[Gutenberg 46336] • Seven Mohave Myths

This paper is an endeavor to make a beginning of payment on a

scholarly debt long in arrears. Between 1900 and 1910, I spent

considerable time with the Mohave Indians, both in the vicinity of

Needles and with visitors from there to the University. Summaries of

the data recorded, and some samples of concrete detail, have been

published in one place or another, most coherently in two chapters of

the Handbook of California Indians in 1925. But I kept deferring

presentation of the fuller data, in particular of the mythological

narratives, many of which run to unusual length. The tales offered

herewith comprise in bulk about half of the Mohave narrative material

in my notebooks. This is exclusive of the "Great Tale" of

pseudo-historical moving about and fighting of clan-like groups, my

unfinished recording of which runs to about the length of the seven

tales presented herewith.