A. L. Kroeber

The story of Cane, Ahta, more properly Ahta-'amalya'e, Long Cane, was told me on three days between April 24 and 27, 1904, with one day of intermission, by a middle-aged man named TŠiyÊre-k-avasuk, or "Bluebird," who said he had dreamed the tale, beginning at Avikwame. I neglected to write down personal or biographical details about him, and dare not trust my memory at this interval.

This story has more plot interest than the majority of those which the Mohave profess to dream and sing to. It might be described as a tale of adventures on an almost epic scale, and it does not systematically account for the origin or institution of anything, although a bit of cosmogony drifts in toward the end.

The version recorded was told carefully and accurately. There are a number of internal discrepancies, especially as regards relationship of the characters and topography, which are considered in a section following the story itself; but the plot is well constructed and maintained.

The song scheme is also given after the tale. The songs are accompanied with a double beat of a stick struck against the bottom of a Chemehuevi bowl-shaped basket. Cane is not danced to.

The Cane type of plot recurs in another kind of Mohave singing called SatukhÔta, of which only a brief outline was obtained. The singer of SatukhÔta beats time by striking his palm against his chest.

THE CANE NARRATIVE

A. KamaiavÊta Killed at Avikwame

1a. All the people at Avikwame had gone out of the house and had sent for (the great snake in the ocean to the south) KamaiavÊta.[1] They thought it was he who had killed Matavilya and they wanted to kill him. No one knew this to be so but all believed it. Then when he came they killed him, and his body lay stretched over the earth. When he was dead, I[2] took a piece from his tail, the rattle nearest the body. I took it for good luck. Several tribes dream about this killing: the Yuma, the Maricopa, the Kamia, the Walapai, the Halchidhoma, and others down to the mouth of the river.[3]

[1] "Sky-rattlesnake-great." Also KumaiavÊte or Mayavete.

[2] The narrator believes that he has seen and heard what he is relating.

[3] The KamaiavÊte incident seems to be mentioned only for the purpose of fixing the time and place of the beginning of the story. The myth properly begins at this point. Most Mohave song-myths begin with an allusion to the death of Matavilya, of which the KamaiavÊte story is an after-incident.

B. Two Brothers Go Off

1b. Now there were two brothers there. They stood east of the house and told of it. They did not speak, but sang. They sang of its posts, the rafters, the sand heaped around and over it, and the other parts. (4 songs.)2. Their names were Pukehane, the older, and TŠitŠuvare, the younger.[4] They went north a short distance, where there was a little gravelly place and thorny cactus. The ground-squirrel, hum'ire, lived there. When the two brothers came, it ran away, crying like a boy. It had never seen them before. They stood there and sang about it. (3 songs.)

[4] Both names refer to cane. Hipuke is the "end of the root" or butt. Hipuke-hane is probably the full form. TŠitŠu-vare is said to refer to the points of the cane. In the text, u and a have been rendered u and a in these two names.

3. Then they went north again a very little distance.[5] There they saw a rat, hamalyk. They did not kill it, but looked at it and sang about it. (2 songs.)

[5] "About 50 yards," not far enough to necessitate a new name for the place.

4. Now it was sundown. They struck their fire-flints,[6] made a fire, and sat by it. They did not eat anything all night. In the morning they were hungry. One thought that they should kill the rat and eat it. His brother said: "That is good." So they killed the rat and ate it. They stayed there that day, thinking. The next day, in the morning, Pukehane, the older brother, said: "We have no place to live." TŠitŠuvare said: "Yes, that is true. Where can we get wood to build a house?" Now Pukehane was intelligent; he was born thus. Therefore he made sticks out of his saliva.[7] Thus in one day they built a round house. At night they went into it. (3 songs.)

[6] Like wheat, cloth, etc., a Spanish absorption integrated into the culture.

[7] Hika, his saliva, important element in magic and therapeutics.

5. Now it was three days.[8] In the morning they hunted rats. When they killed a rat, they hung it by its head under their belts. Pukehane said: "I do not think this is good." Then he took[9] two net-sacks,[10] and they put the rats into them and carried them on their backs. At sunset they came back to the house. Now two men lived at Avikwame, Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe,[11] their father's older brother, and Nume-peta.[12] Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe said: "I will live with my younger brother's sons (ivitk). I will not live with this man (Nume-peta) who is not my relative." And he came and lived with them. So they were three. In the morning, the two boys went hunting rats again. As the rats were shot, they squeaked. The boys stood and listened and laughed. (1 song.)

[8] One day since leaving Avikwame they had spent in thinking, a second in building the house, this is the third.

[9] Created by magic out of nothing, by reaching out.

[10] Mayu, carrying-sacks of net-work such as the Paiute and Chemehuevi use.

[11] Hatpa. Pima; aqwa?-, yellow. The second part of the name is not certain.

[12] Or NumÊ-t-veta. Nume is the wildcat; nume-ta, the jaguar.

6. When they came back, Pukehane said, "Some tribes after a time will do like this: let me see how far you can shoot." They bet their arrows. The elder shot far. The younger did not shoot far and lost, lost all his arrows. The quiver was empty and he tied it around his waist. He said, "I will bet the rats that I killed." Then he lost all his rats. They came home and he had no arrows and no rats, only his bow. Their father's older brother saw them. He said, "Why do you not do right? This is wrong. Do not do it any more. That is not what I came here for. I came in order that when you go hunting you bring them here and I eat." (1 song.)7a. Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe said, "We are three men here. I see you two do not sleep but sit and wake. If three men live in a house everything is ready for them when they come home to it. But there is no woman here and that is why there is no wood and water. If you get a woman she will cook." The boys said, "Yes, we will do that." That night Pukehane stretched his hand to the southeast toward the Maricopa and got corn in it. He got much and laid it in the corner of the house. Then he stretched his hand out northeast, toward the Kohoaldja Paiute, and took wheat.[13] Now they had two kinds of food.

[13], [13a] Cf. note 6.

C. The Brothers Get Wives

7b. In the morning the two boys went west. There was a man who had a daughter TŠese'ilye;[14] her they wanted to get. As they went west they saw a bird hanging in a tree in a cage of red and white woven cloth.[13a] The bird was hwetŠe-hwetŠe.[15] "Look, that girl has a bird," they said. (1 song.)

[14] My notes, after a correction, say that she was TŠese'ilye's daughter; but the correction may be in error, since later the woman is said to have been TŠese'ilye, daughter of Sun. Cf. notes 35, 38, 52, 54, 58, 60, 63, 68, 75, 78, 83, 87 on the confused relationships and names of certain characters.

[15] A yellow bird.

8. When they reached the house, Pukehane did not take the bird with his hand, but caused the cage (sic—the bird?) to be outside the door. The bird was singing: the woman was inside; she came out, saw it in front of the door, and said: "What sort of people are you who have come? That bird belongs to me; do you not know that? It watches everything I have when I go out to gather seeds." The two boys stood and laughed, the older east of the door, the younger west of it.[16] The woman went back into the house, put on a (pretty) dress, and beads around her neck. She took a white peeled willow stick, qara'asap, to sweep the dress under her thighs so as not to crumple it when she sat down.[17] Tied to the top of her dress she had two bags of paint (kÔmkuvi), one black, one red. When she came to the two boys standing outside the door she did not go to the older, she went to the younger: she liked TŠitŠuvare. Pukehane said, "She is mine." His younger brother said, "No, if she were yours she would come to you." The older said, "She is mine." The woman said nothing. The older embraced her. The younger said, "Do not embrace her. She belongs to me." He embraced her too and they both held her and pulled. Pukehane became tired. He stood aside. "You are the better; take her," he said. So now they had one woman: TŠitŠuvare had her. (1 song.)

[16] The door was sohlyÊpe, woven of willow inner-bark.

[17] A piece of coquetry or swank, rather surprising in a culture so meager in its material aspects.

9. They started to go home from there: Pukehane wanted to. They had far to go, too far for one day. So they slept in the desert where no one lived. TŠitŠuvare made a bed. Pukehane said, "My brother, when you marry, both of us sleep with the woman.[18] That is what you said." TŠitŠuvare had not said that: Pukehane only wished it; and TŠitŠuvare did not let him. Then in the morning Pukehane said, "Let us go, my sister-in-law."[19] (1 song.)

[18] "You at the vagina, I at the anus." While the younger slept with her, the older sat up, had an erection, tried to clamp it under his thigh and sit on it, could not.

[19] Hunyik. The term denotes any female affinal of a man (except his wife's sister) irrespective of generation, and all male or female affinals of a woman (except her sister's husband).

10. They started. At noon, when they came to the house, the woman was ashamed, because it was the first time she was married. Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe said, "I want to see my younger brother's daughter-in-law." She did not look up: she had long hair—down to her hips—behind which she hid her face. The old man took her by the hand, led her inside, and took her around the house. He wanted her to grind corn. Now the three men felt glad, when they saw her grinding corn. They looked to see how she worked; all of them smiled. "See how beautiful she looks," they said. She was clean and wore beads around her neck and on her ears and wrists, and a dress of willow bark, and was painted. (1 song.)11a. In the morning she was going to make mush of the corn she had ground. The two brothers were still in the house. The old man was outside: he wanted to help her cook. He poured the corn into the pot and she stirred it and put in salt.[20] When there was enough, she boiled it, gave some to the old man, put some in a dish for the two boys, and took it inside to them. Then the three ate together; the old man sat outside. When the sun set they built a fire in the house near the door. When it was dark the house was warm and they stayed there. The two brothers did not say anything. Their father's older brother spoke again. He said, "This is one woman. If you get another, it will be well. Go east and take Sun's daughter." That is what the old man said.

