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 brot............