THE POOR TURKEY GIRL
Long, long ago, our ancients had neither sheep nor horses nor cattle; yet they had domestic animals of various kinds--amongst them Turkeys.

In Mátsaki, or the Salt City, there dwelt at this time many very wealthy families, who possessed large flocks of these birds, which it was their custom to have their slaves or the poor people of the town herd in the plains round about Thunder Mountain, below which their town stood, and on the mesas beyond.

Now, in Mátsaki at this time there stood, away out near the border of the town, a little tumbledown, single-room house, wherein there lived alone a very poor girl,--so poor that her clothes were patched and tattered and dirty, and her person, on account of long neglect and ill-fare, shameful to look upon, though she herself was not ugly, but had a winning face and bright eyes; that is, if the face had been more oval and the eyes less oppressed with care. So poor was she that she herded Turkeys for a living; and little was given to her except the food she subsisted on from day to day, and perhaps now and then a piece of old, worn-out clothing.

Like the extremely poor everywhere and at all times, she was humble, and by her longing for kindness, which she never received, she was made kind even to the creatures that depended upon her,

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and lavished this kindness upon the Turkeys she drove to and from the plains every day. Thus, the Turkeys, appreciating this, were very obedient. They loved their mistress so much that at her call they would unhesitatingly come, or at her behest go whithersoever and whensoever she wished.

One day this poor girl, driving her Turkeys down into the plains, passed near Old Zuñi,--the Middle Ant Hill of the World, as our ancients have taught us to call our home,--and as she went along, she heard the herald-priest proclaiming from the house-top that the Dance of the Sacred Bird (which is a very blessed and welcome festival to our people, especially to the youths and maidens who are permitted to join in the dance) would take place in four days.

Now, this poor girl had never been permitted to join in or even to watch the great festivities of our people or the people in the neighboring towns, and naturally she longed very much to see this dance. But she put aside her longing, because she reflected: "It is impossible that I should watch, much less join in the Dance of the Sacred Bird, ugly and ill-clad as I am." And thus musing to herself, and talking to her Turkeys, as was her custom, she drove them on, and at night returned them to their cages round the edges and in the plazas of the town.

Every day after that, until the day named for the dance, this poor girl, as she drove her Turkeys out in the morning, saw the people busy in cleaning and preparing their garments, cooking delicacies, and otherwise making ready for the festival to

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which they had been duly invited by the other villagers, and heard them talking and laughing merrily at the prospect of the coming holiday. So, as she went about with her Turkeys through the day, she would talk to them, though she never dreamed that they understood a word of what she was saying.

It seems that they did understand even more than she said to them, for on the fourth day, after the people of Mátsaki had all departed toward Zuñi and the girl was wandering around the plains alone with her Turkeys, one of the big Gobblers strutted up to her, and making a fan of his tail, and skirts, as it were, of his wings, blushed with pride and puffed with importance, stretched out his neck and said: "Maiden mother, we know what your thoughts are, and truly we pity you, and wish that, like the other people of Mátsaki, you might enjoy this holiday in the town below. We have said to ourselves at night, after you have placed us safely and comfortably in our cages: 'Truly our maiden mother is as worthy to enjoy these things as any one in Mátsaki, or even Zuñi.' Now, listen well, for I speak the speech of all the elders of my people: If you will drive us in early this afternoon, when the dance is most gay and the people are most happy, we will help you to make yourself so handsome and so prettily dressed that never a man, woman, or child amongst all those who are assembled at the dance will know you; but rather, especially the young men, will wonder whence you came, and long to lay hold of

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your hand in the circle that forms round the altar to dance. Maiden mother, would you like to go to see this dance, and even to join in it, and be merry with the best of your people?"

The poor girl was at first surprised. Then it seemed all so natural that the Turkeys should talk to her as she did to them, that she sat down on a little mound, and, leaning over, looked at them and said: "My beloved Turkeys, how glad I am that we may speak together! But why should you tell me of things that you full well know I so long to, but cannot by any possible means, do?"

"Trust in us," said the old Gobbler, "for I speak the speech of my people, and when we begin to call and call and gobble and gobble, and turn toward our home in Mátsaki, do you follow us, and we will show you what we can do for you. Only let me tell you one thing: No one knows how much happiness and good fortune may come to you if you but enjoy temperately the pleasures we enable you to participate in. But if, in the excess of your enjoyment, you should forget us, who are your friends, yet so much depend upon you, then we will think: 'Behold, this our maiden mother, though so humble and poor, deserves, forsooth, her hard life, because, were she more prosperous, she would be unto others as others now are unto her.'"

"Never fear, O my Turkeys," cried the maiden,--only half trusting that they could do so much for her, yet longing to try,--"never fear. In everything you direct me to do I will be obedient as you always have been to me."

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The sun had scarce begun to decline, when the Turkeys of their own accord turned homeward, and the maiden followed them, light of heart. They knew their places well, and immediately ran to them. When all had entered, even their bare-legged children, the old Gobbler called to the maiden, saying: "Enter our house." She therefore went in. "Now, maiden, sit down," said he, "and give to me and my companions, one by one, your articles of clothing. We will see if we cannot renew them."

The maiden obediently drew off the ragged old mantle that covered her shoulders and cast it on the ground before the speaker. He seized it in his beak, and spread it out, and picked and picked at it; then he trod upon it, and lowering his wings, began to strut back and forth over it. Then taking it up in his beak, and continuing to strut, he puffed and puffed, and laid it down at the feet of the maiden, a beautiful white embroidered cotton mantle. Then another Gobbler came forth, and she gave him another article of dress, and then another and another, until each garment the maiden had worn was new and as beautiful as any possessed by her mistresses in Mátsaki.

Before the maiden donned all these garments, the Turkeys circled about her, singing and singing, and clucking and clucking, and brushing her with their wings, until her person was as clean and her skin as smooth and bright as that of the fairest maiden of the wealthiest home in Mátsaki. Her hair was soft and wavy, instead of being an ugly, sun-burnt shock; her checks were full and dimpled,

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and her eyes dancing with smiles,--for she now saw how true had been the words of the Turkeys.

Finally, one old Turkey came forward and said: "Only the rich ornaments worn by those who have many possessions are lacking to thee, O maiden mother. Wait a moment. We have keen eyes, and have gathered many valuable things,--as such things, being small, though precious, are apt to be lost from time to time by men and maidens."

Spreading his wings, he trod round and round upon the ground, throwing his head back, and laying his wattled beard on his neck; and, presently beginning to cough, he produced in his beak a beautiful necklace; another Turkey brought forth earrings, and so on, until all the proper ornaments appeared, befitting a well-clad maiden of the olden days, and were laid at the feet of the poor Turkey girl.

With these beautiful things she decorated herself, and, thanking the Turkeys over and over, she started to go, and they called out: "O maiden mother, leave open the wicket, for who knows whether you will remember your Turkeys or not when your fortunes are changed, and if you will not grow ashamed that you have been the maiden mother of Turkeys? But we love you, and would bring you to good fortune. Therefore, remember our words of advice, and do not tarry too long."

"I will surely remember, O my Turkeys!" answered the maiden.

Hastily she sped away down the river path toward Zuñi. When she arrived there, she went in

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at the western side of the town and through one of the long covered ways that lead into the dance court. When she came just inside of the court, behold, every one began to look at her, and many murmurs ran through the crowd,--murmurs of astonishment at her beauty and the richness of her dress,--and the people were all asking one another, "Whence comes this beautiful maiden?"

Not long did she stand there neglected. The chiefs of the dance, all gorgeous in their holiday attire, hastily came to her, and, with apologies for the incompleteness of their arrangements,--though these arrangements were as complete as they possibly could be,--invited her to join the youths and maidens dancing round the musicians and the altar in the center of the plaza.

With a blush and a smile and a toss of her hair over her eyes, the maiden stepped into the circle, and the finest youths among the dancers vied with one another for her hand. Her heart became light and her feet merry, and the music sped her breath to rapid coming and going, and the warmth swept over her face, and she danced and danced until the sun sank low in the west.

But, alas! In the excess of her enjoyment, she thought not of her Turkeys, or, if she thought of them, she said to herself, "How is this, that I should go away from the most precious consideration to my flock of gobbling Turkeys? I will stay a while longer, and just before the sun sets I will run back to them, that these people may not see who I am, and that I may have the joy of hearing

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them talk day after day and wonder who the girl was who joined in their dance."

So the time sped on, and another dance was called, and another, and never a moment did the people let her rest; but they would have her in every dance as they moved around the musicians and the altar in the center of the plaza.

At last the sun set, and the dance was well-nigh over, when, suddenly breaking away, the girl ran out, and, being swift of foot,--more so than most of the people of her village,--she sped up the river path before any one could follow the course she had taken.

Meantime, as it grew late, the Turkeys began to wonder and wonder that their maiden mother did not return to them. At last a gray old Gobbler mournfully exclaimed, "It is as we might have expected. She has forgotten us; therefore is she not worthy of better things than those she has been accustomed to. Let us go forth to the mountains and endure no more of this irksome captivity, inasmuch as we may no longer think our maiden mother as good and true as once we thought her."

So, calling and calling to one another in loud voices, they trooped out of their cage and ran up toward the Cañon of the Cottonwoods, and then round behind Thunder Mountain, through the Gateway of Zuñi, and so on up the valley.

All breathless, the maiden arrived at the open wicket and looked in. Behold, not a Turkey was there! Trailing them, she ran and she ran up the

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valley to overtake them; but they were far ahead, and it was only after a long time that she came within the sound of their voices, and then, redoubling her speed, well-nigh overtook them, when she heard them singing this song:

"K'yaanaa, to! to!
K'yaanaa, to! to!
Ye ye!
K'yaanaa, to! to!
K'yaanaa, to! to!
Yee huli huli!

"Hon awen Tsita
Itiwanakwïn
Otakyaan aaa kyaa;
Lesna akyaaa
Shoya-k'oskwi
Teyäthltokwïn
Hon aawani!

Ye yee huli huli,
Tot-tot, tot-tot, tot-tot,
Huli huli!
Tot-tot, tot-tot, tot-tot,
Huli huli!"[1]

Up the river, to! to!
Up the river, to! to!
Sing ye ye!
Up the river, to! to!
Up the river, to! to!
Sing yee huli huli!

Oh, our maiden mother
To the Middle Place
To dance went away;

[1. This, like all the folk-songs, is difficult of translation; and that which is given is only approximate.]

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Therefore as she lingers,
To the Cañon Mesa
And the plains above it
We all run away!

Sing ye yee huli huli,
Tot-tot, tot-tot, tot-tot,
Huli huli!
Tot-tot, tot-tot, tot-tot,
Huli huli!"

Hearing this, the maiden called to her Turkeys; called and called in vain. They only quickened their steps, spreading their wings to help them along, singing the song over and over until, indeed, they came to the base of the Cañon Mesa, at the borders of the Zuñi Mountains. Then singing once more their song in full chorus, they spread wide their wings, and thlakwa-a-a, thlakwa-a-a, they fluttered away over the plains above.

The poor Turkey girl threw her hands up and looked down at her dress. With dust and sweat, behold! it was changed to what it had been, and she was the same poor Turkey girl that she was before. Weary, grieving, and despairing, she returned to Mátsaki.

Thus it was in the days of the ancients. Therefore, where you see the rocks leading up to the top of Cañon Mesa (Shoya-k'oskwi), there are the tracks of turkeys and other figures to be seen. The latter are the song that the Turkeys sang, graven in the rocks; and all over the plains along the borders of Zuñi Mountains since that day turkeys have been more abundant than in any other place.

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After all, the gods dispose of men according as men are fitted; and if the poor be poor in heart and spirit as well as in appearance, how will they be aught but poor to the end of their days? Thus shortens my story.

HOW THE SUMMER BIRDS CAME
In the days of the ancients, in the town under Thunder Mountain called K'iákime, there lived a most beautiful maiden. But one thing which struck the people who knew her was that she seldom came forth from her room, or went out of her house; never seemed to care for the people around her, never seemed to care to see the young men when they were dancing.

Now, this was the way of it. Through the roof of her room was a little skylight, open, and when it rained, one of the Gods Of the Rain descended in the rain-drops and wooed this maiden, and married her all unknown to her people; so that she was in his company every time it rained, and when the dew fell at night, on his ladder of water descending he came, and she was very happy, and cared not for the society of men. By-and-by, behold! to the utter surprise of the people, whose eyes could not see this god, her husband, there was a little boy born to her.

Now, he was the child of the gods, and, therefore, before he was many days old, he had begun to run about and speak, and had wonderful intelligence and wonderful strength and vivacity. He was only a month or two old when he was like a child of five or six or eight years of age, and he would climb to the house-top and run down into the plaza and out around the village hunting birds

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or other small animals. With only his fingers and little stones for weapons, he never failed to slay and bring home these little creatures, and his mother's house was supplied more than any other house in the town with plumes for sacrifice, from the birds which he captured in this way.

Finally he observed that the older men of the tribe carried bows and arrows, and that the arrows went more swiftly and straighter than the stones he threw; and though he never failed to kill small animals, he found he could not kill the larger ones in that way. So he said to his mother one night: "Oh, mother, where does the wood grow that they make bows of, and where do they get sticks for their arrows? I wish you would tell me."

But the mother was quite silent; she didn't like to tell him, for she thought it would lead him away from the town and something would happen to him. But he kept questioning her until at last, weary with his importunities, she said: "Well, my little boy, if you go round the cliff here to the eastern side, there is a great hollow in the rocks, and down at the bottom of that hollow is a great cave. Now, around that shelter in the rocks are growing the trees out of which bows are made, and there also grow the bushes from which arrows are cut; they are so plentiful that they could supply the whole town, and furnish all the hunters here with bows and arrows; but they cannot get them, because in the cave lives a great Bear, a very savage being, and no one dares go near there to get timber for the bows or sticks for the arrows, because

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the Bear would surely devour whoever ventured there. He has devoured many of our people; therefore you must not go there to get these arrows.

"No, indeed," said the boy. But at night he lay down with much in his mind, and was so thoughtful that he hardly slept the whole night. He was planning what he would do in the morning.

The next morning his mother was busy about her work, and finally she went down to the spring for some water, and the little boy slipped out of the house, ran down the ladder, went to the riverside, stooped down, and crawled along the bank of the river, until he could get around on the side of the cliff where the little valley of the spring that flows under Thunder Mountain lies. There he climbed up and up until he came to the shelter in the rocks round on the eastern side of Thunder Mountain. The mouth of this hollow was entirely closed with fine yellow-wood and oak, the best timber we have for bows, and straight sprouts were growing everywhere out of which arrows could be made.

"Ah, this must be the place," said the boy, as he looked at it. I don't see any Bear. I think I will climb up and see if there is anything to be afraid of, and try if I can cut a stick before the Bear comes out."

He started and climbed into the mouth of the cavern, and his father, one of the Gods of the Rain, threw a tremendous shaft of lightning, and it thundered, and the cave closed together.

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"Ha!" cried the boy. "What in the world is the meaning of this?" Then he stood there a moment, and presently the clouds finished and the cave opened, and all was quiet. He started to go in once more, and down came the lightning again, to remind him that he should not go in there.

"Ha!" cried the boy again. "What in the world does it mean?" And he rubbed his eyes, it had rather stunned him,--and so soon as it had cleared away he tried again, and again for the fourth time.

Finally the god said, "Ah! I have reminded him and he does not heed. He must go his own way." So the boy climbed into the cave.

No sooner had he got in than it began to get dark, and Wah! came the Bear on his hind legs and grabbed the boy and began to squeeze him very tight.

"O my! O my!" cried he. Don't squeeze me so hard! It hurts; don't squeeze me so hard! My mother is one of the most beautiful women you ever saw!"

"Hollo!" exclaimed the Bear. "What is that you say?"

"My mother is one of the most beautiful women you ever saw!"

"Indeed!" said the Bear, as he relaxed his hold.

"My son, sit down. What did you come to my house for? I am sure you are very welcome."

"Why," said the boy, "I came to get a piece of wood for a bow and sticks for arrows."

Said the Bear, "I have looked out for this timber

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for a long time. There is none better in the whole country. Let me tell you what I will do. You don't look very strong. You haven't anything to cut the trees down with. I will go myself and cut down a tree for you. I will pick out a good one for a bow; not only that, but I will get fine sticks for arrows, too.

So he stalked off into the forest, and crack, crack, he smashed the trees down, and, picking out a good one, gnawed off the ends of it and brought it to the boy, then gathered a lot of fine straight sticks for arrow-shafts and brought them.

"There," said he, "take those home. Do you know how to make a bow, my son?"

"No, I don't very well," replied he.

"Well," said the Bear, "I have cut off the ends; make it about that length. Now take it home, and shave down the inside until it is thin enough to bend quickly at both ends, and lay it over the coals of fire so it will get hard and dry. That is the way to make a good bow."

"All right," said the boy; and as he took up the bundle of sticks and the stave for the bow, he said: "just come along toward night and I will introduce you to my mother."

"All right," said the old Bear; "I will be along just about sunset. Then I can look at your bow and see whether you have made it well or not."

So the boy trudged home with his bundle of sticks and his bow stave, and when he arrived there his mother happened to be climbing out, and saw him coming.

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"You wretched boy," she said, "I told you not to go out to the cave! I warrant you have been there where the Bear stays!"

"Oh, yes, my mother; just see what I have brought," said the boy. "I sold you to the Bear. He will be here to get you this evening. See what I have brought!" and he laid out his bow-timber and arrow-shafts.

"Oh," said she, "you are the most wretched and foolish of little boys; you pay no attention to what any one says to you; your mother's word is nothing but wind in your ears."

