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
Next morning she set out with a sack, went away to high mountains,
gathered deer-bones, red and green leg-bones, and put them in her
sack. At sunset she went back to the house, with the sack full.
The two brothers were glad, now. The elder took red, and the younger
green bones. (The fat on the leg-bones of deer turns some red and
others green.)
"You must catch her bad sister for Tsore Jowa," said the old woman to
her grandsons.
All that night the brothers sat sharpening the bones and then
fastening them to the spear-shafts. They did not stop for a moment.
"Let us go now; it is near daylight," said the elder brother.
They started. When they reached the lake, they went out on the water.
Every morning at daybreak. Haka Lasi sprang up to the surface and
called from the lake. The elder brother took a stem of tule grass,
opened it, placed it on the water, made himself small, and sat down in
the middle of it. The younger brother fixed himself in another stem of
tule in the same way. The two tule stems floated away on the water,
till they came near the place where the brothers had seen Haka Lasi
spring up the first time.
"Let me shoot before you," said the elder brother.
"Oh, you cannot shoot; you will miss her," said the younger. "Let me
shoot first. You will miss; you will not hit her heart."
"I will hit," said the elder.
They watched and watched. Each had his bow drawn ready to shoot.
Daylight came now. Haka Lasi rose quickly, came to the top of the
water, and held out her arms before calling.
The younger brother sent the first arrow, struck her in the neck; the
elder shot, struck her right under the arm. Haka Lasi dropped back and
sank in the water.
The brothers watched and watched. After a time they saw two arrows
floating, and were afraid they had lost her. She had pulled them out
of her body, and they rose to the surface. After a while the body
rose. Haka Lasi was dead.
The brothers saw that she had a great many hearts on a string around
her neck. They drew her to the shore then, and carried her home. They
left the body hidden outside the house, and went in.
"We did not see her," said the elder Tsanunewa to his grandmother.
All sat down to eat fish, and when they were through eating, the elder
said to Tsore Jowa, "Come out and see what we caught this morning."
She ran out with them, and saw her dead sister with a string of hearts
on her neck. Tsore Jowa took off her buckskin skirt, wrapped up the
body, and put it in the house. She counted the hearts.
"My eldest brother's heart is not here, and my father's is not here,"
said she.
"Every morning we hear some one crying, far away toward the north;
that may be one of them," said the two Tsanunewas.
Tsore Jowa started out to find this one, if she could, who was
calling. She left the body and hearts at the old grandmother's house,
and hurried off toward the north. She heard the cry soon and knew it.
"That is my father," said she.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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