Mythology of the Mission Indians: JAFL Vol. XIX. No. 73. pp. 145-64. [1906]: The Story Of Cuy-a-ho-marr (The Chaup); The Manzanita Version (Diegueño)

The younger climbed to the top and saw the young eagles on the rock surrounded by all kinds of animals. All sorts of snakes were there and he was afraid to touch the eagles; so he came down and said, "There is no use trying to get the eagles. Let us give it up and go home."

But the elder brother said, "If one tries and fails, try again." So the elder brother climbed to the top of the rock, and when he got there, he reached with his hand towards the west, and got a quantity of sand and threw it all over those animals that sting and bite; and then he held up his hand to the sky and got a carrying net to carry the eagles down the rock.

As soon as he reached the bottom, the younger brother said, "Give me the white eagle." So they quarrelled over the white eagle, leaving the black eagle on the ground. Before they started, Sin-yo-hauch had told them not to quarrel on the way. "The people that come after us will do the same as you," she said. "And if you quarrel, it will bring the storm and rain."

Meantime the clouds began to gather, and the brothers remembered what their mother had said; so the elder took the black eagle, and the younger the white one, and they started home. Their way took them over the rocks. It began to rain and the storm wind blew. When they came from home the distance had been very short; but going back it seemed to lengthen with every step of the way. They were drenched with rain, -and their long hair was wet The eagles shivered with the cold, though the brothers held them close, and tried to keep them dry.

The younger brother lagged behind, cold, and feeling his strength giving out. It was old Sin-yo-hauch who caused the distance to lengthen. "Our mother is doing this," they said.

The rain fell in torrents and began to rise as a flood. The night was coming and they were nearly worn out. The birds were nearly dead with wet and cold.

So they dug a grave and buried the eagles, putting their bows and arrows and all they had into the grave.

No sooner had they buried the birds, than the whirlwind swept by, lifting the dead eagles from out of the ground, and carrying them through the air.

So the brothers dug another grave deeper than before, and placed the eagles in it and covered them with earth. But the whirlwind came again and lifted them out of the grave.

So they left them lying there, and running as fast as they could, they quickly reached their home.

When their mother asked them, "Where are your eagles?" they made no answer, but lay down, turned their faces from her, and went to sleep. She sat and cried till the morning, wailing and singing and dancing.

She was singing to bring the birds to life.

"My sons, come out," she called to them. "See, your birds are coming."

One said to the other, "Go out and see if this is so. We will kill her if it is not the truth."

The younger went out and said, "They are here." His brother ran out, and there were the eagles, alive as before. As soon as they saw them they began to quarrel again over the white eagle, both saying, "It is mine."

Their mother looking on said, "I see now, my sons, bow you do when you are alone together. I did not think that you would do so. I will take the black and white feathers and put them together on the arrows, so there is no need of your quarrelling."

The boys had some deer meat and they cut it in pieces and offered it to the eagles, but they would not eat.

"You cannot force them to eat," she said, "but the people that come after us will do as we do. Go get some crows that are over there not far away in a place towards the north."

So the brothers went after the crows, and when they had caught them they reached out their hand to the west and got some carrying nets and brought a lot of the young crows home.

When they threw the deer meat to the crows they ate the meat and the eagles, seeing the crows eat, began to eat it too.

Then the brothers learned to hunt the deer, and would kill it and bring it home and have plenty of food.

"Then go to your uncle, the gopher, who lives in the pond (the muskrat?) and get him to give you the end of the cane stalks, the part that grows deep in the water, so that out of them I can make you some flutes. When you reach the pond, you will see the blackbirds sitting on the cane stalks around the edge. Notice then which stalks bend the least under the weight of the birds, for those are the best and strongest."

Next morning the boys went to the pond; and the younger dived into the water, trying to reach the roots of the cane, but, in spite of all he could do, he could not come near the bottom. So he came out and told his brother there was no use to try. The water was too deep, and they might as well go home.

But the elder brother turned himself into a rock, and plunging into the water he dropped down to the very bottom where his uncle, the red gopher, had his home.

When the red gopher heard him he cried out, "Who is it that is coming here where no one ever came before?"

"It is I, my uncle. I only want to get the pieces of the cane that you do not use, but throw away."

