Seven Mohave Myths. A. L. Kroeber
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.
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.