Creation Myths of Primitive America / In relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind

“Jupka, I wish to go into your sweat-house,” said she. “When I go in, you will like me, you will like to see me. I am nice to look at.”

She changed; made herself very beautiful then. No one could know her; no one could know that that woman was the Hehku who had hunted Tsanunewa.

At sunrise all the people in Jupka’s sweat-house heard steps above, heard walking on the sweat-house. The two women were there. Hehku came to the roof-door and said,—

“Jupka, put away your things; clear your house. I want to come down and gamble with you. I dreamed last night that I played with you.”

Jupka was lying with his head to the north. He made no answer. Hehku went down.

“Sit on the west side,” said Jupka to the two sisters; and he told Malewula to spread out two robes, one of cinnamon, the other of black bearskin. All the people held down their heads. None looked at the women except Malewula.

“I should be glad to give these women something to eat,” said Malewula, “but I don’t know what they like; let us offer them venison.”

He roasted venison, put it before them in a basket; they wouldn’t eat it, wouldn’t taste or touch it. Then he brought dried salmon in small pieces; the women turned away their faces. Next he put salmon flour and mountain-pine nuts before them; they wouldn’t eat, turned aside their faces.

“Take this food away,” said Hehku; “we don’t wish to eat. I came here to see people, I came here to gamble.”

The Mapchemaina said nothing for a long time. At last Kaitsiki spoke up.

“I do not know how to gamble, I cannot play,” said he.

“I do not like to hear you talk so. I know you,” said Hehku. “I know that you gamble a great deal. I know that you began to gamble long ago.”

Kaitsiki made no answer. He went to get gambling-sticks (counters). He brought grass and fixed everything for the play. They sat down, Hehku on the west, Kaitsiki on the east.

“What will you play for, what will you bet?” asked the woman.

Kaitsiki took his shell necklace, hung it up, and said, “I will begin with this.”

Hehku handled the Jupaiauna; it was hers, and made of a finger-bone. Kaitsiki guessed “north” the first time, and lost; after that he guessed north once and south once, lost both times; after that he lost his ten sticks.

“Take the necklace and hang it on our side,” said Hehku to Miniau.

When Hehku put her hands out, she held them together in front before opening them, and sang “Wahau Putokya jinda Marimi” (You will not win against Putokya Marimi); and the bone went to the side opposite the one guessed. The singing made it go. When Kaitsiki guessed “north,” if the bone was in Hehku’s right hand, the south side, it stayed there; if it was in her left hand, the north side, it went to her right. In this way no one could ever win against Hehku.

“Play again,” said Hehku.

Kaitsiki bet and lost. He lost one thing after another till he bet his last, a belt of red-headed woodpecker scalps. It was very beautiful. Hehku was glad.

“This is the bet,” said she, “that Perriwiri Yupa always makes. He bets a girdle like this when I play with him.”

“I will guess south all the time now,” said Kaitsiki. He lost five times, then changed his mind, guessed north.

All the Mapchemainas looked on, watched the play, but said nothing. They knew what was coming; knew that Kaitsiki would lose. He guessed north five times; lost his girdle.

“I have nothing more to bet; you have won all I had,” said Kaitsiki.

“Bet yourself,” said Hehku. “I will bet all I have won from you.”

Kaitsiki bet himself. He guessed south first, and lost.

“Oh, if I had only bet north!” said he. Next time he bet north, and lost.

“Oh, if I had said south!”

He went on in this way till he lost his ten counters and himself.

Hehku threw the finger-bone on the ground; the earth shook; there was a noise like thunder. The bone flew up, struck Kaitsiki, killed him. Miniau Marimi threw him out through the roof to the north of the sweat-house.

“I will play now,” said Ahalamila, sitting down in the place left by Kaitsiki. He guessed, lost, guessed on and played till he lost everything; bet himself, lost, was killed and thrown north of the sweat-house. Petaina played next, lost everything, was killed and thrown out. All in the sweat-house except Jupka played and lost, one after another, first all they had and then themselves. After Petaina came Matdasi, Tsurewa, Jihkulu, and then Tsanunewa, who remained at Jigulmatu.

Hehku danced with delight when Tsanunewa lost. She threw him out of the sweat-house herself, then played with others till none were left except Jupka.

Jupka rose up then and said: “Now we will try. I will guess once; that will finish the play and settle all.”

“I am willing,” said Hehku.

Jupka brought a blue stone and sat on it. He had a walking-stick made of the heart of sugar-pine; this he put at his side.

Hehku arranged the bone, put it in her left hand, and Jupka said “lililim” (let it be north) but said the word in such a way that another would think he said “ililim,” and Hehku thought so, too; the bone remained in her left hand. She brought both hands from behind her back, opened them, and was going to throw the bone to kill Jupka.

“Stop! What did I say?” asked Jupka.

“Ililim.”

“No, I said ‘lililim;’ look north and see.”

Hehku looked north and saw Wahkalu (Mount Shasta), Jupka’s Igunna, his great new house which he made by saying “lililim.” Wahkalu was white, shining. Hehku had never seen anything so beautiful, so great. She had never seen it before, neither had any one else.

The bone was there in her open left hand on the north side, she could not deny. She could not change her play, she could not help herself. Jupka seized the bone, threw it to the floor. The earth trembled; there was a roar like thunder; the bone bounded up and killed Hehku. Jupka threw her out of the sweat-house.

“You must play too,” said Jupka to Miniau Marimi.

He put the bone behind his back; she guessed, lost her life, and was thrown out of the sweat-house.

Jupka walked away southward, went to the creek, washed and swam. When he came out of the water, he grew very beautiful and large. He took then the stem of a wild rose-bush and went home; he went to the north side of the sweat-house. There he found the bodies of the Mapchemainas who had played with Hehku and lost. He gave each a blow of the rose-bush, and all came to life; all went to the sweat-house, not one was missing.

At dawn the dead Hehku began to move and sing. At clear daylight she stood up, struck Miniau with her right foot. That moment she rose up alive. The two women started for the rocky mountain. Hehku was raging. She was terribly angry because Jupka had beaten her.

“I had all,” said she, “but Jupka fooled me; now I have nothing.”

She grew so angry that she turned into a great head and bounded off to the east. She went a whole mile every jump she made. She screamed with rage and shouted as she went, and her sister Miniau (the fire-drill) kept pace with her.

Haka Kaina heard the noise and said, “I wonder what troubles Putokya to-day.”

