"The water. it can't be hurt. The white people go to the river and turn it into dry land. The water says. 'I! don't care. I am water. You can use me all you wish. I am always the same. I can't be used up. Use me. I am water. You can't hurt me.' The white people use the water of sacred springs in their houses. The water says, 'That is all right. You can use me but you can't overcome me.' All that is water says this. 'Wherever you put me I'll be in my home. I am awfully smart. Lead me out of my springs, lead me from my rivers, but I came from the ocean and I shall go back into the ocean. You can dig a ditch and put me in it. but I go only so far and I am out of sight. I am awfully smart. When I am out of sight I am on my way home.'"

Told by a Wintu woman to ethnographer
Dorothy Demetrocopoulou in 1930.
From "World View of California Indians," p. 210