Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest Part 17

He looked in all directions. The magic trail brightly before him lay. He flew, with four thin flys, toward the enemy. The mountain of their power which stood in the land he bit off short. The springs he bit off, and their very good dreams. The best bow strings and the straight-flying reeds he grasped and cut very short. He bit off their flesh and made holes in their bones. From the things gathered, he made a belt from a bowstring. Then he returned. He came through the whitish mist of dawn in four flights. The people held a council. Leaving them there, he after four thin flys reached his bed in the gray dawn mist. Then in all directions he heard the darkness rattling, as he lay there.

The Spirit Land Gallinomero (Russian River, Cal.)

When the flames burn low on the funeral pyres of the Gallinomero, Indian mourners gather up handfuls of ashes and scatter them high in air. Thus the good mount up into the air, or go to the Happy Western Land beyond the Big Water.

But the bad Indians go to an island in the Bitter Waters, an island naked and barren and desolate, covered only with brine-spattered stone, swept with cold winds and the biting sea-spray. Here they live always, breaking stone upon one another, with no food but the broken stones and no drink but the salt sea water.

Song of the Ghost Dance Pai Ute (Kern River, Cal.)

The snow lies there--ro-rani!

The snow lies there--ro-rani!

The snow lies there--ro-rani!

The snow lies there--ro-rani!

The Milky Way lies there.

The Milky Way lies there.

"This is one of the favorite songs of the Paiute Ghost dance.... It must be remembered that the dance is held in the open air at night, with the stars s.h.i.+ning down on the wide-extending plain walled in by the giant Sierras, fringed at the base with dark pines, and with their peaks white with eternal snows. Under such circ.u.mstances this song of the snow lying white upon the mountains, and the Milky Way stretching across the clear sky, brings up to the Paiute the same patriotic home love that comes from lyrics of singing birds and leafy trees and still waters to the people of more favored regions.... The Milky Way is the road of the dead to the spirit world."