Kele and Sedit

Creation Myths of Primitive America, by Jeremiah Curtin, [1898], at sacred-texts.com

KELE AND SEDIT

Old Kele, the mountain wolf, is evidently one of the first people sent down from the sky by Olelbis; not in part, but in person. His sons and daughters were not his children, but his creation; he made them from sticks, just as Jupka made the Yanas at Jigulmatu.

In the note to "Kol Tibichi" is a Wintu account of the character and actions of Kele's sons and daughters. A very interesting and

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valuable account this is; it explains the werewolf idea perfectly. The wolf man of Northern Europe, the Lykanthropos of the Greeks, must have been just such a person as Kele's sons and daughters, who were people apparently when they went forth to harm Indians, but who turned into wolves when they were discovered and rebuked. At home, in their great sweat-house, those people are wolves; but when they go out on their travels up and down through the world, they are exactly like Wintus, save only the hairy foot.