The Salish People: Volume I. Charles Hill-Tout

wife rejoicing, the lads went on their way, and after travelling a long way came at length to a house where lived a man called Coyote, who said he was a great medicine-man and could do great things. “What can you do?” said the youngest lad, who knew him to be an idle boaster. “Oh, I am a very great man,” said Coyote, “and I eat nothing but the bodies of men. I have just finished eating a man.” “If that be so,” answered the lad, “you can easily prove it by disgorging your dinner.” “Oh! that is quite easy,” said Coyote. “Shut your eyes and I will vomit you up a piece of a man.” “But if I shut my eyes, I cannot see you do it,” said the boy. “If you are such a great man, surely it will make no difference whether I shut my eyes or not.” “Oh, well! I must shut mine if you don’t; now, look, I am going to show you,” and with that he began to work his stomach violently up and down in his efforts. After a great deal of exertion and fuss, he brought up a little saliva. “Where is your man’s flesh?” scornfully asked the boy, as he pointed to the saliva on the ground. Coyote, having opened his eyes, was a little abashed at the results of his efforts, but still keeping up the character of a man-eater, replied that he could do nothing because the other kept his eyes open. “Very well,” said the boy, “I will shut my eyes now, and you try again.” Coyote consented, and tried once more. Thinking he wanted to trick him, the boy kept the corner of his eye open as the man tried again to produce his dinner of man-flesh. After many violent efforts and contortions, all he was able to disgorge was a little frothy swamp-grass. At the sight of this, the boy called to him to desist from his efforts, saying that he knew him to be only an empty boaster. He then transformed him into the animal which now bears his name, taking his human nature from him as a punishment for his deception and boasting.

      Passing on from there, they at length came to the Thompson River, where two old witch-women were spearing salmon. They had made a strong wicker dam across the stream, which, being too high for the salmon to leap, prevented the fish from ascending the river, the consequence of which was that all who lived above got no salmon. The boys stopped awhile to watch the women at work, and after observing their tactics, the youngest, who by this time was known by his name of Sqaktktquaclt, or Benign-face, asked the women why they kept all the salmon from going up the river beyond them. “We do not care about the people up the river; we want the salmon for ourselves,” said they. “We have medicine here which enables us to keep off all who would interfere with us.” “What sort of medicine have you?” asked the second lad. “This,” replied the woman, pointing to five boxes which they had with them. “These contain great medicine. In these are wasps and flies and mosquitos, and wind and smoke. We have only to open these boxes to drive off anybody,” and as they spoke one of the two opened the wasp box a little, into which Clatkeq, or Funny-boy, the second youth, was peering, and a wasp came out and stung him on the face. “You will let us have a salmon for supper, won’t you?” now asked Benign-face. But the witches answered him angrily, and bade them be off. Benign-face took no notice of this, but told his elder brother to take a spear and catch a salmon below the weir or dam. While the brother was doing this, Benign-face took a piece of wood and made a dish from it for the salmon, which they placed upon it when cooked. They ate every morsel of the fish. Then Benign-face took the dish and, transferring some of his own mystic power into it, threw it into the middle of the stream above the barrier which the witches had erected. Immediately the waters began to boil and rage, and the dish was carried down against the barrier, which it struck with such force that it broke a large hole in the middle of it, and the salmon at once began to pass through. The witches now tried to mend the gap and keep the salmon back; but while they were thus employed Funny-boy opened the boxes and let out all their contents. Seeing this, the two women left the dam and tried to imprison their medicine again. But it was too late; for the smoke and the wind and the wasps and the flies and the mosquitos were scattered all over the country, and the escaped wind had agitated the river so much that it swept away the remainder of the witches’ barrier, and thus they lost both medicine and dam. But before they had time to do more than realise that they had been out-witted, Benign-face transformed them into two rocks. The scene of these events was at a spot a few miles above Spence’s Bridge; but the two rocks have since been so badly cut away by the action of the water that little if any of them is now to be seen there.

