There was a powerful mahkai who had a daughter, who, tho old enuf, was
unmarried, and who grew tired of her single life and asked her father
to bury her, saying, we will see then if the men will care for me.
And from her grave grew the plant tobacco, and her father took it and
smoked it and when the people who were gathered together smelled it
they wondered what it was, and sent Toehahvs to find out.
But, altho the tobacco still grew, the woman came to life again and
came out of her grave back to her home.
And one day she played gainskoot with Corn, and Corn beat her, and
won all she had. But she gave some little things she did not care for
to Corn, and the rest of her debt she did not pay, and they quarreled.
She told Corn to go away, saying; "Nobody cares for you, now, but they
care a great deal for me, and the doctors use me to make rain, and
when they have moistened the ground is the only time you can come out."
And the Corn said: "You don't know how much the people like me; the
old as well as the young eat me, and I don't think there is a person
that does not like me." And Corn told Tobacco to go away herself.
There were people there who heard them quarreling, and tho Tobacco
staid on, whenever she would be in a house and hear people laughing she
would think they were laughing at her. And she became very sad, and one
day sank down in her house and went westward and came to a house there.
And the person who lived there told her where to sleep, saying,
"Many people stop here, and that is where they sleep."
But she said: "I am travelling, and no one knows where I am, and if
any one follows me, and comes here, you tell them that you saw me,
that I left very early in the morning and you do not know which way I
went." And she told him that she did not know herself which way she
would go, and at night, when she went to bed, she brought a strong
wind, and when she wanted to leave she sank down and went westward,
and the wind blew away all her tracks.
And she came to the Mohaves and lived there in a high mountain, Cheof
Toe-ahk, or tall mountain, which has a cliff very hard to climb,
but Tobacco stood up there.
And after Tobacco had gone, Corn remained, but when corn-planting
time came none was planted, because there was no rain. And so it went
on--all summer, and people began to say: "It is so, when Tobacco was
here, we had plenty of rain, and now we have not any, and she must
have had wonderful power."
And the people scolded Corn for sending Tobacco away, and told him
to go away himself, and then they sent for Tobacco to come back,
that they might have rain again.
And Corn left, going toward the east, singing all the way, taking
Pumpkin with him, who was singing too, saying they were going where
there was plenty of moisture.
And the next year there was no water, and a powerful doctor,
Gee-hee-sop, took the Doctor's Stone of Light, and the Doctor's
Square Stone, and some soft feathers, and eagle's-tail feathers, and
went to where Tobacco lived, asking her to come back, saying "We are
all suffering for water, and we know you have power to make it rain,
And every seed buried in the ground is begging for water, and likely
to be burned up, and every tree is suffering, and I want you to come."
Then Tobacco said: "What has become of Corn? He is still with you,
and corn is what you ought to eat, and everybody likes it, but nobody
cares for me, except perhaps some old man who likes to smoke me,
and I do not want to go back, and I am not going!"
But Geeheesop said: "Corn is not there now, he has gone away, and we
do not know where he is." And again he asked Tobacco to come back but
she refused, but gave him four balls of tobacco seed and said to him:
"Take these home with you, and take the dirt of the tobacco-worm,
and roll it up, and put it in a cane-tube and smoke it all around,
and you will have rain, and then plant the seed, and in four days it
will come up; and when you get the leaves, smoke them, and call on
the winds, and you will have clouds and plenty of rain."
So Geeheesop went home with the seed balls, and tobacco-worm dirt, and
did as Tobacco had told him; and the smoking of the dirt brought rain,
and the seeds were planted in a secret place, and in four days came up,
and grew for a while, but finally were about to die for want of rain.
Then Geeheesop got some of the leaves and smoked them, and the
wind blew, and rain came, and the plants revived and grew till they
were ripe.
When the tobacco was ripe Geeheesop gathered a lot of the leaves and
filled with them one of the gourd-like nests which the woodpecker,
koh-daht, makes in the har-san, or giant-cactus, and then took a few
of these and put them in a cane-tube pipe, or watch-kee, and went to
where the people gathered in the evening.
And the doctor who was the father of Tobacco said: "What is this I
smell? There is something new here!"
And one said, "Perhaps it is some greens that I ate today that you
smell," and he breathed toward him.