"Go back again, where you came from, and I will give them to you."

So he went up through the water, and the gopher went and cut the cane, and sent it floating upward, so that it reached the surface of the pond as soon as he did.

The younger brother at once began to quarrel for the possession of the root end, the biggest part of the cane; but the elder took the root, and he got the other end. Their mother came upon them as they were quarrelling. She was carrying a great. basket, holding it in front of her, and she was laughing at their disputing.

"This is the way you always do," she said. "Why should you quarrel about the matter? In the end I will make one flute as good as the other."

So they carried home the cane stalks, hung them upon the wall, and went out to hunt the deer.

The mother stood the cane up in the ground to dry. In four days she told her sons to get the stalks and put them upon the floor of the house where the fire had heated the earth, for there they would dry quickly.

While they were away hunting, she stayed at home to make the flutes. Cutting the stalks to make two, she took a piece of rock with a rough edge, to rub the edges smooth.

While they made this music, the girls were bathing in a pond. The elder sister alone heard the music of the flute. The younger could not hear it. Immediately they went to their home and made ready for a journey. They painted their faces, dressed themselves, and ground corn to carry for provision on the road.

The elder sister went ahead, but the younger lagged behind. She did not want to go. She had not heard the music, and she did not believe that it had called them to leave their home.

The father of the girls was named Ta-pái-ka-ta-mún. He was sorry when his daughters went away. "I am an old man," he said, lamenting. "Who is going to work and to cook for me if my daughters leave me all alone?"

The girls started towards the west, but first they followed a salt river towards the north, and then again they took the westward path.

The name of the elder sister was Sum-ka-wé, and that of the younger Sum-kwi-ñé.

They went onward towards the west, the elder sister running fast, stopping now and then to call out to the younger, "Come on, sister," as she lagged behind.

"I can come no faster," she answered. "I am thinking of my old father whom I left behind."

But she followed on and on; and they came to the house of the owl, who called to them and tried to detain them, and so did a bird, Mut-kin-a-wái; and the white painted chipmunk that lives in the desert, and the black snake painted in stripes with the juice of the mescal; and the wildcat, who ran into the brush and caught a rabbit, which he offered to them for food; but the girls could eat nothing but the nicest food, and they would listen to none of these.

It was cold and dark, but she would not come out, or speak to them.

"Why can't you do something to help us?" the younger said to the elder. "You have power in your dreams. Why must we shiver in the cold and darkness?"

So the elder got something like a powder which she threw at the old woman and made her go to sleep; and passing her they got into the house. Here they found the brothers sleeping, and the sisters lay down beside their husbands.

Next morning the old woman said something to them that they did not like. "I will not stay," said one; and, "If you go I will go with you," said the other.

So they started for their home, talking of the abuse they had received from the old woman.

The elder brother taunted the younger, when he found that the girls were gone.

"Since you love your wife so much, why do you let her leave you in this way?" he asked.

The younger brother pined for the loss of his wife. He grew so sick and weak he could no longer kill the deer. His brother would not share with him and he ate what dried meat he could find. For awhile he hunted rabbits and small game. Then as his strength left him more and more, he caught the lizards among the rocks.

His mother and brother would give him nothing, and he starved until he was as thin as a skeleton.

"My brother hates me, and I am going to die," he said to himself; and when night came he dragged himself into an underground cave.

When he had gone, the elder brother wondered at his absence, and began to look for him. "I know where he is," he said, but he could find no trace of him. All day he continued his search, singing and wailing for his brother.

The younger brother, though he was the same as dead, heard

"I shall find you now. I know where you are."

"Come here," he called to his mother. She came, looked into the cave, and ran away.

"This is your work," said the elder brother. "Lift him in your hands."

She went to get some fresh grass to lift the thing. The stench was that of the grave.

"It is you who have done this," said the elder brother. "Take him up as he is."

So the old woman took the shape into her hands and danced with it.

The long hair had partly fallen out, but what was left upon the scalp, lifted by the wind, waved up and down as she danced and sang. It was an ugly sight.

This was the first time they made a dance for the dead. These were the first people, and as they did all must do who come after.

This is the reason they make the dance of Images, Wú-ka-rúk.

