Creation Myths of Primitive America. Jeremiah Curtin
“You boys are all my children. You are sons of Mem Loimis. I am here now; but if there should be disturbance, if trouble were to rise, my husband Kahit would come and take me away. He told me so. Some day my husband Olelbis will know his son in the north who is living with Kahit. Some day my husband Olelbis will think of me; he may want me to come to him, he may wish to see me.”
Wokwuk and Kut stayed five days with their mother, then one day, and after that one day more. Sanihas Yupchi, who was dancing and chanting in Olelpanti continually, said after the boys had gone:
“Get me a suhi kilo” (a striped basket).
Olelbis got him the suhi kilo, a little basket about two inches around, and very small inside. Sanihas Yupchi put it in the middle of the sweat-house. Nine days more passed, and Sanihas Yupchi was dancing all the time.
That morning Mem Loimis said to Kut, the youngest son of Olelbis—
“Your uncle Mem Hui, an old man, who lives at the first horizon west of Olelpanti, is dry. He is thirsting for water. Take water to him. Your elder brother will stay here with me while you are gone.”
Sanihas Yupchi had danced fifty-nine days. On the sixtieth evening Mem Loimis gave Kut a basketful of water for his uncle in the west.
“Go,” said she, “straight west to where the old man lives. When you have reached Mem Hui with the water, I will go and see my son Sotchet in the north. I hear him cry all the time. He is dry. I will carry him water.”
She gave Kut, in a net bag before he started, ten gambling sticks cut from grapevine. She tied the bag around his neck, and said—
“Son of Mem Loimis, you will be a bola heris; you will be a great gambler.”
Kut was a very quick traveller, and could go in one night as far as his brother in many nights and days. He started. There were holes in the bottom of the basket, and as he went over the sky, high above the top of Olelpanti Hlut, the water dropped and dropped through the holes in the basket, and just before morning one drop fell from the basket which Kut was carrying, and dropped into the basket which Sanihas Yupchi had placed in the middle of the sweat-house at Olelpanti.
No one saw the water come, but in the morning the little basket was full; the one drop filled it.
“Now,” said Sanihas Yupchi, “I have worked as Hlahi all this time, and that drop of water is all that I can get. You see it in the basket.”
The little basket in Olelbis’s house that the one drop filled stood there, and Olelbis said—
“Now you are dry, all you people in this sweat-house. You are thirsty, you are anxious for water. Here is one drop of water. We do not know who will drink first; but there is an old man on the west side of the sweat-house crying all the time, crying night and day, for water. Let him come and look at it.” He meant Hubit.
Hubit stood up, came, looked at the basket and said: “What good is this to me? There is only a drop there. It will do me no good.”
“Drink what there is; you talk so much about water,” replied all the others, “that you would better drink.”
“That drop can do no good to any one.”
“Well, take a taste, anyhow,” said Olelbis; “it will not hurt you.”
“I don’t want a taste, I want a drink,” answered Hubit.
“Take a drink, then,” said Olelbis.
Hubit began to drink. He drank and drank, took his belt off about the middle of the forenoon, put his head on the edge of the basket and drank from morning till midday, drank till two men had to carry him away from the water and lay him down at the upper end of the sweat-house.
Though Hubit drank half a day, the water in the basket was no less.
Kiriu Herit drank next. He drank long, but did not lower the water. After him Sutunut drank till he was satisfied; then Moihas drank all he wanted.
“Let all come and drink. When each has enough, let him stand aside,” said Olelbis.
Tsararok drank, and then Kuntihle drank; then Hus and Tsurat; after them the old women, Pakchuso Pokaila, the grandmothers of Olelbis, drank; then Toko; then Kopus drank. But the people murmured, saying—
“Kopus is no Hlahi; he ought not to have any of our water. He is only good for acorns.”
The two Tsudi girls, who had sung so long, drank very heartily.
Lutchi lived outside, east of the sweat-house; they called him to drink. He took one sip and went out. Lutchi never liked water.
Now Sanihas Yupchi, who had brought the water, drank of it; and last of all, Olelbis.
When all were satisfied, and Toko had gone back and lain down in his place north of the sweat-house, the basket was put near him; and ever after Toko had water in abundance, and so had every one.
There was plenty of water ever after in Olelpanti for all uses; but if Sanihas Yupchi had not brought it, all might have perished for want of water.
“I will go home now,” said Sanihas Yupchi, after he had drunk. He wished well to every one and went away.
When Kut was carrying the basket westward, every drop that fell made a spring—wherever a drop fell a spring appeared.
NORWAN
This myth, which recalls the Helen of Troy tale, is extremely interesting both as regards personages and structure. At present I shall make but few remarks, and those relating only to personages. Hluyuk Tikimit, quivering porcupine, known here as Norwan, is the cause of the first war in the world. The porcupine in American mythology is always connected with sunlight, so far as my researches go, and Norwan is connected with daylight, for she dances all day, never stops while there is light. Her title of Bastepomas, food-giving, is also significant, and would help to show that she is that warm, dancing air which we see close to the earth in fine weather, and which is requisite for plant growth. We have another “light” person in this myth, Sanihas, who is light in a generic sense, daylight generally and everywhere. The root Sa in Sanihas is identical with Sa in Sas, the Wintu word for “sun.” Sa means “light” and Sas “for light,” i.e. for the purpose of giving light. Sanihas is the light which is given.
In Bastepomas, the title given by Olelbis to Norwan, the first syllable ba means “to eat,” bas means “for to eat” or food, tep means “to give,” and tepomas “she who gives;” the whole word means “she who gives food.”
Chulup Win Herit, the great chief, the white, pointed stone who lives on the bed of the great eastern water, the ocean, the husband of Sanihas, has a counterpart in Tithonos, the husband of Eos or Aurora, in classic mythology. Both had beautiful wives, and were visited by them nightly in the bed of the ocean. Chulup’s tragedy is somewhat greater, for he is caught by Wai Karili and pounded into bits near the present Mt. Shasta, while Tithonos is only changed into a cricket. Eos, the Latin Aurora, was considered as the whole day by most poets, and Sanihas in Wintu mythology is the whole day, all the light that Sas gives.
There was a reason why Norwan preferred Tede Wiu to Norbis, but we can only infer it at present. The present Wiu bird is brown, and has no significance in this connection, but there was a red Wiu, the bird into which the Tede Wiu who fought with Norbis was changed. That he was a person who might be preferred by Norwan, herself a special form of light, is evident when we consider the immense importance in European tradition of the robin-redbreast and of the red-headed woodpecker among Indians.
That Norwan, food-giving light on the earth, was worth fighting for, is evident.
PERSONAGES
After each name is given that of the beast, bird, or