The Three Sisters

The three sisters

Cahuilla Elder Francisco Patencio told the story of three sisters who were stars and four other stars that were the jewels they wore on their arms, neck and on their caps. The Three Sisters appear in June. We know them as the Pleiades, the Cahuilla as che–he–yom.

There were two brothers, one who was ashamed because his arm was crippled from a snake bite. He was is–sel–e–con–nup. He went through the smoke hole in the roof of their house into the sky. His brother, hul–le–nuh, look for him and looked at the smoke hole and knew that he had gone into the sky. The first brother star comes out in January, the second in February.

The Three Sisters, before they went into the sky, used to tease an Indian maiden named to–quoush–hem–ish because some of her teeth were missing in the front of her mouth. She became ashamed and went into the sky too. She became the most important star, the North Star. Her necklace of jewels hangs below but she always keeps her face turned away from The Three Sisters.