7. Origin of the Coos People

7. ORIGIN OF THE COOS PEOPLE.

One man was travelling. He was a "bone-man." An old man met him. "Why are you walking all the time? Why do you talk? Why are people angry with you?" He grabbed him. They two fought. Then the man was killed and torn to pieces. His intestines were taken out. He laid down the paunch separately. The hands he laid down separately, and also the head he laid down separately. Everything he laid down separately.

Then he (began) to think, as he was standing, "What am I going to do with it?" Thus he was thinking. "Wouldn't it be good if I should scatter it everywhere?" To the south he scattered the hair. To the south he scattered the blood. To the east he scattered the flesh. To the north he scattered the paunch. To the north he scattered the bones.

Then he spoke thus: "You shall be nothing. The last p. 51 generation shall see you. Wherever there is a river, there people will live."

The people who speak Hânîs, those (come from) the hair. The blood, that's the Siletz Indians. The paunch, that's the Siuslaw; the flesh, that's the Kalapooya; (and) the bones are the Umpqua Indians. That's the way (in which) it was started.