31. Raven, Part IV

Now Raven went farther and came to a woman and a little girl all alone. She was crying and Raven asked her, "What are you crying about?" "I have lost all of my friends. I am all alone here with my little girl. The people kept going off hunting or fishing and never come back. What has happened to them I do not know." Then Raven said to the girl, "Do you know the thing with which they make fire?" She said "No," for they had kept their fires all night since the other people were gone. Then Raven showed her how to make fire with the fire drill. He said, "Drill away until you get a lot of this fine stuff. Then take some and eat it."

After the girl had done this she became pregnant and gave birth to a male child whom they called Fire-drill's son (Tû'lî-yA'dî). Then Raven said to her, "There is a cold spring back here. Bathe your little one in it every day, and he will grow up very fast." To this day they call that spring Water-that-makes-one-grow. The woman bathed him as directed and he soon grew up into a man very skilful at work of all kinds. Finally he asked his mother: "Mother, is this the way you have always been? Didn't you have a father, mother, and friends?" But she said, "We have always been this way." He was so bright that she would not tell him. Then the child went on asking, "Whose houses are those? I think that you had friends who have all died off, and you will not tell me." So his grandmother finally told him what had happened.

This boy was a good shot with arrows, but he said, "What can I do? All the canoes lying here are old and broken." In the night, however, his father, Fire-drill, appeared to him in a dream and said, "Take one of those old canoes up into the woods and cover it with brush. No matter how old it is. Do it." The morning after he had done this, he went there and found a very pretty little canoe with all things in it that he needed. Then his father appeared to him again, pulled the root of a burned tree out of the ground and made it into a little dog for him. He called it GAnt (Burnt), and it could scent things from a great distance. Although small it was as powerful as a bear. He also gave his son a bow, and arrows pointed with obsidian(?). Finally he gave him a very powerful club called QôtAcâ'yî-q!us.

p. 95

Now he thought of what his grandmother had told him, took his canoe down, and prepared to go away. He told his mother that he might be gone for two days and said, "Take care of this fire drill. Hang it in a safe place overhead, and, if I am killed, it will fall." He went along on the water shooting at birds and suddenly saw a canoe coming toward him. "There is the thing that has killed all of my mother's friends," he thought. Then he began talking to his dog, his club, and his bow and arrows, all of which could understand him.

The man coming toward him had only one eye, placed in the middle of his face and from this fact was called LêcAwâ'gî (Man-with-one-eye). He was a very big man whose home was in a cliff. Then he said to the boy, "Is this you, my nephew?" He answered, "It is I." "Where did you come from?" "From my uncle's village." "Yes, I know you." The one-eyed man could read the boy's thoughts and said to him, "It was not I who killed your uncles and your mother's friends. It was the East wind and the North wind." He mentioned all of the winds. But the boy knew that this big man was after him, and he knew what he meant by talking to him so kindly. Then the big man said, "Let us trade arrows." "Oh! no, my arrows are better than yours. They cost a great deal." One of the boy's arrows was named Heart-stopper (Têq!-gôts), because a person's heart stopped beating the instant it touched his body. Another was pointed with porcupine quills, and a third with bark. The big man made the boy believe that his arrow points were sea urchin spines, but in reality they were only the seed vessels of fireweed. This man was a bad shaman. He held his arrow points up, and said, "Do you see these arrows?" He could see that the points were all moving. Then the boy said, "It is wonderful, but my arrows are not like that. They are only good for shooting birds." Now the shaman's object was to get Heart-stopper. Finally the boy said to the shaman, "Look here, you call yourself my uncle. That is how you did away with my uncles and my mother's friends, is it? You will never make away with me so." That angered the big man, and before they knew it both had their arrows in hand, but the boy was the quicker and killed his antagonist; the dog helped him. Then the boy took the big man's tongue out and burned his body. All this time his mother was worrying about him.

Then he paddled along by the shore and heard some one calling to him. He thought, "There is another bad man." So he went to the place and discovered on a very steep cliff falling sheer into the water an aperture with red paint around it and devil clubs tied into a ring hanging close by. Some one inside of this invited him in, and, as he was very brave and cared for nothing, he went up to the

