Yana Texts, by Edward Sapir, [1910], at sacred-texts.com
Yana Texts, by Edward Sapir, [1910], at sacred-texts.com
Coyote went around looking for gophers' roots by tapping with a stick at Yū'mimadu, 208 he felt about for gophers' holes by tapping. Suddenly he heard someone coming to him singing. "Heh!" he said. "Ih!" he said. He looked all around, when suddenly he saw two girls. "Ih!" he said. He threw away his open-work carrying basket, he threw away his digging-stick. He threw away the pitch. He took off and threw off his signs of mourning. Now he put on his buckskin trousers. He put dentalia on his shirt, he put dentalia on his moccasins.
(He said to them,) "Do you go there, to my house! Yes, they said. Bull-Frog Woman, Coyote's wife, was pounding acorns. "Hê!" she said, "what are you going in there for? Who told you to go there? Pine Marten is dwelling yonder, up
towards the south. Two black-bear skins are hanging up; just look at them! This is Coyote living here. Don't look at him! This is Coyote here living between the two houses. He has stolen the black-bear skins from the next house on the west. 209 Don't go into Coyote's house! This here is Coyote. The people have gone into yonder house. They have come back home from hunting and have been staying over there.
(The elder sister said,) "I do not know about this. We see the black-bear skins. We should enter the house. Our father told us, 'You will go as far as that.'" (They argued as to whether they should go in or not, but finally they entered. When Coyote returned he said to them,) "I suppose they are going to bring back meat. It is dark already. I always distribute deer meat. I hire those fellows yonder. Everyone has been carrying home deer meat, everyone has been killing deer, and they have already come back home. I feel ashamed because I have no meat left over. I always give food to everybody, and it is my custom to distribute it. Now I shall go east to the next house." (He said to his wife,) "Make a big fire. We shall roast the meat."
Coyote looked on while Pine Marten's people were eating, but did not enter the house. Bones were thrown out of the house to him, one after the other, and he swallowed them. They were thrown out to him, and he kept swallowing the deer bones. He finished, went back west to his house, stood on the roof of his sweat-house. He cut out pieces of flesh from his hams. He went into the house (saying to his wife,) "I have no meat left over. Cook this! Feed them with it!" (To the girls he said,) "I always do so; I never have any left over. 210 Tomorrow I shall have some left over, and you shall have plenty to eat." "Ih!" she said. "It seems to be human. It does not taste like deer meat; it tastes like human flesh. We were not told to enter here. It seems to be Coyote who lives here. Pine Marten lives in the next house on the east. I smell nothing but deer fat over there. We
were told that Coyote lives between the two houses. You have no sense," (she said to her elder sister).
She went east to the next house when it was daylight. She entered the house. (Pine Marten's mother said to her,) "You two thought that that was somebody living over there. That is Coyote. He has stolen the black-bear skins. That is Coyote living there, those hides belong to us." (After she had been given much to eat she returned to her sister, and said to her,) "I have been given food; I have eaten much. He yonder is really the one (we are looking for). I told you so before, but you wouldn't listen. Eat this here! Much have I eaten." "Well," (her sister said,) "I shall go and bathe. We shall go east to the next house." (Pine Marten's mother) spread out a black-bear skin on the ground for them. "Do you two enter! I don't know what Pine Marten will do. Perhaps he won't turn to look at you." She roasted food and gave it to them to eat. "Do you eat this! Probably you were told to come here." (When they came back from hunting) someone said, "Hm! She smells like Coyote's divorced wife." "Sh!" (said Pine Marten's mother,) "don't say that! My son might feel ashamed. Just behave yourself! Don't talk in that way," she said.
