As already stated there had been men on the earth previous to that final and perfect creation of man from the bone supplied by Mictlanteuctli, and wetted by the gods with their own blood at the place of the Seven Caves. These men had been swept away by a succession of great destructions. With regard to the number of these destructions it is hard to speak positively, as on no single point in the wide range of early American religion, does there exist so much difference of opinion. All the way from twice to five times, following different accounts, has the world been desolated by tremendous convulsions of nature. I follow most closely the version of the Tezcucan historian Ixtlilxochitl, as being one of the earliest accounts, as, prima facie, from its origin, one of the most authentic, and as being supported by a majority of respectable historians up to the time of Humboldt.
THE AGES OR SUNS OF THE MEXICANS.
Of the creation which ushered in the first age we know nothing; we are only told by Boturini, that giants then began to appear on the earth. This First Age; or 'sun,' was called the Sun of the Water, and it was ended by a tremendous flood in which every living thing perished, or was transformed, except, following some accounts, one man and one woman of the giant race, of whose escape more hereafter. The Second Age, called the Sun of the Earth, was closed with earthquakes, yawnings of the earth, and the overthrow of the highest mountains. Giants, or Quinamés, a powerful and haughty race still appear to be the only inhabitants of the world. The Third Age was the Sun of the Air. It was ended by tempests and hurricanes, so destructive that few indeed of the inhabitants of the earth were left; and those that were saved, lost, according to the Tlascaltec account, their reason and speech, becoming monkeys.
The present is the Fourth Age. To it appear to belongthe falling of the goddess-born flint from heaven, the birth of the sixteen hundred heroes from that flint, the birth of mankind from the bone brought from hades, the transformation of Nanahuatzin into the sun, the transformation of Tezcatecatl into the moon, and the death of the sixteen hundred heroes or gods. It is called the Sun of Fire, and is to be ended by a universal conflagration.[II-23]
Connected with the great flood of water, there is aMexican tradition presenting some analogies to the story of Noah and his ark. In most of the painted manuscripts supposed to relate to this event, a kind of boat is represented floating over the waste of water, and containing a man and a woman. Even the Tlascaltecs, the Zapotecs, the Miztecs, and the people of Michoacan are said to have had such pictures. The man is variously called Coxcox, Teocipactli, Tezpi, and Nata; the woman Xochiquetzal and Nena.[II-24]
THE TOWER OF BABEL.
The following has been usually accepted as the ordinary Mexican version of this myth: In Atonatiuh, the Age of Water, a great flood covered all the face of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were turned into fishes. Only one man and one woman escaped, saving themselves in the hollow trunk of anahahueteor bald cypress; the name of the man being Coxcox, and that of his wife Xochiquetzal. On the waters abating a little they grounded their ark on the Peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of Mexico. Here they increased and multiplied, and children began to gather about them, children who were all born dumb. And a dove came and gave them tongues, innumerable languages. Only fifteen of the descendants of Coxcox, who afterward became heads of families, spake the same language or could at all understand each other; and from these fifteen are descended the Toltecs, the Aztecs, and the Acolhúas. This dove is not the only bird mentioned in these deluvial traditions, and must by no means be confounded with the birds of another palpably Christianized story. For in Michoacan a tradition was preserved, following which the name of the Mexican Noah was Tezpi. With better fortune than that ascribed to Coxcox, he was able to save, in a spacious vessel, not only himself and his wife,but also his children, several animals, and a quantity of grain for the common use. When the waters began to subside, he sent out a vulture that it might go to and fro on the earth and bring him word again when the dry land began to appear. But the vulture fed upon the carcasses that were strewed in every part, and never returned. Then Tezpi sent out other birds, and among these was a humming-bird. And when the sun began to cover the earth with a new verdure, the humming-bird returned to its old refuge bearing green leaves. And Tezpi saw that his vessel was aground near the mountain of Colhuacan and he landed there.
The Mexicans round Cholula had a special legend, connecting the escape of a remnant from the great deluge with the often-mentioned story of the origin of the people of Anáhuac from Chicomoztoc, or the Seven Caves. At the time of the cataclysm, the country, according to Pedro de los Rios, was inhabited by giants. Some of these perished utterly; others were changed into fishes; while seven brothers of them found safety by closing themselves into certain caves in a mountain called Tlaloc. When the waters were assuaged, one of the giants, Xelhua, surnamed the Architect, went to Cholula and began to build an artificial mountain, as a monument and a memorial of the Tlaloc that had sheltered him and his when the angry waters swept through all the land. The bricks were made in Tlamanalco, at the foot of the Sierra de Cocotl, and passed to Cholula from hand to hand along a file of men—whence these came is not said—stretching between the two places. Then were the jealousy and the anger of the gods aroused, as the huge pyramid rose slowly up, threatening to reach the clouds and the great heaven itself; and the gods launched their fire upon the builders and slew many, so that the work was stopped.[II-25]But the half-finishedstructure, afterwards dedicated by the Cholultecs to Quetzalcoatl, still remains to show how well Xelhua, the giant, deserved his surname of the Architect.
THE MEXICAN DELUGE.
Yet another record remains to us of a traditional Mexican deluge, in the following extract from the Chimalpopoca Manuscript. Its words seem to have a familiar sound; but it would hardly be scientific to draw from such a fragment any very sweeping conclusion as to its relationship, whether that be Quiché or Christian:—
When the Sun, or Age, Nahui-Atl came, there had passed already four hundred years; then came two hundred years, then seventy and six, and then mankind were lost and drowned and turned into fishes. The waters and the sky drew near each other; in a single day all was lost; the day Four Flower consumed all that there was of our flesh. And this year was the year Ce-Calli; on the first day, Nahui-Atl, all was lost. The very mountains were swallowed up in the flood and the waters remained, lying tranquil during fifty and two spring-times. But before the flood began, Titlacahuan had warned the man Nata and his wife Nena, saying:Make now no more pulque, but hollow out to yourselves a great cypress, into which you shall enter when, in the month Tozoztli, the waters shall near the sky. Then they entered into it, and when Titlacahuan had shut them in, he said to the man: Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also. And when they had finished eating, each an ear of maize, they prepared to set forth, for the waters remained tranquil and their log moved no longer; and opening it they began to see the fishes. Then they lit a fire, rubbing pieces of wood together, and they roasted fish. And behold the deities Citlallinicué and Citlallatonac looking down from above, cried out: O divine Lord! what is this fire that they make there? wherefore do they so fill the heaven with smoke? And immediately Titlacahuan Tetzcatlipoca came down, and set himself to grumble, saying: What does this fire here? Then he seized the fishes and fashioned them behind and before, and changed them into dogs.[II-26]
We turn now to the traditions of some nations situated on the outskirts of the Mexican Empire, traditions differing from those of Mexico, if not in their elements, at least in the combination of those elements. Following our usual custom, I give the following legend belonging to the Miztecs just as they themselves were accustomed to depict and to interpret it in their primitive scrolls:—[II-27]
THE FLYING HEROES OF MIZTECA.
