Olelbis

“ Olelbis disposes of the first people, except in a few cases, and he retains with himself whomsoever he likes. He sends to the earth and transforms those whom he thinks more useful below than above, and gives the example of a single ruling divinity which, without being all-powerful or all-wise, is able, through the knowledge and services of others, to bear rule over the world in all places and everywhere. ”

“ No man will have a wife, no woman a husband. They will be to one another as brothers and sisters. That is what Olelbis wishes, and because he wishes it he has sent us to make this road. When the road is built to Olelpanti, where Olelbis lives, these trees around here, which are small now, will be large. They will grow up and be very tall. They will have no limbs except those near the top, where branches will run out. On those branches acorns will come, and the acorns will have no shells on them. They will be all ready and fit to eat. ”

“ Olelbis went along tanning the skin of the black cloud, and he walked around everywhere as he tanned. He went away west, then north, then south, then east. At last he came home with the skin well tanned. He spread it and stretched it smooth. The two Katkatchila brothers had not been able yet to catch another of the cloud people, but they were working at it all the time. After Olelbis spread the skin on the ground, he took it up and said to one of the old women,—
“My grandmother is always cold; let us give [Pg 41] her this skin;” ”

“ There is a place in the east which is all fire. When you reach that place, go in and warm yourself. Go to Olelpanti now. Olelbis, your father, lives there. He will tell you where to go.”
Sas went to Olelpanti, where he found a wonderful and very big sweat-house. It was toward morning, and Olelbis was lying down, covered with a blanket. While sleeping he heard a noise, and when he woke he saw some one near him. He knew who it was. Sas turned to him and said,—
“My father, I am split. I thought myself the strongest person in the world, but I was not. Tulchuherris is the strongest.” ”

“ The two looked along the ridge toward the south—it was before sunrise then—and they saw [Pg 37] a person come a little way in sight, then turn and go back. He did not come nearer because he saw Olelbis. The cloud people are very timid; they can see a long distance, and have a very keen scent. When he saw Olelbis, this one ran away home.
“My brother,” said Katkatchila to Olelbis, “we have been watching here to drive back these cloud people. We have watched night and day, I and my little brother. My brother is near the eastern slope of this ridge which runs north and south ”

“ All people that were good on this earth only, of use only here, Olelbis sent down to be beasts, birds, and other creatures. The powerful and great people that were good in Olelpanti and useful there he kept with himself, and sent only a feather or a part of each to become something useful down here. The good people themselves, the great ones, stayed above, where they are with Olelbis now.
[Pg 51]
OLELBIS AND MEM LOIMIS
One character in this myth is of great importance in actual Indian belief, the Hlahi or doctor, the sorcerer. ”

“ The little basket in Olelbis’s house that the one drop filled stood there, and Olelbis said,—
“Now you are dry, all you people in this sweat-house. You are thirsty, you are anxious for water. Here is one drop of water. We do not know who will drink first; but there is an old man on the west side of the sweat-house crying all the time, crying night and day, for water. Let him come and look at it.” He meant Hubit. ”

“ Both names are epithets, and the Wintus have forgotten who or what their chief divinity is; at least I have not been able to find a man among them who could give information on this subject. Olelbis lives in the highest part of the sky; with him are the best of the first people. From his beautiful house, Olelpanti Hlut, he sees everything on earth, and seems more real and familiar than any divinity connected with other tribes. He is certainly more effective in management, more active than any divinity of other Indian stocks, so far as I know. ”

“ They took seeds of clover growing [Pg 34] around the sweat-house in Olelpanti and scattered them; clover grew up in every place. Olelbis threw down all kinds of flower seeds from the flowers blossoming in Olelpanti.
A little way east of Olelbis’s sweat-house lived Sedit. At the time of the fire he ran through under the sky in the south and went up on the sky to Olelpanti. He stayed there with Olelbis until the fire and water stopped. Then he went east a short distance, and made a house for himself. During the great water Sedit caught Wokwuk, and afterward built a house near his own for him. ”

