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
lubeluntowi (sickness from lubelis). The man will keep going and
going and going; he will not know what makes him go. Suppose I am
listening to Kele's song. I go, and it is the song that draws me. I
hear it; but nobody else does. The spirits of the Kele girls drew
Sedit to them; he couldn't help himself, he couldn't stop; he had to
go, and he never went home again; he had to stay up at Kele's. The
spirits of Chir and Kele always make people crazy.
Many Wintu women lose their minds, and are killed by Kele's sons. Many
Wintu men have been lost through Kele's daughters. Suppose I am out
here in the wood, I see a woman coming, a nice woman. She stops and
talks; I talk to her. If I have sense in me, I look at her toes to see
if she is one of those Kele women. If she is, she has a bunch of hair
on the tip of her foot, and if I see it, I say right there, "You are a
Kele!" At these words she will leave me and run. When ten feet away,
she will turn to a mountain wolf, and I shall see that Kele running
away very fast.
Suppose some woman is out in the woods. She is thinking of some man
that she likes, and right away she sees the very man she is thinking
of. He is coming to meet her. He comes up and asks, "Where are you
going?" The woman is glad to see him. She tells. He carries her to the
mountain, and never again will that woman be seen by her friends or by
others. It was one of Kele's sons who took the form of the man she was
thinking of, so as to entice her away and destroy her. If the woman
has sense she will look down at the foot of the stranger, see the tuft
of hair, and say, "You are Kele; go off." He turns to a wolf on the
spot, and runs away to the mountain. All Wintus went barefoot in old
times, and this tuft could be seen, if a person had sense enough left
to look for it. As every one wears shoes or moccasins now, it might
not be easy to find it. But to this day the Keles lead people astray.
All the Wintus know them, and are afraid.
They live on Wenempuidal, a high mountain near the left bank of the
Little Sacramento. Dekipuiwakut, a small creek, comes down from Kele's
Mountain and falls into the Sacramento. White men call it Hazel Creek.
The Keles live at the head of this creek. The whole mountain is their
sweat-house. They are up there now, and almost any night you may hear
them howling on the mountain when the evil brothers are going home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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