Lok Snewédjas was a cloud, a snow storm and a whirlwind. The mountain
was her father and the earth was her mother. In Wintu Wimaloimis, the
grizzly-bear cloud woman, was not as good a mother as Lok Snewédjas,
for she tried to eat her sons, Thunder and Lightning. Lok Snewédjas,
when her child was in danger, rushed down the mountain in a whirlwind
that tore big rocks from under the ground and threw them around as
though they were tiny stones.
Lok Snewédjas owned all the yĕlalwek there was in the world. “No one
had ever eaten any seed like it, or will ever eat any like it again.”
No matter how much was eaten the same amount remained. From a handful
all the people in a village were fed and the handful remained.
This myth shows what power the Indians thought their “medicine men”
possessed: if they called to the spirit of a dead man before the spirit
reached the place where the sun goes down, it would came back to the
body.