a yurok idyll

(mrs. oregon jim, from the house erkigér-i or “hair-ties” in the town of pékwan, speaking): you want to know why old louisa and i never notice each other? well, i’ll tell you why. i wouldn’t speak to that old woman to save her life. there is a quarrel between her and me, and between her people and my people.

the thing started, so far as i know, with the bastard son of a woman from that big old house in wáhsek that stands crossways—the one they call wáhsek-héthlqau. they call it that, of course, because it is behind the others. it kind of sets back from the river. this woman lived with several different men; first with a young fellow from the house next door, and then, when she left him, with a strolling fellow from smith river. when she left him for a húpa, they all began to call her kímolin, “dirty.” not one of these men had paid a cent for her, although she came of good people. she lived around in different places. two of her children died, but a third one grew up at the presbyterian mission.

he had even less sense than the presbyterians have. he came down to kepél one time, when the people there were making the fish dam. it was the last day of the work on the dam. the dam was being finished, that day. that’s the time nobody can get mad. nobody can take offense at anything. this boy heard people calling each other bad names. they were having a dance. the time of that dance is different from all other times. people say the worst things! it sounds funny to hear the people say, for example, to old kímorets, “well, old one-eye! you are the best dancer.” they think of the worst things to say! a fellow even said to mrs. poker bob, “how is your grandmother?”; when mrs. poker bob’s grandmother was already dead. it makes your blood run cold to hear such things, even though you know it’s in fun.

this young fellow i am telling you about, whom they called fred williams, and whose indian name was s?r, came down from the 290 mission school to see the fish-dam dance at kepél. he was dressed up. he went around showing off. he wore a straw hat with a ribbon around it. he stood around watching the dance. between the songs, he heard what people were saying to each other. he heard them saying all sorts of improper things. he thought that was smart talk. he thought he would try it when he got a chance. the next day, he went down by the river and saw tuley-creek jim getting ready his nets. “get your other hand cut off,” he said. “then you can fish with your feet!” two or three people who were standing by, heard him. tuley-creek jim is pretty mean. they call him “coyote.” he looked funny. he stood there. he didn’t know what to say.

young andrew, who was there, whose mother was from the house called “down-river house” in qóvtep, was afraid for his life. he was just pushing off his boat. he let go of the rope. the boat drifted off. he was afraid to pull it back. he went up to the house. “something happened,” he told the people there. “i wish i was somewhere else. there is going to be trouble along this klamath river.”

the talk soon went around that coyote-jim was claiming some money. it was told us that he was going to make the boy’s mother’s father pay fifteen dollars. “that’s my price,” he said. “i won’t do anything to the boy, for he isn’t worth it. nobody paid for his mother. also, i won’t charge him much. but his mother’s people are well-to-do, and they will have to pay this amount that i name. otherwise, i will be mad.” as a matter of fact, he was afraid to do anything, for he, himself, was afraid of the soldiers at húpa. he just made big talk. besides, what he wanted was a headband ornamented with whole woodpecker heads, that the boy’s grandfather owned. he thought he could make the old man give it up, on account of what his grandson had said.

the boy went around, hollering to everybody. “i don’t have to pay,” he said. “i heard everybody saying things like that! how did i know that they only did it during that one day? besides, look at me! look at my shirt. look at my pants.” he showed them his straw hat. “look at my hat! i am just like a white man. i can say anything i please. i don’t have to care what i say.”

every day somebody came along the river, telling us the news. 291 there was a big quarrel going on. i was camped at that time, with my daughter, above metá, picking acorns. all the acorns were bad that year—little, and twisted, and wormy. even the worms were little and kind of shriveled that year. that place above metá was the only place where the acorns were good. lots of people were camped there. some paid for gathering acorns there. my aunt had married into a house at metá, the house they call wóogi, “in-the-middle-house,” so i didn’t have to pay anything. people used to come up from the river to where we acorn pickers were camped, to talk about the news. they told us the boy’s mother’s people were trying to make some people at smith river pay. “he’s the son of one of their men,” the old grandfather said. “they’ve got to pay for the words he spoke. i don’t have to pay.” the thing dragged on. three weeks later they told us the old man wouldn’t pay yet.

somebody died at the old man’s house that fall. the people were getting ready to have a funeral. the graveyard for that house called héthlqau, in wáhsek, is just outside the house door. they went into that k?methl, in that corpse-place, what you whites call a cemetery. they dug a hole and had it ready. they were singing “crying-songs” in that house where the person had died.

