Kol Tibichi

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

KOL TIBICHI

IN connection with this tale I add the following remarks about one of the two modes of making doctors, and about certain spirits. These remarks are given, as nearly as possible, in the form of the original Wintu narrative.

I have added, besides, the songs of four great existences, or gods. Every individual existence in Indian mythology has its own song. This song refers to what is most notable in the actions or character of that existence. The given song is sung by a doctor immediately after its spirit of that existence has entered him.

Kol Tibichi's yapaitu (yapaitu is another name for one of the first people), the rainbow, would not leave him till he used a woman's red apron as a headband, because the rainbow is connected with the catamenial periods of Sanihas (daylight).

The yapaitu dokos (yapaitu missile), mentioned further on, is a projection of the spirit itself of the yapaitu. Sometimes it flees from the patient; the duty of the doctor, in such a case, is to find the dokos. If he does not, it may return to the sick man after the doctor has gone; and in that case the last condition of the patient is worse than the first. Generally, however, it waits to be cast out.