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Overview
Nomhawena Pokaila lives alone on Eli-Tsarauton, the root flat, and subsists by digging. After working around the flat for years, she reaches its remaining centre and hears a child underground. She follows the shifting cry, finally overturns the clod above him, wraps him in her buckskin apron and carries him home. Calling herself his grandmother, she washes and watches him continually and wishes him to grow quickly. He is Tulchuherris.
She repeatedly forbids him to travel east and eventually explains the danger: her kin have gone to Sas’s household and never returned. She particularly mourns Kulitek, whom she calls her grandson and Tulchuherris’s brother. Unable to prevent the new hero’s departure, she gives him Winishuyat, a thumb-sized adviser concealed in his hair. Her gift proves indispensable even when his own strength fails to solve a problem.
Her fire consumes entire bundles of trees almost at once, forcing Tulchuherris to return repeatedly as he tries to leave. Winishuyat instead prescribes wild sunflower roots, which keep it burning. The personage list and note identify Nomhawena with an earthworm; the note also debates whether Pom Pokaila means a woman of the earth or Earth herself. The narrated finding and rearing are secure, while biological maternity or a literal family tree beyond the stated addresses is not established.
Origins & earliest records
Wintu narrative Tulchuherris in Jeremiah Curtin’s Creation Myths of Primitive America (1898). California collection; the chapter does not identify an individual narrator.
Records & interpretation
Complete Tulchuherris pp. 121–160, including Sas’s final instructions from Olelbis, and complete note pp. 503–505 read. Collector interpretations of lightning, the earth and European parallels are distinguished from narrated actions.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Creation Myths of Primitive America in Relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind
Complete Tulchuherris121–160; selected passages 121–130; note503–504; note503–505; collection provenance486–487.
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.
- Primary textCurtin1898: complete TulchuherrisResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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