Thunderbird, continued
Shaman Ska-gut would sit in the dark of his poorly made hut for hours chanting his Thunderbird song and prayers until he spoke an incomprehensible language that only his apprentice could interpret. In one of his trances, the Thunderbird spoke through the mouth of a Ska-gut and demanded that the son of the strong chief Koomak must be captured for a meal. So, the rebellious spirits gathered to make a plan on how to trick the son of Koomak into coming to where Thunderbird perched at her nest tree on a hill up the northern coast.
Thunderbird made a great thorny nest in a giant cedar tree – four times higher than any other tree – up an inlet on one of the northern hills and laid a blue egg in it twice the size of a man’s head that glowed white like glacier ice. Then she sent her slave the shaman to the village of Koomak to tell of the supernatural egg in the great nest. “The one who climbs the tall nest tree that grows on the northern hills and steals the egg of the Thunderbird will obtain mighty powers and more wealth than ever imagined. To hold and kiss the egg grants everlasting life and no enemy or spirit will be able to touch you. The beautiful woman that you admire will be yours. All fortune will come your way. Canoe with me north to the inlet of the Big Rock and walk to the foot hill of the cedar and see the egg glowing white like glacier ice for yourself.”
When Timishan the son of Koomak heard shaman Ska-gut he could think of nothing else. The spirits came to him early in the morning -- between his dreams and waking life -- and reminded him of the shaman’s words over and over. All he wanted to do was to journey to the nest tree and climb up to obtain the blue egg. He knew that the tree was four times taller than any other tree and the climb to the nest would be long and harrowing. But, he was young and did not know the sting of failure.
Now Timishan was the only son of Koomak. All of the other sons had died of sickness or were killed in battle and Timishan, cherished by his father, was in training to be the next cheif. All of Koomak’s wealth, titles and family rights would pass to Timishan and the father hoped that he would impart to his son the strength of a good character.
Father Koomak pleaded with Timishan not to listen to Ska-gut. “This is not the way of Wonderful Doer, but are the words of a deceptive spirit. You already have untold wealth right here in our village. The egg is a lure to catch your soul and send you to the underworld blind and lost. Then I will have no blood heir to pass on my inheritance and the line of our family will come to an end.” But, Timishan would not listen to his father’s caution. “When I get the egg, father, our family and clan will have fame and power above all on the earth and I will rule as the chief of all chiefs.”
Knowing that his son was under the influence of the shaman’s powers, Koomak commanded his men to tie up Timishan with fishing line and place him in a cedar prayer box until the fever of the egg passed. Timishan was an athletic and physical man who won many battles against the enemies of the tribe, but he was constrained by the men and put into the prayer box. The men of the tribe took freshly scented cedar branches soaked in cold water and hit Timishan’s bare back many times until the stinging turned warm. They also burned sage leaves to fill the prayer box with scented smoke to drive away the false desire. “Please son, pray to the Great Spirit that you might be delivered from attraction of the Thunderbird’s snare.”
Timishan was permitted to leave the box only for food and water. After several days of confinement in to prayer box, his face grew pale and quiet, but he remained resolute, refusing to give up the desire to possess the supernatural egg. “You can’t keep me in locked in the box forever, father,” he said. “When I am free, then I will make my journey to the mighty tree. No one else is strong enough to climb it and reach the Thunderbird nest. The egg and all of the glory that comes with it will be mine. Then I will return and share the wealth with our people.”
His mother and sisters came to the box to plead that his heart be changed. But, no one could persuade him that the shaman was a liar and trickster.
Three more nights passed with Timishan imprisoned in the prayer box, when Koomak laying on his matt before the red coals of the family fire late into the night fell into a deep sleep. In his dreams the Great Spirit in the form of a white fawn appeared and said, “Let your son face death in the tree nest. Wonderful Doer will send the Thunderbird to devour him as punishment for listening to the shaman. You and your tribe will be spared of my destroying anger if you obey me and give up his life into my hands.”
The next morning, to the surprise of the men and objection of his wife, Koomak went directly to the prayer box, removed the plank lock and released his son. He gave him four canoes, men and supplies and sent him on his quest for the Thunderbird nest in the mighty tree on the northern hills.
“Your blood burns for the egg instead of the song of Wonderful Doer. Your blood must be quenched by your quest. If you die it is the will of the Great Spirit. Go, go, go and have your own way.”
