Quality of the Narrative
So much for the content of the narrative: now as to its form. First of all, although the story is not accompanied by songs, it is developed according to the same pattern as the song-cycle myths. Moreover, the informant was just as insistent as the majority of narrators that he got his knowledge through dreaming.
However, the approach in the telling is less formally decorative and more rational than in other narratives. There is actually less story, in the sense of there being a minimum of events, a maximum of explanation. The account is therefore bald and didactic. One sees the narrator throughout aiming to be clear even at the cost of repetition or prolixity.
In fact, repetition is deliberately indulged in as part of the didactic style. Mastamho talks to himself of what he will do, then perhaps tells the people that he will do it, then goes and does it; after which, he may explain to them what he has done. Or he will have them try the innovation, in which case it may be four times before they learn, or before he finds the correct manner.
Accordingly, the pace throughout is tantalizingly slow. The story could have been condensed by me, but its characteristic manner and style would thereby have been completely discarded. There are constant references to “This will be, but it is not yet.” Such antitheses seem to serve both emphasis and clarity. For instance, paragraph 62, “If people dream of you, they will kill enemies; if people dream of being in darkness, they will not kill them.” Or again, paragraph 70, “I will not let you go to a distance: I want you to stay in this country.” Balances of this sort constitute a distinct stylistic manner, rudimentary though the devices may be from a literary point of view.
The Mastamho account contains certain minor inconsistencies, but they are not inconsistencies of identity or kinship of person, or of topography, as in the Cane narrative; nor are they due to sloppiness of telling, as in the Coyote stories. The chief inconsistencies noted are the fact that Mastamho keeps saying that he will teach the people everything in four nights before his transformation into the bald eagle, but then actually is six nights doing it; and similarly he at first separates the people into four future tribes—three in the desert and the Mohave—but then later there are six, the River Kamia and Yuma suddenly appearing with the Mohave. These discrepancies should not be charged too seriously against the narrator’s care and precision. The story is an exceedingly long one. He told it at intervals during nine days. Part of my time was tied to University duties, so that there would be whole days of interruption. While I made no detailed record, I assume that we spent at least four working days in the telling and Englishing. This would mean a minimum of two days, or say twelve to fifteen hours, of Mohave narration by the informant, distributed over more than a week. Few people could follow one thread of telling so long as this with so few discrepancies.