In November, 1905, my friend and interpreter Jack Jones came to San Francisco and the University, bringing with him an informant called Aspa-sakam, which means Eagle-sell. Aspa-sakam was a youngish middle-aged man, heavy-set and inclined to be fat, who worked pretty steadily for the Santa Fe railroad at Needles. He was, however, a good Mohave inwardly, and had dreamt and could sing two cycles, Yellaka or Goose, and Nyohaiva (NyÔ'haiva), which is a story of war but named after an insect. He narrated both of these, proving himself an excellent informant as regards precision, orderliness of mind, and willingness to explain. His Goose story has been outlined on pages 766-768 of the Handbook of California Indians. It is a very long tale with a minimum of action. The Nyohaiva story, which follows here, is much shorter. The songs, as their scheme was outlined and as they were recorded on the phonograph in part, aggregate only about a hundred, as against four hundred or more in the Goose series. Aspa-sakam said that it took only one night to sing the Nyohaiva series through.

Nyohaiva, the narrator said, was known also to an old man called Mehulye, who was his mother's brother and who now lived with him. This was a paralyzed man who knew the Great Tale, the story of migrations and battles of Mohave clan groups.

As regards Goose, Aspa-sakam said that this was known also to his brother and to an old man, Hakwe, who was his father-in-law and therefore not a blood relation. The narrator added that perhaps sometime he would teach the singing to his son. The old man, Hakwe, was subsequently interviewed at Needles. I shrank from obtaining from him the whole of the story, having already gone through the ordeal of securing it from Aspa-sakam, but did record some of the songs and a place-name synopsis of the story, which is given on pages 768-769 of the Handbook. This outline shows Hakwe's version of Goose to be quite different in detail from Aspa-sakam's. The songs also have a different melodic theme. It does not seem, therefore, that either of these two informants, son-in-law and father-in-law, could have learned from, or been very much influenced by, the other.

As for Nyohaiva, Aspa-sakam subsequently said that his kin on the father's side knew Nyohaiva. As a boy he heard them sing it and learned it. "They did not teach me, for such things cannot be taught. They can only be dreamed. But my relatives knew Nyohaiva, and I dreamed it." These are his own words, and, semi-contradictory as they may seem to us, they perhaps come as close as is possible to expressing a characteristic Mohave nondifferentiation of spontaneous development from within and acquisition from without. Aspa-sakam added that the way he came to know Goose was different: none of his kinsfolk knew this. In our words, he really dreamed this; Nyohaiva he both learned and dreamed. When he was a boy, sometimes he would sing parts of Goose. An old man, hearing him sing, would say: "Yes, that is right. Yes, that is Goose." So he acquired more of it, dreaming it, and came to sing more and more of it.

It is doubtful whether he had ever sung either Goose or Nyohaiva through consecutively at any one time or occasion. I had seen him about two years earlier at a death and cremation, where he was singing, probably Nyohaiva. He had sung Goose for amusement at night at his home, he said. Neither he nor the interpreter seemingly could be made to understand clearly my questions whether he had ever sung Goose a whole night through, or whether he had ever sung it or Nyohaiva continuously from beginning to end. Such a statement of factual events seems to have little meaning to the Mohave.

Nyohaiva is sung standing, at any rate when women dance in a ring around the singer. He leans on a stick, which he sometimes thrusts forward and waves to the rhythm of his song, sometimes drops through his hand to strike the ground. There is no rattle or musical instrument.

Nyohaiva is classed by the Mohave as one of their song-myths dealing with war, and its plot is simple. Nyohaiva is an insect. She comes into existence as a woman in the north end of Mohave valley, at Miakwa'orve, above Fort Mohave, at the time of the beginnings: "The world was still wet." There is however no reference in the tale to Matavilya's death, Ha'avulypo, Avikwame, or the actually originating events. Nyohaiva travels south along the river, naming places and encountering named personages, but without notable happenings, as far as Aqwaqa-have, in Halchidhoma territory, below Parker. Here four brothers, including OtŠÔuta, believe that she comes for war and plan to kill her first. She on her part finds bones which she recognizes as her relatives'—a characteristic Mohave motivation and inconsistency—and bets her body against her freedom in a game to be played with one of the same bones. She wins, threatens them with war, and runs off southward, announcing impending war to those whom she meets, as far as Ava-tŠohai, somewhere between Parker and Yuma. There she incites the people, under the leadership of men whose names denote blackbirds, to join her in returning and attacking OtŠÔuta's people. There is no reason given, why they should do so; rather, war is treated as something which, now given its roots, grows and will be—a sort of gathering fate, though a stirring and pleasurable one. The prolix Mohave narrative manner of adding incident to incident makes for an effect of slow accumulation of feeling on this theme. However, the war itself resolves into the killing by magic of a single leader: Homeric battles are not a usual part of the story pattern of the Mohave, in spite of their preoccupation with war. With a magic ball Nyohaiva puts the enemy settlement to sleep, enters OtŠÔuta's house, cuts off his head. This she carries upriver to Samo'okusa or Ama?-ya'ama near Parker, where people are living under the leadership of four transvestites! She institutes the scalp dance for them; throws OtŠÔuta's skull far south to become a rock at Picacho in Yuma land; then turns herself to stone as Hawk-rock, east of Parker.