In the year and in the day of obscurity and darkness, yea even before the days or the years were, when the world was in a great darkness and chaos, when the earth was covered with water and there was nothing but mud and slime on all the face of the earth—behold a god became visible, and his name was the Deer, and his surnamewas the Lion-Snake. There appeared also a very beautiful goddess called the Deer, and surnamed the Tiger-Snake.[II-28]These two gods were the origin and beginning of all the gods.
Now when these two gods became visible in the world, they made, in their knowledge and omnipotence, a great rock, upon which they built a very sumptuous palace, a masterpiece of skill, in which they made their abode upon earth. On the highest part of this building there was an axe of copper, the edge being uppermost, and on this axe the heavens rested.
This rock and the palace of the gods were on a mountain in the neighborhood of the town of Apoala in the province of Mizteca Alta. The rock was called The Place of Heaven; there the gods first abode on earth, living many years in great rest and content, as in a happy and delicious land, though the world still lay in obscurity and darkness.
The father and mother of all the gods being here in their place, two sons were born to them, very handsome and very learned in all wisdom and arts. The first was called the Wind of Nine Snakes, after the name of the day on which he was born; and the second was called, in like manner, the Wind of Nine Caves. Very daintily indeed were these youths brought up. When the elder wished to amuse himself, he took the form of an eagle, flying thus far and wide; the younger turned himself into a small beast of a serpent shape, having wings that he used with such agility and sleight that he became invisible, and flew through rocks and walls even as through the air. As they went, the din and clamor of these brethren was heard by those over whom they passed. They took these figures to manifest the power that was in them, both in transforming themselves and in resuming again their original shape. And they abode in great peace in the mansion of their parents, so they agreed to makea sacrifice and an offering to these gods, to their father and to their mother. Then they took each a censer of clay, and put fire therein, and poured in groundbeleñofor incense; and this offering was the first that had ever been made in the world. Next the brothers made to themselves a garden, in which they put many trees, and fruit-trees, and flowers, and roses, and odorous herbs of different kinds. Joined to this garden they laid out a very beautiful meadow, which they fitted up with all things necessary for offering sacrifice to the gods. In this manner the two brethren left their parents' house, and fixed themselves in this garden to dress it and to keep it, watering the trees and the plants and the odorous herbs, multiplying them, and burning incense of powder of beleño in censers of clay to the gods, their father and mother. They made also vows to these gods, and promises, praying that it might seem good to them to shape the firmament and lighten the darkness of the world, and to establish the foundation of the earth, or rather to gather the waters together so that the earth might appear—as they had no place to rest in save only one little garden. And to make their prayers more obligatory upon the gods, they pierced their ears and tongues with flakes of flint, sprinkling the blood that dropped from the wounds over the trees and plants of the garden with a willow branch, as a sacred and blessed thing. After this sort they employed themselves, postponing pleasure till the time of the granting of their desire, remaining always in subjection to the gods, their father and mother, and attributing to them more power and divinity than they really possessed.
Fray Garcia here makes a break in the relation—that he may not weary his readers with so many absurdities—but it would appear that the firmament was arranged and the earth made fit for mankind, who about that time must also have made their appearance. For there came a great deluge afterwards, wherein perished many of the sons and daughters that had been born to the gods; and it is said that when the deluge was passed the humanrace was restored as at the first, and the Miztec kingdom populated, and the heavens and the earth established.
This we may suppose to have been the traditional origin of the common people; but the governing family of Mizteca proclaimed themselves the descendants of two youths born from two majestic trees that stood at the entrance of the gorge of Apoala, and that maintained themselves there despite a violent wind continually rising from a cavern in the vicinity.
THE DUEL WITH THE SUN.
Whether the trees of themselves produced these youths, or whether some primeval Æsir, as in the Scandinavian story, gave them shape and blood and breath and sense, we know not. We are only told that soon or late the youths separated, each going his own way to conquer lands for himself. The braver of the two coming to the vicinity of Tilantongo, armed with buckler and bow, was much vexed and oppressed by the ardent rays of the sun, which he took to be the lord of that district striving to prevent his entrance therein. Then the young warrior strung his bow, and advanced his buckler before him, and drew shafts from his quiver. He shot there against the great light even till the going down of the same; then he took possession of all that land, seeing he had grievously wounded the sun, and forced him to hide behind the mountains. Upon this story is founded the lordship of all the caciques of Mizteca, and upon their descent from this mighty archer their ancestor. Even to this day, the chiefs of the Miztecs blazon as their arms a plumed chief with bow, arrows, and shield, and the sun in front of him setting behind gray clouds.[II-29]
Of the origin of the Zapotecs, a people bordering on these Miztecs, Burgoa says, with a touching simplicity, that he could find no account worthy of belief. Their historical paintings he ascribes to the invention of the devil, affirming hotly that these people were blinder in such vanities than the Egyptians and the Chaldeans.Some, he said, to boast of their valor made themselves out the sons of lions and divers wild beasts; others, grand lords of ancient lineage, were produced by the greatest and most shady trees; while still others of an unyielding and obstinate nature, were descended from rocks. Their language, continues the worthy Provincial, striking suddenly and by an undirected shot the very center of mythological interpretation—their language was full of metaphors; those who wished to persuade spake always in parables, and in like manner painted their historians.[II-30]
In Guatemala, according to the relations given to Father Gerónimo Roman by the natives, it was believed there was a time when nothing existed but a certain divine Father called Xchmel, and a divine Mother called Xtmana. To these were born three sons,[II-31]the eldest of whom, filled with pride and presumption, set about a creation contrary to the will of his parents. But he could create nothing save old vessels fit for mean uses, such as earthen pots, jugs, and things still more despicable; and he was hurled into hades. Then the two younger brethren, called respectively Hunchevan and Hunavan, prayed their parents for permission to attempt the work in which their brother had failed so signally. And they were granted leave, being told at the same time, that inasmuch as they had humbled themselves, they would succeed in their undertaking. Then they made the heavens, and the earth with the plants thereon, and fire and air, and out of the earth itself they made a man and a woman—presumably the parents of the human race.
According to Torquemada, there was a deluge some time after this, and after the deluge the people continued to invoke as god the great Father and the great Motheralready mentioned. But at last a principal woman[II-32]among them, having received a revelation from heaven, taught them the true name of God, and how that name should be adored; all this, however, they afterward forgot.[II-33]
In Nicaragua, a country where the principal language was a Mexican dialect, it was believed that ages ago the world was destroyed by a flood in which the most part of mankind perished. Afterward theteotes, or gods, restocked the earth as at the beginning. Whence came the teotes, no one knows; but the names of two of them who took a principal part in the creation were Tamagostat and Cipattonal.[II-34]
THE COYOTE OF THE PAPAGOS.
