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Title: Seven Mohave Myths
Author: Kroeber, A. L.
Language: English
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SEVEN MOHAVE MYTHS
BY
A. L. KROEBER
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS
Vol. 11, No. 1
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS
Editors: A. L. Kroeber, E. W. Gifford,
R. H. Lowie, R. L. Olson
Volume 11, No. 1, pp. 1-70, frontispiece
Submitted by editors August 17, 1945
Issued August 6, 1948
Price, $1.25
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES
CALIFORNIA
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, ENGLAND
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
[Illustration: KWATNIALKA OR JACK JONES, INTERPRETER]
[Illustration: BLUEBIRD, NARRATOR OF CANE STORY]
[Illustration: JO NELSON, NARRATOR OF MASTAMHO STORY]
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction 1
I. Cane 4
The narrator 4
The Cane narrative 4
Song scheme and narrative outline 19
The Cane song scheme 19
Movement of the narrative 20
Apparent inconsistencies 20
Handling of the plot 21
Supplementary 23
II. Vinimulye-pātše 24
The tale 24
III. Nyohaiva 27
Circumstances and nature of the story 27
The Nyohaiva tale 28
The song scheme 35
IV. Raven 37
Narrator's statements 37
Outline of song scheme 37
The Raven story 38
V. Deer 41
Discussion 41
Variations in song scheme 42
Words of songs 42
The Deer story 42
VI. Coyote 46
Circumstances of the recording 46
The tales 46
A: Dreamed 46
B: Dreamed 48
Children's stories: C, D, E 48
More stories for children: F, G, H 48
VII. Mastamho 50
The informant 50
Content of the myth 50
Schematic outline 51
Quality of the narrative 52
Main narrative: Mastamho's instituting 52
Supplement: Thrasher and Mockingbird
institute sex life 64
The lists of manufactured words 67
Appendix I. Mohave Directional Circuits 69
Appendix II. Mohave Names 70
ILLUSTRATION
Interpreter and narrators frontispiece, facing v
SEVEN MOHAVE MYTHS
BY
A. L. KROEBER
INTRODUCTION
This paper is an endeavor to make a beginning of payment on a
scholarly debt long in arrears. Between 1900 and 1910, I spent
considerable time with the Mohave Indians, both in the vicinity of
Needles and with visitors from there to the University. Summaries of
the data recorded, and some samples of concrete detail, have been
published in one place or another, most coherently in two chapters of
the Handbook of California Indians in 1925. But I kept deferring
presentation of the fuller data, in particular of the mythological
narratives, many of which run to unusual length. The tales offered
herewith comprise in bulk about half of the Mohave narrative material
in my notebooks. This is exclusive of the "Great Tale" of
pseudo-historical moving about and fighting of clan-like groups, my
unfinished recording of which runs to about the length of the seven
tales presented herewith.[1]
[1] The fragmentary beginning of one of these clan or war
legends is given in Handbook, pp. 772-775.
In quality the narratives of the Mohave resemble not only those of the
other Yuman tribes of the Colorado River, but also, to a considerable
extent, those of the Shoshonean Indians of southern California. The
typical story of the region is not a relatively rapid narrative of
plot, but a detailed elaboration still further expanded by the
inclusion of a song series. A myth might be characterized as a web
loaded with a heavy embroidery of songs which carry an emotional
stimulus of their own, and at the same time endow the plot with a
peculiar decorative quality and charge it with a feeling tone which
renders of secondary importance the sort of consistency of character,
motivation, and action which we expect in a narrative. This is a
paraphrase of how I expressed myself in regard to Gabrielino mythology
in 1925. It holds probably even more forcibly for the Mohave. Many of
their tales seem to appeal to them more in the manner of an ornamental
pattern than as a portrayal of a related sequence of events.
Essentially all Mohave myths are told in an almost ritualized style.
They are not, strictly, rituals; but their telling and singing largely
take the place of formal rituals in the culture. The songs which
belong to the great majority of narratives can be sung with equal
suitability for a dance at a festival or victory celebration; for the
mere pleasure of singing; as an expansion of the spoken tale; or as a
"gift" of lamentation for a dying or dead relative.
The Mohave validate what happens in their lives by referring it to
their dreams. Success in life, the fortunes of a person or of a
career, are believed to be the result of what one has dreamed. A
Mohave dreams among other things--or perhaps above other things--of
the beginnings of the world in the far distant past.
He dreams of being present at the creation and witnessing its events.
Thereby he participates in them and gets certain knowledges: powers
for war, for curing, for success in love or gambling. Such mystically
dreamed powers are what really count in human life, the Mohave firmly
believed. Over most of native North America the acquisition of power
by dreams or visions of spirits is the basis of shamanism; and where
religion is simple, it is largely constituted of shamanism. The Yuman
tribes, however, have evolved the special belief that the visions are
not of the spirits of now, but of the spirits and great gods of the
beginning of the world. This group of tribes in their philosophy
transcend time and project their souls back to the origin of things.
This act they call dreaming. The basic and most significant dreams are
not those of last night or of one's adolescence, but those which one
had before birth--while still in the mother's belly, they say. It is
these prenatal dreams which the newly born baby and the child may
forget, but which come back to the growing boy and to the man when he
hears others singing or telling similar experiences. As they see it,
the tribal mythology is thus first learned by personal participation
in it as an unborn soul. Secondarily, it is strengthened, clarified,
and perhaps adjusted by what one learns from others. Some old Mohave
of my acquaintance admitted that they "also heard" or learned their
special lore, usually from blood kinsmen, in addition to dreaming it;
but all denied having been "taught." The distinction may seem verbal
to us, but I am sure that it is not verbal to them.
Now and then a person will admit having learned a story from others,
apparently without any sense of inferiority therefor. Mostly, however,
the old men claimed to have dreamed what they knew. This was without
any very evident sense of pride about it--in fact, dreaming was so
common that it would be only what one had dreamed, not the fact of
dreaming, that could give distinction. I am sure that my informants
believed they had dreamed in the way they said. A people starting out
with preconceptions such as these would not be likely to be able to
explain matters in terms of what we consider psychological reality. I
suspect that many men, as they grow older and perhaps begin to sing
song series with their kinsmen, begin also to brood about them in
periods of inactivity. Their minds presumably run on the implications
of the words of the songs, until, under the spell of the tribal
theory, they come to believe that they have in their own person seen
the events of the far past happen.
At any rate, informants now and then mention in the midst of their
mystical narrative, randomly and in the most matter-of-fact way, "Then
I saw him doing so and so," or "I was there," or "Then he said to me."
Those narratives which the Mohave evidently consider historical, and
they are the longest of all, the Great Tales, come unaccompanied by
singing. The story of the actual first beginnings of the world seems
also to be without songs; and so is the prolix account of the origins
of culture, of which I give a version herewith under the title of
Mastamho, the culture hero. Matters of "history" are in the Mohave
mind related to matters of war, and are therefore clean and honorable.
Cosmic origins, however, seem to be felt as allied to shamanism and
doctoring. Now the doctor can cure, but he can also kill; and there is
consequently some reluctance to sing, or even to hear, series of
doctoring songs, no doubt because of their associations with illness.
The songs of a good many non-shamanistic narratives are danced to when
there is a festival or gathering. Each story has its appropriate dance
step, as it has its characteristically recognizable songs, and its
prescribed rattle, struck basket, palm slap, resonating pot, or other
accompanying beat. There are even one or two kinds of singings,
notably Pleiades, for which I could never learn that there was a
narrative and the two songs of which are simply sung over and over
again for the dancers. The non-shamanistic song series are "given
away" or "destroyed" (tšupilyk) at the death of a relative. If he dies
gradually, they are sung during his last one or two days and nights.
If he dies suddenly, they are sung from then until his cremation. This
is considered equivalent to the destruction of property for the dead.
But, as the Mohave say, after a time a man forgets his grief and
begins to sing his songs again.
The songs accompanying any narrative seem to run from about a hundred
to about four hundred. All the songs of any one series are variations
on a basic theme, which most Mohave can recognize and name on hearing.
Most of the variations presumably are improvised according to a
pattern style. It seems impossible that hundreds of minute variations
should be kept separately fixed in memory. An informant's listing of
the localities or stages of his story at which he sings is usually
fairly consistent from one listing to another. But the number of songs
that he says he sings at each stage varies considerably more.
Obviously, if his recollection is uncertain whether he sings three or
four songs at a particular point, he is unlikely to carry precise
minor variations of his melody fixed in his memory.
For convenient reference, I have followed the plan of putting into a
single paragraph each section of a story which a narrator told as a
unit until he said that here he sang so many songs about the episode.
Informants fell of themselves into the habit of thus punctuating the
narrative by mentioning the song numbers. These paragraphs I have then
numbered consecutively for convenience in reference to episodes; and a
list of captions corresponding to the paragraphs has usually been
added to serve as an outline of the song scheme and guide to the
story.
Most of the tales take a night to tell, or a night and part of the
morning, or up to two nights, according to the narrators. If anything,
they underestimate the time required, in my experience. It seems
doubtful that they would keep an audience through periods as long as
this; and I have the impression that many of them had never told their
whole myth continuously through from beginning to end. They also found
it difficult to make clear what sort of occasions prompted the
telling. Theoretically, when it is not a matter of a dance or a
funeral, a man both narrates and sings, telling an episode and then
singing the songs that refer to it, until his audience drops off or
falls asleep.
It remains to characterize the tales themselves and their style.
If the narratives are long, they almost inevitably show minor
inconsistencies. The narrator may say that a thing is done four times,
and then proceed to narrate six variations of it. Contradictions of
plot may occur through lapses of memory or shifts of the narrator's
interest. Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether this has
happened, or whether the interpreter or recorder misunderstood. This
holds for a number of discrepancies in the first tale, that of Cane,
which are noted in detail in the discussion and footnotes. Such
inconsistencies proved difficult to clear up with informants:
explanations had a way of introducing new discrepancies. On the other
hand, most narrators keep pretty successfully to the main thread of
their plot and proceed in its development in a rather prolix,
step-by-step, orderly manner.
Major inconsistencies are due to shifts in participation or
identification of the narrator and hearer with the characters. He who
seems to have been the hero, turns evil without warning and our
sympathies are enlisted for a new personage. This is a quality which
is also notable in southern California Shoshonean myth narratives. I
suspect that the Mohave feel less need than we of participating with
their personages, both the story and its setting being so formalized
and stylized.
Where fighting is involved, motivation becomes particularly elusive.
The main thing seems to be that there should be war and the happenings
that go with war. Hence, in place of a definite sense of
identification of the teller or hearer with one or the other of the
personages, there is often a sense of foreboding or of the
inevitability of what will happen. This is not confined to the tales
which professedly deal with war, but recurs in the Cane myth, and,
with reference to death instead of war, in that of Deer. In the
latter, the identification is particularly obscure. Jaguar and
Mountain Lion create a pair of Deer in order to kill them for the
benefit of the future Walapai. But a full three-quarters of the story
tells about the Deer, their thoughts and feelings; so that it is
difficult not to feel them as what we would call the "heroes" of the
plot. If so, they are unquestionably tragic heroes.
The tales are given their great length less by fundamental
complications of plot than by expansion of detail. The most common
expansion is geographical. There are long travels. If no events occur
on the journey, many places are nevertheless enumerated, and the
traveler's feelings or thoughts at each point, or what he sees growing
or living there, are expatiated on. The Mohave evidently derive a
satisfaction from these mental journeys with their visual recalls or
imaginings.
In Raven the physical movement of the whole story exists only in the
mind. How people will travel and fight is told and sung of, but in the
tale itself the entire journey is that from the rear to the front of
the house in which the two fledgling heroes grow.
Another method of expansion is more stylistic. What is going to happen
is discussed first, and then it is told over again as a happening.
There are arguments between personages on whether to do this or that;
whether to understand an event in one way or in another; or as to what
is going to happen later.
Most of the tales are given some tie-up with Ha'avulypo in Eldorado
Canyon and the first god Matavilya and his death there; or with
Mastamho who succeeded him and his Avikwame which we call Dead or
Newberry Mountain--both north of Mohave valley. These tie-ups seem to
be for placement reference: they indicate that the events occurred in
the beginning of time. Sometimes an incident of the creation serves as
the introduction of a tale; or it may be only alluded to. The heroes
or personages are preponderantly boys, sometimes even miraculously
precocious babies. Then overnight they may have grown up sufficiently
to get married. These irrationalities or surrealisms of time should
not be disconcerting when one remembers that to the Mohave the whole
basis of knowledge of myth is due to a projection from the present
into the era of first beginnings--is the result of the utter
obliteration of time on the mythological and spiritual level. Even the
culture hero Mastamho is sometimes described as merely a boy; so are
the future tribes whom he is instructing; at times the informant
refers to himself as a watching and listening boy. There is an evident
feeling that the eras dealt with are those when everything in the
world was fresh and young and formative.
I have put the Cane tale first because it has more plot and less of
mere prolixity, geographical or otherwise, than the others. Next
follow three stories that to the Mohave are concerned with war:
Vinimulye-pātše, Nyohaiva, and Raven. After that comes the story of
Deer, with animal actors; and then some fragments on Coyote, without
songs and perhaps unorthodox, secured from a woman. Women are not
precluded from dreaming, but on the whole the Mohave seem to have no
great interest in women's dreams. The last is another tale
unaccompanied by songs, the long one of Mastamho, which is essentially
an account of the origin of human and tribal culture.
I. CANE
THE NARRATOR
The story of Cane, Ahta, more properly Ahta-'amalya'e, Long Cane, was
told me on three days between April 24 and 27, 1904, with one day of
intermission, by a middle-aged man named Tšiyêre-k-avasūk, or
"Bluebird," who said he had dreamed the tale, beginning at Avikwame. I
neglected to write down personal or biographical details about him,
and dare not trust my memory at this interval.
This story has more plot interest than the majority of those which the
Mohave profess to dream and sing to. It might be described as a tale
of adventures on an almost epic scale, and it does not systematically
account for the origin or institution of anything, although a bit of
cosmogony drifts in toward the end.
The version recorded was told carefully and accurately. There are a
number of internal discrepancies, especially as regards relationship
of the characters and topography, which are considered in a section
following the story itself; but the plot is well constructed and
maintained.
The song scheme is also given after the tale. The songs are
accompanied with a double beat of a stick struck against the bottom of
a Chemehuevi bowl-shaped basket. Cane is not danced to.
The Cane type of plot recurs in another kind of Mohave singing called
Satukhôta, of which only a brief outline was obtained. The singer of
Satukhôta beats time by striking his palm against his chest.
THE CANE NARRATIVE
_A. Kamaiavêta Killed at Avikwame_
1a. All the people at Avikwame had gone out of the house and had sent
for (the great snake in the ocean to the south) Kamaiavêta.[1] They
thought it was he who had killed Matavilya and they wanted to kill
him. No one knew this to be so but all believed it. Then when he came
they killed him, and his body lay stretched over the earth. When he
was dead, I[2] took a piece from his tail, the rattle nearest the
body. I took it for good luck. Several tribes dream about this
killing: the Yuma, the Maricopa, the Kamia, the Walapai, the
Halchidhoma, and others down to the mouth of the river.[3]
[1] "Sky-rattlesnake-great." Also Kumaiavête or Mayavete.
[2] The narrator believes that he has seen and heard what he is
relating.
[3] The Kamaiavête incident seems to be mentioned only for the
purpose of fixing the time and place of the beginning of the
story. The myth properly begins at this point. Most Mohave
song-myths begin with an allusion to the death of Matavilya, of
which the Kamaiavête story is an after-incident.
_B. Two Brothers Go Off_
1b. Now there were two brothers there. They stood east of the house
and told of it. They did not speak, but sang. They sang of its posts,
the rafters, the sand heaped around and over it, and the other parts.
(4 songs.)
2. Their names were Pukehane, the older, and Tšitšuvare, the
younger.[4] They went north a short distance, where there was a little
gravelly place and thorny cactus. The ground-squirrel, hum'ire, lived
there. When the two brothers came, it ran away, crying like a boy. It
had never seen them before. They stood there and sang about it. (3
songs.)
[4] Both names refer to cane. Hipūke is the "end of the root" or
butt. Hipūke-hane is probably the full form. Tšitšu-vāre is said
to refer to the points of the cane. In the text, ū and ā have
been rendered u and a in these two names.
3. Then they went north again a very little distance.[5] There they
saw a rat, hamalyk. They did not kill it, but looked at it and sang
about it. (2 songs.)
[5] "About 50 yards," not far enough to necessitate a new name
for the place.
4. Now it was sundown. They struck their fire-flints,[6] made a fire,
and sat by it. They did not eat anything all night. In the morning
they were hungry. One thought that they should kill the rat and eat
it. His brother said: "That is good." So they killed the rat and ate
it. They stayed there that day, thinking. The next day, in the
morning, Pukehane, the older brother, said: "We have no place to
live." Tšitšuvare said: "Yes, that is true. Where can we get wood to
build a house?" Now Pukehane was intelligent; he was born thus.
Therefore he made sticks out of his saliva.[7] Thus in one day they
built a round house. At night they went into it. (3 songs.)
[6] Like wheat, cloth, etc., a Spanish absorption integrated
into the culture.
[7] Hika, his saliva, important element in magic and
therapeutics.
5. Now it was three days.[8] In the morning they hunted rats. When
they killed a rat, they hung it by its head under their belts.
Pukehane said: "I do not think this is good." Then he took[9] two
net-sacks,[10] and they put the rats into them and carried them on
their backs. At sunset they came back to the house. Now two men lived
at Avikwame, Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše,[11] their father's older brother, and
Nume-peta.[12] Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše said: "I will live with my younger
brother's sons (ivitk). I will not live with this man (Nume-peta) who
is not my relative." And he came and lived with them. So they were
three. In the morning, the two boys went hunting rats again. As the
rats were shot, they squeaked. The boys stood and listened and
laughed. (1 song.)
[8] One day since leaving Avikwame they had spent in thinking, a
second in building the house, this is the third.
[9] Created by magic out of nothing, by reaching out.
[10] Mayu, carrying-sacks of net-work such as the Paiute and
Chemehuevi use.
[11] Hatpa. Pima; aqwaθ-, yellow. The second part of the name is
not certain.
[12] Or Numê-t-veta. Nume is the wildcat; nume-ta, the jaguar.
6. When they came back, Pukehane said, "Some tribes after a time will
do like this: let me see how far you can shoot." They bet their
arrows. The elder shot far. The younger did not shoot far and lost,
lost all his arrows. The quiver was empty and he tied it around his
waist. He said, "I will bet the rats that I killed." Then he lost all
his rats. They came home and he had no arrows and no rats, only his
bow. Their father's older brother saw them. He said, "Why do you not
do right? This is wrong. Do not do it any more. That is not what I
came here for. I came in order that when you go hunting you bring them
here and I eat." (1 song.)
7a. Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše said, "We are three men here. I see you two do
not sleep but sit and wake. If three men live in a house everything is
ready for them when they come home to it. But there is no woman here
and that is why there is no wood and water. If you get a woman she
will cook." The boys said, "Yes, we will do that." That night Pukehane
stretched his hand to the southeast toward the Maricopa and got corn
in it. He got much and laid it in the corner of the house. Then he
stretched his hand out northeast, toward the Kohoaldja Paiute, and
took wheat.[13] Now they had two kinds of food.
[13], [13a] Cf. note 6.
_C. The Brothers Get Wives_
7b. In the morning the two boys went west. There was a man who had a
daughter Tšese'ilye;[14] her they wanted to get. As they went west
they saw a bird hanging in a tree in a cage of red and white woven
cloth.[13a] The bird was hwetše-hwetše.[15] "Look, that girl has a
bird," they said. (1 song.)
[14] My notes, after a correction, say that she was Tšese'ilye's
daughter; but the correction may be in error, since later the
woman is said to have been Tšese'ilye, daughter of Sun. Cf.
notes 35, 38, 52, 54, 58, 60, 63, 68, 75, 78, 83, 87 on the
confused relationships and names of certain characters.
[15] A yellow bird.
8. When they reached the house, Pukehane did not take the bird with
his hand, but caused the cage (_sic_--the bird?) to be outside the
door. The bird was singing: the woman was inside; she came out, saw it
in front of the door, and said: "What sort of people are you who have
come? That bird belongs to me; do you not know that? It watches
everything I have when I go out to gather seeds." The two boys stood
and laughed, the older east of the door, the younger west of it.[16]
The woman went back into the house, put on a (pretty) dress, and beads
around her neck. She took a white peeled willow stick, qara'asap, to
sweep the dress under her thighs so as not to crumple it when she sat
down.[17] Tied to the top of her dress she had two bags of paint
(kômkuvī), one black, one red. When she came to the two boys standing
outside the door she did not go to the older, she went to the younger:
she liked Tšitšuvare. Pukehane said, "She is mine." His younger
brother said, "No, if she were yours she would come to you." The older
said, "She is mine." The woman said nothing. The older embraced her.
The younger said, "Do not embrace her. She belongs to me." He embraced
her too and they both held her and pulled. Pukehane became tired. He
stood aside. "You are the better; take her," he said. So now they had
one woman: Tšitšuvare had her. (1 song.)
[16] The door was sohlyêpe, woven of willow inner-bark.
[17] A piece of coquetry or swank, rather surprising in a
culture so meager in its material aspects.
9. They started to go home from there: Pukehane wanted to. They had
far to go, too far for one day. So they slept in the desert where no
one lived. Tšitšuvare made a bed. Pukehane said, "My brother, when you
marry, both of us sleep with the woman.[18] That is what you said."
Tšitšuvare had not said that: Pukehane only wished it; and Tšitšuvare
did not let him. Then in the morning Pukehane said, "Let us go, my
sister-in-law."[19] (1 song.)
[18] "You at the vagina, I at the anus." While the younger slept
with her, the older sat up, had an erection, tried to clamp it
under his thigh and sit on it, could not.
[19] Hunyīk. The term denotes any female affinal of a man
(except his wife's sister) irrespective of generation, and all
male or female affinals of a woman (except her sister's
husband).
10. They started. At noon, when they came to the house, the woman was
ashamed, because it was the first time she was married.
Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše said, "I want to see my younger brother's
daughter-in-law." She did not look up: she had long hair--down to her
hips--behind which she hid her face. The old man took her by the hand,
led her inside, and took her around the house. He wanted her to grind
corn. Now the three men felt glad, when they saw her grinding corn.
They looked to see how she worked; all of them smiled. "See how
beautiful she looks," they said. She was clean and wore beads around
her neck and on her ears and wrists, and a dress of willow bark, and
was painted. (1 song.)
11a. In the morning she was going to make mush of the corn she had
ground. The two brothers were still in the house. The old man was
outside: he wanted to help her cook. He poured the corn into the pot
and she stirred it and put in salt.[20] When there was enough, she
boiled it, gave some to the old man, put some in a dish for the two
boys, and took it inside to them. Then the three ate together; the old
man sat outside. When the sun set they built a fire in the house near
the door. When it was dark the house was warm and they stayed there.
The two brothers did not say anything. Their father's older brother
spoke again. He said, "This is one woman. If you get another, it will
be well. Go east and take Sun's daughter." That is what the old man
said.
[20] An informal domestic scene, such as could still be seen
forty years ago. The cooking is in front of the house: the
ground corn is boiled; the old man stands by and assists; eating
is in or outdoors, men and women together or apart.
11b. In the morning the two boys went east. When the sun was halfway
up they heard a cock[21] making a loud noise, telling the time. (2
songs.)
[21] Kwaluyauve. Cf. the flint, wheat, cloth, etc. The cage,
however, is native: all the river tribes kept bird pets in stick
cages. In 86, however, the woman's bird is a masohwat.
12a. Very soon, after four or five steps, they saw a cage hanging,
Sun's daughter's cage, with red and blue cloth tied to it for
ornament: it was hanging high. The two boys came to it, took the cock
out of his cage, and put him by the door. He crowed and the woman
heard him. She said, "What sort of men are you? Do you not know
anything? That cock belongs to me. He takes care of me and stays with
me always. You have spoiled him." She went back into the house, put on
her dress and her beads, and came out. Tšitšuvare embraced her. His
older brother said, "She belongs to me." "No, she is not yours. She is
mine," said the younger. "No, she is mine," said the older. The older
was unable to hold her. "Well, she is yours," he said. Now the younger
had two wives.
12b. They started to go. The woman looked back and saw her house. She
said, "I thought my house was (already) far away, but it is only a
little distance." She stopped and urinated. "Wait and stand, while I
tell of my home." She meant that now she was going with them and would
live with them and would not go to her house any more. (2 songs, about
her house.)
13. They went on again. Now all the stars had been made,[22] but the
two boys were wise, had dreamed, and knew all. They said, "We will
tell about the stars; of mountain sheep (Orion), and of Hatša (the
Pleiades)." (2 songs, about the constellations.)
[22] The creation is recent in all these tales. Night comes on
as they travel, apparently; but they arrive in the afternoon!
14. In the afternoon they came home. The (new) woman sat down outside
at the southeast corner of the house. She was ashamed, and did not go
indoors with them. She had long hair, down to her thighs; she did not
say anything. The old man was ready for her to grind: he had a metate
prepared inside. Now he came out, took her hand, and led her indoors.
Then she ground corn. As she ground, blood flowed on her thigh. They
said, "Look at her, she is menstruating: the blood makes a streak on
her thigh."[23] (1 song.)
[23] More Mohave--both the fact of the mention when nothing
hinges on it, and the fact that the woman goes on preparing food
for them.
15. Now there were two women to work, and it did not take them long to
grind enough for mush. One of them built a fire and put a pot on it; the
old man came out to help them. When the water boiled, the old man poured
the corn into it and one of the women stirred. She put in salt and
tasted it; there was not enough, and she put in more until it was good.
Now she gave the old man some. She put some in a large dish and took it
in to the two boys. They ate together, the two women and the two boys.
At night they all lay down indoors. The old man thought, "It is not
right: one of them has two wives. They are two brothers but one has no
wife." He said, "You are two brothers, but the older has no wife. He
must have a wife too. In the morning go north and get one for yourself
also. Kukho-metinya's[24] daughter is the one that I want you to find."
In the morning the two boys went north. Then Kukho(-metinya)[24a] met
them, flying in the air. They said, "The bird is intelligent: he flies
to meet us." (2 songs.)
[24], [24a], [24b] Kukho is the yellowhammer or red-shafted
flicker. Kukho-metinya is the girl's father and flies to meet
the young man; and the girl keeps a kukho in a cage.
16. When they came there, there was a bird in a cage. It was a
kukho.[24b] They took it out with their hands and set it by the door.
The woman was inside, heard it, came out, and saw the bird. She said,
"Where are you two from? You are foolish. Do you know that that is my
bird in the cage? Why do you take it out?" They stood and laughed. She
went inside again, put on her dress and her beads, and came out. She
went to the older one and he embraced her. The younger wanted to come
to her also, and said, "She is mine." But Pukehane said, "No, she is
not yours, she is mine." Then Tšitšuvare said, "Well, she is yours."
He let him have her, because he had two already. Then they started
home. (1 song.)
17a. When they came to the house the old man took her by the hand, led
her inside, and wanted her to grind corn. Now there were three women
grinding and it did not take long. The old man helped them cook. They
gave him some, and the three women and the two brothers ate together.
The sun set, it became dark, they built a fire in the house. The two
brothers did not speak: the old man was thinking again. He said, "Now
you two brothers each have a wife." Pukehane had his bed in the
southeast corner of the house; Tšitšuvare, at the southwest; the old
man lay in the center of the house. He said, "Tšitšuvare, you have two
wives; Pukehane, you have only one. I think it will be best for you to
get another. If you each have two it will be well. If one of you has
two and the other only one, it will not be right. I want you to go
south to get one. Get Tankusahwire's[25] daughter." That is what he
said that night.
[25] This is again a bird.
17b. In the morning they went south. They saw a hotokoro bird in a
cage. The cage was woven of red and blue string. They had not come
there yet: as they were going they saw it. (1 song.)
18a. When they arrived, they took the bird in their hand, set it at
the door, it walked about there. The woman heard it and came out. She
said, "That bird is mine. It takes care of me. It lives with me
always. You know why you have done that!" It was as if she were angry.
She was not angry but she said that. She went back into the house to
put on her dress. She put it on, and beads on her neck and ears and
wrists. Tšitšuvare, the younger, saw her come out but did not go to
her. He let his older brother embrace her. He said nothing. He
thought, "It is well." Then they went back north. They came home the
same day. The three women were grinding corn. The new one did not go
inside: she was ashamed and sat outside. The old man took her in. He
gave her a metate and the four of them ground. When they had finished
they made mush: the old man helped them: he wanted to taste if there
was enough salt. He said, "If there is not enough, put in more. If it
is right, set it off the fire." Then they gave him some. They put more
in a large dish and took it inside. All the women and the two young
men ate together. At sunset they built a fire inside. Two women went
to the east side of the house, two to the west. The two men were lying
in the corners shading their eyes with their hands (δokōuk). The old
man lay in the center of the house. He got up, thought, and said,
"There is another thing good to have: it is cane. When you play on it
the sound goes as far as the sky and everyone can hear it." He said
that in the night.
_D. Quarrel over Cane: Elder Kills Younger_
18b. In the morning the two brothers went west, far west. There were
no clouds but there was lightning and it thundered. Tšitšuvare said,
"Do you hear that? I think that is dangerous." Pukehane said, "Well, I
do not care. Perhaps it will go well, perhaps it will go wrong. We
will go anyway: it does not matter where we die. We do not know. Do
not mind: if we both die in this land it will be well." (1 song.)
19. They went on west. They climbed up a mesa.[26] They stood and
looked down. Then they saw cane. Tšitšuvare was glad to get it.
Pukehane said, "Do not go yet! Wait! Good ones do not grow everywhere:
they grow in only one place. Wait until we tell about them. I will
tell about the roots (butts?), the large roots that they have." The
younger brother stood and listened to what the older one said about
the cane roots. (1 song.)
[26] River terrace of gravel.
20. They went down to the cane. There was a cane to the east: Pukehane
put his hand on it. There was a cane at the west: his younger brother
put his hand on that. The younger one said, "I do not want the top."
He cut the top off and gave it to his older brother: he wanted the
bottom part where it is large. Pukehane said, "A little boy like you
takes a little piece from the top." Tšitšuvare said, "Don't you know
when there are two brothers the younger wants the most of everything?
I want the large one, you take the top." Pukehane said, "Very well. It
is good." Tšitšuvare said, "If you had not given me the bottom but had
left me the top, I should have cried, because the younger always wants
most and if he does not get it he cries. You thought I would cry.
Well, my brother, I feel happy." Tšitšuvare wanted to break the cane
with his hands. Pukehane said, "Wait! You are able to break it with
your hands, but do not do so. We have both dreamed well. We have no
knife here but I can get a knife to cut it with." (1 song.)
21. He did not make a knife. He put his hand out to the west and had a
knife in it. The younger asked, "How many joints shall we cut?"
"Three," said Pukehane. (2 songs.)
22. Then Pukehane cut the cane at the butt. He was holding the top
end, his younger brother the bottom end, but Pukehane wanted that.
Tšitšuvare said, "No, you said you would let me have it!" "No," the
elder said. They did not break it: both of them held on. Tšitšuvare
did not want the top; Pukehane wanted to take it all: but his younger
brother held fast, and he could not take it away from him. Pukehane
was larger and knocked his little brother down, but Tšitšuvare held
on: he did not let go, he held tight. Then Pukehane put his foot on
his brother's belly: still he held on: He nearly died, but he kept his
hold. When Pukehane saw that his younger brother was nearly killed, he
stopped. He took hold of him and made him stand up. "Well, my younger
brother, I will let you have it," he said. The older was a doctor: he
had dreamed. He thought, "Well, I will let him have it, and after a
while I will kill him." Tšitšuvare said, "How must we use them, long
or short?" Pukehane told him, "The Yuma make them long, of four or
five joints, with a hole right through them. We do not do that: we use
three joints." (2 songs.)
23. Then they went back and came home. They laid the cane on the
ground. They told how they had brought it. (1 song.)
24. When the two boys sat down, the women had wheat bread[27] ready
and gave it to them. They began to eat outside. The old man came out
from the house and saw the two boys about to eat the bread. They had
not swallowed it yet: their mouths were full. The old man said, "Did I
not tell you that that was dangerous? I said not to eat anything with
salt in it[28] until you have washed yourselves." They spat it out.
When it was nearly sunset they built a fire and all went into the
house. That night the younger one became sick: he had the nightmare
and talked to himself.[29] Before it became day, Pukehane started to
go outdoors. He could make people go to sleep with θavôθapanye. He
held it in his hand and struck a house post. So they all went to
sleep: his younger brother too. Then Pukehane went outside, took the
cane, and decorated it with his saliva.[30] In the morning he said,
"Younger brother, why do you not get up? Do not sleep: a common man is
always doing that. You are likely to get sick. Get up and help me."
The younger sat up. Pukehane had already finished painting his cane.
Tšitšuvare came out and wanted to paint his. He did paint it: but when
he held it out to look at, there was no paint on it: it looked dark
(unpainted) to him. He said, "I thought I had painted it well. I think
I shall die." He threw the cane away to the north, went indoors, and
lay down. Then Pukehane sent for people to come for his brother who
was about to die; he sent for Nume-peta at Avikwame. When a man will
die they send word of it about and begin to sing. (1 song.)
[27] Moδīlya, baked in the hot sand.
[28] Salt is one of the most frequent Mohave taboos.
[29] Nyaveδītš itšôuk, ghost ill. The victim is in pain, like
crazy, thinks he is talking with someone, keeps on talking.
[30] Instead of marking it with fire. It is not clear whether
the paint consisted of his saliva, or whether he used spittle to
moisten his pigment.
25. The two brothers had birds in cages. The younger had five kinds:
pariθi (shrike), sakwaθa'ālya (magpie), aθikwa (woodpecker), atšyôra,
θinyêre (sparrowhawk). Pukehane took one of them, peeled the skin off
its head, and let it go. One he skinned on the back, one on the belly,
one over the ribs, and one under the eyes. He threw the pieces of skin
away, and let the birds loose. They flew up and fell down again. The
sick man said, "I think I shall die: I never saw that before: my birds
look different." (1 song.)
26. When the sun was halfway up, Nume-peta arrived with his people.
They crowded around the sick man and began to cry. Nume-peta said,
"After awhile, people will always do that; they will burn them too.
Now, two men go get wood: get timahutši."[31] (1 song.)
[31] It grows in the mountains; the interpreter did not know it.
27. Pukehane had made his younger brother sick. Therefore he did not
stay by him but by Nume-peta. Tšitšuvare said, "Move me a little so
that I can tell of all my bones before I die." (1 song.)
28. The two men got wood. When they brought it, Pukehane and Nume-peta
were thinking what they wanted to be in the future: they wanted to
teach the Chemehuevi, Yavapai, Walapai how to do. The sick man was not
dead yet. Then they took his rib out to use for a skin-dressing tool.
They took his kneecap for a shinny ball. They took his shinbone, cut
off each end, and used it to juggle up and catch on the back of the
hand.[32] They took these bones out of his body and so killed him.
Then they went to Avikwame, Pukehane taking his own two wives with
him.[33] Tšitšuvare's wives and Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše stayed, stood, cried,
and sang. When it was dark the old man took a knife and cut the two
women's long hair, and his own. One of the women was pregnant. (1
song.)
[32] "The Walapai and other tribes play much with bones like
this."--But, like the Mohave, not with human bones, except in
myth or fancy.
[33] They did not burn the body.
_E. Birth of the Hero_
29. They cried all night. In the morning--they had not thrown their
food away, and had corn and beans--they ate. Then Sun's daughter went
back to her home; the other woman (Tšese'ilye) and the old man were
still in the house. In the afternoon the woman said, "I am going to
have a child. I have a pain on each side of my belly." Then the old
man said, "Yes, that is the way." At night the child had not been born
yet, but it sang. They heard it talking and singing inside. They said,
"He is singing. We hear it." (1 song.)
30. The old man said, "That sort of a boy will be somebody; he will be
a shaman. When he is a man, he will make me be like a young man again.
I am glad." Then the boy said from inside, "Too many people are
passing by the house. I am going to make rain so that no one will come
by while I am being born: I want no one to know or hear or see it. I
do not want people to know when I emerge." (1 song.)
31. The woman could not sit still from her pain. She crawled around
into the corner of the house, and outdoors. Then the boy said, "Sit
still. I want to emerge." He did not know where to come out, at the
mouth or anus or ribs. He said, "Sit still. Keep your legs still, so
that I can come out; do not move them!" The woman said, "Old man, do
you hear what the boy in me says?" The old man said, "That sort of a
boy is wise. He will be a shaman." When it became day the boy came
out. They made hot sand to lay him on and covered him with hot sand up
to his neck. (1 song.)
32. The night the boy was born it rained. (Far in the north) Nume-peta
thought, "I believe that child has been born and has made the rain. If
one of you goes there today, you will see the child." A man went: he
saw the child sitting in the door. Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše asked him, "What
do you want?" The man said, "Nume-peta sent me to see this child."
Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše said, "Yes, it was born this morning." So the man
went back and told Nume-peta. Nume-peta said, "Did I not know it? The
child is wise and will be a doctor. It made rain so that no one would
know it was being born; but I knew it, for I am a doctor too." Then
Nume-peta took his people and Pukehane, and they all came to see the
child. They said, "We will look at it. If it is a boy, we will kill
him, because he will be a doctor and will kill us; when he is grown he
will make us sick. But if it is a girl, we will not kill her. It will
be well: she will work and get water. A girl will do that, but a boy
will not do that: he will kill us." Now they all stood at the door
looking at the child. Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše hid the child's penis, drawing
it back to the anus. Then they all said, "No, it is not a boy, it is a
girl. If it were a boy we would kill it, but it is a girl." So they
all went back. (1 song.)
33. Then the woman suckled the child and sang. They had made them
think that the child was a girl. It was a boy but they would not let
them know it. (1 song.)
_F. Shinny Game with Father's Foes_
34. The child grew fast. In four, five, six days it smiled and
laughed. In a year it was as high as that (gesture), and walked around
and played. Now Nume-peta and Pukehane came again with all their
people. They played shinny with the dead man's kneecap. Then the
child, dressed as a girl, went out to watch, not knowing those bones.
Some of them gave him a bone to make a doll of, for he wore a dress
and looked like a girl. Every day he went to play where these people
played, and at sunset came back to his house. So it was three nights:
the next night it would be four. Then his mother told him, "That doll,
the bone you play with, is from your father. Your father traveled to
be married. And he traveled to get cane, he and his older brother. The
younger was wise: he was superior to the older; but the older was a
great doctor. He made his younger brother sicken and die. That bone is
from your father, and so is the bone they play shinny with." (2
songs.)
35. Then the apparent little girl said, "I did not know that. If I had
known that it was the bone of my kin I should not have played with
it." So he said and cried. He cried all night and never suckled. In
the morning when the sun was up he went under the shade; he was tired
from crying, lay down and slept a little. Then he dreamed. The insect
θonoθakwe'atai[34] sat on his lip while he slept and said, "All of
them play with those bones. They think it is amusing but it is a bad
thing. They are not the bones of an animal. If they were animal bones
it would be well, but they are your father's bones." When the boy
dreamed that he sat up. He went back into the house. That night he
wanted to send his mother home: he did not want her to live there any
longer.[35] He told her, "Go west.[36] These people here are my
relatives but they do not treat me right. They said they would kill
me. I will stay here. The old man, my (father's) uncle, will stay
here too. He is wise: he saved me or I should have been dead long ago.
I want him to stay: he can beg around the houses and get something to
eat and water to drink. He can live in that way and be well; but I
want you to go west." The woman took a little round dish[37] and put
glowing coals into it. So she lit her way, to know where to go.[38]
Then she went off westward, traveling by that light. When she was gone
the boy thought about her. He thought, "Why have I sent my mother away
like a bird? A bird's nest is on the desert; it sleeps on the desert,
where no one lives." Then he was sorry for her and cried. (2 songs.)
[34] An insect that lives in trees, does not fly, and looks like
haltôθa.
[35] "Tšese'ilye was her name"--her father's, ante. About this
confusion, see note 58. Another confusion is that in 29 it is
Sun's daughter (wife no. 2) who goes away and Tšese'ilye who
gives birth to the hero, as confirmed by his now sending her
home west; whereas in 82b, 86, 87, he travels east to rejoin his
mother, and in 90 her father is Sun.
[36] Where she had come from, if she is Tšese'ilye (or
Tšese'ilye's daughter) and not Sun's daughter.
