Gifford's "Kamia origin story", 1931

Kamia "origin story"

Gifford's study of The Komia of Imperial Valley, published in the Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin in 1931, describes a tribal "origin story":

The Kamia ancestors camped on the eastern side of Salton Sea, from which place they later scattered.... The dispersal of the people from their camping place at Salton Sea was due to fear created by the appearance from the north of a female transvestite (Warharmi) and two male twins called Madkwahomai. These were the introducers of Kamia culture.... the transvestite and the twins ... were the bearers of the seeds of cultivated plants.