gamble; we will go where they are.”After Kumush had eaten enough, he and all the women, except Wálwilegas, Kols and Tcíkas, started for Pitcowa, the place where Isis always went to gamble. (A broad flat northeast of Tula Lake.)As Kumush traveled, he set fire to the grass; the smoke went crooked. People saw it, and said: “That is not Isis. Isis’ smoke always goes straight up to the sky.”Kumush knew their thoughts. He tried to make the smoke go straight; part went straight and part went crooked.Then they said: “Maybe that is Isis.”When he got near, the people asked: “Where is Kumush?”“He stayed at home; he didn’t want to come.”[14]Some thought: “This man doesn’t look just like Isis,” but they began to gamble with him.When all the women had gone except Wálwilegas and Tcíkas and Kols, Kols began to track her husband. Wálwilegas followed her. Tcíkas put her baby on her back and started for Pitcowa. She felt lonesome. She traveled slowly, digging roots as she went along.Kols tracked Isis to the tree. Then she said: “He is up in this tree, but he must be dead.”“He is alive,” said Wálwilegas. “I hear him breathe. He loved his other wives and didn’t care for us. They have gone off with another man; now he will find out who loves him.”Kols tried to dig the tree up, but couldn’t; then Wálwilegas began to make a basket. When the basket was ready, Kols strapped it on her back and flew up part way to try it. She came back, got something for Isis to eat and bear’s fat to rub him with, then she started again. She flew in circles around the tree, camped one night and reached Isis the next night. He was almost dead. She gave him seeds and rubbed him with bear’s fat. The next morning she put him in the basket and started down; she got home at midday.Kols and Wálwilegas fed Isis well. Every night they rubbed him with bear’s fat and soon he was well again. Then they fixed a sweat-house and he sweated till his skin was nice and soft. It became rough while he was on the tree. After he had sweated, they put nice clothes on him.Isis asked: “How did Tókwa and Nada and the others act while I was lost?”“They didn’t care much,” said Kols; “they were not sorry.”When the people at Pitcowa had gambled long enough, they began to play ball. Some thought that the man they were playing with was Isis; others thought he was Kumush.Kumush had the disk on his back. It looked like a great scar. One day, while the people were disputing, some saying that he was Isis, others that he was Kumush, a man hired a doctor to make the south wind blow. When Kumush ran north after[15]the ball and stooped down to pick it up, the wind raised his blanket and everybody saw the scar. Then they knew Kumush. They shouted, whooped and laughed. They stopped the game and gathered around him.After Isis had sweated, he said: “We will go and see what Kumush is doing.” He went ahead of Kols and Wálwilegas, and as he traveled he set fire to the grass. The smoke went straight up to the sky. People saw the smoke, and said: “That is Isis! Isis is coming now!” Kumush saw the smoke and was scared; he trembled and almost lost his mind.Tcíkas had been camping and digging roots. She was mourning for Isis. The child saw Isis coming and called out “Tsutowas” (father).“Don’t call your father,” said Tcíkas, “your father is dead.”The boy called again, and again. Tcíkas shook him and scolded him.“Why do you do that?” asked Isis.Tcíkas turned and saw Isis. She was glad, for she thought he was lost or dead. “Where were you?” asked she. “How did you get back?”“Wálwilegas and Kols, the wives I didn’t care for, saved me.” Then he told her how Wálwilegas found him in the eagle’s nest, and how she and Kols carried him home and cured him.When Isis got to the gambling place, Kumush wanted to talk to him, wanted to be friendly. But Isis was angry; he wouldn’t let Kumush come near him. He had Kols and Wálwilegas gather wood and build a big fire; then he called to his wives who were with Kumush and told them to come to him. They wouldn’t come, for they were afraid. Then he willed that they should come, and they had to; his word drew them, and they couldn’t help going.He burned their feet and made them red; then he said: “You will no longer be people; you will be birds and will scatter over the world. People will kill you, for you will be good to eat.” They turned into ducks and water birds and flew away. Then Isis threw Kumush into the fire and covered[16]him with burning wood. He burned him to ashes, but in the ashes was the disk.The next morning the morning star, Kumush’s medicine, called out to the disk: “Why do you sleep so long? Get up, old man!” That minute Kumush was alive—he will last as long as the disk and the morning star.Isis knew now that Kumush would never die, that nothing could kill him. Isis wandered off among the mountains, and as he traveled he sang a beautiful song, that no one else could sing. People could imitate it, but they couldn’t repeat it or understand it.Kumush followed Isis everywhere for years. At last he overtook him. He wanted to be kind, and live as before, but Isis said: “After what you did to me you may go wherever you want to in the world, and I will go where I want to. You are not my father. I feel that. I hope that of the people, who are to come into the world hereafter, no father will ever treat his son as you have treated me.”Kumush went to Tula Lake to live. Then Isis turned one of his three faithful wives to a butterfly, another to a badger and the third to a wren, and then he went to live alone on Tcutgósi, a high mountain.[17]

