Creation Myths of Primitive America Part 42

"You are waiting to do something. You want to do harm."

"Oh, no; I am only looking around here, just trying to find the door.

I wanted to see some one."

"You are ready to shoot a yapaitu dokos. You want to kill Notisa. You are watching around here to kill him."

"Oh, no, I am not. I am just looking around, not doing anything."

"You are ready to kill Notisa, the chief. You are waiting to kill him," said Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi's yapaitu, who just took hold of the strange yapaitu, twisted him, killed him right there, and buried him.

Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi's mother took her son into the chief's house. The boy knew what had been done. His yapaitu told him what he had done, and came in with him. The boy sat down near Notisa.

People thought the chief ready to die, thought that he might die any moment. "Let the boy put his hand on the sick man," said they.

"Put your hand on the chief," said the father. "You must do what you can. You must try, do your best to cure him."

Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi spat on his hands, pa.s.sed them over Notisa's breast and face. "I am sleepy, my mother, oh, I am so sleepy," said the boy, when he had pa.s.sed his hands over the chief.

"He cannot do more to-night," said the father. "We will go home."

Next morning people in the sweat-house heard a man talking outside. He came in and said, "I am well!" This was Notisa.

"We are glad," said the people. "Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi has saved you."

The boy grew up and became a great Hlahi. When twenty years old, he was the greatest Hlahi on Wini Mem.

One year there was a Hlahi dance in El Hakam. Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi was a man.

He was thirty years old then. He went to the dance. Tulitot was the great Hlahi in that place, and he thought himself better than Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi. While dancing, Tulitot took a snake from his mouth, a large rattlesnake, and held it in both hands as he danced. The snake was his own child. Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi looked, and thought he could do better; and, dancing forward, he blew, as Hlahis do, and threw out long burning flames on both sides of his mouth. All present were afraid, and with Tulitot ran back before him in fear.

When the dance was over, Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi went to Norpat Kodi and lived on, a great Hlahi: lived till he was a hundred years of age and more. He could not walk any longer. He knew that he could not live. "I cannot live any more," said he. "My yapaitu tells me this,--I cannot walk. I cannot do anything. My yapaitu tells me that I must leave Norpat Kodiheril. [He was not sick, but decrepit.] My yapaitu is going to take me and leave my bones in this place with you. When I go from my body, do not bury it. Leave it on the ground out there. Let it lie one night. Next morning you will see a large rock in place of it. When people are sick, let them come and take a piece of the rock, or some earth, or some moss from it; that will cure them."

"We will not do that," said Notisa, a son of the first chief; "we bury every body, and we will bury yours like all others."

"Do not bury my bones," said Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi.

"We should not like to see your bones all the time. We have no wish to see a rock in place of them."

"Well, take my body to the black-oak tree, put it eight or ten feet from the ground, leave it there one night; next morning you will see water in a hollow of the oak. Any man may come and get that water, rub it on his body, and drink some. It will cure him."

"No," said the chief, "we don't want to see the tree there every day.

We do not wish to look at it all the time."

"Dig a deep grave, then," said Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi; "put my body in with nothing around it. When you come to mourn, do not stand east of the grave-mound. On the morning after my burial you will see a rainbow coming out of the grave."

Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi died. They did everything just as he told them. All saw the rainbow and said, "We ought to have left his body above ground, and to have done all that he asked of us at first. The yapaitu is mourning for him."

The rainbow stood there two days and two nights at the grave, then moved two feet eastward. Next morning it was four feet away, then eight, going farther day by day till it was at the salmon-house where Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi used to go when a boy. It stood there by the salmon-house five days. Next it was on the north bank of the river, then on the hillside beyond, then on the hilltop, then on the mountain-slope, then on the mountain-top. Next all the people in Norpat Kodiheril heard a noise and knocking in the grave-mound one night, and early next morning they saw an immense bird rising out of Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi's grave.

First the head came, and then the body. At sunrise it came out altogether, and flew to the sugar-pine from which Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi had hung head downward in childhood. It perched on the tree, stayed five minutes, and then flew away, flew to the mountain, to the rainbow, went into the rainbow. The bird and rainbow went away, disappeared together. The bird was Komus Kulit. The rainbow was Kol Tib.i.+.c.hi's yapaitu.

THE WINNING OF HALAI AUNA AT THE HOUSE OF TUINA

This myth and all that follow it belong to the Yanas, a nation of Indians described in the notes. The nine preceding myths are of the Wintus, neighbors of the Yanas.

The languages of these two nations are radically different.

PERSONAGES

After each name is given that of the creature or thing into which the personage was changed subsequently.

=Chuhna=, spider; =Halai Auna=, morning star; =Igupa Topa=, ----; =Ochul Marimi=, mountain lion; =Pul Miauna=, colored bow, the rainbow; =Pun Miaupa=, son of rainbow; =Tuina=, the sun; =Utjamhji=, mock sun; =Wakara=, the moon; =Wediko=, meteor; =Marimi= means woman.

Old Pul Miauna had a son, Pun Miaupa, a wife, and two daughters.

Pun Miaupa had a quarrel with his father and made up his mind to leave him. "I am going away," said he to his father and mother one day. "I am tired of living here."

The mother began to cry.

"Which way are you going?" asked the father.

Pun Miaupa gave no answer; wouldn't tell his father where he was going. The father stood up and walked out of the house. The mother stopped crying and said,--

"I want you to go straight to my brother, your uncle Igupa Topa. Tell him where you are going. Do not go without seeing him."

Pun Miaupa left his mother, went to his uncle's, stood on the roof of the sweat-house. The old man was very busy throwing out gra.s.s that day. A great many people had gambled at his house a day earlier; they had left much gra.s.s in it.

"Uncle, are you alive?" asked Pun Miaupa.

The old uncle looked up and saw his nephew, who said,--

"Uncle, I am full grown. I am going on a very long journey, I am going far away. My mother told me to come here and see you."

"Where are you going, my nephew?"

"To the north."

"I thought so," said the old man, who knew that his nephew would go to get Wakara's youngest daughter.

Wakara took all his daughter's suitors to Tuina's sweat-house, and they were killed there. Igupa Topa knew this and said, "Wait a little, nephew, I will go with you."

"Uncle," said Pun Miaupa, "you are too old. I don't want you to go; the journey would kill you. I want to travel very fast on this journey."