Norwanchakus and Keriha

Overview

Norwanchakus and the younger, small Keriha travel when the world’s places have not yet received names. Keriha crosses beyond the sky for plant fibre and ash so his elder can make a fishing net. In the dim world they gather other beings and learn that daylight and darkness are kept in bags beyond the eastern sky. Patkilis, Pawnit and Tsaik eventually bring the light, darkness and acorns back. The brothers then fish downriver while Keriha gives places their Wintu names.

Keriha’s appetite and desire to possess things repeatedly test his brother. He steals acorns from Norwan despite warnings; the earth opens beneath them until he drops them. He underestimates the tiny guest Nodal Monoko, then discovers that neither the stranger’s strength nor his appetite matches his size. Pursuing Hubit, he tracks the wasp-associated being to a mountain house, smokes him to death and spends twenty-five days digging and eating its honeycombs. These are events of the narrative, not claims about modern insect biology.

Keriha next splits the earth with his little finger, kills a Supchit and takes the skin for bedding. Snow buries the brothers; the slain Supchit woman then comes and carries him away. Norwanchakus searches for years, following tracks underground and across the country until they vanish. A small Lasaswa rope-maker finally reaches Sas in the sky and learns the captive’s location. Norwanchakus crosses a bridge made from one hair and finds Keriha weak and drowsy, his head resting on the woman’s palm. He snatches him away before the predicted death and returns without stopping.

After this thirty-year separation, a voice summons both brothers away because the world is about to change. Keriha sheds his duck skin, from which the river ducks originate; Norwanchakus plants his ash net-stick at Tsarau Heril, providing wood for later people’s pipes. Beyond the sky they part, the elder remaining above and Keriha travelling far east. Their work endures through the place names. The text does not narrate the Supchit woman’s defeat or turn the brothers into one shared animal form.

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

Complete Norwanchakus and Keriha, pp. 211–240, through the rescue, naming legacy and separate departures beyond the sky. No individual teller is named in the chapter. Mythic transformations and landscape explanations are presented as narrative claims.

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

   Complete Norwanchakus and Keriha, pp. 211–240; collection provenance pp. 486–487.

Family, evolution & connections

Norwanchakus and Keriha - stated elder and younger brothers

Explicit opening relationship and the repeated brother narrative, pp. 211-240.

Parallel branches display a sibling group, not parent-to-child descent. No parents are named. The brother, uncle and cousin addresses to other visitors are not expanded into a wider pedigree. Their different final destinations do not create a second pair of brothers.

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.