UNCOVERED LEGENDS

     In the village of Muhuvit, which was behind the San Fernando hills, there was a chief who was a great wizard and enchanter. He had one son and one daughter. The daughter was beautiful, and like her father and brother she had the most beautiful head of thick black hair that touched the ground when she let it down. She was the Wizard-Chief’s favorite child. Unfortunately, she was a selfish and lazy woman. Because she was beautiful, the chief of the nearby village Hahamogna asked her to be his wife, and she accepted. 
   She was polite and kind to him and the people of his village, but after they were married and she gave birth to a daughter, she started to show how selfish she was. Every day, the people of the village were commanded to bring her one rabbit each, already roasted and ready to eat. As soon as they presented a roasted rabbit to her, she’d snatch it up and eat every bit without ever offering it to the hungry villagers, who had to go without meat because of all the rabbits they had to frantically hunt and catch to please the chief’s new wife. 
   This made everyone in Hahamogna so unhappy that eventually the village elders all came together and urged the chief to send her home. The chief sighed, “do with her what you think is best” he said. 
So, after the elders gathered again, they all decided the Wizard-Cheif would be so angry to see his daughter rejected that it was better to put her to death, a rare punishment for the Tongva people. “What should we do with the child?” asked the wisest elders. “Let it die with the mother!” The chief answered, heartbroken and frustrated that his wife had ended up being so selfish. 
     So the next morning the elders went to every villager and told them their plan. No one was allowed to bring water from the stream back to their huts, but instead they were told to drink from the stream whenever they were thirsty. The children and women were told to find snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. When the men returned from their rabbit hunt, they stuffed the rabbits with the reptiles before they roasted them. In the last hut of the village, which was the furthest from the chief’s hut, the people of the village filled a water basket with urine. 
When the time came for the people of the village to present their roasted rabbits, the selfish wife began to dig in as they watched. As she was eating, she noticed a lizard leg poking out of the rabbit meat. She picked it out. “What is this?” she asked. 
   “A quail leg” the man who gave her the first rabbit replied. She looked at him suspiciously. 
     “Eat it then.” She said. 
     “It’s for you,” He replied. 
     Hungry, she shrugged and continued to eat the rabbit and all of the pieces of lizards and snakes inside until she became overwhelmingly thirsty. “I need water.” She gasped. 
     “We haven’t gathered any today,” an elder said. “Just go to the stream.” 
     Too lazy to walk outside of the village, the selfish wife instead decided to walk around the village to find their water baskets to drink from. As she looked through home after home, empty basket after empty basket, she got thirstier and thirstier, until finally she came across the final hut with a water basket filled to the brim. She was so thirsty that she drank the entire basketful of water in three gulps, not even noticing that the water basket was actually filled with urine. This all gave her an upset stomach, but she was too selfish and lazy to gather food or collect water for herself. 
     After ten days of eating and drinking like this she realized what it was doing to her, her eyebrows and long thick black hair had almost all fallen out, and she looked wrinkled and wasted away. She decided to go back to her father’s village with her child secretly in the middle of the night. 
     After going a few miles with her daughter the weight of the baby became too much for her. “I’m so stupid carrying this burden!” she said out loud as she carried her baby. “As if he liked me enough to have a baby with him!” She threw the child into the bushes and kept walking, but when she looked back and saw her baby crying and reaching out for her, her heart softened and she picked the baby up again. “You haven’t done anything wrong” she said to her baby “I shouldn’t take my anger out on you.” She went on and on, until she was so tired she finally stopped, angry that she was in this situation. Her selfishness and laziness overcame any love she had for her child that she took the baby by the heels and swung it head first towards a large rock. The blood from the child’s head still stains that rock today, but some believe Creator turned the baby into a squirrel before it could die. 