"Just see what I have brought home," said he. He worked as hard as he could to make his bow, stripped the arrow-shafts, smoothed and straightened them before the fire, and made the points of obsidian--very black it is; very hard and sharp were the points when he placed them on the arrows. Now, after placing the feathers on the arrows, he stood them up on the roof of the house against the parapet in the sunlight to dry; and he had his bow on the other side of the house against the other parapet to dry. He was still at work, toward sunset, when he happened to look up and saw the Bear coming along, slowly, comfortably, rolling over the sand.

"Ah!" said he, "the old man is coming." He paid no attention to him, however.

Presently the Bear came close to the ladder, and shook it to see if it was strong enough to hold him.

"Thou comest?" asked the boy.

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"Yes," said the Bear. "How have you been all day?"

"Happy," said the boy.

"How is your mother?"

"Happy," said the boy, "expecting you."

So the old Bear climbed up. "Ah, indeed," said he, as he got over the edge of the house, "have you made the bow?"

"Yes, after a fashion."

So the Bear went over, raised himself on his hind feet, looked at the bow, pulled it, and said, as he laid it down: "It is a splendid bow. What is this black stuff on these arrows?"

"Obsidian," answered the boy.

"These points are nothing but black coals," said the Bear.

"I tell you," said the boy, "they are good, black, flint arrow-heads, hard and sharp as any others."

"No," said the other, "nothing but coals."

"Now, suppose you let me try one of those coals on you," said the boy.

"All right," said the Bear. He walked over to the other side of the roof and stood there, and the boy took one of the arrows, fitted it to the bow, and let go. It went straight into the heart of the Bear, and even passed through him entirely.

"Wah!" uttered the Bear, as he gave a great snort and rolled over on the house-top and died.

"Ha, ha!" shouted the boy, "what you had intended to do unto me, thus unto you! Oh, mother!" called he, as he ran to the skyhole, "here is your husband; come and see him. I have killed him;

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but, then, he would have me make the experiment," said the boy.

"Oh, you foolish, foolish, disobedient boy!" said the mother. What have you been doing now? Are we safe?

"Oh, yes," said he; "my step-father is as passive as if he were asleep." And he went on and skinned his once prospective step-father, and then took out his heart and hung it to the cross-piece of the ladder as a sign that the people could go and get all the bow-timber and arrows they pleased.

That night, after the evening meal was over, the boy sat down with his mother, and he said: "By the way, mother, are there any monsters or fearful creatures anywhere round about this country that kill people and make trouble?"

"No," said the mother, "none whatever."

"I don't know about that; I think there must be," said the boy.

"No, there are none whatever, I tell you," answered the mother.

The boy began to tumble on the floor, rolling about, playing with his mother's blankets, and throwing things around, and once in a while he would ask her again the same question, until finally she got very cross with him and said: "Yes, if you want to know, down there in the valley, beyond the great plains of sagebrush, is a den of Misho Lizards who are fearful and deadly to every one who goes near them. Therefore you had better be careful how you run round the valley."

"What makes them so fearful?" asked he.

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"Well," said she, "they are venomous; they have a way of throwing from their mouths or breath a sort of fluid which, whenever it strikes a person, burns him, and whenever it strikes the eyes it blinds them. A great many people have perished there. Whenever a man arrives at their den they are very polite and greet him most courteously; they say: 'Come in; sit down right here in the middle of the floor before the fire.' But as soon as the person is seated in their house they gather round the walls and throw this venom on him, and he dies almost immediately."

"Is it possible?" responded the little boy; and for some reason or other he began to grow sleepy, and said: "Now, let us go to sleep, mother."

So he lay down and slept. Just as soon as it was light the next morning he aroused himself, dressed, took his bow and arrows, and, placing them in a corner near the ladder, said: "Oh, mother, give me my breakfast; I want to go and shoot some little birds. I would like to have some roasted birds for dinner."

She gave him his breakfast as quickly as she could, and he ran down the ladder and went to shooting at the birds, until he happened to see that his mother and others were out of sight; then he skulked into the sagebrush and went as straight as he could for the den of the Misho Lizards. There happened to be two young ones sunning themselves outside, and they said:

"Ah, my fine little fellow, glad to see you this morning. Come in, come in; the old ones will

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be very much pleased to entertain you. Come in!"

"Thank you," said the boy. He walked in, but he felt under his coat to see if a huge lump of rock salt he had was still there.

"Sit right down here," said the old people. The whole den was filled with these Misho Lizards, and they were excessively polite, every one of them.

The boy sat down, and the old Misho said to the young ones: "Hurry up, now; be quick!" And they began to throw their venom at him, and continued until he was all covered with it; but, knowing beforehand, and being the child of the gods, he was prepared and protected, and it did him no harm.

"Thank you, thank you," said the boy. "I will do the same thing. Then he pulled out the salt and pushed it down into the fire, where it exploded and entirely used up the whole council of Misho Lizards.

"There!" cried the boy. "Thus would you have done unto me, thus unto you."

He took two fine ones and cut out their hearts, then started for home. When he arrived there, he climbed the ladder and suspended the two hearts beside that of the Bear and went down into the house, saying, "Well, mother, is dinner ready?"

"There now," said she, "I know it. I saw you hang those hearts up. You have been down there."

"Yes," said he, "they are all gone--every solitary one of them."

"Oh, you foolish, foolish, disobedient fellow! I

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am all alone in the world, and if you should go to some of those fearful places some time and not comeback, who would hunt for me? What should I do?" said the mother.

"Don't be troubled, mother, now," said the boy. "I don't think I will go any more. There is nothing else of that kind around, is there, mother?"

"No, there is not," she replied; "not a thing. There may be somewhere in the world, but there is not anywhere here."

In the evening, as he sat with his mother, the boy kept questioning and teasing her to tell him of some other monsters--pulling on her skirts and repeating his questions.

"I tell you," she said, "there are no such creatures."

"Oh, mother, I know there are," said he, "and you must tell me about them."

So he continued to bother her until her patience gave out, and she told him of another monster. Said she: "If you follow that cañon down to the southeast, there is a very, very, very high cliff there, and the trail that goes over that cliff runs close by the side of a precipice. Now, that has been for ages a terrible place, for there is a Giant living there, who wears a hair-knot on his forehead. He lies there at length, sunning himself at his ease. He is very good-natured and very polite. His legs stretch across the trail on which men have to go who pass that way, and there is no other way to get by. And whenever a man tries to go by that trail, he says: 'Pass right along,

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pass right along; I am glad to see you. Here is a fresh trail; some one has just passed. Don't disturb me; I am sunning myself.' Down below is the den where his children live, and on the flesh of these people he feeds them."

"Mercy!" exclaimed the boy. "Fearful! I never shall go there, surely. That is too terrible! Come, let us go to sleep; I don't want to hear anything more about it."

But the next morning, just as soon as daylight appeared, he got up, dressed himself, and snatched a morsel of food.

His mother said to him: "Where are you going? Are you thinking of that place I told you about?"

"No," said he; "I am going to kill some prairie-dogs right here in sight. I will take my war-club."

So he took his war-club, and thrust it into his belt in front, ran down the hill on which the village stood, and straightway went off to the place his mother had told him of. When he reached the top of the rocks he looked down, and there, sure enough, lay the Giant with the forehead knot.

The Giant looked up and said: "Ah, my son, glad to see you this morning; glad to see you coming so early. Some one just passed here a little while ago; you can see his tracks there."

"Well," said the boy, "make room for me."

"Oh, just step right over," said the old man; "step right over me."

"I can't step over your great legs," said the boy; "draw them up."

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"All right," said the old Demon. So he drew his knees up. "There, now, there is plenty of room; pass right along, my son."

Just as the boy got near the place, he thrust out his leg suddenly that way, to kick him off the cliff; but the boy was too nimble for him, and jumped aside.

"Oh, dear me," cried the Monster; "I had a stitch in my leg; I had to stretch it out."

"Ah," said the boy, "you tried to kick me off, did you?"

"Oh, no," said the old villain I had a terrible stitch in my knee,"--and he began to knead his knee in the most vehement manner. "just pass right along; I trust it won't happen again."

The boy again attempted to pass, and the same thing happened as before.

"Oh, my knee! my knee!" exclaimed the Monster.

"Yes, your knee, your knee!" said the boy, as he whipped out his war-club and whacked the Giant on the head before he had time to recover himself. "Thus unto me you would have done, thus unto you!" said the boy.

No sooner had the Giant fallen than the little Top-knots gathered round him and began to eat; and they ate and ate and ate,--there were many of them, and they were voracious--until they came to the top-knot on the old fellow's head, and then one of them cried; "Oh, dear, alas and alas! this is our own father!"

And while they were still crying, the boy cut

{p. 79}

out the Giant's heart and slung it over his shoulder; then he climbed down the cliff to where the young Top-knots were, and slew them all except two,--a pair of them. Then he took these two, who were still young, like little children, and grasping one by the throat, wrung its neck and threw it into the air, when it suddenly became a winged creature, and spread out its wings and soared away, crying: "Peep, peep, peep," just as the falcons of today do. Then he took the other one by the neck, and swung it round and round, and flung it into the air, and it flew away with a heavy motion, and cried: "Boohoo, boohoo, boohoo!" and became an owl.

"Ah," said the boy, "born for evil, changed for good! Ye shall be the means whereby our children in the future shall sacrifice to the gods themselves."

Then he trudged along home with the Giant's heart, and when he got there, he hung it on the cross-piece of the ladder by the side of the other hearts. It was almost night then.

"There, now!" said his mother, as he entered the house; "I have been troubled almost to death by your not coming home sooner. You went off to the place I told you of; I know you did!"

"Ha!" said he, "of course I did. I went up there, and the poor fellows are all dead."

"Why will you not listen to me?" said she.

"Oh, it is all right, mother," said the boy. "It is all right." She went on scolding him in the usual fashion, but he paid no attention to her.

{p. 79}

As soon as she had sat down to her evening tasks, he asked: "Now, is there any other of these terrible creatures?"

"Well, I shall tell you of nothing more now," said she.

"Why, is there anything more?" asked the boy.

"No, there is not," replied she.

"Ah, mother, I think there must be."

"No; there is nothing more, I tell you."

"Ah, mother, I think there must be."

And he kept bothering and teasing until she told him again (she knew she would have to): "Yes, away down in the valley, some distance from here, near the little Cold-making Hill, there lives a fearful creature, a four-fold Elk or Bison, more enormous than any other living thing. Awiteli Wakashi he is called, and no one can go near him. He rushes stamping and bellowing about the country, and people never pass through that section from fear."

"Ah," said the boy don't tell me any more he must be a fearful creature, indeed."

"Yes; but you will be sure to go there," said she.

"Oh, no, no, mother; no, indeed!"

But the next morning he went earlier than ever, carrying with him his bows and arrows. He was so filled with dread, however, or pretended to be, that as he went along the trail he began to cry and sniffle, and walk very slowly, until he came near the hole of an old Gopher, his grandfather. The old fellow was working away, digging another

{p. 80}

cellar, throwing the dirt out, when he heard this crying. Said he: "That is my grandson; I wonder what he is up to now." So he ran and stuck his nose out of the hole he was digging, and said:

"Oh, my grandchild, where are you doing?"

The boy stopped and began to look around.

"Right here! right here!" cried the grandfather, calling his attention to the hole. "Come, my boy."

The boy put his foot in, and the hole enlarged, and he went down into it.

"Now, dry your eyes, my grandchild, and tell me what is the matter."

"Well," said the boy, "I was going to find the four-fold Bison. I wanted to take a look at him, but I am frightened!"

"Why, what is the matter? Why do you not go?" said the Gopher.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I thought I would try to kill him," he answered.

"Well, I will do what I can to help; you had better not try to do it alone. Sit here comfortably; dry your eyes, and I will see what I can do."

The old Gopher began to dig, dig, dig under the ground for a long way, making a fine tunnel, and packed it hard on the top and sides so that it would not fall in. He finally came to hear the "thud, thud, thud" of the heart of this creature, where it was lying, and dug the hole up to that spot. When he got there he saw the long layers of hair on its body, where no arrow could penetrate,

{p. 81}

and he cut the hair off, so that the skin showed white. Then he silently stole back to where the boy was and said: "Now, my boy, take your bow and arrows and go along through this hole until you get to where the tunnel turns upward, and then, if you look well, you will see a light patch. That is the skin next the heart of the four-fold Bison. He is sleeping there. You will hear the 'thud, thud, thud' of his heart. Shoot him exactly in the middle of that place, and then, mind you, turn around and run for your life, and the moment you get to my hole, tumble in, headforemost or any way."

So the boy did as he was told-crawled through the tunnel until he came to where it went upward, saw the light patch, and let fly an arrow with all his might, then rushed and scrambled back as hard as he could. With a roar that shook the earth the four-fold Bison fell over, then struggled to his feet, snorted, bellowed, and stuck his great horn into the tunnel, and like a flash of fire ripped it from end to end, just as the boy came tumbling into the deeper hole of his grandfather.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Gopher.

"He almost got me," said the boy.

"Sit still a moment and rest, my grandson," said the Gopher. "He didn't catch you. I will go and see whether he is dead."

So the Gopher stuck his nose out of the hole and saw there a great heap of flesh lying. He went out, nosed around, and smelt, jumped back, and went forward again until he came to the end

{p. 82}

of the creature, and then he took one of his nails and scratched out an eye, and there was no sign of life. So he ran back to the boy, and said: "Yes, he breathes no more; you need not fear him longer."

"Oh, thank you, my grandfather!" said the boy.

And he climbed out, and laid himself to work to skin the beast. He took off its great thick skin, and cut off a suitable piece of it, for the whole pelt was so large and heavy that he could not carry it; then he took out the animal's great heart, and finally one of the large intestines and filled it with blood, then started for home. He went slowly, because his load was so heavy, and when he arrived he hung the heart on the ladder by the side of the others, and dragged the pelt to the skyhole, and nearly scared the wits out of his mother by dropping it into the room.

"Oh, my child, now, here you are! Where have you been?" cried she. "I warned you of the place where the four-fold Bison was; I wonder that you ever came home."

"Ah, the poor creature said the boy he is dead. just look at this. He isn't handsome any more; he isn't strong and large any more."

"Oh, you wretched, wretched boy! You will be the death of me, as well as of yourself, some time," said the mother.

"No, mother," said the boy; "that is all nonsense."

That evening the boy said to his mother: "Now, mother, is there anything else of this kind left? If there is, I want to know it. Now, don't disappoint me by refusing to tell."

{p. 83}

Oh, my dear son," said she, "I wish you wouldn't ask me; but indeed there is. There are terrible birds, great Eagles, fearful Eagles, living over on Shuntekia. In the very middle of an enormous cliff is a hollow place in the rocks where is built their nest, and there are their young ones. Day after day, far and near, they catch up children and young men and women, and carry them away, never more to be seen. These birds are more terrible than all the rest, because how can one get near to slay them? My son, I do hope and trust that you will not go this time,--but, you foolish little boy, I see that you will go."

"Well, mother, let us go to sleep, and never mind anything about it," said the boy.

But after his mother had gone to sleep, he took the piece of rawhide he had skinned from the fourfold Bison, and, cutting it out, made himself a suit--a green rawhide suit, skin-tight almost, so that it was perfectly smooth. Then he scraped the hair off, greased it all over, and put it away inside a blanket so that it would not dry. In the morning, quite early, he took his weapons, and taking also his rawhide suit, and the section of the four-fold Bison's intestine which he had filled with blood, he ran into the inlet, and across it, and climbed the mesa near the Shuntekia cliff. When he came within a short distance of the nest of the Eagles, he stopped and slipped on his rawhide suit, and tied the intestine of blood round his neck, like a sausage.

Then he began to cry and shake his head, and he cried louder than there was any need of his

{p. 84}

doing in reality; for presently the old father of the Eagles, who was away up in the sky, just a mere speck, heard and saw him and came swishing down in a great circle, winding round and round the boy, and the boy looked up and began to cry louder still, as if frightened out of his wits, and finally rolled himself up like a porcupine, and threw himself down into the trail, crying and howling with apparent fear. The Eagle swooped down on him, and tried to grasp him in his talons, and, kopo kopooo, his claws simply slipped off the rawhide coat. Then the Eagle made a fiercer grab at him and grew angry, but his claws would continually slip off, until he tore a rent in the intestine about the boy's neck, and the blood began to stream over the boy's coat, making it more slippery than ever. When the Eagle smelt the blood, he thought he had got him, and it made him fiercer than ever; and finally, during his struggling, he got one talon through a stitch in the coat, and he spread out his wings, and flew up, and circled round and round over the point where the young Eagles nest was, when he let go and shook the boy free, and the boy rolled over and over and came down into the nest; but he struck on a great heap of brush, which broke his fall. He lay there quite still, and the old Eagle swooped down and poised himself on a great crag of rock near by, which was his usual perching place.

"There, my children, my little ones," said he, "I have brought you food. Feast yourselves! Feast yourselves! For that reason I brought it."

{p. 85}

So the little Eagles, who were very awkward, long-legged and short-winged, limped tip to the boy and reached out their claws and opened their beaks, ready to strike him in the face. He lay there quite still until they got very near, and then said to them: "Shhsht!" And they tumbled back, being awkward little fellows, and stretched up their necks and looked at him, as Eagles will.

Then the old Eagle said: "Why don't you eat him? Feast yourselves, my children, feast yourselves!"

So they advanced again, more cautiously this time, and a little more determinedly too; and they reached out their beaks to tear him, and he said "Shhsht!" and, under his breath, "Don't eat me! And they jumped back again.