THE FIRST BATTLE IN THE WORLD AND THE MAKING OF THE YANA

AFTER Hehku had risen from the dead and gone home, Jupka said to all the Mapchemaina: “Sweat now and swim. You will go to hunt to-morrow early.”

The Mapchemaina went to hunt on the following day, but could not kill deer. They had no good arrow-points. The points which they had were made of common stone. When they went back to Jigulmatu in the evening without venison, Jupka said,—

“There is an old man in the south who kills a great many deer; his name is Kaltsauna. I must bring him up here to show you how he kills them. I will send some one south for him. Maibyu, you go for that old man; you travel very quickly.”

“I don’t know where his house is; I cannot find him,” said Maibyu. “You would better send some one else.”

“Lawalila, you go,” said Jupka.

Lawalila dressed himself nicely; took his bow, quiver, and arrows, and went. He went as quickly as though it were only one long step to Kaltsauna’s house. Kaltsauna was sitting inside the door with his legs crossed. He was making flint arrow-points.

Lawalila stepped in at once and surprised old Kaltsauna. He had a flint knife at his side, and made a thrust at Lawalila as if to kill him.

“Stop. It is I, uncle; you must not kill me.”

“Why do you call me uncle?” asked Kaltsauna, hiding his arrow-points quickly.

“I have come for you, uncle. The chief sent me here. Jupka invites you to come to Jigulmatu. He wants you to come to his house. He wants to see you. We cannot kill deer with stone arrow-points. We have no other kind. The chief knows that you kill deer all the time. He wants you to come to his place and show his people how you kill deer.”

Kaltsauna rubbed his hands, rubbed them clean, rubbed all the flint dust from them, and rolled up his flints in a skin very carefully. Next he mixed flint dust, rubbed it on his face, made paint, covered his face with it, and thrust a piece of sharp flint through the septum of his nose. He looked very threatening and strong when he was dressed and armed for the road.

“I am ready; you go ahead; I will come later,” said he to Lawalila.

Kaltsauna’s quiver was a grizzly bearskin; his bows and arrows were made of black oak. He put his flints under his left arm, took his bow and arrows in his right hand.

“Go on; go ahead. I will come later; I will come by myself. Go now and tell the chief to make a great fire of manzanita wood.”

Lawalila went ahead, and gave Kaltsauna’s message to Jupka. The chief had the fire made,—a great fire of manzanita wood. “He is coming, he is coming,” said the people, when they saw Kaltsauna in the distance. When he was near, they didn’t try to look at him, they hung their heads.

“Make way for me, make way! I’ll strike unless you give me room!” said Kaltsauna, as he came near the crowd of people.

“The old man always talks like that,” said Jupka; “he is very strong. That’s why he is so bold; that’s why he talks so.”

“Spread out a skin,” said Kaltsauna to Jupka.

The skin was spread, and Kaltsauna emptied his robe full of arrow-points on it. He sat down then and said,—

“I will divide these and put them in different places.”

He gathered each kind of flint into a heap by itself, then pushed it, and said while he pushed, “You go to this place or to that place.”

White flint he pushed and said, “Go you, to Hakamatu.”

The white flint went away; disappeared from the robe; went to Hakamatu, and there is plenty of white flint in that place to-day.

Blue flint he sent east to the edge of our Yana country. Yellow flint he fixed at Iwiljami. To the west he sent flint with fine black, blue, and white stripes; he sent it to Hakachimatu. Green flint he put in Jigulmatu and said,—

“You will find these flints always in the places where I put them to-day, and people who come after you will find them there. There will be flint in those places forever, as long as people want it.”

Besides flint Kaltsauna gave each of the Mapchemaina a wedge made of deer-horn, and a piece of stone; showed them how to dress the flint and make arrow-points. The first arrow-points on earth were those which Kaltsauna made.

Next morning, after he had given the flint and shown the Mapchemaina how to make arrow-points, Kaltsauna went home. On the second day Jupka called all the Mapchemaina together and said,—

“Get your arrow-points ready; sweat to-night; swim early in the morning, and go out on a great hunt to-morrow.”

They did all that Jupka commanded, and went on the following morning toward Jidjilpa. They went west along Jidjilpa, went on both sides of it; went west toward Tahaujwakaina, which is in the cañon beyond Hakamatu. They went to the rock and went beyond it.

Some distance west of the rock a grizzly bear ran out of a clump of live-oak brush. Among the people hunting was Chichepa, and the bear rushed at him. Chichepa had dreamed the night before that this rock in the cañon had jumped up from the ground and frightened him. When he came near the live-oak brush, the bear growled and sprang out.

Chichepa ran back, ran till he came to Tahaujwakaina, the bear close after him. The bear was so angry that he tore up big oak-trees as he ran. There was a hole in the top of the rock. Chichepa sprang into it. The bear stood on his hind legs. He could barely look over the top of the rock. He looked and saw nothing, dropped down, ran all around the rock, looked everywhere, saw no sign of Chichepa. Then he turned back and went into the thick clumps of brush from which he had started.

The people went west a while, then toward the south, and began to find deer. Bohkuina killed the first deer, Howichinaipa the second, Kechowala the third, Jihkulu the fourth, Petaina the fifth, and so on till twenty had deer. The party divided then into two. Those who had deer turned home toward Jigulmatu, and went in the order in which they had killed them, Bohkuina first, the others following each in his turn.

The second party hunted toward the east and then toward Jigulmatu. After a while they came to Ketmatu, where Malewula killed a deer, and Topuna killed one, and Tsanunewa killed a terribly ugly big deer which seemed as though all its flesh and body were swollen. Hitchinna, Kaitsiki, Wihlaina, and others killed deer; each person killed one deer. The whole party turned toward Jigulmatu then, and there was great gladness in Jupka’s sweat-house. The women prepared acorns and mice to eat.

Jupka himself never went hunting; he stayed at Jigulmatu always, just lay in the house there, told all what they were to do, and showed them how to do what was needed. When they came in from hunting, all put their venison in front of the chief, put down before him all the deer they had killed. Jupka took his flint knife then, and cut the meat into pieces. He roasted ribs of it, roasted all they brought in. When it was cooked, the Mapchemaina sat down and ate the meat together. Jupka placed out before them three very large baskets of mice in three different places, and in front of each basket were people to deal the mice out to each person who wished some. When they had eaten, Jupka stood up and talked to all present.

“I wish you all to come into the sweat-house to-night,” said he; “I wish to tell you where you are to hunt to-morrow.”

