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37.--YAUELMANI YOKUTS. THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD.

At first there was water everywhere. A piece of wood (wichet, stick, wood, tree) grew up out of the water to the sky. On the tree there was a nest. Those who were inside did not see, any earth. There was only water to be seen. The eagle was the chief of them. With him were the wolf, Coyote, the panther, the prairie falcon, the hawk called po'yon, and the condor. The eagle wanted to make the earth. He thought: "We will have to have land." Then he called k'uik'ui, a small duck. He, said to it: "Dive down and bring up earth." The duck dived, but did not reach the bottom. It died. The eagle called another kind of duck. He told it to dive. This duck went far down. It finally reached the bottom. Just as it touched the mud there it died. Then it came up again. Then the eagle and the other six saw a little dirt under its finger nail. When the eagle saw this he took the dirt from its nail. He mixed it with telis and pele seeds and ground them up. He put water with the mixture and made dough. This was in the morning. Then he set it in the water

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and it swelled and spread everywhere, going out from the middle. (These seeds when ground and mixed with water swell.) In the evening the eagle told his companions: "Take some earth." They went down and took a little earth up in the tree with them. Early in the morning, when the morning star came, the eagle said to the wolf: "Shout." The wolf shouted and the earth disappeared, and all was water again. The eagle said: "We will make it again," for it was for this purpose that they had taken some earth with them into the nest. Then they took telis and pele seeds again, and ground them with the earth, and put the mixture into the water, and it swelled out again. Then early next morning, when the morning star appeared, the eagle told the wolf again: "Shout!" and he shouted three times. The earth was shaken by an earthquake, but it stood. Then Coyote said: "I must shout too." He shouted and the earth shook a very little. Now it was good. Then they came out of the tree on the ground. Close to where this tree stood there was a lake. The eagle said: "We will live here." Then they had a house there and lived there.

Now every evening when the sun went down tokho (sokhon, tobacco) came there and went into the water in the lake. Coyote wanted to catch it. The eagle asked him: "How will you do it?" Coyote said: "Well, I will do it." He went off into the brush, rolled string on his thigh, and made it into a snare, which he put into the water. Tokho came, entered the water, and was caught. Coyote tried to take hold of it, but it was too hot. He could not touch it. It was like fire. Only after the sun came up was he able to take hold of it. Now, after he had held it all night, the tokho said to him: "Take me to the house." Coyote asked it: "What does tokho mean?" It said: "I am tobacco (sokhon). Give me to the prairie falcon." Coyote brought it to the house and said: "Who wants this?" The eagle did not want it. None of the seven wanted it except the prairie falcon. He said: "I will take it." Coyote asked it: "What are you good for?" The tobacco said: "I am good for many things. If there is anything you want to have, use me, and then whatever it is that you wish will be so." The prairie falcon said: "I will try it." At night he took a little of the tobacco in his mouth and blew

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out: "Pu! I want it to rain." Then it began to rain. It rained all night.

Then Coyote said: "We will make a woman of a deer." Then they killed a deer. They put it under a blanket of tules. It was entirely covered. When the morning star came it got up. It was a person (yokots) now. It was a woman. Coyote said: "I will sleep with her." That night he slept with her. In the morning he was dead. The woman was not hurt. The prairie falcon took a sharp water-grass (kapi). He said: "Stick it in his anus and he will get up." One of them put it in. Coyote got up hurriedly. "Ah, I was sleepy," he said. He said: "That is not good. It is not sweet. All men will die. We shall have to do it differently." Then he killed her. He left her under the blanket over night. Then he said: "To-night I will try it again." Then he slept with her. In the morning he got up early. "This is all right," he said. "This is good. We will let it be like that." This is how people came to be: deer was the mother. They made her by means of tobacco, blowing (spitting) it out while they said what they wished. But the prairie falcon ate nothing but tobacco. He lived on that. Thus the earth was made.


Next: 38.--Yauelmani Yokuts. The Origin Of Death.