31a. The Goat people.
(Lower Uta' mqt.)
(cont.)They led him to a house in the rocks where there were many people of all ages. It was situated in a steep cliff: so they spat on the soles of his feet, that he might be enabled to walk up with them. Tie women became his wives, and he wished to have sexual intercourse with them the first night; but they said, "No, you cannot have your desire: we only have sexual intercourse for a short time at a certain season of each year."
His parents-in-law asked him to go out hunting, as they were desirous of eating some meat. His wives told him to shoot one goat only, so he shot one and brought it home. They cooked the meat, and all ate of it. Thus he staid with the Goat people several months, and killed a goat almost every day, and they all ate the flesh at evening.
He noticed that his brothers-in-law - a one-year-old and a two-year-old boy respectively, - went out to bathe in a pool every evening, and returned just in time to eat the meat with the rest. He watched them, and found that they changed into goats as soon as they left the house. He also noticed that the human part of the goats he shot was unharmed and returned home, and only the goat part was killed. He wanted to prove these things : so one evening he shot one of the young goats who was bathing in the pool, and, after cutting off his nose, put it in his quiver. Then, going home, he lay down and pretended to sleep. Shortly afterwards one of his brothers-in-law came running into the house with his nose bleeding. The people sent him back to the water, saying, "If you bathe, it will soon stop bleeding;" but it did not stop: so the hunter went there, and, throwing his nose at him, it immediately went back to its place, and the wound stopped bleeding. When he returned home, he said to the people, "Why did you not tell me that these goats who bathe at the pool every evening were my brothers-in-law"
Now, it was nearing the rutting-season of the goats, and they put a watchman on a cliff within sight of the river, that he might see when the dog-salmon should begin to ascend the river. As soon as he was aware that the dog-salmon were running, he informed the people, and they all went and washed themselves. Then the females all ran to the top of a ridge, and the males after them. The hunter had on a heavy goat-skin, and was thus unable to keep up with the other males, who outstripped him in the race: so he had the chagrin of seeing them all rutting and finished before he was halfway up the ridge: therefore he turned back and went home. .Next day his wives put a very light skin on him, so that, when they raced to the ridge after washing themselves, he easily outstripped all the other males, and, reaching the top of the ridge, had sexual connection with all the females before any of the males could arrive.
