Traditions of the Thompson River Indians (cont.)
Before long the Old Man arrived, and partook of the meal that the lad had cooked, saying in the mean time, "I intend to go on a long journey, and wish you to keep possession, and stay in my house until I come back." After eating, they walked abroad until they reached a small and very deep lake. Here the Old Man said to the lad, "We will try our powers by seeing who can stay the longest at the bottom of the lake." Accordingly they dived, and immediately the lake became violently agitated, and rose in such great and high waves, that the troughs of the bilges reached the bottom of the deep lake. The Old Man then rose on the top of one of these waves which reached to the sky, and entered the upper world.158 The lad was surprised at the agitated state of the lake, and immediately went ashore. Then the waters became calm again. He thought, "The Old Man must have been drowned in the lake, and hence its great waves." So he was sorrowful at the supposed death of his friend, and went away, no one knows where. The Old Man will come back some day with the Coyote, and will then help the Indians. He will appear amongst clouds of tobacco smoke.159
[Nkamtci'nemux.]
Long ago the Swan was a great chief. He was a good man, and used to be a chief at the dances. He was wont to sit by while the people danced, exhorting and encouraging them, and also prayed, and made speeches. When the Old Man turned the bad people into animals and birds, and led the good people away, settling them over the country, the Swan accompanied him. After the Old Man had finished his work, the Swan went home with him, thus being the only man that ever reached or entered into the Old Man's abode. Here he stayed for a long time, but at last got tired, and wished to go back again to his own country. The Old Man invited him to stay there always, but he answered that he had left his child in his own country, and wished very much to go back and see it. Therefore the Old Man allowed him to depart; but before leaving he turned his skin pure white as a mark of his favor, and to let people know that the Swan was no ordinary person, but was a man who had found favor in his eyes. That is the reason that the swan is all white at the present day. He returned to his country, where he found the child, and never went back to the Old Man's abode.
3a. Another tale tells the origin of the swan as follows: Whilst separating the good people from the evil, the Old Man had difficulty in deciding the case of one man, whether he was good or bad, but at last came to the conclusion that he would put him amongst those who were to remain people, and whom he was leading forth. Now, this man's wife had already been turned into a bird, and he was loath to leave her. Therefore he looked back and said, "May not my wife come with me? " whereupon the Old Man got angry, because he had issued strict injunctions to the people who remained not to look back towards the scene of the transformation, under the penalty of his displeasure. Therefore he changed this man into a swan, and, taking him by the legs, he threw him far away out upon a lake.160
In the beginning there were no trees, and many kinds of bushes and plants were wanting; neither was there any salmon or other fish, nor any berries. The only animals on the earth at that time were deer, which were plentiful, but the people could not kill them because they were so fleet of foot and jumped so far. They sprang from one mountain-top to another in a single bound. At last, however, a woman managed to curtail their powers by means of throwing her breech-clout on one of them.161 After this they became ordinary deer, and could jump only a moderate distance as they do now; so the people were enabled to kill them, and they thus commenced to form an important part of their food supply.
VII. THE TALE OF THE BAD BOY; OR, THE SUN AND THE
LAD.[Nkamtci'nemux.]
There was once a boy who lived with his parents near Lytton. He was a very bad boy, constantly getting into mischief and doing what he was forbidden. He was also very lazy, quarrelsome, and disobedient. His parents could do nothing with him; therefore they resolved to desert him for a while, thinking that if he were thrown on his own resources it might do him good. It was in the springtime, and his parents were still living in an underground lodge. Their neighbors, who were occupying four or five other houses close by, agreed to leave at the same time, and to remove, bag and baggage, into the mountains, where they intended to stay a while hunting deer. One morning the boy went away for a ramble. Then the people all packed up and went away. When he came home, he found the place deserted, and commenced looking at the tracks to find out which way they had gone. He followed them for some distance, but eventually lost them.