tuley-creek jim’s brother-in-law was traveling down the river in a canoe. when he got to wáhsek he heard “crying-songs.” “somebody has died up there,” they told him. “we better stop! no use trying to go by. we better go ashore till the burial is over.” tuley-creek jim’s brother-in-law did not want to stop. “they owe some money to my wife’s brother,” he said. “one of their people said something to jim. they don’t pay up. why should i go ashore?” so they all paddled down to the landing-place. they started to go past, going down river. a young fellow at the landing-place grabbed their canoe. “you got to land here,” he said. “my aunt’s people are having a funeral. it ain’t right for anybody to go by in a canoe.” the people in the canoe began to get mad. they pushed on the bottom with their paddles. the canoe swung around. coyote-jim’s brother-in-law stood up. he was pretty mad. they had got his shirt wet. he waved his paddle around. he hollered. he got excited.

one of the men on the bank was billy brooks, from the mouth of the river. “hey! you fellow-living-with-a-woman-you-haven’t-paid-for!” 292 he said to billy brooks, “make these fellows let go of my canoe.”

billy was surprised. he hadn’t been holding the canoe. and anyway, he did not expect to be addressed that way. “l?s-son” is what he had heard addressed to him. that means “half-married, or improperly married, to a woman in the house by the trail.” brooks had had no money to pay for a wife, so he went to live with his woman instead of taking her home to him. that is what we call being half-married. everybody called billy that way, behind his back. “half-married-into-the-house-by-the-trail” was his name.

when billy got over being surprised at this form of address, he got mad. he pointed at the fellow in the canoe. he swore the worst way a person can swear. what he said was awful. he pointed at him. he was mad clear through. he didn’t care what he said. “your deceased relatives,” is what he said to coyote-jim’s brother-in-law, in the canoe. he said it right out loud. he pointed at the canoe. that’s the time he said “your deceased relatives.” “all your deceased relatives,” he said to those in the canoe.

coyote-jim’s brother-in-law sat down in the canoe. nobody tried to stop the canoe after that. the canoe went down river. billy brooks went up to the house. he waited. after a while the people there buried that person who was dead, and the funeral was over. “i’ve got to pay money,” billy brooks said to them then. “i got mad and swore something terrible at coyote-jim’s brother-in-law. that was on account of you people. if you had paid what you owed to coyote-jim, coyote-jim’s brother-in-law wouldn’t have gone past your house while you were crying, and you wouldn’t have held his canoe, and he wouldn’t have addressed me as he did, and i wouldn’t have said what i did. moreover, wóhkel dave was in the canoe, and when i said that which i said, it applied to him, too. i feel terrible mean about what i said. i’ve got to have trouble with both those men. there were others in the canoe, too, but they are poor people, and don’t amount to anything. but dave is a rich man. now all this trouble is on your account, and you’ve got to pay me two dollars and a half.”

the old man at wáhsek was in trouble. “first my mouse says to coyote-jim what should not in any case have been said,” the old 293 man complained. (we call illegitimate children “mice,” because they eat, and stay around, and nobody has paid for them.) “now on account of what my mouse said, all this other trouble has happened.”

everybody was talking about the quarrel now. that is the time they left off talking about the old man’s troubles, and began talking about what billy brooks said to the coyote’s brother-in-law in the canoe, and to wóhkel dave. it finally came out that the fellow who was steering the canoe, and who called billy brooks “l?s-son,” was out of the quarrel. his deceased relatives had been referred to, but, on the other hand, his father had only paid twenty-five dollars for his mother, so nobody cared much about him. he talked around but nobody paid any attention, so he decided that he had better keep still about it, and maybe people would forget that he had been insulted.

wóhkel dave, however, was a man of importance. his people were married into all the best houses up and down the river. everybody was wondering what he and brooks would do. billy brooks was kind of a mean man himself. he had a bad reputation. one time he even made a white man pay up for something he did. the white man took a woman from brooks’ people to live with him. brooks looked him up, and made him pay for her. everybody was afraid of brooks. some people said, “brooks won’t pay. he’s too mean. he’s not afraid. he’d rather fight it out.” other people said, “that’s all right, as far as ordinary people are concerned. wóhkel dave, though, is not ordinary. his father paid a big price for his mother. she had one of the most stylish weddings along the river. dave won’t let anybody get the best of him.” people used to argue that way. some said one thing, and some said another. they used to almost quarrel about it.