The objective towards which the events of the tale trend seems to be the institution of the victory scalp dance; at which, in actual Mohave practice, Nyohaiva was one of several singings that were sung and danced to. In this dance, too, transvestites—the word means coward as well—participated along with women; and there was the expectable heterosexual indulgence. Hence probably the astounding berdache chiefs of the tale: they are imagined in order to provide the fitting dance setting. The scalp celebration seems to have been the principal Mohave occasion for dancing.

Nyohaiva, as a woman, herself reflects this peculiar relation between women and war: her hair, her skirt, her bashfulness are specified. But there is also the opposite attitude: she incites, she wants revenge, she kills. Here she is almost the embodiment of the hwami, the occasional female active homosexual whom the Yuman river tribes recognize as the counterpart of the more frequent male passive invert or alyha. But she is never explicitly designated as a hwami, nor does the tale itself allow us to interpret her as having had defined hwami status in the Mohave mind. Normal sex impulse or relation, what we should call love interest, does not enter into this story at all. It is normally treated meagerly in Mohave mythology, in spite of the endless sex talk and obscene humor of Mohave daily life. When it does appear in narrative, it is episodically. The plots as a whole show the love incidents to be subsidiary. Thus the Cane hero wishes a storm to rid himself of his wives, who are delaying the revenge for which he is traveling; and when his conscience makes him relent, it is because his wish strikes him as inhumane and bad in general, not because of tender sentiments toward the wives as love-objects. And there is rarely much sex feeling, and never a touch of ribaldry. For instance, the Tumanpa story is based on an incest motive, but the theme is treated with such restraint as scarcely to obtrude beyond the skeleton of the plot, and never with a trace of passion. The brother and sister are old people at the beginning of the tale! The fact that such sex element as enters into Nyohaiva is tinged with the quality of inversion, suggests a definite functional relation between inversion and war in Mohave culture. I say inversion because its sanctioned institutionalization largely removes it from the realm of the perverse, at least socially and in part psychologically.

Besides fighting and love-making, a third element active in Mohave life is left out of Nyohaiva as out of certain other stories in Mohave mythology. This is their tribal consciousness and keen ethnographic or international interest. All the people encountered in the story are treated as if they were Mohaves, or at least members of a still undifferentiated human race leading a specifically Mohave-type life; even though they dwell as far away as the Yuma habitat. (There is a partial exception in the incident when Nyohaiva detours east into the mountains, finds a man whose name refers to buckskin shirts, and gives him hunting arrows to live by: thus she institutes the Walapai more than she encounters them.) The attitude of clannish rather than of tribal differentiation recurs in the unpublished "Great Tale" and, in the present monograph, in Cane (I), and explicitly in Vinimulye-patŠe (II), where the victorious attackers of the Mohave, coming from the desert Providence mountains, are not the Chemehuevi who historically inhabited this range, but a separatist band of Mohave who are represented as having settled there, contrary to economic possibility for a farming people.

Nevertheless, the Nyohaiva geography reflects historic international relations. The district of the Mohave-like settlements which plot against Nyohaiva and are vanquished by her are where the Halchidhoma lived as recurrent objects of Mohave and Yuma attack. However, the war party against them comes from the south, that is, from the Yuma direction; and the victim's head is petrified in Yuma territory. It is possible therefore that Nyohaiva is a variant derivative of the Av'alyunu myth and singing which the Mohave recognize as the Yuma equivalent of their Nyohaiva, as per the third paragraph of the tale. That Nyohaiva herself is made to have her origin in northern Mohave valley and turns to stone not far from the scene of her victory, means less, because almost all stories move from north to south, through the vicinity of Avikwame being the typical point of mythic departure with the Mohave, and at times also in Yuma, Walapai, and even DiegueÑo narratives.

