Whee-me-me-ow-ah

Whee-me-me-ow-ah, the Great Chief Above, is the sky-dwelling creator of Yakama tradition. Living alone in the world above, he descended to the shallow waters and threw up handfuls of mud that hardened into land, piling some so high that it froze into the mountains; he clothed the earth with trees, roots and berries, then shaped a man from a ball of mud and taught him to take fish from the rivers and game from the forests. The account was told by Coteeakun, an associate of the prophet Smohalla, to Major J. W. MacMurray in the 1880s. Sources differ on the division of labor between the Chief Above and Coyote: the loftier acts of world-making belong to the Chief Above, while the ordering of rivers, salmon and the shaping of peoples is most often credited to Coyote acting in the world below.

Domains

• creation
• sky

Powers

• shape the earth from mud
• make the first human being

Epithets

• Whee-me-me-ow-ah — the Great Chief AboveElla E. Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest (1953). (secondary)

Relations

• ally: SpilyayIn several tellings Coyote acts as the maker's agent in ordering the world for people.Ella E. Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest (1953): the making of humankind is ascribed to the Chief Above or, in some tellings, to his agent Coyote. (secondary)

Sources

• Whee-me-me-ow-ah, the Great Chief Above, dwelt alone in the sky and made the earth, mountains, plants and the first human being.: Ella E. Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953). (secondary); Yakama creation account told by Coteeakun to Major J. W. MacMurray, 1884-85; reproduced in Clark (1953). (secondary)