suddenly news came down the river that billy brooks was going to pay up for what he said. some one came along and told us that billy was going to pay. “he offered twenty-five dollars,” this fellow said. the next day we heard that dave wouldn’t take it. he wanted forty dollars. they argued back and forth. it was february before they got it settled. billy had to pay twenty dollars in money, a shot-gun made out of an army musket, bored out, and294 a string of shell money, not a very good one. the shells were pretty small, but the string was long—reaching from the chest bone to the end of the fingers.

the next thing that happened is what involved me and old louisa. it came about because billy didn’t have twenty dollars in cash. he had to get hold of the twenty dollars. about that time, certain indians stole some horses. they were not people from our tribe. they were chilula from bald hills, or people from over in that direction somewhere. those people were awful poor. they couldn’t pay for a woman. they couldn’t pay for anything. they had to marry each other. in the springtime they got pretty wild. they were likely to do things. this time they took some horses from a white man. this white man complained to the agent at húpa. so some soldiers from húpa went out to chase these indians. billy brooks was a great hunter. he has been all over everywhere, hunting and trapping. the soldiers needed a guide. they offered billy twenty-five dollars to serve as a “scout” for the government, to chase these indians. so billy, because he had to have twenty dollars, went as a scout, that time.

the soldiers went to redwood creek. billy brooks went along. there was a sergeant and six men, they say. two of the men went to that indian town six miles above the mouth of redwood creek, the name of which is otlép. that town belongs to the chilula. these two soldiers went there, looking for the men who stole the horses. there was trouble after a while at that place. the soldiers got into a quarrel with the indians.

the trouble was about a woman. one of the soldiers wanted her, but the woman would not go with him. she did not feel like it. i don’t know exactly what happened, but the soldier insisted, and the woman insisted, and finally her relatives told the soldier that if the woman didn’t want to, she didn’t have to. there was a fight that time. there was a tussel about the soldier’s revolver. somebody got hit over the head with it. the front sight was sharp. that soldier had filed down the sight on his revolver, to make it fine. that sight dug into a man’s face, and cut it open, from his jaw bone up to his eye.

there was big trouble there that time, they say. everybody got to hollering. that woman had a bad temper. she hit a soldier 295 with a rock. she broke his head open. the man whose face was cut open went for his gun. he couldn’t see very well. he didn’t get the percussion cap on properly. he tried to shoot the soldier, but the gun wouldn’t go off. the cap had dropped off the nipple. the soldier saw the indian aiming the gun at him, so he fired at the indian. there was blood in the soldier’s eyes, for the woman had cut his head open with a rock. so he missed the indian who was aiming at him, but he hit old louisa’s nephew, jim williams. the bullet went through his thigh. two years passed before jim williams could walk straight after that.

now that is the trouble between old louisa and me. her nephew was hurt, and she blames billy brooks, because billy brooks was with the soldiers, helping them, the time this happened. billy would never “pay up” for this. one time it was reported that he was going to pay, but he never did.

now billy is a relative of mine by marriage. his sister married my father’s brother’s oldest boy. that old woman, whose nephew was shot, doesn’t like me, because i am a relative of billy who guided the soldiers.

one time she played me a dirty trick. my nephew was fishing with a gill-net on the river here. the game warden made a complaint and had him arrested, for he had one end of his net fast to the bank. that old woman, that old louisa, went to eureka and told the judge there, that one end of the net was fast to the bank. they say she got money for doing that. somebody said she got two dollars a day. my nephew was put in jail for sixty days. i am not saying anything to that old woman, but i am keeping a watch on her. if anybody talks to her, then i have nothing to do with them.

one time a white man from down below came along this river, asking about baskets. he wanted to know the name of everything. he was kind of crazy, that fellow. they used to call him “h?pó’o,” or “basket-designs.” he was always asking, “what does that mean?” or “what is the name of that?” he wanted to know all about baskets. he talked to old louisa for a day and a half about her baskets. then he came through the fence to my house. i wouldn’t say a word to him, and he went away. my friends won’t talk to louisa, or her friends. it will be that way forever.

it all goes back to that boy s?r. if he had not talked about 296 tuley-creek jim having only one hand, jim’s brother-in-law would not have paddled past a house where there was a person lying dead, and his canoe would not have been seized, and there would have been no quarrel about the canoe, and billy brooks would not have sworn at anybody, so he would not have had to pay money, and he would not have hired out as a scout to the government, and the fellow in redwood creek would not have been shot, and old louisa would not have testified about my nephew. to make people pay is all right. that is what always happens when there is a quarrel. but to put my nephew in jail is not right.

i’ll never speak to that old lady again, and neither will any of my people.

t. t. waterman