"What in the world is the matter with you little fools?" said the old Eagle. "Eat him! I can't stay here any longer; I have to go away and hunt to feed you; but you don't seem to appreciate my efforts much." And he lifted his wings, rose into the air, and sailed off to the northward.

Then the two young Eagles began to walk around the boy, and to examine him at all points. Finally they approached his feet and hands.

"Be careful, be careful, don't eat me! Tell me about what time your mother comes home," said he, sitting up. "What time does she usually come?

"Well," said the little Eagles, "she comes home when the clouds begin to gather and throw their shadow over our nest." (Really, it was the shadow

{p. 86}

of the mother Eagle herself that was thrown over the nest.)

"Very well," said the boy; "what time does your father come home?"

"When the fine rain begins to fall," said they, meaning the dew.

"Oh," said the boy. So he sat there, and by-and-by, sure enough, away off in the sky, carrying something dangling from her feet, came the old mother Eagle. She soared round and round until she was over the nest, when she dropped her burden, and over and over it fell and tumbled into the nest, a poor, dead, beautiful maiden. The young boy looked at her, and his heart grew very hot, and when the old Eagle came and perched, in a moment he let fly an arrow, and struck her down and dashed her brains out.

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed the boy. "What you have done to many, thus unto you."

Then he took his station again, and by-and-by the old father Eagle came, bearing a youth, fair to look upon, and dropped him into the nest. The young boy shut his teeth, and he said: "Thus unto many you have done, and thus unto me you would have done; so unto you." And he drew an arrow and shot him. Then he turned to the two young Eagles and killed them, and plucked out all the beautiful colored feathers about their necks, until he had a large bundle of fine plumes with which he thought to wing his arrows or to waft his prayers.

Then he looked down the cliff and saw there was no way to climb down, and there was no way to

{p. 87}

climb up. Then he began to cry, and sat on the edge of the cliff, and cried so loud that the old Bat Woman, who was gathering cactus-berries below, or thought she was, overheard the boy.

Said she: "Now, just listen to that. I warrant it is my fool of a grandson, who is always trying to get himself into a scrape. I am sure it must be so. Phoo! phoo!"

She spilled out all the berries she had found from the basket she had on her back, and then labored up to where she could look over the edge of the shelf.

"Yes, there you are," said she; "you simpleton! you wretched boy! What are you doing here?"

"Oh, my grandmother," said he, "I have got into a place and I cannot get out."

"Yes," said she; "if you were anything else but such a fool of a grandson and such a bard-hearted wretch of a boy, I would help you get down; but you never do as your mother and grandmother or grandfathers tell you."

"Ah, my grandmother, I will do just as you tell me this time," said the boy.

"Now, will you?" said she. "Now, can you be certain?--will you promise me that you will keep your eyes shut, and join me, at least in your heart, in the prayer which I sing when I fly down? Yan lehalliah kiana. Never open your eyes; if you do, the gods will teach you a lesson, and your poor old grandmother, too."

"I will do just as you tell me," said he, as he reached over and took up his plumes and held them ready.

{p. 88}

"Not so fast, my child," said she; "you must promise me."

"Oh, my grandmother, I will do just as you tell me," said he.

"Well, step into my basket, very carefully now. As I go down I shall go very prayerfully, depending on the gods to carry so much more than I usually carry. Do you not wink once, my grandson."

"All right; I will keep my eyes shut this time," said he. So he sat down and squeezed his eyes together, and held his plumes tight, and then the old grandmother launched herself forth on her skin wings. After she had struggled a little, she began to sing

"Ha ash tchaa ni,--Ha ash tchaa ni:
Tche pa naa,--thlen-thle.
Thlen! Thlen! Thlen!

Now, just listen to that," said the boy; "my old grandmother is singing one of those tedious prayers; it will take us forever to go down."

Then presently the old Bat Woman, perfectly unconscious of his state of mind, began to sing again

"Thlen thla kia yai na kia."

"There she goes again," said he to himself; "I declare, I must look up; it will drive me wild to sit here all this time and hear my old grandmother try to sing."

Then, after a little while, she commenced again:

"Ha ash tchaa ni,--Ha ash tchaa ni;
Tche pa naa,--thlen-thle.
Thlen! Thlen! Thlen!"

{p. 89}

The boy stretched himself up, and said: "Look here, grandmother! I have heard your 'Thlen! Thlen! Thlen!' enough this time. I am going to open my eyes.

"Oh, my grandchild, never think of such a thing." Then she began again to sing:

Ha ash tchaa ni,--Ha ash tchaa ni:
Tche pa naa,--thlen-thle.
Thlen! Thlen! Thlen

She was not near the ground when she finished it the fourth time, and the boy would not stand it any more. Lo! he opened his eyes, and the old grandmother knew it in a moment. Over and over, boy over bat, bat over boy, and the basket between them, they went whirling and pitching down, the old grandmother tugging at her basket and scolding the boy.

"Now, you foolish, disobedient one! I told you what would happen! You see what you have done!" and so on until they fell to the ground. It fairly knocked the breath out of the boy, and when he got tip again he yelled lustily.

The old grandmother picked herself up, stretched herself, and cried out anew: "You wretched, foolish, hard-hearted boy; I never will do anything for you again-never, never, never!"

"I know, my grandmother," said the boy, "but you kept up that 'Thlen! Thlen! Thlen!' so much. What in the world did you want to spend so much time thlening, thlening; and buzzing round in that way for?"

{p. 90}

"Ah, me!" said she, "he never did know anything--never will be taught to know anything."

"Now," said she to him, "you might as well come and eat with me. I have been gathering cactus-fruit, and you can eat and then go home." She took him to the place where she had poured out the contents of the basket, but there was scarcely a cactus-berry. There were cedar-berries, cones, sticks, little balls of dirt, coyote-berries, and everything else uneatable.

"Sit down, my grandson, and eat; strengthen yourself after your various adventures and exertions. I feel very weary myself," said she. And she took a nip of one of them; but the boy couldn't exactly bring himself to eat. The truth is, the old woman's eyes were bad, in the same way that bats' eyes are usually bad, and she couldn't tell a cactus-berry from anything else round and rough.

"Well, inasmuch as you won't eat, my grandson," said she, "why, I can't conceive, for these are very good, it seems to me. You had better run along home now, or your mother will be killing herself thinking of you. Now, I have only one direction to give you. You don't deserve any, but I will give you one. See that you pay attention to it. If not, the worst is your own. You have gathered a beautiful store of feathers. Now, be very careful. Those creatures who bore those feathers have gained their lives from the lives of living beings, and therefore their feathers differ from other feathers. Heed what I say, my grandson. {p. 91} When you come to any place where flowers are blooming,--where the sunflowers make the field yellow,--walk round those flowers if you want to get home with these feathers. And when you come to more flowers, walk round them. If you do not do that, Just as you came you will go back to your home."

"All right, my grandmother," said the boy. So, after bidding her good-by, he trudged away with his bundle of feathers; and when he came to a great plain of sunflowers and other flowers he walked round them; and when he came to another large patch he walked round them, and then another, and so on; but finally he stopped, for it seemed to him that there were nothing but fields of flowers all the way home. He thought he had never seen so many before.

"I declare," said he, "I will not walk round those flowers any more. I will hang on to these feathers, though."

So he took a good hold of them and walked in amongst the flowers. But no sooner had he entered the field than flutter, flutter, flutter, little wings began to fly out from the bundle of feathers, and the bundle began to grow smaller and smaller, until it wholly disappeared. These wings which flew out were the wings of the Sacred Birds of Summerland, made living by the lives that had supported the birds which bore those feathers, and by coming into the environment which they had so loved, the atmosphere which flowers always bring of summer.

{p. 92}

Thus it was, my children, in the days of the ancients, and for that reason we have little jay-birds, little sparrows, little finches, little willow-birds, and all the beautiful little birds that bring the summer, and they always hover over flowers.

"My friends" [said the story-teller], "that is the way we live. I am very glad, otherwise I would not have told the story, for it is not exactly right that I should,--I am very glad to demonstrate to you that we also have books; only they are not books with marks in them, but words in our hearts, which have been placed there by our ancients long ago, even so long ago as when the world was new and young, like unripe fruit. And I like you to know these things, because people say that the Zuñis are dark people."[1]

Thus shortens my story.

[1. That is, people in the dark--having no knowledge.]

THE SERPENT OF THE SEA
NOTE.--The priest of the K'iáklu or epic-ritual of Zuñi is never allowed to initiate the telling of short folk-stories. If he make such a beginning, be must complete the whole cycle before he ceases his recital or his listeners relax their attention. The following tale was told by an attendant Indian (not a priest), whose name is Waíhusiwa.

"Son ah tehi!" he exclaimed, which may be interpreted: "Let us abide with the ancients to-night."

The listeners reply "E-so," or "Tea-tu." ("Certainly,"or "Be it well.")

In the times of our forefathers, under Thunder Mountain was a village called K'iákime ("Home of the Eagles"). It is now in ruins; the roofs are gone, the ladders have decayed, the hearths grown cold. But when it was all still perfect, and, as it were, new, there lived in this village a maiden, the daughter of the priest-chief. She was beautiful, but possessed of this peculiarity of character: There was a sacred spring of water at the foot of the terrace whereon stood the town. We now call it the Pool of the Apaches; but then it was sacred to Kólowissi (the Serpent of the Sea). Now, at this spring the girl displayed her peculiarity, which was that of a passion for neatness and cleanliness of person and clothing. She could not endure the slightest speck or particle of dust or dirt upon her clothes or person, and so she spent most of her time in washing all the things she used and in bathing herself in the waters of this spring.

Now, these waters, being sacred to the Serpent of the Sea, should not have been defiled in this

{p. 94}

way. As might have been expected, Kólowissi became troubled and angry at the sacrilege committed in the sacred waters by the maiden, and he said: "Why does this maiden defile the sacred waters of my spring with the dirt of her apparel and the dun of her person? I must see to this." So he devised a plan by which to prevent the sacrilege and to punish its author.

When the maiden came again to the spring, what should she behold but a beautiful little child seated amidst the waters, splashing them, cooing and smiling. It was the Sea Serpent, wearing the semblance of a child,--for a god may assume any form at its pleasure, you know. There sat the child, laughing and playing in the water. The girl looked around in all directions--north, south, east, and west--but could see no one, nor any traces of persons who might have brought hither the beautiful little child. She said to herself: "I wonder whose child this may be! It would seem to be that of some unkind and cruel mother, who has deserted it and left it here to perish. And the poor little child does not yet know that it is left all alone. Poor little thing! I will take it in my arms and care for it."

The maiden then talked softly to the young child, and took it in her arms, and hastened with it up the hill to her house, and, climbing up the ladder, carried the child in her arms into the room where she slept.

Her peculiarity of character, her dislike of all dirt or dust, led her to dwell apart from the rest

{p. 95}

of her family, in a room by herself above all of the other apartments.

She was so pleased with the child that when she had got him into her room she sat down on the floor and played with him, laughing at his pranks and smiling into his face; and he answered her in baby fashion with cooings and smiles of his own, so that her heart became very happy and loving. So it happened that thus was she engaged for a long while and utterly unmindful of the lapse of time.

Meanwhile, the younger sisters had prepared the meal, and were awaiting the return of the elder sister.

"Where, I wonder, can she be?" one of them asked.

"She is probably down at the spring," said the old father; "she is bathing and washing her clothes, as usual, of course! Run down and call her."

But the younger sister, on going, could find no trace of her at the spring. So she climbed the ladder to the private room of this elder sister, and there found her, as has been told, playing with the little child. She hastened back to inform her father of what she had seen. But the old man sat silent and thoughtful. He knew that the waters of the spring were sacred. When the rest of the family were excited, and ran to behold the pretty prodigy, he cried out, therefore: "Come back! come back! Why do you make fools of yourselves? Do you suppose any mother would leave

{p. 96}

her own child in the waters of this or any other spring? There is something more of meaning than seems in all this."

When they again went and called the maiden to come down to the meal spread for her, she could not be induced to leave the child.

"See! it is as you might expect," said the father. "A woman will not leave a child on any inducement; how much less her own."

The child at length grew sleepy. The maiden placed it on a bed, and, growing sleepy herself, at length lay by its side and fell asleep. Her sleep was genuine, but the sleep of the child was feigned. The child became elongated by degrees, as it were, fulfilling some horrible dream, and soon appeared as an enormous Serpent that coiled itself round and round the room until it was full of scaly, gleaming circles. Then, placing its head near the head of the maiden, the great Serpent surrounded her with its coils, taking finally its own tail in its mouth.

The night passed, and in the morning when the breakfast was prepared, and yet the maiden did not descend, and the younger sisters became impatient at the delay, the old man said: "Now that she has the child to play with, she will care little for aught else. That is enough to occupy the entire attention of any woman."

But the little sister ran up to the room and called. Receiving no answer, she tried to open the door; she could not move it, because the Serpent's coils filled the room and pressed against it. She

{p. 97}

pushed the door with all her might, but it could not be moved. She again and again called her sister's name, but no response came. Beginning now to be frightened, she ran to the skyhole over the room in which she had left the others and cried out for help. They hastily joined her,--all save the old father,--and together were able to press the door sufficiently to get a glimpse of the great scales and folds of the Serpent. Then the women all ran screaming to the old father. The old man, priest and sage as he was, quieted them with these words: "I expected as much as this from the first report which you gave me. It was impossible, as I then said, that a woman should be so foolish as to leave her child playing even near the waters of the spring. But it is not impossible, it seems, that one should be so foolish as to take into her arms a child found as this one was."

Thereupon he walked out of the house, deliberately and thoughtful, angry in his mind against his eldest daughter. Ascending to her room, he pushed against the door and called to the Serpent of the Sea: "Oh, Kólowissi! It is I, who speak to thee, O Serpent of the Sea I, thy priest. Let, I pray thee, let my child come to me again, and I will make atonement for her errors. Release her, though she has been so foolish, for she is thine, absolutely thine. But let her return once more to us that we may make atonement to thee more amply." So prayed the priest to the Serpent of the Sea.

When he had done this the great Serpent

{p. 98}

loosened his coils, and as he did so the whole building shook violently, and all the villagers became aware of the event, and trembled with fear.

The maiden at once awoke and cried piteously to her father for help.

"Come and release me, oh, my father! Come and release me!" she cried.

As the coils loosened she found herself able to rise. No sooner had she done this than the great Serpent bent the folds of his large coils nearest the doorway upward so that they formed an arch. Under this, filled with terror, the girl passed. She was almost stunned with the dread din of the monster's scales rasping past one another with a noise like the sound of flints trodden under the feet of a rapid runner, and once away from the writhing mass of coils, the poor maiden ran like a frightened deer out of the doorway, down the ladder and into the room below, casting herself on the breast of her mother.

But the priest still remained praying to the Serpent; and he ended his prayer as he had begun it, saying: "It shall be even as I have said; she shall be thine!"

He then went away and called the two warrior priest-chiefs of the town, and these called together all the other priests in sacred council. Then they performed the solemn ceremonies of the sacred rites--preparing plumes, prayer-wands, and offerings of treasure.

After four days of labor, these things they arranged

{p. 99}

and consecrated to the Serpent of the Sea. On that morning the old priest called his daughter and told her she must make ready to take these sacrifices and yield them up, even with herself,--most precious of them all,--to the great Serpent of the Sea; that she must yield up also all thoughts of her people and home forever, and go hence to the house of the great Serpent of the Sea, even in the Waters of the World. "For it seems," said he, "to have been your desire to do thus, as manifested by your actions. You used even the sacred water for profane purposes; now this that I have told you is inevitable. Come; the time when you must prepare yourself to depart is near at hand."

She went forth from the home of her childhood with sad cries, clinging to the neck of her mother and shivering with terror. In the plaza, amidst the lamentations of all the people, they dressed her in her sacred cotton robes of ceremonial, embroidered elaborately, and adorned her with earrings, bracelets, beads,--many beautiful, precious things. They painted her cheeks with red spots as if for a dance; they made a road of sacred meal toward the Door of the Serpent of the Sea--a distant spring in our land known to this day as the Doorway to the Serpent of the Sea--four steps toward this spring did they mark in sacred terraces on the ground at the western way of the plaza. And when they had finished the sacred road, the old priest, who never shed one tear, although all the villagers wept sore,--for the maiden was very beautiful,--instructed his daughter to go

{p. 100}

forth on the terraced road, and, standing there, call the Serpent to come to her.

Then the door opened, and the Serpent descended from the high room where he was coiled, and, without using ladders, let his head and breast down to the ground in great undulations. He placed his head on the shoulder of the maiden, and the word was given--the word: "It is time"--and the maiden slowly started toward the west, cowering beneath her burden; but whenever she staggered with fear and weariness and was like to wander from the way, the Serpent gently pushed her onward and straightened her course.

Thus they went toward the river trail and in it, on and over the Mountain of the Red Paint; yet still the Serpent was not all uncoiled from the maiden's room in the house, but continued to crawl forth until they were past the mountain--when the last of his length came forth. Here he began to draw himself together again and to assume a new shape. So that ere long his serpent form contracted, until, lifting his head from the maiden's shoulder, he stood up, in form a beautiful youth in sacred gala attire! He placed the scales of his serpent form, now small, under his flowing mantle, and called out to the maiden in a hoarse, hissing voice: "Let us speak one to the other. Are you tired, girl?" Yet she never moved her head, but plodded on with her eyes cast down.

"Are you weary, poor maiden?"--then he said in a gentler voice, as he arose erect and fell a little behind her, and wrapped his scales more closely

{p. 101}

in his blanket--and he was now such a splendid and brave hero, so magnificently dressed! And he repeated, in a still softer voice: "Are you still weary, poor maiden?"