Leaving now the Central American region we pass north into the Papago country, lying south of the Gila, with the river Santa Cruz on the east and the Gulf of California on the west. Here we meet for the first time the coyote, or prairie wolf; we find him much more than an animal, something more even than a man, only a little lower than the gods. In the following Papago myth[II-35]he figures as a prophet, and as a minister and assistant to a certain great hero-god Montezuma, whom we are destined to meet often, and in many characters, as a central figure in the myths of the Gila valley:—
LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA.
The Great Spirit made the earth and all living things,before he made man. And he descended from heaven, and digging in the earth, found clay such as the potters use, which, having again ascended into the sky, he dropped into the hole that he had dug. Immediately there came out Montezuma and, with the assistance of Montezuma, the rest of the Indian tribes in order. Last of all came the Apaches, wild from their natal hour, running away as fast as they were created. Those first days of the world were happy and peaceful days. The sun was nearer the earth than he is now; his grateful rays made all the seasons equal, and rendered garments unnecessary. Men and beasts talked together, a common language made all brethren. But an awful destruction ended this happy age. A great flood destroyed all flesh wherein was the breath of life; Montezuma and his friend the Coyote alone escaping. For before the flood began, the Coyote prophesied its coming, and Montezuma took the warning and hollowed out a boat to himself, keeping it ready on the topmost summit of Santa Rosa. The Coyote also prepared an ark; gnawing down a great cane by the river bank, entering it, and stopping up the end with a certain gum. So when the waters rose these two saved themselves, and met again at last on dry land after the flood had passed away. Naturally enough Montezuma was now anxious to know how much dry land had been left, and he sent the Coyote off on four successive journeys, to find exactly where the sea lay toward each of the four winds. From the west and from the south, the answer swiftly came: The sea is at hand. A longer search was that made towards the east, but at last there too was the sea found. On the north only was no water found, though the faithful messenger almost wearied himself out with searching. In the meantime the Great Spirit, aided by Montezuma, had again repeopled the world, and animals and men began to increase and multiply. To Montezuma had been allotted the care and government of the new race; but puffed up with pride and self importance, he neglected the most important duties of his onerous position, and suffered themost disgraceful wickedness to pass unnoticed among the people. In vain the Great Spirit came down to earth and remonstrated with his vicegerent, who only scorned his laws and advice, and ended at last by breaking out into open rebellion. Then indeed the Great Spirit was filled with anger, and he returned to heaven, pushing back the sun on his way, to that remote part of the sky he now occupies. But Montezuma hardened his heart, and collecting all the tribes to aid him, set about building a house that should reach up to heaven itself. Already it had attained a great height, and contained many apartments lined with gold, silver, and precious stones, the whole threatening soon to make good the boast of its architect, when the Great Spirit launched his thunder, and laid its glory in ruins. Still Montezuma hardened himself; proud and inflexible, he answered the thunderer out of the haughty defiance of his heart; he ordered the temple-houses to be desecrated, and the holy images to be dragged in the dust, he made them a scoff and byword for the very children in the village streets. Then the Great Spirit prepared his supreme punishment. He sent an insect flying away towards the east, towards an unknown land, to bring the Spaniards. When these came, they made war upon Montezuma and destroyed him, and utterly dissipated the idea of his divinity.[II-36]
DELUGE OF THE PIMAS.
The Pimas,[II-37]a neighboring and closely allied people to the Papagos, say that the earth was made by a certain Chiowotmahke, that is to say Earth-prophet. It appeared in the beginning like a spider's web, stretching far and fragile across the nothingness that was. Then the Earth-prophet flew over all lands in the form of a butterfly, till he came to the place he judged fit for his purpose, and there he made man. And the thing was after this wise: The Creator took clay in his hands, and mixing it with the sweat of his own body, kneaded the whole into a lump. Then he blew upon the lump till it was filled with life and began to move; and it became man and woman. This Creator had a son called Szeukha, who, when the world was beginning to be tolerably peopled, lived in the Gila valley, where lived also at the same time a great prophet, whose name has been forgotten. Upon a certain night when the prophet slept, he was wakened by a noise at the door of his house, and when he looked, a great Eagle stood before him. And the Eagle spake: Arise, thou that healest the sick, thou that shouldest know what is to come, for behold a deluge is at hand. But the prophet laughed the bird to scorn and gathered his robes about him and slept. Afterwards the Eagle came again and warned him of the waters near at hand; but he gave no ear to the bird at all. Perhaps he would not listen because this Eagle had an exceedingly bad reputation among men, being reported to take at times the form of an old woman that lured away girls and children to a certain cliff so that they were never seen again; of this, however, more anon. A third time, the Eagle came to warn the prophet, and to say that all the valley of the Gila should be laid waste with water; but the prophet gave no heed. Then, inthe twinkling of an eye, and even as the flapping of the Eagle's wings died away into the night, there came a peal of thunder and an awful crash; and a green mound of water reared itself over the plain. It seemed to stand upright for a second, then, cut incessantly by the lightning, goaded on like a great beast, it flung itself upon the prophet's hut. When the morning broke there was nothing to be seen alive but one man—if indeed he were a man; Szeukha, the son of the Creator, had saved himself by floating on a ball of gum or resin. On the waters falling a little, he landed near the mouth of the Salt River, upon a mountain where there is a cave that can still be seen, together with the tools and utensils Szeukha used while he lived there. Szeukha was very angry with the Great Eagle, who he probably thought had had more to do with bringing on the flood than appears in the narrative. At any rate the general reputation of the bird was sufficiently bad, and Szeukha prepared a kind of rope ladder from a very tough species of tree, much like woodbine, with the aid of which he climbed up to the cliff where the Eagle lived, and slew him.[II-38]Looking about here, he found the mutilated and decaying bodies of a great multitude of those that the Eagle had stolen and taken for a prey; and he raised them all to life again and sent them away to repeople the earth. In the house or den of the Eagle, he found a woman that the monster had taken to wife, and a child. These he sent also upon their way, and from these are descended that great people called Hohocam, 'ancients or grandfathers,' who were led in all their wanderings by an eagle, and who eventually passed into Mexico.[II-39]One of these Hohocamnamed Sivano, built the Casa Grande on the Gila, and indeed the ruins of this structure are called after his name to this day. On the death of Sivano, his son led a branch of the Hohocam to Salt River, where he built certain edifices and dug a large canal, oracequia. At last it came about that a woman ruled over the Hohocam. Her throne was cut out of a blue stone, and a mysterious bird was her constant attendant. These Hohocam were at war with a people that lived to the east of them, on the Rio Verde, and one day the bird warned her that the enemy was at hand. The warning was disregarded or it came too late, for the eastern people came down in three bands; destroyed the cities of the Hohocam, and killed or drove away all the inhabitants.
