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
Tuina was asleep in the sweat-house. He had three daughters and no
son. The daughters were called Wediko, and his wife was Utjamhji.
Wakara went down into the sweat-house and sat at the side of Tuina.
Tuina took a bearskin and put it down at his other hand, and told
Halai Auna and her husband to sit on it. Tuina took up a big sack of
tobacco and a large pipe cut out of maple wood. The tobacco was made
of his own hair, rolled and cut fine. He put this in the pipe and gave
it to Pun Miaupa. Wakara and Tuina watched now, and looked at him. The
young man smoked all the tobacco and gave back the pipe.
Tuina filled the pipe now with a different, a stronger tobacco. He
used to rub his skin often, and what he rubbed off he dried and made
fine. This was his tobacco of the second kind. He had a sackful of
this stored away, and he filled his pipe now with it.
Pun Miaupa smoked, seemed to swallow the smoke. It was not he who was
smoking, though, but the uncle in his heart. He emptied the pipe and
returned it. Tuina took now tobacco of a third kind,--his own flesh
dried and rubbed fine. He filled the pipe, gave it to Pun Miaupa, and
waited to see him fall dead at the second if not at the first whiff.
The country outside the sweat-house was full of dead people, all
killed by Tuina's tobacco. Some of the bodies were fresh, others
decayed; some were sound skeletons, others a few old bones.
Pun Miaupa smoked out this pipe, gave it back empty. Tuina handed him
a fourth pipe. The tobacco was made of his own brains, dried and
rubbed fine. Pun Miaupa smoked this and gave the empty pipe back to
Tuina.
Tuina now tried the fifth pipe. He filled it with marrow from his own
bones, gave it to Halai Auna's husband. Wakara and Tuina watched now,
waiting to see him fall. Pun Miaupa swallowed all and gave the pipe
back.
Tuina had no other kind of tobacco and could do no more. He dropped
his head. "I don't know what kind of person this is," thought he. All
at once he remembered old Igupa Topa, and thought: "This may be a
young one of that kind. I can do nothing with him, he has beaten me."
Halai Auna was very glad to have such a husband. This was the first
man of all who had come to see her who had not been killed by Tuina.
She laughed all this time in her mind.
Pun Miaupa went out, killed five deer, and brought them in. The women
cooked a great deal that day. Wakara and Tuina sat in the house,
talked and ate Pun Miaupa's fresh venison. The next night all slept.
Igupa Topa went out of Pun Miaupa's heart, went about midnight, and
sat north of the pillar in the side of the house, sat without saying a
word. He had a white feather in his head, and looked very angry and
greatly dissatisfied.
Early next morning Tuina and Wakara were up and saw the old man
sitting there with that big feather in his head, and they looked at
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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