     The selfish wife went on alone, until she came close enough to the village to see her mother’s chamuca (a large grainery basket that’s big enough to hold as much as two tons). The selfish wife climbed in and buried herself in the acorns and seeds already in the chamuca and immediately fell asleep. Not long after, her mother came by to take some acorns out, and when she reached her hand in she touched the top of her daughter’s head. The selfish wife jumped out of the grainery and her mother screamed. 
     “Yes! Be scared of me!” the selfish wife screamed. “After everything that’s happened to me in that awful village, from that awful husband, it’s all your fault!” 
     Her mother looked up at her, barely recognizing her with her hair mostly gone and her eyebrows barely there. “Tell me what happened to you.” She begged her daughter, and the selfish wife then told her everything. 
     “All I asked for were a few roasted rabbits every day to help me make milk for my baby.” She whined. “But they did something to the rabbits, and they stopped giving me good water to drink, and now all of my beauty is gone!” Her mother nodded, and then ran to get her husband. 
The selfish wive’s mother told the wizard-chief what happened and he rushed in secret to his wife’s chamuca with medicinal herbs for his daughter. After four months of living in the chamuca, taking her fathers herbal teas and medicines, the wrinkles on her face were nearly gone and her hair reached her waist again. 
     “You’re better now, you need to bathe.” Her parents told her. 
     “Go to your brother’s bathing well every day.” 
     So the selfish wife began to go every day, but her brother was just as selfish as she was and began to notice something wrong about his bathing spot. When he went the water wasn’t still like it usually was, and he would find hairs that he knew weren’t his because they weren’t as long. 
     “I think someone’s been using my bathing spot.” He told his mother one day. She quickly brushed it off, trying to keep her daughter’s return a secret until she was no longer sick or ashamed of her failed marriage. But one day, the brother of the selfish wife saw her bathing in his well, but he didn’t recognize her. Angry to see someone in his well, he dived in and grabbed her by the ankle, throwing her out of the water. “So you’re the one disturbing my water! Get out!” 
The selfish wife, so ashamed that her brother saw her fully naked when he threw her out of the water, traveled to the nearby sea and drowned herself. 

     The brother of the selfish wife, proud of finding the person using his well, strutted back home and boasted to his parents about finding the woman who had been using his bathing spot. “I threw her out!” He laughed “And I saw her naked!” 
     “She must have run off ashamed of her brother seeing her naked.” His mother said after he left. “We must find her!” 
     So the Wizard-Chief took a willow twig, covered it in buckskin, and threw it North. It came back to him. He threw it South, but it came back to him. Then he tried East. When he threw it West, it kept going. So they followed it down the river until they came to the ocean, where they saw the magical willow disk sink into the sea. “She’s drowned herself in the ocean from her shame, but our son will pay for his selfishness.” 
     So the next day, he called all of the people out of their huts and told them to go hunting for a few days, and take his son along. He told the wisest elders to let his son be eaten by wild beasts, if that’s what Creator planned for him. “If one of the wild animals doesn’t take him, then I have another plan” he told his wisest elder. His son, overly proud of being the Chief's son, walked out of the village in all of his fine regalia, covered in money beads and other ornaments. 
     After a few days of hunting all day and sleeping around warm fires in the mountains, the oldest elder let loose a screech owl, which he had brought hidden in a basket. The screech owl was the Chief in disguise. All of the hunters woke up with a start and ran away from the sound, afraid of the bad omen. The son, lazy as ever, ignored the sound and stayed where he was. In the sky above him the Wizard-Chief transformed again into a giant Cuwot (eagle). The Cuwot swept down and carried his son into the air. Seeing this, the hunters ran back to the clearing, shouting “The Cuwot has taken the Chief’s son!” Before they could say anything more the son of the Wizard-Chief landed in front of them, every bone broken from his fall. They gathered up his body and buried it in the clearing, it’s unsure if he died before he landed or if the impact killed him. 

A few days after this, a man from Hahamogna came into town. “Hello!” Said the chief. “How is everything in your village?” 