The old woman laid the shape upon the ground before her home; and taking the fat of the deer she made grease of it, and put his head into it, and the flesh began to come upon his skull. Then she fed him meat and all kinds of food to make the flesh come back upon the bones. Soon he was alive again as before.

The elder brother remade for him his bow and arrows, putting new feathers upon the arrows and a new string upon the bow; and sucking the blood from the bow he made all fresh and good

They went hunting together, and while one followed the trail and scared up the deer the other would kill it. Every day in this way they went on the hunt.

Then they began to think of going after the girls.

"We will go east," said the younger brother; but the elder would not listen. At last the elder brother began to dream, and in his dreams at night he saw a spirit coming through the roof, calling him uncle, and telling him to come So he decided, "I will go."

The brothers planned to start in the night when no one would know it. So in the middle of the night, they rose up, and taking a shallow bowl full of water, they set it in the middle of the floor, just under the hole in the roof where the brightness of the sky was

"And if I die," said the younger, "this pile of deer hides here will fall down, and the owl from the east will come and hoot about the house. Now we must go."

So they started towards the east, killing rabbits as they went to eat upon the road, and at night they made a camp and rested.

"The people that come after us must do the same way when they go on a journey," they said.

While they slept, the elder brother in his dreams saw an owl that came and sat upon a stump. "Get up, brother." he called. Something is going to happen."

"Oh, go to sleep," said the younger. "I am tired and sleepy. I saw the same owl in my dream, but it means nothing; or if it does, how can we be sure of the meaning? I will get up and tell you something you must know."

So he sang about the owl that they had seen in the dream. "When you come about," he sang, "the people that come after us will know that things are going to happen, and that people are going to die."

The next morning they went on and came near the place where the

He saw the girls in their house and came back to his brother and told him that they were there; so the two brothers made themselves flies and went into the house through the hole in the roof.

The girls laughed so loud when they saw their husbands that their old father heard them and wanted to know what was the matter with them. "They never do like that," he said. So he sent a little boy named Shut-kúpf-shut-núckl, to go and see what they were doing, giving him some parched pumpkin seeds to eat on the way.

The little boy went along eating the pumpkin seeds until he had finished them all; and then he came back and told the old man he had seen nothing at all. So he sent him out again, giving him some parched yellow beans to eat, and he went along eating the beans until he reached the place. When he looked into the house he fell down half fainting with fear; and, running home, he told the old man that there was something dreadful in the house. They were shining so bright that he was frightened nearly to death.

"Say nothing about it," said the old man. "I will get some one to kill these men for me. I shall soon have soup to drink."

So he rose up, painted himself, put on his headdress of owl feathers, and started forth. He went on towards the south where those men live who gamble; but he kept on just the same, running until he stopped in the midst of those people.

"Who is this stranger?" they asked. "We never saw him before," and they made ready something to eat.

The old man, wiping the sweat from his body, did not answer their questions. At last he said, "I did not come here to gamble and dance, but I want you to give up my enemies to me, so that I myself can kill them."

At these words they began to make ready their clubs and to arm themselves. "Come, on then," they said to him; and rushing into the house they began to strike here and there and everywhere with their clubs; but they hit only the posts of the house, and the brothers they could not touch; for they rose above their heads, flew through the hole in the roof of the house, and started towards their home.

The people, running after them, asked the mockingbird, Mái-schwi-lau, where they were, but he said they had gone by.

They called to the old woman to come and sing at the feast. Quail, who was a person then, said, "I can do better than that."

First song. Old Woman sings.

Second song. Quail sings.

The wife of the dead man, the younger brother, had a baby; and the old man, her father, had planned to kill it if it were a boy, for he said, "Some day he will destroy us all." When he heard the cry of the baby, he went to take it away and kill it; but the mother concealed the sex saying, "It is a girl. Some day she will help me in the house," so he let it live.

The baby was a boy. His name was Cuy-a-ho-marr. While he lay there he knew everything, though he made himself a baby. When he grew older, and the grandfather discovered that he had been tricked, he was very angry with the mother who had deceived him.