[37] Kwaθki-mareko, almost as deep as a pot.
[38] Travel by firebrand is a Yuman habit. Rio de los Tizones
was the first European name given the Colorado.
36. That night when there were only the two of them there, the boy
told the old man, "I am going to leave you. You stay here. Listen to
what I will do." He thought he would do something to the people that
played with his father's bones, but he did not yet know what. Then the
old man Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše said, "It is well. You will die somewhere and
I will cry for you here. That will be all. I can live. I am not very
old yet. I can go about begging for food. I will come to people's
houses and they will give me something to eat, for they will know me
and that I am poor and hungry. I shall live like that staying on
here." Then in the morning they all came there to play ball again.
They had short shinny sticks, nearly straight, not long and
curved.[39] When the boy saw them, he went outdoors, took earth and
rubbed it on himself, so that no one would see him, or know him; for
he wanted to take away their ball. So he turned himself into a
halye'anekītše lizard.[40] Now they played. They came near him: he was
lying by the side of the playing field: no one knew it. Now they
played toward the south and back again, four times, and one side won.
Then the boy seized the ball: no one saw him take it: no one knew he
had it. He went back to his house. Now he wanted to throw it, but did
not throw it yet: he wanted to know in which direction to throw
it.[41] First he wanted to throw it north, but did not. Then he was
going to throw it south, then west, then east. He kept it in his hand
and stood there. (1 song.)
[39] Of bone? The ordinary Mohave shinny stick is a yard long
and definitely bent at the end.
[40] The tip of its tail is blue: cf. note 95.
[41] Typical hesitation of Mohave narrative.
37. When he had told (kanavk) of the far heavens (amaiyêitše) four
times, still holding the ball, he struck the ball with a stick and it
flew west like a meteor (kwayū). It fell in the mountains and broke
them and killed the people who lived on them: it killed them all. The
boy stood and heard. He thought, "No one is there now: they are all
killed!" Nume-peta and Pukehane said, "That boy! I knew he would do
it: he has killed all those people. He will kill us too. You shall
see: he will do that." The boy did not hear them, but he knew (what
they said). He was glad and laughed and shouted and ran. He ran north
to Avi-kwutapārva: There he stood. (2 songs.)
_G. Journey South to Sea_
38. When he stood there at the river he thought how to cross it. He
said, "I thought I was a man who knew everything, who had dreamed
well." Then he piled up sand, four heaps, so high. He began, at the
nearer end, to level them with his foot. Then the river was full of
sand all the way across, enough to walk on. So he crossed and stood on
the other side, the east side of the river. He thought which way to
go, whether east or south. Then he thought, "Well, I will follow this
trail south." (1 song.)
39. He went downriver to Iδô-kuva'ire,[42] did not stop there, but
went on to Ahtšye-'iksāmta and Qara'êrve. There it was sunset and he
slept in the thick willows and cottonwoods by the river bank: it was a
good place to sleep, with much brush. Many birds were in the trees:
early in the morning they all awoke and made much noise. Then he could
not sleep well: he tried to but could not. So he sat up and listened
to the birds calling. Tinyama-hwarehware[43] was sitting on a tree
singing loudly. When a boy sleeps somewhere alone he is lonesome and
afraid; so this boy was afraid and could not sleep. Then he said to
the birds and the insects, "You make too much noise. I cannot sleep.
Be quiet!" So they were quiet and he slept again. (2 songs.)
[42] Iδo-kuva'ire is upstream from Fort Mohave.
[43] An insect "like a butterfly," with wings and a long belly.
40. After he had slept he got up and went south. Then he came to the
hill Selye'aya-kumītše.[44] (1 song.)
[44] East of Fort Mohave.
41. He went on south to an overflow lagoon, Hanyo-kumasθeve.[45] From
there he went south a little distance to where the ahtšye grass was
high. There a rattlesnake stuck up its head and shook its rattle
noisily. When he saw the snake he was frightened: he had never seen
one before. He nearly died from fear: he stood unable to move. (2
songs.)
[45] A little east of where the wagon road (of 1904) crosses the
irrigating canal.
42. Then he made the rattlesnake lie still without shaking its tail,
making no sound, and not biting. He kicked it and threw it with his
feet, four or five times. Then he picked it up, and used it for a
belt, and put it around his neck and into his mouth. So he played with
it, and the rattlesnake died and he threw it away. He said, "I am not
afraid of you. If you were dangerous to me you would bite and kill me,
but you are not dangerous and so it is you will not bite me."[46] He
left the snake lying there, and went south, to Amai-nye-qotarse, did
not stop there, and went on south to Kamahnūlye. Two men were hunting
there. When they killed a deer they did not cook it but ate it raw: He
saw their red mouths and was afraid of them. He saw that they were
wildcats (nume). (5 songs.)
[46] An unusually direct reaction on the wish-fulfillment level.
43. The two wildcats went off east and he went on south. He came to
Aha-kuminye. A horsefly (hoane) lived there at the edge of the mesa in
a cavity. It came to him, lit on his back and shoulders, and flew off
again. Then the boy thought, "It is intelligent like a man. It knows
something. When it sees me it comes to meet me." (1 song.)
44. The horsefly flew away and did not come back. Then the boy said,
"That is not a man. If it were a man he would come back to talk to me.
I will go on." Then he went on south to Hotūrveve. There were astake
trees there on the mesa: there he saw that a hummingbird (nyenyene)
had its nest. (1 song.)
45. He went on south to Sampulya-kwuvare. There he told the name of
that place. (1 song.)
46. He went on south to Atšqāqa. There he followed the (Sacramento)
wash up eastward, away from the river. The day was bright and there
were no clouds. Then he told about clouds, for he wanted the air fresh
and the day cooler because it was too hot to walk. He did not stop but
kept on going talking of that. (1 song.)
47. As he went on, soon there were clouds all over the sky. He came to
Hanyikoitš-kwamve, crossed the wash, and went southward toward the
mountain Akokehumī. Then he came to Avi-ahnalya (Gourd Mountain). (1
song.)
48. He went on south but not very far. He had not yet come to
Avi-a'īsa ("screw-mesquite mountain"), but stood and told of his going
there. (1 song.)
49. He went on south and reached Akokehumī. There he saw a spring: a
single screw mesquite grew there. He said, "I think this is my food: I
will eat it. There is water here too; so I shall be alive. I was lucky
to find this spring and this tree." He stood by the tree and sang. (5
songs.)
50. Then he pulled the mesquite-screws off the tree and ate them.
When he had eaten, he drank, and went on. He went south to
Ahwaṭa-kwimātše.[47] There used to be people who danced there, who
had turned to stone. At first they were men, but now they were many
rocks standing up; and the boy saw that. (2 songs.)
[47] North of Bill Williams Fork; also now called Williams
River.
51. He stood there awhile, then went on south. He came to Amaṭa-kuhultoṭve.
There there grew wild grapes (ahtoṭa) on the ground: they were ripe and
he picked them and held them in his hand and played with them. He did
not eat them. (2 songs.)
52. He threw them away and went on south. He came to Hakutšyepa, Bill
Williams Fork: he followed that creek up east. Then he met a badger
(mahwa). It smiled when it met him. He did not try to catch it and
the badger ran off. He paid no attention, but followed the creek up
east. He went on and on and came to Aha-ly-motāṭe. There were sand and
mountains and caves there, and he told about them. (1 song.)
53. He stayed there awhile and played. Then he followed a trail south
and came to Avi-su'ukwilye, a sandhill. There he stood on a mesa.
Ohūtšye, coyote-grass, grew there. He saw a jack rabbit eating that.
He thought, "Its body does not look like a man's, but it feels when it
gets hungry, and it eats. I thought it knew nothing, but it does know
something: it knows that that is good to eat." (1 song.)
54. Then he followed along the sand ridge, keeping on it, going south.
Far away he saw high mountains: they looked as if they were near, but
they were far. They were called Avi-melyehwêke: he was going there: he
arrived when it was nearly sunset. (3 songs.)
55. There he slept. It was (Western) Yavapai country. In the morning
he did not want to go farther south. He turned northward and came to
Avi-hupo. (2 songs.)
56. From there he went on north to near the river, to
Selye'aya-'ita.[48] There he stood, wanting to cross the river to the
western side, to Kuvukwīlye. (1 song.)
[48] There are two Selye'aya-'ita. This is the farther one, well
south of Mohave territory.
57. Then he did as he had done before. He made four piles of sand and
leveled them into one ridge with his feet and made the river dry
enough so that he could walk across, and came to the west side of the
river. Now he was at Kuvukwīlye. He said, "I can stand here and tell
the names of the mountains." (3 songs.)
58. He turned south again and came to Aha-kumiθe where is a spring. He
thought no one had seen it before. "I found this. No one knew of it."
People had seen the spring, but he thought not. (1 song.)
59. He went south to Amaṭa-hiya, "earth-mouth." There there was a hole
or crack in the ground, red like blood. He saw it and thought, "How
did this come to be?" He walked around it looking in, and stooped over
it. (1 song.)
60. He went and came to Tôske. There he stood and told the name of
that place.[49] (1 song.)
[49] He is near Yuma land now.
61. Going south again he came to a low mesa, to a place called
Yelak-īmi, "goosefoot." (1 song.)
62. Going on he came near the Yuma country. He stood on the mesa,
looked down on the ground for planting, and saw much cane. He thought,
"How did the cane come to be here? I did not think it grew here. I
will go down to see it." (2 songs.)
63. He went down to where the cane grew, broke off a piece as long as
a flute, and played with it. He came (abreast of) Enpeθo'auve, the
Cocopa Mountains, south of Yuma. He kept along the edge of the river,
going fast, running, walking, and keeping on. (1 song.)
64. He went on until he came to the sea (the Gulf of California). The
waves were high. When they came up on the land and went back, there
were holes and some of the water did not run back, but stayed in the
holes and made ponds. A crane (nyāqwe) was there. He said, "That is an
eagle (aspā): it surely looks just like an eagle." (3 songs.)
65. The bird flew off eastward. He said, "That bird is afraid of me:
it flew away." He walked along the sea to the east. As the waves came
and went they left shells there: hanye, ahtšīlye, aha-nye-amokye,
tamāθe, ahāspane, and two other kinds used by doctors.[50] He knew
that these shells were good to wear. No one had told him, but he knew.
He took them in his hand and played with them. (2 songs.)
[50] For which reason the narrator did not like to name them.
Perhaps they are used in poisoning. Hanye are small clamshells
cut into shape of a frog (hanye) and worn as a gorget.
66. Then he threw the shells away and kept going east. He looked back
to the west and saw ducks, heard them making a noise. He thought,
"What are those? They have feathers. They are like persons, but they
are ducks." There was a large flock of them on the sea, close
together. (2 songs.)
67. He went on east. Where a little lagoon came out of the sea, there
was a hatômpa'auve.[51] He lived in that lagoon. The boy saw him
fishing and was afraid. He thought, "I will tell about him. Then I
will go on." (2 songs.)
[51] The hatômpa'auve is described as looking like "a large
horse with feet like a duck's and a tail."
68. He went on, not following the edge of the sea any more, but north
and northeast. Soon the sea was far away. He came to a gravelly place,
a good level place. There he saw a'i-kumeδī trees (mountain or desert
trees with curved thorns--catsclaw acacia?) He told of them. (1 song.)
_H. Marriage and Contests with Meteor and Sun_
69. He went on east or northeast. Soon, in a level place in the
desert, he saw women's tracks, four women's. The tracks had been there
a year but they looked as if they had been made the same day. He said,
"I think I know these four women. I know who they are. I think they
are Sun's wives."[52] (5 songs.)
[52] They are called Sun's daughters later, and then his wives
again. See notes 54, 58.
70. Going on to the east, he found a house. No one was there. He said,
"Sometimes people go away and their house is empty." He went in and
stayed. He had in mind the four women. He said, "I think the oldest of
those four sisters knows me." He did not say this aloud: he thought
it. He did not want anyone to know that he had come: he did not want
anyone to see him. "But the oldest one will know me, I think," he
said. He slept there. He pulled out one of the sticks from the east
side of the house and made a little fire of it and slept. In the
morning he made a wind to blow away the ashes so no one would see he
had been there, and smoothed the sand inside the house to cover his
tracks. He thought, "I will turn to cane. I want the wind to blow me
away into the bushes. The oldest sister will find me." Then he went
out and lay there in the brush, a piece of cane. He left his shadow
inside the house. (2 songs.)
71. The four women came near. The boy was singing loudly. They could
hear him from far. He was telling the names of the four women. The
oldest was called Tasekyêlkye, the next Ahta-tšaôre, the next
Ahta-kwasase, and the youngest Ahta-nye-masape. Then the youngest
said, "My oldest sister, do you hear him say that? He calls you first.
He names you too, and you; and me: He calls all four of us. Do you
know that?" The oldest sister said, "Yes, I know it. There were two
men in the north. They were married. I think this is their boy. He
knows us. No one knows us, but this is their son. When we enter the
house you will see no one there, and no tracks. He will have turned to
a stick or perhaps to a piece of charcoal. Perhaps when you (are about
to) break a coal it will say, 'You are hurting me: look out!' If it
says that do not break it. Perhaps when you break a stick it will
speak and say, 'Look out: you hurt me!' Then do not break it. Perhaps
he will be lying in a crack of a house post. Perhaps he will turn into
a piece of cane and lie outdoors in the brush." So Tasekyêlkye, the
oldest sister, said to Ahta-nye-masape, her youngest sister. Then they
went into the house. She said, "There is no one here. There are no
tracks. He slept here last night but there is no one. Put your foot on
the fire place: There is warmth there." They drew the sand away with a
stick and there they found fire. "See, I knew there was fire here,"
said Tasekyêlkye. (2 songs.)
72. The four women stood in the house. Tasekyêlkye, the oldest, said,
"Look around. When you find a crack in the house post, push something
into it. If it says, 'Ana (ouch, look out), you are hurting me,' then
stop. Or pick up a lump of earth and start to break it: If it says,
'Look out, you hurt me,' then do not break it." They took up a coal
and broke it. It did not speak and they knew it was not he.
Tasekyêlkye said again, "When you find him, do not say, 'He is rotten,
he stinks.' And look in the brush; perhaps you will find him there."
So Ahta-nye-masape, the youngest, went west, and the others all about,
to look for him in the brush. Then the youngest found him: he was long
dead, stinking, rotten, full of maggots. With a stick they scraped off
the maggots. But there was no flesh on him: he was all bones: he had
been dead too long and was dry: they could not bring him to life. The
four of them stood there. (2 songs.)
73. Tasekyêlkye said, "Bring a karri'i basket; I want to put him in."
But her three sisters said, "What for? I do not like that. I don't
want my basket spoiled." Then Tasekyêlkye brought her own basket. She
said, "Come, help me. Take him up with your hands and put him in the
basket." But her three sisters turned away. They stood and would not
look at him: they vomited: none of them helped her. Then she herself
gathered the flesh and bones and put them into the basket. She said,
"Help me put it on my head: I want to carry him to the house." Her
three sisters did not want to help her: he was too old and maggotty
and stinking: they would not come near, but stood around. "Do it
yourself," they said; "take the basket up with your own hands and set
it on your head." So she took it up and carried it to the house. The
others followed her. Then Tasekyêlkye said, "Make a fire." She wanted
hot sand. When it was hot, she poured water on it and leveled it. Then
she piled the maggots and flesh and bones there together and covered
them with the basket. Then she went and bathed. Her three sisters
looked at the thing. They did not know what she would do with the
rotten boy. She came back, took off the basket, and a boy was sitting
there, as big as that boy (pointing to a ten-year old). The three
women looked at him. Tasekyêlkye sat by him combing her hair with her
fingers; the boy had no hair yet.[53] (2 songs.)
[53] Or: she combed what little hair he had?
74. The man whose house this was had four wives. He was Kwayū, meteor,
shooting-star: he hunted people and ate them. The four women were
Sun's daughters[54] and Kwayū's wives. Then Tasekyêlkye said, "That
boy does not eat. He does not become hungry. I know what he likes: he
likes tobacco. That is all he uses for food. Ahta-nye-masape, bring a
dish[55] with tobacco in it." The youngest sister went and got the
tobacco and gave it to the boy. He took the dish and poured the
tobacco in his mouth: he did not take it up with his hands. "Do you
see? I know what he likes," said the oldest sister. The boy had not
enough. He looked around and picked up the tobacco stalks lying about
the house and ate them. The three sisters laughed. Tasekyêlkye said,
"I think he wants more: he has not had enough." Then the youngest
sister gave him a cane as long as a hand, filled with tobacco. The boy
smoked it. He did not smoke it long: he sucked once and swallowed the
smoke: he did not blow it out. The whole cane was burned up except the
end. He chewed that up and spat it out. The women laughed. They liked
to see that: they had never seen a man doing it.[56] (1 song.)
[54] Not to be confused with the Sun's daughter who was the
second wife of Tšitšuvare and the boy's mother's co-wife.--See
notes 14, 38, 52, 58, 68, 78, 83.
[55] There is no record of tobacco being stored in pottery
vessels. Evidently it is here served in a dish because it is
consumed like food.
[56] Characteristic Mohave lack of reserve.
75. Tasekyêlkye said, "When our husband comes back he is tired from
gambling with hoop-and-poles and is hungry. Then he is angry. We had
better go gather something to eat: we have nothing in the house."
Every morning Kwayū went early to gamble, carrying his poles: one day
he would win and one day lose. Now the women all took their baskets
(karri'i). Tasekyêlkye said, "We are going to gather kwinyo or what we
can find. We are going off, but will come back. The man who lives in
this house, Kwayū, hunts persons. The people who live near he does not
kill: he kills those who live far away.[57] Sometimes he kills two or
three men and carries them home. He cuts them up but does not cook
them: he eats them raw. If he does not eat them all, he slices the
meat and dries it on a tree. And he does not throw away their bones:
he puts them away. When they are dry, he says, 'Grind the bones: I
want to eat mush.' We grind and he eats it. He does not eat what we
do. I am afraid that when he comes he will swallow you and keep you in
his stomach (isoqāte). I am thinking of that and afraid of it. That is
why we will not go off the whole day but will come back. If you were
not here we should be gone all day." So they went, carrying their
baskets. The boy thought, "How will he swallow me? I do not think he
can swallow me. I am wise; I have dreamed; I am a shaman, too. He
cannot do that. Sun is my father's elder brother (navīk). Now I have
come to his house.[58] If he sees me he will not let Kwayū swallow
me." Then he said to the house, "In the north I saw a house like this,
a good house. A man who lives in a house like this does not eat
people."[59] (4 songs.)
[57] Typical stylistic expression.
[58] The kinship is inextricable. His only uncle was Pukehane,
who had killed his father, whose second wife was Sun's daughter.
About the "two" Suns and their daughters, see above and below,
notes 35, 52, 54, 64, 78, 79, 83. When the informant was
appealed to at this point, he repeated what he had said first,
that the four women were Sun's wives, but contradicting the
statement in the narrative two paragraphs above, that they were
Sun's daughters and Kwayū's wives. Perhaps the kinship is
specifically conceived at any given moment in the story, but the
concepts waver and contradict one another as the long narrative
progresses. A kind of decorative pattern is followed rather than
logical or factual consistency maintained. At the same time the
inconsistency is precisely of the sort that is familiar in
lengthy dreams. This seems significant in view of the Mohave
assertion that they dream their tales. Even though this cannot
be literally true, they perhaps tend to regress into a
dream-mood in thinking of and relating the stories.
[59] This self-reassurance by addressing the house also suggests
infantile or dream phantasy.
76. So he stayed there alone. About noon Kwayū came. The boy saw him
coming and went into the house to hide. He drew his breath into his
belly and made it tight and projecting. He wanted to go on a rafter.
He thought, "If I lie on it he will not be able to pierce me. If he
stabs (at) me I will jump to another rafter. If he stabs (at) me
there I will go to another." Kwayū came: he had a spear (otaṭa). He
said, "Who came into my house? I smell him but I do not see him. Tell
me, has some one come? I know it." The boy heard him but did not say a
word, lying on top of a rafter. Kwayū struck at him. The boy jumped to
another rafter. Kwayū stabbed at him there. He penetrated the rafter
too far: his spear stuck: he could not pull it out: he became tired.
The boy jumped to another rafter. Again Kwayū struck at him and his
spear stuck in the rafter. He could not pull it out and left it
hanging in the rafter; he went and sat at the door. The boy came down
and sat in the middle of the house between the posts. "Give me
tobacco, I want to smoke," he said. Kwayū said, "You are too young to
smoke, but I will give you tobacco. You do not know how to smoke cane,
for the Mohave smoke a pipe of clay." The boy said, "I know how to do
that, for that is my name (I am cane)." Kwayū said, "My younger
brother's son, is that you?"[60] The boy said, "Yes, I know you: that
is why I came here. If I had not known you I should not have come."
Kwayū thought, "I thought that the boy born from the two brothers in
the north was wise. I was afraid of him. I was thinking he would kill
me." He did not say that but he thought it. He said, "You do not know
the small cane?" The boy said, "Yes, I know it. It belongs to me. I
dreamed good luck from it." Kwayū said, "I have meat here. I have
people's bones ground and made into mush. I ate of it but I did not
eat it all and there is some left. But I think you do not like that."
The boy said, "I do not know that kind: I do not like it. I know cane;
but wait, do not give it to me. I will tell you about it first: then
give it to me." Then he told of joints of cane.[61] (2 songs.)[62]
[60] Still another relationship. This would make Kwayū the same
person as Pukehane. Of course, kin terms may be being used
loosely in address to non-relatives.
[61] His father's name refers to cane joints.
[62] Here the narrator interjected the following: When Kwayū
came home, he thought: "No one comes to my house; I want no one
to come. I am stingy. I want no one to see my wives' faces. I am
bad and want to kill any man who has been among my wives. My
brother (_sic_) is good, he goes to play with people and wants
to be friendly; but that is not my way."
77. Kwayū said, "Have you told all?" "Yes," he said. Then Kwayū handed
him two pieces of cane filled with tobacco. The boy smoked one. It was
gone, but he still had the other. Kwayū said, "Stay here. I always go
hunting. I eat whatever I find. If I find a little boy on my way I
swallow him; if an old man or an old woman, I eat them too." Then
Kwayū went. Then after he had gone, Sun came. The four women had not
yet returned. Sun said, "You are a young boy, too young to travel.
Where are you from?" The boy said, "I came this morning." Sun said,
"There is a bad man here: he eats everybody. But he did not eat you:
I think you must have dreamed well." The boy said, "Yes, he did not
eat me." "Where are you from?" asked Sun. The boy said, "I came from
Avikwame. I was born there, I lived there." He meant that his father
had died there and his mother had gone away and his (father's) uncle
was still living there. "I left my uncle[63] (Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše) in the
north and came here. He knows everything, but I do not. He told me,
'Your relatives live far south.' You are my uncle:[64] that is why I
have come here." Sun said, "I knew you when you were at Avikwame. I
know what you wore: you wore cut raven-feathers." He had not (really)
seen it, the boy did not tell him, nevertheless Sun knew it. "You wore
a woven belt and beads. I know what else you wore: a white feather
rope." The raven feathers, aqaqa soverevere, he called kwasolīθ
soθôre. The woven belt, sorāpe, he called sorāpe.[65] The beads,
nyapūke,[66] he called hapanyôra. The feather rope,[67] soδīlyk
nyitšêve, he called kwinyekalāk. He said, "Will you gamble?" The boy
said, "I am poor. I have nothing to bet. My father died and my mother
went away and I have nothing." Sun said, "You have something at the
back of your head" (in his hair). "No," said the boy. After a time he
said, "Yes, I have it: I have a bead necklace. But I do not want to
play." He had hidden that, but Sun knew it. (2 songs.)
[63] Navik denotes not only f's o br but f's f's y br; but the
boy's father Tšitšuvare was said to be Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše's
hivetk, man's y br's ch, which would make him the boy's f's f's
_o_ br. Again, the kinships cannot be reconciled.
[64] Ct. note 58.
[65] Span. zarape, "serape."
[66] Obtained from the Cahuilla and Serrano, the Shoshonean
tribes toward the Pacific.
[67] Made by twisting the skin of a large white bird around a
cord; worn as a scarf or boa.
78. He said, "Well, I will put up what I have." Sun asked, "Will you
bet your body?" The boy said, "Yes. What will you bet against my body?
Put up your four women."[68] Then they played (hoop-and-pole). They
played running to the south. The boy won and counted one. They ran and
threw to the north and the ring fell on his pole and he had two
points. Then they threw to the south and he won and had three. Then
they threw north and he made that point and had four. So the boy won.
He won Sun's apparel and the four women. Then Sun said, "I want to bet
my house, my dishes, and the sack I have in the house. I have made
heaven and earth into a sack."[69] They bet, played again as before,
four times, and the boy won: now he had won the house too. Sun said,
"I will bet you the lake (slough) where I bathe. I will bet you my
looking-glass water (haliyōi). And I have a beaver who lives in the
water: that is why you cannot see him; but he belongs to me and I will
bet him. I have a scorpion (menīse), too, and bees (θampô): I will
bet those." So they played four times, to the south and the north and
the south and the north, as before, and the boy won again. When he had
won all those things he said, "I will bet what I have won against your
body. Will you play?" Sun said, "Yes, I will bet it." The boy said,
"If you lose your body, lie down where we have played. When I take my
knife, do not move: I will cut you to pieces because you have lost."
Sun said, "It is well: if I lose I will not move. Say what you like:
name whatever part you like to cut first." Then they played for four
points. Now Sun was lying: the four women belonged to Kwayū; and the
house belonged to Kwayū, and what was in the house, but Sun said it
was all his own. So they played. Three times the boy won. Now Sun had
nearly lost: once more and he would lose. Then he did not go on
playing: he stepped back, and stood, and did not throw his pole, and
talked, for he was about to lose his body. The boy thought, "If Sun
loses his body I think he will do something to me: he will try to kill
me, and I know how. He has sky-heat (ammay ipīlyta) in his body: I
know he has it and he will try to kill me with that. I have not seen
it but I know he will do that. He will make his casting pole stand up,
climb up it, and drop it on me and the house to kill me." So the boy
thought; but then, "I will prevent it: I will make ice. When he throws
his fire on the brush of the house the ice will prevent it." Soon Sun
climbed up his pole and threw the fire on the house. The boy caused
ice to be there and it put out the fire. Sun began to climb to the
sky. The boy climbed after and tried to strike him but could not reach
him. Then he slid back and stood on the ground. Sun went on up,
jumping like a ghost. The boy said, "You thought I was a little boy
and did not know anything; but I am wise. I will turn you into
something. I will make you be what you are now (the sun)." The fire
was still running all around the house. The four women came back and
saw the fire. Tasekyêlkye said, "Did I not know that that boy was
wise, that he would do something we have never seen?" The boy stood
outdoors and put the things he had won into the little sky-sack. He
thought (about Sun), "I will make you be something: I will turn you
into something: I will make you be two. Some days there will be two
suns (the sun and a sun dog)." That is what he did. (1 song.)
[68] The four women of the house, Sun's "daughters."
[69] The beginning of an episode of cosmic mythology.
79. As he stood he thought, "Well, I will see what I have won. I will
take a bath. And the looking-glass[70] and the beaver I have won! I
will go see those." Then the beaver did not know the boy and cried
with much noise. The boy said, "You do not know me? I am the one that
feeds you." And he went to see his scorpion. He thought, "I would like
to see it." The scorpion was lying still, but when the boy came, it
moved about, afraid. "Do you not know me? I am the one who feeds you,"
he said. "Well, I will go to see the bee that I have won, my bee." The
bee did not know him and wanted to sting him. It flew to him, under
his arm, lit where his neck and shoulder came together. The boy said,
"Do you not know me? Know me now: I am the one who feeds you." (2
songs.)
[70] A pottery dish, blackened with charcoal and filled with
water, used in face painting; a minor ethnographic detail,
interesting because of the prehistoric Hohokam mirrors of
pyrites in the Gila valley.
80. The boy stood there: he left these things there in the playing
field (matāre). He wanted to see his body. He wanted to look in his
mirror. He thought, "I want to see what sort of a looking boy I am."
When he looked; he said, "I have no clothes: I am a bad-looking boy."
(2 songs.)
81. He had no long hair, only short hair like a boy: he saw that. He
went to the bathing place and dived in northward. He came out again
and dived westward. Then he dived to the south. Then he dived to the
east.[71] He came out and now his hair fell below his hips. Then he
wanted to make a little wind to dry his hair. He did not sit down, he
did not lie down, he stood. Then the wind dried his hair. He came back
and looked in his mirror. He said, "I think I will wear eagle-down
(θume)." He put his hand out to the north and got eagle-down. Then he
put that on and looked at himself. "That is good," he said. Then he
put out his hand to the east and got a woven ("Navaho") shirt,
tolyekô-pa, and a woven strip of wool cloth (tolyekô-hare-hare) for a
breech-clout. "Now I have all that," he said. He put his hand out to
the west[72] and got beads (nyapūka). He thought, "When I was a boy I
did not know what was good: I did not wear anything. Now I know what
is good and am wearing what I have never worn before. I am ready now
and it is good." He was standing where he had bathed. The four women
were crying (at the house); he heard them. Tasekyêlkye, the oldest,
was thinking about the three persons (the boy, Kwayū, Sun), wondering
which of them had been turned into something and killed, for none of
them had come back yet. "Perhaps the boy has done that," she thought.
Then she said to her youngest sister, "Get water! You have a jar you
made yourself." "Yes, I have one," she said, and went to get water.
When she saw the boy all dressed up, she dropped her jar and went and
embraced and kissed him. She was away for some time. The oldest sister
said, "What is the matter with her that she does not come back? What
did she see when she went to get water?" And she sent another. When
the other woman came and saw Ahta-nye-masape embracing and kissing the
boy, she too threw away her jar and hugged him. "He is a good-looking
boy: I want to marry him," she said. Then Tasekyêlkye sent her other
sister. She came and saw the boy: he was not embracing the two girls;
they were holding him, and saying, "I want him." "No, I want him."
Then she also dropped her jar, for she wanted him too. Now the three
were gone and did not come back. Then the oldest sister thought,
"Well, there were three of them, but they have not brought water. I
will go myself and drink and then return here to cry." She took her
jar, went there, and saw the three women surrounding the boy,
embracing him; but the boy was not moving, not saying a word. When she
saw it she ran up: "Did I not know it? You like that boy: all of you
want him: I knew it!"[73] She too wanted him, but could not take him
away from the others. Now they had all come there to get water and
there was no one at the house. Then the four women said, "We will take
you to the house. We do not want you to walk: we will stand, you lie
down, and we will carry you." So the boy lay down and they carried him
in their hands. Four times they became tired and laid him down. When
they came to the house they spread a woven blanket, hatš-hārke, and
laid him with his head against a post in the middle of the house. (4
songs.)
[71] Anti-sunwise circuit, contrasting with the W-E, N-S pairing
of Tšitšuvare's and Pukehane's wives.
[72] Not a ceremonial circuit in this case, but a reaching out
to where the articles came from, to the Mohave: cloth from the
Hopi to the east, shell beads from the Shoshoneans to the west.
[73] Mohave tales do not weary of I-told-you-so's.
82a. The boy said, "I want the sky-sack in the house. I have many
things in it." The youngest went out and got the sack. Then the three
youngest ground corn, for they thought, "I think he is hungry." The
boy thought, "You three did not like me before: you thought I was
rotten. Now when you grind corn and make bread or mush and give it to
me I will not eat it." They made bread (môδīlya) and gave it to him
but he would not eat. Then Tasekyêlkye, the oldest, ground aksamta[74]
seeds and made bread of them and gave them to him and he ate: he did
not eat the other bread that the three younger sisters made. At sunset
they went to bed: two of them lay on each side of him. From each side
they tried to embrace him. He paid no attention to them except to the
oldest who lay next to him on the right side. That night she said,
"Will you stay here and live in this house, or go away? The man who
lived here eats people. We are afraid of that. When he goes hunting
without luck, he is hungry, and then I am afraid he will eat me; I
fear that every day." Then the boy said, "When I was north I told my
mother, 'I am going far to the south, but I am coming back.' My mother
is thinking of me, thinking I am coming to see her. I must go north to
where she lives and stay there. I will start in the morning."
[74] One of the "wild" seeds planted by the Mohave.--Handbook of
California Indians, p. 736.
_I. Return to Mother, Half-Brother, and Father's Ghost_
82b. In the morning he said, "I think that man (Kwayū) will come back
today." They said, "He has enough to eat: plenty of people's dried
meat and people's bones ground up." The boy said, "I do not think he
will follow me. Now I am ready to start. Are you ready?" All the women
said, "Yes." He said, "Take your baskets." Then they each took a
basket. He said, "I did not come here to gamble, I came to see my
relatives. When I came he wanted to play with me. He wanted to bet
everything,[75] his house, his property, and you, and I won you too.
It was not I who wanted to gamble, it was he." Then they went east on
the desert along a valley. After a while he stood still with the four
women. He thought, "When I am traveling, women make too much trouble.
They do not travel fast. If I kill them, I can go fast. I think I will
make it rain on them and they may die. It will become cold and they
will freeze and die from that." (2 songs, about clouds.)
[75] This must be Sun, whereas just before, in this paragraph
and the preceding, it is clearly Kwayū the cannibal that is
being referred to.
83. They went on and soon it rained. It rained heavily and continued
to rain. They went farther and the water was deep. The four women were
wet. Their clothes were wet and they could not go fast. The boy
thought, "Some men do wrong. I was thinking something bad. It is not
right: I do not like it. I said of Kwayū that his was a bad way. I do
not want to do anything bad. That is what I said, but now I am doing a
bad thing. I brought a heavy rain and made the four women wet. I will
stop the rain. If the rain stops and the sun shines, the women will
sit for awhile and their dresses will become dry; then we will start
again and go on." He thought like this and the rain stopped, and they
sat and rested. (1 song.)
84. They sat in the shade with their clothes off hanging in a tree to
dry. When their clothes were dry they went on again. There was much
mud from the rain. Their sandals (haminyo)[76] were full of mud. The
boy ran around the women. "Your feet are full of mud," he said, and
laughed. (1 song.)
[76] In recent generations sandals were made of horse rawhide,
but not very often worn.
85. They did not rest but went on. The four women wore frog
shell-gorgets (hanye),[77] with strings of shell beads at the back of
their necks. Then the boy told of what they wore. (1 song.)
[77] Standard woman's ornament. Cf. note 50.
86. They went on east and came to a valley and saw a basket-like cage
hanging; there was a masohwaṭ bird in it; the cage was red and white
striped. The bird saw the boy and came flying toward him. He said,
"This bird is my mother's. That is why it came to me. It belongs to
her." Then the bird flew back to its cage. (2 songs.)
87. He went on east and came to his mother's house at sunset. He took
the bird, put it down at the door, and stood to one side. The bird
walked around at the door, and made a noise. The woman came out and
saw the boy. "My son, it is you," she said. "Yes, it is I," he told
her. She said, "I thought you had died long ago. I thought somebody
had killed you. You have dreamed well: I did not think I would see you
again." She embraced him and cried. The four women stood off, looking
at them. (2 songs.)
88. The boy said, "You left me and I stayed in the house. When you
left me, I hid. The people playing shinny did not see me. I lay there
and took their ball. When I got it I went back to my house and struck
it to the west with my shinny stick. The ball fell in the mountains
and broke them, killing many people. Then I said to the old man, 'My
uncle, I am going to leave you. I am going to follow my mother. I am
going to go to her house. If I am not sick I will come back to see
you.' That is what I told the old man. Then I left and saw many
dangerous things, rattlesnakes and other dangers, but I was not
afraid. I saw animals and people but I overcame them all. I came to
Sun's house. When I came there this woman knew what I would be like.
She saved me. No one knew me, but she knew me. I killed Sun and turned
him into the sun, to be two suns. I did that; then I came here. I
myself killed my uncle (the sun): no one else did it." (1 song.)[78]
[78] On being asked the mother's name, the narrator said it was
Kuvahā; that the dead father's first wife's name was Tšese'ilye,
and that the two were half-sisters, daughters of Sun by
different mothers. Apparently either I or my experienced
interpreter misunderstood on Tšese'ilye's first mention, and
recorded "Tšese'ilye's daughter" instead of "Tšese'ilye, Sun's
daughter" (note 14). However, it is also possible that names and
relationships changed in the narrator's mind. His story was
recorded for three days, with an empty day's interval. In any
event, it is clear that names mean little to the Mohave in these
narratives: they talk chiefly in terms of boy, old man, woman,
brother, etc. Cf. note 87.
89. When she heard what her son had done, his mother said, "You have
come far and are tired. You have stood long and your legs are tired.
Sit down. I have corn and wheat. Grind it and make mush or eat it
whatever way you like. Take as much as you want." Then the oldest of
his wives went into the house and took corn and parched it. The three
other sisters were ashamed and stood with their heads hanging. His
mother put her hands on them, saying, "My daughters-in-law." (1 song.)
90. When Sun[79] came home, his daughter (the boy's mother) told him
what her son had told her. She said, "He says he has killed Sun and
turned him into the sun. He has made him be two suns." Then the old
man, the boy's grandfather, said, "If he has killed him, it is well.
Even though it was his kinsman, it is well. If a relative is bad and
is killed it is right." Then the boy asked him, "Are there any
dangerous things to the east?" He said, "Yes: thunder and lightning.
One cannot do anything to them. Look out!" The boy wanted them to kill
somebody with. He wanted to make them be something to take with him
when he went to war. So they talked that night. In the morning he
rolled up his blanket and carried it on his back, going east. He did
not say where he was going. When he was gone, his mother asked his
wife, "Did you hear him say anything? Did he tell you?" His wife said,
"I heard him say, 'When I come to my mother's house, Sun's house, I
will not stay because I do not know the old man there.' That is all I
heard him say." Meanwhile the boy went on east. (2 songs.)
[79] "Another Sun, brother of the one" that the boy had chased
to the sky and turned into the luminary.
91. When he came to Thunder's place, he went into a hole made by
lightning when it struck the ground. In the hole he found a (piece of)
cane. Then he split it with his fingernail into four splints. (2
songs.)[80]
[80] The only words in the two songs are: īδauk, I hold; kwatša,
a chief in the north (note 82); hanyô, enter hole; oδik, I
bring. These words are considerably twisted and added to by
meaningless syllables like -ngau.
92. When he had that cane, he brought it back to his mother's house,
at noon. He carried it in a bundle and hung it outdoors. His wife gave
him to eat. That night he said nothing. In the morning the woman
wanted to see what he had got. He said, "If I show it to you you will
all die quickly. So I will not show it to you: I will put it away."
Next day he said, "You know what they did to me long ago.[81] I am
going to have war with them. I am alone, but I am going, going north."
The women said, "If you go, we will go." Sun said, "I will stay." The
boy was going to war with Pukehane, Nume-peta, Tinya-kwaθpi, and
Kwatša-kwatša.[82] In the morning they started. (1 song.)
[81] When they killed his father. Perhaps the indirect allusion
to the dead is preferred.
[82] The two last are mentioned here for the first time. The
Mohave like groups of four. Tinya-m is "night." Kwatša-kwatša's
name, unreduplicated, occurs in the songs about getting the
lightning-cane (note 80).
93. They went north. Tšese'ilye had also had a boy.[83] That boy said,
"I am wise too. I have dreamed well: I know everything." He called
himself Ahta-kwasume.[84] He gave himself that name: no one else gave
it to him. Around his neck he wore cane, and he wore it on his belt
and in his ears. When he walked, the cane in front and behind him
rattled. Now he went east: He came to Hatšakwanakwe. There he burned
the grass[85] and stayed, wanting to see his half-brother from the
south. Then that one from the south came. Ahta-kwasume had a little
fire over which he was stooping and did not see him. Then when he saw
him he did not know him: he thought he was of some other tribe and not
his brother. He was afraid and ran off east, and the other chased him,
saying, "You do not know who I am: I am your brother." That one
continued to run; at last he stood and waited; he saw it was his
brother, and they talked. He went back with him to where the women
were. (The one from the south) said; "You are my brother. I did not
think I should see you. You did not expect to see me, did you? I met
you on the desert. How do you live?" (1 song.)
[83] Here the woman, not her father, is again called Tšese'ilye.
This boy would of course be our hero's half-brother.
[84] Ahta is cane.
[85] Perhaps as a signal?
94. "Who are you? Whose boy are you?" he said. Ahta-kwasume did not
say, but asked him the same. He also would not tell. Then Ahta-kwasume
sang. In the song he mentioned his father's (_sic_) name. Then the one
who had come from the south said, "I stand on Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše"
(circumlocution for: he is kin of my father).[86] (1 song by each of
them.)
