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

Overview

Howichinaipa hides the deer underground after Jupka passes him over as the singer for a hunt. He also wants Ahalamila’s wife, the sister of his own. The resulting quarrel divides the hunters and kills Ahalamila and others before Jupka stops the battle. On another hunt Popila becomes a bear and tries to kill Howichinaipa, but the fugitive escapes inside a rock that closes on the bear. Howichinaipa skins him and displays the hide.

Popila’s grieving mother finds a little red-eared child while sweeping. She wraps him, washes him and sprinkles him with flint dust to strengthen him. He grows quickly and asks why she cries. His fingers are initially joined; with her help he separates them using a flint knife and numbers them from thumb to little finger. The narrative identifies this as the first counting and makes his hands the model later given to the Yana.

Pakalai Jawichi breaks the available bows until he finds one strong enough. He imitates a bird to draw Howichinaipa down from a tree and shoots the outer toe, recognising that a body shot would fail. After pinning his opponent with rows of arrows, he brings his foster grandmother to see him. He declares that Howichinaipa will be a little bird bearing those marks on its breast; the transformed opponent flies away. Pakalai’s water-lizard correspondence is specific to Curtin’s personage list.

Deer hidden undergroundRapid growth under foster careFingers and first countingToe wound precedes bird transformation
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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 notes486–487 distinguish the first nine narratives as Wintu and the later thirteen as Yana. Curtin describes California collecting in1895 and prior publication of these narratives in The Sun. The Yana section begins at281; these selected chapters do not name individual tellers.

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Records & interpretation

Complete The First Battle in the World and the Making of the Yana, pp. 467–484, read through the final instructions. This is Curtin’s English presentation of a Yana origin narrative, with no individual teller named in the chapter. Mythic landscape explanations are not presented as archaeological or geological findings.

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 Yana teller unnamed here · 1898

    The First Battle in the World and the Making of the Yana, pp. 467–484; collection provenance pp. 486–487.

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 digitised primary collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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