Mohave people

“ All the people encountered in the story are treated as if they were Mohaves, or at least members of a still undifferentiated human race leading a specifically Mohave-type life; even though they dwell as far away as the Yuma habitat. (There is a partial exception in the incident when Nyohaiva detours east into the mountains, finds a man whose name refers to buckskin shirts, and gives him hunting arrows to live by: thus she institutes the Walapai more than she encounters them.) ”

“ Either there is motivation which the narrator knows but considers it unnecessary to discuss; or the motivation is as lacking as in a dream. After all, these tales are all dreams, the Mohave insist. And while it is clear that they do not ordinarily invent new plots in their dreams, they do quite probably dream over or brood about or perhaps actually redream, each man, the plot or plots which he calls his. The one theme which runs through this tale as a unifying thread is the doom of war.
THE TALE
1. Umas-kwitšit-patše lived at Aha-kwa'i [1] with his people. ”

“ Havīkwek, of note 22.—Finding and playing with bones of kinsfolk who have been killed by people that are plotting to kill the hero also, is a stock episode in Mohave mythology, and a standard motive for fighting. Cf. the Cane myth. A game and bet are also a usual preliminary to war. There is a seeming contradiction in the fact that Nyohaiva, who grows from the ground while the earth is still new, should have parents killed long before. Most Mohave myths, however, begin with the growth or birth of the hero; and if fighting later occurs, it is motivated in the way just explained. ”

“ The Mohave evidently derive a satisfaction from these mental journeys with their visual recalls or imaginings.
In Raven the physical movement of the whole story exists only in the mind. How people will travel and fight is told and sung of, but in the tale itself the entire journey is that from the rear to the front of the house in which the two fledgling heroes grow. ”

“ The people she had been with, the Walapai, had given her the paint. The Mohave do not paint like that. So they did not know who she was. She sat with her head bowed. Then Umas-kwitšit-patše came out. "That is my daughter," he said. (10 songs.)
21. He said to her: "I thought you had died. When a woman visits her friends among another tribe, she stays two months or three months. You stayed a year and I thought you were dead." Then, after four days, Umas-kwitšit-patše said: "Now it is four days. I am ready to fight. The people I am going to attack do not live very far away. ”

“ She on her part finds bones which she recognizes as her relatives'—a characteristic Mohave motivation and inconsistency—and bets her body against her freedom in a game to be played with one of the same bones. She wins, threatens them with war, and runs off southward, announcing impending war to those whom she meets, as far as Ava-tšohai, somewhere between Parker and Yuma. There she incites the people, under the leadership of men whose names denote blackbirds, to join her in returning and attacking Otšôuta's people. ”

“ It will not be well to sit under the shade always. When it is winter the wind will come: perhaps it will rain and be cold. But if you build a house, you can make a fire inside of it when the rain and cold come. That is why I will make a house for you Mohave. I will build a house here at the back of the shade."
25. House built.—Again he told Amaṭ-kapisara and Namitša to dig holes in the ground and to bring posts. Then as he still stood, he said to the people: "When you are about to build a house, and you dig holes, call them amaṭ-ahuelkye." ”

“ With part E, dealing with the posthumous birth of the hero, the main narrative begins. The hero evidences prenatal magic power, but this is a faculty often attributed by the Mohave to shamans, so that the manifestation is mythically expectable, rather than miraculous in our sense.
In the next section, F, the baby, grown to boyhood, steals his father's bone with which his foes are playing—compare the incident in Nyohaiva, 15—and sends it flying to break the western mountains and kill their inhabitants. It does not appear that these people are his foes: rather is he trying out his growing powers ”

“ However, the war itself resolves into the killing by magic of a single leader: Homeric battles are not a usual part of the story pattern of the Mohave, in spite of their preoccupation with war. With a magic ball Nyohaiva puts the enemy settlement to sleep, enters Otšôuta's house, cuts off his head. This she carries upriver to Samo'okusa or Amaṭ-ya'ama near Parker, where people are living under the leadership of four transvestites! She institutes the scalp dance for them; throws Otšôuta's skull far south to become a rock at Picacho in Yuma land ”

