Norwan (Curtin’s Wintu account)

Overview

Norwan emerges from the ground east of Pas Puisono before the present Wintu people. Curtin gives Hluyuk Tikimit and Pom Norwanen Pitchen as additional names. She dances throughout daylight in her house at Norwan Buli. Olelbis calls her his sister and equips her with a perpetually flowering staff, feathers that sing to announce the morning, and red blossom juice for her cheeks. He teaches her to rub acorns and blow the dust upward so that more acorns appear in the trees. Her food-giving title is Bastepomas.

On her way to a great dance she meets children who lack clothes. She dresses one Patkilis boy with fog, colored feathers and willow catkins, then makes all the boys resemble him. She equips a Tsudi girl with acorn mould and leaves from her staff and similarly clothes the remaining girls. The children accompany her to the feast; their forms correspond to the jack rabbits and mice named in the personage list.

At the gathering the Tede Wiu brothers dance among brilliant suspended strings of valuables. Norwan begins dancing without realizing it and leaves with them. Norbis, who claims her as his wife, demands her return. The brothers say that she chose to accompany them, but then confine her in their house while they fight. During the second day she finds a weakness in the binding and escapes home. Neither side gains her by victory.

Norwan subsequently tells Hessiha that she regrets the consequences of her departure. The narrative nevertheless continues through other leaders’ decisions, raids and reprisals. Her self-reproach is part of the story, rather than a historical explanation of warfare. Curtin’s identification of her with warm dancing air and his comparisons with Helen of Troy are interpretive additions, not separate narrated transformations.

Origins & earliest records

Wintu narrative Norwan in Jeremiah Curtin’s 1898 collection. His provenance describes California collecting; no individual teller is named for this chapter. These are first-world personages, not a description of living Wintu people.

Records & interpretation

Complete Norwan introduction, personage list and narrative pp. 69–117, through the final returning armies and subsequent metamorphoses, read alongside the complete interpretive note pp. 497–503. Curtin’s solar theory and comparisons with Greek and Algonquian traditions are his interpretations.

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

   Norwan, complete pp. 69–117; selected profile passages 71–94; interpretive note497–503; 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.

1. Primary textCurtin1898: Norwan, complete Wintu war cycleResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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