"At first, the world was a vast sea, all of it salty seawater (Pa'pa), and there was nothing else..."
"The great Sky God and the Sea God were nurtured together in the sea, brothers born from the same egg... They both had their eyes closed as they floated up to the surface. The Sea God opened his eyes and looked once; the seawater blinded him, and he sank to the bottom of the sea. The Sky God opened his eyes and looked once; the sky let him see, and he rose into the heavens (Kukatem)..."
"Then the Sky God created red ants. On the great sea, the ants used their own bodies to fill in the first red earth (Sujam). The Sky God then made black eagles (Qawi), but there was no light, so they could not see. They lost their way, and so they kept soaring through the sky, unable to find a place to roost..."
"The Sky God pondered, then used red, yellow, and black clay to pinch out a round disk, and threw it far into the sky, where it became the moon (Kaa'ip), and thus there was light... But the moon was too dim, so He made another bright one and threw it once more, and it became the sun (Makway)... And before He rose into the sky, He used the scraps from the sun and the moon to make man and woman. Those were the ancestors of the Kumeyaay (Tama'), the sun and moon in the Sky God's hands!..."
On the red seashore, in the dusk where sun and moon shone together, the Kumeyaay Priests of the Ipa Tribe shook wooden rattles and sang ancient, timeworn songs. They wore clustered crowns of black eagle feathers, draped themselves in cloth robes of red, yellow, and black,