BY, ROBERT, SPOTT a'nd A. L. KROEBER UNIVERSTY OF'COALIFcIRNIA PUMLTC.&TtONs IN -A-MWRIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETEHNOLOGY' eo'.ne35, No.-9, pp 143-256,1 map, UNIVE]kSlITY,OF CALIFORNJA PRESS BEREEY AND LOS ANGELES, Okont1et Principal Yurok towns, indicated by black squares, along the Klamath River and the coast. Settlements of the adjoining Tolowa, Hupa, and Karok tribes are indicated by circles; their names are the Yurok ones. MILES 1. 0 5 10 YUROK NARRATIVES BY ROBERT SPOTT AND A. L. KROEBER UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES 1942 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY EDITORS: A. L. KRBOEBEa R. H. LowI, T. D. MCCOWN, R. L. OLSON Volume 35, No. 9, pp. 143-256, 1 map Transmitted February 4, 1941 Issued October 17, 1942 Price, $1.25 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LtONDON, ENGLAND PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PREFACE ROBERT SPoTT, my Yurok collaborator, was born in 1888 of a family both sides of which were of Weitspus, or, as it is now called, Weitchpec. His father Frank was of the house w8gi or wogwu, his mother from sohtsu, both esteemed and the former outstanding in social rank. His father's elder sister, whose marriage to Captain Spott of Requa and Wilson Creek is related in the second of these narratives, was childless; and in time she and her husband adopted Robert and his sister Alice and made them their legal heirs. In the following pages, when Robert mentions his father, it is his adoptive father Spott, not his biological one. More than making Robert an heir, Captain Spott and his wife exerted themselves to give him a thorough Yurok education in addition to the American one which the government provided at the Hoopa Indian School. Their efforts fell on fertile soil. Robert is endowed with an excellent memory, his natural inclinations are intellectual, and above all he is possessed of extraordinary sensitivity to the value of his native culture. These qualities make him a quite unusual informant on the old life of the Yurok, as eight or ten other anthropologists will testify who have at one time or another visited or studied with him. He knows as much, on the whole, of old Yurok ways and beliefs as the men of his father's and grandfather's generation, and is infinitely better able to communicate it-not so much through a superior command of English as because of his ability to organize ideas and to make standards articulate. The details have remained in his mind because they are the flesh and blood of a system in which his personality lives, though of necessity increasingly in recollection and feeling instead of overt behavior. He went through battle in France in the First World War, and has made his living in several of the few white man's ways open to an Indian, without serious impair- ment of these inner affects. Nostalgia was an outstanding quality of the old Yurok life, so that Robert's dwelling in the sentiment of the past has not warped his picture of it. Our association goes back to the time when he was a boy of twelve and I, twice as old, at the threshold of my professional career. From 1900 to 1907 I visited the Yurok repeatedly, working with their old men but pivoting my activities around the personal connection with Robert's two fathers at Weitch- pec and Requa, the upriver and down-river foci of the Yurok stretch of the Klamath. Then followed a long break, only partly restored by occasional visits to a cabin at Sigonoi on the coast above Orick between 1923 and 1927; until, in 1933 and again in 1939 and 1940, visits by Robert to Berkeley and St. Helena, and by me to Requa, resulted in the present collection of stories, plus information on rituals and general ethnography. The narratives fall into three groups. The first concerns specifically known people and their doings, mostly in the period between 1820 and 1890 but with occasional incidents prolonged almost to the present. These might be called case histories of actual individuals functioning before the white man came and irreparably tore the fabric of native life to pieces. Next is a group of stories the events of which lie far enough back for them to have acquired a legendary character, although they contain, or in my [v] opinion may contain, a kernel of factual authenticity. Narratives of this class possess a tantalizing appeal. They cannot be sought directly, but must be seized as they come up. The third group are myths-tales of the ancient days of the woge race, the institutors of the world. None of these myths was inquired for: each emerged, in true Yurok fashion, from discussion of a folkway. Their significance lies in great measure in this very randomness of illustration. On the total system of Yurok mythology, I collected from a variety of older men and women years ago a body of tales ten times as numerous as those included here, and still hope before too much longer to make these available by publishing them. The present little group of myths, in comparison, is rather a sample, designed to evidence in its variety the range of ideas and sentiments with which the Yurok mind was preoccupied in dealing with the past of its world. Two stories possibly should have been transposed. Number 23, "The Doctor from Repokw," may really be a myth, though it contains only incidents such as the Yurok believe to occur among themselves. Number 35, "The White Deerskin Dance at Welkwiau," however, while unquestionably a myth, refers to a ritual which in spite of my doubts may well have had an actual existence. Minor inconsistencies in Yurok spelling are due largely to the recorder's changing apperception; in part, also, to variability in Yurok pronunciation or to the different context in word or phrase. In each case Robert's narrative comes first, my comment or explanation follows. We hope that the collection will help to perpetuate the qualities of a culture into which one of us was born and which the other gradually learned to sense and to value. A. L. K. Vi Preface CONTENTS PAGE I. HISTORIES OP PEOPLE 01F RECENT GENERATION 1. Tipsy's Marriage ............................................ 143 2. Spott's Marriage ............................................ 144 3. Between Two Families . ......................... .......... 48 4. Spott's Slaves ................ . 149 5. The Osegen Slave at Espeu . . .................. 152 6. The Doctor Who Could Not Achieve Her Power . . . 153 7. Hegwono: Confession to a Doctor ................................... 157 8. A Doctor Acquires Power . ...................... ..................... 158 9. Doctors Treating One Another ............................* . 164 10. Great Doctors ............................. ............... 164 11. Srii'maiu's Family Luck .......... . ................................. 167 12. The First-Salmon Rite at Welkwadu . . ..................................... 171 13. Visit to a Wiyot Dance . . .......................................... 179 14. Tolowa Dances I Have Seen . . .......................................... 180 15. Sea Lion Flipper Rights..-182 15~~~~~.13aLo lpe ihs..... . ........................................8 16. Sea Lion Flipper Rights (second version) ................................. 191 17. Fight with the Kerometsa' . ........................................... 200 18. The War with Hupa . ........................................... 202 II. TALES OF PEOPLE Or FORMER GENFRATIONS 19. The Wiyot Obsidian Dowry . . .......................................... 210 20. The Obsidian Paid to Hupa . . .......................................... 211 21. Kegesamui: Return from Death . . ............................,.... 214 22. Ten Boats ................ ....... 217 23. The Doctor from Rep8kw . . .................. 219 III. MYTHS OP WOGE TIMES 24. The Inland Whale .............................. 224 25. Brave from the Thunders ..... .............. ......... 227 26. Wohpekumeu's Origin . ..................... 232 27. Mankind Sprung from a Bitch . . ................. 233 28. The Old Dog ........................ 235 29. Married at Rummai ...................... 238 30. Owl and Basket Weft ...................... 239 31. Sikkili .......................... 239 32. Grizzly Bear at Seal Rock ............ . .............. ...... . 240 33. Sea Otter, Sea Lion, and Seal . ..................................... 241 34. Danger from Pulekuk ....................... 242 35. The White Deerskin Dance at Welkwau . ................................. 244 36. The Shells' Boat Dance into the Ocean . . ................................... 249 37. Upriver-Ocean Girl ........................ ............. 250 SOURCES OFP THE NARRATiVES ..................................... 252 CHRONOLOGY OP EVENTS ...................................... 253 PRINCIPAL WORKS REFERRED To ..................................... 254 INDEX ...................................... 255 MAP Principal Yurok towns ................. Facing title page vii YUROK NARRATIVES BY ROBERT SPOTT AND A. L. KROEBER I. HISTORIES OF PEOPLE OF RECENT GENERATION 1. Tipsy's MARRIAGE Tipsy was from layekw at Rekwoi. He was older than my father. He wanted to marry a girl from the house tegwollek repokw at Espeu on the coast, the mother of Fanny Flounder. His father in layekw was wealthy enough but would not help him. He was nolukko'wiso'n', stingy, and kept thinking that if he contributed, his treasure trunk would become emptier. Then the young man Tipsy became angry and for four years he went out nearly the whole of each summer to gather ceremonial sweat-house wood in the hills. He told the girl in Espeu that he would buy her for herself, but that he could not pay the extra price that her people wanted for her being a doctor. She was half from Osegen and half from Espeu, and there were doctors on both sides of her family. So when he finally paid for her, all the people of Espeu cried, because he had cried over sweat-house wood so long. So he was full-married to her, and she brought along a dress hung with prisms of obsidian. And her people said that they would not hold it against the old man his father, but would treat him just the same as if he had helped. So Tipsy took his bride to layekw, and they lived there two years. Then he started to move to tse'kwel across the river. His father protested, but Tipsy said, "I bought her myself and you cannot object." [1] This little case history illustrates Yurok law, but it illustrates even better the feelings, with their consequent attitudes, which the Yurok allow to flow in and around their code. We see the lover intent on securing as his wife the girl to whom he is attached, with full social status for them both and for their children. The father is unable to part with his treasures even when his son's place in the world is at stake. The girl and her people wait for years, unwilling to abate anything from the full bride price necessary for her future standing, but ready to waive, on account of the young man's earnestness and constancy, the extra amount which they would normally have exacted for the girl's earning power as a doctor. And when the marriage can finally take place, all of them shed tears over the privations to which the bridegroom has subjected himself for years in order to win their daughter. They even relent against the old man, their co-parent-in-law, who might have shortened the period of waiting if his avarice had allowed him to open his treasure box. This tale shows two things about Yurok culture. First, a young man was not necessarily dependent on his kinsmen of older generation. He could, with luck, acquire enough property in his own right to hope to be a free agent. [143 ] 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. Second, the tale illustrates how firm is the Yurok belief that acquisition of anything worth while in life can be achieved only by the privations and asceticism which ceremonial gathering of sweat-house wood best exemplifies. There is no question that the whole conduct of this ritual procedure was of a nature to intensify such will power as had already been directed toward an objective. A weak-willed person, or one easily distracted, would tend to falter under the recurring ordeals. A strong-minded man, who had decided what he wanted, could only profit by the mental concentration which the custom encouraged. Tipsy's father was from Omen-hipur; his mother, from Rekwoi, of the house wonnekw, but her mother was from lIayekw. Omen-hipur was abandoned early, which is probably the reason why Tipsy's father lived in Iiyekw. Tipsy was later killed in a feud. He and his father reappear in the next tale; his wife and their daughters, in several of those about doctors. I would estimate the time of the happenings as not far from the period of the American Civil War. 2. SPOTT'S MARRIAGE My father, Captain Spott, was called Ha'iigonors-otsin because he belonged to the house ha'iigonor in Omen-hipur. His father and his father and his father all lived there in ha'agonor. My father's mother was from wonniiu in Rekwoi. He also had relatives among the Tolowa through his father's mother. She was of the house which we call otlktikwol at Er'erl on Lake Earl. That is where she was reared, and her father was called Otlktikwol omegwimar. Her mother was from another Tolowa town, Hinii'ig, of the house tser'er; and her sister was the mother of Captain Tom of Hinii'ig, who was called Hinii'ertser'. Now after a time the old house ha'aigonor at Omen-hipur was abandoned and my father grew up in the house wonniiu of his mother at Rekwoi. When he became older he wanted to marry my mother, who then was a girl in the house wogwu in Weitspus. So, his own father being dead, he went first to Tipsy's father in house layekw, who called him brother (nepa); I think they were about second cousins. The old man of Iayekw said, "Yes, it is a good family." But he did not offer to help him as my father had hoped. So next my father went across to Tipsy, who had already left Iiyekw and was living across the river in tse'kwel, and told him what had happened. Tipsy said, "Yes, I wish you had come to me first. I would have told you what he would do because that is what he did with me. But do as I did. Go up in the hills for sweat-house wood; cry until you get money, and then buy the girl yourself." After that my father went to where he really belonged in Omen-hipur. They were all dead there except one old man and a crippled woman. The old man said, "I will help you as much as I can." Then my father went on north along the coast to Er'erl and told his great- grandfather Otlktikwol omegwimar of what he wanted to do. And he told him that he had some property which he had got together by gambling. But 144 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives the old man said, "No, do not use that. It is not clean. Acquire your own property and I will help you with two obsidians and some other things." On the way home my father stopped again at Omen-hipur and found that the old man there had already got together his contribution and put it into an otterskin. My father did not look into it but felt that it was heavy, and said, "I do not want it. You had better keep it and use it to hire someone to cook for you and your crippled niece." But the old man said, "Yes, I had thought of that. And I have put something aside for just that, because, while I am not sick, I am old and will live perhaps two years or three years. Only I am worried about this: when I go down to the beach for firewood, this woman lies out in the sun and falls asleep and someone might steal the things from the house. So you had better keep the property for me." Then my father accepted it and went home to Rekwoi without eating supper because he felt so sad for the old man. When he looked into the otterskin, there was a red obsidian reaching to within four inches of his elbow. Also there were ninety dollars in gold; two elkhorn purses, each containing four strings of good shell money; forty strands of carved dentalium beads (ahtemar terkr [tem] ) wrapped together with mink strips; thirty strings of clean beads of broken money (tsiktsiken terkr); and forty scalps (tsi's) of redheaded woodpecker (kokoneu) ready for mounting. Then for five summers my father gathered ceremonial sweat-house wood, and luck came to him and he acquired clean property. After three summers he went up to otiktikwol in Er'erl to get the things which had been offered him there. He refused the two obsidians which the old man had offered. At first he also refused a woodpecker bandoleer (koh) of sixty scalps, but then he took this in case it should be needed. And he ac- cepted eight strings of shell money. Then Captain Tom, Hinii'ertser', came in and said to my father, "I do not want to interfere; but I am held to be the head of my people. Why did you not come to me? I want to help you too. For two days I went over all my property with my old people, and about each one that was clean I said, 'This one is pure, is it not?' and they said, 'Yes, it is pure.' That is the kind of prop- erty I want to put up for you." So this old man, who was the first cousin of my father's grandfather, contributed four strings of shell money, forty strands of carved dentalium beads, and thirty dollars in American money. My father took these because he thought he might need them when it came to settlement, but as it turned out he did not actually use any of them. Meanwhile my father heard that his girl in Weitspus was running around with other men; also that the Karok at Orleans were negotiating for her. So he sent his special friend to go about and inquire. Now, there was to be a dance among the Tolowa at Kohpei-helkiiu near Crescent City. Then two girls came down from Weitspus to see it: my mother and Mary Ann, both of them still unmarried. They came alone. They had walked down-river to Pekwon. There Kerner, a friend of the families, took them by boat to tse'kwel. My father heard that the two girls were there. Next 145 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. day they crossed over to Rekwoi to visit relatives of one or the other. First they went to the house layekw, then to the house wonnekw, so that they passed by the wonnau sweat house where my father was sitting. They were to stay the night in wonnekw. Then my father visited there too, and offered them horses to Crescent City, because on foot it was most of two days. But the two girls declined, and said that they would go only to Omen on the first day and the rest of the way the next. And the old woman in wonnekw admonished them to stay in the house because some of the youths about were bad; and they heeded her. The next day, about noon, they started, came to Omen, and stayed with Wilson Creek Jack's people for the night. The next day he went with them so that they would not arrive in Crescent City unaccompanied. Meanwhile my father sent his friend on horseback to Crescent City to have him try to seduce my mother. He said to him, "The girls all like you. See if you can get her or if she is true to me." So his friend overtook the girls along the beach and offered them his horse. "No, I can't ride," they said. "Well, let me take your load," he said. "No, I want to carry it," my mother said. "The basket only has our dresses in it; Jack is carrying all our food." So the friend rode on ahead of them. When they arrived the girls were shown to front seats to watch the dance, but Jack was led off to another side where the men were. The dance was being held indoors. The girls watched it most of the night. When they became sleepy they got up and stood at the door looking around for Jack; or they thought perhaps they would see a Yurok and ask him to tell Jack to take them to where they were to sleep. Jack was watching them from around the corner, but they could not see him. Then my father's friend engaged them in conversation and offered to escort them. He tried in every way to coax them. He said, "Spott is marrying on Smith River." My mother said, "That is nothing to me. I like him, but it is no reason why I should go with you, and I will not." Then at last my father's friend gave up, and Jack came and led them to the house. After they were married my father told my mother that he had sent his friend to make this trial. In buying my mother my father paid the following. First, he used all his own property. Also he gave what Otiktikwol omegwimar had contributed, namely, the eight strings of money. He used these because he liked the old man best of his kinsmen; also because the old man insisted on his taking it and promised that he would not exact services from my father in return or nag him or talk about his having helped him. From what the old man at Omen- hipur had given him in the otterskin, he used only one necklace of carved beads; the rest he gave back to him. He used none of Captain Tom's contribu- tion, because he thought that when Tom gave a dance he would call on my mother to help in the preparations and cooking, and the work would be too heavy for her; and if she did not help, Tom would talk about it. So later on, when Tom made dances, my mother did help out, but voluntarily. 146 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives [2] This is the story of Robert's adoptive father, as told by him to Robert. No doubt for this reason it is fuller in detail than the foregoing account. Captain Spott said that he was about six years old when white people first came into the country. This would put his birth around 1844 and place the happenings he had told toward 1870. We have again the fixation of purpose on a particular girl and the steadfast adherence on both sides. The discipline of sweat-house-wood gathering again looms large. Only, in this instance, considerable pride was operative to earn the girl. There was probably some property in the household, and there were wealthy relatives who immediately offered to contribute. That property won in gambling should not have been used is intelligible enough, but indicates a certain delicacy of feeling prevalent at least in good families. Significant also is the fact that Spott first assured himself of support from his older rela- tives but then used only part of it: he was evidently prudent but also self- respecting. And undoubtedly one's kinsmen thought more highly of one who recognized the claims of kinship but did not abuse them. Whether, in the days before the white man was in the land and wages were made available which could be converted into dentalium shells and wood- pecker scalps, it would have been equally possible for a young man to acquire in his own right enough property to buy a wife of good family, is not clear. That Spott should have set his friend to test his prospective wife's fidel- ity-they were not even affianced except in intent-is human enough. That he should tell her after they were married is part of Yurok custom. Husband and wife are expected to make a clean breast to each other of all their previous love affairs. This tends at once to wipe away any remnants of entanglements, and puts each spouse at equal advantage. Every former sweetheart is auto- matically set on a taboo list: the husband or wife may have no further deal- ings or conversation with her o-r him, or even be in the same place, except perhaps in full public gathering. Violation of this rule makes the third party liable to a definite fine for constructive adultery. A husband who feels assured, and is generous, may-lift this taboo by making a point of publicly introducing his former rival to his wife. Spott's telling his wife of his trial of her virtue was part of this general cleanup of the past at the outset of marriage. The custom affords an insight into the strength and seriousness with which the Yurok aim to establish a sound basis for a lifelong marriage. That they did not express themselves romantically or riot in emotion is true enough. All their attitudes favor self-discipline. But when young men wait and work four years and five years not only to attain the girl of their choice, but to attain her properly, it is evident that affection and respect entered into the relationship both before and after marriage. Wholly typical is the way particular objects of wealth, and to whom each belonged, and how it had been acquired, are remembered seventy years later. Each string of shell money, woodpecker band, or obsidian has its own history which makes it more or less desirable, apart from its intrinsic or market value. Also significant is the fact that American gold coins are put thoroughly on a par with native money or treasure. 147 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. I am not altogether certain whether in aboriginal times an old man would have set aside part of his wealth to compensate someone to take care of him in the days of his last enfeeblement, but I suspect that the custom is aboriginal. That wealth, besides being money and treasure, might also have, like heir- looms, sentimental and personal attachments, is evident from Spott's remark that he took eight strings of money from the old man of otlktlkwol because he liked him best. On the other hand, he returned Captain Tom's contribution because he foresaw that Tom would expect reciprocation. If there was to be any being in debt for favors it was to be Tom and not himself or his bride. 3. BETWEEN Two FAMILIES A girl from Sa'a was full-married to the house wogwu in Weitspus. She was married to the brother of the father of my mother and had a daughter. Then her husband died. His older brother urged his younger brother to marry the widow. Neither would do so because his wife would object. Had one of them nevertheless married the widow, his wife would have gone home to her people and he could not have recovered the bride price. Only if a first wife is willing can a man marry a second one, even if she be his brother's widow. So the widow stayed on in Weitspus for years. Finally she went home to Sa'a, and her people returned the payment made for her, to wogwu in Weitspus, because they wanted the girl child. But wogwu would take only part of the payment back, because if they had taken it all the widow's daughter would have been unpaid for, like a kamuks or bastard. They accepted a string of dentalium money and some loose woodpecker scalps, but refused an ob- sidian and a woodpecker headband. The girl was called Sa'as-or. She lived at both places, Sa'a and Weitspus, going from one house to the other at will and about equally. She died unmar- ried, and thereafter was known as Sa'as-me'lor. If she had lived to be married, the payment made for her would have gone half to wogwu and half to her kinsmen in Sa'a. In the same way, if she had been killed, or if she had killed or injured anyone, the resulting settlement would have been divided between the two houses. A person like this is called wogi iye (gok), "traveling between." This girl Sa'as-me'lor was given an acorn tract by her grandfather of w8gwu in Weitspus.1 This was announced when the village was called together, to show that they kept their claim on her. Now she had a claim to acorn grounds in both Sa'a and Weitspus. In an ordinary full-marriage it is hard for the chil- dren to enforce any claim on their mother's side. [3] This little story is only a case history illustrative of custom. As such, it shows that, though a man bought his wife and could collect damages for injury done her, she was not a mere chattel, but had rights. One of these was that he could not marry a second wife without her consent-not even one to 1 This acorn ground was Hi'nkel-erwer, "white-oak lies-across(-creek)," uphill and upriver from Weitspus, between Moonhardt Prairie and the larger prairie above it. The claim from her mother's side was to Pekwono'-elleu, "milling-hopper hangs," in a gully about three and a half miles uphill from Sa'a. 148 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives whom he would otherwise have a claim through the levirate. If he violated this right she was free to return to her kinsfolk and leave him minus both wife and what he had paid for her. If a widow was a doctor and therefore desirable to keep on account of her earning power, the head of the house would tell one of his sons or nephews to persuade his wife to accept the widow as "sister," that is, co-wife. If the wife consented, a hohpkusin or "judge" was called in to witness her agreement and prevent her subsequent denial of it. But if the wife was obdurate, she could not be forced to accept the widow as co-wife. When the widow had stayed on with her husband's people for years and there was no one to claim her under the levirate, she was obviously free to return to her own people; but they in turn were obliged to refund her pur- chase price. This, however, would have left the child of the marriage unpaid for and therefore legally a bastard. The way the difficulty was worked out in this case, and no doubt in many others, was that only part of the bride-price refund was accepted. This left the child legally paid for and therefore of honorable descent; and the public gift of the acorn tract to her further en- hanced her status and gave a claim on her. This belonging to two families is different from half-marriage, in which the children belong to the mother and her male kinsmen. Finally, the last sentence illustrates the strong patrilineal bias of the so- ciety. Inheritance is claimed through both parents, but in a normal full- marriage is "hard to enforce" on the mother's side. 4. SPOTT'S SLAVES When my father, Captain Spott, was still a young man, he got a ka'al or slave called K'etsaits. This slave was from Pekwon-pul, but I never did hear how Spott came to acquire him. The slave was a fine fisherman. With a dozen men in line at the mouth of the river at low tide, he as a slave would be standing farthest upriver, but would spear more salmon than any of the others: he could harpoon those that got by the rest. Spott let him go home on visits, but he always came back after a few nights. He lived in the house as though he were part of the family. He finally died in Spott's house and was buried in Rekwoi. There was another slave near Rekwoi for a time. This is how it came about. They were gambling there; they already had white men's cards. Captain Jack of Tmeroi at Cannery Creek, a suburb of Rekwoi, had won a great deal at gambling in his time. Now he came to where the game was going on and wanted to join in. By next day he had lost everything he had. Then he bet his clothing, one piece after the other. Now someone said in joke, "You had better bet yourself." So he felt he had to do it, and lost. It was One-eyed Billy of the house otsiil at Welkwiiu across the river who won him. However, Jack did not remain a slave long. His sister knew the medicine for the Brush Dance and took in money for making the medicine. With this she bought him free. However, this sister after a time became something like a slave herself. She was married into the house per'kweri in Ko'tep. She used to be called away 149 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. as far as Hupa to make the Brush Dance. The women began to gossip that she ran around with men when she was away from home. After that her hus- band in Ko'tep noticed that she was going out for firewood unusually early. So he followed her and caught her with a man, uphill from Ko'tep. He did not hurt her or the man, because then he would have had to pay for the injury when it came to the divorce. He did make a demand of her brother, Captain Jack, for refund of what he had paid for her. Now Jack owned no property. That is why, when a wife is bought, most of the price is given to the richest of several brothers; then if there is a divorce or a claim, there will be someone in a position to make a refund. So Jack, owning nothing, was in a fair way to be enslaved again, this time over his sister who had bought him free the last time. So he went to Spott and told him his trouble, and Spott paid the Ko'tep man what he had paid for his wife. But the woman now belonged to Spott. Then, after a time, he thought of giving her to his old slave, K'etsaits, as wife. They did actually live together, and Spott wanted to pay Jack something for his sister's marriage to K'etsaits. But Jack, for all his being poor, did not want to accept, because then he would have a slave for his legal brother-in-law. Now when the marriage at Ko'tep broke up, there was a little daughter. Her father's relatives wanted to keep her, but he insisted she was not his child and would not have her. So she followed her mother, and was around Spott's house when he married my mother. My mother thought at first that she was the daughter of a sister of Spott who had died. She used to dress her in a floursack with the printing of the name of the brand across the front, and the child was very proud of this ornament. She was sometimes called Ko after her father of Ko'tep. Now when she grew up she was married by a man from the house wonnekw in Rekwoi. He paid my father sixty dollars in money for her, plus a string of dentalium beads, a rather poor woodpecker headband, and perhaps some other things. Her husband's people took to her right away, and an old lady in the house who was a doctor gave her one of her own pains to start her on her career as a doctor. An old doctor will sometimes do this without the novice's having had a dream about the pain. Now, in connection with this, they were making the doctor dance for her in the sweat house. Then they all went to eat supper, but she stayed there. There was a young man who was a good singer for the doctor dance and who had fallen in love with her. So he made an excuse, left his supper, and went back to the sweat house, but got caught with her there. Now her husband did not lay a claim against Spott, although he had paid him for the girl, because Spott was not blood kin to her. He did lay the claim against the young man. This young man had little of his own, but went to his sister's husband and from him got enough to pay the girl's husband. Then he married the girl. The girl's mother, whom Spott had redeemed and kept, remained living with her fellow slave until Spott's mother told him that it seemed to her some- what shameful to go on keeping her as a slave after he had taken money for 150 Spott-lKroeber: Yurok Narratives her daughter's marriage. Spott agreed, and told her publicly that she was free to go back to her brother. She had come to like her fellow slave and for a while did not want to leave him; but finally she did go back to her brother's house in Tmeroi. [4] Two of the three slaves here dealt with came to be such through debt. How Captain Spott got his first slave, we do not know; possibly it was through inheritance or by transfer. The second case is that of the gambler. There is nothing to show that he worked for his owner or lived with him. Quite pos- sibly the owner himself was somewhat embarrassed over his acquisition. The two men had lived on opposite sides of the river and must have known each other well. Possibly the enslavement did not amount to much more than a lien on Jack's person until his debt should be satisfied. The third case is interesting in that after the woman has redeemed her brother, she becomes "a kind of slave" on account of him, when he cannot refund the bride price for which he is liable for her adultery. Spott, having come to the rescue, thereby becomes her owner. He may have been actuated by friendship; but having made the outlay, he was reimbursed with her person. If he and Jack had been relatives he would probably have given the payment outright. Since they were not kin his standing in the world no doubt required some equivalent. Jack naturally enough preferred his sister's being the slave of a friend to being himself the slave of an enemy. It was no doubt also understood that whenever Jack could redeem her, Spott would set her free. It is, however, interesting that Jack objected to a slave as a brother-in- law and refused the payment tendered for her marriage to a fellow slave. This would inevitably have fixed her status and thereby impaired his. Rather curious is the attitude regarding the slave woman's daughter. Spott evidently got the marriage price because there was no one else who had any authority over the girl. But when her husband wanted his payment back he did not turn to Spott, because he was no kin to her. Possibly Spott objected, because in that event he would still be out what he had originally paid to get her mother out of trouble. Moreover, her lover was unquestionably liable for his offense; so the pressure was directed upon him. It is of interest that he was helped out not by his kinsfolk, but by his sister's husband. However, Spott now having been more or less reimbursed for his original outlay, there was some sentiment that he ought no longer claim the mother, and he heeded this sentiment by publicly setting her free. The upshot of this series of transactions seems to be that property liabilities must be paid, and until they are paid, persons are taken in pawn. The attitude toward the slaves themselves seems to have been rather benev- olent, as might well follow from their being merely an incident in property transactions. Spott's original man slave was treated like a member of the household; Spott wanted him to have a wife, and gave him burial. There is no trace of systematic labor exploitation, nor of balking on the part of the slave. K'etsaits did not shirk, but brought home more fish than the free men. Inasmuch as Spott was born perhaps half a dozen years before the whites 151 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. arrived in 1850, the events here narrated probably occurred between 1870 and 1890, perhaps some of them as late as 1900. Lincoln's Emancipation Proc- lamation was not observed by the Yurok. They clung tenaciously to their basic principle that a debt is a debt and must be satisfied. 5. THE OSEGEN SLAVE AT ESPEU A young man from Espeu had been visiting at Welkwiiu. On his way back they asked him at Osegen to stay overnight, for it was getting late. In the morning three brothers at Osegen went to hunt sea lions on a rock which is about three-fourths of a mile out opposite Emets Beach. They did not invite him, but he went along. From on top of the rock they saw a squall off Rekwoi. They started home at once, but the squall caught them and the Espeu young man was drowned on the beach. Espeu talked of destroying Osegen, so Osegen offered to settle. They claimed that they had not invited him, but a Turip woman there said they had asked him to stay overnight. Anyway, even if he had been all alone and had lost his life on their beach, Osegen would have been liable. Nevertheless, it was a close case, and Espeu knew they could not exact too much, so they insisted merely on getting a slave, and did get him. He was the youngest brother of the three who had taken the dead man out. So the slave stayed a long time. He had gone as a young man and was elderly now. His master let him go overnight to his old home sometimes. Then he began to stay longer, and finally did not come back. Then his owner, with his two sisters, came after him to Osegen and found him on the beach, surf fishing, with his relatives the Osegen people. The Espeu man promptly claimed him. Then the slave's nephew said that he was not going back any more. The Espeu man said that he would take him right then and there. Thereupon the Osegen men shot him with three arrows. His sisters tried to protect him, but it was too late. One of them did break the bow that shot the third arrow. Then the older sister stayed with the body, while the other one ran home and summoned help to bring the dead man back. Besides his two sisters, who were unmarried, the dead man had two brothers and a son. They did not try to fight until after the burial. Meanwhile the Osegen people talked it over and said they must make a settlement as soon as possible. They asked a man from a Big Lagoon village to come at once and act as their go-between. So on the seventh day three men from Big Lagoon went to Espeu. They had a smoke and then reported to Espeu that Osegen wanted to settle. The next day they brought the pay that was proffered: a red obsidian, a woodpecker headband, four strings of large dentalium money, two otterskins, and a large deerskin blanket. But Espeu had already said the day before that they would not take any property; they wanted the killer's sister. They were meeting halfway between Espeu and Osegen, so that the go-betweens would not have to walk so far. For a day they argued with Osegen, but the man who had done the killing did not want to let his sister go. His relatives kept urging him, and after two days he finally said, "I will give her if Espeu lets the slave go free." This the 152 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives go-betweens reported to Espeu and Espeu accepted. So the girl from Osegen was married to the son of the man who had been killed. This girl from Osegen had two daughters and a son. One daughter was the one who was married by Tipsy (tale 1) and became the mother of Fanny Flounder (tale 8). Her younger sister was married into Hupa and her son was Spencer. The son married a girl from Wohkero and her daughter was Nancy Jack. So these people and Fanny Flounder are all first cousins. [5] The killing for which the girl was paid in settlement must have been done at some time in the decade 1830-1840. Fanny Flounder was probably born before 1870 and was the youngest of five children. Her mother was the daughter of the girl who was given in payment, and presumably would have been at least thirty when Fanny was born. This makes a lapse of a full century. As the Osegen young man remained a slave until he was elderly, his enslave- ment perhaps took place about 1810. We have here two cases of deaths involving liability which were settled by transfers of persons, without any handing over of property. The second settle- ment was in one way really in favor of Osegen; they lost the bride price which the girl would have fetched, but they secured the return of their uncle. Settlement by giving up a sister or daughter was a recognized institution among the Yurok. They often resisted it, probably because of a feeling that a marriage based on ill will ran a risk of being unsuccessful. There may also have been a sense that a marriage of this sort carried the complication of being hard to dissolve if it proved desirable, because there was no specific bride price which could be returned. It counted, however, as a fully legitimate mar- riage without taint. The women in question were apparently not consulted; at any rate, I cannot remember a case in which negotiations were wrecked by a girl's protests. This was presumably not so much due to an inferior status of women as to the girl's youth and the fact that decisions were made by older people. The old woman of layekw had sufficient to say and was heeded when it came to settlement for the killing of her brother over the sea lion righ-ts in narrative 15. However, the theory was that girls' wishes were not consulted when they were sold in marriage. How far this theory was tempered in practice by the influence that a girl could exert, is hard to infer. The influence probably varied greatly from case to case. 6. THE DOCTOR WHO CouLD NOT ACHIEvE HER POWER This tells how a doctor of Osegen, who was cousin to Mrs. Tipsy, Fanny Flounder's mother, relieved a novice who could not control her spirit-pain. She was once at tse'kwel across the river from Rekwoi. Then her people went up to Blue Creek (Erner) to camp and gather acorns. There they heard of a young woman of Serper, married in Pekwon, who had dreamed and got a telogel pain object into her body, but could not bring it up out of herself, and so continued ill instead of becoming a doctor. She was out of her mind, and her mother feared she would die. They did not want her in her husband's 153 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. house at Pekwon any longer, because in trying to get control of her power she would dance on top of the house until the soot fell off the roof boards onto the food and the people inside. Guests had got up and left, in conse- quence. There was an older doctor in this Pekwon house helkik, but she had not helped the young woman. As yet the people of helkik had not asked to have the bride price returned, but it was said they were going to send to Serper for it. The remohpo or doctor-making dance was still going on at Serper. Some of the women of the Osegen doctor's house wanted to go upriver to attend this doctor dance, but their people did not want them to. So she, and another doctor, and a third woman of the family said they would gather tanbark acorns opposite Serper, and went up in a boat. In the afternoon they heard the novice doctor coming downhill and the remohpo singing and stamp- ing start up in the sweat house at Serper. So the three of them crossed over and sat down outside the sweat house. A man was dancing (we-helomma) with the novice, supporting her on his back, holding her hands across his chest, because she was too weak from the power of the telogel pain in her. When he felt her beginning to dance, he would relax his hold. But each time she stopped dancing, leaned on the center post, swayed, and sang. Her song was: "Wonoyek' ote'pon' norewon tspina'iir u'we's (Above standing pretty: only- two its-limbs)." This was about a tree which she saw in the sky; and the two limbs referred to the telogel pains, which come in pairs. Then the novice said, "The doctor from helkik [in Pekwon] is coming and she has forgotten her pipe." Soon this doctor did arrive, with her husband, coming up from the boat landing. They entered the sweat house, the roof of which had been lifted off for the dance, and she wanted to smoke. Her husband searched in his fur sack, turned it inside out, and finally had to give her his