HANDLING OF THE PLOTThis section will examine the organization and treatment of the plot of the Cane narrative as a construct and specimen of literary endeavor. The discussion will be more easily followed by reference to an ultra-summary of the principal parts or sections of the story, as follows:Paragraph DesignationNumber of ParagraphsSongsA. Placement in Cosmogony1a1..B. Two Brothers Go Off1b-7a714C. They Get Wives7b-18a1516D. Quarreling over Cane, Older Kills Younger18b-281112E. Birth of the Hero Ahta-hane29-3355F. Shinny Game with Father's Foes34-3747G. Journey South to Sea38-683154H. Marriage, and Contests with Meteor and Sun69-82a1431I. Return to Mother, Half-Brother, and Father's Ghost82b-961522J. Revenge on Father's Foes97-10269K. Transformation103-104212111182The main defect in the Cane plot, from our point of view, is the long preliminary, A to D. A full quarter of the tale—to be exact, three-tenths of its length, 28 out of 104 song groups or stages, and 42 of 182 songs—precedes the hero's birth. This makes a narrative long enough for interest to get well established in the hero's father, and it has then to be rebuilt around the son. However, the story can also be viewed as a sort of epic covering two lifetimes, with the second generation recuperating the losses of the first and revenging it. In a definitely sophisticated art, the reverses of the first life would presumably be only sketched, or suggested by implication, and the action could then be developed around the chief hero's career or its climax. The Cane situation is somewhat like that in the Nibelungenlied, where the story of Siegfried's exploits about balances that of the revenge for his death: as an introduction, the first half is too long and autonomous; as an epilogue to a life, the second half is much too long and heavily charged. The imbalance in the mediaeval German epic is obvious as a defect and has led to discussion of whether in its present form it is not a secondary joining of two poems originally distinct. Similarly, the history of the accretion of the Cane story might conceivably have been partly traceable from comparison of a series of versions. But these have not been recorded and are presumably no longer remembered, at least hardly in unmutilated form.The very brief first section, A, with the reference to Kamaiavêta, is the normal Mohave way of giving the story its placement in the scheme of things by tying it into the cosmogony. Kamaiavêta or Sky-rattlesnake was killed for being thought to have caused the death by witchcraft ofMatavilya, the child of Heaven and Earth and first great god. This dates the Cane story as happening right after the beginnings, ties it to the sacred spots Ha'avulypo and Avikwame, and endows it with weight and authenticity. That this is pure preliminary is shown by the fact that there are no songs.In our next section B, the brothers drift off, discover things, build a house, find a living, and are joined by their uncle. In short, they grope and become partially established. This is good Mohave story pattern. The pairing, in place of a single hero, occurs again in Raven, in Coyote, in Deer; and in other myths. But so far there is nothing very eventful in the plot: it is only slowly getting started.Part C has the brothers get themselves wives, at their uncle's instigation. The plot is beginning to have "human interest." And yet it remains quite "decorative": there are four girls in four directions, each living alone with a pet bird in a cage, the approach is through the bird, then the brothers struggle for the girl, and bring her home. Still, the repetition is not formally exact, as it would be in a ritual, or as in the myths of some other tribes; no two of the four episodes are told quite alike, and each contains certain unique incidents. The brothers' quarreling for the girls foreshadows what is to come; just as it is faintly pre-anticipated by their childish arrow betting in paragraph6of the preceding part. The younger is the stronger and wins the two first girls; and though the elder gets the next two on sufferance, a grievance is thereby set up. This is not dwelled on, but helps to motivate what follows.Part D. They go for cane, apparently as a source of power, and quarrel over it. The older almost kills the younger, but relents, concedes him what he wants, but then bewitches him. Omens of doom pile up effectively. The victim's state of mind may be an example of what a Mohave feels who believes himself bewitched. The magic operating too slowly, the younger brother is finally dispatched with the humiliation of having bones cut out of his body for use and play. The elder goes off with the non-kinsmen whom the uncle had left when he joined his blood nephews. This marks him as a traitor and Chemehuevi foreigner, as well as