[20] An informal domestic scene, such as could still be seen forty years ago. The cooking is in front of the house: the ground corn is boiled; the old man stands by and assists; eating is in or outdoors, men and women together or apart.

11b. In the morning the two boys went east. When the sun was halfway up they heard a cock[21] making a loud noise, telling the time. (2 songs.)

[21] Kwaluyauve. Cf. the flint, wheat, cloth, etc. The cage, however, is native: all the river tribes kept bird pets in stick cages. In 86, however, the woman's bird is a masohwat.

12a. Very soon, after four or five steps, they saw a cage hanging, Sun's daughter's cage, with red and blue cloth tied to it for ornament: it was hanging high. The two boys came to it, took the cock out of his cage, and put him by the door. He crowed and the woman heard him. She said, "What sort of men are you? Do you not know anything? That cock belongs to me. He takes care of me and stays with me always. You have spoiled him." She went back into the house, put on her dress and her beads, and came out. TŠitŠuvare embraced her. His older brother said, "She belongs to me." "No, she is not yours. She is mine," said the younger. "No, she is mine," said the older. The older was unable to hold her. "Well, she is yours," he said. Now the younger had two wives.12b. They started to go. The woman looked back and saw her house. She said, "I thought my house was (already) far away, but it is only a little distance." She stopped and urinated. "Wait and stand, while I tell of my home." She meant that now she was going with them and would live with them and would not go to her house any more. (2 songs, about her house.)13. They went on again. Now all the stars had been made,[22] but the two boys were wise, had dreamed, and knew all. They said, "We will tell about the stars; of mountain sheep (Orion), and of HatŠa (the Pleiades)." (2 songs, about the constellations.)

[22] The creation is recent in all these tales. Night comes on as they travel, apparently; but they arrive in the afternoon!

14. In the afternoon they came home. The (new) woman sat down outside at the southeast corner of the house. She was ashamed, and did not go indoors with them. She had long hair, down to her thighs; she did not say anything. The old man was ready for her to grind: he had a metate prepared inside. Now he came out, took her hand, and led her indoors. Then she ground corn. As she ground, blood flowed on her thigh. They said, "Look at her, she is menstruating: the blood makes a streak on her thigh."[23] (1 song.)

[23] More Mohave—both the fact of the mention when nothing hinges on it, and the fact that the woman goes on preparing food for them.

15. Now there were two women to work, and it did not take them long to grind enough for mush. One of them built a fire and put a pot on it; the old man came out to help them. When the water boiled, the old man poured the corn into it and one of the women stirred. She put in salt and tasted it; there was not enough, and she put in more until it was good. Now she gave the old man some. She put some in a large dish and took it in to the two boys. They ate together, the two women and the two boys. At night they all lay down indoors. The old man thought, "It is not right: one of them has two wives. They are two brothers but one has no wife." He said, "You are two brothers, but the older has no wife. He must have a wife too. In the morning go north and get one for yourself also. Kukho-metinya's[24] daughter is the one that I want you to find." In the morning the two boys went north. Then Kukho(-metinya)[24a] met them, flying in the air. They said, "The bird is intelligent: he flies to meet us." (2 songs.)

[24], [24a], [24b] Kukho is the yellowhammer or red-shafted flicker. Kukho-metinya is the girl's father and flies to meet the young man; and the girl keeps a kukho in a cage.

16. When they came there, there was a bird in a cage. It was a kukho.[24b] They took it out with their hands and set it by the door. The woman was inside, heard it, came out, and saw the bird. She said, "Where are you two from? You are foolish. Do you know that that is my bird in the cage? Why do you take it out?" They stood and laughed. She went inside again, put on her dress and her beads, and came out. She went to the older one and he embraced her. The younger wanted to come to her also, and said, "She is mine." But Pukehane said, "No, she is not yours, she is mine." Then TŠitŠuvare said, "Well, she is yours." He let him have her, because he had two already. Then they started home. (1 song.)17a. When they came to the house the old man took her by the hand, led her inside, and wanted her to grind corn. Now there were three women grinding and it did not take long. The old man helped them cook. They gave him some, and the three women and the two brothers ate together. The sun set, it became dark, they built a fire in the house. The two brothers did not speak: the old man was thinking again. He said, "Now you two brothers each have a wife." Pukehane had his bed in the southeast corner of the house; TŠitŠuvare, at the southwest; the old man lay in the center of the house. He said, "TŠitŠuvare, you have two wives; Pukehane, you have only one. I think it will be best for you to get another. If you each have two it will be well. If one of you has two and the other only one, it will not be right. I want you to go south to get one. Get Tankusahwire's[25] daughter." That is what he said that night.

[25] This is again a bird.

17b. In the morning they went south. They saw a hotokoro bird in a cage. The cage was woven of red and blue string. They had not come there yet: as they were going they saw it. (1 song.)18a. When they arrived, they took the bird in their hand, set it at the door, it walked about there. The woman heard it and came out. She said, "That bird is mine. It takes care of me. It lives with me always. You know why you have done that!" It was as if she were angry. She was not angry but she said that. She went back into the house to put on her dress. She put it on, and beads on her neck and ears and wrists. TŠitŠuvare, the younger, saw her come out but did not go to her. He let his older brother embrace her. He said nothing. He thought, "It is well." Then they went back north. They came home the same day. The three women were grinding corn. The new one did not go inside: she was ashamed and sat outside. The old man took her in. He gave her a metate and the four of them ground. When they had finished they made mush: the old man helped them: he wanted to taste if there was enough salt. He said, "If there is not enough, put in more. If it is right, set it off the fire." Then they gave him some. They put more in a large dish and took it inside. All the women and the two young men ate together. At sunset they built a fire inside. Two women went to the east side of the house, two to the west. The two men were lying in the corners shading their eyes with their hands (dokouk). The old man lay in the center of the house. He got up, thought, and said, "There is another thing good to have: it is cane. When you play on it the sound goes as far as the sky and everyone can hear it." He said that in the night.

D. Quarrel over Cane: Elder Kills Younger

18b. In the morning the two brothers went west, far west. There were no clouds but there was lightning and it thundered. TŠitŠuvare said, "Do you hear that? I think that is dangerous." Pukehane said, "Well, I do not care. Perhaps it will go well, perhaps it will go wrong. We will go anyway: it does not matter where we die. We do not know. Do not mind: if we both die in this land it will be well." (1 song.)19. They went on west. They climbed up a mesa.[26] They stood and looked down. Then they saw cane. TŠitŠuvare was glad to get it. Pukehane said, "Do not go yet! Wait! Good ones do not grow everywhere: they grow in only one place. Wait until we tell about them. I will tell about the roots (butts?), the large roots that they have." The younger brother stood and listened to what the older one said about the cane roots. (1 song.)

[26] River terrace of gravel.

20. They went down to the cane. There was a cane to the east: Pukehane put his hand on it. There was a cane at the west: his younger brother put his hand on that. The younger one said, "I do not want the top." He cut the top off and gave it to his older brother: he wanted the bottom part where it is large. Pukehane said, "A little boy like you takes a little piece from the top." TŠitŠuvare said, "Don't you know when there are two brothers the younger wants the most of everything? I want the large one, you take the top." Pukehane said, "Very well. It is good." TŠitŠuvare said, "If you had not given me the bottom but had left me the top, I should have cried, because the younger always wants most and if he does not get it he cries. You thought I would cry. Well, my brother, I feel happy." TŠitŠuvare wanted to break the cane with his hands. Pukehane said, "Wait! You are able to break it with your hands, but do not do so. We have both dreamed well. We have no knife here but I can get a knife to cut it with." (1 song.)21. He did not make a knife. He put his hand out to the west and had a knife in it. The younger asked, "How many joints shall we cut?" "Three," said Pukehane. (2 songs.)22. Then Pukehane cut the cane at the butt. He was holding the top end, his younger brother the bottom end, but Pukehane wanted that. TŠitŠuvare said, "No, you said you would let me have it!" "No," the elder said. They did not break it: both of them held on. TŠitŠuvare did not want the top; Pukehane wanted to take it all: but his younger brother held fast, and he could not take it away from him. Pukehane was larger and knocked his little brother down, but TŠitŠuvare held on: he did not let go, he held tight. Then Pukehane put his foot on his brother's belly: still he held on: He nearly died, but he kept his hold. When Pukehane saw that his younger brother was nearly killed, he stopped. He took hold of him and made him stand up. "Well, my younger brother, I will let you have it," he said. The older was a doctor: he had dreamed. He thought, "Well, I will let him have it, and after a while I will kill him." TŠitŠuvare said, "How must we use them, long or short?" Pukehane told him, "The Yuma make them long, of four or five joints, with a hole right through them. We do not do that: we use three joints." (2 songs.)23. Then they went back and came home. They laid the cane on the ground. They told how they had brought it. (1 song.)24. When the two boys sat down, the women had wheat bread[27] ready and gave it to them. They began to eat outside. The old man came out from the house and saw the two boys about to eat the bread. They had not swallowed it yet: their mouths were full. The old man said, "Did I not tell you that that was dangerous? I said not to eat anything with salt in it[28] until you have washed yourselves." They spat it out. When it was nearly sunset they built a fire and all went into the house. That night the younger one became sick: he had the nightmare and talked to himself.[29] Before it became day, Pukehane started to go outdoors. He could make people go to sleep with ?avÔ?apanye. He held it in his hand and struck a house post. So they all went to sleep: his younger brother too. Then Pukehane went outside, took the cane, and decorated it with his saliva.[30] In the morning he said, "Younger brother, why do you not get up? Do not sleep: a common man is always doing that. You are likely to get sick. Get up and help me." The younger sat up. Pukehane had already finished painting his cane. TŠitŠuvare came out and wanted to paint his. He did paint it: but when he held it out to look at, there was no paint on it: it looked dark (unpainted) to him. He said, "I thought I had painted it well. I think I shall die." He threw the cane away to the north, went indoors, and lay down. Then Pukehane sent for people to come for his brother who was about to die; he sent for Nume-peta at Avikwame. When a man will die they send word of it about and begin to sing. (1 song.)

