Sacred Texts Native American California Index Previous Next
In the middle of this world, chicken hawk grew with her younger brother. She said to him, "To-morrow a company will come to kill us." The girl always remained under the age of puberty. When the sun was here they heard the war party. They came from the east where the sunrises. "Eat first, "she told him. When he had eaten and had enough he said, "Who will go out first?"
[paragraph continues] "I will go out first," his sister said. Then the girl stood on the north side of the door. She had on leaves of the black oak for a dress. She had left off her other dress. The boy took out a bundle of twigs, pulled out the knot of the string that tied them, and threw them at her. They all missed her; not one struck her. Then she went to the south side. Again from the north side he pulled out a bundle of twigs and threw them at her. Then she went out and they all fought with her. When the sun was here in the west she had killed all of that company of one hundred men who had come to kill her. When she was through fighting she went in. She took off her dress and put on another.
That dress of black oak leaves is the one that flies around her. She has a song which she sings. She sings it in the morning. When the war party used to hear it they would say, "Come, let's run away." Then they always ran off. Here southeast of the middle of the world they used to lie until morning, and then they went home. When there was to be a fight she always sang a song. She sang it in the morning and again when she went to bed. None could affect her by singing or saying formulas. The hearts of the men always went along the way that lays behind this world. The song did it.
Again another night the girl found out they were coming "Again a party is coming to kill us," she told her brother. "Indians are about to become," she said. "This will be the medicine. The Indians will say of me when they become, 'This one, I hear, did that way.' Even if many men come against him, there will not be blood on him. When he puts the twigs and black oak leaves on his head, tied together this way, he will be ready to fight."
332:1 Told at Hupa, December 1901, by Henry Hostler often called "Packer Henry."