At first she dared not look around, though the voice, so changed, sounded so far behind her and thrilled her wonderfully with its kindness. Yet she still felt the weight on her shoulder, the weight of that dreaded Serpent's head; for you know after one has carried a heavy burden on his shoulder or back, if it be removed he does not at once know that it is taken away; it seems still to oppress and pain him. So it was with her; but at length she turned around a little and saw a young man-a brave and handsome young man.

"May I walk by your side?" said he, catching her eye. "Why do you not speak with me?"

"I am filled with fear and sadness and shame," said she.

"Why?" asked he. "What do you fear?"

"Because I came with a fearful creature forth from my home, and he rested his head upon my shoulder, and even now I feel his presence there," said she, lifting her hand to the place where his head had rested, even still fearing that it might be there."

"But I came all the way with you," said he, "and I saw no such creature as you describe."

Upon this she stopped and turned back and looked again at him, and said: "You came all the way? I wonder where this fearful being has gone!"

He smiled, and replied: "I know where he has gone."

{p. 102}

"Ah, youth and friend, will he now leave me in peace," said she, "and let me return to the home of my people?"

"No," replied he, "because he thinks very much of you."

"Why not? Where is he?"

"He is here," said the youth, smiling, and laying his hand on his own heart. "I am he."

"You are he?" cried the maiden. Then she looked at him again, and would not believe him.

"Yea, my maiden, I am he!" said he. And he drew forth from under his flowing mantle the shrivelled serpent scales, and showed them as proofs of his word. It was wonderful and beautiful to the maiden to see that he was thus, a gentle being; and she looked at him long.

Then he said: "Yes, I am he. I love you, my maiden! Will you not haply come forth and dwell with me? Yes, you will go with me, and dwell with me, and I will dwell with you, and I will love you. I dwell not now, but ever, in all the Waters of the World, and in each particular water. In all and each you will dwell with me forever, and we will love each other."

Behold! As they journeyed on, the maiden quite forgot that she had been sad; she forgot her old home, and followed and descended with him into the Doorway of the Serpent of the Sea and dwelt with him ever after.

It was thus in the days of the ancients. Therefore the ancients, no less than ourselves, avoided

{p. 103}

using springs, except for the drinking of their water; for to this day we hold the flowing springs the most precious things on earth, and therefore use them not for any profane purposes whatsoever. Thus shortens my story.

{p. 104}

THE MAIDEN OF THE YELLOW ROCKS
In the days of the ancients, when our ancestors lived in the Village of the Yellow Rocks,[1] also in the Salt City,[2] also in the Village of the Winds,[3] and also in the Village of the White Flowering Herbs, and also in the Village of Odd Waters, where they come forth, when in fact all these broken-down villages were inhabited by our ancients, there lived in the Village of the Yellow Rocks a very beautiful maiden, the daughter of the high priest.

Although a woman, she was wonderfully endowed by birth with the magic knowledge of the hunt and with the knowledge of all the animals who contribute to the sustenance of man,--game animals. And, although a woman, she was also somewhat bad in her disposition, and selfish, in that, possessing this knowledge above all other men and women, she concluded she would have all these animals-the deer, antelope, rabbits--to herself. So, through her wonderful knowledge of their habits and language, she communicated with them and charmed them, and on the top of the mountain--where you will see to this day the ancient figures of the deer cut in the rock--she built a huge corral, and gathered one after another all the deer and antelope and other wild animals of that great country. And

[1. Situated about seven miles east of Zuñi.

2 Mátsaki, now a ruin about three miles east of Zuñi.

3 Pínawa, an ancient ruin about a mile and a half west of Zuñi.]

{p. 105}

the hunters of these villages hunted in vain; they trailed the deer and the antelope, but they lost their trails and always came home with nothing save the weapons they took with them. But this maiden, whenever she wished for deer, would go to her corral and kill whatever animal she wanted; so she and her family always had plenty of meat, while others were without it; always had plenty of buckskins with which to make moccasins and apparel, while others were every day wearing out their old supply and never able to replenish it.

Now, this girl was surpassingly beautiful, and was looked upon by many a young man as the flower of his heart and the one on whom he would ultimately concentrate his thoughts for life. Amongst these young men, the first to manifest his feelings was a youth from the Village of the Winds.

One day he said to his old people: "I am going courting." And they observed that he made up a bundle of various precious things for women's dress and ornamentation--necklaces, snow-white buckskin moccasins and leggings, and embroidered skirts and mantles--and, taking his bundle on his shoulders, he started off for the Village of the Yellow Rocks.

When he reached the village he knew the home of the maiden by the beauty of the house. Among other houses it was alone of its kind. Attached to the ladder was the cross-piece carved as it is in these days, but depending from it was a fringe of black hair (not scalp-locks) with which they still ornament certain houses when they have sacred

{p. 106}

ceremonies; and among this fringe were hung hot low stalactites from a sacred cave on the Colorado Chiquito, which sounded, when the wind blew them together, like little bells. This fringe was full of them, so that when a stranger came to this important chief-priest's house he no sooner touched the ladder-rung at the foot than the bells tinkled, and they knew some one was coming.

As he placed his foot on the lowermost rung of the ladder, chi-la-li sang the bells at the top.

Said the people within: "Some one is coming."

Step after step he went up, and still the bells made music at the top, and as he stepped over on the roof, thud, thud, his footsteps sounded as he walked along; and when he reached the door, those within said: "Thou comest?" And he replied: "I come. Draw me in"; by which expression he meant that he had brought with him a present to the family. Whenever a man has a bundle to hand down, it is the place of the woman to take it; and that is called "drawing a man in," though she only takes his bundle and he follows. In this case he said "Draw me in," and the maiden came to the top of the ladder and took the bundle and dropped it on the floor. They knew by the appearance of the bundle what the object of the visit was.

The old man was sitting by the fireplace,--it was night-time,--and as the stranger entered, said, "Thou hast come?"

The young man answered: "Yes."

Said the old man: "It is not customary for a

{p. 107}

stranger to visit the house of a stranger without saying something of what may be in his thoughts."

"It is quite true," said the youth; "I come thinking of this maiden, your daughter. It has occurred to me that I might happily and without fear rest my thoughts and hopes on her; therefore I come."

The daughter brought forth food for the young man and bade him eat. He reached forth his hand and partook of the food. She sat down and took a mouthful or two, whereby they knew she was favorably disposed. She was favorably disposed to all appearance, but not in reality. When he had finished eating, she said: "As you like, my father. You are my father." She answered to her own thoughts: "Yes, you have often reproached me for not treating with more gentleness those who come courting me."

Finally said the father: "I give ye my blessing and sacred speech, my children. I will adopt thee as my child."[1]

"My children," said the father, after a while, when he had smoked a little, "the stranger, now a son, has come a long distance and must be weary."

So the maiden led him to an upper chamber, and said: "Rest here; you are not yet my husband. I would try you in the morning. Get up early, when the deer are most plentiful, and go forth and slay me a fine one, and then indeed shall we rest our hopes and thoughts on each other for life."

"It is well," said the youth; and he retired to

[1. This, it may be explained, is all that the marriage ceremony consists of.]

{p. 108}

sleep, and in the morning arose early. The maiden gave into his hands the food for the day; he caught up his bows and arrows and went forth into the forests and mountains, seeking for the deer. He found a superb track and followed it until it suddenly disappeared, and though he worked hard and followed it over and over again, he could find nothing. While the young man was out hunting and following the tracks for nothing, the young girl went out, so as to be quite sure that none of her deer should get out; and what did she do? She went into the river and followed it against the current, through the water beyond the village and where the marked rocks stand, up the cañon to the place where her deer were gathered. They were all there, peaceful and contented. But there were no tracks of the girl; no one could follow where she went.

The young man hunted and hunted, and at night-time, all tired out and hungry, took his way back to the home of the maiden. She was there.

"Ha!" said she, "what good fortune today?"

And the young man with his face dragged down and his eyes not bright, answered: "I found no game today."

"Well," said the girl, "it is too bad; but under the circumstances we cannot rest our thoughts and hopes on each other for life."

"No, I suppose not," said the young man.

"Here is your bundle," said the girl. She raised it very carefully and handed it to him. He took it over his shoulder, and after all his weary work went on his way home.

{p. 109}

The very next day a young man named Hálona, when he heard of this, said: "Ha! ha! What a fool he was! He didn't take her enough presents; he didn't please her. I am said to be a very pleasant fellow" (he was a very conceited young man); "I will take her a bundle that will make things all right."

So he put into a bundle everything that a woman could reasonably want,--for he was a wealthy young man, and his bundle was very heavy,--put on his best dress, and with fine paint on his face started for the home of the maiden. Finally, his foot touched the lowermost rung of the ladder; the stalactites went jingling above as he mounted, and thud went his bundle as he dropped it on the roof.

"Somebody has come," said the people below. "Listen to that!"

The maiden shrugged her shoulders and said: "Thou comest?"

"Yes," answered the young man; "draw me in."

So she reached up and pulled the huge bundle down into the room, placing it on the floor, and the young man followed it down.

Said the old man, who was sitting by the fire, for it was night: "Thou comest. Not thinking of nothing doth one stranger come to the house of another. What may be thy thoughts?"

The young man looked at the maiden and said to himself: "What a magnificent creature she is! She will be my wife, no fear that she will not." Then said he aloud: "I came, thinking of your

{p. 110}

daughter. I would rest my hopes and thoughts on her."

"It is well," said the old man. "It is the custom of our people and of all people, that they may possess dignity, that they may be the heads of households; therefore, young men and maidens marry and establish themselves in certain houses. I have no objection. What dost thou think, my daughter?"

"I have no objection," said the daughter.

"Ah, what did I tell you?" said the youth to himself, and ate with a great deal of satisfaction the meal placed before him.

The father laid out the corn-husks and tobacco, and they had a smoke; then he said to his daughter: "The stranger who is now my son has come a long way, and should not be kept sitting up so long."

As the daughter led him to another room, he thought: "What a gentle creature she is! How softly she steps up the ladder."

When the door was reached, she said: "Here we will say good-night."

"What is the matter?" he asked.

Said she: "I would like to know of my husband this much, that he is a good hunter; that I may have plenty of food all my days, and plenty of buckskins for my clothing. Therefore I must ask that in the morning you go forth and hunt the deer, or bring home an antelope for me."

The young man quickly recovered himself, and said: "It is well," and lay himself down to rest.

{p. 111}

So the next morning he went out, and there was the maiden at the top of the house watching him. He couldn't wait for daylight; he wanted the Sun, his father, to rise before his time, and when the Sun did rise he jumped out of bed, tied his quiver to his belt, took his bow in his hand, and, with a little luncheon the maiden had prepared for him, started off.

As he went down the river he saw the maiden was watching him from the top of the house; so he started forward and ran until he was out of sight, to show how fine a runner he was and how good a hunter; because he was reputed to be a very strong and active young man. He hunted and hunted, but did not find any deer, nor even any tracks.

Meanwhile, the maiden went up the stream as before and kept watch of the corral; and he fared as the other young man had fared. At night he came home, not quite so downcast as the other had been, because he was a young man of more self-reliance.

She asked, as she met him: "Haven't you got any deer today?"

He answered: "No."

She said: "I am sorry, but under the circumstances I don't see how we can become husband and wife."

So he carried his bundle home.

The next day there was a young man in the City of Salt who heard of this,--not all of it, but he heard that day after day young men were going

{p. 112}

to the home of this maiden to court her, and she turned them all away. He said: "I dare say they didn't take enough with them." So he made up two bundles and went to the home of the maiden, and he said to himself: "This time it will be all right."

When he arrived, much the same conversation was gone through as before with the other young men, and the girl said, when she lighted him to the door of his room: "My young friend, if you will find a deer for me tomorrow I will become your wife and rest my hope only on you."

"Mercy on me!" thought the young man to himself, "I have always been called a poor hunter. What shall I do?"

The next morning he tried, but with the same results.

Now, this girl was keeping the deer and antelope and other animals so long closed up in the corral that the people in all the villages round about were ready to die of hunger for meat. Still, for her own gratification she would keep these animals shut up.

The young man came back at evening, and she asked him if he had found a deer for her.

"No," said he, "I could not even find the trail of one."

"Well," she said, "I am sorry, for your bundles are heavy."

He took them up and went home with them.

Finally, this matter became so much talked about that the two small gods on the top of Thunder Mountain, who lived with their grandmother where

TB continued:

our sacrificial altar now stands, said: "There is something wrong here; we will go and court this maiden." Now, these gods were extremely ugly in appearance when they chose to be--mere pigmies who never grew to man's stature. They were always boys in appearance, and their grandmother was always crusty with them; but they concluded one night that they would go the next day to woo this maiden.

Said one to the other: "Suppose we go and try our luck with her." Said he: "When I look at you, you are very handsome."

Said the other to him: "When I look at you, you are extremely handsome."

They were the ugliest beings in human form, but in reality were among the most magnificent of men, having power to take any form they chose.

Said the elder one: "Grandmother, you know how much talk there is about this maiden in the Village of the Yellow Rocks. We have decided to go and court her."

"You miserable, dirty, ugly little wretches! The idea of your going to court this maiden when she has refused the finest young men in the land!"

"Well, we will go," said he.

"1 don't want you to go," replied she. "Your names will be in the mouths of everybody; you will be laughed and jeered at."

"We will go," said they. And, without paying the slightest attention to their grandmother, they made up their bundle--a very miserable bundle it was; the younger brother put in little rocks and a

{p. 114}

sticks and bits of buckskins and all sorts of worthless things--and they started off.

"What are you carrying this bundle for?" asked Áhaiyúta, the elder brother.

"I am taking it as a present to the maiden," said Mátsailéma, the younger one.

"She doesn't want any such trash as that," said the other. "They have taken very valuable presents to her before; we have nothing to take equal to what has been carried to her by others."

They decided to throw the bundle away altogether, and started out with absolutely nothing but their bows and arrows.

As they proceeded they began to kill wood-rats, and continued until they had slaughtered a large number and had a long string of them held up by their tails.

"There!" exclaimed the younger brother.

"There is a fine present for the girl." They knew perfectly well how things were, and were looking out for the interests of their children in the villages round about.

"Oh, my younger brother!" said the elder. "These will not be acceptable to the girl at all; she would not have them in the house!"

"Oh, yes, she would," said the younger; "we will take them along as a present to her."

So they went on, and it was hardly noon when they arrived with their strings of rats at the white cliffs on the southern side of the cañon opposite the village where the maiden lived.

"Here, let us sit down in the shade of this cliff,"

{p. 115}

said the elder brother, "for it is not proper to go courting until evening."

"Oh, no," said the younger, "let us go along now. I am in a hurry! I am in a hurry!"

"You are a fool!" said the elder brother; "you should not think of going courting before evening. Stay here patiently."

So they sat down in the shade of the cliff. But the younger kept jumping up and running out to see how the sun was all the afternoon, and he would go and smooth out his string of rats from time to time, and then go and look at the sun again. Finally, when the sun was almost set, he called out: "Now, come on!"

"Wait until it is wholly dark," said the other. "You never did have any patience, sense, or dignity about you."

"Why not go now?" asked the younger.

So they kept quarrelling, but the elder brother's wish prevailed until it was nearly dark, when they went on.

The elder brother began to get very bashful as they approached the village. "I wonder which house it is," said he.

"The one with the tallest ladder in front of it, of course," said the other.

Then the elder brother said in a low voice: "Now, do behave yourself; be dignified."

"All right!" replied the younger.

When they got to the ladder, the elder one said in a whisper: "I don't want to go up here; I don't want to go courting; let's go back."

{p. 116}

"Go along up," said the younger.

"Keep still; be quiet said the elder one; "be dignified!"

They went up the ladder very carefully, so that there was not a tinkle from the bells. The elder brother hesitated, while the younger one went on to the top, and over the edge of the house.

"Now!" cried he.

"Keep still!" whispered the other; and he gave the ladder a little shake as he went, and the bells tinkled at the top.

The people downstairs said: "Who in the world is coming now?"

When they were both on the roof, the elder brother said: "You go down first."

"I will do nothing of the kind," said the other, you are the elder."

The people downstairs called out: "Who comes there?"

"See what you have done, you simpleton!" said the elder brother. Then with a great deal of dignity he walked down the ladder. The younger one came tumbling down, carrying his string of rats.

"Throw it out, you fool; they don't want rats!" said the elder one.

"Yes, they do," replied the other. "The girl will want these; maybe she will marry us on account of them!"

The elder brother was terribly disturbed, but the other brought his rats in and laid them in the middle of the floor.

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The father looked up, and said: "You come?"

"Yes," answered the two odd ones.

"Sit down," said the old man. So they sat down, and food was placed before them.

"It seems," said the father, "that ye have met with luck today in hunting," as he cast his eyes on the string of rats.

"Yes," said the Two.

So the old priest went and got some prayer-meal, and, turning the faces of the rats toward the east, said a short prayer.

"What did I tell you?" said the younger brother they like the presents we have brought. just see!"

Presently the old man said: "It is not customary for strangers to come to a house without something in mind."

"Quite so," said the younger brother.

"Yes, my father," said the elder one; "we have come thinking of your daughter. We understand that she has been wooed by various young men, and it has occurred to us that they did not bring the right kind of presents."

"So we brought these," said the younger brother.

"It is well," said the old man. "It is the custom for maidens and youths to marry. It rests with my daughter."

So he referred the matter to his daughter, and she said: "As you think, my father. Which one?"

