Story 30—
Siuuhu's Revenge:
Sivern, his Box, and the Handsome Young Boy
During all this time, the man Sivern [probably the same as the Siivan of story 25], who was living there [somewhere], was getting ready, and he told his child to get his va sha (box).[r] He got the box, and somewhere where Sivern had a piece of land, where
[q] S-cehedagi Hwai Namkam, 'Blue Deer Meeter'.
[r] Vasa[*] , 'covered box', 'suitcase', 'oblong-plaited-basket-with-cover'.
he planted his crops, Sivern took the child and the box. He put him somewhere and covered him up. He left the child, telling him, "You must lay here all the time. You will notice the wind blowing. If it keeps blowing, I'm alive, but if it stops, you will know I am dead. Then you go and look for my body. When you find it, cut me open, and down in my heart you will find a shining stone. Take it. Then you must follow the Wooshkum people. Wherever they camp, you go and circle their camp till you find out where there is a small group gathered separately. You go and make company with them. Then you'll find out if they'll keep you or kill you."
There were four [Wooshkum] medicine men who worked and made the strong cyclone, or wind, [of Sivern] become gentle. It was easy for them. But the medicine man, Sivern, got half of the power of the strong wind and closed it in his box. The other half was the wind that the Wooshkum saw [story 22
When Sivern saw that the power of this wind was going down, he spoke, "I thought I was more powerful than anybody else, but now I see that there are people more powerful than me." Then he cried and sang while crying:
Way off you can dimly
See the wind standing
In that my heart is dying.
The clouds are all gone
My mind is all gone.
While he sang, the clouds came close to the earth, and the Wooshkum couldn't see where this man was. They got the man who had dreamed the song of this Sivern when they first came to the ocean from the east [story 16]. When this man was ready, he sang:
I am now sitting down
I am now singing the song of Sivern.
I am now standing
I am learning the song of Sivern.
Then he sang the song which is Sivern's:
The sun is coming up
It's shining through the va pa ki (houses).
He saw that Sivern went out of his house and was moving in some direction. The Wooshkam made lightning to kill Sivern, but it did not hit him. (Sivern or Sivanyn , a word meaning medicine man). He went underground somehow and came up someplace. They tried to hit him again, but he went down, and they couldn't do it. Then he came up close to where he went down. This time thunder tried to hit him, but he went down again. Then he came out again, and this time he was walking. He was not a medicine man anymore but just like any other person.
Then it was not a medicine man who went after him, but some of the people who were good with bows and arrows. They went down [there] and killed him.
The fighting went on for four times four days (a sacred number, with a special word, "gee ko chiu moi duk ").[s] After they killed this man, the sun went down, and they made camp for the night. The wind stopped blowing where the child was with the box, and he came out and did what Sivern had told him to do. He circled the camp and found a group of people by themselves. He came to them, and it happened that one was a medicine man, sitting by the fire. This man said to the people who were there with him, "Look behind me. Somebody is standing behind me."
When the people looked they saw nobody standing there. The man told them to look four times, and they still couldn't see anything. Then he reached with his hand behind him, and surely there was the child with the box.
The people saw that he was a handsome young boy (skugut viap pwuh ).[t] The people talked among them-
[s] Probably gi'iko ce:mo'oidag , 'four-times completion', 'four-times permeation'.
[t] S-keg viapoi , 'handsome (or 'good') boy'.
[u] Hu:hu'ula, a "dialect group" of Pima-Papago. They live in the northwest part of today's Sells (or Papago) reservation and are the core residents of today's Ak Chin and Gila Bend reservations.
[v] This word is probably kiikam , which simply means "resident." Thus, it is probably not, as one might hope, a hitherto undisclosed name for the Hohokam.
selves and said they must not tell everybody about this lad that had come. They must keep him secretly.
The next morning the [entire Wooshkum