The old grandmother, Hú-wo-íll-ya, would dress herself with the bones of the dead brothers. She had them split into pieces, pierced with holes, and would hang them all over her body. When she was moving about to gather seeds, these dry bones danced up and down and rattled as she went. The little boy saw this, and when she sang and danced he said, "I will make you suffer for this some day." So one day he went to his grandmother as if to help her with the load she was carrying. He lifted the load to her head and crushed her

"Get me something better."

So he went out and got him a stick from the screw-bean; but that was not right, and he threw it away. Then he cut one from the ironwood, that grows on the desert, and with this he was suited. "It is just what I want," he said, and he went out to play the shinny game with the rest. The ball came rolling towards him, for he was calling it, and he hit it, and sent it far away towards the east into the ocean; but they could do nothing to him.

His uncle had gone to gamble with some people, and he lost everything he had. When he came home the little boy asked, "How do you play? Which way do you throw the stick?" (A game played by throwing a stick through a rolling hoop.)

"Oh, I throw any way; I throw towards the north and south."

"Well, when you go again, I will go with you; and next time you throw, let it be away from the north and south, and towards the east and west. When I get there you must hit me as if you were angry at me, and throw dirt in my face, and the dog will come and lick my face and the girls will say, 'Why do you whip the boy?' and they will take me away. Then when I am gone you must say 'I'll play my nephew off.'"

"All right," said the uncle; and he went again next day to gamble. Then the little boy started to go after him.

"You must not go," said his mother, "those people would eat you, if you went among them."

"I'm going in spite of that." So he turned himself into an arrow without any feathers on it, the sort that never goes straight.

The mother sang when she saw her boy leave in the shape of an arrow.

They were gambling when he got there, and his uncle was losing again.

"I want to see my uncle play," said the little boy. He was now on the last point. The little boy was lost if the adversary won this, which was his heart. They were making ready to cut him up and eat him; but he told them he must have some brush to lie on. Then he made himself so heavy that they could not lift him. "Clear the way so that I can see my uncle play." It was the last point. This would be the end of him. Coyote came and brought some arrow-brush to lay him on. "No, that is not the right kind." Then he got some kind of red brush. "Yes, that is right."

"Come sit on the brush." He went and sat on it.

Coyote got a knife. "Wait a while," said the little boy. "He has not lost the last point yet. Clear the road. I want to see the game."

The boy sings, "My heart, it is the last of me."

As soon as he fixed his eyes upon him he made his uncle win. He began winning back every point that he had lost. He won his nephew back, and then he won the people's possessions one by one. He won corn and grinding-stones with their manos, and everything they owned.

"Now let us go home, uncle," said the little boy. His uncle told the people that if they would carry home, for him, in four days' time, all the things that he had won, they might have his nephew to eat. But the little boy held up his hand to the sky and got a kind of wallet and hung it at his waist and carried everything home.

But in four days the people came, and they were going to kill and eat him. They made a fire and set a lot of ollas in four rows full of water upon it to boil, for they were going to make chawee (acorn mush) to eat with the flesh of the boy, and there were many to eat.

A fly came to the little boy and told him of all this. "I know all about it already," he said. "I must get help on my side too."

So he went first of all to the gopher and found him asleep.

"Who are you, coming here where no one comes, and where do you come from?" asked the gopher.

When he heard his story, he said, "Go to the next place west, where my uncle the Storm-wind lives."

So he went on till he came to Storm-wind's house

"Who are you?" asked the Wind.

So the boy went on to where Fire lived, and when he got there the house was full of fire, and he made himself ice, and got into the house.

"Who are you?" asked Fire. "I eat up any one who comes here."

"It is I, my uncle. They are going to kill me, and I come to you for help."

"All right. I will help you. Go back home and keep a careful watch day and night. How is it with you now?"

"They have set four rows of ollas with water in them ready to boil."

"Go and get some frogs and put them in the ollas, and the water will not boil."

So he went home and got some frogs and put them in the ollas to keep the water from boiling. Then he climbed upon the housetop and watched every hour of the day as Fire had told him to.

The grandfather said, "What are you doing? Why don't you play about instead of keeping a lookout there. What are you watching for?"

"I am looking at the hawk I see there in the air," said the boy, and he went and got a wild duck and brought it in, and said the bird had dropped it.

