The dawn of the world; myths and weird tales told by the Mewan Indians of California . rror. The Indians of this region, the Mewuk,burned their dead, and look with horror on the suggestion that theyor their ancestors might ever have put their dead in caves. They ask:Would you put your mother, or your wife, or your child, or anyone you love, in a cave to be eaten by a horrible giant? The idea isso abhorrent to them that the theory of cave burial must be abandonedas preposterous. The mytholog) of the Mewuk does not admit of any migrationbut describes the creation of the people in the area they s
The dawn of the world; myths and weird tales told by the Mewan Indians of California . rror. The Indians of this region, the Mewuk,burned their dead, and look with horror on the suggestion that theyor their ancestors might ever have put their dead in caves. They ask:Would you put your mother, or your wife, or your child, or anyone you love, in a cave to be eaten by a horrible giant? The idea isso abhorrent to them that the theory of cave burial must be abandonedas preposterous. The mytholog) of the Mewuk does not admit of any migrationbut describes the creation of the people in the area they still , in connection with the fact that these Indians speak a languagewholly different from any known in any other part of the world,proves that they have occupied the lands they now occupy for a verylong period-a period which in my judgment should be measuredby thousands of years. This argues a great antiquity for the cave remains, for theymust be those of a people who inhabited the region before the Mewukcame-and this takes us back a very long way into the past. 232 o. ^regent ©ap iWptfjsf twins. The womans brother killed her husband andthe little boys did not know that they ever had afather. When they were big enough they went offevery day to play by a big rock in the woods. Theywent always to the same place; they liked this placeand always went there. This was the very placewhere their father, when he was alive, used to goevery day to sing, but the little boys did not knowthis-for they did not even know that they hadever had a father. One day the boys heard somebody say: Youcome here every day just as your father used voice came from the rock; it was the voice ofLoo-poo-oi-yes ^^ the Rock Giant. Then the boysknew they had had a father. They went to therock and saw long hairs sticking up. These hairsgrew out of the nostrils of Loo-poo-oi-yes; theboys took hold of them and pulled them out. This made Loo-poo-oi-yes angry and he tooka long hooked stick and t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade191, booksubjectindiansofnorthamerica
