Another instance of the misfortunes of the trumpeter is related by Leo Miller[[53]] as he heard it among the Maquritari Indians who live on the headwaters of the Orinoco:

In the very beginning of things a trumpeter and a curassow

I am tempted, in spite of my intention to stop here, to annex an elaborate and somewhat amusing creation-myth of the Yocut Indians of southern California, because it is both appropriate and picturesque. It is thus set down by Powers:[[19]]

Once there was a time when there was nothing in the world but water. About the place where Tulare Lake now is, there was a pole standing far up out of the water, and on this pole, perched a hawk and a crow ... for many ages. At length they wearied of the lonesomeness, and they created the birds which prey on fish, such as the kingfisher, eagle, pelican, and others. Among them was a very small duck, which dived down to the bottom of the water, picked its beak full of mud, came up, died, and lay floating on the water. The hawk and crow then fell to work and gathered from the duck’s beak the earth which it had brought up, and commenced making the mountains. They began at the place now known as Ta-hi-cha-pa Pass, and the hawk made the east range, while the crow made the west one. Little by little, as they dropped in the earth, the great mountains grew athwart the face of the waters pushing north. It was a work of many years, but finally they met at Mt. Shasta, and their labors were ended.

But behold, when they compared their mountains it was found that the crow’s was a great deal the larger. Then the hawk said to the crow. “How did this happen, you rascal? I warrant you have been stealing the earth from my bill, and that is why your mountains are the biggest.” It was a fact, and the crow laughed in his claws. Then the hawk went and got some Indian tobacco and chewed it and it made him exceedingly wise. So he took hold of the mountains and turned them around in a circle, putting his range in place of the crow’s; and that is why the Sierra Nevada is larger than the Coast Range.

CHAPTER VI
BIRDS IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND FESTIVAL

The crowing of a cock ushered in the momentous tragedy that closed the earthly career of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had told one of his disciples in the evening of the Passover, that “the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt twice deny that thou knowest me” (Luke, xxii, 34). Later that same night Jesus was arrested and taken into the house of the Jewish high priest, and when, one after another, three persons had identified Peter as one of the Disciples Peter each time denied it, “and immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew.”

Although the cock and his brood have had a part in Oriental and classical superstitions, ceremonies, and myths since these things began, it is probable that Jesus had in mind nothing more than the time of “cock-crowing,” which among the Jews was a recognized name of the third watch of the night, beginning at three o’clock in the morning. Mark enumerates the four watch-divisions when he says: “Ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning.”

Out of this simple matter, a natural habit of the bird, the early Christians, with the avidity of zealots for inspired pegs on which to hang new devotions, set up many theories and customs. For instance, I find in the English periodical Nature Notes (VI, 189) the following, translated from the Treasury of Brunetti Latini, a teacher of Dante in the poet’s youth: “By the song of the cock we may know the hour of the night, and even as the cock before it singeth beateth its body with its wings, so should a man before he prays flagellate himself.” To this added a fourteenth-century chant, as follows:

Cock at midnight croweth loud,