Waida Werris and Waiti

Overview

Lutchi finds Waida Werris in a dazzling house after other messengers cannot reach him. Two brothers live there: the elder Waida Werris and younger Waiti. The latter remains at home rather than travelling. Waida Werris accepts the invitation to Waida Dikit’s gathering, already knowing what has been happening from his earlier journey. Before departing, he tells Waiti that he will be able to watch him continuously from home and warns that the event will involve more than flute playing.

He arrives without the assembly noticing and hears them debate whether he will come and whether he matters. When Hawt’s music arouses their curiosity in the dark house, Waida Werris quietly pulls a hair from his beard and gives it to Tsudi. Held above Hawt, that single hair makes the interior bright as day. Once the performance ends, Tsudi lowers it, restores darkness and returns it to its owner. The spectators now debate the source of the light and ask to see Waida Werris himself.

Waida Dikit leads the crowd outside and tells them to look north. A small light rises to a pointed mountain’s summit, settles there and appears close before them, illuminating its surroundings. He identifies it as Waida Werris and says that later people will see him in that northern position. Curtin’s personage list labels him the Polar Star and Waiti the north side; the story preserves them as distinct brothers rather than treating Waiti as another name for the same figure.

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 Hawt, pp. 177–208, including the feast, distribution of food and final return to Tede Puyuk. The chapter names no individual teller. Its personage list and narrative explanations are distinguished from zoological and astronomical 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 Hawt, pp. 177–208; collection provenance pp. 486–487.

Family, evolution & connections

Waida Werris and Waiti - elder and younger

Explicit brotherhood and age order on pp. 191 and 194.

Parallel branches show stated siblings under a grouping heading, not an ancestor. No parents or birth generations are supplied here. Grandfather and grandson forms of address elsewhere are not used to invent a wider pedigree. This is Curtin’s English narrative witness, not a universal account of Wintu relationships.

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.