[27] Modilya, baked in the hot sand.

[28] Salt is one of the most frequent Mohave taboos.

[29] NyaveditŠ itŠÔuk, ghost ill. The victim is in pain, like crazy, thinks he is talking with someone, keeps on talking.

[30] Instead of marking it with fire. It is not clear whether the paint consisted of his saliva, or whether he used spittle to moisten his pigment.

25. The two brothers had birds in cages. The younger had five kinds: pari?i (shrike), sakwa?a'alya (magpie), a?ikwa (woodpecker), atŠyÔra, ?inyÊre (sparrowhawk). Pukehane took one of them, peeled the skin off its head, and let it go. One he skinned on the back, one on the belly, one over the ribs, and one under the eyes. He threw the pieces of skin away, and let the birds loose. They flew up and fell down again. The sick man said, "I think I shall die: I never saw that before: my birds look different." (1 song.)26. When the sun was halfway up, Nume-peta arrived with his people. They crowded around the sick man and began to cry. Nume-peta said, "After awhile, people will always do that; they will burn them too. Now, two men go get wood: get timahutŠi."[31] (1 song.)

[31] It grows in the mountains; the interpreter did not know it.

27. Pukehane had made his younger brother sick. Therefore he did not stay by him but by Nume-peta. TŠitŠuvare said, "Move me a little so that I can tell of all my bones before I die." (1 song.)28. The two men got wood. When they brought it, Pukehane and Nume-peta were thinking what they wanted to be in the future: they wanted to teach the Chemehuevi, Yavapai, Walapai how to do. The sick man was not dead yet. Then they took his rib out to use for a skin-dressing tool. They took his kneecap for a shinny ball. They took his shinbone, cut off each end, and used it to juggle up and catch on the back of the hand.[32] They took these bones out of his body and so killed him. Then they went to Avikwame, Pukehane taking his own two wives with him.[33] TŠitŠuvare's wives and Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe stayed, stood, cried, and sang. When it was dark the old man took a knife and cut the two women's long hair, and his own. One of the women was pregnant. (1 song.)

[32] "The Walapai and other tribes play much with bones like this."—But, like the Mohave, not with human bones, except in myth or fancy.

[33] They did not burn the body.

E. Birth of the Hero

29. They cried all night. In the morning—they had not thrown their food away, and had corn and beans—they ate. Then Sun's daughter went back to her home; the other woman (TŠese'ilye) and the old man were still in the house. In the afternoon the woman said, "I am going to have a child. I have a pain on each side of my belly." Then the old man said, "Yes, that is the way." At night the child had not been born yet, but it sang. They heard it talking and singing inside. They said, "He is singing. We hear it." (1 song.)30. The old man said, "That sort of a boy will be somebody; he will be a shaman. When he is a man, he will make me be like a young man again. I am glad." Then the boy said from inside, "Too many people are passing by the house. I am going to make rain so that no one will come by while I am being born: I want no one to know or hear or see it. I do not want people to know when I emerge." (1 song.)31. The woman could not sit still from her pain. She crawled around into the corner of the house, and outdoors. Then the boy said, "Sit still. I want to emerge." He did not know where to come out, at the mouth or anus or ribs. He said, "Sit still. Keep your legs still, so that I can come out; do not move them!" The woman said, "Old man, do you hear what the boy in me says?" The old man said, "That sort of a boy is wise. He will be a shaman." When it became day the boy came out. They made hot sand to lay him on and covered him with hot sand up to his neck. (1 song.)32. The night the boy was born it rained. (Far in the north) Nume-peta thought, "I believe that child has been born and has made the rain. If one of you goes there today, you will see the child." A man went: he saw the child sitting in the door. Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe asked him, "What do you want?" The man said, "Nume-peta sent me to see this child." Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe said, "Yes, it was born this morning." So the man went back and told Nume-peta. Nume-peta said, "Did I not know it? The child is wise and will be a doctor. It made rain so that no one would know it was being born; but I knew it, for I am a doctor too." Then Nume-peta took his people and Pukehane, and they all came to see the child. They said, "We will look at it. If it is a boy, we will kill him, because he will be a doctor and will kill us; when he is grown he will make us sick. But if it is a girl, we will not kill her. It will be well: she will work and get water. A girl will do that, but a boy will not do that: he will kill us." Now they all stood at the door looking at the child. Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe hid the child's penis, drawing it back to the anus. Then they all said, "No, it is not a boy, it is a girl. If it were a boy we would kill it, but it is a girl." So they all went back. (1 song.)33. Then the woman suckled the child and sang. They had made them think that the child was a girl. It was a boy but they would not let them know it. (1 song.)

F. Shinny Game with Father's Foes

34. The child grew fast. In four, five, six days it smiled and laughed. In a year it was as high as that (gesture), and walked around and played. Now Nume-peta and Pukehane came again with all their people. They played shinny with the dead man's kneecap. Then the child, dressed as a girl, went out to watch, not knowing those bones. Some of them gave him a bone to make a doll of, for he wore a dress and looked like a girl. Every day he went to play where these people played, and at sunset came back to his house. So it was three nights: the next night it would be four. Then his mother told him, "That doll, the bone you play with, is from your father. Your father traveled to be married. And he traveled to get cane, he and his older brother. The younger was wise: he was superior to the older; but the older was a great doctor. He made his younger brother sicken and die. That bone is from your father, and so is the bone they play shinny with." (2 songs.)35. Then the apparent little girl said, "I did not know that. If I had known that it was the bone of my kin I should not have played with it." So he said and cried. He cried all night and never suckled. In the morning when the sun was up he went under the shade; he was tired from crying, lay down and slept a little. Then he dreamed. The insect ?ono?akwe'atai[34] sat on his lip while he slept and said, "All of them play with those bones. They think it is amusing but it is a bad thing. They are not the bones of an animal. If they were animal bones it would be well, but they are your father's bones." When the boy dreamed that he sat up. He went back into the house. That night he wanted to send his mother home: he did not want her to live there any longer.[35] He told her, "Go west.[36] These people here are my relatives but they do not treat me right. They said they would kill me. I will stay here. The old man, my (father's) uncle, will stay here too. He is wise: he saved me or I should have been dead long ago. I want him to stay: he can beg around the houses and get something to eat and water to drink. He can live in that way and be well; but I want you to go west." The woman took a little round dish[37] and put glowing coals into it. So she lit her way, to know where to go.[38] Then she went off westward, traveling by that light. When she was gone the boy thought about her. He thought, "Why have I sent my mother away like a bird? A bird's nest is on the desert; it sleeps on the desert, where no one lives." Then he was sorry for her and cried. (2 songs.)

[34] An insect that lives in trees, does not fly, and looks like haltÔ?a.

[35] "TŠese'ilye was her name"—her father's, ante. About this confusion, see note 58. Another confusion is that in 29 it is Sun's daughter (wife no. 2) who goes away and TŠese'ilye who gives birth to the hero, as confirmed by his now sending her home west; whereas in 82b, 86, 87, he travels east to rejoin his mother, and in 90 her father is Sun.

[36] Where she had come from, if she is TŠese'ilye (or TŠese'ilye's daughter) and not Sun's daughter.

[37] Kwa?ki-mareko, almost as deep as a pot.

[38] Travel by firebrand is a Yuman habit. Rio de los Tizones was the first European name given the Colorado.

36. That night when there were only the two of them there, the boy told the old man, "I am going to leave you. You stay here. Listen to what I will do." He thought he would do something to the people that played with his father's bones, but he did not yet know what. Then the old man Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe said, "It is well. You will die somewhere and I will cry for you here. That will be all. I can live. I am not very old yet. I can go about begging for food. I will come to people's houses and they will give me something to eat, for they will know me and that I am poor and hungry. I shall live like that staying on here." Then in the morning they all came there to play ball again. They had short shinny sticks, nearly straight, not long and curved.[39] When the boy saw them, he went outdoors, took earth and rubbed it on himself, so that no one would see him, or know him; for he wanted to take away their ball. So he turned himself into a halye'anekitŠe lizard.[40] Now they played. They came near him: he was lying by the side of the playing field: no one knew it. Now they played toward the south and back again, four times, and one side won. Then the boy seized the ball: no one saw him take it: no one knew he had it. He went back to his house. Now he wanted to throw it, but did not throw it yet: he wanted to know in which direction to throw it.[41] First he wanted to throw it north, but did not. Then he was going to throw it south, then west, then east. He kept it in his hand and stood there. (1 song.)

[39] Of bone? The ordinary Mohave shinny stick is a yard long and definitely bent at the end.

[40] The tip of its tail is blue: cf. note 95.

