Maidu

(map)

As the Indians of old lived tranquilly in the Sacramento Valley, a mighty rushing of waters came suddenly, so that the whole valley became like an ocean. Many Indians were overtaken by the waters, and the frogs and the salmon overtook and ate many others. Only two escaped to the hills, but the Great Man made them fruitful, so the world was soon repopulated with many tribes. One man was a chief of great renown over all the nations. He went to a knoll overlooking the waters that covered the fertile plains of his ancestors. For nine sleeps he lay there without food, meditating on how that water had come there. At the end of nine sleeps, he was changed so that no arrow could harm him. He commanded the Great Man to let the waters flow from the plains. The Great Man opened the side of a mountain, and the waters flowed away to the ocean.

Frazer, 1919, 290-291.

Night-Hawk-Man lived in a sweat-house, opposite the sweat-house of another man who killed much game. Word spread of this good hunter, and one man sent his two daughters to marry him. "Black-bear hides will be tied by the smoke-hole of the house and by the door; that is where you are to go. On the opposite side, there is a bad man who kills nothing; there you must not go."

The two women went off. Meanwhile, Night-Hawk-Man saw the black bear hides, carried them over to his house, and tied them by his smoke-hole and hung them by his door. Then he went inside and played the flute.

The two women arrived, and seeing the bear-skins, went into his house and sat beside Night-Hawk-Man. Meanwhile, the neighbor came home from hunting, saw his bear-skins, and carried them back.

Now it was night, and Night-Hawk-Man slept with the two women. In the morning, the women saw the black-bear hides hung by the opposite house. They realized that Night-Hawk-Man had tricked them, and they went across to the opposite house.

Not long after, Night-Hawk-Man began to sing. The wind blew, and it rained. He kept singing, and it rained hard, it rained harder and harder. The river rose, and still it rained. Now the water began to come into the house. Still he kept singing, and it kept raining. Then the two women went across and broke off by a blow the neck of the one who was always singing.

"The evil Night-Hawk-Man, getting angry because of the women, caused the water to rise in flood," they said. "You shall not disturb men. You shall be a bird, unable to do anything." Then, the rain having been stilled, they crossed back and went into their house.

Roland B. Dixon, Maidu Texts, Publications of the American Ethnological Society, vol. 4 (Leyden: Late E. J. Brill, 1912; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1974), 192-197.