Читать книгу Seven Mohave Myths - A. L. Kroeber - Страница 8

1a. All the people at Avikwame had gone out of the house and had sent for (the great snake in the ocean to the south) Kamaiavêta.[1] They thought it was he who had killed Matavilya and they wanted to kill him. No one knew this to be so but all believed it. Then when he came they killed him, and his body lay stretched over the earth. When he was dead, I[2] took a piece from his tail, the rattle nearest the body. I took it for good luck. Several tribes dream about this killing: the Yuma, the Maricopa, the Kamia, the Walapai, the Halchidhoma, and others down to the mouth of the river.[3]

[1] "Sky-rattlesnake-great." Also Kumaiavête or Mayavete.

[2] The narrator believes that he has seen and heard what he is relating.

[3] The Kamaiavête incident seems to be mentioned only for the purpose of fixing the time and place of the beginning of the story. The myth properly begins at this point. Most Mohave song-myths begin with an allusion to the death of Matavilya, of which the Kamaiavête story is an after-incident.