Creation Myths of Primitive America Part 35

Hubit was nearly out of sight. Keriha could barely see him with the salmon and the tuft, a little spot in the sky. He looked very hard, strained his eyes till blood was running down both his cheeks; still he kept looking.

Hubit thought he was out of sight now, and soon Keriha saw him turn to the west and come down. When he was above Bohem Buli, he dropped straight to it on the north side and went in.

"I'm glad, I'm glad. Oh, I'm so glad!" cried out Keriha, clapping his hands. "I know now where Hubit's house is. Get ready quickly, my brother, we will go and see Hubit. Oh, you are so slow, my brother, I can't wait for you. Come when you can; I'll go on alone."

Keriha hurried to Bohem Buli. Norwanchakus followed, and saw Keriha doing strange things; didn't know what he was doing; wondered at him.

He was dodging from side to side, lying down and springing up again.

Norwanchakus went toward him.

"What are you doing?" cried he. "What is the matter!"

"Don't come so near," called Keriha. "Stop, stop!"

When Hubit dropped down to his house in Bohem Buli, he began that minute to make it bigger. He was hurling out immense rocks, and Keriha was dodging them. They came quickly one after another (there are many of those rocks now all around Bohem Buli, at Puitiel Ton, at Waikidi Pom, and on the west beyond Tayam Norel). After the rocks Hubit hurled out great showers of earth; then he stopped.

"How shall I get at that Hubit?" asked Keriha of his brother.

"Go south to a level valley where sakkus grows. Get the tops of that plant."

Keriha brought plenty of sakkus tops quickly.

"Go now to Halat Pom, in the east, and bring the longest vines possible."

Keriha brought ten very long vines and made a rope of them, and tied it around a great bundle of sakkus tops, to which he set fire, and then lowered the bundle. He stopped the door with gra.s.s and sticks.

Soon there was a great rumbling, struggling, and roaring in Hubit's house. After a while it stopped and all was still.

"Now, my brother," said Keriha, "Hubit is dead, and I am going to have his honeycombs."

He took a large sharp stone, drew a great circle around the entrance to Hubit's house, and said: "You, Hubit's honeycomb, be as large as this circle is. Now, my brother," said he, "you can go to Bohem Tehil. I will come soon."

Norwanchakus went home. Keriha began to dig, found many combs, dug till night, stayed all night in Hubit's house--stayed there digging honey and eating, for twenty-five days.

Norwanchakus waited at home for his brother, waited that evening till midnight, waited till morning, saw no sign of Keriha. He waited the next day; then two, three, five days; then twenty days more.

"Well," said Norwanchakus, "I can do nothing. Perhaps he is dead, perhaps he is working yet."

On the twenty-sixth night after Hubit's death, some one came into the house. Norwanchakus looked up. It was Keriha.

After that the two brothers went to Puri Buli. At the foot of the mountain they saw some one half sitting, half lying, and looking at them. When they came nearer, it went into an opening.

"My brother," said Keriha, "I want that."

"Nothing can pa.s.s you," said the elder brother. "You want everything.

You would better let this go."

Keriha paid no heed to Norwanchakus: he split the earth with his little finger and killed the stranger, a Supchit. He skinned the body and said, "I think that this skin will be warm; I will sleep on it."

"My brother," said Norwanchakus, "you are the only person who has ever killed a Supchit--you may be sorry."

Next morning a terrible snow came. It snowed five days and nights; everything was buried under snow. Keriha and Norwanchakus lay twenty-one days under the snow without food. On the twenty-first night, the Supchit woman whom Keriha had killed came and stole him away.

Next morning Norwanchakus looked outside. Keriha was gone; the snow was gone. He looked for tracks, looked all day, found no tracks. He searched five days, ten, twenty days--searched all the mountains, went down the rivers, up the rivers, north, south, east, west. He searched one year, found neither track nor trail; searched ten years, then ten years more; inquired of every one in all the world--no one knew of Keriha.

At last he went back to the house where Keriha had been lost to see if there was track or trail there. Behind Keriha's sleeping-place he saw a large stone. He raised it, found an opening and a pa.s.sage sloping northward, saw tracks made when the Supchit woman took Keriha away. He went into the pa.s.sage, followed the trail till he came to the top of Bohem Puyuk. He came out on the top, went in again and followed a trail going south; followed it, winding west and east, till he came out at Waikidi Pom. There he saw tracks on the ground, lost them, found them again, found them going under the ground, travelled under the ground, came out, lost and found tracks till he lost them for good.

He inquired in the west for five years without finding trail or tidings of Keriha. At last he said,--

"I have asked every one in this world, except my two cousins Lasaswa at Lasan Holok."

He turned east, then, and went to Lasan Holok, near Pas Puisono, where he found a big house with a door on the south side. One old man was sitting on the east, and another on the west side of the door. The house was full of people. The two old men were rubbing their thighs and rolling something. All the people inside were doing the same, all were making ropes.

Five years before these old men had heard that Norwanchakus had lost his brother. All people had been telling one another that Norwanchakus was looking for Keriha. As soon as the old men heard of this, they began to make ropes.

Norwanchakus stood in the door, and raised one foot to walk in.

"Don't step this way; step east," said the old man on the west.

"Don't step this way; step west," said the old man on the east.

"I'll go straight ahead," thought Norwanchakus.

"Don't come this way! Don't come this way!" cried all those in front.

One small boy was sitting behind all the others. As shreds of fibre dropped from the hands of those in front, he picked them up and twisted them into a rope.

"I suppose you have been travelling a long time, my grandson," said the old man on the west side of the door.

"I have travelled a very long time, and have come at last to talk with you. I have asked all who live on this earth about my brother, and no one can tell me where Keriha is."

"We heard about your brother five years ago," said the old men, "and we told our sons to make ropes because you had lost Keriha."

"How much rope have you made?"

"We can tell to-morrow."

Next morning they cleared a broad s.p.a.ce in front of the house. While they were doing this, Norwanchakus said to the rope-makers,--

"I wish you would send for Tsiwihl, an old man near by here."

They brought him quickly. After Tsiwihl came, Norwanchakus said,--

"I want some of you young men to try to go up and ask Sas if he knows where my brother is. I think Sas must know."

"I will try first," said the old man at the western side of the door; "I think that I have the longest rope."

"I will give you something for Sas," said Norwanchakus. "Here is an arrow-straightener, a headband of silver gray-fox skin, and a fire-drill. If you go to the top of the sky, you will see a road from east to west. Sit at the south side of it under a tobacco tree which is there. Soon Sas will come from the east, going west. He will stop at the tree. Give him the three things."

The old man brought out a great coil of rope to unwind and go up with it.