THE NYOHAIVA TALE

1. Nyohaiva came to life at Miakwa'orve.[1] That place was the first one to be dry. All about, the world was still wet. She thought: "I do not know which is the best way to go. I wonder in what direction is the best place for me, so that everyone will know me and I can tell what I know. I have dreamed well. I wish to tell what I know so that everyone will understand it." Now the day and the sun and everything else already existed. Then she thought: "There is the sun. It is already gone down as far as that."[2] (3 songs.)

2. Then she said: "Now I know what to do. I will not go elsewhere than south. I will cross the river and go to IdÔ-kuva'ire."[3] Then, when she came to IdÔ-kuva'ire, she thought: "I will tell about this place and that I am here." (2 songs.)

3. When she was about to start from there, she said: "I will tell further what I know, so that everyone will learn what I say. Let everyone listen to me and take my words." As she said this she took a handful of sand. "I am a person who has dreamed well. When you Mohave sing, you will sing Nyohaiva. There is another name for singing that, Av'alyunu,[4] but it is the Yuma who will learn that. It will be the same singing, but I give it another name." (1 song.)

4. She said: "Well, I have told everything here. I have finished. I will go." Then she went to AhtŠyÊ-aksamta.[5] When she had gone a little to the south from there she saw a hill of sand, Selye'aya-kumitŠe.[6] Then she said: "All will come to this place. They will come here to play and sing and have a good time. That is how I want you to become married."[7] All the people there looked at her, but did not know who she was. "I am the person called Yana?a-kwe-'ataye,"[8] she said; "Do you not know me?" Then all said: "Yes, we know you. We have heard of that person. That is one who sings and from whom we learn singing. Her name is Nyohaiva." Now they all knew who she was. (4 songs.)

5. Nyohaiva said: "There are people living below. I must go down. I want to talk to them and teach them to sing. I want to talk to others as well as to you." Then she went. She came to Kamahnulye.[9] When she arrived there, she said: "I do not tell you anything else. I teach you only singing. I do not tell you what you are to do, but only how you are to sing." (4 songs.)

6. She said: "That is what I teach you. Listen to me." As yet she did not teach other tribes. She taught only the Mohave. Then she went on downward to SavÊt-tÔhe.[10] (3 songs.)

7. As she stood there she heard someone speaking or shouting in the east. She thought: "I hear people to the east. I think I will go there." Thus she said and went east. She went up over the mesa and far up into the mountains A'i-kumnau-tŠumi. There there was a spring, Aha-kuvilye.[11] Someone lived there. She said: "I know you. Your name is Hama?Ôle-viya.[12] Well, I will tell of your body. I will tell about you." (4 songs.)

8. Then she was ready to return. "I am going back now," she said. She got up. Then she said again: "You can live here by hunting, but you cannot hunt without having the things with which to hunt." Then she took[13] a bow and four arrows and threw them on the ground, and those living there picked them up. "Now you are provided. You can hunt and shoot," she said. She also took a stone knife with a wooden handle and gave it to them, then she started to go back. (She did not sing about what she did there. She only instructed those people, the Walapai.) As she returned toward the river, everything had been made, both sky and earth, and all was quiet and still. She thought of that as she came, and sang about it. (4 songs.)[14]

9. Now she went downstream along the edge of the river. She said: "The way that I have come will be a trail. I am making a trail for people. When they want to go, they will travel by this." It was when she came to Hoturveve[15] that she said this. (1 song.)

10. She went on. Then she heard someone far downstream. She thought: "I wonder whether I can jump four times and reach that place." Then she tried to find how she could jump. She thought: "I think I am able to jump. I am light now: I can jump far. Perhaps if I stand and turn around four, five, six times I shall go far." She stood there thinking, thus. Then she turned herself around four times. Then she arrived far down below, at Ive?ikwe-'akyulye. NyahunÊm-kwayave[16] lived there. He said: "The person who has come is not like other people. He combs and spreads his hair,[17] he does not roll it.[18] What is the reason you do not roll your hair? Come among my people and live here and I will give you a name." Nyohaiva said: "It is good. Give me a name. I will join you." He told her: "Stand facing the south." Then she faced the south. He sat behind her, looking at her back. "I give you the name A?'inkumedi," he said. When she received that name, Nyohaiva said: "Now I have a new name. Everyone has heard it. My name is A?'inkumedi. I have learned something new." Then she sang. (4 songs.)[19]

