The Upriver Girl
by: Debbie Cybill

This is a legend of the people of the northwest and of British Columbia. As with many old stories many versions exist. The best known is the version told by Theodora Kroeger, which was related to her by an elder of the Yurok people who live along the Klamath River. What follows is a retelling of another version as related to an anthropologist. These people of the northwest believed that the river flowed from one ocean, the Upriver Ocean, to another, the Downriver Ocean.

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The first people were the Wogè.

The world was the same in Wogè times as it is today; it has always been the same. The Wogè were our ancestors but today they are only spirits.

Umai, who was one of the Wogè, was much as all our men are now, that is to say, he was young and handsome, but he was lonely and restless, too, like all young men. He longed to visit other parts and to pass beyond the boundaries of his world.

Umai's home was on the far edge of the earth by Upriver Ocean where the river begins. He liked to stand on the river bank and look out across the world. He could see down the full length of the river, from one side of the world to the other, and across Downriver Ocean to where the sun sets. His vision was not limited like ours is but he could see far away.

He liked to watch the sunset and to wait on clear evenings for the little silver flash that follows the setting of the sun, making a brief crescent of light no thicker than the crescent of a fingernail along the horizon line. When darkness settled over the earth Umai turned away from the river and went inside his house where he lived alone. He thought about the crescent of light, wondering what it was, and he thought that he would like to go all the way down the river if only he could find some way to do it.

Hee searched here and there in his house until he found an old toy dugout canoe, no longer than his foot, no wider than his hand. He took it to the river and dipped it into the water and sang to it, then he then patted its sides lightly and put a hand in and stretched the little canoe until it was two hands wide. He patted it front and back and put his foot into it and stretched it until it was long enough for both of his feet, one ahead of the other. He continued to pat the canoe and to sing to it and to stretch it a little at a time, until at last it was large enough for him to sit in.

At first dawn, Umai settled himself in her canoe and pushed off from the bank. Only then did he remember about a paddle. Having none, he held onto the sides of the canoe and swayed gently back and forth, singing all the while, and after a moment the canoe started down the river. In smooth water, he repeated the swaying, rocking motion. When he came to rough water or to riffles or rapids or falls, he sat still, and the canoe went safely around them without help from her.

He passed the Center of the World. Here, the big tributaries join the river, and the water becomes much deeper and swifter. Umai went faster and faster so that soon he was all the way downstream and at the river’s mouth where it empties into Downriver and Ocean.

The surf, rough and forbidding, was breaking over the rocks along the shore. But Umai looked past the breakers, out across the blue ocean and he saw where the rim of the sky meets the water. And he thought he would like to ride on the ocean, too. So he sat and counted eleven waves. As the twelfth-_always the smallest wave–rolled into the shore, Umai patted the sides of his canoe and sang a song to it and swayed forward and back. The canoe rode the twelth wave out, carrying him safely onto the open ocean. During the rest of: the day he went on and on across it and farther and farther away from the earth.

The sun was low in the sky when Umai came at last to the very edge of the World. He sat in his canoe alongside the world's edge, watching quietly. He saw that the sky does not rest solidly on the ocean, but that it lifts and dips and lifts and dips in an even rhythm, except that the twelfth is a slower, gentler rise and fall. And he saw that it is this dipping sky that causes the waves in Downriver Ocean which forever beats against the shores of the earth.

The sun went down behind the edge of the world and was followed by the familiar silver flash. But from so much closer up, Umai saw that it was not at all a narrow crescent but a waving, moving something with a center of living brightness.

Umai thought that his boat had taken him steadily past the pounding surf and across the great ocean–might it not carry him out beyond the world as far as this brightness? He patted his canoe and sang to it again while he counted eleven liftings and dippings of the sky. At the

beginning of the twelfth and slower rise, Umai held tightly to the sides of the boat with both hands and rocked forward. The canoe went, straight and swift, through the gap. When the rim of the sky dipped again to the water, he was already some distance away in the Ocean-Outside-the-WorId, having passed over the horizon.

Far away in the ocean which encircles the World, water gives way to pitch, and beyond the ocean of pitch, there is nothing at all. But where Umai went under the sky, he had only to cross a narrow stretch of water to find himself coming near the shore of the Land_Beyond__the_World.

On the shore of this land, a young girl stood waving to him–Laksis, Shining One, was her name. And Umai saw that the silver brightness that follows the Setting sun is Laksis waving from this far shore. She waved till Umai's canoe scraped bottom;.then she helped him beach his canoe and welcomed .him to .her home and to the Land_Beyond-the-World.

 

Laksis was young like Umai and she too was lonely. Neither of them had had a friend before they found each other. They walked together over the barren and empty land and talked together as young people talk. Umai told Laksis how from her home on Upriver Ocean he watched each night at sundown for the silver crescent behind the dipping sky and Laksis told Umai how she came to the shore of her land each night at sundown to wave to the distant earth.

The two friends walked hand in hand beside the Sea Beyond the World and Umai reached out to touch Laksis. Gently he stroked her breasts and wwhen darkness fell he led her back to her house where they sat down on furs. Laksis lifted a hand to his face and smoothed her hand over it, feeling all the contours of the bones. Umai took her in his arms and loved her. Laksis told him that this was a mirror world and that if he made love to her he would become a mirror image.

Umai needed her so much after living alone all his life without a friend that he felt anything would be worth it. So he took her in his arms once more and stroked her clitoris. Laksis began to shudder and Umai entered her. Within moments he too had come and the two friends lay together in each others arms until morning. Then they pulled apart.

Umai looked at his reflection in a tidal pool and liked what he saw. He was an image of Laksis now, no longer a man, but a young girl, just entering puberty.

When it was time for Umai to go home; they said goodbye as friends do who will see each other again before the day is done. Together they counted eleven liftings of the sky. At the beginning of the twelfth, Laksis launched the canoe with a strong push which sent Umai back into the world under the lifted rim.

The trip home seemed very short to Umai because she was busy and happy with her thoughts. She saw that from the far side of the ocean, the earth itself looks no wider than the shore of Laksis' home. She came close to her own shore and recognized its rocks and the wide mouth of the river. It was good to see these familiar things again. Without trouble, swaying gently and singing a little, she rode a low wave through the surf and went on up the river; past its falls and rapids and riffles and into its quiet water; onto its source and her own home.

Umai belongs up where the river begins; she is known as Mer’wermeris uma'i,Upriver Ocean Girl. She made no more trips in her canoe and it shrank until it was a toy again and Umai stored it carefully in her house. But each evening at sundown, she goes to the riverbank and she and Laksis face each other across the width of the world, and Laksis, Shining One, signals to her friend from behind the moving sky. You may see her for yourself after the sun has set-_a silver streak where the sky meets the ocean, seeming no wider than the crescent of one of your fingernails.

When you are going out on the river or the ocean, it is well to sing to Umai, up there by Upriver Ocean. Put your hands on the sides of your canoe and pat it as you sing:

Umai
You rode the rapids,
You crossed the Ocean.
Lend me your canoe.
This is your canoe!
Now I too
Shall have no trouble
From the River.
No trouble
From the Ocean.
Thank you, Umai
 
You will then go safely anywhere: on the river, or through, the surf, or out on the ocean; to the edge of the world if you want to. It will take you longer than it took Umai: many days instead of one. And you will need a paddle, for these are not the ancient Wogè times and you are not a Wogè.
But you will go safely and you will come home safely:
If you have followed the customs and the rules;
And if your heart is pure.
 

© 2001
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