Part 50 (1/2)

Hitchinna had become another kind of people. He had become a Putokya.

He was one of the skull people, a very bad terrible people. Each one of them is nothing but a skull.

Putokya is new now. He has a new mind, new wishes. He is under the tree, and lies there a little while. He cannot walk any more. He can only roll on the ground like a ball. After resting and thinking a while, he starts to find his wife; rolls till he comes to the fire.

There is no woman there. He looks around, cannot find her, looks again, and sees the baby. He rolls to the baby, catches it in his mouth, eats up the baby in one moment. The head talks then, and says,--

”I dreamed last night that I ate up my own son.”

He is dreadful now. He scatters the pine-cones, quenches the fire, rages, roars awfully, a real Putokya. He rolls, bounds, knocks against a tree, cuts it down, breaks it to pieces, scatters it.

Next he starts for the village, springing and bounding along like a football, making a terrible wind as he goes, reaches the house, looks through it. All are gone from the house and from the village. All have run off to Wamarawi.

First he knocks against his own house, breaks it, smashes it to pieces, and then he breaks all the other houses in the same way, one after another. He scatters and smashes up everything, wrecks the whole village, just as if a strong whirlwind had gone through it. The people are all in Wamarawi, in the stone cave in the mountain, a very great crowd of them.

Putokya looks around, finds tracks, follows the people southward, goes with a terrible roar, raising a storm as he moves. He breaks everything he strikes, except rocks. From these he bounds off like a football.

He follows the people of the village, follows on their tracks, stops before Wamarawi, rolls up to the entrance, listens quietly, hears a sound inside like the buzzing of bees. Putokya is glad. He stops a while and thinks what to do. ”You cannot go from me now,” says he.

All the people were inside except Metsi; he had gone north somewhere.

”I will break in the cave,” said Putokya.

He began at the west side, went back a whole mile, bounded, rushed, hurled himself at the mountain, whistled through the air with a noise like the loudest wind, struck the mountain, made a great hole in it, but could not go through to the cave. Putokya felt sure that he could break through. He went back a whole mile again from the north side, bounded, rushed forward, made a tremendous hole in the north side; but he could not go through, and the rock closed again.

The people inside are glad now; they are laughing, they think themselves safe,--jeer at Putokya. Putokya hears them. He is angrier than ever, he is raging. ”I will try the east side,” said he; ”that is better.”

He went back as before, bounded forward, made a deep hole in the east, but it closed again, and he left it. He tried the south. It was just like the other sides. Putokya stops a while, is afraid that he cannot get in, that he cannot get at the people.

”The Yana are not very wise,” said he. ”I should like to know who told them what to do. They did not know themselves. Who told them to go to Wamarawi?”

He tried to go to the top of the mountain and make a hole there. He could not roll up in any way. He fell back each time that he tried. He could travel on level ground only, he could only rise by bounding.

”I cannot go up there, I am not able,” said he.

He lay down close to the entrance of the cave and thought a while. He made up his mind to bound like a ball, to spring from point to point, higher and higher, on neighboring mountains, till he got very high, and then come down on the top of Wamarawi. He did this, went far up on the top of other and higher mountains till at last he was very high; then with a great bound he came down on the top of Wamarawi, came down with a terrible crash. He made an awfully big hole in it, bigger than all the four holes he had made in the sides put together; and this hole did not close, but it did not reach the cave.

After that blow he came again to level ground. He lay there and said to himself: ”I have tried five times to get at those people. I will try once more. I may get at them this time.”

He went high up in the sky, higher than before. He was angrier and madder than ever, and he came down with a louder crash; the whole mountain shook and trembled. No one inside the cave was laughing now; all the people were terrified.

Putokya went almost through to the cave. The rock above the people was very thin after this blow, and the hole did not close again.

”I will not try any more,” said Putokya; ”I cannot get at the people.”

He was discouraged, and left Wamarawi.

All the people within were in terror. ”If he tries once more, we are lost,” said they. ”He will burst through and eat us, eat every one of us.”

The great hole remained on that mountain top, and people say that there is a lake up there now with goldfish in it.

Putokya started north, went toward Pulshu Aina, his own village. As he went toward home, he made a great roaring and wind, cut down trees and brush, people, beasts, everything that he met; he left a clean road behind. He swept through Pulshu Aina, and went farther north, went almost to Jigulmatu.