SHUSWAP PEOPLE OF BEITISH COLUMBIA. 33 



The badger was also in this early time a formidable monster, and had its lodge stored 

 with dead men, collected for food. Kwil-ï-elt' caught the badger, and striking him on 

 the head said, " Hereafter you will be nothing but a common badger, able only to fight 

 with dogs when they attack you." He further brought to life again all the people whom 

 he found dead. 



When Kwil-i-elt' and his two friends had travelled some way up the Fraser valley, 

 though I was unable to learn how far, they saw four women dancing together on a high 

 rock. These women were also witches, and Kwil-I-elt' proposed to deal with them as he had 

 the others, but his companions persuaded him to watch them dancing for a time, as 

 they were very fine-looking women. Kwil-ï-elt' sat down for this purpose, but no sooner 

 had he done so than he was turned to stone, for the magic power of the women was 

 greater than his. Next his two friends were likewise changed to stone, and the three 

 rocks stand at the place yet. Such was the end of Kwil-ï-elt' and his friends. 



It is probable that each subdivision of the Shuswap people attach these stories to dif- 

 ferent localities, or that some of them at least are assigned to varying localities. As 

 related above, the localities are those given by the Kamloops Indians. The Indians living 

 at Lytton appear to place the story of the attempt of Klë-sa and Took-im-in-ësl' on Kwil-ï- 

 elf's life at the Big Slide, between Spence's Bridge and Nicoamen. At least a very sim- 

 ilar story is told of this place, and the impression of a human form of gigantic size is 

 pointed out on the cliff on the opposite or west side of the Thompson, as that made at the 

 time when the slide came down. Another informant placed the site of this encounter 

 near the mouth of Hat Creek, on the Bonaparte. 



On the trail which leads from Kamloops toward Trout Lake (P'ijj'-tsut/), where it runs 

 over the bare, grassy hills about a mile north of the crossing place of Peterson or Jacko 

 Creek, the scanty remnant of an old stump protrudes from among a few stones which are 

 piled about it. In passing this the Indians always throw some little offering upon it. 

 When I saw it in 1890, several matches had recently been laid on the stump, and a frag- 

 ment of tobacco or shred of clothing is often placed there. The name of this place is 

 Ka-ivhoo'-sa ("crying"), and the Indians say that it nearly always rains when they pass, 

 as though the sky wept. The story attaching to it is as follows : — 



Long ago there was an old woman who was called, or represented in some way, a 

 grizzly bear, and who had neither husband nor children and was very lonely. For the 

 sake of companionship she procured some pitch and shaped from it the figure of a girl, 

 which became her daughter. She strictly enjoined the girl, however, that when she went 

 into the water to bathe she miist not thereafter sit or lie in the sun to get warm. This 

 special order the girl obeyed on three occasions, but on a fourth, overcome with curiosity 

 and not understanding the reason of the injunction, she sat down on a stone in the sun, 

 and so before long melted with the heat and disappeared. Then the old woman made a 

 girl out of clay, and this time told her daughter that she might bathe and dry herself in 

 the sun if she pleased, but must on no account rub herself when in the water. Three 

 times, as before, the girl obeyed, but on the fourth disobeyed and rubbed herself away in 

 the water and was lost. So again the old woman was alone, but she bethought herself, 

 and next made a daughter out of a piece of wood, telling this one that she might bathe, 

 swim, bask in the sun or do what she pleased. Three times the girl bathed without inci- 

 dent, but on the fourth, as she sat on the bank of the river with her back partly turned 



Sec. II, 1891. 5. 



