Matavilya

Matavilya, also spelled Matavilye, is the first-born creator of Mohave cosmogony, son of the primordial Sky and Earth. Born where sky met earth, he led the first people to the origin place in the Mohave Valley and raised the Great Dark House at Avikwame, Spirit Mountain, where he began to order the world and institute custom. Having given offense, in most tellings an improper gesture toward his daughter Frog, he was bewitched by her: she seized his bodily leavings and worked sickness upon him, and he weakened and died, the first being to do so. His death established mortality and the cremation rite, and the ordering of the world then passed to his younger brother Mastamho. Sources differ on the exact offense and on whether Frog acted alone.

Parentage

• Sky
• Earth

Children

• Frog

Domains

• creation
• death
• mortuary rites

Powers

• institutes the first customs
• dies the first death

Epithets

• the first-born

Relations

• sibling: Mastamho
• enemy: Frog

Sources

• John G. Bourke, 'Notes on the Cosmogony and Theogony of the Mojave Indians of the Rio Colorado, Arizona,' Journal of American Folklore 2, no. 6 (1889): 169-189.
• A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, BAE Bulletin 78 (1925), 'The Mohave,' pp. 770-771.
• A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, BAE Bulletin 78 (1925), pp. 749-751, 770-771.