They went into the sweat-house that evening, sat down and smoked, and while they were smoking Jupka rose up and spoke to them. Jupka himself never ate anything of any kind; he smoked tobacco, smoked all the time; that was the only thing that he ever took into his body. When he spoke, he said,—

“I think it is better to hunt in the north to-morrow.”

“We do not like to go north when we hunt,” said some of the people.

“Well, let another tell where to go. To-night I will have Howichinaipa sing and dance for deer.”

Then Jupka thought a while and said: “No, I will get Ahalamila; he is a good person to dream and sing about deer and to dance. I will tell Ahalamila to sing and dance to-night. He will tell where you ought to go, he will say which road to take. I want you all to lie down and sleep to-night, old men and young, and all the women; let all sleep till morning, sleep till I call you to the hunt.”

When the time came that evening, Ahalamila made a fire and took his pipe. He blew smoke around in every direction. He put down his pipe then and took fir-leaves; these he threw on the fire, and while they were burning he sang,—

and he put a beautiful white quartz rock on the ground; at each side of it he thrust into the earth a small twig of fir and one of blue beech; he put these on the east, west, north, and south sides of the quartz.

Ahalamila kept looking at the twigs, which rose quickly, grew up, and became little trees. He walked around them and sang; sang and pinched off a leaf or a bud from one limb or another as he walked. Soon the stone began to move of itself, and it swelled and changed shape, till at last it turned into a white fawn. Just at daybreak the fawn began to walk around among the trees and sniff as though it smelt something.

Ahalamila picked up the little fawn; blew smoke from his mouth; blew it around on all sides; then he put the fawn down again and it turned back into quartz.

It was daylight then, and Ahalamila stopped singing. “I have finished now,” said he. “It will be better for us to hunt on the south side.”

“I want you, my people,” called Jupka, “to rise up, start out and hunt. Howichinaipa will go ahead and make a fire.”

Howichinaipa went ahead: went south for some distance; the Mapchemaina followed soon after; went to the place where Howichinaipa had made the fire. When they came up, there was a good large fire at a place called Wewauna, half a mile from Hakamatu.

“Come to the fire, wait a while before we start, talk and get ready to hunt,” said Howichinaipa.

Ten men went on farther south to find deer, while the others waited at the fire. Those ten men went south quickly; then five turned east, and five turned west to meet again at Wewauna. They came back about the same time, but not one of them saw deer or game of any kind. Every one wondered that there was no game in any place. Ahalamila and Howichinaipa began to dispute and then to quarrel because the ten men could find no deer.

Howichinaipa was angry; he was offended because Jupka had named him first, then changed his mind and called Ahalamila to sing for deer. He was angry, too, and jealous because he wanted one of Ahalamila’s wives who was his own wife’s sister. Howichinaipa’s wife was a Chuhna, and Ahalamila’s wife was her only sister. Howichinaipa wanted to have the two sisters as his wives; he wanted both of them. For these two reasons the Mapchemaina could find no deer that day. Howichinaipa had power over the deer, and had sent them all under ground. The ten men had looked in a great many places; they had run south, east, west, and could find no deer. Then the whole party turned to the southeast; they went to Chupirkoto. Some said, “What is the use in going farther? We can find no deer to-day. Ahalamila told us that we should find deer. Where are they? We cannot see them.”

“I do not know,” said Ahalamila, “why we find no deer. I sang and danced last night. I dreamed that I saw deer, that I saw them south of Jigulmatu.”

“You will not see deer or any other game to-day,” said Howichinaipa; “you cannot find deer, no matter how much you sing and dance. You are not able to find deer, but you have a nice wife. She is very pretty.”

“The deer were coming,” said Ahalamila, “but you stopped them, you drove them away;” and he sprang at Howichinaipa to strike him. Howichinaipa dodged and went down through the ground.

All the people took sides and began to fight; some were for Ahalamila, others were on Howichinaipa’s side. Howichinaipa sprang out from under the ground, stood before Ahalamila; shot at him. Ahalamila dodged and shot too; Howichinaipa dodged very quickly.

They fought on in this way, fought hard, moved toward Jigulmatu, fighting all the time. At last Ahalamila was struck and fell dead; Topuna was killed too, and Hitchinna. A great many tried to kill Howichinaipa; but he dodged all the time, dodged so well, so quickly that not one of all his enemies could hit him. Jihkulu helped Howichinaipa; never stopped fighting for a moment.

They fought all the way to Hwitalmauna just south of Jigulmatu; the battle there was very hard, and people fell on both sides. There are many rocks at Hwitalmauna now, and these rocks are the Mapchemaina killed in that first battle.

Ahalamila’s friends fought hard against Jihkulu and spent many arrows, but could not hit him, for he had a robe of rabbit skin around his body.

“We must hit that Jihkulu, we must kill him,” said Ahalamila’s friends.

“You need not talk like that,” said Jihkulu; “you cannot kill me. I am the best fighter in all this world. I have been in every part of it; no one has ever hit me, no one has ever hurt me.”

Jihkulu shot at Jewina, but missed. “You can’t hit me!” cried Jewina. Jihkulu shot off Jewina’s coyote skin, and then he killed him. Jewina had dreamed a long time before that if he wore coyote skin in battle he would not be killed, and that was why he wore it; but when Jihkulu shot off the skin, he killed him easily.

Now Jupka was lying in the sweat-house on Jigulmatu, and he heard the noise and shouting at Hwitalmauna. “They are fighting; I must stop the battle!” cried he. So he ran south—rushed into the middle of the fight.

“I want both sides to stop!” shouted Jupka.

The battle was at an end right there; all followed Jupka to Jigulmatu. That evening he said, “You will hunt in the north to-morrow.” All were in the sweat-house then and were listening. Jupka spoke to them some time, and then they all talked at once; it seemed as though the house would burst when they were talking.

Next day they found deer in the north, and found them in plenty. Each had one to bring back to the sweat-house. When they were coming home through thick brushwood, Popila wished to please Ahalamila’s friends, and made himself a bear to kill Howichinaipa, who fought the day before with Ahalamila and killed him.

The bear came out and threw his arms around a clump of brush in which Howichinaipa was. Howichinaipa slipped out in time and ran. The bear rushed after him, hunted him, and almost caught him at a rock near Hakamatu. Howichinaipa sprang on to the rock and said,—

“I am nearly dead; I wish this rock to open; I am too tired to run; I can go no farther.”

The rock opened, and Howichinaipa dropped in. The bear rushed up, stuck his head and fore paws after Howichinaipa; but the rock closed, and the bear was caught and killed.

