12. The Transformer.
(Lower Utã'mqt.)
(cont.)Some distance farther up the river, at a place called huxtsi'xama, he saw a woman who was in the act of giving birth to a child. He turned her and her child into stone.
When he reached a place about half a mile below Spuzzum, called Zôlpi'px (" little leha'l"), he saw some people playing leha'l. One man, who had gambled away his dog, was in the act of holding his gambling-bone behind his back, and had his face turned towards his two wives, who were sitting near by, when the Transformer turned them all into stone.
At Spuzzum he met Good-Man or Great-Chief,1 who was on his way down the river. He it was who created people or who made them good It is not known what became of either of them after they met; but it is supposed that the Chief went back to the interior, while the Transformer went back to the mouth of Fraser River.
13. The Great Chief.
(Lower Uta' mqt.)A great man or chief came from above.2 He was endowed with great powers of magic, and travelled through the country putting everything right. At each place he came to he divided the people, separating the good from the bad. The former he scattered over the country, locating certain families in certain places; and the Indians are descended from these people. He located the people as he went along. The bad people he found in the country he killed or transformed into animals and rocks.
There were some people who lived near Fort Yale, at a place called Xa'lil. They had four or more large seats or blocks shaped like trunks, on which they used to sit. He turned these into stones, which may be seen there at the present day. There was also at this place a man of very large stature, whom he transformed into stone, and he may be seen at the present day lying on his back. If it is hot weather, the people repair to these stones and rub them, and immediately the weather turns cloudy; and if the weather is rainy, they do the same thing, and it at once turns sunny.
1 Probably the same personage as Old-Man or Great-Chief of the Upper Thompsons.
2 They have no tradition as to what became of this man, nor exactly whence he came, except that it was from the Upper Thompson country or some way above. Some say they think he was an old man; others, that he may have been God, the God of the whites.