5. (Contest with the Ke´let.)

Sacred-Texts Asia
  

5. (Contest with the Ke´let.)

Free Translation.

 One time there was a man whose sons were all dying. He became old, and was left without sons. Then in his old age a male child was born to him. The child grew, and began to construct a boat. While the father was sleeping, the boy would work on the boat.

 Then he set off, departed far yonder.³ On his journey he saw a man p. 43 who was on an island. "Here, come hither!" — "I will." He came. While he was travelling, he had caught a small seal.

 "Oh, let us play, let us have some fun!" — "Yes!" Oh, then the little man hid in a boot. The other one was searching for him. He was nowhere. Then he fell out (of the boot). "Oh, here I am! Now it is your turn." The other one became a house. "Where is he, the source of trouble?" — "Oh, here I am!" He found him.

 "Now let us eat some liver!" — "Oh, all right! but I will go and bring my knife from the boat." He brought the knife, and at the same time he put into his bosom the little seal lately killed by him. He put it into his bosom, together with some blood. "Oh, I will be first!" He pretended to rip open his abdomen with the knife and to eat (his own) liver. He cut the seal's liver and ate it. "Now it is your turn." All at once the other one ripped open his abdomen, and so died, perished, killed himself.

 The man set off, and saw another jaw-bone house. There an old ke´lẹ-woman p. 44 was cooking heads. He entered. "What is the matter? Who has pushed his way into our house? Then he entered, and sat down on a pillow. When he sat down the ke´lẹ-woman came to meet him. She carried her woman's knife, which was covered with coagulated blood, and began to whet it. All at once he rushed upon the one who was whetting the knife, snatched away her [woman's] knife, hit her on the head, and so she perished. He murdered her.

 Then he went out, set off again, and saw a house. He came to that house. Clothes were scattered about in it. Then suddenly a voice came from the hearth. "Oh, there he is! [Also] this one murders the procurers of game. Those whom he murdered were also procurers of our food and of game."

 Then a head appeared. He hit the head with a harpoon. Then a ke´lẹ-man from underground pulled it down, together with the thong, and made it go underground. He was moving along underground. Another small jaw-bone p. 45 house stood directly opposite. There he set the ke´lẹ free. The latter passed on, and he entered the jaw-bone house.

 Two eyeless old women were sitting there. He drew out his penis, directed it toward the nose of one of them, and swung it. The old woman said, "Halloo" — "Ho!" — "Really, something made me think of the time when I had a husband!" — "Is that so?"

 He killed one of the old women, and flayed her, beginning at the anus. The body he threw on a dung-hill. The skin he put on.

 The people came, looking for a shaman. "What do you want?" — "Oh, (you have said) enough! A man's head (is aching). . . . By the way, why has your jaw become so long?" — "Oh, has it really become so long? Well, now, you go home. I will come quick enough."

 Shortly afterwards he departed. "Let the one whose head aches sit up! Oh, this here!" And all at once he hit him on the head with a harpoon-point and killed him. so he died. He killed many more, destroyed a houseful. Then he came out and departed far yonder. He went home.

p. 46

 He reached home, and his parents rejoiced. He said, "Oh, indeed! I have destroyed some of the murderers." Ended. I have killed the wind.

Told by Rịke´wġi, a Maritime Chukchee man, at Mariinsky Post, in October, 1900.

Footnotes

p. 42

³ Ġä´nqan refers to the motion to an indefinite, very distant place.