"Oh, take us both!" said the younger brother.

This was rather embarrassing to the maiden, but she knew she had a safe retreat. So when the

{p. 118}

father admonished her that it was time to lead the two young men up into the room where the others had been placed, she told them the same story.

They said, "It is well."

They lay down, but instead of sleeping spent most of the night in speculating as to the future.

"What a magnificent wife we will have," said one to the other.

"Don't talk so loud; every one will hear you; you will be covered with shame!"

After a while they went to sleep; but were awake early the next morning. The younger brother began to talk to the elder one, who said: "Keep quiet; the people are not awake; don't disturb them!"

The younger one said: "The sun is rising."

"Keep quiet," said the other, "and when they are awake they will give us some luncheon to take with us."

But the younger one jumped up and went rushing about the house, calling out: "The sun is rising; Get up!"

The luncheon was provided, and when they started off the maiden went out on the house-top and asked them which direction they would take.

Said they: "We will go over to the south and will get a deer before long, although we are very small and may not meet with very good luck."

So they descended the ladder, and the maiden said to herself: "Ugly, miserable little wretches; I will teach them to come courting me in this way!"

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The brothers went off to the cliffs, and, while pretending to be hunting, they ran back through the thickets near the house and waited to see what the maiden would do.

Pretty soon she came out. They watched her and saw that she went down the valley and presently ran into the river, leaving no trail behind, and took her course up the stream. They ran on ahead, and long before she had ascended the river found the path leading out of it up the mountain. Following this path, they carne to the corral, and, looking over it, they saw thousands of deer, mountain-sheep, antelope, and other animals wandering around in the enclosure.

"Ha! here is the place!" the younger brother exclaimed. "Let us go at them now!

"Keep quiet! Be patient! Wait till the maiden comes," said the elder one. "If we should happen to kill one of these deer before she comes, perhaps she has some magic power or knowledge by which she would deprive us of the fruits of our efforts."

"No, let us kill one now," said the other. But the elder one kept him curbed until the maiden was climbing the cliff, when he could restrain him no longer, and the youth pulled out his bow and let fly an arrow at the largest deer. One arrow, and the deer fell to the ground, and when the maiden appeared on the spot the deer was lying dead not far away.

The brothers said: "You come, do you? And here we are!"

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She looked at them, and her heart went down and became as heavy as a stone, and she did not answer.

"I say, you come!" said the younger brother. "You come, do you?"

She said, "Yes." Then said she to herself: "Well, I suppose I shall have to submit, as I made the arrangement myself." Then she looked up and said: "I see you have killed a deer."

"Yes, we killed one; didn't have any difficulty at all," said the younger brother. "Come, and help us skin him; we are so little and hungry and tired we can't do it. Come on."

So the girl went slowly forward, and in a dejected way helped them skin the deer. Then they began to shoot more deer, and attempted to drag them out; but the men were so small they could not do it, and the girl had to help them. Then they cut up the meat and made it into bundles. She made a large one for herself, and they made two little ones for themselves.

"Now," said they, wiping their brows, "we have done a good day's work, haven't we?" and they looked at the maiden with twinkling eyes.

"Yes," said she; "you are great hunters."

"Shall we go toward home?" asked the younger brother of the maiden. "It would be a shame for you to take such a bundle as that. I will take it for you."

"You little conceited wretch!" cried the elder brother. "Haven't I tried to restrain you?--and now you are going to bury yourself under a bundle of meat!"

{p. 121}

No," said the younger brother, "I can carry it." So they propped the great bundle of meat against a tree. The elder brother called on the maiden to help him; the younger one stooped down and received it on his back. They had no sooner let go of it than it fell on the ground and completely flattened the little man out.

"Mercy! mercy! I am dying; help me out of here!" cried he.

So they managed to roll the: thing off, and he got up and rubbed his back, complaining bitterly (he was only making believe), and said: "I shall have to take my little bundle."

So he shouldered his little bundle, and the maiden took the large one; but before she started she turned to the animals and said, "Oh, my children! these many days, throwing the warm light of your favor upon me, you have rested contented to remain away from the sight of men. Now, hereafter you shall go forth whithersoever you will, that the earth may be covered with your offspring, and men may once more have of your flesh to eat and of your pelts to wear." And away went. the antelope, the deer, the mountain-sheep, the elk, and the buffalo over all the land.

Then the young Gods of War turned to the maiden and said: "Now, shall we go home?"

"Yes," said she.

"Well, I will take the lead," said the younger brother.

"Get behind where you belong," said the other;

I will precede the party." So the elder brother

{p. 122}

went first, the maiden came next, and the younger brother followed behind, with his little bag of meat.

So they went home, and the maiden placed the meat to dry in the upper rooms of the house.

While she was doing this, it was yet early in the day. The two brothers were sitting together, and whispering: "And what will she say for herself now?"

"I don't see what she can say for herself."

"Of course, nothing can she say for herself."

And when the meat was all packed away in the house and the sun had set, they sat by themselves talking this over: "What can she say for herself?"

"Nothing whatever; nothing remains to be done."

"That is quite so," said they, as they went in to the evening meal and sat with the family to eat it.

Finally the maiden said: "With all your hunting and the labors of the day, you must be very weary. Where you slept last night you will find a resting-place. Go and rest yourselves. I cannot consent to marry you, because you have not yet shown yourselves capable of taking care of and dressing the buckskins, as well as of killing deer and antelope and such animals. For a long time buckskins have been accumulating in the upper room. I have no brothers to soften and scrape them; therefore, if you Two will take the hair off from all my buckskins tomorrow before sunset, and scrape the underside so that they will

{p. 123}

be thin and soft, I will consent to be the wife of one of you, or both."

And they said: "Oh mercy, it is too bad!"

"We can never do it," said the younger brother.

"I don't suppose we can; but we can try," said the elder.

So they lay down.

"Let us take things in time," said the elder one, after he had thought of it. And they jumped up and called to the maiden: "Where are those buckskins?"

"They are in the upper room," said she.

She showed them the way to the upper room. It was packed to the rafters with buckskins. They began to make big bales of these and then took them down to the river. When they got them all down there they said: "How in the world can we scrape so many skins? There are more here than we can clean in a year."

"I will tell you what," said the younger brother; "we will stow away some in the crevices of the rocks, and get rid of them in that way."

"Always hasty, always hasty," said the elder. "Do you suppose that woman put those skins away without counting every one of them? We can't do that."

They spread them out in the water that they might soak all night, and built a little dam so they would not float away. While they were thus engaged they heard some one talking, so they pricked up their ears to listen.

Now, the hill that stands by the side across from

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the Village of the Yellow Rocks was, and still is, a favorite home of the Field-mice. They are very prolific, and have to provide great bundles of wool for their families. But in the days of the ancients they were terrible gamblers and were all the time betting away their nests, and the young Mice being perfectly bare, with no wool on them at all, died of cold. And still they kept on betting, making little figures of nests and betting these away against the time when they should have more. It was these Mice which the two gods overheard.

Said the younger brother: "Listen to that! Who is talking?"

"Some one is betting. Let us go nearer."

They went across the river and listened, and heard the tiny little voices calling out and shouting.

"Let us go in," said the younger brother. And he placed his foot in the hole and descended, followed by the other. They found there an enormous village of Field-mice in human form, their clothes, in the shape of Mice, hanging over the sides of the house. Some had their clothing all off down to their waists, and were betting as hard as they could and talking with one another.

As soon as the two brothers entered, they said: "Who comes?"

The Two answered: "We come."

"Come in, come in," cried the Mice,--they were not very polite. "Sit down and have a game. We have not anything to bet just now, but if you trust us we will bet with you."

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"What had you in mind in coming?" said an old Field-mouse with a broken tail.

They answered that they had come because they heard voices. Then they told their story.

"What is this you have to do?" asked the Mice.

"To clean all the hair off those pelts tomorrow."

The Mice looked around at one another; their eyes fairly sparkled and burned.

"Now, then, we will help you if you will promise us something," said they; "but we want your solemn promise."

"What is that?" asked the brothers.

"That you will give us all the hair."

"Oh, yes," said the brothers; "we will be glad to get rid of it."

"All right," said they; "where are the skins?"

Then they all began to pour out of the place, and they were so numerous that it was like water, when the rain is falling hard, running over a rock.

When they had all run out the two War-gods drew the skins on the bank, and the Field-mice went to nibbling the hair and cleaning off the underside. They made up little bundles of the flesh from the skins for their food, and great parcels of the hair. Finally they said: "May we have them all?"

"No," said the brothers, "we must have eight reserved, four for each, so that we will be hard at work all day tomorrow."

"Well," said the Mice, "we can't consent to leaving even so many, unless you promise that you will gather up all the hair and put it somewhere so that we can get it."

{p. 126}

The Two promised that, and said: "Be sure to leave eight skins, will you? and we will go to bed and rest ourselves."

"All right, all right!" responded the Field-mice.

So the brothers climbed up the hill to the town, and up the ladder, and slept in their room.

The next morning the girl said: "Now, remember, you will have to clean every skin and make it soft and white."

So they went down to the river and started to work. The girl had said to them that at midday she would go down and see how they were getting along. They were at work nearly all the forenoon on the skins. While the elder brother shaved the hair off, the younger one scraped them thin and softened them.

When the maiden came at noon, she said: "How are you getting along?"

"We have finished four and are at work on the fifth."

"Remember," said she, "you must finish all of them today or I shall have to send you home."

So they worked away until a little before the sun set, when she appeared again. They had just finished the last. The Field-mice had carefully dressed all the others (they did it better than the men), and there they lay spread out on the sands like a great field of something growing, only white.

When the maiden came down she was perfectly overcome; she looked and looked and counted and recounted. She found them all there. Then she

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got a long pole and fished in the water, but there were none.

Said she: "Yes, you shall be my husbands; I shall have to submit."

She went home with them, and for a long time they all lived together, the woman with her two husbands. They managed to get along very comfortably, and the two brothers didn't quarrel any more than they had done before.

Finally, there were born little twin boys, exactly like their fathers, who were also twins, although one was called the elder and the other the younger.

After a time the younger brother said: "Now, let us go home to our grandmother. People always go home to their own houses and take their families with them."

"No," said the elder one. "you must remember that we have been only pretending to be human beings. It would not do to take the maiden home with us."

"Yes," said the other; "I want her to go with us. Our grandmother kept making fun of us; called us little, miserable, wretched creatures. I want to show her that we amount to something!"

The elder brother could not get the younger one to leave the wife behind, and like a dutiful wife she said: "I will go with you." They made up their bundles and started out. It was a very hot day, and when they had climbed nearly to the top of Thunder Mountain, the younger brother said: "Ahem! I am tired. Let us sit down and rest."

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"It will not do," said the elder brother. "You know very well it will not do to sit down; our father, the Sun, has forbidden that we should be among mortals. It will not do."

"Oh, yes, it will; we must sit down here," said the younger brother; and again his wish prevailed and they sat down.

At midday the Sun stood still in the sky, and looked down and saw this beautiful woman, and by the power of his withdrawing rays quickly snatched her from them while they were sitting there talking, she carrying her little children.

The brothers looked around and said: "Where is our wife?"

"Ah, there she is," cried the younger; "I will shoot her."

"Shoot your wife!" cried the elder brother.

No, let her go! Serves you right!"

"No," said the younger, "I will shoot her!" He looked up and drew his arrow, and as his aim was absolutely unerring, swish went the arrow directly to her, and she was killed. The power of life by which the Sun was drawing her up was gone, the thread was cut, and she fell over and over and struck the earth.

The two little children were so very small, and their bones so soft, that the fall did not hurt them much. They fell on the soft bank, and rolled and rolled down the hill, and the younger brother ran forward and caught them up in his arms, crying: "Oh, my little children!" and brought them to the elder brother, who said: "Now, what can be done

{p. 129}

with these little babies, with no mother, no food?"

"We will take them home to grandmother," said the younger brother.

"Your grandmother cannot take care of these babies," said the elder brother.

"Yes, she can, of course," said the younger brother. "Come on, come on! I didn't want to lose my wife and children, too; I thought I must still have the children; that is the reason why I shot her."

So one of them took one of the children, and the other one took the other, and they carried them up to the top of Thunder Mountain.

"Now, then," said the elder brother, "we went off to marry; we come home with no wife and two little children and with nothing to feed them."

"Oh, grandmother!" called out the younger brother.

The old woman hadn't heard them for many a day, for many a month, even for years. She looked out and said: "My grandchildren are coming," and she called to them: "I am so glad you have come!"

"Here, see what we have," said the younger brother. "Here are your grandchildren. Come and take them!"

"Oh, you miserable boy, you are always doing something foolish; where is your wife?" asked the grandmother.

"Oh, I shot her!" was the response.

"Why did you do that?"

"I didn't want my father, the Sun, to take them

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away with my wife. I knew you would not care anything about my wife, but I knew you would be very fond of the grandchildren. Here they are."

But she wouldn't look at all. So the younger brother drew his face down, and taking the poor little children in his arms said: "You unnatural grandmother, you! Here are two nice little grandchildren for you!"

She said: "How shall I feed them? or what shall I do with them?"

He replied: "Oh, take care of them, take care of them!"

She took a good look at them, and became a true grandmother. She ran and clasped the little ones, crying out: "Let me take you away from these miserable children of mine!" She made some beds of sand for them, as Zuñi mothers do today, got some soft skins for them to lie on, and fed them with a kind of milk made of corn toasted and ground and mixed with water; so that they gradually enlarged and grew up to be nice children.

Thus it was in the days of the ancients, and has been told to us in these days, that even the most cruel and heartless of the gods do these things. Even they took these helpless children to their grandmother, and she succored them and brought them up to the time of reason. Therefore it is the duty of those who find helpless babies or children, inasmuch as they are not so cruel and terrible as were the Gods of War,--not nearly,--surely it is their duty to take those children and succor and

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bring them up to the time of reason, when they can care for themselves. That is why our people, when children have been abandoned, provide and care for them as if they were their own. Thus long is my story.

THE FOSTER-CHILD OF THE DEER
Once, long, long ago, at Háwikuh, there lived a maiden most beautiful. In her earlier years her father, who was a great priest, had devoted her to sacred things, and therefore he kept her always in the house secure from the gaze of all men, and thus she grew.

She was so beautiful that when the Sun looked down along one of the straight beams of his own light, if one of those beams chanced to pass through a chink in the roof, the skyhole, or the windows of the upper part of the maiden's room, he beheld her and wondered at her rare beauty, unable to compare it with anything he saw in his great journeys round about the worlds. Thus, as the maiden grew apace and became a young woman, the Sun loved her exceedingly, and as time went on he became so enamored of her that he descended to earth and entered on one of his own beams of light into her apartment, so that suddenly, while she was sitting one noon-day weaving pretty baskets, there stood before her a glorious youth, gloriously dressed. It was the Sun-father. He looked upon her gently and lovingly; she looked upon him not fearfully: and so it came about that she loved him and he loved her, and he won her to be his wife. And many were the days in which he visited her and dwelt with her for a space at noon-time; but as she was alone mostly, or as she

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kept sitting weaving her trays when any one of the family entered her apartment, no one suspected this.

Now, as she knew that she had been devoted to sacred things, and that if she explained how it was that she was a mother she would not be believed, she was greatly exercised in mind and heart. She therefore decided that when her child was born she would put it away from her.

When the time came, the child one night was born. She carefully wrapped the little baby boy in some soft cotton-wool, and in the middle of the night stole out softly over the roof-tops, and, silently descending, laid the child on the sheltered side of a heap of refuse near the little stream that flows by Háwikuh, in the valley below. Then, mourning as a mother will mourn for her offspring, she returned to her room and lay herself down, poor thing, to rest.

As daylight was breaking in the east, and the hills and the valleys were coming forth one after another from the shadows of night, a Deer with her two little brightly-speckled fawns descended from the hills to the south across the valley, with ears and eyes alert, and stopped at the stream to drink. While drinking they were startled by an infant's cry, and, looking up, they saw dust and cotton-wool and other things flying about in the air, almost as if a little whirlwind were blowing on the site of the refuse-heap where the child had been laid. It was the child, who, waking and finding itself alone, hungry, and cold, was crying and throwing its little hands about.

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"Bless my delight!" cried the Deer to her fawns. I have this day found a waif, a child, and though it be human it shall be mine; for, see, my children, I love you so much that surely I could love another."

Thereupon she approached the little infant, and breathed her warm breath upon it and caressed it until it became quiet, and then after wrapping about it the cotton-wool, she gently lifted it on her broad horns, and, turning, carried it steadily away toward the south, followed on either side by her children, who kept crying out "Neh! neh!" in their delight.

The home of this old Deer and her little ones, where all her children had been born for years, was south of Háwikuh, in the valley that turns off among the ledges of rocks near the little spring called Póshaan. There, in the shelter of a clump of piñon and cedar trees, was a soft and warm retreat, winter and summer, and this was the lair of the Deer and her young.

The Deer was no less delighted than surprised next morning to find that the infant had grown apace, for she had suckled it with her own milk, and that before the declining of the sun it was already creeping about. And greater was her surprise and delight, as day succeeded day, to find that the child grew even more swiftly than grow the children of the Deer. Behold! on the evening of the fourth day it was running about and playing with its foster brother and sister. Nor was it slow of foot, even as compared with those little Deer. {p. 135} Behold! yet greater cause for wonder, on the eighth day it was a youth fair to look upon-looking upon itself and seeing that it had no clothing, and wondering why it was not clothed, like its brother and sister, in soft warm hair with pretty spots upon it.

