Sehinom Chabatu

Overview

Sehinom Chabatu supports the Tede Wiu brothers and becomes the focus of later reprisals. Chulup holds him responsible for two fallen followers, although the narrator clarifies that Chir Chuma actually killed them under Sehinom’s command. His grandmother warns him that warfare has changed their world and instructs him to seek powerful allies. The personage list associates his name with a chicken hawk; the story presents him as a warrior among the first people before their final metamorphoses.

Against Chulup, Sehinom briefly seizes the latter’s wife Sanihas at sunset, but Chulup recovers her before sunrise. Their armies fight until exhaustion; Chulup is subsequently killed elsewhere by Wai Karili. After two peaceful years, another army attacks Sehinom’s settlement. His grandmother dies trying to bring him weapons. He survives the burning sweat-house by passing underground and remaining beneath the dwindling end of a log until the enemy leaves.

Among the ruins he discovers two Tsudi boys hidden under pine bark. He buries the dead, takes the boys into his care and makes weapons. They grow rapidly and carry messages to assemble another army. Before the final assault Sehinom scouts by moving underground, while the boys slip among the enemy houses and cut nearly all their bowstrings. Sehinom searches for the boasting Sutunut, but another fighter kills that chief.

The main army returns safely. Kot, Ho and some Tidoks remain to burn the enemy houses, meet fresh opponents and suffer heavy losses unknown to Sehinom for a long time. The ending therefore distinguishes his survival and return from the fate of the rear party; it is not an unqualified victory for every ally. The wars end before Olelbis changes the first people into their subsequent forms.

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 87–117; interpretive note497–503; collection provenance486–487.

Family, evolution & connections

Chir Chuma and the two Chir Pokaila sisters

Norwan, pp. 95–101.

Narrator-stated sibling group, with the first woman’s grandchild separately labelled. The grouping root is not an ancestor. The two Chir Pokaila women are distinct despite sharing a name. The edge to Sehinom skips an unspecified parent generation. Kawas relationships conflict elsewhere and are excluded rather than forced into this pedigree.

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.