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The Hav-Musuvs
Legend of the Paiute
Indians
from
Disorganization Website
recovered through
WayBackMachine Website
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The following excerpt, titled
"TRIBAL MEMORIES OF THE FLYING SAUCERS", appeared in the
Sept. 1949 issue of FATE magazine |
The author of the following story is a Navaho Indian. He revealed
this tribal secret which he learned from the Paiute Indians, who
inhabit the Mojave of California.
This native American, who went by the name Oga-Make, related the
following account in appreciation for a story on the Navaho which
appeared in the Spring of 1948 in a magazine which was carrying numerous
articles on the mysterious "signs" or "fires" in the skies which were
causing an enormous amount of confusion and debate during that same
year, as well as the years following.
The article on the Navaho nation, which appeared in an earlier issue,
told of the suffering that their tribe had gone through during past
winter seasons, and encouraged the readership to send goods and supplies
to help them through the upcoming winter of ‘48-’49, which many of them
did.
In appreciation of this, Oga-Make related the following
‘legend’ which told of the secret history of the Americas which ran
it’s course, possibly thousands of years before white men set their foot
en masse upon it’s shores:
'TRIBAL MEMORIES OF THE FLYING
SAUCERS'
by OGA-MAKE
(The author of
this story is a Navaho Indian.
He tells us this
tribal secret of the Paiutes in appreciation for the story of the
Navaho
which appeared in the
Spring, 1948 issue of FATE magazine).
"...Most of you who read
this are probably white men of a blood only a century or two out of
Europe. You speak in your papers of the Flying Saucers or Mystery Ships as something new, and strangely typical of the
twentieth century. How could you but think otherwise? Yet if you had
red skin, and were of a blood which had been born and bred of the
land for untold thousands of years, you would know this is not true.
You would know that your ancestors living in these mountains and
upon these prairies for numberless generations, had seen these ships
before, and had passed down the story in the legends which are the
unwritten history of your people. You do not believe? Well, after
all, why should you? But knowing your scornful unbelief, the
storytellers of my people have closed their lips in bitterness
against the outward flow of this knowledge.
"Yet, I have said to the storytellers this: now that
the ships
are being seen again, is it wise that we, the elder race, keep
our knowledge to ourselves? Thus for me, an American Indian, some of
the sages among my people have talked, and if you care to, I shall
permit you to sit down with us and listen.
"Let us say that it is dusk in that strange place which you, the
white-man, calls ‘Death Valley.’ I have passed tobacco... to
the aged chief of the Paiutes who sits across a tiny fire
from me and sprinkles corn meal upon the flames...
"The old chief looked like a wrinkled mummy as he sat there puffing
upon his pipe. Yet his eyes were not those of the unseeing, but eyes
which seemed to look back on long trails of time. His people had
held the Inyo, Panamint and Death Valleys for
untold centuries before the coming of the white-man. Now we sat in
the valley which white-man named for Death, but which the
Paiute calls Tomesha - The Flaming Land. Here before me
as I faced eastward, the Funerals (mountains forming Death Valley’s
eastern wall) were wrapped in purple-blue blankets about their feet
while their faces were painted in scarlet. Behind me, the
Panamints rose like a mile-high wall, dark against the sinking
sun.
"The old Paiute smoked
my tobacco for a long time before he reverently blew the smoke to
the four directions. Finally he spoke.
"’You ask me if we heard of the great silver airships in the days
before white-man brought his wagon trains into the land?’
"’Yes grandfather, I come seeking knowledge.’ (Among all tribes of
my people, grandfather is the term of greatest respect which one man
can pay to another.)
"’We, the Paiute Nation, have known of these
ships for
untold generations. We also believe that we know something of the
people who fly them. They are called The Hav-musuvs.’
"’Who are the Hav-musuvs?’
"’They are a people of the Panamints, and they are as ancient as Tomesha itself.’
"He smiled a little at my confusion.
"’You do not understand? Of course not. You are not a Paiute. Then
listen closely and I will lead you back along the trail of the dim
past.
"’When the world was young, and this valley which is now dry,
parched desert, was a lush, hidden harbor of a blue water- sea which
stretched from half way up those mountains to the Gulf of
California, it is said that the Hav-musuvs came here in
huge rowing-ships. They found great caverns in the Panamints,
and in them they built one of their cities. At that time California
was the island which the Indians of that state told the Spanish it
was, and which they marked so on their maps.
"’Living in their hidden city,
the Hav-musuvs ruled the sea
with their fast rowing-ships, trading with far-away peoples and
bringing strange goods to the great quays said still to exist in the
caverns.
"’Then as untold centuries rolled past, the climate began to change.
The water in the lake went down until there was no longer a way to
the sea. First the way was broken only by the southern mountains,
over the tops of which goods could be carried. But as time went by,
the water continued to shrink, until the day came when only a dry
crust was all that remained of the great blue lake. Then the desert
came, and the Fire-God began to walk across Tomesha, The
Flaming-Land.
"’When the Hav-musuvs could no longer use their great
rowing-ships, they began to think of other means to reach the world
beyond. I suppose that is how it happened. We know that they began
to use flying canoes. At first they were not large, these silvery
ships with wings. They moved with a slight whirring sound, and a
dipping movement, like an eagle.
