39. The Beaver who Made People.
(Lower Uta'mqt.)
(cont.)After he had made many people, his sister told him one day that a man was approaching from below (down the river) who metamorphosed everything therefore he fled to the mountains around the upper part of the creek, while his sister took refuge on the top of a high mountain above Yale, on the opposite side of the river from that place, from which she could watch the stranger.
The Transformer, on his way up the river, came to the people which Beaver had created at Spuzzum, and metamorphosed them.1 Then he returned down the river again. After he had gone, Beaver returned home and began to make people, as before.
Some time after this Beaver's sister again warned him of the Transformer's approach, and again they fled into the mountains. Upon his arrival at Spuzzum, the stranger metamorphosed the people as he had on the first occasion.Thus he came yet a third time, and did the same thing. Then Beaver's sister said, "If he comes again, we will not run away, but will stay with the people, and see what he will do to us." Therefore, upon the Transformer's arrival for the fourth time, they remained where they were; and the Great Chief (or Transformer)2 turned the sister into a mountain-peak (the same one from which she watched his approach), and her brother he changed into the animal beaver, saying, "You shall no longer make people." It is not related that the Transformer killed or metamorphosed the people the last time: therefore it is supposed by some that these people of Beaver's creation were probably the ancestors of the people there at the present day; viz., the Spuzzum people.
40. The Origin of the Spuzzum People.
(Lower Uta' mqt)There were four underground houses at Spuzzum Creek, - two on the south side of the stream, and two on the north side. One of the latter was inhabited by xaxa'3. A father and son belonging to one of the houses on the south side of the creek were away hunting in the mountains down the river. At that time the people of Spuzzum did not know of any other people living farther down the river.
In the course of their wanderings, the two men came upon a village of strange people. On approaching, they were welcomed and treated kindly, although their languages were mutually unintelligible. They must have belonged to the coast tribes. They saw many strange things there, among them a copper hammer, to which they took a great fancy, and, before departing, purchased it, as well as an elk-horn chisel.
1 The Indians could not tell me in what manner the transformation took place, nor into what they were changed. Some claimed that he simply killed them.
2 It is said that the Transformer who did these things was the Great Chief, probably God.
3 Said to be the same xaxa' who are mentioned in other stories as living in the deep underground house (see p. 277).