Most of the Pueblo tribes call themselves the descendants of Montezuma;[II-40]the Moquis, however, have a quite different story of their origin. They believe in a great Father living where the sun rises; and in a great Mother, whose home is where the sun goes down. The Father is the father of evil, war, pestilence, and famine; but from the Mother are all joys, peace, plenty, and health. In the beginning of time the Mother produced from her western home nine races of men in the following primary forms: First, the Deer race; second, the Sand race; third, the Water race; fourth, the Bear race; fifth, the Hare race; sixth, the Prairie-wolf race; seventh, the Rattle-snake race; eighth, the Tobacco-plant race; and ninth, the Reed-grass race. All these the Mother placed respectively on the spots where their villages now stand, and transformed them into the men who built the present Pueblos. These race-distinctions are still sharply kept up; for they are believed to be realities, not only of the past and present, but also of the future; every man when he dies shall be resolved into his primeval form; shall wave in the grass, or drift in the sand, or prowl on the prairie as in the beginning.[II-41]
CAVE-ORIGIN OF THE NAVAJOS.
The Navajos, living north of the Pueblos, say that at one time all the nations, Navajos, Pueblos, Coyoteros, and white people, lived together, underground in the heart of a mountain near the river San Juan. Their only food was meat, which they had in abundance, for all kinds of game were closed up with them in their cave; but their light was dim and only endured for a few hours each day. There were happily two dumb men among the Navajos, flute-players who enlivened the darkness with music. One of these striking by chance on the roof of the limbo with his flute, brought out a hollow sound, upon which the elders of the tribes determined to bore in the direction whence the sound came. The flute was then set up against the roof, and the Raccoon sent up the tube to dig a way out; but he could not. Then the Moth-worm mounted into the breach, and bored and bored till he found himself suddenly on the outside of the mountain and surrounded by water. Under these novel circumstances, he heaped up a little mound and set himself down on it to observe and ponder the situation. A critical situation enough! for, from the four corners of the universe, four great white Swans bore down upon him, every one with two arrows, one under either wing. The Swan from the north reached him first, and having pierced him with two arrows, drew them out and examined their points, exclaiming as the result: He is of my race. So also, in succession, did all the others. Then they went away; and towards the directions in which they departed, to the north, south, east, and west, were found four greatarroyos, by which all the water flowed off, leaving only mud. The worm now returned to the cave, and the Raccoon went up into the mud, sinking in it mid-leg deep, as the marks on his fur show to this day. And the wind began to rise, sweeping up the four great arroyos, and the mud was dried away. Then the men and the animals began to come up from their cave, and their coming up required several days. First came the Navajos, and no sooner hadthey reached the surface then they commenced gaming atpatole, their favorite game. Then came the Pueblos and other Indians who crop their hair and build houses. Lastly came the white people, who started off at once for the rising sun and were lost sight of for many winters.
While these nations lived underground they all spake one tongue; but with the light of day and the level of earth, came many languages. The earth was at this time very small and the light was quite as scanty as it had been down below; for there was as yet no heaven, nor sun, nor moon, nor stars. So another council of the ancients was held and a committee of their number appointed to manufacture these luminaries. A large house or workshop was erected; and when the sun and moon were ready, they were entrusted to the direction and guidance of the two dumb fluters already mentioned. The one who got charge of the sun came very near, through his clumsiness in his new office, to making a Phaethon of himself and setting fire to the earth. The old men, however, either more lenient than Zeus or lacking his thunder, contented themselves with forcing the offender back by puffing the smoke of their pipes into his face. Since then the increasing size of the earth has four times rendered it necessary that he should be put back, and his course farther removed from the world and from the subterranean cave to which he nightly retires with the great light. At night also the other dumb man issues from this cave, bearing the moon under his arm, and lighting up such part of the world as he can. Next the old men set to work to make the heavens, intending to broider in the stars in beautiful patterns, of bears, birds, and such things. But just as they had made a beginning a prairie-wolf rushed in, and crying out: Why all this trouble and embroidery? scattered the pile of stars over all the floor of heaven, just as they still lie.
When now the world and its firmament had been finished, the old men prepared two earthentinagesor water-jars, and having decorated one with bright colors, filledit with trifles; while the other was left plain on the outside, but filled within with flocks and herds and riches of all kinds. These jars being covered and presented to the Navajos and Pueblos, the former chose the gaudy but paltry jar; while the Pueblos received the plain and rich vessel; each nation showing in its choice traits which characterize it to this day. Next there arose among the Navajos a great gambler, who went on winning the goods and the persons of his opponents till he had won the whole tribe. Upon this, one of the old men became indignant, set the gambler on his bowstring and shot him off into space—an unfortunate proceeding, for the fellow returned in a short time with firearms and the Spaniards. Let me conclude by telling how the Navajos came by the seed they now cultivate: All the wise men being one day assembled, a turkey-hen came flying from the direction of the morning star, and shook from her feathers an ear of blue corn into the midst of the company; and in subsequent visits brought all the other seeds they possess.[II-42]
ORIGIN-MYTHS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Of some tribes, we do not know that they possess any other ideas of their origin than the name of their first ancestor, or the name of a creator or a tradition of his existence.
The Sinaloas, from Culiacan north to the Yaqui River, have dances in honor of a certain Viriseva, the mother of the first man. This first man, who was her son, and called Vairubi, they hold in like esteem.[II-43]The Cochimis, of Lower California, amid an apparent multiplicity of gods, say there is in reality only one, who created heaven, earth, plants, animals, and man.[II-44]The Pericues, also of Lower California, call the creator Niparaya, and say that the heavens are his dwelling-place. A sect ofthe same tribe add that the stars are made of metal, and are the work of a certain Purutabui; while the moon has been made by one Cucunumic.[II-45]
The nations of Los Angeles County, California, believe that their one god, Quaoar, came down from heaven; and, after reducing chaos to order, put the world on the back of seven giants. He then created the lower animals, and lastly a man and a woman. These were made separately out of earth and called, the man Tobohar, and the woman Pabavit.[II-46]
Hugo Reid, to whom we are mainly indebted for the mythology of Southern California, and who is an excellent authority, inasmuch as his wife was an Indian woman of that country, besides the preceding gives us another and different tradition on the same subject: Two great Beings made the world, filled it with grass and trees, and gave form, life, and motion to the various animals that people land and sea. When this work was done, the elder Creator went up to heaven and left his brother alone on the earth. The solitary god left below, made to himself men-children, that he should not be utterly companionless. Fortunately also, about this time, the moon came to that neighborhood; she was very fair in her delicate beauty, very kind-hearted, and she filled the place of a mother to the men-children that the god had created. She watched over them, and guarded them from all evil things of the night, standing at the door of their lodge. The children grew up very happily, laying great store by the love with which their guardians regarded them; but there came a day when their heart saddened, in which they began to notice that neither their god-creator nor their moon foster-mother gave them any longer undivided affection and care, but that instead, the two great ones seemed to waste much precious love upon each other. The tall god began to steal out of their lodge at dusk, and spend the night watches in the company of the white-haired moon, who, on theother hand, did not seem on these occasions to pay such absorbing attention to her sentinel duty as at other times. The children grew sad at this, and bitter at the heart with a boyish jealousy. But worse was yet to come: one night they were awakened by a querulous wailing in their lodge, and the earliest dawn showed them a strange thing, which they afterwards came to know was a new-born infant, lying in the doorway. The god and the moon had eloped together; their Great One had returned to his place beyond the ether, and that he might not be separated from his paramour, he had appointed her at the same time a lodge in the great firmament; where she may yet be seen, with her gauzy robe and shining silver hair, treading celestial paths. The child left on the earth was a girl. She grew up very soft, very bright, very beautiful, like her mother; but like her mother also, O so fickle and frail! She was the first of woman-kind, from her are all other women descended, and from the moon; and as the moon changes so they all change, say the philosophers of Los Angeles.[II-47]
CENTRAL-CALIFORNIAN CREATION-MYTHS.