Before Timishan and his party left, he went to the village winter lodge and took from a storage box the family Otter Hat and put it on his head. The Otter Hat, made of tightly woven cedar bark and designed with images of swimming otters, was a treasured possession of the chief’s family and signaled all his authority and ancestral rights. It was believed that those who wore it received protection from evil and success in the hunt.
When Shaman Ska-gut heard of Koomak’s decision to free his son and permit him to go to the nest tree, he brought his hands together and danced in joy. The feathers in his beard and hair bobbed up and down and the rows of bear claws sown on his tunic clicked like the snapping of teeth. His long hair touched the ground and swung into the air at each jump. Soon his master Thunderbird would be pleased and grant him new powers, he squealed to himself. He would be the best-known shaman in the world.
Timishan’s three devoted sisters followed behind the quest party, but his father stayed in the village, hiding himself in the prayer box.
The journey up the coast to the hills above the ocean inlet took three days and nights. Then one afternoon the party and Timishan saw the Big Rock that marked the entrance to the passage. There they looked up and on the horizon they could see the nest tree so tall that it scraped the cloud roof like a knife scrapes a deer hide. It looked much higher than anyone could remember. And there at a top branch was an immense nest, made of logs, thorny brush and the bones of elk, human and monster victims. When Timishan saw the nest, his heart swelled and the fever for the supernatural egg overcame him. After drinking from a stream near by, he rushed to the base of the tree, looked up and began the climb to the top. He was not afraid, even though there were stories that others had tried to reach the nest, but fell before climbing even half way up the massive trunk.
Timishan, wearing the Otter Hat, felt confident and climbed higher and higher into what seemed the sky world itself. From the height in the tree, he could see the whole world growing smaller spread out below him. His sisters and men of the tribe watched from below, afraid that he might fall at any moment. It took most of the day to climb the tree and as the young chief approached the final tip of the tree, almost within reach of the nest, the sky turned dark and a wind began to blow and move the tree back and forth – slowly at first.
He reached to pull up higher and saw that some of the limbs had many holes made by woodpecker looking for grubs and insects. He was careful not to use these branches weakened by the drilled holes. But, as he paused to catch his breath, he felt the trunk slightly sway as the wind began blowing stronger. Suddenly he heard a slight, mournful whistle resonating from a dead branch with many holes. The beautiful sound reminded him of the call of the loon and he wondered if the tree was speaking to him. The sound seemed supernatural. The loon-like song coming from the dead branch distracted him so that he almost lost his grip on the branches and he slipped, catching himself on the next layer of branches below.
In the struggle, his hat was caught by one of the dead branches filled with holes, pulling it off his head. Instantly the wind grabbed it and before he could reach out, the Otter Hat disappeared into the rage of the approaching storm. At that moment, a blast of rain burst upon him like a crashing wave of the ocean. The hole-filled branches produced a moaning sound. Still he struggled on his quest.
His strength almost exhausted, Timishan finally reached the nest, climbed over the logs, bones and many thorn-like sticks and found himself sitting in the nest with the supernatural egg before him – just as the shaman had said. By now the storm stirred the tree and the nest swayed back and forth like a canoe in a troubled sea. But, all Timishan could do was stare at the egg, blue and white and washed by rain -- it was the most captivating object he had ever seen. Now it was his. His determination, physical prowess and courage brought him here, against all of the caution of his foolish father. No one had ever been strong enough to climb to the nest before. He was over come by the feeling that he alone deserved the egg more than any other brave who ever lived.
Below the quest party and the women could hear the flapping wings of the Thunderbird in the distance and saw her lighting flashes and heard booms and crashes. Timishan heard nothing, staring at the blue ball. He reached out both hand to pick up the egg. But, when he touched it, suddenly the egg turned black like obsidian and so cold that his hands froze to each side of the egg. He jerked away with all his strength, but the egg seemed as heavy as the earth itself and his fingers and palms remained stuck. It was the coldest thing he had ever experience, colder than any snow or ice. He screamed in a shock of pain worse than being burned by fire or wounded by arrows in battle. Trapped and unable to move, the young chief’s shame and regret flooded his heart with a pain almost as searing as the cold of the egg.
Just then the terrifying Thunderbird herself appeared, hovering above the tree and then landing on the edge of the nest directly behind Timishan. Her wings spread out right and left, casting a shadow on the nest and her victim. Timishan looked up behind him to see saliva spill from a giant gapping beak, and hear a cracking and hissing sound and smelled sulfur is all around. Flashes of lightening sparked from her eyes. The Thunderbird’s call roared above him, causing his ears to ring.
