latter conducted the people to the top of the Crooked mountain, and as they went away Earth Doctor sang:
See the doom awaiting them!
Haiya! Haiya! Flood! Flood! Hai-iya!
Here are my doomed people before me.
As the flood rose toward the top of the mountain, South Doctor sang a song which caused the mountain itself to rise higher and ever higher above the waters which raced toward them as if on the level plain. These are the words that lifted the mountain upward:
Trying to disperse the waters.
On the Crooked mountain I am standing,
Trying to disperse the waters.
When he ceased singing he traced a line around the mountain and this marked the limit of the flood for a time, but it soon rose again and threatened to overflow the summit. Again South Doctor sang:
Trying to disperse the waters,
On the Crooked mountain top I'm standing,
Trying to disperse the waters.
Four times he sang and raised the mountain above the rising waters and then declared that he could do so no more, for his power was exhausted. He could do but one more thing for them, and holding his magic crystal in his left hand he sang:
Powerless is my magic crystal!
Powerless! Powerless!
I shall become as stone.
Then he smote with his right hand and the thunder peal rang in all directions. He threw his staff into the water and it cracked with a loud noise. Turning, he saw a dog near him, and this animal he sent to see how high the tide had risen. The dog turned toward the people and said, "It is very near the top." When the anxious watchers heard the voice they were transfixed in stone; and there to this day we see them as they were gathered in groups, some of the men talking, some of the women cooking, and some crying.[1]
- ↑ Pedro Font has given the following version of this myth in his Diary, pages 23 to 24a of original manuscript: "He further said that after tho old man, there came to that land a man called El Bebedor (the Drinker), who became incensed with the people dwelling there and sent so much water that it covered all the land. He then set out for a mountain ridge, which may be seen from that place, called the Ridge of Foam, whither he brought with him a little dog and a coyote. This ridge is called the Ridge of Foam, because at its summit, which ends gradually and, accessible after the fashion of the edge of a bastion, may be descried near the very top a white crest like a cliff, which follows horizontally along the ridge for a good space. The Indians say that this is a mark of the foam of the waters which reached that height. The Bebedor remained above and left the dog below, so that he might warn him when the waters reached that height. When the waters rose to the crest of foam, the beast warned the Bebedor (for in those days animals could speak) and the latter raised him up from below. A few