pipe. When she had smoked, she danced to help the novice. The Osegen doctor was also invited to dance, but merely said, "No, perhaps later." She continued to sit, watching, wrapped in her double-deerskin blanket. After a while she felt the edge of this blanket, by her arm, fluttering. Then the novice said, "Kilomelek ne-tel (She is taking away my pain)," stopped singing, and sat down. The doctor from Pekwon kept on dancing and was thought to have got it. But the Osegen doctor stood up, stepped out of the crowd, and ran down to her boat. Her doctor housemate knew what was happening, ran after her, and held her down in the boat-so she would not jump out, in her trance-while the third woman paddled down-river to Blue Creek. Then her mother upbraided her: "Now you are in possession and there is none here who can sing for you to dance." So they went hastily upriver to Oyol because that was the nearest settlement, and there she danced the remohpo in the sweat house. Then her newly acquired telogel pain tol-d her in a dream where to go to get its mate. So, later, she went up to Ha'iiig oklo', on Doctor Rock, back from Blue Creek; and there she got the second one of the pair. The crowd at Serper broke up, most of them following the Pekwon doctor to her home to continue the remohpo dance there, but others going to Oyol when they heard it was being danced there too. 154 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives The bride price was never repaid by Serper. First, the Pekwon doctor had not helped her housemate novice while she was sick and out of her mind; and then, later, she was supposed to have got the telogel for herself, and this was valuable and an offset against the bride price. Later on, someone was ill in the same house helkik of Pekwon. The doctor there had failed to cure, so the Osegen doctor was called for and effected a cure. This proved that the Pekwon doctor was not truthful when she acted as if she had taken the pain out of the Serper girl. Thereupon the helkik doctor said she had never claimed to have secured the pain; that it was only alleged about her by others. [6] This is the first of a group of stories (numbers 6-10, 23) which deal with doctoring and doctors-all the doctors being women among the Yurok, though not necessarily so among neighboring tribes. Theoretically, a man could be- come a doctor among the Yurok, but I have not been able to learn of one who acquired any notable power in native days. When a doctor is spoken of it is always taken for granted that it is a woman. It is of interest that there is, however, no trace of prejudice against men doctors. The Tolowa doctor told of in narrative 10 was highly esteemed and I have repeatedly heard him re- ferred to with complete respect and no sense of his being in any way unortho- dox or in disrepute on account of his sex or profession. The information contained in this group of stories necessitates some re- vision of the account of Yurok shamanism given in the Handbook. It also elucidates the set of customs. First of all, it is clear that there is a guardian spirit in the customary American Indian sense, and that the spirit appears in a dream or during a trance: it is very difficult to distinguish the two states. This guardian spirit is the source of shamanistic power through his putting into the candidate one of the telogel or "pains" upon control of which the doctor's power rests. This spirit may be a dead person, presumably a woman who was herself a doctor in her day, or an animal like the chicken hawk in tale 8 or the whale in tale 23. However, after this first appearance the guardian spirit recedes into the background and the animate "pains" which the doctor has received into her body take its place. It is these pains that throw her into the trance state or unconsciousness and give her clairvoyant power; it is they that make her ill and have gradually to be mastered; and it is they that extract from a patient the disease-bringing pains in his body. It is to "cook" these pains, to accustom them to their new human abode, and to make them tractable, that the new doctor dances the remohpo or "kick dance" for days before a fire in the sweat house. When she can finally produce the pain and return it to her body at will, she has the necessary control and is ready to begin curing. The present tale tells of a young woman who as the result of a dream had received her first pain but could not master it. She danced and danced but could not bring it up. It stayed in her body and drove her increasingly out of her mind, and her relatives feared she would die. An experienced doctor was welcomed to save her life by ridding her of it; as pay she would have the pain 155 Univ. Calif. Publ. An. Arch. and Ethn. for the strengthening of her own power. She was endowed for it, and the un- fortunate novice was not. What was also not clear before is that the pains always come in pairs, just as the pains which make a nondoctor ill are in pairs. A doctor's first pain may come to her unsought in a dream, but may also be acquired when she is dancing in solitude in order to obtain power. To get its mate she goes to one of the mountaintop half-enclosures of stone which the Yurok called tsektsel and which in English they often speak of as seats. There she dances again, still alone, but under guard and at night, until, the guardian spirit having put the second of the pair into her body, she goes out of her senses again and has once more to be taken down to the "cooking" rem8hpo dance in the sweat house. A strong doctor may ultimately acquire many pairs of pains; but the foundation of her ability and her strongest pains are the first two pairs. The technique of curing has also become clearer. The larger telogel pains rest in the doctor's body enveloped in a "blanket" (uka'a) of something like slime (sleyil). When the doctor's power comes on her, one of her pains rises in her gorge, and its sleyil helps her find the telogel in the patient, as she moves her mouth over his body. She facilitates the egress of her pain by putting three or four fingers into her throat to retch it up. It then passes from her mouth, as she is "sucking" the patient, into the latter's body, and travels in this until it meets the pain which is causing the disease. The two slimy envelopes mingle and the doctor's pain returns to the doctor, drawing the other after it. Once the latter is safe in her body, she brings it up in the same manner as her own, and causes it to fly away to where it came from. The telogel pains are little things, not bigger than a finger and often less, and are described as of various shapes and colors, although usually longitudinal. There are other causes of illness besides pains. One is a soul loss, as we should call it, or taking away of the life-the "body," the Yurok put it. This is done by spirits and cannot be cured by doctors. It is treated by a special ritual and dance, described in story 22 below. Another cause of sickness is sin. A person has secretly done something which is against custom law and is wrong. Years afterward he becomes ill; or per- haps it is his child or grandchild. Then confession is in order as the only way in which life can be saved. The doctor declares that there are no pains left in the sick person. He can become well only if he or a relative confesses having done something very wrong. Often the doctor half sees the sinful act and is able to suggest it sketchily. The patient or his suspected relative may call on his wife or a kinsman to confess: but the doctor has seen enough, while in her power, to know whether the confession is the pertinent one. If it is irrelevant to the cause of the illness, the patient will die. When the true and proper confession has been extorted, she accepts it, and blows the sickness away. It is a significant touch that the confession must be made in the hearing of others and thus become more or less common knowledge. The deed confessed to may be grave robbery, abortion, keeping a monster as a pet, attemping to poison or bewitch, approaching the supernatural while sexually unclean. Most often the act has to do with death, or intended death, or a dead body. 156 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives There are still other sicknesses which are not due to pains and therefore are not treated by shamanistic technique; rattlesnake bite, for instance. The Yurok know quite a list of troubles and ailments which fall in this category. They include insanity, sacroiliac-slip, cuts, bruises, breaks, puerperal fever or any illness within twenty days of parturition, and arrowhead or bullet wounds. The last two are treated by formula recitation with herb medicine, plus sucking for the arrowhead by the formulist. Doctoring was clearly a source of wealth-in successful cases, of great wealth. Young women wished to become doctors in order to be rich. Daughters who had already begun their career were held for a higher marriage price; or the father might insist on the husband's coming into the house as half- married so that the father himself instead of the husband-his house, at any rate-would receive the wealth that accrued. Note, here, the silent contest of two established doctors to get for themselves the source of power which is too great for the novice to master and use. 7. HEGWONO: CONFESSION TO A DOCTOR A young man in Rekwoi of the house higwo dreamed of seeing the bird he'gwono', which is larger than the condor, in Cann's Prairie (Mewil olegel, "Where the elk dance or play") on the ridge of the Bald Hills above the mouth of Redwood Creek. Then he always went to Cann's Prairie seeking for the he'gwono'. Finally he saw one there: it seemed to be a young one. He carried it away; then, holding it next to a fir, he had the bird step from his hand to a branch, and fixed a comfortable place for it. Then he brought it mussels. When he came back in the morning, he found some of the mussels gone. Thus he fed it. Then he told his grandfather. The old man said, "Do not tell anyone, but continue feeding it. After ten days you can pluck its tail feathers." So for nearly four years the young man fed his he'gwono'. In winter the bird left, but in spring it always came back. Then he began to go with a girl from Ml&rekw. It seemed as if the bird did not like this. Finally he full-married her at his home in Rekwoi. Then, years after, his son, who was beginning to grow up, became ill. He slept all day but lay awake at night. The wife said, "There are more doctors on the river than on the coast. Let us go up to my home at Mulrekw." They went up, but the doctors failed to cure the boy. Then Fanny Flounder's mother, Mrs. Tipsy, was brought from Espeu. The second night, she went into her trance; and, after she came out, she said, "A huge bird comes in and sits down by the boy. Then he throws the boy's life on his back and flies all night over the ocean with it." The third night, she said, "I see the same thing; and it looks as if the bird came to your shadow [the father's] ; perhaps you know what happened. Tell it and save the boy's life. He has no pain in him that I can suck out." Then the boy's mother began to confess. She told everything wrong that her people had done for generations back. Then the father also began to confess a little something or other, and finally he told all about the he'gwono' he had kept: Then the doctor said, "That is it. Now he will be well." And the boy became well. 157 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. [7] This is a story of recovery from illness by confession, like the aftermaths of tales 11, 15, and 17. Several other known instances are not included, be- cause they relate to persons still alive or who have living children; and the sin committed is always extremely shameful in native eyes, though to us it may approach the venial. In fact, the nature of the wrongdoing in these cases illustrates vividly the Yurok puritanical preoccupation with sin. The guilt is religious: something impure and defiling is involved. But it is also a viola- tion of custom, law, and recognized morals. Just what the wrongdoing was in this story is not wholly clear, because the he'gwono' cannot be identified. It is not the California condor; this the Yurok call pregonis, and they use its feathers. It is said to be a bird larger than the condor. It is therefore presumably a legendary being, and these are always dangerous to have traffic with, especially when they are brought into relation with house or family. The Yurok have a series of tales relating to the long ago which tell of a man finding and rearing the young of a supernatural animal. Most often it is a water monster, a knewolek or a kaames; but I have recorded one myth which is almost the exact parallel of this present tale of recent times: the pet is also a he'gwono' and later the keeper's child becomes sick. There was evidently an intense preoccupation with the idea of cherishing these supernaturals. They bring luck for a time, but grief in the end. Usually the attachment between the man and the animal is described as profound to the point of being obsessive. The pet resents his owner's division of affection when he marries, and causes either sorrow or misfortune when he leaves. It is probably to be understood as background to these tales that Yurok education warns the young against this sort of unnatural association. Part of the conceptual scheme of confession is that, if complete, it brings complete cure. On the other hand, there is no explanation of the mechanism. A doctor is needed to ascertain that sin was committed and to suggest more or less what it was. After confession is made, however, she does no more than touch the patient with her finger tips and blow the cause of illness away from these. In other words, cause and its removal remain entirely on a moral plane, without physiological expression except in the disease effects. Always, also, there is an interval of years between the wrongdoing and the illness, and the latter is as likely to strike a child as the sinner himself. 8. A DOCTOR ACQuIREs POWER This is how Fanny Flounder of Espeu became a doctor. She told me the story herself, at various times. For several summers she danced at Wogel-otek, on a peak perhaps three miles from Espeu north of the creek. It looks out over the ocean. Then at last while she was sleeping here she dreamed she saw the sky rising and blood dripping off its edge. She heard the drops go "ts, ts" as they struck the ocean. She thought it must be Wes,ona olego', where the sky moves up and down, and the blood was hanging from it like icicles. Then she saw a woman standing in a doctor's maple-bark dress with her hair tied like a doctor. Fanny did not 158 $pott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives know her nor whether she was alive or dead, but thought she must be a doctor. The woman reached up as the edge of the sky went higher and picked off one of the icicles of blood, said "Here, take it," and put it into Fanny's mouth. It was icy cold. Then Fanny knew nothing more. When she came to her senses she found she was in the wash of the breakers on the beach at Espeu with several men holding her. They took her back to the sweat house to dance. But she could not: her feet turned under her as if there were no bones in them. Then the men took turns carrying her on their backs and dancing with her. Word was sent to her father and mother, who were spearing salmon on Prairie Creek. But her mother would not come: "She will not be a doctor," she said. Most of Fanny's sisters had become doctors before this. Her mother was a doctor, and her mother's mother also, but her mother had lost faith in her getting the power. Now, after five days of dancing in the sweat house, she was resting in the house. Then she felt a craving for crabmeat; so an old kinswoman, also a doctor, went along the beach until she found a washed-up claw (the Indians had no way of taking crabs in nets). She brought this back, roasted it in the ashes, and offered it to Fanny. At the first morsel Fanny was nauseated. The old woman said, "Let it come out," and held a basket under her mouth. As soon as she saw the vomit she cried, "Eya," because she saw the telogel in it.' Then everyone in Espeu heard the cry and came running and sang in the sweat house, and Fanny danced there. She danced with strength as soon as the telogel was out of her body. And her mother and father were notified and came as fast as they could. Then her mother said, "Stretch out your hands [as if to reach for the pain] and suck in your saliva like this: hlrr." Fanny did this and at last the pain flew into her again. This pain was of blood. When she held it in her hands in the spittle in which it was enveloped you could see the blood dripping between her fingers. When I saw it in later years it was a black telogel tipped red at the larger end. This, her first, is also her strongest pair of pains. About it other doctors might say, "Skui k'etsemin k'el (Your pain is good)."' They say that sort of thing to each other when one doctor has seen a pain in a patient but has been unable to remove it and the next doctor succeeds in sucking it out. The words of Fanny's song when she sucks out blood with her strongest power are: "Kitel- k'el wes,ona-olego' kithonoksem (Where the sky moves up and down you are traveling in the air)." Now after a time an old kinsman at Espeu was sick in his knee. The other doctors there, who were also his kin, said, "Let the new doctor treat him." Her mother wanted her to undertake it but warned her not to try to sing in curing until she told her to. So she treated the old man without singing; and then she took on other light cases. Altogether she doctored seven times before she sang. Then her mother told her to try to sing, and the song came to her of itself. 2 Whoever sees a telogel may drink no water that day. s The word "tsemin" is used by people other than doctors to denote medicine for salmon or sturgeon or game. Cf. narrative 11. 159 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. Next summer she was at the same place on the hill, again dancing for more power. She was stretching out her hands in different directions when she saw a chicken hawk (tspegy!) soaring overhead. She became drowsy, lay down, and dreamed.' She saw the chicken hawk alight and turn into a person about as tall as a ten-year-old boy, with a martenskin slung on his back. He said, "I saw you and came to help you. Take this." And he reached over his shoulder, took something out of his martenskin, and gave her something which she could not see; but she swallowed it. At once she became unconscious. At Espeu they heard her coming downhill singing.! As she ran past the sweat house the people seized her and put her into it and she danced and came to her senses again. This telogel took her less long to learn to control. It is her second strongest pain. After she had taken it out and reswallowed it she saw that it looked like a dentalium. Now when she is called on to doctor, if she sees a chicken hawk overhead while she is on her way she knows she will be able to cure, even if she has not seen the patient. If she does not see a chicken hawk the case is serious and the patient may die. The song she got from the chicken hawk is also about the ocean or something near it. When she is not in the trance state she can hardly remember the song, but when in a trance she sings it without knowing it. When Fanny first told me about her power, she told me only about the chicken hawk. She was saving out how she got her first and strongest pain. That is the way doctors do: they do not give it all away. Nevertheless, other doctors soon find out that a doctor has additional pains, from what they see she can extract and they cannot. All her other pains came to her later, and are smaller and weaker. She did not have to go to dance at Wogel-otek for these; she dreamed and got them at home. That is the way it is with all doctors. But after she had her first pain it was still necessary for her to "go inland" (helkiiu nusoton). This is like "passing an examination" or proving oneself. This she did only after she had had her first pain in and out several times and had it pretty well under control. She went up the peak on which Wogel-otek is, but to another part of it on the south side called Tsektsel otek. It is so called because there is a tsektsel there-one of the seats or semicircular rock walls where the woge used to sit down and think. Besides doctors, men can go there to acquire luck. This tsektsel is big enough to permit one to sit within it and stretch his legs in any direction. Its open side faces south. Well, Fanny went up there with her mother, who was also a doctor. She wore her maple-bark dress. She stood aside until her mother had cleaned out the seat and built a fire in front of it. By it her mother laid down a new bark dress for her and a pipe in its case and a keyem basket. She told Fanny to put on the new dress and leave the old one. She built herself another little fire a short way off. Then Fanny stepped into the tsektsel and danced just as she had danced 4Such a dream in which one acquires a pain is called u-kamilik; an ordinary dream, u-wilkwok. 6This kind of singing is called u-kel-peyok, not rurawok. 160 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives when first seeking power, stretching out her hands in all directions. All that night she did not stop dancing. Occasionally she shouted. When she danced more slowly she clapped her hands together. Her mother had told her, "When you shout you will hear all kinds of things from inland (helkiiu). But say, 'No, I did not come here for that.' Toward morning perhaps you will hear them singing the remohpo from the mountains. Then say to them, 'That is what I am here for.'" Then, as the night wore on, she danced harder and harder, and heard the sounds from inland more plainly and shouted, "I wish that when I doctor, any sick person will become well (wokteu niwa'a soksipa). I am glad, you will give me the power." Then at daylight she started straight for the sweat house at Espeu. She knew nothing, but the woge led her there directly while she sang. Her mother stayed behind, throwing the ashes from the fire aside, sweeping out the tsektsel, and laying Fanny's old dress and basket in the first fork of the nearest tree, tying them against it with two or three strands, of the dress so that they would stay there. It was the old basket into which she had spat out her first telogel pain that her mother thus put away with her old dress. Fanny's old pipe she laid inside the tseksel at the back. Then she slapped her pipe sack five times, poured tobacco into her hand, rubbed it with her other, and blew it off inland toward the mountains. Then she slapped the sack five times more and poured tobacco on the ground before the bowl of Fanny's abandoned pipe. After they have led the novice to the sweat house the woge take with them the life of the dress, the basket, and the pipe (wegwolotsik helkiiu wesoto).' That is how doctors know that when they are dead they will go into the mountains, and each one while here has to make her path into the moun- tains. They go inland (helkiu). Then Fanny's mother went down to the sweat house at Espeu. When Fanny had arrived, they were already singing in the sweat house. Others stood outside to keep away any menstruating women, because a woman who was an enemy and menstruating might deliberately come to stand near the sweat house to spoil the new doctor's power. Also, these people outside may be needed to direct the doctor. Sometimes a novice runs straight to the sweat house and dives in through the door headfirst. Others start to wander off and have to be led to the door. Now Fanny had jumped in and was dancing. The second night, she felt as if she were dancing outdoors, not in the sweat house. When people fell out from the singing to eat or rest, she also rested in the sweat house. She felt weaker and weaker, but did not tell her mother. Then new people from the mouth of the river and up the river came in to sing, and they brought heavy songs (winoktsenol). These are slow songs and not meant to be danced to, and her mother had told Fanny not to dance to them, but only to the proper remohpo songs; but these heavy songs were good, and after them, when they went back to the remohpo, she felt strong again and danced. Now the rule is that each singer must sing four times before he passes the 6 "Life" is given as hegwolotsin and "spirit" as hegwolon. 161 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. song on to the next one; and he goes on until the doctor begins to slow down her step and clap her hands; then he stops. On the third song of the first singer Fanny felt all her strength leaving her again. On the fourth song she did not get up until after he was going, and barely managed to stand up. Now most doctors close their eyes when they dance. But on the south corner of the sweat house, where the sky had been showing between the planks, Fanny now saw that from time to time it looked as if it were covered. Then she clapped, the song stopped, she sat right down, and her mother came to her at once. She told her what she had seen. Then the mother told her husband to go outside and look around the south corner of the sweat house. Tipsy looked and looked until he saw a piece of dry salmon stuck into the cracks between the planks. This was tspurawo ukii'm, menstruant woman's food. He did not touch it, but came back in and told his wife and she slipped out quietly and removed it while Tipsy told the singer. Then Fanny danced again and her strength was back. On the third song of the new singer her pain came out and she handled it, both on the keyem basket and in her hand, and sucked it back in. Then she was in a trance again, but finished the song and clapped her hands. When they stopped, Fanny's mother whispered to her husband to put an end to the dancing for a while and find out who had secreted the impure salmon, so Tipsy said, "You visitors come to the house and eat." So they all filed out and ate. Meanwhile they summoned the menstruating women, but all made denial. Only one of them would not come, and she was a kinswoman, although a distant one. Then her husband sent a woman to tell her that he would beat her if she did not come. So she came and confessed she had put the impure salmon into the sweat house in order to spoil Fanny's power, but she said she had done it to test how good a doctor she was. Then Fanny's mother told this woman's husband not to beat her, but they made her promise never to do anything like this again. In the evening they sang for Fanny again in the sweat house. Now every- thing went fine. She took her pain out four times during the night. In the morning she rested. This is done for ten nights; then the pains are settled and under control for good. After this and after her experience with the chicken hawk, Fanny had her roadway to helkau established. From now on she could get her dreams and pains in her own house. [8] This account of how one of the most powerful of surviving doctors, a friend of both the authors, acquired her powers, not only contains individual elements, but also illustrates the general method and attitudes. Comment on the latter has already been made in connection with the second preceding story. It is clear that shamanistic power is always wanted by the women who be- come doctors, and usually is overtly sought. Its possession definitely brings status and wealth. To successful doctors it brings great wealth. This is al- luded to again and again, both in the biographies of persons and in legendary accounts. Also, the Yurok, unlike most California Indians, do not kill their 162 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives doctors when they fail to cure, so that the advantages of the profession are not balanced by serious deterrents. The chief requisites seem to be possession of the necessary type of personality and willingness to undergo the somewhat arduous training of fasting, abstention from drinking, and dancing to the point of exhaustion. This training undoubtedly contributes to suggestibility as well as to direction of attention and concentration of will. There appear to be four stages necessary to the acquiring and controlling of a pair of telogel or pains. The first is the putting of a pain in the novice's body by the guardian spirit, be this an animal or a former doctor. Next is the taming of this pain-its "cooking," as the Yurok call it-by the remohpo singing and dancing in a half-dismantled sweat house in front of a concourse of people from whom only menstruant women and other impure persons are excluded. Then, the next summer, there follows the dancing in one of the stone half-enclosures on a mountaintop with an attendant or a guard near by. Here another pain is implanted. Unconsciousness follows and the doctor runs back to the river or ocean and again goes through the remohpo dance as the last stage. The entire sequence may be repeated later. It remains unexplained why the Yurok and a few of the neighboring tribes should have allotted doctoring power almost exclusively to women. In other regions women are usually not excluded, but the majority of doctors and the more powerful ones are men. Yurok men have several ways open to them to acquire power, but it is not the power to cure illness. The most usual method is to gather sweat-house wood ceremonially, that is, ascetically and with con- scious direct willing. This brings luck, especially wealth, including sometimes wealth by gambling. Luck seekers and gamblers may also go to the stone en- closures on mountaintops, although this is less usual. Finally, a man who wishes to be brave and strong plunges into a lake or eddy, or under water in the hollow of a seastack, becomes unconscious, and is given the power he seeks by monsters or thunders, as illustrated in narratives 21, 25, and 27. There is usually also the implication that a man acquires wealth power along with this fighting power; he would need it in settling for success in battle. All these male procedures, however, differ from that for women in that no pain object is acquired, hence no power of curing illness, and that there is no remohpo dance, nor any equivalent. When a man has secured his power he has it, and simply ends his practices. The power to bewitch or "devil" is entirely distinct from the power of cur- ing. It depends on an apparatus which can be transferred and usually is ac- quired by sale. Most often it is exercised by men. In fact, I do not know that women have ever practiced this power of "deviling." Such cases probably occur, but must be unusual. Doctors are sometimes held responsible for deaths, but it is by sins of omis- sion: they leave some of the pains (wo-telo) in and say nothing about them. This seems to be more often due to a desire for lucrative reemployment later on than to an attribution of malevolence. It is therefore logical that the Yurok do not kill doctors who lose cases, but content themselves with a refund of the payment if the patient dies within a year. 163 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that their abstinence from executing revenge on doctors is at least partly due to the fact that doctoring has been assigned so overwhelmingly to women. Fanny is the daughter of Tipsy, the hero of tale 1. How she acquired her power has also been recorded from Robert Spott by Silva Beyer. 9. DOCToRs TREATING ONE ANOTHER Fanny Flounder was visited by a man doctor, half drunk, who said he had heard she was ailing and wanted to treat her. She did not altogether like the idea, but neither did she like to refuse. He was a man from Wahsek, about fifty-five years old, called Tom Richard, mar- ried to Tegeyo, the stepdaughter of Tule Creek Dan. He was a new-style doc- tor, the kind that came in with the Shakers. He asked us to help him sing and we did. He did not dance. He treated Fanny for about one and a half hours, including his sucking her. She said she had no money then, except two and a half dollars, which she would give him for gasoline for his trip. He agreed and took the money. After a while she decided that he had helped her, and about half a year later she gave him six dollars more. However, she was not altogether right yet, so before long she paid seven dollars for being treated by an old-style doctor, Nellie of Muirekw, called Petsku-me'lo,7 Terkr's son's widow. Fanny in turn has treated the following doctors: Redwood Henry's wife, who was old and her jaw weak for sucking; her own mother; and Nancy Jack. [9] This little episode illustrates two things: First, it shows that whatever doctors may or may not realize about the nature of their own powers, they do believe in the powers of other doctors; in other words, they believe in the system of shamanism. This point is of interest with reference to the question often raised of the sincerity of shamans. It is obviously naive to regard this question as one which can be categorically answered by yes or no. If a doctor, when she is ill, has herself treated by a colleague and pays her, it is evident that she has genuine convictions. Second, it shows that the man doctor who treated Fanny is not an old-style Yurok doctor, but one who exemplifies the hybridized modification of beliefs which has sprung up among the California Indians during the past genera- tion or so, with the tendency to efface intertribal distinctions. It will be noted not only that he was a man, but also that he did not dance. Probably, also, he had not visited a mountaintop nor had the remohpo made for him. 10. GREAT DOCTORS There used to be four doctors who were strong enough to suck out the last and deadliest four of the uma'a arrowheads which cause sickness. One of these was Tsohtsoi pegerk kegei, a Tolowil. This doctor was a man, but he was of another tribe, the Tolowa. He was named after the place where 7 Cf. the end of the next story. 164 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives he lived, Tsohtsoi, at Pebble Beach beyond Crescent City. Tsohtsoi is the name of a house, or rather of a pair of houses inhabited by kinsmen and therefore having a joint name; but as they were the only houses in the spot the place is a village name as well as a house name. This doctor dressed like a man: he did not wear a maple-bark dress. So far as I know, he got his power in the same way that a woman doctor gets it among our people.8 The second of these famous doctors was called Sregon okegei. She was a relative of Sregon Jim and the grandmother of Big Ed. The third one was called Weitspus higwo kegei because she was from the house higwo at Weitspus. I do not know precisely how she was related to other people from this house. She wanted her daughter to become a doctor, but the daughter refused. Later she began to train her granddaughter, that is, she told her what to do to get doctor's power. The girl was not yet through learn- ing when she went visiting in Hupa. There she was bewitched with uma'a. They did not send for the grandmother, and in three days the girl was dead. Then the old woman cried herself to death from grief over not having been able to be on hand to save her grandchild. The fourth one was a Karok called Ayi's okegei after the name of her town, Ayi's (the Karok name of the place). These four doctors were before my time, but my father and mother saw them. If these four gave up a patient there was no hope for him. Also it is said that although none of the four knew the Wiyot language, when they sucked out the deadly uma'a pain they talked Wiyot while they were in their trance condition. The following is told about two of these four great doctors. Weitspus higwo kegei was in the house ketskel in Rekwoi treating a man who was nearly dead. In the evening she sucked out one of his pair of deadly pains, the one below the heart; the other was on his right side. Then, because she was proud, she went to another house to sleep the rest of the night, thinking, "They will have to call me again to save him." When one of a pair of pains is left in the patient he nearly dies. That same night the man doctor from Tsohtsoi came, saw the patient's condition, and sucked the second pain out. In the morning Weitspus higwo kegei came back to her patient, began to suck him, and saw that the pain was gone. Immediately she sat up, spat out into the maple-leaf-lined food basket which she had by her as a spittoon, looked at Tsohtsoi pegerk kegei, and said, "Hm! You robbed me last night." When a doctor sucks out an uma'a pain she holds it between her hands, closes her eyes, chants "ahok ahok 'hok," and then begins to sing. Then the pain flies upward, spirals in the air, and suddenly flies in a beeline to where it 8 Silva Beyer has recorded from Robert Spott this man's account of his power acquisition as he subsequently related it to Fanny Flounder when they had jointly treated a case, she removing two pains from under the heart, he from the shoulder blade. He did not set out to be a doctor, but was gathering sweat-house wood "for luck." In the sweat house he dreamed that a wolf told him that he wanted him to become a doctor. Being dubious, he went on with his sweat-house practices, until one day, when he was on an inland peak with a far view, the wolf appeared and held out a red obsidian arrowhead for him to inhale. The moment this pain was in him, the wolf disappeared, and he lost consciousness until he found himself danc- ing in the sweat house. On the sixth night he was helped to control his pain when a woman doctor from Hinai'ig lent him her pipe to smoke. 165 166 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. came from, leaving a trail of fire, by which the doctor can tell by whom it was sent. Usually she does not tell, for fear the uma'a will be sent back into herself. After these four great doctors of a former generation, the following five were the best of their day. All these five had doctors in their families before them. One of them was Sregon Jim's wife, called Merip okegei. This is the woman whose account of her acquisition of power is given in the Handbook.9 Another one was called Espeu okegei and was the mother of Fanny Flounder. A third was Tse'gi okegei, so named after the. house in Wohkero; she was Nancy Jack's mother. A fourth was Sregon okegei, Big Ed's mother (and therefore the daughter of Sregon okegei). The fifth was Muirekw kerertser okegei, so named after the house kerertser there. The two best doctors surviving among our people now are Fanny Flounder, daughter of Espeu okegei, and To'n-wega, granddaughter of Mulrekw kerertser okegei, who is living at Mutrekw. The way doctoring runs in families is shown by this. Fanny Flounder had two sisters who were doctors; a third sister is supposed not to have become a doctor because she married a white man. Besides the mother (Mrs. Tipsy), also the grandmother and even the great-grandmother of these women were doctors, good ones. They were all of Espeu and Osegen on the coast. Also Fanny's mother's cousin of Osegen was a doctor, as I have told.10 [10] This narrative speaks for itself. It is perhaps worth noting that of the four great historic personages remembered from two or three generations ago one was a Tolowa, one a Karok, and two Yurok. No Hupa is included. In general the Yurok regard the Hupa as equals, but I do not recall ever hearing much about Hupa doctors. The Wiyot are just out of the range of experience of most the Yurok, so that the unusual can conveniently be attributed to them; but their traditional powers run to bewitching instead of curing. The Chilula are geographically near enough, but are looked down upon as a kind of hill- billies from among whom a really great person would hardly spring. By contrast, the five notables of the next generation are all Yurok. The range of interest now has become national instead of world-wide. It must not be assumed from the emphasis on succession that there was automatic inheritance of doctor's powers. One is born with or without the fundamental ability to become a doctor. Also, the Yurok are well aware of the help given a candidate by a successful mother or grandmother. She tells just what is to be done and what must not be done. Their idea of inheritance is thus a good deal like much of our own thinking on the same subject: congenital gift, family tradition and bringing up, and specific professional direction all contribute to the result. It is, however, clear that the inheritance, whatever its nature, runs from mother to daughter, contrary to the definite patrilineal bias of the society in matters of residence, family grouping, and property inheritance. 9P. 65. 10 Tale 6. Spott-Kroeber: Yurolc Narratives 11. SRX'MXU'S FAMILY LuCK The old man who was the head of Sregon about 1900, and whom the white people called Sregon Jim, lived in the house in Sregon which stood in the center of the row but was not called wogi as the middle house usually is. I have forgotten its name. Old Jim was always called Srii'miiu, that is, widower of Sregon, even after he remarried. I never heard him called by another name. His first wife was a doctor, I believe, and by her he had two daughters. His second wife was from Merip and is the doctor whose story of how she got her power is given in the Handbook.' He had no children by her. Srii'miiu was rich by inheritance and increased his wealth. He bought two white deerskins from the Karok, paying for them with American gold money. The bigger one of the two was from Pasiro above Orleans. He also bought from the Karok four silver-gray foxskins. He acquired a pair of red obsidians from Murek Jack. These matched, what we call nlktseu. His sister, who was a doctor, was first paid one of them as a fee; afterward, Srii'miiu bought its mate. He had four strings of dentalium beads which he got from Kohpei-helkiiu, the house helkiiu in Kohpei, Crescent City. These are the things he added to those which he inherited. I knew about the treasures because he used to bring them to my people when a dance was made at Weitspus, and I helped check on them. He was a weskwilai or brave man. He was not afraid of any lake or bad place in the river, but would jump into it to acquire power. In all the killings in which he was involved he fought clean. If an enemy passed Sregon on the trail, and Srii'miiu saw him from the sweat house, he would send word after him that next time he would be attacked; but he disdained to attack him without warning. He was also generous with food. His second wife was industrious, and by daybreak she would be pounding acorns. She always cooked more than they themselves could eat, and then would set out extra baskets of acorn soup for whoever might come by, each basket with dried fish or meat in the cover basket. Then when Srai'miiu would come from the sweat house to the living house for breakfast, he would glance over at them, and if he saw none of them empty, he would say, "I don't feel well." When they asked him what was wrong, he would say, "No one has yet stopped in to be given breakfast." However, this story is really about an ancestor of his. I do not know just how far back this ancestor was, because we call grandfather and great-grand- father by the same word. Srii'miiu referred to him as nempeihtseu, which I take to have meant his great-grandfather. We also have a word nemtsegwole, which means about the same as "my ancestor." This man of long ago lived in the same house as Srii'miiu. He is said to have had ten wives. This family kept close together in Sregon, but they married wives from other tribes: from the Karok upriver; from Hinii'ig on Smith River; and from the Ner'erner or Coast Yurok, where they married from tsahpekw. The only tribes with whom they did not intermarry were the Hupa and Chilula. 11P. 65. 167 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. Now the place where this family used to go to get power was Malul, about one and a half day's travel back north from the river from Sregon. This moun- tain is wogel or sacred from the woge. Its peak rises to the east and has a stone tsektsel enclosure or seat on it. Of course one has to keep clean before one sits in this tsektsel. They used to go there at the time of year when the grass turns brown, which we call segeyoil. It was said that if one sat in this tsektsel one could hear water dripping as if in a cave: it would strike the ground with a ring. Some men could locate where the ring came from; but others could not, and these were called nimololegoihkoni. Well, this ancestor of Srii'miiu went up several summers before he was married. Then the last time, as he was sitting there, he heard the water drip and ring twice, seemingly in front of himself. He wiped his tears away- because they mostly cry on such an occasion,-cleared off the grass, and saw a shiny gray rock. He began to rub this and it slid to the side like a cover. Underneath was a hole about the size of a can, with blue or green water in it. He felt around in the water with two fingers and there was something very slippery, like a lamprey eel but smaller. He tried to pinch it with two fingers to lift it out, but it was very smooth. Finally he got hold of it, took it out, and laid it in some manzanita-limb shavings (serihtsulp) which he had in a keyem basket. Then he saw that the thing was of stone and shaped like a deer, with horns. He slid the stone cover back over the hole and put dirt and pine needles over it to hide it. Then, the sun being low, he started downhill, carrying what he found and crying all the time. When he reached his camp where he had been sleeping, he crumbled some acorn bread into another keyem basket and ate it. The thing he had found he put with angelica root and herhpiun into his fisherskin quiver or sack. The herhpuln is a fragrant herb which has a purple flower. He did not stop to sleep, but traveled back toward home all night and at daybreak got to Orul just above Sregon, from which one can see the river though not Sregon itself. There he hid his skin bag with its contents in a large white oak and covered it with a broken branch. Then he gathered sweat-house wood and came back to Sregon. He followed his grandfather into the sweat house. They thought there that he had found something, because he was crying. After they had bathed and sat outside the door as they do to let the water dry off them before they go in to breakfast, he kept apart from the others until only his grandfather was left there. Then the old man said to him, "Go to the creek and wash your face and come on indoors." Then he wiped his eyes (umewolewei) with the heel of his hands and told his grandfather he had found what he had gone for. Now the grand- father also began to weep, as if there were a death in the family, and crawled back into the sweat house to get his pipe and tobacco bag. One of the men had been waiting for them for breakfast, and came out to see what kept them. The old man told him to go on and eat, that they too would soon be along. Then they joined the others in the house, but ate only a little. After that, the young man and his grandfather went uphill to the oak where the thing was hidden. 