Pamitš said to me: "I was a baby boy [meaning a foetus—see below] when I dreamed this singing: it was given me by the Ravens. Now I am a man, but have not forgotten it. I dreamed it before I ever was born. If I had been born when I dreamed it, I would have forgotten it. No, I did not learn it from other Mohaves; and I did not hear any of them sing it. In fact, no one else sings like this, for it was I that dreamed it myself." Later he added: "Only I and Jo Nelson" (the narrator of the Mastamho Myth, VII, below) "know this Raven, and he learned it from me; he did not dream it. Jo is my paternal cousin, itškāk" (a term not recorded otherwise). "If one of us two dies, the other will sing Raven for him all of a day and a night. My older brother, and his son, also learned it from me. And my grown-up daughter learned it, without dreaming: I will sing it for her if she dies, or she for me."

He added: "When a raven is on the ground, he hops twice before rising in flight. That is why I shake my gourd rattle downward twice before raising it to sing; and why the women who are to dance hop twice before I start my song. Then, when I shake it upward, they just walk past me; until, a few beats before the end of the song (8 or 10 bars), I make a long downward sweep of the rattle, nearly to the ground. This is the signal for the women to begin to dance. When we do like this, in the daytime, it is outdoors, and I walk slowly back and forth, and the women dance forward and backward, following me. When I sing indoors, there is no dancing, and I stay seated in one place near the middle of the house all night, except sometimes I rise to my knees."

I did not see an actual Raven dance, but it was illustrated for me as follows. The women bend their knees somewhat so that their skirt hem is lowered perhaps four or five inches. They then sag and rise in the knee an inch or two, without moving their feet or even rising on their toes. The body is inclined slightly forward, the head is erect, the eyes wide open and looking level (not lowered as by Plains Indian women); the arms hang straight down, almost stiffly, the wrists perhaps being bent back a trifle. When the women move forward and back, they shuffle their feet forward (or back) an inch or two at each step, without raising them from the ground.

OUTLINE OF SONG SCHEME

Growth:
[1]. Birth of the brothers4
[2]. Cane buzzers4
[3]. Darkness and war4
[4]. Gourd rattles416
Night:
[5]. Bat flying west6
[6]. Stars12
[7]. Cane1836
War:
[8]. Hostile tribes4
[9]. Wind and dust and war4?
[10]. Brave men4
[11]. Fighting4
[12]. Captive women2
[13]. Scalped men4
[14]. Return with the scalps4
[15]. Arrival at Bill Williams Fork4
[16]. The start next morning4
[17]. Message of victory4
[18]. Dance with the scalps22
[19]. Gathering and feast868
Birds:
[20]. Masohwaṭ bird12
[21]. Night hawk4
[22]. Curve-billed thrasher8
[23]. Mockingbird630
Tribal Life:
[24]. Grinding food6
[25]. Play at Miakwa'orve28
Transformation:
[26]. Bodies of the brothers4
[27]. Their knowledge4
[28]. Their future shape4
[29]. New names4
[30]. Wish to change4
[31]. Learning to fly4
[32]. Departure428
—
Total 186

THE RAVEN STORY

1. It was at Ha'avulypo that Matavilya built the first house.[1] After he died, two brothers, Aqāqa, the Ravens, were there. When such birds find anything that has died, they eat it; but they would not have eaten Matavilya then, even if they had seen him. But they did not see him, for these two, the older and the younger brother, only grew from the ground where the northwest corner of the house had been, after this house had been burned down.[2] The name of the older brother was Humar-kwiδe, of the younger, Humar-hanga.[3] They were little boys then—not Ravens. They looked up to the sky, and all about, and saw that the world had been made. Then they looked toward the south. As they sat, they each sang two songs; first the older, then the younger. (4 songs.)[4]

[1] As told more fully in other accounts.

[2] As doors are to the south, this would be the right rear corner, from inside.