     “We’re all doing well!” The messenger said with a big smile. “Our Chief is about to take a new wife, and we’re all preparing a great feast just for the occasion!” 
     As the messenger walked off, the chief laughed to himself. “Let them be happy. They’ve had their laugh, soon I’ll have mine, we’ll all perish together. 
     The Wizard-Chief set off to Hahamogna, but before getting to the village he came across a group of women carefully gathering prickly pears while one of them sifted the needles off of the fruit. “Sift the basket full of tunas over my eyes” he told her. She shook her head. 
     “The needles will get into your eyes!” she told him. They argued for a moment until she finally obeyed, sifting the tuna needles over his eyes. As soon as she began sifting over his eyes, the women all cried out in pain. They had all gone blind! 
     “Now it is my turn to laugh,” said the Wizard-Chief, unharmed, and he continued towards their village. Just before he entered the village, he transformed himself again into a huge eagle and began swooping down towards the people of the village. “Catch that Cuwot!” All of the villagers shouted. Except for one woman, the oldest and wisest elder, who was taking care of two young children while their mothers were away. 
     “No!” She yelled above them. “That isn’t an eagle! That is a wizard!” 
     Those who could hear her laughed her off as an old fool, but the old woman knew what was happening and covered the children with a basket to keep them safe. Soon, the people caught the eagle. 
     “Let’s tear its wings off and kill it!” They shouted angrily. But as soon as they tore the wings off the eagle a huge gush of blood poured from one side of the body, and a gush of green bile from the other. Fever and vomiting overtook all of the people of the village and killed them all, except for the wise old woman and the children she hid under the basket. The Cuwot then soared, without its wings, up to the clouds, and the Wizard-Chief was never heard of again by his people. 
     The wise old woman had to bury the dead as best as she could, and stayed in the now empty village with the two children. When they were old enough she made a bow and arrow for the boy and showed him how to use it, and made a flat basket for the girl so that she could clean seed for food. When they were old enough, she married them, and they all lived happily together. 
     After she was married, the girl became selfish. Her husband, the boy, was a great hunter, and so although she never lacked meat, she kept any meat from the old woman who raised her and her husband. This angered the old woman, and she planned her revenge. She got her deer bone awl she used for basket weaving and placed it pointing up on the girls seat. It almost killed her, but not quite. Again, the old woman placed the awl on the edge of the girls bathing pool and it almost killed her, but not quite. 
     After having this happen twice, the girl warned her husband that the old woman might be trying to kill her. “If she kills me, my spirit will send you a sign. If three drops of water fall on your left shoulder, then you’ll know she killed me.” 
     One day the boy was out hunting, and three drops of water fell on his shoulder. At once he threw down his bow and arrow and ran home. He called out for his wife, but only the old woman was there. 
     “Where’s my wife?” He asked her. 
     “The poor thing,” the old woman crooned. “She died, I buried her here.” She said pointing to a grave. 
     “You’ve murdered her!” He said, and snatched up a large stick to kill her with. She was too quick, in a flash she turned into a gopher and burrowed into the earth. 
     For three days and nights he laid on her grave, grieving her loss. On the third day, he saw a whirlwind rise from the grave, and then disappear. Just as quick as it was gone, a second whirlwind rose up. Finally, a third whirlwind rose up, much higher than the last two, and started to go South. He followed the whirlwind, and as he followed it the whirlwind began to transform. Eventually, under the whirlwind he began to see footprints. 
     “Is this my wife?” He asked out loud. 
His wife’s voice spoke softly from the whirlwind. “Go back to your hut, dear husband.” She said.          “I’m now a spirit, no earthly thing can go where I am going, remember I am dead to the world, go back to living your life.” But he couldn’t be persuaded. 
     “Let me go with you!” He cried to her. After a moment, his wife’s voice spoke again. 
     “I’ll risk taking you.” She replied. “But remember that no human on this earth ever has, or ever will, see us.” 

