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
Wokwuk and Kut, the two sons of Olelbis by Mem Loimis, went away east.
Patkilis's Winishuyat, the yapaitu of Sanihas Yupchi, said that he
would go and help them till they had passed the second horizon. They
did not see him. He was invisible.
They travelled one day, came to the first horizon, and passed that;
then travelled a second day, reached the second horizon, and passed
that. The yapaitu, Patkilis's Winishuyat, told them then how to pass
the third horizon, and, having given every useful direction, went back
to Sanihas Yupchi.
Sanihas Yupchi was waiting all this time in Olelpanti. Olelbis's elder
son, Wokwuk, had tied the hair on top of his head with a young
grapevine and thrust a chirtchihas bone through it--his father had
given him this bone at starting. With this bone he was to raise the
sky. He put it under the edge of the sky and raised it. When he and
his brother had passed through, the sky came down with a terrible
noise. When they had passed the third sky, they could see far east.
Everything was nice there and looked clear, just as it does here at
daylight when all is bright and beautiful. After going a short
distance they saw two boys coming toward them. Soon the four met.
"Hello, brothers!" called out the other two.
"Who are you?" asked Wokwuk. "How do you know that we are your
brothers?"
"We know because our mother talks about you always. She told us this
morning that we must go out and play to-day. 'Perhaps you will see
your brothers,' said she to us; 'perhaps they will come, we do not
know.' You have come, and now we will go to our mother."
When they reached the house, on the third evening, the two sons of
Olelbis stood by the door while Kahit's two sons ran in and said:
"Mother, our brothers have come!"
Mem Loimis was lying at the east end of the house. She was lying on a
mem terek, water buckskin; her blanket was a mem nikahl, a water
blanket.
"Well, tell them to come in."
The brothers went in. Mem Loimis rose and said,--
"Oh, my sons, I think of you always. I live far away from where you
do, and you have travelled a long road to find me." She spread the mem
terek on the ground, and said: "Sit down here and rest."
"My mother," said the elder son of Olelbis, "my brother is very dry.
We have had no water in Olelpanti for many years. Did you think that
we could live without water?"
"I could not help your loss. What could I do?" said Mem Loimis. "I was
stolen away and carried far north, and from there I came to this
place; but your father is my husband. He knows everything; he can make
anything, do anything, see everything, but he did not know that I was
here. You shall have water, my children; water in plenty."
She held a basket to her breast then and took water from it, as a
nursing mother would take milk, filled the basket, and gave it to the
boys. She gave them plenty to eat, too, and said,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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