Howichinaipa came out and stood beside the bear. “I am tired,” said he. “I was almost dead. You tried your best to kill me, but I am hard to kill.” Then he took his flint knife, cut around the bear’s neck and behind his two fore paws, and skinned him, put the skin on his shoulder, and started for Jigulmatu. He came behind the others, reached home at dusk. He hung the skin near the door, and said,—

“We shall hear what Ahalamila’s friends will say to-morrow morning.”

Popila’s mother heard what her son had done, and when she saw the bearskin she cried and rolled upon the ground. Next day the old woman was sweeping; she swept out a little red-eared boy, a Pakalai Jawichi, and as she swept, he squealed. Popila Marimi took him up, took a deerskin, and made a blanket of it, and put the little fellow in this deerskin. She boiled water then with hot rocks and washed him, and every time she washed she sprinkled flint dust on the little boy to make him strong. He could creep around next morning; but she said:

“Stay in one place; you must not move. There may be poison in some place; if you touch it, it will kill you. Stay right where I put you.”

The second day the boy could talk. “You cry all the time, grandmother; why do you cry?” asked he.

“Do not ask that question, grandson; it makes me grieve to hear you. All my people were dead except my son; now he is killed and I have no one.”

The fifth day the boy was walking around the house outside.

“Grandmother,” said he, “make a great fire.”

She made a fire in the sweat-house. The boy stood near the central pillar and sang, “Hála watá, hála watá.”

He fell asleep while sweating; slept till morning. Next day when he woke he said to his grandmother, “What am I to do with my hands?”

The old woman gave him a flint knife and said, “I have had this a long time; take it now and fix your hands with it.”

His fingers were joined together as far as the first joint, and she showed him how to separate them from each other. He cut the little finger first, then the third, the second, and the first. The thumb he called big finger; and when the five fingers were separated and free of each other, she told him to call the thumb the big finger, and call it one, the next two, the next three, the next four, and the little finger five.

This was the first time that counting was ever done in the world. And when Jupka made the Yana, he gave them hands like Pakalai Jawichi’s.

When his left hand was finished, Pakalai Jawichi said, “I don’t know how to cut with my left hand.”

The old woman helped him to free the fingers of the right hand. When all his fingers were free, the boy was able to shoot, and he wanted a bow and arrows.

The old woman brought all the bows of her dead kindred; he broke all but one, which had a string made from the shoulder sinews of a deer. He took that and went out. This day Howichinaipa hid himself in a cedar-tree: he was watching a bird. Pakalai Jawichi knew that he was there, and called with the voice of the bird that Howichinaipa was watching. Howichinaipa came down on the tree lower and lower, looking to see where the call came from.

Pakalai Jawichi was hidden in a tree opposite, where Howichinaipa could not see him; he kept calling, and Howichinaipa kept coming down. Pakalai Jawichi had a good sight of him.

“If I hit him in the body,” thought he, “the arrow will not hurt him; I must hit him in the outside toe.”

He did that, and Howichinaipa fell to the ground wounded. Pakalai Jawichi pinned him to the earth with one arrow, then with another; pinned his two sides to the ground with two rows of arrows. Pakalai Jawichi ran home.

“Oh, grandmother!” cried he.

“What is the matter?” asked the old woman; “you came near falling into the fire.”

“There is some one out here; I want you to see him.”

The old woman took her cane and followed Pakalai Jawichi.

“Do you see that person lying there?”

The old woman looked, and saw the person who had killed her son, saw him pinned to the earth. She was so glad that she cried, she dropped down then, and rolled on the ground; after that she jumped up and danced around his body, danced many times, danced till she was tired.

“Hereafter,” said Pakalai Jawichi, “everybody will call you Howichinaipa. You will be a person no longer; you will be only a little bird, with these arrow-marks on both sides of your breast.”

He became a little bird then and flew away, the little bird which we call Howichinaipa.

Next morning after the second hunt Jupka heard loud shouting in the east; a great Mapchemaina had thrust his head above the edge of the sky. This person had beautiful feathers waving on his head. Jupka had made him shout, and he said to him,—

“Every time you rise up and show yourself to the people of Jigulmatu you must shout in that way.”

This great person in the east had two dogs; they were small, but very strong. “Which of you is coming with me?” asked he that morning. “I want a good dog; I am always afraid when I travel in the daytime.”

“I will give you a name now,” said Jupka to this person in the east. “All people will call you hereafter by the name which I give now. The name which I give you is Tuina. You will be known always by this name. And your name,” said he to the dog, “will be Machperkami.”

When Tuina was ready to start, he made his small dog still smaller, very small; put him under the hair on the top of his head, and tied him in there.

When all dressed and ready, with the dog fastened in his hair, Tuina became as full of light as he is in our time. Before he was dressed and armed and had his dog on his head Tuina had no brightness, but when he started he filled this whole world with light, as he does now in the daytime.

Bohkuina had made a road for Tuina to travel on; he had made this road in the sky, and Tuina went straight along to the west by it, till he reached the great water. When he was ready to plunge into the water, a hatenna (grizzly bear) of the water was coming out and saw him. Tuina put his hands out and motioned with his arms as if they were wings, motioned as if to jump in.

“Tuina is coming!” said the grizzly bear of the water. “It will be too hot here if he comes. Let us make ready and go to high mountains. We cannot stay here if Tuina comes.”

A great crowd of water grizzlies came out of the ocean and went away to the mountains. Tuina jumped into the water, and it rose on all sides, boiled up, rolled away over the shore, every kind of shell of the ocean went to land at the same time.

Tuina went far into the water, way down to the bottom; he went through the bottom, deep under the water and the ground, and returned to the east.

Long before that Jupka had made a road under the earth for Tuina to travel on, a road back to the east. Jupka turned the earth bottom upward, and made this road right through from west to east; and before Tuina started Jupka said to him,—

“I have made a road, a straight road under the earth for you, a good road; there are no rocks on it, all is smooth. Bohkuina made the road on the sky, the road from east to west for you to run on; I made the road down below, the road under the earth from west to east. When you reach the east, you will rest a while, rise in the morning, come up and go west again on the road which Bohkuina made; you will do this every day without failing; you will do this all the time.”

When Jupka stopped talking, Tuina went west, went back in the night on Jupka’s road; and so he does always.

The day after Jupka had talked with Tuina, given him his name and his work, he said, “I will make Yana now, and I will give them a good country to live in.”