CHARACTERSDáslätsCalifornia lionLátkakáwasDjakkonusA duckLokBearDohosA duckMówatwasSouth wind place peopleDútûteA duckMukusOwlIsisNadaA birdKaiJack rabbitSkakasFree toadKládoDuckTcíkasWrenKolsBadgerTókwaMoleKumushWálwilegasButterfly

Látkakáwas and her five brothers lived on the south side of Klamath Lake. The brothers went every day to fish from an island in the middle of the lake. Látkakáwas stayed at home; she gathered wiwhi seeds and burned the down from them to prepare them as food for her brothers and for herself.

When Látkakáwas was at work, she looked like a common old woman, but when she shook herself and went out of the house, she was young, blue and beautiful.

The “Old Man” (Kumush) lived on the eastern side of Klamath Lake. On the western side of the lake lived many people. Those people often saw Látkakáwas standing on the top of her house, looking blue and nice, but as soon as they went toward her she changed to an old hunchback woman.

The young men of the western village counseled together;[2]then each day they sent one of their number to try to steal up to Látkakáwas and catch her before she could make herself old and ugly. They wanted to talk to her; they wanted to ask her to take one of them for a husband.—Every young man in the western village tried, but Látkakáwas was never young when they came toward her.

One man started before daybreak; he wanted to get near the house and hide till Látkakáwas came out. That day she stayed inside, an old hunchback woman stringing beads. She knew when people were looking at her or thinking of her; she even knew where they were.

Each morning Látkakáwas’ brothers went to the island to catch salmon, and dry them, but as soon as it was dark they came home. One night Látkakáwas said to her eldest brother: “Men come here to watch me, and try to catch me; when they find me hunchback and ugly to look at, they make fun of me. I don’t like that. It makes me feel badly.”

“How soon will you have seeds enough gathered?” asked her brother.

“To-morrow,” said Látkakáwas.

“When the seeds are ready, you will go with us to the island where nobody can bother you,” said her brother.

On the west side of the lake there was a young man as blue and beautiful as Látkakáwas herself. His father kept him in an underground place; no one ever saw him except when he went out to bathe or swim. When all the other young men had tried to get near Látkakáwas, and had failed, the people said to this young man’s father: “Why don’t you send your son? Maybe he could catch that beautiful blue woman.”

When the old man told his son about Látkakáwas, the young man said: “There is no use of my going there. If all the others have failed I should fail, too.”

“You are as blue and nice to look at as Látkakáwas is,” said his father; “maybe she will like you and take you for a husband.”

The old man took his son out of the underground place, washed him and got him ready, made him clothes from a wonderful cap, a cap that could never be destroyed. When the[3]young man put on those clothes, he was beautiful beyond anything in the world; he was blue and gold and green, like the clouds in the sky. He could run in the air and under the ground. He had great power.

When he was ready to start, his father said to him: “When the sun comes to the edge of the sky, Látkakáwas shakes herself and goes to the top of the house to watch it. If you travel under the ground you will get near her before she sees you.”

When Látkakáwas shook herself and stood on top of the house to watch the sun, the young man was near by, under the ground, with one eye looking out. She knew that he was there, but she didn’t change to an old woman. She said to herself: “This man pleases me; he is not like the others. He is the first man who hasn’t laughed and made fun of me.”

The young man watched Látkakáwas for a time and then went home.

When Látkakáwas’ brothers came, she said: “A young man, all blue and gold and green, nice to look at, has been here to watch me, but he didn’t make fun of me as the others did.”

The eldest brother said: “We will move to the island to-morrow. Just at sundown we caught two big salmon; we will go early and dress them, then we’ll come for you. While we are gone, you must pack up the beads and skins.”