[41] Typical hesitation of Mohave narrative.

37. When he had told (kanavk) of the far heavens (amaiyÊitŠe) four times, still holding the ball, he struck the ball with a stick and it flew west like a meteor (kwayu). It fell in the mountains and broke them and killed the people who lived on them: it killed them all. The boy stood and heard. He thought, "No one is there now: they are all killed!" Nume-peta and Pukehane said, "That boy! I knew he would do it: he has killed all those people. He will kill us too. You shall see: he will do that." The boy did not hear them, but he knew (what they said). He was glad and laughed and shouted and ran. He ran north to Avi-kwutaparva: There he stood. (2 songs.)

G. Journey South to Sea

38. When he stood there at the river he thought how to cross it. He said, "I thought I was a man who knew everything, who had dreamed well." Then he piled up sand, four heaps, so high. He began, at the nearer end, to level them with his foot. Then the river was full of sand all the way across, enough to walk on. So he crossed and stood on the other side, the east side of the river. He thought which way to go, whether east or south. Then he thought, "Well, I will follow this trail south." (1 song.)39. He went downriver to IdÔ-kuva'ire,[42] did not stop there, but went on to AhtŠye-'iksamta and Qara'Êrve. There it was sunset and he slept in the thick willows and cottonwoods by the river bank: it was a good place to sleep, with much brush. Many birds were in the trees: early in the morning they all awoke and made much noise. Then he could not sleep well: he tried to but could not. So he sat up and listened to the birds calling. Tinyama-hwarehware[43] was sitting on a tree singing loudly. When a boy sleeps somewhere alone he is lonesome and afraid; so this boy was afraid and could not sleep. Then he said to the birds and the insects, "You make too much noise. I cannot sleep. Be quiet!" So they were quiet and he slept again. (2 songs.)

[42] Ido-kuva'ire is upstream from Fort Mohave.

[43] An insect "like a butterfly," with wings and a long belly.

40. After he had slept he got up and went south. Then he came to the hill Selye'aya-kumitŠe.[44] (1 song.)

[44] East of Fort Mohave.

41. He went on south to an overflow lagoon, Hanyo-kumas?eve.[45] From there he went south a little distance to where the ahtŠye grass was high. There a rattlesnake stuck up its head and shook its rattle noisily. When he saw the snake he was frightened: he had never seen one before. He nearly died from fear: he stood unable to move. (2 songs.)

[45] A little east of where the wagon road (of 1904) crosses the irrigating canal.

42. Then he made the rattlesnake lie still without shaking its tail, making no sound, and not biting. He kicked it and threw it with his feet, four or five times. Then he picked it up, and used it for a belt, and put it around his neck and into his mouth. So he played with it, and the rattlesnake died and he threw it away. He said, "I am not afraid of you. If you were dangerous to me you would bite and kill me, but you are not dangerous and so it is you will not bite me."[46] He left the snake lying there, and went south, to Amai-nye-qotarse, did not stop there, and went on south to Kamahnulye. Two men were hunting there. When they killed a deer they did not cook it but ate it raw: He saw their red mouths and was afraid of them. He saw that they were wildcats (nume). (5 songs.)

[46] An unusually direct reaction on the wish-fulfillment level.

43. The two wildcats went off east and he went on south. He came to Aha-kuminye. A horsefly (hoane) lived there at the edge of the mesa in a cavity. It came to him, lit on his back and shoulders, and flew off again. Then the boy thought, "It is intelligent like a man. It knows something. When it sees me it comes to meet me." (1 song.)44. The horsefly flew away and did not come back. Then the boy said, "That is not a man. If it were a man he would come back to talk to me. I will go on." Then he went on south to Hoturveve. There were astake trees there on the mesa: there he saw that a hummingbird (nyenyene) had its nest. (1 song.)45. He went on south to Sampulya-kwuvare. There he told the name of that place. (1 song.)46. He went on south to AtŠqaqa. There he followed the (Sacramento) wash up eastward, away from the river. The day was bright and there were no clouds. Then he told about clouds, for he wanted the air fresh and the day cooler because it was too hot to walk. He did not stop but kept on going talking of that. (1 song.)47. As he went on, soon there were clouds all over the sky. He came to HanyikoitŠ-kwamve, crossed the wash, and went southward toward the mountain Akokehumi. Then he came to Avi-ahnalya (Gourd Mountain). (1 song.)48. He went on south but not very far. He had not yet come to Avi-a'isa ("screw-mesquite mountain"), but stood and told of his going there. (1 song.)49. He went on south and reached Akokehumi. There he saw a spring: a single screw mesquite grew there. He said, "I think this is my food: I will eat it. There is water here too; so I shall be alive. I was lucky to find this spring and this tree." He stood by the tree and sang. (5 songs.)50. Then he pulled the mesquite-screws off the tree and ate them. When he had eaten, he drank, and went on. He went south to Ahwa?a-kwimatŠe.[47] There used to be people who danced there, who had turned to stone. At first they were men, but now they were many rocks standing up; and the boy saw that. (2 songs.)

[47] North of Bill Williams Fork; also now called Williams River.

51. He stood there awhile, then went on south. He came to Ama?a-kuhulto?ve. There there grew wild grapes (ahto?a) on the ground: they were ripe and he picked them and held them in his hand and played with them. He did not eat them. (2 songs.)52. He threw them away and went on south. He came to HakutŠyepa, Bill Williams Fork: he followed that creek up east. Then he met a badger (mahwa). It smiled when it met him. He did not try to catch it and the badger ran off. He paid no attention, but followed the creek up east. He went on and on and came to Aha-ly-mota?e. There were sand and mountains and caves there, and he told about them. (1 song.)53. He stayed there awhile and played. Then he followed a trail south and came to Avi-su'ukwilye, a sandhill. There he stood on a mesa. OhutŠye, coyote-grass, grew there. He saw a jack rabbit eating that. He thought, "Its body does not look like a man's, but it feels when it gets hungry, and it eats. I thought it knew nothing, but it does know something: it knows that that is good to eat." (1 song.)54. Then he followed along the sand ridge, keeping on it, going south. Far away he saw high mountains: they looked as if they were near, but they were far. They were called Avi-melyehwÊke: he was going there: he arrived when it was nearly sunset. (3 songs.)55. There he slept. It was (Western) Yavapai country. In the morning he did not want to go farther south. He turned northward and came to Avi-hupo. (2 songs.)56. From there he went on north to near the river, to Selye'aya-'ita.[48] There he stood, wanting to cross the river to the western side, to Kuvukwilye. (1 song.)

[48] There are two Selye'aya-'ita. This is the farther one, well south of Mohave territory.

57. Then he did as he had done before. He made four piles of sand and leveled them into one ridge with his feet and made the river dry enough so that he could walk across, and came to the west side of the river. Now he was at Kuvukwilye. He said, "I can stand here and tell the names of the mountains." (3 songs.)58. He turned south again and came to Aha-kumi?e where is a spring. He thought no one had seen it before. "I found this. No one knew of it." People had seen the spring, but he thought not. (1 song.)59. He went south to Ama?a-hiya, "earth-mouth." There there was a hole or crack in the ground, red like blood. He saw it and thought, "How did this come to be?" He walked around it looking in, and stooped over it. (1 song.)60. He went and came to TÔske. There he stood and told the name of that place.[49] (1 song.)

[49] He is near Yuma land now.

61. Going south again he came to a low mesa, to a place called Yelak-imi, "goosefoot." (1 song.)62. Going on he came near the Yuma country. He stood on the mesa, looked down on the ground for planting, and saw much cane. He thought, "How did the cane come to be here? I did not think it grew here. I will go down to see it." (2 songs.)63. He went down to where the cane grew, broke off a piece as long as a flute, and played with it. He came (abreast of) Enpe?o'auve, the Cocopa Mountains, south of Yuma. He kept along the edge of the river, going fast, running, walking, and keeping on. (1 song.)64. He went on until he came to the sea (the Gulf of California). The waves were high. When they came up on the land and went back, there were holes and some of the water did not run back, but stayed in the holes and made ponds. A crane (nyaqwe) was there. He said, "That is an eagle (aspa): it surely looks just like an eagle." (3 songs.)65. The bird flew off eastward. He said, "That bird is afraid of me: it flew away." He walked along the sea to the east. As the waves came and went they left shells there: hanye, ahtŠilye, aha-nye-amokye, tama?e, ahaspane, and two other kinds used by doctors.[50] He knew that these shells were good to wear. No one had told him, but he knew. He took them in his hand and played with them. (2 songs.)

[50] For which reason the narrator did not like to name them. Perhaps they are used in poisoning. Hanye are small clamshells cut into shape of a frog (hanye) and worn as a gorget.

66. Then he threw the shells away and kept going east. He looked back to the west and saw ducks, heard them making a noise. He thought, "What are those? They have feathers. They are like persons, but they are ducks." There was a large flock of them on the sea, close together. (2 songs.)67. He went on east. Where a little lagoon came out of the sea, there was a hatÔmpa'auve.[51] He lived in that lagoon. The boy saw him fishing and was afraid. He thought, "I will tell about him. Then I will go on." (2 songs.)

[51] The hatÔmpa'auve is described as looking like "a large horse with feet like a duck's and a tail."

68. He went on, not following the edge of the sea any more, but north and northeast. Soon the sea was far away. He came to a gravelly place, a good level place. There he saw a'i-kumedi trees (mountain or desert trees with curved thorns—catsclaw acacia?) He told of them. (1 song.)

