The earth was rent in great
chasms, and water covered everything except one narrow ridge of mud;
and across this the serpent deity told all the people to travel.
As they journeyed across, the feet of the bad slipped and they fell
into the dark water, but the good, after many days, reached dry
land. While the water was rising around the village the old people
got on the tops of the houses, for they thought they could not
struggle across with the younger people; but Baholikonga clothed
them with the skins of turkeys, and they spread their wings out and
floated in the air just above the surface of the water, and in this
way they got across. There were saved of our people Water, Corn,
Lizard, Horned Toad, Sand, two families of Rabbit, and Tobacco. The
turkey tail dragged in the water--hence the white on the turkey tail
now. Wearing these turkey-skins is the reason why old people have
dewlaps under the chin like a turkey; it is also the reason why old
people use turkey-feathers at the religious ceremonies.
In the story of the wandering of the Water people, many vague references
are made to various villages in the South, which they constructed or
dwelt in, and to rocks where they carved their totems at temporary
halting places. They dwelt for a long time at Hom?lobi, where the Sun
people joined them; and probably not long after the latter left the
Water people followed on after them. The largest number of this family
seem to have made their dwellings first at Mashongnavi and Shupaulovi;
but like the Sun people they soon spread to all the villages.
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