establishing two inimical groups or parties.With part E, dealing with the posthumous birth of the hero, the main narrative begins. The hero evidences prenatal magic power, but this is a faculty often attributed by the Mohave to shamans, so that the manifestation is mythically expectable, rather than miraculous in our sense.In the next section, F, the baby, grown to boyhood, steals his father's bone with which his foes are playing—compare the incident in Nyohaiva,15—and sends it flying to break the western mountains and kill their inhabitants. It does not appear that these people are his foes: rather is he trying out his growing powers; and his real foes begin to foresee their end.Then he goes on a long journey which constitutes part G. This travel is motivated by Mohave song-myth custom rather than by anything in the boy hero's situation. At the same time, it serves to give a sense of his growing up, and of having his life filled with experiences as a hero should. The Mohave narrator is in intent the teller of a near-epic, or of a novelistic romance, not of a short story which aims to cut to the essence of an action. From this point of view, the journey rounds, or properly fills out, the plot, though it contributes nothing vital. The incidents of the journey—down the Colorado from northern Mohave land to the mouth of the great river, including detours, and southeast along the Gulf shore—are characteristic. The traveler is awakened by birds, frightened by a rattlesnake, sees a horsefly, hummingbird, wild grapes, badger, jack rabbit, springs, cane, the surf, a crane, ducks, sea shells, and various other sights such as might make a boy watch or wonder. There is certainly a sense of unending interest in nature, of rapport with it, in these Mohave itineraries—a pre-Wordsworthian attitude, one might almost call it.The narration is concise in this journey. There are 31 stages or paragraphs—between a fourth and a third of the whole story—and 54 songs out of 182, or the same proportion; but only about one-seventh or one-eighth of the length of the tale. Thus the tempo of narration is doubled during this part; which fact contributes to the fact that its interruption of the main action does not wear down plot-suspense unduly. Also, it is easier to devise long strings of simple songs of five or six words about horseflies darting or hummingbirds on their nests or cranes in the surf, than about dangers, feats, and dramatic tensions such as make up the preceding and succeeding sections.As soon as Ahta-hane leaves the sea to turn inland—part H—the character of the telling changes. It becomes pure hero-story again, now of fairy-tale quality. The roster of place names is over with. We are somewhere in the desert—presumably in the Papaguería—but places and distances are undesignated. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the tale, in incidents and affects as well as in glimpses of unsuspected ethnography. The events comprise:The hero hides himself from the four women.Lets himself be found rotten but is restored.Wins encounter with Meteor.Wins gambling with Sun.Through his winning makes himself attractive to his wives.Complex as the action is here, it is thus nevertheless well tied together.This is the longest section of Cane: about a quarter of the total narration, and this crowded with stirring events. But the songs of the section constitute only about a sixth, and the song stations or paragraphs about an eighth, of the total. There is much happening, but little of the discrete incident that best lends itself to singing about.Section I is moderately long and describes thejourney home, but now with his wives, in order to meet his mother, a half-brother unmentioned before, and finally his dead father's shadow. Kinship relations are thus in the forefront, and most of the topography is still indefinite. The return, as so often in Mohave story, presages war. The hero's successive reunions, culminating in the unique interview with his father's spirit, build up affect toward a climax which can end only in a contest with his hereditary foes.This contest constitutes part J, and is characteristically brief: the Mohave seem not to know how to dilate on a fight, even one conducted by magic. The hero first beats his enemies in competitions, then destroys them with lightning from his magic cane. The narrator's knitting together of items, and suspending them over intervals, is evidenced by the lightning cane, which has been acquired in paragraph90, but is used only in102.Section K, the final transformation of the hero and his folk into stars, birds, and rocks, is of course a conventional coda—somewhat like the particle used in some languages, or the tone-glide in others, to indicate end of sentence. It means nothing specific in relation to the particular