[86] Names of the dead are not mentioned. Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše was
his father's older kinsman and still alive.
95. Then Ahta-hane,[87] who had come from the south, said, "We met
here. We will cry together for a little while." Then they took hotū
paint;[88] with that they painted. Then they cried. They burned their
clothes and their baskets and all they had;[89] but Ahta-hane did not
burn the cane he had got from the lightning hole. (1 song.)
[87] Here at last we have the name of our boy hero. The narrator
gave it when he was asked it at this point. When asked
previously, in the part of the story where the boy is coming
near Yuma tribal territory in his southward travels, the
narrator said that as yet he had no name.
[88] Not ordinary black paint, but micaceous, and glittering
when ground. Perhaps a mourning paint.
[89] In mourning. The reunion, recognition of kinship, and
reference to their dead father finally brings on this expression
of emotion.
96. He sprinkled water on the ashes and walked on the ashes and made
the ground open wide in four places. Their father was deep down and
they wanted him to come up. They heard him come. He continued to come
and they heard him nearer. Soon he emerged. He had no bones, only
flesh.[90] The two boys embraced him and cried. Ahta-kwasume sat to
the west of him, Ahta-hane to the east. (2 songs.)
[90] A curious expression of unsubstantiality. This whole Witch
of Endor episode seems strange in Mohave culture.
_J. Revenge on Father's Foes_
97. Ahta-hane said, "You cannot walk. You cannot come with me. I
wanted to see you, to see your face and your body. That is all. I am
going north." Their father said, "It is well. I have seen you both."
Soon he went back (down), he who had been Tšitšuvare. Then the two
brothers and the women went north. They went north until they came to
Selye'aya-kumītše.[91] They stood there. Then Ahta-hane saw dust in
the north, and his father's scalp tied on a pole, and the wind raising
the dust.[92] (1 song.)
[91] Near Fort Mohave, to the east of it.
[92] Presumably from people dancing about it.
98. Then word was brought to Pukehane and Nume-peta and Kwatša-kwatša
and Tinya-kwaθpi, who were living at Avikwame with many people. Then
Pukehane and Nume-peta sent Kwatša-kwatša to the two boys to say that
they wanted to meet them: he came southward and met them at
Qara'êrve.[93] They said, "Tell them that we shall be there. We will
see them: we are going there." (2 songs.)
[93] A mile or so northeast of Fort Mohave.
99. Kwatša-kwatša said, "All have heard that you are coming. All know
it: the news was brought to them. When you arrive they want to try
something with you. There is a large rock with roots far down in the
ground. Takse[94] has dug under the rock and broken the roots. He is
to roll it, pick it up in his hand, and put it back where it belongs.
There is another: Halye'anekītše:[95] he will obey you. Your father's
scalp is on the pole: he will climb up to get it. If he can bring it
down, we shall lose, but if he cannot bring it we shall win." The two
boys said, "The people who live in the north do not think as we do.
They ridicule me because they have killed my father. We shall arrive
about noon." Then Kwatša-kwatša went back. (2 songs.)
[94] A ground-squirrel or large rat.
[95] The blue-tailed lizard. Cf. note 40.
100. That day they went up the river and came near the others.
Halye'anekītše went to meet them. He said, "I will climb up to get the
scalp. If you win you will get everything, their clothes, the men and
women, the boys and the girls. But if I climb and cannot bring down
the scalp, you will lose your bodies and everything you have. Then
again, if Takse can dig under the large rock and cut its roots and
carry it and throw it, you will lose, but if he cannot move the rock,
you will win. You will win the houses, the dishes, and all the
property of those people." Now Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše wanted to see the two
boys. He said, "I want to see my two nephews." He met them, embraced
them, and felt them over.[96] (1 song.)
[96] Tactifying his emotion, as it were. He did not cry, the
narrator said.
101. Now the two boys came there.[97] Then they argued what they
should do first. The two boys wanted Halye'anekītše to make his trial
first. The people who lived there wanted Takse to be first. Then Takse
tried first. He took the rock, but could not throw it and it fell down
just where he stood. So the people who lived there lost. Now
Halye'anekītše was ready to climb: they told him to try. He climbed
and brought down the scalp. So the two boys won again. The people
there had lost everything. But they did not give up everything that
they had lost; they gave up only part. They gave up their clothes and
dishes and property but they did not give up their bodies. (1 song.)
[97] Where the others lived "at Avikwame" or Avi-mota (note 98).
Subsequently, the narrator said that when he threw his fire, the
hero stood at Tšohatave and δokupīta-tuδūmpe, two spots at the
east end of Avi-mota. Presumably this is where the contest took
place. It is not clear why the localization of this important
scene was not given spontaneously.
102. Then they said they wanted to bet again. They wanted to bet their
bodies. They too had lightning. Ahta-hane's lightning (horrave) was
not like theirs. They said to him, "Show yours." He said, "No, show
yours." Then they showed it. It was only light and did no harm. Then
he showed his: it was brighter than theirs, and quick, and struck the
ground, and entered it. So he won everything that they had bet. Then
he started to go away. But before that he had sent the five women
back, his four wives and his mother; and Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše and
Axta-hane (_sic_, for Ahta-kwasume); seven people in all. Now, when he
went, he took one of his four pieces of cane and threw it west over
Avi-mota.[98] It burned up everything and killed every one: Pukehane,
Nume-peta, Kwatša-kwatša, Tinya-kwaθpi, and their people. Then he ran
to the south. The fire had nearly overtaken his seven people. Only a
plant like bulrushes, nyaveδi-ny-ipa, ghost arrow, did not burn. It
stopped the fire at I ō-kuva'ire and saved those seven people. (2
songs.)
[98] It was on Avi-mota, not on Avikwame, that these people
lived, the narrator said later, in explanation. Cf. note 97.
_K. Transformation_
103. Ahta-hane had made this plant grow. Now his brother stood by him,
and Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše, and the five women in a row. They wanted to know
what he would do. He took off the covering of his cane, showed it to
them, put the pieces of cane together between his hands, and it
thundered. He wanted to turn them into something. Then the five women
flew up to the sky. They stayed there and were the Pleiades, hatša.
Then he wanted to do something for his brother. "I think it will be
best if I take him to a little lake full of mud and throw him in to be
a bird and he will shake his head, and we shall call him
teristeris."[99] Then he did that, and now Ahta-kwasume was that sort
of a bird. Then he wanted to do something with the old man,
Hatpa-'aqwaoθtše. He thought, "I will throw him into the same place. I
want him to be called soθêrqe."[100] Then he did that with the old
man. (10 songs.)
[99] With a banded neck, in flocks. Elsewhere recorded as
mīn-turīs-turīs. Perhaps a snipe.
[100] Probably the snowy owl; with "gray" feathers.
104. Now he alone was left. No one was there. He thought, "What am I
going to be? I think I will fly up and go through the air. I will be a
meteor, kwayū,[101] and fly into the sea." Then he changed his mind. He
thought, "No, I will not go into the sea. When I fly up I will go
south." Then he went south. Just below Mukiampeve is Kway-ū-namau,[102]
where Kwayū's father's mother had turned to rock. He went by there
southward a little, jumped into the water, and sank to the bottom, to
stay there. But, "I do not think it is good here," he said, came out,
and went to the east side of the river. There he sat down. He is
sticking up there now. He has been there forever, turned to rock. We
call it Mêkoaṭa. (2 songs.)
[101] A checked start toward another doublet name.
[102] The name means meteor's paternal grandmother.
SONG SCHEME AND NARRATIVE OUTLINE
As usual for Mohave myths, a list of song topics also provides a sort
of skeleton or framework of the story, and, although somewhat
imperfectly, it serves conveniently as an outline of the plot.
The list that follows is in a sense the informant's. Wherever he said:
"one song," or "four songs here," a paragraph has been terminated. The
sections thus indicated by him normally deal with a single episode or
thought, and are presented as consecutively numbered paragraphs. The
only departure I have made from this procedure has been to break a
paragraph into "a" and "b" when its first part consists of the
conclusion of an incident without songs, and its second part deals
with a new incident to which there are songs; as, 1a, 1b, 7a, 7b, etc.
This minor formal device in the interest of clarity in the outline of
the tale makes it that there are 111 actual paragraphs of narrative as
against 104 numbered ones.
The informant listed 182 songs as due to be sung at the 104 stations
or stages of incident: an average of less than two per station. This
is low for Mohave song-narratives. There was only a single song for 54
stations, or more than half of them. He sang two songs at 38 stations,
three at five, four and five at three each, and ten songs only once,
at the next to final incident of the story.
The narrative breaks naturally into sections or chapters of unequal
length. To these I have given titles, and have entered these captions,
for convenience of orientation, both in the text of the narrative and
in the song scheme outline. The latter follows.
_The Cane Song Scheme_
_Paragraph_ _Songs_
A. Placement in the Cosmogony
1a .. Kamaiavêta killed
B. Two Brothers Go Off
1b 4 At Avikwame: parts of the house
2 3 To North: Ground-squirrel
3 2 A little north. Rat
4 3 Rat eaten; house built
5 1 Uncle "Yellow-Pima" joins the brothers
6 1 Betting arrows
7a .. Corn and wheat from east
C. They Get Wives
7b 1 Girl in west has hwetše-hwetše bird
8 1 Quarrel over the girl
9 1 Tšitšuvare gets her
10 1 Bring her to uncle
11a .. He sends them to Sun in east
11b 2 Cock sings in cage
12a .. Tšitšuvare gets Sun's daughter
12b 2 About her house
13 2 About the stars
14 1 She grinds corn
15 2 Uncle sends them north for a third wife;
yellowhammer in cage
16 1 Pukehane gets her
17a .. Uncle sends them south
17b 1 Hotokoro in cage
18a .. Bring fourth wife
D. Quarrel over Cane: Elder Kills Younger
18b 1 Go for cane
19 1 Find cane
20 1 Quarrel for butt
21 2 Elder makes knife to cut cane
22 2 They fight over it
23 1 Return home
24 1 Elder makes younger ill
25 1 Elder spoils younger's birds
26 1 Nume-peta arrives for the death
27 1 Younger tells of his bones
28 1 Killed by elder and Nume-peta
E. Birth of the Hero Ahta-hane
29 1 Younger brother's son sings inside his mother
30 1 The unborn child makes rain
31 1 He emerges
32 1 Spared because disguised as girl
33 1 Suckled as if a girl
F. Shinny Game with Father's Foes
34 2 Shinny played with his father's kneecap
35 2 Boy grieves, sends his mother away
36 1 Steals the shinny ball
37 2 Knocks it west as meteor into mountains
G. Journey South to Sea
38 1 Crosses river on four sand piles
39 2 Sleeping at Qara'êrve, wakened by birds
40 1 South to Selye'aya-kumītše
41 2 Frightened by rattlesnake at Hanyo-kumasθeve
42 5 Wears snake as belt, sees wildcats at
Kamahnūlye
43 1 Met by horsefly at Aha-kuminye
44 1 Hummingbird nest at Hotūrveve
45 1 On southward to Sampulya-kwuvare
46 1 Wants cooling clouds as he goes east up
Sacramento Wash
47 1 Cloudy as he goes south to Gourd Mountain
48 1 Proceeding south
49 5 To Screw-mesquite spring at Akokehumī mountain
50 2 To petrified dancers at Ahwaṭa-kwimātše
51 2 Finds wild grapes at Kuhultoṭve
52 1 Eastward up Bill Williams Fork, meets badger
53 1 South again to Avi-su'ukwilye, watches jack
rabbit
54 3 South along sand ridge to Avi-melyehwêke
55 2 After sleeping, north to Avi-hupo
56 1 Northerly to river at Selye'aya-'ita
57 3 Crosses on sand piles to Kuvukwīlye
58 1 South to Aha-kumiθe spring
59 1 On south to Earth-Mouth gap
60 1 On to Tôske
61 1 On to Goosefoot mesa
62 2 Near Yuma land, sees cane in bottoms
63 1 Breaks off cane, travels on down past Cocopa
Mountains
64 3 To Gulf of California, sees surf and crane
65 2 Plays with sea shells
66 2 East along shore, sees ducks
67 2 Sees Hatōmpa'auve monster in lagoon
68 1 Turns inland northeast to catsclaw acacias
H. Marriage, and Contests with Meteor and Sun
69 5 Tracks of four women in desert
70 2 Reaches their empty house, hides as piece
of cane
71 2 Returning, the sisters are warned of him by
the eldest
72 2 Youngest sister finds him, rotten
73 2 Eldest revives him
74 1 Feeds him tobacco
75 4 Women go gathering, warn him of their
husband Meteor
76 2 Meteor comes, fails to kill him, gives
tobacco
77 2 Meteor leaves, Sun comes, wants to gamble
78 1 Sun loses belongings, then body, escapes to
sky
79 2 Boy inspects his winnings
80 2 His mirror shows him he is ugly
81 4 Beautiful from diving, he is found and wanted
by the four women
82a .. Selects the eldest
I. Return to Mother, Half-Brother, and
Father's Ghost
82b 2 Going homeward, he wishes rain to get rid of
wives
83 1 Repents, brings out sun
84 1 Laughs at mud in wives' sandals
85 1 The wives wear frog-shaped shell-gorgets
86 2 Mother's masohwat bird flies to meet him
87 2 Reunion with his mother
88 1 He tells her what happened
89 1 She calls the wives daughters-in-law
90 2 Boy questions his mother's father (another
Sun)
91 2 Goes east to get lightning cane
92 1 Travels east to war on father's relatives
93 1 Meets his half-brother
94 2 They identify their relationship
95 1 Mourn together
96 2 Call up their dead father
J. Revenge on Father's Foes
97 1 Traveling north again to father's killers
98 2 Foe sends messenger to meet at Qara'êrve
99 2 Conditions of contest arranged
100 1 Old man Yellow-Pima embraces both boys
101 1 Hero boy wins the contest
102 2 Destroys foes with his cane lightning
K. Transformation
103 10 Transforms wives and mother into Pleiades,
brother and old man into birds
104 2 Flies south as meteor, turns into rock Mêkoaṭa
by river
MOVEMENT OF THE NARRATIVE
Bluebird was a competent narrator in making his story move while
retaining concrete and vivid detail. There is not the actionlessness
of Raven, the bald outline manner of Vinimulye-pātše, the constant
self-communing of Deer, or the deliberate repetitive prolixity of
Mastamho. The tale always progresses. Either there are incidents
crowding into a situation of emotional interest; or, when this flags,
as in a long journey, the stages of travel are passed through with
conciseness. The direct story appeal of Cane seems to me greater than
that of the other Mohave narratives here presented.
APPARENT INCONSISTENCIES
There are a number of internal inconsistencies or contradictions. Some
of these are almost certainly due to misunderstandings by either the
interpreter or myself; for others I strongly suspect the narrator to
be responsible; but in any given case it is almost impossible to be
sure. After all, the story is so long that it took three days to tell
and English it, and these three days were interrupted by a fourth.
There was thus much provocation for the narrator to change his plot in
spots through forgetting what he had said before.
One of these doubts concerns whether Tšese'ilye is the name of
Tšitšuvare's first wife from the west or of her father (cf. n. 14);
also that Tšitšuvare also married Sun's daughter in the east; that
this woman went home after Tšitšuvare died, whereas Tšese'ilye gave
birth to the hero Ahta-hane (29-31), who in 35 sends her off to the
west; but in 82b following, he travels _eastward_ (after having gone
south and east!) to meet his mother, whose father is Sun (90): which
would make her the second wife. See footnotes 14, 35, 36, 52, 54, 58,
63, 68, 75, 78, 79, 83, 87.
There are two Suns (11a, 90; 77, 78). Analogous is the fact that the
hero strikes his shinny ball away as a meteor (37), overcomes Kwayū,
the cannibal Meteor (75, 76), and flies off as a meteor himself on his
way to his final transformation, 104.
Relationship terms are not always used consistently. See especially
75-77, footnotes 58, 60, 62-64. However, we do not know how strict and
consistent Mohave usage in daily life is. In 11b, Sun's daughter,
Tšitšuvare's second wife, has a tame cock, kwaluyauve, as her pet, but
in 86 it is a masohwaṭ bird; or, if in 86 the woman is Tšese'ilye,
Tšitšuvare's first wife, the change is from a hwetše-hwetše bird in 7b
to a masohwat.
In 2 and 3, the two brothers are said to have gone north only a short
distance from their origin at Avikwame. They must however have
proceeded farther, and then have turned to the south, as may be
inferred from what follows. Thus, in 37, the younger brother's son
goes north from where his father was killed and he was born, to
Avi-kwutapārva, crosses the Colorado river there, and then goes
downstream a little on the east side to Iδô-kuva'ire and Qara'êrve,
all three places being in northern Mohave valley near Fort
Mohave.--The evil older brother is at Avikwame, according to 5, 24,
28, 98, when his nephew hero returns, but is killed by him at Avi-mota
in 102; cf. footnotes 97, 98.--The hero sends his mother away to the
west in 35, though his father got her in the east; he starts on a long
journey south in 38, then east along the seacoast, and inland
northeast in 68 to find his wives and his adversaries. When he returns
to his mother in 82b, he ought accordingly to be going north or
northwestward, but is said to be traveling east. Is it a case of a
slip of the narrator's mind, of the interpreter's tongue, or of my
pencil? Or possibly did the hero follow an indirect course which
escaped mention? An emendation might simplify the situation--such as
assuming an intended "east" for recorded "west" when the mother was
sent away in 35; but there would be no control of the guesses. And it
may well be that as much contradiction as this is expectable in so
long a narrative acquired supposedly by dreaming, retained without
mnemonic device, and probably told only a very few times in a life.
In any event, none of these discrepancies of factual statement, if
they are discrepancies, seriously affect the plot interest, the
feeling tone, or the hearer's ability to participate in the story.
HANDLING OF THE PLOT
This section will examine the organization and treatment of the plot
of the Cane narrative as a construct and specimen of literary
endeavor. The discussion will be more easily followed by reference to
an ultra-summary of the principal parts or sections of the story, as
follows:
_Paragraph_ _Number of_
_Designation_ _Paragraphs_ _Songs_
A. Placement in Cosmogony 1a 1 ..
B. Two Brothers Go Off 1b-7a 7 14
C. They Get Wives 7b-18a 15 16
D. Quarreling over Cane,
Older Kills Younger 18b-28 11 12
E. Birth of the Hero Ahta-hane 29-33 5 5
F. Shinny Game with Father's
Foes 34-37 4 7
G. Journey South to Sea 38-68 31 54
H. Marriage, and Contests with
Meteor and Sun 69-82a 14 31
I. Return to Mother,
Half-Brother, and
Father's Ghost 82b-96 15 22
J. Revenge on Father's Foes 97-102 6 9
K. Transformation 103-104 2 12
--- ---
111 182
The main defect in the Cane plot, from our point of view, is the long
preliminary, A to D. A full quarter of the tale--to be exact,
three-tenths of its length, 28 out of 104 song groups or stages, and
42 of 182 songs--precedes the hero's birth. This makes a narrative
long enough for interest to get well established in the hero's father,
and it has then to be rebuilt around the son. However, the story can
also be viewed as a sort of epic covering two lifetimes, with the
second generation recuperating the losses of the first and revenging
it. In a definitely sophisticated art, the reverses of the first life
would presumably be only sketched, or suggested by implication, and
the action could then be developed around the chief hero's career or
its climax. The Cane situation is somewhat like that in the
Nibelungenlied, where the story of Siegfried's exploits about balances
that of the revenge for his death: as an introduction, the first half
is too long and autonomous; as an epilogue to a life, the second half
is much too long and heavily charged. The imbalance in the mediaeval
German epic is obvious as a defect and has led to discussion of
whether in its present form it is not a secondary joining of two poems
originally distinct. Similarly, the history of the accretion of the
Cane story might conceivably have been partly traceable from
comparison of a series of versions. But these have not been recorded
and are presumably no longer remembered, at least hardly in
unmutilated form.
The very brief first section, A, with the reference to Kamaiavêta, is
the normal Mohave way of giving the story its placement in the scheme
of things by tying it into the cosmogony. Kamaiavêta or
Sky-rattlesnake was killed for being thought to have caused the death
by witchcraft of Matavilya, the child of Heaven and Earth and first
great god. This dates the Cane story as happening right after the
beginnings, ties it to the sacred spots Ha'avulypo and Avikwame, and
endows it with weight and authenticity. That this is pure preliminary
is shown by the fact that there are no songs.
In our next section B, the brothers drift off, discover things, build
a house, find a living, and are joined by their uncle. In short, they
grope and become partially established. This is good Mohave story
pattern. The pairing, in place of a single hero, occurs again in
Raven, in Coyote, in Deer; and in other myths. But so far there is
nothing very eventful in the plot: it is only slowly getting started.
Part C has the brothers get themselves wives, at their uncle's
instigation. The plot is beginning to have "human interest." And yet
it remains quite "decorative": there are four girls in four
directions, each living alone with a pet bird in a cage, the approach
is through the bird, then the brothers struggle for the girl, and
bring her home. Still, the repetition is not formally exact, as it
would be in a ritual, or as in the myths of some other tribes; no two
of the four episodes are told quite alike, and each contains certain
unique incidents. The brothers' quarreling for the girls foreshadows
what is to come; just as it is faintly pre-anticipated by their
childish arrow betting in paragraph 6 of the preceding part. The
younger is the stronger and wins the two first girls; and though the
elder gets the next two on sufferance, a grievance is thereby set up.
This is not dwelled on, but helps to motivate what follows.
Part D. They go for cane, apparently as a source of power, and quarrel
over it. The older almost kills the younger, but relents, concedes him
what he wants, but then bewitches him. Omens of doom pile up
effectively. The victim's state of mind may be an example of what a
Mohave feels who believes himself bewitched. The magic operating too
slowly, the younger brother is finally dispatched with the humiliation
of having bones cut out of his body for use and play. The elder goes
off with the non-kinsmen whom the uncle had left when he joined his
blood nephews. This marks him as a traitor and Chemehuevi foreigner,
as well as establishing two inimical groups or parties.
With part E, dealing with the posthumous birth of the hero, the main
narrative begins. The hero evidences prenatal magic power, but this is
a faculty often attributed by the Mohave to shamans, so that the
manifestation is mythically expectable, rather than miraculous in our
sense.
In the next section, F, the baby, grown to boyhood, steals his
father's bone with which his foes are playing--compare the incident in
Nyohaiva, 15--and sends it flying to break the western mountains and
kill their inhabitants. It does not appear that these people are his
foes: rather is he trying out his growing powers; and his real foes
begin to foresee their end.
Then he goes on a long journey which constitutes part G. This travel
is motivated by Mohave song-myth custom rather than by anything in the
boy hero's situation. At the same time, it serves to give a sense of
his growing up, and of having his life filled with experiences as a
hero should. The Mohave narrator is in intent the teller of a
near-epic, or of a novelistic romance, not of a short story which aims
to cut to the essence of an action. From this point of view, the
journey rounds, or properly fills out, the plot, though it contributes
nothing vital. The incidents of the journey--down the Colorado from
northern Mohave land to the mouth of the great river, including
detours, and southeast along the Gulf shore--are characteristic. The
traveler is awakened by birds, frightened by a rattlesnake, sees a
horsefly, hummingbird, wild grapes, badger, jack rabbit, springs,
cane, the surf, a crane, ducks, sea shells, and various other sights
such as might make a boy watch or wonder. There is certainly a sense
of unending interest in nature, of rapport with it, in these Mohave
itineraries--a pre-Wordsworthian attitude, one might almost call it.
The narration is concise in this journey. There are 31 stages or
paragraphs--between a fourth and a third of the whole story--and 54
songs out of 182, or the same proportion; but only about one-seventh
or one-eighth of the length of the tale. Thus the tempo of narration
is doubled during this part; which fact contributes to the fact that
its interruption of the main action does not wear down plot-suspense
unduly. Also, it is easier to devise long strings of simple songs of
five or six words about horseflies darting or hummingbirds on their
nests or cranes in the surf, than about dangers, feats, and dramatic
tensions such as make up the preceding and succeeding sections.
As soon as Ahta-hane leaves the sea to turn inland--part H--the
character of the telling changes. It becomes pure hero-story again,
now of fairy-tale quality. The roster of place names is over with. We
are somewhere in the desert--presumably in the Papaguería--but places
and distances are undesignated. This is perhaps the most interesting
part of the tale, in incidents and affects as well as in glimpses of
unsuspected ethnography. The events comprise:
The hero hides himself from the four women.
Lets himself be found rotten but is restored.
Wins encounter with Meteor.
Wins gambling with Sun.
Through his winning makes himself attractive to his wives.
Complex as the action is here, it is thus nevertheless well tied
together.
This is the longest section of Cane: about a quarter of the total
narration, and this crowded with stirring events. But the songs of the
section constitute only about a sixth, and the song stations or
paragraphs about an eighth, of the total. There is much happening, but
little of the discrete incident that best lends itself to singing
about.
Section I is moderately long and describes the journey home, but now
with his wives, in order to meet his mother, a half-brother
unmentioned before, and finally his dead father's shadow. Kinship
relations are thus in the forefront, and most of the topography is
still indefinite. The return, as so often in Mohave story, presages
war. The hero's successive reunions, culminating in the unique
interview with his father's spirit, build up affect toward a climax
which can end only in a contest with his hereditary foes.
This contest constitutes part J, and is characteristically brief: the
Mohave seem not to know how to dilate on a fight, even one conducted
by magic. The hero first beats his enemies in competitions, then
destroys them with lightning from his magic cane. The narrator's
knitting together of items, and suspending them over intervals, is
evidenced by the lightning cane, which has been acquired in paragraph
90, but is used only in 102.
Section K, the final transformation of the hero and his folk into
stars, birds, and rocks, is of course a conventional coda--somewhat
like the particle used in some languages, or the tone-glide in others,
to indicate end of sentence. It means nothing specific in relation to
the particular events preceding, but without it the tale would not be
felt as having been brought to an end.
This analysis perhaps helps to establish the genuine skill of the
narrator in joining, developing, and sustaining a plot which has
something of epic quality and which in a less simple culture, with a
more specific medium than natural prose available, might have had epic
potentialities.
SUPPLEMENTARY
_References to Cane, Ahta (by paragraphs)_
2. Names of the brothers refer to cane (fn. 4).
18a. Uncle sends them for cane.
18b. On the journey lightning and thunder, omen of death.
19-23. Cane described, argument about division, knife made, cane
cut, quarrel over it, return.
24. Not to eat salt while unwashed--indicates power in cane.
24. Older brother paints his cane; younger, bewitched, sees his
unpainted.
62. Cane seen on journey, near Yuma.
70. Turns into cane sliver to hide from four women.
71. Oldest woman thinks he may be cane.
74. Hero smokes caneful of tobacco, chews up the cane.
76. Told that the Mohave do not smoke in cane, he says he is
Cane.
77. Smokes two filled canes.
88. His name, Ahta-hane, first mentioned (fn. 87).
90. Told by mother's father of lightning and thunder.
91. Takes cane from hole made by lightning bolt, splits into
four.
92. Refuses to show it to his wife: it would kill.
93. Half-brother called Ahta-kwasume; wears cane that rattles.
95. The two brothers mourn their father and burn all their
belongings except the lightning cane.
102. Contest with canes that flash lightning: hero's is
stronger.
103. Shows them his canes and makes it thunder.
_References to Meteor, Kwayū_
37. Hero knocks father's kneecap shinny ball west as meteor to
explode in mountains.
75-77. Meteor, husband of four women, tries to kill hero, gives
him tobacco.
82b. Meteor referred to again as cannibal.
104. Hero flies as meteor past rock "Meteor's father's mother"
to turn into rock Mekoaṭa.
_References to Sun, Anya_
7b-10. Hero's father's first wife is Tšese'ilye (fn. 78),
daughter of Sun in west.
11a-14. Hero's father's second wife is Kuvahā, daughter of Sun
in east by different mother.
29-31. One wife returns, other gives birth to hero.
35. He sends his mother away.
77-78. Sun, father (or husband? see fn. 58) of four women,
gambles with hero, loses body, escapes, is turned into double
(sun dog).
87-99. Hero returns to mother.
90. Hero learns from mother's father's son about deadly
lightning.
_References to Blue-tailed Lizard, Halye'anekitše_
36. Hero turns into halye'anekitše lizard to steal father's
kneecap shinny ball (fn. 40).
99-101. Halye'anekitše wins contest for hero by taking father's
scalp from pole.
II. VINIMULYE-PATŠE
Vinimūlye-pātše, more fully "Vinimūlya-hapātša," is a song series
prominent in Mohave consciousness, perhaps because it deals with war.
I have never secured an etymology for the name. The present version
was narrated April 23, 1904, upstream from Fort Mohave, by an old man
called Hiweik-kwini'īlye, "her anus is black." He told his tale with
unusual compactness: part of a day sufficed for his outline and the
Englishing. He mentioned the place in the story of 196 songs; besides
an indefinite group near the beginning: "4, 5, 6, 10, 12 while they
are on the way," or "a night long, 50 songs." The whole cycle, when
sung complete in sequence as tšupilyk, a "gift" to a dying relative,
takes two nights to sing, he said. Jack Jones, was, as usual, my
guide, sponsor, and interpreter.
The tale is simple. The Mohave hero, Umas-kwitšit-patše, with his
people, leaves his home in the northern part of Mohave valley, for the
Providence mountains, off to the northwest in Chemehuevi territory,
and lives there a year. There is no farming possible in this desert
range, but the story is silent on subsistence. The chief wants to
return to make war, and, after a brief visit home, leads his people to
the river at the south end of Mohave valley, and then makes a long
detour downstream to below Ehrenberg, in Halchidhoma land; from there
they turn back until they once more reach the foot of Mohave valley.
Nothing happens on this excursion; it is perhaps introduced from sheer
love of mental travel, or to suggest the progress of a war party. The
Mohave in the southern half of the valley flee before the invaders,
who appropriate a set of houses near where they had lived originally.
Here they stay a year, as is shown by his daughter, when her feelings
of modesty are hurt, running away to the Walapai for that period. Then
they suddenly resume the march northward for a few miles, and finally
join battle with Savilyuyave, Umas-kwitšit-patše's own younger brother
and leader of the refugees, at "Hawk-nose" near Fort Mohave. The
account of this climax is quite meager. The residents run away across
the river. Savilyuyave is killed and scalped, his daughter is made a
"slave." After the despoiling of another group, the "Quail people,"
and some calling of names across the stream, the hero and his band
return to the Providence mountains, where one of them dies of a wound
received in the battle. Why the two halves of the Owitš clan should
peacefully separate under the leadership of two brothers, and then the
returning one insist on war to a finish, but abandon the conquered
territory, is wholly unaccounted for. Either there is motivation which
the narrator knows but considers it unnecessary to discuss; or the
motivation is as lacking as in a dream. After all, these tales are all
dreams, the Mohave insist. And while it is clear that they do not
ordinarily invent new plots in their dreams, they do quite probably
dream over or brood about or perhaps actually redream, each man, the
plot or plots which he calls his. The one theme which runs through
this tale as a unifying thread is the doom of war.
THE TALE
1. Umas-kwitšit-patše lived at Aha-kwa'i[1] with his people. At that
time the river was near that place. He was the only one of them to
talk to the rest. Then he and his people crossed the river to the
western side to Amaṭ-kusayi.[2] (4 songs.)[3]
[1] Aha-kwa'i is at the "Old Gus" ranch, below Milltown, on an
overflow pond or slough (an old river arm), at the foot of the
mesa on the east edge of Mohave valley, upstream from Needles
and downstream from Fort Mohave. At the time of the story, the
river lay close to Aha-kwa'i.
[2] Downstream from Hatšioq-vaṭveve.
[3], [3a] The narrator stated that he usually omitted the songs
credited to pars. 1 and 2 and began with those referring to the
Providence mountains. Iθava is arrowweed.
2. Then they went up on the mesa, and from there into the mountains at
Iθave-kukyave. (2 songs.)[3a]
3. Then they went on to the large mountains, Avi-kwe-havasu,[4] the
Providence mountains. (2 songs.)
[4] "Blue mountains," as they appear from the Mohave country.
4. They had found that land and kept it for their own. They lived
there a year. Now Umas-kwitšit-patše was a Mohave, and his relatives
were Mohave in this country. He said: "I want to go back to my
relatives." Then he returned by the way he had come, going back to
Aha-kwa'i with his people. When he had returned, all the Mohave said:
"I think he has come to make war." They talked of war. They were
afraid of him, for he was very large. Then he went back to the
Providence mountains with his people. Now he was a man who dreamed
well.[5] He knew what the people were saying about him: he dreamed it.
They were saying: "I wish Umas-kwitšit-patše would come again. We
would cook wheat[6] for him, and put meat into it, and make good food
for him." No one sent for him to come but he knew what they wished.
Then he was ready to come to make war. So he started with his people,
but he did not go straight. He went past Hatalompe[7] far down to
Aha-kwatpave.[8] (An indefinite number of songs.)[9]
[5] Sumatš-ahotk.
[6] Frequently considered native by the Mohave.
[7] Six miles south of Beal, the point at which the Santa Fe
railroad leaves California on its way east.
[8] On the Colorado on the east side, below Ehrenberg. He had to
cross the river to reach it, of course.
[9] The narrator first said he sang "4, 5, 6, 10, or 12 songs"
about the journey to Aha-kwatpave Later he stated that he sang
of this portion of the story "a whole night, 50 songs." The last
place mentioned by name on the way south, however, is Hatalomve
or Hatalompe.
5. From there he turned back and started north up the river. (10
songs.)
He came to Hôore.[10] (1 song.)
[10] Ehrenberg. The route now is back northward up the east bank
of the river.
6. From there he started again with his people and went upstream to
Kapotake-hiv'auve.[11] They slept there and went on up the river to
Amaṭ-koahoatše. (2 songs.)
[11] No songs were mentioned for this place, perhaps by
oversight.
7. Having slept there, they went on to Avi-helye'a. (1 song.)
8. The next day they came to Avi-kwa-hapama, (1 song.)
9. From there they went on, the next morning, until they reached
Aqwaqa-have.[12] There they slept again. (5 songs.)
[12] Aqwaqa means deer.
10. Starting in the morning, they went on up to Tatasky-anve. They did
not sleep there.[13] But Umas-kwitšit-patše talked of war. He said:
"When there is war, people are beaten and run away. Women are captured
as slaves and pushed into the river." So they talked of what they
would do. (2 songs.)
[13] Possibly meaning that they went past the place without
stopping, but more probably that they made camp and spent the
night there, and that Umas-kwitšit-patše talked to his people
instead of letting them sleep.
11. Then they came to Hakutšyepe.[14] There they made camp. Then they
saw a beaver's track, like a little boy's foot. They had never seen it
before and thought it was a little boy. Umas-kwitšit-patše showed it
to his people and they were afraid. In the morning they started. (10
songs.)[15]
[14] The mouth of Bill Williams Fork of the Colorado, the place
being known as Aubrey.
[15] Thus the narrative. In subsequently indicating the number
of songs relating to each part of the story, the narrator made
no mention of Hakutšyepe and the incident there, but proceeded
as follows: "On the way north, 4 songs. At Selye'aye-kwame, 4
songs. At Chemehuevi valley, 2 songs." There is no discrepancy,
but different events and stages of the same part of the journey
are specified in the two accounts. It must be remembered that
the narrative is unusually condensed.
11a. They came to Selye'aya-ita, where they slept. Umas-kwitšit-patše
told his people how brave he was, and how good his luck was, and what
he had dreamed. (4 songs.)
12. They started up the river next day, came to Hatuṭve and slept
there. (4 songs.)
13. They went on up again. (3 songs.)
14. That night they slept at Amaṭ-kyerekyere-kwitni.[16] (4 songs.)
[16] South of Mellen on the railroad. They are now at the foot
of Mohave valley.
15. In the morning they came to Kwaparvete[17] and stood there. The
people on the west side of the river, saw them and were afraid and ran
off. (10 songs.)
[17] Kwaparvete is the name of a little mesa which the railroad
ascends and traverses after it crosses the river and before it
enters the mouth of the Sacramento wash, by which it climbs to
the Arizona plateau.
16. Umas-kwitšit-patše and his people saw them going. He said: "Let
us pursue but not kill them." Then they followed them.[18] Now
women shout in war. But this time the women said: "We will not
shout. You say you will not kill them, but only chase them;
therefore there is no need for us to shout. When you are ready to
kill, we will shout." Umas-kwitšit-patše said: "We shall have war.
We are not killing these people. We do not even wish to attack
them. But there will be war." Those who fled came to above where
Needles now is. Umas-kwitšit-patše and his people followed their
dust until they came to Avi-hilykwampe.[19] There the pursued
crossed the river, and Umas-kwitšit-patše crossed after them. (20
songs.)
[18] Crossing the river to the west bank, as the context shows.
[19] About five miles north of Needles, where the mesa from the
west runs down to the river.
17. The fleeing people came to Amaṭ-tasilyke and to Aθ'i-kupome. But
Umas-kwitšit-patše and his people went another way, eastward to
Aha-kukwinve.[20] Now they were nearly at the place where they had
formerly lived.[21] All the people in the vicinity were afraid and ran
northward, upriver, abandoning their food and dishes and property.
Umas-kwitšit-patše's people gathered up these effects, ate the food,
and lived there.
[20] At the foot of the mesa. Both parties are now east of the
river.
[21] Namely, Aha-kwa'i, where the story starts.
18. Umas-kwitšit-patše had a daughter, Ilya-owitš-maikohwere. He said:
"Now that you are big enough, do not sleep near me. Sleep at a
distance. Sleep in the corner of the house."[22] Then the girl was
angry at his saying that and ran off. (4 songs.)
[22] He wanted her to have a lover and marry, and feared that no
man would steal to her while she lay close to her parents. There
is nothing disgraceful in this suggestion, to the Mohave, who
scarcely make a distinction between lover and husband. The old
people frequently exhort the young to enjoy themselves while
they can.
19. She went east until she came to Hawi, where she slept. Then she
went on to Avi-hoalye, the Walapai mountains.[23] There were many
girls among the (Walapai) people living there, and she played with
them and stayed with them a year. She liked it there. (30 songs.)
[23] Hoalye means yellow pine. The name Walapai, hawaly-ipai in
Mohave, seems to be derived from this word.
20. After a year she went back. When she returned, she was ashamed and
sat outside the house. She did not go indoors to her parents. She was
painted red. The people she had been with, the Walapai, had given her
the paint. The Mohave do not paint like that. So they did not know who
she was. She sat with her head bowed. Then Umas-kwitšit-patše came
out. "That is my daughter," he said. (10 songs.)
21. He said to her: "I thought you had died. When a woman visits her
friends among another tribe, she stays two months or three months. You
stayed a year and I thought you were dead." Then, after four days,
Umas-kwitšit-patše said: "Now it is four days. I am ready to fight. The
people I am going to attack do not live very far away. But I think my
daughter is tired. Have you become tired?" But Ilya-owitš-maikohwere
said: "No, I am not tired. I will go with you." When they came to
Amaṭ-tasilyke and Aθ'i-kupome, the people whom they had pursued before
and who had fled there and were still living there, saw them, and took
their property and fled north once more. They ran to Sokwilye-ihu.[24]
There they lay down for the night. Umas-kwitšit-patše and his people
slept at Selye'aye-'itš-patše,[25] downriver from them. Then
Umas-kwitšit-patše named a mesa near by: Havateitše-'isnave. (40 songs.)
[24] "Hawk-nose." Not far from Fort Mohave.
[25] Near the river, on the irrigation canal in use at Fort
Mohave in 1904. Selye'aye is sand.
22. Then he started again. Now he wanted to kill the people at
Sokwilye-'ihu. Savilyuyave,[26] his younger brother, was the head man
among those who had fled. When Umas-kwitšit-patše and his people came to
Sokwilye-'ihu, they fought. Soon Savilyuyave's people ran away and
jumped into the river. Savilyuyave himself was killed in the river. He
sank to the bottom and they seized him, dragged him on the bank, and
scalped him. His daughter[27] they took as a slave. Umas-kwitšit-patše's
people went back downriver to Selye'aye'-kumitše.[28] (5 songs.)
[26] Also the name of a Mohave who died not many years before
1903.
[27] Her name was said also to be Ilya-owitš-maikohwere. Owitš
is one of the women's clan-names. As Umas-kwitšit-patše and
Savilyuyave were brothers, and of the Owitš group, their
daughters would both be named Owitš. In reply to a question, the
informant stated decisively that all the people accompanying
Umas-kwitšit-patše called their daughters Owitš, showing that he
regarded them as a clan. The totemic reference of the clan is to
clouds.