p. 96

entrance. The person who lived there was the wife of the man he had killed. She had seen his canoe passing and thought, "He must have killed my husband." So she said, "Your aunt's husband went across that way." And the boy said, "I have seen your husband." This woman's name was Knife-hand (DjîwAn-yîs!), because she had a knife on each hand. She said to the boy, "You better come in here and let me give you food before you go on." "All right," he said. So he entered and found her cooking the parts of a human being. She called the ends of its fingers, "crab apples," its eyes, "berries," etc. When he told her that he did not eat that sort of food, she at once said, "Well! let us have a fight then. We will kill each other." He agreed and she went to a large rock where he could hear her drawing both hands back and forth to sharpen them. As soon as she had finished, she threw her hand at him, but he jumped aside so quickly that it stuck in the spot where he had been sitting, and, when she drew her hand away, the knife remained there. Then the boy jumped forward, seized it, and threw it back with such good aim that it killed her. He also cut her tongue out. He had no more than finished with her, however, than he noticed that the entrance hole was growing smaller and smaller. So he made himself small also, crept into one of the ermine skins he had tied in his hair, and ran out. When he came home again with his canoe loaded down with seal and deer, his mother and grandmother were very glad to see him, for they had been weeping for him and worrying about him ever since he left. Now he told them not to worry any longer because he had killed the bad people who destroyed their friends.

Next he said to his mother, "Mother, do not be afraid to tell me. What was it that killed my uncles when they went back here hunting?" By and by he went back into the woods to hunt and saw smoke rising a long distance off. He came to a house and entered. There he saw a very old woman called Old-mole-woman (K!AgA'kqô câ'nAk^u). As soon as she saw the boy this woman said, "My grandson what is it that you are after?" The boy felt that she was an honest old woman and said, "I am looking for the person that killed my uncles and all of my mother's friends." Then she told him to come in and eat. She picked a small piece of salmon out from between her teeth which at once turned into a whole salmon. That was the way she got anything she wanted, and it was the only way she got her food. Then she said to the boy, "Grandson, it is pretty hard to get at the beings that murdered your uncles. They are the hawks (kîdjû'k). You must find their nests, which are very high up, and watch until the old birds go away, leaving their two young ones." When he came to the nest, however, he saw that the old birds were away, so he went up to the young ones and said to them, "What do you live on?" The birds showed him numbers

p. 97

of human skulls and other human bones lying about the base of the tree and said, "That is what we live on." They also said, "Our father and our mother always come just at daybreak. You can not see them because they come in clouds. Our mother comes over the mountain in a yellow cloud and our father comes in a black cloud." Then he said to the birds, "Do not tell about me or I will kill you," and they believed he would do it.

Suddenly the boy saw the yellow cloud coming. He distinguished the mother bird bringing a human body for her children to eat. Then he killed her and threw her down to the foot of the tree along with the body she was carrying. After that he saw the black cloud coming and presently distinguished the father bird. The father bird said to the young ones, "Where is your mother?" and they answered, "Our mother dropped the dead body she was bringing and went down after it." As he was sitting there talking the boy killed him also and threw his body down. Then he said to the little birds, "You must never kill people any more or live on human flesh. I will go and get something for you to eat until you are strong enough." So he went out hunting and brought them a lot of ground hogs, saying to them, "This is what you are to live upon." So these birds now live only on ground-hog meat. They do not live on human flesh any more. They kill their victims with rocks, and a person who is about to become rich will see them throw one of these. Then he picks it up and it brings him good luck.

After that he went back to the old woman and told her what he had done, and she was very happy to learn that these dangerous birds were killed. He said to her, "I am going back to my mother and grandmother. I and my dog have obtained a great deal of food for them." He also gave a quantity of food to the old woman who had helped him. His mother and grandmother were very glad when they saw him come back with the skins of those birds and a quantity of provisions.

Now Fire-drill's son collected enough food and grease in boxes to last his mother and grandmother all their lives and said, "Mother, I am going to leave you forever. I was not put here to be with you always. I have done what I wanted to do. If what you have hanging overhead falls, you may know that you will never see me again. But do not worry, for it is my duty to leave you." Then he went away.

As he was traveling along from that place, Fire-drill's son saw some one ahead of him called Dry-cloud (Gus!-xûk). He was able to travel very fast, and he chased it. As he was running along he came to the mink people. He ran along again and came to the marten people. Both kept saying to him, "We, want you to be our

p. 98

friend," but he paid no attention to them and kept on pursuing Dry-cloud. Then he came to the wolf people and stayed there.