“ In the morning she said: "I have another bird in my basket, a dove." Then Patak-sata said: "Let me see it." She gave it to him. "That is not a dove," he said, "I know it. Patša-karrawa made himself into this. I can tell a dove by its bill. And when you see a dove, it shakes its head. This does not." Soon after, on that day, the Mohave arrived and attacked. While the fight was going on, Qwāqāqta stood on the roof and sang as follows:
Then she sang:
Then the Mohave killed all the people at Avi-kwa'ahāθa, and took Patša-karrawa's mother as a slave and brought her back to this country. ”

“ One of the "wild" seeds planted by the Mohave.—Handbook of California Indians, p. 736.
I. Return to Mother, Half-Brother, and Father's Ghost
82b. In the morning he said, "I think that man (Kwayū) will come back today." They said, "He has enough to eat: plenty of people's dried meat and people's bones ground up." The boy said, "I do not think he will follow me. Now I am ready to start. Are you ready?" All the women said, "Yes." ”

“ Typical hesitation of Mohave narrative.
37. When he had told (kanavk) of the far heavens (amaiyêitše) four times, still holding the ball, he struck the ball with a stick and it flew west like a meteor (kwayū) . It fell in the mountains and broke them and killed the people who lived on them: it killed them all. The boy stood and heard. He thought, "No one is there now: they are all killed!" Nume-peta and Pukehane said, "That boy! I knew he would do it: he has killed all those people. He will kill us too. You shall see: he will do that." ”

“ Umas-kwitšit-patše had a daughter, Ilya-owitš-maikohwere. He said: "Now that you are big enough, do not sleep near me. Sleep at a distance. Sleep in the corner of the house." [22] Then the girl was angry at his saying that and ran off. (4 songs.)
[22] He wanted her to have a lover and marry, and feared that no man would steal to her while she lay close to her parents. There is nothing disgraceful in this suggestion, to the Mohave, who scarcely make a distinction between lover and husband. The old people frequently exhort the young to enjoy themselves while they can. ”

“ Near the Cañon of the Colorado they encountered a party of Mohave Indians, who furnished them with some provisions, which relieved them from the apprehension of immediate want.
The Mohave Indians are thus described by a recent visitor:
"These Indians are probably in as wild a state of nature as any tribe on American territory. They have not had sufficient intercourse with any civilized people, to acquire a knowledge of their language, or their vices. It was said that no white party had ever before passed through their country without encountering hostility ”

“ Such challenge the outnumbered people could not find it in their manhood to evade. So the next day saw them in line at the appointed field, barely a hundred strong, against perhaps four hundred that the Mohave mustered after setting a guard over their families.
Earth-tongue went into battle with much inward excitement, but 193 little fear, and listened obediently to the admonitions of his seasoned kinsmen. Even before arrows could reach, the shooting began. Before long, arrows flew feebly by, and then it became necessary to twist sharply sidewise to avoid them. ”

“ When the sun goes down, we will enter the house. Now, when it is nearly down, the time is anya-havek-tšiemk. Call it: anya-havek-tšiemk!"
29. House entered.—When the sun went down, Mastamho entered and said: "Come in, all of you." Then all the Mohave entered the house. The Chemehuevi stayed outside on the west. On the east were the Walapai and Yavapai, the latter to the south. Mastamho sat down, leaning back against the southwestern one of the four middle posts. He was thinking about the people inside and those outside. He said: "There is a fire just within the door. ”

“ These distorted forms consist of prefix Ham-, a suffix -vek, and the accented syllable (plus preceding unaccented vowel) of the correct Mohave name for the tribe. See discussion at end.
52. Walapai and Yavapai tribes named.—Then Mastamho said again: "This time I will call you who are on the east Havalyipai." [72] Then those people called that name easily, and all those indoors said: "Now they are the Walapai." Then he said again: "Those will be the Yavapai also. I want them (the Walapai and the Yavapai) to live near each other in the mountains." ”

