The Great Fire
:
Myths And Legends Of California And The Old Southwest
Patwin (Sacramento Valley, Cal.)
Long ago a man loved two women and wished to marry both of them. But the
women were magpies and they laughed at him. Therefore the man went to
the north, and made for himself a tule boat. Then he set the world on
fire, and himself escaped to sea in his boat.
But the fire burned with terrible speed. It ate its way into the south.
It licked up all things on ear
h, men, trees, rocks, animals, water, and
even the ground itself.
Now Old Coyote saw the burning and the smoke from his place far in the
south, and he ran with all his might to put it out. He put two little
boys in a sack and ran north like the wind. He took honey-dew into his
mouth, chewed it up, spat on the fire, and so put it out. Now the fire
was out, but there was no water and Coyote was thirsty. So he took
Indian sugar again, chewed it up, dug a hole in the bottom of the creek,
covered up the sugar in it, and it turned to water and filled the creek.
So the earth had water again.
But the two little boys cried because they were lonesome, for there was
nobody left on earth. Then Coyote made a sweat house, and split a number
of sticks, and laid them in the sweat house over night. In the morning
they had all turned into men and women.