Creation Myths of Primitive America. Jeremiah Curtin
stole my flint. I was angry. I told my sister to put her baby outside the house. We put pitch-pine around it, and fire blazed up from the baby. When the fire was burning all over the earth and there were great flames and smoke, a big water and a strong wind came; the water filled the whole world with steam, and the wind drove the steam and smoke from the great fire, and carried them far off to the south, where they became a people—the cloud people. These people are red or white or black, all of them, and they are going north always. They have good heads and long necks.”
“I should like to stand near some of these people and look at them,” said Olelbis.
“I do not like to see them go north,” said Katkatchila. “My brother and I are here trying to drive them back; but they go north in spite of us. My brother is on the other slope over there to frighten them back; but they turn to the east a little and go around him.”
“Bring your brother here,” said Olelbis.
Katkatchila brought his brother, and the two said—
“These cloud people are very wild; we cannot go near them. But we should like to drive them back or catch them.”
“Go west, my brothers,” said Olelbis, “and get something to stop that gap on the east where the cloud people pass you and go north. Stop that opening on the east, and stop the western slope also, leaving only a narrow place for them to go through. Get yew wood, make a very high fence with it, and stop the eastern slope.”
They brought the yew wood and made a very high fence on the eastern slope, and then one on the west, leaving only a narrow gap open.
“Go to the east now,” said Olelbis, “get katsau, which is a strong, fibrous plant, and make strings of it. Make a rope of the string and set a snare in the opening of the fence across the western slope to catch those cloud people.”
The elder brother was on the ridge near the western slope, and the younger on the ridge near the eastern slope. The brothers made the snare and set it on the western slope. Both watched and waited for the clouds to come.
“Now, my brother,” said Olelbis, when he saw this work, “watch these people well, frighten them into the trap, and I will go back to Olelpanti.”
Next morning early the two brothers were watching, and very soon they saw a great many cloud people coming. Both brothers were lying flat on the middle of the ridge, so that the clouds could not see them. The clouds watched closely. They came to the place where they had always turned east to go past little Katkatchila; they ran against the fence and could not pass. They turned and went toward the west to pass northward along the central ridge; but when both brothers stood up, the clouds rushed to the western slope and fell into the trap.
Olelbis saw this and said: “Now, my brothers are driving them in. I must go and see!” And he ran off quickly.
“Oh, my brother,” said the Katkatchilas when he came, “we have caught one cloud. All the rest went through the fence. They broke it—we caught one; the others burst away.”
Olelbis looked at the cloud and said—
“This is a black one! They broke down the fence and ran away! They are a strong people.”
“Now, my brother,” said the elder Katkatchila, “we will skin this cloud, and you may have the skin. We will give it to you.”
“I shall be glad to have it,” said Olelbis.
They stripped the skin from the cloud, and, when giving it to Olelbis, the elder one said, “You must tan this carefully.”
“Make another fence,” said Olelbis, “but make it stronger. You will catch more of these people.”
“A great many clouds have broken through our fence to-day and gone north. Others went before we made the fence. We shall see these people by and by,” said Katkatchila. (He meant that clouds would stay in the north and become another people; stay there always.)
Olelbis took the skin, turned toward home, and travelled on. He was rubbing it in his hands, tanning it as he went. The brothers put the body in a hole and buried it, not caring for the flesh. They wanted only the skin.
Olelbis went along tanning the skin of the black cloud, and he walked around everywhere as he tanned. He went away west, then north, then south, then east. At last he came home with the skin well tanned. He spread it and stretched it smooth. The two Katkatchila brothers had not been able yet to catch another of the cloud people, but they were working at it all the time. After Olelbis spread the skin on the ground, he took it up and said to one of the old women—
“My grandmother is always cold; let us give her this skin;” and he gave it to her. Each of the two old women said—
“My grandson, we are glad to have this skin. We shall sleep warm now.”
“I must go,” said Olelbis, “and see my brothers drive in more of the cloud people.” And he went.
“We cannot catch these clouds,” said the older brother; “they go through our fence, they escape, we cannot catch them; they have gone to the north, they will stay there and become a new people. We have caught only one, a white cloud. Those that have escaped will become a new people; they will be Yola Ka” (snow clouds).
The Katkatchilas stripped the skin from the white cloud and gave it to Olelbis. He went around north, south, east, and west, tanning it in the same way that he had tanned the black skin. After he had tanned it well he spread the skin, stretched it, straightened it; then he gave it to the other grandmother.
Both old women were glad now. Both said: “We shall sleep warm at night now all the time.”
Next day the two brothers caught a third cloud, a red one, but they kept that skin for themselves. They did not give it to Olelbis, because he told them to keep it. We see this skin now often enough, for the brothers hang it up when they like in the west and sometimes in the east.
“Now,” said the two old women, “we have this white skin and this black one. When we hang the white skin outside this house, white clouds will go from it—will go away down south, where its people began to live, and then they will come from the south and travel north to bring rain. When they come back, we will hang out the black skin, and from it a great many black rain clouds will go out, and from these clouds heavy rain will fall on all the world below.”
From that time the old women hang out the two skins, first the white, then the black skin, and when clouds enough have gone from them they take the skins into the sweat-house again; and from these two skins comes all the rain to people in this world.
“The cloud people who went north will stay in the northwest,” said Olelbis, “and from them will come snow to people hereafter.”
All this time the people in Olelpanti were singing and talking. Any one could hear them from a distance. Olelbis had brought in a great many different kinds of people, others had come themselves, and still others were coming. After the tanning of the two cloud skins a man came and took his place above the sweat-house door, and sat there with his face to the east. This was Kar Kiemila. Right after him came Tsararok, and took his place at the side of Kar. Next came Kau; then the two brothers Hus came, and Wehl Dilidili. All these people in the sweat-house and around it asked one another—
“What shall we do? Where shall we live? We should like to know what Olelbis will do with us.”
“You will know very soon where we are going,” said Toko and Sula. “Olelbis will put us in our places; he is chief over all.”
Next morning Olelbis said: “Now, my grandmothers, what do you think best? What are we to do with the people here? Is it best for them to stay in Olelpanti?”
“Our grandson,” answered the old women, “send all that are not needed here to the lower world; turn them into something good for the people who are to come soon—those fit for this place up here. The great people, the best ones, you will keep in Olelpanti, and send