Creation Myths of Primitive America Part 75

His discourse with the Hus brothers is curious; it represents the immortality and goodness of a weak and limited creature like man as barren and monotonous. The comparison of this conversation with the account of Adam and Eve before and after the Fall is not without interest.

The critical, unbelieving, disobedient Sedit, who is so willing to make life in the world varied and interesting through death, so long as the question stands apart from his own immortality, and his great concern and anxiety when he thinks that he must himself die, is brought out in good relief.

The earnest and honest Hus brothers stand in strong contrast to the sneering Sedit. The Hus character is a lofty one in Wintu mythology.

This may seem strange to a new student of Indian ideas, when he remembers what a foul creature the turkey buzzard is.

The buzzard is considered as a purifier on earth, and surely in regions like Central America the service rendered by the bird in this regard is memorable. The buzzard is everywhere the most frequent and striking figure in Guatemala and Southern Mexico, both in city and country. In California there is a fine of five dollars for killing one.

The original Hus character is conceived by the Wintus as striving toward religious purification as strenuously as the earthly buzzard works at cleaning the earth of carrion of various descriptions.

The following remarks accompanied this tale when published in "The Sun":--

This tale of Sedit and the Hus brothers is a splendid bit of aboriginal American philosophy, and touches on topics which have exercised many minds besides those of primitive America. The subject of life and death is treated here so simply, and at the same time so well, that I believe few readers would ask for explanation or comment.

Some statements, however, touching Sedit are not out of place, I think. The coyote is very prominent in the mythology of every region where he is found. The basis of his character is the same in all myths that I have collected. He is a tremendous glutton, boastful, talkative, cunning, exceptionally inclined to the other s.e.x, full of curiosity, a liar, a trickster, deceiving most adroitly, and is deceived himself at times. He comes to grief frequently because of his pa.s.sions and peculiar qualities. He is an artful dodger, who has points in common with the devil of European folk-lore, being in many cases an American counterpart of this curious and interesting personage.

Of Northern Pacific coast tribes in the United States, the Modocs have given most distinction to the coyote. Among them the chief coyote is a trickster on the grandest scale, and has obtained possession of the indestructible disk of the sun, through which he is immortal, or, at least, is renewed every day to carry that luminary. Because of his vanity and boastfulness, the coyote undertakes various enterprises in which he fails through his pa.s.sions.

Sacred springs and small lakes in the mountains are very prominent in the Modoc religion. A young man who hopes to be a magician or a doctor goes to these mountain springs before he is married or knows woman.

There he fasts and watches a week or longer until he is nearly exhausted. If he is to be a magician or doctor, spirits appear to him in this interval. A coyote went to those mountains (in the time before men were on earth, of course), hoping to gain great magic power, but on the way he ate various kinds of food hateful to the spirits of the springs. These spirits were disgusted with the odor of food that came from him, struck him with mange, drove him away, made him hungry, foul, and wretched forever. He ran away, howling and lamenting, without hope of pardon. From this coyote are descended an especially bad breed of coyotes in Oregon. They are all foul and hungry to this day. In dark windy nights the mangy descendants of that glutton are heard bewailing the fault of their ancestor, their own fallen state and lost happiness.

The Shasta Indians have a long tale of a coyote whose fond grandmother tried to make him a great sorcerer. When the time came, she sent him to the sacred mountain and gave every instruction. He was not to stop, eat, or drink on the road, or to speak to any one. When about two-thirds of the distance, he pa.s.sed near a house; inside was loud thumping and hammering; a frog woman was pounding seeds and singing; her house was full of food; coyote caught the odor of it, stopped, could not resist the temptation to go in. He went in, ate and drank everything put before him. In Indian mythology frog women are not vestals; so breaking his fast and gluttony were not his only offences.

He had fallen past redemption. On leaving the frog woman's house he went through a series of unmentionable adventures, at the end of which there was nothing left but his head, which was in a pool by the wayside, and just as much alive as ever.

Two sisters, afterwards ducks, who were going that way, found and pitied the unfortunate. It was not easy to carry him, but the younger promised to do so if he would shut his eyes and not open them till she set him down on his grandmother's threshold. This condition was to prevent him from seeing how she carried him. When half-way home, curiosity overcame him. Though only a head, he opened his eyes and fell to the ground.

