Kotharian Lightning

From Karuk Folklore

Two youths once lived at Yuxtuyrup. Nobody saw them much. Each year they were seen when they went stepping around, flint blades in front of the deerskin dancers. That is how they were raised.

It came to pass that both died, each leaving behind a girl sweetheart. These girls thought, “We are dying too.” All they did was cry, each morning as they sat by the graveyard.

One day as they were weeping in the graveyard, a person came and sat by them. Behold it was A’ikren.

He said, “You should stop crying. I know where your sweethearts are, and I will take you there. Make ten maple bast dresses, for we are going to travel a long way. You must also take the bone marrow of deer with you. As you rub that marrow upon yourselves, they will be your bones.”

The girls prepared, and then they said to A’ikren, “We are ready. Let’s go.”

As they journeyed, the strands of their dresses got pulled out by the forest growth, so bushy was the way they travelled through. Every so often they put on another dress, until that dress too was pulled out. And as they went along, they painted themselves with bone marrow.

After they had journeyed a long way, A’ikren said, “We are almost there. You will see what your sweethearts used to do, for they still do the same. They have the same fun, stepping around before the deerskin dancers.”

As they arrived at the place it was getting dark. They found deerskin dancers standing in a row, waiting the signal. A whistle sounded, the girls saw their sweethearts are both ends of the dance. They reached out to touch the boys, but they disappeared, only to reappear later. Whenever they were about to touch them, the boy disappeared.

A’ikren said, “It is well. I am going home, but I will come back for ye.”

The girls said, “It is well.”

Then A’ikren went home.

When A’ikren return for them, the girls felt like they’d only been there a single night. Yet, it had been an entire year. At first they did not want to leave, but the people told them, “You must go back. It is not yet time for you to come here. You had not died yet. Here, take some heavenly salmon backbone meat. Then nobody will die any more, when you bring it back with you. When a man dies, before he is buried, smear his mouth with the backbone meat of salmon.”

The girls brought the meat to the middle place. They smeared it around a man’s mouth, and he was resuscitated. For a time people did not die. Yet, after a while the heavenly salmon meat ran out and death returned.

The two girls are the ones who first said, “I do not care how bad one feels over his dead one; he will never die for that. When he gets sick, then he will die.” This is a saying of long ago: “One will not die, I do not care how bad he feels for his dead one. He will think that he is going to die, but he will not die.”

Source:

Karuk Indian Myths, John P. Harrington, 1932