United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"'Let your shamans work wonders the like of which I have done this night, I says. 'Let them call Killisnoo down out of the sky whither I have sent her. But the priests knew their limits. 'May your klooches bear you sons as the spawn of the salmon, I says, turning to go; 'and may your totem pole stand long in the land, and the smoke of your camp rise always.
You watch my smoke. "I pulled off my mittens, rolled back my sleeves, and made half-a-dozen passes in the air. "'Killisnoo! I shouts. 'Killisnoo! Killisnoo! "I was making medicine, and they began to scare. Every eye was on me; no time to find out that Tilly wasn't there. Then I called Killisnoo three times again, and waited; and three times more. All for mystery and to make them nervous.
Winter was on, stiff and crisp, and I was back to Juneau, when the word came. 'Come, the beggar says who brought the news. 'Killisnoo say, "Come now." 'What's the row? I asks. 'Chief George, says he. 'Potlach. Killisnoo, makum klooch.
Then got a sloop of my own, and not to cut him out, came down Juneau way. That's where I met Killisnoo; I called her Tilly for short. Met her at a squaw dance down on the beach. Chief George had finished the year's trade with the Sticks over the Passes, and was down from Dyea with half his tribe. No end of Siwashes at the dance, and I the only white.
"'Killisnoo what? I asked. "'Killisnoo, klooch, Chief George, they blathered. 'Killisnoo, klooch. "I jumped and looked at Chief George. He nodded his head and threw out his chest. "She'll be no klooch of yours, I says solemnly. 'No klooch of yours, I repeats, while his face went black and his hand began dropping to his hunting-knife. "'Look! I cries, striking an attitude. 'Big Medicine.
"Then I called Killisnoo, long and soft like the howl of a wolf, till the women were all a-tremble and the bucks looking serious. "'Look! I sprang for'ard, pointing my finger into a bunch of squaws easier to deceive women than men, you know. 'Look! And I raised it aloft as though following the flight of a bird.
It was rich, but I made it richer by playing unbeknowing. "'What's the row? I asks. 'Who's getting married now? "'Chief George, the shaman says, ducking his reverence to him. "'Thought he had two klooches. "'Him takum more, three, with another duck. "'Oh! And I turned away as though it didn't interest me. "But this wouldn't do, and everybody begins singing out, 'Killisnoo! Killisnoo!
At 12.45 p. m. we were off, but we left one of the merriest and most popular of our voyagers behind us. He remained at Killisnoo in charge of the place. As we swam off into the sweet sea reaches, the poor fellow ran over the ridge of his little island, looking quite like a castaway, and no doubt feeling like one.
Once in awhile some one or another took a shot at them and missed. Thus the time passed at Casa-an. One magnifies the merest episode on the Alaskan voyage, and is grateful for it. Killisnoo is situated in a cosy little cove. It is a rambling village that climbs over the rocks and narrowly escapes being pretty, but it manages to escape.
This village was an offshoot of a larger one, ten miles to the north, called Killisnoo. Under the prevailing patriarchal form of government each tribe is divided into comparatively few families; and because of quarrels, the chief of this branch moved his people to this little bay, where the beach offered a good landing for canoes.
Word Of The Day