     They passed over the great Pacific into the spirit realm, where he heard beautiful voices call out to his wife. “We smell something of the earth,” They spoke melodically. “What did you bring here sister?” 
     The wife spirit confessed. “I have brought my husband, he does not want to be without me.”
     “Take him away.” The voices all commanded. Even though the husband could hear everything, he could see nothing. 
     “Let him stay” The spirit wife begged. “He is an excellent hunter, and he is a better man than most.” 
     The other spirits paused. “Let us test him.” They said. “Bring a feather from the top of this pole.” They said. The man looked to his side and saw a pole so tall he couldn’t see the top.
“Don’t be afraid” the spirit wife told her husband. “You are a strong man, just don’t look down as you ascend.” 
     When he brought the feather from the top of the pole, the other spirits whispered applause.          “Ayopui-cushna (brother-in-law) is good at climbing.” They said with approval. They then gave him a long hair to split from end to end, and although it was a difficult task his wife encouraged him to have faith, and he succeeded in splitting the long hair. 
     “Ayopui-cushna is very precise with his hands.” The spirits said. 
     “Now make us a map from memory” the spirits said. “Draw a map in the dirt of Ursa Major with the North Star perfectly positioned.” 
     This gave the husband a long pause, he had seen the seers draw a similar map, but he didn’t know how to do it himself. But his wife encouraged him again to think hard and remember what he had learned, and he was able to do it successfully. 
     “Ayopui-cushna is smart, well done!” The spirits cheered. “The last skill you need to show is us your hunting skills. We will send deer down the hill for you to kill.” A moment later he heard hooves thumping down the hill beside him. “Here they come!” The spirits said. 
     He used all of his senses to find the deer, but he couldn’t find them for the life of him. The spirits hooted their disapproval at his failure. They let him try once more, with the same result. “Let me talk to him.” The spirit wife told the other spirits. “Then let him try again, please, for my sake.” The spirits reluctantly allowed her to go to him. 
     “I can’t see them! How can I hunt something I cannot see?” 
     “You have good eyes, you must have seen the black beetles running around when you were hunting, those are deer, kill them!” The deer were released down the hill again, and this time he looked at the ground and saw a swarm of tiny black beetles. He killed one, and in an instant it transformed into the body of a strong young buck. Encouraged, he killed another, and then another, until the spirits told him to stop. All of the deer he killed were lifted into the sky and returned to Creator, but he still saw none of the spirits, except now he could see their shadows. The spirits raised a happy cheer. 
     “Sister, as you know, no one was ever allowed to return to the Earth. Death does not exist to the beings in Tucupar (heaven), but since our Ayopui-cushna cannot understand the joy we have here, because of his earth body, we will have compassion on him instead by returning your spirit to earth.” 
     “Return to the human world with your wife.” They told the husband. “But remember you must not have intercourse with her until after three days, there is a punishment waiting for you if you are disobedient to this rule.” 
     The husband and wife left the spirit realm together and traveled back to earth, where they had a three day trip back to their home. He couldn’t see her until night, after building a fire and laying down he could see the outline of her, asleep. On the second night, her form became clearer, and on the third day, she looked just as she did before she had died. 
     “Wife of my heart!” He cried out, and when he reached out with his arms to take hold of her and make love to her, he instead grasped a rotten wooden log, his wife gone. He remained a sorrowful wanderer on earth until the day of his death. 
     Many elders added to the end of this story that a woman returning from the spirit world never would have happened, and it instead was just a way for the spirits to give her mourning husband compassion and to get him to return to earth, so that he could return to them again one day, properly, as a spirit. 
     The bird mentioned in this story, the Cuwot,is a large bird that was never seen but firmly believed in by Tongva ancestors. It is said that the Cuwot lives in the mountains, and is nocturnal. It’s cry is “cu”, and it is said that it often carried people away.