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Show "The Flood"* The waters of the Sea were angry and rolled in great waves over the land and destroyed it. Tobats (Little Rabbit) and the Shinau-av brothers fled to the top of a high mountain. The brothers dared not drink of the water because it was angry and was about to die. Tobats, who was wiser, drank as much as he wished. He tried to reassure his companions, and at last talked them into going down to the edge of the water to drink. As they came near, a great wave rolled up as if to swallow them. They ran back screaming with terror. Then Tobats shot an arrow into the water and burst it into pieces. The fragments flew high into the heavens and came down in torrents of rain all over the world. Since then, whenever the sea gets mad and its waves begin to roll, Tobats shoots an arrow. This prevents it from flooding the land and drives it back so that it goes up the side of the sky, and falls down on the land, when we have rain. The waters during this great flood killed every tree and every shrub and all the grass. There was nothing left to eat, and the Shinau-av brothers were about to die with hunger. Then Tobats took them to a great rock and pointed to a little hole beneath, and told them to dig there and see what they could find. They worked until they were very tired and found nothing. Then they said to each other, "Tobats has fooled us," and they stopped working. When Tobats returned and found that they had gone away, he called them back and scolded them for their laziness. He ran into the hole, and as he went the hole opened up in front of him. They all entered a vast chamber and found a fresh store of seeds. When they had eaten until they were full, they took the seeds and scattered them over the earth, and the land was recovered with vegetation. * Op. Cit., Powell, "Ute and Paiute Legends." 135 |