The duck woman had pity again, and took him to his grandmother. Loud was her wailing at sight of her lost and ruined grandson.

Sedit came to grief through peculiarities of character.

HAWT

This myth of Hawt is very curious and subtle; it is one of the best told tales that I have found anywhere. There is a largeness about it, and, at the same time, a perfectly firm grasp on the part of Waida Dikit, the master of the a.s.sembly, that produce a grand effect.

Though the story is long, it needs, I think, no explanation beyond what is stated in the introduction and in preceding notes, except some remarks touching the character of Hawt.

Hawt, the great musician, is identified with water; he is, as it were, the spirit of water made visible.

In this myth, only the musical powers of Hawt are exhibited; but in the Yana Tirukala, which means the same thing as Hawt (lamprey eel), we see the active side of the same personage, we see him as a worker.

Original is Hawt indeed,--a living flute fingering his own body as he would an instrument; inhaling air and blowing it out through the apertures in his sides.

The present lamprey eel has marks, as it were, of holes in his sides.

NORWANCHAKUS AND KERIHA

This tale contains actions and a number of personages difficult to identify, because their names are merely epithets. Eltuluma means "he swims in;" but who it is that swims in we know not. Keriha seems connected with ducks, from the fact that he wore a duck-skin all his life on earth, and, when he threw off this skin, all ducks were produced from it.

Norwanchakus means the southern end of that staff or stick to which was attached the net with which these two brothers dragged Pui Mem and Bohema Mem, and named each place from the thing which came into the net in front of it.

Nodal Monoko (the little man who ate so many salmon and sturgeons, and carried so many away in his bag) means "sweet in the south." He has another name, Nodal Wehlinmuk, which means "salt in the south." At first he is hostile to grizzly bears, but later has intimate relations with them and marries one. His acts point strongly toward electricity or lightning. His bag, in which the whole world could be put away, may well have been a cloud bag.

Norwinte means "seen in the south;" but, again, we have no knowledge of the person seen. Poni Norwanen Pitchen, the full name of Norwan, is also an epithet meaning "daughter of the land on the southern border,"

and would convey no information if it stood alone; but as Norwan, in addition to many other details, is also the dancing porcupine and the food-producing woman, we know who she is.

The existence of Puriwa and Sanihas (darkness and daylight) before the sun was in the world, is most interesting. This is one of many proofs that every phenomenon was considered to be independent. Daylight is a personage quite apart from the sun, who is merely that old Sas who fought with Tulchuherris, and who travels through the sky every day from east to west in utter loneliness. He carries that glowing torch which we see as he moves on his way through the sky; but the light of day is a separate personage. Similar considerations apply to Puriwa, darkness or night, who is also a distinct and independent ent.i.ty.

The struggle between Keriha and Hubit has much charm for Wintus; they laugh heartily at the recital of it.

KELE AND SEDIT

Old Kele, the mountain wolf, is evidently one of the first people sent down from the sky by Olelbis; not in part, but in person. His sons and daughters were not his children, but his creation; he made them from sticks, just as Jupka made the Yanas at Jigulmatu.

In the note to "Kol Tibichi" is a Wintu account of the character and actions of Kele's sons and daughters. A very interesting and valuable account this is; it explains the werewolf idea perfectly. The wolf man of Northern Europe, the _Lykanthropos_ of the Greeks, must have been just such a person as Kele's sons and daughters, who were people apparently when they went forth to harm Indians, but who turned into wolves when they were discovered and rebuked. At home, in their great sweat-house, those people are wolves; but when they go out on their travels up and down through the world, they are exactly like Wintus, save only the hairy foot.

KOL TIBICHI

In connection with this tale I add the following remarks about one of the two modes of making doctors, and about certain spirits. These remarks are given, as nearly as possible, in the form of the original Wintu narrative.

I have added, besides, the songs of four great existences, or G.o.ds.

Every individual existence in Indian mythology has its own song. This song refers to what is most notable in the actions or character of that existence. The given song is sung by a doctor immediately after its spirit of that existence has entered him.

Kol Tibichi's yapaitu (yapaitu is another name for one of the first people), the rainbow, would not leave him till he used a woman's red ap.r.o.n as a headband, because the rainbow is connected with the catamenial periods of Sanihas (daylight).