“ When Klabus had covered all the rocks with good earth, Olelbis told him to rest.
“Go west and tell Yilahl to help you,” said Olelbis to Klabus the next morning, after he had rested. “Tell him to work with you, fixing the earth which you have thrown down. Go, both of you; make mountains, hills, and level country; arrange everything.”
No fire was visible anywhere; every bit had been quenched by the flood which came in after Lutchi propped up the sky. Yilahl came out into this world below from under the edge of the sky in the west, and Klabus came out from under it in the east. ”

“ All who were in Olelpanti at that time went into the sweat-house, where they talked five nights and five days. On the sixth morning Olelbis called the two Hus brothers and said,—
“I have a great work for you. Go down to Tsarauheril, where the first tree is. Right there a people will come up out of the earth, and they will come soon. A little above that place, you two [Pg 164] brothers must go to work and make a stone road from the earth up here to Olelpanti. You will find stones and pile them firmly. Make the building very strong. The road itself will be like steps, one higher than another. ”

“ Yilahl made the small hills and fixed the rolling country. Klabus raised the great mountains and mountain ranges. There was nothing but earth and rock yet; no people at work only these two, Klabus and Yilahl.
Olelbis stood watching and looking; he looked five days, found no fire in any place. Next day he saw a little smoke in the southwest coming straight up as if through a small opening. Olelbis had a Winishuyat on his head tied in his hair, and the Winishuyat said to him,—
“My brother, look; there is a little fire away down south; a woman there has fire in a small basket.” ”

“ Grow all the time! Be deep so that I can float and float on, float all my life.”
Olelbis was watching everything closely. Sosini Herit was coming. He held a bow and arrows in one hand and swam with the other. He was next behind old Yoholmit.
“Look at my brother, Sosini, look at him swimming,” said Olelbis. When mountains of water were coming near swiftly, Olelbis said to the two old women, “Go into the sweat-house.” The two brothers, Kuntihle and Tede Wiu, went in also. Olelbis stood ready to use his sling. When Yoholmit was coming near, he hurled a stone at her. He did not hit her. ”

“ The great people, the best ones, you will keep in Olelpanti, and send down only a little part of each of them to turn into something in the world below and be of use to people there.”
Olelbis called all who were in the sweat-house to come out, and he began to send them to their places. ”

“ All that ground below us is bare; there is nothing on it. What can we do for it?”
“My grandson, in a place southeast of this is a house in which people live. The place is called Hlihli Pui Hlutton [acorn eastern sweat-house place] . An old man lives there. Send Tsurat to bring that old man to us.”
“I will,” said Olelbis; and he sent Tsurat, who brought Hlihli Kiemila, who had lived all his life in that eastern sweat-house. When Olelbis looked at the old man, he said to Tsurat: “Go to the world beneath us with Hlihli. Carry him all over it,—north, south, east, and west.” ”

“ The old man who said this was Hubit. He was suffering from thirst so much that he had tied a belt of sinews around his waist and tightened it till he was nearly cut in two.
Olelbis went to the top of the sweat-house and spoke to all the people.
“We must send for this Hlahi,” said he. “Let him come here to sing and bring water back to us. Some of you young men who walk fast must go for him to-morrow.”
That night they talked about the person who should go. One said to a second, “You walk fast; you ought to go.”
“I do not,” said the second; “but you walk fast. You are the person to go.” ”

“ The people in and around Olelpanti talked a great deal about Mem Loimis.
“I don’t know how we are to live now,” said Toko Kiemila to Olelbis. “Some one has taken your wife away. I cannot live without water much longer.”
Another man who lay inside the sweat-house at the west end, an old man, stood up and said,—
“I do not know what people are to do without water. I do not know how you, Olelbis, are to [Pg 53] live without it. I cannot live unless I have water. I am very dry. Why do you not try to get water again? There is a man in Hlihli Pui Hlutton whose name is Kopus. ”

“ All bald eagles on earth came from that feather, but the great Moihas remained above with Olelbis, where he is now.
From Lutchi Olelbis plucked one feather, threw it down, and said: “You will be a humming-bird. Fly around in spring when the green grass comes and the trees and flowers bloom. You will be on blossoms and dart from one to another everywhere.” Lutchi himself stayed in Olelpanti. ”