      Going on from here, they came some time after to a solitary keekwilee house, and finding no one to ask them in, they entered and made themselves at home. The remains of a small fire burned in the fire-hole, round which, as the weather was cold, they sat and tried to warm themselves. “I wish there were some wood in the place,” said Funny-boy presently, as he looked round for some and found none. “I wonder who lives here and where they are. That’s a fine blanket,” he added, as his eye fell upon the bed. “I should like a blanket like that.” And he moved over to admire it. As he held the blanket up a piece of wood fell from it. It was just an ordinary piece of wood with a hole in it. “I wonder what this is doing in the bed?” he said, as he picked it up. “It can’t be of any great value, I’ll throw it on the fire; it will keep us warm for a little while.” As he spoke, he threw the piece of wood on the fire. His brother Benign-face chid him for doing so, saying it might have been valued by the people of the house for some reason or other. The wood, being dry, soon burnt itself out, leaving an outline of its original form in the embers. The sound of a man’s voice was now heard at the smoke-hole. He seemed to be talking to some one within. “Take care, little wife,” he said. “Get back from below there, I am going to throw the firewood down.” And a moment later down clattered a pile of firewood, which he immediately followed. The boys hid themselves when they saw the man descending. When he got down he called out: “Little wife, where are you hiding? Ah, you want to have a game with me.” He threw himself, as he spoke, upon the bed, and began feeling for something under the blanket. Not finding what he sought, he went on: “Oh, you are funny today! Now where can you be hiding?” and he felt all over and under the blanket. “I wonder where she is,” said he, as he shook the blanket out and found nothing in it. “She must be hiding from me somewhere, and I shall find her presently.” And with that he went to put some wood on the fire. As he did so his eye fell upon the charred outlines of the piece of wood which Funny-boy had thrown on the fire, and whose familiar form in the ashes he recognised at a glance. He no sooner saw it than he cried out in great distress, and seemed overcome with grief. “O dear wife, you are burned to ashes! How could you have fallen into the fire? Oh! what shall I do for a wife now?” And he sobbed aloud in his grief. The boys at once perceived that the piece of wood that they had burned was the man’s wife. “Didn’t I tell you,” whispered Benign-face to his brother, “not to burn that piece of wood? Now see what distress you have caused this poor man. I must go and comfort him.” With that he came out from his hiding place and addressed the man. Said he: “Was that block of wood really your wife? You must not cry any more over such a wife as that. You can get a better wife than a block of wood surely. Why don’t you take a woman for your wife?” The man stared in amazement at him for a moment, then replied that he knew of no women, had indeed never seen any people in that part of the country. The block of wood was all the wife he had ever had, and now she was burned, and he was all alone; and he began to cry again. “Stop crying,” said the boy, “and I will find you a wife. Have you a stone chisel in the house?” “Yes,” replied the man, “Give it to me,” said the boy. “Now stay here with my brothers till I return, and I will bring you a better wife than your block of wood.” Saying which he climbed the notched pole and passed out through the smoke-hole. When he got outside he went to the forest and cut down a cottonwood tree. From this he cut and peeled a log about six feet long and stepping over it three times said aloud: “One, two, three. Log, get up and be a woman!” And the piece of cottonwood stood upright and became a beautiful white woman with white hair and face and body, white as the wood of the cottonwood tree. Then he cut down an alderwood tree and did the same thing as before, and the log of alderwood became a beautiful red woman with red hair and face and body, red as the wood of the alder tree when the bark has been stripped from it a little while. Taking these two women with him he returned to the keekwilee house and, bidding them wait outside till they were called, he climbed down through the smoke-hole again. Returning the man’s chisel, he said: “Now I have brought you two proper wives. It is wrong for a man to make a wife of a piece of wood; you must not do so any more.” With that he called out to the two women to descend. When they were come down, he took the white woman’s hand and put it in the hand of the man