The Dawn of the World

The stories collected inThe Dawn of the Worldwere related by the Miwok elders "after the first rains of the winter season, usually in the ceremonial roundhouse and always at night by the dim light of a flickering fire. They constitute the religious history of the tribe, and from time immemorial have been handed down by word of mouth," writes C. Hart Merriam. Included are creation myths and accounts of the First People, beings who antedated humans, as well as tales about animals, death and ghosts, witches and giants, and natural phenomena.

A professor of anthropology at California State University, Hayward, Lowell J. Bean is director of the C. F. Smith Museum of Anthropology. He is the author of Mukat's People: The Cahuilla Indians of Southern California (1972).