Father Gerónimo Boscana[V-22] gives us the following relation of the faith and worship of the Acagchemem nations, in the valley and neighborhood of San Juan Capistrano, California. Part of it would fall naturally into that part of this work alloted to origin; but the whole is so intimately mixed with so much concerning the life, deeds, and worship of various supernatural personages that it has seemed better to fit its present position than any other. Of the first part of the tradition there are two versions--if indeed they be versions of the same tradition. We give first that version held by the _serranos_, or highlanders, of the interior country, three or four leagues inland from the said San Juan Capistrano:--
Before the material world at all existed there lived two beings, brother and sister, of a nature that can not be explained; the brother living above, and his name meaning the Heavens, the sister living below and her name signifying Earth. From the union of these two, there sprang a numerous offspring. Earth and sand were the first fruits of this marriage; then were born rocks and stones; then trees both great and small; then grass and herbs; then animals; lastly was born a great personage called Ouiot, who was a "grand captain." By some unknown mother many children of a medicine race were born to this Ouiot. All these things happened in the north; and afterward when men were created they were created in the north; but as the people multiplied they moved toward the south, the earth growing larger also and extending itself in the same direction.
[Sidenote: THE COYOTE OF THE ACAGCHEMEMS.]
In process of time, Ouiot becoming old, his children plotted to kill him, alleging that the infirmities of age made him unfit any longer to govern them or attend to their welfare. So they put a strong poison in his drink, and when he drank of it a sore sickness came upon him; he rose up and left his home in the mountains and went down to what is now the sea-shore, though at that time there was no sea there. His mother, whose name is the Earth, mixed him an antidote in a large shell, and set the potion out in the sun to brew; but the fragrance of it attracted the attention of the Coyote, who came and overset the shell. So Ouiot sickened to death, and though he told his children that he would shortly return and be with them again, he has never been seen since. All the people made a great pile of wood and burnt his body there, and just as the ceremony began the Coyote leaped upon the body, saying that he would burn with it; but he only tore a piece of flesh from the stomach and ate it and escaped. After that the title of the Coyote was changed from Eyacque, which means Sub-captain, to Eno, that is to say, Thief and Cannibal.