168 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives It took quite a long time, because the old man had to walk slowly. The young man climbed the oak and brought down his fisherskin bag and took out the basket, and his grandfather examined what he had found. Then they went to Kwerap otek, a pointed rock about three-fourths of a mile back from the river. In this rock there was a crevice, and into that they put what he had found. They covered it again, with more shredded manzanita and herhpuin and angelica root. After that they covered the crevice with a stone and threw dead leaves on it. They also covered their footprints to the rock with leaves. They were gone nearly all day, and smoked to keep up their strength. Both of them cried the whole time. The sun was low when they re- turned to town and sat by themselves outside the sweat house. The young man's grandmother knew that something had happened, and had prepared special food for him. So he went into the living house and ate a little, but then returned to the sweat house. The other men came in, too, and wanted to know what had happened; but he did not tell them until days afterward. That is how this family became so wealthy. The thing that he found is called tsemmin. This name is also given an amulet for taking salmon. It is good medicine for everything and brings luck of all kinds. Valuable property came to the house as if it came of itself. They were able to kill game close to where they lived; sometimes they would get a gray deer. The doctors in the family were summoned out almost continuously. After that, but still before he was married, the young man went back to the big rock and bored out a hole in it so as to keep his tsemmin dry in winter. Sometimes he would go to where it was and smoke. He would strike his tobacco pouch, wish for luck, fill his pipe, and blow the crumbs of tobacco out of his palm toward the tsemmin. This sort of offering of tobacco is called upegahsoi. Another phrase that means the same thing is holil wohkum. This is almost the same as w6lilik wohkum, which means the sowing of tobacco seed. All this he did before he was married. After he was married he did not go near it any more, except sometimes when he lost his luck in hunting; then he would stand in front of the rock where the tsemmin was hidden and would clap his hands. This handelapping is called we-terkterpterwerk. This is some- thing a woman may not do, except a doctor who is seeking power. When he had done this his hunting luck always returned. It was this same young man who later had the ten wives. The mountain Malul is like the mountain that the white people call Doctor Rock, which is also north of the river; and women would go there to become doctors, as well as men for luck. By the time Sregon Jim, Srii'miiu, was born, the tsemmin was gone. He said perhaps they had not known how to take care of it, but he still would go to the erack where it had been hidden and would clap his hands and make his wish, and it always brought him luck. He said that the hole was still visible in his time, and the keyem basket in it. That is why the place still gave him luck. The way it became generally known that the tsemmin had disappeared was this. One of Srii'miiu's daughters by his first wife became sick when she was a girl of perhaps ten or twelve. They called several doctors, even from a distance. 169 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. One of them was Tipsy's wife, Fanny Flounder's mother. This was before the families were enemies. She was paid a black obsidian and fifteen woodpecker scalps. After two days of doctoring she was dancing in the morning. Her power seemed to become very strong. Her pipe pouch had just lifted itself from the floor and was about to leap into her outstretched palm. Srii'miiu went to the doorway, thinking that in her trance she might try to dash into the river and he would be there to hold her. But she stopped dancing, sat down beside the sick girl, and her voice trembled while her chest shook. Then she said, "The reason she is awake at night but sleeps in the daytime is from something far back. I see her on the horns of an upright deer, her feet on one horn, her head on the other. It seems to me it is stone, not a living deer; and it is from helkiiu (inland). Your people did not always keep clean. You would approach the stone thing after you had been with your wives. And youi failed to wash your hands or to take proper care of the bones after you had eaten deer." Thereupon Srii'miiu left the door and came close to his daughter. No one but the family was there, and for a confession to help, at least one outsider must be present. So he asked Mrs. Tipsy if she would negolo (come and repeat loudly for him) and she said she would. Then he told the story of his ancestor finding the tsemmin. That is how we know the story. Then his wife took a new keyem basket and put water into it and set it between him and the doctor. Then each of them dipped two fingers into the water, put them against their lips, and blew on the sick girl. Both of them said, "You will get well. They now know what was oppressing you (Kiyewolets kitskomtsumek mel opunnamil) ." Then the doctor smoked, sucked, danced, sucked again, could find nothing, and said that the sickness was gone. [11] I knew Srii'miiu or Sregon Jim as an old man in 1902. His eye was piercing, and his bearing reserved and proud. I came introduced by the family of Weitspus with which he had exchanged loans of dance treasures, so his reception of me was friendly. I tried to obtaihi his autobiography, but without marked- success. A Yurok of his generation would not know what to tell in a life history. Many of his experiences he would be perfectly willing to have known, as they would be known to other Yurok; but he would not speak about them because they involved mention of dead relatives, or of the kin of other people, who would be offended if they learned that he had discussed them. Of the Yurok I knew, Srii'miiu had the greatest repute as a warrior, and I particularly wanted to learn from him about his fights. He did give me a somewhat confused account.' Some things he omitted, because they involved deaths of his kinsmen. When it comes to the circumstances of a killing, whether in fair fight or in ambush, and what settlement was effected, satisfactory information can ordinarily be obtained, among the Yurok, only from people who were not directly involved. There is no room in their life for boasting about such matters. This would only stir up fresh troubles and liabilities. Srii'miiu came close to the native ideal of a great man. He was wealthy by 12 The story in Handbook, p. 51, is not from him, but from a Muirekw man. 170 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives inheritance and increased his wealth. He was jealous of his honor and brave. He had killed or helped to kill several people and was well able to pay settle- ment. At that, he had enough left over to remain rich. He was hospitable about food almost to the point of ostentation. He had a wife who was a famous doctor and brought property to the house. His town was not large but was closely knit by blood ties and therefore ready to act as a unit. He became the leader of this little clan. He was eminently successful and as respected as he was proud. Like nearly all old Yurok, he was religious in the sense that he adhered to traditional magic and taboos and accepted the beliefs associated with them. He seems not to have been active in public ritual. It is likely that he never served as dam builder (tsaro) at Kepel or as sweat-house singer (tal) at Pekwon. The story ends with another cure by confession. In this case the element of guilt is not so pronounced as usual. All that the doctor can see is that someone in the lineage must have approached the amulet while unclean. Possibly there is also a feeling that anything which brings so much good luck is in itself dangerous to have-that sooner or later it will bring requitement. Srii'miiu's name bears on the matter of Yurok personal appellations. Robert says that he does not remember his ever being called anything else than Srii'miiu (widower of Sregon), except for his white-man name of Sregon Jim. When I knew him he had, however, long been married to his second wife. Evidently the appellation stuck. There must have been a tendency for such designations not to be altered in general usage with every subsequent change of marital status. Srii'miiu must have been born not later than 1830. If it was his grandfather who found the amulet, the time would be around 1800, since he was still un- married. If it was a great-grandfather, the period would be about that when the American colonists were asserting their independence and the first Spanish missions were being founded in southern California. 12. TH:E FIRST-SALMON RITE AT WELKWXU This is the story of helku wenekuni ne'pui, "the salmon-spearing from shore," which is the central act in the first-salmon rite connected with Welkwiiu at the mouth of the river. My father was the last man who assisted the formulist and ate the salmon; this was before he was married. The formulist was the great-uncle of the woman who later became Johnny Shortman's wife and Charlie Williams' mother. He was known as Pegwolau omegwimor, "the old man of pegwoliiu," which was the name of the house, or rather pair of houses, in Welkwiiu in which the sacred pipes were kept. The third person in this last performance was this woman herself, the old man's grandniece,' who was a little older than my father but still unmarried and therefore called Pegwoliiu umii'i. The pipes were called pegwoliiu orowos. I think the house in which they are kept is called pegwoliiu because the pipes are made of pegwol (soapstone). They were a pair or mates. Therefore they were called "married" (wohpemii). 18 Or uncle and niece, respectively. 171 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. They were kept in the house, buried in a stone box or cyst with a cover. I do not know whether the male or the female pipe or both were used in the cere- mony. Anciently, the man who kept them, the head of the house, opened the cyst every month and threw angelica root into it. When white people were first seen on the coast, one or two at a time appearing along the beach a few days apart (about 1850), the house was burned by some of them and one of the pipes was broken across in two places. The man who then kept them was perhaps the grandfather, or at any rate a kinsman, of the old man whom my father assisted later. He was afraid that the unbroken pipe might leave its cyst and the house because its mate was broken. Hence he made it a new mate. This, like the original one, was wholly of stone and about a foot long, and was made to resemble it as closely as possible, except that he added two small ridges near the mouth end to distinguish it. In the old days, pipes made completely of stone were not smoked or allowed to be used otherwise; and later on, when the Indians began to make them to sell to the whites, my father was among those who protested. The rite concerned the spearing of the first spring salmon (ne'pe'wo) in the seventh month (tserwerh'sik) ; as the year began with the winter solstice, this would be about June-July. Beginning with the first month (kohtsa'wets), until this seventh month no salmon caught at the mouth of the river were allowed to be eaten. They said that if one ate them he would bleed to death. Only the aged, men and women of sixty or sixty-five or older, might eat them. This rule applied only to salmon: sturgeon, lamprey eels, surf fish, and candle- fish could be caught and eaten at any and all times. The mouth of the river was defined as ending at Tmeri weroi (Cannery Creek), between the Indian town of Rekwoi and the modern American town of Requa. If a salmon came ashore right across the mouth of Cannery Creek, its upriver portion, whether head or tail, might be eaten, but the down-river half of it was not touched. This law, however, did not mean that people in Rekwoi and Welkwiiu had to do entirely without fresh salmon during the first six months. They could eat them, provided they had been caught above Cannery Creek and then brought down to the settlements at the mouth. My father was notified about a month and a half in advance that he was wanted to assist the old formulist. At first he did not wish to serve, but he was persuaded to do so. From that time on he was under restrictions and kept himself clean. He had to eat apart from all other people for a month, using his own special food baskets, and from a separate stock of acorns, or at least separately cooked ones. He drank no water at all during this month, depend- ing on his acorn soup. He was allowed to eat salmon. Every morning and after- noon he brought sweat-house wood ceremonially. The formulist selected the girl, his niece, to cook the first salmon, after questioning her about her last menstruation. The rule is that if this has oc- curred ten days before the ritual, she is available; if twenty days have passed, she is rejected. The assistant may be married or unmarried or may even be an elderly woman, but she too must keep herself clean, including not having sexual relations for a month. 172 Spott-Kroeber: Yurolc Narratives The pipe keeper or formulist decided some days ahead when the spearing was to take place. From then on daily he threw grains of tobacco into the cyst where the pipes were and talked to them, telling them they would soon eat salmon: the pipes are given the parts of the salmon left over by the assistant. Seven days before the rite the formulist had my father come across to Welkwiiu. He was to bring only a blanket taken from a five-point deer, his pipe, and a basket of tobacco. He was to leave behind all his white man's clothes. Each day he was to get sweat-house wood, and he was to eat only what the formulist's niece, who was ceremonially clean herself, would cook for the two men. The evening my father went over, the old man told him to follow all his in- structions throughout and carefully. He sent him to get sweat-house wood at Tser'her olego. There are firs there, but other people never take the branches for sweat-house wood. The old man told him, "That is why I am with you, so that you will know how to do everything right." On the sixth day before the spearing, the old man said to him, "This is the last day that you will eat freely. Beginning with tomorrow you will not eat until evening; so eat plenty tonight." Nevertheless, my father did not eat much that evening. When it became dark the old man told the people of pegwoliu to move out of the sweat house and leave it to himself and my father. So the other men who regularly sweated there went to the sweat houses of tse'kwel and otsiil in Welkwau. On the third day he and my father began to clean a path from pegwoliiu north along the sand spit to its point at the very mouth of the river. They removed every pebble and even half-inch bits of wood from a path a foot and a half or two feet wide, and they just did reach the end on the sixth day. And the formulist closed the path. Therefore most of the people of Welkwiiu moved to Rekwoi as a more convenient place for getting their wood and water: firewood would mostly be got from the beach along the bar. At the tip of the spit the path ended at the high-tide line. Men from Welkwiiu who wanted to surf-fish from the beach went inside of the path and then around the point of the spit below this high-water mark. But women were not allowed to do this. The old man told my father, "I will spear the salmon, but you will carry it to the house. While you are carrying it you must not step across any stick of wood. That is why we are clearing this path. And you must watch for this spot from which you can see Te'golol. Up to here you must carry the salmon on your right shoulder. Here you must be sure to throw it onto your left, and you must change nowhere else." Te'golol is a notch or low divide in what the white people call Big Rattlesnake Mountain, a ridge north of the river near Terwer. On the sixth day of preparation, the last before the ceremony, the formulist had the people of the living house move out also. This left only the two men and the girl assistant. That night he and my father remained awake. The old man kept talking and patting his pipe. He made fire with angelica root until the sweat house and he himself smelled of it, and prayed on behalf of the whole world, asking that everywhere there be money, fish and berries and 173 1Univ. Calif. Publ. An. Arch. and Ethn. food, and no sickness. When the smoke from the angelica rose, he said, "This smoke is its [the pipe's] breath. It will spread all over the earth and make good things. It will take sickness (terh'kwei) across (hiko) from this world (or sky, wes,ona)." On the morning of the rite my father went up to get sweat-house wood, and when it was burned he and the old man lay outside for a while to cool, then bathed. After a time they could see the sun shining on the hill of Rekwoi. As soon as they felt warm all over, the old man said, "Now I will go to get ma'a'eskel (the harpoon shaft). Everything is on it already. I am also going in to bring your blanket." Then he brought blankets out, one for my father and one for himself. They were the kind that are called sme'tsoi (dehaired buckskin) and soft. He said, "Are you ready? Here is your sme'tsoi. Put it around your hips and leave your old u-srahko (loin garment) and take your pipe." So they went to the sweat house to change. The old man had a brand new plate basket (keyom) with his sacred pipe in it, together with angelica and tobacco. He was wrapping his long hair with a strip of otterskin about two inches wide. He said, "Now I will take the basket and put on my blanket. You put on yours in the same way with the neck part of the skin on your right shoulder, the tail part on the left side. And put your pipe at your belly in the loin covering." In the living house the girl assistant was doing the same thing. She took off her dress and put on a new one. An old woman was with her to tell her what to do. Then the old man gave my father his final instructions. He said, "Now fol- low me. The harpoon is lying ready. Carry it on your right shoulder. Take a good grip on it, but not too hard a one, because you may not change your hold until we come to the end of the spit. So adjust yourself before you start." Then he picked up his basket and went ahead so as not to hit the harpoon, and my father lifted the harpoon. At the point of the spit he could see people lined up fishing. The two of them walked rather slowly and there was no speech between them. At the end of the path he told my father, "Lay the harpoon down very care- fully with its point upriver." Then he sat down just opposite the middle of the river mouth, facing it, with my father on his left (west). One of the men who had been fishing circled around and stood behind the formulist. "We are catch- ing sturgeon and lampreys," he said. The formulist told him, "Do' not catch any more sturgeon. Go on taking lampreys and keep watching for salmon. When the first salmon is seen, let them shout, and when I come with the harpoon, all of you stop fishing and start for home without crossing our trail. Tell this to each man." So he went back and told the fishermen, and some of them stopped fishing then, but others continued. From time to time the old man prayed, blowing tobacco into the air to the north, the east, the south, and the west. They were facing the river mouth, more or less toward the north. In the afternoon, with the shadows of the men fishing coming toward them, 174 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives they heard the cry "Ne'pe'wo !" All the men shouted as they saw the salmon, and stood back from the water's edge. Then the old man took up the harpoon and walked in the downstream direction to the edge of the water. Part of the time a salmon fin was sticking out of the water. My father kept watching it and the old man. When the latter thought that the salmon was abreast of him, he said, "Lo'ronepes (Stop running!) ." Then the fish seemed to stop moving. The old man took two steps back (to the right) and said, "Sela'ro'nepes (Now run again!)." Then the salmon moved on, but stopped once more when the old man again said, "Lo'ronepes." Five times he did this before he was about to strike. The fifth time he told it to stop, the formulist grasped the pole with both hands, moved it twice, and said, "Lo'ro'onepem tso'-ki-kepis'on kiso'olewoni mekwol tsosoknoksim kepis'on tso-nol-mer'wermer'i oso'repem sela'ro'onepes (You will stop running. These your scales as you pass every fishing place you will leave them, your scales, to the head of the river, ending there. Now run on!)." At the last word, just as if he understood everything, the salmon disap- peared. He went on upriver, rubbing off one of his scales at every fishing place, until, when he arrived at the head of the river, he was completely smooth. This first fish of all, which is not speared, is called ne'pe'wo kewononoro'apin (the first salmon that goes on up to the head of the river). After this first salmon had gone its way, the old man walked back to my father, laid the harpoon down, and sat by him. He said, "Now you can look about for a while." As soon as they saw him sit down, the men went back to their fishing. An hour or two later my father heard them shouting "Ne'pe'wo !" from nearer the ocean. Each man shouted this as he saw the salmon, and stepped back from the water, picking up his lamprey eels. "Now look straight ahead again," the old man told my father. He saw the fish coming as before with part of its body showing from time to time. The old man judged the distance, took up his harpoon, and went to meet the fish. Five times he talked to it as before, walking upstream along with it. The fifth time he stopped he said, "Hino-leneihkwis, sela'ro'onepes, lo'ronepes (Drift back! Run on again! Now stop !) ." The salmon did as he told it. Then he gripped his pole, threat- ened with it four times, the fifth time struck and speared the salmon. It did not struggle, but seemed as if it were drifting to the shore as the old man walked backward away from the water. Across the river at Rekwoi all the women wailed and cried as at a death. Then the old man laid down his harpoon shaft, took the toggle head out of the salmon, and laid the salmon on the sand with its head upstream. Then he laid the harpoon in front of my father. Unwrapping his otterskin band from his hair, he laid it across the middle of the fish. The salmon flapped its tail, so he took up a stone and struck it on the head. Then he threw the stone into the river. It skipped and dived to the middle, then turned upstream and disappeared. Then, standing south of the fish, the old man said, "I am glad I caught you. You will bring many salmon into the river. Rich people and poor people will be happy. And you wi]l bring it about that on the land there will be every- 175 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. thing growing that there is to eat." At the end of each sentence the salmon answered by flapping its tail. Now the old man took up his otterskin band and put it into the basket. Then he blew out tobacco to the north, east, south, west. Then he said to my father, "Stand up. Walk to me. Untie the breast strap of your blanket. Now put your hands down." Then he took his blanket off him and went on, "Seize the salmon by the tail. Have you a good hold on it? Then raise it up gently [to near the level of the shoulder]. Grasp your wrist with your other hand so you will not tire. Now turn to the right. Do not look back at me nor about you. When you come to the place from which you can see Te'golol, roll your eyes until you see the notch. Then drop your left arm and swing the fish hard onto your left shoulder, never letting go your grip-but you may support your wrist with your other hand as before. Now go ahead at a trot." As my father started trotting toward pegwoliiu, all the people called out the names of every kind of food on sea and land, and dentalia, woodpecker scalps, and everything else they wanted. The shouting sounded like the sky coming down. So he went back carrying the salmon, making the shift where he had been told, until he got to the house pegwoliiu. There he did as the old man had previously told him. He took hold of the grasping rock with his left hand only and went through the door. While he was still in the anteroom, before he passed the partition, he slid the fish off his left shoulder and slung it at two wooden trays (solk) which were stood up at the far end of the pit. As he did this, the two women were sitting crying near the notched ladder leading down to the pit. As the salmon flew over the fire my father saw the two trays slide down flat, and the salmon dropped into one of them. The girl assistant immedi- ately undid the fur hairtie on her right side and laid it across the salmon. My father stood waiting for the old man to come. He saw that the house was swept as clean as the path had been. Even the ashes had been taken out: there was only a minute fire. When the old man arrived, he said, "Go on," and both of them entered. The old man set out two stools and they sat down. He also put their blankets back on them. Then he told the girl to cut the salmon up. She had had her instructions from the old woman with her. So now she cut from the gills to the tail along the stripe on the right side of the salmon; then the same on the left side. Then she cut off the head and the tail. Next she wiped out the blood from the insides with the fine green grass called ererwer, and scraped the blood off the backbone wOith her fingers. Next she cut the back half of the salmon across, and then the belly half. She did all this on the tray in which the fish had landed. Now the old man stood up, took angelica from a wooden trunk, and put it on the fire and prayed again. He said to the pipes, "This smoke is your breath. It will go everywhere. This human being [meaning my father] will divide the salmon with you." When the girl had finished her cutting, she wiped her hands with the same 176 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives grass. Now when the angelica was burnt to glowing coals, she sat down by the fire and with a new stick spread the coals into a layer. Going over to the salmon, she laid the belly part on the coals. The oil from it smelled like angel- ica. After a time she turned the meat over with two sticks. When it was cooked she brought a clean sa'ek basket to the fire, laid the salmon belly on it, and with a sharp stick cut it into four pieces. Then she set the plate basket before my father and returned carefully to her seat before the fire. The old man said to him, "Since the beginning we have always done this way: we give you your choice of the piece. Look at it." My father said, "I will eat the tail part (u-wer'i'k'en)." This is the portion between the salmon's hind fins, the oiliest and richest piece in the fish. Eating it is called wer-nerper'u. It is said that if one eats his piece in three swallows he will become wealthy. But my father had heard in the sweat house, and the formulist himself had told him, that only one man had ever succeeded in swallowing three mouth- fuls. So now he intended to swallow it down quickly, and then thought he might swallow two mouthfuls. But he failed to swallow more than one bite. He could hardly get that down. It was very strong because it was cooked without firewood, on angelica only; and I suppose it is difficult to swallow much just because succeeding would help one so much. Now it was toward evening. The old man went outside and my father fol- lowed. Then the old man sent him to bring down sweat-house wood. On the way he cried at nearly every step because now he was seeing with his own eyes how it was done, when before he had never thought much about it. Also he cried because this is the way the people of old had done from the beginning, and now they had chosen him for that part. When he returned they made fire in the sweat house. The old man asked him how he felt. My father said that from the time he had swallowed his bite he had felt strong; he was not hungry or thirsty. Then they remained awake all night in the sweat house, keeping the fire up and sweating, and the old -man praying as before; and before daylight my father went up once more to bring sweat-house wood. Then in the morning they went to the house and had breakfast. They ate acorns and dried salmon. But my father was not hungry, because he could still taste the salmon from the night before. After that they sat in front of the sweat house and the old man said, "If you need sleep, take it now in the daytime." "No, I am not sleepy," my father told him. "Well, then tonight," said the old man. Then someone from the house we-repok in Otsiil came up to the old man and asked, "May we cross the path now?" "Yes," the old man said, "and you may fish at the mouth of the river. But for five days everything you catch, whether salmon or sturgeon or lampreys, you may only broil [barbecue], and after splitting the fish and cutting it cross- wise once you may cook it that way, but do not smoke-dry it. And do the same with mussels: cook them at once; do not dry them. And eat indoors; and drink, 177 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. only not at the spring. Tell them to send word to everyone: the people here know the rules, but upriver perhaps they do not." To my father he said, "You will be free after twenty days. Until then you have to stay and bring in sweat-house wood." My father said, "That will not trouble me. My people know that I must be away so long." On the sixth day a messenger came from the house higwo in Rekwoi. He was Tikor'rek'is u'melo'. He asked, "May we now drink outdoors and eat as always ?" The formulist told him, "Yes, you may, and you may cut up fish in the usual way and hang them up to dry. Notify them in every house. And tell them in this man's house that he is well." It seemed to my father as if no time at all had passed when the twenty days were up. In fact, he stayed twenty-eight days before he returned to Rekwoi. And after that he carried sweat-house wood and kept himself clean for a month at home. He asked the formulist about the remnants from the roasting of the salmon. The old man said, "We hang them up in the house until they are dry. When I am short of angelica or tobacco I give a few crumbs of the dry meat to the pipes." The guts and back and head and tail, which were not cooked, the girl cut up into pieces and threw on the beach into the breakers. If the sea gulls and crows fight for them, there will not be many fish that year. If the birds gather but sit about and leave the pieces of fish, it means that there will be many salmon. That year the birds did not fight and plenty of salmon came in. It was Mrs. Tipsy of Espeu who found one of the pipes exposed at Emets near the county line. She brought it to pegwoliiu in her basketry cap after lining this with grass. When Shortman saw it he knew it was the original pipe because it was smooth, and that it had traveled because it had not been fed. He put it into the cyst in the house, but when next he looked he saw that there was a gap in the cyst (and the pipe was gone). The new pipe was still in its place: it had not traveled. [12] This is a descriptive account of the objective performances in one of the important Yurok ceremonies, told in the form of a personal experience. The myth and the formula associated with the rite are not given, and evidently remained unknown to Spott, who after all was assistant of the ritualist on only one occasion. I have previously recorded the myth and formula-or more probably parts of them-from men of Spott's generation or older, and on the whole they confirm his description of what was actually done. This is because Yurok formulas and even myths tend to consist largely of a direct transposition of living ritual into a narrative of the dim past when it was performed for the first time. On one minor point there is considerable variability: how much of the first salmon is eaten by the assistant? Different parts and amounts are specified. In 178 Spott-Kroeber: Yurol Narratives ordinary conversation the talk is usually of ability to consume the entire fish. This is evidently a loose way of referring to whether the whole or only part of the designated portion is consumed. The steeping in the powerfully scented angelica root may make swallowing particularly difficult. Or again, tradition may work powerfully by suggesting that it is impossible to swallow the entire portion. Tale 35 brings us back not only to Welkwiiu, but to the same house pegwoliiu in which the sacred pipe is kept. 13. VISIT TO A WIYOT DANCE The Wiyot were having a dance at Weyo'. Weitchpec Frank was a young man then, still unmarried. He was working potatoes for a white man in Arcata Bottom. When he heard of the dance, he ran off to see it. My father, who was Frank's brother-in-law, was worried, thinking that some enemy of his own, finding Frank alone, might attack him among strangers. So he followed Frank, taking along his wife, who was Frank's older sister, and a kinswoman of hers, Weitchpec Steve's mother. This woman was really too old to go, but she declared she could still walk and that she wanted to see the dance; then it would be right with her if she died next year. Now as the three of them were on their way along the coast, Trinidad Pete and his wife Emma overtook them in a wagon and brought them the rest of the way to Weyo'. Emma was a relation of my father's and he called her sister (negweih). Emma was known as Er'erl-kis-e'gor because her mother was from Tolowa Er'erl; but the mother's ancestors were from the house otiktikwol, in which my father also had relatives. Pete was called teih (brother-in-law) by my father. Well, they arrived and found the dance going on in a house. The side walls and the storeroom partition had been taken out and about four boards removed from the roof. They saw Frank sitting in a corner, sober and well. The three Yurok women visitors were led in and given a front seat. The hostesses called over a woman who could talk Yurok, because they thought that the guests might want to know about the dance. This woman was called Kwohtois-or because her mother was from the Wiyot house or settlement Kwohtoi on Mad River. When the visitors got up to leave at the end of a dance, a Wiyot in the center began to address them and called a man named Asegis-or (for the reason that his mother was from Asegi near Arcata) to interpret. So Asegis-or dropped on one knee beside the speaker, and when the latter finished and sat down the interpreter stood up and spoke. He said: "We make this dance when there is sickness here but we learn that there is none in other places. Then we think the sickness has come because someone has prayed to a rock that can bring danger, or has carried an uma'a to a village and, not understanding it, has exposed it too much. This dance has songs of the ocean and of inland. It removes the uma'a influence. That is why we call it ma'a-mel welommeyim'i, to 'dance on account of ma'a.' It lasts for ten nights. The later nights will be different. We hope that you guests will 179 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. come back later, or stay through, and that when you return to your own people you will tell them what you have seen." My father had to return because he was working, so the two interpreters made a way out through the crowd for him and his wife and the old woman. This dance was made in the pit of the house. Dancers' faces were painted. They did not wear woodpecker headbands, but they did wear the shoulder bandoleers of woodpecker scalps which we call koh and wear in the Brush Dance. They wore necklaces of the small dentalia (terktem) or of olivella shells (turukr). When my father visited there, it was perhaps the sixth or seventh or eighth day, so that the best performances had not yet been put on. [13] So little is known of Wiyot rituals and dances that the scraps con- tributed by this story are of value. Weyo' was in southern Wiyot territory- either at the mouth of the Eel River or near by toward Humboldt Bay." More cultural psychology than ethnography is depicted: the intertribal relations and courtesies to strangers; the old lady who wants to see Rome and die; Frank's running off from his potato contract, and his relatives' relief at seeing him unharmed and sober; the second or third cousin-through Tolowa ancestors-called sister; the ceremony made to obviate uma'a witchcraft effects; the shattered Wiyot remnant trying to cling to their rituals in the new social world that had swamped them. The time of the incident must have been about 1880. 14. TOLOWA DANCES I HAVE SEEN The Tolowa have three medicine (formula) dances, possibly four. One was made in Er'erl in the house er'erl-pets. This one I have seen. Another was made at Hinii'ig in the house of Captain Tom, Hinii'ertser'. The third was made at Crescent City in the house Kohpei-helkau, which was so called because it stood alone, inland from a row of four facing the beach in Kohpei. In addi- tion, Captain Tom told my father that there used to be a dance at Tolokw, at what the white people call Budd Ranch. There was only one rich family there and when the old man died his son did not care about the dance; he sold his treasures, and so the dance there was given up long ago. But my father said it was the same dance as they made at Hinii'ig and Kohpei, and this he said was similar to the one I have seen at Er'erl. All of them were indoor dances. The one at Er'erl was danced only at night, whereas we Yurok dance in the daytime. The side walls are taken out of the house, also the partition, and the roof is removed from front and back, only the middle part around the smoke hole being left on. They dance in a row with a quick step, men and women alternating. Old men singers are at the end. When they begin, those who have been standing in a row along the wall face the pit. After a time a single dancer comes out with a sharp arrow, or two of them. He draws a girl out by the wrist and they dance in front of the others. Then they flash past each other and it looks as if he would pierce her arm with his 14 Cf. narrative 19. 180 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives arrow, while a man behind lets out a yell. Or sometimes he uses a cutlass and in dancing with her almost stabs her in the arm. Toward morning two men come out wearing five-point antlers on their heads. They move about, feed, and jump like deer. They approach each other, touch their horns, dance back, dance forward again, and separate. Then first one and then the other pretends to feed, leap, and dash off. Then the men and the women each form in a line and dance past each other, interchanging. This is the end for the night. Like ourselves, they make the dance for ten nights, beginning with plain or small ornaments and putting on better ones toward the end. On the last day they wear the standard woodpecker headbands, the headrings with wood- pecker heads called mii'iik, the long stand-up feathers called re'go'o, and blankets from the waist down, of deer fur or mink or ringtail civet cat.' They do not hold baskets as we do in the Jumping Dance. Also, they do not use deer- skins nor do they carry flints (obsidians) in their dances, though they have flints and use them for buying their wives. The special dancer in front of the line carries arrows as among us they carry flints in the Deerskin Dance; and they wear the deer antlers as our people wear sea lion tusks in the Deerskin Dance. My father, who talked Tolowa, said that the formulas spoken are like our own. They are spoken not only for their own tribe but for the good of the whole world, to prevent sickness, famine, or other disaster. I do not know any name for these dances other than Tolowil wal (Tolowa dances). [14] This brief account is given as an example of a kind of information which has a peculiar value of its own: what one people knows of another's ways and what it thinks of them. Since these notes were written down, Dr. Drucker has systematically studied the Tolowa and has published his results.' In matters of objective fact, the Tolowa of course know infinitely more about Tolowa customs than the Yurok can know. But thereby we have a touchstone to test the degree of Yurok understanding. This understanding proves to be good as regards factual knowledge. Danc- ing indoors, at night, for ten days, with increasing splendor of equipment, participation of girls, headbands of antlers instead of sea lion tusks, the duet between a man and a girl, the near-stabbing, the donning of woodpecker bands on the last night, the nonuse of dance baskets, deerskins, and obsidian blades -all are mentioned equally by Robert and by Drucker's informants. However, the Yurok attribute to the Tolowa motives and organization which are distinctive of themselves: the fixity of time and place of the dance, a defi- nite formula, the solemnity of the occasion because of its effect on the world. Actually, Drucker states, the Tolowa wealth-display dance might be made anywhere at any time-though normally there would be only one house in 15 My father once took up twenty-four of the mii'aik and twenty-four of the re'go'o as his contribution to one of the Tolowa dances. 16 The Tolowa and Their Southwest Oregon Kin, UC-PAAE 36:225-300, 1937. 181 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. each of the three or four largest towns which would be hereditarily rich and influential enough to institute a dance. The speaking consisted of semiformal- ized prayers during the rests, rather than recitation of a long formula; and the really important dance of the Tolowa, made in times of stress, as when general sickness was feared, was not this "good time" affair, but the girl's puberty dance.'7 In short, the Tolowa ten-night dances represent a generalized substratum out of which the more heavily ritualized Yurok and Karok world-renewal dances, especially the lower Yurok jumping dances, evidently grew. But the Yurok in viewing the Tolowa dances did not realize, or were not impiressed by the fact, that these seeming counterparts were much less institutionalized and were set in a looser context. They attributed to the Tolowa their own moti- vation of anxious exactitude and ritualistic precision. Because of many resem- blances in detail, they tended to elevate folkways into mores. At the same time, their generalizing judgment was correct on one main point: no Yurok includes any Tolowa dance when he lists the Yurok, Karok, and Hupa world-reestablishment ceremonies.' 15. SEA LION FLIPPER RIGHTS If a whale came ashore between the following points on the shore, it belonged to the house layekw at Rekwoi, the family of Mrs. Susie Brooks. The bounda- ries of the stretch are: on the north, Atlilk,' which is some two and a half miles north of Wilson Creek and is so named because the ocean spray is here hurled up in the air; and on the south, Otleu (waterfall),' where the water drips from the cliff, between Erhki and Kwosen, both of which in turn are between Osegen and Espeu. The same house also had rights to the flippers of all sea lions that were brought ashore between two points on the coast. But the stretch for sea lion rights was shorter than that for whales. The southern end of the sea lion claim was at Ehpou kep,elol kiis (big-wave house-pit downhill).' This is about three hundred yards north of where the present highway comes out in view of the ocean as it goes south from Klamath Bridge. The rock which marks the boundary is connected with the land, but its foot is washed by waves, even at low tide. It is also called Kerernit ukep,- elol (falcon house-pit) -the same bird that nests at Katimin-because the falcon used to live there. It is also called He'mi ukep,elol (pigeon house-pit). These three-Wave, Falcon, Pigeon-used to live there. On the north the claim extended to Weryis atsyuk (girl sitting). This rock is about a mile north of the mouth of the Klamath and is visible from the rock Oregos at the mouth. If a wounded sea lion is brought ashore between these two points, the house 17Drucker, 262-265. 1' A Wiyot jumping dance on Mad River is often cited, though we know so little about it that the reason for its unique inclusion is not clear. A9 Neither Atlik nor Weryis atsyiik (below) appears on Waterman's maps. -' Waterman, map 29, no. 2, otliiw, a trickle. 