events preceding, but without it the tale would not be felt as having been brought to an end.This analysis perhaps helps to establish the genuine skill of the narrator in joining, developing, and sustaining a plot which has something of epic quality and which in a less simple culture, with a more specific medium than natural prose available, might have had epic potentialities.SUPPLEMENTARYReferences to Cane, Ahta (by paragraphs)2.Names of the brothers refer to cane (fn.4).18a.Uncle sends them for cane.18b.On the journey lightning and thunder, omen of death.19-23.Cane described, argument about division, knife made, cane cut, quarrel over it, return.24.Not to eat salt while unwashed—indicates power in cane.24.Older brother paints his cane; younger, bewitched, sees his unpainted.62.Cane seen on journey, near Yuma.70.Turns into cane sliver to hide from four women.71.Oldest woman thinks he may be cane.74.Hero smokes caneful of tobacco, chews up the cane.76.Told that the Mohave do not smoke in cane, he says he is Cane.77.Smokes two filled canes.88.His name, Ahta-hane, first mentioned (fn.87).90.Told by mother's father of lightning and thunder.91.Takes cane from hole made by lightning bolt, splits into four.92.Refuses to show it to his wife: it would kill.93.Half-brother called Ahta-kwasume; wears cane that rattles.95.The two brothers mourn their father and burn all their belongings except the lightning cane.102.Contest with canes that flash lightning: hero's is stronger.103.Shows them his canes and makes it thunder.References to Meteor, Kwayū37.Hero knocks father's kneecap shinny ball west as meteor to explode in mountains.75-77.Meteor, husband of four women, tries to kill hero, gives him tobacco.82b.Meteor referred to again as cannibal.104.Hero flies as meteor past rock "Meteor's father's mother" to turn into rock Mekoaṭa.References to Sun, Anya7b-10.Hero's father's first wife is Tšese'ilye (fn.78), daughter of Sun in west.11a-14.Hero's father's second wife is Kuvahā, daughter of Sun in east by different mother.29-31.One wife returns, other gives birth to hero.35.He sends his mother away.77-78.Sun, father (or husband? see fn.58) of four women, gambles with hero, loses body, escapes, is turned into double (sun dog).87-99.Hero returns to mother.90.Hero learns from mother's father's son about deadly lightning.References to Blue-tailed Lizard, Halye'anekitše36.Hero turns into halye'anekitše lizard to steal father's kneecap shinny ball (fn.40).99-101.Halye'anekitše wins contest for hero by taking father's scalp from pole.
This section will examine the organization and treatment of the plot of the Cane narrative as a construct and specimen of literary endeavor. The discussion will be more easily followed by reference to an ultra-summary of the principal parts or sections of the story, as follows:
Paragraph DesignationNumber of ParagraphsSongsA. Placement in Cosmogony1a1..B. Two Brothers Go Off1b-7a714C. They Get Wives7b-18a1516D. Quarreling over Cane, Older Kills Younger18b-281112E. Birth of the Hero Ahta-hane29-3355F. Shinny Game with Father's Foes34-3747G. Journey South to Sea38-683154H. Marriage, and Contests with Meteor and Sun69-82a1431I. Return to Mother, Half-Brother, and Father's Ghost82b-961522J. Revenge on Father's Foes97-10269K. Transformation103-104212111182
The main defect in the Cane plot, from our point of view, is the long preliminary, A to D. A full quarter of the tale—to be exact, three-tenths of its length, 28 out of 104 song groups or stages, and 42 of 182 songs—precedes the hero's birth. This makes a narrative long enough for interest to get well established in the hero's father, and it has then to be rebuilt around the son. However, the story can also be viewed as a sort of epic covering two lifetimes, with the second generation recuperating the losses of the first and revenging it. In a definitely sophisticated art, the reverses of the first life would presumably be only sketched, or suggested by implication, and the action could then be developed around the chief hero's career or its climax. The Cane situation is somewhat like that in the Nibelungenlied, where the story of Siegfried's exploits about balances that of the revenge for his death: as an introduction, the first half is too long and autonomous; as an epilogue to a life, the second half is much too long and heavily charged. The imbalance in the mediaeval German epic is obvious as a defect and has led to discussion of whether in its present form it is not a secondary joining of two poems originally distinct. Similarly, the history of the accretion of the Cane story might conceivably have been partly traceable from comparison of a series of versions. But these have not been recorded and are presumably no longer remembered, at least hardly in unmutilated form.
