“I have heard it from Tom, and also from many other Piutes,” said I.
“O,” said he, “it is only a story of times long ago. It was while we were still Shoshones, that this happened. You have heard the story the way the old women tell it.”
WASHOE INDIAN SQUAWS.
WASHOE INDIAN HUNTER.
He then proceeded to say that, a very long time ago, there was a great war between a tribe of Indians living in the north, the name of whose chief was White Wolf, and a tribe living in the south. For years they fought every summer, and many on both sides were killed. Still, the old men would stir up the young men to continue the strife. At last both tribes grew weak and weary of the long war, and at a big council it was arranged that the White Wolf should marry the daughter of the chief of the tribe against which he had so long drawn a hostile bow, and thus all difficulties were settled. The two tribes settled down and lived together, all as Shoshones.
The old Indian then proceeded to give me the true and most ancient tradition that has been handed down in the tribe, in regard to the origin of the Indians living in the Great Basin. He said that the Indians were made by a man and his wife, who came from he knew not where. They made the Indians of clay and something else, taken out of the water, the English name of which he did not know. After the Indian men and women were made, the man made all kinds of animals; as bears, deer, antelopes, buffaloes, rabbits, wolves, and the like. The woman made the birds and the flowers, and all the fishes in the rivers, and the grass and the nut-pine trees, and all the bushes that bear berries.
The man taught the men to make bows and arrows, spears with which to catch fish, and nets for use in fishing and taking rabbits. He also taught them to build and navigate tule (a giant bulrush) boats, for all the country was then covered with great lakes, and the tops of the present hills and mountains were islands. The woman taught the Indian women to make baskets and how to prepare food and do all things proper to be done by women.
After they had done all these things the mysterious pair took their departure, going away to the southward.