The Katkatchila brothers

Overview

The elder Katkatchila hunts with a concealed flint projectile, reaching fallen game before anyone can discover his weapon. Torihas invites him to a dance and hunt to obtain it. Kaisus cannot outrun him, but Hau finally reaches a deer first and hides the flint in his ear. Hau refuses to admit the theft even after Katkatchila sees it. The angry hunter returns to his sister Yonot’s household and prepares retaliation.

Yonot’s fire-child Pohila kindles the material that Tilikus and Poharamas carry around the world. Katkatchila eventually takes his little brother beyond the southern edge of the sky to escape the burning. Their later role concerns the clouds formed when floodwater, wind, steam and smoke mingle after the fire. The brothers watch from opposite slopes of a ridge, trying unsuccessfully to stop the clouds travelling north.

At Olelbis’s direction they build fences and set a fibre snare. Most clouds break through, but the brothers capture and skin one black, one white and later one red cloud. Olelbis receives the first two skins for his grandmothers; the brothers keep the red one and display it in the west or sometimes the east. The escaped clouds settle in the north as snow clouds. The personage list connects Katkatchila with the swift, but the narrative’s elder and younger brothers are not collapsed into a generic modern bird species.

Origins & earliest records

Jeremiah Curtin’s Creation Myths of Primitive America (1898), opening Wintu narrative Olelbis. His provenance notes describe the California collecting context; this chapter does not name its individual teller. Curtin states that an earlier version appeared in The Sun on29March1896.

Records & interpretation

Complete Olelbis,pp.3–48, read through the final disposition of the first people; notes490–493 also read. Complete theft/fire4–15 and cloud episode36–42. Curtin’s general theory of a uniform American mythology and comparisons with European tales are not adopted as historical findings.

Selected bibliography

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

1. 01

   Creation Myths of Primitive America in Relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind

   Jeremiah Curtin · 1898

   Complete Olelbis,pp.3–48; Complete theft/fire4–15 and cloud episode36–42. Notes486–493 for collection, prior publication and editorial interpretation.

Family, evolution & connections

Katkatchila, Yonot and the little brother

Express sibling statements, pp. 5 and 14.

Sibling grouping with Yonot’s own family shown beneath her. The grouping root is not an ancestor. Parents of these siblings and Yonot’s birth order are unspecified. Tilikus is Yonot’s husband and Pohila’s father, not another sibling.

References

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

1. Primary textCurtin1898: complete opening Wintu narrativeResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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