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Overview

After the defeat of Hehku, Jupka’s people fail to obtain deer because their ordinary stone points are inadequate. He summons Kaltsauna, a southern hunter whose success is already known. Lawalila finds the old man working on flint points; initially threatening, Kaltsauna agrees to come. He cleans flint dust from his hands, paints himself with it and places a sharp piece through his nose before travelling.

At Jigulmatu he has a skin spread out and sorts his points into separate heaps. By pushing and commanding each kind, he sends white flint to Hakamatu, blue flint to the eastern edge of Yana country, yellow to Iwiljami and striped flint west to Hakachimatu, while placing green flint at Jigulmatu. The account explains continuing access to these resources through his promise that later people will find them there.

Kaltsauna also gives each person a deer-horn wedge and a stone and teaches the shaping of arrow-points. His contribution is instruction as well as material supply. He leaves the next morning; the subsequent hunt succeeds, although later rivalry brings violence among the hunters. Curtin identifies him with a swift, a kind of lizard, and the narrative places his work before the making of the Yana people.

Flint assigned to named placesCraft knowledge taughtDeer-horn wedges suppliedPrimordial hunting equipment
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.

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Records & interpretation

Complete The First Battle in the World and the Making of the Yana, pp. 467–484, read through the final instructions. This is Curtin’s English presentation of a Yana origin narrative, with no individual teller named in the chapter. Mythic landscape explanations are not presented as archaeological or geological findings.

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 First Battle in the World and the Making of the Yana, pp. 467–484; collection provenance pp. 486–487.

Family & connections

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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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