Seven Mohave Myths. A. L. Kroeber
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.
[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