The spirit’s clawed wings come down together around Timishan body, as if trying to cover him in her wings and pick up the egg. Instead, the monster’s wing claws pierced each of the young chief’s hands like fish hooks, then she opened her wings, ripping his hands apart right and left and breaking the egg in half.
Timishan looked and saw something evil spilling out at his feet. A dark cloud flew out of the broken egg instantly filling the air and sky with a deeper spiritual darkness. Thunderbird lifted him up by his hooked hands, his feet hanging above the nest and broken egg. Timishan screamed in torment and blood flowed from his hands spread out like the Thunderbird’s wings.
From below Timishan’s sisters look up and saw him hanging above the nest by his out stretched arms about to be devoured by the monster. The women joined hands and sang a war song to the Great Spirit for victory in battle. The men joined the singing, beating a prayer drum. The sound of the storm drowned out the music, but they continued to sing. The repeating round of songs were heard in heavens because just when the Thunderbird opened her beak to bite into Timishan’s head, a war party of good spirit helpers broke from the sky world and took hold of the Thunderbirds wings and closed her beak. With them appeared the Transformer disguised as a boiling storm cloud and standing as tall as the tree behind the monster.
The Transformer took hold of Thunderbirds wings and overcame her resistance with a bolt of lightening more powerful than the world had ever known. In the instant that the flash of lightening shot through the Thunderbird’s body, she and the nest tree became one. The monster’s body withered away and all that could be seen was a new and even more rugged cedar tree. Transformed by the heavenly lightening, the tree spouted two prominent branches that once were Thunderbird’s wings.
Timishan fell to the ground on a pile of broken tree limbs and green cedar branches, ferns and thick mosses. Covered in ashes, bruised and bleeding from scratches, he had wounds to his hands from the claws of the monster and his face and arms were burned. Normally no human could survive such a fall. But, the arms of a guardian spirit helper and the cedar branches broke his fall and the forest floor was soft. Timishan’s oldest sister rushed to his side to provide water, wrapping a blanket around him. She kissed his hands and tended his wounds with herbs and deer fat. When he caught his breath, he painfully gestured to the broken limbs around him and whispered something to his sister’s hear.
Soon the wind and storm quieted and the sky grew calm. Several lights like spears appeared through holes in the clouds and lit up the nest tree like dawn. All was strangely dark except the tree that seemed to glow like a fire. Then the people heard a voice like the wind coming from beyond the clouds saying: “I have transformed the Thunderbird into a tree to demonstrate my power and I have saved Timishan just as I will rescue all of my people and buy back the earth from slavery to all rebellious spirits. This tree will be a sign of that victory for all generations forever.”
At that moment back home in his prayer box Koomak knew that his son survived. He heard the Transformer’s voice whispering: “Because you obeyed my instruction and offered your only son to be a sacrifice, you have passed the test of devotion to me. Your people will be saved and you will be remembered always. Your son’s descendants will dance the dance of the Thunderbird for generations and tell how this monster was transformed into a tree of hope for the people.”
When Timishan returned home from the quest, his father with open arms of forgiveness greeted him. Koomak announced a celebration dinner for the clan leaders of the tribe and their families. “My son was dead, but now he is alive! We must celebrate the gift of his life.”
That night, his wounds still hurting, Timishan stood before the people to apologize for his foolishness. He took from a leather bag one of dead branches that his oldest sister collected for him broken from the nest tree -- one of those filled with holes drilled by woodpecker. When he lifted it up to his mouth and blew into one of the holes, the people heard the mournful loon-like sound.
Some said that the music was the voice of Thunderbird calling for her lost child. Others said the song was chief Timishan’s way of showing repentance for his shame. The young women were especially affected by the melody and said that they could not get the haunting sound of it out of their minds and often wished to hear it again. The nest tree had given Timishan the first flute, which we use today to signal the presence of the Great Spirit at holidays, funerals and weddings.
When Timishan finished playing the flute, he raised his head and gave a speech, publicly rebuking Shaman Ska-gut as an evil trickster and challenged him to a wrestling match as revenge for being fooled. But, Ska-gut was afraid of the Thunderbird scares on the young chief’s hands and never showed for the appointed day of the match. The shaman was not seen in the village again. As for Timishan, he was greatly honored for the marks on his hands and parents sought him out to touch the heads of their young children. The Transformer protected Timishan all of his life and made him into a wise chief with great wealth and titles.