2l Waterman, map 9, no. 12, ewpo, or aixpoo (ocean, or breaker), ukwiik (his house-pit); near by is 9, associated with the kernit hawk. 182 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives layekw has to be notified, and the flippers go to the people of this house, unless they waive the right. Beyond the points mentioned, both whales and sea lions were free: anyone could take them without asking. The whale right belonged to the house layekw from as far back as is known, and still belongs to it, though they can turn the use over to the village. However, the rights to the sea lion flippers came to layekw more recently. They are called mekwol. This is what the claim or right to a fishing place is called on the river. The flipper itself is called etsko wetsegwes (sea lion's hand). The flipper right passed from the house higwo in Rekwoi to Omen, and then from Omen to lIyekwf' as pay in a settlement for a killing. This is how it happened: Originally a girl from higwo in Rekwoi was married to a man in Omen. She was an only child. So her father as part of her dowry gave her the flipper rights so that her children would have higher standing in the world. She and her husband did have children. Omen, at Wilson Creek, consisted of three settlements. Most northerly was Omen-hipur. I have seen pits of two houses and of a sweat house here. My father told me that there used to be four houses. This settlement was also called ha'iigonor because the houses were set on a flat which dropped down to Wilson Creek in a little cliff of rock (ha'ig-) 23 South of the creek was Omen proper. Here was Wilson Creek Jack's house, very near to where the De Martin home is now standing. I have seen that Indian house. Next to it was a house pit. Beyond that, in a house now covered by the highway, lived Rega'a, also called Old John. These three houses were Omen proper. The third part of Omen was at the north end of the lagoon, to the south of the two others. It was sometimes called Otegoreyet ("Where the division comes"), because here the law changed and the language too. Here, at this point, Won kitsoto, the language changed. The people of all three Omen set- tlements mostly talked Yurok among themselves, but they were all bilingual; and beginning with them Tolowa custom was followed.' The house that the Rekwoi girl from higwo had married into was Wilson Creek Jack's in Omen proper. Someone from layekw in Rekwoi had killed a relative of Wilson Creek Jack. No settlement had yet been made when, a year or more later, a man of layekw started to go to the Tolowa farther north. As he was going up the beach in front of the Omen settlements, he was seen and attacked. He shot back with arrows and wounded one Omen man, but was caught just before he reached Wilson Creek, seized, stabbed in the throat, and then again above the eye so that the knife stuck in the frontal bone. It was an iron knife, called tererlul, 22Differently given in tale 16. 23Captain Spott, Robert's father, was Hakigonors-otsin ("Grew up in ha'agonor," where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had lived in patrilineal succession). Ha'aigonor may be the name of a house or of a group of houses; the two are not necessarily in conflict. The name of his house is also given as omen-hipur. Waterman, 228-231, maps 6, 7, gives no house names for any part of Omen. 24Waterman, maps 6 and 7, calls this hamlet Omen, the two foregoing jointly Omen-hipur. In a larger sense, all three constitute Omen. 183 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. a sort of two-edged sword or dagger with a cross guard. They left him lying there on the beach with the knife sticking in his forehead. A woman in Omen-hipur, a cripple, started for Rekwoi to notify them. When she had got nearly to Muintserner, she met a Rekwoi widow called Tekor-mel ("Widowed in tekor"), who was returning to Rekwoi from gath- ering seaweed. I barely remember this woman Tekor-mel, as if in a dream, when she was very old. The crippled woman was about exhausted, so she told the widow, who left her basket there and ran to Rekwoi. When she arrived, however, she did not herself go into the house layekw, but sent a woman called Wonekw-mel ("Widowed in the house wonek")," who was of the house tegwol- lek repokw ("door facing the ocean"). This woman told the news to the old woman in Iayekw, who immediately ran to the sweat house to call the men. Wonekw-mel ran to the house of my father, who was then a big boy, and told his mother to hide him away. Many people were coming together, and the whole village was getting ready to kill anyone of Omen. My father, however, ran north toward Omen. The widow Tekor-mel went back with her basket and told the cripple from Omen to hide, or at any rate to get off the trail, since the Rekwoi people would be coming. She had just got into the brush when my father caught up with her and advised her to follow the beach home. When my father arrived at Omen to tell them that the Rekwoi party was on the way to get revenge, he found that the killer had been manly enough to drag the corpse up the beach, out of reach of the rising tide. The Omen women were sitting a little away from the body on the sand; the men were near by in the brush. Rega'a came down from the brush with a bow and a raccoonskin full of arrows for my father to defend himself with. But my father's uncle from ha'iigonor took the quiver away from him and gave it back to Rega'a, saying the boy was to "walk back and forth in the middle" (wogi ki-ohegok) ; that is, to act as intermediary. Then the crippled woman arrived, having left the beach at Wamok, gone to the lagoon, and come out beside Otegoreyet. My father and his uncle were there with the women; all the men from all the houses in the three Omen settlements were in the brush. Then immediately they saw the Rekwoi men coming like a swarm of bees, with bows and in full fighting equipment, and the Rekwoi women behind, wearing maple-bark dresses. The dead man's mother threw herself right on his body. While the Rekwoi men gathered in a knot, their women stood around outside them, carrying hard dead limbs (weskwinet) of firs as clubs.'2 Then my father's uncle came over, took the dead man's mother by the arm- pits, and lifted her up from the corpse, saying, "It is very bad, and a sad thing, but you must master yourself, for you have 'children' here now." When he got her turned away from the corpse, she sat down on the beach, and he said to her, "Ki-eka'iinemto (They will settle for it) ." 25 No. 2 of Waterman, map 8. a Not canes (melkwel), nor digging sticks (tsui). 184 Spott-Kroeber: Yurolc Narratives Then the mother said to one of the Rekwoi women to call the brother of the dead man out from the group, and when he came she told him to settle. The brother wanted first to kill the killer, but the other men urged him to settle because so many people of Rekwoi and Omen were kinsmen. They succeeded in quieting him down, and he agreed to settle; but he said, "Don't let them wait too long." The old woman said she would stay with her son's body overnight: the rest were to go home and come back by boat in the morning. And she asked for an unused cooking basket. So she stayed there; but the other people from Rekwoi went home. Then she began to gather up in a basket the blood that had been spilled, and the sand from the footprints. The Rekwoi people had all stood on one side of the corpse so as not to get their own footprints mixed in with those of the people who had taken part in the killing. Then the old woman boiled the sand and blood in the baskets as if they were acorns. She had also called for my father to stay with her. In the night she told him to draw out the knife. It did not give. So he put his foot on the head and pulled hard, drew out the knife, and handed it to her. Then the old woman gashed the dead man's belly and poured into it the boiling blood, sand, and cooking stones, saying, "All your children will die like this. No doctor and no medicine will save them." Also she broke off two arrows, taking them up with the buckskin lashing that had been around the knife handle, and slid them into the body through the gash. Then my father heard the corpse making a sound like a moan, perhaps from the heat in the body; and the old woman said, "Wokleu tos kitskenolotsik, tsoni kimmerhkumek, k'elets sermerteliiu (I am glad that you answered; you will eat them all, those who killed you)." This was a wrong thing to do because she had agreed to take settlement. But that is how Indians were. Toward morning the old woman threw her basket into the waves, continuing to say that no doctor or formulist would be able to cure the children of the slain man. After the Rekwoi people had gone home, my father's uncle had gone up to where the men of Omen were hiding in the brush and called to them. They were distrustful, but at last one came out. So my father's uncle told him that Rekwoi would accept settlement. Then the rest of them came out, and they arranged to put the settlement into effect as soon as the five days of mourning were over. These five days are always spoken of as ten, although it is usual that actually only five are observed. Then in the morning a boat came from Rekwoi and took the corpse away; but the old woman walked home. Now the Omen people had sent word to their Tolowa kinsmen to come. At Rekwoi, as soon as the funeral was over, layekw sent word to Weitspus, to the house wogwu and others, and they came down-river in a boat. My mother's mother was the only woman in this boat. When they arrived, the dead man's mother was again praying death against her enemies. The Weitspus men 185 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. greeted her, then went to the layekw sweat house. There they agreed that it would be best to settle. Also the Weitspus woman from wogwu, my mother's mother, when she was alone with the layekw old woman, said to her, "You have to think of your children." This night, the second after the burial, all the kinsmen talked in front of the layekw sweat house, to decide what they would take in settlement. They agreed on this and that of the property which they knew the killer and his relatives owned. The dead man's mother sat by, saying nothing, until one of the old men of layekw said to her, "Now it is for you to say what you will take." She answered, "I take no flint nor shell money. All I ask is the mekwol (the flipper right). It belongs here in Rekwoi anyway. I know they will not give it up, but if they do, things will be settled." The men said, "We had not thought of that. It really did belong to Rekwoi. But we think he will rather give up his life than that, because now it belongs to his wife." On the sixth day in the morning the wegoh came. This is the negotiator for a settlement for death or wounding. Usually a wegoh comes on the seventh or eighth day, but the layekw people had said not to wait too long. This wegoh was a Tolowa from Hinii'ig and could not speak Yurok; therefore he had my father's uncle along to interpret for him. He excused himself for coming be- fore the seventh day, and said that he would bring the payment on the ninth day, should an agreement be reached. Returning, he stayed in the killer's house, and there the Omen people agreed which woodpecker band, flint, and money they would give. They figured they would not have to pay very high because Rekwoi had not settled for their previous killing, and if they should now try to exact full value, they in turn would have to pay for their killing. So they got together a good woodpecker band, a red obsidian, and two strings of money. The negotiator had asked that Omen use as its camping place Nerermits mennek, at the north end of Lockwood Prairie, nearer to Rekwoi than to Omen, so that he would not have to travel too far in going back and forth; and Rekwoi had agreed to this. So now all Omen went there, to be able to protect the killer against sudden assault: nevertheless at night he went back to hide at Omen. Then the negotiator met with Rekwoi. First he unwrapped the proffered payment inside the layekw sweat house for the kinsmen. Then they went out- side on the platform, and everyone in Rekwoi crowded around to see. The negotiator said, "This is what they will pay." The Rekwoi people knew now that they were being offered only excess settlement; it was to be a one-way payment. Then the men of laykew said, "The obsidian is good. The money is nahksepir (middle finger length, the largest shells) and is good too." Then they called on the old woman of layekw, who was sitting crying, to come for- ward. She said, "Umekwol kimelpa (I will accept the flipper rights)." So they wrapped up the proffered treasures and the negotiator took them back. With him went my father's uncle; and a man from Rekwoi, a hohpkusin or "judge"; three in all. When the intermediary returned to Omen, he told them what they had said 186 Spott-Kroe.ber: Yurole Narratives at Rekwoi. Everything he told was said over again in a loud voice by another man, the negolo-tsin or repeater. They were speaking in Tolowa. He told how the old man of layekw had called on the woman, and what she had said, and added, "It is a hard settlement, but you have children. They do not want your flints or woodpecker bands or money, even though they are of the best. She only wants the flipper rights." Then the hohpkusin from Rekwoi con- firmed what the negotiator had said, and also advised them to accept. Then the man who had done the killing said, "I cannot, because the right belongs to my wife, not to me. So you eat now, and after that carry the valu- ables back, and I will add my sister, and we will learn what they say." So the three men returned to Rekwoi. The people were waiting for them in front of the sweat house. They had a double deerskin blanket (nu'u) spread out, and the property was laid on it. Then they called the old man of layekw and he came out of the sweat house and sat on the door plank (leponol); and they also called the old woman from the living house. And they brought out a stool for the negotiator to sit on. Then the negolo (repeater) unwrapped the property and said, "They are the same things. The rights are hard for him to give, because they are not his; but he gives his sister in addition." Then the judge asked the repeater, "Is he through4" (meaning the negotiator). "Yes." Then the judge said, "You killed one of his people and never settled for him. Now what you ask is hard, and it is true that it does not belong to him. He is offering enough, and you ought to take it." Then the old man of layekw said, "If I were alone I would be willing, but the old woman must say." Then she spoke: "No, I will not yield. All I ask for is the rights. I will give up everything else." On the third day, settlement was made. The killer's wife urged him to give up her rights until he sent word that he would settle. But he said they would have to move back to Omen for the handshaking and reconciliation. Then he gave the negotiator the strings of money, so he might ask the Rekwoi people if they wanted it then and there or would take it at the reconciliation. But he had smoked the money over a fire of angelica roots, and spoken over it: "You are leaving me now; but you will leave them in turn, in payment for a settlement." He was offering this shell money in order to transmit this curse. So the negotiator took it, and layekw accepted it without telling the old woman. Then the man of the house higwo, to which the right had originally belonged, was asked by the judge to stand up and renounce his claim. He did, saying, "I gave the right to my daughter, it is hers to dispose of. I have no claim on it any more; it belongs to layekw now." And the negotiator, the repeater, and the judge went back to where Omen was still camped in the prairie. There the repeater asked the negotiator if they wanted anything more; and he said, "No." Then the judge called on the killer's wife to come forward. He asked her if she renounced the flipper right irrevocably, and warned her that even if she were divorced she could no longer claim it. She repeated his words, and said she understood and agreed. Now, the reconciliation is called wetergerwis. This is when the two lines of enemies approach and shake hands and each side eats the other's food. The 187 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. negotiator asked when and where this was to take place; it can be put off for two days; the choice is the killer's. But he named the next day, and the place as Omen on the beach in front of the lagoon. So the next day, about noon or soon after, both parties came and formed in line. Behind the men stood the women in maple-bark dresses, holding their weskwinet clubs. There were many Tolowa with Omen, so that they formed the larger crowd. Rekwoi had all the people of Rekwoi and Welkwiiu, those who had come down from Weitspus, and a few from about Johnson's. Only the Rekwoi man from higwo went over on the Omen side to stand with his daughter and son-in-law. Now a dancer was first sent out from the Rekwoi side, because they had done the first killing. Such a dancer is called woro and is a weskwilai or person who has supernaturally acquired bravery and strength. He danced in front of the lines. As soon as he had returned to his ranks, a dancer came out from the Omen side and did the same. The Omen line was perhaps a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards to the north of the Rekwoi one. As each dancer re- turned, all his side ran together and came nearer; in this way they gradually approached each other. When they were about ten yards apart, the women stepped out in front of the lines to prevent any sudden shooting at the killer. That is why they carried the clubs-to knock down any bow that might be raised. The men who were not weskwilai formed the second rank in each line. They were the werner, or nonwarriors: they had no bows and arrows, but carried clubs of fir limbs like the women. When the two sides approached and met, it was what is called wernerwerk- sek. Then they weseges oneu (shook hands): each man with his right hand grasped the left hand of his opponent; then he laid first his left hand, and next his right, on the opposite shoulder; sometimes they patted each other. After that they kits-tegerwer (spoke to one another again). First the brave men did this, then the common men moved in and shook hands, and the two double lines passed through each other and shook hands with the women and children. Then Rekwoi went over to the Omen campfire and ate its food, and Omen to Rekwoi's. Now it was all settled, and they were friends again. I do not know why Iiyekw had not settled for the killing, nor why the man from there took the risk of passing Omen unaccompanied. What layekw got from the settlement was the flipper rights and the prof- fered shell money. They did not accept the obsidian, the woodpecker band, or the sister. Wilson Creek Jack I remember as being called Nek'els-egor; therefore I assume that the killer's mother was also from Ne'kel. The old woman of layekw was called simply that. I think she must have been Susie Brooks's mother's mother. The rights for a stranded whale, which were not at issue in the case, are called hekusa wetepol. This means "the whale's dorsal fin." The house that owned this took the dorsal fin and with it a cut one fathom and one arm's length wide. They had the right to take this much before anyone else cut the whale. Years later the following happened. A young man from Omen, of the house 188 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives which had had to give up the flippers, was visiting at Rekwoi in layekw, to which the rights had been ceded. He spent the night with them and in the morning, when the tide was low, they went to the mouth of the river to spear sea lions. They got two animals and cut them up to take up to the house. When it came to the bladders, which are kept as receptacles for grease, he said he knew how to turn them inside out and blow them up and they should go on up to the house with the meat while he finished these. So he lingered until he was alone, then took mussel shell and cut his leg, gathered the blood in his hand, and poured it into the bladders. He did this several times, thinking of the old grievance between the houses and hoping that the human blood would make the people of layekw die off. Perhaps some of them were made a little sick by it, but none of them did die. However, the story came out later, after this young man from Omen married and had children. His son was ailing and several doctors had treated him in vain at Omen. Then a doctor from Ko'tep was summoned. After she was in the trance state she said, "I see something so big [motioning with her hand] hanging over the boy, and from time to time blood drips on him from it. By it stands the shadow of his father, who must confess something or lose his boy. The other doctors have taken the pains out of the boy, but this still remains and will kill him." Then one of the doctors who had previously treated the boy said she too had seen this but could not recognize the shadow. Thereupon the boy's mother confessed to whatever she had committed; but nothing that she said was to the point. Then finally the father confessed what he had done when he had put the blood into the sea lion bladder. "That is it," said the Ko'tep doctor. "The boy will recover now." [15] The events here told must have happened about 1860 or perhaps ten years after the whites arrived, to judge by Spott's age at the time. The story is extremely typical of Yurok culture both as regards its explicit formulations and its attitudes. The hatreds are brought out vividly-both their intensities and their per- sistence. The old woman cooking vengeance by her son's body, even to the point of mutilating his viscera, is a scene not easily forgotten. Equally clear is the keenness of excitement as soon as there has been a kill- ing and a fight impends. People are tense, stirred, and afraid. There is no telling who may be shot next, and at the same time warnings and protection are extended to persons who are not directly concerned but who might become involved now that passion runs high. It is also evident that there is something of an unwritten rule that, when men have killed each other, women are not deliberately chosen as victims of revenge. There is no explicit exemption of them when excitement is mounting high in everyone, but there is recognition at least that a close kinswoman of the dead is not to be molested in enemy territory. The Omen men, skulking in the brush during the night while the dead man's mother made incantations against them alongside his body on the beach, must have known what she was doing; but they made no attempt to interfere. 189 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. This attitude contrasts with the one manifested on the rare occasions when one town deliberately attacked another at daybreak. In such a situation men, women, and children were slaughtered as they could be caught and the houses were burned. In the present instance it was also town against town plus such kinsmen as each could draw in from outside. The bonds of co-residence were evidently fairly strong, though they did not transcend those of kinship. The Rekwoi man whose daughter had married into Omen remained neutral. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to think of all the men of Rekwoi as being kinsmen. There were intermarriages between houses within Rekwoi and these would not have taken place if relationship was traced between them. Further, there is evidence of clear recognition of the desirability of limiting and settling the conflict. Without a property settlement and its attendant reconciliation the tension would continue and probably spread. Hence not only the prompt negotiations but the final dance of settlement and eating each other's food. Such efforts were not always successful. Perhaps half of them ended in another fight, according to what the Yurok say. There is no doubt that they were an emotional people. Also, with all their precise regulations, there was no one to enforce them. Their machinery for effecting a reconcilia- tion was elaborate and accurate, but in the absence of any political power to direct the machinery one individual could upset the most careful planning. And the Yurok were individualists as well as people of intense feelings. Another point which the story illustrates is the high prestige values of certain intangible rights the utilitarian value of which must have been insig- nificant. The flippers were evidently a prized delicacy, but the amount of food received in this way cannot have been considerable. Of still less practical importance were the whale rights, since there must often have been long stretches of years in which no whale came ashore. Again a choice part, the back fin, is singled out as the symbol of preeminence: the cut of the body going with this seems to have been little if any wider than that taken by un- privileged houses. The cutting up of the whale might not, however, begin until the reserved cut had been made by its owner or general distribution had been authorized by him. It is the right as such rather than what it gains that seems to have been prized. It was a blow to the prestige of the owners when the vengeful old woman exacted this transfer; and hence the extreme reluctance to yield it. Incidentally, women's position in property matters is illuminated by the incident. Although the Omen man had full-bought his wife, her claim to the flippers was hers and not his to dispose of. She had to urge him to give it up before he would even discuss its transfer; and when it was finally handed over, she and her father were both called upon to testify to their perpetual renunciation. Are these minor and sporadic assertions of prestige a remnant of something more systematic, such as remains in full vigor on the British Columbia coast, or are they nascent developments in the same direction ? It is impossible to answer with assurance. But however great the difference in degree of elabora- 190 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives tion, it is clear that the Yurok share with the Kwakiutl and Haida the attitude of being powerfully concerned with prestige claims associated with possession and its hereditary perpetuation. 16. SEA LION FLIPPER RIGHTS (Second version) Since I told this story in 1939 as I remembered hearing it from Requa Fanny, my father, and other old men, I discussed it in 1940 with Fanny Flounder, and she told it to me somewhat differently. She was born later than my father, but of course is older than I. The principal point in which her story differs from the one I learned first is that she says the sea lion rights belonged origi- nally to Omen-hipur, then went with a marriage to the house oslokw in Rekwoi, and were paid from there to the house Iiyekw when settlement was made. In Rekwoi the old man of the house oslokw was called Minot. His oldest son full-married a woman of Omen-hipur. Her father thought well of his daughter, so gave her the sea lion rights which had come down in his family. So Minot as the head of the house oslokw used the right which his daughter-in-law had brought into the house, and all Rekwoi and Welkwiiu observed it, and notified his house whenever a sea lion was killed. Now, on one occasion, a sea lion was harpooned at the mouth of the river and the old man of layekw was there and took away the flippers. Minot knew from the shouting that the sea lion had been killed, and assumed that the flippers would be left for him as usual. When he came down to the beach, some women were still standing around and said to him, "He took away your right (Kits-slomelek k'ekwol)." They also told him that the old man of layekw had taken it. Minot said nothing, but as he walked home he was indignant. He sat down in front of his sweat house. He thought to himself, "Perhaps they were very hungry in layekw, and the sea lion was so small that it could not be divided around the whole village. Perhaps they will send a woman over to explain, or he will come himself and smooth it over." So he did nothing about it; but nothing happened. Then for a time he was always given his flippers. Then he heard again that they were about to harpoon on the Rekwoi side of the river. He saw the people going downhill to the beach, but continued to sit in his sweat house. Then he could hear that they had taken a sea lion. After a time he went down the hill, but before he reached the beach he met women coming up with meat in their baskets, and they said to him, the same as they had said the first time, "He took away your right." So Minot turned back feeling as if he had been trampled on. He went into his house, got his bow and arrow, and then took it over to his sweat house and began getting it into shape. One of them there asked him what he was about to do, but he gave no answer. His wife was dead, and his sons did not know how hard he was taking this. Next morning, after they had had their sweat-house fire, he laid his quiver behind the board called leponol which shields the sweat-house door. Minot was the last one to go to the creek to bathe. The others went into the house to breakfast, but he went back to the sweat house and sat in the door half hidden 191 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. by the leponol. Across the little creek in Rekwoi the old man of layekw also came out last from his sweat house, and sat down on the stone platform, look- ing at the river. The distance between the two sweat houses may have been about fifty yards. Minot had everything ready and now came out of the door- way far enough to put one knee on the ground, and then shot at the other old man. The arrow went through his upper arm and struck against the ribs. The layekw old man shouted, and people ran out to him. Minot immediately went off without even warning his sons to be on guard. He went down to the beach and followed the coast north to Omen-hipur. No one had seen the shot, but they could tell from the position of the arrow that it must have come from the direction of oslokw. When the outcry began, the young men from oslokw and from the neighboring house higwo ran over to join the crowd. When they saw where the arrow had come from, they quietly dropped out, and when they found that Minot was not in or around the sweat house, they knew that he had done it. When Minot reached Omen-hipur he went directly into the sweat house of his friends. He was so winded from running that he could hardly talk. They knew something had happened, but did not ask him. After a time he said to them, "I don't know whether I have killed a man (Moskom kemtsa elek'u kits'e'korek)." So they asked him who it was, and he said it was the man of layekw. At once they said, "Are your children and grandchildren at home?" and when he said that they were, they were afraid that one or the other of them would be killed in revenge. So some of them ran all the way back to Rekwoi, the women following behind. On their way they met someone and inquired whether the layekw man was still alive, which he was. When they reached Rekwoi they found that the men of oslokw and of higwo were keeping to the oslokw sweat house with their bows and arrows, and that a group of women stood in a bunch in front of the entrance as protection. The men from Omen-hipur entered the sweat house and at once asked if layekw had tried to attack them, or if they had sent over any word or message. They were told no. But a little later they learned that layekw had sent upriver to Kerner's father (or ancestor) at Pekwon, and to Tekta Ben's father (or ancestor) at Ko'tep. Both these houses were rekwoi-honames (related to Rekwoi), and Rekwoi was waiting for them. The women of the village were milling around the oslokw sweat house and the people inside could hear what they said. Some of the women were saying it was the fault of L&yekw because he had taken the flipper once before. Then they could hear a man's voice saying, "Don't you women meddle (K'eliu wentsauks kowitso-wi-onolohtsu)." Soon afterward, they saw a pair of feet come into the sweat house, and knew it was the old man of the house pegwoliiu in Welkwiiu. Then there followed the man of wel-hipets, uphill from where they dance the Jumping Dance in Welkwiu. Then came the old man of otsal, and then the one of tse'kwel whom they called K'e-tsekwel. All four of these were from Welkwiiu and had come over from there along with some women- folk, perhaps two boatloads in all. Now the people inside moved over toward the exit end, so that the visitors from Welkwiiu could sit on the side tepoliiu. 192 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives All four of them were armed also, but at once unslung their quivers. The man of pegwoliiu spoke first, asking, "Where is Minot?" "We left him at Omen- hipur," the man from there said. Then the one from wel-hipets asked, "How did it start ?" So Minot's oldest son told how his father had found that LIayekw had taken away the flipper. And the people from Welkwiiu knew that he had done that once before, and K'e-tsekwel said, "I would have done the same thing. He should not have taken it without consent. Sometimes the old man here was kind and took only one of his two flippers." The man from otsiil said nothing, because he was related to both the houses that were now at feud. Then they heard the women saying, "A boat is landing," and soon after- ward, "Pekwon and Ko'tep are coming." Then the men from Omen-hipur advised the young men of oslokw not to stay in the sweat house, because they might be attacked. So the women of oslokw, and also those who had come over from Welkwiiu, formed a line in front of the sweat house for the men to get behind as they emerged and make their way into the brush along Rekwoi Creek. From there they could work uphill in the brush if it should prove neces- sary. They all got out before the newcomers reached layekw, Kerner's father leading them and crying. He was also surrounded for protection by two or three women from his house. He went into the living house where the wounded man was lying. Some of the women from around osliokw crossed the little creek in Rekwoi over to the layekw side. Neither party knew what the other was saying or planning, and wanted to know. Also, people kept coming from upriver until there was a big crowd. Then the Omen-hipur and Welkwiiu people in the oslokw sweat house saw the old man from Ko'tep coming over, for he was related to both sides. When he came over to oslokw he unslung his weapons. When that is done, even an enemy has no right to shoot. "Where is Minot ?" he asked. The women would not say. They merely answered, "I don't know. Somewhere in the brush." Then the Ko'tep man looked into the sweat house and when he found it was empty (of oslokw people) he asked where the men were. So one of the women went into the creek and called out her brother. He came with the women bunched around him. Ko'tep said, "I am not taking sides, but I want to hear both." So the young man of oslokw told the whole story. K'e-tsekwel crowded into the conversation as before and said, "He was right." Ko'tep said, "That is why I came over. I knew there must have been a reason for it. Now, will you settle or what will you do?" The oldest son said, "I don't know. I have no right to say what the old man will do." Meanwhile, Minot had quietly come back to Rekwoi and sneaked down the creek in the brush. Word was passed out that he was there. Then Ko'tep said, "Tell him to come forward (Heksus kwitsos)." So Minot came out, surrounded by women. His weapons were ready, and he had his hair tied up in a bunch on top of his head (himulrek atek), and he had elkel (blue clay) on his face and body. One could not have recognized him. Ko'tep laid his weapons on the leponol board. Minot then laid his quiver near the other's, but within reach. The oldest son also unslung. The rest all stayed in the creek with their bows 193 4Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. ready. The Ko'tep man said, "I want to hear why you did it." Minot said, "He was trampling on me (Kitpetohsipen)," and told his story. Ko'tep lis- tened, then said, "It is a hard thing to settle. I cannot give any orders to Helkik' [Kerner's house in Pekwon], but I will talk with him." So he crossed over to Layekw again, most of the crowd following him, and Minot and his sons went back into the brush by the creek and waited. After a time, Ko'tep returned with an unarmed man from Wohkero of the house repokw and went right into the creek. He said, "I could not get an answer either out of Lyekw or Pekwon when I told them what I had learned here." Night came and nothing had been done. There was no fire in the oslokw sweat house. Higwo had a fire in its sweat house, but of course the men of oslokw did not go into it. The women carried food to the men in the creek, who ate uphill in the timber out from Wahtskolig (WAhtskolig-hir). The people from Welkwiiu went back home across the river; only the man from otsa'l stayed with the oslokw people. And the women from Welkwiiu stayed with the women at oslokw. In the morning the men from Welkwaiu came back. The women told them where the men were, and they followed the creek upstream and joined them. After a time Ko'tep came to oslokw,, asked for Minot, and sent word by the women for him and his party to come downhill. Only the woman from Omen- hipur whose marriage into oslokw had brought the sea lion rights there, and who was called Ommen, was sitting by the campfire in the creek. The men were above, hidden in the brush, with their weapons ready. More people from upriver had gathered around oslokw. Now Minot and his oldest son came out. They both had clay on them and their hair tied up. Also they were wearing the bone hairpins called nohtsur, with both ends sharpened so that the hair cannot be seized in a scuffle. Ko'tep said, "Helkik' (Pekwon) is head on the layekw side and he has not yet said anything. I asked the old man of layekw, 'Will you get well (To'oski yegwolets) ?' and he said, 'Yes.' Then I said to Helkik', 'What do you think (Kus tsososon) ?' and he said, 'I don't know what to say (Nikahselumek kisots); he himself is to blame (nikwelas ni'ukwal lesonowok).' He does not want to make trouble about it (Nimi-skewokwi' ki-mel-ko'wiso) [that is, he did not insist on payment: Kowitso'-leksmiltswin to'kimul hesel wek'ison] ) ." The man of layekw was evidently thinking that if he exacted payment he would also have to pay, and perhaps more. When the crowd standing by saw Minot painted with the blue clay, they began to whisper, "Perhaps he has already made medicine for a death in layekw." Otsiil again interrupted: "There's no need for outsiders to talk their way into this; let them decide it among themselves (Kowitso'-leksmiltswin to'kimul hesel wek'ison) ." There was no answer to this. That meant it was for Minot to arrange, that there would be no wego' (go-between) or judge (hohpkuisin) appointed. So Minot said to Ko'tep, "Yes, it is true. He was at fault. But I am getting old. I am ready to be thrown into the river (Tokinki kitsnimegwimor-kai tokekitau wiwohpunimil-l6l&htep) ." 194 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives Then Wel-hipets from Welkwiiu took Minot by the shoulder and said, "Friend, do not think like that. Remember your grandchildren (Nawo', paswitkesots kots-perwerksis k'ek'epeu)." Minot said, "I did not think of that (I, nimi-wit-wesohkon)." Ko'tep said, "I do not want you to pay, because Helkik' has already said there would be no compensation. If there is, there will be more pay coming from LUyekw." To this Minot answered, "If layekw old man really wants from his heart to end it without payment there will be no grudge from me, but I will be friends." Ko'tep said, "I'll walk over and find out what they say there." So he reported at layekw. The old man from Pekwon said, "I think the same way (Nekikenumiso). If Minot pays, Lyekw will have to pay more. Let this thing melt away (Kimul segonok)." The old man of layekw said nothing, because the one from Pekwon was his relative. So Ko'tep reported back to oslokw. Minot's son wanted to have hands shaken, but thought it best that they should pay LIayekw a little. "We ought to pay something to the old man (Kimahpiiu omewimar) ," he said. But Ko'tep said, "No. If you pay even a little, L&yekw will have to pay more, and he does not want to." So Ko'tep went back to layekw and Pekwon accepted at once. "We'll do it that way (Witkisotmei)," he said. Then he turned to the layekw old man: "Now you speak." He answered, "Yes, I will do it." Then Pekwon suggested that they shake hands now and speak again;i but Lyekw said, "Later on, when I am well again." When Ko'tep came back and reported this, Minot said, "That is wrong again (Kemkitskoukwa)." But the two crowds of people met on the trail between the houses, shook hands, and spoke to one another as the two files passed. Minot led one file and the old man from Pekwon led the other. Only the layekw man himself did not come out, nor the old woman of his house. Everybody stayed there that day, and the next went home. A few days later Minot had sweated and washed himself in the creek and was sitting in front of his sweat house. The layekw old man came out of his sweat house with his arm in a sling, saw Minot, and cursed him. That is why he had not wanted to speak to him: he was evidently planning this. Minot answered nothing. But now there was a new trouble on top of the old. Then after a time Minot's grandson, a boy about fourteen, became sick. They had doctors, but he got worse and died. Minot thought that L5yekw had made prayers against his household at certain rocks. He knew that he did not have an uma'a devil, but thought that he knew the prayers for those rocks. He thought, "That is why the old man of Pekwon had wanted to settle the affair without compensation, because he figured that later on L5ayekw would anyway do what he has now done." And the people of Omen-hipur, his relatives by marriage, felt the same about L5yekw. Then from that time on the whole family of oslokw did not speak any more with the people of layekw. 195 1Univ. Calif. Puibl. Am. Arch. and Ethn. From here on, the story as I got it from Fanny is much the same as I told it before, so I will mention only things that she told differently or added. It was this cursing and the praying to death of the boy that led to the killing of the man of layekw at Omen-hipur. It was late in the afternoon that he was passing at Omen-hipur and was killed. The custom was that if a man was killed in a feud and they just let him lie and did nothing about it, they would have to give additional compensation when it came to settlement. That is why usually word was sent by a woman. This time a crippled woman from the house ha'iigonor was sent to Rekwoi. Fanny says that the cripple met a Rekwoi woman by the way, who then carried the message home; but that this Rekwoi woman was Tsergrin, not Tekor-mel. The first person from Rekwoi to get to Omen-hipur was Spott. Minot and his family immediately went into hiding. Perhaps they knew in advance that Ldyekw was to be killed. All the men went to Omen-hipur; only women were left in oslokw. When the old woman from layekw arrived she called the dead man older brother: "Awok mit," is what she said. The man from Omen-hipur who spoke to her was old John of house ha'iigonor. His Yurok was broken, but he talked to her. She did not answer him, but just kicked the sand of the beach. One of the men who came up from Rekwoi went over to the Omen-hipur houses and found them all empty. They decided to take the body home by boat in the morning. The old woman, his sister, said she would guard it over- night. In the night, when she had Spott pull the knife out of his forehead, he had to press both knees on the head before he could extract it. That is what Spott told Fanny, "Make it that you kill one of them, older brother (Tso'ni'mults hohkum, mit)," is what the old woman said to the corpse. "Even if they are remote relations, old people or children, kill them." When she poured the cooked sand into the body it sounded like water on hot stones. At daybreak she slid the two arrows into the body, saying, "No one will take this out. No doctor can cure it. The pain will be all along the spine [like these arrows]." Then she put more of the cooked blood into the body, saying, "Let some of the sickness strike them in their feet and be incurable." Up on the hillside she could see the fires of the Omen-hipur people. Then she threw her three baskets into the breaking surf, saying, "I give you these, ocean; I want you to help me, too, so that they cannot be cured." In the morning the boat came and took the body back. They landed at Hostsiii, somewhat more than a mile north of the mouth of the river, because it is forbidden to carry a corpse in front of the great rock Oregos at the mouth. For five nights afterward the old woman prayed the same way in the cemetery. When it came to discussing the settlement, the old man from Ko'tep again stood in the middle. Kerner's father from helkik' in Pekwon, and the Weitspus people, were on the side of Lyekw. Pekwon urged settlement, because the 196 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives dead man had been at fault first. But when he talked with the old woman of layekw, she did not answer. For a while he could not do anything, because she would not talk. The people of Rekwoi at large wanted a settlement. Ko'tep rather chid Pekwon for having left the case unsettled the first time. They had a formal go-between this time, but Fanny does not remember who he was nor what the valuables were which were tendered in settlement. On the second day, the old woman of layekw stopped crying and said, "I will take the mekwol (sea lion rights) and only that, because that is what he got killed over." The go-between reported this at the halfway place where he met the northern people. It was whispered to oslokw to let the right go, but Minot did not speak. He did not want to give up the claim. So the go-between returned to Rekwoi and slept in the layekw sweat house. In the morning he went north again, and Minot and the Omen-hipur people brought the payment which they proposed to give and spread it on a deerskin, for him to take back. Then the oldest son, the one who had married the woman out of Omen-hipur, said, "We had better give up the mekwol too." Minot said, "I cannot let it go. It is that which caused the trouble, but it is not mine. It really belongs to Omen-hipur. I must wait on what the old man of Omen- hipur says." Then the old man of Omen-hipur came forward and squatted on his heels and said, "The mekwol was given up to oslokw before this. If LIayekw wants it, I have nothing to say: there will be no protests. I do not want my grand- children killed." So Minot said, "Good, it is agreed." The go-between returned to Rekwoi and repeated what they had said, and the representative from Pekwon accepted. Then the old woman of layekw began to make trouble and refused again. Pekwon threatened he would make the settlement anyhow. The go-between stayed in Rekwoi waiting while they argued with the old woman, and ate with them that afternoon. They asked the old woman, "Do you want more besides the mekwol?" When she finally agreed to settle, the go-between at once went back and reported. It was now late, and Minot said they would have the reconcilement next day. But he did not specify where. The go-between went back and reported at Rekwoi. The old woman insisted she wanted the reconcilement made in Omen-hipur where her brother had got killed, and began to talk excitedly once more. So Minot and his side agreed; and next day the reconcilement was made on the beach at Omen-hipur. Fanny got this account partly from her father's mother. Her father, Tipsy, was from the house wonnekw in Rekwoi, but moved for a time to layekw. Then there were family quarrels about wood supply and things like that, which ended in Tipsy's moving his wife across the river to tse'kwel. During these recriminations, some of the women of layekw charged that the Tipsy children, of whom Fanny was the last born, were "raised on the mekwol," that is, sup- ported by the house which owned the right. Fanny was told by her father, as I was also told by several old men at Rekwoi, that the boundaries for this sea lion flipper right were not ordained by the woge, but were an agreement made among the Indians to prevent quarrels. 