As time went on, this little foster-child of the Deer (it must always be remembered that it was the offspring of the Sun-father himself), in playing with his brother and sister, and in his runnings about, grew wondrously strong, and even swifter of foot than the Deer themselves, and learned the language of the Deer and all their ways.

When he had become perfected in all that a Deer should know, the Deer-mother led him forth into the wilds and made him acquainted with the great herd to which she belonged. They were exceedingly happy with this addition to their number; much they loved him, and so sagacious was the youth that he soon became the leader of the Deer of the Háwikuh country.

When these Deer and the Antelopes were out on the mesas ranging to and fro, there at their head ran the swift youth. The soles of his feet became as hard as the hoofs of the Deer, the skin of his person strong and dark, the hair of his head long and waving and as soft as the hair on the sides of the Deer themselves.

It chanced one morning, late that summer, that the uncle of the maiden who had cast away her child went out hunting, and he took his way southward past Póshaan, the lair of the Deer-mother and her foster-child. As he traversed the borders

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of the great mesas that lie beyond, he saw a vast herd of Deer gathered, as people gather in council. They were quiet and seemed to be listening intently to some one in their midst. The hunter stole along carefully on hands and knees, twisting himself among the bushes until he came nearer; and what was his wonder when he beheld, in the midst of the Deer, a splendid youth, broad of shoulder, tall and strong of limb, sitting nude and graceful on the ground, and the old Deer and the young seemed to be paying attention to what he was saying. The hunter rubbed his eyes and looked again; and again he looked, shading his eyes with his hands. Then he elevated himself to peer yet more closely, and the sharp eyes of the youth discovered him. With a shout he lifted himself to his feet and sped away like the wind, followed by the whole herd, their hoofs thundering, and soon they were all out of sight.

The hunter dropped his bow and stood there musing; then picking it up, he turned himself about and ran toward Háwikuh as fast as he could. When he arrived he related to the father of the girl what he had seen. The old priest summoned his hunters and warriors and bade the uncle repeat the story. Many there were who said: "You have seen an apparition, and of evil omen to your family, alas! alas!"

"No," said he, "I looked, and again I looked, and yet again, and again, and I avow to you that what I saw was as plain and as mortal as the Deer themselves."

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Convinced at last, the council decided to form a grand hunt, and word was given from the housetops that on the fourth day from that day a hunt should be undertaken--that the southern mesa should be surrounded, and that the people should gather in from all sides and encompass the herd there, in order that this wonderful youth should not escape being seen, or possibly captured.

Now, when the Deer had gone to a safe distance they slackened their pace and called to their leader not to fear. And the old foster-mother of the youth for the first time related to him, as she had related to them long ago, that he was the child of mortals, telling how she had found him.

The youth sat with his head bowed, thinking of these things. Then he raised his head proudly, and said: "What though I be the child of mortals, they have not loved me: they have cast me from their midst, therefore will I be faithful to thee alone."

But the old Deer-mother said to him: "Hush, my child! Thou art but a mortal, and though thou might'st live on the roots of the trees and the bushes and plants that mature in autumn, yet surely in the winter time thou could'st not live, for my supply of milk will be withholden, and the fruits and the nuts will all be gone."

And the older members of that large herd gathered round and repeated what she had been saying. And they said: "We are aware that we shall be hunted now, as is the invariable custom when our herd has been discovered, on the fourth day from

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the day on which we were first seen. Amongst the people who come there will be, no doubt, those who will seek you; and you must not endeavor to escape. Even we ourselves are accustomed to give up our lives to the brave hunters among this people, for many of them are sacred of thought, sacred of heart, and make due sacrifices unto us, that our lives in other form may be spared unceasingly."

A splendid Deer rose from the midst of the herd, and, coming forward, laid his cheek on the cheek of the boy, and said: "Yet we love you, but we must now part from you. And, in order that you may be like unto other mortals, only exceeding them, accompany me to the Land of the Souls of Men, where sit in council the Gods of the Sacred Dance and Drama, the Gods of the Spirit World."

To all this the youth, being convinced, agreed. And on that same day the Deer who had spoken set forward, the swift youth running by his side, toward the Lake of the Dead. On and on they sped, and as night was falling they came to the borders of that lake, and the lights were shining over its middle and the Gardens of the Sacred Dance. And the old Drama-woman and the old Drama-man were walking on its shores, back and forth, calling across to each other.

As the Deer neared the shore of the lake, he turned and said to his companion: "Step in boldly with me. Ladders of rushes will rise to receive you, and down underneath the waters into the

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great Halls of the Dead and of the Sacred Dance we will be borne gently and swiftly."

Then they stepped into the lake. Brighter and lighter it grew. Great ladders of rushes and flags lifted themselves from the water, and upon them the Deer and his companion were borne downward into halls of splendor, lighted by many lights and fires. And in the largest chamber the gods were sitting in council silently. Páutiwa, the Sun-priest of the Sacred Drama (Kâkâ), Shúlawitsi (the God of Fire), with his torch of ever-living flame, and many others were there; and when the strangers arrived they greeted and were greeted, and were given a place in the light of the central fire. And in through the doors of the west and the north and the east and the south filed long rows of sacred dancers, those who had passed through the Lake of the Dead, clad in cotton mantles, white as the daylight, finely embroidered, decked with many a treasure shell and turquoise stone. These performed their sacred rites, to the delight of the gods and the wonder of the Deer and his foster-brother.

And when the dancers had retired, Páutiwa, the Sun-priest of the Sacred Dance, arose, and said: "What would'st thou?"-though he knew full well beforehand. "What would'st thou, oh, Deer of the forest mesas, with thy companion, thy foster-brother; for not thinking of nothing would one visit the home of the Kâkâ."

Then the Deer lifted his head and told his story.

"It is well," said the gods.

"Appear, my faithful one," said Páutiwa to

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Shúlawitsi. And Shúlawitsi appeared and waved his flame around the youth, so that he became convinced of his mortal origin and of his dependence upon food prepared by fire. Then the gods who speak the speech of men gathered around and breathed upon the youth, and touched to his lips moisture from their own mouths, and touched the portals of his ears with oil from their own ears, and thus was the youth made acquainted with both the speech and the understanding of the speech of mortal man. Then the gods called out, and there were brought before them fine garments of white cotton embroidered in many colors, rare necklaces of sacred shell with many turquoises and coral-like stones and shells strung in their midst, and all that the most beautifully clad of our ancients could have glorified their appearance with. Such things they brought forth, and, making them into a bundle, laid them at the feet of the youth. Then they said: "Oh, youth, oh, brother and father, since thou art the child of the Sun, who is the father of us all, go forth with thy foster-brother to thy last meeting-place with him and with his people; and when on the day after the morrow hunters shall gather from around thy country, some of ye, oh, Deer," said he, turning to the Deer, "'yield thyselves up that ye may die as must thy kind ever continue to die, for the sake of this thy brother."

"I will lead them," simply replied the Deer.

"Thanks."

And Páutiwa continued: "Here full soon wilt thou be gathered in our midst, or with the winds

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and the mists of the air at night-time wilt sport, ever-living. Go ye forth, then, carrying this bundle, and, as ye best know how, prepare this our father and child for his reception among men. And, O son and father," continued the priest-god, turning to the youth, "Fear not! Happy wilt thou be in the days to come, and treasured among men. Hence thy birth. Return with the Deer and do as thou art told to do. Thy uncle, leading his priest-youths, will be foremost in the hunt. He will pursue thee and thy foster-mother. Lead him far away; and when thou hast so led him, cease running and turn and wait, and peacefully go home whither he guides thee."

The sounds of the Sacred Dance came in from the outer apartments, and the youth and the Deer, taking their bundle, departed. More quickly than they had come they sped away; and on the morning when the hunters of Háwikuh were setting forth, the Deer gathered themselves in a vast herd on the southern mesa, and they circled about the youth and instructed him how to unloose the bundle he had brought. Then closer and closer came the Deer to the youth and bade him stand in his nakedness, and they ran swiftly about him, breathing fierce, moist breaths until hot steam enveloped him and bathed him from head to foot, so that he was purified, and his skin was softened, and his hair hung down in a smooth yet waving mass at the back of his head. Then the youth put on the costume, one article after another, he having seen them worn by the Gods of the Sacred Dance, and

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by the dancers; and into his hair at the back, under the band which he placed round his temples, he thrust the glowing feathers of the macaw which had been given him. Then, seeing that there was still one article left,--a little string of conical shells,--he asked what that was for; and the Deer told him to tie it about his knee.

The Deer gathered around him once more, and the old chief said: "Who among ye are willing to die?" And, as if it were a festive occasion to which they were going, many a fine Deer bounded forth, striving for the place of those who were to die, until a large number were gathered, fearless and ready. Then the Deer began to move.

Soon there was an alarm. In the north and the west and the south and the east there was cause for alarm. And the Deer began to scatter, and then to assemble and scatter again. At last the hunters with drawn bows came running in, and soon their arrows were flying in the midst of those who were devoted, and Deer after Deer fell, pierced to the heart or other vital part.

At last but few were left,--amongst them the kind old Deer-mother and her two children; and, taking the lead, the glorious youth, although encumbered by his new dress, sped forth with them. They ran and ran, the fleetest of the tribe of Háwikuh pursuing them; but all save the uncle and his brave sons were soon left far behind. The youth's foster-brother was soon slain, and the youth, growing angry, turned about; then bethinking himself of the words of the gods, he sped away

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again. So his foster-sister, too, was killed; but he kept on, his old mother alone running behind him. At last the uncle and his sons overtook the old mother, and they merely caught her and turned her away, saying: "Faithful to the last she has been to this youth." Then they renewed the chase for the youth; and he at last, pretending weariness, faced about and stood like a stag at bay. As soon as they approached, he dropped his arms and lowered his head. Then he said: "Oh, my uncle" (for the gods had told who would find him)--" Oh, my uncle, what wouldst thou? Thou hast killed my brothers and sisters; what wouldst thou with me?

The old man stopped and gazed at the youth in wonder and admiration of his fine appearance and beautiful apparel. Then he said: "Why dost thou call me uncle?"

"Because, verily," replied the youth, "thou art my uncle, and thy niece, my maiden-mother, gave birth to me and cast me away upon a dust-heap; and then my noble Deer found me and nourished me and cherished me."

The uncle and his sons gazed still with wonder. Then they thought they saw in the youth's clear eyes and his soft, oval face a likeness to the mother, and they said: "Verily, this which he says is true." Then they turned about and took him by the hands gently and led him toward Háwikuh, while one of them sped forward to test the truth of his utterances.

When the messenger arrived at Háwikuh he took

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his way straight to the house of the priest, and told him what he had heard. The priest in anger summoned the maiden.

"Oh, my child," said he, "hast thou done this thing which we are told thou hast done?" And he related what he had been told.

"Nay, no such thing have I done," said she.

"Yea, but thou hast, oh, unnatural mother! And who was the father?" demanded the old priest with great severity.

Then the maiden, thinking of her Sun-lover, bowed her head in her lap and rocked herself to and fro, and cried sorely. And then she said: "Yea, it is true; so true that I feared thy Wrath, oh, my father! I feared thy shame, oh, my mother! and what could I do?" Then she told of her lover, the Sun,--with tears she told it, and she cried out: "Bring back my child that I may nurse him and love but him alone, and see him the father of children!"

By this time the hunters arrived, some bringing game, but others bringing in their midst this wondrous youth, on whom each man and maiden in Háwikuh gazed with delight and admiration.

They took him to the home of his priest-grandfather; and as though he knew the way he entered the apartment of his mother, and she, rising and opening wide her arms, threw herself on his breast and cried and cried. And he laid his hand on her head, and said: "Oh, mother, weep not, for I have come to thee, and I will cherish thee.

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So was the foster-child of the Deer restored to his mother and his people.

Wondrously wise in the ways of the Deer and their language was he--so much so that, seeing them, he understood them. This youth made little ado of hunting, for he knew that he could pay those rites and attentions to the Deer that were most acceptable, and made them glad of death at the hand of the hunter. And ere long, so great was his knowledge and success, and his preciousness in the eyes of the Master of Life, that by his will and his arm alone the tribe of Háwikuh was fed and was clad in buckskins.

A rare and beautiful maiden he married, and most happy was he with her.

It was his custom to go forth early in the morning, when the Deer came down to drink or stretch themselves and walk abroad and crop the grass; and, taking his bow and quiver of arrows, he would go to a distant mesa, and, calling the Deer around him, and following them as swiftly as they ran, he would strike them down in great numbers, and, returning, say to his people: "Go and bring in my game, giving me only parts of what I have slain and taking the rest yourselves."

So you can readily see how he and his people became the greatest people of Háwikuh. Nor is it marvellous that the sorcerers of that tribe should have grown envious of his prosperity, and sought to diminish it in many ways, wherein they failed.

At last one night the Master of Sorcerers in secret places raised his voice and cried

{p. 146}

"Weh-h-h-h! Weh-h-h-h-h-h!" And round about him presently gathered all the sorcerers of the place, and they entered into a deep cavern, large and lighted by green, glowing fires, and there, staring at each other, they devised means to destroy this splendid youth, the child of the Sun.

One of their number stood forth and said: "I will destroy him in his own vocation. He is a hunter, and the Coyote loves well to follow the hunter." His words were received with acclamation, and the youth who had offered himself sped forth in the night to prepare, by incantation and with his infernal appliances, a disguise for himself.

On the next morning, when the youth went forth to hunt, an old Coyote sneaked behind him after he reached the mesas, and, following stealthily, waited his throwing down of the Deer; and when the youth had called and killed a number of Deer and sat down to rest on a fallen tree, the Coyote sneaked into sight. The youth, looking at him, merely thought: "He seeks the blood of my slain Deer," and he went on with his prayers and sacrifices to the dead of the Deer. But soon, stiffening his limbs, the Coyote swiftly scudded across the open, and, with a puff from his mouth and nostrils like a sneeze toward the youth, threw himself against him and arose a man,--the same man who had offered his services in the council of the wizards--while the poor youth, falling over, ran away, a human being still in heart and mind, but in form a coyote.

Off to the southward he wandered, his tail dragging

{p. 147}

in the dust; and growing hungry he had naught to eat; and cold on the sides of the mesas he passed the night, and on the following morning wandered still, until at last, very hungry, he was fain even to nip the blades of grass and eat the berries of the juniper. Thus he became ill and worn; and one night as he was seeking a warm place to lay him down and die, he saw a little red light glowing from the top of a hillock. Toward this light he took his way, and when he came near he saw that it was shining up through the sky hole of someone's house. He peered over the edge and saw an old Badger with his grizzly wife, sitting before a fire, not in the form of a badger but in the form of a little man, his badger-skin hanging beside him.

Then the youth raid to himself I will cast myself down into their house, thus showing them my miserable condition." And as he tried to step down the ladder, he fell, teng, on the floor before them.

The Badgers were disgusted. They grabbed the Coyote, and hauling him up the ladder, threw him into the plain, where, toonoo, he fell far away and swooned from loss of breath. When he recovered his thoughts he again turned toward the glowing skyhole, and, crawling feebly back, threw himself down into the room again. Again he was thrown out, but this time the Badger said: "It is marvellously strange that this Coyote, the miserable fellow, should insist on coming back, and coming back."

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"I have heard," said the little old Badger-woman, "that our glorious beloved youth of Háwikuh was changed some time ago into a Coyote. It may be he. Let us see when he comes again if it be he. For the love of mercy, let us see!"

Ere long the youth again tried to clamber down the ladder, and fell with a thud on the floor before them. A long time he lay there senseless, but at last opened his eyes and looked about. The Badgers eagerly asked if he were the same who had been changed into a Coyote, or condemned to inhabit the form of one. The youth could only move his head in acquiescence.

Then the Badgers hastily gathered an emetic and set it to boil, and when ready they poured the fluid down the throat of the seeming Coyote, and tenderly held him and pitied him. Then they laid him before the fire to warm him. Then the old Badger, looking about in some of his burrows, found a sacred rock crystal, and heating it to glowing heat in the fire, he seared the palms of the youth's hands, the soles of his feet, and the crown of his head, repeating incantations as he performed this last operation, whereupon the skin burst and fell off, and the youth, haggard and lean, lay before them. They nourished him as best they could, and, when well recovered, sent him home to join his people again and render them happy. Clad in his own fine garments, happy of countenance and handsome as before, and, according to his regular custom, bearing a Deer on his back,

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returned the youth to his people, and there he lived most happily.

As I have said, this was in the days of the ancients, and it is because this youth lived so long with the Deer and became acquainted with their every way and their every word, and taught all that he knew to his children and to others whom he took into his friendship, that we have today a class of menthe Sacred Hunters of our tribe,--who surpassingly understand the ways and the language of the Deer.

Thus shortens my story.

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THE BOY HUNTER WHO NEVER SACRIFICED TO THE DEER HE HAD SLAIN:
OR THE ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY OF RATTLESNAKES
In very ancient times, there lived at Tâ'ia,' below the Zuñi Mountains, an old shíwani or priest-chief, who had a young son named Héasailuhtiwa ("Metal-hand"), famed throughout the land of the Zuñis for his success in hunting.

When very young, this lad had said to his parents: "My old ones, let me go away from the home of my fathers and dwell by myself."

"Why do you, a young boy, wish to go and dwell by yourself, my son? Know you not that you would fare but badly, for you are careless and forgetful? No, no! remain with us, that we may care for you."

But the boy answered: "Why should I fare badly? Can I not hunt my own game and roast the meat over the fire? It is because you never care to have me go forth alone that I wish to live by myself, for I long to travel far and hunt deer in the mountains of many countries: yet whenever I start forth you call me back, and it is painful to my longing thoughts thus to be held back when I would go forward."