The very brief first section, A, with the reference to Kamaiavêta, is the normal Mohave way of giving the story its placement in the scheme of things by tying it into the cosmogony. Kamaiavêta or Sky-rattlesnake was killed for being thought to have caused the death by witchcraft ofMatavilya, the child of Heaven and Earth and first great god. This dates the Cane story as happening right after the beginnings, ties it to the sacred spots Ha'avulypo and Avikwame, and endows it with weight and authenticity. That this is pure preliminary is shown by the fact that there are no songs.
In our next section B, the brothers drift off, discover things, build a house, find a living, and are joined by their uncle. In short, they grope and become partially established. This is good Mohave story pattern. The pairing, in place of a single hero, occurs again in Raven, in Coyote, in Deer; and in other myths. But so far there is nothing very eventful in the plot: it is only slowly getting started.
Part C has the brothers get themselves wives, at their uncle's instigation. The plot is beginning to have "human interest." And yet it remains quite "decorative": there are four girls in four directions, each living alone with a pet bird in a cage, the approach is through the bird, then the brothers struggle for the girl, and bring her home. Still, the repetition is not formally exact, as it would be in a ritual, or as in the myths of some other tribes; no two of the four episodes are told quite alike, and each contains certain unique incidents. The brothers' quarreling for the girls foreshadows what is to come; just as it is faintly pre-anticipated by their childish arrow betting in paragraph6of the preceding part. The younger is the stronger and wins the two first girls; and though the elder gets the next two on sufferance, a grievance is thereby set up. This is not dwelled on, but helps to motivate what follows.
Part D. They go for cane, apparently as a source of power, and quarrel over it. The older almost kills the younger, but relents, concedes him what he wants, but then bewitches him. Omens of doom pile up effectively. The victim's state of mind may be an example of what a Mohave feels who believes himself bewitched. The magic operating too slowly, the younger brother is finally dispatched with the humiliation of having bones cut out of his body for use and play. The elder goes off with the non-kinsmen whom the uncle had left when he joined his blood nephews. This marks him as a traitor and Chemehuevi foreigner, as well as establishing two inimical groups or parties.
With part E, dealing with the posthumous birth of the hero, the main narrative begins. The hero evidences prenatal magic power, but this is a faculty often attributed by the Mohave to shamans, so that the manifestation is mythically expectable, rather than miraculous in our sense.
In the next section, F, the baby, grown to boyhood, steals his father's bone with which his foes are playing—compare the incident in Nyohaiva,15—and sends it flying to break the western mountains and kill their inhabitants. It does not appear that these people are his foes: rather is he trying out his growing powers; and his real foes begin to foresee their end.
Then he goes on a long journey which constitutes part G. This travel is motivated by Mohave song-myth custom rather than by anything in the boy hero's situation. At the same time, it serves to give a sense of his growing up, and of having his life filled with experiences as a hero should. The Mohave narrator is in intent the teller of a near-epic, or of a novelistic romance, not of a short story which aims to cut to the essence of an action. From this point of view, the journey rounds, or properly fills out, the plot, though it contributes nothing vital. The incidents of the journey—down the Colorado from northern Mohave land to the mouth of the great river, including detours, and southeast along the Gulf shore—are characteristic. The traveler is awakened by birds, frightened by a rattlesnake, sees a horsefly, hummingbird, wild grapes, badger, jack rabbit, springs, cane, the surf, a crane, ducks, sea shells, and various other sights such as might make a boy watch or wonder. There is certainly a sense of unending interest in nature, of rapport with it, in these Mohave itineraries—a pre-Wordsworthian attitude, one might almost call it.
The narration is concise in this journey. There are 31 stages or paragraphs—between a fourth and a third of the whole story—and 54 songs out of 182, or the same proportion; but only about one-seventh or one-eighth of the length of the tale. Thus the tempo of narration is doubled during this part; which fact contributes to the fact that its interruption of the main action does not wear down plot-suspense unduly. Also, it is easier to devise long strings of simple songs of five or six words about horseflies darting or hummingbirds on their nests or cranes in the surf, than about dangers, feats, and dramatic tensions such as make up the preceding and succeeding sections.
