this place the brothers went to the Nicola valley, where they heard there dwelt a quarrelsome tribe of people, who were always at war with their neighbours and never gave them any peace. As Benign-face drew near the valley, the people heard of his approach, and fearing that he would work them harm, they one and all left their homes and fled up the mountain side. But they could not escape their punishment thus. When Benign-face saw them running up the mountain side, he straightway turned them all into little rocks, which may be seen from the waggon-road as one passes today.
Leaving the Nicola, they travelled back towards the Thompson again, and on their way they came to the land of a very strong and powerful people. This tribe was very rich and possessed the best of everything; but they were fierce and cruel, and made slaves of all the people around. When they neared the outskirts of the village, Benign-face bade his brothers cut a bundle of osiers and make a large basket and put him into it, finishing the mouth of it about him in such a way that he could not fall out. While they were doing this, he made some white and red paint, and when he was presently placed in the basket he took some of each kind in either hand. He now told Funny-boy to put the basket on his shoulders and carry him towards the village. As they thus proceeded a large eagle swooped down and caught the basket containing Benign-face in his talons. He had expected this, and told his brother to let go and allow the eagle to carry him off. This eagle was not a mere bird. It possessed the power of foreknowledge to some extent. It knew that Benign-face was coming to punish the people of the village, to whom it was in some way related. Benign-face knew also that this eagle was aware of his purpose and would attempt to thwart him; hence his instructions to his brothers and his preparation of the paint, by the aid of which he hoped to outwit the eagle. When Funny-boy felt the strain on the basket he let go, as his brother desired, and the eagle bore Benign-face off in it. When it had ascended a little way, it let the basket drop. It repeated this manoeuvre several times, intending thereby to kill Benign-face. The latter, when the eagle had dropped him a time or two, put the red paint in one side of his mouth and the white in the other, and, the saliva mixing with and liquifying it, the paint began to flow from the corners of his mouth. The eagle, perceiving this, thought it to be his blood and brains oozing from his mouth, and, thinking that he was killed, straightway carried him off to its nest on the mountain to its two young ones. Leaving him thus in the nest, it flew away again. As soon as it was out of sight, Benign-face cut two holes in the basket for his arms, and, putting his hands through, he seized an eaglet by the legs in each, and forced them to fly off with him to where his two brothers were awaiting him. Still holding the birds by their legs, he bade his brothers cut the basket from him; and when he was free, he shook the two eaglets so hard that all their bones fell out, leaving the empty skins in his hands. These he made his brothers put on, telling them they would be quite safe in them. He himself then assumed the form of a dog, only where the tail should have been he stuck a long and sharp double-bladed jade knife; and in the place of the ears he stuck two similar but smaller knives; and where the dog’s foreclaws would be he stuck other still smaller ones. Being thus prepared for the encounters he knew awaited him, he boldly entered the village.
Now the animals of this country were different from those elsewhere; they all partook of the nature of dogs, and were employed as such by the people. There were bear-dogs, grizzly-dogs, wolf-dogs, rattlesnake-dogs, and all other kinds of dogs. As soon as Benign-face in his dog form was perceived someone cried out: “Here’s a strange dog, let us have a dog-fight.” One of the smaller dogs was turned loose and set on to worry the stranger. But Benign-face ran at it, and ripped it up with his sharp stone ears in a trice. Then another, and another, sprang at him; but he served them all in the same way, and presently there was only the rattlesnake-dog left. This he had to fight in a different manner. Instead of rushing at it, as he had at all the others, he began dancing round it and pawing the ground, as if in play. These antics put the rattlesnake-dog off his guard; and he did not attempt to strike the intruder at the first approach, but waited for him to come nearer. This was what Benign-face wanted, and, stretching out his fore-paws as if in play, he seized his opportunity, and cut the rattlesnake in pieces with his stone claws. When the people saw that the intruder had killed all their dogs, they hastened to fetch their weapons to kill him. But Benign-face rushed at them, and slashed and cut them with his sharp two-bladed tail so swiftly that in a short time not a man, woman, or child of them remained alive. He now resumed his own form, and restored all the animals to life again, but took from them their dog-nature, giving them the natures proper to their kind, and bade them go live in the woods. He next restored the people to life, but, after he had reproached them for their wickedness, transformed them all into ants. The two brothers now joined him, having thrown aside their eaglet-skins; and from this place they travelled down to Harrison Lake.
Here they heard of a man who caused wind-storms to arise at his wish, so that those who were on the lake were never sure of getting back safe again. He did this to upset their boats, in order that his cannibal brother, Seal-man, might have their bodies for his dinner. Seeking this man out, Benign-face said to him: “I am told you are a very great man, and have medicine to make the wind rise when you wish to. Is the report true?” The shaman, not knowing who his questioner was, and proud of his powers, declared it was quite true. When asked what use he put his powers to, he boldly confessed that he used them to upset and drown people on the lake, that his brother might have their bodies. This made Benign-face very angry, and, calling Seal-man to him, he deprived him of his arms and legs, giving him flippers in their stead, and commanded him to eat no more human flesh, but to feed thereafter on fish. Thus it is that the seal has flippers, and feeds on fish. But the shaman he punished by transforming him into a smooth-faced rock, whereon men might paint, which rock may be seen on the shore of the lake, according to Mischelle, with its painted figures upon it, to this day.
Ascending the Fraser once more, they came to the region of the Lillooet. On Bridge River Benign-face found the people very poor and miserable. They did not know how to catch the salmon which passed up the river. So Benign-face stretched his leg across the river here, and the rocks rose up and became a fall, at the foot of which the salmon now congregated in great numbers. He then taught the people to make and use three different types of salmon spear, which they use to this day in that region. The name of this fall in the native tongue is Neqoistem.
At this point in the recital Mischelle’s memory gave out. He could only remember beyond this that the hero and his brothers parted later, and that Benign-face travelled all over the world, and that in one place, which the Indians now think must have been the white man’s country, he taught the people how to make and use the plough and the waggon. He transformed himself into these two latter objects, that they might have a pattern to work by. For the waggon he made wheels by turning his arms and legs into circles, with his body between them, thus assuming the form of a waggon. He also taught them to make and use gun-powder; only this powder made no noise nor any smoke in going off. The gun was formed out of the stalk of the sugar-corn. It was not aimed at the object, as we aim the gun, but thrust out towards it, though it never left the hand.
This story is the longest in my collection. I have not attempted to curtail it, but have given it in all its detail as Mischelle gave it to me. Others will be found in the Report of the Committee for the Ethnological Survey of Canada, together with other data appertaining to the work of that Committee [see below] .8
1 Reprinted, with acknowledgement, from Folk-lore 10 (June 1899) pp. 195-216. “To those familiar with Dr. G. M. Dawson’s ‘Notes on the Shuswap’ it will be seen at once that Sqaktktquaclt of the Thompson and Skilap of the Shuswaps are one and the same person, only in the case of the former we have an abundance of detail which is wanting in Dr. Dawson’s account of the latter. In the spelling of native words I have followed the phonetics of Dr. Boas as used in his Reports on the N.W. Tribes of Canada” - Hill-Tout. These spellings have here been normalized: all the letters of a word have been used, but none of the phonetic markings.
2 “In the mythological stories all animals were originally human. Their present bestial natures were imposed upon them by some hero or other of the old time, for some misdeed or by the enchantment of some wizard. Do we not see in this belief the explanation of their totemic systems and crests?” - Hill-Tout.
