Yayali the Giant
Miwok · numen · myth age (first people / animal people time) · Recorded classification
Yayali is the man-eating giant of the Central Sierra Miwok, attested in two independent versions in Gifford's Miwok Myths (tales 3 and 14). He roams the hills hunting the animal-people, kills Chipmunk with the stone in his burden basket, and forcibly takes Chipmunk's widow as a wife; she deceives him, escapes with her children, and with her kin brings about the giant's death, a fall into fire or from a bridge in the recorded variants.
Domains
- cannibal giants
Powers
- to kill victims with a stone carried in his burden basket
Sources
- Yayali is the cannibal giant of Central Sierra Miwok narrative who kills Chipmunk and is finally destroyed by Chipmunk's widow and her kin.: Edward Winslow Gifford, "Miwok Myths," University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 12(8), 1917 (secondary); Edward W. Gifford and Gwendoline Harris Block, Californian Indian Nights Entertainments, Arthur H. Clark Co., 1930 (secondary)