Form that day on, when the warriors the Kaw-Seth tribe capture spears or other weapons from our enemies, we are sure to travel to the mainland, climb the hill and place the plundered weapons at the foot of the two branched nest tree that remains to this day scrapping the clouds. That is why we dance the dance of the Thunderbird on this night and remember the wisdom of father Koomak.
Next chapter
Thunderbird made a great thorny nest in a giant cedar tree – four times higher than any other tree – up an inlet on one of the northern hills and laid a blue egg in it twice the size of a man’s head that glowed white like glacier ice. Then she sent her slave the shaman to the village of Koomak to tell of the supernatural egg in the great nest. “The one who climbs the tall nest tree that grows on the northern hills and steals the egg of the Thunderbird will obtain mighty powers and more wealth than ever imagined. To hold and kiss the egg grants everlasting life and no enemy or spirit will be able to touch you. The beautiful woman that you admire will be yours. All fortune will come your way. Canoe with me north to the inlet of the Big Rock and walk to the foot hill of the cedar and see the egg glowing white like glacier ice for yourself.”
When Timishan the son of Koomak heard shaman Ska-gut he could think of nothing else. The spirits came to him early in the morning -- between his dreams and waking life -- and reminded him of the shaman’s words over and over. All he wanted to do was to journey to the nest tree and climb up to obtain the blue egg. He knew that the tree was four times taller than any other tree and the climb to the nest would be long and harrowing. But, he was young and did not know the sting of failure.
Now Timishan was the only son of Koomak. All of the other sons had died of sickness or were killed in battle and Timishan, cherished by his father, was in training to be the next cheif. All of Koomak’s wealth, titles and family rights would pass to Timishan and the father hoped that he would impart to his son the strength of a good character.
Father Koomak pleaded with Timishan not to listen to Ska-gut. “This is not the way of Wonderful Doer, but are the words of a deceptive spirit. You already have untold wealth right here in our village. The egg is a lure to catch your soul and send you to the underworld blind and lost. Then I will have no blood heir to pass on my inheritance and the line of our family will come to an end.” But, Timishan would not listen to his father’s caution. “When I get the egg, father, our family and clan will have fame and power above all on the earth and I will rule as the chief of all chiefs.”
Knowing that his son was under the influence of the shaman’s powers, Koomak commanded his men to tie up Timishan with fishing line and place him in a cedar prayer box until the fever of the egg passed. Timishan was an athletic and physical man who won many battles against the enemies of the tribe, but he was constrained by the men and put into the prayer box. The men of the tribe took freshly scented cedar branches soaked in cold water and hit Timishan’s bare back many times until the stinging turned warm. They also burned sage leaves to fill the prayer box with scented smoke to drive away the false desire. “Please son, pray to the Great Spirit that you might be delivered from attraction of the Thunderbird’s snare.”
Timishan was permitted to leave the box only for food and water. After several days of confinement in to prayer box, his face grew pale and quiet, but he remained resolute, refusing to give up the desire to possess the supernatural egg. “You can’t keep me in locked in the box forever, father,” he said. “When I am free, then I will make my journey to the mighty tree. No one else is strong enough to climb it and reach the Thunderbird nest. The egg and all of the glory that comes with it will be mine. Then I will return and share the wealth with our people.”
His mother and sisters came to the box to plead that his heart be changed. But, no one could persuade him that the shaman was a liar and trickster.
Three more nights passed with Timishan imprisoned in the prayer box, when Koomak laying on his matt before the red coals of the family fire late into the night fell into a deep sleep. In his dreams the Great Spirit in the form of a white fawn appeared and said, “Let your son face death in the tree nest. Wonderful Doer will send the Thunderbird to devour him as punishment for listening to the shaman. You and your tribe will be spared of my destroying anger if you obey me and give up his life into my hands.”
The next morning, to the surprise of the men and objection of his wife, Koomak went directly to the prayer box, removed the plank lock and released his son. He gave him four canoes, men and supplies and sent him on his quest for the Thunderbird nest in the mighty tree on the northern hills.
“Your blood burns for the egg instead of the song of Wonderful Doer. Your blood must be quenched by your quest. If you die it is the will of the Great Spirit. Go, go, go and have your own way.”
Before Timishan and his party left, he went to the village winter lodge and took from a storage box the family Otter Hat and put it on his head. The Otter Hat, made of tightly woven cedar bark and designed with images of swimming otters, was a treasured possession of the chief’s family and signaled all his authority and ancestral rights. It was believed that those who wore it received protection from evil and success in the hunt.
