Besides the before-mentioned powers of evil, these Trinity people have legends connected with other personages of the same nature, among whom are Wanuswegock, Surgelp, Napousney, and Nequiteh.
When white miners first came to work on the Trinity River, their advent caused, as may be imagined, much unsatisfactory speculation among the aborigines; some saying one thing of the whites and some another. At last an old seer of the Hoopah Valley settled the question by declaring that the new-comers were descendants of that banished Wappeckquemow, from whose heads the already-mentioned curse, forbidding their return, had been by some means lifted.
[Sidenote: THE KITCHEN-MIDDEN OF THE HOHGATES.]
The coast people in northern California have a story about a mysterious people called Hohgates, to whom is ascribed an immense bed of mussel-shells and bones of animals still existing on the table-land of Point St George, near Crescent City. These Hohgates, seven in number, are said to have come to the place in a boat, to have built themselves "houses above-ground, after the style of white men"--all this about the time that the first natives came down the coast from the north. These Hohgates, living at the point mentioned, killed many elk on land, and many seals and sea-lions in fishing excursions from their boats; using for the latter purpose a kind of harpoon made of a knife attached to a stick, and the whole fastened to the boat with a long line. They also sailed frequently to certain rocks, and loaded their little vessels with mussels. By all this they secured plenty of food, and the refuse of it, the bones and shells and so on, rapidly accumulated into the great _kjökken mödding_ still to be seen. One day, however, all the Hohgates being out at sea in their boat, they struck a huge sea-lion with their rude harpoon, and, unable or unwilling to cut or throw off their line, were dragged with fearful speed toward a great whirlpool, called Chareckquin, that lay far toward the north-west. It is the place where souls go, where in darkness and cold the spirits shiver for ever; living men suffer even from its winds--from the north-west wind, the bleak and bitter Charreck-rawek. And just as the boat reached the edge of this fearful place, behold, a marvelous thing: the rope broke and the sea-monster was swept down alone into the whirl of wind and water, while the Hohgates were caught up into the air; swinging round and round, their boat floated steadily up into the vast of heaven. Nevermore on earth were the Hohgates seen; but there are seven stars in heaven that all men know of, and these stars are the seven Hohgates that once lived where the great shell-bed near Crescent City now is.