He took buckeye-sticks, broke off a large number; he wished to lay them down on the top of Jigulmatu and make Yana. He put down the first stick and said, “I will call this one Iwilau Yana” (Yana of the middle place).

When he had said these words, a man rose up before him, a Yana.

“You will stay here in this middle country,” said Jupka. “You will be chief.”

Jupka put down another buckeye-stick, and it became a Yana woman at Jupka’s word. He put down a third stick, which became a boy.

“This is an orphan without father or mother,” said Jupka; and he called the boy Hurskiyupa.

Jupka put other buckeye-sticks, a large number of them, around the first Yana, the chief, and made common people. They all stood around the chief and Jupka said to them,—

“This is your chief; he will tell you what to do; you must obey him and do what he commands.”

“Now,” said Jupka, “what will the people of the middle country eat? what shall I give them?” and he thought a while. “You will eat clover,” said he, “and roots. I will give you sticks to dig these roots. You will eat fish, too, and venison. Eat and be strong, be good Yana people. When the chief wants a deer, he will call you together and say, ‘I wish to eat venison; I want you to go out, I want you to hunt deer and bring home venison to eat.’ You must obey the chief always.”

NOTES

IN 1895 I made a journey to California in consequence of an arrangement with the late Charles A. Dana, editor of “The Sun.” According to this arrangement, Mr. Dana was to publish on consecutive Sundays such myth-tales as I might think of sufficient value to appear in his paper. Those myths were to be found by me in California, Mexico, and Guatemala.

I began at the source of the Sacramento River, and worked down to the mouth, my last stopping-place being the extensive hop-fields in the lower valley.

In San Francisco I wrote the following short account of the Wintus. That done, I set out for Mexico.

In the city of Guadalajara I copied the myths obtained in California and sent them to “The Sun.” After that I worked at “Quo Vadis,” the greater part of which I translated in Guadalajara.

All the myths in this volume were published in “The Sun,” and appeared as a part of a series pertaining to Indians in California, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Only the California part has been published thus far.

After leaving Guadalajara I spent almost a year in Guatemala and Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. Among the last places which I visited was Palenque. A view of one part of the ruins of this remarkable and mysterious city appears as a frontispiece to the present volume.

THE WINTUS

The Wintus are a nation or stock of Indians who before the coming of white men owned and occupied all that part of California situated on the right bank of the Sacramento, from its source near the foot of Mount Shasta to its mouth at the northern shore of San Francisco Bay.

These Indians extended into Trinity County on the west, and still farther to the mountain slope which lies toward the Pacific. Only a small number of them, however, were on the western declivity. The great body of the nation lived on the eastern slope of the Coast Range and in the Sacramento Valley. Some of their finest mental productions are connected with the upper course of the Sacramento and with the MacCloud River, or Wini Mem.

It is difficult to determine what the Wintu population was half a century ago, but, judging from the number of houses in villages, the names and positions of which have been given me by old men, I should say that it could not have been less than 10,000, and might easily have been double that number. At present there are not more than 500 Wintus in existence.

The Wintus have suffered grievously; great numbers have been killed by white men, others have perished by diseases brought in by strangers; but those who remain are strong and are more likely to increase than diminish. Times of violence have passed, and the present Wintus are willing and able to adapt themselves to modern conditions.

It may be of interest to readers of these myth tales to know something of the present condition of the Wintus.

In 1889, when I was in California, commissioned by Major Powell for the second time to make linguistic investigations among various tribes of the Pacific coast, a few Wintus came to me in Redding, California, and complained of their wretched condition. There was not a spot of land, they said, where they could build a hut without danger of being ordered away from it. “This country was ours once,” added they, “but the white man has taken all of it.” I told them to bring their people together, and invite also the Yanas, who had suffered more than all other people of that region, and then explain to me what was needed.

The two peoples met on a little stony field in a brushy waste outside the inhabited part of Redding. There they made speeches and discussed matters for three hours the first day and as many the second. They gave me all the points of what they wanted, which was simply that the United States should give each man of them a piece of land, with help to begin life on it. I jotted down in brief form what they had told me, read it to them, and they were satisfied. Next day the paper was copied in the form of a petition from the two nations to President Harrison. They signed the petition before a Redding notary, and gave it to me with a request to lay it before the President.

Early in 1890 I was in Washington. Anxious to win the case of my poor Indian friends,—or “Diggers,” as some men are pleased to call them contemptuously,—I looked around for a Congressman of influence to go with me to support the petition before the President. I found no suitable person till I met my classmate and friend, Governor Greenhalge of Massachusetts, at that time a member of Congress. When he heard the tale of the Yana massacre and realized the sad plight of the Wintus, he offered at once to cooperate with me. He went to the President and explained the affair to him. Two or three days later he accompanied me to the White House. I gave the petition to President Harrison, who promised to favor it with his executive initiative. He did this so earnestly and with such emphasis that an agent was appointed very soon to find land for those Indians. The agent found land for them in various places, but within the radius of their former possessions. The condition of the Wintus at present is this: They have lands which are described, but in most cases the boundaries are not indicated by any material mark, or at least very few of them are; white men are trespassing, and it is impossible for the Indians to protect themselves till their boundaries are fixed tangibly. They will not have the means to begin serious work till they receive assistance. They are waiting now in hope that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs will have their lands surveyed, and that Congress will make a small appropriation for their benefit. This is the extent of their hopes and wishes. They are very glad to have land, and the majority of them will make fairly good use of it. When I met them in 1895, they were very grateful for the part which I had taken in settling them in life, adding that they could not have settled themselves unassisted. As to me, I cannot but make an emphatic acknowledgment of the generous and effective aid given by Governor Greenhalge.

“Olelbis,” the first myth published in “The Sun” (March 29, 1896), was preceded by the following brief introduction:—

The Wintus, with whose creation-myths I begin this series, are a very interesting people. Their language is remarkably harmonious, rich, and flexible. It has great power of describing the physical features of the country in which it is spoken, as well as the beliefs and ideas of the Wintus themselves.

The picture of Olelbis, a being who lives in the highest and sees everything, is drawn more distinctly and with more realism than any character in other American religious systems, so far as I know.

