80. The boy stood there: he left these things there in the playing field (matāre). He wanted to see his body. He wanted to look in his mirror. He thought, "I want to see what sort of a looking boy I am." When he looked; he said, "I have no clothes: I am a bad-looking boy." (2 songs.)
81. He had no long hair, only short hair like a boy: he saw that. He went to the bathing place and dived in northward. He came out again and dived westward. Then he dived to the south. Then he dived to the east.[71] He came out and now his hair fell below his hips. Then he wanted to make a little wind to dry his hair. He did not sit down, he did not lie down, he stood. Then the wind dried his hair. He came back and looked in his mirror. He said, "I think I will wear eagle-down (θume)." He put his hand out to the north and got eagle-down. Then he put that on and looked at himself. "That is good," he said. Then he put out his hand to the east and got a woven ("Navaho") shirt, tolyekô-pa, and a woven strip of wool cloth (tolyekô-hare-hare) for a breech-clout. "Now I have all that," he said. He put his hand out to the west[72] and got beads (nyapūka). He thought, "When I was a boy I did not know what was good: I did not wear anything. Now I know what is good and am wearing what I have never worn before. I am ready now and it is good." He was standing where he had bathed. The four women were crying (at the house); he heard them. Tasekyêlkye, the oldest, was thinking about the three persons (the boy, Kwayū, Sun), wondering which of them had been turned into something and killed, for none of them had come back yet. "Perhaps the boy has done that," she thought. Then she said to her youngest sister, "Get water! You have a jar you made yourself." "Yes, I have one," she said, and went to get water. When she saw the boy all dressed up, she dropped her jar and went and embraced and kissed him. She was away for some time. The oldest sister said, "What is the matter with her that she does not come back? What did she see when she went to get water?" And she sent another. When the other woman came and saw Ahta-nye-masape embracing and kissing the boy, she too threw away her jar and hugged him. "He is a good-looking boy: I want to marry him," she said. Then Tasekyêlkye sent her other sister. She came and saw the boy: he was not embracing the two girls; they were holding him, and saying, "I want him." "No, I want him." Then she also dropped her jar, for she wanted him too. Now the three were gone and did not come back. Then the oldest sister thought, "Well, there were three of them, but they have not brought water. I will go myself and drink and then return here to cry." She took her jar, went there, and saw the three women surrounding the boy, embracing him; but the boy was not moving, not saying a word. When she saw it she ran up: "Did I not know it? You like that boy: all of you want him: I knew it!"[73] She too wanted him, but could not take him away from the others. Now they had all come there to get water and there was no one at the house. Then the four women said, "We will take you to the house. We do not want you to walk: we will stand, you lie down, and we will carry you." So the boy lay down and they carried him in their hands. Four times they became tired and laid him down. When they came to the house they spread a woven blanket, hatš-hārke, and laid him with his head against a post in the middle of the house. (4 songs.)
[71] Anti-sunwise circuit, contrasting with the W-E, N-S pairing of Tšitšuvare's and Pukehane's wives.
[72] Not a ceremonial circuit in this case, but a reaching out to where the articles came from, to the Mohave: cloth from the Hopi to the east, shell beads from the Shoshoneans to the west.
[73] Mohave tales do not weary of I-told-you-so's.
82a. The boy said, "I want the sky-sack in the house. I have many things in it." The youngest went out and got the sack. Then the three youngest ground corn, for they thought, "I think he is hungry." The boy thought, "You three did not like me before: you thought I was rotten. Now when you grind corn and make bread or mush and give it to me I will not eat it." They made bread (môδīlya) and gave it to him but he would not eat. Then Tasekyêlkye, the oldest, ground aksamta[74] seeds and made bread of them and gave them to him and he ate: he did not eat the other bread that the three younger sisters made. At sunset they went to bed: two of them lay on each side of him. From each side they tried to embrace him. He paid no attention to them except to the oldest who lay next to him on the right side. That night she said, "Will you stay here and live in this house, or go away? The man who lived here eats people. We are afraid of that. When he goes hunting without luck, he is hungry, and then I am afraid he will eat me; I fear that every day." Then the boy said, "When I was north I told my mother, 'I am going far to the south, but I am coming back.' My mother is thinking of me, thinking I am coming to see her. I must go north to where she lives and stay there. I will start in the morning."
[74] One of the "wild" seeds planted by the Mohave.—Handbook of California Indians, p. 736.
I. Return to Mother, Half-Brother, and Father's Ghost
82b. In the morning he said, "I think that man (Kwayū) will come back today." They said, "He has enough to eat: plenty of people's dried meat and people's bones ground up." The boy said, "I do not think he will follow me. Now I am ready to start. Are you ready?" All the women said, "Yes." He said, "Take your baskets." Then they each took a basket. He said, "I did not come here to gamble, I came to see my relatives. When I came he wanted to play with me. He wanted to bet everything,[75] his house, his property, and you, and I won you too. It was not I who wanted to gamble, it was he." Then they went east on the desert along a valley. After a while he stood still with the four women. He thought, "When I am traveling, women make too much trouble. They do not travel fast. If I kill them, I can go fast. I think I will make it rain on them and they may die. It will become cold and they will freeze and die from that." (2 songs, about clouds.)
[75] This must be Sun, whereas just before, in this paragraph and the preceding, it is clearly Kwayū the cannibal that is being referred to.