Creation Myths of Primitive America. Jeremiah Curtin
“who is a good Hlahi for water, and we will get him. Look at my children; they are almost dying of thirst. Tell us where their mother, Mem Loimis, is.”
“Oh, daylight, come quickly; be here right away! I am almost cut in two I am so dry. Oh, daylight, come quickly!” groaned Hubit.
No one mentioned another Hlahi. So Olelbis talked on—
“All the people said that Kopus was a good Hlahi. That is why I got him; but he is not a good Hlahi for water. Now we will get Sanihas Yupchi, the archer of daylight, who lives in the farthest east, he is the son of Sanihas. He is small, but he is a great Hlahi. Lutchi, you must go now for Sanihas Yupchi. Here are one hundred yellowhammer-wing arrows for him, all red, and many others.”
Lutchi went to the east end of the sweat-house, danced a little, sprang onto the sweat-house, danced a little more, and then whizzed away through the air. Lutchi travelled all day and all night, reached the place about daylight next morning, and said to Sanihas—
“Olelbis sent me here to ask your son to come and hlaha for him. He sends you all these five hundred arrows made of kewit reed and one hundred yellowhammer-wing arrows to come and hlaha.”
“You must go,” said Sanihas to her son, “and I will follow you. Olelbis is a yapaitu himself; he ought to know where that woman is—he thinks that he knows everything; but you go and hlaha, and hear what your yapaitu tells you.”
Sanihas Yupchi started, and was at the sweat-house in Olelpanti next morning just as the sun was rising. He went into the sweat-house, and Olelbis gave him many things.
“Give me tobacco,” said Sanihas Yupchi. “I am going to hlaha.”
Olelbis gave him a pipe with tobacco; he smoked it out and was not possessed. Olelbis gave him another pipeful, and he smoked it out, but was not possessed. He smoked out ten pipefuls, and then people said—
“I am afraid that the yapaitu will not come to him.”
He smoked twenty more pipefuls, still he was not possessed; then twenty more, did not hlaha.
“He is no Hlahi,” cried people on all sides; “if he were, the yapaitu would have come to him long ago.”
“The yapaitu he is waiting for does not live near this sweat-house; he is very far away,” said Toko. “Give him more tobacco.”
They gave him five pipefuls, then four, then one more—sixty in all; after that a yapaitu came to him.
“The yapaitu has come,” said Olelbis. “I want you to look everywhere and learn all you can; my children are nearly dead from lack of water; you must tell where Mem Loimis is.”
Sanihas Yupchi began to sing, and he said, “I will have the spirit dance to-night; the two Tsudi girls may sing for me.”
He danced twenty nights and days without saying a word—danced twenty days and nights more. The two Tsudi girls sang all the time. Then Sanihas Yupchi sat down, said nothing; he had found out nothing.
Again he danced five days and nights, then four days and nights, then one day and one night more. After that he sat down and said—
“I am going to speak. The place of which I am going to tell is a long way from here, but I am going to talk and let you hear what I say. Did any one see which way this woman Mem Loimis went?”
One person answered: “She went west a short distance to get something. That was the last seen of her.”
“Was anything the matter with that woman?” asked Sanihas Yupchi. “Does any one know?”
“Yes,” said Olelbis, “she was with child.”
“Well, while she was out, a man came to her and took her away with him, took her far north and then east beyond the first Kolchiken Topi, where the sky comes down, where the horizon is; he took her to the place where he lives, and he lives in Waiti Kahi Pui Hlut. His name is Kahit, and after he took her home they lived pleasantly together till her child was born. Kahit did not claim that child as his. After a while Mem Loimis grew angry at Kahit, left her child with him, and went eastward, went to the other side of the second horizon. She stayed there awhile, and gave birth to two sons, children of Kahit. Then she went farther east to a third horizon, went to the other side of that, stayed there, is living there now. The boy that was born when she lived with Kahit was Sotchet. Sotchet’s father was Olelbis. When the child grew up a little, Kahit said to him: ‘Your father lives in Olelpanti.’ ”
Sanihas Yupchi told all this, and said to Wokwuk and Kut, the two sons of Olelbis—
“Your mother has gone a long way from here. Mem Loimis is far from you. She is very far east. If I were at home, I could go to her quickly, but I am here. Now you must go and see your mother. In the far east you have two brothers, Kahit’s sons. When you have passed three Kolchiken Topis, three horizons, you will see them, and they will know you. The way to your mother and brothers is long. That is what my yapaitu says to me—my yapaitu is the Winishuyat of Patkilis.”
Sanihas Yupchi was Tsaroki Sakahl, a great person.
Wokwuk and Kut, the two sons of Olelbis by Mem Loimis, went away east. Patkilis’s Winishuyat, the yapaitu of Sanihas Yupchi, said that he would go and help them till they had passed the second horizon. They did not see him. He was invisible.
They travelled one day, came to the first horizon, and passed that; then travelled a second day, reached the second horizon, and passed that. The yapaitu, Patkilis’s Winishuyat, told them then how to pass the third horizon, and, having given every useful direction, went back to Sanihas Yupchi.
Sanihas Yupchi was waiting all this time in Olelpanti. Olelbis’s elder son, Wokwuk, had tied the hair on top of his head with a young grapevine and thrust a chirtchihas bone through it—his father had given him this bone at starting. With this bone he was to raise the sky. He put it under the edge of the sky and raised it. When he and his brother had passed through, the sky came down with a terrible noise. When they had passed the third sky, they could see far east. Everything was nice there and looked clear, just as it does here at daylight when all is bright and beautiful. After going a short distance they saw two boys coming toward them. Soon the four met.
“Hello, brothers!” called out the other two.
“Who are you?” asked Wokwuk. “How do you know that we are your brothers?”
“We know because our mother talks about you always. She told us this morning that we must go out and play to-day. ‘Perhaps you will see your brothers,’ said she to us; ‘perhaps they will come, we do not know.’ You have come, and now we will go to our mother.”
When they reached the house, on the third evening, the two sons of Olelbis stood by the door while Kahit’s two sons ran in and said: “Mother, our brothers have come!”
Mem Loimis was lying at the east end of the house. She was lying on a mem terek, water buckskin; her blanket was a mem nikahl, a water blanket.
“Well, tell them to come in.”
The brothers went in. Mem Loimis rose and said—
“Oh, my sons, I think of you always. I live far away from where you do, and you have travelled a long road to find me.” She spread the mem terek on the ground, and said: “Sit down here and rest.”
“My mother,” said the elder son of Olelbis, “my brother is very dry. We have had no water in Olelpanti for many years. Did you think that we could live without water?”
“I could not help your loss. What could I do?” said Mem Loimis. “I was stolen away and carried far north, and from there I came to this place; but your father is my husband. He knows everything; he can make anything, do anything, see everything, but he did not know that I was here. You shall have water, my children; water in plenty.”
She held a basket to her breast then and took water from it, as a nursing mother would take