As soon as Ahta-hane leaves the sea to turn inland—part H—the character of the telling changes. It becomes pure hero-story again, now of fairy-tale quality. The roster of place names is over with. We are somewhere in the desert—presumably in the Papaguería—but places and distances are undesignated. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the tale, in incidents and affects as well as in glimpses of unsuspected ethnography. The events comprise:
The hero hides himself from the four women.Lets himself be found rotten but is restored.Wins encounter with Meteor.Wins gambling with Sun.Through his winning makes himself attractive to his wives.
The hero hides himself from the four women.
Lets himself be found rotten but is restored.
Wins encounter with Meteor.
Wins gambling with Sun.
Through his winning makes himself attractive to his wives.
Complex as the action is here, it is thus nevertheless well tied together.
This is the longest section of Cane: about a quarter of the total narration, and this crowded with stirring events. But the songs of the section constitute only about a sixth, and the song stations or paragraphs about an eighth, of the total. There is much happening, but little of the discrete incident that best lends itself to singing about.
Section I is moderately long and describes thejourney home, but now with his wives, in order to meet his mother, a half-brother unmentioned before, and finally his dead father's shadow. Kinship relations are thus in the forefront, and most of the topography is still indefinite. The return, as so often in Mohave story, presages war. The hero's successive reunions, culminating in the unique interview with his father's spirit, build up affect toward a climax which can end only in a contest with his hereditary foes.
This contest constitutes part J, and is characteristically brief: the Mohave seem not to know how to dilate on a fight, even one conducted by magic. The hero first beats his enemies in competitions, then destroys them with lightning from his magic cane. The narrator's knitting together of items, and suspending them over intervals, is evidenced by the lightning cane, which has been acquired in paragraph90, but is used only in102.
Section K, the final transformation of the hero and his folk into stars, birds, and rocks, is of course a conventional coda—somewhat like the particle used in some languages, or the tone-glide in others, to indicate end of sentence. It means nothing specific in relation to the particular events preceding, but without it the tale would not be felt as having been brought to an end.
This analysis perhaps helps to establish the genuine skill of the narrator in joining, developing, and sustaining a plot which has something of epic quality and which in a less simple culture, with a more specific medium than natural prose available, might have had epic potentialities.
References to Cane, Ahta (by paragraphs)2.Names of the brothers refer to cane (fn.4).18a.Uncle sends them for cane.18b.On the journey lightning and thunder, omen of death.19-23.Cane described, argument about division, knife made, cane cut, quarrel over it, return.24.Not to eat salt while unwashed—indicates power in cane.24.Older brother paints his cane; younger, bewitched, sees his unpainted.62.Cane seen on journey, near Yuma.70.Turns into cane sliver to hide from four women.71.Oldest woman thinks he may be cane.74.Hero smokes caneful of tobacco, chews up the cane.76.Told that the Mohave do not smoke in cane, he says he is Cane.77.Smokes two filled canes.88.His name, Ahta-hane, first mentioned (fn.87).90.Told by mother's father of lightning and thunder.91.Takes cane from hole made by lightning bolt, splits into four.92.Refuses to show it to his wife: it would kill.93.Half-brother called Ahta-kwasume; wears cane that rattles.95.The two brothers mourn their father and burn all their belongings except the lightning cane.102.Contest with canes that flash lightning: hero's is stronger.103.Shows them his canes and makes it thunder.References to Meteor, Kwayū37.Hero knocks father's kneecap shinny ball west as meteor to explode in mountains.75-77.Meteor, husband of four women, tries to kill hero, gives him tobacco.82b.Meteor referred to again as cannibal.104.Hero flies as meteor past rock "Meteor's father's mother" to turn into rock Mekoaṭa.References to Sun, Anya7b-10.Hero's father's first wife is Tšese'ilye (fn.78), daughter of Sun in west.11a-14.Hero's father's second wife is Kuvahā, daughter of Sun in east by different mother.29-31.One wife returns, other gives birth to hero.35.He sends his mother away.77-78.Sun, father (or husband? see fn.58) of four women, gambles with hero, loses body, escapes, is turned into double (sun dog).87-99.Hero returns to mother.90.Hero learns from mother's father's son about deadly lightning.References to Blue-tailed Lizard, Halye'anekitše36.Hero turns into halye'anekitše lizard to steal father's kneecap shinny ball (fn.40).99-101.Halye'anekitše wins contest for hero by taking father's scalp from pole.