When Shaman Ska-gut heard of Koomak’s decision to free his son and permit him to go to the nest tree, he brought his hands together and danced in joy. The feathers in his beard and hair bobbed up and down and the rows of bear claws sown on his tunic clicked like the snapping of teeth. His long hair touched the ground and swung into the air at each jump. Soon his master Thunderbird would be pleased and grant him new powers, he squealed to himself. He would be the best-known shaman in the world.
Timishan’s three devoted sisters followed behind the quest party, but his father stayed in the village, hiding himself in the prayer box.
The journey up the coast to the hills above the ocean inlet took three days and nights. Then one afternoon the party and Timishan saw the Big Rock that marked the entrance to the passage. There they looked up and on the horizon they could see the nest tree so tall that it scraped the cloud roof like a knife scrapes a deer hide. It looked much higher than anyone could remember. And there at a top branch was an immense nest, made of logs, thorny brush and the bones of elk, human and monster victims. When Timishan saw the nest, his heart swelled and the fever for the supernatural egg overcame him. After drinking from a stream near by, he rushed to the base of the tree, looked up and began the climb to the top. He was not afraid, even though there were stories that others had tried to reach the nest, but fell before climbing even half way up the massive trunk.
Timishan, wearing the Otter Hat, felt confident and climbed higher and higher into what seemed the sky world itself. From the height in the tree, he could see the whole world growing smaller spread out below him. His sisters and men of the tribe watched from below, afraid that he might fall at any moment. It took most of the day to climb the tree and as the young chief approached the final tip of the tree, almost within reach of the nest, the sky turned dark and a wind began to blow and move the tree back and forth – slowly at first.
He reached to pull up higher and saw that some of the limbs had many holes made by woodpecker looking for grubs and insects. He was careful not to use these branches weakened by the drilled holes. But, as he paused to catch his breath, he felt the trunk slightly sway as the wind began blowing stronger. Suddenly he heard a slight, mournful whistle resonating from a dead branch with many holes. The beautiful sound reminded him of the call of the loon and he wondered if the tree was speaking to him. The sound seemed supernatural. The loon-like song coming from the dead branch distracted him so that he almost lost his grip on the branches and he slipped, catching himself on the next layer of branches below.
In the struggle, his hat was caught by one of the dead branches filled with holes, pulling it off his head. Instantly the wind grabbed it and before he could reach out, the Otter Hat disappeared into the rage of the approaching storm. At that moment, a blast of rain burst upon him like a crashing wave of the ocean. The hole-filled branches produced a moaning sound. Still he struggled on his quest.
His strength almost exhausted, Timishan finally reached the nest, climbed over the logs, bones and many thorn-like sticks and found himself sitting in the nest with the supernatural egg before him – just as the shaman had said. By now the storm stirred the tree and the nest swayed back and forth like a canoe in a troubled sea. But, all Timishan could do was stare at the egg, blue and white and washed by rain -- it was the most captivating object he had ever seen. Now it was his. His determination, physical prowess and courage brought him here, against all of the caution of his foolish father. No one had ever been strong enough to climb to the nest before. He was over come by the feeling that he alone deserved the egg more than any other brave who ever lived.
Below the quest party and the women could hear the flapping wings of the Thunderbird in the distance and saw her lighting flashes and heard booms and crashes. Timishan heard nothing, staring at the blue ball. He reached out both hand to pick up the egg. But, when he touched it, suddenly the egg turned black like obsidian and so cold that his hands froze to each side of the egg. He jerked away with all his strength, but the egg seemed as heavy as the earth itself and his fingers and palms remained stuck. It was the coldest thing he had ever experience, colder than any snow or ice. He screamed in a shock of pain worse than being burned by fire or wounded by arrows in battle. Trapped and unable to move, the young chief’s shame and regret flooded his heart with a pain almost as searing as the cold of the egg.
Just then the terrifying Thunderbird herself appeared, hovering above the tree and then landing on the edge of the nest directly behind Timishan. Her wings spread out right and left, casting a shadow on the nest and her victim. Timishan looked up behind him to see saliva spill from a giant gapping beak, and hear a cracking and hissing sound and smelled sulfur is all around. Flashes of lightening sparked from her eyes. The Thunderbird’s call roared above him, causing his ears to ring.
The spirit’s clawed wings come down together around Timishan body, as if trying to cover him in her wings and pick up the egg. Instead, the monster’s wing claws pierced each of the young chief’s hands like fish hooks, then she opened her wings, ripping his hands apart right and left and breaking the egg in half.