A much more prosaic and materialistic origin is that accorded to the moon in the traditions of the Gallinomeros of Central California.[II-48]In the beginning, they say, there was no light, but a thick darkness covered all the earth. Man stumbled blindly against man and against the animals, the birds clashed together in the air, and confusion reigned everywhere. The Hawk happening by chance to fly into the face of the Coyote, there followed mutual apologies and afterwards a long discussion on the emergency of the situation. Determined to make some effort toward abating the public evil, the two set about a remedy. The Coyote gathered a great heap of tules, rolled them into a ball, and gave it to the Hawk, together with some pieces of flint. Gathering all together as well as he could, the Hawk flew straight up into the sky, where he struck fire with theflints, lit his ball of reeds, and left it there, whirling along all in a fierce red glow as it continues to the present; for it is the sun. In the same way the moon was made, but as the tules of which it was constructed were rather damp, its light has been always somewhat uncertain and feeble.[II-49]
In northern California, we find the Mattoles,[II-50]who connect a tradition of a destructive flood with Taylor Peak, a mountain in their locality, on which they say their forefathers took refuge. As to the creation, they teach that a certain Big Man began by making the naked earth, silent and bleak, with nothing of plant or animal thereon, save one Indian, who roamed about in a wofully hungry and desolate state. Suddenly there rose a terrible whirlwind, the air grew dark and thick with dust and drifting sand, and the Indian fell upon his face in sore dread. Then there came a great calm, and the man rose and looked, and lo, all the earth was perfect and peopled; the grass and the trees were green on every plain and hill; the beasts of the fields, the fowls of the air, the creeping things, the things that swim, moved everywhere in his sight. There is a limit set to the number of the animals, which is this: only a certain number of animal spirits are in existence; when one beast dies, his spirit immediately takes up its abode in another body, so that the whole number of animals is always the same, and the original spirits move in an endless circle of earthy immortality.[II-51]
THE COYOTE OF THE CALIFORNIANS.
We pass now to a train of myths in which the Coyote again appears, figuring in many important and somewhat mystical rôles—figuring in fact as the great Somebody of many tribes. To him, though involuntarily as it appears, are owing the fish to be found in Clear Lake. The story runs that one summer long ago there was a terrible drought in that region, followed by a plague of grasshoppers. The Coyote ate a great quantity of thesegrasshoppers, and drank up the whole lake to quench his thirst. After this he lay down to sleep off the effects of his extraordinary repast, and while he slept a man came up from the south country and thrust him through with a spear. Then all the water he had drunk flowed back through his wound into the lake, and with the water the grasshoppers he had eaten; and these insects became fishes, the same that still swim in Clear Lake.[II-52]
The Californians in most cases describe themselves as originating from the Coyote, and more remotely, from the very soil they tread. In the language of Mr. Powers—whose extended personal investigations give him the right to speak with authority—"All the aboriginal inhabitants of California, without exception, believe that their first ancestors were created directly from the earth of their respective present dwelling-places, and, in very many cases, that these ancestors were coyotes."[II-53]
The Potoyantes give an ingenious account of the transformation of the first coyotes into men: There was an age in which no men existed, nothing but coyotes. When one of these animals died, his body used to breed a multitude of little animals, much as the carcass of the huge Ymir, rotting in Ginnunga-gap, bred the maggots that turned to dwarfs. The little animals of our story were in reality spirits, which, after crawling about for a time on the dead coyote, and taking all kinds of shapes, ended by spreading wings and floating off to the moon. This evidently would not do; the earth was in danger of becoming depopulated; so the old coyotes took counsel together if perchance they might devise a remedy. The result was a general order that, for the time to come, all bodies should be incinerated immediately after death. Thus originated the custom of burning the dead, a custom still kept up among these people. We next learn—what indeed might have been expected of animals of such wisdom and parts—that these primeval coyotesbegan by degrees to assume the shape of men. At first, it is true, with many imperfections; but, a toe, an ear, a hand, bit by bit, they were gradually builded up into the perfect form of man looking upward. For one thing they still grieve, however, of all their lost estate—their tails are gone. An acquired habit of sitting upright, has utterly erased and destroyed that beautiful member. Lost is indeed lost, and gone is gone for ever, yet still when in dance and festival, the Potoyante throws off the weary burden of hard and utilitarian care, he attaches to himself, as nearly as may be in the ancient place, an artificial tail, and forgets for a happy hour the degeneracy of the present in simulating the glory of the past.[II-54]
The Californians tell again of a great flood, or at least of a time when the whole country, with the exception of Mount Diablo and Reed Peak, was covered with water. There was a Coyote on the peak, the only living thing the wide world over, and there was a single feather tossing about on the rippled water. The Coyote was looking at the feather, and even as he looked, flesh and bones and other feathers, came and joined themselves to the first, and became an Eagle. There was a stir on the water, a rush of broad pinions, and before the widening circles reached the island-hill, the bird stood beside the astonished Coyote. The two came soon to be acquainted and to be good friends, and they made occasional excursions together to the other hill, the Eagle flying leisurely overhead while the Coyote swam. After a time they began to feel lonely, so they created men; and as the men multiplied the waters abated, till the dry land came to be much as it is at present.
HOW THE GOLDEN GATE WAS OPENED.
