Sacred Texts Native American California Index Previous Next
(A fragment, interesting for comparison.)
One of the story-tellers of the Campo-Manzanita region was an old man who had grown a little childish, and was so afraid of the strange white woman, and so reluctant to tell the stories of the past, that he made his escape across the Mexican border. His nephew, my interpreter, José Santo Lopez, commonly called Sant, remembers a part of the long Cuy-a-ho-marr story which the old man used to relate to him twenty-five years ago when he was a little boy.
The account of the gambling game is the same as that given above, except that Sant remembers to explain that the people who gambled and were so eager to eat their enemies were coyotes, that is to say, they were at that time those among the First People who afterwards became coyotes. 1
Sant gives the following account of the conclusion of the game: When the game was over, and the uncle had won all the possessions
of the other side, the little boy told his uncle to make the people carry all those things home for him.
The little boy had a small bag or wallet such as children have. They had won lots of corn, and he asked them to fill his bag so that he could parch and eat the corn. There was a great big granary basket there, and out of this they began to fill his little bag. They put the corn in the bag, and more and more and more; but it was never filled, and the big basket was quite emptied, so they had to give it up.
The visit to the Fire and Winds is briefly given; and the dramatic climax is nearly the same.
The Light Wind came and blew on the water in the ollas so that it would not boil.
Then the Strong, Wind brought the dust. Every one ran into the house or took shelter in the brush, thinking that it was a sandstorm. The Wind broke the ollas, smashed them, and rolled them into the fire. Then Fire came burning the brush, burning everything it touched. Great balls of it fell here and there and everywhere and burned everything up.
Fire had told the little boy to make himself ice and go down into the ground with his mother. He must save her, and all the rest of his enemies should be burned up. But the boy got a great big hard basket and put his mother's sister under it, and stood on top of it watching the people burn. They screamed, burning. He saw his mother burn, but said nothing.
After Fire had gone, he got off the basket and lifted it up. "My nephew," said his aunt, "you ought not to have burned your mother and have saved me."
"Never mind that. That is your good luck."
While the Fire was burning, Coyote ran and jumped into the water to save himself, so that he was not burned up, but his skin was scorched; and that is the reason it looks brown and scorched to this day.
When the little boy pulled his uncle's body out of the ground they cried and talked together.
His uncle said, "You ought not to have done this, as you will make great deal of trouble, sorrow, and sickness in the world unless you are very careful, when you put me back, not to let a breath of wind arise from the place where I am buried."
The little boy tried to do as he directed. Very carefully he put the earth in place over him, and pressed it down with his heel; but in spite of all his trouble, a breath of air puffed up from the grave; and this is the cause of all the sickness in the world.
Then he came to his father's grave and did the same thing, and
sat there crying. "You can't do anything," said his father. "All my bones are scattered. But you will cause sickness and trouble in the world by taking me out of my grave."
Then the little boy went back to his old grandmother, his father's mother, and she went into the ground while he went up in the sky. In whatever direction he goes in the sky (the path of a meteoric fireball) there his grandmother is in the ground in the mountain over which he passes. He makes a noise like thunder which is heard when he passes overhead as a big bluish ball of fire. Sant saw one once when he was a boy. The Indians fear him greatly.
162:1 I use the term First People as a convenient generality borrowed from Curtin, though I have not heard the Diegueños or Luiseños use this term exactly as he does. Their creation myths are more consistent than those which Curtin relates, as their First Cause created the Earth and Sky, the former bringing forth the First People as her children. The change into animals came in a different way, occurring at the time when the death of Ouiot brought death to all upon earth.