The yapaitu dokos (yapaitu missile), mentioned further on, is a projection of the spirit itself of the yapaitu. Sometimes it flees from the patient; the duty of the doctor, in such a case, is to find the dokos. If he does not, it may return to the sick man after the doctor has gone; and in that case the last condition of the patient is worse than the first. Generally, however, it waits to be cast out.

THE MAKING OF DOCTORS AMONG THE WINTUS

The chief a.s.sists always in this ceremony, because a doctor can be made only in a sweat-house. Two chiefs may consult together and agree with old doctors in this matter, or one chief may do so if it suits him. If doctors begin, they must consult the chief, because he owns the sweat-house. The doctors and the chief or chiefs agree upon the time, and then give out the news that on a certain night they are going to create doctors. Young persons who wish to be doctors go to the sweat-house; most of the old people stay at home.

The men heat the sweat-house, shut it up closely, and sit down. Sweat pours from them like rain. When they have sweated sufficiently, all go to the river and swim. After that the people, men and women, go into the sweat-house. One doctor or two will begin to sing. Young unmarried men or women who are candidates present themselves. The doctors suck out of these all that is bad in them, all that is impure, unclean.

They suck the forehead, breast, back, arms. At times they suck out blood; at times something sharp like a fine bone comes out. They suck out everything that is evil. When they have finished sucking, the doctor sings again, and puts a yellowhammer's feather into each ear of the candidate. The feather may go in out of sight, or the doctor puts it on the person's head, and the feather may sink through his skull.

Now the people dance, and especially the candidates for the dignity of doctor. The chief goes out, stands on the housetop, and calls to all the yapaitu in the rocks, in the water, in Olelpanti, in the trees, in bathing springs, to come. "We are going to make doctors," says the chief; "you must come and help my people."

After this the chief goes in, and they close every hole, every c.h.i.n.k in the sweat-house; close them all safely. There is no fire, no light, inside. When they have begun to talk in the sweat-house, one doctor calls to all the spirits of yapaitu in the east, west, north, south to come. Pretty soon a spirit may be heard on the housetop; spirits make a whistling noise when they come. That moment a man or woman falls down, and all know that the spirit has gone into that person's head.

Now the doctor calls, "One more; one more!"

In a moment another whistling may be heard as the spirit touches the housetop and goes in. Another man or woman falls; the spirit has entered that one. The persons into whom spirits have entered know nothing. They become as if crazy, as if they had lost their wits. They try to go to the housetop. Some try to climb the central pole; some want to leave the sweat-house; they know nothing for half an hour perhaps.

One doctor keeps on calling spirits, and they come one at a time. Many doctors may be made in one night, or a few, or none. There are always many people in the sweat-house to whom spirits will not come. The spirits never go into people unless they like them. The spirit looks straight through a man and knows him immediately.

The people dance all night. There is no light in the sweat-house; the place is very hot, though there is no fire there. Next day those to whom spirits have come tell the doctors and chief what spirits are with them. If not, the chief may give them food offensive to the spirits, and the spirits would kill them if they ate. Some spirits may stay two or three days with a person, who would then sit inside all the time. The old doctors have to ask this spirit what it wishes, and make it go away for a time, so that the person possessed may eat something. Each spirit has its own kind of food. If we give a man something that the spirit has never eaten, it will kill him right away if he eats. The old doctors ask his spirit what it wants, and it tells. The salmon spirit, for instance, likes leaves or water; a sucker of the mountains would eat mountain pine nuts, but a valley sucker needs nuts off the digger pine. If strange food is placed before a spirit, it is afraid; and if the man possessed eats this food, the spirit will kill him. Some spirits don't like buckskin, and the man to whom they have come must not wear it.

The bad spirits are numerous; the sucker is one of these, and so is Kele (the mountain wolf). This wolf is dangerous; it may hurt you in this way: you may think that you see a good-looking man or woman on the mountain or in the woods. If you go toward this person or this person comes toward you, comes near you, speaks to you, and you agree with it, the next thing you know this strange man or woman turns into a wolf, runs away, and your mind is gone; the wolf has taken it. The sucker does the same, but disappears before your eyes or turns into something ugly.