A CATACLYSM IN THE SIERRA. d07 
north of Hatchatchie Valley (erroneously spelled Hetch Hetchy). It ap- 
pears to have no name among Americans, but the Indians call it O-wai’-a- 
nuh, which is manifestly a dialectic variation of a-wai’-a, the generic word for 
“Jake”. Nat. Screech, a veteran mountaineer and hunter, states that he 
visited this region in 1850, and at that time there was a valley along the 
river having the same dimensions that this lake now has. Again, in 1855, 
he happened to pass that way and discovered that the lake had been formed 
as it now exists. He was ata loss to account for its origin; but subse- 
quently he acquired the Miwok language as spoken at Little Gap, and 
while listening to the Indians one day he overheard them casually refer to 
the formation of this lake in an extraordinary manner. On being questioned 
they stated that there had been a tremendous cataclysm in that valley, the 
bottom of it having fallen out apparently, whereby the entire valley was 
submerged in the waters of the river. As nearly as he could ascertain from 
their imperfect methods of reckoning time this occurred in 1851; and in 
that year, while in the town of Sonora, Screech and many others remem- 
bered to have heard a huge explosion in that direction which they then 
supposed was caused by a local earthquake. 
On Drew’s Ranch, Middle Fork of the Tuolumne, lives an aged squaw 
called Dish-i, who was in the valley when this remarkable event occurred. 
According to her account the earth dropped in beneath their feet and the 
waters of the river leaped up.and came rushing upon them in a vast, roar- 
ing flood, almost perpendicular like a wall of rock. At first the Indians 
were stricken dumb and motionless with terror, but when they saw the 
waters coming they escaped for life, though thirty or forty were overtaken 
and drowned. Another squaw named Isabel says that the stubs of trees, 
which are still plainly visible deep down in the pellucid waters, are con- 
sidered by the old superstitious Indians to be evil spirits, the demons of 
the place, reaching up their arms, and that they fear them greatly. This 
account, if authentic, is valuable as throwing some light on the origin of 
Yosemite and other great canons of the high Sierra. 
An Indian of Garrote narrated to me a myth of the creation of man 
and woman by the coyote, which contained a very large amount of aboriginal 
dirt. When the legends of the California Indians are pure, which they 