H. Marriage and Contests with Meteor and Sun

69. He went on east or northeast. Soon, in a level place in the desert, he saw women's tracks, four women's. The tracks had been there a year but they looked as if they had been made the same day. He said, "I think I know these four women. I know who they are. I think they are Sun's wives."[52] (5 songs.)

[52] They are called Sun's daughters later, and then his wives again. See notes 54, 58.

70. Going on to the east, he found a house. No one was there. He said, "Sometimes people go away and their house is empty." He went in and stayed. He had in mind the four women. He said, "I think the oldest of those four sisters knows me." He did not say this aloud: he thought it. He did not want anyone to know that he had come: he did not want anyone to see him. "But the oldest one will know me, I think," he said. He slept there. He pulled out one of the sticks from the east side of the house and made a little fire of it and slept. In the morning he made a wind to blow away the ashes so no one would see he had been there, and smoothed the sand inside the house to cover his tracks. He thought, "I will turn to cane. I want the wind to blow me away into the bushes. The oldest sister will find me." Then he went out and lay there in the brush, a piece of cane. He left his shadow inside the house. (2 songs.)71. The four women came near. The boy was singing loudly. They could hear him from far. He was telling the names of the four women. The oldest was called TasekyÊlkye, the next Ahta-tŠaÔre, the next Ahta-kwasase, and the youngest Ahta-nye-masape. Then the youngest said, "My oldest sister, do you hear him say that? He calls you first. He names you too, and you; and me: He calls all four of us. Do you know that?" The oldest sister said, "Yes, I know it. There were two men in the north. They were married. I think this is their boy. He knows us. No one knows us, but this is their son. When we enter the house you will see no one there, and no tracks. He will have turned to a stick or perhaps to a piece of charcoal. Perhaps when you (are about to) break a coal it will say, 'You are hurting me: look out!' If it says that do not break it. Perhaps when you break a stick it will speak and say, 'Look out: you hurt me!' Then do not break it. Perhaps he will be lying in a crack of a house post. Perhaps he will turn into a piece of cane and lie outdoors in the brush." So TasekyÊlkye, the oldest sister, said to Ahta-nye-masape, her youngest sister. Then they went into the house. She said, "There is no one here. There are no tracks. He slept here last night but there is no one. Put your foot on the fire place: There is warmth there." They drew the sand away with a stick and there they found fire. "See, I knew there was fire here," said TasekyÊlkye. (2 songs.)72. The four women stood in the house. TasekyÊlkye, the oldest, said, "Look around. When you find a crack in the house post, push something into it. If it says, 'Ana (ouch, look out), you are hurting me,' then stop. Or pick up a lump of earth and start to break it: If it says, 'Look out, you hurt me,' then do not break it." They took up a coal and broke it. It did not speak and they knew it was not he. TasekyÊlkye said again, "When you find him, do not say, 'He is rotten, he stinks.' And look in the brush; perhaps you will find him there." So Ahta-nye-masape, the youngest, went west, and the others all about, to look for him in the brush. Then the youngest found him: he was long dead, stinking, rotten, full of maggots. With a stick they scraped off the maggots. But there was no flesh on him: he was all bones: he had been dead too long and was dry: they could not bring him to life. The four of them stood there. (2 songs.)73. TasekyÊlkye said, "Bring a karri'i basket; I want to put him in." But her three sisters said, "What for? I do not like that. I don't want my basket spoiled." Then TasekyÊlkye brought her own basket. She said, "Come, help me. Take him up with your hands and put him in the basket." But her three sisters turned away. They stood and would not look at him: they vomited: none of them helped her. Then she herself gathered the flesh and bones and put them into the basket. She said, "Help me put it on my head: I want to carry him to the house." Her three sisters did not want to help her: he was too old and maggotty and stinking: they would not come near, but stood around. "Do it yourself," they said; "take the basket up with your own hands and set it on your head." So she took it up and carried it to the house. The others followed her. Then TasekyÊlkye said, "Make a fire." She wanted hot sand. When it was hot, she poured water on it and leveled it. Then she piled the maggots and flesh and bones there together and covered them with the basket. Then she went and bathed. Her three sisters looked at the thing. They did not know what she would do with the rotten boy. She came back, took off the basket, and a boy was sitting there, as big as that boy (pointing to a ten-year old). The three women looked at him. TasekyÊlkye sat by him combing her hair with her fingers; the boy had no hair yet.[53] (2 songs.)

[53] Or: she combed what little hair he had?

74. The man whose house this was had four wives. He was Kwayu, meteor, shooting-star: he hunted people and ate them. The four women were Sun's daughters[54] and Kwayu's wives. Then TasekyÊlkye said, "That boy does not eat. He does not become hungry. I know what he likes: he likes tobacco. That is all he uses for food. Ahta-nye-masape, bring a dish[55] with tobacco in it." The youngest sister went and got the tobacco and gave it to the boy. He took the dish and poured the tobacco in his mouth: he did not take it up with his hands. "Do you see? I know what he likes," said the oldest sister. The boy had not enough. He looked around and picked up the tobacco stalks lying about the house and ate them. The three sisters laughed. TasekyÊlkye said, "I think he wants more: he has not had enough." Then the youngest sister gave him a cane as long as a hand, filled with tobacco. The boy smoked it. He did not smoke it long: he sucked once and swallowed the smoke: he did not blow it out. The whole cane was burned up except the end. He chewed that up and spat it out. The women laughed. They liked to see that: they had never seen a man doing it.[56] (1 song.)

[54] Not to be confused with the Sun's daughter who was the second wife of TŠitŠuvare and the boy's mother's co-wife.—See notes 14, 38, 52, 58, 68, 78, 83.

[55] There is no record of tobacco being stored in pottery vessels. Evidently it is here served in a dish because it is consumed like food.

[56] Characteristic Mohave lack of reserve.

75. TasekyÊlkye said, "When our husband comes back he is tired from gambling with hoop-and-poles and is hungry. Then he is angry. We had better go gather something to eat: we have nothing in the house." Every morning Kwayu went early to gamble, carrying his poles: one day he would win and one day lose. Now the women all took their baskets (karri'i). TasekyÊlkye said, "We are going to gather kwinyo or what we can find. We are going off, but will come back. The man who lives in this house, Kwayu, hunts persons. The people who live near he does not kill: he kills those who live far away.[57] Sometimes he kills two or three men and carries them home. He cuts them up but does not cook them: he eats them raw. If he does not eat them all, he slices the meat and dries it on a tree. And he does not throw away their bones: he puts them away. When they are dry, he says, 'Grind the bones: I want to eat mush.' We grind and he eats it. He does not eat what we do. I am afraid that when he comes he will swallow you and keep you in his stomach (isoqate). I am thinking of that and afraid of it. That is why we will not go off the whole day but will come back. If you were not here we should be gone all day." So they went, carrying their baskets. The boy thought, "How will he swallow me? I do not think he can swallow me. I am wise; I have dreamed; I am a shaman, too. He cannot do that. Sun is my father's elder brother (navik). Now I have come to his house.[58] If he sees me he will not let Kwayu swallow me." Then he said to the house, "In the north I saw a house like this, a good house. A man who lives in a house like this does not eat people."[59] (4 songs.)

[57] Typical stylistic expression.

[58] The kinship is inextricable. His only uncle was Pukehane, who had killed his father, whose second wife was Sun's daughter. About the "two" Suns and their daughters, see above and below, notes 35, 52, 54, 64, 78, 79, 83. When the informant was appealed to at this point, he repeated what he had said first, that the four women were Sun's wives, but contradicting the statement in the narrative two paragraphs above, that they were Sun's daughters and Kwayu's wives. Perhaps the kinship is specifically conceived at any given moment in the story, but the concepts waver and contradict one another as the long narrative progresses. A kind of decorative pattern is followed rather than logical or factual consistency maintained. At the same time the inconsistency is precisely of the sort that is familiar in lengthy dreams. This seems significant in view of the Mohave assertion that they dream their tales. Even though this cannot be literally true, they perhaps tend to regress into a dream-mood in thinking of and relating the stories.

[59] This self-reassurance by addressing the house also suggests infantile or dream phantasy.

76. So he stayed there alone. About noon Kwayu came. The boy saw him coming and went into the house to hide. He drew his breath into his belly and made it tight and projecting. He wanted to go on a rafter. He thought, "If I lie on it he will not be able to pierce me. If he stabs (at) me I will jump to another rafter. If he stabs (at) me there I will go to another." Kwayu came: he had a spear (ota?a). He said, "Who came into my house? I smell him but I do not see him. Tell me, has some one come? I know it." The boy heard him but did not say a word, lying on top of a rafter. Kwayu struck at him. The boy jumped to another rafter. Kwayu stabbed at him there. He penetrated the rafter too far: his spear stuck: he could not pull it out: he became tired. The boy jumped to another rafter. Again Kwayu struck at him and his spear stuck in the rafter. He could not pull it out and left it hanging in the rafter; he went and sat at the door. The boy came down and sat in the middle of the house between the posts. "Give me tobacco, I want to smoke," he said. Kwayu said, "You are too young to smoke, but I will give you tobacco. You do not know how to smoke cane, for the Mohave smoke a pipe of clay." The boy said, "I know how to do that, for that is my name (I am cane)." Kwayu said, "My younger brother's son, is that you?"[60] The boy said, "Yes, I know you: that is why I came here. If I had not known you I should not have come." Kwayu thought, "I thought that the boy born from the two brothers in the north was wise. I was afraid of him. I was thinking he would kill me." He did not say that but he thought it. He said, "You do not know the small cane?" The boy said, "Yes, I know it. It belongs to me. I dreamed good luck from it." Kwayu said, "I have meat here. I have people's bones ground and made into mush. I ate of it but I did not eat it all and there is some left. But I think you do not like that." The boy said, "I do not know that kind: I do not like it. I know cane; but wait, do not give it to me. I will tell you about it first: then give it to me." Then he told of joints of cane.[61] (2 songs.)[62]

[60] Still another relationship. This would make Kwayu the same person as Pukehane. Of course, kin terms may be being used loosely in address to non-relatives.