One of the wolf chiefs thought a great deal of Fire-drill's son. One time the wolves began talking about all those things that can run very fast, and finally they spoke about the mountain goats, how they can travel about easily among the cliffs, and said that they were going out to hunt them. When they set out, all ran hard to see who could kill the first one, but Fire-drill's son's dog killed a great number before anyone could get near them, so many, in fact, that Fire-drill's son took only the leaf lard home to show how many he had gotten. Then the wolves all went up and brought down the dead goats, and they felt very much ashamed that they, who were noted runners and hunters, had gotten nothing. They wondered what they could do to get even with Fire-drill's son. Then they took a quantity of long stringy vines called mountain-eel (cayalî't!î), made them into rings and began playing with them. They would let these roll down the sides of the mountains and jump through them when they were at full speed. Anyone who got caught in one of these would be cut in two.

Fire-drill's son's wolf friend said to him, however, "My friend, don't go near those people that are playing. You do not know anything about the things they are using. They will kill you." He answered, "No, I will not play with them, but let us watch them." So they went out and watched them. Then Fire-drill's son said to his dog, "Now, you play there and throw it as high as you can." So the dog played with it and threw it as high as he could. It was a fine moonlight night, and the ring rolled right up to the moon, where it became the ring you see there whenever there is going to be a change in weather. ^a After that his friend, the wolf chief, said to the rest of the wolves, "You know that this son of Fire-drill is a wonderful fellow. He can do anything. Do not try to injure him in anyway, but treat him as a friend. " ^b

After that Fire-drill's son and his wolf friend went off together, and the wolf said, "Some strange being walks around here. Don't

p. 99

run after him or he will take your life." It was Dry-cloud that he meant. "Don't mind me," said Fire-drill's son, "I know what he is. I only play with him. I know that this fellow can't be killed, and I know that he can not kill anybody else, but I have to follow him. That was my father's advice to me." So they kept on after Dry-cloud and the wolf had to run with all his might, but it did not seem to Fire-drill's son that he was going rapidly at all. Whenever the wolf got his tail wet in crossing a stream he was too much tired out to shake it, so he simply yelped and Fire-drill's son shook it for him. By and by they saw smoke far ahead of them and presently came to where an old woman lived alone by herself. They stayed with her for some time, and could see Dry-cloud as long as they were there, for he lived in the neighborhood of her house. Then they helped the old woman and collected a quantity of wood for her. After that she said to the boy, "Grandson, there is a big fish over yonder. It killed all of my friends in this town. That is why I am all alone here." He went to the place where she said the monster lived and found a red cod. He said to her, "Grandmother, that is not a monster fish. It is good to eat." So he took his bow and arrows and told his friend to watch him. Then he went to the red cod and killed it, and, seeing that there were numbers of sharp spines upon it, he took off its skin and dried it. He skid to the wolf: "My friend, do you know this woman? She is really Daughter-of-the-calm (Kaye'L!î-sî). She is a very nice, pretty girl." Afterward Fire-drill's son married Daughter-of-the-calm and had a child by her named LAkîtcîne'. He gave this boy his dog and put the red-cod skin upon him as a shirt. Then he said to his wife: "This is going to be a very bad boy." a

_______________

Footnotes

94:a According to some people this house was drawn ashore at the DAqL!awe'di village.

98:a See story 3.

98:b "This story is referred to in drawing the moral that one should never do anything spiteful or try to get ahead of one who knows better. If he does he will always get the worst of it. This is why in olden times the Indians looked up to the chiefs and those of high caste, knowing that they had been brought up and instructed better than themselves, and never tried to get ahead of them.

"It is also brought up to the people how Fire-drill's son fed the young hawks instead of killing them. If a young person is very cruel they say to him, 'If the hawk can be made a friend of mankind, why can not you make friends with your enemies? If you want to be respected do not make enemies, but friends always.'

"They tell the young people that a bad fellow is always like the one-eyed man, trying to get advantage of a good person. He is quick to say whatever comes into his mind, while the good man always thinks first. Therefore whatever the latter says people know is right. They ask their children to choose which of the two they would rather resemble.

"Because the one-eyed man said, 'I did not kill your uncles or your mother's friends,' a murderer nowadays will never come out and say, 'I am the one who killed that man.' He always tries to make an innocent person suffer. As the one-eyed man's wife invited this boy to have something to eat in p. 99 order to kill him, so a bad person says whatever he chooses to a good one. But they tell their children, 'This will not kill you. They are doing themselves injury instead of you. So turn and walk away from them.'

"If a poor person has self-respect, he will have good fortune some time, just as in the case of the two old women to whom Raven brought fortune.

"The example of Fire-drill's son is commended because he did not use his power meanly. He knew that he was very powerful, but when all the animals tried his power he did not do them any harm. He did not want to show his strength at once. If he had been a mean man he might have killed the old woman that lived back in the woods instead of helping her and getting her food." (From the writer's informant.)