In the morning, before it was light, the brothers started for the island. Just as the sun looked up over the edge of the sky, the young man from the west came again. As Látkakáwas shook herself and came out at the smoke hole on top of the house, a light shone in her face. It was so strong that it dazzled her and she turned back. The young man was brighter than before, for he was out of the ground.

When Látkakáwas went into the house, he peeped through a crack and watched her. She knew he was there, but she didn’t turn old; she sat down and assorted her beads according to color. Then she picked up her mats and got ready to go to the island.

Early in the forenoon the five brothers came and began to pull down the house.[4]

The people on the west side of the lake saw them at work and asked one another: “Where are those brothers going? Why are they pulling down their house?”

At midday, when the brothers were ready to start, they spread mats from the house to the canoe, for Látkakáwas to walk on. When she got into the canoe at the edge of the lake, she forgot all about the young man, forgot that she had fallen in love with him that morning.

The brothers pushed the canoe to get it into the water, but they couldn’t move it; the young man was holding it. He was right there by them, but they didn’t see him. They worked for a long time. Finally he let go of the canoe, and it started, but he pulled it back. He let them push it out a second time, and a second time he pulled it back. They started many times but each time, before they could get out into the lake, they were back at the shore. They strove in that way till the middle of the afternoon, then the young man freed the canoe and the brothers rowed toward the island.

As the canoe went on, the young man swam behind it in the form of a salmon. He was in love with Látkakáwas, and he wanted to look at her. She sat in the middle of the canoe with one of her brothers; two brothers sat at the end of the canoe and two in front.

As they rowed along, one of the brothers saw a beautiful salmon, all blue and gold and green. He speared it and pulled it into the canoe, and that moment the salmon turned to a young man; but right away he died.

Látkakáwas cried and blamed her brothers. She knew the young man, and she felt badly. The brothers felt badly, too. They went back to the shore and the next day they put their beads and mats in one big pile and burned them, together with the young man’s body. When the pile was burned, there was a bright disk in the ashes. The disk was as bright as the sun in the heavens. This was the crown of the young man’s head.

Látkakáwas saw it, and said: “Look, what is that bright thing in the ashes?”

The brother who had speared the salmon took up the disk, gave it to Látkakáwas, and said: “Take it to Kumush. He is[5]in his sweat-house at Nihlaksi. Kumush can bring a man to life if he has only one hair from his head.”

Látkakáwas put the disk in her bosom, then she gave each of her brothers a bundle of bone head-scratchers, and said: “If Kumush doesn’t bring my husband to life, you will never see me again.”

Látkakáwas traveled all day; when night came she camped at Koáskise, not far from Kumush’s sweat-house.

The next morning, just as the sun came up, Látkakáwas gave birth to a child, a wonderfully beautiful boy. She strapped the baby on a board, put the board on her back and went to Kumush’s sweat-house.

When Kumush asked why she came, she took the disk out of her bosom, and said: “I want you to bring this to life.”

When Kumush saw the disk, he thought he had never seen anything that was half as bright and beautiful. Látkakáwas wanted to gather wood to build a fire in the sweat-house, but Kumush said: “You stay here; I will get the wood.”

Right away he had a big fire; then he heated stones, and when they were ready to put in the basket of water, he said to Látkakáwas: “Take your baby and lie down in the corner; wrap yourself up and keep still.”

When she was wrapped up tight, Kumush put the hot stones into the basket, and when the water boiled, he put in the disk. After a little while the disk came to life, and became the young man again.

When Kumush saw how beautiful the man was, he wanted him to die, and never come to life again. He thought he would get the disk and the young man’s beauty. As Kumush wanted, so it was. The young man died.

When Látkakáwas unwrapped herself and saw that her husband was dead, she cried, she felt so lonesome. She cried all the time Kumush was gathering wood to burn the body.

When the body was half consumed, Látkakáwas asked Kumush to put more wood on the fire. While he was picking up the wood, she strapped the baby on to the board, put the board on her back and sprang into the fire. Kumush saw[6]her just in time to snatch the baby from her back. Látkakáwas and the young man’s body were burned to ashes.

The baby cried and cried. Kumush called it by every name he could think of. He called it Wanaga, Lákana, Gailalam-tcaknoles. When he called it Isilámlĕs, it didn’t cry quite as hard; when he said Isis Uknóles, it cried only a little; when he said Isis, the child stopped crying. The name pleased it.