The theory of creation evolved by the Indians of North America is complete, simple, and symmetrical. I have referred to it somewhat in the introduction to “Hero Tales of Ireland,” in “Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland,” and in “Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars.” This theory is in brief as follows:—

There was a people in existence before the present race of men; in speaking of the present race of men, the tales have in view Indians only. This first people lived in harmony for a period of indefinite, unimaginable duration, without division or dissension,—undifferentiated, so to speak. This was the golden age of existence, a Nirvana preliminary to life as we know it at present, a Nirvana of the gods, as the Buddhist extinction of self is to be the Nirvana of just men when all shall be one in all and one in one. At last a time came when character appeared, and with it differences and conflicts. When the conflicts were past and the battles fought out, the majority of the first people were turned into all the animated things, walking, creeping, crawling, swimming, flying, that have ever been seen on the earth, in the water, or in the air. They were turned also into trees and plants of every kind,—some into heavenly bodies, others into remarkable stones and rocks, just as, in the Bible, Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.

According to this theory, every individual existence which we see in the world around us is a transformed or fallen god. Every beast, bird, reptile, fish, insect, or plant was at one time a divinity of high or low degree, an uncreated person who had lived in harmony with his fellows from the beginning till the time when variety of character, or individuality, appeared and brought with it difficulties, or perhaps we might say, penalty. With individuality came conflicts; when those conflicts were over, creation was finished.

At the end of each particular conflict the victor turned by means of a word the vanquished into that which embodied and expressed his character. The vanquished on his part had a similar compelling word, and changed his opponent into the beast, bird, or other existence which described him; in other terms, he gave his opponent the physical form, the outward personality, which corresponded to the nature of his hidden or at least his unapparent character. Besides these metamorphosed or fallen divinities, there is in the Indian mythologies a group, a small minority, which was not changed, but left this world going out under the sky at the west to live in harmony and delight; and they live in that way to this moment. Sometimes this group, or a part of it, went to live above the sky.

The Indian Creation-myths all relate to the adventures and exploits of the “first people,”—the gods; none relate to human beings, and none touch on anything done since man appeared on earth. They are the accounts of what took place when there was an order different from the present, and explain how the present order rose from the first.

Such, in substance, is the foundation of American religious systems, and the method of all of them, so far as examined. The Wintu is different from many others in its methods and details, but the result is the same in all cases. Olelbis, with few exceptions, disposes of the first people, retains with himself whomsoever he likes, sends to the earth and transforms those whom he thinks more useful below than above, and gives the example of a single ruling divinity which, without being represented as all-powerful or all-wise, manages through the knowledge and services of others to bear rule over all things.

OLELBIS

This myth contains a complete statement concerning the beginnings of Wintu belief. Olelbis occupies the first place in the estimation of Wintus. To understand the Wintu mind, it is indispensable to begin with Olelbis. Other myths illustrate this one, explain parts of the Wintu system, and help to explain the mental life of the people; but this tale of Creation is to Indians of the western half of the Sacramento valley what their sacred books are to historic races.

No Wintu has been converted to Christianity; hence the faith of the nation is undimmed, and its adherence to primitive religion unweakened. I cannot explain their position better than by giving the words of one of the most intelligent Wintus whom I have met. After I had collected all that I could find, and had received needful explanations as far as was possible, I spoke some time with this man. Referring to their religion and ideas, he said: “When I talk of these things, I am afraid, I feel kind of scart” (scared).

That explains their position perfectly. Their faith is of the firmest; they are full of awe; they believe that Olelbis is up there now in the “Central Blue,” in his marvellous Panti Hlut, the most beautiful structure in the universe, and from there sees everything that happens. That heavenly house is framed of living oak-trees, which bear acorns continually, the Indian bread of life,—that house which has in and around it all the flowers that have ever bloomed, flowers whose roots can never die.

Winishuyat, mentioned in “Olelbis” and in other tales, is one of the most interesting personages in Wintu mythology. He is described as a little man, about the size of a thumb, and is always placed on the top of the head by the person whom he accompanies and aids. This person never fails to tie his own hair over Winishuyat, and thus conceals him from every stranger. Winis means “he sees;” the literal significance of huyat I have not been able to get at satisfactorily thus far. The essential meaning of the whole word is that he sees in mind the approaching danger before it is evident to the physical eye. Winishuyat means, therefore, the prescience of danger,—seeing danger while it is yet at some distance; not necessarily distance geographically, for the danger may be present, but concealed in the breast of a dissembling enemy, and some time, short or long, may be between it and actual happening.

The peculiar thing in the case is that foresight is separated from the hero, and is made the distinguishing quality of his little thumb-sized attendant, just as if each power had to be connected with a person,—no person having more than one great trait of character.

In the Yana mythology there is no name corresponding to Winishuyat, but the same office is filled by a maternal uncle.

In the tale of “Juiwaiyu,” Jupka, the uncle of the hero, makes himself as small as a thumb, and is tied in under the hair of his nephew. In the winning of Paiowa, at the house of Tuina, Igupatopa performs for his sister’s son the same kind of service rendered by Winishuyat,—with this difference, that he is more active; he is not merely an adviser, he is a helper, a strengthener; he gives counsel to make his nephew wise, and then enters into his heart to fortify him, to render him brave and strong.

It is curious and instructive to note in European Folk-tales the survival of Winishuyat and his approximate equivalent, the Yana uncle. In Slav tales this person is the mangy, miserable, neglected little colt which, when taken outside the town, shakes itself and becomes a marvellous magic steed, golden-haired, untiring, and wise, faithful to its master as the sun to his course in the sky.

This steed knows what is coming, knows exactly what to do, knows the mistakes that his master is sure to commit, knows how to correct them; and the cumulative effect of these corrections increases immensely the momentum of the final triumph.

The Tom Thumb of nursery tales, the mentor of his big brothers, gives also a striking reminder of Winishuyat.

MEM LOIMIS

This beautiful myth, in which wind and water are the moving characters, needs little if any explanation, save in one point, that relating to the Hlahi, commonly called doctor by white men. The word Shaman used in Siberia describes his position accurately. He is not the master of spirits exactly, but he is the favorite and friend of one or of more spirits; that is, of such spirits as promised him their co-operation at the time when he became a Hlahi. If this person observes the rules of life that are always imposed on him who enjoys the friendship of this or that spirit (these rules refer mainly to food agreeable to the spirit), and does what is needful when the spirit is invoked (the needful, in this case, includes smoking and dancing), together with chanting the song of this spirit (every spirit has its own song), the spirit will come at his call.

