89. The Giant who stole the Keremeous Woman.
Once a giant stole a woman from Keremeous,1 and carried her all night on his shoulders. He travelled very fast, jumping over cliffs and bushes, and from hillock to hillock. When day came he slept. After travelling far in a southerly and then in an easterly direction, they arrived near the edge of the. earth where the real country of the giants is. Here the people were numerous, and all of them were giants. When nightfall came, the men all prepared to go hunting. The stolen woman fell asleep, and the people thought she was dead. Her husband told them she only slept. Then he pulled two very small balls, like fish-roe, out of her eyes, saying, "This is what makes the Indians sleep at night.' After that she became like the giants, and slept in the daytime with her eyes open.
In the giants' country there was no fire, for they knew not how to make it. They ate all their food raw. Neither did they know how to catch fish, although they were very fond of them. They did not care much for water, and never washed themselves. The woman taught them how to make fire with sticks, and how to cook food. She also taught them how to catch fish, and showed them many other useful arts. The giants were grateful to the woman, and no longer treated her as a slave. She learned to speak the giants' language.
After living in the giants' country a few years, she desired to see her own land and friends. She told her husband he need not fear her people, for they were very nice, and would treat him well. He took her on his shoulders, and, travelling every night, they soon reached Keremeous. The giant hid in the bushes while the woman went to the houses, and made herself known to her friends, who had thought her dead. She called her husband the giant, who came forward in great fear. She told him the People would not harm him. They built a very high lodge for the giant and his wife, who dressed in bearskins, like all giants. They made buckskin clothes for them, and persuaded them to discard their bearskins, and burn them. At nights the giant would hunt and catch deer and bears, which he tied on a string, like ducks, and carried over his shoulder. He also knocked down dead trees, and carried them under his arm, branches and all. He said these things were not heavy. Soon the people had an abundance of meat and skins, and plenty of firewood.
The people were curious to see him hunting: so his wife persuaded him to stay at home one night, and hunt on the following day. He sat up all night, and an the next morning went out with the hunters. He would take a step and then wait, and then another step and wait, so that the people could keep up with him. If he had gone at his usual pace, he would soon have disappeared from sight, even if the people had been running. Coming on four deer, the giant ran ahead, caught one in his hands, and choked it. He Pursued the others, caught them and killed them in like manner. Although the deer were running at full speed, he caught up with them in a few bounds. He said, " Deer are very wild in the daytime. It is much easier to catch them at night." The giant carried the four deer home an a string, and the people were now satisfied, for they had seen him hunting.
The giant liked the people, and they gave him plenty of fish and birds, so that he was well pleased. He said he would go back to his own country and get all his people to come and live with the Indians. These were afraid, however, that, if he went, he would take his wife with him, and they would never see her again. So one day, when he was asleep, they attacked him with tomahawks, spears, and arrows. Although he was badly wounded, he jumped up and escaped. They never saw him again. The woman had no children by him, and died not so very long ago. Sama'nxa's2 father, called Yilekskwa'ilux, who was lame, and a chief in the Similkameen region, saw the giant, and was one of the young men who hunted with him, and tried to kill him. He said this giant had a strong odor, as if of burning hair, and wore moccasins three-quarters of a fathom long.
1 Keremeus or Keremeous, a place on the Similkameen River.
2 A Similkameen woman who lives on the Nicola River, about seventeen miles from Spences Bridge. She is probably about seventy years of age.