“ We did not learn that from Matavilya: we dreamed it. We are telling what is so: You will see. We are brave and tell of things which we have dreamed." (4 songs.) [8]
[6] "Said to me," in the narrator's words.
[7] Referring to wars of the Mohave against the Halchidhoma and Cocopa.
[8] The words of the first of these songs about dreaming are: sumāk imank akanavek.
4. Now as they sang, they had no gourd (rattles) . They said: "We have no gourds. That will not do. When people make war and kill an enemy and dance, it will be well that they have such things." ”

“ Now there were many people there in the house when they said that, but not one of them spoke a word. Then Mastamho asked them: "Have you fire?" But Badger and Raccoon said: "No."
[1] Near Mathakeva, Cottonwood Island, on the Arizona side of the Colorado.
[2] The door of which of course faced south.
[3] Mahwa.
[4] Nammaθa.
2. Coyote seeks fire.—Now Coyote—θara-veyo-ve, Mastamho called him, but the Mohave call him Hukθara—said: "I am sorry because Matavilya died: I want fire and will bring it. I will go to Fire-Mountain: [5] I know there is fire there and will get it." ”

“ Sparrowhawk, Quail, Ah'akwasilye, Oriole rejected.—87. The people were still standing in four rows, facing west. [131] Before them, at the southern end of the rows, stood Ikinye-istum-kwamitše, looking at them all, and Hatšinye-kunuya stood at the stick they had set up. Now the first who went to take the hand of the woman was Sparrowhawk. [132] As he came up to her, he said: "Liklik." [133] [Pg 65] But the woman said: "That is a bad word to say to a woman," [134] and all four rows of people laughed.
[131] Mohave dancing is described in Handbook, pp. ”

“ Major inconsistencies are due to shifts in participation or identification of the narrator and hearer with the characters. He who seems to have been the hero, turns evil without warning and our sympathies are enlisted for a new personage. This is a quality which is also notable in southern California Shoshonean myth narratives. I suspect that the Mohave feel less need than we of participating with their personages, both the story and its setting being so formalized and stylized.
Where fighting is involved, motivation becomes particularly elusive. ”

“ That it is not entirely true becomes evident when the Mohave with equal unanimity state that these dreams were dreamed by them before birth. In other words, their statement that they have dreamed such experiences is to be interpreted mainly as a belief that they as individuals were present in spirit form at the beginning of the world, at the time when it took shape and everything was ordained, and when all power, shamanistic and otherwise, was established and allotted. ”

“ We were soon ushered into the ‘Mohave Valley,’ and had not proceeded far before we began to pass the low, rude huts of the Mohave settlers. They greeted us with shouts, and dance, and song as we passed. Our guides kept up, however, a steady unheeding march for the village, occasionally joined by fierce, filthy-looking Mohaves, and their more filthy-looking children, who would come up, look [164] rudely in our faces, fasten their deep-set, small, flashing eyes upon us, and trip along, with merry-making, hallooing, and dancing at our side. ”

“ Those narratives which the Mohave evidently consider historical, and they are the longest of all, the Great Tales, come unaccompanied by singing. The story of the actual first beginnings of the world seems also to be without songs; and so is the prolix account of the origins of culture, of which I give a version herewith under the title of Mastamho, the culture hero. Matters of "history" are in the Mohave mind related to matters of war, and are therefore clean and honorable. Cosmic origins, however, seem to be felt as allied to shamanism and doctoring. ”

“ Each man saw only the shamanistic actions relating to his particular power, whether these had reference to the curing of disease, to love, to war, or to some other activity. The Mohave universally speak of having dreamed these scenes, just as each narrator affirms his knowledge of non-shamanistic myths and of ceremonies to have been individually derived from dreaming them. ”

“ You can go, you Walapai, and scatter in the mountains there. You need not go into one place. You can go all about, for I have made springs everywhere. You can live in one spot, and when you want to live in another you can do so. You Chemehuevi can do the same, and you Yavapai too. But I will do differently for the Mohave. They will have everything along the river: whatever grows there will be theirs. ”