They were thirsty after their long journey across the
mountains. They hurried forward to drink of the waters, and the woman
was still in advance when she reached Lake Awaia. Then she dipped up the
water in her basket and drank of it. She drank up all the water. The
lake was dry before her husband reached it. And because the woman drank
all the water, there came a drought. The earth dried tip. There was no
grass, nor any green thing.
But the man was angry because he had no water to drink. He beat the
woman with his staff and she fled, but he followed and beat her even
more. Then the woman wept. In her anger she turned and flung her basket
at the man. And even then they were changed into stone. The woman's
basket lies upturned beside the man. The woman's face is tear-stained,
with long dark lines trailing down.
South Dome is the woman and North Dome is the husband. The Indian woman
cuts her hair straight across the forehead, and allows the sides to drop
along her cheeks, forming a square face.
Historic Tradition of the Upper Tuolumne
Yosemite Valley
(As given by Mr. Stephen Powers, 1877.)(4)
There is a lake-like expansion of the Upper Tuolumne some four miles
long and from a half mile to a mile wide, directly north of Hatchatchie
Valley (erroneously spelled Hetch Hetchy). It appears to have no name
among Americans, but the Indians call it 0-wai-a-nuh, which is
manifestly a dialectic variation of a-wai'-a, the generic word for
"lake.
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