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Overview

Jahtaneno sends his two unmarried daughters to the wealthy chief Sukonia, warning them against both Metsi’s deceptive courtship and the house of two dangerous women. The younger daughter keeps the elder from accepting Metsi as their intended husband. They reach Sukonia, enlarge their food baskets by speaking to them and marry him. His family shows them the household stores and the carefully covered spring inside the house.

On their return journey to visit their father, the Ichpul sisters intercept them on the road. The brides fear both accepting and refusing their invitation. Each is persuaded to rest her head on an impostor’s lap; the sisters kill them, remove their skins and wear them to take their places. Sukonia’s little brother Chikpitpa recognises a frog smell immediately, although their appearance matches the missing wives.

Sukonia tests the women by asking for water. One takes a basket toward the door and requests the child’s help, revealing that she does not know about the indoor spring. Chikpitpa then proposes a staged punishment: his brother strikes him, and the boy rolls and kicks as though distressed, pushing one impostor into boiling porridge and the other into the fire. Both die.

The story continues beyond punishment. Sukonia follows his wives’ trail, finds their bodies and revives them with his deer-sinew bowstring. They explain that the encounter happened on the road, not through entering the forbidden house. Their next visit to their father succeeds, and they return with gifts. The restored wives’ own account complicates any simple reading of their deaths as disobedience.

Stolen skins disguise identityFrog smell betrays the impostorsIndoor spring tests household knowledgeVictims restored with a bowstring
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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.

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Records & interpretation

Curtin presents this as a Yana narrative. The complete Sukonia’s Wives and the Ichpul Sisters, pp. 353–362 was read through its ending; the chapter does not identify its individual teller. His personage list describes later animal correspondences, not an already biological animal society.

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

    Sukonia’s Wives and the Ichpul Sisters, pp. 353–362; Yana section statement p. 281 and collection 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

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