[61] His father's name refers to cane joints.

[62] Here the narrator interjected the following: When Kwayu came home, he thought: "No one comes to my house; I want no one to come. I am stingy. I want no one to see my wives' faces. I am bad and want to kill any man who has been among my wives. My brother (sic) is good, he goes to play with people and wants to be friendly; but that is not my way."

77. Kwayu said, "Have you told all?" "Yes," he said. Then Kwayu handed him two pieces of cane filled with tobacco. The boy smoked one. It was gone, but he still had the other. Kwayu said, "Stay here. I always go hunting. I eat whatever I find. If I find a little boy on my way I swallow him; if an old man or an old woman, I eat them too." Then Kwayu went. Then after he had gone, Sun came. The four women had not yet returned. Sun said, "You are a young boy, too young to travel. Where are you from?" The boy said, "I came this morning." Sun said, "There is a bad man here: he eats everybody. But he did not eat you: I think you must have dreamed well." The boy said, "Yes, he did not eat me." "Where are you from?" asked Sun. The boy said, "I came from Avikwame. I was born there, I lived there." He meant that his father had died there and his mother had gone away and his (father's) uncle was still living there. "I left my uncle[63] (Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe) in the north and came here. He knows everything, but I do not. He told me, 'Your relatives live far south.' You are my uncle:[64] that is why I have come here." Sun said, "I knew you when you were at Avikwame. I know what you wore: you wore cut raven-feathers." He had not (really) seen it, the boy did not tell him, nevertheless Sun knew it. "You wore a woven belt and beads. I know what else you wore: a white feather rope." The raven feathers, aqaqa soverevere, he called kwasoli? so?Ôre. The woven belt, sorape, he called sorape.[65] The beads, nyapuke,[66] he called hapanyÔra. The feather rope,[67] sodilyk nyitŠÊve, he called kwinyekalak. He said, "Will you gamble?" The boy said, "I am poor. I have nothing to bet. My father died and my mother went away and I have nothing." Sun said, "You have something at the back of your head" (in his hair). "No," said the boy. After a time he said, "Yes, I have it: I have a bead necklace. But I do not want to play." He had hidden that, but Sun knew it. (2 songs.)

[63] Navik denotes not only f's o br but f's f's y br; but the boy's father TŠitŠuvare was said to be Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe's hivetk, man's y br's ch, which would make him the boy's f's f's o br. Again, the kinships cannot be reconciled.

[64] Ct. note 58.

[65] Span. zarape, "serape."

[66] Obtained from the Cahuilla and Serrano, the Shoshonean tribes toward the Pacific.

[67] Made by twisting the skin of a large white bird around a cord; worn as a scarf or boa.

78. He said, "Well, I will put up what I have." Sun asked, "Will you bet your body?" The boy said, "Yes. What will you bet against my body? Put up your four women."[68] Then they played (hoop-and-pole). They played running to the south. The boy won and counted one. They ran and threw to the north and the ring fell on his pole and he had two points. Then they threw to the south and he won and had three. Then they threw north and he made that point and had four. So the boy won. He won Sun's apparel and the four women. Then Sun said, "I want to bet my house, my dishes, and the sack I have in the house. I have made heaven and earth into a sack."[69] They bet, played again as before, four times, and the boy won: now he had won the house too. Sun said, "I will bet you the lake (slough) where I bathe. I will bet you my looking-glass water (haliyoi). And I have a beaver who lives in the water: that is why you cannot see him; but he belongs to me and I will bet him. I have a scorpion (menise), too, and bees (?ampÔ): I will bet those." So they played four times, to the south and the north and the south and the north, as before, and the boy won again. When he had won all those things he said, "I will bet what I have won against your body. Will you play?" Sun said, "Yes, I will bet it." The boy said, "If you lose your body, lie down where we have played. When I take my knife, do not move: I will cut you to pieces because you have lost." Sun said, "It is well: if I lose I will not move. Say what you like: name whatever part you like to cut first." Then they played for four points. Now Sun was lying: the four women belonged to Kwayu; and the house belonged to Kwayu, and what was in the house, but Sun said it was all his own. So they played. Three times the boy won. Now Sun had nearly lost: once more and he would lose. Then he did not go on playing: he stepped back, and stood, and did not throw his pole, and talked, for he was about to lose his body. The boy thought, "If Sun loses his body I think he will do something to me: he will try to kill me, and I know how. He has sky-heat (ammay ipilyta) in his body: I know he has it and he will try to kill me with that. I have not seen it but I know he will do that. He will make his casting pole stand up, climb up it, and drop it on me and the house to kill me." So the boy thought; but then, "I will prevent it: I will make ice. When he throws his fire on the brush of the house the ice will prevent it." Soon Sun climbed up his pole and threw the fire on the house. The boy caused ice to be there and it put out the fire. Sun began to climb to the sky. The boy climbed after and tried to strike him but could not reach him. Then he slid back and stood on the ground. Sun went on up, jumping like a ghost. The boy said, "You thought I was a little boy and did not know anything; but I am wise. I will turn you into something. I will make you be what you are now (the sun)." The fire was still running all around the house. The four women came back and saw the fire. TasekyÊlkye said, "Did I not know that that boy was wise, that he would do something we have never seen?" The boy stood outdoors and put the things he had won into the little sky-sack. He thought (about Sun), "I will make you be something: I will turn you into something: I will make you be two. Some days there will be two suns (the sun and a sun dog)." That is what he did. (1 song.)

[68] The four women of the house, Sun's "daughters."

[69] The beginning of an episode of cosmic mythology.

79. As he stood he thought, "Well, I will see what I have won. I will take a bath. And the looking-glass[70] and the beaver I have won! I will go see those." Then the beaver did not know the boy and cried with much noise. The boy said, "You do not know me? I am the one that feeds you." And he went to see his scorpion. He thought, "I would like to see it." The scorpion was lying still, but when the boy came, it moved about, afraid. "Do you not know me? I am the one who feeds you," he said. "Well, I will go to see the bee that I have won, my bee." The bee did not know him and wanted to sting him. It flew to him, under his arm, lit where his neck and shoulder came together. The boy said, "Do you not know me? Know me now: I am the one who feeds you." (2 songs.)

[70] A pottery dish, blackened with charcoal and filled with water, used in face painting; a minor ethnographic detail, interesting because of the prehistoric Hohokam mirrors of pyrites in the Gila valley.

80. The boy stood there: he left these things there in the playing field (matare). He wanted to see his body. He wanted to look in his mirror. He thought, "I want to see what sort of a looking boy I am." When he looked; he said, "I have no clothes: I am a bad-looking boy." (2 songs.)81. He had no long hair, only short hair like a boy: he saw that. He went to the bathing place and dived in northward. He came out again and dived westward. Then he dived to the south. Then he dived to the east.[71] He came out and now his hair fell below his hips. Then he wanted to make a little wind to dry his hair. He did not sit down, he did not lie down, he stood. Then the wind dried his hair. He came back and looked in his mirror. He said, "I think I will wear eagle-down (?ume)." He put his hand out to the north and got eagle-down. Then he put that on and looked at himself. "That is good," he said. Then he put out his hand to the east and got a woven ("Navaho") shirt, tolyekÔ-pa, and a woven strip of wool cloth (tolyekÔ-hare-hare) for a breech-clout. "Now I have all that," he said. He put his hand out to the west[72] and got beads (nyapuka). He thought, "When I was a boy I did not know what was good: I did not wear anything. Now I know what is good and am wearing what I have never worn before. I am ready now and it is good." He was standing where he had bathed. The four women were crying (at the house); he heard them. TasekyÊlkye, the oldest, was thinking about the three persons (the boy, Kwayu, Sun), wondering which of them had been turned into something and killed, for none of them had come back yet. "Perhaps the boy has done that," she thought. Then she said to her youngest sister, "Get water! You have a jar you made yourself." "Yes, I have one," she said, and went to get water. When she saw the boy all dressed up, she dropped her jar and went and embraced and kissed him. She was away for some time. The oldest sister said, "What is the matter with her that she does not come back? What did she see when she went to get water?" And she sent another. When the other woman came and saw Ahta-nye-masape embracing and kissing the boy, she too threw away her jar and hugged him. "He is a good-looking boy: I want to marry him," she said. Then TasekyÊlkye sent her other sister. She came and saw the boy: he was not embracing the two girls; they were holding him, and saying, "I want him." "No, I want him." Then she also dropped her jar, for she wanted him too. Now the three were gone and did not come back. Then the oldest sister thought, "Well, there were three of them, but they have not brought water. I will go myself and drink and then return here to cry." She took her jar, went there, and saw the three women surrounding the boy, embracing him; but the boy was not moving, not saying a word. When she saw it she ran up: "Did I not know it? You like that boy: all of you want him: I knew it!"[73] She too wanted him, but could not take him away from the others. Now they had all come there to get water and there was no one at the house. Then the four women said, "We will take you to the house. We do not want you to walk: we will stand, you lie down, and we will carry you." So the boy lay down and they carried him in their hands. Four times they became tired and laid him down. When they came to the house they spread a woven blanket, hatŠ-harke, and laid him with his head against a post in the middle of the house. (4 songs.)