[28] A mesa approaching the river about two miles south of Fort
Mohave.
23. There they stayed and rested.[29] Umas-kwitšit-patše stood up and
named all the places along the river, up to the source. (5 songs.)
[29] Probably for the night, while their leader addressed them.
24. Then they started again and went north to
Amaṭ-nyamasave-kwohave.[30] Those who lived there were called the
Quail-people, Ipa-'ahma.[31] They saw Umas-kwitšit-patše coming and
fled across to the west bank of the river. He took their land and all
their food. Now Savilyuyave's people were at Avi-kutaparve.[32] The
Quail-people, being afraid, wanted to join Savilyuyave's people, and
went to Avi-kutaparve. (3 songs.)
[30] Two or three miles north of Fort Mohave: "earth-white-kwohave."
[31] "When these people were killed, they became quail."
[32] Three or four miles north of Fort Mohave, on the west bank
of the river, where the mesa or cliff is whitish.
25. Umas-kwitšit-patše went up the east side of the river. He saw (his
brother's and the Quail) people on the other side and stood and talked
across the river to them.[33] He said: "I have fought you. Now I will
spare you. You did not stand up against me: I will let you go." Then
they talked badly[34] to each other, telling of each other's dead
parents and ancestors. (4 songs.)
[33] Literally, "talking" is hardly possible. The Colorado is so
wide that a conversation cannot be carried on across it except
by shouting.
[34] Amatyesumak, "cursed."
26. Soon Umas-kwitšit-patše crossed the river, not at Avi-kwutapārva,
but below. "When a man is fighting, he does not stay in one place, he
travels," he said. He wanted to go back to the Providence mountains.
Then they came to Aha-kuhulyu'i.[35] But they found the spring full of
vermin[36] and went on without drinking. One of them, Umas-elyiθe, who
had been shot in the thigh, was in great pain as they traveled through
the desert here. (1 song.)
[35] "Stinking-water," a spring on a slope, five miles or more
from the river.
[36] Humkuyove.
27. They came to Avi-'itšierqe[37] and stood there and saw their
mountains, their own place, the Providence mountains. (1 song.)
[37] "Excrement-rocks" or "mountain."
28. From there it did not take them long to reach their home. (2
songs.)
29. When they arrived, Umas-elyiθe died. (10 songs.)[38]
[38] These ten songs mention the roof, posts, and other parts of
their houses--a favorite subject.
III. NYOHAIVA
CIRCUMSTANCES AND NATURE OF THE STORY
In November, 1905, my friend and interpreter Jack Jones came to San
Francisco and the University, bringing with him an informant called
Aspa-sakam, which means Eagle-sell. Aspa-sakam was a youngish
middle-aged man, heavy-set and inclined to be fat, who worked pretty
steadily for the Santa Fe railroad at Needles. He was, however, a good
Mohave inwardly, and had dreamt and could sing two cycles, Yellaka or
Goose, and Nyohaiva (Nyô'haiva), which is a story of war but named
after an insect. He narrated both of these, proving himself an
excellent informant as regards precision, orderliness of mind, and
willingness to explain. His Goose story has been outlined on pages
766-768 of the Handbook of California Indians. It is a very long tale
with a minimum of action. The Nyohaiva story, which follows here, is
much shorter. The songs, as their scheme was outlined and as they were
recorded on the phonograph in part, aggregate only about a hundred, as
against four hundred or more in the Goose series. Aspa-sakam said that
it took only one night to sing the Nyohaiva series through.
Nyohaiva, the narrator said, was known also to an old man called
Mehulye, who was his mother's brother and who now lived with him. This
was a paralyzed man who knew the Great Tale, the story of migrations
and battles of Mohave clan groups.
As regards Goose, Aspa-sakam said that this was known also to his
brother and to an old man, Hakwe, who was his father-in-law and
therefore not a blood relation. The narrator added that perhaps
sometime he would teach the singing to his son. The old man, Hakwe,
was subsequently interviewed at Needles. I shrank from obtaining from
him the whole of the story, having already gone through the ordeal of
securing it from Aspa-sakam, but did record some of the songs and a
place-name synopsis of the story, which is given on pages 768-769 of
the Handbook. This outline shows Hakwe's version of Goose to be quite
different in detail from Aspa-sakam's. The songs also have a different
melodic theme. It does not seem, therefore, that either of these two
informants, son-in-law and father-in-law, could have learned from, or
been very much influenced by, the other.
As for Nyohaiva, Aspa-sakam subsequently said that his kin on the
father's side knew Nyohaiva. As a boy he heard them sing it and
learned it. "They did not teach me, for such things cannot be taught.
They can only be dreamed. But my relatives knew Nyohaiva, and I
dreamed it." These are his own words, and, semi-contradictory as they
may seem to us, they perhaps come as close as is possible to
expressing a characteristic Mohave nondifferentiation of spontaneous
development from within and acquisition from without. Aspa-sakam added
that the way he came to know Goose was different: none of his kinsfolk
knew this. In our words, he really dreamed this; Nyohaiva he both
learned and dreamed. When he was a boy, sometimes he would sing parts
of Goose. An old man, hearing him sing, would say: "Yes, that is
right. Yes, that is Goose." So he acquired more of it, dreaming it,
and came to sing more and more of it.
It is doubtful whether he had ever sung either Goose or Nyohaiva
through consecutively at any one time or occasion. I had seen him
about two years earlier at a death and cremation, where he was
singing, probably Nyohaiva. He had sung Goose for amusement at night
at his home, he said. Neither he nor the interpreter seemingly could
be made to understand clearly my questions whether he had ever sung
Goose a whole night through, or whether he had ever sung it or
Nyohaiva continuously from beginning to end. Such a statement of
factual events seems to have little meaning to the Mohave.
Nyohaiva is sung standing, at any rate when women dance in a ring
around the singer. He leans on a stick, which he sometimes thrusts
forward and waves to the rhythm of his song, sometimes drops through
his hand to strike the ground. There is no rattle or musical
instrument.
Nyohaiva is classed by the Mohave as one of their song-myths dealing
with war, and its plot is simple. Nyohaiva is an insect. She comes into
existence as a woman in the north end of Mohave valley, at Miakwa'orve,
above Fort Mohave, at the time of the beginnings: "The world was still
wet." There is however no reference in the tale to Matavilya's death,
Ha'avulypo, Avikwame, or the actually originating events. Nyohaiva
travels south along the river, naming places and encountering named
personages, but without notable happenings, as far as Aqwāqa-have, in
Halchidhoma territory, below Parker. Here four brothers, including
Otšôuta, believe that she comes for war and plan to kill her first. She
on her part finds bones which she recognizes as her relatives'--a
characteristic Mohave motivation and inconsistency--and bets her body
against her freedom in a game to be played with one of the same bones.
She wins, threatens them with war, and runs off southward, announcing
impending war to those whom she meets, as far as Ava-tšohai, somewhere
between Parker and Yuma. There she incites the people, under the
leadership of men whose names denote blackbirds, to join her in
returning and attacking Otšôuta's people. There is no reason given, why
they should do so; rather, war is treated as something which, now given
its roots, grows and will be--a sort of gathering fate, though a
stirring and pleasurable one. The prolix Mohave narrative manner of
adding incident to incident makes for an effect of slow accumulation of
feeling on this theme. However, the war itself resolves into the killing
by magic of a single leader: Homeric battles are not a usual part of the
story pattern of the Mohave, in spite of their preoccupation with war.
With a magic ball Nyohaiva puts the enemy settlement to sleep, enters
Otšôuta's house, cuts off his head. This she carries upriver to
Samo'okusa or Amaṭ-ya'ama near Parker, where people are living under the
leadership of four transvestites! She institutes the scalp dance for
them; throws Otšôuta's skull far south to become a rock at Picacho in
Yuma land; then turns herself to stone as Hawk-rock, east of Parker.
The objective towards which the events of the tale trend seems to be
the institution of the victory scalp dance; at which, in actual Mohave
practice, Nyohaiva was one of several singings that were sung and
danced to. In this dance, too, transvestites--the word means coward as
well--participated along with women; and there was the expectable
heterosexual indulgence. Hence probably the astounding berdache chiefs
of the tale: they are imagined in order to provide the fitting dance
setting. The scalp celebration seems to have been the principal Mohave
occasion for dancing.
Nyohaiva, as a woman, herself reflects this peculiar relation between
women and war: her hair, her skirt, her bashfulness are specified. But
there is also the opposite attitude: she incites, she wants revenge,
she kills. Here she is almost the embodiment of the hwami, the
occasional female active homosexual whom the Yuman river tribes
recognize as the counterpart of the more frequent male passive invert
or alyha. But she is never explicitly designated as a hwami, nor does
the tale itself allow us to interpret her as having had defined hwami
status in the Mohave mind. Normal sex impulse or relation, what we
should call love interest, does not enter into this story at all. It
is normally treated meagerly in Mohave mythology, in spite of the
endless sex talk and obscene humor of Mohave daily life. When it does
appear in narrative, it is episodically. The plots as a whole show the
love incidents to be subsidiary. Thus the Cane hero wishes a storm to
rid himself of his wives, who are delaying the revenge for which he is
traveling; and when his conscience makes him relent, it is because his
wish strikes him as inhumane and bad in general, not because of tender
sentiments toward the wives as love-objects. And there is rarely much
sex feeling, and never a touch of ribaldry. For instance, the Tumanpa
story is based on an incest motive, but the theme is treated with such
restraint as scarcely to obtrude beyond the skeleton of the plot, and
never with a trace of passion. The brother and sister are old people
at the beginning of the tale! The fact that such sex element as enters
into Nyohaiva is tinged with the quality of inversion, suggests a
definite functional relation between inversion and war in Mohave
culture. I say inversion because its sanctioned institutionalization
largely removes it from the realm of the perverse, at least socially
and in part psychologically.
Besides fighting and love-making, a third element active in Mohave
life is left out of Nyohaiva as out of certain other stories in Mohave
mythology. This is their tribal consciousness and keen ethnographic or
international interest. All the people encountered in the story are
treated as if they were Mohaves, or at least members of a still
undifferentiated human race leading a specifically Mohave-type life;
even though they dwell as far away as the Yuma habitat. (There is a
partial exception in the incident when Nyohaiva detours east into the
mountains, finds a man whose name refers to buckskin shirts, and gives
him hunting arrows to live by: thus she institutes the Walapai more
than she encounters them.) The attitude of clannish rather than of
tribal differentiation recurs in the unpublished "Great Tale" and, in
the present monograph, in Cane (I), and explicitly in Vinimūlye-pātše
(II), where the victorious attackers of the Mohave, coming from the
desert Providence mountains, are not the Chemehuevi who historically
inhabited this range, but a separatist band of Mohave who are
represented as having settled there, contrary to economic possibility
for a farming people.
Nevertheless, the Nyohaiva geography reflects historic international
relations. The district of the Mohave-like settlements which plot
against Nyohaiva and are vanquished by her are where the Halchidhoma
lived as recurrent objects of Mohave and Yuma attack. However, the war
party against them comes from the south, that is, from the Yuma
direction; and the victim's head is petrified in Yuma territory. It is
possible therefore that Nyohaiva is a variant derivative of the
Av'alyunu myth and singing which the Mohave recognize as the Yuma
equivalent of their Nyohaiva, as per the third paragraph of the tale.
That Nyohaiva herself is made to have her origin in northern Mohave
valley and turns to stone not far from the scene of her victory, means
less, because almost all stories move from north to south, through the
vicinity of Avikwame being the typical point of mythic departure with
the Mohave, and at times also in Yuma, Walapai, and even Diegueño
narratives.
THE NYOHAIVA TALE
1. Nyohaiva came to life at Miakwa'orve.[1] That place was the first
one to be dry. All about, the world was still wet. She thought: "I do
not know which is the best way to go. I wonder in what direction is
the best place for me, so that everyone will know me and I can tell
what I know. I have dreamed well. I wish to tell what I know so that
everyone will understand it." Now the day and the sun and everything
else already existed. Then she thought: "There is the sun. It is
already gone down as far as that."[2] (3 songs.)
[1] Opposite Fort Mohave and upstream from it; therefore in
Nevada.
[2] It was anya-tonya'im, afternoon.
2. Then she said: "Now I know what to do. I will not go elsewhere than
south. I will cross the river and go to Iδô-kuva'īre."[3] Then, when
she came to Iδô-kuva'īre, she thought: "I will tell about this place
and that I am here." (2 songs.)
[3] Iδô-kuva'īre is upstream from Fort Mohave and frequently
mentioned. Iδô is the black willow.
3. When she was about to start from there, she said: "I will tell
further what I know, so that everyone will learn what I say. Let
everyone listen to me and take my words." As she said this she took a
handful of sand. "I am a person who has dreamed well. When you Mohave
sing, you will sing Nyohaiva. There is another name for singing that,
Av'alyunu,[4] but it is the Yuma who will learn that. It will be the
same singing, but I give it another name." (1 song.)
[4] Ava-lye means in the house. Some Mohave sing Av'alyunu, but
as something learned from the Yuma.
4. She said: "Well, I have told everything here. I have finished. I will
go." Then she went to Ahtšyê-aksāmta.[5] When she had gone a little to
the south from there she saw a hill of sand, Selye'aya-kumītše.[6] Then
she said: "All will come to this place. They will come here to play and
sing and have a good time. That is how I want you to become married."[7]
All the people there looked at her, but did not know who she was. "I am
the person called Yanaθa-kwe-'ataye,"[8] she said; "Do you not know me?"
Then all said: "Yes, we know you. We have heard of that person. That is
one who sings and from whom we learn singing. Her name is Nyohaiva." Now
they all knew who she was. (4 songs.)
[5] Two to three miles from Fort Mohave, a little east of north.
Aksamta is one of the "wild" seeds planted by the Mohave; cf.
Mastamho, VII, 36-42, below.
[6] About a mile north of Fort Mohave; a sand hill.
[7] Merrymaking and dancing lead to courtship. Compare the
"Supplement" of the Mastamho myth.
[8] This insect, of which Nyohaiva is so to speak the
impersonation, is described as being red-spotted and as coming
out of the ground when this is dry. Hence no doubt the allusion
to Nyohaiva's place of birth being the first to become dry. The
Mohave call yanaθa-kwe-'atāye a "spider," but it spins no web.
The element -ataye means many, atai-k; yanaθa-, the narrator
suggested, was from δanuθa, tears, alluding to the spotted
appearance of the animal.
5. Nyohaiva said: "There are people living below. I must go down. I
want to talk to them and teach them to sing. I want to talk to others
as well as to you." Then she went. She came to Kamahnūlye.[9] When she
arrived there, she said: "I do not tell you anything else. I teach
you only singing. I do not tell you what you are to do, but only how
you are to sing." (4 songs.)
[9] Kamahnūlye is at the foot of the mesa (valley edge) in
Arizona, 4 miles south of Fort Mohave, near the Lamp ranch.
6. She said: "That is what I teach you. Listen to me." As yet she did
not teach other tribes. She taught only the Mohave. Then she went on
downward to Savêt-tôhe.[10] (3 songs.)
[10] Savêt-tôhe, a sandy place, is across the river from
Needles, due east, at the foot of the mesa. Another place of the
same name, but rocky, is said to occur farther down the river.
7. As she stood there she heard someone speaking or shouting in the
east. She thought: "I hear people to the east. I think I will go
there." Thus she said and went east. She went up over the mesa and far
up into the mountains A'ī-kumnau-tšumī. There there was a spring,
Aha-kuvilye.[11] Someone lived there. She said: "I know you. Your name
is Hamaθôle-viya.[12] Well, I will tell of your body. I will tell
about you." (4 songs.)
[11] "Stinking water." She is in Walapai land now.
[12] Hamaθôle is a Walapai buckskin shirt; viya, ham-vaya-k, to
turn, revolve. "All will see him as he stands in his shirt and
turns about to display it."
8. Then she was ready to return. "I am going back now," she said. She
got up. Then she said again: "You can live here by hunting, but you
cannot hunt without having the things with which to hunt." Then she
took[13] a bow and four arrows and threw them on the ground, and those
living there picked them up. "Now you are provided. You can hunt and
shoot," she said. She also took a stone knife with a wooden handle and
gave it to them, then she started to go back. (She did not sing about
what she did there. She only instructed those people, the Walapai.) As
she returned toward the river, everything had been made, both sky and
earth, and all was quiet and still. She thought of that as she came,
and sang about it. (4 songs.)[14]
[13] Produced magically, hiwaksoāmim.
[14] She evidently returned to Savêt-tôhe after her eastern
excursion, for the songs are credited to that place. Note that
the songs are about the completion and stillness of the world on
her main journey, not about the episodic side trip of
instituting Walapai customs.
9. Now she went downstream along the edge of the river. She said: "The
way that I have come will be a trail. I am making a trail for people.
When they want to go, they will travel by this." It was when she came
to Hotūrveve[15] that she said this. (1 song.)
[15] Unidentified.
10. She went on. Then she heard someone far downstream. She thought:
"I wonder whether I can jump four times and reach that place." Then
she tried to find how she could jump. She thought: "I think I am able
to jump. I am light now: I can jump far. Perhaps if I stand and turn
around four, five, six times I shall go far." She stood there
thinking, thus. Then she turned herself around four times. Then she
arrived far down below, at Iveθīkwe-'akyulye. Nyahunêm-kwayāve[16]
lived there. He said: "The person who has come is not like other
people. He combs and spreads his hair,[17] he does not roll it.[18]
What is the reason you do not roll your hair? Come among my people and
live here and I will give you a name." Nyohaiva said: "It is good.
Give me a name. I will join you." He told her: "Stand facing the
south." Then she faced the south. He sat behind her, looking at her
back. "I give you the name Aθ'inkumeδī," he said. When she received
that name, Nyohaiva said: "Now I have a new name. Everyone has heard
it. My name is Aθ'inkumeδī. I have learned something new." Then she
sang. (4 songs.)[19]
[16] Nyahunêm-kwayāve: hune is the Mohave name of a crook used
by the Yavapai for pulling fruit from the tall sahuaro or giant
cactus; it consists of a pole with a small stick tied at an
angle at the end. Kw-ayave, ayave-k, bent, crooked.
[17] Like a woman. There is of course no pronominal gender in
Mohave, so "his" is ambiguous.
[18] Into pencils or strands, like a man.
[19] It is characteristic that it was at this point in the story
that the interpreter first realized that Nyohaiva was a woman,
not a man.
11. From there she went on slowly. She came near
Amaṭ-ehê'-kwaδôske.[20] The man who lived there saw her coming: he was
called Hutšatš-mekulypuk.[21] He said: "I heard that it was so: I
think this is my sister. I think that I look like her." When she
arrived and stood before him, he said: "You are my sister."[22]
Nyohaiva said: "No, you are not my brother."[22a] "Yes, you are my
sister," he said. Then she told him: "Well, let us measure our feet.
See, your feet are different. Let me see your arms. Yours are
different from mine. Mine are short, yours are long. You are not my
brother." Still he insisted: "Yes, I am your brother." But she said:
"No, you are not like me. You are tall." Then she went away from that
place. (3 songs.)
[20] Amaṭ-ehê' is white earth paint.
[21] Evidently a myriapod or centipede. Described as a white
underground insect or worm, longer than a finger, with legs
along both sides of the body, and able to run fast. "Hutšatš,
white-haired; pukel-pukim, wriggle, travel like a snake."
[22], [22a] They use the term havīkwek, defined by the narrator
as a man or a woman's older or younger brother or sister, viz.,
any sibling. The word has not been secured as kinship term. It
is obviously from havīk, two; hence probably "one of a pair."
12. She went to Hô'aunye-vatše. Hutšatš-matillaye[23] lived there.
When she arrived, he also said to her: "You are my sister." She stood
opposite him, saying: "I do not think I am your sister." "Yes, you are
my sister," he said. Then she told him: "I have heard of you. You have
been away. No one knew it; no one saw you; but I heard it: I know you
have been away; I know you and what your name is. You are
Hutšatš-matillaye." (3 songs.)
[23] Apparently also an insect. It jumps awkwardly, sometimes
falling. For matillaye, compare ke-layi-m, fall.
13. So she went on. When she arrived at a place where there was no
one, she passed by. She reached Ahmo-kutšeθīlye.[24] There she stood
on a rock. Then she heard people singing at Amaṭa-kwitše. She thought:
"When I come to them they will not know me. I am afraid they will kill
me. How shall I go there? I do not know." (2 songs.)
[24] Ahmo' is a mortar.
14. She wanted to go to that place. She thought: "What shall I be? I
will become something." Then she walked, and jumped about. She put
three feathers on herself. Then she became an arrow. She jumped
up.[25] She arrived where she had heard the noise, at Amaṭa-kwitše,
and there she stuck in the ground. Little boys were playing about and
found the arrow. One of them said: "I have often been here but I have
never seen an arrow sticking in the ground." He did not take it, but
went back and told the old man who lived in that place. The old man's
name was Haltoṭ-amītš-kwisāma.[26] When the boy told him, this old man
said: "Be careful: that is no arrow. Perhaps it is a person who has
become an arrow." Nyohaiva heard that and thought: "I will change
back. I want to go to that old man's house." Then she turned human
again, and went to the house. The old man saw her coming and said:
"See, she is coming. I told you that it was no arrow. It is a person
who is coming." When she reached the house, the old man said: "Give
her to eat: give her pumpkins and corn." They had food ready and gave
it to her. But she did not know that it was food and would not eat it.
She had never eaten that kind before. They wanted her to eat and said:
"Why do you not eat?" But she said: "No, I do not want to." She was
afraid. She thought: "If I eat it, perhaps it will kill me."[27] She
wanted to go on and did not even sit down. She only squatted and sang.
(3 songs.)
[25] And flew.
[26] Haltoṭ, given as meaning himake, his back, more likely is
the word for spider; amitš, far; kw-isam, see.--This is also an
insect, a small rough bluish or gray beetle that feigns death
when handled.
[27] The Mohave are averse to strange food; it may bring
sickness.
15a. She wanted to go on to Aqwāqa-have.[28] So she started. Now she
came to Aqwāqa-have. There were four brothers who lived there, old
men: Nyahamo-vetaye,[29] the oldest, Otšôuta,[30] the next,
Hiδô-kwitara,[31] the next, and Kīm-ku-sumā,[32] the youngest.
[28] Aqwāqa is deer.
[29] Nyahamo "from ahmo', mortar" (?); vetaye, atai-k, large,
much. Cf. Nyahaim-, wet, moist, in ritual names.
[30] From itšou-k, to make (?). "He was well-made, good
looking."
[31] Hiδô, his eyes; kwi-tara, compare δo-tara-k, blind. "He
always looked down."
[32] Kīm-, cf. akyêm, shoot; ku-sumā, dream. He dreamed of bows
and arrows and instructed people in successful hunting, and told
how he could shoot the sky and make his arrows stick in it. He
shot at ammo, the mountain sheep (the three stars of Orion's
belt); hence people hunt mountain sheep. Two or three small
stars in a row in Orion are his arrow.
15b. Nyahamo-vetaye had a daughter. He said to her, as Nyohaiva
arrived: "When a traveler comes, you must talk to her. You must make
her come to the house and be her friend. That is the way you should
do." When the old man said that, his daughter went to Nyohaiva, took
her by the hand, and brought her to the house. Nyohaiva would not go
in, but sat outside at the corner of the house. The four men did not
know her. "I wonder who she is," they thought. She was ashamed and did
not look up. She kept her face down.
15c. Then Kīm-ku-sumā, the youngest of the four, said: "Do you not
know her? Have you not heard of her? Her name is Nyohaiva. When she
came to one place, she changed her name and took a new one. I heard
that she was coming. Now that she has come, I can tell from the way
she sits, squatting without sitting down, and from her not looking at
us, that when she goes below where there are many people, she will
stir up trouble and there will be war and you will not sleep
well."[33] He was afraid of her and wanted her to be killed.
[33] From fear of night or dawn attacks.
15d. Then Hiδô-kwitara, the next oldest brother, said: "Well, if you
will kill her, you must send word to all, so that they will come and
all our people may know it. Send a man to Haltoṭ-amītš-kwisāma to tell
him that we wish him to come; that everyone should be here in four
days. I want to roast her alive. I do not want only to kill her: I
want her blood, and her bones to crush and mix with what we eat. We
will do that on the fourth morning." Nyohaiva heard them say that; and
they, though saying it, nevertheless gave her to eat; but she would
not eat it. She had heard them say that they would kill her in four
days.
15e. After two days she went outside and dug down in the ground. There
she found a kneecap. "That is my father's bone," she said. She dug on
and found a foot bone. "That is my mother's bone," she said. She dug
on and found a rib. Then she said: "That is my brother's[34] bone. The
people here have killed them. I think that they will try to kill, me
in the same way. They recognize me from my face. They knew me because
my face was like my father's and my mother's and my brother's. How
will they kill me? I would like to know how they will do. They will
make me bet my body against something that they put up and then they
will kill me. They will bet something against me."
[34] Havīkwek, of note 22.--Finding and playing with bones of
kinsfolk who have been killed by people that are plotting to
kill the hero also, is a stock episode in Mohave mythology, and
a standard motive for fighting. Cf. the Cane myth. A game and
bet are also a usual preliminary to war. There is a seeming
contradiction in the fact that Nyohaiva, who grows from the
ground while the earth is still new, should have parents killed
long before. Most Mohave myths, however, begin with the growth
or birth of the hero; and if fighting later occurs, it is
motivated in the way just explained. Both incidents conform to
the conventional pattern according to which myths are
constructed, so the logical inconsistency does not jar.
15f. Then in four days everyone came there. Nyohaiva had kept under
the belt of her skirt the bones that she had found. Now, taking the
foot bone[35] in her hand, she said: "If you can take it away from me,
you can kill me. If you cannot take it away from me, you shall not
kill me. If I am not able to keep and hold it, you may kill me. I do
not think you will be able to take it away from me, and if you cannot
take it away, I will go off. I will try to run to Avi-'itšôrinyêne and
there I will be free. But if you can take it away from me, and bring
it to Kunyāvatš-yampeve, you can have my bones and blood." Then they
prepared to take from her the ball of bone. But she had dug a little
hole[36] and there she buried the ball and stood on it. Then she waved
her hands and made it appear as if she were hiding the bone as she
folded her arms. She said: "If you do not take it away from me before
I come as far south as Avi-'itšôrinyêne, I shall win; but if you can
get the bone to Kunyāvatš-yampeve, then I shall lose." Then they all
came toward her. She ran south, holding the bone between her toes
where they did not see it. They reached her, seized her arms, looked
for the bone in her hands, but could not find it. Again they pursued
her, seized her, held her fast, tore off all her clothes. She fell,
got up again, and ran on, scratched all over, but they did not find
the bone. Then, when she came to Avi-'itšôrinyêne, she threw the bone
up, and they all stopped. So this one woman had beaten those people.
"I have beaten you all. I have dreamed well. In four days we shall
have war," she said, and stretched out her arm towards them with four
fingers extended (spread in defiance). They stood and looked at her
and thought: "Did I not know it? You cannot overcome her. She is
Nyohaiva. Now we have made trouble for ourselves. Everything will be
turned over." (4 songs.)
[35] Perhaps a heel bone, as it is later spoken of as a ball.
[36] With her toes.
16. From there Nyohaiva went down the river to Avi-haly'a.[37] There
she saw Amaly-kapaka[38] who had come to that place with many people.
She said to him: "I can tell about your body and about you. I can tell
about another thing too: I say there will be war in four days." (4
songs.)
[37] Moon-rock, or moon-mountain. It was recorded as -hily'a
(Yuma form?), whereas the Mohave for moon is haly'a.
[38] Again an insect. Amaly-kapaka are small flies such as
settle on horses.
17. She went on again. As she traveled she kept saying that there
would be war in four days. There was no one there and she was all
alone, nevertheless she told of the war. Then she came to Avê-ny-eva.
Two men lived there, Ahma-kunuhwilye and Tšem-korrave,[39] his
younger brother. She came to the house in which they were. She stood
at the door and did not say a word. They did not know her, so they
said: "Who is it?" Then she told them: "I am Aθ'inkumeδī. I have come
to announce war: I say it will be in four days. That is why I have
come here: I have come to tell you in how many days there will be
war." The two men said: "I know Aθ'inkumeδī: she is Nyohaiva. I know
her." (1 song.)
[39] Both brothers are green worms or caterpillars that live in
cottonwood trees. They have a bitter taste. The ordinary name of
Ahma-kunuhwilye is hamasukwenpa. A similar black worm is called
amiθe. Ahma, quail, is also a small bitter melon, not good to
eat; ku-nuhwilye is to drag. Korrave, or kw-irrave, means pain.
Tšem-korrave was thinking of his food, hukθara-nyamely-a'uva,
coyote's-food-tobacco, a strong, pungent, wild tobacco.
18. Then she went on and came to a place to which she gave the name
Qapotaq-iv'auve. She stood there and said: "I can tell where I am: I
have dreamed well." Now she was there alone, but she said: "I say we
shall have war." Then she tried what she could do. She trotted, to the
south one step (_sic_). Then she came back. Then she trotted one step
to the west and returned, then one to the north, then one to the
east.[40] Then she pulled out one hair on her right side and threw it
to the west, and it began to rain. She said: "I thought I should do
that. I dreamed about war: that is my power; I know that." (4 songs,
one about each direction.)
[40] Sunwise circuit, beginning with the south. This is unusual,
but she is traveling south.
19. She went on down again until she came to Avi-tuva'auve. There she
stood and said: "I thought the sky was far off. I thought the earth,
too, was far around, and that its end could not be told. But now, when
I have arrived here, the sky is not far away, and the (end of the)
earth is near." Thus she thought. (2 songs.)
20. She went on again and came to Ak'ulye-tšakapāva, a high hill, on
which she stood. From there she heard and saw many men. She said:
"They have been away a long time. I heard of that; I see it now. They
are ready to make war. I see them prepared with feathers, with bows
and arrows and war clubs, and with paint, ready to fight." (2 songs.)
21. From there she went on, running. When she had gone part of the way
to where she had seen the people, she came to a rock. She stood on
this. This rock had no name. She said: "I give it a name. I call it
Avi-tšitše." From there she again saw the people all ready for war. "I
am glad," she said, as she saw them playing and wearing feathers and
carrying bows and clubs. (4 songs.)
22. She went on down along the river again. Four times she ran and
rested. Then she began to be near the place. Now she had long hair[41]
and wore a dress of willow bark.[42] Then she thought: "How shall I
approach them?" Then she took some of the strands of her dress from one
side and the other and tied them across the front like a belt. She did
not tie her hair, but grasped it on both sides and twisted the two
masses into a knot behind.[43] "And I want to do something to look
pretty," she said. She took a handful of dirt and rubbed it across her
jaw and her forehead. "That will not do: it will not show," she said.
Putting her hands down to the ground once more, she dug. Then she
reached into the hole and took out white earth paint. From a handful she
made four horizontal stripes across her face. These were white and
plain. "That is better. Now I look well. And I will give a name to this
place. I will call it Amaṭ-ehê'-iδauve.[44] Now it has a name." (4
songs.)
[41] Halfway down her thigh.
[42] Reaching below the knee.
[43] Tšumkwinevek.
[44] Amaṭ-ehê', white earth paint.
23. Then she started and ran again. She ran twice and rested. Then she
arrived where those people were. She did not go in among them, but
stood off at a little distance. She saw that they were prepared and
ready for war, with feathers and bows and clubs and all weapons. Then
Hivilyk-kemohakwe,[45] a man who was there, called to her, "Come!" She
came nearer but soon stood still. "Come!" he called again. Again she
came but stopped. "Come!" he said once more, and again she came but
stood. Again he said, "Come!" This time she came in among the crowd.
She still held white paint in her hand. When the people saw this, they
all took some from her, put it into their own hands, spat on them,
rubbed them together to make them white, then drew their finger-tips
over their palms, and with their fingers painted white marks on their
hair. They said: "We will fight. We want to prepare because we will
fight." They all did that. Then Nyohaiva said to them: "It is well.
But wait: I will think about it. I will tell you how to go, how to
arrive, how to fight. Now I want to give a name to this place so that
all will know from where we started to go to war. The name of this
place is Ava-tšohai.[46] Now all will know it." (4 songs.)
[45] Evidently a bird, like the other leaders among his people.
Hivi-lye, on my shoulder; kemohakwe, "cf. hakehake,
many-colored."--"His other name was Itoke-pilyuwake," (a small,
red-bellied, sharp-billed bird).
[46] In Arizona, above Yuma, well below Parker. This is as far
south as she travels. Ava is house.
24. Then she said: "Who dreamed about war? Who knows how to fight? Who
will be leader? The first will be Horrave-sakamīm.[47] The next will be
Aqāqa-suverevere-ketukupanye.[48] The next will be Ampot-ahwaṭe."[49]
She herself was to be the fourth. Horrave-sakamīm was to be the leader
and go first and kill. All wanted to go along. (3 songs.)
[47] The blackbird with a white spot behind its eye.
Horrave-sakamīm means "lighting-extinguish."
[48] A similar bird with an erect crest. Aqāqa, raven or crow;
su-verevere, rope or band of erect trimmed raven feathers;
ke-tukupánye, tie on the head.
[49] The red-winged blackbird. Ampot-ahwaṭe, red-dust. He
painted each shoulder red before fighting.
25. Now they were ready and wanted to cross the river. They
gathered, tied driftwood into bundles, and put their weapons on
them.[50] Then they crossed to the west side of the river and came
to Ahpe-hwêlyeve.[51] "When we arrive there I will tell you more,"
Nyohaiva said. (4 songs.)
[50] Improvised ferriage to keep bowstrings dry.
[51] Ahpe', metate or grinding slab.
26. Nyohaiva said: "Men who are at war do not stay long in one place;
they do not rest, but go on. Let us go at once." Then they went north
along the west side of the river. They continued to go on to
Amaṭ-tato'itše. Then she said: "Let us rest: all sit in the shade."
Now Hivilyk-kemohakwe went off from them up on the mesa to see if
there was anyone to fight. As he looked north to see if there were
smoke or dust, he stepped on an ataṭa (Mamillaria) cactus. The thorns
entered his foot, hurt, and he was unable to walk. He returned
crawling on his knees. Then Nyohaiva said; "See, we have bad luck. If
we had good luck, the thorn would not have entered you: now your luck
is bad." Then she drew out all the thorns. "Now you are well again:
you will walk. Let me see you!" He tried to walk but could not yet.
Then she spoke and sang once more, and now he had no pain and could
walk again. "Let us go on," she said. (2 songs.)
27. They went northward. When they came to Aqwāqa-mūnyô, they saw dust
and smoke and heard noise. Nyohaiva said: "That is near the place.
That is near my father's and mother's and brother's bones. I came by
there. I know they are there, those whom we go to fight. Now all do as
I want you to. I wish all tribes to fight. If I did not fight, no one
in future would fight." She thought of what she was about to do, and
how pleasant it would be, and that they were all to learn how to make
the war dance. (3 songs.)
28. They started on again. Now they were near, at
Matha-tše-kwilyeve,[52] and stopped. There were hills there and a wash
and a little mesa. Someone was standing on the mesa. He ran down
toward them. Nyohaiva saw him coming and said: "I think they are
sending a message to us. They are sending someone as a spy. Or perhaps
he is coming to meet me, to tell me that there will be war. I see him:
he is coming." Now that person came among the crowd. He was not
afraid. Nyohaiva saw him and said: "Oh, you are my brother."[53] Then
he said: "There where you see the smoke and hear the noise they killed
my father and mother and brother and took their bones and played with
them. They enslaved me. Now they have let me go. 'He is going to
become something,' they said of me." His body was a person's, but he
had horns. He wore skin clothing. Then Nyohaiva took his shirt, his
leggings, and his moccasins from him. She sent him away to the west to
eat grass and become a mountain sheep.[54] "Go that way," she said.
"The mountains there will be full of sheep. East of the river there
will be no sheep in the mountains. When you find grass, eat that. I
call you hômô.[55] Now you are hômô." (4 songs.)
[52] Matha-, wind, also north.
[53] Navīkwek, sibling or twin, as ante, notes 22, 34. "She was
the older."
[54] Ammo.
[55] Said to be "the Chemehuevi word" for mountain sheep. This
however is naah. Hômô is not the form in any known Yuman
dialect. It may represent distorted Mohave as it is supposed to
be pronounced by the Chemehuevi.
29. Then they went on again until they came to Koθîlye. There
Aθ'inkumeδī (Nyohaiva) entered the river up to her knees. The water
rushing about her legs made a noise and frightened her. She said: "I
will tell of this water. Then the river will not run fast. It will
flow slowly. I will make it be like that, not as it is now." So she
told[56] about the river. When she had sung three times, the river
flowed smoothly and they crossed to the eastern side once more. (3
songs.)
[56] Sang?
30. Now when they had arrived on that side, all took up their feathers
and paint, and Nyohaiva said: "Put on your feathers and paint. Paint
yourselves black, but your hair red. I will tell you what to do. I
will sing about you." (4 songs.)
31. Then, when all were dressed, they went on. They went without
stopping, and as they walked Nyohaiva continued to talk. The four
leaders[57] went ahead; the others were behind. Nyohaiva said: "I will
reach them first. I will begin the fight." As she walked she sang
about their steps, and as their arms swung she sang of those. For a
little distance she sang thus. (5 songs.)
[57] Nyohaiva and the three blackbirds.
32. Now they were near, and all of them ready, painted and wearing
feathers and holding their clubs. Then Nyohaiva said: "I dreamed well:
no one can surpass me." She wanted to do something. She spat on her
hand, rubbed her hands together to make a ball magically, and threw it
towards the people at Aqwāqa-have. "That will make them sleep," she
said. What she threw entered Nyahamô-vetaye's house and hit a post. It
was nearly sundown and Nyahamô-vetaye's people were still outdoors;
but now they all came in; everyone went in. Nyohaiva said: "See, they
are all entering. We shall overcome them. They can do nothing against
us. I am able to make them all go into the house. You will see that
they all sleep. Now we four will go in: the rest of you stay here."
Then the four leaders went on and entered the house. They were looking
for one man. In the dark Nyohaiva put her hand on the legs and faces
of the sleepers in order to find him. As she touched them she made
them weak and sleepy. Then she found the man in the middle of the
house. She put her hand on his body and on his ear and knew him
because he lacked one ear. His hair was long and he had it coiled in a
large bunch, on which his head was resting.[58] Nyohaiva said: "This
is he for whom I was looking: this is Otšôuta, who wanted to kill
me.[59] Now I have found him and will kill him." Then the four carried
him outside. Nyohaiva said to him: "I will take your head from you
alive. I will tell you about it before I kill you." As Otšôuta sat
there,[60] she seized his hair and pulled it. Four times she moved him
as she pulled it. The fourth time she said: "Now I will behead you. I
have no knife, but I can kill you with my thumbnail." Then she felt
about his neck. She knew where the bones joined: there she cut him
with her thumbnail. She cut entirely around his neck, cut off his
head, and held it up. The body lay there, jumped up, walked, fell
down, jumped again, fell, and died only after a time. Then Nyohaiva
said: "Now we will tell about this head."[61] (4 songs.)
[58] Evidently using a coil of his long plastered pencils of
hair as a pillow, a sleeping habit not specifically reported
before.
[59] The story has mentioned only his two younger brothers as
urging her death.
[60] He was apparently awake now, but unable to move.
[61] Such a head, their usual war trophy, is commonly called a
"scalp" in English by the Mohave.
33. Then she said to her people: "Let us go northward on this side of
the river. I have heard that people live here; but we will not go near
them. They want war with us, but we will not stay." So they went. They
came to Aha-δekupīδa.[62] They went on past that place, on up the
river until they came to Sama'ôkusa. Many people lived there. There
were four men[63] there, Alyha'-tuyāme, Alyha'-tokwīme, Alyha'-tšaôre,
and Alyha'-mīṭ-kusāma.[63a] Many people wanted to see the head that
she brought, but Nyohaiva said: "No, I will not show it to you now. I
will let you see it, but not now. You will see it in time." She hid
the head under her dress. She would not show it to them. She said:
"When I show it and you sing, all will know what to do with it." Then
she marked a ring on the ground. She stood in the center and waved
her hand to the people to come. "Come, all of you, and see this head,"
she said. All came and stood about. Then she threw the head up so that
it fell on the ground: she threw it up four times. Then she said: "Now
you have seen the head: you all know it. Now we will sing about it."