Kumush put the child on the ground and looked in the ashes for the disk. He found it and was glad, but he didn’t know where to put it. He put it on his knee, under his arm, on his breast, on his forehead, and on his shoulders, but it wouldn’t stay anywhere. At last he put it on the small of his back. The minute he put it there it grew to his body, and right away he was beautiful and young and bright, the brightest person in the world. The disk had become a part of him, and he was the father of Isis, for the disk was the father of Isis.

Then Kumush left Nihlaksi and traveled toward the north. On the road he kept thinking where he was to hide the baby. At last he hid it in his knee, where it appeared as a boil. That night he stayed with two old women who lived in a house at the edge of a village. All night he groaned and complained of the boil on his knee. In the morning he asked one of the old women to press the boil.

As soon as she began to press it, she saw bright hair. “What is this?” asked she.

“I told you that wasn’t a boil,” said the other old woman.

They both pressed, and soon the baby came out. The women washed the child, wrapped it up in a skin blanket and fed it.

Right away people found out that old man Kumush had a baby and everybody wanted to know where he got it.

Kumush said: “The earth is kind to me. The earth gave this baby to me.”

Kumush took Isis and went to live on the southeast side of[7]Tula Lake,1and there he fished and worked and reared Isis.

When Isis was old enough to marry, the Mówatwas, a people from the south, brought him a woman named Tókwa (mole). A great many people came with her, for she was a powerful woman, the best worker in the world.

When the Mówatwas came, Kumush and Isis were at home. Isis was asleep; he had been fishing, and children were carrying fish from the canoe to the house. As the Mówatwas came in sight, Gäk saw them and said to the children: “I wonder where all those people came from? They will never come here again!”

That minute the Mówatwas and Tókwa turned to stone. Kumush and Isis turned to stone, too, but their spirits came out and were men again. Their bodies and the body of Tókwa are at Tula Lake now, near the bodies of the Mówatwas people, who came with Tókwa.

Kumush took Isis to Lĕklis,2where he had a house. Then he said to him:

“You must be wise, you must be great and powerful and strong. You must go to the top of Lâniswi and swim in the pond of blue water that is there. When you get to the pond, you must pile up stones and then stand and talk to the mountain. Tell it what you think. The mountain will hear you. Everything in the world will hear you and understand you. After you have talked to the mountain, you must dive in the pond. Dive five times to the bottom, and each time drink of the lowest water. When you come out of the pond, build a fire, warm yourself and then sleep. If you dream, don’t tell the dream to any one. When you wake up, start for home. On the road don’t talk to any one, or drink any water. If you do as I tell you, you will be as great as I am and do the things that I do. You will live always. You will be the brightest[8]object in the world. If you endure these things, you will be able to bear every suffering.”

Isis put on a dress made of the red bark of the teskot tree, and went to the swimming place on the mountain. At night he piled up stones till he was sleepy; then he stood by the pond and talked to the mountain. After that he dived five times in the swimming pond. The fourth time he felt something big and heavy, but he thought: “My father does not want me to have riches in this world; he wants me to have mind.” The fifth time he felt five kinds of gambling sticks and a large white feather.

He came out of the pond, built a fire and warmed himself; then he lay down and went to sleep. He dreamed that he saw the gambling sticks and the feather that he had felt in the water. When he woke up, he started down the mountain. As soon as he got home, he began to tell his dream, but Kumush said: “Don’t tell your dream now. If you were to gamble with some one, then you might tell it.”

After this Kumush sent Isis to Slákkosi, a swimming place in a deep basin on the top of a mountain. Kumush said: “When you get there, make a rope of willow bark, tie one end around a tree and the other around your body, and let yourself down into the whirlpool.”

When Isis got to the top of the mountain, he went five times around the basin, then he made the rope and let himself down into the water. He went five times around inside the basin. Five times he saw a bright house that was nice to look at, and he saw lights burning in the water. After swimming, he drew himself up and started down the mountain.

When Isis got home, Kumush sent him to Gewásni, a pond deep down among the rocks on the summit of Giwásyaina.3

Kumush said: “Lok and Dásläts used to swim in Gewásni. When you get to the top of the mountain, you must hold your right hand up and talk to the mountain; ask it for mind and power. The mountain will hear you and great thoughts will go in through the top of your head. When you have talked to[9]Giwásyaina, you can talk all day to other mountains and not get tired or hoarse.”

When Isis got to the swimming place, he let himself down with a bark rope, sat on a rock at the edge of the water and washed himself. Then he drew himself up to the top and lay down. He couldn’t go to sleep. He went to the place where he stood when he talked to the mountain, lay down there and tried to sleep, but couldn’t; so he started for home.