Then the Wind came blowing the dust before him. The grandfather told them to mind the fire and put brush around it for a windbreak. The low wind came first, but after him came the Storm-wind. He overthrew the ollas and broke them in pieces. Then came Fire, Mai-au, burning all it touched.

The boy took his mother's sister and hid her under a basket, and stood on top of it himself, looking around while one by one all of his enemies were burned up. Then he lifted the lid to look under. His aunt was amazed to see that all were dead. She put her hand over her mouth and looked about her. "You have finished them all," she said; "you should have left some one for company."

"Say no more, but be thankful that you are spared to live. Dance now and sing that I have destroyed my enemies."

"I cannot dance. How can I sing?" she bewailed.

"When I was in trouble you were ready enough to dance and sing," said the boy.

Cuy-a-ho-marr sang and made her dance to the song.

"Where shall we go now?"

They walked beyond the ashes of the fire and stopped there to

"Let us go on." So they started towards the west.

He came to the spot where his father and his uncle (his father's brother) had been killed, and coming first to his uncle's grave he put his hand into the ground, and reached down and pulled him out. He set him there before him, but his uncle said, "You can do nothing for rue. My bones are all dust and mixed with the seeds in the earth."

So he put him back and went to his father's grave and pulled him out in the same way. But it was the same as before. "You can do nothing for me," said his father. "But what you have done the people that come after will do. They will bring back their dead to look at them once more." (In the Dance of Images.)

The boy's hair had grown long; and he set fire to a bunch of tall grass that grows on the desert, and putting his head in the fire he began to burn his hair off. Then seeing in his shadow that one side of his hair was still long, he put his head again in the fire and burned it off even all around. This is why they still cut the hair for the dead and burn it in the fire.

He tells in the song what he has done.

Starting on again, he saw some birds (a sort of eagle-hawk, kingbird) sunning themselves on the top of a tree in the early morning, and to them he gave the name Pa-quásch. As he went on his journey he gave the names to everything in the world. If it had not been for this we would not know the names of any of the things we see.

The boy and his aunt went on to where a jackrabbit lived, and, when he saw them coming, he ran off and then sat up. "You will always do like that in the time to come," said Cuy-a-ho-marr, and he gave its name to the jackrabbit.

They went on and on; and he took a spear and scratched the ground with it, and where he touched it the water rose and made a great pond.

His aunt was frightened and said, "How shall I get across?"

They went on and on, and he began to think of leaving his aunt and to question how he should contrive it. They came to a pond, and again he put his spear across for her to walk on; but when she was half-way across, he drew the spear away and she fell into the water. But she got out again and sat on top of the water; so he reached his spear again to her and drew her out.

They went on and on and came to a dense thicket of all kinds of brush, and here he turned her into a bird, Kul-tisch, and she sat there picking the seeds, and he left her and went forward alone.

He went on and on and came to a place where there were dead mesquite trees growing in the middle of some water, and a lot of white cranes were sitting on them,

They flew from the tree and swam in the water.

He went on towards the home of his grandmother, and saw a lot of mud-hens. He could not tell whether they were people or what they were.

He came to a lot of frogs that were swimming and diving down in the water, and when he passed on from that place he came to the track of a bear that led to the water, and he stood and looked at it.

The bear knew that some one was on his track, and he said, "If you pass by me, I will get you and tear you to pieces." He was watching for the boy, who stood looking at him.

"I don't know which of us will get the best of it," said the boy. But he had some tobacco in a piece of a cane, which he took from his ear and smoked, and blew the smoke at the bear and put him to sleep so that he passed on.

The bear woke up and saw the track of the boy farther along. "He has got the best of me," he said. "In his dream he has overcome me. He has more power than I." The boy mocked him and went on. When he came to his grandmother's house, he found it full of people of all sorts, such as are now all the animals and plants and everything that lives in the world.

He got up under the beams of the house and hid himself in the

He sang to tell who he was.

"It is you, my grandson. I know you now."

The grandmother sings.

So they went away into the islands of the ocean, and when he went up into the sky, she went into the ground.

On earth his name is Cuy-a-ho-marr. In the sky (as a meteoric fireball) it is She-weé-w. (Chaup in Mesa Grande dialect.)

Footnotes