The Good Twin and the Evil Twin

This is how it all began. There was only water, there was no sky, there was no land, only nothingness. Then out of the waters rose a mist, and it became the sky. Still there were no sun, no moon, no stars, just darkness. But deep down in the waters lived Kokomaht, the Creator. He was bodiless, nameless, breathless, motionless, and he was two beings, twins.

Then the waters stirred and rushed and thundered, and out of the spray and foam rose the first twin, the good twin. With closed eyes he cleaved the waves and came to the surface. He stood upon the waters, opened his eyes, and saw. Then he named himself Kokomaht, All-Father.

And from beneath the waters a second voice called out to Kokomaht: "Brother, how did you rise? With eyes open or with eyes closed?"

Bakotahl was the evil twin, and Kokomaht wanted to make it more difficult for him to do harm. So Kokomaht lied to him, saying: "I opened my eyes while I was under water." The second twin opened his eyes as he rose, and when he reached the surface he was blind. Kokomaht said: "I name you Bakotahl, the Blind One."

Then Kokomaht said: "Now I shall make the four directions." He pointed with his finger and took four steps, walking on the water. Then he stood still for a while and said, "Ho, this is north." Then he went back to his starting place, and in the same manner made the west, the south, and the east -- always taking four steps in each direction and always returning to the center.

"Now," Kokomaht said, "I shall make the earth."

Blind Bakotahl answered: "I don't think you have the power to do this."

"Certainly I have," said Kokomaht.

"Let me try to make the earth first," asked Bakotahl.

"Certainly not," said Kokomaht.

Kokomaht stirred the waters into a foaming whirlpool with his hand. They frothed and swelled and bubbled, and when they subsided there was land. And Kokomaht sat down upon it.

Bakotahl was angry because he would have liked to create the earth, but he said nothing and settled down by Kokomaht's side. The Blind Evil One said to himself: "I shall make something with a head, with arms and legs. I can make it out of the earth." Bakotahl formed something resembling a human being, but it was imperfect. Instead of hands and feet there were lumps; it had neither fingers nor toes. Bakotahl hid it from Kokomaht.

Then Kokomaht said: "I feel like making something." Out of mud he shaped a being that was perfect. It had hands and feet, fingers and toes, even fingernails and toenails. Kokomaht waved this being four times toward the north and then stood it on its feet. It moved, it walked, it was alive: it was a man. Kokomaht made another being in the same way, and it was alive: it was a woman.

Bakotahl went on trying to make humans, piecing together seven beings out of earth. All were imperfect. "What are you making?" Kokomaht asked.

"People," answered Bakotahl.

"Here," said Kokomaht, "Feel these people I've made. Yours have no hands or feet. Here; feel; mine have fingers, thumbs, to work, to fashion things, to draw bows, to pick fruit." Kokomaht examined the beings Bakotahl had formed. "These are no good," he said, and stamped them to pieces. Bakotahl was so enraged that he dove down deep beneath the waters amid rumblings and thunderings. From the depths he sent up the whirlwind, bringer of all evil. Kokomaht stepped on the whirlwind and killed it -- except for a little whiff that slipped out from under his foot. In it were contained all the sicknesses which plague people to this day.

So Kokomaht was by himself except for the two beings he had made. These were the Yumas, and in the same way that he had created them, Kokomaht now made the Cocopahs, the Dieguenos, and the Mojaves. In pairs he created them. Then he rested. Four tribes he had created.

After having rested, he made four more tribes: the Apaches, the Maricopas, the Pimas, and the Coahuilas. In all, he made twenty-four kinds of people. the white people he left for last. The one he had made first, the Yuma man, said to Kokomaht: "Teach us how to live."

"You must learn how to increase," said Kokomaht. In order to teach them, he begat a son. Out of nothing, without help from a woman, he sired him and named him Komashtam'ho. He told men and women not to live apart, but to join together and rear children.

Still something was missing. "It is too dark," said Kokomaht. "There should be some light." So he made the moon, the morning star, and all the other stars. then he said, "My work is done. Whatever I have not finished, my son Komashtam'ho will finish."

Now, among the beings Kokomaht had made was Hanyi, the Frog. She was powerful; fire could not destroy her. She envied Kokomaht his power and thought to destroy him. Kokomaht knew this because he knew the thoughts of all the beings he had made, but he said to himself: "I taught the people how to live. Now I must teach them how to die, for without death there will soon be too many people on the earth. So I will permit Frog to kill me."

The white man was crying because his hair was faded and curly and his skin pale and washed out. The white man was always pouting and selfish. Whatever he saw, he had to have at once. He had been created childish and greedy. Komashtam'ho, tired of hearing the white man crying, went over to him and tied to sticks together in the form of a cross. "Here, stop crying," he said. "Here's something for you to ride on." The white man saddled these sticks and they turned into a horse, so the greedy one was satisfied -- for a while.

For the last time now Kokomaht taught the people. "Learn how to die," he told them, and expired.

"I have to make what my father could not finish," said Komashtam'ho. He spat into his hand and from his spittle made a disk. He took it and threw it up into the sky toward the east. It began to shine. "This is the sun," Komashtam'ho told the people. "Watch it move; watch it lighting up the world."

Then Komashtam'ho prepared to burn the body of his father, but since there were no trees yet, he had no wood. Komashtam'ho called out: "Wood, come into being! Wood, come alive! Wood, come here to where I stand." Wood came from everywhere and formed itself into a great funeral pyre.

Before he died, Kokomaht had told Coyote: "Friend, take my heart. Be faithful. Do what I tell you." Coyote misunderstood Kokomaht and thought that he was supposed to eat the heart. Komashtam'ho knew this because he could see into Coyote's mind. So he told Coyote: "Go get a spark from the sun to light a fire."