“ The great Kau stayed in Olelpanti with Olelbis.
From the elder Hus brother Olelbis plucked a feather from the right side, sent the feather down on this earth, and said,—
“You be a buzzard down there, and in spring go up on Wini Mem and look for dead salmon and other fish along Pui Mem, Bohema Mem, and other rivers, eat dead salmon and other fish. When people kill a snake or something else which they do not like, you will go and eat the snake or other dead thing. The Wintu, the coming people, will feed you always with what is dead.” ”

“ Now Olelbis called Lutchi and Sutunut, and said: “You, Lutchi, go north, pry up the sky and prop it; here is a sky pole and a sky prop.” Turning to Sutunut, he plucked a feather from each of his wings and said: “Go to Kahit in Waiken Pom Pui Humok Pom; tell him to come south with Mem Loimis. She lives not far from him. Her house is in the ground. And tell him to blow his whistle with all his breath. Put these two feathers on his cheeks just in front of his ears.”
Lutchi went quickly. No one could travel as fast as he. He reached the sky on the north, raised and propped it. ”

“ When each has enough, let him stand aside,” said Olelbis.
Tsararok drank, and then Kuntihle drank; then Hus and Tsurat; after them the old women, Pakchuso Pokaila, the grandmothers of Olelbis, drank; then Toko; then Kopus drank. But the people murmured, saying,—
“Kopus is no Hlahi; he ought not to have any of our water. He is only good for acorns.”
[Pg 65] The two Tsudi girls, who had sung so long, drank very heartily.
Lutchi lived outside, east of the sweat-house; they called him to drink. He took one sip and went out. Lutchi never liked water. ”

“ This house will last forever, and these flowers will bloom forever; the roots from which they grow can never die.”
The world fire began on the morning after the sweat-house was finished. During the fire they could see nothing of the world below but flames and smoke. Olelbis did not like this.
“Grandson,” said the old women, “we will tell you what to do to put out that terrible wakpohas. There is a very old man, Kahit Kiemila, and he lives far north toward the east, outside the first sky. He stays there in one little place; he is all alone, and always in the same place. ”

“ The two old women, the grandmothers, are interesting persons, counsellors of the chief divinity, rainmakers, wise with a knowledge of people of whom Olelbis is ignorant, at least professedly. These old women have been turned into a stone which has a spongy appearance and looks like the inside or porous portion of bones which are without marrow. ”

“ Olelbis says that a new people will come on this earth soon, that they will live and go around, and after a while they will grow old. When very old, they will come to this road to go to Olelpanti and be young again. ”

“ Olelbis was looking down from Olelpanti at this moment, and said to the old women, “My [Pg 6] grandmothers, I see many people collected on earth; they are going to do something.”
Katkatchila sat down and looked on. Soon all the people stopped dancing and went to their houses. Torihas had food brought to Katkatchila after his journey. While he was eating, Torihas said to him,—
“My grandson, I and all my people have lived here very long. My people want to dance and hunt. I sent one of them to ask you to come up here. They will dance to-night and go hunting to-morrow.” ”

“ On this earth there was no river, no creek, no water in any place but that water at Tsarau Heril. This was the morning after Mem Loimis had gone home.
Now a person came from the east to Olelpanti, Klabus Herit. “My uncle,” said Olelbis to Klabus, “I am looking all over the world below, but can see nothing on it. Do you know any place beyond the sky on the north, south, east, or west, where there is earth? ”

“ Olvir stood silent for a while, tapping the jewelled hilt of Al-hatif. Then he answered deliberately: "I have weighed well your words, sire, and now wish to remain your liegeman. Already I knew you a world-hero; you have proved yourself yet more,--a king who seeks first the welfare of his people. Yet do not mistake me, lord king. Though, in the eyes of men, your task and the ruthless harrying by your foe may justify that bloody deed, I still hold that nowhere can you find justification in the words of the White Christ. ”