11. From there she went on slowly. She came near Ama?-ehÊ'-kwadÔske.[20] The man who lived there saw her coming: he was called HutŠatŠ-mekulypuk.[21] He said: "I heard that it was so: I think this is my sister. I think that I look like her." When she arrived and stood before him, he said: "You are my sister."[22] Nyohaiva said: "No, you are not my brother."[22a] "Yes, you are my sister," he said. Then she told him: "Well, let us measure our feet. See, your feet are different. Let me see your arms. Yours are different from mine. Mine are short, yours are long. You are not my brother." Still he insisted: "Yes, I am your brother." But she said: "No, you are not like me. You are tall." Then she went away from that place. (3 songs.)

12. She went to HÔ'aunye-vatŠe. HutŠatŠ-matillaye[23] lived there. When she arrived, he also said to her: "You are my sister." She stood opposite him, saying: "I do not think I am your sister." "Yes, you are my sister," he said. Then she told him: "I have heard of you. You have been away. No one knew it; no one saw you; but I heard it: I know you have been away; I know you and what your name is. You are HutŠatŠ-matillaye." (3 songs.)

13. So she went on. When she arrived at a place where there was no one, she passed by. She reached Ahmo-kutŠe?ilye.[24] There she stood on a rock. Then she heard people singing at Ama?a-kwitŠe. She thought: "When I come to them they will not know me. I am afraid they will kill me. How shall I go there? I do not know." (2 songs.)

14. She wanted to go to that place. She thought: "What shall I be? I will become something." Then she walked, and jumped about. She put three feathers on herself. Then she became an arrow. She jumped up.[25] She arrived where she had heard the noise, at Ama?a-kwitŠe, and there she stuck in the ground. Little boys were playing about and found the arrow. One of them said: "I have often been here but I have never seen an arrow sticking in the ground." He did not take it, but went back and told the old man who lived in that place. The old man's name was Halto?-amitŠ-kwisama.[26] When the boy told him, this old man said: "Be careful: that is no arrow. Perhaps it is a person who has become an arrow." Nyohaiva heard that and thought: "I will change back. I want to go to that old man's house." Then she turned human again, and went to the house. The old man saw her coming and said: "See, she is coming. I told you that it was no arrow. It is a person who is coming." When she reached the house, the old man said: "Give her to eat: give her pumpkins and corn." They had food ready and gave it to her. But she did not know that it was food and would not eat it. She had never eaten that kind before. They wanted her to eat and said: "Why do you not eat?" But she said: "No, I do not want to." She was afraid. She thought: "If I eat it, perhaps it will kill me."[27] She wanted to go on and did not even sit down. She only squatted and sang. (3 songs.)

15a. She wanted to go on to Aqwaqa-have.[28] So she started. Now she came to Aqwaqa-have. There were four brothers who lived there, old men: Nyahamo-vetaye,[29] the oldest, OtŠÔuta,[30] the next, HidÔ-kwitara,[31] the next, and Kim-ku-suma,[32] the youngest.

15b. Nyahamo-vetaye had a daughter. He said to her, as Nyohaiva arrived: "When a traveler comes, you must talk to her. You must make her come to the house and be her friend. That is the way you should do." When the old man said that, his daughter went to Nyohaiva, took her by the hand, and brought her to the house. Nyohaiva would not go in, but sat outside at the corner of the house. The four men did not know her. "I wonder who she is," they thought. She was ashamed and did not look up. She kept her face down.15c. Then Kim-ku-suma, the youngest of the four, said: "Do you not know her? Have you not heard of her? Her name is Nyohaiva. When she came to one place, she changed her name and took a new one. I heard that she was coming. Now that she has come, I can tell from the way she sits, squatting without sitting down, and from her not looking at us, that when she goes below where there are many people, she will stir up trouble and there will be war and you will not sleep well."[33] He was afraid of her and wanted her to be killed.

