Seven Mohave Myths
by A. L. Kroeber · English · Gutenberg #46336 · 396,083 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Seven Mohave Myths
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Seven Mohave Myths
Author: A. L. Kroeber
Release date: July 19, 2014 [eBook #46336]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46336
Credits: Produced by Colin Bell, Joseph Cooper, Sam W. and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN MOHAVE MYTHS ***
Transcriber's Note
This text uses phonetic notation to indicate pronunciation. The
following characters are used within the text:
lowercase Greek delta, δ
lowercase a with macron above, ā
lowercase i with macron above, ī
lowercase l with stroke, ł
lowercase o with macron above, ō
upper and lowercase s with caron above, Š and š
lowercase u with macron above, ū
lowercase Greek theta, θ
lowercase t with dot below, ṭ
If any of these characters do not display correctly, you may wish to
adjust your font, browser or reader settings. If this is not possible,
you may wish to refer to another format of this e-book.
Superscripted text is indicated by a carat character followed by one
or more characters in braces, e.g. hat-^{a}kwil^{a}. The character(s)
in braces are superscripted.
The original book was typewritten, and underlined text is indicated
with _underscores_.
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
_
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/46336