XLIX.

p. 346

Formula of Medicine for Spoiled Stomach. ¹

p. 349

Yīdetūwiñyai lived here at the end of the world toward the south. He travelled over the world all day long. He took care of the people who died. He ate whatever he found along the river, even the dead things.

One time when he came to the middle of the world he was rather weak. When he awoke in the morning he felt just as badly, but nevertheless he went over the world as usual. The next night he was just as tired and in the morning he was even worse. That which he had been in the habit of eating along the river had caught him. The next day he was still worse. "I won't just die here in a day without doing something," he thought. He started from the south to come down this way. When he was at the middle of the world, he went to sleep. After he awoke he went on a little farther until he came to Natcilyeūwdiñ, where he died. Only the bones of his arms and legs were clinging to his trunk.

After a time he came to life again. When he opened his eyes he thought, "What is that white thing standing up there? I must have done this for the Indians who are to come into existence," he thought. Then he crawled on his elbows to the white thing he saw standing up. It was dark when he had succeeded in crawling there. Here to the northeast from us dentalia's pond of water lies, in which a yellow pine stands. When he had reached the butt of the tree, he scraped off some of the inner bark and made an infusion of it. He drank some of it and rubbed his arms and legs with it.

At night the dentalia eat that yellow pine. They eat as far as the branches of the top. The abalones jump up under the top. These are the ones that eat it up. When morning comes it stands in the water just a naked white tree. He thought, "A second time, I am going, to spend the night here, I am going to get well." When the sun went down in the west the wind blew on the tree and it grew again. Across to the south the sound of the wind went along. Across to the north, too, the

p. 350

wind went along. Then he thought, "I wish a man may not grow up poor who knows my medicine and does as I did, even if his stomach is spoiled."

Then he went home here to the end of the world toward the south from which he had started out. "I can't stay here," he thought. "It is getting near to the time when Indians are to come into existence. Anyway they will talk about me. There will not be many who will know my formula." Then he tied up his house and his sweat-house. He poked a stick under them. "Here across to the north I am going," he thought. Here across to the north he came to have ten dances.

There he became lost. He was afraid of the bad Indians who were going to come into existence.

Footnotes

346:1 Told at Hupa, December 1901, by Emma Dusky.