This analysis perhaps helps to establish the genuine skill of the narrator in joining, developing, and sustaining a plot which has something of epic quality and which in a less simple culture, with a more specific medium than natural prose available, might have had epic potentialities.

SUPPLEMENTARY

References to Cane, Ahta (by paragraphs)
[2].Names of the brothers refer to cane (fn. [4]).
[18a].Uncle sends them for cane.
[18b].On the journey lightning and thunder, omen of death.
[19-23].Cane described, argument about division, knife made, cane cut, quarrel over it, return.
[24].Not to eat salt while unwashed—indicates power in cane.
[24].Older brother paints his cane; younger, bewitched, sees his unpainted.
[62].Cane seen on journey, near Yuma.
[70].Turns into cane sliver to hide from four women.
[71].Oldest woman thinks he may be cane.
[74].Hero smokes caneful of tobacco, chews up the cane.
[76].Told that the Mohave do not smoke in cane, he says he is Cane.
[77].Smokes two filled canes.
[88].His name, Ahta-hane, first mentioned (fn. [87]).
[90].Told by mother's father of lightning and thunder.
[91].Takes cane from hole made by lightning bolt, splits into four.
[92].Refuses to show it to his wife: it would kill.
[93].Half-brother called Ahta-kwasume; wears cane that rattles.
[95].The two brothers mourn their father and burn all their belongings except the lightning cane.
[102].Contest with canes that flash lightning: hero's is stronger.
[103].Shows them his canes and makes it thunder.
References to Meteor, Kwayū
[37].Hero knocks father's kneecap shinny ball west as meteor to explode in mountains.
[75-77].Meteor, husband of four women, tries to kill hero, gives him tobacco.
[82b].Meteor referred to again as cannibal.
[104].Hero flies as meteor past rock "Meteor's father's mother" to turn into rock Mekoaṭa.
References to Sun, Anya
[7b-10].Hero's father's first wife is Tšese'ilye (fn. [78]), daughter of Sun in west.
[11a-14].Hero's father's second wife is Kuvahā, daughter of Sun in east by different mother.
[29-31].One wife returns, other gives birth to hero.
[35].He sends his mother away.
[77-78].Sun, father (or husband? see fn. [58]) of four women, gambles with hero, loses body, escapes, is turned into double (sun dog).
[87-99].Hero returns to mother.
[90].Hero learns from mother's father's son about deadly lightning.
References to Blue-tailed Lizard, Halye'anekitše
[36].Hero turns into halye'anekitše lizard to steal father's kneecap shinny ball (fn. [40]).
[99-101].Halye'anekitše wins contest for hero by taking father's scalp from pole.

II. VINIMULYE-PATŠE

Vinimūlye-pātše, more fully "Vinimūlya-hapātša," is a song series prominent in Mohave consciousness, perhaps because it deals with war. I have never secured an etymology for the name. The present version was narrated April 23, 1904, upstream from Fort Mohave, by an old man called Hiweik-kwini'īlye, "her anus is black." He told his tale with unusual compactness: part of a day sufficed for his outline and the Englishing. He mentioned the place in the story of 196 songs; besides an indefinite group near the beginning: "4, 5, 6, 10, 12 while they are on the way," or "a night long, 50 songs." The whole cycle, when sung complete in sequence as tšupilyk, a "gift" to a dying relative, takes two nights to sing, he said. Jack Jones, was, as usual, my guide, sponsor, and interpreter.

The tale is simple. The Mohave hero, Umas-kwitšit-patše, with his people, leaves his home in the northern part of Mohave valley, for the Providence mountains, off to the northwest in Chemehuevi territory, and lives there a year. There is no farming possible in this desert range, but the story is silent on subsistence. The chief wants to return to make war, and, after a brief visit home, leads his people to the river at the south end of Mohave valley, and then makes a long detour downstream to below Ehrenberg, in Halchidhoma land; from there they turn back until they once more reach the foot of Mohave valley. Nothing happens on this excursion; it is perhaps introduced from sheer love of mental travel, or to suggest the progress of a war party. The Mohave in the southern half of the valley flee before the invaders, who appropriate a set of houses near where they had lived originally. Here they stay a year, as is shown by his daughter, when her feelings of modesty are hurt, running away to the Walapai for that period. Then they suddenly resume the march northward for a few miles, and finally join battle with Savilyuyave, Umas-kwitšit-patše's own younger brother and leader of the refugees, at "Hawk-nose" near Fort Mohave. The account of this climax is quite meager. The residents run away across the river. Savilyuyave is killed and scalped, his daughter is made a "slave." After the despoiling of another group, the "Quail people," and some calling of names across the stream, the hero and his band return to the Providence mountains, where one of them dies of a wound received in the battle. Why the two halves of the Owitš clan should peacefully separate under the leadership of two brothers, and then the returning one insist on war to a finish, but abandon the conquered territory, is wholly unaccounted for. Either there is motivation which the narrator knows but considers it unnecessary to discuss; or the motivation is as lacking as in a dream. After all, these tales are all dreams, the Mohave insist. And while it is clear that they do not ordinarily invent new plots in their dreams, they do quite probably dream over or brood about or perhaps actually redream, each man, the plot or plots which he calls his. The one theme which runs through this tale as a unifying thread is the doom of war.

THE TALE

1. Umas-kwitšit-patše lived at Aha-kwa'i[1] with his people. At that time the river was near that place. He was the only one of them to talk to the rest. Then he and his people crossed the river to the western side to Amaṭ-kusayi.[2] (4 songs.)[3]

[1] Aha-kwa'i is at the "Old Gus" ranch, below Milltown, on an overflow pond or slough (an old river arm), at the foot of the mesa on the east edge of Mohave valley, upstream from Needles and downstream from Fort Mohave. At the time of the story, the river lay close to Aha-kwa'i.