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The Southern Sierra Miwok Language (1964), by Sylvia M. Broadbent

7. ?ywel•in (Pages 172-175)

[Editor’s note: ?ywel•in is the man-eating giant—dea.]

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7. ?ywel•in
(Told by Castro Johnson)

(1) And now we are telling a different story; this girl is sitting listening. (2) Long ago, this ?ywel•in was finishing off the people. He carried them off all the time, he used to kill them all and finish them off. (3) Then he raised two little children, he brought them up. (4) Then those children used to play with the skulls of their mother and their relatives, they used to roll them. (5) They would roll them to the bottom from on top over a flat, sloping rock, then they would get them and take them back on top. (6) They used to do that every day, the two little ones kept on playing. (7) Then one Coyote went to visit them and saw them. He stayed there who knows how long. (8) He watched which way [?ywel•in] went, where he came out. (9) "Goodbye," he said. (10) "Yes," he said; "I’ll take care of the children here," he said. (11) He asked the children, "Where does your grandfather come out?" (12) "Right there he’ll always come out; he comes out there all the time," said the children. (13) In the evening, then he came, (14) and they ate supper. But [Coyote] cooked this meat that he had put in the bottom of the pack basket and ate it himself, he ate this jackrabbit hidden here in his pack basket. (15) Then it was night, and they went to sleep. When [?ywel•in] was snoring hard, [Coyote] looked for where his heart was. (16) Then he found it in the middle of his foot. (17) Then he stretched his feet out. When he stretched out his legs, this is the way he went when [Coyote] touched him in the middle of his foot: "Grunt, grunt, grunt," he said. (18) Then, "Oh, it's right there, your heart," [Coyote] said. (19) He went to sleep again. (20) He did the same thing again, he stretched out, stretched himself out. Right in the middle of his foot, in the middle of it, he did the same thing that way. "Grunt, grunt, grunt," he said. (21) "Oh, it's right there," said this Coyote. (22) He went to sleep. They got up the next day, (23) and he went out the next day again. (24) Just the same when he came back he came out in exactly the same place again. (25) [Coyote] was watching carefully whether he would come out in the same or a different place. (26) He didn't come out any other place, only in that very same place. (27) The next day he went again, (28) and the same way he watched where he went. (29) Then he asked the children again, "Will he come out the same place?" he said. (30) "Yes," they said. "Does he always come out in the same place?" (31) "Yes," they said. (32) In the evening for supper he cooked the meat. (33) Then Coyote would hide it in the pack basket and eat his own meat, not what he was given, he

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Next: Stealing Horses & Two Little Bears and Two Little Deer • Contents • Previous: How Coyote Stole the Sun

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