Creation Myths of Primitive America. Jeremiah Curtin

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СКАЧАТЬ this time Torihas’s people were in his sweat-house talking about the theft. “Nothing will happen,” said most of them; “old Patsotchet is always talking in that way, foretelling trouble. We will dance to-day. Tichelis has carried that thing far away; all will be well now.”

      Yonot, Katkatchila’s sister, had one child, a little baby which she called Pohila (fire child). The woman never left the house herself, and never let any one carry the child out.

      “Now, my sister,” said Katkatchila, “bring your child here; bring my nephew out, and put him on that nice, smooth place which we have swept clean; it will be pleasant there for him.”

      She brought the boy out, put him on the smooth place. Poharamas was on the southeast side all ready, and Tilikus on the southwest side. As soon as Yonot put down the baby, they pushed pitch-pine sticks toward it. That instant fire blazed up. When the fire had caught well Poharamas took a large burning brand of pitch-pine and rushed off to the southeast; Tilikus took another and ran to the southwest. Poharamas, when he reached the southeast where the sky comes to the earth, ran around northward close to the sky; he held the point of his burning brand on the ground, and set fire to everything as he ran. When Tilikus reached the southwest, at the place where the sky touches the earth, he ran northward near the sky. The two brothers went swiftly, leaving a line of flame behind them, and smoke rose in a cloud with the fire.

      After the two had started Yonot snatched up Pohila, and as she raised the boy a great flame flashed up from the spot. She ran into the house with her son, and put him into the basket where she had kept him till that morning.

      Torihas’s people had begun to dance. Some time after sunrise they saw a great fire far away on the east and on the west as well.

      “Oh, look at the fire on both sides!” said one.

      “It is far off, and won’t come here,” said another.

      “I feel the heat already!” cried a third.

      Soon all saw that the fire was coming toward them from the east and the west like waves of high water, and the line of it was going northward quickly. The fire made a terrible roar as it burned; soon everything was seething. Everywhere people were trying to escape, all were rushing toward the north. By the middle of the forenoon the heat and burning were so great that people began to fall down, crying out—

      “Oh, I’m hot! Ah, I’m hot!”

      Torihas made a rush toward the north, and reached the top of Toriham Pui Toror. When he saw the fire coming very near he called out to Tichelis, who was struggling along with the great block of flint on his back—

      “Go ahead with the flint! Go on, go on, the fire is far from here, far behind us!”

      Tichelis heard the shouting, but said nothing; kept going northward steadily. When he was northeast of Bohem Puyuk, he saw the fire coming very fast, a mighty blaze roaring up to the sky. It was coming from the south, east, west. Tichelis could go no farther; there was no place for escape above ground; the fire would soon be where he was. The flint had grown very hot from the burning; he threw it down; it had skinned his back, it was so hot and heavy. He ran under the ground, went as far as he could, and lay there. Presently he heard the fire roaring above him, the ground was burning, he was barely alive; soon all blazed up, earth, rocks, everything.

      Tichelis went up in flames and smoke toward the sky.

      When the brothers Tilikus and Poharamas had carried the fire around the world and met in the north, just half-way between east and west, they struck their torches together and threw them on the ground. The moment before they joined the burning brands two persons rushed out between them. One was Klabus and the other Tsaroki, who had carried the invitation from Torihas to Katkatchila. They just escaped.

      The flint rock that Tichelis dropped lies there yet, just where it fell, and when the Wintu people want black flint they find it in that place.

      Poharamas and Tilikus ran home as soon as they struck their torches together.

      Katkatchila had a little brother. He put the boy on his back, and went beyond the sky where it touches the earth in the south.

      Yonot, the mother of Pohila, took her son and went behind the sky; her husband, Tilikus, went with her. Poharamas went to Olelpanti. He flew up to where Olelbis is.

       Olelbis looked down into the burning world. He could see nothing but waves of flame; rocks were burning, the ground was burning, everything was burning. Great rolls and piles of smoke were rising; fire flew up toward the sky in flames, in great sparks and brands. Those sparks became kolchituh (sky eyes), and all the stars that we see now in the sky came from that time when the first world was burned. The sparks stuck fast in the sky, and have remained there ever since the time of the wakpohas (world fire). Quartz rocks and fire in the rocks are from that time. There was no fire in the rocks before the wakpohas.

      When Klabus escaped he went east outside the sky, went to a place called Pom Wai Hudi Pom. Tsaroki went up on the eastern side of the sky—ran up outside.

      Before the fire began Olelbis spoke to the two old women and said: “My grandmothers, go to work for me and make a foundation. I wish to build a sweat-house.”

      They dug out and cleared a place for the sweat-house the day before the world-fire began. Olelbis built it in this way: When the two women had dug the foundation, he asked—

      “What kind of wood shall I get for the central pillar of the house?”

      “Go far down south,” said the old grandmothers, “and get a great young white oak, pull it up with the roots, bring it, and plant it in the middle to support the house.”

      He went, found the tree, and brought it.

       “Now, my grandmothers, what shall I do next?”

      “Go north and bring a black oak with the roots. Go then to the west, put your hand out, and there you will touch an oak different from others.”

      He went north and west, and brought the two trees.

      “Now,” said Olelbis, “I want a tree from the east.”

      “Go straight east to a live-oak place, you can see it from here, get one of those live-oaks.” He brought it with the roots and said—

      “Now I want two trees more.”

      “Go to the southeast,” said they, “where white oaks grow, and get two of them.”

      He went and got two great white oak trees, pulled them up with the roots, brought them with all the branches, which were covered with acorns.

      Olelbis put the great white oak from the south in the middle as the central pillar; then he put the northern black oak on the north side; he put it sloping, so that its branches were on the south side of the house; over against this he put a southeastern white oak sloping in like manner, so that its head came out on the north side. The western oak he planted on the west side, sloping so that its branches hung on the east side; then he put up the two white oaks from the southeast on the east side: six trees in all. The top of each tree was outside opposite its roots; acorns from it fell on the opposite side. Olelbis wished to fasten the trees firmly together so they should never loosen.

       “Stop, grandson,” said one of the old women. “How will you bind СКАЧАТЬ