When Kumush saw Isis coming, he washed himself, and used nice smelling roots; then he took food and went to meet him and fix a resting place for him.

After Isis had eaten and rested, Kumush said: “I want you to go to Adáwa. You must go to all the gauwams (swimming places); you will find something in each one. Adáwa is Lok’s pond. He stays in the water there. You must swim on the western side.”

When Isis got to the pond, he thought there was a great rock out in the water. He swam out and stood on it. It was Lok and right away he began to shake and move. Isis jumped into the water; into the middle of a terrible whirlpool; the whirlpool was Lok’s medicine. It made Isis’ head feel queer and dizzy. He swam to the western side of the pond, dived five times, got out of the water and went home.

Kumush said: “Now you must go to old man Mukus. Before Gäk turned him into a rock Mukus was the greatest gambler in the world. Around him are many rocks, the men he was gambling with when Gäk’s word was spoken.”

When Isis started, Kumush put the back of his hand across his forehead, looked toward the place and talked to Mukus, asking him to be good to Isis and give him whatever he had to give.

When Isis got to the rock, he stood and waited. After a while old Mukus asked: “What did you come for?”

Isis made no answer.

Then the old man moved a little, and said: “I heard Kumush talking. I have nothing but gambling to give,—my work. I will give you that.”

When Isis got home, he lay down. Kumush washed himself,[10]then gave his son food and drink. The next morning he sent him to get Tcok, the great gambling medicine.

Kumush said: “Tcok is round and bright, like the sun. If a lazy man tries to catch it, it will show itself in two or three places at the same time, and he can’t overtake it; but if a strong man, who has been to the swimming ponds, follows it, it will let itself be caught.”

Isis went for Tcok, caught it and brought it home. He held it so tightly in his hand that it burned him, and blistered his hand.

Kumush said: “You must kill Tcok; if you don’t it will get away from you. You want it, for if a man has it when he is gambling, it gives him strength.”

When Isis had killed Tcok, Kumush said: “Now you must go to Káimpeos. On the way you will come to a small pond. Don’t stop there, for it is a bad place. In Káimpeos there are five Kais; they belong to the pond.”

When Isis got to Káimpeos, he saw the sun, the moon, the stars and big fires down under the water. He dived five times; each time he felt a Kai right near him. Under the arm of the fifth Kai there were gambling sticks. When Isis came out of the water, he lay down on a rock and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t, so he got up and went home.

While Isis was gone, Kumush made a sweat-house, and when Isis returned, he said: “Take off your bark clothes and sweat, then paint your face and body red and put on buckskin clothes and nice beads. You have been to all the swimming places, and you might be a big chief, but I don’t want that. Other people will come and it will be bad here. We will go away where you can keep all the strength the mountains and swimming places have given you, where you won’t get bad and dirty from the earth and people.”

They went to the top of a high mountain and built a house among the rocks. The house was red and nice to look at. Kumush thought that people around Tula Lake would see his house, but couldn’t climb up to it. Kumush had the north side, Isis the south side of the house; the door opened toward the east.[11]

Kumush didn’t know that Skakas and Nada lived on that mountain, but they did, and both of them fell in love with Isis. They came to the house and neither one of them would go away.

“What do you want?” asked Kumush.

“I want Isis for a husband,” said Skakas. Nada gave the same answer.

“Well,” said Kumush, “I will find out what you can do. Which of you can bring water first from that lake down there?”

Both started. Skakas found water on the way, turned around and was back first. When Nada came, she said to Skakas: “I didn’t see you at the lake.”

“I got there first; I took some water and came back. We were not there at the same time.”

“I am a fast traveler,” said Nada. “It is strange that you got back first.”

Isis drank the water Nada brought, but wouldn’t touch the water Skakas gave him.

Nada said: “We will go again. This time we will take hold of hands.” They started in the morning, got the water and Nada flew back. Skakas didn’t get back till midday.

Isis drank the water Nada brought, and said it was good, but he wouldn’t drink the water Skakas brought. Kumush tore Skakas in pieces and threw the pieces over the cliff into the lake. The pieces are in the lake now; they became rocks.