"’The passing centuries brought other changes. Tribe after tribe
swept across the land, fighting to possess it for awhile and passing
like the storm of sand. In their mountain city still in the caverns,
the Hav-musuvs dwelt in peace, far removed from the conflict.
Sometimes they were seen in the distance, in their flying ships
or riding on the snowy-white animals which took them from
ledge to ledge up the cliffs. We have never seen these strange
animals at any other place. To these people the passing
centuries brought only larger and larger ships, moving always more
silently.’
"’Have you ever seen a Hav-musuv?’
"’No, but we have many stories of them. There are reasons why one
does not become too curious.’
"’Reasons?’
"’Yes. These strange people have
weapons. One is a small tube
which stuns one with a prickly feeling like a rain of cactus
needles. One cannot move for hours, and during this time the
mysterious ones vanish up the cliffs. The other weapon is deadly. It
is a long, silvery tube. When this is pointed at you, death follows
immediately.’
"’But tell me about these people. What do they look like and how do
they dress?’
"’They are a beautiful people. Their skin is a golden tint,
and a head band holds back their long dark hair. They dress always
in a white fine-spun garment which wraps around them and is draped
upon one shoulder. Pale sandals are worn upon their feet...’
"His voice trailed away in a puff of smoke. The purple shadows
rising up the walls of the Funerals splashed like the waves of the
ghost lake. The old man seemed to have fallen into a sort of trance,
but I had one more question.
"’Has any Paiute ever spoken to a
Hav-musuv, or were
the Paiutes here when the great rowing-ships first appeared?’
"For some moments I wondered if he had heard me. Yet as is our
custom, I waited patiently for the answer. Again he went through the
ritual of the smoke-breathing to the four directions, and then his
soft voice continued:
"’Yes. Once in the not-so-distant-past, but yet many generations
before the coming of the Spanish, a Paiute chief lost his bride by
sudden death. In his great and overwhelming grief, he thought of the Hav-musuvs and their long tube-of-death. He wished to join
her, so he bid farewell to his sorrowing people and set off to find
the Hav-musuvs. None appeared until the chief began to climb
the almost unscaleable Panamints. Then one of the men in white
appeared suddenly before him with the long tube, and motioned him
back. The chief made signs that he wished to die, and came on. The
man in white made a long singing whistle and other Hav-musuvs
appeared. They spoke together in a strange tongue and then regarded
the chief thought- fully. Finally they made signs to him making him
understand that they would take him with them.
"’Many weeks after his people had mourned him for dead,
the
Paiute chief came back to his camp. He had been in the giant
underground valley of the Hav-musuvs, he said, where white
lights which burn night and day and never go out, or need any fuel,
lit an ancient city of marble beauty. There he learned the language
and the history of the mysterious people, giving them in turn the language and legends of the Paiutes. He said that he would have
liked to remain there forever in the peace and beauty of their life,
but they bade him return and use his new knowledge for his people.’
"I could not help but ask the inevitable.
"’Do you believe this story of the chief?’
"His eyes studied the wisps of smoke for some minutes before he
answered.
"’I do not know. When a man is lost in Tomesha, and the
Fire-God is walking across the salt crust, strange dreams like
clouds, fog through his mind. No man can breathe the hot breath of
the Fire-God and long remain sane. Of course, the Paiutes
have thought of this. No people knows the moods of Tomesha
better than they.
"’You asked me to tell you the legend of the flying ships. I
have told you what the young men of the tribe do not know, for they
no longer listen to the stories of the past. Now you ask me if I
believe. I answer this. Turn around. Look behind you at that wall of
the Panamints. How many giant caverns could open there, being
hidden by the lights and shadows of the rocks? How many could open
outward or inward and never be seen behind the arrow-like pinnacles
before them? How many ships could swoop down like an eagle from the
beyond, on summer nights when the fires of the furnace-sands have
closed away the valley from the eyes of the white-man? How many Hav-musuvs could live in their eternal peace away from the noise
of white-man’s guns in their unscaleable stronghold? This has always
been a land of mystery. Nothing can change that. Not even white-man
with his flying engines, for should they come too close to the wall
of the Panamints a sharp wind like the flying arrow can sheer off a
wing. Tomesha hides its secrets well even in winter, but no
man can pry into them when the Fire-God draws the hot veil of his
breath across the passes.
"’I must still answer your question with my mind in doubt, for we
speak of a weird land. White-man does not yet know it as well as the Paiutes, and we have ever held it in awe. It is still the
forbidden ‘Tomesha - Land-Of-The-Flaming-Earth.’"
Coincidentally or not, this
same ‘legend’ was repeated in amazing similarity by an old prospector by
the name of Bourke Lee in his book "DEATH VALLEY MEN"
(Macmillan Co., New York, 1932).
However, Lee stated that it was
NOT a legend, but an actual account of the discovery of a (now
abandoned) city WITHIN the Panamint Mountains as he heard it from
three other people who claimed to have seen this ancient wonder beneath
the earth.
Additional Information
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