Timishan looked and saw something evil spilling out at his feet. A dark cloud flew out of the broken egg instantly filling the air and sky with a deeper spiritual darkness. Thunderbird lifted him up by his hooked hands, his feet hanging above the nest and broken egg. Timishan screamed in torment and blood flowed from his hands spread out like the Thunderbird’s wings.
From below Timishan’s sisters look up and saw him hanging above the nest by his out stretched arms about to be devoured by the monster. The women joined hands and sang a war song to the Great Spirit for victory in battle. The men joined the singing, beating a prayer drum. The sound of the storm drowned out the music, but they continued to sing. The repeating round of songs were heard in heavens because just when the Thunderbird opened her beak to bite into Timishan’s head, a war party of good spirit helpers broke from the sky world and took hold of the Thunderbirds wings and closed her beak. With them appeared the Transformer disguised as a boiling storm cloud and standing as tall as the tree behind the monster.
The Transformer took hold of Thunderbirds wings and overcame her resistance with a bolt of lightening more powerful than the world had ever known. In the instant that the flash of lightening shot through the Thunderbird’s body, she and the nest tree became one. The monster’s body withered away and all that could be seen was a new and even more rugged cedar tree. Transformed by the heavenly lightening, the tree spouted two prominent branches that once were Thunderbird’s wings.
Timishan fell to the ground on a pile of broken tree limbs and green cedar branches, ferns and thick mosses. Covered in ashes, bruised and bleeding from scratches, he had wounds to his hands from the claws of the monster and his face and arms were burned. Normally no human could survive such a fall. But, the arms of a guardian spirit helper and the cedar branches broke his fall and the forest floor was soft. Timishan’s oldest sister rushed to his side to provide water, wrapping a blanket around him. She kissed his hands and tended his wounds with herbs and deer fat. When he caught his breath, he painfully gestured to the broken limbs around him and whispered something to his sister’s hear.
Soon the wind and storm quieted and the sky grew calm. Several lights like spears appeared through holes in the clouds and lit up the nest tree like dawn. All was strangely dark except the tree that seemed to glow like a fire. Then the people heard a voice like the wind coming from beyond the clouds saying: “I have transformed the Thunderbird into a tree to demonstrate my power and I have saved Timishan just as I will rescue all of my people and buy back the earth from slavery to all rebellious spirits. This tree will be a sign of that victory for all generations forever.”
At that moment back home in his prayer box Koomak knew that his son survived. He heard the Transformer’s voice whispering: “Because you obeyed my instruction and offered your only son to be a sacrifice, you have passed the test of devotion to me. Your people will be saved and you will be remembered always. Your son’s descendants will dance the dance of the Thunderbird for generations and tell how this monster was transformed into a tree of hope for the people.”
When Timishan returned home from the quest, his father with open arms of forgiveness greeted him. Koomak announced a celebration dinner for the clan leaders of the tribe and their families. “My son was dead, but now he is alive! We must celebrate the gift of his life.”
That night, his wounds still hurting, Timishan stood before the people to apologize for his foolishness. He took from a leather bag one of dead branches that his oldest sister collected for him broken from the nest tree -- one of those filled with holes drilled by woodpecker. When he lifted it up to his mouth and blew into one of the holes, the people heard the mournful loon-like sound.
Some said that the music was the voice of Thunderbird calling for her lost child. Others said the song was chief Timishan’s way of showing repentance for his shame. The young women were especially affected by the melody and said that they could not get the haunting sound of it out of their minds and often wished to hear it again. The nest tree had given Timishan the first flute, which we use today to signal the presence of the Great Spirit at holidays, funerals and weddings.
When Timishan finished playing the flute, he raised his head and gave a speech, publicly rebuking Shaman Ska-gut as an evil trickster and challenged him to a wrestling match as revenge for being fooled. But, Ska-gut was afraid of the Thunderbird scares on the young chief’s hands and never showed for the appointed day of the match. The shaman was not seen in the village again. As for Timishan, he was greatly honored for the marks on his hands and parents sought him out to touch the heads of their young children. The Transformer protected Timishan all of his life and made him into a wise chief with great wealth and titles.
Form that day on, when the warriors the Kaw-Seth tribe capture spears or other weapons from our enemies, we are sure to travel to the mainland, climb the hill and place the plundered weapons at the foot of the two branched nest tree that remains to this day scrapping the clouds. That is why we dance the dance of the Thunderbird on this night and remember the wisdom of father Koomak.
Next chapter
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