“Do you expect them to return some day?” I asked.
“How can I say?” answered the Indian. “They came of their own accord at first.”
“Do you hear the old men of the tribe speak of them?”
“Often.[Often.]”
“Do they think the man and his wife will come back?”
“How do they know? They only know that they are gone.”
“That is all the old men know?”
“Well, they sometimes say they have gone south to the big water—maybe they live in the big water. Who knows?”
When an Indian begins to say “who knows,” he has then told you about all he knows in regard to the point upon which you are questioning him. All the Indian could say was that the pair came and did their work of creation, and then went away to the southward.
This tradition bears a striking resemblance, in many respects, to that of the Peruvians in regard to the appearance among them of Manco Capac and his sister and wife, Mama Ocllo Huaco; also, to the Mexican tradition in regard to the Huastecas, the strange family that came, whence, no one knew, to the mouth of the Panuco River, headed by Quetzalcoatl, priest and lawgiver, and who afterwards disappeared in the direction of Guatemala. The disappearance of Quetzalcoatl is strikingly like that of the pair mentioned in the Piute tradition. Strange as it may appear, a prehistoric skull was found at the depth of several hundred feet in the Comstock vein which, on being sent to the Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, was found to exhibit peculiarities to be found only in the skulls of the ancient Peruvians, the people to whom appeared Manco Capac and his wife.