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
"I dreamed that I climbed a big pine-tree; the tree was full of cones.
I was throwing them down, had thrown down a great many, when at last I
threw down my right arm. I dreamed then that I threw down my left
arm."
He told her no more. That morning early, before he had talked of his
dream, the woman said,--
"I should like to have pine-nuts; I want to eat pine-nuts; I am hungry
for pine-nuts."
He went out to find the nuts, and she went with him, taking the baby.
They came to a large pine-tree, and he climbed it. Hitchin Marimi put
the baby aside on the ground, and made a fire at some distance to
roast the pine-cones.
Hitchinna threw down cones; she roasted them to get out the nuts. He
threw down a great many cones. She roasted these cones and pounded the
nuts out.
After a while Hitchinna's right arm fell off; he threw that to the
ground, then he threw down his left arm. His left leg came off; he
threw it down. Next his right leg dropped off, and he threw that to
the ground.
The woman was roasting and pounding the pine-cones; she did not look
around for a good while. At last she went to the tree, found blood on
it, and looking up, saw that her husband was throwing himself down,
that there was not much left of his body.
Hitchin Marimi was scared half to death; she ran away home. She was so
terrified that she left the little child behind, forgot all about it.
When she reached home, she called the people together and said,--
"My husband went up into a pine-tree; he threw down a great many
pine-cones. Then he began to throw himself down; first he threw one
arm, then the other. We must hurry and hide somewhere; he will be bad
very soon; he will kill us all if he finds us."
The people asked, "Where can we go to hide from him,--north, south,
east, or west?"
"I know a good place," said one man, "and it is not too far from
here,--Wamarawi."
"Well, we must go to that place, and go very quickly," said
Hitchinna's wife; and all the people agreed with her.
The people ran to Wamarawi, which is a round mountain; they ran the
whole way and went into a cave in the mountain. When all were inside,
they closed the entrance very firmly, shut it up tight. Nothing could
get in through that door.
After his wife had run home, Hitchinna threw down his ribs one by one,
and kept asking his wife if she was there. He got no answer. She was
gone and he did not know it. He threw down first all the ribs of his
right side, then all of his left side. Every time he threw a rib he
called, "Uh! Uh!" to his wife.
At last there was nothing left of him on the tree but his head, and
that came down soon after. His eyes were very big now, sticking out,
staring with a wild and mad look. The head lay under the tree a while.
Hitchinna had become another kind of people. He had become a Putokya.
He was one of the skull people, a very bad terrible people. Each one
of them is nothing but a skull.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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