Rainbow Bridge Myth

The legend of the Chumash people and their love of dolphins

The first Chumash people were created on Santa Cruz Island.  They were made from the seeds of a Magic Plant by the Earth Goddess, whose name was Hutash.  Hutash was married to the Sky Snake, the Milky Way.  He could make lightning bolts with his tongue.  One day, he decided to make a gift to the Chumash people.  He sent down a bolt of lightning, and this started a fire.  After this, people kept fires burning so that they could keep warm, and so that they could cook their food.   In those days, the Condor was a white bird.  But the Condor was very curious about the fire he saw burning in the Chumash village.  He wanted to find out what it was.  So he flew very low over the fire to get a better look.  But he flew too close; he got his feathers scorched and they turned black.  So now the Condor is a black bird, with just a little white under the wings where they didn’t get burned.   After the Sky Snake gave them fire, the Chumash people lived more comfortably.  More people were born each year, and their villages got bigger and bigger.  Santa Cruz Island was getting crowded.  And the noise the people made was starting to annoy Hutash.  It kept her awake at night.  So, finally, she decided that some of the Chumash would have to move off the island.  They would have to go to the main land, where there weren’t any people living in those days.  But how were the people going to get across the water to the mainland?  Finally, Hutash had an idea of making a bridge out of a rainbow.  She made a very long, very high rainbow, which stretched from the tallest mountain on Santa Cruz Island all the way to the tall mountains near Carpinteria.  Hutash told the people to go across the Rainbow Bridge, and fill the whole world with people.   So the Chumash  people started to go across the bridge. Some of them got across safely, but some people made the mistake of looking down.  It was a long way down to the water, and the fog was swirling around.  They got so dizzy that some of them fell off the Rainbow Bridge, down, down, through the fog, into the ocean.  Hutash felt very badly about this, because she had told them to cross the bridge.  She didn’t want them to drown.  Instead, she turned them into dolphins.  So the Chumash always said that the dolphins were their brothers.  

Story and images courtesy of Santa Ynez Chumash Reservation.