Creation Myths of Primitive America Part 72

The old woman brought all the bows of her dead kindred; he broke all but one, which had a string made from the shoulder sinews of a deer.

He took that and went out. This day Howichinaipa hid himself in a cedar-tree: he was watching a bird. Pakalai Jawichi knew that he was there, and called with the voice of the bird that Howichinaipa was watching. Howichinaipa came down on the tree lower and lower, looking to see where the call came from.

Pakalai Jawichi was hidden in a tree opposite, where Howichinaipa could not see him; he kept calling, and Howichinaipa kept coming down.

Pakalai Jawichi had a good sight of him.

"If I hit him in the body," thought he, "the arrow will not hurt him; I must hit him in the outside toe."

He did that, and Howichinaipa fell to the ground wounded. Pakalai Jawichi pinned him to the earth with one arrow, then with another; pinned his two sides to the ground with two rows of arrows. Pakalai Jawichi ran home.

"Oh, grandmother!" cried he.

"What is the matter?" asked the old woman; "you came near falling into the fire."

"There is some one out here; I want you to see him."

The old woman took her cane and followed Pakalai Jawichi.

"Do you see that person lying there?"

The old woman looked, and saw the person who had killed her son, saw him pinned to the earth. She was so glad that she cried, she dropped down then, and rolled on the ground; after that she jumped up and danced around his body, danced many times, danced till she was tired.

"Hereafter," said Pakalai Jawichi, "everybody will call you Howichinaipa. You will be a person no longer; you will be only a little bird, with these arrow-marks on both sides of your breast."

He became a little bird then and flew away, the little bird which we call Howichinaipa.

Next morning after the second hunt Jupka heard loud shouting in the east; a great Mapchemaina had thrust his head above the edge of the sky. This person had beautiful feathers waving on his head. Jupka had made him shout, and he said to him,--

"Every time you rise up and show yourself to the people of Jigulmatu you must shout in that way."

This great person in the east had two dogs; they were small, but very strong. "Which of you is coming with me?" asked he that morning. "I want a good dog; I am always afraid when I travel in the daytime."

"I will give you a name now," said Jupka to this person in the east.

"All people will call you hereafter by the name which I give now. The name which I give you is Tuina. You will be known always by this name.

And your name," said he to the dog, "will be Machperkami."

When Tuina was ready to start, he made his small dog still smaller, very small; put him under the hair on the top of his head, and tied him in there.

When all dressed and ready, with the dog fastened in his hair, Tuina became as full of light as he is in our time. Before he was dressed and armed and had his dog on his head Tuina had no brightness, but when he started he filled this whole world with light, as he does now in the daytime.

Bohkuina had made a road for Tuina to travel on; he had made this road in the sky, and Tuina went straight along to the west by it, till he reached the great water. When he was ready to plunge into the water, a hatenna (grizzly bear) of the water was coming out and saw him. Tuina put his hands out and motioned with his arms as if they were wings, motioned as if to jump in.

"Tuina is coming!" said the grizzly bear of the water. "It will be too hot here if he comes. Let us make ready and go to high mountains. We cannot stay here if Tuina comes."

A great crowd of water grizzlies came out of the ocean and went away to the mountains. Tuina jumped into the water, and it rose on all sides, boiled up, rolled away over the sh.o.r.e, every kind of sh.e.l.l of the ocean went to land at the same time.

Tuina went far into the water, way down to the bottom; he went through the bottom, deep under the water and the ground, and returned to the east.

Long before that Jupka had made a road under the earth for Tuina to travel on, a road back to the east. Jupka turned the earth bottom upward, and made this road right through from west to east; and before Tuina started Jupka said to him,--

"I have made a road, a straight road under the earth for you, a good road; there are no rocks on it, all is smooth. Bohkuina made the road on the sky, the road from east to west for you to run on; I made the road down below, the road under the earth from west to east. When you reach the east, you will rest a while, rise in the morning, come up and go west again on the road which Bohkuina made; you will do this every day without failing; you will do this all the time."

When Jupka stopped talking, Tuina went west, went back in the night on Jupka's road; and so he does always.

The day after Jupka had talked with Tuina, given him his name and his work, he said, "I will make Yana now, and I will give them a good country to live in."

He took buckeye-sticks, broke off a large number; he wished to lay them down on the top of Jigulmatu and make Yana. He put down the first stick and said, "I will call this one Iwilau Yana" (Yana of the middle place).

When he had said these words, a man rose up before him, a Yana.

"You will stay here in this middle country," said Jupka. "You will be chief."

Jupka put down another buckeye-stick, and it became a Yana woman at Jupka's word. He put down a third stick, which became a boy.

"This is an orphan without father or mother," said Jupka; and he called the boy Hurskiyupa.

Jupka put other buckeye-sticks, a large number of them, around the first Yana, the chief, and made common people. They all stood around the chief and Jupka said to them,--

"This is your chief; he will tell you what to do; you must obey him and do what he commands."

"Now," said Jupka, "what will the people of the middle country eat?

what shall I give them?" and he thought a while. "You will eat clover," said he, "and roots. I will give you sticks to dig these roots. You will eat fish, too, and venison. Eat and be strong, be good Yana people. When the chief wants a deer, he will call you together and say, 'I wish to eat venison; I want you to go out, I want you to hunt deer and bring home venison to eat.' You must obey the chief always."

NOTES

The following notes are put in as condensed a form as possible. They are confined to explanations of the actors or characters in the myths, and to information concerning the meaning of names of persons and places.

The myths from one to nine inclusive are Wintu, from ten to the end Yana. These two nations, though neighbors, are not related; their languages are radically different.

In 1895 I made a journey to California in consequence of an arrangement with the late Charles A. Dana, editor of "The Sun."

According to this arrangement, Mr. Dana was to publish on consecutive Sundays such myth-tales as I might think of sufficient value to appear in his paper. Those myths were to be found by me in California, Mexico, and Guatemala.

I began at the source of the Sacramento River, and worked down to the mouth, my last stopping-place being the extensive hop-fields in the lower valley.

In San Francisco I wrote the following short account of the Wintus.

That done, I set out for Mexico.

In the city of Guadalajara I copied the myths obtained in California and sent them to "The Sun." After that I worked at "Quo Vadis," the greater part of which I translated in Guadalajara.

All the myths in this volume were published in "The Sun," and appeared as a part of a series pertaining to Indians in California, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Only the California part has been published thus far.