15d. Then HidÔ-kwitara, the next oldest brother, said: "Well, if you will kill her, you must send word to all, so that they will come and all our people may know it. Send a man to Halto?-amitŠ-kwisama to tell him that we wish him to come; that everyone should be here in four days. I want to roast her alive. I do not want only to kill her: I want her blood, and her bones to crush and mix with what we eat. We will do that on the fourth morning." Nyohaiva heard them say that; and they, though saying it, nevertheless gave her to eat; but she would not eat it. She had heard them say that they would kill her in four days.15e. After two days she went outside and dug down in the ground. There she found a kneecap. "That is my father's bone," she said. She dug on and found a foot bone. "That is my mother's bone," she said. She dug on and found a rib. Then she said: "That is my brother's[34] bone. The people here have killed them. I think that they will try to kill, me in the same way. They recognize me from my face. They knew me because my face was like my father's and my mother's and my brother's. How will they kill me? I would like to know how they will do. They will make me bet my body against something that they put up and then they will kill me. They will bet something against me."

15f. Then in four days everyone came there. Nyohaiva had kept under the belt of her skirt the bones that she had found. Now, taking the foot bone[35] in her hand, she said: "If you can take it away from me, you can kill me. If you cannot take it away from me, you shall not kill me. If I am not able to keep and hold it, you may kill me. I do not think you will be able to take it away from me, and if you cannot take it away, I will go off. I will try to run to Avi-'itŠÔrinyÊne and there I will be free. But if you can take it away from me, and bring it to KunyavatŠ-yampeve, you can have my bones and blood." Then they prepared to take from her the ball of bone. But she had dug a little hole[36] and there she buried the ball and stood on it. Then she waved her hands and made it appear as if she were hiding the bone as she folded her arms. She said: "If you do not take it away from me before I come as far south as Avi-'itŠÔrinyÊne, I shall win; but if you can get the bone to KunyavatŠ-yampeve, then I shall lose." Then they all came toward her. She ran south, holding the bone between her toes where they did not see it. They reached her, seized her arms, looked for the bone in her hands, but could not find it. Again they pursued her, seized her, held her fast, tore off all her clothes. She fell, got up again, and ran on, scratched all over, but they did not find the bone. Then, when she came to Avi-'itŠÔrinyÊne, she threw the bone up, and they all stopped. So this one woman had beaten those people. "I have beaten you all. I have dreamed well. In four days we shall have war," she said, and stretched out her arm towards them with four fingers extended (spread in defiance). They stood and looked at her and thought: "Did I not know it? You cannot overcome her. She is Nyohaiva. Now we have made trouble for ourselves. Everything will be turned over." (4 songs.)

16. From there Nyohaiva went down the river to Avi-haly'a.[37] There she saw Amaly-kapaka[38] who had come to that place with many people. She said to him: "I can tell about your body and about you. I can tell about another thing too: I say there will be war in four days." (4 songs.)

17. She went on again. As she traveled she kept saying that there would be war in four days. There was no one there and she was all alone, nevertheless she told of the war. Then she came to AvÊ-ny-eva. Two men lived there, Ahma-kunuhwilye and TŠem-korrave,[39] his younger brother. She came to the house in which they were. She stood at the door and did not say a word. They did not know her, so they said: "Who is it?" Then she told them: "I am A?'inkumedi. I have come to announce war: I say it will be in four days. That is why I have come here: I have come to tell you in how many days there will be war." The two men said: "I know A?'inkumedi: she is Nyohaiva. I know her." (1 song.)

18. Then she went on and came to a place to which she gave the name Qapotaq-iv'auve. She stood there and said: "I can tell where I am: I have dreamed well." Now she was there alone, but she said: "I say we shall have war." Then she tried what she could do. She trotted, to the south one step (sic). Then she came back. Then she trotted one step to the west and returned, then one to the north, then one to the east.[40] Then she pulled out one hair on her right side and threw it to the west, and it began to rain. She said: "I thought I should do that. I dreamed about war: that is my power; I know that." (4 songs, one about each direction.)