Now, also, the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin began to find their way into the Pacific, through the mountains which, up to this time, had stretched across the mouth of San Francisco Bay. No Poseidon clove the hills with his trident, as when the pleasant vale of Tempe was formed, but a strong earthquake tore therock apart and opened the Golden Gate between the waters within and those without. Before this there had existed only two outlets for the drainage of the whole country; one was the Russian River, and the other the San Juan.[II-55]
The natives in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe, ascribe its origin to a great natural convulsion. There was a time, they say, when their tribe possessed the whole earth, and were strong, numerous, and rich; but a day came in which a people rose up stronger than they, and defeated and enslaved them. Afterwards the Great Spirit sent an immense wave across the continent from the sea, and this wave engulfed both the oppressors and the oppressed, all but a very small remnant. Then the taskmasters made the remaining people raise up a great temple, so that they, of the ruling caste, should have a refuge in case of another flood, and on the top of this temple the masters worshiped a column of perpetual fire.
Half a moon had not elapsed, however, before the earth was again troubled, this time with strong convulsions and thunderings, upon which the masters took refuge in their great tower, closing the people out. The poor slaves fled to the Humboldt River, and getting into canoes paddled for life from the awful sight behind them. For the land was tossing like a troubled sea, and casting up fire, smoke, and ashes. The flames went up to the very heaven and melted many stars, so that they rained down in molten metal upon the earth, forming the ore that the white men seek. The Sierra was mounded up from the bosom of the earth; while the place where the great fort stood sank, leaving only the dome on the top exposed above the waters of Lake Tahoe. The inmates of the temple-tower clung to this dome to save themselves from drowning; but the Great Spirit walked upon the waters in his wrath, and took the oppressors one by one like pebbles, and threw them far into the recesses of a great cavern, on the east side ofthe lake, called to this day the Spirit Lodge, where the waters shut them in. There must they remain till a last great volcanic burning, which is to overturn the whole earth, shall again set them free. In the depths of their cavern-prison they may still be heard, wailing and moaning, when the snows melt and the waters swell in the lake.[II-56]
We again meet the Coyote among the Cahrocs of Klamath River in Northern California. These Cahrocs believe in a certain Chareya, Old Man Above, who made the world, sitting the while upon a certain stool now in the possession of the high-priest, or chief medicine-man. After the creation of the earth, Chareya first made fishes, then the lower animals, and lastly man, upon whom was conferred the power of assigning to each animal its respective duties and position. The man determined to give each a bow, the length of which should denote the rank of the receiver. So he called all the animals together, and told them that next day, early in the morning, the distribution of bows would take place. Now the Coyote greatly desired the longest bow; and, in order to be in first at the division, he determined to remain awake all night. His anxiety sustained him for some time; but just before morning he gave way, and fell into a sound sleep. The consequence was, he was last at the rendezvous, and got the shortest bow of all. The man took pity on his distress, however, and brought the matter to the notice of Chareya, who, on considering the circumstances, decreed that the Coyote should become the most cunning of animals, as he remains to this time. The Coyote was very grateful to the man for his intercession, and he became his friend and the friend of his children, and did many things to aid mankind as we shall see hereafter.[II-57]
MOUNT SHASTA THE WIGWAM OF THE GREAT SPIRIT.
The natives in the neighborhood of Mount Shasta, in Northern California, say that the Great Spirit made this mountain first of all. Boring a hole in the sky, using alarge stone as an auger, he pushed down snow and ice until they had reached the desired height; then he stepped from cloud to cloud down to the great icy pile, and from it to the earth, where he planted the first trees by merely putting his finger into the soil here and there. The sun began to melt the snow; the snow produced water; the water ran down the sides of the mountains, refreshed the trees, and made rivers. The Creator gathered the leaves that fell from the trees, blew upon them, and they became birds. He took a stick and broke it into pieces; of the small end he made fishes; and of the middle of the stick he made animals—the grizzly bear excepted, which he formed from the big end of his stick, appointing him to be master over all the others. Indeed this animal was then so large, strong, and cunning, that the Creator somewhat feared him, and hollowed out Mount Shasta as a wigwam for himself, where he might reside while on earth, in the most perfect security and comfort. So the smoke was soon to be seen curling up from the mountain, where the Great Spirit and his family lived, and still live, though their hearth-fire is alight no longer, now that the white man is in the land. This was thousands of snows ago, and there came after this a late and severe spring-time, in which a memorable storm blew up from the sea, shaking the huge lodge to its base. The Great Spirit commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and bid the wind to be still, cautioning her at the same time in his fatherly way, not to put her head out into the blast, but only to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign before she delivered her message. The eager child hastened up to the hole in the roof, did as she was told, and then turned to descend; but the Eve was too strong in her to leave without a look at the forbidden world outside and the rivers and the trees, at the far ocean and the great waves that the storm had made as hoary as the forests when the snow is on the firs. She stopped, she put out her head to look; instantly the storm took her by the long hair, and blew her down tothe earth, down the mountain side, over the smooth ice and soft snow, down to the land of the grizzly bears.
Now the grizzly bears were somewhat different then from what they are at present. In appearance they were much the same it is true; but they walked then on their hind legs like men, and talked, and carried clubs, using the fore-limbs as men use their arms.
THE GRIZZLY FAMILY OF MOUNT SHASTA.
