Mem Loimis (Curtin’s Wintu account)

Overview

Mem Loimis comes from the northern earth to live with Olelbis and bears Wokwuk and Kut. Kahit carries her away while she is outside, leaving Olelpanti without water for five years. Pregnant when taken, she later bears Olelbis’s son Sotchet in Kahit’s household. After quarrelling with Kahit she leaves that child there, travels east and bears two sons of Kahit, eventually settling beyond a third horizon.

Sanihas Yupchi locates her through his spirit helper and directs Wokwuk and Kut toward her. Their father’s bone lifts the edge of the sky so they can pass; it crashes shut behind them. Her other sons recognize and welcome their brothers. Reclining on water buckskin beneath a water blanket, Mem Loimis reproaches Olelbis’s failure to find her despite his supposed knowledge. She fills a basket from her breast with water as a mother would supply milk, feeding the thirsty children.

She sends Kut west with water for his uncle Mem Hui and plans to carry water north to Sotchet, whose cries she hears. Wokwuk remains with her. Kut’s basket leaks as he travels over the sky. One drop fills Sanihas Yupchi’s tiny basket at Olelpanti, which thereafter supplies the entire household without diminishing; every fallen drop along the journey becomes a spring. The episode restores water but does not narrate Mem Loimis’s return to Olelbis.

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 notes pp. 486–487 identify the first nine narratives as Wintu and describe his California collecting in 1895 and earlier publication in The Sun. This chapter names no individual teller.

Records & interpretation

Curtin’s complete Olelbis and Mem Loimis, pp. 51–65, including the final explanation of springs. This is a Wintu narrative mediated through his English presentation and colonial-era comparative framing; it is not a claim about every Indigenous tradition.

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 Wintu teller unnamed here · 1898

   Olelbis and Mem Loimis, pp. 51–65; collection provenance pp. 486–487.

Family, evolution & connections

Mem Loimis’s children by two named fathers

Only the sons explicitly assigned to Mem Loimis, Olelbis and Kahit in this named account.

The top heading groups two parentage sets; it is not an ancestor of the parents. Joint-parent headings branch to their children. Sotchet is Olelbis’s son despite being born and raised in Kahit’s home. Kahit’s two sons are unnamed. These are Curtin’s translated narrative relationships, not independently verified biological descent or a universal account.

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.