As soon as Coyote was gone, Komashtam'ho took a sharpened stick and twirled it in some soft wood until he sparked a flame. "Look, my people," he said, "this is the way to make fire. Quick now, before Coyote comes back." With these words he lit the funeral pyre. The people did not lament for Kokomaht because they did not yet understand what death was. But before the flames had consumed the body, Coyote returned and leapt up quick as a flash to seize Kokomaht's heart. He ran off with it, and though all the other animals and the people too chased after him, he was too fast for them.

Komashtam'ho called after Coyote: "You have done something bad. You will never amount to anything. You will be a wild man without a house to live in. You will live by stealing, and for your thefts the people will kill you."

After Kokomaht's body had been burned, the people asked Komashtam'ho: "When will Kokomaht come back?"

"He will never come back," he told them. "He is dead. He let himself be killed because if he had gone on living, then all you people would also live forever, and soon there would be no room left on the earth. So from now on, everybody will die sometime."

Komashtam'ho told them: "It is the spirit of Kokomaht. His body died, but his soul is alive. He will go someplace -- north or south, east or west -- somewhere his spirit will dwell. He will never tire, he will never be hungry or thirsty, and though we weep because he has died, Kokomaht's spirit will be happy always."

And Komashtam'ho instructed the people in the nature of death. "When you die, you will be again with those you love who have gone before you. Again you will be young and strong, though you might have been old and feeble on the day you died. In the spirit land the corn will grow and all will be happy, whether they were good or bad when they were alive. So death is not something to be afraid of." And when they heard this, the people stopped weeping and smiled again.

Then Komashtam'ho chose one man, Marhokuvek, to help him put the world in order. the first thing that Marhokuvek did was to say, "Ho, you people, as a sign that you mourn the death of your father Kokomaht, you should cut your hair short." Then all the people, animals, and birds did as they had been told. The animals at this time were people also: they looked like humans. But when he saw them Komashtam'ho said: "These animals and birds don't look well with their hair cut," and changed them into coyotes and deer, into wild turkeys and roadrunners -- into the animals and birds we have now.

After some time, Komashtam'ho let fall a great rain, the kind that never stops. There was a flood in which many of the animals were drowned. Marhokuvek was alarmed. "Komashtam'ho, what are you doing?" he cried.

"Some of these animals are too wild. Some have big teeth and claws and are dangerous. Also, there are simply too many of them. So I am killing them off with this flood."

"No, Komashtam'ho, stop the flood," pleaded Marhokuvek. "The people need many of these animals for food. they like to hear the songs of the birds. Rain and flood make the world too cold, and the people can't stand it."

So Komashtam'ho made a big fire to cause the waters to evaporate. The fire was so hot and fierce that even Komashtam'ho himself was slightly burned. Ever since that time, the deserts around here have been hot, and the people are used to the warmth.

After that, he called the people together and told them: "Over there is your father Kokomaht's house. We must pull it down, because when a man dies, the spirits of his house and of all his belongings follow him to the spirit land. So people must destroy all the things he owned in this life so that their spirits can serve him in the other world. Also, after a man has died, it is not good to look upon the things that he used to own. One sees his house, but he who dwelt in it is gone. One sees his water olla, but he who owned it is no longer here to lift it to his lips. It makes people sad, and they sicken with grief and longing. Therefore you Yuma people must always burn the house and possessions of those who die, and you must move to another dwelling where nothing reminds you of the dead. Also, never again mention the name of him who is gone. He belongs to another life, while you must start on a new one." And from that time on, the Yuma have followed these rules.

Komashtam'ho took a huge pole, smashed the house of Kokomaht, and rooted up the ground on which it had stood. Water welling up from the rut made by the pole became the Colorado River. And in it swam the beings that Bakotahl -- the Blind Evil One -- had formed, the creatures without hands or feet, toes or fingers. These were the fish and other water animals.

Now Kahk, the Crow, was a good planter and reaper. He brought corn and all kinds of useful seeds from the four corners of the world. He flew south to the great water, stopping four times on the way and crying: "Kahk, kahk!" Each time he did this, a big mountain arose. After the overflow of the river which Komashtam'ho had made, Crow brought many seeds from the south for the people to plant.

The tribes had been scattered over all the world, but Komashtam'ho kept the Yuma near him because they were the special people he loved. "Listen closely," he said to them. "I cannot stay with you forever. I am now only one, but soon I will become four. My name will no longer be Komashtam'ho. I will turn myself into four eagles -- the black eagle of the west, the brown eagle of the south, the white eagle of the east, and the fourth eagle, whose name is 'unseen,' because no man has ever caught a glimpse of him."

When Komashtam'ho had turned himself into the four eagles, he dwelt no longer among the Yuma in the shape of a man. He kept over them, however, and in their dreams he gave them power from Kokomaht. Thus Kokomaht advises the people through Komashtam'ho and tells them while they sleep: "Think about me, think of what I taught you. Sick people especially should follow my teachings."

Now Bakotahl, the Evil Blind One, is under the earth and does bad things. Usually he lies down there quietly, but sometimes he turns over. Then there is a great noise of thunder, the earth trembles and splits open, and mountainsides crack, while flames and smoke shoot out of their summits. Then the people are afraid and say: "The Blind Evil One is stirring down below."

Everything that is good comes from Kokomaht, and everything evil comes from Bakotahl. This is the tale -- how it was, and how it is, and how it will be.

Retold from several sources, among them Natalie Curtis's report in 1909