197 1Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. As regards the right to the first cut and dorsal fin of whales, which is quite distinct from the sea lion rights, Fanny believed that this, on the contrary, went back to a law of the woge. The stretch was from Otluk to Otleu near Kwesen, just as I was told it was. This whale claim belonged to the house higwo in Rekwoi. There was a quarrel and fight over this whale right also, earlier than over the sea lion right. This trouble was between Rekwoi and Omen. Higwo never lost the right, but a man was killed over it. Fanny heard the full story when she was a child, but does not remember it; nor do I. [16] I have given both versions of this story because they seem pertinent illustrations of what happens to all traditional knowledge. The greatest difference is in regard to the houses involved. That the sea lion right was transferred as a gift to a daughter who was married into an- other town is something that the two versions agree on. The first account has it passing from Rekwoi to Omen-hipur; the second, from Omen-hipur to Rekwoi. This is the sort of dislocation of memory which can easily occur after eighty or more years have passed. It is, however, characteristic of the Yurok way of remembering things well that the transfer is from one specified house in one town to a specified house in the other, even though one of the versions must be flatly erroneous with respect to the direction of the transfer. We would be more likely to forget all the houses involved and to remember which town transferred the rights to the other. To an appreciable extent the second version fills the most marked gap in the first: it tells in full what led up to the killing of the Rekwoi man in front of Omen-hipur. This perhaps his father abridged or glossed over when he told the story to Robert, whereas Fanny had no reason for so doing. From the point where the layekw man was killed the two stories run very nearly parallel, differing only in minor details of fact. How far the precise words uttered by the several speakers and the enumera- tion of precise treasures tendered in payment are authentic after this lapse of time, it is hard to say. They are undoubtedly like the speeches in Thucyd- ides-there may have been no written record made of what Pericles said on a given occasion, but no one seriously doubts that what Thucydides attributes to him gives the spirit of what he would have said. In a sense, therefore, all the speeches and the enumerations of valuables may be more typically true than if they were based on a factually authentic stenographic transcript. They give at any rate the quality of the times and the culture. Among the sentiments of the personages, Minot's psychology comes out particularly clearly. When he was first deprived of his right he was tre- mendously outraged but remained two-minded how he should act. This was evidently a fatal mistake from the Yurok point of view. It gave him a case later on, but led to violation of his right a second time. Then he evidently felt that he must act, else all his prestige would be strong-armed from him. But it was now difficult for him to protest, because he had allowed the first violation to pass by without protest. Hence his internal boiling over, and his sudden vengeance, which to us seems treacherous and was certainly im- 198 Spott-Kroeber: Yuro7c Narratives prudent from the Yurok point of view. As the story says, the moment he had shot he knew nothing better than to run away, and the first thing his friends asked him when he had found safety with them was whether he had notified his sons or whether they were likely to be killed before they knew what had happened. Public sentiment, however, was evidently fairly strong on the side of Minot. One does not flagrantly defy established property rights among the Yurok without incurring disapproval, no matter how powerful one may be. It is significant that if there had been a settlement over the first incident the wounded man of layekw would have had to pay more for his violation than he would have received for the wound inflicted on him from ambush. It is not that the sea lion flippers could have been an important element of sub- sistence to any house. But the right to them was a property right which carried the highest kind of prestige. The sequel showed that Minot's son was right when he was more than ready to make at least a small payment: it would have definitely closed the case. Without a payment the reconciliation simmered down to a general handshak- ing and resumption of friendly speech, and this the wounded man evaded on the vague statement that he would do so after his recovery. Minot under- stood Yurok psychology when he foretold that this evasion simply meant a renewal of troubles. The outside spokesmen for the two parties seem to have sensed the same thing, but to have preferred-at least the one from Pekwon- to smooth the affair over temporarily somehow rather than run the risk that overt tension might grow by delay of settlement. This proved to be a wrong solution, like many well-meant but erroneous settlements in international relations. At any rate, the consequence was that Layekw felt bitterer than ever and at the first opportunity vented his animosity by deliberately and pub- licly cursing the man with whom he was supposed to be reconciled. This in turn not only gave Minot fresh grievance, but made him expect fresh injury as well. When the boy in his household died, he knew that this injury had been wrought. From then on it was only a matter of finding opportunity to seek revenge for the boy's death. That this revenge was executed at Omen-hipur was perhaps because the layekw man was alone and unprotected there. That Omen-hipur did the killing shows how strongly involved they must have felt, even though they were related to Minot's house only by marriage. Evidently Lyekw did not expect that Omen-hipur would go so far as to attack him. However, it is clear that he was a proud and defiant man, else he would not have taken the flippers in the first place, nor uttered his curse after the reconcilement. His sister was of the same metal: less able, as a woman, to act, but if any- thing even more unforgiving. She probably wanted the sea lion right because it carried prestige, but even more because it would hurt her enemies to give it up. Very characteristic is the touch toward the end of the negotiations, when the mere talking of settlement gets her excited again and threatens to undo all the painful work of the go-betweens. 199 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. 17. FIGHT WITH THE KEROMETSX' The Kerometsii' are Indians who live upriver so far that their country has sugar and digger pines instead of firs. Their name is said to refer to these pines. They live above Okonile'l (Clear Creek) and understand Karok but speak it brokenly. It is said that they talk like swallows (neyahturis). Now, once, there was fighting between them and Okonile'l, and through some distant kinship some people in Weitspus became involved. They found and killed a Kerometsii' near Ho'onokok, the large rocks between which the horse trail used to run above Heyammu (Saint's Rest). This was in the first days of the white people, when a few of the Indians had muzzle-loading guns. There was no settlement for this killing. When it came to be New Year's and world renewal at Olege'l (Camp Creek near Orleans), many of the Yurok went up to attend it. Some of the Kerometsii' were waiting for a chance to avenge their fellow tribesman. The man who had killed him had died meanwhile, but a kinsman of his had come to Olege'l. Early in the morning he went up the hill after sweat-house wood. As he crossed the trail the Kerometsa' started to seize him, but he broke loose. Then there was confusion all over O]ege'l, some of the Yurok taking their bows to fight, and those who had children at once running down to the river. Most of the Karok were trying to prevent the fight or to separate the com- batants. One Kerometsii' man was shot with an arrow; he probably died later. One Yurok was wounded in the thigh by an arrow. He was from Tsetskwi be- low Kenek and was hit unintentionally. He was not a kinsman of the Weitspus Yurok who were attacked, and was not fighting. The Yurok all fled: a few of them in boats, some by swimming, others overland. My grandmother got separated from the other Yurok. She was my bio- logical father's mother of the house rak inWeitspus, married into house wogwu. She was already married then, but did not yet have children. When the fight- ing started she was by the creek leaching acorn meal. She ran to her Karok friends. They took her into their house and wanted to keep her there until things quieted down. But she was anxious to rejoin her kinsfolk, so they told her the way, which would take her up Camp Creek and then along a nearly blind trail from a certain point. So she went by herself. She had got about to the top of the first ridge when she noticed that there were no cobwebs across the path though it was still early in the morning. This made her think there was someone ahead, so she left the trail. After she crossed Tui Creek she picked up a trail again, but before long she saw a footprint in the dust and so went back into the brush. Near the town Aperger she came onto the trail again, and from there went on to Redcap (Opegoi). There an old widow, Redcap Tom's mother, wanted her to stay. But she would only remain long enough to eat a little. The old lady went down-river with her as far as Otsir (Big Bar), about two and a half miles. When she turned back there she said, "If I meet anyone coming after you, I will delay them by talking to them." So my grand- mother ran on about three miles more until she came to Otsepor at Bluff Creek, the first Yurok settlement. There she began to fall in with other Yurok refugees. 200 Spott-Kroeber: Yurolc Narratives Later on she used to warn us to watch out for cobwebs (wes werner, spider traps) if we wanted to know whether someone had gone over the trail that morning. After that, for a while the Yurok were afraid to attend Karok dances. How- ever, one man was brave or warlike and went to Omikyera near the mouth of the Salmon River, where they hold a deerskin dance. There he was caught, cut with knives, and killed, either by the Kerometsii' or some of their Karok friends. His relatives were notified and came upriver at once. Among them was Oslok-werker', whom the white people later called Martha. Her name means "Did-not-cut-her-hair-in-oslokw." She was not a widow but had an affair with a man in oslokw. This was something like being a widow who does not cut her hair and thereby gives notice that she is ready for affairs. She was herself from the house ple'l in Weitspus and was the sister of Stone, who used to speak the prayers for the Weitspus dances. As soon as Martha arrived she asked the hosts of her dead kinsman if they had stepped around the body. They, knowing what she had in mind, said, "No, only on one side." Then she scraped up the dead man's blood and the footprints near the body, after speak- ing prayers for death over them. It was far to carry the corpse home, and the Yurok had no boats there, so the corpse was kept for several days and began to be strong. Finally the host let them have a corner of his own family ceme- tery, and there burial was made. Much later, when I was a boy in Weitspus, this last part Qf the story came out. Martha had a cousin whose half-grown boy was sick. The doctor could not cure him and said there was something to confess. She said she could see a fire and smoke coming from it near the boy's body. This was from boiling the blood and footprints next to the corpse by Martha many years before. Then to help her cousin's boy recover, Martha confessed what she had done at Omikyera long ago. I was there when she made the confession; it has to be made publicly before others than kinsmen. The boy recovered, but died a few years later. [17] This story pretty much speaks for itself. The type of fighting, as well as the revenge magic practiced on the corpse, we have encountered before; also the curing by confession. What is entirely new to me is the tribe called the Kerometsi'. I cannot recall ever having heard them mentioned before. They are unquestionably the Gammutwa, a group in and around Seiad Valley on the Klamath above Happy Camp. These were apparently a group of Shasta who were bilingual but spoke both their Shasta and their Karok dialectically. The Yurok gen- erally designate the Shasta as Scott's Valley Indians because the westernmost pure Shasta lived on the Klamath around the mouth of Scott's Valley Creek and up that stream. The Kerometsii' were a small group of poor people who were rather looked down upon by both the Karok and Shasta. They were surely an unimportant group numerically. When their existence touches the Yurok, this episode shows that they were well enough known to be identified. At other times, however, the Yurok preferred to forget about 201 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. them. Hence no doubt their previous nonmention to me and the very scant and vague information which it is possible to get from the Yurok or even from the Karok about the more important Shasta nation. In fact, in Yurok myth- ology the world practically ends with Okonile'l (Clear Creek). This place they all knew by repute as the site of the farthest upriver world-renewal cere- mony. Some of them in the old days had even been there, and a few, as we have seen, had intermarried with it. In mythology one travels only a little way beyond Okonile'l to reach the place where one moves up into the sky, or where the sun comes from, or where the upriver ocean is. When it was a matter of imagination dominating, the Yurok so much preferred a small snug world that they set a limit to it a few miles beyond Clear Creek. When matters from be- yond really touched them in actual life, they recognized them-without, how- ever, extending their preferred world concept; the myths went on as before. I learned the same thing from my collaborator in regard to the ocean coast to the north. All the Yurok know by name all the Tolowa villages, and many of them have ancestors or relatives there. In the myths, however, the world ends with the Tolowa. Sometimes one settlement beyond them is mentioned, Nororpek, which Robert tells me is at the mouth of Chetco Creek, just over the Oregon boundary. Many myths in following the course of a hero north- ward do not even specify Nororpek, but have him reach the place where the sky meets the earth, or the far-away dentalium home, or the land across the sea, at the next stop beyond the farthest Tolowa village. The Yurok, however, did actually know of the principal native settlements for a considerable dis- tance beyond, as far as the mouth of the Rogue River. Robert without hesita- tion named the following towns: Pulekuk a'espeu, at Winchuck River on the state line; Pulekuk omerip, at Pistol River; Okyer, at Rogue River. However, the contrast is not altogether between the worlds of myth and actuality. Ordinarily there is a genuine lack of interest in distant places and peoples. One inquires and is told, "I don't know." Only when interest suddenly focuses on some specific trade article, custom, or incident does it become ap- parent that there is a fair degree of information extant on next-to-neighbor peoples whom ordinarily one prefers to forget. 18. THE WAR WITH HUPA Pererkr is a poison or medicine for starvation. This was supposed to have been kept by women in the house ple'l in Rekwoi. There were four sisters from this house who therefore were called tsiwei hegohk (starvation makers). This is what I have heard about the pererkr. It is said to be an angelica root. It is kept in a stone cyst of six slabs, like the sacred pipe across the river from Rekwoi, or like an obsidian blade. If a very little of a food, as much as will go on half a thumbnail, was set in the stone box next to the root, that kind of food would wither away. If one put with it a bit of salmon, of mussels, of acorns, and of seeds, all these foods would perish. But I have never heard that deer, sea lion, or whale are affected by it. When the little bit of food is taken out, that kind becomes abundant again. Then after a time the root be- comes hungry and travels. Perhaps it will be seen as a short lamprey eel on the 202 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives hillside, with its head larger than the body. If anyone sees it thus, it brings him good luck. Only he must immediately shout out the names of all the kinds of foods which the pererkr at other times causes to perish, and the whole village joins in the shouting. This is just as they do at the first-salmon medi- cine at Welkwiiu. The last person to see this pererkr was an older sister of Fanny Flounder, Jenny. She was going along the trail above the rock Oregos to gather the siikws or stalks of wogerup (wild celery), which they eat. Seeing something moving, she brushed the grass away with her cane. Thinking it was a dangerous omen (tiniumonok), she was frightened and ran back to the house. They were already living in a white man's house then, and wearing shoes and clothes. She started to tell the old lady there, Requa Fanny, who was the aunt of her husband. When she uttered the word tinuimonok, Fanny interrupted, "What was it?" As soon as she heard the word "lamprey eel," Fanny listened no more but ran downhill to the place, and Jenny followed. Fanny looked all over but couldn't find anything. "I wish I could find it," she said. It looked as if she were want- ing to keep it. She told Jenny that she had never known where it was kept; her aunt was the last one who knew, and had never told her. Other people, when they heard of this, said she did know and was only pretending that she did not. Some of them said that she was a very bad woman. I knew her well when I was a boy and always got on well with her. This pererkr was the cause of the war between Rekwoi and Oplego' in Hupa. Of the four sisters in the house ple'l, one was married into Weitspus, house oslokw. She had gone up the hill for firewood. On the way down, she saw a crowd of men on the stone platform in front of the sweat house of the house she was married into, and knew there was trouble of some kind. In front of her house she slipped the pack strap off her forehead, dropped her load, and stood up to look around. She saw there were Hupa in the crowd, and they began to accuse her: "Why do you make starvation? People are dying all about." She did not answer, but only spread out her ten fingers toward them and said, "Tsauh 1" This is like swearing at people and a great insult. Then she turned her back and knelt down to crawl through the doorway. Thereupon a Hupa of Oplego' shot an arrow and hit her in the rectum; she died from the wound. A scuffle followed and a Hupa was killed. This was how the feud began. The Hupa did not hold the people of Weitspus responsible, where their man had been killed. They held Rekwoi responsible because this woman over whom their man had been killed was from the house ple'l there. What happened next I do not know, nor anything further until the Hupa came down from Oplego' to attack Rekwoi. They came down the Trinity and the Klamath in boats. I think there probably were about six boatloads of them. They landed at night at the mouth of Hunter Creek. They did not attack Tmeri-where, later, the cannery was-though this counted as a suburb of Rekwoi. They were first seen by a man and his wife who the day before had gone upriver to fish with gill nets. This man was from the house tekor downhill from kniiu in Rekwoi. This house was only a pit when I was a boy. His wife was 203 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. from the house otsal in Welkwiiu across the river. The man was a notorious or gratuitous liar. When I was a boy I was told not to lie or I would be like him. Well, he and his wife were camped for the night by the riverbank on the south side at K'erer'i, which is also called Hekusa-sonut. This is near where the highway bridge is now. They had set out their gill net, but the crab claws on the stick did not rattle. The salmon were not running, and they went to sleep. Toward morning he heard rattling and went to attend to his net. The campfire had gone out and he did not stop to blow it up. His wife sat up and saw something in the river that in the darkness looked like a log coming down, but she recognized it for a bunch of canoes and told her husband. They wanted to give the alarm, so they ran down-river on the south side, found a boat, and got across in time. Coming to Rekwoi, he called, "Tnohsiiu ki'iyemek (An at- tack, escape!)." But he was so well known as a tegel or mulstseyek (liar) that they did not believe him. Much of Rekwoi was away to the north, surf fishing. Mostly they were old people left in the village, with some women and children. The Hupa sur- rounded the town. The old men were burned inside their sweat houses. Requa Fanny's aunt, one of the four sisters, hid in some manzanitas drooping over a rock. A Hupa came and jabbed under the bushes with an arrow. He struck her thigh, but she lay still. She carried the scar later. They burnt the houses and the sweat houses, including the sacred sweat house. They even burnt the cemeteries. This last is a great offense. Much higher damages have to be paid for this than for burning a house. There was no looting of valuables; that is not done. Only one house, wonniiu, was not burned. A Hupa woman jumped on top of this and called out in Hupa, "Do not burn this one !" This woman was from Omen-hipur and was a sister of my father's father and of two other men in Rekwoi. She was also the mother of Mrs. Freddie, the half-Yurok Hupa woman whose picture Goddard has shown in his Hupa book: she is leach- ing acorns. The woman who had first seen the Hupa canoes ran north toward Omen. On the way she met a man of house tegwollek repokw coming home to Rekwoi. She told him Rekwoi was all burnt up. As he came nearer he smelled the smoke, then saw it, and ran down to Poyamor, where a ridge or point runs out into the river. From there he saw some of the Hupa already starting home and the rest of them embarking, and called to them, "Tsa-hego'oh-k'omii (Prepare lunches27 for yourselves)." This is a formal way of saying that there will be an attack. On their way home the Hupa stopped at Weitspus on the wohpii or bar and made a war dance (lkerermeryi'n). They had taken captive a grown girl from house layekw and put her in front of the line to dance the war dance. This is called metsineku' ki'ulkerermeryik (close to the fire making her dance the war dance). These were the words used, although there is no fire in the war dance. Two of them held her and others prodded her with arrows until she danced. The old man of the house wogwu in Weitspus was related to layekw in 27 That is, food one carries about when on the move, as distinct from hot meals to which one sits down. 204 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives Rekwoi and did not like this. He came down to the bar and tried to stop them; but they would not. Then he became very angry. After the Rekwoi man had shouted his defiance at the Hupa, he ran back to Omen; and there he slept, I think, and next day went on to notify all the Tolowa villages. They all said that what they would do depended on Hinii'ig, the farthest town, on the Smith River. When the messenger came to Hinii'ig, the old man there said that he would join in and help. So all the Tolowa helped. I do not mean that all their men came on the party for revenge, but from every town a few men, the best fighters, came. Also the fathers or perhaps grand- fathers of Tekta Ben and of Kerner said they would help, and brought men from Ko'tep and Pekwon with,them. From Weitspus, which is the nearest town to Hupa, people joined from wogwu, because the head of the house was related to layekw in Rekwoi; and from the house oslokw, the latter because they were related to Hinii'ig. I do not know just how many people went on the party to attack Hupa, but I would estimate that four boats set out from Rekwoi, and others from up the river, and that there would be perhaps six or seven men in a boat. Most of them walked alongshore, only paddlers remain- ing in the boat. These would ferry the others from one bar to the next. At the Kenek Rapids the Yurok helped the Tolowa, who are good on the ocean but are not acquainted with this rough place. Most of the party went overland to Hupa, either from there or from Weitspus, but. a few boats went up the Trinity River. They attacked Oplego', killed a number of people, and burned the whole town, including the sacred house and the cemeteries. Then they made their war dance of victory at Akis weroi (Socktish Creek), right on the flat land within Hupa Valley. On the way back they came to the prairie called Nikwits omegelepa (Grizzly bear's rubbing place). These bears have a way of rubbing themselves against the trees there. They found it full of grizzlies sitting up on their haunches like so many stumps. Then the Tolowa, who know about grizzly bears, said, "Yurok to the rear." They uttered a long humming "hi !" and the grizzlies broke and fled. I do not know anything of the settlement that was made. I only know that the girl. from layekw who had been taken captive came home, so there must have been a settlement. I think the reason I was told nothing about the settle- ment is that the old people did not like to speak about the dead. I also infer that one of the four sisters from the house ple'l was given in marriage to Hupa in settlement, because I have heard her spoken of as HupO-melolkei. While she was still alive she would have been called Hupos-onosa or Oplegos-onosa (married into Hupa or Oplego'). Of these four sisters, the oldest was the one who was married into oslokw at Weitspus and was killed there and so started the feud. The second one was married into the house wogi in Ho'peu, to judge by the way I have heard her referred to. A third was the one given in settlement to Hupa. The fourth one remained in her home ple'l and was half-married there to a man of tal wo'ol. Her daughter was Requa Fanny. 205 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. Requa Fanny told me that she saw the first white people come to Welkwiiu. As she told it, they saw a large boat coming with trees on it. She meant the masts, of course. They landed in small boats. The people of Rekwoi went into hiding, and the whites made camp near the rock Oregos. In the morning the people began to peep over the edge of the slope, and some of the children ventured down. She was a good-sized girl then. A white man who was cooking took a potato from the ashes and gave her half of it. She did not know what it was and put it into her cap. Then he gave her something with holes in it and gestured that she should eat it. It was hardtack. She tried it and it tasted like wood, she said. The other children called to her, "You will die if you eat it." When she grew up she married into the house wogi of Ho'peu, the house her mother's sister had married into; but her husband was not a kinsman. She had no child, and her husband died. Fanny cut her hair, but her husband's people did not want her because they thought she was sterile. After a while she began to go about with other men and her mother had to repay the mar- riage portion. Later she was bought by the house merits'er in Ko'tep. There she had one child, a son who was crippled but became skillful at putting together wood- pecker headbands. The Americans called him William Johnson, but she called him K'emeits'er after the house to which he belonged. This is how she came to leave this house and her marriage. The old woman of the house told her to go uphill to where wood had been broken and stacked and bring down a load. Fanny said she would go in the morning; but the old woman said to bring it that day, so Fanny went up in the late afternoon. On the way down, as she was crossing a little gully where the ground was wet and soft, she felt a stab in the sole of her foot. It kept hurting her. She felt of her sole, but there was no thorn sticking out and she could see no blood. When she came to the house and dropped her load it was found that she had been bitten by a rattlesnake. Later she had a mark on her calf from the buckskin tourniquet which they applied. They held a meeting or court about it, and it was concluded that the damage to her balanced the price that had been paid for her in marriage and that therefore she was free to go home. The woodshed in the house had wood in it, so she might have waited until morning if the old woman had not insisted otherwise. Had she been allowed to wait until morn- ing, she would not have been bitten by the snake. However, the family in Ko'tep was to keep her son. They did so, and it was only when he was grown up that he joined his mother in Rekwoi. This is what I know about Requa Fanny, who was of the family which was the occasion of the war between Rekwoi and Hupa. [181 This is a tale of perhaps the largest warlike undertaking which the Yurok remember any of their number to have been engaged in. The story has been previously printed on pages 50-51 of the Handbook. The version there published I obtained from Robert Spott's father, Captain Spott, in 1901. The differences are of interest. The older man's account has Rekwoi destroy Oplego' and then Oplego' retaliate. The present account reverses the order of the in- 206 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives cidents. Captain Spott specified 84 men plus 6 women including his mother, as in the party which made the attack on Hupa, and nearly a hundred in the counterattack. Robert Spott did not know the numbers, but estimated that there were perhaps half a dozen boatloads in each party, making the total not more than half as great. A war party may have counted its numbers in order to account for anyone that was missing after the fight; but I have a feeling that, beyond the moment, there would be no particular interest in the exact number, and that it would be likely to be forgotten. Both accounts, how- ever, mention the presence of a few women. The difference in the account of the route taken to Hupa is probably not significant. Robert has the Yurok and their allies follow the Klamath most of the way, and then the majority of the party going by land. Spott's statement that they went up by the Bald Hills may have referred only to the last part of the journey, and I may have mis- understood him. There is evidently also a misunderstanding of his statement as to the affiliation of the woman who was killed at Weitspus. I understood him to say that she was a Weitspus woman who was living half-married in her father's house here but had a Rekwoi mother. In that event Weitspus would certainly have felt more aggrieved than Rekwoi and would have been the prime participant in the hostilities. Robert is almost certainly right in making her a Rekwoi woman full-married into Weitspus. In this case it would be Rekwoi that would feel most aggrieved. Robert's account contains many more details than his father's, in spite of having been told nearly forty years later. He had heard the story from several sources. Also, his English is much more fluent. His father was a man of action who was no doubt quite willing to harangue the Yurok on occasion but was of a temperament that was likely to make him impatient of long tales, especially in the medium of his broken English. One feature in which the two versions agree is the complete omission of any reference to the number of people killed, how settlement was effected, and how much was paid. This is evidently due to reluctance of the older peo- ple, from whomi both Spotts got their accounts, to go into such matters. It involved speaking of dead people, and those who knew best would have the greatest resistance to touching on this topic. Quite possibly an ancestor or rela- tive of the older Spott lost his life in the war, and this would make him sheer off the subject, perhaps to his son as well as to me. This blank in the record is unfortunate for our understanding of Yurok law. We have plenty of examples, in the present study and in others, of how settlement was made in the case of an ordinary killing or a family feud. In this larger war there must have been a considerable number killed on each side and large quantities of property destroyed. The generic Yurok principle is for each party to pay for the damage it has done, rather than to strike a balance and pay over only the difference. It is impossible to see how this could have been done when each town had a tremendous claim for damages suffered and at the same time much or most of its property had been wiped out. We can only infer that the settlement was in terms of differential loss suffered.' -" As in narratives 15 and 16. 207 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives cidents. Captain Spott specified 84 men plus 6 women including his mother, as in the party which made the attack on Hupa, and nearly a hundred in the counterattack. Robert Spott did not know the numbers, but estimated that there were perhaps half a dozen boatloads in each party, making the total not more than half as great. A war party may have counted its numbers in order to account for anyone that was missing after the fight; but I have a feeling that, beyond the moment, there would be no particular interest in the exact number, and that it would be likely to be forgotten. Both accounts, how- ever, mention the presence of a few women. The difference in the account of the route taken to Hupa is probably not significant. Robert has the Yurok and their allies follow the Klamath most of the way, and then the majority of the party going by land. Spott's statement that they went up by the Bald Hills may have referred only to the last part of the journey, and I may have mis- understood him. There is evidently also a misunderstanding of his statement as to the affiliation of the woman who was killed at Weitspus. I understood him to say that she was a Weitspus woman who was living half-married in her father's house here but had a Rekwoi mother. In that event Weitspus would certainly have felt more aggrieved than Rekwoi and would have been the prime participant in the hostilities. Robert is almost certainly right in making her a Rekwoi woman full-married into Weitspus. In this case it would be Rekwoi that would feel most aggrieved. Robert's account contains many more details than his father's, in spite of having been told nearly forty years later. He had heard the story from several sources. Also, his English is much more fluent. His father was a man of action who was no doubt quite willing to harangue the Yurok on occasion but was of a temperament that was likely to make him impatient of long tales, especially in the medium of his broken English. One feature in which the two versions agree is the complete omission of any reference to the number of people killed, how settlement was effected, and how much was paid. This is evidently due to reluctance of the older peo- ple, from whomi both Spotts got their accounts, to go into such matters. It involved speaking of dead people, and those who knew best would have the greatest resistance to touching on this topic. Quite possibly an ancestor or rela- tive of the older Spott lost his life in the war, and this would make him sheer off the subject, perhaps to his son as well as to me. This blank in the record is unfortunate for our understanding of Yurok law. We have plenty of examples, in the present study and in others, of how settlement was made in the case of an ordinary killing or a family feud. In this larger war there must have been a considerable number killed on each side and large quantities of property destroyed. The generic Yurok principle is for each party to pay for the damage it has done, rather than to strike a balance and pay over only the difference. It is impossible to see how this could have been done when each town had a tremendous claim for damages suffered and at the same time much or most of its property had been wiped out. We can only infer that the settlement was in terms of differential loss suffered.' -" As in narratives 15 and 16. 207 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives cidents. Captain Spott specified 84 men plus 6 women including his mother, as in the party which made the attack on Hupa, and nearly a hundred in the counterattack. Robert Spott did not know the numbers, but estimated that there were perhaps half a dozen boatloads in each party, making the total not more than half as great. A war party may have counted its numbers in order to account for anyone that was missing after the fight; but I have a feeling that, beyond the moment, there would be no particular interest in the exact number, and that it would be likely to be forgotten. Both accounts, how- ever, mention the presence of a few women. The difference in the account of the route taken to Hupa is probably not significant. Robert has the Yurok and their allies follow the Klamath most of the way, and then the majority of the party going by land. Spott's statement that they went up by the Bald Hills may have referred only to the last part of the journey, and I may have mis- understood him. There is evidently also a misunderstanding of his statement as to the affiliation of the woman who was killed at Weitspus. I understood him to say that she was a Weitspus woman who was living half-married in her father's house here but had a Rekwoi mother. In that event Weitspus would certainly have felt more aggrieved than Rekwoi and would have been the prime participant in the hostilities. Robert is almost certainly right in making her a Rekwoi woman full-married into Weitspus. In this case it would be Rekwoi that would feel most aggrieved. Robert's account contains many more details than his father's, in spite of having been told nearly forty years later. He had heard the story from several sources. Also, his English is much more fluent. His father was a man of action who was no doubt quite willing to harangue the Yurok on occasion but was of a temperament that was likely to make him impatient of long tales, especially in the medium of his broken English. One feature in which the two versions agree is the complete omission of any reference to the number of people killed, how settlement was effected, and how much was paid. This is evidently due to reluctance of the older peo- ple, from whomi both Spotts got their accounts, to go into such matters. It involved speaking of dead people, and those who knew best would have the greatest resistance to touching on this topic. Quite possibly an ancestor or rela- tive of the older Spott lost his life in the war, and this would make him sheer off the subject, perhaps to his son as well as to me. This blank in the record is unfortunate for our understanding of Yurok law. We have plenty of examples, in the present study and in others, of how settlement was made in the case of an ordinary killing or a family feud. In this larger war there must have been a considerable number killed on each side and large quantities of property destroyed. The generic Yurok principle is for each party to pay for the damage it has done, rather than to strike a balance and pay over only the difference. It is impossible to see how this could have been done when each town had a tremendous claim for damages suffered and at the same time much or most of its property had been wiped out. We can only infer that the settlement was in terms of differential loss suffered.' -" As in narratives 15 and 16. 207 II. TALES OF PEOPLE OF FORMER GENERATIONS 19. THaE WIYOT OBSIDIAN DowRY This is the story of how the big "flint" came to Weitspus to the house sohtsu there. It belonged originally to the Weyet, to a man of Weyo'. They bought his daughter from the house sohtsu. They paid for her ten pairs of strings of shell money, a woodpecker headband of the highest value, and a red ob- sidian reaching up to the elbow; this is what the young man's father from sohtsu paid. Then when they brought the girl up from the Eel River country, seven men came along, each wearing a dentalium necklace and carrying twenty loose woodpecker scalps and a small obsidian. This was her gift dowry. The girl's father himself brought a great black obsidian. She was his only child, and because they were paying the highest amount that is paid for a wife he gave this obsidian. Only he stipulated that it should always remain in Weitspus and be used in the White Deerskin Dance there. It should never be paid again for a marriage, nor in settlement. The young wife was called Sohtsu-'onos because she was married there. Her husband at first was called Weyo'-owa' because his wife was from that town, and he used to say he did not know what he should properly be called. In time his wife learned to talk Yurok and said that the name of her house was ruftsik'; so after that her husband was called Ruftsik'-owa'. Rfutsik' is not a word in our language. The nearest I can think of is rfuts, which means salmon stomach, but this would hardly be a house name, so rfutsik' must be the Weyet name of the house. This long obsidian has been kept in Weitspus ever since. Paired with the Karok one owned by Red Neck, it has been used in dances. The line can no longer be traced person by person back to the Weyet girl; but the obsidian continued to belong to the house sohtsu. In the generation before my father's the man who had possession of it died. His widow kept it in her house for a while, but had a hard time making a living. Then her dead husband's half- brother's son, Terkr, who also lived in Weitspus, was very good to the widow, bringing her game and other food. Now, once when she wanted to go off in the fall to gather acorns she told him that she was afraid the obsidian might be stolen in her absence, and he said to her that she should give it to him and he would be responsible for it. So from that time on he kept it, and after he died-and he lived to be an old man-it continued to be kept by his children and grandchildren in the same house; but it still belongs to the house sohtsu; and the daughter of the widow who gave it to Terkr to keep was my (bio- logical) mother. [19] This story is no doubt essentially historic, and among people of longer memory a specific genealogy would lead back to the event. The Yurok do not seem to remember beyond about five generations. One has the feeling that if only they carried a lineage back six or eight steps this event would fall within [ 210 ] Spott-Kroeber: Yurole Narratives the domain of reliable traditional history. As it is, we can guess that it oc- curred in the eighteenth century. The substance of the story seems in all probability authentic, although many details have no doubt been lost and others may have suffered change in the passage from generation to generation. Features of special interest, however, have quite likely been preserved with accuracy: the picture of the seven gift bearers, for instance, each displaying what he brought. It must be emphasized that while the bride price was very exactly nego- tiated, and carefully inspected before acceptance, the dowry was a gift. It might be voluntarily returned in case of a divorce, but it could not be claimed; whereas the bride price would be exacted absolutely in full, subject only to reduction for children left with the father. Usually the man's family made such a reduction, so that the children would not be under the disgrace of being the offspring of marriage without payment and hence technical bastards and without value on their persons and lives. But the decision whether to accept full repayment or to reduce it on behalf of the children seems to have lain with the husband and his kinsmen. The enormous gift made by the father illustrates how affection tended con- stantly to soften the stern rigors of custom law in this culture, especially so -when the affections were centered. Had the rich man had several sons, he would have been in need of wealth to buy them proper wives. Even if he had had only one, he would almost certainly have handed on the obsidian heir- loom to him. The matter of what the parties to the marriage ought to have been called and what they were called is typical of the culture. The proper designation of people is by their marital status, combined with reference to the house with which they have become associated through marriage, widowhood, divorce, semilegal or extralegal relation. This applies equally to men and women once they are married. Each takes his designation from the natal house of the spouse. 