The creation of deer in this story, by Ee-ee-toy, is contrary to their presence in earlier tales, as in that of Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai.
The careful mention of the sickness and death of an apparently unimportant woman is curious, and hard to explain. Perhaps this was the inauguration of the pestilence.
The Story of the Destruction of the Vahahkkees has the most historic interest of any.
The uniting of the bands by the “Light” is very curious. My Indians could not tell me what this was, only something occult and mysterious by which they had clairvoyant ken of each other’s needs. Its use appears in the fight at Cheof Seevick.
The resemblance to the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is remarkable in the exploit of the Bow Doctor, and the crossing of the Rio Colorado.
The Choochawf Awawtam appear to have been cave-dwellers, and my Indians were confused in memory as to whether they were encountered on the hither or far side of the Colorado.
The statement that the closing of the waters left the Yumas and Maricopas on the far bank of the Colorado is likely only a mahkai’s fanciful attempt to explain their presence there. As the Indians of the Yuman stock speak an entirely different language from the Indians of the Piman stock, it is unlikely they were united in the original invading army. There is no other evidence that there ever was any alliance between them till the Maricopas, fearing extermination from the Yumas, joined the Pimas sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Comalk Hawkkih gave me this account of the coming in of the Maricopas: The Yumas and the Maricopas were once all one people, but there was a jealousy between two sons of a chief, one of whom was a favorite of his father, and one killed the other, and this grew to a civil war. The defeated party, the Maricopas, went first to Hot Springs, where they staid awhile, and then to Gila Bend, but each time the Yumas followed and attacked them and drove them on. Fearing extermination they came to the Pimas for protection. The Pimas adopted them. Now began war between Yumas and Mohaves on one side, and Pimas, Papagoes and Maricopas on the other. There were only two battles after the Maricopas came in, but in the second battle all the Yuma warriors engaged were killed, and the Mohaves had to flee over the mountain, and only a part of these escaped. This battle was fought at what is now called Maricopa Mountain.
So terrible was the defeat, that to this day the Yumas hold an annual “Cry,” or lamentation, in memory of it. Their old foes are invited, and if any Pima or Maricopa attends he is given a horse. This war reduced both Yumas and Maricopas to a mere remnant.
Since then the Maricopas have lived with the Pimas, and in customs are almost exactly similar, except that they burn their dead, and still speak their distinctive language.