[2] The narrator believes that he has seen and heard what he is relating.
[3] The Kamaiavête incident seems to be mentioned only for the purpose of fixing the time and place of the beginning of the story. The myth properly begins at this point. Most Mohave song-myths begin with an allusion to the death of Matavilya, of which the Kamaiavête story is an after-incident.
B. Two Brothers Go Off
1b. Now there were two brothers there. They stood east of the house and told of it. They did not speak, but sang. They sang of its posts, the rafters, the sand heaped around and over it, and the other parts. (4 songs.)
2. Their names were Pukehane, the older, and Tšitšuvare, the younger.[4] They went north a short distance, where there was a little gravelly place and thorny cactus. The ground-squirrel, hum'ire, lived there. When the two brothers came, it ran away, crying like a boy. It had never seen them before. They stood there and sang about it. (3 songs.)
[4] Both names refer to cane. Hipūke is the "end of the root" or butt. Hipūke-hane is probably the full form. Tšitšu-vāre is said to refer to the points of the cane. In the text, ū and ā have been rendered u and a in these two names.
3. Then they went north again a very little distance.[5] There they saw a rat, hamalyk. They did not kill it, but looked at it and sang about it. (2 songs.)
[5] "About 50 yards," not far enough to necessitate a new name for the place.
4. Now it was sundown. They struck their fire-flints,[6] made a fire, and sat by it. They did not eat anything all night. In the morning they were hungry. One thought that they should kill the rat and eat it. His brother said: "That is good." So they killed the rat and ate it. They stayed there that day, thinking. The next day, in the morning, Pukehane, the older brother, said: "We have no place to live." Tšitšuvare said: "Yes, that is true. Where can we get wood to build a house?" Now Pukehane was intelligent; he was born thus. Therefore he made sticks out of his saliva.[7] Thus in one day they built a round house. At night they went into it. (3 songs.)
[6] Like wheat, cloth, etc., a Spanish absorption integrated into the culture.