19. She went on down again until she came to Avi-tuva'auve. There she stood and said: "I thought the sky was far off. I thought the earth, too, was far around, and that its end could not be told. But now, when I have arrived here, the sky is not far away, and the (end of the) earth is near." Thus she thought. (2 songs.)20. She went on again and came to Ak'ulye-tŠakapava, a high hill, on which she stood. From there she heard and saw many men. She said: "They have been away a long time. I heard of that; I see it now. They are ready to make war. I see them prepared with feathers, with bows and arrows and war clubs, and with paint, ready to fight." (2 songs.)21. From there she went on, running. When she had gone part of the way to where she had seen the people, she came to a rock. She stood on this. This rock had no name. She said: "I give it a name. I call it Avi-tŠitŠe." From there she again saw the people all ready for war. "I am glad," she said, as she saw them playing and wearing feathers and carrying bows and clubs. (4 songs.)22. She went on down along the river again. Four times she ran and rested. Then she began to be near the place. Now she had long hair[41] and wore a dress of willow bark.[42] Then she thought: "How shall I approach them?" Then she took some of the strands of her dress from one side and the other and tied them across the front like a belt. She did not tie her hair, but grasped it on both sides and twisted the two masses into a knot behind.[43] "And I want to do something to look pretty," she said. She took a handful of dirt and rubbed it across her jaw and her forehead. "That will not do: it will not show," she said. Putting her hands down to the ground once more, she dug. Then she reached into the hole and took out white earth paint. From a handful she made four horizontal stripes across her face. These were white and plain. "That is better. Now I look well. And I will give a name to this place. I will call it Ama?-ehÊ'-idauve.[44] Now it has a name." (4 songs.)

23. Then she started and ran again. She ran twice and rested. Then she arrived where those people were. She did not go in among them, but stood off at a little distance. She saw that they were prepared and ready for war, with feathers and bows and clubs and all weapons. Then Hivilyk-kemohakwe,[45] a man who was there, called to her, "Come!" She came nearer but soon stood still. "Come!" he called again. Again she came but stopped. "Come!" he said once more, and again she came but stood. Again he said, "Come!" This time she came in among the crowd. She still held white paint in her hand. When the people saw this, they all took some from her, put it into their own hands, spat on them, rubbed them together to make them white, then drew their finger-tips over their palms, and with their fingers painted white marks on their hair. They said: "We will fight. We want to prepare because we will fight." They all did that. Then Nyohaiva said to them: "It is well. But wait: I will think about it. I will tell you how to go, how to arrive, how to fight. Now I want to give a name to this place so that all will know from where we started to go to war. The name of this place is Ava-tŠohai.[46] Now all will know it." (4 songs.)

24. Then she said: "Who dreamed about war? Who knows how to fight? Who will be leader? The first will be Horrave-sakamim.[47] The next will be Aqaqa-suverevere-ketukupanye.[48] The next will be Ampot-ahwa?e."[49] She herself was to be the fourth. Horrave-sakamim was to be the leader and go first and kill. All wanted to go along. (3 songs.)

25. Now they were ready and wanted to cross the river. They gathered, tied driftwood into bundles, and put their weapons on them.[50] Then they crossed to the west side of the river and came to Ahpe-hwÊlyeve.[51] "When we arrive there I will tell you more," Nyohaiva said. (4 songs.)

26. Nyohaiva said: "Men who are at war do not stay long in one place; they do not rest, but go on. Let us go at once." Then they went north along the west side of the river. They continued to go on to Ama?-tato'itŠe. Then she said: "Let us rest: all sit in the shade." Now Hivilyk-kemohakwe went off from them up on the mesa to see if there was anyone to fight. As he looked north to see if there were smoke or dust, he stepped on an ata?a (Mamillaria) cactus. The thorns entered his foot, hurt, and he was unable to walk. He returned crawling on his knees. Then Nyohaiva said; "See, we have bad luck. If we had good luck, the thorn would not have entered you: now your luck is bad." Then she drew out all the thorns. "Now you are well again: you will walk. Let me see you!" He tried to walk but could not yet. Then she spoke and sang once more, and now he had no pain and could walk again. "Let us go on," she said. (2 songs.)27. They went northward. When they came to Aqwaqa-munyÔ, they saw dust and smoke and heard noise. Nyohaiva said: "That is near the place. That is near my father's and mother's and brother's bones. I came by there. I know they are there, those whom we go to fight. Now all do as I want you to. I wish all tribes to fight. If I did not fight, no one in future would fight." She thought of what she was about to do, and how pleasant it would be, and that they were all to learn how to make the war dance. (3 songs.)28. They started on again. Now they were near, at Matha-tŠe-kwilyeve,[52] and stopped. There were hills there and a wash and a little mesa. Someone was standing on the mesa. He ran down toward them. Nyohaiva saw him coming and said: "I think they are sending a message to us. They are sending someone as a spy. Or perhaps he is coming to meet me, to tell me that there will be war. I see him: he is coming." Now that person came among the crowd. He was not afraid. Nyohaiva saw him and said: "Oh, you are my brother."[53] Then he said: "There where you see the smoke and hear the noise they killed my father and mother and brother and took their bones and played with them. They enslaved me. Now they have let me go. 'He is going to become something,' they said of me." His body was a person's, but he had horns. He wore skin clothing. Then Nyohaiva took his shirt, his leggings, and his moccasins from him. She sent him away to the west to eat grass and become a mountain sheep.[54] "Go that way," she said. "The mountains there will be full of sheep. East of the river there will be no sheep in the mountains. When you find grass, eat that. I call you hÔmÔ.[55] Now you are hÔmÔ." (4 songs.)