82a. The boy said, "I want the sky-sack in the house. I have many things in it." The youngest went out and got the sack. Then the three youngest ground corn, for they thought, "I think he is hungry." The boy thought, "You three did not like me before: you thought I was rotten. Now when you grind corn and make bread or mush and give it to me I will not eat it." They made bread (mÔdilya) and gave it to him but he would not eat. Then TasekyÊlkye, the oldest, ground aksamta[74] seeds and made bread of them and gave them to him and he ate: he did not eat the other bread that the three younger sisters made. At sunset they went to bed: two of them lay on each side of him. From each side they tried to embrace him. He paid no attention to them except to the oldest who lay next to him on the right side. That night she said, "Will you stay here and live in this house, or go away? The man who lived here eats people. We are afraid of that. When he goes hunting without luck, he is hungry, and then I am afraid he will eat me; I fear that every day." Then the boy said, "When I was north I told my mother, 'I am going far to the south, but I am coming back.' My mother is thinking of me, thinking I am coming to see her. I must go north to where she lives and stay there. I will start in the morning."

I. Return to Mother, Half-Brother, and Father's Ghost

82b. In the morning he said, "I think that man (Kwayu) will come back today." They said, "He has enough to eat: plenty of people's dried meat and people's bones ground up." The boy said, "I do not think he will follow me. Now I am ready to start. Are you ready?" All the women said, "Yes." He said, "Take your baskets." Then they each took a basket. He said, "I did not come here to gamble, I came to see my relatives. When I came he wanted to play with me. He wanted to bet everything,[75] his house, his property, and you, and I won you too. It was not I who wanted to gamble, it was he." Then they went east on the desert along a valley. After a while he stood still with the four women. He thought, "When I am traveling, women make too much trouble. They do not travel fast. If I kill them, I can go fast. I think I will make it rain on them and they may die. It will become cold and they will freeze and die from that." (2 songs, about clouds.)

83. They went on and soon it rained. It rained heavily and continued to rain. They went farther and the water was deep. The four women were wet. Their clothes were wet and they could not go fast. The boy thought, "Some men do wrong. I was thinking something bad. It is not right: I do not like it. I said of Kwayu that his was a bad way. I do not want to do anything bad. That is what I said, but now I am doing a bad thing. I brought a heavy rain and made the four women wet. I will stop the rain. If the rain stops and the sun shines, the women will sit for awhile and their dresses will become dry; then we will start again and go on." He thought like this and the rain stopped, and they sat and rested. (1 song.)84. They sat in the shade with their clothes off hanging in a tree to dry. When their clothes were dry they went on again. There was much mud from the rain. Their sandals (haminyo)[76] were full of mud. The boy ran around the women. "Your feet are full of mud," he said, and laughed. (1 song.)

85. They did not rest but went on. The four women wore frog shell-gorgets (hanye),[77] with strings of shell beads at the back of their necks. Then the boy told of what they wore. (1 song.)

86. They went on east and came to a valley and saw a basket-like cage hanging; there was a masohwa? bird in it; the cage was red and white striped. The bird saw the boy and came flying toward him. He said, "This bird is my mother's. That is why it came to me. It belongs to her." Then the bird flew back to its cage. (2 songs.)87. He went on east and came to his mother's house at sunset. He took the bird, put it down at the door, and stood to one side. The bird walked around at the door, and made a noise. The woman came out and saw the boy. "My son, it is you," she said. "Yes, it is I," he told her. She said, "I thought you had died long ago. I thought somebody had killed you. You have dreamed well: I did not think I would see you again." She embraced him and cried. The four women stood off, looking at them. (2 songs.)88. The boy said, "You left me and I stayed in the house. When you left me, I hid. The people playing shinny did not see me. I lay there and took their ball. When I got it I went back to my house and struck it to the west with my shinny stick. The ball fell in the mountains and broke them, killing many people. Then I said to the old man, 'My uncle, I am going to leave you. I am going to follow my mother. I am going to go to her house. If I am not sick I will come back to see you.' That is what I told the old man. Then I left and saw many dangerous things, rattlesnakes and other dangers, but I was not afraid. I saw animals and people but I overcame them all. I came to Sun's house. When I came there this woman knew what I would be like. She saved me. No one knew me, but she knew me. I killed Sun and turned him into the sun, to be two suns. I did that; then I came here. I myself killed my uncle (the sun): no one else did it." (1 song.)[78]

89. When she heard what her son had done, his mother said, "You have come far and are tired. You have stood long and your legs are tired. Sit down. I have corn and wheat. Grind it and make mush or eat it whatever way you like. Take as much as you want." Then the oldest of his wives went into the house and took corn and parched it. The three other sisters were ashamed and stood with their heads hanging. His mother put her hands on them, saying, "My daughters-in-law." (1 song.)90. When Sun[79] came home, his daughter (the boy's mother) told him what her son had told her. She said, "He says he has killed Sun and turned him into the sun. He has made him be two suns." Then the old man, the boy's grandfather, said, "If he has killed him, it is well. Even though it was his kinsman, it is well. If a relative is bad and is killed it is right." Then the boy asked him, "Are there any dangerous things to the east?" He said, "Yes: thunder and lightning. One cannot do anything to them. Look out!" The boy wanted them to kill somebody with. He wanted to make them be something to take with him when he went to war. So they talked that night. In the morning he rolled up his blanket and carried it on his back, going east. He did not say where he was going. When he was gone, his mother asked his wife, "Did you hear him say anything? Did he tell you?" His wife said, "I heard him say, 'When I come to my mother's house, Sun's house, I will not stay because I do not know the old man there.' That is all I heard him say." Meanwhile the boy went on east. (2 songs.)

91. When he came to Thunder's place, he went into a hole made by lightning when it struck the ground. In the hole he found a (piece of) cane. Then he split it with his fingernail into four splints. (2 songs.)[80]

92. When he had that cane, he brought it back to his mother's house, at noon. He carried it in a bundle and hung it outdoors. His wife gave him to eat. That night he said nothing. In the morning the woman wanted to see what he had got. He said, "If I show it to you you will all die quickly. So I will not show it to you: I will put it away." Next day he said, "You know what they did to me long ago.[81] I am going to have war with them. I am alone, but I am going, going north." The women said, "If you go, we will go." Sun said, "I will stay." The boy was going to war with Pukehane, Nume-peta, Tinya-kwa?pi, and KwatŠa-kwatŠa.[82] In the morning they started. (1 song.)

93. They went north. TŠese'ilye had also had a boy.[83] That boy said, "I am wise too. I have dreamed well: I know everything." He called himself Ahta-kwasume.[84] He gave himself that name: no one else gave it to him. Around his neck he wore cane, and he wore it on his belt and in his ears. When he walked, the cane in front and behind him rattled. Now he went east: He came to HatŠakwanakwe. There he burned the grass[85] and stayed, wanting to see his half-brother from the south. Then that one from the south came. Ahta-kwasume had a little fire over which he was stooping and did not see him. Then when he saw him he did not know him: he thought he was of some other tribe and not his brother. He was afraid and ran off east, and the other chased him, saying, "You do not know who I am: I am your brother." That one continued to run; at last he stood and waited; he saw it was his brother, and they talked. He went back with him to where the women were. (The one from the south) said; "You are my brother. I did not think I should see you. You did not expect to see me, did you? I met you on the desert. How do you live?" (1 song.)

94. "Who are you? Whose boy are you?" he said. Ahta-kwasume did not say, but asked him the same. He also would not tell. Then Ahta-kwasume sang. In the song he mentioned his father's (sic) name. Then the one who had come from the south said, "I stand on Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe" (circumlocution for: he is kin of my father).[86] (1 song by each of them.)

95. Then Ahta-hane,[87] who had come from the south, said, "We met here. We will cry together for a little while." Then they took hotu paint;[88] with that they painted. Then they cried. They burned their clothes and their baskets and all they had;[89] but Ahta-hane did not burn the cane he had got from the lightning hole. (1 song.)

96. He sprinkled water on the ashes and walked on the ashes and made the ground open wide in four places. Their father was deep down and they wanted him to come up. They heard him come. He continued to come and they heard him nearer. Soon he emerged. He had no bones, only flesh.[90] The two boys embraced him and cried. Ahta-kwasume sat to the west of him, Ahta-hane to the east. (2 songs.)

J. Revenge on Father's Foes

97. Ahta-hane said, "You cannot walk. You cannot come with me. I wanted to see you, to see your face and your body. That is all. I am going north." Their father said, "It is well. I have seen you both." Soon he went back (down), he who had been TŠitŠuvare. Then the two brothers and the women went north. They went north until they came to Selye'aya-kumitŠe.[91] They stood there. Then Ahta-hane saw dust in the north, and his father's scalp tied on a pole, and the wind raising the dust.[92] (1 song.)