It was not until the lad had spoken thus again

[1. The native name of the Zuñi town of Las Nutrias.]

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and again, and once more, that the parents sadly yielded to his wish. They insisted, however, much to the boy's displeasure, that his younger sister, Waíasialuhtitsa, should go with him, only to look after his house, and to remind him here and there, at times, of his forgetfulness. So the brother and sister chose the lofty rooms of a high house in the upper part of the pueblo and lived there.

The boy each day went out hunting and failed not each time to bring in slain animals, while the sister cooked for him and looked after the house. Yet, although the boy was a great hunter, he never sacrificed to the Deer he had slain, nor to the Gods of Prey who delight in aiding the hunter who renews them; for the lad was forgetful and careless of all things.

One day he went forth over the mountain toward the north, until he came to the Waters of the Bear.[1] There he started up a huge Buck, and, finding the trail, followed it far toward the northward. Yet, although swift of foot, the youth could not overtake the running Deer, and thus it happened that he went on and on, past mesas, valleys, and mountains, until he came to the brink of a great river which flows wcstwardly from the north.[2] On the banks of this great river grew forests of cottonwood, and into the thickets of these forests led the trail, straight toward the river bank. just as the young man was about to follow the track to the

[1. Aínshik'yanakwin, or Bear Spring, where Fort Wingate now stands.

2. Probably Green River, or some important tributary of the Colorado Grande.]

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bank, he thought he saw under a large tree in the midst of the thickets the form of the Deer, so, bending very low, he ran around close to the bank, and came up between the river and the thicket.

As he guardedly approached the tree, his eyes now following the track, now glancing up, he discovered a richly dressed, handsome young man, who called out to him: "How art thou these days, and whither art thou going?"

The young man straightened up, and quickly drawing his breath, replied: "I am hunting a Deer whose tracks I have followed all the way from the Waters of the Bear."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the stranger, "and where has thy Deer gone?"

"I know not," replied the youth, "for here are his tracks." Then he observed that they led to the place where the stranger was sitting, and the latter at the same time remarked:

"I am the Deer, and it was as I would have it that I enticed thee hither."

"Hai-í!" exclaimed the young man.

"Aye," continued the stranger. "Alas! alas! thou forgetful one! Thou hast day after day chased my children over the plains and slain them; thou hast made thyself happy of their flesh, and of their flesh added unto thine own meat and that of thy kindred; but, alas! thou hast been forgetful and careless, and not once hast thou given unto their souls the comfort of that which they yearn for and need. Yet hast thou had good fortune in the chase. At last the Sun-father

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has listened to the supplications of my children and commanded that I bring thee here, and here have I brought thee. Listen! The Sun-father commands that thou shalt visit him in his house at the western end of the world, and these are his instructions."

"Indeed! Well, I suppose it must be, and it is well!" exclaimed the young man.

"And," continued the Deer-being, "thou must hasten home and call thy father. Tell him to summon his Pithlan Shíwani (Priest of the Bow, or Warrior) and command him that he shall instruct his children to repair to the rooms of sacred things and prepare plumed prayer-sticks for the Sun-father, the Moon-mother, and the Great Ocean, and red plumes of sacrifice for the Beings of Prey; that fully they must prepare everything, for thou, their child and father, shalt visit the home of the Sun-father, and in payment for thy forgetfulness and carelessness shalt render him, and the Moon-mother, and the Beings of the Great Ocean, plumes of sacrifice. Hasten home, and tell thy father these things. Then tell thy sister to prepare sweetened meal of parched corn to serve as the food of thy journey, and pollen of the flowers of corn; and ask thy mother to prepare great quantities of new cotton, and, making all these things into bundles, thou must summon some of thy relatives, and come to this tree on the fourth day from this day. Make haste, for thou art swift of foot, and tell all these things to thy father; he, will understand thee, for

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is he not a priest-chief? Hast thou knives of flint?"

"Yes," said the young man, "my father has many."

"Select from them two," said the Deer-being--"a large one and a smaller one; and when thou hast returned to this place, cut down with the larger knife yonder great tree, and with the smaller knife hollow it out. Leave the large end entire, and for the smaller end thou must make a round door, and around the inside of the smaller end cut a notch that shall be like a terrace toward the outside, but shall slope from within that thou mayest close it from the inside with the round door; then pad the inside with cotton, and make in the bottom a padding thicker than the rest; but leave space that thou mayest lie thy length, or sit up and eat. And in the top cut a hole larger inside than out, that thou mayest close it from the inside with a plug of wood. Then when thou hast placed the sweetened meal of parched corn inside, and the plumed prayer-sticks and the sacred pollen of corn-flowers, then enter thyself and close the door in the end and the hole in the top that thy people may roll thee into the river. Thou wilt meet strange beings on thy way. Choose from amongst them whom thou shalt have as a companion, and proceed, as thy companion shall direct, to the great mountain where the Sun enters. Haste and tell thy father these things." And ere the youth could say, "Be it well," and, "I will," the Deer-being had vanished, and he lifted up

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his face and started swiftly for the home of his fathers.

At sunset the sister looked forth from her high house-top, but nowhere could she see her brother coming. She turned at last to enter, thinking and saying to her breast: "Alas! what did we not think and guess of his carelessness." But just as the country was growing dim in the darkness, the young man ran breathlessly in, and, greeting his sister, sat down in the doorway.

The sister wondered that he had no deer or other game, but placed a meal before him, and, when he had done, herself ate. But the young man remained silent until she had finished, then he said: "Younger sister, I am weary and would sit here; do you go and call father, for I would speak to him of many things."

So the sister cleared away the food and ran to summon the father. Soon she returned with the old man, who, sighing, "Ha hua!" from the effort of climbing, greeted his son and sat down, looking all about the room for the fresh deer-meat; but, seeing none, he asked: "What and wherefore hast thou summoned me, my son?"

"It is this," replied the son, and he related all that had been told him by the Deer-being, describing the magnificent dress, the turquoise and shell ear-rings, necklaces, and wristlets of the handsome stranger.

"Certainly," replied the father. "It is well; for as the Sun-father hath directed the Deer-being, thus must it be done."

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Then he forthwith went away and commanded his Priest of the Bow, who, mounting to the topmost house, directed the elders and priests of the tribe, saying:

Ye, our children, listen!
Ye I will this day inform,
Our child, our father,
He of the strong hand,
He who so hunts the Deer,
Goes unto the Sunset world,
Goes, our Sun-father to greet
Gather at the sacred houses,
Bring thy prayer-sticks, twines, and feathers,
And prepare for him,
For the Sun-father,
For the Moon-mother,
For the Great Ocean,
For the Prey-beings, plumes and treasures.
Hasten, hasten, ye our children, in the morning!"

So the people gathered in the kiwetsiwe and sacred houses next morning and began to make prayer-plumes, while the sister of the young man and her relatives made sweet parched cornmeal and gathered pollen. Toward evening all was completed. The young man summoned his relatives, and chose his four uncles to accompany him. Then he spread enough cotton-wool out to cover the floor, and, gathering it up, made it into a small bundle. The sweet meal filled a large sack of buckskin, and he took also a little sack of sacred red paint and the black warrior paint with little shining particles in it. Then he bade farewell to his lamenting people and rested for the evening journey.

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Next morning, escorted by priests, the young man, arrayed in garments of embroidered white cotton and carrying his plumes in his arms, started out of the town, and, accompanied only by his four uncles, set out over the mountains. On the third day they reached the forest on the bank of the great river and encamped.

Then the young man left the camp of his uncles and went alone into the forest, and, choosing the greatest tree he could find, hacked midway through it with his great flint knife. The next day he cut the other half and felled it, when he found it partly hollow. So with his little knife he began to cut it as he had been directed, and made the round door for it and the hole through the top. With his bundle of cotton he padded it everywhere inside until it was thickly coated and soft, and he made a bed on the bottom as thick as himself.

When all was ready and he had placed his food and plumes inside, he called his uncles and showed them the hollow log. "In this," said he, "I am to journey to the western home of our Sun-father. When I have entered and closed the round door tightly and put the plug into the upper hole securely, do ye, never thinking of me, roll the log over and over to the high brink of the river, and, never regarding consequences, push it into the water."

Then it was that the uncles all lamented and tried to dissuade him; but he persisted, and they bade him "Go," as forever, "for," said they, "could one think of journeying even to the end of

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the earth and across the waters that embrace the world without perishing?"

Then, hastily embracing each of them, the young man entered his log, and, securely fastening the door from the inside, and the plug, called out (they heard but faintly), "Kesi!" which means "All is ready."

Sorrowfully and gently they rolled the log over and over to the high river bank, and, hesitating a moment, pushed it off with anxious eyes and closed mouths into the river. Eagerly they watched it as it tumbled end-over-end and down into the water with a great splash, and disappeared under the waves, which rolled one after another across to the opposite banks of the river. But for a long time they saw nothing of it. After a while, far off, speeding on toward the Western Waters of the World, they saw the log rocking along on the rushing waters until it passed out of sight, and they sadly turned toward their homes under the Mountains of the South.

When the log had ceased rocking and plunging, the young man cautiously drew out the plug, and, finding that no water flowed in, peered out. A ray of sunlight slanted in, and by that he knew it was not yet midday, and he could see a round piece of sky and clouds through the hole. By-and-by the ray of sunlight came straight down, and then after a while slanted the other way, and finally toward evening it ceased to shine in, and then the youth took out some of his meal and ate his supper. When after a while he could see the stars, and later

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the Hanging Lines [the sword-belt of Orion], he knew it was time to rest, so he lay down to sleep.

Thus, day after day, he travelled until he knew he was out on the Great Waters of the World, for no longer did his log strike against anything or whirl around, nor could he see, through the chink, leaves of overhanging trees, nor rocks and banks of earth. On the tenth morning, when he looked up through the hole, he saw that the clouds did not move, and wondering at this, kicked at his log, but it would not move. Then he peered out as far as he could and saw rocks and trees. When he tried to rock his log, it remained firm, so he determined to open the door at the end.

Now, in reality, his log had been cast high up on the shore of a great mountain that rose out of the waters; and this mountain was the home of the Rattlesnakes. A Rattlesnake maiden was roaming along the shore just as the young man was about to open the door of his log. She espied the curious vessel, and said to herself in thought: "What may this be? Ah, yes, and who? Ah, yes, the mortal who was to come; it must be he!" Whereupon she hastened to the shore and tapped on the log.

"Art thou come?" she asked.

"Aye," replied the youth. "Who may you be, and where am I?"

"You are landed on the Island of the Rattlesnakes, and I am one of them. The other side of the mountain here is where our village is. Come out and go with me, for my old ones have expected you long."

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"Is it dry, surely?" asked the young man.

"Why, yes! Here you are high above the waters."

Thereupon the young man opened from the inside his door, and peered out. Surely enough, there he was high among the rocks and sands. Then he looked at the Rattlesnake maiden, and scarcely believed she was what she called herself, for she was a most beautiful young woman, and like a daughter of men. Yet around her waist--she was dressed in cotton mantles--was girt a rattlesnake-skin which was open at the breast and on the crown of the head.

"Come with me," said the maiden; and she led the way over the mountain and across to a deep valley, where terrible Serpents writhed and gleamed in the sunlight so thickly that they seemed, with their hissing and rattling, like a dry mat shaken by the wind. The youth drew back in horror, but the maiden said: "Fear not; they will neither harm you nor frighten you more, for they are my people." Whereupon she commanded them to fall back and make a pathway for the young man and herself; and they tamely obeyed her commands. Through the opening thus made they passed down to a cavern, on entering which they found a great room. There were great numbers of Rattlesnake people, old and young, gathered in council, for they knew of the coming of the young man. Around the walls of their houses were many pegs and racks with serpent skins hanging on them--skins like the one the young girl wore as a girdle. The elders arose and greeted the youth, saying: "Our child

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and our father, comest thou, comest thou happily these many days?"

"Aye, happily," replied the youth.

And after a feast of strange food had been placed before the young man, and he had eaten a little, the elders said to him: "Knowest thou whither thou goest, that the way is long and fearful, and to mortals unknown, and that it will be but to meet with poverty that thou journeyest alone? Therefore have we assembled to await thy coming and in order that thou shouldst journey preciously, we have decided to ask thee to choose from amongst us whom thou shalt have for a companion."

"It is well, my fathers," said the young man, and, casting his eyes about the council to find which face should be kindest to him, he chose the maiden, and said: "Let it be this one, for she found me and loved me in that she gently and without fear brought me into your presence."

And the girl said: "It is well, and I will go."

Instantly the grave and dignified elders, the happy-faced youths and maidens, the kind-eyed matrons, all reached up for their serpent skins, and, passing them over their persons,--lo! in the time of the telling of it, the whole place was filled with writhing and hissing Serpents and the din of their rattles. In horror the young man stood against the wall like a hollow stalk, and the Serpent maiden, going to each of the members of the council, extracted from each a single fang, which she wrapped together in a piece of fabric, until she

had a great bundle. Then she passed her hand over her person, and lo! she became a beautiful human maiden again, holding in her hand a rattlesnake skin. Then taking up the bundle of fangs, she said to the young man: "Come, for I know the way and will guide you,"--and the young man followed her to the shore where his log lay.

"Now," said she, "wait while I fix this log anew, that it may be well," and she bored many little holes all over the log, and into these holes she inserted the crooked fangs, so that they all stood slanting toward the rear, like the spines on the back of a porcupine.

When she had done this, she said: "First I will enter, for there may not be room for two, and in order that I may make myself like the space I enter, I will lay on my dress again. Do you, when I have entered, enter also, and with your feet kick the log down to the shore waters, when you must quickly close the door and the waters will take us abroad upon themselves."

In an instant she had passed into her serpent form again and crawled into the log. The young man did as he was bidden, and as he closed the door a wave bore them gently out upon the waters. Then, as the young man turned to look upon his companion coiled so near him, he drew back in horror.

"Why do you fear?" asked the Rattlesnake.

"I know not, but I fear you; perhaps, though you speak gently, you will, when I sleep, bite me and devour my flesh, and it is with thoughts of this that I have fear."

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"Ah, no!" replied the maiden, "but, that you may not fear, I will change myself." And so saying, she took off her skin, and, opening the upper part of the door, hung the skin on the fangs outside.

Finally, toward noon-time, the youth prepared his meal food, and placing some before the maiden, asked her to eat.

"Ah, no! alas, I know not the food of mortals. Have you not with you the yellow dust of the corn-flower?"

"Aye, that I have," said the young man, and producing a bag, opened it and asked the girl: "How shall I feed it to you?"

"Scatter it upon the cotton, and by my knowledge I will gather it."

Then the young man scattered a great quantity on the cotton, wondering how the girl would gather it up. But the maiden opened the door, and taking down the skin changed herself to a serpent, and passing to and fro over the pollen, received it all within her scales. Then she resumed her human form again and hung the skin up as before.

Thus they floated until they came to the great forks of the Mighty Waters of the World, and their floating log was guided into the southern branch. And on they floated toward the westward for four months from the time when the uncles had thrown him into the river.

One day the maiden said to the youth: "We are nearing our journey's end, and, as I know the way, I will guide you. Hold yourself hard and

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ready, for the waters will cast our house high upon the shores of the mountain wherein the Sun enters, and these shores are inaccessible because so smooth."

Then the log was cast high above the slippery bank, and when the waters receded there it remained, for the fangs grappled it fast.

Then said the maiden: "Let us now go out. Fear not for your craft, for the fangs will hold it fast; it matters little how high the waves may roll, or how steep and slippery the bank."

Then, taking in his arms the sacred plumes which his people had prepared for him, he followed the girl far up to the doorway in the Mountain of the Sea. Out of it grew a great ladder of giant rushes, by the side of which stood an enormous basket-tray. Very fast approached the Sun, and soon the Sun-father descended the ladder, and the two voyagers followed down. They were gently greeted by a kind old woman, the grandmother of the Sun, and were given seats at one side of a great and wonderfully beautiful room.

Then the Sun-father approached some pegs in the wall and from them suspended his bow and quiver, and his bright sun-shield, and his wonderful travelling dress Behold! there stood, kindly smiling before the youth and maiden, the most magnificent and gentle of beings in the world-the Sun-father.

Then the Sun-father greeted them, and, turning to a great package which he had brought in, opened it and disclosed thousands of shell beads, red and

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white, and thousands more of brilliant turquoises. These he poured into the great tray at the door-side, and gave them to the grandmother, who forthwith began to sort them with great rapidity. But, ere she had done, the Sun-father took them from her; part of them he took out with unerring judgment and cast them abroad into the great waters as we cast sacred prayer-meal. The others he brought below and gave them to the grandmother for safe-keeping.

Then he turned once more to the youth and the maiden, and said to the former: "So thou hast come, my child, even as I commanded. It is well, and I am thankful." Then, in a stern and louder voice, which yet sounded like the voice of a father, he asked: "Hast thou brought with thee that whereby we are made happy with our children?"

And the young man said: "Aye, I have."

"It is well; and if it be well, then shalt thou precious be; for knowest thou not that I recognize the really good from the evil,--even of the thoughts of men,--and that I know the prayer and sacrifice that is meant, from the words and treasures of those who do but lie in addressing them to me, and speak and act as children in a joke? Behold the treasure which I brought with me from the cities of mankind today! Some of them I cherished preciously, for they are the gifts to me of good hearts and I treasure them that I may return them in good fortune and blessing to those who gave them. But some thou sawest I cast abroad into the great waters that they may again be gathered up and

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presented to me; for they were the gifts of double and foolish hearts, and as such cannot be treasured by me nor returned unto those who gave them. Bring forth, my child, the plumes and gifts thou hast brought. Thy mother dwelleth in the next room, and when she appeareth in this, thou shalt with thine own hand present to her thy sacrifice."

