Creation Myths of Primitive America: In relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of MankindCurtin, Jeremiah
Religion
Creation Myths of Primitive America: In relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind
Curtin, Jeremiah
Creation -- Mythology; Indian mythology -- North America; Indians of North America -- Folklore
Norwanchakus went home. Keriha began to dig, found many combs, dug
till night, stayed all night in Hubit's house--stayed there digging
honey and eating, for twenty-five days.
Norwanchakus waited at home for his brother, waited that evening till
midnight, waited till morning, saw no sign of Keriha. He waited the
next day; then two, three, five days; then twenty days more.
"Well," said Norwanchakus, "I can do nothing. Perhaps he is dead,
perhaps he is working yet."
On the twenty-sixth night after Hubit's death, some one came into the
house. Norwanchakus looked up. It was Keriha.
After that the two brothers went to Puri Buli. At the foot of the
mountain they saw some one half sitting, half lying, and looking at
them. When they came nearer, it went into an opening.
"My brother," said Keriha, "I want that."
"Nothing can pass you," said the elder brother. "You want everything.
You would better let this go."
Keriha paid no heed to Norwanchakus: he split the earth with his
little finger and killed the stranger, a Supchit. He skinned the body
and said, "I think that this skin will be warm; I will sleep on it."
"My brother," said Norwanchakus, "you are the only person who has ever
killed a Supchit--you may be sorry."
Next morning a terrible snow came. It snowed five days and nights;
everything was buried under snow. Keriha and Norwanchakus lay
twenty-one days under the snow without food. On the twenty-first
night, the Supchit woman whom Keriha had killed came and stole him
away.
Next morning Norwanchakus looked outside. Keriha was gone; the snow
was gone. He looked for tracks, looked all day, found no tracks. He
searched five days, ten, twenty days--searched all the mountains, went
down the rivers, up the rivers, north, south, east, west. He searched
one year, found neither track nor trail; searched ten years, then ten
years more; inquired of every one in all the world--no one knew of
Keriha.
At last he went back to the house where Keriha had been lost to see if
there was track or trail there. Behind Keriha's sleeping-place he saw
a large stone. He raised it, found an opening and a passage sloping
northward, saw tracks made when the Supchit woman took Keriha away. He
went into the passage, followed the trail till he came to the top of
Bohem Puyuk. He came out on the top, went in again and followed a
trail going south; followed it, winding west and east, till he came
out at Waikidi Pom. There he saw tracks on the ground, lost them,
found them again, found them going under the ground, travelled under
the ground, came out, lost and found tracks till he lost them for
good.
He inquired in the west for five years without finding trail or
tidings of Keriha. At last he said,--
"I have asked every one in this world, except my two cousins Lasaswa
at Lasan Holok."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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