There was a family of these grizzlies living at the foot of the mountain, at the place where the child was blown to. The father was returning from the hunt with his club on his shoulder and a young elk in his hand, when he saw the little shivering waif lying on the snow with her hair all tangled about her. The old Grizzly, pitying and wondering at the strange forlorn creature, lifted it up, and carried it in to his wife to see what should be done. She too was pitiful, and she fed it from her own breast, bringing it up quietly as one of her family. So the girl grew up, and the eldest son of the old Grizzly married her, and their offspring was neither grizzly nor Great Spirit, but man. Very proud indeed were the whole grizzly nation of the new race, and uniting their strength from all parts of the country, they built the young mother and her family a mountain wigwam near that of the Great Spirit; and this structure of theirs is now known as Little Mount Shasta. Many years passed away, and at last the old grandmother Grizzly became very feeble and felt that she must soon die. She knew that the girl she had adopted was the daughter of the Great Spirit, and her conscience troubled her that she had never let him know anything of the fate of his child. So she called all the grizzlies together to the new lodge, and sent her eldest grandson up on a cloud to the summit of Mount Shasta, to tell the father that his daughter yet lived. When the Great Spirit heard that, he was so glad that he immediately ran down the mountain, on the south side, toward where he had been told his daughter was; and such was the swiftness of his pace that the snow was melted here and there along his course, as it remains to thisday. The grizzlies had prepared him an honorable reception, and as he approached his daughter's home, he found them standing in thousands in two files, on either side of the door, with their clubs under their arms. He had never pictured his daughter as aught but the little child he had loved so long ago; but when he found that she was a mother, and that he had been betrayed into the creation of a new race, his anger overcame him; he scowled so terribly on the poor old grandmother Grizzly that she died upon the spot. At this all the bears set up a fearful howl, but the exasperated father, taking his lost darling on his shoulder, turned to the armed host, and in his fury cursed them. Peace! he said. Be silent for ever! Let no articulate word ever again pass your lips, neither stand any more upright; but use your hands as feet, and look downward until I come again! Then he drove them all out; he drove out also the new race of men, shut to the door of Little Mount Shasta, and passed away to his mountain, carrying his daughter; and her or him no eye has since seen. The grizzlies never spoke again, nor stood up; save indeed when fighting for their life, when the Great Spirit still permits them to stand as in the old time, and to use their fists like men. No Indian tracing his descent from the spirit mother and the grizzly, as here described, will kill a grizzly bear; and if by an evil chance a grizzly kill a man in any place, that spot becomes memorable, and every one that passes casts a stone there till a great pile is thrown up.[II-58]
Let us now pass on, and going east and north, enter the Shoshone country. In Idaho there are certain famous Soda Springs whose origin the Snakes refer to the close of their happiest age. Long ago, the legend runs, when the cotton-woods on the Big River were no larger than arrows, all red men were at peace, the hatchet was everywhere buried, and hunter met hunter in the game-lands of the one or the other, with all hospitality and good-will. During this state of things, two chiefs, one of theShoshone, the other of the Comanche nation, met one day at a certain spring. The Shoshone had been successful in the chase, and the Comanche very unlucky, which put the latter in rather an ill humor. So he got up a dispute with the other as to the importance of their respective and related tribes, and ended by making an unprovoked and treacherous attack on the Shoshone, striking him into the water from behind, when he had stooped to drink. The murdered man fell forward into the water, and immediately a strange commotion was observable there; great bubbles and spirts of gas shot up from the bottom of the pool, and amid a cloud of vapor there arose also an old white-haired Indian, armed with a ponderous club of elk-horn. Well the assassin knew who stood before him; the totem on the breast was that of Wankanaga, the father both of the Shoshone and of the Comanche nations, an ancient famous for his brave deeds, and celebrated in the hieroglyphic pictures of both peoples. Accursed of two nations! cried the old man, this day hast thou put death between the two greatest peoples under the sun; see, the blood of this Shoshone cries out to the Great Spirit for vengeance. And he dashed out the brains of the Comanche with his club, and the murderer fell there beside his victim into the spring. After that the spring became foul and bitter, nor even to this day can any one drink of its nauseous water. Then Wankanaga, seeing that it had been defiled, took his club and smote a neighboring rock, and the rock burst forth into clear bubbling water, so fresh and so grateful to the palate that no other water can even be compared to it.[II-59]
THE GIANTS OF THE PALOUSE RIVER.
Passing into Washington, we find an account of the origin of the falls of Palouse River and of certain native tribes. There lived here at one time a family of giants, four brothers and a sister. The sister wanted some beaver-fat and she begged her brothers to get it for her—no easy task, as there was only one beaver in thecountry, and he an animal of extraordinary size and activity. However, like four gallant fellows, the giants set out to find the monster, soon catching sight of him near the mouth of the Palouse, then a peaceful gliding river with an even though winding channel. They at once gave chase, heading him up the river. A little distance up-stream they succeeded in striking him for the first time with their spears, but he shook himself clear, making in his struggle the first rapids of the Palouse, and dashed on up-stream. Again the brothers overtook him, pinning him to the river-bed with their weapons, and again the vigorous beast writhed away, making thus the second falls of the Palouse. Another chase, and, in a third and fatal attack, the four spear-shafts are struck again through the broad wounded back. There is a last stubborn struggle at the spot since marked by the great falls called Aputaput, a tearing of earth and a lashing of water in the fierce death-flurry, and the huge Beaver is dead. The brothers having secured the skin and fat, cut up the body and threw the pieces in various directions. From these pieces have originated the various tribes of the country, as the Cayuses, the Nez Percés, the Walla Wallas, and so on. The Cayuses sprang from the beaver's heart, and for this reason they are more energetic, daring, and successful than their neighbors.[II-60]
In Oregon the Chinooks and neighboring people tell of a pre-human demon race, called Ulháipa by the Chinooks, and Sehuiáb by the Clallams and Lummis. The Chinooks say that the human race was created by Italapas, the Coyote. The first men were sent into the world in a very lumpish and imperfect state, their mouth and eyes were closed, their hands and feet immovable. Then a kind and powerful spirit called Ikánam, took a sharp stone, opened the eyes of these poor creatures, and gave motion to their hands and feet. He taught them how to make canoes as well as all other implements and utensils; and he threw great rocks intothe rivers and made falls, to obstruct the salmon in their ascent, so that they might be easily caught.[II-61]
Farther north among the Ahts of Vancouver Island, perhaps the commonest notion of origin is that men at first existed as birds, animals, and fishes. We are told of a certain Quawteaht, represented somewhat contradictorily, as the first Aht that ever lived, thickset and hairy-limbed, and as the chief Aht deity, a purely supernatural being, if not the creator, at least the maker and shaper of most things, the maker of the land and the water, and of the animals that inhabit the one or the other. In each of these animals as at first created, there resided the embryo or essence of a man. One day a canoe came down the coast, paddled by two personages in the, at that time, unknown form of men. The animals were frightened out of their wits, and fled, each from his house, in such haste that he left behind him the human essence that he usually carried in his body. These embryos rapidly developed into men; they multiplied, made use of the huts deserted by the animals, and became in every way as the Ahts are now. There exists another account of the origin of the Ahts, which would make them the direct descendants of Quawteaht and an immense bird that he married—the great Thunder Bird, Tootooch, with which, under a different name and in a different sex, we shall become more familiar presently. The flapping of Tootooch's wings shook the hills with thunder,tootah; and when she put out her forked tongue, the lightning quivered across the sky.
The Ahts have various legends of the way in which fire was first obtained, which legends may be reduced to the following: Quawteaht withheld fire, for some reason or other, from the creatures that he had brought into the world, with one exception; it was always to be found burning in the home of the cuttle-fish,telhoop. The other beasts attempted to steal this fire, but only thedeer succeeded; he hid a little of it in the joint of his hind leg, and escaping, introduced the element to general use.
Not all animals, it would appear, were produced in the general creation; the loon and the crow had a special origin, being metamorphosed men. Two fishermen, being out at sea in their canoes, fell to quarreling, the one ridiculing the other for his small success in fishing. Finally the unsuccessful man became so infuriated by the taunts of his companion that he knocked him on the head, and stole his fish, cutting out his tongue before he paddled off, lest by any chance the unfortunate should recover his senses and gain the shore. The precaution was well taken, for the mutilated man reached the land and tried to denounce his late companion. No sound however could he utter but something resembling the cry of a loon, upon which the Great Spirit, Quawteaht, became so indiscriminatingly angry at the whole affair that he changed the poor mute into a loon, and his assailant into a crow. So when the mournful voice of the loon is heard from the silent lake or river, it is still the poor fisherman that we hear, trying to make himself understood and to tell the hard story of his wrongs.[II-62]
NOOTKA AND SALISH CREATION-MYTHS.
