Lok and Kékina

Lok and Kékina by Jeremiah Curtin

"Lok and Kékina," retold by Jeremiah Curtin, is a myth from the Klamath people of the Pacific Northwest, centering on a feud between the powerful Lok Bear family and two orphaned Kékina Lizard brothers raised by their aunt, old woman Wus the Fox. The story begins in winter, with the two Kékina brothers living near the Lok siblings — five brothers and a sister — who have already murdered the Kékina boys' parents. The household of Wus is impoverished and vulnerable. The younger Kékina boy climbs a tree daily to eat stored roots and calls out that spring is coming, a declaration that irritates Lok's sister, who prefers winter. She retaliates by pulling down the tree and swallowing all the roots, leaving the boys with nothing. The elder Kékina brother responds by quietly crafting poison arrows, whispering to them that they must pierce the bodies of the greedy, large-handed people who killed his parents. Lok's sister overhears and reports this to her brothers, stirring further tension between the two households. The elder Kékina boy strikes first by sneaking into the Lok house at night, using a touch that plunges the brothers into deep sleep. He cuts off the foot of the Lok chief, props the leg against a burning log, and instructs the fire not to wake the chief until the leg is half consumed. The foot is taken home, roasted, and eaten by Wus and her nephews. The chief wakes in agony and dies the following day. When the surviving Lok brothers bury their chief with the burned leg protruding from the ground, Wus offers to stand watch over the grave. Instead, she digs up the body and feeds it to her nephews, replacing the leg with a charred stick of wood. When Lok's sister goes to check on the grave, she sees the chunk of wood and assumes all is undisturbed. Using deception, Wus infiltrates the Lok camp by claiming her nephews have driven her away. She gathers intelligence and returns to warn the boys that the Loks are preparing to attack. The elder Kékina brother hides his younger sibling inside a crack in the house wall, arms himself with five knives concealed under one arm and a bow overhead, and prepares to fight. When the four remaining Lok brothers and their sister arrive, the battle takes a grotesque and extraordinary form: each Lok brother swallows Kékina whole, and Kékina kills each one from within by stabbing his knife into the Lok's heart and cutting his way out. The fourth brother proves more difficult — Kékina is weakened inside him and nearly smothered, and when he escapes without fully destroying the heart, that Lok revives and swallows him again. Eventually Kékina escapes by making himself small enough to roll out of the Lok's throat and then finishes the job on a third swallowing by cutting the heart open completely. Lok's sister attacks next, and Kékina defeats her by the same method, repeatedly running down her throat and finally cutting open her heart. With all the Loks dead, Wus returns to find abundant meat and is pleased. When spring arrives, the younger Kékina boy goes out to gather roots despite his aunt's warnings that Lok relatives still roam the region and might accidentally eat him while digging. One night he fails to return. His elder brother searches for him and encounters a group of Loks digging roots across a flat. One Lok, surly and evasive, refuses to answer questions about the missing boy. Kékina forces this Lok to open his mouth and discovers a single hair of his younger brother caught in the Lok's teeth. He extracts the hair, winds it around an arrowhead, and then battles the assembled Loks one by one, again killing each by being swallowed and cutting out the heart from within. He spares only the oldest and weakest Lok, telling him that as punishment he will no longer be a person but will become a common bear, reduced to frightening people rather than holding power over them. Kékina brings the hair home to Wus, who instructs him to place it beneath her medicine basket, sprinkle medicine over it, and step over the basket five times. He follows these instructions, and his younger brother is restored to life. The two brothers and Wus resume their life together as before.

By Jeremiah Curtin · First published 1912 · Genre: Mythology, Folklore, Fantasy · 2,183 words

First lines

CHARACTERS / Lok Bear / Kékina Lizard / Wus Fox

Five Lok brothers and their sister lived in a house on a mountain near Klamath Lake; not far away lived old woman Wus with her two nephews, the Kékina brothers. They were orphans; the Lok brothers had killed their father and their mother. In summer Wus had had the children gather roots and store them in a tree for winter. When winter came the younger boy went three times each day to the top of the tree to eat a few of the roots. As he went, he called out: "Spring is coming! Spring is coming!"

Genres

Tags

Native American folklore · Indigenous mythology · oral tradition · folktale · legend · mythic narrative · traditional storytelling · cultural heritage · spiritual beliefs · supernatural elements · mythical characters · cosmology

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Lok and Kékina is listed on Textopian as a short story by Jeremiah Curtin, dated 1912 CE.

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