Then she sang about its bones, its eyes, its eyelashes, its tongue,
its mouth, its teeth, and its nose. (4 songs.)
[62] "Owl water."
[63], [63a] Alyha' is a transvestite, a man living a woman's
life. Such people would be likely to be prominent in a dance in
which women participated. Tuyame, tayām-k, walk in a circle;
-tokwīme, stand in one place; tšaôre, said to be connected with
kavaôrem, to step on, as on the heel of one in
front; -mīṭ-kusāma, perhaps from amītš, far, kw-isam, see.
34. She said: "Now you have all seen what I do. That is how I want you
to do. After I am dead,[64] you will do the same. But there is another
thing." She made four heaps of sand. Then she ran to the south,
returned, and with her right foot stirred in one of the heaps. She ran
east and returned and stirred in another heap; then north, and stirred
in another heap; then west, and stirred in the fourth.[65] As she
stirred that one, she took out from it[66] a sandbar-willow (ihore)
stick, a long wand. On the end of it she tied the hair of the head so
that it waved.[67] "That is how I do," she said. "That is how I want
you to do." (4 songs.)
[64] Have become transformed.
[65] Anti-sunwise circuit, beginning at south.
[66] By magic.
[67] Now a true scalp.
35. When they had finished that, she said: "When there is war and a
scalp is taken, people will do as I have done. They will dance and
enjoy themselves. All will be happy and will play and sing. I have
done that. Now I wonder what I shall be. I wonder where I shall go."
As she thought, she was holding the skull of the head in her hand. She
went eastward two steps and stood there. "The name of this place is
Amaṭ-ya'āma,"[68] she said. Then, standing there, she threw Otšôuta's
skull far south, nearly to Yuma. "I want it to become a rock," she
said. Then it became the rock called Avi-melyekyête.[69]
[68] About four miles east of the Mohave Reservation Agency at
Parker, in Arizona.
[69] A sharp upright rock at Picacho at the foot of the
Chocolate mountains, above Yuma. According to Ford, Ethnography
of the Yuma, p. 102, there was a historic Yuma village here.
36. Now the people there stood in a circle about her. She was thinking
about her own body. "I wonder what color I shall be: white or blue or
yellow? Well, I will turn black. I shall be a rock, but all will know
me, that I am Nyohaiva. My name will be Avi-soqwīlye.[70] All will
know that rock and that it is Nyohaiva." (No songs.)
[70] A black rock, "as large as a house," on which soqwīlye
hawks nest. It is about a quarter of a mile from Amaṭ-ya'āma.
The transformation is appropriate for the leading character of a
war cycle, because dreaming of soqwīlye hawks is what makes
warriors.
THE SONG SCHEME
As already said, the Nyohaiva singing is "short": it requires only one
night to complete, probably including a certain amount of narration.
I give the number of songs at each point, first as the narrator
volunteered them in telling the full text, and next as he subsequently
revised them in a review of the skeleton of the story. There are the
usual discrepancies; some perhaps due to misunderstanding; more,
probably, to his not having in mind any really fixed scheme of the
number of songs at each place.
_Outline_
_Origin, Identity, Future_
1. Born at Miakwa'orve 3 3
2. South to Iδô-kuva'īre 2 1
3. Yuma Av'alyunu singing like Mohave Nyohaiva 1 0
4. At Selye'aya-kumītše, about her identity 4 4
5. At Kamahnulye, the same 4 4
6. At Savêt-tôhe, the same 3 3
_Detour to the Walapai_
7. At Aha-kuvilye, about buckskin shirt wearers 4 1
8. Returning from the Walapai to the river 4 3
_Southward again_
9. At Hotūrveve, on the trail 1 1
10. At Iveθīkwe-'akyulye, about her new name 4 4
11. At Amaṭ-ehê'-kwaδôske, claimed as sister 3 3
12. At Ho'aunye-vatše, claimed again 3 3
13. At Ahmo-kutšeθīlye, hears singing ahead 2 (?)
_Magic, Game Won, Defiance_
14. Flies as arrow to Amaṭa-kwitše; afraid to eat 3 3
15. From Aqwāqa-have to Avi-tšôrinyêne, wins
contest, defiance 4 4
_War Will Come_
16. At Avi-haly'a, telling of war coming 4 4
17. At Avê-ny-eva, same 1 1
18. At Qapotaq-ivauve, the cardinal directions 4 3
19. At Avi-tuva'auve, the sky is near 2 3
20. At Akulye-tšakapava 2 3
21. Avi-tšitše named 4 3
22. At Amaṭ-ehê-'iδauve, about white paint 4 3
_War Party Got up_
23. At Ava-tšohai, reaching allies 4 4
24. Horrave-sakamīm appointed leader there 3 0
_On the March, and Preparations_
25. Crossing the river to Ahpe-hwêlyeve 4 2
26. At Amaṭ-tato'itše, curing cactus spine 2 2
27. At Aqwāqa-mūnyô, on the way to battle 3 3
28. At Matha-tše-kwilyeve, meeting mountain sheep 4 3
29. At Koθīlye, crossing the river 3 3
30. Across it, painting themselves 4 3
31. On the way, about her steps and arms 5 3
_The Stupefied Foe Is Beheaded_
32. At Aqwāqa-have again, Otšôuta decapitated 4 4
_The Victory Dance_
33. At Sama'ôkusa, about his scalp; the Alyha' 4 4
34. At same place, the scalp on the pole 4 4
_Transformation of Victim and Victor_
35. At Amaṭ-ya'āma, Otšôuta's skull thrown to
Picacho Rock 0 4
36. Nyohaiva turns into Hawk-Rock 0 0
___ ___
110 98+
The first list aggregates 110 songs in 34 groups; the second, 98 or
100 in 33. In the first list, groups of four songs are most frequent,
occurring 17 times. In the second list groups of four occur only 10
times, but groups of three 16 times. In short, in the second
enumeration the typical group consists of three instead of four songs.
At what appear to be crucial points--Nyohaiva's identity, her new
name, the contest, Otšôuta's killing, the scalp dance--the two lists
agree in naming the full complement of four songs. Evidently there is
some sense that lesser episodes merit fewer songs. That this sense of
relative weight is fairly constant is shown by the fact that of 31
places or stages to which both lists attribute songs, 19 have the same
number; 9 differ by only one song, as three for four or three for two;
and only 3 differ more widely: see paragraphs 7, 25, 31. There is thus
evident a plan in the narrator's mind for relative elaboration of
songs in different parts of the story. This plan is adhered to with
approximate consistency or repetition; but it is no precise ritual
scheme fixed in memory.
As usual, the song scheme serves also as a synopsis of the narrative.
I have therefore organized it by introducing captions. It is evident
from this outline that only about three of the thirty-odd sections
contain vigorous plot such as is the usual content of myths and tales
in cultures of the same general level as the Mohave. These are
sections 14 and especially 15 and 32. If to these are added the first
and last one or two brief sections, to give the heroine an origin and
an end, we have about the equivalent of what most American tribes
would use to make a tale. The remaining sections, nearly thirty, are
Mohave filling, or prolixity, dispensable incidents which make the
story run slower but give opportunity to build up the singing into a
long series, a real cycle, corresponding to a ritual among other
tribes. This song association is presumably the cause of the dilatory
narration; though it is also clear that the Mohave like the
strung-along episodes for their own sake, and maintain the habit even
when the narrative is unaccompanied by songs, as in the Mastamho myth
and Great Tale.
The difference in manner, according as interest in plot or in song
themes prevails, is shown by the fact that the three paragraphs
mentioned (14, 15, 32) take up about three-tenths of the length of the
narrative, but have only one-tenth of the songs referring to them.
That is, Mohave singing is far from really dramatic. Its text tends to
be pensive, subjective, reflective on incidents. When the action
becomes eventful, tense, or critical, the songs become few, or drop
out, until the flow of the narrative quiets again.
From one to four of the songs of each of the groups were
phonographically recorded in cylinders catalogued as 14-228 to 14-269
in the University of California Museum of Anthropology. The
correspondence of these phonograms to the sections of the narrative is
as follows:
_Sections_ _Phonograms_
1 228-230
2 231
4-7 232-235
9-12 236-239
14-23 240-249
25-32 250-257
33 258, 264-266
34 259, 267-269
35 260-263
That is, all the songs pertaining to the first section and the three
last sections were recorded; but only the first of each group of songs
for the other sections.
IV. RAVEN
This song-myth was recorded near Needles on March 19, 1903, from
Pamitš, "Weeping Person," a middle-aged man of the Sun-fire-deer-eagle
clan, who call their daughters Nyo'iltša (or Nyôrtša after they have
lost a child). Jack Jones interpreted. The story has been previously
outlined and discussed in Handbook of the California Indians, page
761, and some songs given on page 758. It was there characterized as
"a curious tale within a tale, if it can be called a story at all. The
[boy] heroes do nothing but move thirty feet, sing all night, and
disappear [as ravens] at daybreak. What they sing of is what any
Mohave would be likely to sing of if he sat up. The story is thus but
a pallid reflection of the conventional subjects of Mohave singing."
This judgment is confirmed by the outline of songs given below.
While Raven is said by the Mohave to be sung at celebrations and to
refer to war, along with Tumanpa, Vinimulye, and Nyohaiva, it differs
from the last two of these--which have just been given--in that these
contain actual narratives of fighting as the central theme of the
plot; whereas Raven merely sings of war customs in the abstract. There
is also no travel in Raven, except mental travel. Tumanpa is like
Raven in that it has no war story; like Vinimulye and Nyohaiva in that
there is journeying; and is peculiar--especially for a war and
festival song-cycle--in that its formal theme is incest.
NARRATOR'S STATEMENTS
Pamitš said to me: "I was a baby boy [meaning a foetus--see below]
when I dreamed this singing: it was given me by the Ravens. Now I am a
man, but have not forgotten it. I dreamed it before I ever was born.
If I had been born when I dreamed it, I would have forgotten it. No, I
did not learn it from other Mohaves; and I did not hear any of them
sing it. In fact, no one else sings like this, for it was I that
dreamed it myself." Later he added: "Only I and Jo Nelson" (the
narrator of the Mastamho Myth, VII, below) "know this Raven, and he
learned it from me; he did not dream it. Jo is my paternal cousin,
itškāk" (a term not recorded otherwise). "If one of us two dies, the
other will sing Raven for him all of a day and a night. My older
brother, and his son, also learned it from me. And my grown-up
daughter learned it, without dreaming: I will sing it for her if she
dies, or she for me."
He added: "When a raven is on the ground, he hops twice before rising
in flight. That is why I shake my gourd rattle downward twice before
raising it to sing; and why the women who are to dance hop twice
before I start my song. Then, when I shake it upward, they just walk
past me; until, a few beats before the end of the song (8 or 10 bars),
I make a long downward sweep of the rattle, nearly to the ground. This
is the signal for the women to begin to dance. When we do like this,
in the daytime, it is outdoors, and I walk slowly back and forth, and
the women dance forward and backward, following me. When I sing
indoors, there is no dancing, and I stay seated in one place near the
middle of the house all night, except sometimes I rise to my knees."
I did not see an actual Raven dance, but it was illustrated for me as
follows. The women bend their knees somewhat so that their skirt hem
is lowered perhaps four or five inches. They then sag and rise in the
knee an inch or two, without moving their feet or even rising on their
toes. The body is inclined slightly forward, the head is erect, the
eyes wide open and looking level (not lowered as by Plains Indian
women); the arms hang straight down, almost stiffly, the wrists
perhaps being bent back a trifle. When the women move forward and
back, they shuffle their feet forward (or back) an inch or two at each
step, without raising them from the ground.
OUTLINE OF SONG SCHEME
_Growth:_
1. Birth of the brothers 4
2. Cane buzzers 4
3. Darkness and war 4
4. Gourd rattles 4 16
_Night:_
5. Bat flying west 6
6. Stars 12
7. Cane 18 36
_War:_
8. Hostile tribes 4
9. Wind and dust and war 4?
10. Brave men 4
11. Fighting 4
12. Captive women 2
13. Scalped men 4
14. Return with the scalps 4
15. Arrival at Bill Williams Fork 4
16. The start next morning 4
17. Message of victory 4
18. Dance with the scalps 22
19. Gathering and feast 8 68
_Birds:_
20. Masohwaṭ bird 12
21. Night hawk 4
22. Curve-billed thrasher 8
23. Mockingbird 6 30
_Tribal Life:_
24. Grinding food 6
25. Play at Miakwa'orve 2 8
_Transformation:_
26. Bodies of the brothers 4
27. Their knowledge 4
28. Their future shape 4
29. New names 4
30. Wish to change 4
31. Learning to fly 4
32. Departure 4 28
---
Total 186
THE RAVEN STORY
1. It was at Ha'avulypo that Matavilya built the first house.[1] After
he died, two brothers, Aqāqa, the Ravens, were there. When such birds
find anything that has died, they eat it; but they would not have
eaten Matavilya then, even if they had seen him. But they did not see
him, for these two, the older and the younger brother, only grew from
the ground where the northwest corner of the house had been, after
this house had been burned down.[2] The name of the older brother was
Humar-kwiδe, of the younger, Humar-hanga.[3] They were little boys
then--not Ravens. They looked up to the sky, and all about, and saw
that the world had been made. Then they looked toward the south. As
they sat, they each sang two songs; first the older, then the younger.
(4 songs.)[4]
[1] As told more fully in other accounts.
[2] As doors are to the south, this would be the right rear
corner, from inside.
[3] Humar is boy; the sound ng does not occur in Mohave speech,
but is frequent in the distorted forms which words assume when
sung. Hang is also the Mohave idea of the reverberating sound
produced by beating or scraping a basket set in front of the
mouth of a jar--the proper accompaniment to certain song-series.
[4] The first song of the four is: humīk pi'ipaik nakwiδauk,
now-both being-alive we-sit-here.
2. Then they said to each other: "My brother, we will leave this
place. We grew here. We came out of the corner here, but now we will
leave it." So they started from their corner, crawling forward on
their bent legs a short distance, four times: but they thought they
were walking. Then they began to talk of cane-buzzers[5] which they
had. There was no cane there then. Nevertheless they had cane, both
ahta-hamaka and ahta-hatšima, large cane and small cane. They said: "I
hear canes swaying in the wind in the west and in the south." They
heard it rustling. That is why large cane grows in the south below
Yuma, and in the west; but not in this country. They sang twice each.
(4 songs.)
[5] A toy, a piece of cane as large as a finger, through which a
string is passed on which it is revolved against the teeth.
3. Then they said:[6] "Listen to what we tell. We have dreamed well.
We can divide the dark and the stars.[7] You do not know it, but you
will have war. We did not learn that from Matavilya: we dreamed it. We
are telling what is so: You will see. We are brave and tell of things
which we have dreamed." (4 songs.)[8]
[6] "Said to me," in the narrator's words.
[7] Referring to wars of the Mohave against the Halchidhoma and
Cocopa.
[8] The words of the first of these songs about dreaming are:
sumāk imank akanavek.
4. Now as they sang, they had no gourd (rattles). They said: "We have
no gourds. That will not do. When people make war and kill an enemy
and dance, it will be well that they have such things." Now they were
about to make a gourd to give to me.[9] They said: "We have none yet
but we can make it." Then the older one stood up, turned to the west,
to the north, to the east, and to the south.[10] Then he had a gourd
in his right hand. He said: "It will be well, when a man sings, to use
that. Everyone will like to hear it." (4 songs.)[11]
[9] Viz., to the narrator.
[10] Clockwise circuit beginning with the west.
[11] The words of these four songs are: 1, ahnālya hiδauk
imat-kievek kanavek, gourd hold when-have tell; 2, ahnalya oalya
viv'aum, gourd I-show standing; 3, ahnalya hiδauk amaim-itšiak
viv'aum, gourd I-hold upward-raise-it standing; 4, iδauk
akanavek viv'aum atšδumk atšikavakek viv'aum, I-hold-it
I-tell-of-it standing look-here look-there standing. Atšiδumk
and atšikavakek may refer to upstream and downstream (north and
south).
5. The two Ravens had not yet gone far from their corner. They were
still near the place where they had grown, and still in the house.[12]
Then the older said: "My brother, there is another thing we will tell
about. The bat has started from the east in the darkness and is flying
westward. I hear him. It is he." The youngest did not know that. The
older sang three songs and the younger three. (6 songs.)[13]
[12] The confines of what had been the house.
[13] The first of these six songs runs: tinyam-kaltšieska
himan-kuyamk akanavek sivarek, night-bat rising-flies I-tell-it
sing-it.
6. Then the older said: "There is another thing that I will tell of. I
will tell about Orion (ammo, the mountain sheep, the three stars of
the belt of Orion), and also about six that are near them (Hatša, the
Pleiades). I will sing about those." Then he sang six times and his
younger brother sang six times. (12 songs.)
7. Now the older said again: "There is another thing that we will sing
about. It is the large cane that we heard far down in the south and
west." They each sang nine songs about that. (18 songs.)[14]
[14] From here on the repetitious statements of assignment of
half of each song group to each brother will be omitted.
8. Then they said: "Now let us sing of other tribes, in the south, the
Halchidhoma and the Cocopa. We know more than they. We have dreamed
well and are brave and can beat them." He meant that no tribe could
overcome the Mohave in war. They each sang two songs about this. (4
songs.)
9. Then they said: "There is another thing we will sing about. We will
tell of wind and dust. When we go to fight those people, the wind will
blow and the dust will fly so that they will not see us. When we sing
thus the wind will blow hard." (4? songs.)
10. Again they said: "There is another thing. Some men have dreamed
well and are brave, but not all men are like that. When there is war,
brave men will be the first to see where the houses of the enemy are.
There will be only a few men who will have that power.[15] They will
not be afraid in the day nor in the night. You will see that." (4
songs.)
[15] By dreaming.
11. "There is another thing. The Mohave will have war with other
tribes. They will not begin to fight at night, but in the day. They
will use bows and arrows. We tell of that. We sing of fighting." (4
songs.)
12. Then they said: "When there is war, women will be captured.
Perhaps two or three will be taken. They will stand with their heads
down, ashamed." (2 songs.)
13. "There is another thing that we will tell about. That is scalping.
When they fight, there will be men killed with long hair, and these
will be scalped." (4 songs.)
14. They said: "When they have taken a scalp and go back to this
country,[16] they will sing over it." (4 songs.)
[16] Really the narrator's country, Mohave valley. The Ravens
are still at Ha'avulypo, many miles north.
15. They said: "When they have fought and have taken scalps and
slaves, and have started to return, they will come to Hakutšyepe."[17]
(4 songs.)
[17] Bill Williams Fork of the Colorado River.
16. They said: "When they have slept there, in the morning one of them
will say, 'Get up.'" (4 songs.)
17. They said: "After they have started from there, they will come to
Amaṭ-aθove. Then they will send word to the people in this country.
They will announce: 'We have taken scalps and slaves. Prepare for the
dance.' Who will carry the news to them? His name is Irra'um-kumaδaye.
Then when word is sent, all will hear it." (4 songs.)
18. They said: "When they return and bring the scalps and the slaves,
all the people will gather and a place will be prepared to dance. We
will sing of that." (22 songs.)[18]
[18] The substance of this paragraph was given twice by the
narrator. As he first mentioned 4 songs and then 22, it is
possible that he meant to sing twice on this topic.
19. They said: "Now when all come to the appointed place and bring
food, there will be a gathering."[19] (8 songs.)
[19] Yimatšk, festival.
20. They said: "There is another thing we are thinking of. We will
tell about it. I hear the sound of a bird, far up in the sky, as it
comes from the east. That bird has been here, but went away. It is our
bird. We know it, though we have never seen it. Its name is
Masohwaṭ."[20] (12 songs.)
[20] Frequently mentioned and probably mythical. It is described
as bright red and larger than a raven. It does not live in the
Mohave country. It is also called Sakatôre, it is said.
21. They said: "There is another bird, Orro.[21] It knows where to
obtain daylight. It goes east and brings the day. Thus it makes
morning." (4 songs.)
[21] The night hawk.
22. They said again: "There is another bird, Hotokoro.[22] We hear it
making a noise." (8 songs.)
[22] The curve-billed thrasher, probably. See Mastamho, VII, 85
seq.
23. Then they said: "Different birds sing differently. There is a bird
that we know, Sakwaθa'alya.[23] We will tell of him." (6 songs.)
[23] The mockingbird. One of the songs about him is:
sakwaθa'alya me'eptekwoa melerqênye hiolk ikavavek, mockingbird
you-are-the-one (?) from-throat loudly tell. See Mastamho, VII,
85 seq.
24. Then the older brother said: "I want to know what we shall be. I
want to know what the people will do. I want to know all that." He was
thinking about it. He said: "We will tell another thing. We will tell
about grinding food." (6 songs)[24]
[24] The first of these six songs runs: ahpe hamutšye (for
hamukye) tawām taδi(tsa)-tawam, metate muller grind maize-grind.
25. He said: "When we have finished telling about everything, we will
go outdoors. There is a place called Miakwa'orve.[25] All the people
will come there to enjoy themselves; they will play and sing." (2
songs.)
[25] Near Fort Mohave.
26. Now the Ravens moved, as before, creeping on their legs, still not
walking. They moved from the place where they had sat, near the back
corner of the house, to near the door. Then the elder said: "My
younger brother, we will tell of our body: of our legs, our arms, our
head, our nose. We will tell of every part of our bodies before we go
outdoors." (4 songs.)
27. Then they both stood up. Now they were able to walk: they were
young men. They said: "We have told all we know. It is enough. Anyone
who dreams of us and sees us, will know everything, and will be able
to tell all that we have said. We have not seen what we tell of,
nevertheless we know all these things." (4 songs.)
28. Now they stood outside the door. Standing there, they said: "What
shall we be? Now we are persons, but what shall we turn into? Shall we
live in the air, or on the earth, or in the timber? Shall our bodies
be black, or yellow, or red? How will it be?" (4 songs.)
29. Then the older brother said: "Which will be the best way to go? I
do not yet know. I want to change my name. When we were born in the
corner of the house we were called Humar-kwiδe and Humar-hanga. Now we
shall not have those names any longer. My name will be Sowêltek." And
the younger said: "My name will be Eteqwesongk."[26] (4 songs.)
[26] These two names are said to refer respectively to flapping
and flying.
30. They did not stand still, but walked eastward and back. Then stood
and then walked toward the north and back, then west and back, then
southward and back.[27] Now they did not want to be persons any
longer. They sang four songs, two each, one for each direction. (4
songs.)
[27] Counterclockwise, starting in the east: cf. note 10; also
Appendix I. The Mohave frequently mention cardinal circuits and
sometimes associate colors with the points, but without any
fixed direction of the circuit or fixed color association. As
ritual symbolism, their material has not set. The fact and
content of dreaming are more important to them than precisely
formulated ritual pattern.
31. Then they said: "We have finished. We have told about our entire
bodies. Now we wish to have feathers." Then they had feathers over
their bodies. They tried to fly up but could not yet go far. They rose
only as high as a house. Four times they tried, but said: "No, we
cannot yet fly." (4 songs.)
32. Now the older stood on the east, the younger on the west, both
facing the south. It had been night but now it was becoming morning.
Then the older said; "The darkness comes from the east and goes west
and I will follow it. Now I have another name. My name is
Aqāqa-hatšyara.[28] I will go to the Kamia.[29] I will never return. I
will be Crow and will not come to this country." Then he followed the
darkness to the southwest. That is why he is black.
[28] Crow.
[29] The Diegueño, or perhaps more properly the Diegueño
offshoot in the desert and along the river whom we call Kamia.
The Mohave say that the Kamia, the Yuma, and they themselves
sing Raven songs, but the Kamia series is different.
Then the younger said: "My name will be Tinyamhat-mowaipha."[30] He
did not leave this country but stayed here. He is Raven.
[30] "Dark-dusk," or dusky night.
Now they had turned into birds. No one changed them, but they became
thus. They went with the darkness and therefore are black. As they
flew off, they said: "We fly with the help of the wind. When the wind
blows hard, we fly high: it helps us; it whirls us around." (4
songs.)[31]
[31] The last song of the cycle is: matahaik (for mat-haik)
ikwêrevik, wind whirls.
V. DEER
DISCUSSION
This tale of Aqwāq-sivāre or Deer-singing was recorded at Needles, on
March 21, 1903, from Yellow-thigh, known also as Enter-fire and
Three-horses, a man of one of the Tobacco clans, who call their
daughters Kaṭa. Yellow-thigh did not profess to have dreamed this
song-myth-cycle: he said he had learned it from his older relatives.
His son also knew it.
The beginning and end of the story, comprising about a quarter of its
length, deal with two great felines, Jaguar and Mountain Lion. At
least, that is who they are here construed as being: certain doubts of
identification will be discussed in a moment. These two create for
themselves a pair of Deer, who travel eastward for two nights and on
the second day of their journey are ambushed by the cats who have gone
ahead to lie in wait for them in the Walapai country, in order that
the Walapai may learn hunting. Three-fourths of the story relate to
the wanderings of the Deer, and all the songs of the cycle except the
very last set are sung by them. The listener's emotional
identification is thus with the Deer, rather than with their creators
and destroyers; as the cycle name would also indicate. The result is
that most of the tale is pervaded by a flavor of doom, such as the
Mohave manage to inject, however inarticulately, into many of their
mythical narratives.
The geography--after formal respects are paid to the beginning of
things at Ha'avulypo--is simple: a west-to-east journey from
Gabrielino or Serrano country near the sea in California to Walapai
territory in upland Arizona. This includes something of a swerve first
north and then south to take in Avikwame and the upper part of Mohave
valley.
Biologically, the Jaguar has his regular northern limits in Sinaloa or
southern Sonora. Occasional strays however roamed into Arizona and
perhaps southern California. He was certainly a traditional animal to
most Mohave: very few of them could ever have seen one, even in the
old days; but he was not imaginary. There is some confusion as to
which name designates which feline, or whether one of them may not in
fact be Wolf. I have translated Numeta as Jaguar, and Hatekulye as
Mountain Lion (Puma), because Nume is Wildcat, and the Jaguar is
spotted dark on yellow like that smaller stub-tailed animal.[1]
Hatekulye was said by the Mohave to refer to a long tail, a feature
which many Indian tribes note about Mountain Lion. Etymologically, the
word seems to mean "long dog"; which would of course be Wolf. In that
event, nume-ta, the "real cat" or "large cat," would presumably be the
commoner Mountain Lion, and Jaguar would not enter into the present
story. The wobbliness of identification by the Mohave and other Yumans
is increased by the fact that two other large carnivores besides the
jaguar, the wolf and the bear, are not regular habitants of their
lands.
[1] These are the vocabulary data: In all Yuman dialects, nume',
or some obvious dialectic variant, means wildcat. In Walapai (F.
Kniffen et al., Walapai Ethnography, AAA-M 42, 1935) nyimi-ta
was given as mountain lion (p. 64), and hat-^{a}kwil^{a} as
wolf, described by some, however, as blunt-nosed like a cat, and
perhaps confused with straggling jaguars; it also was a rare
animal. In Yuma, I was given xat-akūly for mountain lion
(łaqol-k meaning long), to which īmtša xantš-ekuł was said to be
the Cocopa equivalent. I secured no words for jaguar or wolf. In
Maricopa my forms ran: name', wildcat; nam·e-t or nam·et
xat-ekyulyk, mountain lion; xat-^{e}kwily(k) or xat-^{e}kuly,
wolf. Spier, Comparative Vocabularies (Univ. N. Mex. Publ.
Anthr. no. 2, 1946, pp. 104 seq.) gives these Maricopa forms:
name-s, wildcat; name-t, cougar (viz., mountain lion); name-t
hatagult, "cougar wolf"; name-t katca-s, jaguar; xatagult,
xatagul^{ya}, wolf, ? from xatagwilg, "bigger than a dog" (xat).
In the same place he gives the Havasupai forms as nyim'i,
wildcat; nyimita, mountain lion; hatagwila, wolf; no form for
jaguar. The weight of this comparative evidence would seem to
make the heroes of the present Mohave tale Mountain Lion and
Wolf rather than Jaguar and Mountain Lion. But what is perhaps
surest is that two of these three carnivores did not occur
regularly in Mohave territory, and Mountain Lion was probably
uncommon, so that a degree of uncertainty prevailed as to the
identity of all of them.
The amount of discursive detail in this version is moderate. The
number of songs in the series is around 90. No two statements by the
narrator, as to how many he sang at each point, agree altogether; as
is customary for the Mohave. But the subjoined table shows that a
scheme is adhered to. The narrator probably intends singing about 4,
or 7, or 1, or 3, or 8 songs on a given episode, and perhaps
approximately remembers sets of words for each song in a group. The
blanks in the first column of the table presumably mean only that the
teller had not yet got started in mentioning songs. If we supply the
omissions from the next column, the addition of these 23 makes the
total 90, as compared with totals of 90 and 88 in other listings.
VARIATIONS IN SONG SCHEME
_Number of Songs Mentioned by Narrator_
========================+==========+==========+==========
| In | In | In
Place in Story | Original | Review | Attempt
|Dictation | at | to
| |Conclusion| Reconcile
------------------------+----------+----------+----------
"Dark-mountain" in | | |
the west | .. | 4 | 4
Hoalye-kesokyave | .. | 8 | 10
Avi-kitšekilye | .. | 4 | 3
Ava-sa'ore | .. | 4 | 4
"Sandbar-willow-water" | .. | 3 | 3
New York Mountains | 3 | 3 | 3
Avi-kwinyamaθave | 3 | 3 | 3
Avikwame (Dead Mt.) | 3, 13, 1 | 3 | 14
Iδô-kuva'īre | 7 | 7 | 9
Qara'erva | 1 | 1 | 1
Selye'aya-kumitše | 3 | 3 | 3
Kamahnulya | 2 | 2 | 2
"Raven's house" | .. | 3 | 3
"Excrement-sand" | 1 | 4 | 1
"White-water" | 2, 9 | 9 | 9
Avi-kwaθanye | 1 | 1 | 1
Walapai Mountains | 7 | 11 | 7
Hoalye-ketekururve | 5 | 9 | 7
"Land-blood-have," | | |
near Hackberry* | 6 | 8 | 1
| -- | -- | --
Total | 67 | 90 | 88
------------------------+----------+----------+----------
* Sung by the cats--the rest by deer.
WORDS OF SONGS
The following are the words of some songs:
1. The very first song of the cycle, where the Deer are made at
Dark-mountain far in the west (par. 5). Deer sings: inyahavek tinyamk
kanavek, west it-is-night, tell.
2. First song at Hoalye-ketekururve (par. 25), next to the last step
in the journey, and the last at which the Deer sing. Hatekulye
kanavek, Mountain-Lion tell-(of).
3. Same place, second song. Ipa amaimiyak kanavek, Arrow from-above
tell.
4. Same, third song. Ipui-moṭe' ipa'-maimiate ninyupakem
hirra'a-môṭ(e), I-shall-not-die-arrow-from-above fall-on-me
it-does-not-pain.
5. Same, fourth song, last by the Deer. Ito-nye-kyam ipa'-maimiak,
Belly-in-shoot arrow-from-above.
6. Apparently Jaguar sings, at Land-blood-have: Himekeseik
kwora'āk-oêve, Track-them old-man (= brother).
7. The same: Intomaku-moṭe itavere(m) viewêmeθ(a), Do-not-desist
chasing continue.
8. The same: Hatapui viuêmhe kworaāk-oêve, Kill-them continue brother.
9. The final song of the cycle, still by Jaguar: Kwora'āk-oêvitš
atšwoδavek himaṭva hikwīve tšaθwilve kosmave, Brother divide-it flesh
horns hide sinew.
THE DEER STORY
1. When Matavilya died and Mastamho took his place[2] he gave
supernatural power to Jaguar and Mountain Lion,[3] two brothers. No
one saw them while they dug a hole into the ground and disappeared.
They traveled underground toward the wind.[4] At Hatekulye-naka,[5]
above Avi-kwatulye,[6] they emerged. Here they raised themselves out
of the ground as far as their breasts, turning their heads to look
around. Seeing only mountains all about, they said: "This is no place
for us," and went underneath again.
[2] At Ha'avulypo.
[3] Numeta and Hatekulye.
[4] North, mathak.
[5] "Mountain lion's naka."
[6] "Lizard-mountain," still at Eldorado Canyon on or near the
Colorado, as is Ha'avulypo also.
2. They continued westward, below the surface, until they came to
Avi-kwin-yehore, Avi-ku-tinyam, Kwilykikipa, and Kwamalyukikwa.[7]
There Jaguar proceeded to make Deer. He put his hand into the ground:
but the earth was not good. Then he thrust his hand farther down until
he found good clay. Then, just as little girls have clay dolls, he
made a Deer, with legs and neck and horns and all parts. He made a Doe
also. So the two Deer came into existence.
[7] West of San Bernardino, California; that is, in Serrano or
Gabrielino territory. The second name means "dark mountain."
3. Now it was dark where Jaguar and Mountain Lion were.[8] Then they
said: "There are flint arrow-points.[9] Some persons will dream of
those. Then they will make them; they will make bows also." Then they
measured a bow. They measured it a fathom in length. It was too long.
So they measured it somewhat shorter, and said: "That is good: it will
be right for the Walapai and Yavapai." They prepared sinews and
feathers for the arrows. When they had finished everything else, they
said: "Rattlesnake, scorpion, black-widow spider,[10] and
tarantula[11] are the poisons to use. We will tell the Walapai and the
Yavapai about them. They will take these four poisons, mix them with a
plant and with red paint. They will paint their arrow-points with that
and their bows and arrows too. Then if they pursue game, it will not
be able to run fast."[12]
[8] Spoken of as a house, but conceived merely as a round space
of darkness.
[9] Avi-rrove sohêna.
[10] Haltoṭa, a poisonous spider, probably the black widow.
[11] Kwatšmunyo-'ipe in Mohave, "but they called it hanekasave."
[12] The Mohave say that the Walapai who have dreamed of Jaguar
and Mountain Lion follow this practice. If anyone but the owner
takes hold of the bow, his hand swells. They also tie to their
moccasins a small piece of deerskin containing this poison.
Among the Mohave, on the other hand, certain men, who wish to be
lucky in gambling, tie to their hair a small concealed bag of
rattlesnake teeth and paint. This is, however, likely to render
them cripples.
4. Now Jaguar and Mountain Lion took the two Deer that they had made
and said: "They are finished. We will make wind blow on their bodies
and cause it to rain over them. The rain will wash out all bad smell
and make their flesh good." They made it blow and rain on the Deer and
said: "Now that we have made wind and rain, all their bad smell has
disappeared. Their meat is good. And now they will be able to go
anywhere and never become cold."
5. The two Deer stood looking westward. Then they faced south, east,
and north.[13] They wanted to know the land, and where the sun and the
night came from. Now they knew that, for the male was wise. He said:
"There is the sun. It is going down." But the female said: "No, the
wind and the clouds are taking it away. And there is no place for it
to go to; perhaps there are only mountains, perhaps only sea there.
Perhaps it will go behind the mountains, or descend into the fog at
the sea." Then they both looked toward the east, and the male said:
"Here darkness is coming. When it comes it will bring the stars and
the moon in the sky. Then we will know which way to go east." (4
songs.)
[13] Anti-clockwise circuit, starting in the west.
6. Now the two deer started eastward. They came to
Hoalye-keδsokyave.[14] Jaguar and Mountain Lion had given them good
eyes: They could see well. Now they said: "Everything is finished, but
it is dark. Do you hear a noise? When it is dark there is always a
noise. Every one sleeps except two, Tinyam-hwarehware[15] and
Tonaθaqwataye.[16] They are the ones that make noise at night." (8
songs.)
[14] Said to be now a railroad station in the San Bernardino
mountains, perhaps Summit. Hoalye are yellow pines.
[15] An insect living in willows, and with wings like willow
leaves. Its night call is hwar hwar hwar. It exercises the
Mohave imagination.
[16] Unidentified.
7. From there they started again, going eastward. When they came to
Avi-kitšekilyke,[17] they said: "This is what they have given us: I
know it: it is grass that they gave us." They did not eat it yet. They
were to eat it soon. (4 songs.)
[17] North or west of Calico, which is not far from Barstow. The
route is eastward through the Mohave desert.
8. From there, starting on again, they said: "Now the night is over.
It is nearly daylight." They went eastward until they came to
Ava-sa'ore.[18] There they stood and rested and looked about. They
looked up at the sky and saw the star called Hamuse-anyam-kuv'a, the
morning star.[19] They said: "I see it. It is there. All will be able
to see it. The sun is in the middle of the sky, and we are at the
middle of the earth." (4 songs.)
[18] A mountain east or northeast of Calico. An old Indian
trail, from before the coming of the whites, used to pass there.
[19] "Star-day-walk." The sun follows it, and it is visible in
the middle of the sky at midday.
9. Starting from there, they went east until they came to
Aha-kwi-'ihore.[20] There they saw much grass, but said nothing about
it; they did not eat it yet. They only said: "We are at
Aha-kwi-'ihore: from here we will go on again." (3 songs.)
[20] "Sandbar willow water"; a mountain north of Blake. Soldiers
were once stationed there on account of the Chemehuevi or
Paiute.
10. Not far to the north from where they were are the New York
Mountains. They said: "That is the place Jaguar and Mountain Lion told
us of: they called it Avi-waθa; it is not far away." They went there
and stood and looked. "It is a large (range of) mountain; everything
grows on it, and is green and looks good. It is the greatest mountain.
It has a great name and is the first of all." (3 songs.)
11. They started again, going eastward. Coming to Hukθara-tš-huerve,[21]
they did not stop there, but went on eastward. At Apurui-kutokopa[21a]
and Avi-kwinya'ora they also did not stop, but went on. When they came
to Avi-kwi-nyamaθave,[22] they stopped. (3 songs.)
[21], [21a] Hukθara is coyote; apurui, hapurui, a pottery water
jar.
[22] "Yellow-mountains," in the middle of a valley, north of
Ibex and visible from it.
12. Starting again, they saw Avikwame.[23] They went northward to
Avi-tšierqe,[24] without resting there, and continued to
Kwanakwetšeθkyeve.[25] There they said: "I know this place: it is
Kwanakwetšeθkyeve: now Avikwame is near. Grass and everything grows
about that mountain; it smells good; the wind from the north brings
the odor." Starting again, when they saw the grass, they jumped about
as deer do, and ran here and there; but they did not yet eat. They
came to Aha-mavara, to Amaṭ-qatšeqatše, and to Kwatulye-ha,[26] but
went by without stopping. They came to Amaṭ-mehwave-'auve and to
Hatom-kwiθike.[27] Then they said: "This is the place: this is
Avikwame; now we are at Avikwame. This is what they gave us, this
grass here. Everything growing about is what they told us of." (3
songs.)
[23] Dead or Newberry mountain, in the southern tip of Nevada;
with Ha'avulypo, the Mohave myth focus.
[24] "Excrement-mountain"; in a valley.
[25] In a valley southwest of Newberry mountain, probably Piute
valley.
[26] Kwa'tulye is a species of lizard. Ha, aha, is water, but
"lizard-water," "lizard-spring," should be Aha-kwatulye or
Kwatulye-nye-'aha. The word perhaps means "water-lizard."
[27] A whitish region south of Avikwame, near the Colorado.
13. Then, standing there at Avikwame, they said: "Now I will tell
about my body: of my legs, my tail, my ears, my horns, and everything.
Sometimes my horns change: they itch, and I rub them against rocks or
trees. Then I grow new horns and the old ones are seen lying cast off
on the ground. Sometimes I rub myself and my hair comes off." Now
there were bushes there, a huelye bush to the east and a tanyika bush
to the west. The male Deer said: "I will stick my horns into these
bushes and pry them off. I will leave them here at Avikwame and go
elsewhere." (14 songs.)
14. Then they started southward. They came to δokupita-toδompove and
Ihore-kutšupetpa,[28] but did not stop. When they came to
Avi-kutaparve,[29] still farther south, they wanted to cross the
river. It was sundown. They crossed to the eastern side at
Iδô-kuva'īre, Kwilyeθki, and Avi-tutara.[30] As they crossed, the
female came out of the river onto the bank with difficulty. She said,
"I nearly drowned." But the male said: "Of course; I am a man, but I
too almost drowned." (7 songs.)
[28] Lekupi'ta or δokupita, owls; toδompove, looking at one
another; ihore, sandbar willow. Both places are on the Nevada
side of the river, above Fort Mohave. The Deer are traveling
south now.
[29] Or Avi-kwataparve; on the west bank of the river, south of
the last mentioned.