Sanihas Yupchi smokes and dances; the Tsudi girls sing or chant. The name Sanihas Yupchi means the archer of Sanihas; Sanihas means daylight or the entire light of day from dawn till darkness,—in other words, all the light that Sas the sun gives between one night and another,—though Sanihas, daylight, is always represented as a person, and not the product of Sas’s activity. This Sanihas Yupchi, the archer of daylight, the usher of the dawn, is no other than Tsaroki Sakahl, who has a white stripe on his back, the messenger who was sent by Torihas to invite Katkatchila to the hunt which caused the burning of the world in “Olelbis.” He appears also as the envoy who ran in darkness on the gleaming sand trail to invite Hawt to Waida Dikit’s green and red house, where the world concert was held, at which Hawt proved to be the greatest musician in existence.

In the note to “Kol Tibichi” will be found an account of how the Hlahi receives the aid and co-operation of spirits.

Most interesting beliefs are connected with Wokwuk, the son of Olelbis and Mem Loimis. The Wintus believe Wokwuk to be the greatest source of power and wealth.

According to “Olelbis,” different bits of Wokwuk came down to the earth and were turned into elk and various valuable creatures; the tip of Wokwuk’s little finger became the earthly Wokwuk.

Wintus told me that if a man were to see the earthly Wokwuk, who was made from the tip of Wokwuk’s little finger, he would grow immensely rich from the good luck which the sight would bring him. The last Wokwuk seen appeared a little over a hundred years ago. The story of its appearance is as follows:—

One day an old woman at a village called Tsarken, about twenty miles north of Redding, went for wood. Soon she ran home almost breathless, leaving her basket behind.

“Oh, my grandson,” cried she to the chief, “I am frightened. My grandfather and grandmother used to say to me when I was a girl, ‘You will see a wonderful thing some day.’ I have just seen something wonderful on the hill. I believe it is a Wokwuk. Old people told me that if a Wokwuk is seen he will stay in one place a long time. I think this Wokwuk will stay, and wants us to see him.”

The chief made a beautiful shed of small fir-trees, covered it with fir branches, and placed sweetly smelling herbs in it; he sent for neighboring chiefs, and next day all went in their best array to the Wokwuk, bearing water in the finest basket of the village, and carrying a large oak slab and a rope. They found the Wokwuk facing north, and went near him. The chief lighted his pipe, blew the smoke toward every side, and said to the Wokwuk,—

“You have come to see us; we have come to salute you. You have come to show yourself. You are a great person, and all the Wintus in the country will hear of you; all the chiefs in every place will speak of you. I am glad that you are here. I am glad that you have come to my country.”

He talked more to the Wokwuk; spoke very nicely. Next he took water in his mouth and blew it around in every direction. After that the chief smoked a fragrant root instead of tobacco, blowing the smoke toward the Wokwuk, speaking to him with great respect.

“Now we will take you home with us,” said the chief. They carried the oak slab to the Wokwuk; he did not stir. They pushed him onto the slab, tied one leg to it, then took him home, placed the slab in the shed, and untied the Wokwuk. He remained two months there, never ate anything, never tried to escape.

Every morning they talked to the Wokwuk. During two months no one went to hunt, no one ate venison or sucker fish. Finally, all the Wintus were invited and all the Yanas,—a great assembly. They saluted the Wokwuk, each chief addressed him; last of all came a chief from Wini Mem, named Tópitot, leading a black bear. This bear walked erect like a man. He had bands of porcupine quills around his fore and hind legs, and a buckskin band covered with the red scalps of woodpeckers around his head. The bear bowed down to the Wokwuk, and the chief addressed him. When other chiefs spoke to the Wokwuk during the two previous months, he never raised his head or gave a sign of answer; but when Tópitot had finished, he raised his head and gave out a sound which was loud and long.

Next morning the chief of the village wished good luck to all, then he brought a rope, hung Wokwuk to a tree, and took his life. He plucked him, gave the quills to the chiefs, including himself, cut off the head, kept it; the body he carried to an ant-hill; when the ants had taken all the flesh, the bones were separated from each other and given to each chief.

When the chiefs went home, they spoke to the quills and bones as if praying, at first every morning, then once a week, then once a month, and continued this for a long time. After that each put away his bone or his quill in a triple covering. The bone or feather was wrapped first in a cover of the red scalps of woodpeckers sewed together; outside that were two mats made of reeds.

The owner of a Wokwuk bone or quill does not show it to any one, not even to his wife or children. When he dies he leaves it to a son, or, if he has no son, to a daughter. The possession of Wokwuk relics gives luck, but the owner must never eat venison or sucker; these are offensive to Wokwuk.

Five years after the quills were put away only the stems of them were left; five years later they were as fresh as if just plucked. If the quills were to be exposed before people, the people would all die; if to one person, that person would perish.

The owner of a quill or bone unwraps it occasionally, places water near it, and talks to it, saying: “Give us good luck; make us well. I give you water, you give us strength.” If he points the relic and mentions a person’s name, saying, “Make him sick,” that man will die surely.

If the owner of a Wokwuk relic dies without heirs, the bone or quill is sunk in a sacred spring; if it were buried with the owner, all would get sick and die.

Both feathers and bones grow old in appearance, and later on they are as fresh looking and perfect as ever.

NORWAN

Next to “Olelbis” stands “Norwan,” both for value and interest. This remarkable myth recalls forcibly the Helen of Troy tale, both in its general plan and in many particulars.

The great war among the first people is caused by the woman Norwan. Norbis Kiemila, who claims to be her husband, is descended from the heavenly white oak which forms part of Olelpanti Hlut, the divine mansion in the “Central Blue.”

Norwan’s full name is Pom Norwan en Pitchen, that is, daughter of the land on the southern border. She has another name: Hluyuk Tikimit, which means the dancing porcupine. Her residence, or hlut, was Norwan Buli, Norwan Mountain. The Yana name of this mountain is Wahkanopa, which means the son of Wahkalu. Wahkalu is Mount Shasta, and Wahkanopa Lassen’s Butte.

Norwan, or Hluyuk Tikimit, the dancing porcupine, has still a third name, Bastepomas pokte, the food-giving or food-producing woman. In her quality of producer she occupies a position in Wintu mythology similar to that of the divine descendant of the earth and the sun in the Algonkin religious system. This Algonkin myth is one of the most beautiful and significant, not among creation, but among action myths. And here I beg to call attention again to the distinction which I make between the two classes of myths.

Creation myths relate always to what was done among the “first people in the world which preceded this,” while creation was going on, or more correctly, perhaps, during the time of those transformations or metamorphoses from which resulted the present world and the order of things contained therein.

