A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Haka Lasi dreams that her brother Hitchinna is her husband and insists on taking him away despite the family’s objections. He escapes while she sleeps, leaving rotten wood in place of his head on her arm. Their aunt Chuhna, an extraordinary spinner, attempts to lift the entire household to the sky in a giant basket. Metsi peeps through its bottom, breaks it and sends the passengers falling into the house Haka Lasi has set ablaze. Tsore Jowa, riding outside the basket, catches the Sun and survives.

Haka Lasi catches hearts bursting from the burned bodies and wears them around her neck. Two hearts escape: her father Juka and his eldest son re-form far away but remain trapped in the ground. Seeking sufficiently deep water, Haka Lasi settles in Crater Lake after trying another lake. Tsore Jowa searches in mourning and obtains the help of two Tsanunewa brothers by supplying the coloured deer-bones they want for their weapons. They shrink themselves into tule stems floating on the water and shoot Haka Lasi when she surfaces.

Tsore Jowa takes charge of her sister’s body and the hearts, then digs her emaciated father from the ground. Two daughters of Jamuka independently discover and nurse the eldest brother. His continuing tears attract deer; once recovered, he hunts successfully and marries the sisters. The place where he cried remains a salt spring visited by deer. Tsore Jowa eventually finds him there and returns to restore the rest of the family.

She heats water in a basket, places the collected hearts inside and adds Haka Lasi’s own heart. At dawn the basket overturns and the brothers return alive; Haka Lasi follows with a heart now free of evil. The tale does not end with this reunion: Juka conceals his recovered eldest son as a hidden one, and two other brothers become the husbands of Jamuka’s daughters. Their first husband remains inaccessible. Curtin’s personage list associates Haka Lasi with loon and Tsore Jowa with eagle; this chapter’s identities are not automatically merged with similarly named figures in other episodes.

Hearts worn as a necklaceDeep-water refuge at Crater LakeFamily restored from heartsDestructive sister also restored
01

Origins & earliest records

Jeremiah Curtin, Creation Myths of Primitive America in Relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind (Boston: Little, Brown,1898). Collection notes486–487 distinguish the first nine narratives as Wintu and the later thirteen as Yana. Curtin describes California collecting in1895 and prior publication of these narratives in The Sun. The Yana section begins at281; these selected chapters do not name individual tellers.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete The Two Sisters, Haka Lasi and Tsore Jowa, pp. 407–421, read through the concealed son and reassigned marriages. Father and eldest son survive through escaped hearts; the later basket restores the other dead. The individual Yana teller is unnamed.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Creation Myths of Primitive America

    Jeremiah Curtin, collector and English presenter; individual Yana teller unnamed here · 1898

    The Two Sisters, Haka Lasi and Tsore Jowa, pp. 407–421; Yana section p. 281 and provenance pp. 486–487.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary textCurtin1898 digitised primary collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

FT·2661 · RESEARCH EDITION 01Back to top ↑