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Legends

People Brought in a Basket

Kumush, Old Man of the Ancients, went down with his daughter to the underground world of the spirits. It was a beautiful world, reached by one long, steep road. In it were many spirits -- as many as all the stars in the sky and all the hairs on all the animals in the world.

When night came, the spirits gathered in a great plain to sing and dance. When daylight came, they returned to their places in the house, lay down, and became dry bones.

After six days and six nights in the land of the spirits, Kumush longed for the sun. He decided to return to the upper world and to take some of the spirits with him to people his world.

With a big basket in hand, he went through the house of the spirits and chose the bones he wished to take. Some bones he thought would be good for one tribe of people, others for another.

When he had filled his basket, Kumush strapped it to his back and together with his daughter started up the steep road to the upper world. Near the top he slipped and stumbled, and the basket fell to the ground. At once the bones became spirits again. Shouting and singing, they ran back to their house in the spirit world, lay down, and became dry bones.

A second time Kumush filled his basket with bones and started toward the upper world. A second time he slipped, and the spirits, shouting and singing, returned to the underground world. A third time he filled his basket with bones. This time he spoke to them angrily. "You just think you want to stay here. When you see my land, a land where the sun shines, you'll never want to come back to this place. There are no people up there, and I know I'll get lonesome again."

A third time Kumush and his daughter started up the steep and slippery road with the basket. When he came near the edge of the upper world, he threw the basket ahead of him, onto level ground. "Indian bones!" he called out.

Then he uncovered the basket and selected the bones for the kinds of Indians he wanted in certain places. As he threw them, he named them. "You shall be the Shastas," he said to the bones he threw westward. "You shall be brave warriors."

"You also shall be brave warriors," he said to the Pit River Indians and the Warm Springs Indians.

To the bones he threw a short distance northward, he said, "You shall be the Klamath Indians. You'll be as easy to frighten as women are. You won't be good warriors."

Last of all he threw the bones which became the Modoc Indians. To them he said,"You will be the bravest of all. You will be my chosen people. Though you'll be a small tribe  and though your enemies are many, you will kill all who come against you. You will keep my place when I have gone. I, Kumush, have spoken."

To all the people created from the bones of the spirits, Kumush said, "You must send certain men to the mountains. There they must ask to be made brave or to be made wise. There, if they ask for it, they will be given the power to help themselves and to help all of you."

Then Kumush named the different kinds of fish and beasts that the people should eat. As he spoke their names, they appeared in the rivers and lakes, on the plains and in the forests. He named the roots and the berries and the plants that the people should eat. He thought, and they appeared.

He divided the work of the people by making this law: "Men shall fish and hunt and fight. Women shall get wood and water, gather berries and dig roots, and cook for their families. This is my law."

So Kumush finished the upper world and his work in it. Then with his daughter, he went to the place where the sun rises, at the eastern edge of the world. He travelled along the sun's road until he reached the middle of the sky. There he built a house for himself and his daughter. There they live even today.
 
 

* Reported by Ella Clark in 1953