20. THE OBSIDIAN PAID TO HUPA The original Weitspus olmei, or vicious one of Weitspus, lived in woge times. His house was in or by the spring W'etspekw, and hence he was also called K'ewetspekw. Later on there was a second one who was also called Weitspus olmei, but he was a human being. I think his house was where in my time there was a pit, downhill from the spring and behind the house petsku and next to the house higwo. This man had killed someone in Hupa: I do not know of what village, nor why, nor how. Then he and his helpers fled to the coast to hide. There they had nothing to eat, and he was sorry that his friends were hungry on his account; so he bought a creek which flows through the timber into Prairie Creek. He bought it for four strings of dentalium money, either from Osegen or Espeu. It is still called Weitspus u-mekw (Weitspus its-fishing-claim). There they speared salmon for themselves. If he came to where people were fishing, he would ring a lamprey eel's tail with his thumbnail, draw off the skin, roll the meat up, stuff it into his quiver, 211 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. and be on his way. This was because he was ekorek (one who has killed some- body), and therefore was uneasy and unsettled. Finally there was an agreement to settle the feud. He was on Pelin- kertser (the big ridge) uphill from Pekwtul. The Hupa were on Bull Creek (Osmimol). The settlement was to be made at Sepola, an open prairie between. His sister, dressed in a maple-bark skirt, went everywhere with him to protect him. He offered high compensation, but the Hupa would not take it. They demanded only a large black obsidian blade which he owned. He offered his sister, but they refused her too. At last he agreed to pay over the obsidian. But when he laid it down on the deerskin blanket he made a speech: "When- ever a person of Weitspus is killed or hurt by anyone of Hupa, even if he is a poor man on the outskirts of Weitspus, I want him always to demand that obsidian back in payment." Now perhaps around 1890 there was a brush dance in Weitspus in the house tse'kwel. During the night, as the dancing was going on, Susie Crane said, "Someone is going to be hurt." When they asked her how she knew, she said, "I am tasting blood in my mouth." She was a wound sucker. In the morning after the dance, Werk's daughter, a grown woman, was setting breakfast for the guests under the big pepperwood tree which they call rego'o, in the middle of the village. A Hupa of Kahtel got into a quarrel and drew a revolver. A bystander seized his arm to hold him. As he swung to free himself, the gun went off and Werk's daughter was hit in the shoulder. Susie Crane was called to suck the bullet out. So her presentiment of the night came true. When they came to arrange for the settlement, Werk's wife was sitting in front of her house. Then, in making her claim-she made it because her hus- band was only half-married to her-she told this story about the obsidian and insisted on having it for payment. Canyon Tom of Pekwtul, who was half Hupa, was interpreting for the Hupa. He said at once that it would be hard to insist on this because perhaps no one knew where in Hupa this obsidian was after so long a time. Perhaps it had been lost altogether. Weitchpec Frank and others who were present said the same thing. Werk's wife, finding she was alone, became silent and went into the house. Then Werk accepted another black obsidian, a smaller one, plus some money. The original black flint, which they did not get back, was almost as long as that which came from the Weyet and was kept by Terkr. [20] This story illustrates how rapidly the actual past becomes elusive by our standards when it is dependent on oral tradition. There seems every reason for believing that, a number of generations ago, something happened that was much like what is narrated here. The principal character is specifi- cally said to have been a human person, not a woge, and the site of his house is an actual house pit and not a spring. The fishing claim near the coast still bears the name which it received when he bought it. It might of course have become the property of someone else at Weitspus, and on some other occasion, but there is no specific reason for believing otherwise than that he acquired it while he was a refugee from vengeance. The tradition of the big obsidian 212 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives paid to Hupa seems to have been generally known to the audience both of Weitspus and of Hupa people. At least there were no denials. The objections made were wholly on the ground that so much time had passed that the iden- tity and ownership of the piece could no longer be determined. Possibly also there was an unexpressed feeling that, even if they could be determined, the blade might have passed into the possession of some other family, which would refuse to part with its treasure while uninvolved in the claim now at issue. At any rate it is significant that the urgings to drop insistence on this par- ticular piece came from fellow Yurok and fellow villagers of the claimant. They appear to have accepted a story of the long ago as true, but to have felt that recovery was no longer feasible. Granting that there actually was such an obsidian and that it was paid to Hupa in a settlement, but that its whereabouts had been forgotten, the question arises of how far the details of the story could have been really re- membered or were merely subsequent embroidery designed to make the tale concrete and vivid. How the ever-uneasy refugee hastily stuffed away the lamprey eels that were given him is probably not so much a piece of actual remembering as something which many other refugees through the genera- tions did, and which therefore would be felt as appropriate and expectable in his case. The naming of the places where the killer and his friends camped during the negotiations, where the Hupa camped, and where the transfer and speech were finally made, may be another piece of embroidery, because to the Yurok a well-told tale or an authentic tale is always exactly localized. Some- one in a former generation may well have forgotten some of the localities and substituted others from pseudo memory on the spur of the moment when he had occasion to tell the story. On the other hand, it is entirely conceivable that memory of the three spots was correctly passed along by continuous tradition. The three places are all close to Weitspus and on the border between it and Hupa territory. On the other hand, the Yurok may have known relatively little about the interrelationships of families within the Hupa tribe. If the obsidian in ques- tion passed out of circulation at dances for a generation or two, the Yurok might easily lose track of who owned it in Hupa. Particularly would this knowledge become hazy in Weitspus if there were feuds or suspicions between any of its people and some of the Hupa. In that case the Hupa owners may well have preferred not to risk bringing this treasure to the dance at Weitspus. No certain answers can be given to these possibilities; but at least there is nothing in the rest of the tale to render it impossible, or even unlikely, that its central theme, the payment of an important obsidian to Hupa in settle- ment, was a historical fact. One other point is of interest: the community feeling which these Indians now and then manifest in distinction from the usual cohesion on lines of kin- ship. Predominantly, if there was a claim, it was against an individual and his house and his kinsmen. If a family got into a quarrel, the other families of the town might sympathize with it, but normally they would be at pains not to become involved and to remain formally neutral. Every so often, how- 213 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Ain. Arch. and Ethn. ever, there would be unanimity or near-unanimity of action. Thus in the famous war between Rekwoi and Hupa the trouble started over a woman who came from a particular house in Rekwoi which was under suspicion even there, and who was killed in Weitspus. Nevertheless, when it came to a climax, the whole Hupa town of Oplego' attacked the whole town of Rekwoi indiscrimi- nately, saving out only one house on the ground of specific kinship; and Rekwoi retaliated en masse against Oplego'. A similar sentiment was manifested when the rich man of Weyet gave his great obsidian blade to his daughter with the condition that it should never leave Weitspus. Possibly he did not make such a speech; but if so, the Weitspus people certainly chose subsequently to believe that he had made it. In other words, if he had not thought of the town as a unit, they evidently did so on certain occasions. The story is also illustrative of the fact that an old-fashioned Yurok always falls back on a myth or tradition when something important is to be decided. As soon as her daughter was wounded, Werk's wife reached back into the past to determine the basis for settlement. My experience with the older Yurok of a generation ago is that when one asked them about a custom they almost always went back to the woge, in other words, began with a myth about the institution. They might then go on and describe the institution in more detail; but often the telling of its origin seemed to appear to them adequate as a description. In trying to obtain ordinary ethnographic data I have had to listen time and again to myths which I had already heard, before I could come to the contemporary facts; and sometimes these had to be elicited by prodding. Not that there normally was any reluctance to discuss these facts, but they evidently seemed uninteresting in comparison with the story of how they began. The date of the happening is of course wholly vague. We can perhaps con- jecture that it was anterior to the receipt of the Weyet obsidian, because the ownership of the latter is still remembered. However, memory would tend to be longer in the home town where the blade remained. The happening was almost certainly earlier than the Hupa-Rekwoi war (narrative 18). The fact that some houses of Weitspus were involved in this war may well have con- tributed to a straining of relations with Hupa which led to the failure to follow up identity of the obsidian. 21. KEGESAMUI: RETURN FROM DEATH A dead person is called kesamui. If he should come back to life while he is still in the house, or even while laid on the plank beside the grave, he is called kegesamui (dying repeatedly) and is allowed to return; but his family must not address him or make any move until he can speak plainly again. If he revives once he has been put into the grave, rocks are piled on to keep him in. A person who worked his way out of the grave would be extremely dangerous: he would pull people's arms out of their shoulders. Also he cannot be subdued by being shot. He succumbs only to being hit with a bowstring. This is like what they do when a pregnant woman dies: they strike her across the belly with a bowstring to kill the baby. 214 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives I have seen two rock piles made to hold the dead in their graves. One is in a Ko'tep cemetery. The other is in Rekwoi in ple'l kowistewol,' the cemetery for ple'l. This is the story I heard about the one in Rekwoi. He was from the house repokw near kniiu and ple'l. He wanted to become brave and strong, so he swam from where Klamath Bridge is now nearly to Rekwoi in the month kamo (December), when the water is rough (ukamopk) because the kames monsters are active. Then he was sitting at Poyemu'n (Crone's Point), where the boats land at the white town of Requa. Then he saw something stretch out from the point, with the water spilling over it, and saw it sink again. So he did what an old man had told him, and went out into the middle of the river without diving, swimming at the surface of the water as if skimming (wesemoyurek). When he saw this thing stretching across the river again, he stood up and trod water, holding his arms up. He thought he would strike the thing and float over it; and he held his breath. Then all he felt was a puff of wind like a breath, but no body touching his body. When he could no longer hold his breath he began to swim, and saw the thing still stretched out upstream from him, and wondered whether he had passed through it or over it. He swam down along the shore to Wetspekw, above Pacheco Rock, and from there ran up the trail to his sweat house, which was between Iayekw and the sacred sweat house and the house in which the tal live. Inside, he took the slate cover off the fire pit, stirred up the fire, and warmed his hands over it. In the morning, he went up the hill to get ceremonial sweat-house wood. Returning, he untied his pack outside and passed the sticks in. The others knew he was trying for power of bravery, and had waited with their sweating until he should return with his wood; so then they sweated. One by one they came out and bathed in the creek, then went to their houses to eat breakfast. He told one remaining old man what had happened to him. The old man said, "Eat no breakfast today, but stay in here. You may smoke if you like. If it is too hot inside, open one door, or both. But on no account drink any water." This old man was from the house in which the tal live, so he went out and told the youth's mother that he was staying in the sweat house and was all right. Now he did not eat much breakfast at home himself, because he wanted to get back into the sweat house before the others. Then he told the young man, "Bring sweat-house wood ceremonially for five days in the morning only. I will put away your wood in the rack. And do not go back into the river. After five days you will be free again (kits-u-wiiih). And tell your people that if ever you are shot or cut to death they should hold your body for four days, or if it is summer and very hot to hold it at any rate for three days." So the young man did this. Now he grew older and married a wife from Yohter, upriver from Pekwon on the opposite side. Then there was fighting with Wohkero, at Rekwoi, and because he was a weskwilai (a brave man) he was in the fight, and he was killed. Now he had always told his wife that they should keep him for four 29 Kowis, stick; tewol, dead people's land. 215 6Univ. Calif. Publ. Ain. Arch. and Ethn. days, or at least three. But they only held his body for two days, and as he had not then revived they buried him. Then they heard a sound from the grave and saw the dirt heaving, and everyone in Rekwoi came carrying rocks and piled them on his grave. This was before my time, but not so very long before, because Requa Fanny, William Johnson's mother, told me the story and she had seen the man. He was called Repoks otsin until his marriage. There are two ways of getting power for bravery. One way is to obtain the power from the river or the ocean; a man who gets power this way is called weskwilai. The other way is to secure the power on land; a person who has done this is called ho'ohkol wa'asok, which refers to meeting something danger- ous in the darkness of night. A man has his choice which way to follow. At Cannery Creek (Tmeri weroi), a little upriver from Rekwoi, one could hear moaning, and if one were brave one could keep going on down-river to Rekwoi. There was a big alder across the creek, with its top limbs spreading broadly. There one would meet a gigantic skeleton (so'o), with sparks stream- ing from its eyes as tears, and straddling the trail. Then the seeker for power would spread his arms and run between the skeleton's legs, but feel only a puff of wind. Or the giant skeleton might be seated, with his long shinbones reaching above his head. Then the man would gently lay his right hand on the giant's left shoulder and stroke down his arm, and the giant would do the same to him. But if one seized him or slapped him, he would do the same and almost pull out one's arm. This kind of spirit on land is called tsmeyes; and the person who met one would also tell his kinsmen to keep his body unburied for four days. The thing in the river which Rep6ks otsin met was a kames. It was like a snake, but less long than a knewollek, and dark in color. When it stretched out it was quite smooth, but when it contracted it looked like knots in a rope.' Before a battle they would say, "Tina weskwilai (Who is brave) ?" Then two or three or perhaps four men might step out of the ranks. These weskwilai would fight separately from the rest from somewhere in the brush. Or if the fight was in a prairie they would stand hidden in a group of women, who would stoop down when the weskwilai were about to shoot. For that reason the weskwilai on the opposite side would always be looking for such knots of women to find their opponents. Weskwilai fought with weskwilai; common men fought with common men. They were called tseihko-witseks (little hearts) ; the weskwilai, plo'-witseks (big hearts). These words would be used, when there was a public meeting or "court," as circumlocutions to refer to people as being either ordinary or outstandingly brave. [21] Kesamui is "dead" ; kegesamui is a verbal plural or iterative: "one who dies repeatedly." The narrative illustrates two Yurok patterns distinct in themselves but as- sociated. One is the fear of the dead which makes a return among the living a terrible thing. With their love of legalistic precision the Yurok have defined 'I Welkermlkermerkikr; a single knot in a rope is welkermerkikr. 216 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives exactly when a person is irrevocably dead: it is when he has been lowered into the grave. Up to this point his resuscitation is welcomed. After that he is a fearful monster against whom the whole community and even his kinsmen turn in a panic of terror. The other pattern has to do with the supernatural acquisition of strength and bravery. Relatively few men sought this, whereas most Yurok at one time or another went out to gather sweat-house wood ceremonially for wealth and general luck in life. As the tale shows, fighting power was acquired either on land by encountering a skeleton at night in a shady and fearful place, or by swimming until one had bodily contact with a water monster. A special form of this second method, one that is favored in myths, is that as the result of swimming, or rather diving, the Thunders pity one and instill some of their power. This version is developed in tale 25, and I have recorded it previously with different localization. Whatever the precise method used, the psychology is the same and is sound, as Yurok psychology generally is. The seeker becomes brave by forcing himself to perform something that calls for supernormal courage. The power acquisition can be set as having occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century, more likely in the second quarter; the attempt to rise from the grave, about 1850 or soon after. 22. TEN BOATS At regworel (at the brink of the slope)"1 in Pekwtul lived Regworels umii'i. When she came back from gathering firewood she would go to sleep. She slept from breakfast to evening. Her people wondered if she were sick, but she said, "No." They brought a doctor, but she said the girl had no pain in her. Finally she could not go out to gather wood any more, and began to sing. She was sweethearts with a young man of the house Wonnil in Weitspus, and her people had scolded her for it, but she told them that there was nothing between them, that they were just friends. Now when she began to sing, she sang about that young man: "Tsinokwanonawes se'p'minos"2 otsin (Bring him here, the youth from wonnil)." Then the old people began to like him, sent for him, and he came and sat by her as she slept. But they could not wake her, though they told her that the young man was there; and they cried. So she got worse. Then they heard her singing another song in her sleep: "Welawawai (Ten boats)." All at once she woke up, ran to the bluff, tore her necklace, and threw the dentalia into the river. Then she ran down to the bar where the two rivers meet, took a stick with a little string on it, and whipped it into the river like a fishline (weknerwer').'S Each time, she drew out a dentalium. The last time, she threw the line in where the landing is on the Klamath side; there she got back the last of her dentalium beads. 31 A Pekwtul house not shown on Waterman's map. 0 Se'p'mino is the name of wonnil in woge or ritual language. Wonnil is the most down- stream house in Weitspus, Waterman's wonoyerl, nos. 1 and 2 in map 26. 38 The pole is wa'nit. There was no hook on her line. 217 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. Then they knew what was wrong: she was not sick, but going with the woge. That is why she slept: the woge took her life (wegwoletsik) and left her body. As they traveled with her, they stopped at the rock Seyo'il, which is the one next to the rock Okneget near Welkwiiu. The top of this sometimes seems burned from their pipe ashes. From there they went across the ocean (a little south of west) to Erkerger, and there they danced. So they found it out, and said, "If she is not too far gone we will save her with the wesuirawits dance."' So they called in all the menstruating women (tspuirawok) and all those who had recently borne children (leihkweni), and told them to bring their food with them because it was unclean and would keep the woge away, and they set the food all around her. Then they danced that wesulrawits ten nights, but each day she grew worse. They called for women to come from the Hupa and the Karok, and new un- clean ones were brought in relays, but they could not save her. When she was nearly gone, she began to speak, and they stopped dancing. "I am going with them. I cannot come back to my people, even though my body is here. Bury me off somewhere, not in the cemetery, because I am not dead, only gone with the woge. And do not wear any mourning necklace, and do not cry when you bury me, because I am not dead, I am alive still." She finished speaking and was dead. So they buried her away from the village. Before she died she also told them that the ten boats were two abreast, five pairs of them; but the first pair was three boats with the middle one projecting, and she was in that one (legwole'yo weteggoiyeo: dancing in the boat project- ing). Therefore, boats of human beings are not allowed to go down-river or across-river abreast. Only when they wear feathers and dance may people travel in boats abreast; and when they do that, only then the woge do not do it: human beings take their place that day. All this at Pekwtul happened long, long ago. The same thing happened in Rekwoi, but they saved that girl. She was from the house repokw, with its door facing the door of ple'l. This was not so long ago, my father said, because he heard of it from his mother and grandmother, and thought his grandmother saw it. My father knew the wesulrawits dance, and used to sing the songs, but I have forgotten them. They used split-stick rattles, like those the Hupa use in their girl's puberty dance, but shorter and unpainted. Several people would beat these rattles on stools. The rest danced, moving in a circle to the right, lifting one foot after the other and setting it down, sliding slightly. This Rekwoi girl also threw her necklace into the river. Otega is as far as she ran from the house, and there she threw her- beads into the river. Then she ran downstream to Erliker, the fishing rock by Oregos. There she cast, and as fast as she threw her line in, the shells were in her lap again. Her song was the same: "Welawawai." [22] This is a story of soul loss, expressed in both myth and traditional custom. It is the ancient race of the woge, the institutors, and not ghosts or 84Kapuiloyo and Kew8mer had told how the wes&rawits should be made. The wesurawits dance seems also to be made for people who appear to have died but revive before burial. 218 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives black magicians, who take the soul away; and they take it to eternal dancing. There is something gentle about the belief-more of pathos than terror. The illness, an increasing painless sleep, cannot be treated by doctors since there are no pain objects for them to remove. It is met by means of a special dance with its own songs, and this is performed by unclean women, who must keep away from all other dances and rituals because their blood contaminates what is holy. Here it is the holy supernaturals whose fondness for a human being threatens her life, and the attempt is to drive them from her by ob- truding what is repugnant to them. The affliction and the dance must have been rare. Cases perhaps occurred a generation or so apart-just within the span in which tradition could keep the idea living. There is no record of a man's being afflicted: I doubt whether the set of the culture would permit of a custom which rescued an adult male's life through menstrual blood. The whole complex seems to move within a feminine sphere. The Rekwoi happening would date in the decades following 1800. Charac- teristically, the precise rocks and spots are remembered where the girl cast and retrieved her necklace more than a century ago. The rattles are of interest, having heretofore passed as one of the minor traits distinguishing the Hupa from the Yurok and Karok. They are not the split clapsticks of central California, but sticks half the length of which has been pared down to five or six slender, vibrating rods. Now they reappear among the Yurok in a very special rite which crops up perhaps once in twenty years, whereas the Hupa puberty dance must have been made half-a-dozen times a year; but an associative bond is present: female functioning. Drucker points out that, among the Tolowa, a girl's adolescence is made the occasion for the most solemn ritual of world-import; though with their adjoining Atha- bascan kinsmen to the north the girl's puberty dance again goes out entirely. To the Yurok the Tolowa association would be unthinkable. The cultures move in the same frame of ideas and operate overwhelmingly with the same counters, yet the focal points around which they organize their constellations are now and then surprisingly different. The rattles, too, possess a theoretical interest as an illustration of how a specific trait item need not be wholly present in a local culture, nor wholly absent from it, but may be half in it-in reserve, so to speak. This is a point that is becoming increasingly apparent in distribution studies. Small con- tiguous tribes differ from one another much as localized peasant communities do within a national culture; but also as classes do in a spatially highly homo- geneous culture such as our own. They cannot really be understood without reference to the larger intertribal culture within which they develop. But this again is something of an abstraction as against the concrete culture of the minuter group. 23. THE DOCTOR FROM REP6KW This is the story of Repokw ukegei wino', a doctor from house repokw at Rekwoi. She is the only doctor who plainly heard the whale at Oka flap its tail. Her house owned an acorn-gathering place up Blue Creek, from which it was 219 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. some five or six miles to the top of the mountain Oka. Once when they were there they said to her, "Why do you not help gather ?" but she, although she had already begun to practice doctoring at Rekwoi, kept going up on Oka to dance where the seven seats or enclosures (tsektsel) are. She went to all seven of these, which face in different directions, but at last decided to dance in the one which faces inland (helkiiu). This one had a flat rock. In it also she found two stone bowls of old pipes left by doctors who had earlier danced there. There, then, she danced. She came to her people's camp late and was scolded. During the month they were there gathering acorns her dreams kept telling her, "Do not eat much. From where you go you can hear every kind of song: songs for money, for gambling, for the Brush Dance. But do not listen to them. Only when you hear the remohpo song, the doctor-making one, then say that you want that kind." Now one morning she arrived very early and waited until the sun was well up and hot. Then as she danced with her eyes closed and her hands stretched out, she heard a song for gambling, then for the Jumping Dance, the Brush Dance, for luck, for money, for the Deerskin Dance, for basketmaking. But to each one she said, "Moswiti' mel nu'negok (I did not come for that)." Then when she opened her eyes and saw that the sun was low, she thought to herself, "I will not receive it today. Well, I will spend the night here." So, still dancing, she held out her hands and inhaled. Then all at once she heard the Doctor Dance song. "Wihti' mel nu'negok (That is what I came for)," she said, clapped her hands, and held them out. Then it was that she heard the whale flapping as the song stopped. Thereupon she heard the song again. She danced harder and harder, still sucking in her breath, until she felt some- thing with wings coming against her, got something into her hand, and lost consciousness. She returned to the camp on Blue Creek with blood from her mouth running down onto her breast. Immediately, they all left for the river and started downstream. By the time they reached Oliken it was dark. They were holding her in the boat as she sang. Before they reached Rekwoi the people there had heard the song and had the sweat house ready for her.. Leaping out of the boat at the landing, she ran up the trail and jumped into the sweat house. She danced with strength for six afternoons, never weakening. On the seventh night she took out her telogel pain and put it in the basket plate. Then they put pitchwood on the smothered fire and those who were clean looked at the pain; those who did not want to refrain from water stood baek and looked aside. Then they saw that the pain was redheaded woodpecker (kok'oneu). Now her grandfather began to sing again and all cried. So she danced, inhaled the air [and the pain into her body], became unconscious, dashed out and down to the beach, and there was caught and held. Then she dashed back up again and continued dancing in the sweat house. Before day- light she took the pain out and swallowed it a second time, bleeding heavily from her mouth. Then the doctors who were assisting said, "'Let her rest now. Leave her alone. She is strong and doing well." So she rested and went to sleep. Then she dreamed that she saw the lake 220 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives on Oka, fringed with live oaks. She heard a splash, saw the whale, and drops from its splashing spattered her. Then the whale spoke to her: "It was I that helped you. You will be a great doctor. But you must never marry. And you must come back here to receive your other telogel pain of the pair." She awoke in a frenzy, but they caught her in the doorway, held her, and she danced in the sweat house again, That afternoon she took the pain out again. Then she whispered to her father that she had to go back to Oka. So in the morning they took her up to Blue Creek by boat, four men and two women. She went up to Oka alone and danced there all night. About the middle of the night her father came to the foot of the mountain, made himself a fire, and sat there smoking the rest of the night as she had told him to. In the morning he saw her coming down. At once he did as she had told him and started running down to the river, but she overtook him, passed him, and when she came to the camp at the river they held her until her father caught up. So they took her back down-river to Rekwoi and she danced all night. On the fourth night she took out her new telogel. It also was kok'oneu, only it was blood red and the first one had been light red. Again only those who were ready to be clean looked at it, and they cried when they saw it. She began to dance, inhaled the pain back into herself, became unconscious, ran out, was caught at the beach, then turned, and outdistanced everybody running back to the sweat house. The next day she took this new pain out again. In the afternoon she said, "I will rest now." Then she dreamed that the whale told her to rest for four days and then to come back for her final proving. So she told her father. There was no doctor in her family, so another doctor was asked to give her her pipe. She did so and offered to go with her. The girl said, "Yes, now I want a doctor to help me, and I want a new maple-bark dress and a pipe and its case." So two boats went on up to Blue Creek again. One was to hurry the novice home to Rekwoi; the other, to carry the directing doctor. Then the two women walked up together from the river, but the girl thought only of the whale. She had eaten very little. When they arrived on Oka she cleaned out a place and dug a little hole, where former doctors had danced, and gathered firewood. The guiding doctor got a hard limb, drove it into the ground where the girl had cleared the spot, laid the girl's old dress and pipe at the foot of the stake, and laid tinder and drilled fire. When it burned a little, she blew out tobacco and prayed, and when the fire blazed up she told the novice to come and dance. She herself went below a little and made her own fire. There she cried and talked to her pipe and patted it and smoked all night, hearing the novice shouting above. At daybreak the girl came rushing down toward the river. Then the old doctor pulled her pipe from her dress, patted it, blew out tobacco, and prayed that the novice might be a strong doctor who could cure those already almost dead. Then she hung the novice's old dress on the limb she had set up and laid her pipe at the foot. Returning to the mouth of Blue Creek, she found that the novice was already on her way home, and was taken down in the second boat. 221 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. This final experience is like passing an examination. It is done where they are told to do it in their dream-perhaps at the same place where they first received a pain, perhaps at another. They give their old dress and pipe to the one that gave them the pains-the whale, in this case. If they do not undertake this final trial, they still are doctors because they have pains in them, but they can do nothing great. They are only common doctors for little illnesses, and there may be troubles and accusations when they practice. This girl became very rich practicing. She bought wives for her two brothers. And she accumulated wealth enough to outfit three dances at once: a Deerskin Dance, a Jumping Dance, and a dance among the Tolowa. Then, against her will, her brothers sold her to a husband for three times the highest price of a full-marriage. She was married into the house higwo in her own Rekwoi. But she insisted that her husband should not sleep with her, and bought him another wife. Then, once, she was sent for from Wohtek from the house pinpa to treat a very sick boy. A white deerskin was tendered in payment. She wanted to go upriver at once with the returning messenger, but her husband said he would take her up. Then he managed to delay at Wohkel, and again at Ho'piiu, and when they got a little above Turip it was dark and they had to make camp. She knew that he was wanting to sleep with her; and he did, and began to force her. She said that she would lose her life, but he answered that he had paid for her. Then, when he took her, she heard a redheaded woodpecker ham- mering overhead in a redwood tree. That was the last thing she knew. She broke away and jumped into the river, and her body was never found. Her husband returned to Rekwoi and told what had happened. But one of her brothers dreamed that she told him, "I am not dead. I am living on Oka." Therefore when a redheaded woodpecker comes near the house repokw in Rekwoi it may not be shot, because it is her pain. This story is a tspeyur because it has a foundation (olopegarhkes) from the places where it happened. Without such a foundation, a story is called ergerp. [23] This narrative is perhaps not a myth, but a legendary tradition. It does not deal with the origin of anything, but describes a particular human experience under Yurok institutions already functioning. Nothing occurs that might not occur to any Yurok doctor; and the world and its culture are not made any different by the events narrated. This is the real test of whether or not it is a myth. The precise localization is not a criterion, because to the Yurok a fully and accurately told happening or myth is usually localized with the same detail. Fundamentally the story is of a class with the several tales of doctors' ex- periences told in the previous section (nos. 6-10). The-difference is that these refer to individuals who can be related to living individuals by known steps of kinship; whereas the foundation of the present tale lies far enough back for this connection to have been lost. It need not therefore be materially less authentic historically, and it illustrates the conceptual pattern of Yurok doctor custom equally well. 222 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives 223 The one patent exaggeration does not invalidate this statement. The doctor acquired enough wealth to equip three dances and to buy wives for her two brothers and a second wife for her husband; and she was sold for three times the usual highest marriage price. Here the story merely goes farther than most others. To be able to furnish the treasures for two simultaneous dances, one upriver and one down-river, is a standard Yurok way of expressing extraor- dinary wealth. The whale in the lake was her guardian spirit, and the redheaded wood- pecker her telogel pain. This inland whale we meet again in the next narrative. III. MYTHS OF WOGE TIMES 24. THEF INLAND WHALE After the water which had covered the world went down, a whale was left stranded in Plu'l (Fish Lake,- on the mountain above Weitchpec and Bluff Creek). When she flapped her tail, she splashed mud out because the lake was shallow and she reached nearly across it. Down-river on the mountain Oka the inland spirits (helkiiu ni'wo) heard the flapping and wondered what it was. They had a lake of their own there Oka ok'etul. This is in a prairie hidden by a ring of live oaks, "like a boat." Only doctors, or those who have purified themselves and are in a trance, can see it. The youngest brother of the helkiu ni'wo there wanted to learn what the flapping noise was because he had heard something like it coming from the ocean, so he went to Osegen on the coast. This was in the spring month when the whales strike the sea with their tails; and he saw them doing it, so he knew. He did not tell them at Osegen why he had come, but invited them to make a return visit. Then he knew too what the other sound of flapping was, and at last he found the whale in Fish Lake. He was sorry for her and wanted to bring her to the bigger lake on Oka. So he made rope and rope until he had a house- ful, but refused to tell why. Then he went back to Fish Lake, put the rope under the whale, and carried her to his own lake on Oka. Before he moved her, and while the whale was still in Plu'l, a wealthy family was living at Ko'tep in the house pekwoi in the middle of the rear row of houses. The girl of this family had as her lover a poor young man who lived in a tumble-down house at the edge of the town. When she became pregnant, her people found him out. The young man said to them, "Kill me or take me as a slave." But her family was too proud to kill him and yet did not want to see him around the house. So he went off and was lost. No one knew what became of him; perhaps he died in the hills. The girl too was put out of the house by her family. She went to live with her lover's mother when she was disowned by her own people. And she bore a boy, and the child grew up. Now, they were giving the Deerskin Dance upriver among the Karok at Okonile'l on the little peninsula called Omikera where they dance.'M All the people of Ko'tep had already gone up to the dance. The girl was down by the river leaching acorns at the mouth of the creek Semil. Then people from down- river passed on their way up to the dance. "Aren't you going upriver to the dance ?" they asked. "Yes, I shall start soon, to come there for the ending," she said; but she had not thought of going. So now she took her boy and walked up. When she arrived at the dance place at Okonile'l, they had four parties; one was dancing and three others were lined up for their turn. Between them '6 The dance place is called Omikyera in narrative 17, and is put at the mouth of Salmon River; Ok6nile'l is at Clear Creek. Both places seem too far upriver to fit the geography. Probably Ok8nile'1 is a slip of my pen for Olege'l (Camp Creek) near Orleans. [ 224 ] Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narrative2 were the onlookers. In front on the right side sat the wealthy men, on the left the wealthy women, and behind them stood the crowd. As she arrived, the women of Okonile'l made a place for her in the front row on account of her family. They did not know of her disgrace. Then she felt bad, got up, went off, and started for home with her boy, crying all the way. When she came below Red Cap Creek to the bar Atsipul she turned off the river trail so as not to have to see the people of Weitspus, because she was ashamed, and found the trail which cuts across Rivet Mountain (Kewet). All the time, the boy kept asking her why she cried. It became dark and they made camp for the night. In the morning as they went on they came to Fish Lake and she began to walk around it. But there was what looked like a great tree that had fallen nearly across the lake: its surface was cracked like bark. She could hardly see on account of her tears (meihkweleu). The boy waded out to the log-which was the whale, though he did not know it. She thought, "Well, if he dies from it, I will die with him." So she followed him and they crossed on the log. When they were over they saw it shake or tremble. So they went on over the summit and down again, and uphill from Miurek (w) she recognized where she was and struck the river trail at Himel. From there she reached her home late. She did not want to start a fire, so she and the boy ate cold food. In the morning when she made her fire the townspeople saw the smoke, came in, and asked her what was wrong, but she said nothing. Now the only one of her own people who recognized her, or spoke to her or the boy, was her father's father, the boy's great-grandfather. Then the boy saw this old man carving out a wooden trunk. He thought he was making a boat, and so watched him. Then he whittled himself a little one, and after that he hunted birds until he had filled his box with feathers. He showed them to his great-grandfather, who kept them for him. He shot more birds, and then woodpeckers and fur animals, and made more trunks and filled them. So he grew rich. Finally he had so much treasure that he could at the same time outfit a Deerskin Dance up the river and a Jumping Dance down the river. The whale had appeared to the young man in a dream. She said, "I too am a bastard (kamuks), though I am a girl and you a boy. That is why I was sorry for you and caused you and your mother to come by and pass over me. It is I that have given you this wealth. Keep on doing as you are." Now when the boy was a man and rich, he went back to live in his ancestral house, pekwoi. But his mother continued to live in the ruined house with the sky showing through the roof. They called it krer'u'kreil (vines clambering over it), because it was covered with briars and mahroot. It was built of planks which other people had discarded, because they were too poor to make their own planks. It is now and has long been a grassy place. Then it was the house of her lover, but after he disappeared she lived there with his mother. So her son asked her to come back to pekwoi, but always she only said, "Some day." Finally he told her, "If you really want to stay there, let me buy planks for you for a new house." Then she said, "No," but came back with him to where she was born. But she lived only half a year after that. When she said 225 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. that she was going to die, her son said he would buy her the finest shell dress to wear in her grave. But she took him around the neck and said, "No, I want to be buried only in a maple-bark skirt like your father's mother, and beside her on the outskirts of the graveyard." So they did as she wanted, except that they buried her in the graveyard of pekwoi. I learned this story from my father. Afterward, old man Kerner from Pekwon was visiting us and asked to talk alone with me. Then Kerner spoke of this story. He said, "In all stories bastards are bad, but only here one of them comes out well. From this I made up my mind not to be proud toward them. You know how much I own, but I am compassionate of bastards. From spring to autumn the moons are children of full marriages. The winter moons are bastards. The sun is proud and will not travel with them; therefore he is alone in the daytime. Yet it is the bastard moons that bring the rains which make the growth in a good summer. So when I fasted and gathered sweat- house wood I cried out to the bastard moons as well as the others and they helped me." When Kerner had gone, my father said to me, "Let us go outdoors." We went to the top of the hill where there was a view, and talked of other things. Then he asked me what Kerner had said and I told him. So my father said, "Yes, I never thought of that, but it is true." And once I asked my father what did Oka mean. Was it the same as kamuks (bastard) ? Then my father said that his teaching did not go so far as that, but he thought that I must be right. [24] Among the two hundred Yurok and Karok myths which I have re- corded, this tale stands out for its quality of tenderness. Passionate longing, nostalgia, poignant grief frequently enter into this mythology. Some nar- rators merely take them for granted, some are not interested in emotions, whereas others express them explicitly and occasionally with skill. It is rare, however, to have the sympathetic identification take the form of pity, as here, and in this connection Kerner's remarks are illuminating. I was acquainted with old Kerner, although never closely, and his face and manner showed that he could be stern and exacting, just as his comments here quoted reveal that he could relent humanly. The story is full of affective touches: the girl's shame and humiliation when her family's friends accord her the respect which her own family have with- drawn; her tears blinding her on the way home so that she cannot discern the whale and follows her boy out across its body; the house so tumble-down in poverty that light comes in through the vines instead of the roof boards; the girl's remaining to the end with her lover's mother, who is not even her mother- in-law. The tale ends happily in spite of its tragedy, from the Yurok point of view, because the son, by reacquiring wealth, does step back into the high position of his family. This matter of the acquisition of wealth and status is of some interest. When 226 Spott-Kroeber:* Yurok Narratives the Yurok generalize, they are unanimous in saying that it is extremely diffi- cult for a poor man to become rich, to acquire enough property to raise the status of himself and his descendants. Perhaps this is part of their preference for a settled and foreordained world without change. When it comes to specific cases, either present or legendary or mythical, they not infrequently cite contrary instances. The first two stories in this collection are illustrations. The Yurok specify four ways in which wealth can be amassed. Two we should call supernatural, and two realistic. The two former are sweat-house-wood gathering by men and doctor training by women. Both involve self-punish- ment, asceticism, and focusing of the will, and are therefore psychologically effective. The two objective methods mentioned are the earning of fees by a doctor, which was unquestionably both a motive and an actual fact; and, by men, the hunting of animals and birds the fur and feathers of which made treasure. These included above all the rare albino deer and the pileated Cali- fornia woodpecker; but also fisher, mink, otter, and any abnormally colored deer. All these together constituted what might be called the perishable form of Yurok wealth. However painstakingly taken care of, they were bound to deteriorate with the passage of years and ultimately wear out. The other class of treasure comprised dentalium shells, obsidians, and flints. These might be stolen or lost or they might break, in which case their value was virtually destroyed; but they did not of themselves deteriorate. There is also no known way, at least not in the historic period, in which they could be acquired. The larger and most valuable ones could neither be found in Yurok territory nor. manufactured. The most probable answer seems to be that an ambitious Yurok of sufficient determination and skill, fortified in his confidence by subjecting himself to penance of magical virtue, could to a certain extent amass wealth through his own efforts by hunting the fur bearers and feather bearers of treasure value; and that, again to a certain extent, these might be gradually exchanged in part for dentalia and obsidians; although all these objects tended so much to be regarded as heirlooms that deliberate trade in them must have been infre- quent. At that, the piling up of notable wealth by individual effort was prob- ably rare. The feeling was so strong that wealth and status were hereditarily transmitted, and that the poor were intrinsically inferior, that a young man starting with next to nothing would have tended to be handicapped psycho- logically. In this sense the Yurok generalization about perpetuation of family status was, presumably, largely borne out by actual experience. 