[30] The three names are considered as applying to one place,
not far above Fort Mohave across the river from it. Iδô means
the black willow.
15. They said: "Now we know where we will go. We know where the
darkness comes from. It comes from the east." They went southeastward,
past Yamasave-kwohave and Aqwer-tunyive, to Qara'erva. There they
stopped and said: "We call this place Qara'erva;[31] everyone will
always call it so." (1 song.)
[31] A frequently mentioned place.
16. Starting again, they went southward. At Selye'aya-kumitše[32] they
met Muulye, Antelopes. They saw ten or twelve of them. There were only
the two Deer. The Antelope stood at a distance and then ran off. The
Deer said: "I know you. You cannot climb up rough places. You can
only ascend to the mesa by following up a wash. You belong to
Muulye-mat'are.[33] That is the place that has been given you by
Jaguar and Mountain Lion." Now the Antelope went westward to
Porepore-kutšeim, while the Deer stood at Selye'aya-kumitše. (3
songs.)
[32] One mile inland (east) from Fort Mohave. Selye'aya is sand.
[33] "Antelope-playground." A place on the mesa. See note 36
below.
17. They went on southward. When they came to Kamahnulya, they stood,
looked east, and saw two Wildcats[34] coming down the wash at that
place. "Someone is coming," they said. They saw them carrying rats and
rabbits in their belts and fastened to a string around their
shoulders. When they came near, they saw that they had their tails
drawn between their legs because they were afraid. The Deer said: "I
know you: you are Wildcats; you hunt. When you kill rats and rabbits,
you eat them raw; you do not cook them." Then the Wildcats went into
the brush without looking at them. (2 songs.)
[34] Nume.
18. Starting again, the Deer came to Aqaq-nyiva.[35] (3 songs.)
[35] "Raven's-house?" The place is on a line between the town of
Needles and the sharp peak called Boundary Cone or Avi-veskwi.
19. Going on, they reached Nyiketate and Selye'aya-itšierqe and
Muulye-mat'are.[36] They said: "This is the place: this is where
Antelope belongs. That is what I spoke of." (4 songs.)
[36] Approximately one place. It is east of Fort Mohave, north
of Avi-veskwi, and marked by an exposure of whitish sand at the
foot of the mesa. Selye'aya-itšierqe is "excrement-sand," but a
different place from that previously so named (note 24).
20. As they stood there, they saw Avi-veskwi.[37] They said: "We will
not go there, but look at it from here." It was midnight now. (1
song.)
[37] Boundary Cone, an unusually sharp peak between the Black
Mountain range and Mohave valley.
21. They went on until they came near Ikumnau-tšumi,
Aha-kwi-nyamasave, and Hatoδike.[38] They stood at the foot of the
mesa below these places. Jaguar and Mountain Lion caused them to stop
there. The male said: "This night is bad; it is not an ordinary
night." But the female said: "Yes, it is usual; you will see. It is
dark, and the stars are bright, it is cold, and there is a little
breeze. Can you not feel it? It is cool. It is just an ordinary
night." (2 songs.)
[38] All three are visible from the town of Needles.
Ikumnau-tšumi is at the brink of the plateau that forms the
eastern edge of the valley. Aha-kwi-nyamasave ("white water") is
a large whitish depression--one of the four places at which Frog
emerged after causing Matavilya's death. Hatoδike is a blackish
ridge below this.
22. Then they folded their legs and laid their jaws on the gravel.
Jaguar saw that; he saw them lying there, though he was far in the
west. Now the male heard what (Jaguar) said and got up. He said: "It
is a bad night; I have dreamed bad. I think I shall not live long."
Waking the female, he said: "I will tell you what I have dreamed: I
dreamed bad. I know what will happen. There are four mountains which
Numeta and Hatekulye named. They are large mountains, Avi-waθa,
Avi-kwame, Amaṭ-ke-hoalye, and Avi-melyehweke.[39] They said: 'When
you have come to Avi-waθa and to Avi-kwame and have crossed the river,
you will come to a bad place.' Now we have arrived here and I have had
bad dreams. We will go on, and on another mountain I shall die. It is
night and the stars are flying. They told us about that too. They
said: 'The stars will fly[40] and will seem to fall and strike your
body.' That is how it is: I shall die; I shall be a ghost."[41] (9
songs.)
[39] Respectively, New York Mountains, Dead (Newberry) Mountain,
Walapai Mountains in Arizona, and (Avi-melyehweke) a large peak
or range in Arizona. This last is said to be not far from the
river, east of Parker; but several ranges converge toward the
river here, pointing westward and northwestward.
[40] A meteor, Hamuse-'amai-kuvuhwere, is an omen of the death
of a prominent man.
[41] Nyaveδi.
23. They went on from there until they came to Maθkweha and
Tšamokwilye-kwiδauve, but passed by. They came to Aha-kuvilye[42] and
followed up the wash from there until they reached the mesa. Then they
said: "I will give this place a name: I call it Avi-kwaθanye.[43] All
will know that." (1 song.)[44]
[42] There is a spring at Aha-kuvilye, "stinking water."
[43] Kwaθanye is a small lizard. Avi-kwaθanye appears from the
town of Needles as a blue peak the summit of which is visible
over the plateau that bounds Mohave valley on the east.
[44] The words of the song are: iny-amaṭ Avi-kwaθanye vi'emk,
My-land Lizard-mountain go.
From there they went east. They went down into the valley and crossed
to the mountains called Ahta-katarapa[45] and Hanemo-nye-ha.[46] There
they stood; then went upward, onto the mesa. There they saw tracks.
The male said: "I know these tracks. They are the tracks of Yellow
Jaguar and Yellow Mountain Lion.[47] It is they. They traveled here by
the wind and by the clouds. We cannot see them, but they are above us
in the canyon or perhaps in the mountain and they can see us." The
female said: "You see tracks, but they are not new. They have been
there a long time; they were here when the earth was made." The male
said: "No, they have been here two days or three days.[48] You will
see." The female said again: "No, they have been here a long time,
ever since the ground was still moist and they walked on it." But the
male said: "No, you will find out. They have seen us; they are
watching us now." It was on the Walapai (Hualpai) Mountains[49] that
they saw the tracks and stood and talked like this. (11 songs.)
[45] Ahta is cane.
[46] Hanemo'nye-ha is "duck's water." There is a small stream
here.
[47] Yellow is -yamaθave. These are said to be their full names.
[48] It is only two nights since the deer were made.
[49] Amaṭ-ke-hoalye, "yellow pine country." See note 39.
24. They went on eastward. Jaguar and Mountain Lion had indeed gone
before them; the Deer followed. They did not see Jaguar and Mountain
Lion, but they saw what they had done, pulling out trees by the roots
and breaking large rocks, so that the Deer could follow them. The male
said: "See, they have pulled up trees, and broken stones and rolled
them about." Then after a time they saw no more tracks: Jaguar and
Mountain Lion had made the wind blow so that the footprints were
effaced. The Deer went on nevertheless. When Jaguar and Mountain Lion
came to Hoalye-ketekururve,[50] Jaguar, the older brother, sat down on
the west side, Mountain Lion, the younger, on the east. The two Deer
did not know they were sitting here, and came on until they were
between them. Jaguar, in taking up his bow and arrow, made a slight
noise, the Deer heard it, and he did not shoot. But Mountain Lion shot
and hit the male. Deer said: "They have failed: they did not shoot me
in the right place; they shot up into the sky, and the arrow only
dropped on me. I was struck, but I have no pain." Then both Deer ran
off eastward. (9 songs.)
[50] East of the Walapai mountains. This would be in or near the
Big Sandy Wash, still in Walapai country, but not far from
Yavapai territory.
25. Jaguar and Mountain Lion still sat there. Jaguar said: "Go:
follow; kill them." So Mountain Lion went, and his older brother
followed. They did not see the tracks of the Deer, but they followed
them. They went up on the mesa. Jaguar said to his younger brother:
"Keep on: follow; do not stop. I want to teach the people here, the
Walapai and Yavapai, to hunt. Some among them will dream and then they
will be deer hunters. Do not stop. We could kill them here, but I do
not want that. We will wait until we come to Amaṭ-ahwaṭ-kutšinakwe and
Amaṭ-ahwat-kw-iδau;[51] then we will kill them. When we kill them
there, there will be blood on the rocks: I want to name those places
for that."
[51] Amaṭa, land, place; ahwaṭa, blood, red; iδau, have, hold.
26. Then when they came to Amaṭ-ahwaṭ-kutšinakwe and
Amaṭ-axwaṭ-kw-iδau, the male Deer had fallen down dead. Now Mountain
Lion stood to the east of him, Jaguar on the west. Jaguar said: "You
know why I have pursued him. I want only the skin and horns and sinew.
You can have the meat: I do not want it." But Mountain Lion said: "No,
we will divide it. I want the right horn. I too want some of the
things you want." Then Jaguar said: "I wanted to divide it, but you
did not want to. Well, you can have it all." And he went off to the
side and stood there.[52] So he had none of it. He went away to the
north, to Amaṭ-ke-hoalye, the Walapai Mountains. But Mountain Lion
stood by the Deer and tore his body open with his claws. He put his
hand inside and took out the heart. Then he went north, holding that.
He did not take meat or skin or sinew or horns. He left them and he
went to Ahta-kwatmenve.[53] (8 songs by Jaguar and Mountain Lion.)
[52] An older-younger brother quarrel typical of the myths,
usually with the younger having his way.
[53] East of Kingman, below Hackberry, in the heart of Walapai
territory.
The female Deer went on to Avi-melyehweke.[54]
[54] One of the four mountains mentioned above, which Deer said
were named to him by Jaguar and Mountain Lion (note 39).
VI. COYOTE
CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE RECORDING
This group of narratives was told chiefly by an old woman of the clan
which names its daughters Māha. Her more specific name was
Mah-tšitnyumêve. She was a doctor for eyes that had been made sore
from being struck by mesquite leaves or by a rushlike plant called
hatelypo. In curing, she breathed against the palm of her hand held
near her mouth, then laid the hand on the eye. She got this power from
Coyote in her dream, as told in this story. She had a son called
Lahoka, who was also a doctor, for the sickness caused by contact with
foreign tribes. He was alleged to have also the power to make people
sick, and at the time I knew his mother, he had gone from Needles to
live at the reservation in Parker because of this accusation of
witchcraft.
I secured the Coyote material from Mah-tšitnyumêve near Needles on
March 22, 1903, as the result of an endeavor to learn more about the
place of Coyote in Mohave mythology. Coyote is always mentioned in
connection with the death of Matavilya, as in the beginning of the
Mastamho myth (VII, 1-6), but beyond that there were mostly allusions
only. This old lady said she had dreamed a Coyote story which she was
ready to tell. It proved that she told it very badly. She did not
pursue a consistent thread and she left contradictions which remained
unresolved after questioning. The fault is undoubtedly hers, not my
interpreter's, for Jack Jones was by this time well trained. She said
nothing of songs belonging to the story, and I failed to enter in my
notes whether I asked her.
I do not know how far the narrator's deficiencies were the result of
her being a woman. She was my only Mohave woman informant on matters
of myth and religion. I suspect she was unaccustomed to narrating and
therefore inexpert at it. A number of people were listening in, some
probably members of the household and others casual visitors. Several
of these, including a man older than the narrator and one younger,
protested when she concluded her main narrative (given as "A" below).
They declared that she had told not a Coyote narrative, but a
(private) dream, and that it was not the sort of thing to tell. Their
disapproval seemed fairly strong. After this controversy had subsided,
she resumed and told the briefer section given as "B," but this again
evoked protest from an old man who was listening, who said it was not
a genuine Coyote story, but a dream about killing people. All the
Mohave listeners seemed to take for granted that Mah-tšitnyumêve had
dreamed what she alleged. Their objection was to her dreaming the
wrong sort of thing.
Possibly these protests had their effect, or the old lady ran out of
what she had dreamed, because she then dropped into telling
conventional Coyote tale episodes such as are told children--"C, D,
E." These in turn stimulated the interpreter into telling several that
he had heard--"F, G, H."
THE TALES
_A: Dreamed_
Coyote was a person like these Indians. There were two Coyote
brothers,[1] little boys.[2] They started going from this country.[3]
They had bows and arrows, and as they went along they shot at a mark,
betting their arrows. They would throw up a bundle of arrowweeds to
shoot at. The older won all the younger brother's arrows. Then he took
one, wiped it on his anus, shot it up into a cottonwood tree, and
said: "Will you go get it for yourself?" The little boy said: "No,"
and cried because the arrow was soiled. So he was going to leave that
place and, crying, went north to θawêve, a place on Cottonwood Island.
Now I was following him.[4] When he got to θawêve, I did not see him
any longer, so I came back to this country here. Then I dreamed of him
again at Avi-hamoka, near Tehachapi.
[1] She later denied that they were brothers. See footnote 6.
[2] The heroes as little boys is a favorite Mohave motif.
[3] "This country," namely, Mohave valley, were the informant's
words. Most informants specify a named place.
[4] This is pattern again: the narrator is present at the
myth-happening through having dreamed it.
The older Coyote was called θarra-veyo,[5] the younger Patša-karrawa.
They were not brothers.[6]
[5] A name recorded elsewhere for Coyote. The first two
syllables occur in the most common name, Huk-θara.
[6] Contradicting the former statement. See footnote 1.
At Avi-kwa'ahāθa, a mountain beyond Phoenix in Arizona, there lived an
old man called Patak-sata. This is a name of Coyote. With him at the
same place there lived a man called Hipahipa.[7] There were many
people there at Avi-kwa'ahāθa, among them a woman called Qwāqāqta.[8]
[7] Hipahipa is a personage, or at least a name, that recurs in
other tales: see Handbook, p. 772. The word definitely refers to
Coyote: Hipa is the name given to all their daughters by members
of those lineages whose totemic reference is Coyote.
[8] The informant said the name Qwāqāqta refers to the crow or
raven, aqāqa; which sounds like an improvised etymology.--The
woman's relation to the people at Avi-kwa'ahāθa is not clear.
She may have been a Mohave who was married among Easterners.
Now there was war between the Mohave and those people. On that day
Qwāqāqta bore a boy baby. Then these people[9] won, burned all the
houses and food and blankets and broke the dishes. They threw the
newly born child into the brush, but did not succeed in killing it.
Then they set fire to the brush, but the boy baby made it rain and did
not burn.
[9] My notes say "these people," which probably means the
Mohave, but might refer to the people at Avi-kwa'ahāθa.
Then the old woman, his father's mother, ha'auk,[10] found him and
made a roof shade and a cradle for him and hung him up off the ground
so nothing could touch him while she went out to look for inyeinye
seeds for food.
[10] Father's mother is namau-(k). Ha'auk seems really to denote
the reciprocal of father's mother, namely, woman's son's child,
usually given as a'avak. This would fit in with my suggested
explanation of the grandmother being an Easterner and the boy
being born among the eastern tribe, although his mother was a
Mohave. In answer to a question who the boy's father was, the
informant said she did not know, except that he was a Coyote.
She was gone all day. The baby was intelligent and after she was gone,
he made black balls (vanyeilk) from his own breath by magic. Before
long many quail came to where he was hung up, and he snapped or
filliped (harrêmk) the balls at them and killed them. Then he piled
the birds into a heap and went back into his cradle.[11]
[11] The supernaturally precocious hero, who kills game from his
cradle and then climbs back to it, is told of in other tales of
Yuman tribes.
When his grandmother came, she said: "Who brought them here? Who did it?
I am an old woman and I surely like to eat meat, but I did not think
that someone would bring them under my shade roof." She was very angry
and began to curse who did it. She said: "Kweva-namaue-napaue."[12]
[12] "That is how Indian women say son-of-a-bitch," the
interpreter explained. The cursing consists of stringing
together the names of three grandparents, who are presumably
dead, and allusion to whom is therefore the height of shocking
offense. The three terms are: (na)-kweu-(k), mother's father;
namau-(k), father's mother; napau-(k), father's father.
The boy grew up. Then they returned to this country,[13] he and his
grandmother. The Mohave Indians went to Phoenix to fight the people at
Avi-kwa'ahāθa, and he went along. Patša-karrawa was his name.[14]
[13] "This country" can only mean Mohave valley. It is not clear
why they should be "returning" if the old woman belonged to a
tribe on the Gila River and the boy was born there, as suggested
in note 10. The whole story is involved in minor obscurities of
telling.
[14] The baby is now supposed to be grown up. His name
identifies him with the younger of the two Coyotes with whom the
first paragraph deals. It would seem that the bulk of the story
ought to precede in time, the first paragraph really being the
end of the story; but the two sections are given in the order in
which the informant told them.
Now he went ahead of the others, like a leader, to spy them out and
see where the houses were. On the desert he found his mother. She was
a slave there. He said to her: "Do not tell them when you go back home
that I met you here. Take these birds and rabbits with you, but do not
tell that I gave them to you. Say that you found them." She had on her
back her pack basket.[15] Into this she put the game he gave her. He
entered it too. He said: "Let me get into your basket. I will make
myself into a bird so that they will not know me. Carry me back, but
do not tell who I am. You may tell them tomorrow."
[15] The kūpo is the peculiar pack basket of the Mohave, which
consists of two crossed sticks bent into U-shape and wound
around with string spaced an inch or so apart.
So she returned and gave the rabbits and birds to the people. They
wanted to know where she got them, but she would not tell. Then
Patak-sata said: "Let me look at them. I think Patša-karrawa killed
these." He knew it right, but she would not admit it. In the morning
she said: "I have another bird in my basket, a dove." Then Patak-sata
said: "Let me see it." She gave it to him. "That is not a dove," he
said, "I know it. Patša-karrawa made himself into this. I can tell a
dove by its bill. And when you see a dove, it shakes its head. This
does not." Soon after, on that day, the Mohave arrived and attacked.
While the fight was going on, Qwāqāqta stood on the roof and sang as
follows:
iθauwe
ahwe-kanām abroad-tell
haθo'ilya to the sea
Then she sang:
hunapnap butterfly
mat-utšavek he made himself
mat-apui killed
meθkemewê-mote he cannot be
sumatš-ahôtem he dreamed well
Then the Mohave killed all the people at Avi-kwa'ahāθa, and took
Patša-karrawa's mother as a slave and brought her back to this
country. Then she said: "Where there is war, notify other tribes and
then gather: my son is wise and cannot be beaten."
Now he and his mother were poor and had nothing to eat. There was much
food here among the people, but no one gave them anything to eat.[16]
Then he took his mother and went west with her to Avi-hamoka.[17]
There they lived.
[16] The withholding of food is entirely unmotivated by the
narrator. Perhaps it is because they were Easterners and
foreigners.
[17] This is the place near Tehachapi mentioned at the end of
the first paragraph, where the informant dreamed of him.
Subsequently, when she was asked to give more information about
this dreaming, she said that Coyote had a man's shape; but she
now stated that it was at Ha'avulypo, at the rear of the house
there, that she dreamed of him. Her dream was of the time before
"Matavilya was born." (Perhaps a slip of my pencil for
Mastamho?)
_B: Dreamed_
This country was full of coyotes. Then we became Mohaves, human
beings: the coyotes turned into people. There is a place called
Hukθara-ny-enyêve, a small mountain south of Mukiampeve, Needles
Peak.[18] There is where Kwayū[19] lived, at Hukθara-ny-enyêve: he
belonged to this country. Whenever he saw a child, he seized it, stuck
it under his belt, and took it home. There he would put them into a
hole in the rock, pound them up, and eat them. Sometimes he ate them
raw, sometimes he roasted them in the fire. All the people were afraid
of him.
[18] Mukiampeve is the standard form of the name; Okiampeve is
what the informant was understood as saying.
[19] Kwayū means a meteor or fireball, usually conceived of as a
monster or man-eater. He recurs in the Cane story.
Now the Crayfish, Hal(y)kutāṭa,[20] killed Kwayū. He was little, but
when he became angry, he made himself into a big man. So all the
people were saved. If Crayfish had not killed him, Kwayū would have
eaten everyone up. After killing him, Crayfish took him far south to
the ocean where he lived and ate him up. So there was no more Kwayū in
this land here.
[20] Hal(y)kutāta was described as a "bug" as long as a finger,
with long legs, a back like a scorpion, living in the water in
sloughs, but not in the river: it must be a crayfish.
Kwayū was Coyote.[21]
[21] This statement is in line with the name of the place where
he lived, as given two paragraphs before.
_Children's Stories_
_C_
Coyote was hunting, but killed nothing. Then he took deer excrement,
planted them like seeds, and built a brush fence around. In four days
the deer had grown as big as dogs: then he ate them.
_D_
When Coyote was hungry, he ate his children. "My daughter, climb this
tree," he said. When she had climbed up, he piled brush around the
tree and set fire to it. The girl fell down and into the fire and he
ate her.
Stories like this are not dreamed, but are heard from other people and
are told to children.
_E_
One Coyote said to another, "Let us set fire all around to this patch
of thick brush. I think there must be deer, rats, and rabbits in it
which we cannot get at. But if we set fire to the brush all around,
they will burn up and we can just pick them up and eat them." Then
they set fire to the patch, but one Coyote went inside first and stood
in the middle. When the fire came near him, he had a song which would
make him sink into the ground to his ankle. His second song would make
him sink in to the middle of his calf (or the middle of his body); the
third, to his knee (or neck). And with the fourth song he would be
completely under the ground so the fire could not touch him. Now when
the flames began to come near him, he sang his song: hilyhavek
kerropsim, enter descend. But he did not begin to sink into the
ground. He sang again and still did not penetrate. By the time he had
sung his fourth song, the fire reached him and he burned up.
_More Stories for Children_
_F_
[The following three episodes are not from informant Mah-tšitnyumêve,
but are from the interpreter, whose recollection of them she
stimulated. He had heard them told by a young man called
Mekupuru-'ukyêve. They are recognized as stories for children.]
Coyote went out and met Quail. Quail said to him: "Pluck my feathers
and then send me to your wife to cook me." Coyote plucked him and
Quail came to Coyote's old woman and said: "He says you are to cook
your sandals."
"He is crazy."
"That's what he said. 'Cook your sandals!' Tell her that, he said."
"What for?"
"You have a pair, have you not?"
"Yes."
"Then you are to cook them."
So she started to cook her sandals. Meanwhile Quail lay down outside
under the shade roof. After a while Coyote came home.
"What are you cooking?" he asked her.
"What you sent me word to."
"What did I tell you?"
"To cook my sandals."
"Who was it said so?"
"Quail."
"Where is he?"
"Outside in the shade."
Quail was lying there laughing. When Coyote came running up, he fled
till he came to a slough. There he sat quietly on a tree. When Coyote
arrived, he saw his reflection in the water, thought it was Quail,
jumped in to seize him, and drowned. Then his old woman came too,
tried to pull him out, but fell in and drowned also.
_G_
Coyote was visiting Beaver, his friend. Beaver had nothing to eat, but
he had four or five children, so he killed them, cooked them, and
gave them to Coyote to eat. But he warned him: "Do not throw away any
of the bones. Lay them aside." When they had eaten, Beaver took the
bones, threw them in the water, and they turned into living beavers
again.
Then after a while Beaver came to visit Coyote. Coyote had no food, so
he killed his young ones and cooked them. "Do not throw away the
bones, but put them carefully aside," he warned him. Then after the
meal, he threw the bones into water. But no young coyotes came out,
and the bones were gone.
_H_
When Coyote visited Beaver, he had no food. Beaver took his bow, shot
up in the air, the arrow fell down and entered his rectum. Beaver
turned it around and then pulled it out with fat on the end. This he
cooked and fed to Coyote. This he did for four days then Coyote went
home.
Beaver came to see Coyote. Being without food, Coyote took his bow,
shot up in the air, the arrow came down, hit him in the rectum--but he
fell down dead.
VII. MASTAMHO
THE INFORMANT
This story of the institution of culture differs from most of the
preceding in that it is a pure myth unaccompanied by songs. It was
told to me at the University's Museum of Anthropology, then in San
Francisco, between November 16 and 24, 1903, by Jo Nelson, also called
Baby's Head in Mohave; with Jack Jones the interpreter as usual.
Jo Nelson, aged about sixty, is pictured in Handbook of California
Indians, plate 64, top right, and in our frontispiece. Like many
Mohave, he was interested in travel and in new lands and peoples. He
had visited widely among Indian tribes both east and west of the
Mohave and had asked questions both abroad and at home. He gave me, on
the whole, the best information which I secured from the Mohave about
other tribes, and which has been published in part in the Handbook,
though considerable detail remains unpublished. Jo Nelson was in many
ways an ideal informant for matters of fact. His memory was excellent
both for what he had seen and heard. His mind was orderly, his
procedure methodical. He distinguished between hearsay and actual
observation; and he would exhaust one topic before proceeding to the
next. These same qualities show in his myth as presented here.
CONTENT OF THE MYTH
The narrative may be described as dealing essentially with the
institution of culture by Mastamho, the second of the two great myth
heroes of the Mohave. The story assumes the cosmogony as such as
already known. I obtained one such Mohave account of the origin of the
world. This has been abstracted in the Handbook, pages 770-771, and
also in the American Journal of Folklore, 19:314-316, 1906. That was
one of the first narratives which I recorded from this tribe, and its
quality and my rendition are not of the best; but it is confirmed by
innumerable allusions to world origins in other Mohave myths and in
their discussions of their culture.
The present Mastamho narrative begins after Matavilya is dead, and its
first chapter, so to speak (A:1-6) deals with the disposal of his
body. Thereafter the tale is concerned with the planning, trials, and
execution of his plans by Mastamho, especially with reference to the
way of living of the Mohave, but first for the desert tribes nearest
them (B:7-19). Essentially Mastamho thinks of what will be good for
one or more of these tribes, causes it to come into existence, and
then explains it to the people or has them practice it. One long
section (C:20-35) is devoted to the institution of night and sleep, to
the building of houses and shade roofs, and the setting aside of
playing fields. The relation of sections like this to the remainder
will be clearer by reference to the outline of the whole narrative
given a few paragraphs below. The total story is so prolix that this
summary will be useful as a conspectus for orientation.
Another section (D:36-42) is devoted to the making of the wild plants
which spring up either of themselves, or through being planted, in the
bottoms of the Mohave valley immediately upon the recession of the
annual overflow. The Mohave distinguish between wild food plants which
grow of themselves but are harvested, wild food plants which are sown,
and domesticated food plants such as maize and beans. The second
group, in other words, are cultivated plants which also grow
spontaneously in the Colorado bottoms, but probably grow in denser
stands if sown. They were apparently seed-bearing plants which were
particularly adapted to rapid growth in the summer heat following the
June inundation; and this fact may have contributed to their not
having been diffused to other environments. At any rate, it is to be
noted that the narrator gave considerably more space to the
institution of these wild and "tame-wild" plants than to strictly
agricultural ones.
By the time he comes to the latter, it is near the end of Mastamho's
career and the episode seems hurried (H:76-78). Pottery is mentioned
first and agriculture second; which may be an accident, but I suspect
that it reflects a Mohave attitude. At any rate, it is clear that they
strongly associate pottery and agriculture, which is not surprising in
view of the absence or underdevelopment of both among many of the
tribes to the west, north, and east. That the telling of the story in
this section was hurried, or perhaps shortened by fatigue, is
indicated by the fact that, strictly speaking, the instituting of
neither art is described, but they are taken for granted and then
Mastamho teaches the people the names of vessels and plants. This
creation by naming may pass as a shorthand explanation, but it is not
in the narrator's usual methodical manner.
There is a section, as might be expected, on hawks and warfare
(F:59-69), this being a subject the Mohave never tire of. It is men
who dream of hawks that become successful fighters and renowned war
leaders.
A rather unusual section deals with Mastamho's trial-and-error
attempts to teach the names for tribes, objects, and the numeral count
(E:43-58). Here the device is to begin with distortions of the Mohave
words which, however, the taught fail or refuse to learn. The
distortions are something on the order of Pig Latin or the languages
which groups of children sometimes concoct. This sort of attempt is
not commonly found among North American Indians, and the techniques of
distortion have therefore been analyzed in a separate discussion
appended to the tale itself. On account of its fixed sequence, the
numeral count perhaps lends itself best to word plays of this sort. In
not a few languages, including Mohave, succeeding numerals partly
rhyme. This feature has been further developed in the artificial
counts. The whole process is somewhat akin to the occasional instances
of the count in a foreign language being parodied by substitution of
somewhat like-sounding names in the speaker's language, a device with
which obscene or other humorous effects can easily be attained.
A fair question would be how much of Mohave culture is accounted for
in all this narrative of institution. A fair answer would seem to be:
most of the more conspicuous, concrete features of the culture, houses
and their parts, weapons, utensils, food plants. This omits certain
items from what we are wont to call material culture, such as
clothing, cradles, and the like. But the technological and economic
deficiencies of the Colorado River Yuman culture are so definite that
the omissions are perhaps in the minority.
Having done his work, Mastamho goes off and turns into the bald eagle
(J:82-84). This is spoken of as "dying" or "leaving his body." He is
said to have become "crazy," which probably means without sense,
knowing nothing, without human consciousness.
There follows a long supplement, making about a quarter of the total
story (K-N:85-102), which tells of the institution of sex, courtship,
and marriage under the leadership of a man and a woman to whom
Mastamho has delegated this task and who at its conclusion turn the
people with them into birds and themselves become, respectively, the
curve-billed thrasher and the mockingbird. The guess may be hazarded
that Mastamho is to the Mohave too heroic a figure to be credited with
undertaking the institution of these practices in person. At that, the
treatment is restrained and, from the native point of view, thoroughly
decent, though the emphasis is on festivals, playfields, and
courtship.
SCHEMATIC OUTLINE
_Main Narrative: Mastamho's Instituting_
A. Mastamho Disposes of Dead Matavilya: 1-6
1. Matavilya's death and pyre at Ha'avulypo
2. Coyote seeks fire
3. Fly and the cremation
4. Coyote's theft of the heart
5. Covering of the ashes
6. Coyote abandoned, homeless
B. Avikwame, River, Desert Land and Foods Made: 7-19
7. Mastamho promises to teach
8. Arrival at Avikwame
9. White-spring made for the Chemehuevi
10. Colorado River, fish, and ducks made at Hatasaṭa for the Mohave
11. Matavilya's ashes washed away
12. Boat tilted to widen valley
13. Avikwame mountain made from mud
14. Other mountains made
15. Four seed foods made for the Chemehuevi
16. Four plant foods made for the Walapai
17. Planning for the Yavapai
18. Foods and water made for the Yavapai
19. Languages given to Chemehuevi, Walapai, Yavapai
C. House, Shade, Sleep, and Playground: 20-35
20. Planning a shade roof
21. Ant makes dry ground
22. Two insects dig postholes
23. Shade built
24. House planned
25. House built
26. Door made
27. Insect helpers given names
28. Sunset named
29. House entered
30-32. Night; Future nights; Sleep
33. Day coming
34. Playground made at Miakwa'orve
35. More in time
D. Wild Seeds Planted: 36-42
36. Planning to plant
37. Scaup Duck plants four wild seeds in overflow
38. You will understand later
39. Planning for more planting
40. Frog told to be ready to plant
41. Frog told what wild seeds to plant
42. Return to Avikwame
E. Counting, Directions, Tribal Names: 43-58
43. Preparation for the next night
44-46. First, second, third counts taught
47. Final count taught
48. Fingers made on hand
49. First direction names taught
50. Final direction names taught
51. Mispronounced tribal names
52. Walapai and Yavapai tribes named
53. Chemehuevi named
54. Yuma and Kamia named
55. Mohave named
56. Told to stay a while
57. Doctors will dream of this
58. Mastamho takes new name
F. Hawks and War: 59-69
59-62. Four hawks given names and war power
63. Practice trial
64. Weapons to be made
65. Cremation of warriors
66. Dreamers of journey will be runners
67. Eagle unintelligent; to dream of him unlucky
68. Crane ugly; to dream of him unlucky
69. Hawks will wear morning star in fight
G. Thrasher, Mockingbird, and Mastamho's Dream Names: 70-75
70. Gnatcatcher to be rich: women will dream of
71. Tšoaikwatakwe in cottonwoods: women also dream of
72. Thrasher and Mockingbird-to-be named
73-75. Three new names of Mastamho
H. Pottery and Farmed Food Instituted: 76-78
76. Pottery vessels each given two names
77. Planted foods named
78. Chutaha singing with basket
I. Thrasher and Mockingbird Delegated to Teach: 79-81
79. Thrasher and Mockingbird appointed to teach play and sex
80. Avikwame named
81. What Thrasher and Mockingbird are to do and be
J. Mastamho's Transformation into Bald Eagle: 82-84
82. Turns into Bald Eagle at Avikutaparve
83. Floats downriver to Hokusave
84. Flies south to sea, is crazy (unknowing)
_Supplement: Thrasher and Mockingbird Institute Sex Life_
K. Courtship Instituted at Miakwa'orve: 85-92
85. Thrasher and Mockingbird face people on playground at
Miakwa'orve
86. Tortoise chosen to be approached
87-90. Sparrowhawk, Quail, Ah'akwasilye, Oriole rejected
91. Blue Heron accepted by Tortoise
92. Dove arrives: loose women dream of her
L. Transformation of Water and Valley Birds: 93-97
93. All go downriver to Hokusave
94. Noses of racers pierced there
95. Yahalyetaka's nose pierced with difficulty
96. Racers become water birds
97. Some others become valley birds
M. Mountain Birds Transformed at Rattlesnake's Playfield: 98-101
98. Rest led back to Miakwa'orve
99. Thrasher and Mockingbird at Rattlesnake's Playground teach
venereal cure
100. More songs for this
101. At Three-Mountains, Thrasher, Mockingbird, and rest turn to
mountain birds
N. Leftover Straggler Reaches the Sea: 102
102. Hakutatkole, left for pošoik sickness, goes south to sea and
becomes a bird
QUALITY OF THE NARRATIVE
So much for the content of the narrative: now as to its form. First of
all, although the story is not accompanied by songs, it is developed
according to the same pattern as the song-cycle myths. Moreover, the
informant was just as insistent as the majority of narrators that he
got his knowledge through dreaming.
However, the approach in the telling is less formally decorative and
more rational than in other narratives. There is actually less story,
in the sense of there being a minimum of events, a maximum of
explanation. The account is therefore bald and didactic. One sees the
narrator throughout aiming to be clear even at the cost of repetition
or prolixity.
In fact, repetition is deliberately indulged in as part of the
didactic style. Mastamho talks to himself of what he will do, then
perhaps tells the people that he will do it, then goes and does it;
after which, he may explain to them what he has done. Or he will have
them try the innovation, in which case it may be four times before
they learn, or before he finds the correct manner.
Accordingly, the pace throughout is tantalizingly slow. The story
could have been condensed by me, but its characteristic manner and
style would thereby have been completely discarded. There are constant
references to "This will be, but it is not yet." Such antitheses seem
to serve both emphasis and clarity. For instance, paragraph 62, "If
people dream of you, they will kill enemies; if people dream of being
in darkness, they will not kill them." Or again, paragraph 70, "I will
not let you go to a distance: I want you to stay in this country."
Balances of this sort constitute a distinct stylistic manner,
rudimentary though the devices may be from a literary point of view.
The Mastamho account contains certain minor inconsistencies, but they
are not inconsistencies of identity or kinship of person, or of
topography, as in the Cane narrative; nor are they due to sloppiness
of telling, as in the Coyote stories. The chief inconsistencies noted
are the fact that Mastamho keeps saying that he will teach the people
everything in four nights before his transformation into the bald
eagle, but then actually is six nights doing it; and similarly he at
first separates the people into four future tribes--three in the
desert and the Mohave--but then later there are six, the River Kamia
and Yuma suddenly appearing with the Mohave. These discrepancies
should not be charged too seriously against the narrator's care and
precision. The story is an exceedingly long one. He told it at
intervals during nine days. Part of my time was tied to University
duties, so that there would be whole days of interruption. While I
made no detailed record, I assume that we spent at least four working
days in the telling and Englishing. This would mean a minimum of two
days, or say twelve to fifteen hours, of Mohave narration by the
informant, distributed over more than a week. Few people could follow
one thread of telling so long as this with so few discrepancies.
MAIN NARRATIVE: MASTAMHO'S INSTITUTING.
_A. Mastamho Disposes of Dead Matavilya: 1-6_
1. Matavilya's death and pyre at Ha'avulypo.--Matavilya died at
Ha'avulypo.[1] I did not see him when he was sick, but dreamed of him
and saw him only when he died; others know of his sickness. When he
died in the house,[2] they carried him west of the door. Now Mastamho
was a boy about so high (about ten-year size). They asked: "What shall
we do with him?" Then Mastamho told them: "Burn him. When people die I
want you to burn them. That is what I wish. Now I want you, Badger,[3]
to dig a hole; and I want this man, Raccoon,[4] to bring wood." Then
after a time these two men came back into the house and said: "We have
dug a hole and the wood is ready." Now there were many people there in
the house when they said that, but not one of them spoke a word. Then
Mastamho asked them: "Have you fire?" But Badger and Raccoon said:
"No."
[1] Near Mathakeva, Cottonwood Island, on the Arizona side of
the Colorado.
[2] The door of which of course faced south.
[3] Mahwa.
[4] Nammaθa.
2. Coyote seeks fire.--Now Coyote--θara-veyo-ve, Mastamho called him,
but the Mohave call him Hukθara--said: "I am sorry because Matavilya
died: I want fire and will bring it. I will go to Fire-Mountain:[5] I
know there is fire there and will get it." So he started westward. He
was gone a long time. Mastamho waited and all the others waited. Then
Mastamho said: "I do not want it to become day, for Matavilya to be
lying here in the light. Let it remain night." Now they were all still
waiting for Coyote, but he did not return: he was still traveling
west.
[5] Avi-'a'auva.
3. Fly and the cremation.--Then θilyahmo, Fly, a woman--for there were
only people then, and no animals--who had been sitting west of the
door, went outside, pulled up dead arrowweeds, came back indoors,
broke the sticks up, and dropped them into two or three small piles;
for she wanted to try to make fire. Then she plucked off a strand of
her willow-bark dress and rubbed it fine into tinder. Then she twirled
a stick in her hands, and with this and the shredded bark she made
fire, as she sat in the corner of the house by the west side of the
door. Then she carried it into the middle of the house, saying: "Here
is fire." Now that they had fire, Badger and Raccoon carried Matavilya
outdoors and laid him down on their pile of wood. All who had been in
the house went out with them. Then Badger and Raccoon returned into
the house and brought out the fire. Lighting the pile of wood at the
north end, they went one along each side of it, setting fire to it,
until they met at the south end. There they stood. Then everyone
cried, Badger and Raccoon with the rest.
4. Coyote's theft of the heart.--Now when Coyote arrived at
Fire-Mountain, he looked back and saw the burning at Ha'avulypo. Then
he did not even stop to take the fire, but ran back at once. When he
arrived, he found the people all standing around the pyre. He said:
"Matavilya is dead and I do not know anything. How am I to? He told me
nothing." He ran around and around the circle of people who were
standing and crying for Matavilya. He cried too. Now Mastamho was
standing on a higher place to the north, looking at Coyote. Though he
was only a boy, he was thinking about him. He thought: "I know what he
wants: he is not really sorry." What Coyote wanted was to jump over
the ring of people, to seize Matavilya's heart and run away with it:
that is why he was trying to come near the fire. But the people,
standing close together, would not let him. Now they were all tall;
but Badger and Raccoon were both short. Then Coyote jumped: he
succeeded in leaping over their two heads, and he got to the fire. But
Mastamho said: "Did I not know it? That is Coyote's way: he has no
sense. When a person really mourns he does not take away the heart of
the dead. But now Coyote will go away: I do not want him here. And I
do not want him ever to know anything. I want you who are standing
here to know something, and I will do many things for you. But let him
go off and be Coyote. He will always be without a home in the
mountains. If you see him you will kill him, because he knows
nothing." After Coyote had seized Matavilya's heart, he ran
southwestward, beyond Avikwame to Amaṭa-hotave. There he stopped and
looked south. But the heart was still too hot to hold; so he dropped
it, turned around, and held his mouth open towards the north to let
the wind cool it.[6] Then as the heart lay on the ground and cooled,
Coyote ate it.
[6] Mathak, north, means windward.
5. Covering of the ashes.--Now Coyote thought: "I will go to
Aksam-kusaveve and tell Hame'ulye-kwitše-iδulye." So he went to
Aksam-kusaveve and told Hame'ulye-kwitše-iδulye: "Matavilya has
died: go to see him: I am announcing it everywhere." Then
Hame'ulye-kwitše-iδulye went to Ha'avulypo. When he found where
Matavilya had been burned, he thought: "What shall I do with these?"