98. Then word was brought to Pukehane and Nume-peta and KwatŠa-kwatŠa and Tinya-kwa?pi, who were living at Avikwame with many people. Then Pukehane and Nume-peta sent KwatŠa-kwatŠa to the two boys to say that they wanted to meet them: he came southward and met them at Qara'Êrve.[93] They said, "Tell them that we shall be there. We will see them: we are going there." (2 songs.)

99. KwatŠa-kwatŠa said, "All have heard that you are coming. All know it: the news was brought to them. When you arrive they want to try something with you. There is a large rock with roots far down in the ground. Takse[94] has dug under the rock and broken the roots. He is to roll it, pick it up in his hand, and put it back where it belongs. There is another: Halye'anekitŠe:[95] he will obey you. Your father's scalp is on the pole: he will climb up to get it. If he can bring it down, we shall lose, but if he cannot bring it we shall win." The two boys said, "The people who live in the north do not think as we do. They ridicule me because they have killed my father. We shall arrive about noon." Then KwatŠa-kwatŠa went back. (2 songs.)

100. That day they went up the river and came near the others. Halye'anekitŠe went to meet them. He said, "I will climb up to get the scalp. If you win you will get everything, their clothes, the men and women, the boys and the girls. But if I climb and cannot bring down the scalp, you will lose your bodies and everything you have. Then again, if Takse can dig under the large rock and cut its roots and carry it and throw it, you will lose, but if he cannot move the rock, you will win. You will win the houses, the dishes, and all the property of those people." Now Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe wanted to see the two boys. He said, "I want to see my two nephews." He met them, embraced them, and felt them over.[96] (1 song.)

101. Now the two boys came there.[97] Then they argued what they should do first. The two boys wanted Halye'anekitŠe to make his trial first. The people who lived there wanted Takse to be first. Then Takse tried first. He took the rock, but could not throw it and it fell down just where he stood. So the people who lived there lost. Now Halye'anekitŠe was ready to climb: they told him to try. He climbed and brought down the scalp. So the two boys won again. The people there had lost everything. But they did not give up everything that they had lost; they gave up only part. They gave up their clothes and dishes and property but they did not give up their bodies. (1 song.)

102. Then they said they wanted to bet again. They wanted to bet their bodies. They too had lightning. Ahta-hane's lightning (horrave) was not like theirs. They said to him, "Show yours." He said, "No, show yours." Then they showed it. It was only light and did no harm. Then he showed his: it was brighter than theirs, and quick, and struck the ground, and entered it. So he won everything that they had bet. Then he started to go away. But before that he had sent the five women back, his four wives and his mother; and Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe and Axta-hane (sic, for Ahta-kwasume); seven people in all. Now, when he went, he took one of his four pieces of cane and threw it west over Avi-mota.[98] It burned up everything and killed every one: Pukehane, Nume-peta, KwatŠa-kwatŠa, Tinya-kwa?pi, and their people. Then he ran to the south. The fire had nearly overtaken his seven people. Only a plant like bulrushes, nyavedi-ny-ipa, ghost arrow, did not burn. It stopped the fire at I o-kuva'ire and saved those seven people. (2 songs.)

K. Transformation

103. Ahta-hane had made this plant grow. Now his brother stood by him, and Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe, and the five women in a row. They wanted to know what he would do. He took off the covering of his cane, showed it to them, put the pieces of cane together between his hands, and it thundered. He wanted to turn them into something. Then the five women flew up to the sky. They stayed there and were the Pleiades, hatŠa. Then he wanted to do something for his brother. "I think it will be best if I take him to a little lake full of mud and throw him in to be a bird and he will shake his head, and we shall call him teristeris."[99] Then he did that, and now Ahta-kwasume was that sort of a bird. Then he wanted to do something with the old man, Hatpa-'aqwao?tŠe. He thought, "I will throw him into the same place. I want him to be called so?Êrqe."[100] Then he did that with the old man. (10 songs.)

104. Now he alone was left. No one was there. He thought, "What am I going to be? I think I will fly up and go through the air. I will be a meteor, kwayu,[101] and fly into the sea." Then he changed his mind. He thought, "No, I will not go into the sea. When I fly up I will go south." Then he went south. Just below Mukiampeve is Kway-u-namau,[102] where Kwayu's father's mother had turned to rock. He went by there southward a little, jumped into the water, and sank to the bottom, to stay there. But, "I do not think it is good here," he said, came out, and went to the east side of the river. There he sat down. He is sticking up there now. He has been there forever, turned to rock. We call it MÊkoa?a. (2 songs.)

SONG SCHEME AND NARRATIVE OUTLINE

As usual for Mohave myths, a list of song topics also provides a sort of skeleton or framework of the story, and, although somewhat imperfectly, it serves conveniently as an outline of the plot.

The list that follows is in a sense the informant's. Wherever he said: "one song," or "four songs here," a paragraph has been terminated. The sections thus indicated by him normally deal with a single episode or thought, and are presented as consecutively numbered paragraphs. The only departure I have made from this procedure has been to break a paragraph into "a" and "b" when its first part consists of the conclusion of an incident without songs, and its second part deals with a new incident to which there are songs; as, 1a, 1b, 7a, 7b, etc. This minor formal device in the interest of clarity in the outline of the tale makes it that there are 111 actual paragraphs of narrative as against 104 numbered ones.

The informant listed 182 songs as due to be sung at the 104 stations or stages of incident: an average of less than two per station. This is low for Mohave song-narratives. There was only a single song for 54 stations, or more than half of them. He sang two songs at 38 stations, three at five, four and five at three each, and ten songs only once, at the next to final incident of the story.

The narrative breaks naturally into sections or chapters of unequal length. To these I have given titles, and have entered these captions, for convenience of orientation, both in the text of the narrative and in the song scheme outline. The latter follows.

The Cane Song Scheme

MOVEMENT OF THE NARRATIVE

Bluebird was a competent narrator in making his story move while retaining concrete and vivid detail. There is not the actionlessness of Raven, the bald outline manner of Vinimulye-patŠe, the constant self-communing of Deer, or the deliberate repetitive prolixity of Mastamho. The tale always progresses. Either there are incidents crowding into a situation of emotional interest; or, when this flags, as in a long journey, the stages of travel are passed through with conciseness. The direct story appeal of Cane seems to me greater than that of the other Mohave narratives here presented.

APPARENT INCONSISTENCIES

There are a number of internal inconsistencies or contradictions. Some of these are almost certainly due to misunderstandings by either the interpreter or myself; for others I strongly suspect the narrator to be responsible; but in any given case it is almost impossible to be sure. After all, the story is so long that it took three days to tell and English it, and these three days were interrupted by a fourth. There was thus much provocation for the narrator to change his plot in spots through forgetting what he had said before.

One of these doubts concerns whether TŠese'ilye is the name of TŠitŠuvare's first wife from the west or of her father (cf. n. 14); also that TŠitŠuvare also married Sun's daughter in the east; that this woman went home after TŠitŠuvare died, whereas TŠese'ilye gave birth to the hero Ahta-hane (29-31), who in 35 sends her off to the west; but in 82b following, he travels eastward (after having gone south and east!) to meet his mother, whose father is Sun (90): which would make her the second wife. See footnotes 14, 35, 36, 52, 54, 58, 63, 68, 75, 78, 79, 83, 87.

There are two Suns (11a, 90; 77, 78). Analogous is the fact that the hero strikes his shinny ball away as a meteor (37), overcomes Kwayu, the cannibal Meteor (75, 76), and flies off as a meteor himself on his way to his final transformation, 104.

Relationship terms are not always used consistently. See especially 75-77, footnotes 58, 60, 62-64. However, we do not know how strict and consistent Mohave usage in daily life is. In 11b, Sun's daughter, TŠitŠuvare's second wife, has a tame cock, kwaluyauve, as her pet, but in 86 it is a masohwa? bird; or, if in 86 the woman is TŠese'ilye, TŠitŠuvare's first wife, the change is from a hwetŠe-hwetŠe bird in 7b to a masohwat.

In 2 and 3, the two brothers are said to have gone north only a short distance from their origin at Avikwame. They must however have proceeded farther, and then have turned to the south, as may be inferred from what follows. Thus, in 37, the younger brother's son goes north from where his father was killed and he was born, to Avi-kwutaparva, crosses the Colorado river there, and then goes downstream a little on the east side to IdÔ-kuva'ire and Qara'Êrve, all three places being in northern Mohave valley near Fort Mohave.—The evil older brother is at Avikwame, according to 5, 24, 28, 98, when his nephew hero returns, but is killed by him at Avi-mota in 102; cf. footnotes 97, 98.—The hero sends his mother away to the west in 35, though his father got her in the east; he starts on a long journey south in 38, then east along the seacoast, and inland northeast in 68 to find his wives and his adversaries. When he returns to his mother in 82b, he ought accordingly to be going north or northwestward, but is said to be traveling east. Is it a case of a slip of the narrator's mind, of the interpreter's tongue, or of my pencil? Or possibly did the hero follow an indirect course which escaped mention? An emendation might simplify the situation—such as assuming an intended "east" for recorded "west" when the mother was sent away in 35; but there would be no control of the guesses. And it may well be that as much contradiction as this is expectable in so long a narrative acquired supposedly by dreaming, retained without mnemonic device, and probably told only a very few times in a life.

In any event, none of these discrepancies of factual statement, if they are discrepancies, seriously affect the plot interest, the feeling tone, or the hearer's ability to participate in the story.

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:

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 of Matavilya, 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 paragraph 6 of 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:

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 the journey 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 paragraph 90, but is used only in 102.

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.

SUPPLEMENTARY