25. BRAVE FROM THE THUNDERS There is a small seastack, Segwok, about a mile northeast of Otsegep.' Mussels from this rock may not be eaten by menstruating women. At this seastack a young man obtained his power, and then fought with Le'mekwel olmei, the tyrannous one of Le'mekwel, the one who took boats or food from those who passed by, enslaved them, or pulled their arms out if they resisted. The young man who overcame him was Rekwois otsin, from the house -" Waterman, map 5, no. 36. 227 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. oslokw, and the spirit that helped him was a rattlesnake. He had trained him- self at various lakes and seastacks and then tested himself by pulling at trees, but found he was not as strong as he wished to be. Now, once, he went to get mussels at Kimtku, along with his grandfather and three others. But instead of gathering he only swam around in the ocean and wondered if he should dive in at Segwok. On the way home he asked the old man to pass close by Segwok. Then he jumped from the boat onto the rock, and told them to go off a distance and lie by. Now they saw him jump into the water from the rock. As he did not come up, they began to think he must have drowned. His grandfather said, "Let me jump in too and die with him." But they said, "No. Wait. The body will float up." Finally he came to the surface and climbed up Segwok. Then they saw what looked like lamprey eels over his body: they were rattlesnakes hanging from him. "Go on to Rekwoi," he called; "I will come tomorrow." His grandfather said, "No, I will join you." "No, do not, else I shall die," said the young man. "I will expect you tonight," said the grandfather. "No, but perhaps tomorrow," the youth said. So they went home without him and blamed the old man for having taken him along. They stayed awake all night. In the morning they went to Segwok but saw nothing. Returning, they asked the old man in the sweat house whether he had come in there, but he said, "No." For five days they looked for him and waited. Then his grandfather announced the offer of a woodpecker headband as a reward for the body; they should search along the shore and draw it out of reach of the breakers. And his people began to wear hamor', the mourning necklaces. They had given up all hope for him. On the ninth morning, they heard coming downhill to Rekwoi someone who sounded like the youth when he went crying for sweat-house wood. Everyone was excited, but the old man told all the unclean women and girls to stay back, and then caught the youth around his waist as he was about to enter the sweat house. "I thought you were dead," he said. "No, I am well," he answered. So they smoked together, but the young man would not eat breakfast. He would only rub his lips with the oil from deer-leg marrow. Everyone wanted to hear his story, but he asked his grandfather to walk up the hill with him. So the old man forbade them all to follow; he would tell them when he returned. So he and his grandfather went uphill to Her'wer'u and sat down. The youth filled his pipe, blew the rest of the tobacco out of the palm of his hand to the spirits, and handed the pipe to his grandfather. The old man lit it, drew two breaths, and returned it. Again he handed it to his grandfather, who drew twice more, knocked out the ashes, and handed the pipe back. The youth put it into its case and this under his belt. Then he said, "Now when we go upriver because it is acorn season, I will see what I can do," meaning Le'mekwel olmei. "No," said the old man. "You worry me. Many have been killed there." 228 Spott-Kroeber: Yurole Narratives Then the young man told him his story. This is what he said: When I dived under, it was like a nice warm prairie. When I came up, there were things on me. They were rattlesnakes. You saw them. After that, I dived once more in the same place. Then I saw a hole, entered it, and, though it was dark, followed inward, and at last saw a little light ahead. Then I came out on the land. There I saw twelve houses in a row. The largest one was in the middle. It was as big as two of ours. I thought, "Where am It" but I saw no one. So I went to the sweat house. There I saw a man emerging. He said, "I am glad that you are visiting us. I am only a slave here; but I heard them talking of you, so I knew it must be you." I said, "Yes, I am a stranger." He said, "Well, wait for them. Do not go into the sweat house, but come to the house where their grandfather and grandmother are. Here, the door is open. Go in. You will be safe there. I have to watch the sweat house." So I put my hands on the grasping stones and began to go through the door. I saw no one, but it seemed different from our houses. Then I heard a sound as when the breakers hit a rock in a heavy wind, and saw on each side of me a lkelik'ikeget'7 (water panther) ready to leap on me. I thought to myself, "I shall die now. I shall not be able to go back." Never- theless I began to edge my feet out again, keeping my eyes on the panthers. Then I heard someone speaking our language: "Let be. Let him come in." Then the panthers stopped growling and their ears hung. An old man came out of the pit of the house. He had a long beard and silver-gray hair. "I am glad you came," he said. "All my sonss have been talking of you. They want you here; that is why you arrived. Now come on down, but watch your step and hold my hand." So I grasped his wrist tightly and went down into the pit of the house. "Sit down where I was sitting," he said. So I sat down and saw the old woman sitting facing the wall. Her hair was silver-gray too. Now the house walls were shining and I saw they were not of wood. The old woman turned, and she also spoke to me. "Our oldest son'9 has talked most of you. He is the one who wanted you here. He has gone to a dance for a killing settlement (nunerlki). He is always the one to come in last." As we sat there I heard something, the house shook, and the youngest brother came in. "Careful. We have a visitor," the old man said to him. He unstrapped his carrying case, hung it up, and greeted me as the two old people had done. When the second one came in, the house shook more. So it went on. I counted them, straightening out my fingers, because the old man had said that there were twelve sons. When the ninth one came I could hardly keep on my stool, but he, too, greeted me. The eleventh was still stronger. I was almost shaken off the stool, but the old man said the same to him and he, too, greeted me. Then the youngest one said to me, "Hang onto your seat, for our oldest brother is rough when he comes in." Then it was as if a great wind blew. The house planks rattled as in an earthquake, and I was shaken. But the others did not move; only the old man shouted, "Careful! The one we were talking about is here." From his otterskin quiver a bow and the bones of two human legs stuck out. Then, when he was in, everything became still and each one turned his stool up from4' the wall. "Don't handle him roughly," the old man said. When they took hold of my hand they almost jerked out my arm. I thought they would kill me. Then the old man said to them, "Now tell your stories." The youngest said, "I was where they were doing archery (otspigers). The next youngest said, "I was where they were racing and leaping (omiga and orego') ." "I was where they dance," said the next. "Inland in the mountains is where I was, pitying this young man (Hierhkiiu nimeloyegok nesek'-awokw ki'tsines) ." And now my fright began to leave me. The next one said, "Pulekuk meni-ninek' S7 Lkeli is "earth." 88 Sic (grandparents are spoken of before). S9 See preceding note. 40Against (T). 229 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. kisoholemoni o'l8lekwiso'l (I was at the northern end of the world to see how human beings were traveling about)." And the next said, "Nekwelek' piskail werik'iiu helkumololelkenek' o'l8lekwiso'l u'werlker' pa'al so'o kegesamui ol (I on the ocean shore was throwing about people's bones, the skeletons of those who died in the water)." "Nekwelek' o'l6lekwiso'l mehkweyetoyumek (I was about visiting human beings)." "Nekwelek' mininmiwok' o'lolekwiso'l umatpol s6pyurkerimi'n (And I, I saw human little children how they play) ." "Nekwelek' ki-erkergeritser nimelotsigukw'inek' nuntsarhkwok ki'uk'itsail (I on the ridges was sitting about, being thankful for the weather) ." "Nekwelek' moleni'nawok ki'neryermertr soh6lemoni (And I was out to see the animals how they travel)." Then the next to the oldest said, "Nekwelek' ki-ni-sege'pola nimolotsigfikwinek' nemelenpiiuk ki-wes, ono' oleg6lil (I was sitting about on the prairies, receiving everything in this world that they blow out [the tobacco offered to spirits])." The oldest one they never asked; I knew where he had been from what they had told me before. Then I took out my pipe, poured tobacco into my palm, filled the pipe, and, without blow- ing tobacco up, handed the pipe to the old man. He took it, patted it, and said, "Hiii, kikoni'ihpeo k'eliiu o'l8lekwiso'l (Hi, I will smoke with you, humans)." Then he picked up a coal, turned his face upward, drew one breath, and passed the pipe on. Before it came to me, I thought I would suck lightly because it was strong; and I did that. The pipe went on to the oldest; then the youngest finished it. The old man said, "Your people there think your tobacco does not reach us, but we receive it all. We put one grain from you in our basket and in the morning it is filled. That is why we are always thankful." Then the oldest brother stood up and told his brothers to stand, and me too. He said, "We will not keep you long, because your people are grieving. We will take you home now, but first we want to hear from our father." Then the old man stood up and said, "You may not know us, but you have heard of us. We are the ones they call Thunders. All these are my boys. I have no daughter. Now do what the oldest one tells you. That is all." Then they went out the door and I after them, the old man telling me to hold his arm until I was safely out of the pit. "Be careful on the way," he said. Outdoors it was light, as here, and I thought, "Now I am safe." As they were standing there they told me to face the door. Then the oldest one came out and all the earth shook, and I with it, but not his brothers. Standing before me, the oldest one said, "Our father has asked all of us where we have been. You understood and know that we protect you on this earth. When you swam at the seastacks we wanted you. It was we who made your grandfather take you out to the rock Segw8k. It was we who told you to come here, though you did not know it." I only nodded. "And we know what the one at Le'mekwel does. Now stand forward." He laid down his quiver, took up a handful of earth, and threw it at me. It all fell off me. Nothing entered my body. He did the same on my back, my right side, my left side. Then he said, "Look at those two redwoods below us. Run and jump between them and push." I did so, and they fell over. Then he said again, "Now you see that you are strong and brave. When you have re- turned, anything you wish for when you go in your boat will come true because we shall be with you. Our father told you who we are, but I shall tell you again so that you will be sure to know. We are the Thunders, ten brothers and two more (Nekakwelek' l1hkol wel'itsi'upa' nimini'il). Now you can fight with Le'mekwel olmei, but when you win do not think that you alone on this earth are powerful, but be humble and make no trouble. Do not do as he did, thinking that we will help you then, because that is what we do not want." Then I answered him, "Ki-numi-wis6nnawok (i)k'alsots (I will do what you say)." "Osl8kwilek k'el k'emii'u (You are from osl8kw)." 230 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives "Yes, I grew up in osl6kw." "It is well. Now close your eyes (keihkwele'wes)." So I closed them. I did not feel myself walking, but I heard: "Open your eyes." Then I was here at Her'wer'u up the hill from Rekwoi. So then I came down. So he told his grandfather in midsummer and therefore we know today that Her'wer'u is Lohkol werepok (Thunders' doorway). And while they waited for the acorn season the young man hardly ate at all. Most of the time he smoked, and kept thinking: "We think perhaps it is nothing when we blow out tobacco. Now I know that it helps all those inland, not only the Thunders; they get every grain of it. It is not just idle." And his grandfather no longer dissuaded him from going to Le'mekwel olmei. When keyo the acorn season came, the young man went outdoors the day before their journey and called the people together, men, women, and children. "I want six men with me," he said. "If they are killed or hurt, give me the blame." Then he chose six, one each from wonnekw, wonniiu, kniiu, te'wiroi, ketskel, and his cousin from his own house oslokw to steer the boat they would be in. And he said, "I want no other boats to follow us. Let one go to Ho'piiu and to Turip and Sa'iil and tell them not to go upriver tomorrow." So next day they all came out on the bank to see his 'boat go by, traveling faster and faster. Before they reached Oliken (Lamb'sRifflebelow Le'mekwel), he said, "I wish a five-point -deer swimming downstream would meet the boat just in front of Le'mekwel." And to his men, as he sat there and they paddled, he said, "If at Le'mekwel you see a deer, turn the boat out into the current, seize its horns, and then paddle to shore, where we will kill it." Then they did that, but one of them said, "The tyrannous one is coming." "Pay no atten- tion to him," he answered, "and say nothing to him. If he starts to drag the boat, let him do it." Then he told one of his men, "Now cut the deer's throat with that flint knife (hekwsa')," and, when the man had done so, he said, "Throw it in the boat." Just then Le'mekwel olmei arrived and with one pull drew the boat high and dry on land and said, "Who told you that you could take deer without my permission?" All of them were silent, but the young man, wearing his blanket from the skin of a four-point deer, stood up and said, "I did." Then Le'mekwel olmei jerked at the boat and all of them who were sitting in it fell over except the young man. "You think you are strong," said Le'mekwel olmei. "No, I do not think so." Then Le'mekwel olmei picked up gravel and threw it at him. Mostly he killed people like that, but now it only fell off him into the boat. "Come out of the boat," he ordered, and the six men came out. Then he said to his slaves, "Take the deer and take the men too." "No, I will take care of them," Rekwois otsin said. Then Le'mekwel olmei seized his arm and jerked, but only pulled himself toward him. Again he threw gravel, but it dropped off. Then Rekwois otsin jerked at him, and Le'mekwel olmei fell; he was supporting himself on one hand. "Stand up and fight," he said. So they grappled, but the young man was slippery and Le'mekwel olmei's 231 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. hands slid off him. Then the young man in turn seized him, stood him on his head, and held his ankles. "I will pull you apart," he said. He did not answer. So he began to pull his legs apart, and when Le'mekwel olmei felt them split- ting, "Huhuhuhu, to'kik'onegik'eihko (Let you and me be partners)," he said. But the young man said, "No, I want no partner. I do not want to be like you, summoning boats to the shore, taking them, and the load, and making the people slaves. As long as you live you will never be tyrannous again, but like other men." "I will do that," said Le'mekwel olmei. "If you do it again I will kill you. Perhaps I should take you for a slave now, but I will not. Stay in your home and keep what is yours and leave people alone." To the slaves who stood about nearly filling the river bar, he said, "Go to your homes. You are free. And you women, too. That is all. Now we are returning to Rekwoi. And send them word upriver that everyone is free to pass." The people who had been enslaved surrounded him, weeping and thanking him and wanting to drag his boat back to the water. "No, I will drag it," he said, and then with one hand he lifted it to the river. So the freed people all scattered, some down-river and some upriver to their homes. When Rekwois otsin was old he went back to the Thunders to live with them. [25] This is a myth of a standard pattern although told with varying locali- zation. The most constant feature is the attribution of an oppressive strong man to Le'mekwel. One version from Weitspus puts a second oppressor into Hupa. Another feature usually dwelt on is the statements of the twelve-or ten- Thunders: what they have just come from doing. The tale of course bears on the same concept of bravery acquisition which enters into narrative 21 and the setting of narrative 27. The relation of the rattlesnakes and the Thunders is not clear. The Thunders put the rattlesnakes into the seastack, the name of which means door. But in general rattlesnakes and ocean are believed to be highly antagonistic. 26. WOHPEKUMEU'S ORIGIN Wohpekumeu grew in Wohpiiu. He must have been born there because his name refers to it and to his having been widowed. Then he walked across the ocean coming toward this world, but there was no land as yet. So he thought he wanted land to be and there was a little. Then he wished it bigger and it became so. Then he saw water spurting up in a spray beside him: it seemed to him like human feet. He looked at it again and saw that it was a woman to the middle. Next time he looked, it was a complete person, a woman,4' and there was no more water. It was at Kenek, the middle of the world, that this happened. Then Kapulloyo (K'epftloyo) arrived, also having walked over the ocean. So Wohpekumeu said the woman would be his wife. He held out his hand and said, 41 Herwernerks on8hsun (Spray-born) was her name. 232 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives "Give me dentalia." Then Kapiuloyo handed him dentalia, but Wohpekumeu had caused them to be in his hand. Having received them from him, Wohpe- kumeu put the money from one hand into the other. This was like paying for the woman as wife. The son of Kap&loyo and this woman was K'ewomer. This means "He of Womer," and Womer, I think, refers to "above." Kapiuloyo (K'epuiloyo) means "He from the north or down-river." I have not heard the name of the woman whom Kapiiloyo married. If wind threatens to blow down a house, or it thunders, a man may look north and hold out his hand to the north, saying, "Kapffloyo, I am your son. Help me." Then, holding his palms up and looking toward the sky, he may say, "K'ewomer, I am your brother. Help me." But they rarely pray to Wohpekumeu. This I learned from my father, and the same way from Meta Jim. [26] Wohpekumeu is one of the two culture heroes of the Yurok and one of the most frequently named institutors. Already forty years ago, when the Yurok tried to make their beliefs intelligible to white men, they were likely to substitute the name "God" for that of Wohpekumeu. There is a long cycle of his adventures. He sometimes does good, but is almost always both tricky and erotic. His name, which recurs in translation among the Karok, means "transocean widower" or "widowed across the ocean." He is usually repre- sented as coming from there and always as returning there. The name is of the type that the Yurok apply to their own married men and women. I have never been able to learn anything about his wife who died. The present episode is essentially an introduction to the cycle about him. A variant form has him grow from the ground at Kenek, the little Yurok town half a dozen miles below Weitspus where all the woge of myth times congre- gated. This is also the Hupa version. Most frequently, however, the Yurok begin their cycle without accounting for Wohpekumeu's origin. I do not recall having heard this origin before. It bears some superficial simi- larity to the Yuki concept of the creator Taikomol as originating himself out of foam on the primeval ocean. 27. MANKIND SPRUNG FROM A BITCH The following I learned from Hoslag, a one-eyed old man who used to live at Kenek-hiko. When I went to day school from Weitspus to Martin's Ferry, his grandson also was attending this school and invited me to stay with him. My father allowed me to go, provided I would keep out of the creek and the brush at Kenek-hiko, as those are sometimes dangerous to strangers. So while I was at Kenek-hiko old Hoslag told me the story. He told it to me several times, so that I might learn it. At first water covered everything. Then the earth began to grow and rise up, but there was nothing on it except a young man and his bitch (weyona). Then as they traveled along on the bare earth he said, "Where are we? (Kusi onigo'olo)." She answered, "On earth (Welk'elona)." When she spoke 233 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. he was frightened, and for a while did not talk to her any more. After a time he said, "We are going to starve (Kitstahtos'o)." Then she spoke up, "No, we shall not starve (Moskitahtos'o)." Then he became woman-crazy and took her and she became pregnant. When she had pups there were five of them. One of them had a human face, though the rest of her was dog. Thinking about which of them he should kill, he saved the human-faced one and one more and choked the three others. As he killed them he could see on the bitch's face that she was very sad. When the two young ones were partly grown up, his passion came on him again, and he said to her, "Let us cohabit (Tsukini'ino'). We have been going together all this time (Tokitsninegi'ino')." She did not answer, and he took her again. Now they were like man and wife, and when she became pregnant he would not touch her. This time one of the pups was a complete woman except that her upper arms were grown to her body. From this time on, he did not want to touch his bitch again, and when she ran up to him he pushed her away. As the girl grew up he could not decide whether to cut her arms free. The bitch would not trust her with her father. If the girl sat down near him, the bitch would growl and leap between. Then he began to feel toward her as he had felt before toward her mother. He man- aged to get her separated and then said to her, "Let us cohabit."" She had never spoken before, but now she said, "Well, anyway, I began as a dog (Tsu, ts'isa mewomunewok)." When they returned, the bitch tried to bite him, but he kept her off. Now he and the girl were husband and wife, and she became pregnant. The first girl that she bore was entirely human. Her arms were free and she understood and spoke. The next offspring was a boy. From there on there was a human race; but we know that we come from dogs. The last words of the bitch were, "As long as this earth holds together, do not let a human being ever cohabit with a dog (Kikwintso weno'omun kilk'el kowitso ol kemko koni'inil megokw)." That is why dogs should not be struck or abused. "Son," Hoslag said to me, "no matter how long you live, if you find a person having intercourse with a dog, the world will turn upside down." I was told something similar by Pekwon-pul or Wererger-hegohk, whom the white people called Pekwon Jo, or Doctor Jo. He said it is the law that if a human being is found to have had intercourse with a dog, and it is proved, the dog is killed and the man has his choice of being killed or becoming a bastard, irrespective of whether he is half-married or full-married or from whatever family. (In such a case they do not use a go-between. The headman of the place sits on his stool and is judge. If the penalty is to be death, he names a house to execute it. But this would hold only within his own village.) Old Hoslag wore a shoe tongue over one eye and told me how he came to lose it. He belonged to either Himel or Murekw, and, wanting to become brave, he went down at night to the river at Himel-pets, where there is a projecting rock and an eddy. This was after he had sweated, and in the month kamo of 42 Tsukinihpeu. This is less direct than the last. 234 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives rough water, because he thought that then there would be a kames (water monster) in this eddy. Sitting on the bank, he saw the foam piling up on the water as big as carrying baskets. He jumped in. The foam got into his mouth and almost suffocated him, but he swam out. Then he thought he was strong. After this, along with some other Indians, he attacked some whites who were in a blockhouse. They tried to force the door, but there was a shot from overhead and they all ran off into the brush. Hoslag wanted to prove that he was brave, and returned with his fire drill and tried to burn down the door. Everything was quiet inside until someone called out from above and he looked up. Then they shot his left eye out. He said that he spun around as if he were mad, but did get away to cover. The kames had made him strong and saved his life; except for that, he would have been killed on the spot. [27] The story of how the human race originated or reoriginated from one man and a bitch, sometimes after surviving the flood in a boat or box, is one which I have been told repeatedly by the Yurok. Usually it is narrated much more baldly. The conversational incidents in this version, and the gradual ap- proximation of the children to human form, are novel features. The encapsulation of the myth is perhaps even more interesting, especially the old man's desire to instruct his grandson's boy friend in the lore of the past; also his conviction of the efficacy of his supernatural experience. He did lose his eye, but if he had not swum in the place where one becomes strong and brave the bullet would have taken his life. 28. THE OLD DOG I learned this from Meno'ol of Sa'iiil, which was a little village opposite Turip. He said that it happened long ago in his natal house there. A young man had a beloved dog which was so old that it could not walk. It lay on a grass cushion on the ledge of the house to the left of the door (wa'ap,il). The young man hunted, but the best of the meat he took and pounded soft. Then he would carry the dog outdoors in his arms and feed it off a wooden platter. Girls came to him, but always left because he thought too much of his dog. His parents said to him, "Why not marry before it is too late ?" He said, "I would if my wife would help me take care of the dog." Now sometimes he began to be away for a night. His parents never asked him anything, but they heard that he was in a house at Wohkero where there was a girl. So once when he was outdoors they went upriver, bought the girl as wife for him, and came home, but said nothing about it. Some days later, the young man was down at the river and saw a canoe land, and in it the girl in a shell dress. -He drew back, went uphill to his house, told what he had seen, and asked what it meant. "She is your wife," his parents told him. Thereupon he retired to the sweat house. Only in the evening did he come to the living house (for supper), but he did not touch her that night. In the morning he tended his dog as usual, then told the girl he would have to go on looking after him. If she wanted him for a husband doing like that, it would be well with him. She agreed. Then for a year she took care of the dog as he did. 235 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. Now she became pregnant and had a child. Then when she carried the old dog outside she began to jab him with a cane and said, "I wish you were dead (Mokemi moikhkem). I am getting tired of taking care of you." Then as he slept in the sweat house he dreamed that his dog spoke to him: "I am going to leave you because she has punched me with a cane." (Erger'erkr o'witskeyek wilkwa umegokw witegeriiu kitiknoksitsek mel-kwel tklktko [in- sweat-house sleeping dreamed his-dog talked: I-shall-leave-you because-with- cane she-punched-me] ). Now the young man felt bad. He went out and over to the house in the darkness, felt over the dog, and knew that he was breathing. But he could not sleep any more and wandered restlessly around outdoors. In the morning he went uphill, gathered wood, sweated himself and, after bathing in the creek, sat down at the sweat-house doorway to dry himself. When he came to the living house, the dog did not raise his head as at other times. He put his arms under him and carried him out, left him as long as usual, and then carried him back to his bed. He had given him the back strip of a deer, pounded soft because the dog had no teeth. But the dog would not eat and did not even look at the platter (soik). So he left the house again. Then his grandfather, always the last to come in, told him to come and eat. When they entered the house, their breakfast was set out. The young man merely lifted the covering plate of dry fish off the acorns and set it down. When the others had finished, he set the plate back on the basket (a sign that he was done). The family did not ask him anything. He went out, sat around, then went back inside to his dog, but saw that he had not eaten anything. Then he hung the meat back on the rack. He went up on the hillside, sat down, and thought of his dog and his son. He did not know which he loved most. In the evening he came down without bringing any sweat-house wood, but sweated and sat on the platform. Then his grandfather said, "Your wife feels very bad that you do not eat her cooking, and she does not know why. We too feel the same." So he told his grandfather his dream, and the old man said, "You must think of your son, too-and some dreams are foolish." Going back to the house, he found the dog still acting as if he no longer cared for him. When they all came in to eat, his mother had done the cooking, and he ate a little. The young man did not go out with the other men, but went over to his dog. The meat was still lying there, so he threw it out across the creek and washed the platter. After that, as he lay in the sweat house, he thought, "Perhaps the deermeat was too old for him. I'll go hunting in the morning." Then he went off without telling anyone. He went uphill past Smekits o'tep to Olerger, where the Indian potatoes grow thick, at the foot of Red Mountain, and killed a deer. He cut off its head and hoofs and gutted it. Then he made a sling of withes and hung the carcass from his forehead. He was hardly on the trail home again when he saw another deer. As he turned, he saw that its hind end was white like an elk's, but it was too small for an elk. He shot. It moved one step and stood still. Dropping his load, he shot again. The deer still stood there. Then he crept up a little closer and shot a third time, but again the deer did not move. Then as he blinked his eye he saw that it was not a deer but his own dog. 236 SSpott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives He walked over to it. The dog said, "I told you I would go. Now I am going. Sometimes you will see me, looking like a white-rumped deer (Muntekwani pulk). This is the last time I shall talk to you. But you will see me among the deer and know that I was your dog. And other people of Sa'iiil will see me." As he blinked his eye the dog disappeared. Then he felt as if a housemate had died, and wept. As he brought the deer carcass home, his grandfather walked up to him and said, "Your dog is gone." His father was crying too. All of them were crying as if for a child, because they were afraid of his anger. The young man went back into the hills, think- ing he would see him again as a deer, but did not. In the morning in the sweat house he sat and told his grandfather what had happened, and said, "Its name will be white-rumped deer." Later on he hunted all the time but could not kill anything. The whole town of Sa'aiil almost starved. He began to think that his dog had brought him his luck and had taken it away again. By now his son was a good-sized boy. Then he dreamed again that his dog was talking to him. It said, "Sing this song (Wektso' mel tsegaram matsekit-hole'mono'), which I will teach you, and your luck will return. I know you feel badly about my going, but I left you on account of your son. If I had stayed I should have taken your son and you would have lost him. Now sing with me." And they sang together. Then he woke up and stayed awake so that he could sing the song over and over and not forget it. In the morning he ate a little and went uphill to Smekits o'tep, singing. Then he saw deer standing in packs and shot four, enough for the whole village. He cleaned all four and carried the largest one down. When he returned, the men of the town went up and got the other three. After that, if a young man had a promising pup, people would say, "Per- haps it will be like the dog of Sa'iiil who went away (Pi'womi wi'itku-sa'iiil- ole-ts'is hunoyol)." Meno'ol said to me, "Men of Sa'iiil sometimes have seen that white-rumped deer. Then they always weep, because they know it is that dog. I was in Sa'iiil, already married, when I went up the hill at daybreak and was sitting down when on my right I saw two herds of deer, seven in one and nine in the other. Then in the herd of nine I saw the white-rumped one. So I did not shoot, but cried, thinking of the story. When I got home my wife saw my face and asked what had happened. Next day I told her. Sometime I will teach you the song, if you will stay here with me for five days so that I may be sure you are clean as regards women." [28] This is also a myth which I have recorded before. In the other version, which is located at Turip, the old dog finally brings a deer covered with wood- pecker-scalp treasure, instead of generic hunting luck. The main emotional theme of the story is an elegiac attachment carried to the point of obsession. Such themes make up a considerable strain in Yurok mythology; most often the passionate attachment is to a pet of some kind, sometimes to a house or a place; more rarely to a person. If it is a living thing 237 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. which is involved, an ambivalence is usually evident. The attachment itself is not condemned, even though it may border on perversity. It seems rather to be taken for granted as something that cannot be helped. However, it carries its own penalty. In the end a child dies or is carried off. In this case, the pet is not a monster, but a dog, and he takes himself away so that his master will not lose his son. It seems a psychologically strange theme to recur among a primitive people, although an understandable one. That these things happened long ago in the very house in which the nar- rator was born is characteristically Yurok-reference is not to the timbers of the house, which the Indians know to be perishable, but to its site and to a con- tinuous lineage of inhabitants. Obviously, allusions of this sort must give a peculiar surcharge of emotion to the incessant habit of particularized location. 29. MARm AT RUMMAI An old woman and her granddaughter lived at Rummai. This place is near the mouth of Bluff Creek where a little peak forms a sort'of island between the river and an old channel. The young man who grew up on Rivet Mountain, Kewets-otsin, wanted to marry the girl, but the old woman said she would not let him until he brought her the se'koyeu. So Kewets-otsin began to look for this in the river. At last he saw it in deep water, followed it to a shallow pool at Pyerermer'u, up Bluff Creek, where a side creek from the west comes in, and there speared it (with his salmon harpoon). Then at once the water boiled up all around and he found he could not let go of the harpoon shaft. He was afraid of being drawn into the water and drowned. Kingfisher (tselel) flew overhead and said to him, "Sing with me as I fly back and forth above you twice." So Kingfisher sang and Kewets-otsin sang with him twice going and twice coming, and immediately the water went down and he dragged the se'koyeu to shore. Now he saw that it had protruding red gills. Kingfisher said, "Give me only the blood along the backbone." So Kewets-otsin cut the fish and gave him a string of clotted blood from the back. Kingfisher ate this at once. Kingfisher got his song from the Pleiades. That is why Kewets-otsin was able to subdue the monster with it. The song is: "Moskinepane 'm nek-to- kemlmiolkw i (You shall not eat me, I too am dangerously powerful)." Then Kewets-otsin carried the se'koyeu to the old woman and she began to cook it. The girl was afraid and left the house, but Kewets-otsin stayed until the cooking water began to boil over, when he joined his sweetheart outside. Soon the water was welling and boiling out of the house, but the girl would not let him go to save the old woman. She had climbed on the roof, but finally the whole house floated away down Bluff Creek into the river, downstream and across to Rummai uperei (Rummai's old women), a cliff jutting out on the south side between Otsepor and Ekgo (Aikoo). There the house was driven inshore by the current; and there it still is as a rock. Sometimes she can be heard inside. And people do not swim in the pool at this rock. 238 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives [29] This is a standard folk tale, always, so far as I know, localized at Rummai and of constant characters and closely similar episodes. The se'koyeu monster, also called teko', is like a salmon, with haliotis-like iridescence on the side of its head. 30. OWL AND BASKET WEFT He always went out from their camp to gather acorns and told his wife and children to stay. They had nothing but acorn soup to eat and the children were poor and played little. One night she pretended to be sleeping. When he spoke she did not answer. Then he took a brand from the fire and drew it over her wrist to test her, but she went on pretending to sleep. Thereupon he dug under the slab on which she pounded their acorns (s'eyem) and took out for himself dried salmon, dried mussels, and all kinds of food. In the morning, when he went off again, she lifted the slab off and fed the children and herself. Then she said, "How shall I do it so that your father will not see the grease on your mouths? I will rub ashes on." Then she did that. As he was returning he heard the children shouting in their play and won- dered what had happened. When he arrived he saw that the slab had been put back tilted a little and knew that she had found him out. Then there were recriminations between them. Now when they quarreled the children flew away: they were te'gyemor (birds with a gray body and black head). Then she said to him, "You will turn into Te'kw'onis (the great horned owl)." "And what will you be ?" he asked. She said, "I shall always be sitting in front of rich and well-fed people. I shall be Wohpe (conifer weft [viz., food basket]). But you will be Te'kw'onis and will live in the canyons in the hills and see at night, but you will see almost nothing in the daytime." [30] This little tale, with its moral, is of the kind that might be told to chil- dren. The specific Yurok twist is in what the cheated and starvedwife decides to become: the weft of food baskets as they are set out in front of the well-to-do, a basket before each person. 