Action myths relate to ever-recurrent processes in nature which began as soon as the sun had his course marked out for him and the physical world around us received its present form and fashion; this happened before all the “first people” were metamorphosed. The vast majority had received the physical bodies which they have at present, but a few were left, and they remained in various places till they saw or heard the new race, the Indians. Action myths, therefore, relate to various processes in nature which never cease. For us the most important are those involved in the relations between the sun and the earth.

The great Algonkin sun and earth myth which has many variants and vast wealth of detail, describes those relations more profoundly and broadly than any other Indian myth devoted to the same subject.

The Algonkin myth in its most extended form describes the earth maiden as becoming a mother through being looked at by the sun. She gives birth to a daughter who is called Wakos ikwe, the fox woman; this daughter becomes the mother of a great hero, the highest benefactor of aboriginal man in America. He is the giver of food and of every good gift by which life is supported.

Of this myth there is a shorter version in which the hero is born of the earth directly; he is her son, not her grandson.

This benefactor and food-giver is no other than that warm air which we see dancing and quivering above the earth in fine weather. Descended from the sun and the earth, this warm air supports all things that have vegetable or animal existence.

This myth in its more extended form, the one to which I have referred first, is similar to that which Schoolcraft pieced together and which Longfellow took as the foundation of his beautiful poem “Hiawatha,” though not identical with it.

Schoolcraft, with his amazing propensity to make mistakes, with his remarkable genius for missing the truth and confusing everything with which he came in contact, gave the name Hiawatha to his patchwork.

Hiawatha is an Iroquois name connected with Central New York. The Iroquois were mortal enemies of the Algonkins, and the feud between these two stocks was the most inveterate and far reaching of any in America. It was, in fact, the only Indian tribal hatred that rose to historical importance, and it was by the adherence of the Iroquois, the “Five Nations” of New York, that English dominion in North America was established.

The Algonkin force of America was on the French side, but the Iroquois held all water communication between Lake Erie and Ontario, the greatest strategic position on the continent at that period. They cut the Algonkins in two, and prevented France from receiving their undivided assistance.

Had the whole Algonkin power aided the French, they would have had great chances of victory. Had the Iroquois been friends of the Algonkins and acted with them, there could have been no doubt of the triumph of France at that juncture. But the Algonkins and Iroquois were mortal enemies; the Algonkins were friendly to the French, the Iroquois to the English.

In the face of all this Schoolcraft makes Hiawatha, who is peculiarly Iroquois, the leading personage in his Algonkin conglomerate; Hiawatha being an Iroquois character of Central New York (he is connected more particularly with the region about Schenectady), while the actions to which Schoolcraft relates him pertain to the Algonkin Chippewas near Lake Superior.

It is as if Europeans of some future age were to have placed before them a great epic narrative of French heroic adventure in which Prince Bismarck would appear as the chief and central Gallic figure in the glory and triumph of France. The error and absurdity would be, as the Germans say, colossál, but not greater or more towering than in Schoolcraft’s Hiawatha. Longfellow, of course, could not free himself from the error contained in his material; but the error, which was not his own and which he had no means of correcting at that time, did not prevent him from giving his work that peculiar charm which is inseparable from everything which he did.

In the original Algonkin myth the hero to which Hiawatha has been accommodated was a child of the sun and the earth. Whatever his names in the numerous versions found in the twenty-eight languages of this richest and most varied Indian stock of North America, he is always the bounteous benefactor of man, the kindest of all divine powers that have ever appeared upon earth. He is always in reality that warm light which dances and quivers before us in fine weather, and through which every man, beast, reptile, insect, fish, bird, and plant lives and flourishes.

This myth has received on the Pacific coast, or more correctly on parts of it, a different treatment from that given it east of the Rocky Mountains. There the benefactor is a female, a daughter of the earth. Nothing is said as to who her father was. It is significant that she dances all day, that she is called the quivering porcupine and the food-producing woman.

In Indian myths from New York to California the porcupine is ever connected with light; in some cases it is the sun himself. In “Tulchuherris” of this volume, Sas (the sun) carries a porcupine quiver, and is advised never to lay it aside, for as long as he keeps it on his shoulder he is safe from his children the grizzlies (the clouds) who wish to kill him.

In California Norwan, daughter of the earth, occupies in part the place of the Algonkin hero, the child of the sun and the earth. Her usual life is of the housekeeping order; she has great supplies of food in her hlut, or residence, and she goes on dancing each day until evening. The great and characteristic event of her life, her departure from the dance with her partner, is of the same scope and meaning as the last journey of Hiawatha when he sails to the west and vanishes in the regions of sunset. The hero of the Algonkin myth must go, he cannot stay; he must vanish in the ruddy glow of evening because he is the warm dancing air of the daytime. He must go whether he will or not. Before he goes, however, he cheers all whom he leaves behind by telling them that another will come from the east to take his place and comfort them. Next morning, of course, the comforter comes, for the life career of the Algonkin hero is included in the compass of a single day, and a successor is bound to come as surely as he himself is bound to go.

Norwan dances, and then goes away with her partner, to the desperate vexation of Norbis Kiemila, her would-be husband, who wishes to have her to himself exclusively. She dances, as she says, without knowing it and goes away unconsciously. She dances with this partner because she cannot help it, and departs imperceptibly to herself.

Who are the rivals for her person?

Norbis means “living in the south;” he lives in the southeast, the land of greatest productiveness, in the region of Hlihli Piu Hlut Ton, that most beautiful of houses on earth, and second only to the divine mansion in the “Central Blue.” He is descended from one of the white oaks in the heavenly house.

The person who was metamorphosed afterward into the red wiu bird (Tede Wiu) is his rival, the person with whom Norwan left the dance, thus causing the first war in the world. Was this person the red of evening which became Tede Wiu afterward? If we acknowledge that he was, and if we are willing to admit Norbis as the representative of all people living east of the west, we have at once the two parties to an irreconcilable rivalry in the most vital of questions, the possession of warm sunlight, and that most vital of questions is embodied in the person of a woman. That was the cause of the first war in the world and of fell strife. A story substantially the same as this was, we may think, the ultimate basis of the Iliad. The mythic origin of the particular tale from which Homer constructed his epic had been forgotten, that may be granted, but there is little doubt that in rustic Greece men might have found a similar tale which was mythologic beyond peradventure; and the Helen of that tale, or her equivalent, was a person like Norwan. With the materials at our command even now, we have enough to indicate this, for was not Helen the daughter of Leda and the divine swan, a person to be fought for with all available energy in the world at that period, and to be fought for in a war which surpassed in importance all that have ever succeeded it?