So he rolled himself over the ashes. No one had covered Matavilya's
ashes and it was that which Hame'ulye-kwitše-iδulye did not like to
see exposed; that is why he covered them with sand by rolling over
them. Then he returned to Aksam-kusaveve.
6. Coyote abandoned, homeless.--Now Coyote too came back to
Ha'avulypo. No one was there now, for Mastamho had taken the people
away to Kwaparvete, a short distance southward. He had seen Coyote
coming and had thought: "I do not want to tell him what I know: I want
him to be foolish and know nothing: I do not want him to hear what I
say. I will let him go. He will be the only one like that, the one I
call Coyote. He will not know his own home: he will want to run about
the desert and do what is bad. If someone is not at home, Coyote will
go there; but if a person is in his house, he will not come; and if
anyone sees him, he will run off."
_B. Avikwame, River, Desert Land and Foods Made: 7-19_
7. Mastamho promises to teach.--Now Mastamho said: "There is no house
here, and no shade roof.[7] I have not made everything as yet; it will
take time to do that. I know you are hot or cold, and hungry, and
without houses; but I will provide everything. The sun and the night
have not yet been made, but I will make them; and I will tell you what
to eat. Then you will know how to live."
[7] Ramada, arbor.
8. Arrival at Avikwame.--Now they went downriver to Avikwame. There
was no mountain there then; the land was level. Mastamho said: "Now we
have come to this place and I will do something for you. I want you to
learn how to make pottery, and then to know what food is good to eat.
You will learn how to know day and night. And you will not be hungry
nor thirsty. When you are cold, you will know it[8] and will make a
fire, and will have a house to live in. And so when you are hungry you
will eat, and when you are thirsty you will drink. I will make
mortars, metates, cooking pots, drinking cups, and water jars. I will
tell you all about those things. When Matavilya died, you were
ignorant, but I thought and knew. Therefore I will do these things
that I say; only I cannot do them now, at once. It will take a long
time yet to do them." Now Mastamho had no one to help him, no one to
join with him in talking. He was alone: while there were many people
there, they did not speak. Then he thought: "After I have done other
things for them, I will give them names." Now the people did not
sleep, but constantly stood, or sometimes sat, and when the sun went
down Mastamho talked to them. For four nights he spoke to them.
[8] "At that time they felt neither cold nor hunger, but walked
on and on."
9. White-spring made for the Chemehuevi.--On the fourth morning he
said: "Now I am old enough. I will go west. I will not go far, I will
take only four steps, but I will do something for you." He was
intending to make a spring. So as soon as the sun had risen, he walked
four steps west to Aha-kwi-nyamasave.[9] He put his weight on the
ground, thinking: "Let me see if it is hard." As he stepped on it, he
found that it was soft, like mud. So he went toward the north four
steps. There he stood, stretched out his hand backward, and had in it
a stick of sandbar willow, a forearm long.[10] This stick he set into
the ground. When he pulled it out, water came with it. Then he put his
foot against the water as it flowed out, and pushed earth over it,
until there was only a small stream. Then he returned. When he was
again at Avikwame, he said: "If I had been so sorry for my father[11]
that I had immediately turned myself into a bird, you would now know
nothing. But I want to do everything for you: I want to make things
for you. I call you Hamakhava, Mohave. Now I have made a spring in the
west: I will give that to the Chemehuevi. Those sitting here on the
west side will be the Chemehuevi. Now I will stay here four days and
then I will go north to Hatasaṭa."
[9] "White-water (spring)."
[10] Magically obtaining things by reaching out for them is a
frequent incident in Mohave and other Yuman tradition.
[11] Nakutk, my father. Other accounts, perhaps less influenced
by Christianity, make Mastamho the younger brother of Matavilya.
The narrator subsequently added: Mastamho said: "Matavilya is my
father. I was born at night. Then he said to me: 'I give you a
name. I call you Tinyam-humare, night-child.'" After Matavilya
died, Mastamho no longer liked to hear this name and called
himself Mastamho.
10. Colorado River, fish, and ducks made at Hatasaṭa for the
Mohave.--After four days he went to Hatasaṭa. From there he went west
a short distance to Hivθikevutatše. He said: "They are not named, but
I will give these names to these two places. I will not go farther but
return." He had with him the stick he had got at Aha-kwi-nyamasave,
was using it as an old man uses a cane. So he came back to Hatasaṭa,
and there he set the stick into the ground. When he drew it out, water
came with it. With his foot, he pushed earth over it, thinking: "What
beings shall I let issue with the water, animals that will be useful
for the Mohave?" Four times he allowed water to come and stopped it
again. The first time Atši-mikulye[12] emerged. The next time
Atši-yonyene[13] swam out, and the third time, Atši-hane.[14] The
fourth time Atši-tšehnap, also called Atši-tšeheθilye,[15] came out.
Mastamho thought: "I will give these to the Mohave." Next
Av'akwaθpine[16] came out, and then Puk-havasu.[17] Then there came
Hanemo.[18] Then Hanyewilye, the mudhen, emerged. As each came out,
fish and ducks, he did not let them go, but kept them there. He made
only a little water, enough to hold them. Whenever he left his stick
plunged into the ground, the water did not issue; but when he drew it
out, the water and the fish and the birds came out. When he had
finished making the fish and the ducks, he said: "These are for the
Mohave, but they do not yet know how to catch them. I will teach
them."
[12] A small edible fish with few bones. Atši is fish.
[13] A similar but larger fish, Colorado salmon.
[14] A large fish.
[15] A small, yellow, humped fish.
[16] The scaup (?) duck.
[17] "Beads-blue," that is, blue or green necklace. Probably the
mallard duck.
[18] Hanemo is the name commonly used for ducks generically. It
is also the specific name of the pintail or wood duck. The four
ducks mentioned here reappear with other water birds in par. 96.
11. Matavilya's ashes washed away.--Then he drew out his stick
entirely, and the water came unrestrained, with the fish and ducks in
it, and flowed southward.[19] Mastamho ran ahead of it on the west
bank, to Ha'avulypo where Matavilya had been burned. There he set his
stick into the center of the ashes, for he did not like to see them
and wanted the water to wash them out. He called to the water, and it
ran where he held his stick, and the ashes were washed away. So they
were gone, and the river flowed through the place where they had been.
[19] As the Colorado River.
12. Boat tilted to widen valley.--But Mastamho went back up to
Hatasaṭa. Putting his stick into the same place as before, from which
the water now issued, he stirred it around. Then a boat, kasukye, came
out. Mastamho called it kanuθkye,[20] but the Mohave name is kulho. As
the boat emerged, Mastamho put his foot on it, held it, entered it,
and floated down. Where the river was not broad enough to suit him, he
stood on the edge of the boat until it lay far on its side. Then the
river became wide there. Thus he went down to Avikwame, where the
people were. As they saw him coming down the river and then going by,
they thought that he would leave them. At Aqwaq-iove[21] he waved his
hands to them, meaning: "Stay where you are: I will return." When he
approached the lower end of Mohave valley, he thought: "I think some
one else has taken the boat long ago,[22] and that it will not be
suitable for the Mohave. So I cannot let them have it: I will let it
go." And when he came near where Mellen is now, he jumped off the
boat, shoving it away with his foot: so that it floated downstream.
Mastamho stood at Mepuk-tšivauve[23] and watched it going down. When
it came to Ahwe-nye-va,[24] it no longer drifted tilted, but floated
level. Then the valley land there became wide, and the river also; but
wherever the boat floated tilted, the river and the valley were
narrow. Then Mastamho returned to Avikwame.
[20] Compare the word distortions below, in par. 44 seq., and p.
67.
[21] Near Fort Mohave.
[22] Probably meaning that Hīko or Haiko, white man, already
possessed the idea of the boat.
[23] About eight miles below Needles City.
[24] Near Parker, Arizona.--Here it is the boat's floating
_level_ that widens the _valley_, whereas, just above, Mastamho
_tilts_ the boat to widen the _river_.
13. Avikwame mountain made from mud.--Now there was no mountain at
Avikwame at that time. There was only a flat and the river. The people
stood on the bank. But the water was not near them; as the water
receded, it left mud. Mastamho took up some of this mud and let it
drop. As it fell, he said: "Goloto," as little boys say when they
splash mud in play. He did that repeatedly. He said: "Let it be
higher, and let the river flow by it. After this mountain which I am
making is dry, I will make a house for you: You will be in that."
14. Other mountains made.--Thus Mastamho made Avikwame. When he had
finished it, he made the mountains west of the river, Satulyku,[25]
Ohmo,[26] Mevukha,[27] Hatšaruyove,[28] Avimota,[29] and
Avi-kwi-nyamaθave.[30] All these he made and named.
[25] Near Needles peaks, south of Needles City.
[26] West of Needles City.
[27] South of Ibex.
[28] North of Java.
[29] The same mountain range farther north.
[30] The northernmost end of the range.
15. Four seed foods made for the Chemehuevi.--Then he went westward to
Hukθara-tš-huerve. He took up a handful of fine gravel, put it in his
mouth, then blew it out, wishing to make something to eat for the people
who would live in these mountains that he had made. He thought: "I will
make kwaθapilye seeds: they will be good for the Chemehuevi." Then he
took more gravel and spat it out in another direction, but also
westward, saying: "I now will make ma-selye'aya seeds. They too will be
good for Chemehuevi; they will grind and parch them with coals and have
them for food." Then he ran northward to Avi-nyilyk-kwas-ekunyive, put
gravel into his mouth and spat it out over the ground. "This that I
plant is malysa,"[31] he said. Again he took up gravel and blew it out,
saying: "This that I plant is tšilypeve." When he had planted these
four kinds for the Chemehuevi, he said: "That is all that I can do. You
have seen me: it is all that I can make. No one will be able to sow
these and make them grow: they will grow by themselves every year." Then
he returned to Avikwame and told the Chemehuevi and the Paiute: "I have
planted food for you. I have planted kwaθapilye and ma-selye'aya and
malysa and tšilypeve for you. But wait: do not hurry."
[31] Black seeds resembling those of cane.
16. Four plant foods made for the Walapai.--Then he said: "Next I am
going east, to make mountains there; I want people to live in them. I
will start in four days." After four days he started, crossed the
river, and went downstream to Avi-veskwi.[32] There he stood and
looked back down toward the river, and thought: "It is not very far.
Let me go farther east, to Kitšehayare."[33] So he went on till he
came to Kitšehayare. There he did as he had done before. He put gravel
in his mouth and spat it over the earth. He said: "This is what I
plant: I plant vannata."[34] Again he took a handful of sand and blew
it out. "This that I am planting is vaδilye,[34a] mescal." From there
he went north and said: "I call this place Coyote's water;[35] it will
be good for Coyote. He has no home: when he finds this water he will
drink of it. I do not make it for him, but he will find it." Now he
stood there. Then he stripped the leaves from the tops of the brush
called kamomka and put them into his mouth. He blew them out and thus
made iδitša, the wild grape. "I want it to grow in this spot," he
said. Then as he stood there he scraped his foot to one side, and
grass came up. He said: "I thought when I did that it would grow."
Then, covering it up again with his foot, he took of the sand with
which he covered it, put it in his mouth, blew it out, and kumδur[36]
grew. Now he had made four things for the people who were to be here.
He had made each of these kinds of plants in only one place, but from
that they came to grow in many places. Then he returned to Avikwame.
[32] Boundary Cone, a pinnacle near the east edge of Mohave
valley, part of the Black Range.
[33] A small hill in a large valley, west of Kingman, Arizona.
[34], [34a] Vannata is a root which is peeled and dried, roasted
in the fire like vaδilye, mescal (Agave), and tastes sweet. It
grows in the valleys, while the mescal grows in the mountains.
The habitat and name suggest Yucca, Walapai menat, but the
Walapai speak of cooking the fruit, not the root.
[35] Hukθara-ny-aha.
[36] The tall stalks are eaten by the Walapai.
17. Planning for the Yavapai.--Now he said to the people: "When I tell
you: 'Be Walapai!' you will be Walapai and will live in that country.
When I tell you: 'Be Chemehuevi!' and 'Be Mohave!' you will be
Chemehuevi and Mohave. But that is not yet. First I want to make
something for the Yavapai. So I will go to their place next." He still
had his stick of sandbar willow with which he had made the river. He
said: "I do not want to put this away for when I arrive there, I will
thrust it down and make water: not much, but a little, enough for
everyone to drink. If they have no water at all, they will not be able
to live. So I will go and prepare for them what they will eat and
drink. I will make a small country, enough only for a few. In four
days I will make the land for the Yavapai. I will go to
Amaṭ-ko-'omeome and to Amaṭ-katšivekove and plant seeds there."
18. Foods and water made for the Yavapai.--Now in four days he went
there. When he arrived, he looked about: "It is not a good place to
plant; it is not level enough; too many mountains. I will go to
Avi-ke-hasalye." So he went to Avi-ke-hasalye. He said: "This is where I
want people to live. It is a good place: there is a long plain on each
side." Again he took gravel, put it in his mouth, and blew it out. "I
plant kalya'apa[37] for the Yavapai: I give it them for food. I give
them also a good small stream of water." Again he put gravel in his
mouth and blew it out over the valley eastward. "This that I plant will
be a'a,"[38] he said. Then he started and went to Ah'a-'ikiyareyare,
thinking: "I will go and make cottonwood trees (ah'a) grow." When he
came to Ah'a-'ikiyareyare, he stood and pointed his stick to the west,
to make water flow from there. Then water came towards him: it washed
white sand. Taking a handful of this sand in his mouth, he faced east
and blew out. Then kam'ipoi[39] grew up. "That will be for the Yavapai,"
he said; "they will eat the seeds." Then he said: "I want this little
water to be here always. I do not want it ever to become dry." Then,
taking up sand, he blew it north: akwava[40] grew up in that direction.
He thought: "I will thrust my stick far down into the ground. When I
draw it up, a cottonwood will grow. That is why I will call the place
Ah'a-'ikiyareyare. I will make only one cottonwood, but later there will
be many." He did this and thought: "Now I have finished everything here:
I will go back." So he returned to Avikwame. He returned early in the
morning, after sunrise.
[37] A cactus.
[38] Sahuaro or giant cactus.
[39] A plant about two feet high, with seeds "like wheat, but
much smaller."
[40] The young stalks that spring up after a flood are eaten.
The seeds, which are black, are roasted and ground for food.
19. Languages given to Chemehuevi, Walapai, Yavapai.--Then Mastamho
said: "I have made something for you Yavapai. I have finished it, but
I have still to tell you how to use it. If I do not tell you, you will
not know how to cook and eat what I have made; after I tell you, you
will know and it will be well. But I will not tell you yet." As he was
speaking, they all listened: no one said a word. He said again: "I
have given you all these things, but I have not finished. Now I will
show you how to speak. I want you to talk like this," he said to the
Chemehuevi. "I want you to speak like this," he said, and gave their
language to the Walapai. "And I want you to speak like this," he said
to the Yavapai. But he gave nothing to the Mohave as yet. Then he
said: "Now it is all made. I have prepared it. You can go, you
Walapai, and scatter in the mountains there. You need not go into one
place. You can go all about, for I have made springs everywhere. You
can live in one spot, and when you want to live in another you can do
so. You Chemehuevi can do the same, and you Yavapai too. But I will do
differently for the Mohave. They will have everything along the river:
whatever grows there will be theirs. It is well."
_C. House, Shade, Sleep, and Playground: 20-35_
20. Planning a shade roof.--Now he was thinking of building a shade,
av'a-matkyalye.[41] He said: "I have spoken to the Mohave. Later on
someone will dream what I have told them, and will do accordingly. To
each of you, to all four tribes, I have given something, and you will
know it. I shall not die like Matavilya, but will become a bird. And
there is something more that I will do for you, you Mohave. It will be
difficult for me and will take a long time. I want someone to build a
house. This is no house where we are now. When I have had a house
made, I want you all to enter. Then I will tell all of you what I
shall be. This will be, not soon, but in the future."
[41] A brush roof on posts, ramada or arbor.
21. Ant makes dry ground.--Now the ground was still wet at that time.
Then Hanapuka, the small ant, came up out of the ground, piling up
little heaps of dry sand; as Mastamho walked about, he saw them. He
said: "I wish it were all like this. I wonder who it is that has made
this come out of the ground? I think I will call him Hanapuka." It was
the ant who had done it; it is he who made the earth dry.
22. Two insects dig postholes.--He said again: "Ant has made a dry
place: now mark it out around. I want the house to be built there. I
want the Mohave to enter it; and only they. You, Amaṭ-kapisara, I want
you to begin building it. I want you to dig the holes to set the posts
in. And you, Namitša,[42] carry, and throw the sand farther away when
he digs." Now these two men dug holes and brought poles for the house.
[42] Namitša is a large reddish insect, perhaps a wasp, that
throws earth as it burrows; or perhaps the ant lion?
Amaṭ-kapisara is evidently also a burrowing insect: amaṭ is
earth.
23. Shade built.--Then Mastamho said: "Wait! Listen to me! I call the
posts av'ulypo. Say that, you Mohave! Say av'ulypo!" Then all said:
"Av'ulypo." When the posts were set and they were ready to lay the
girders across them Mastamho said: "Call them iqumnau!" Then all said:
"Iqumnau." Then Mastamho said: "When you lay on the roof poles, call
them av'a-tšutara! Now say that! Say av'a-tšutara!" and they all said:
"Av'a-tšutara." He said again: "When you place the thatching of
arrowweed on the poles, call it av'a-tšusive." Then they said,
"Av'a-tšusive." He said again: "When you lay willows or any other
brush over the thatching, call it av'anyutš." So they said:
"Av'anyutš." Then he said: "Now you have a shade. It will be good for
you. When the sun shines and it is hot, you will go under the shade.
That is what it is for. Now that it is finished, I want all you Mohave
to come under it." Then the Mohave sat under the shade. The Chemehuevi
sat to the west of it. On the east the Walapai sat to the north and
the Yavapai to the south. None of these tribes said a word, and none
of them entered under the shade.
24. House planned.--Then Mastamho went to the edge of the shade and
stood leaning against the post at the southeast corner. He said: "Now
I will build a house. I will make you understand: you know nothing
now. You do not know when a man is hungry or thirsty or cold. You only
know that if he has no shade and stands in the sun, he becomes hot.
You know now that it is good under the shade." Then he entered the
shade again, went to the northwest corner, and stood there. Then he
said: "Amaṭ-kapisara and Namitša, build another house. Build
av'a-hatšore. It will not be well to sit under the shade always. When
it is winter the wind will come: perhaps it will rain and be cold. But
if you build a house, you can make a fire inside of it when the rain
and cold come. That is why I will make a house for you Mohave. I will
build a house here at the back of the shade."
25. House built.--Again he told Amaṭ-kapisara and Namitša to dig holes
in the ground and to bring posts. Then as he still stood, he said to
the people: "When you are about to build a house, and you dig holes,
call them amaṭ-ahuelkye." He wanted them to learn that word. Then, as
they built, he told them to call the different parts av'ulypo,
iqumnau, av'a-tšutara, av'a-tšusive, and av'anyutš as before, and they
repeated each one. Then he said: "We have done all that. We have
covered it with brush. Now put sand on the brush, so that the rain
will not come through. Call that av'a-ta'ive! Say: 'av'a-ta'ive!'" He
gave them that to say and they said it. He said again: "When there is
wind, build a house of timbers and brush and sand. When you make a
house only of posts and thatch, call it av'a-tšoamkuk. But when you
cover it with sand also, call it av'a-tapuk."
26. Door made.--Then he said again: "Now that the house is finished, I
will tell you how to make a door. You will see dead cottonwoods: strip
the bark from them,[43] weave it together, and make a mat longer than
it is wide. Fasten it at the upper corners to a stick. Then call it
av'a-pete."
[43] The inner bark is called hanuθkwilye. "The Mohave now use
black willow bark, iδo, but they learned that themselves;
Mastamho taught them to employ ah'a, cottonwood."
27. Insect helpers given names.--Now the house was complete, but he
did not yet let the people enter. He said: "I want you, Amaṭ-kapisara
and Namitša." He took them to the people and said: "I will give these
two men names for their work. When they dug, they worked quickly. When
they built the house, they finished it quickly. So I will give them
names: listen well, so that you can all say them. This man's name
(Amaṭ-kapisara) is Ikinye-mastšam-kwamitše.[44] Thus I give him a
name, and when you dream you will see him. Do not forget what I tell
you. In future some man will dream and see him. No one will see me
then, but they will dream of me, and in that way they will know all
that I have said. They will have heard everything. Now I have given
this man a name. Now I will give the other one a new name too. I call
him Umas-amtše.[45] People will dream and see him too."
[44] "Boy-throw-far."
[45] Perhaps from amtške, to travel, move about. The insect is
described as noisy and restless. Umas- occurs in other names and
may be a form of humar, child.
28. Sunset named.--Mastamho said: "The house is finished; but I will
not yet take you into it. I said that I would give you food; I will
not tell you about it yet: nevertheless I will give it to you. After
you enter the house, I will tell you what you will plant and what you
will eat. When I enter, I will tell you about what my body will be.
You know the sun, and sunset, and night. When the sun goes down, we
will enter the house. Now, when it is nearly down, the time is
anya-havek-tšiemk. Call it: anya-havek-tšiemk!"
29. House entered.--When the sun went down, Mastamho entered and said:
"Come in, all of you." Then all the Mohave entered the house. The
Chemehuevi stayed outside on the west. On the east were the Walapai
and Yavapai, the latter to the south. Mastamho sat down, leaning back
against the southwestern one of the four middle posts. He was thinking
about the people inside and those outside. He said: "There is a fire
just within the door. Charcoal is piled up there. That is what makes
the house warm. Now you understand: that is how it is done; you have
learned that." As he spoke he was leaning against the post thinking.
He put his hand behind him.
30-32. Night; Future nights; Sleep.--30. He said: "The mountains will
always be here; but I cannot live forever. Darkness is here forever
and day is here forever, but I cannot live like the sun and like the
mountains: I must die. I could tell you about that, but I will not
tell you tonight, because you must sleep. You know now that it is
night. You know how to sleep. After you get up in the morning, I will
speak to you again and will tell you those things. I will not tell
everything as yet."
31. Now he no longer addressed them as Pautšyetše-vukwiδauve as he had
done at first; he called them Patšumi-'itšitš-vukwiδauve[46] now. But
he did not tell them much. He spoke only a short time. He told them
two or three or four or five words and stopped. He said: "This is not
the only night: tomorrow will be another. When one day is gone,
another comes. It will always be so. This is the first night: there
will be three more."
[46] Patšumi, food; kw-iδau, have, hold.
32. That same night he said: "Say: 'Tiniamk!'[47] Say: 'Osmamk!'[48]
Say that when you want to sleep. When you want to enter the house,
say: 'Av'alye pok!'[49] Now say it." Then they all said it. Now they
were still sitting up. Then he said to them: "Lie down. Say:
'Kupam!'[50] After you are lying down, say: 'Upam.'"[51] Then they all
lay down, said nothing, and slept quietly.
[47] "It is night."
[48] Sleep.
[49] In-the-house enter.
[50] Lie down!
[51] I lie.
33. Day coming.--When it was nearly day, Mastamho said: "Day is
coming, but I will not yet let you go outside: I want you to stay here
for four days and nights. Then on the fourth night, toward morning,
when it is still dark, I will let you go to where you belong. It will
not be during the day, but in the night."
34. Playground made at Miakwa'orve.--When the sun had risen, Mastamho
went and stood outside the house. He said: "I want to make a level
place." Then he leveled with his feet a place that had been rough. He
said: "Call it Miakwa'orve.[52] Can you say that? Say: 'Miakwa'orve!'"
Then all said: "Miakwa'orve." He told them: "That is right. I will
make a hill close to the river below Miakwa'orve: swallows[53] will
live there: I will call it Avi-kutaparve. Now say 'Avi-kutaparve!' All
of you say it! That is right. That is the way I say it."
[52] Important later: see par. 85 ff.
[53] Hamkye.
35. More in time.--Now he stayed at Avi-kutaparve that day, preparing
the place for the swallows. At sunset he returned to Avikwame and
entered the house. He said: "I have made two places: made them for
you. When you come there, to Miakwa'orve, those who are footracers
will run. Those who can sing will sing. Some will dance, and some will
gamble.[54] But that is as much as I will tell you: I will not tell
you everything now; in time I will tell you more about those places.
And I do not want you to live there: your houses will not be there.
When you want to sing or dance or speak to the people and tell them
what you know, then go there; but do not live there."
[54] With the hoop and dart game.
_D. Wild Seeds Planted: 36-42_
36. Planning to plant.--That night, in the middle of the night, he
said: "I am going down to Av'a-θemulye and Amaṭ-kusaye and
Hatšioq-vaṭveve.[55] There there are good places to plant after the
river has receded, and seeds will grow there. Av'akwaθpine,[56] who
came out when I first made water in the north, and who has floated
down on the river, knows about that. I will have him plant seeds for
you Mohave; I will tell him to do that for you. I think it will be a
good place to sow. In the morning I will go and have him plant for
you. When I return, I will tell you what he has sowed. I will not tell
you now, but in the evening, after I come back." When he had finished
talking to them thus, he sat leaning forward with bent head, thinking
of what seeds he would plant. He thought, but did not speak aloud.
Then, in the morning, he said to them: "Now I am ready to go. I told
you that today I would go to Av'aθemulye and Amaṭ-kusaye, and
Hatšioq-vaṭveve. I told you that when I had been there and had
returned, I would tell you what seeds had been sown. Now I am going."
[55] Two of these places are mentioned in Vinimulye-patše, II,
1. They seem to be in Mohave Valley, on the west side of the
river, and Amaṭ-kusaye (or -kusayi) is downstream from
Hatšioq-vaṭveve.
[56] A duck, probably the scaup, mentioned before, note 16.
37. Scaup Duck plants four wild seeds in overflow.--Then he went to
Av'a-θemulye and Amaṭ-kusaye and Hatšioq-vaṭveve. When he came there,
Av'akwaθpine was walking about in the mud like a boy at play. He was
entirely covered with mud. When Mastamho saw him, he said: "I have
been thinking about you. I want you to plant four kinds of seeds:
akatai, aksamta, ankiθi, and akyêse.[57] It would be hard if I were to
give you all kinds of seeds to plant: therefore I give you only these
four. Now plant those." Then Av'akwaθpine took the seeds. They were in
four gourds, each kind in one gourd. In the gourd to the southwest
were akatai seeds. Holding the gourd in his left hand, Av'akwaθpine
took the seeds from it with his right hand, put them into his mouth,
and blew them out over the mud. Then he took aksamta seeds from the
northwest gourd and blew them out to the northwest. The ankiθi seeds
he took from the gourd on the northeast and blew them out in that way.
Then he took the akyêse seeds from the southeast gourd and blew them
out to the southeast.[58] Now all four kinds began to grow in the mud.
He said: "See how fast they grow. It will not be long." Then Mastamho
said: "That is good. I will go back and tell my people about it."
[57] "Wild" seeds planted in the overflow. Handbook, p. 736.
[58] Clockwise circuit, beginning with southwest.
38. You will understand later.--Then Mastamho returned to tell his
people about what Av'akwaθpine had done: "He has planted for you what
will be your food. You will know about it later, for as yet you have
no dishes, no pots, and no jars, and do not know how to cook. I will
tell you what to do to eat. Now you think that it is merely necessary
to take with your hands what you want to eat: that is because you do
not yet know. But I will make you understand. In time you will eat,
and you will be happy then. In time I will also tell you about my
turning into a bird. For I shall not die, but shall live as a bird.
Before that happens I will tell you everything."
39. Planning for more planting.--Then Mastamho said: "I have told you
what Av'akwaθpine has planted for you. Now there is something else. In
the morning I will go downriver again, below where I was. I will go to
Avi-halykwa'ampa, Amaṭ-kaputšora, Amaṭ-kaputšor-ilyase, and
Amaṭ-θonohiδauve.[59] There I will get something else to grow. Grass
will grow there of itself, without being planted by people. I will
make Frog[60] plant it for you. He knows the water, for he lives in
it. I do not know him. When I made the river, I saw various kinds of
beings come out with it; but I did not see him. He was born after the
river was flowing. And so he knows the places where the grass will
grow. Now it is three nights, and tomorrow will be the fourth.[61]
Then you all will remain awake the whole night. You will not sleep and
I will tell you what I will do for you. I will tell you that tomorrow.
And this is all I will say today. Now all sleep!"
[59] I cannot place these spots, but judge they are still in
Mohave Valley.
[60] Hanye, the small frog.
[61] The number of nights is correct in contrast with the same
statement made by him two nights later in par. 42; see note 62.
40. Frog told to be ready to plant.--Mastamho remained awake all
night. When it became daylight outdoors, he looked about. Then he
stood in the door and said to his people: "Now I am going down to
Avi-halykwa'ampa, Amaṭ-kaputšora, Amaṭ-kaputšor-ilyase, and
Amaṭ-θonohiδauve." Then he went downriver until he came to
Avi-halykwa'ampa. There he stood on the mesa and looked. Near by,
below, was Amaṭ-θonohiδauve. He thought: "That is a good place. It is
level. I think it will be a good place for growth whenever the river
recedes." Then he went there. He saw Frog sitting there facing the
north and making a noise. He said to him: "I hear you making a noise.
I know what you mean: you want the river to flow toward you. I know
what you are saying: 'I want the water to come here.'" Frog said:
"Yes, that is what I said." Mastamho told him: "After the water has
risen and when it has become dry once more, I want you to plant
something. That is why I came here." Frog said: "Yes, I will plant
it." Then Mastamho went back to Avikwame. He said to his people: "I
saw Frog. I told him I wanted him to plant; but I have not told him
what to plant. I am going back to him tomorrow. Then I will tell him
what seeds to plant."
41. Frog told what wild seeds to plant.--Next morning he went to
Amaṭ-θonohiδauve once more and saw Frog again. He told him: "Now I
will tell you what to plant. I want you to plant akwava, kupo,
hamasqwere, ankike, kosqwake, and aksama: those are the ones. Persons
do not plant them: but you will plant them, and when the water recedes
they will grow by themselves. No one knows about them: only you know
them, you who live in the water. But all will see them after the high
water has gone down. Those plants grow by themselves without having
been sown, I will not tell you where to make them grow, for you will
know. Plant them wherever you like. I want them to grow of themselves,
like cottonwoods and willows. So cause them to spring up wherever you
think best. I do not even know how you will plant them. Perhaps you
will put seeds into your mouth and blow them about; perhaps you will
blow out water from your mouth, or perhaps mud, and it will sprout and
grow. I do not know how you will do it, but I know that you know how,
and so you can do as you like."
42. Return to Avikwame.--When he returned to Avikwame, Mastamho said:
"Well, it is done. You will all scatter along the river on both sides
of it. Everything has been arranged. I will not tell you more now. I
will not speak all night. Tonight is three nights; tomorrow will be
the fourth.[62] Tomorrow I will not let you sleep: you will remain
awake and I will tell you what I shall become; that I shall not die,
but turn into a bird. That is what I will tell you about on the fourth
night, but not today." Then they slept that night.
[62] The narrator has lost his count: it is the fifth night, not
the third. See pars. 31, 36, 39, 40, 42, with the events of par.
44 seq. for the sixth night. It should be said in his behalf
that owing to other duties, I was able to work with him only
intermittently, and that it was now several days since he had
begun his narration to me.
_E. Counting, Directions, Tribal Names: 43-58_
43. Preparation for the next night.--In the morning Mastamho went
outside. He wanted a place to put the people outdoors. He said:
"Tonight some of you will become Mohave, some Chemehuevi, some
Walapai, some Yavapai, some Yuma, some Kamia;[63] and some of you will
become birds. I will tell you about that tonight, but not during the
day."
[63] Another inconsistency, and expansion from four to six, by
the sudden inclusion of the Yuma and Kamia. In pars. 9-19 and
23, it is Chemehuevi, Walapai, and Yavapai as set off from the
Mohave.
44-46. First, second, third counts taught.--44. When the sun set, all
went into the house, and Mastamho stood up. He said: "You are alive
now. I will tell you what you will eat. I will tell you about corn and
beans and melons and other food. But first I will teach you how to
count. I will show you how to use your fingers. When you want to say:
'Four days,' do like this." And he held up four fingers. "When you
want to tell of as many as all these fingers, show them all. Now
listen. All be quiet and listen to me counting. Then perhaps you will
like it. If you do not like it, you can listen to another way. Sintš,
tšekuvantš, tšekamuntš, tšekapantš, tšekaθara, umota, kutšyeta,
koatša, kwisan, noe.[64] Can you say that? How do you like that
counting?" Now those who were to be Mohave did not say a word. They
could not count that way.
[64] The distortions of this and the two following imperfect
counts are analyzed in a separate discussion following the myth.
45. So Mastamho said again: "Count like this: sinye, mivanye,
mimunye, mipanye, miranye, miyuš, mikaš, nyavahakum, nyavamokum,
nyatšupai, nyavali, nyavalak. Can you say that? Do you like that
counting?" But they were silent. There were too many words in that:
more than ten.
46. So Mastamho counted for them again: "Hatesa, hakiva, hakoma,
tšimkapa, θapara, tinye, sekive, kum, ayave, apare.[65] Now I have
counted ten. Perhaps you will like that." Again they did not speak a
word.
[65] This third try at a count interchanges the consonants of
the stressed syllable in the normal Mohave words.
47. Final count taught.--Then he said: "Well, I will make it four
times: I will count once more; that will be all. Then I will teach you
other things: for you do not yet know east and west and north and
south: I will teach you that. Now I will count. Seto, havika, hamoka,
tšimpapa, θarapa, sinta, vika, muka, paye, arrapa. Do you like that?
Can you say that?" Then they all said it after him. They could count
and liked it; they knew how to do it and clapped their hands and
laughed.
48. Fingers made on hand.--Now their hands were not yet as now: their
fingers were still together. Then Mastamho tore them apart and made
five fingers. "I want you to call this one isalye tšikaveta.[66] Call
this one isalye itma-kanamk.[67] I want you to call this one isalye
kuva'enye; this one isalye tokuv'aunye; and this one isalye
kuvapare.[68] Now I have made your hands for you, too."
[66] The thumb.
[67] The index. Kanamk is "point."
[68] Middle, fourth, and little fingers, of course.
49. First direction names taught.--He said again: "Now we are here in
this house: all will know and hear it. Now when I mean here," and he
pointed his hand to the north, "all say: 'Amai-hayame.'" But they did
not do so: they kept their hands against their bodies; they wanted
another name; they did not like that word. Then he said: "And there is
Amai-hakyeme; all say that!" And he pointed south. But again all sat
still: they did not want to call it that. He said again: "Well, there
is another: there is the way the night goes.[69] I do not know where
its end is, but when we follow the darkness that is called
Amai-hayime." He said that, but none of the Mohave said a word: they
sat with their hands against the body. Then Mastamho said once more:
"You see the dark coming. I do not know where it comes from: I did not
make it. But where darkness comes from, I call that Amai-hayike."
Again they sat still and did not point.[70]
[69] The Mohave, like the far-away Yurok, constantly speak of
night coming from the east and traveling west.
[70] The plan underlying the twisting of the terms of direction
is less clear than for the other series of words. See discussion
at end.
50. Final direction names taught.--Then Mastamho said once more: "I
have named all the directions but you have not answered. Well, there
are other names. Listen: I call this (the north) Mathak. Can you say
that?" Then all said, "Yes," and stood up, and pointed north, and
said, "Mathak." He said again: "This (to the south) I call Kaveik. Can
you say it?" Then all said, "Yes," and pointed and called the name and
clapped their hands and laughed. He said again: "I told you that the
night went in that direction. I gave it a name, but you did not say
it. There is another way to call it: Inyohavek. All of you say that!"
Then they all said: "Yes, we can say that. We can call it Inyohavek,"
and all pointed as he directed them. He said again: "Where the dark
comes from, you did not call that as I told you to. There is another
way to call it: Anyak." Then all said: "Anyak," and pointed east and
clapped their hands and laughed. Then Mastamho said: "That is all."
51. Mispronounced tribal names.--Mastamho said: "Some of you are
outside, east of the house: I want you to be the Hamapaivek. Some of
you are outdoors west of the house: I call you Hamivevek. You people
in the house, just west of the door, I call you Hamitšanvek. You just
inside the door, near these last, I call Hamiaivek. You people near
the fire here, not against the wall, I call you Hamahavek." He called
them by these names, but all the people did not answer. They did not
say: "Yes, we will be called that." All of them said nothing.[71]
[71] These distorted forms consist of prefix Ham-, a
suffix -vek, and the accented syllable (plus preceding
unaccented vowel) of the correct Mohave name for the tribe. See
discussion at end.
52. Walapai and Yavapai tribes named.--Then Mastamho said again: "This
time I will call you who are on the east Havalyipai."[72] Then those
people called that name easily, and all those indoors said: "Now they
are the Walapai." Then he said again: "Those will be the Yavapai also.
I want them (the Walapai and the Yavapai) to live near each other in
the mountains." Those are the ones that at first he had called
Hamapaivek.
[72] Or Howalya-paya.
53. Chemehuevi named.--Then he said again: "Those outdoors on the
west, whom at first I called Hamivevek, I now call Tšimuveve. All say
that!" Then all said: "Chemehuevi."
54. Yuma and Kamia named.--He said again: "Those just inside the door
on the west of it I called Hamitšanvek. Now I call you Kwitš(i)ana
(Yuma)." He said again: "You near them, whom at first I called
Hamiaivek, I now call Kamia. You two will live near each other."
55. Mohave named.--Then he said: "I have made you all to be tribes,
Walapai, Yavapai, Chemehuevi, Yuma, and Kamia: you are all different.
I also spoke the name Hamahavek. Now I call them Hamakhave. All will
call you that, you Mohave, and will know you by that name."
56. Told to stay a while.--He said: "I have told you where I want you
each to go. You know the places and you know the way. I will not take
you there: you can go by yourselves. But it is too dark yet: you may
go in the morning." They had been ready to go, and had stood up, even
though it was still night. He told them: "It is too early now. If you
go during the night, you will become confused. Listen to me, and do
not mix with one another: stay here." Then he drew lines with his foot
for the three tribes inside the house, and told them to remain within
the marks. He went outside and drew marks for the Chemehuevi, telling
them: "Stay here," and the same for the Walapai and Yavapai on the
west. As he said to each, "Stay here," he waved (flapped) his hands
downward from his extended arms.
57. Doctors will dream of this.--Mastamho said again: "Follow me, and
do the same. Listen! In future some men will dream: they will be
doctors. If you dream of me at night, you will be crazy. Some men will
be doctors who can cure sickness by touching with their hands. They
will not tell of me, but only sing about me. If you wait here, you
will hear of this and know about me."
58. Takes new name.--He walked about. He stood at the north end of the
house. He said: "My name is Pahutšatš-yamasam-kwakirve. That is my
name now. First my name was Mastamho. But I have left that, and now it
is Pahutšatš-yamasam-kwakirve. Whoever dreams about me will know me by
that name."
_F. Hawks and War: 59-69_
59-62. Four hawks given names and war power.--59. Now in the middle of
the house four men were sitting leaning against the posts. Mastamho
said to them: "You will be birds. You," he said to one, "your name is
Soqwilye-akataya.[73] Stand up! I will give you another name: I call
you Ampoṭ-em-kutšu-kuly-ve.[74] I want you to talk. When you speak
there will be wind and rain and dust. I want you to tell about
fighting: I want you to direct war."[75] This man had a blue stone[76]
ornament in his nose.
[73] A species of hawk.
[74] "Dust-dash-through."
[75] Men who dream of him will always be brave and ready to go
to war. When they narrate what they have dreamed, wind and rain
will follow.
[76] Avi-havasutš.
60. Then he called another one of the same name[77] and said to him:
"I want you to make dust four times, each place behind the other. I
call you Ampoṭ-em-kutšu-kunuly-ke-va.[78] I want you to rush and seize
and kill and fight and take slaves."
[77] Also called soqwilye-akataya, but a smaller species than
the last.
[78] Said also to refer to dashing through dust. The name is the
same except for the "infixes" -nu- and -ke-.
61. He called out the third one,[79] and gave him the name
Ampoṭ-em-kutšu-var-ve.[80]
[79] A hawk described as blue-billed.
[80] "Dust-stay-on-this-side-of."