Isis and Kumush didn’t want to live where people could come, so they left their home and traveled toward the northeast. Not far from the house they put down their baskets, fish-spears, canoes and everything they had used in fishing. Those things turned to stone and are there on the cliff to-day. Kumush and Isis traveled for a long time before they came to the river that is now called Lost River. Kumush made a basket and caught a salmon in it. Then he said: “I want salmon always to be in this river, and many of them, so people will have plenty to eat.” At Nusâltgăga he made a basket and caught small fish, and said the same thing, so that there[12]should always be plenty of small fish in the river. He multiplied the histis, a kind of fish which Klamath Indians like.

When Isis and Kumush got to the third camping place, Kumush called it Bláielka and the mountain he called Ktáila­wetĕs. He said to Isis: “You must swim in the swimming pond on this mountain, and pile up stones, and talk to the mountain.”

Isis went to the pond and while he was in the water he saw nice gambling sticks and felt them touch his body. When he was through swimming and was coming out, Gäk flew by. He saw Isis standing in the water, and he thought: “I wonder where that bright thing in the water came from. It won’t come here again!” That minute Isis was turned to stone, but his spirit escaped, and went to his father’s camping place.

Isis and Kumush stayed a long time at Bláielka, then Kumush said: “I must travel around and work; you can stay here.” Kumush left Isis on Dúilast, a mountain on the eastern side of Tula Lake and he started off for the west.

While Kumush was gone, many women came to live with Isis. Among his wives were Tókwa, Wéakûs, Djakkonus, Tcíktcikûs, Kládo, Tseks, Dohos, Dúdûte, Tcíkas, Kols, Nada and Wálwilegas. The first wife to have a child was Tcíkas, who had a little boy. Tcíkas was uneasy about Kumush; she was afraid something had happened to him.

Isis said: “Nothing can hurt Kumush. He will be here soon. He can go around the world in two days.”

The next morning Kumush came, bringing in his hands little bundles of seeds of every kind. He threw those seeds in different directions, and talked to the mountains, the hills, the rivers and springs, to all places, telling them to take the seeds, to care for them and keep them forever. And he told them not to harm his grandson.

Isis’ wives were so nice to look at that Kumush fell in love with them and began to think how to get rid of Isis.

One day when he was hunting, Isis used his last arrow. Kumush said: “I will make some arrows, but you must get eagle feathers to put on them. When I was coming home I saw an eagle’s nest on the top of a tree. There were eggs in it; the eggs[13]are hatched by this time. You can get some of the young eagles.” And he told him where the tree was.

When Isis came to the tree, he took off his buckskin clothes and climbed up to the nest. He found the eagles and threw them to the ground. As he threw the last one, he looked down, and he nearly lost his mind, for at Kumush’s word the tree had grown so tall that it almost touched the sky. Isis’ clothes were under the tree. He saw Kumush come and put them on, then pick up the eagles, and start for home.

Before leaving the house, Kumush had said to Isis’ wives: “I am going for wood.” When he came back, the women thought he was Isis. When he asked: “Where is Kumush?” they said: “He went for wood and hasn’t come back.”

Kumush hurried the sun down and right away it was dark. All the women except Wálwilegas, Kols, Tcíkas and Tókwa thought he was Isis.

The next morning Tcíkas asked Wálwilegas what she thought.

“He isn’t Isis,” said Wálwilegas.

“That is what I think,” said Tcíkas.

Kols cried and tears ran down her cheeks. “Tears,” said she, “are a sign that Isis is in trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Kumush. “Hurry up and get me something to eat. I don’t want people to come here to gamble; we will go where they are.”

After Kumush had eaten enough, he and all the women, except Wálwilegas, Kols and Tcíkas, started for Pitcowa, the place where Isis always went to gamble. (A broad flat northeast of Tula Lake.)

As Kumush traveled, he set fire to the grass; the smoke went crooked. People saw it, and said: “That is not Isis. Isis’ smoke always goes straight up to the sky.”

Kumush knew their thoughts. He tried to make the smoke go straight; part went straight and part went crooked.

Then they said: “Maybe that is Isis.”

When he got near, the people asked: “Where is Kumush?”

“He stayed at home; he didn’t want to come.”[14]

Some thought: “This man doesn’t look just like Isis,” but they began to gamble with him.

When all the women had gone except Wálwilegas and Tcíkas and Kols, Kols began to track her husband. Wálwilegas followed her. Tcíkas put her baby on her back and started for Pitcowa. She felt lonesome. She traveled slowly, digging roots as she went along.

