Sacred Texts Native American California Index Previous Next
When that Indian was becoming a Kīxûnai he worked making kiseaqōt. He worked on them every day. He finished one each day without eating, so quickly he made them. They did not see him any longer. They thought he was dead.
Then after a while he came back. "I just came back to tell you what it is they will do up the river on the bank. That will be the place for eating the acorn soup. The pipe will lie buried there. That dance too will be held here. The way they do over in the Kīxûnai world; that way they will make the dance here. In the way of the Kīxûnai world they will dance." He, the priest, must not talk about the wind that blows from the south. He must talk about the ten winds which blow down from the world above. These will blow down here. Ye winds which never blow in the Indian world, blow down here. People will live to old age if they blow on them. He always pounds incense and scatters it there.
226:1 Told at Hupa, November 1901, by Senaxon.
This formula is repeated by the priest while preparing the ground where the dancers stand in the Jumping Dance at TakimiLdiñ. He is assisted in this work by a woman. The stones and sticks are removed. The priest then strews the powdered roots of Leptotaenia Californica over the ground on which the dancers are to stand. The formula is repeated as the root is scattered. The priest does not drink water during the ten days of the dance. He omits the customary daily bath in the river or otherwise it will rain. He fasts each day of the dance until the ceremony is completed for the day. He stripes his body with charred Leptotaenia root beginning at his wrists.