62. The fourth[81] he called Ampoṭ-em-kutšu-min-ve.[82] He told them
all how to fight: "If there are four or five men on the other side of
where you have made it dusty and dark, you can dash across to the
enemy. If people dream of you, they will kill enemies in battle; but
if they dream that they are in the dark and cannot see, they will not
be able to kill in battle."
[81] A large yellow-billed hawk.
[82] "Dust-pierce." All four names contain ampoṭ, dust; -em;
kutšu-; a verb stem (respectively kuly, kunulyke, var, min); and
the suffix -ve or -va.
63. Practice trial.--Now a man was standing outdoors, north of the
house: his name was Ampoṭ-kwasanye. Mastamho said: "Let us see who of
you will be lucky, who will kill men." Then Ampoṭ-em-kutšu-kunuly-ke-va
rushed through the darkness and caught this man. Thus he learned how to
do, and all shouted and laughed. Mastamho said: "Now you four know how.
You will be the ones to do that."
64. Weapons to be made.--"Now I will tell you what to make in order to
fight with. Make the bow of black willow. Make the arrows from dry
arrowweed. Make the knobbed war club[83] from (bean-) mesquite.[84]
Make the straight war club[85] from screw-mesquite.[86] That will be
four weapons. Sometimes birds' feathers will fall on the ground. You
will pick them up and use them on your arrows.[87] That is how you
will fight."
[83] Halyahwai, potato-masher shape, for end-thrusting from
below into faces.
[84] Analye, Prosopis glandulosa.
[85] Tokyete, for cracking skulls.
[86] Aya, Prosopis pubescens.
[87] War arrows simply had the end of the shaft sharpened--no
head or foreshaft.
65. Cremation of warriors.--"Perhaps later on, when people fight, some
will have dreamed badly and will be killed. Then, when they are
burned, their bows and arrows, their clubs and their feathers, will be
laid on their breasts.[88] Now here you are, you four. I have made you
brave. I have given you everything with which to fight. In the morning
I want you to become birds. I myself will become one."
[88] This seems to be a hereditary privilege, being performed
also for the relatives of brave men, and not limited only to
those killed in battle.
66. Dreamers of journey will be runners.--Mastamho said: "You know
what I did: when I went to plant seeds, I went a long way, to several
places; that was what I did. Some will dream of that journey of mine,
and they will be foot racers."[89]
[89] Because Mastamho traveled far and fast.
67. Eagle unintelligent; to dream of him unlucky.--He said: "There is
a large man here, with long hair. His name is Ampoṭ-em-makakyene. He
is a good-looking man, but he is not intelligent. When I say anything,
he does not look at me: he looks away. If he had looked at me when I
spoke, he would have been an important man. But since he turned away
and did not listen, he will not be a chief. He does not talk loudly,
and no one listens to what he says. Some will dream of him: they will
be great men among the people, but they will not live long. This man
too will be a bird in the morning. He will be Eagle."[90]
[90] The golden eagle; Mastamho himself becomes the bald eagle.
Both are treated depreciatingly compared with the hawks
(falcons).
68. Crane ugly; to dream of him unlucky.--He said again: "There is
another one here who is large and good-looking: his name is
Ampoṭ-hamθarka. He also will not be important. If you dream of him,
you will be quarrelsome, taciturn, poor, and lazy. I call him
Umas-akaaka.[91] He, too, will turn to be a bird, and will be called
Crane.[92] He will stand on the sand flats at the edge of the water
and will eat fish. He will not be good-looking, and men who dream of
him will not be good-looking."
[91] Umas (from humar, child?), common as first element in myth
names.
[92] Nyaqwe.
69. Hawks will wear morning star in fight.--He said to (another one
called) Soqwilye-akataya:[93] "I call you Ampoṭ-malye-kyita because
you talk of fighting and stand by the dust. You will be chief over the
others. I give that to you, and you will know what I say, and will
teach it to some people. You will do that before you turn into a bird.
I myself shall be a bird before you are. Before you change, I want you
to say everything that I have told you. When there is war, put
katšetulkwa-'anya-ye on your shoulder. It is bright: that is how you
will be able to see clearly." He called it katšetulkwa-'anya-ye and no
one understood him; but he meant the morning star.[94] "You will see
it in the morning," Mastamho said.
[93] Said to be the largest of the hawks, and distinct from the
four mentioned before.
[94] Hamuse-ku-vataye, "great star."
_G. Thrasher Mockingbird, and Mastamho's Dream Names: 70-75_
70. Gnatcatcher to be rich: women will dream of him.--He said again:
"There is Ampoṭe-ku-vataye,[95] a small man. He is the older brother
of Eagle's father; but he is smaller than Eagle. I give it to him to
be a rich man. He will have much food, and all the people will come to
him to dance. They will sing and dance and jump and wrestle and play.
Whoever dreams of Ampoṭe-ku-vataye will be such a man. But you,
Ampoṭe-ku-vataye, will be Gnatcatcher.[96] I will not let you go to a
distance: I want you to stay here in this country.[97] I want you to
be near the river. There you will live."
[95] "Great dust."
[96] Hanavetšipe. Described as building small-mouthed nests in
mesquite trees.
[97] Evidently the narrator has in mind the Mohave country,
though Mastamho is still at Avikwame.
71. Tšoaikwatake in cottonwoods: women also dream of.--He said once
more: "There is another man: you, Ampoṭe-'aqwaθe. When you have become
a bird your name will be Tšoaikwatake. I want you to stay below where
Gnatcatcher will be. You will be among the cottonwoods and the sandbar
willows. Gnatcatcher will take the land where the mesquite grows; you
will have the overflow land. Between you, you will divide the low
valley. You, Gnatcatcher, when the mesquite-screws are ripe, and you
want to store them, ask Tšoaikwatake for arrowweeds with which to make
a granary; he will give them to you. Not men, but women, will dream of
you two."[98]
[98] Such women are diligent and never tire of work.
72. Thrasher and Mockingbird-to-be named.--Again he said: "There is
one to whom I give it to tell what he knows. He will talk to you. I
shall go south and become a bird and tell you nothing more: then he
will teach you. His name will be Ikinye-istum-kwamitše.[99] With him
will be Hatšinye-kunuya,[100] a woman: I name those two. They will be
the ones who will show you how to be happy. They will tell you how to
feel good."
[99] Boy-istum-cry (?).
[100] Girl-kunuya.
73-75. Three new names of Mastamho.--73. "Now I have made everything.
I have also given you those who will tell you more. Now I am standing
here. When at first I stood in the north, you knew the name I had
then. It was Pahutšatš-yamasam-kwakirve. Now I stand in the west and
have another name. Now my name is Pahutšatš-yamasam-kuvatš-kye."[101]
[101] Food-white-walk-about.
74. Then he stood at the southwestern corner of the shade. The
Mohave stood north of him. Then he said: "Now my name is
Pahutšatš-yamasam-kuvatš-inalye.[102] Watch me! I shall be a bird:
but I shall have told everything before I become a bird. There was a
large house, the oldest house.[103] I was a boy then, and came here
and built the house here. Now all raise your arms." Then all raised
their arms, laughing, and pulled at the posts and made the shade
shake. Then he said: "The house I built is still new and young. It
still moves and shakes."
[102] Food-white-stand-off-from.
[103] Ha'avulypo.
75. He went off a short distance and stood, away from the people. He
said: "There is another name by which I will call myself. It is
Pahutšatš-yamasam-kuvatš-kaδutše.[104] That is four names that I
have." Now he was standing still farther towards the south[105] from
them than before: he had stepped backward. Each time he moved farther
away and took a new name.
[104] Food-white-stand-at-a-distance.
[105] One would expect a circuit, but the directions are N, W,
SW, S.
_H. Pottery and Farmed Food Instituted: 76-78_
76. Pottery vessels each given two names.--Again he said: "This is the
last before I become a bird. But no, I have forgotten one thing. I
want you to use something to bring water in: mastoyam. And I want you
to use something to cook in: umas-te-tooro and umas-te-hamoka." But no
one understood him. He said again: "You do not understand. You call
them water jar,[106] and cook pot,[107] and large stew pot.[108] I
also want you to have umas-uyula, but you do not understand me. I mean
spoon.[109] I want you to have what I call han'ame, but you do not
know what I mean. It is an oval food platter.[110] And I want you to
have what I call umas-kasara. I mean the stirrer.[111] You do not yet
know it, but when you boil food you will stir with this. I am telling
you these things, though you do not understand me, because I want you
to know everything. Some of you are listening to me and know what I
say: they will be doctors. But some do not understand me and do not
listen. And there will be what I call umas-iaδa. You do not know what
that is, but it is a bowl.[112] There will be another one: I call it
umas-eyavkwa-havik. I mean the parching dish.[113] You will use that
when you toast corn and wheat."
[106] Hapurui.
[107] Taskyene.
[108] Tšuvave, set on three supports; hence the name applied by
Mastamho: hamoka being three.
[109] Pottery spoon or ladle, kam'ota.
[110] Kakape.
[111] Three or four sticks tied together in the middle and used
to stir stews; called so'ona.
[112] A round bowl without lip: kayeθe.
[113] Katele of pottery, pointed at two ends.
77. Planted foods named.--"I will tell you also what you will eat
without cooking: you will eat umas-kupama. I mean melons.[114] But
there will also be umas-kupama which you will cook: I mean pumpkins.
And there is still another thing. You will have corn and wheat and
beans to grind. To do this you will use umas-oapma. I mean the
metate.[115] And I will show you tšamatš-ke-hutšatše: I will give you
that. You do not know what it is; but I mean food (tšamatš). I mean
white beans, yellow beans, black beans, spotted beans;[116] and white
maize, blue maize, red maize, white-and-yellow mottled maize, and
yellow maize.[117] You will see all these: you will call them thus.
Now I have given you these names, and this food: I have finished
that."
[114] Topama, melons of all kinds.
[115] Ahpe, the grinding slab or "saddle quern."
[116] Beans are marika, teparies: the colors are,
respectively, -nyamasave, -akwaθe, aqwaq-itšierqa (deer
excrement), hatša (Pleiades).
[117] Maize is taδits: the colors, in order, are:
-nyamasave, -havaso, -ahwaṭa, -arrova, -akwaθe--five
in all, where four or six would be expectable.
78. Chutaha singing with basket.--"And if you dream about these
things, you will sing Tšutaha. I will tell you what you will use, for
singing that. You will beat umas-ekyire: I mean a basket, karri'i."
Then all said: "Karri'i." "And I say: Umas-ihonga. When you strike the
basket with your hand, it will make a noise: hāng. At Miakwa'orve you
will have samelyivek and itšimak. You will call that arro'oi, play.
You will do that at Miakwa'orve: all the people will dance; that is
what I mean."
_I. Thrasher and Mockingbird Delegated to Teach: 79-81_
79. Thrasher and Mockingbird appointed to teach play and sex.--Then Mastamho
said again: "Now everything is finished. You, Ikinye-istum-kwamitše, and
you, Hatšinye-kunuya, are the man and the woman I have appointed. Now they
do not yet marry each other and do not love. You two will make it that all
will marry. You will marry. Then you will have a child: it will be another
person. I give it to you to do that. All will do what you do and as you
say."
80.--Avikwame named.--He said again: "This mountain Avikwame that I have
made and where I have built my house, I call it avi-nyamaθam-kuvatše.[118]
Men who are not doctors will call it Avikwame, but some of you will dream
about me and they will call it avi-nyamaθam-kuvatše. That is what I mean."
[118] -nyamaθam for (?) nyamasam, white; kuvatše, stand (?).
81.--What Thrasher and Mockingbird are to do and be.--Meanwhile
Mastamho had walked backward from where the people were, until now he
had reached Avi-kutaparve.[119] From there, still looking north, he
saw Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya, whom he had appointed
to arrange about marriage, making the people stand in a row in order
to talk to them. So he said to them: "That is right: that is what I
want. You will do that: you will tell them everything about marrying.
Then when you have told them all, you also will be birds, as I shall
be. You, Hatšinye-kunuya, will do that. When a woman dreams of you,
she will be loose.[120] You, Ikinye-istum-kwamitše, will be dreamed of
by some men. Those men will be ugly, but they will be successful with
women;[121] they will always be marrying. When you turn into birds,
you, Ikinye-istum-kwamitše, will be Curve-billed Thrasher.[122] You,
Hatšinye-kunuya, will be called thus while you are a girl, but after
you are a woman, you will be called Kuvuδinye. When you have said
everything that I have told you, and have become a bird, you will be
Mockingbird: Sakwaθa'alya is how people will call you."
[119] Near Fort Mohave. See ante, par. 34. It is near
Miakwa'orve of note 52 and par. 85 ff.
[120] Kamaluik. Cf. note 148.
[121] θenya'aka-'itθak.
[122] Hotokoro.
_J. Mastamho's Transformation into Bald Eagle: 82-84_
82. Turns into Bald Eagle at Avi-kutaparve.--Mastamho was standing at
Avi-kutaparve. Now he proceeded to leave (change) his body. That is
why the little mountain there is now white in one place. Mastamho was
looking to the north, standing close by the river. He wanted to have
wings and flap them. He moved his arms four times to make them into
wings. Then he said: "See, I shall be a bird. Not everyone will know
me when I am a bird. My name will be Saksak."[123]
[123] The bald or white-headed eagle; or possibly the
fish-diving osprey.
83. Floats downriver to Hokusave.--Then he turned around twice from
right to left, facing south, and then north, then south and north
again, and lay down on his back in the middle of the river. Four times
he moved his arms in the water. Thus he reached Hokusave.[124] Then he
had wings and feathers, and rose from the water. He flew low above the
water so that his wings touched it.
[124] About eight miles north of Needles City, in California,
not far from the Nevada line.
84. Flies south to sea, is crazy (unknowing).--He flew southward,
looking for a place to sit. He settled on a sandbar. But he thought:
"It is not good: I will not sit here"; and he went on again. He sat on
a log, but thought again: "No, I do not like this," and went on. He
sat on a bank, but thought: "No, it is not good," and went on. So he
went far down to the sea where the river emptied into it. There he
stayed, and lived near the river eating fish. Now he was crazy and
full of lice and nits.[125] Now when he had told everything and was a
bird, he forgot all that he had known. He did not even know any longer
how to catch fish. Sometimes other birds kill fish and leave part of
them. Then Saksak eats them, not knowing any better. He is alone, not
with other birds, and sits looking down at the water: he is crazy.
[125] Hatšilye, "louse-excrement." When a bald eagle is killed
it is said to be always lousy and to smell of fish. People who
dream of Mastamho after he became the bald eagle know nothing
and are crazy (yamomk) like him.
SUPPLEMENT: THRASHER AND MOCKINGBIRD INSTITUTE SEX LIFE
_K. Courtship Instituted at Miakwa'orve: 85-92_
85. Thrasher and Mockingbird face people on playground at
Miakwa'orve.--Now when Mastamho had died,[126] the man and woman he
had left at Miakwa'orve, Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya,
took his place. So wanting to make a field for play, matāre, they drew
their feet in a line over the ground for the people to stand on facing
north. "No, it will not do;" they said. Then they drew lines for them
to stand on facing east, and south, but again they said: "No." Then
they drew a line so the people could look toward the west.[127] Then
they said: "Yes, that will be right." Now they marked four such lines
and made the people stand along them in four rows, one behind the
other, all facing west. In the middle, between the first and second
lines, they set a stick of sandbar willow.
[126] Left his human body.
[127] Sunwise circuit beginning in north.
86. Tortoise chosen to be approached.--Then they said: "Who is a
beautiful woman? I think Pahutšatš-yamasam-iarme. Mastamho did not
call her by that name, but he told us to. After a while she will turn
to be Tortoise: then she will be called Kapeta." Now that woman stood
there, with long hair reaching to the middle of her thighs and white
paint[128] on it. The two said: "Some of you go to her. If she does
not like you, she will not have you; but if she likes you, she will
marry you. Go and try to take this good-looking woman's hand. If she
takes yours, it will be because she likes you; but if she does not
like you, she will refuse to let you take her hand. In future there
will be men who dream that they have taken her hand: such men will
always be able to become married as they like. When she turns to be a
tortoise, those who dream of her will sing Kapeta.[129] And other men
will dream of what we are making you do now, making you stand in four
rows. Those men will sing Yaroyare."[130]
[128] Amaṭ-ehe.
[129] There is a reference to Kapeta or Tortoise singing and
story in Handbook, p. 763.
[130] There is little on record about the Yaroyare song-cycle.
The narrator, on another occasion, coupled Yaroyare and
Ipa-m-imītše (person-wail) as dealing with Matavilya's sickness
and death at Ha'avulypo, of the dreamers laying their hand on
him, and the like. They sing and tell about this at people's
death, he said. He knew one man who had dreamed this: his name
was Kolhonyešuδuk (alive in 1903), who was a doctor, but only
for ahwe'-ahnok, "foreign sickness" due to eating alien tribes'
food.--Another informant, Atšyôra-hunyava, did not mention
Yaroyare but coupled Ipa-m-imītše with Humahnān, a cycle named
after a black, hard, stinking beetle. Both singings use no
rattle or other instrument and belong to doctors who cure
sickness due to eating hawk-wounded birds, or birds killed by
oneself, or to birds which cause young babies to be sick with
white stools.--All this does not sound like having much to do
with courtship and play.
87-90. Sparrowhawk, Quail, Ah'akwasilye, Oriole rejected.--87. The
people were still standing in four rows, facing west.[131] Before
them, at the southern end of the rows, stood Ikinye-istum-kwamitše,
looking at them all, and Hatšinye-kunuya stood at the stick they had
set up. Now the first who went to take the hand of the woman was
Sparrowhawk.[132] As he came up to her, he said: "Liklik."[133] But
the woman said: "That is a bad word to say to a woman,"[134] and all
four rows of people laughed.
[131] Mohave dancing is described in Handbook, pp. 746, 765.
[132] θinyere.
[133] The bird's call.
[134] Have-lik or have-kwet means clitoris.
88. Now when a man will have great supernatural power he dreams of
Hoatšavameve and Amaṭ-ku-matāre.[135] Quail[136] came from those
places. He was a good-looking man, with fine eyes, and hair tied at
the ends below his hips. Now as he approached the woman and tried to
seize her hand, she, knowing that where he came from was where they
gave power, was dissatisfied with him and folded her arms, so as to
cover her hands. So Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya said:
"This is not the place to acquire power and learn to be a doctor: we
are teaching other things: we are showing how to sing and dance. This
is no place for a doctor to come to." Then Quail went back, and stood
at a distance, and all the people laughed and clapped their hands. Now
these two men, Sparrowhawk and Quail, were good looking, but it was
with them as it is with some men now, who are good looking but fail to
marry women they want. As Quail came from where doctors are made and
was not wanted, people now are afraid of doctors.[137]
[135] East of Avikwame, close to the river in Arizona. The
second name means "playfield-place."
[136] Ahma.
[137] One of the rather rare explicit "because then, therefore
now" explanations.
89. Now there was a man called Ah'a-kwašilye,[138] who came from
Avi-kunu'ulye.[139] He went and stood before the woman holding his
privates in his hands. Then the woman said: "I do not want him! I do
not want that sort of a man to come here: it is bad." So he went back
to Avi-kunu'ulye.[140]
[138] A bird with red wing pits. It lives in cottonwood trees.
[139] A small peak, sharp and erect, about six miles north of
the Hoatšavameve just mentioned. Ku-nu'ulye, tumescence.
[140] "Some men dream of this place or this man. Then they will
fail to obtain wives. They will say of a woman: 'I should like
to have her,' but they will never marry her."
90. And there was a man called Yamaθame-hwarme. When he became a bird,
he was called Oriole.[141] Now he too approached the woman. He was a
man who knew too much and spoke constantly. Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya said: "He talks too much: he chatters."[142] When he
came to the woman, she swung her arms and pushed him back. So he
returned and stood at the rear of the four rows, and all laughed.[143]
[141] Sakumaha.
[142] The oriole is reputed noisy.
[143] The three preceding suitors did not come from among the
people standing in rows at Miakwa'orwe, and are evidently
thought to have returned to their homes after being rejected.
91. Blue Heron accepted by Turtle.--Now when Mastamho had turned into
a bird and gone south, one other man went also. His name was
Ampoṭ-yamaθam-kuvevare. He, too, reached the sea. Now he said: "I
thought that everything had been made and that all had turned into
birds: but it is not finished yet. I hear a noise at Miakwa'orve: I
will go there." Then he started to return. He came to Aksam-kusaveve,
and from there he went on to Hanemo'-ara, where there is a lake.[144]
When he looked into the water there, he saw little fish, atši-mikulye,
and caught four. He put leaves of black willow through the gills of
the four fish, and so made a head dress like the feathers worn on a
stick at the back of the head: he called it atši-sukulyk. From there
he went on to Miakwa'orve. He did not go among the rows of people, but
stood at the side and looked at the woman. He had whitened his face
with dust which he had rubbed on his hands on the ground. Now he
stretched out his arm toward the woman. She put out her hand, and he
took it and pulled her over to where he stood. Then they said: "That
man has her: he is married to her." And all laughed. He was Great Blue
Heron.[145] He is not a handsome bird now and was not a handsome man
then, but he was easily married. So some men are ugly but dream of
him, and then easily obtain women, even virgins, and if they leave
these, they readily secure others. And so now all the people said: "He
has taken Pahutšatš-yamasam-iarme: she is his wife: her husband is
Heron." Now Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya said: "That was
what we wanted you to see and to learn. Now when you want to marry, do
that way."
[144] An overflow lake or slough from the river. Hanemo means
duck.
[145] Atšqeuqa, the American bittern, or great blue heron, whose
cry is qau, qau.
92. Dove arrives: Loose women dream of her.--Now there was a girl
called Hatšinye-kwora'e. When all went away from Ha'avulypo at night,
after the house there had been burned, she came back next morning
alone, looking for food that might have been thrown away. From there
she did not go with the others to Avikwame and Miakwa'orve, but
traveled westward[146] until she came to Otahvek-hunuve.[147] There
she made with her hands a round level place on top of the mountain.
Now, as she stood there facing north, she heard the noise from
Miakwa'orve. Then she started for it. When she came to Oyatš-ukyulve
and Hokusave, she stood still and heard the noise from Miakwa'orve
more loudly and saw the dust rising. So she went on and reached
Miakwa'orve. Then Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya said to
her: "We have made every thing: it is finished, and the people here
have the knowledge. But we will tell you the same that we told them.
You are a handsome girl. In future, some women will dream of you. Then
they will be loose.[148] And you will turn into a bird. You will
become Dove."[149]
[146] Through the valley in which Ibex lies.
[147] South of Ibex.
[148] Kamaluik, as in note 120. Such women do not stay with one
husband, but have no children and change from one man to
another.
[149] Hoskive, the mourning dove.
_L. Transformation of Water and Valley Birds: 93-97_
93. All go downriver to Hokusave.--Then they said: "She was one who
was away and did not see what we did; but now all have come and have
heard. Now you will all become birds. We will go with you to
Oyatš-ukyulve and Hokusave[150] and there we will turn you into
birds."
[150] Where Dove had just come from, and where Mastamho rose
from the river (par. 83).
94. Noses of racers pierced there.--Then they started to go to those
two places. When they arrived, Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya made a large circle on the ground. Then, standing to
the west of it, they said: "Let us see you all run with your mouths
shut tight, holding your breath. Do not breathe until you have gone
around the ring. If you breathe only then, you will be footracers."
Then they pierced the septum of the nose of those who were about to
run, for four at a time; when four had been pierced, they ran. Then
Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya would pierce another four,
and these ran. Now some of them could not run all the way. Some went
part way and breathed out, "Wh!" and everybody laughed because such as
these could not run well. Then Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya pierced the noses of four and with them of
Kasunyo-kurrauve,[151] so that five of them ran together. The other
four became exhausted after one circuit, but Kasunyo-kurrauve ran
around four times with his mouth still shut. Only after the fourth
circuit, he said: "Wh!" Then Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya
said to him: "You are the one who can run. Those who will dream of you
will be racers."
[151] Kasunyo is the American gold-eye; kurrauve seems to refer
to running.
95. Yahalyetaka's nose pierced with difficulty.--Now all of the
runners had had their noses pierced, and Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya said to them: "Now we will throw you into the water."
But there was one left inside the ring, who sat crying because no hole
had been made in his nose. He wanted his nose pierced too, but it
could not be done, for it was too flat to perforate; therefore he
cried. He said: "If you do not pierce me, I shall not be able to go
with the others but must stay here." So he sat crying with his hands
together, and all stood there about him. Some said: "Well, why can we
not pierce his nose?" But others said: "It cannot be done. It is too
flat, like my hand." "Well, let us try it anyway," they said. Then
Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya went to him and, by drawing
out his nose, succeeded in piercing it. Then he was glad. He is
Yahalyetaka.
96. Racers become water birds.--It was not all the birds who had had
their noses pierced, but only those that live in the water.[152] There
were Scaup Duck,[153] Mallard, Wood-duck,[154] Mudhen; also
Hwat-hwata, Tšuyekepuyi, Sahmata, Minyesa'atalyke,[155] Moviθpa,[156]
Sakataθere, Western Grebe,[157] and Minyesahatša.[158] They said: "Now
we all have holes in our noses. Hereafter, people who dream of us will
have their noses pierced and will be able to go far without becoming
tired or hungry. Some who dream of us will be chiefs: they will have
ornaments hanging from their noses and people will know them and say
'That is a great man.'" Then they ran a short distance and returned
four times; then they jumped into the river. "Now we shall be water
birds," they said.
[152] That is, dive, evidently.
[153] Av'akwaθpine. The identification is not sure.
[154] Or pintail? Hanemo. Cf. note 18.
[155] Probably red-headed, since the name was misapplied to a
specimen of a pileated woodpecker.
[156] A bird similar to the king rail.
[157] Halyekūpa, to be distinguished from halyepūka, the loon.
[158] Said to be a land bird, the varied thrush; see
minyesa'atalyka just above.
97. Some others become valley birds.--Then Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya said to the others: "You know in what places you will
like to live, whether among the willows or the cottonwoods or
elsewhere. This country will belong to you, and you will stay
here."[159]
[159] They became land birds.
_M. Mountain Birds Transformed at Rattlesnake's Playfield: 98-101_
98. Rest led back to Miakwa'orve.--Now some of them had not yet turned
into birds. Then Ikinye-istum-kwamitše said: "We will go back to
Miakwa'orve: we want to do something more." Then he started with
Hatšinye-kunuya and with those that were still people. When they came
to Avi-kutaparve, they stood there. Then Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya said: "We have done what he wanted us to do: we have
made them birds. We have made it that those who will live in this
country in the water and near the river will be here. And they know
how to marry: they will have children and so they will continue. You
know how: you saw Ampoṭ-yamaθam-kuvevare become married. Those who
will live here have learned from that. But some will marry a woman and
feel well, but later they will become sick. We will tell about that
also. There will be men who dream about that, and such men will know
how to cure venereal disease. We will not tell you that here, but we
will go where the darkness goes, and when we come to another place
like Miakwa'orve, we will tell you there. Rattlesnake's
Playground[160] is that place. We will make you birds there, mountain
birds, who will not be about here. And there will be some who will
dream about us at that place."
[160] Hayekwire-nye-matāre, a dry lake bed which the railroad
crosses between Mojave station and Kramer. It is described as
about fifteen miles east of Mojave, wide, level, entirely
without vegetation, and surrounded by mountains.
99. Thrasher and Mockingbird at Rattlesnake's Playground teach veneral
cure.--Then they started; and near sunset they arrived at
Rattlesnake's Playground. Then Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya said: "When you have intercourse, you will think you
feel good. But some of you will be sick from that. Some women will
have a baby. When it is born, it will cause them great pain in the
belly. The pain will go back into them and will be a sickness in the
bones." Then they hooked their middle fingers into the middle fingers
of the people who were still with them and swung them to the left.
This they did to all of them, saying: "You will understand." After
they had been swung, all sat looking at the ground, and appeared thin
and sickly. Then the two talked to them again, and sang four songs.
When they had sung the four songs, the flesh had returned to them and
they were healthy once more; and they all shouted and laughed.
100. More songs for this.--The two said to them: "You have seen us do
that: you all know it now. When someone dreams about us, let him tell
what we have said. When they cure sickness, let them say what we have
said, and the sick person will get well. Sometimes a man will like a
woman. She will sleep with him and soon he will be sick. Or she will
like him, and kiss him, their saliva will come on each other, they
will become sick, and have pains in the body. Then sing about us and
you will cure them." Then they sang again for them.[161]
[161] Making the total number of songs used by the doctors of
such sickness much greater than the four first mentioned. In
addition, the narrator stated, Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya sang other songs, later learned by other people,
to cure different kinds of sickness; but of that he himself did
not dream.
101. At Three Mountains, Thrasher, Mockingbird, and rest turn to
mountain birds.--Now in the morning Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and
Hatšinye-kunuya wanted them to try to fly; they wished them to learn
flying. Four times they all rose into the air and settled again,
Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya with the others. Then they
flew off, northward to Three Mountains.[162] When they arrived there,
they were birds, and no longer knew where they came from. Then
Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya said: "Now we know nothing.
Now we think no more, for we are birds. We are Thrasher and
Mockingbird. When you dream of us, and tell of us and of Three
Mountains, for a person that is sick, you will cure him. Say: 'I saw
them do that: I heard them say that.' Then the person will become
well. Tell them that we said so and so."
[162] Avi-hamoka, described as being "near Tehachapi."
_N. Leftover Straggler Reaches the Sea: 102_
102. Hakutatkole, left for Pošoik sickness, goes south to sea and
becomes a bird.--Now when the others had all flown off to Three
Mountains, one of them, Hakutatkole, nevertheless had stayed at
Rattlesnake's Playground. He was sick with pošoik[163] in his mouth.
Ikinye-istum-kwamitše and Hatšinye-kunuya had said: "We do not want
that kind of man with us," and had left him. So he went south, alone,
until he reached Halyuilyve. Now at Konyokuvilyo and Ha'tana there was
another man, Himeikwe-halyepoma, who also taught, but about other
things. Hakutatkole, coming to where he lived, approached him with his
hand over his mouth; but Himeikwe-halyepoma, coming to meet him,
pulled away his hand from his mouth, and said: "Do not come here!" and
pushed him away. So Hakutatkole went south to the sea,[164] and there
he, too, became a bird.
[163] A minor skin disease, for which the Mohave do not employ
doctors. They fear it as contagious, however, and others do not
use the clothing or food dishes of the person afflicted.
Hakutatkole is said to have received this sickness from
swallowing sea fog: the bird is spotted inside the mouth.
[164] Cf. his illness being from sea fog.
THE LISTS OF MANUFACTURED WORDS
The most concise analysis of the counts in paragraphs 44-47 of the
story is given by a comparative tabulation such as follows. With its
subjoined notes, this table probably is as explanatory of the
processes followed in the distortions as is possible in the present
lack of analytic understanding of the Mohave language.
_First try_ _Second try_ _Third try_ _Final_
1. si-ntš si-_nye_ _ha_-TESA seto
2. _tšeku_-va-_ntš_ _mi_-va-_nye_ _ha_-KIVA havika
3. _tšeka_-mu-_ntš_ _mi_-ma-_nye_ _ha_-KOMA hamoka
4. _tšeka_-pa-_ntš_ _mi_-pa-_nye_ tšim-KAPA tšimpapa
5. _tšeka_-θara _mi_-ra-_nye_ θa-PARA θarapa
6. *umo-_ta_ {_mi_-*yu-_š_ TIN-_ye_ sīnta
{_mi_-*ka-_š_
7. _ku_-*tšye-_ta_ _nya_-_va_-hak-_um_ _še_-KIVE vīka
8. *koa-_tša_ _nya_-_va_-mok-_um_ KUM mūka
9. *kwisan _nya_-_tšu_-pai _a_-YAVE pāye
10. *noe {_nya_-_va_-*li _a_-PARE arrapa
{_nya_-_va_-*lak
_Underlined_: jingle increments.
CAPITALS: metathesized parts.
* Asterisks: stems or bases not found in any Yuman language (except
possibly 6, *umo-, cf. Yuma xumxuk; 7, -*tšye-, cf. Yuma pāx-kyê-k).
Remaining syllables are those parts of normal Mohave count words which
have survived the playful mutilations. They are of course not the
etymological bases, except sometimes by accident.
2, 3, 4 in actual Mohave appear also as havik, hamok, tšimpapk.
* * * * *
The made-up directional names, paragraph 49, do not yield to analysis
or relate to the standard forms.
_Trial_ _Standard_
_ha_-YE-_me_ matha-k
_ha_-KYE-_me_ kavei-k
_ha_-_yi_-_me_ inyohave-k
_ha_-_yi_-KE anya-k
The trial names for tribes, paragraph 51, are built around the
accented syllable of the normal Mohave form of the name. To this is
prefixed _ham_-, followed by the vowel -_a_- or -_i_-. This prefix may
possibly be taken from the Mohaves' name for themselves, Hamakhava or
Hamakhave. There is also a suffix -_vek_; which may or may not be
suggested by the final syllable of Hamakhave and Tšimuveve. These
devices yield a list that jingles with initial and final rhymes: but
the parts seem unetymological.
_Trial name_ _Mohave name_
_Ham_-_a_-PAI-_vek_ Walya-PAI (Hoalya-paya)
Yava-PAI (Yava-paya)
_Ham_-_i_-VE-_vek_ Tšimu-VE-ve
_Ham_-_i_-TŠAN-_vek_ Kwi-TŠAN-(a)
_Ham_-_i_-AI-_vek_ Kam-i-A(I) (Kamia)
_Ham_-_a_-HA-_vek_ Ham-ak-HA-ve
_Underlined_: jingle increments.
CAPITALS: retained accented syllable of real name.
The concocted names of objects having to do with preparation of food
seem not to be made by jingles or twistings, but to be descriptive
ritualistic circumlocutions somewhat like the long compound names of
myth personages. I cannot translate most of them; but there are a few
indications. The large tšuvave cook pot is called umas-te-hamoka
because it rests on three (hamoka) supports in the fire. Katela, a
double-pointed parching bowl, is spoken of as umas-eyavkwa-havik, the
last element meaning two. The frequent prefix umas- occurs in the
names of many myth personages; it seems to be a form of humar, child;
why it is used here is obscure. Umas-ekyire seems to be a distortion
of karri'i, the usual word for basket. Tšamatš-ke-hutšatš for tšamatš,
food, suggests Pa-hutšatš, another name for Mastamho, as in paragraphs
73-75; also his name in the Goose myth (Handbook, p. 767). The name
may mean "food person."
APPENDIX I: MOHAVE DIRECTIONAL CIRCUITS
These seven stories contain mentions of eight or nine directional
circuits, as per the list. Four of these circuits are sunwise; five,
if a half-circuit be included, run counter-sunwise. Three begin with
north; three with west; one with south; one with east; one with
southwest. None of the circuits has color associations; such do occur
in other tales, but they seem to be as variable as the directions and
starting points are variable here.
KEY:
A _Myth_
B _Paragraph_
C _Footnote_
D _Direction_
E _Begin_
F _End_
G _Reference_
A B C D E F G
Cane 81 71 Counter N E Dive to become beautiful
(Ct. n. 72)
Nyohaiva 34 65 Counter S W Create wand magically
Raven 4 10 Sunwise W S Create gourd magically
Raven 30 27 Counter E S Walk before transforming
Deer 5 13 Counter W N Look about
Deer 22 39 Sunwise W S 4 actual mountains cited
Mastamho 37 58 Sunwise SW SE 4 kinds of seeds planted
Mastamho 75 105 Counter N S _Half_ circuit, withdrawal
Mastamho 85 127 Sunwise N W Dancers' lines face
There are also cases of the directions being named in opposite pairs
instead of in a circuit. Thus in Cane, I, 7b, 11b, 15, 17b, girls are
obtained successively from W, E (as wives for the younger brother), N,
S (for the older). The cages of the girls' birds are twisted,
successively, of red and white, red and blue, (unstated), and red and
blue cloth. In Mastamho, paragraphs 49-50, the direction names are
taught in the order: N, S, W, E.
It is evident that the Mohave like the formalism of four times, of
cardinal directions, and often of a circuit; but that, especially as
compared with Hopi, Zuni, and Navaho, they are untrammeled as to turn,
start, end, color, or other associations. This is evidently because
they wholly lack strict rituals such as these other southwestern
tribes have developed so abundantly with manipulations, altars, cult
objects, schematized songs, fetishes, and priests.
APPENDIX II: MOHAVE NAMES RECURRING IN TWO OR MORE OF THE SEVEN TALES
1. PLACE NAMES
Aha-kwi-nyamasave, V:21, VII:9, 10.
Ahtšye-'aksāmta (-'iksāmta), I:39, III:4.
Amaṭ-kusaye (-yi), II:1, VII:36, 37.
Aqwāqa-hāve, II:9, III:15a, 32.
Avi-hamoka, VI:A, VII:101.
Avi-halykwa'ampa, (-hilykwampe), II:16, VII:39, 40.
Avi-kutaparve (-kwu-), I:37, II:24, 26, V:14, VII:34, 35, 81, 82, 98.
Avi-kwame, I:1a, 5, 24, 28, 77, 98, V:12, 13, 22, VII:4, 8, 12-18,
35, 40, 42, 80, 92.
Avi-kwi-nyamaθave, V:11, VII:14.
Avi-melyehwêke, I:54, V:22, 26.
Avi-mota, I:101, 102, VII:14.
Avi-('i)tšierqe, II:26, V:12.
Avi-veskwi, V:20, VII:16.
Ha'avulypo, IV:1, V:1, VII:1, 4-6, 11, 74, 92.
Hakutšyepa, I:51, II:11, IV:15.
Hotūrveve, I:44, III:9.
Hukθara-tš-huerve, V:11, VII:15.
Iδo-kuva'īre, I:39, 102, III:2, V:14.
Kamahnūlya, I:42, III:5, V:17.
Kwaparvete, II:15, VII:6 (probably different places).
Miakwa'orve, III:1, IV:25, VII:34, 35, 78, 85, 91, 92, 98.
Mukiampeve, I:104, VI:B.
Qara'erve, I:39, 98, V:15.
Selye'aya-'ita, I:56, II:11.
Selye'aya-kumitše, I:40, 91, II:22, III:4, V:16.
2. PERSONAGES, DEITIES
Kwayū, Meteor, I:37, 74-83, 104, VI:B.
Mastamho, V:1, VII:1-91.
Matavilya, I:1a, IV:1, 3, V:1, VII:1-5, 8, 11, 20.
θarra-veyo, θara-veyo-ve, Coyote, VI:A, VII:2.
3. ANIMALS
Hanye, frog, shell-ornament, I:65, 85, VII:40, 41.
Hotokoro, curve-billed thrasher, I:17b, IV:22, VII:81, 85-101.
Hukθara, coyote, V:9, VII:2.
Masohwaṭ, mythical (?) bird, I:86, IV:20.
Mahwa, badger, I:51, VII:1.
Nume, wildcat, I:42, V:17; nume-ta, jaguar, V:1, 22.
Sakwaθa'ālya, mockingbird (or magpie?), I:25, IV:23, VII:81, 85-101.
θinyere, sparrowhawk, I:25, VII:87.
θonoθakwe'atai, I:35, tonoθaqwataye, V:6, yanaθa-kwe-'ataye, III:4;
an insect.
4. KINSHIP
Havīkwek, younger sibling, III:11, 15e, navīkwek, my sibling, twin,
III:28, navik, my father's older brother, I:75, 77.
5. INANIMATE
Aksamta, a plant, I:82a, VII:37.
Hapurui, apurui, jar, V:9, VII:76.
Karri'i, basket, I:73, 75, VII:78.
Kupo, carrying basket, twine-wound, VI:A, VII:41.
Transcriber's Note
Variations in hyphenation, accent usage and spelling are preserved as
printed, except where there was a very clear error:
Page 6--Tšitsuvare amended to Tšitšuvare--Then Tšitšuvare said,
"Well, she is yours."
Page 12--Tasekyêlke amended to Tasekyêlkye--Tasekyêlkye sat by
him combing her hair with her fingers; ...
Minor punctuation errors have been repaired.
In a few sentences there may be a missing word, due to either author
or printer error. Alternatively, there may be no error at all, and the
phrasing is simply that of the original narrator of the story. In all
cases these are preserved as printed. The noted occurrences are as
follows:
Page 16, para 90--The boy wanted them to kill somebody with.
Page 17, para 92--His wife gave him to eat.
Page 31, para 15d--... and they, though saying it, nevertheless
gave her to eat; ...
Page 31, para 15e--I would like to know how they will do.
Page 53, para 4--How am I to?
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