News From Native California - Spring 2015 Volume 28, Issue 3 | Page 18

STORIES AND BASKETS

Norma Knight (Nomlaki/Maidu) and Lois Davis (Maidu),
friends
Lois Davis: Are there any special stories that maybe you’d
like to relate? Maybe something with a little humor or sadness or family? I know you have some nice stories that you’d
like to tell. [laughs]
Norma Knight: [laughs] Well, there’s so many, I don’t know
where to begin.
LD: Well, was there the one about the cedar tree. Did you
have that special story?
NK: Oh yeah, that was the story about our people. I’m a
Maidu person and I was told that the creator wanted to start
our people, so he cut down these four saplings on the mountainside and he gave them names. And they were our cedar
people. And in our stories the bear was our caretaker and we
call him Wateka and on the other side we had the rattlesnake

and he was our other caretaker. And when we went into
our circle, we had the bear on the pole representing the old
people and on the other side we had the rattlesnake, and
those were also our old people. To this day, we don’t eat bear
and we don’t kill the rattlesnake. When we see them needing help, we have to help them off the roads. So, those were
some of the old stories that were told to us.
LD: Do you have a particular story about the coyote?
NK: Yeah. Well, the coyote, he helped build the Sierra mountains. He came from the coast and when you come through
Lake County, you’ll find three or four lakes. Each lake has a
story. The first one is the small one. So the coyote had all this
water in him and he got sick, so that became the first little
lake there. And then he went on and there was another one.
And then for the big lake he was really full of water, so he
let all that out to make the big lake. He was carrying sand
for the Sierra mountains and he got sick on his way over and
that’s what those little mountains are over in Colusa County,
what are they called?
LD: I don’t have a name for them, but I just call
them foothills. But go on. I enjoy listening to
your stories. We’ve lost a lot of our stories and
we’re losing them because of our elders passing
away.
NK: Yeah. So, the people who were around these
mountains up in Colusa County, when you pass
the buttes, they believe that when they pass away
their soul goes up into the mountains and to the
sky from those mountains. And being an Indian
from the coast, when our people passed or when
the old people passed, they would bury them so
their head was always to the coast and toward the
ocean, because that’s where our spirit goes when
we die.
LD: How many years now, fifty years, that we’ve
been going back and forth with our relationship?
That’s what makes us strong and keeps us going
all of the time. Some of our communities have
elder gatherings—Sacrame