(Coyote was very angry, and said to himself,) "You think you will go out to hunt deer! Now I shall cause it to rain." It rained and it was like winter. The water rose high. (All the people were inside Pine Marten's sweat-house, and Coyote put it on fire.) "It is I that did it," (said Coyote). They all survived together. The sweat-house burned all up. (They said,) "Let us escape. Let us all go up into the sky." Coyote said, "I shall go along with you. Oh, I shall lie on my belly in the bottom of the basket." "You will not do right," (they said to him). "I shall just lie down on my belly in the bottom of the basket," he said. "Do you all get inside now!" (said the chief. To Spider Woman he called out,) "Pull us up to you!" She pulled them up. (When they were approaching the sky, (someone noticed that Coyote was making a hole, and said,) "Oh! it's going to break apart!" "Heh!" (said Coyote to Pine Marten's people). "Now you know, do you not, that I am jealous of you." The basket broke apart and fell down to the ground.
211 (All were burnt to death except one). An old gray-haired woman, Bo'‘nuyaup!a, 212 alone survived. She cried, "Whither now shall I go? I shall go far away to the north. Two who still survive there will indeed take pity on me. I shall hire them." (She went up north.) There were geese there in great numbers. Many of them were killed (by those two). "We kill many of them," (they said to her). "Have you not perchance seen her who has destroyed us all? You may have done so." "Yes," they said. "We have seen some one. Perhaps indeed it is that one whom you mean." "Perhaps she wears a bead necklace," she said. "Yes, she wears a white necklace of beads." "Would that you took pity on me!" (she said. "Kill her for me!") "I shall indeed do so this very same night." (That night he killed the Loon Woman and took off the necklace of beads. Every bead was really the heart 212a of one of the people that had been burnt to death. He gave the necklace to Bo'‘nuyaup!a).
"Now I shall be happy. Now I shall go off home." She came back home to her house. She struck the hearts, and the people came back to life. They all came back to life. "You thought concerning me, did you not, 'She has no sense.' You would have treated me in that way! But my friends are dwelling yonder, far away in the north. I suppose you said to yourself, 'I have killed them all,' did you not? But you did not kill them. You thought you were sensible. It was you who thought of killing me." 213 Now it is ended.
129:202 The thirteen garī'?i myths and non-mythical texts here given were obtained in July and August, 1907, a few miles to the north of the hamlet of Round Mountain (or Buzzard's Roost), Shasta county. The informant was Betty Brown (Indian name Ts!ī'daimiya), since dead. There are now not more than seven or eight Indians that are able to speak the dialect. In some respects Betty was an inferior source of text material to Sam Bat‘wī, as evidenced by the very small number of myths it was found possible to procure from her. Her method of narrative was peculiar in that she had a very marked tendency to omit anything, even the names of the characters involved, that was not conversation; this has necessitated the liberal use in the English translation of parentheses in which the attempt is made to arrive at a somewhat smoother narrative.
129:207 Two quite distinct myths seem in this to have been amalgamated by Betty Brown into one. The first is the well-known story of the visit of two sisters to a chief (generally Panther, in this case Pine Marten) and their deception by Coyote, who poses as the chief. For this first myth cf. Dixon's Achomawi tale in "Achomawi and Atsugewi Tales," Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XXI, 163. The second is the Loon Woman story typical of Northern California, of which but a fragmentary, ill remembered account is here found. For the latter myth cf. Curtin's "Two Sisters, Haka Lasi [= ts*!orê'djuwa, "loon"] and Tsore Jowa [= ts*!orê'djuwa, "eagle"]," (op. cit., pp. 407-21); Dixon, "Maidu Myths," pp. 71-6; and the Achomawi and Atsugewi versions in Dixon's "Achomawi and Atsugewi Tales," pp. 165, 175.
133:208 A point near the present station situated about a mile and a half south of Montgomery Creek.
134:209 The two sisters had been told by their father that they would recognize Pine Marten by the black-bear skins hanging up in front of his house.
134:210 Coyote pretends that he is so liberal in the distribution of deer meat, that he never has any left over for himself.
136:211 From here on the trend of the first story is absolutely lost, the remainder being a much abbreviated account of the latter part of the Loon story.
136:212 An unidentified bird.
136:212a So Curtin and Dixon. In another connection Betty Brown said the white encircling the loon's neck was due to the fact that she had at one time put the intestines of people about her neck.
136:213 These words are an apostrophe to the dead Loon Woman.