29. Then they went on again until they came to Ko?Îlye. There A?'inkumedi (Nyohaiva) entered the river up to her knees. The water rushing about her legs made a noise and frightened her. She said: "I will tell of this water. Then the river will not run fast. It will flow slowly. I will make it be like that, not as it is now." So she told[56] about the river. When she had sung three times, the river flowed smoothly and they crossed to the eastern side once more. (3 songs.)

30. Now when they had arrived on that side, all took up their feathers and paint, and Nyohaiva said: "Put on your feathers and paint. Paint yourselves black, but your hair red. I will tell you what to do. I will sing about you." (4 songs.)31. Then, when all were dressed, they went on. They went without stopping, and as they walked Nyohaiva continued to talk. The four leaders[57] went ahead; the others were behind. Nyohaiva said: "I will reach them first. I will begin the fight." As she walked she sang about their steps, and as their arms swung she sang of those. For a little distance she sang thus. (5 songs.)

32. Now they were near, and all of them ready, painted and wearing feathers and holding their clubs. Then Nyohaiva said: "I dreamed well: no one can surpass me." She wanted to do something. She spat on her hand, rubbed her hands together to make a ball magically, and threw it towards the people at Aqwaqa-have. "That will make them sleep," she said. What she threw entered NyahamÔ-vetaye's house and hit a post. It was nearly sundown and NyahamÔ-vetaye's people were still outdoors; but now they all came in; everyone went in. Nyohaiva said: "See, they are all entering. We shall overcome them. They can do nothing against us. I am able to make them all go into the house. You will see that they all sleep. Now we four will go in: the rest of you stay here." Then the four leaders went on and entered the house. They were looking for one man. In the dark Nyohaiva put her hand on the legs and faces of the sleepers in order to find him. As she touched them she made them weak and sleepy. Then she found the man in the middle of the house. She put her hand on his body and on his ear and knew him because he lacked one ear. His hair was long and he had it coiled in a large bunch, on which his head was resting.[58] Nyohaiva said: "This is he for whom I was looking: this is OtŠÔuta, who wanted to kill me.[59] Now I have found him and will kill him." Then the four carried him outside. Nyohaiva said to him: "I will take your head from you alive. I will tell you about it before I kill you." As OtŠÔuta sat there,[60] she seized his hair and pulled it. Four times she moved him as she pulled it. The fourth time she said: "Now I will behead you. I have no knife, but I can kill you with my thumbnail." Then she felt about his neck. She knew where the bones joined: there she cut him with her thumbnail. She cut entirely around his neck, cut off his head, and held it up. The body lay there, jumped up, walked, fell down, jumped again, fell, and died only after a time. Then Nyohaiva said: "Now we will tell about this head."[61] (4 songs.)

33. Then she said to her people: "Let us go northward on this side of the river. I have heard that people live here; but we will not go near them. They want war with us, but we will not stay." So they went. They came to Aha-dekupida.[62] They went on past that place, on up the river until they came to Sama'Ôkusa. Many people lived there. There were four men[63] there, Alyha'-tuyame, Alyha'-tokwime, Alyha'-tŠaÔre, and Alyha'-mi?-kusama.[63a] Many people wanted to see the head that she brought, but Nyohaiva said: "No, I will not show it to you now. I will let you see it, but not now. You will see it in time." She hid the head under her dress. She would not show it to them. She said: "When I show it and you sing, all will know what to do with it." Then she marked a ring on the ground. She stood in the center and waved her hand to the people to come. "Come, all of you, and see this head," she said. All came and stood about. Then she threw the head up so that it fell on the ground: she threw it up four times. Then she said: "Now you have seen the head: you all know it. Now we will sing about it." Then she sang about its bones, its eyes, its eyelashes, its tongue, its mouth, its teeth, and its nose. (4 songs.)