Kols tracked Isis to the tree. Then she said: “He is up in this tree, but he must be dead.”

“He is alive,” said Wálwilegas. “I hear him breathe. He loved his other wives and didn’t care for us. They have gone off with another man; now he will find out who loves him.”

Kols tried to dig the tree up, but couldn’t; then Wálwilegas began to make a basket. When the basket was ready, Kols strapped it on her back and flew up part way to try it. She came back, got something for Isis to eat and bear’s fat to rub him with, then she started again. She flew in circles around the tree, camped one night and reached Isis the next night. He was almost dead. She gave him seeds and rubbed him with bear’s fat. The next morning she put him in the basket and started down; she got home at midday.

Kols and Wálwilegas fed Isis well. Every night they rubbed him with bear’s fat and soon he was well again. Then they fixed a sweat-house and he sweated till his skin was nice and soft. It became rough while he was on the tree. After he had sweated, they put nice clothes on him.

Isis asked: “How did Tókwa and Nada and the others act while I was lost?”

“They didn’t care much,” said Kols; “they were not sorry.”

When the people at Pitcowa had gambled long enough, they began to play ball. Some thought that the man they were playing with was Isis; others thought he was Kumush.

Kumush had the disk on his back. It looked like a great scar. One day, while the people were disputing, some saying that he was Isis, others that he was Kumush, a man hired a doctor to make the south wind blow. When Kumush ran north after[15]the ball and stooped down to pick it up, the wind raised his blanket and everybody saw the scar. Then they knew Kumush. They shouted, whooped and laughed. They stopped the game and gathered around him.

After Isis had sweated, he said: “We will go and see what Kumush is doing.” He went ahead of Kols and Wálwilegas, and as he traveled he set fire to the grass. The smoke went straight up to the sky. People saw the smoke, and said: “That is Isis! Isis is coming now!” Kumush saw the smoke and was scared; he trembled and almost lost his mind.

Tcíkas had been camping and digging roots. She was mourning for Isis. The child saw Isis coming and called out “Tsutowas” (father).

“Don’t call your father,” said Tcíkas, “your father is dead.”

The boy called again, and again. Tcíkas shook him and scolded him.

“Why do you do that?” asked Isis.

Tcíkas turned and saw Isis. She was glad, for she thought he was lost or dead. “Where were you?” asked she. “How did you get back?”

“Wálwilegas and Kols, the wives I didn’t care for, saved me.” Then he told her how Wálwilegas found him in the eagle’s nest, and how she and Kols carried him home and cured him.

When Isis got to the gambling place, Kumush wanted to talk to him, wanted to be friendly. But Isis was angry; he wouldn’t let Kumush come near him. He had Kols and Wálwilegas gather wood and build a big fire; then he called to his wives who were with Kumush and told them to come to him. They wouldn’t come, for they were afraid. Then he willed that they should come, and they had to; his word drew them, and they couldn’t help going.

He burned their feet and made them red; then he said: “You will no longer be people; you will be birds and will scatter over the world. People will kill you, for you will be good to eat.” They turned into ducks and water birds and flew away. Then Isis threw Kumush into the fire and covered[16]him with burning wood. He burned him to ashes, but in the ashes was the disk.

The next morning the morning star, Kumush’s medicine, called out to the disk: “Why do you sleep so long? Get up, old man!” That minute Kumush was alive—he will last as long as the disk and the morning star.

Isis knew now that Kumush would never die, that nothing could kill him. Isis wandered off among the mountains, and as he traveled he sang a beautiful song, that no one else could sing. People could imitate it, but they couldn’t repeat it or understand it.

Kumush followed Isis everywhere for years. At last he overtook him. He wanted to be kind, and live as before, but Isis said: “After what you did to me you may go wherever you want to in the world, and I will go where I want to. You are not my father. I feel that. I hope that of the people, who are to come into the world hereafter, no father will ever treat his son as you have treated me.”

Kumush went to Tula Lake to live. Then Isis turned one of his three faithful wives to a butterfly, another to a badger and the third to a wren, and then he went to live alone on Tcutgósi, a high mountain.[17]

1Different 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.↑2The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.↑3A mountain in Oregon.↑

1Different 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.↑2The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.↑3A mountain in Oregon.↑

1Different 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.↑

1Different 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.↑

2The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.↑

2The rocky summit of a mountain near Lake Tula.↑

3A mountain in Oregon.↑

3A mountain in Oregon.↑

Back to IndexNext