31. SIKKIM This is the story of Wahseks otsin and his friend. The two young men were companions in hunting: each had six dogs. They went up into the hills from Wahsek to get yew wood along a creek between two ridges. Near the head of the canyon they made camp. Then each of them hunted along a ridge. They were to meet where the two ridges united. Wahseks otsin got there first and waited. When his partner came, they arranged that the partner was to hunt farther while Wahseks otsin went to the camp in the canyon. So he went to the camp with all the dogs, made a fire, and waited supper for his partner. It got dark. Then the dogs began to raise their heads, look around, act uneasy, and crowd together. Suddenly there was a great noise like an explosion, and a whirlwind rushed by and sucked up one of the dogs. So one dog after another was sucked away. The young man put more and more wood on the fire. Finally 239 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. the last dog was gone. Then the logs from the fire got sucked away in the whirlwind that came after each bang. The young man never heard them fall. "Next time he will take me," he thought. Then he heard a whispering in his ear telling him how to pray, so he spoke those words; and after the next crash the whirlwind came as a mild wind, although the earth shook. Then at last his partner arrived and everything was quiet. Then his partner said, "I will send you back to Wahsek, but I shall stay out in the woods. And when human beings are here on earth, if they do not know the prayer I just told you I will take them away as I took the dogs." Sikkili was his name. Now he is Lkeli-ni tekw (a giant owl that lives under- ground). It was he flapping his wings that made the crashes and the whirl- wind, when he killed all the dogs. This is the prayer he taught his friend: "Son8' elk8l sikkill nerahtsin neka miniyego sikkill minis8wilis8 omerhkumek ka megohku okoheggolem wistukisortigerwermer kgl tsel-ne'pin k6l sikkill nerahtsin ki k8etrwahsekwna newomek-tsolayo" (Perhaps it is you, Sikkill, My companion, we going together, Sikkil1, To get yew, when you devoured the dogs. Then you instructed me how to pray. You, well, eat me, you, Sikkill, My companion, you, from Wahsek we who started out.) [31] An atmosphere of terror, of panic of the lonely woods, pervades this tale. Its evident purpose is to impart the formula or prayer which gives re- assurance against the sense of unseen impending catastrophe. I wish I knew the etymology of Sikkili. 32. GRIzZLY BEAR AT SEAL RocK The rock on which the lighthouse at Crescent City stands is called Pekts'u. Next to it is a rock which is dangerous. One may not push against it with a paddle, else a strong north wind springs up or something else happens. The name of this dangerous rock is Pekts'u-wino'o. It is also called Mii'lega (Which one does not approach). But Pekts'u is visited for sea lion hunting. Now these are not taken there as at Redding Rock. At Redding Rock a man climbs up, throws his harpoon, and leaps down into his boat, which is waiting and which his companions are keeping off the rock with his paddle. Then they let the sea lion drag the boat by the line. When he is weary or if he turns to attack the boat, he is speared again, this time not with a harpoon. But at this seal rock at Crescent City the sea lions come down off the rock only along one sort of chute, and as they pass they are clubbed and fall into a hollow in the rock. If the first one is struck, the rest follow until the rock basin is filled; the rest are allowed to escape. Now in woge times six or seven boats went out here to get sea lions. Then 240 Spott-Kroeber: Yurolc Narratives Grizzly Bear claimed the largest one for himself and got rough about it and the others killed him. They cut him to pieces and the splashes of blood are visible today. They were about to kill his boat mates or helpers also, but then decided to make slaves of them. Now they all went off, leaving Grizzly Bear's boat floating on the ocean. Then his arms joined themselves, then his legs, then his head rolled over and onto the trunk, and he became whole and took his boat and came home. Now as for his helpers, he insisted that they be freed, and this was done, so there was no fight. He went off as grizzly bear. That is why when one is in danger of being attacked by a grizzly bear one threatens him by saying that one still has the knife with which he was killed at Seal Rock. This is what they say: "Melkyiernerwi/nekit-kolo-negyemik/ hittotsoni / tseltune'pin / nekwelek/ ninegem / melkyiernerwi / pekts'u-wino'o (The knife/I still have/ [if] you come close/to eat me,/I/still have/the knife from/the sealing rock)." [32] Like the preceding one, this tale serves to teach a charm to be spoken in danger; only in the present case the danger is real to us also-the grizzly bear. The narrative was no doubt told also for interest, without the threat-prayer; but when this was imparted the story would accompany it as explanation and content. Such a full narrative "had foundation"; without the prayer it was just an idle tale. The localization suggests a Tolowa origin, with subsequent translation, in- cluding the prayer, into Yurok. The sea lion clubbing brings up a point of methodological interest. Ordi- narily, the animals were harpooned, and towed the boat like a whale. In this one spot the formation of the rock allowed them to be clubbed successively. In response to ordinary generalized ethnographic inquiry only the usual method might be mentioned; if the second also were mentioned, it would prob- ably be presented as if it were a free alternative.'4 Only locally particularistic questioning would bring out the relation of the two methods. Similarly, among the Pomo, there was one spot where once a year a herd of elk would be driven over a cliff into water, and one creek flowing into Clear Lake from which the spawning hitch fish could be shoveled ashore." Do these unique opportunities for a special local technique constitute traits of "the culture" in question, or not ? 33. SEA OTTER, SEA LION, AND SEAL Omenoku is a lagoon or water hole on the north side of the river, without outlet or inlet, full of blue water. It is not far from the bridge over the Klamath and is now partly filled in by the highway. Formerly there was a great sweat house here, as large as four sweat houses put together. There Sea Otter (Wohpunika', across the ocean blanket) was dancing, learning to be a doctor. Kingfisher was to marry her, but the price was so high that he was traveling " Cf. Drucker, Tolowa, 234, 262, 1937. " Gifford, CED :IV, UC-PAAE 37 :176 fn. 9,1937; Kniffen, Pomo Geography, UG-PAAE 36:356, 1939; Barrett, Ethno-Geography, UO-PAAE 6:192, 1908. 241 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. all round the world to collect the amount. Seal and Sea Lion were in the Omenoku sweat house, and there they sang, "Kingfisher is going around the world to gather his bride price. I hope he dies." Then all at once Kingfisher's boat of obsidian landed, and there was a clank as of steel ringing. He had heard them, was angry, and set fire to the sweat house. That is why Seal and Sea Lion have flippers: their arms were burned off short; and Sea Lion is black on the shoulder. Sea Otter was burned a little too, and that is why her arms are short; but she rushed into the river and swam out to sea. So Kingfisher lost her. Sea Lion lived at the mouth of Salmon River and Seal at Kenek. That is why they are seen there. My father saw a sea lion on its way up Blue Creek. It was there to meet the whale in the lake on the mountain near the head of Blue Creek. When a seal bobs up repeatedly, boys call to it, "Your house (or kinsfolk) are at Kenek." Then the seal is ashamed and stays under water. From Omen to Osegen on the coast they do not eat seal, because the seal is tal for the Rekwoi Jumping Dance. But from Espeu south they eat seal. Whale and Sea Lion once quarreled over which was the stronger. Both of them went inland to see who could the longer feed his children off his own oil. Then Whale's children starved, but Sea Lion's throve. It was the sea lion who first went round the world. This was not the ordinary sea lion (etskwo), but the kind called numi-iits from Tslktsiko'l, the dentalium land across the ocean. On his shoulders he has sekwse' (clamshells) growing like barnacles. When he came back from encircling the world, he reported that he had found an ocean of pitch (o-ha'apo piskiil). Some places on his journey round the world were cold and some hot, but the pitch ocean was very difficult; almost he did not extricate himself from it, he said. [33] Sea otter blankets were extremely valuable-"like opera cloaks"- among the Yurok, but usually are not listed among treasures. Perhaps the Yurok got too few of them. The Tolowa evidently had more. The little story has characteristic motives: the journey round the world to collect wealth for an enormous bride price; and the envy and malice of the bystanders. The sea lion was fairly important in Yurok economy and was strongly re- spected, but the feelings toward the seal were tinged with contempt and it was little hunted. 34. DANGER FROM PULEKUK An old man came about, carrying a net sack from his shoulder. He never opened this, and troubled little about grown people, but played with children. The first time, he went about all the coast towns in the world. Then, the next time, he came to Wamok (Magineto Beach), two miles south of Wilson Creek.' He saw an old woman drying seaweed above the beach and " Only people from Rekwoi would. camp at Wamok. People from Ho'piiu or Wohkel or farther up the river would not camp there: it was too dangerous; they were like strangers from a distance. 242 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives assumed that there were children about.46 So he asked her and she answered, "Yes, they are down on the beach; I am watching that they do not get into the breakers." So the old man went down and found three boys. Then he began to let sand pour out of his hand. It blew into the oldest boy's eyes and he fell over and slept. He did the same with the next boy. Then he tried it on the youngest. But the child said, "You are bad. Why do you put my brothers to sleep ?" "I will put you also to sleep," the old man said, but the boy answered, "No, you will not. I have never wished bad luck on anyone, but I wish it to you. Wake them up !" So the old man, after trying a long time, woke the two boys and started to go off. When he began to walk north or east or south he found he could not. So he stepped toward the west into the ocean and went on its surface, bobbing up and down like a boat. Finally he came to where the sky moves up and down, and on the twelfth wave, which was low, he passed across. Then he felt some- thing like a current (from the sky's pounding) carrying him on, still toward the west. After a while he saw breakers ahead. He went on through them, landed, but saw nothing but sand. All at once he heard many children laugh- ing. He could not see any of them, but it seemed he heard them more plainly. He was about to light his pipe when suddenly many children appeared as if they had grown out of the sand. But he still could see no adults and no houses. So he began to tell them stories. Then the oldest boy asked, "What have you in your net sack " "I will show you," the old man said, and he opened it, and a stream of fog came out and spread thickly all around. The children could see nothing and were angry and the oldest boy wished him bad luck (cursed him). and told him to go back where he came from. Then the old man was ashamed, and caused the fog to return into his sack, and it was clear once more. So again he found he could not walk except into the ocean, and he went back over this like a boat, and got under the sky in the same way, and drifted ashore near Osegen at Emets, a cove called Robert Johnson Beach near the Humboldt-Del Norte county line. There he opened his sack and the fog spread out from it everywhere. Then he went home north to Pulekuk without being attacked. So now, when there is fog, people say, "So'no el k'e'l, k'e-pulekuk-umerip, netomerk, ik'el, k 'elinowonem ki mo'ohpir, ho'kuski' umegworo (Perhaps it is you, Pulekuk umerip, my friend, you, you are the one that brings this fog, so clear it away)." This old man was from Merip at Pulekuk, so we know that there is another Merip over there and that it is also bad. Therefore his name is Pulekuk umerip. What he wanted was to try something bad, just to see if he could accomplish it. He was afraid of grown-up people, so he tried it on the children. Later on, when Pulekukwerek came, he told how Pulekuk umerip was a bad place and he had had a dangerous time there. 4' Small children were not allowed to play along the surf alone. They would therefore be on the beach only when an adult had some occupation from which he could keep them in sight. 243 Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. [34] This is a strange little tale. To us it is likely to carry a quality of charm like stories about the Sandman; but to the Yurok the connotation is rather one of real danger and strange fear. MerIp is a small town on the Klamath River at which a myth episode is invariably localized which tells how an evil and jealous man there killed all passers with uma'a arrows until he was deprived of them by the culture hero Pulekukwerek. These were the original uma'a or disease-bringing or bewitch- ing arrows from which the Yurok have ever since suffered. Pulekuk u-merip is at the mouth of the Pistol River in southern Oregon. 35. THE WHITE DEERSKIN DANCE AT WELKWXU This dance at Welkwiiu has not been made for a long time. My father was six years old when the white people came, and never saw it. Johnny Shortman also never saw it, although from his wife, who inherited them, he knew the formula and prayers for it. It was this Deerskin Dance formula which Shortman knew, not the formula for the first-salmon rite; and he knew also that for the Rekwoi Jumping Dance. What I know about it I learned from Shortman when he told me and my father. The dance came from an orphan boy who appeared from no one knew where; nor did they know his parents. They said of him, "Wis-hi'niis wistus onohsu'n (Came from the unknown, grew up with them)."'4 The people of the house' pegwoliiu in Welkwiiu took him in and reared him. The boy listened particu- larly to the old man in pegwoliiu: he would ask him if it was right for him to go here or there; and would not leave until he had said when he would return. So the old man liked him. After a time he made a bow and arrow for him. The first bird he killed was a little brown one called tsege'tsomil. When he brought it home the old man picked the feathers and put them in his feather box. The boy was proud of this and hunted more. When he began to bring home cotton- tails the old man would eat the meat and the boy was prouder. After a time he was able to kill bigger game. Then the old man told him how to skin it and what kind of meat to avoid. For instance, raccoons are generally not eaten. The old man saw that the boy always learned from one telling. So he showed him how to make a small trunk. Then the boy whittled one out, and the old man encouraged him to go on securing skins and feathers. Before long he needed a bigger trunk. Now when they were going to make the Jumping Dance at Rekwoi the boy had become a man and had two or three trunks full of valuables. Now Welkwiiu used to help Rekwoi with their cooking and in contributing dance regalia. Then this young man helped the Rekwoi dancers to dress and they liked him for it. When the time came to dance across the river to Welkwiiu, the young man hardly slept, he was so busy handing regalia to the dancers or putting them away again. 47When a boy is adopted whose parents are still alive, they say: "Tspinomel hohkaiu wegesik wistu'ki'uik." " Or hamlet; really a pair of houses with a sweat house. 244 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives Then he said to the old man in his house, "Can my things be used for dances ?" "Yes," said the old man. "Can you make them up?" "Yes, some of them," said the old man. So he showed the youth, who learned quickly and worked up his furs and his feathers. Now in the Brush Dance they use mink and otter and fisher fur, but not raccoon. So when they made a Brush Dance in Welkwiiu his regalia were used. This made him very glad and he tried to get more. He had heard of white deerskins and how they were used in dances at some places, and he wanted very much to see such a dance. Then he remembered that he had been told that one should watch large herds carefully because in a large herd there was likely to be one deer with a special color. So he kept looking, and finally in the huckleberry brush at Wome'ts, near the county line, he saw forty deer in a herd and a white one among them. So he crawled up, shot, and killed the white one. Now he had brought with him a piece of peihpegos (a white rock found sticking up in the hills, perhaps quartz) because the old man had told him to provide himself with it. As soon as he had killed the deer he dropped this rock on it, saying, "Your hair will always remain as white as this rock." Then he skinned the deer, hung the meat in a forked tree, and took only the hide. He was so excited on the way home that his feet seemed not to touch the ground. He ran past his home to the sweat house, called to his grandfather, and showed him the white deerskin. Then the old man cried and the young man began to cry too. All the people gathered and all of them cried. It was a pure white skin. Then the old man told him to take twenty hazel sticks, the largest one as thick as two thumbs, and showed him how to use them in stretching the skin, and the youth did as he told him. Then he began to kill common deer to have companions for his white one. He treated these the same way, not letting any of their meat be eaten if he made the skins into srats (dance skins). After some years he had two gray skins, the white one, and enough common ones to outfit an entire dance. "Is this enough for a dance ?" he asked. His grandfather said, "Yes." "Where will we use them ?" "Upriver." "Tell me when there is going to be a dance and we will go up." Then word came that they were going to make the fish dam at Kepel-Sa'a, and he was told, "It will end in a Deerskin Dance." So he went upriver, saw the dam, and took part in that custom. The people of Sa'a observed him, and liked him. Then they all went down to Wohkero and camped opposite it. He had taken all his skins with him and contributed them. When the dancing was nearly over, he saw his skins coming out in the last dance. Then he felt exceedingly happy. Then after that they went on up the hill to Plokseu to end up with the Deerskin Dance, and then they all returned home. By next summer he had more skins ready. He was sitting in front of the sweat house with the old man. "Mightn't we 245 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. make a dance here? I like the Jumping Dance [such as they make at Rekwoi], but I like this Deerskin Dance too. The skins look alive when one sees them from the side as they sway." The old man said, "We are poor and it was not left to us here. That dance was only left for them upriver; we are not allowed to make it." * Now the boy never drank water except in the house. Then the inland woge, the helkaiu-ni'wo, knew that he never troubled about girls and therefore wanted their help. Then in spring the young man dreamed that he was speak- ing with an old man about a foot high, with silvery hair and a beard reaching to the ground,49 who said to him, "You are wanting to know who I am and how I can be so little and yet so old." "Yes," said the young man. "Well, we have seen you keeping yourself pure and gathering sweat-house wood and working hard. So we felt sorry for you. You would like to have a Deerskin Dance here where people have never thought of having it. We shall help you. But you must not go to Tserher-olego and you must tell no one, not even your grandfather. Keep yourself pure and we will help you to obtain what you want." The young man awoke and saw the woge standing there. At daybreak he went out to gather sweat-house wood ceremonially. Now he was always wishing to have that dream again. When the summer was nearly over, he dreamed and saw the same little old man. He said, "Remem- ber all I am going to tell you. It will be the formula for your dance. Pray first at Mer'kwer." Pray for good things only, for food and children and health. Now you can tell your grandfather. Begin in the fall, in the ninth month, ker'ermiter, and when you place your dance, listen carefully. If you hear us shouting, turn it and keep facing another way until you no longer hear us." In the morning he went to gather sweat-house wood, then told the old man. The old man cried. "Better let it go," he said; "it might kill us, because we have never had it before." "No," said the youth, "it is the helkiiu-ni'wo who told me, even to how I am to pray, and I will be the formulist. It will be right. Let them kill me if they want. I alone will take all the blame." Then the old man said no, that should not be, and agreed to help him. Then the old man asked the people of Rekwoi all to make food baskets, and no one knew why. On the first day of the month ker'ermiter the young man prayed to the rock Mer'kwer: "I am a stranger; I shall not become sick from making this dance. The helkiiu-ni'wo are helping me. This dance will be here as long as the world holds together and stands. It will be like the upriver dances." He went on to pray for food, for good weather, and to have sickness driven across the ocean until none should be left on the whole earth. By the rock he made a little fire and put in angelica root. When the smoke rose he prayed again, saying that the dance would help people not only here but even those far off and everywhere. 49Also described as three feet high and the size of a boy. 50 A very small rock downhill from pegwolau. 246 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives When he had finished his prayer, the old man notified Rekwoi that the young man would put up a dance. They were excited and a crowd came over. Then the young man motioned to his grandfather to bring the trunkfuls of deerskins while he brushed out and smoothed a dance spot, and he used a man from Rekwoi to help dress the dancers. Some would say, "The world will be upset: it should not be allowed." Others answered, "I thought so too, but he says he will take the blame and they can kill him." Now he was wealthy already, but the helkiiu-ni'wo had promised to help him with anything else that he might need. Now as the people were blaming him he cried. Then he saw four pairs of short obsidians there, four black ones and four red ones. Some of the people were dressing for the dance. Others were still refusing. So the young man said, "If anything goes wrong, blame me, not the old man of pegwoliiu; but if it were wrong these flints would not have appeared here while I was praying." And when he showed them the flints they were persuaded. So when he began he lined up his dancers facing (ritsku'mek) oceanward (tegwollekuk). He heard shouting from the mountains, so he faced them south (perwer) and heard the shouting. Then he faced them east, inland (helkiiu), and there still was shouting. He faced them north (pullekuk) and again there was shouting. So he faced them west (wohpiiuk, which is the same as tegwollekuk) once more; and this time there was no sound from the mountains. So he kept them that way and had them dance as they dance with deerskins upriver, including, in front of the line, two men carrying obsidian blades. "This dance will last ten days or twelve, or up to fourteen if there are many people, but not longer than that; as they do upriver. The upriver dances are from the helkiiu-ni'wo. It is the same here. The same man gave this to me." Then all the people wept as they do when someone dies, the pegwoliiu old man most of all. Then they danced again that evening, and the next day twice, and so on. On the ninth night, his dream came to him again and the old man dwarf said, "It is well now. Your dance will be here forever, but we are going to take you. After twelve days you will move this, your dance, to Mistsek" and will end up with the Jumping Dance, facing the same way as you face here: wohpiiu. When you dance there, the house kniiu at Rekwoi will not be allowed to come close. They may come close, and they may dance, when you dance here with deerskins; but when you go to Mistsek, kniiu will not be allowed to come close but will have to sit on the ridge and look on from there. It shall be this way forever." So the young man said, "I will do as you say. I am glad you gave it to me." Then after twelve days he moved the dance to Mistsek, and they wore Jump- ing Dance woodpecker headbands, and kniiu was excluded, and he said it would be thus forever. The place the helkiiu-ni'wo took him to is Megwimor, a hill coming out from Big Rattlesnake Ridge. It is near Te'golol and is also called Te'golol megwimor. l This is nearly the same prairie as Osegison, at Payne's house uphill and back from Rekwoi. 247 2Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. He went there because from this spot he could see the mouth of the river so well. The old man of pegwoliiu went there also. That is why the mountain is so named: megwimor means old man. Before the youthi went, he passed the dance on to a young man of the same house, telling him to continue it forever, and if there should be no one in pegwoliiu or in Welkwaiu, to give it to Rekwoi or elsewhere.'2 He was sitting down, when the little old man appeared to him and said, "You have taught it to human beings. Now we must take you, and the old man, too, because he loves you." Then the young man was seen in front of his sweat house; then he was seen up in the air like a fog. It moved upriver and at last settled like a ball on the ridge and became the knoll Megwimor. [35] Psychologically, this is a story of simple wish fulfillment such as the Yurok frequently develop into myth and base much of their magic on. For- mally, it also belongs to a type: what I have called the institutional myth, which consists largely of the description of an existing institution made into narrative by being told as it happened to or through an individual the first time. I remain intrigued whether Welkwiiu ever had a White Deerskin Dance, or, if it did, why it died out. All Yurok affirm that there was such a dance, and the beginning of the story mentions whose relatives last knew the formula and esoteric rites. I have not heard, however, of anyone whose ancestor had told him that he had seen the dance. If it was actual, it must have ceased being made a generation or two before the white man came; and if so, for what reason? Welkwiiu did have a sacrosanct pipe (or pair of them) and a first-salmon- spearing ceremony which continued to be made for a decade or two after the Caucasian irruption (see narrative 9). This is precisely the sort of esoteric ritual with which a magnificent dance ought to be coupled. There is the precedent of the first-salmon rite with associated Jumping Dance among the Karok at Amaikiara; the salmon dam at Kepel-Sa'a with subsequent Deerskin Dance; the Hupa Takimilding first-acorn ritual with both. And the historic situation at the mouth of the Klamath seems incomplete: on one side the first-salmon spearing without a dance, on the other the Rekwoi Jumping Dance carried on without reference to this. Also there are references within the story which ring as if they were taken from established custom: for instance, the exclusion of the inmates of house kniiu of Rekwoi from witnessing the final dance at Mistsek. How could this sort of precise locality taboo creep into an imaginary construction? Whereas actual Yurok life is full of just such particularities. On the other hand, there would have been some curious interlocking of place: the wind-up dance of Welkwiiu made on the hillside above Rekwoi, the wind-up dance of Rekwoi at the foot of Welkwiiu. This is not unthinkable, but it is without precedent. The closest parallel is among the Karok, where Amaikiara makes first-salmon with Jumping Dance and neighboring Katimin 52 That is, its formula; the rites would be executed at the same spot. 248 Spott-Kroeber: Yurok Narratives world-renewal with Deerskin, also some months apart. But these two towns are a full two miles distant, and each was large. Welkwiiu was small. That the putative ceremonial was associated with the same house pegwoliiu in which the first-salmon pipes were kept does not prove anything with regard to historicity, since an imaginary dance would presumably have been at- tributed to this same sacred spot. All in all, I would incline to believe that native tradition rests on fact, were it not for one consideration: even if Welkwiiu never had a dance, I sense emphatically that the Yurok would feel that there should have been one. The first-salmon rite is holy and famous enough to merit a dance. Kepel-Sa'a and Weitspus and the great Hupa and Karok towns had them. The historic condi- tion thus suggests a lack; and it may have been easier, especially for a pains- takingly conservative culture, to fill the gap with a retrospective myth than with a ceremonial which would have to be created and accepted. The Coast Yurok have a myth for why there are no Deerskin Dances among themselves and the Wiyot: they did have them, but they were taken away to the Klamath.' Welkwiiu is both on the coast and on the river. My suggestion is that because it is on the coast-Deerskin Dances being an inland invention-it never had any; but because it is also on the river, the Yurok felt that the mouth of their river should have had one. In Yotokut (Tolokw) near the mouth of the Smith River, the Tolowa made first-salmon without accompanying dance. At the mouth of the Klamath the Yurok may have been in the same, perhaps older historic tradition, but were exposed also to the river point of view which demanded a dance for a site that was at once important and sacred. The story would be the compromise forma- tion; and hence I place it, though with persisting doubts, in the group of myths rather than traditions. 36. THE SHELLS' BOAT DANCE INTO THE OCEAN In woge times every kind of shell went into the ocean from inland. That is why the upriver people and the inlanders use dentalia, clamshells, and other kinds: because formerly these all lived upriver. When they were about to undergo the change, they said they wanted to live in the ocean hereafter, but that they did want to come back inland sometimes; "that is why they will use my shells there." They started down-river, going in a long double file of two boats abreast, like a railroad train. At every village more of them joined in. They did not paddle, but stood up in the boats, each holding the shoulders of the one next in front, singing and making the boat go by their dancing. This is called weleg- woleya, like the boat dance of the Indians. In front went dentalia (tsik). Next were the small dentalia (tseihkeni tsik); then the dentalium beads (terkutem). Behind these were the haliotis (yer'erner), and then the little clamshells (sekse) which are sewn on women's dresses. Behind them were the kererts wino'os, the thimble-like shells which suck fast on the rocks, and then the little dark-colored snails, both of which 53 Cf. Nomland and Kroeber, this volume, p. 40, 1936, for a Wiyot version. 249 0Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn. hang on women's dresses. After them came the olivellas (turukr) ; then the smoothed mussel shells such as are used for spoons, which we call roptei, or, as the people farther up the river say, hegwon. Last of all were the plain mussel shells (pi'i uwerser). When they came out on the ocean the dentalia went farthest north, to Tslktsikol (dentalium-home). There they tipped their boats over. The small clamshells also went north, but did not reach so far. That is why they are found as far south as Pebble Beach, near Crescent City. For some kinds the boats separated, one going north and the other south; for the haliotis both boats went south. The hind ones, like the mussels, knew before they got to the mouth of the river that they would not reach far. Their boats separated, some to the north and some to the south, and tipped them into the ocean before they had gone any distance. These are the songs which some of the kinds sang as they traveled. Dentalium sang: "Dentalium, dancing in a boat, I go far, to the north, to cap- size (Tisktsik welewoleya tspanik-kisotok sa-pulekuk tso-not-ky'ekwolena)." Small dentalium sang: "I small dentalium, dancing in a boat, north I go with them, also from the north I will go, to the south (Nekwil-tseihkeni-tsik wele- woleya pulekuk-kisomegelok not-pulekuk-komewomitsok soh-perwerkuk)." Haliotis sang: "Haliotis, dancing in a boat, south I go, to capsize (Yer'erner welewoleya not-perwerkuk tso-not-ky'erkwolena)." The little and poor ones sang: "I told you, in the middle of the ocean, to capsize me there (Tamola-higolek hiwohpi tso-not-ok'yewolena)." But they capsized near shore and near the mouth of the river. [36] This, like the next, is an example of a type of Yurok tale which contains something of the idyllic. It is built up around the image of the long double line of boats filled with dancers, streaming down the river and out into the ocean. The great change from woge to human times is taking place, but is alluded to without the tinge of sadness and regret which it usually carries. The feeling tone is light-one of a pretty sight with a touch of humor. It seems, however, to be more than a mere children's tale. At any rate, it instructs. It rates the shells in value, tells where they are to be found, and explains why the precious ones now occur only at a distance. 37. UPRIVER-OCEAN GIRL Mer'wermeris umii'i is the girl from Mer'wermerei, the ocean at the upriver end of the world.' At first the sun rolled from there to Wohpiiu, making the canyon of the river. Therefore the river is called layo, because of the road the sun had made in rolling. But he was dissatisfied because he gave no light. So he went above and traveled the sky. Then the river followed the canyon he had made. Mer'wermeris umai'i wondered if she should follow the river. She was think- ing about it. So she took a little toy boat. She got into it and stretched it until it was long enough for her legs to be straight out while she sat on the seat in "Now identified with the Klamath Lakes. 250 Spott-Kroeber: Yurolc Narratives the stern. She had no paddle, so she looked around Upriver Ocean for a while. Then she raised her knees, took hold of the gunwales with her hands, rocked the boat, and began to go down the river. When she came to falls or riffles, she sat still till she was over them, then swayed the boat again. At the mouth of the river she wondered if the boat would take the breakers. Finally she decided to try it, rocked the boat, and went out safely on the ocean. After some time she saw Wes,ona olego', where the sky edge comes up and down, and a light shining under it when it rose. So she counted eleven fallings. The twelfth time,5 the sky rose higher, and she shot under it before it fell. She went straight on and for a while she saw welketei wero'ogoil (fingernail streak) : it was land in the distance, and she was happy. The land was Wohpiik, and it was all sandy and flat without growth. She landed and saw a beautiful girl, Wohpiiks umii'i Iiiksis olo' (Across-the-Ocean Girl outdoors standing). At sunset this girl said to her, "Go indoors, I have to stand outside." The shine or flashing in the west is she. Then she helped Upriver-Ocean Girl cover the boat with rush mats from the house so that the large redheaded woodpeckers would not come and eat the boat, there being no trees there. She asked Upriver-Ocean Girl how she had arrived, and she said, "Yontcik iyol (Swaying in the boat)." So when she was about to return, Across-the- Ocean Girl held her boat for eleven breakers-because they are made by the sky falling-and the twelfth was gentler, and on this one she shoved her out, and Upriver-Ocean Girl sailed back, and came to Wes,ona olego', and got under it, and at last she saw this land again, like a fingernail streak, and after a while she could make out the rocks alongshore, and felt happier. So she entered the river mouth and went on her way up to Kenek. There she landed and told the woge what she had seen and what the light flashing at sunset was. Then she went back into her boat, and upriver, and arrived home. My father, in launching his boat on the ocean or beaching it, would pat it outside with both hands and say, "Upriver-Ocean Girl, you crossed without paddle from Mer'wermerei to Wohpiik. Lend me your boat. This is it. I shall have no trouble from the ocean." [37] We have here once more the Yurok love of a small world in which one can root, feel sheltered, and be at home: it can be traversed in a day. And it is a world having appearances which one comes to dwell on with fondness: the flash of sunset, the distant streak of land horizon from far out at sea, the breakers or rapids ahead at which one pauses before venturing on them. There is as little plot as in an idyl, and all the charm of an idyl, in this fantasy of the impulses of a girl and her girl friend. 55Informants of a generation ago usually said ten and eleven times. 251 SOURCES OF THE NARRATIVES As a contribution to the problem of the mechanics of oral transmission, con- cerning which there still exists relatively little specific record, the individuals are here listed from whom Robert Spott remembers learning the foregoing narratives. There are about two dozen. This is perhaps an unusually large number. Some were kinsmen, but others were not. There is definite but not exclusive localization: coast events tend to be told by coast people, upriver stories by people from there. NARRATIVE SOURCE 1 Requa Fanny of house ple'l in Rekwoi 2 Captain Spott himself 3 Kahtel-me'lor, an old kinsman, of the house petsku in Weitspus 5 Fanny Flounder 6 Fanny Flounder, who heard it from her mother 7 Sra'mau's second wife, the doctor born in Merip 8 Fanny Flounder herself 11 Mrs. Tipsy, who received the confession; passed on by her daughter, Fanny Flounder 12 Captain Spott himself, with later supplements by Johnny Shortman, married into Welkwiiu 13 Captain Spott 15 Requa Fanny, Captain Spott, and others 16 Fanny Flounder 17 Robert Spott's father's mother, married into house w6gwu in Weitspus 18 Various people 19 Kahtel-me'lor (see no. 3), and later Terkr, both of the house petsku in Weitspus 20 Various Weitspus people who were present at the final episode 21 George Mahats, of higwo and knau in Rekwoi 22 Billy Werk of Weitsl5us 23 Mary Blake of house osl6kw in Rekwoi. She was older than Captain Spott 24 Pekwon Jim, Meta Jim of Sregon, Old Square of Ko'tep, Kerner of Pekwon, and Captain Spott 25 Johnny Shortman and Captain Spott, both of Rekwoi 26 Captain Spott; also Jim and Kerner of Pekwon 27 Hoslag of Kenek-hiko, born at Muirekw 28 Meno'ol of Sa'ail opposite Turip 29 Billy Werk of Weitspus; also Opn's mother-in-law of house tsahpekw adjacent to tsekwel in Weitspus 30 Wife of Amits of Kepel, born in Meta 31 Meta Jim of Sregon 32 Captain Spott; also Old John of house regworel in Omen-hipur, who spoke good Tolowa but broken Yurok 33 Ketskel-miiu, an old man who still wore his hair long, of house ketskel prob- ably in Pekwon 34 Old John of Omen-hipur (see no. 32) 35 Johnny Shortman born in house tiil-olomel in Rekwoi, married into pegwolau in Welkwiiu 37 Captain Spott CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS Before 1800 Obsidian paid in settlement by Weitspus to Eupa (tale 20) Before 1800 Obsidian dowry from Weyet to Weitspus (19) 1800? Return from grave prevented in Ko'tep (21) 1800 Srii'miiu's ancestor finds his luck (11) 1810 Osegen man enslaved to Espeu in a death settlement (5) 1800-1820 Soul loss and wesuirawits dance in Rekwoi (22) 1830-1840 War of Rekwoi with Hupa (18) 1830-1840 Espeu-Osegen killing and settlement over slave (5) 1830-1840 White trappers pass through and bring fighting knives By 1840 Welkwiiu Deerskin Dance no longer made 1844 Captain Spott born 1850 Whites enter the country, settle, and mine 1850 Return from grave prevented in Rekwoi (21) 1860 Killing over sea lion rights (15, 16) 1860? Fight with the Kerometsa' (17) 1860-1865 Tipsy's marriage (1) 1865-1870 Spott assists in first-salmon rite at Welkwau (12) 1870 Spott's marriage (2) 1870-1890 Spott's slaves (4) 1880 Visit to the Weyet dance (13) 1890 Fanny Flounder acquires doctor power (8) 1904 Last Jumping Dance at Rekwoi 1913 Last fish dam at Kepel 1910-1915? Last Deerskin Dance at Weitspus [ 253 ] PRINCIPAL WORKS REFERRED TO (Usually by author or short title) T. T. Waterman, Yurok Geography, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 16:177-314, 1920. In spite of in- evitable minor omissions and inaccuracies, this monograph remains funda- mental for a real comprehension of a culture so given to intense localization as the Yurok one. A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 78, 1925. Chapters 1-4 deal with the Yurok. P. E. Goddard, Life and Culture of the Hupa, in the University of California series in A.A.E., 1:1-88, 1903. Philip Drucker, The Tolowa and Their Southwest Oregon Kin, same series, 36 :221-300, 1937. Other, brief papers on the Yurok constitute earlier issues in the present volume. Typewriting assistance in the preparation of this manuscript was furnished by the per- sonnel of Work Projects Administration Official Project No. 65-1-08-62, Unit A-15. [254] INDEX (Numbers refer to numbered narratives) Chilula, 10, 11 Gammutwa, 17 Hupa, 4,5,10, 14, 18, 20, 22, 25 26, 35 Karok, 2, 10, 11, 14, 17,19,22,24,25 Keromets'a, see Gammutwa Aperger (Karok), 17 Ayi's (Karok), 10 Ekgo (Aikoo), 29 Er'erl (Tolowa), 2, 13, 14 Espeu, 1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 33 Himel, 24, 27 Hinii'ig (Tolowa), 2, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18 Ho'piau, 18, 23, 25, 34 Kalihtel (Hupa), 20 Kenek, 17, 26, 33, 37 Kenek-hiko, 27 Kepel, see Sa'a Kohpei (Tolowa), 2,11,14 Ko'tep, 4, 15, 16, 18, 21, 24 Kwohtoi (Wiyot), 13 Le'mekwel, 25 Merip, 10, 11, 34 DMiirekw, 7, 9, 10, 11, 24, 27 Ne'kel (Tolowa), 15 Nororpek (Tolowa), 17 Okonile'l (Karok), 17, 24 Okyer (Rogue River), 17 Olege'l (Karok), 16, 24 Omen, Omen-hipur, 1, 2, 15,16,18, 33 Omikyera (Karok dance place), 17, 24 Opegoi (Karok), 17 Oplego' (Hupa), 18,20 Osegen, 1, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20, 24, 33 Er'erl-pets in Er'erl, 14 Ha'agonor in Omen-hipur, 2, 15,16 Helkiiu in Kohpei, 2,14 Helkik in Pekwon, 6,16 Higwo in Rekwoi, 7, 12, 15, 16, 23 Higwo in Weitspus, 10, 20 Kerertser in Muirekw, 10 Ketskel in Rekwoi, 10, 25 Kniiu in Rekwoi, 18, 21 25 35 Layekw in Rekwoi, 1, 2,5 15,16 18 21 Merits'er in Ko'tep, 18 Osl8kw in Rekwoi, 16, 25 Osl1kw in Weitspus, 17, 18 Otiktikwol in Er'erl, 2, 13 Otsiil in Welkwiiu, 4, 12,16 18 TRIBES Shasta, 17 Tolowa, Tolowil, 2, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16,17, 18 22232,33 Wiyot, Weyet, 10, 11, 13,19,20,36 TOWNS Otsepor, 17, 29 Oyol, 6 Pekwon, 2, 62 11, 16, 18, 21, 24 Pekwon-pul, 4 Pekwtul, 20, 22 Pulekuk a'espeu (Winchuck River), 17 Pulekuk omerip (Pistol River), 17 Rekwoi, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20 21, 22, 23, 25, 34, 35 Sala, 3, 11, 35 Sa"kil, 25, 28 Serper, 6 Sregon, 10, 11 Tmeri, see Houses Tol6kw (Tolowa), 14, 35 Tsetskwi, 17 Tsohtsoi (Tolowa), 10 Turip, 5, 23, 25, 28 Wahsek, 9, 31 Weitspus, 2, 3, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25,26 27, 35 Welkwaiu, 1, 4, 5, 6, 12, 15, 16, 18, 22, 35 Weyo' (Wiyot), 13,19 Wohkel, 23, 34 Wohkero, 5, 10, 16, 21, 28, 35 Wohtek, 23 Yohter, 21 HOUSES Pegwolau in Welkwaiu, 12, 16 18 35 Pekwoi in Ko'tep, 24 Per'kweri in Ko'tep, 4 Pets in Er'erl, 14 (Hi-)pets in Welkwiiu, 16 Petsku in Weitspus, 20 Plnpa in Wohtek, 23 Ple'l in Rekwoi, 18, 21, 22 Ple'l in Weitspus, 17 Rak in Weitspus, 17 Regworel in Pekwtul, 22 Rep8kw in Rekwoi, 21, 22, 23 Repokw in Wohkero, 16 Rep6kw (we-rep6k) of house group Otsiil in Welkwau, 12 [255] Sohtsu in Weitspus, 19 Tit wo-ol in Rekwoi, 18 Tegwollek rep6kw in Espeu, 1 Tegwollek rep8kw in Rekwoi, 15, 18 Tekor in Rekwoi, 15, 18 Te'wiroi in Rekwoi, 25 Tmeri or tmeroi in Rekwoi (suburb), 4,12, 18, 21 Tse'gi in Wohlkero, 10 Tse'kwel in Weitspus, 20 Tse'kwel in Welkwiiu, 1, 2, 6, 12, 16 Tsohtsoi, see Towns W8gi in Ho'piiu, 18 Wogwu, w6gi, in Weitspus, 2, 3, 15, 17, 18 Wonnau in Rekwoi, 2, 18, 25 Wonnekw in Rekwoi, 1, 2, 4, 15, 16, 25 Wonnil in Weitspus, 22 CULTURE Adultery, 4 Bastard, 3, 24 Bewitching ("deviling") by uma'a, 8, 10, 13, 34 Bravery, supernaturally acquired (weskwilai), 11, 15, 20, 21, 25, 27 Cemeteries, 18, 21, 22, 24 Confession, 6, 7, 11, 15 Corpse bewitching, 15, 16,17 "Cursing," 16, 18, 34 Dances: brush, 4, 20, 23; doctor ("kick," rem6hpo), 4, 6, 8, 23; visitors at, 2, 13, 22, 24; war, 15, 18; wesuirawits, against soul loss, 22 Doctors: guardian spirit, 6, 8, 23; "pains" (telogel), 4, 6, 8, 23; pains given to, 4; pains in pairs, 6, 8, 23; taken away from, 8; "seats" (tsektsel) on mountains, 6, 8, 23; seeking for power, 6, 8, 23; songs, 6, 8 Feuds, 5, 15, 16, 17,18, 20, 32 Guardian spirit, see Doctors Killings, see Feuds Legal procedure: go-between (wego'), 5, 15, 16; herald, repeater (negolo), 11, 15, 16; "judge," arbitrator (hohpkusin), 15 Levirate, see Marriage Liability for accident, 5 Liar, chronic, 18 Marriage: as part of compensation settle- ment, 5, 15, 20; children claimed in di- vorce, 3, 18, repudiated, 4; confession by husband and wife, 2; co-wife, 3, 11; dowry, 19; "half-marriage,"y 3, 18; levi- rate, 3; payment, 1, 2, 4, 19, 23, 26, 28, 35; aid payment from kin, 1, 2; extra pay- ment for doctor, 1, 23; repayment on di- vorce, 3, 4, 6, 18; women in settlement, 5, 15, 20 Menstrual poison, 8, 22 Pets, 7, 28 Property rights: acorn tracts, 3; from mother, 3; mekwol, claims to fishing spots, 20, to sea-mammal rights, 15, 16; slaves, 4, 5, 24, 25, 32 Rattles, 22 Rattlesnake bite, 18 Slaves, see Property rights Soul loss, 6, 22 Starvation "medicine" (pererkr), 18 Treasure: acquisition of, 24, 35; deerskins, 11, 14, 23, 35; dentalium money, 2, 16, 19, 20, 36; dentalium necklaces, 2, 11, 19, 36; obsidian (or flint) blades, 2, 11, 14, 15, 19, 35; woodpecker scalps, 2, 19, 24; woodpecker bandoleer (k6h), 2, 13; wood- pecker headbands, 13, 14, 19, 35; wood- pecker headrings (ma'ak), 14 War, see Feuds Wealth, see Treasure Wound sucking, 20 256 Index