34. She said: "Now you have all seen what I do. That is how I want you to do. After I am dead,[64] you will do the same. But there is another thing." She made four heaps of sand. Then she ran to the south, returned, and with her right foot stirred in one of the heaps. She ran east and returned and stirred in another heap; then north, and stirred in another heap; then west, and stirred in the fourth.[65] As she stirred that one, she took out from it[66] a sandbar-willow (ihore) stick, a long wand. On the end of it she tied the hair of the head so that it waved.[67] "That is how I do," she said. "That is how I want you to do." (4 songs.)

35. When they had finished that, she said: "When there is war and a scalp is taken, people will do as I have done. They will dance and enjoy themselves. All will be happy and will play and sing. I have done that. Now I wonder what I shall be. I wonder where I shall go." As she thought, she was holding the skull of the head in her hand. She went eastward two steps and stood there. "The name of this place is Ama?-ya'ama,"[68] she said. Then, standing there, she threw OtŠÔuta's skull far south, nearly to Yuma. "I want it to become a rock," she said. Then it became the rock called Avi-melyekyÊte.[69]

36. Now the people there stood in a circle about her. She was thinking about her own body. "I wonder what color I shall be: white or blue or yellow? Well, I will turn black. I shall be a rock, but all will know me, that I am Nyohaiva. My name will be Avi-soqwilye.[70] All will know that rock and that it is Nyohaiva." (No songs.)

THE SONG SCHEME

As already said, the Nyohaiva singing is "short": it requires only one night to complete, probably including a certain amount of narration.

I give the number of songs at each point, first as the narrator volunteered them in telling the full text, and next as he subsequently revised them in a review of the skeleton of the story. There are the usual discrepancies; some perhaps due to misunderstanding; more, probably, to his not having in mind any really fixed scheme of the number of songs at each place.

Outline

The first list aggregates 110 songs in 34 groups; the second, 98 or 100 in 33. In the first list, groups of four songs are most frequent, occurring 17 times. In the second list groups of four occur only 10 times, but groups of three 16 times. In short, in the second enumeration the typical group consists of three instead of four songs. At what appear to be crucial points—Nyohaiva's identity, her new name, the contest, OtŠÔuta's killing, the scalp dance—the two lists agree in naming the full complement of four songs. Evidently there is some sense that lesser episodes merit fewer songs. That this sense of relative weight is fairly constant is shown by the fact that of 31 places or stages to which both lists attribute songs, 19 have the same number; 9 differ by only one song, as three for four or three for two; and only 3 differ more widely: see paragraphs 7, 25, 31. There is thus evident a plan in the narrator's mind for relative elaboration of songs in different parts of the story. This plan is adhered to with approximate consistency or repetition; but it is no precise ritual scheme fixed in memory.

As usual, the song scheme serves also as a synopsis of the narrative. I have therefore organized it by introducing captions. It is evident from this outline that only about three of the thirty-odd sections contain vigorous plot such as is the usual content of myths and tales in cultures of the same general level as the Mohave. These are sections 14 and especially 15 and 32. If to these are added the first and last one or two brief sections, to give the heroine an origin and an end, we have about the equivalent of what most American tribes would use to make a tale. The remaining sections, nearly thirty, are Mohave filling, or prolixity, dispensable incidents which make the story run slower but give opportunity to build up the singing into a long series, a real cycle, corresponding to a ritual among other tribes. This song association is presumably the cause of the dilatory narration; though it is also clear that the Mohave like the strung-along episodes for their own sake, and maintain the habit even when the narrative is unaccompanied by songs, as in the Mastamho myth and Great Tale.

The difference in manner, according as interest in plot or in song themes prevails, is shown by the fact that the three paragraphs mentioned (14, 15, 32) take up about three-tenths of the length of the narrative, but have only one-tenth of the songs referring to them. That is, Mohave singing is far from really dramatic. Its text tends to be pensive, subjective, reflective on incidents. When the action becomes eventful, tense, or critical, the songs become few, or drop out, until the flow of the narrative quiets again.

From one to four of the songs of each of the groups were phonographically recorded in cylinders catalogued as 14-228 to 14-269 in the University of California Museum of Anthropology. The correspondence of these phonograms to the sections of the narrative is as follows:

That is, all the songs pertaining to the first section and the three last sections were recorded; but only the first of each group of songs for the other sections.