The general drift of many of the foregoing myths would go to indicate a wide-spread belief in the theory of an evolution of man from animals.[II-63]Traditions are not wanting, however, whose teaching is precisely the reverse. The Salish, the Nisquallies, and the Yakimas of Washington, all hold that beasts, fishes, and even edible roots are descended from human originals. One account of this inverse Darwinian development is this: The son of the Sun—whoever he may have been—caused certain individuals to swim through a lake of magic oil, a liquid of such Circean potency that the unfortunatesimmersed were transformed as above related. The peculiarities of organism of the various animals, are the results of incidents of their passage; the bear dived, and is therefore fat all over; the goose swam high, and is consequently fat only up to the water-line; and so on through all the list.[II-64]
Moving north to the Tacullies of British Columbia, we find the Musk-rat an active agent in the work of creation. The flat earth, following the Tacully cosmogony, was at first wholly covered with water. On the water a Musk-rat swam to and fro, seeking food. Finding none there, he dived to the bottom and brought up a mouthful of mud, but only to spit it out again when he came to the surface. All this he did again and again till quite an island was formed and by degrees the whole earth. In some unexplained way this earth became afterwards peopled in every part, and so remained, until a fierce fire of several days' duration swept over it, destroying all life, with two exceptions; one man and one woman hid themselves in a deep cave in the heart of a mountain, and from these two has the world been since repeopled.[II-65]
YEHL, THE CREATOR OF THE THLINKEETS.
From the Tacully country we pass north and west to the coast inhabited by the Thlinkeets, among whom the myth of a great Bird, or of a great hero-deity, whose favorite disguise is the shape of a bird, assumes the most elaborate proportions and importance. Here the name of this great Somebody is Yehl, the Crow or Raven, creator of most things, and especially of the Thlinkeets. Very dark, damp, and chaotic was the world in the beginning; nothing with breath or body moved there except Yehl; in the likeness of a raven he brooded over the mist, his black wings beat down the vast confusion, the waters went back before him and the dry land appeared. The Thlinkeets were placed on the earth—though how or when does not exactly appear—while the world was still in darkness, and without sun or moonor stars. A certain Thlinkeet, we are further informed, had a wife and a sister. Of the wife he was devouringly jealous, and when employed in the woods at his trade of building canoes, he had her constantly watched by eight red birds of the kind calledkun. To make assurance surer, he even used to coop her up in a kind of box every time he left home. All this while his sister, a widow it would appear, was bringing up certain sons she had, fine tall fellows, rapidly approaching manhood. The jealous uncle could not endure the thought of their being in the neighborhood of his wife. So he inveigled them one by one, time after time, out to sea with him on pretense of fishing, and drowned them there. The poor mother was left desolate, she went to the sea-shore to weep for her children. A dolphin—some say a whale—saw her there, and pitied her; the beast told her to swallow a small pebble and drink some sea-water. She did so, and in eight months was delivered of a child. That child was Yehl, who thus took upon himself a human shape, and grew up a mighty hunter and notable archer. One day a large bird appeared to him, having a long tail like a magpie, and a long glittering bill as of metal; the name of the bird was Kutzghatushl, that is, Crane that can soar to heaven. Yehl shot the bird, skinned it, and whenever he wished to fly used to clothe himself in its skin.
Now Yehl had grown to manhood, and he determined to avenge himself upon his uncle for the death of his brothers; so he opened the box in which the well-guarded wife was shut up. Instantly the eight faithful birds flew off and told the husband, who set out for his home in a murderous mood. Most cunning, however, in his patience, he greeted Yehl with composure, and invited him into his canoe for a short trip to sea. Having paddled out some way, he flung himself on the young man and forced him overboard: Then he put his canoe about and made leisurely for the land, rid as he thought of another enemy. But Yehl swam in quietly another way, and stood up in his uncle's house. The baffledmurderer was beside himself with fury, he imprecated with a potent curse a deluge upon all the earth, well content to perish himself so he involved his rival in the common destruction, for jealousy is cruel as the grave. The flood came, the waters rose and rose; but Yehl clothed himself in his bird-skin, and soared up to heaven, where he struck his beak into a cloud, and remained till the waters were assuaged.
ADVENTURES OF YEHL AND KHANUKH.
After this affair Yehl had many other adventures, so many that "one man cannot know them all," as the Thlinkeets say. One of the most useful things he did was to supply light to mankind—with whom, as appears, the earth had been again peopled after the deluge. Now all the light in the world was stored away in three boxes, among the riches of a certain mysterious old Chief, who guarded his treasure closely. Yehl set his wits to work to secure the boxes; he determined to be born into the chief's family. The old fellow had one daughter upon whom he doted, and Yehl transforming himself into a blade of grass, got into the girl's drinking-cup and was swallowed by her. In due time she gave birth to a son, who was Yehl, thus a second time born of a woman into the world. Very proud was the old chief of his grandson, loving him even as he loved his daughter, so that Yehl came to be a decidedly spoiled child. He fell a crying one day, working himself almost into a fit; he kicked and scratched and howled, and turned the family hut into a little pandemonium as only an infant plague can. He screamed for one of the three boxes; he would have a box; nothing but a box should ever appease him! The indulgent grandfather gave him one of the boxes; he clutched it, stopped crying, and crawled off into the yard to play. Playing, he contrived to wrench the lid off, and lo! the beautiful heaven was thick with stars, and the box empty. The old man wept for the loss of his stars, but he did not scold his grandson, he loved him too blindly for that. Yehl had succeeded in getting the stars into the firmament, and he proceeded to repeat his successful trick, to do the likeby the moon and sun. As may be imagined, the difficulty was much increased; still he gained his end. He first let the moon out into the sky, and some time afterward, getting possession of the box that held the sun, he changed himself into a raven and flew away with his greatest prize of all. When he set up the blazing light in heaven, the people that saw it were at first afraid. Many hid themselves in the mountains, and in the forests, and even in the water, and were changed into the various kinds of animals that frequent these places.
There are still other feats of Yehl's replete with the happiest consequences to mankind. There was a time, for instance, when all the fire in the world was hid away in an island of the ocean. Thither flew the indefatigable deity, fetching back a brand in his mouth. The distance, however, was so great that most of the wood was burned away and a part of his beak, before he reached the Thlinkeet shore. Arrived there, he dropped the embers at once, and the sparks flew about in all directions among various sticks and stones; therefore it is that by striking these stones, and by friction on this wood, fire is always to be obtained.