Traditions of the Thompson River Indians (cont.)
He said to himself, " I will have one of these. It will do for covering the door of my sweat-house, and in the mean time I will put it round my shoulders as a cloak to protect me from the cold." But no sooner did he lift one of the mats, than all the others attacked him, flapping, and striking him on the head. He cried, "Stop, stop! I will put back your friend." He laid down the mat, and all became quiet as before, every mat going into its place. He went out and cursed the mats, and the rushes they were made of saying, "You will always be slaves of men, and you will not be able to help yourselves." He then continued to wander on aimlessly, until he reached another underground lodge, which he entered. Everything looked nice within, and around in a circle stood many awls on end. He said to himself, "I must have one of those nice awls to sew my shoes with." He took up one; but the others attacked him, piercing him all over the body. He cried out, "Stop! I will put back your friend." He put down the awl, and the rest at once became quit, and resumed their places. He went out and cursed the awls, saying, "You will forever be slaves of men." Similar scenes were enacted when he entered two other underground lodes which contained respectively combs and birch-bark vessels.46 Once more he traveled on, thinking, "This is certainly a strange land. I wonder if all the inhabitants are like those I have visited! "
After a while he came to the edge of the plateau, and began to descend the incline, which was dotted here and "there with trees, the first he had seen in that country.47 Here he spied a camp, and two old women sitting one on each side of the fire. He was glad, because they were the first people he had seen. He drew nearer, and discovered that they were both blind. They were eating rotten wood, and were passing it to each other across the fire. One of the women was handing some over to her friend, when NLi'ksEntEm took it. The woman asked the other one if she had got it, and the other answered, "No." They then began to quarrel, because they thought one was deceiving the other. Finally one said, "Some stranger must be here." The other replied, "Yes, it is a man." The first then said, " Yes, I smell something bad." NLi'ksEntEm therefore felt insulted, so he took hold of one woman and threw her amongst some spruce and black-pine trees, at the same time changing her into a fool hen (or " Franklin's grouse "), and cursing her, saying, "You shall be a fool hen, and shall be so foolish that women and children will catch you with a stick and a twine noose on the end." The other woman he threw amongst some rotten logs in the middle of willow and alder trees, and cursed her, saying, "You shall be a ruffed grouse."48