So the youth, bowing his head, unwrapped his bundle and laid before the Sun-father the plumes he had brought. And the Sun-father took them and breathed upon them and upon the youth, and said: "Thanks, this day. Thou hast straightened thy crooked thoughts."

And when the beautiful Mother of Men, the Moon-mother--the wife of the Sun-father--appeared, the boy placed before her the plumes he had brought, and she, too, breathed upon them, and said: "Thanks, this day," even as the Sun-father had.

Then the Sun-father turned to the youth and said: "Thou shalt join me in my journey round the world, that thou mayest see the towns and nations of mankind--my children; that thou mayest realize how many are my children. Four days shalt thou join me in my journeyings, and then shalt thou return to the home of thy fathers."

And the young man said: "It is well!" but he turned his eyes to the maiden.

"Fear not, my child," added the Father, "she shall sit preciously in my house until we have returned."

And after they had feasted, the Sun-father again enrobed himself, and the youth he dressed

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in appearance as he himself was dressed. Then, taking the sun-dress from the wall, he led the way down through the four great apartments of the world, and came out into the Lower Country of the Earth.

Behold! as they entered that great world, it was filled with snow and cold below, and the tracks of men led out over great white plains, and as they passed the cities of these nether countries people strange to see were clearing away the snow from their housetops and doorways.

And so they journeyed to the other House of the Sun, and, passing up through the four great rooms, entered the home of the aunts of the Sun-father; and here, too, the young man presented plumes of prayer and sacrifice to the inmates, and received their thanks and blessings.

Again they started together on their journey; and behold! as they came out into the World of Daylight, the skies below them were filled with the rain of summer-time.

Across the great world they journeyed, and they saw city after city of men, and many tribes of strange peoples. Here they were engaged in wars and in wasting the lives of one another; there they were dying of famine and disease; and more of misery and poverty than of happiness saw the young man among the nations of men. "For," said the Sun-father, "these be, alas! my children, who waste their lives in foolishness, or slay one another in useless anger; yet they are brothers to one another, and I am the father of all."

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Thus journeyed they four days; and each evening when they returned to the home where the Sun-father enters, he gave to his grandmother the great package of treasure which his children among men had sacrificed to him, and each day he cast the treasures of the bad and double-hearted into the great waters.

On the fourth day, when they had entered the western home of the Sun-father, said the latter to the youth: "Thy task is meted out and finished; thou shalt now return unto the home of thy fathers--my children below the mountains of Shíwina. How many days, thinkest thou, shalt thou journey?"

"Many days more than ten," replied the youth with a sigh.

"Ah! no, my child," said the Sun-father. "Listen; thou shalt in one day reach the banks of the river whence thou camest. Listen! Thou shalt take this, my shaft of strong lightning; thou shalt grasp its neck with firm hands, and as thou extendest it, it will stretch out far to thy front and draw thee more swiftly than the arrow's flight through the water. Take with thee this quiver of unerring arrows, and this strong bow, that by their will thou mayest seek life; but forget not thy sacrifices nor that they are to be made with true word and a faithful heart. Take also with thee thy guide and companion, the Rattlesnake maiden. When thou hast arrived at the shore of the country of her people, let go the lightning, and it will land thee high. On the morrow I will journey slowly, that ere I be done rising thou mayest reach the

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home of the maiden. There thou must stop but briefly, for thy fathers, the Rattle-tailed Serpents, will instruct thee, and to their counsel thou must pay strict heed, for thus only will it be well. Thou shalt present to them the plumes of the Prey-beings thou bringest, and when thou hast presented these, thou must continue thy journey. Rest thou until the morrow, and early as the light speed hence toward the home of thy fathers. May all days find ye, children, happy." With this, the Sun-father, scarce listening to the prayers and thanks of the youth and maiden, vanished below.

Thus, when morning approached, the youth and the maiden entered the hollow house and closed it. Scarce did the youth grasp the lightning when, drawn by the bright shaft, the log shot far out into the great waters and was skimming, too fast to be seen, toward the home of the Rattle-tailed Serpents.

And the Sun had but just climbed above the mountains of this world of daylight when the little tube was thrown high above the banks of the great island whither they were journeying.

Then the youth and the maiden again entered the council of the Rattlesnakes, and when they saw the shining black paint on his face they asked that they too might paint their faces like his own; but they painted their cheeks awkwardly, as to this day may be seen; for all rattlesnakes are painted unevenly in the face. Then the young man presented to each the plumes he had brought, and told the elders that he would return with their maiden to the home of his father.

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"Be it well, that it may be well," they replied; and they thanked him with delight for the treasure-plumes he had bestowed upon them.

"Go ye happily all days," said the elders. "Listen, child, and father, to our words of advice. But a little while, and thou wilt reach the bank whence thou started. Let go the shaft of lightning, and, behold, the tube thou hast journeyed with will plunge far down into the river. Then shalt thou journey with this our maiden three days. Care not to embrace her, for if thou doest this, it will not be well. journey ye preciously, our children, and may ye be happy one with the other."

So again they entered their hollow log and, before entering, the maiden placed her rattlesnake skin as before on the fangs. With incredible swiftness the lightning drew them up the great surging river to the banks where the cottonwood forests grow, and when the lad pressed the shaft it landed them high among the forest trees above the steep bank. Then the youth pressed the lightning-shaft with all his might, and the log was dashed into the great river. While yet he gazed at the bounding log, behold! the fangs which the maiden had fixed into it turned to living serpents; hence today, throughout the whole great world, from the Land of Summer to the Waters of Sunset, are found the Rattlesnakes and their children.

Then the young man journeyed with the maiden southward; and on the way, with the bow and arrows the Sun-father had given him, he killed game,

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that they might have meat to eat. Nor did he forget the commandments of his Sun-father. At night he built a fire in a forest of piñons, and made a bower for the maiden near to it; but she could not sit there, for she feared the fire, and its light pained her eyes. Nor could she eat at first of the food he cooked for her, but only tasted a few mouthfuls of it. Then the young man made a bed for her under the trees, and told her to rest peacefully, for he would guard her through the night.

And thus they journeyed and rested until the fourth day, when at evening they entered the town under the mountains of Shíwina and were happily welcomed by the father, sister, and relatives of the young man. Blessed by the old priest-chief, the youth and the maiden dwelt with the younger sister Waíasialuhtitsa, in the high house of the upper part of the town. And the boy was as before a mighty hunter, and the maiden at last grew used to the food and ways of mortals.

After they had thus lived together for a long time, there were born of the maiden two children, twins.

Wonderful to relate, these children grew to the power of wandering, in a single day and night; and hence, when they appeared suddenly on the housetops and in the plazas, people said to one another:

"Who are these strange people, and whence came they?"--and talked much after the manner of our foolish people. And the other little children in the town beat them and quarrelled with them,

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as strange children are apt to do with strange children.. And when the twins ran in to their mother, crying and complaining, the poor young woman was saddened; so she said to the father when he returned from hunting in the evening:

"Ah!, 'their father,' it is not well that we remain longer here. No, alas! I must return to the country of my fathers, and take with me these little ones," and, although the father prayed her not, she said only: "It must be," and he was forced to consent.

Then for four days the Rattlesnake woman instructed him in the prayers and chants of her people, and she took him forth and showed him the medicines whereby the bite of her fathers might be assuaged, and how to prepare them. Again and again the young man urged her not to leave him, saying: "The way is long and filled with dangers. How, alas! will you reach it in safety?"

"Fear not," said she: "go with me only to the shore of the great river, and my fathers will come to meet me and take me home."

Sadly, on the last morning, the father accompanied his wife and children to the forests of the great river. There she said he must not follow but as he embraced them he cried out:

"Ah, alas! my beautiful wife, my beloved children, flesh of my flesh, how shall I not follow ye?"

Then his wife answered: "Fear not, nor trouble thyself with sad thoughts. Whither we go thou

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canst not follow, for thou eatest cooked food (thou art a mortal); but soon thy fathers and mine will come for thee, and thou wilt follow us, never to return." Then she turned from him with the little children and was seen no more, and the young man silently returned to his home below the mountains of Shíwina.

It happened here and there in time that young men of his tribe were bitten by rattlesnakes; but the young man had only to suck their wounds, and apply his medicines, and sing his incantations and prayers, to cure them. Whenever this happened, he breathed the sacred breath upon them, and enjoined them to secrecy of the rituals and chants he taught them, save only to such as they should choose and teach the practice of their prayers.

Thus he had cured and taught eight, when one day he ascended the mountains for wood. There, alone in the forest, he was met and bitten by his fathers. Although he slowly and painfully crawled home, long ere he reached his town he was so swollen that the eight whom he had instructed tried in vain to cure him, and, bidding them cherish as a precious gift the knowledge of his beloved wife, he died.

Immediately his fathers met his breath and being and took them to the home of the Maiden of the Rattlesnakes and of his lost children. Need we ask why he was not cured by his disciples?

Thus it was in the days of the ancients, and hence today we have fathers amongst us to whom

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the dread bite of the rattlesnake need cause no sad thoughts,--the Tchi Kialikwe (Society of the Rattlesnakes).

Thus much and thus shortened is my story.

HOW ÁHAIYÚTA AND MÁTSAILÉMA STOLE THE THUNDER-STONE AND THE LIGHTNING-SHAFT
Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma, with their grandmother, lived where now stands the ancient Middle Place of Sacrifice on Thunder Mountain.

One day they went out hunting prairie-dogs, and while they were running about from one prairie-dog village to another, it began to rain, which made the trail slippery and the ground muddy, so that the boys became a little wrathful. Then they sat down and cursed the rain for a brief space. Off in the south it thundered until the earth trembled, and the lightning-shafts flew about the red-bordered clouds until the two brothers were nearly blinded with the beholding of it. Presently the younger brother smoothed his brow, and jumped up with an exclamation somewhat profane, and cried out: "Elder brother, let us go to the Land of Everlasting Summer and steal from the gods in council their thunder and lightning. I think it would be fine fun to do that sort of thing we have just been looking at and listening to."

The elder brother was somewhat more cautious; still, on the whole, he liked the idea. So he said

"Let us take our prairie-dogs home to the grandmother, that she shall have something to eat meanwhile, and we will think about going tomorrow morning."

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The next morning, bright and early, they started out. In vain the old grandmother called rather crossly after them: "Where are you going now?" She could get no satisfaction, for she knew they lied when they called back: "Oh, we are only going to hunt more prairie-dogs." It is true that they skulked round in the plains about Thunder Mountain a little while, as if looking for prairie-dogs. Then, picking up their wondrously swift heels, they sped away toward that beautiful country of the corals, the Land of Everlasting Summer.

At last,--it may be in the mountains of that country, which are said to glow like shells of the sea or the clouds of the sunset,--they came to the House of the Beloved Gods themselves. And that red house was a wondrous terrace, rising wall after wall, and step after step, like a high mountain, grand and stately; and the walls were so smooth and high that the skill and power of the little War-gods availed them nothing; they could not get in.

"What shall we do?" asked the younger brother.

"Go home," said the elder, "and mind our own affairs."

"Oh, no," urged the younger I have it, elder brother. Let us hunt up our grandfather, the Centipede."

"Good!" replied the elder. "A happy thought is that of yours, my brother younger."

Forthwith they laid down their bows and quivers of mountain-lion skin, their shields, and other things, and set about turning over all the flat stones

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they could find. Presently, lifting one with their united strength, they found under it the very old fellow they sought. He doubled himself, and covered his eyes from the sharpness of the daylight. He did not much like being thus disturbed, even by his grandchildren, the War-gods, in the middle of his noonday nap, and was by no means polite to them. But they prodded him a little in the side, and said: "Now, grandfather, look here! We are in difficulty, and there is no one in the wide world who can help us out as you will."

The old Centipede was naturally flattered. He unrolled himself and viewed them with a look which he intended to be extremely reproachful and belittling. "Ah, my grandchildren," said he, "what are you up to now? Are you trying to get yourselves into trouble, as usual? No doubt of it! I will help you all I can; but the consequences be on your own heads!"

"That's right, grandfather, that's right! No one in the world could help us as you can," said one of them. "The fact is, we want to get hold of the thunder-stone and the lightning-shaft which the Rain-gods up there in the tremendous house keep and guard so carefully, we understand. Now, in the first place, we cannot get up the wall; in the second place, if we did, we would probably have a fuss with them in trying to steal these things. Therefore, we want you to help us, if you will."

"With all my heart, my boys! But I should advise you to run along home to your grandmother, and let these things alone."

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"Oh, pshaw, nonsense! We are only going to play a little while with the thunder and lightning."

"All right," replied the old Worm; "sit here and wait for me." He wriggled himself and stirred about, and his countless legs were more countless than ever with rapid motions as he ran toward the walls of that stately terrace. A vine could not have run up more closely, nor a bird more rapidly; for if one foot slipped, another held on; so the old Centipede wriggled himself up the sides and over the roof, down into the great skyhole; and, scorning the ladder, which he feared might creak, he went along, head-downward, on the ceiling to the end of the room over the altar, ran down the side, and approached that most forbidden of places, the altar of the gods themselves. The beloved gods, in silent majesty, were sitting there with their heads bowed in meditation so deep that they heard not the faint scuffle of the Centipede's feet as he wound himself down into the altar and stole the thunder-stone. He took it in his mouth--which was larger than the mouths of Centipedes are now--and carried it silently, weighty as it was, up the way he had come, over the roof, down the wall, and back to the flat stone where he made his home, and where, hardly able to contain themselves with impatience, the two youthful gods were awaiting him.

"Here he comes!" cried the younger brother, "and he's got it! By my war-bonnet, he's got it!"

The old grandfather threw the stone down. It began to sound, but Áhaiyúta grabbed it, and,

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as it were, throttled its world-stirring speech. "Good! good!" he cried to the grandfather; "thank you, old grandfather, thank you!"

"Hold on!" cried the younger brother; "you didn't bring both. What can we do with the one without the other?"

"Shut up!" cried the old Worm. "I know what I am about!" And before they could say any more he was off again. Ere long he returned, carrying the shaft of lightning, with its blue, shimmering point, in his mouth.

"Good!" cried the War-gods. And the younger brother caught up the lightning, and almost forgot his weapons, which, however, he did stop to take up, and started on a full run for Thunder Mountain, followed by his more deliberate, but equally interested elder brother, who brought along the thunder-stone, which he found a somewhat heavier burden than he had supposed.

It was not long, you may well imagine, so powerful were these Gods of War, ere they reached the home of their grandmother on the top of Thunder Mountain. They had carefully concealed the thunder-stone and the shaft of lightning meanwhile, and had taken care to provide themselves with a few prairie-dogs by way of deception.

Still, in majestic revery, unmoved, and apparently unwitting of what had taken place, sat the Rain-gods in their home in the mountains of Summerland.

Not long after they arrived, the young gods began to grow curious and anxious to try their

new playthings. They poked one another considerably, and whispered a great deal, so that their grandmother began to suspect they were about to play some rash joke or other, and presently she espied the point of lightning gleaming under Mátsailéma's dirty jacket.

"Demons and corpses!" she cried. "By the moon! You have stolen the thunder-stone and lightning-shaft from the Gods of Rain themselves! Go this instant and return them, and never do such a thing again!" she cried, with the utmost severity; and, making a quick step for the fireplace, she picked up a poker with which to belabor their backs, when they whisked out of the room and into another. They slammed the door in their grandmother's face and braced it, and, clearing away a lot of rubbish that was lying around the rear room, they established themselves in one end, and, nodding and winking at one another, cried out: "Now, then!" The younger let go the lightning-shaft; the elder rolled the thunder-stone. The lightning hissed through the air, and far out into the sky, and returned. The thunder-stone rolled and rumbled until it shook the foundations of the mountain. "Glorious fun!" cried the boys, rubbing their thighs in ecstasy of delight. "Do it again!" And again they sent forth the lightning and rolled the thunder-stone.

And now the gods in Summerland arose in their majesty and breathed upon the skies; and the winds rose, and the rains fell like rivers from the clouds, centering their violence upon the roof of

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the poor old grandmother's house. Heedlessly those reckless wretches kept on playing the thunder-stone and lightning-shaft without the slightest regard to the tremendous commotion they were raising all through the skies and all over Thunder Mountain; but nowhere else as above the house where their poor old grandmother lived fell the torrent of the rain, and there alone, of course, burst the lightning and rolled the thunder.

Soon the water poured through the roof of the house; but, move the things as the old grandmother would, she could not keep them dry; scold the boys as she would, she could not make them desist. No, they would only go on with their play more violently than ever, exclaiming: "What has she to say, anyway? It won't hurt her to get a good ducking, and this is fun!" By-and-by the waters rose so high that they extinguished the fire. Soon they rose still higher, so that the War-gods had to paddle around half submerged. Still they kept rolling the thunder-stone and shooting the lightning. The old grandmother scolded harder and harder, but after awhile desisted and climbed to the top of the fireplace, whence, after recovering from her exertion, she began again. But the boys heeded her not, only saying: "Let her yell! Let her scold! This is fun!" At last they began to take the old grandmother's scolding as a matter of course, and allowed nothing but the water to interrupt their pastime. It rose so high, finally, that they were near drowning. Then they climbed to the roof, but still they kept on.

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"By the bones of the dead! why did we not think to come here before? 'T is ten times as fine up here. See him shoot!" cried one to the other, as the lightning sped through the sky, ever returning.

"Hear it mutter and roll!" cried the other, as the thunder bellowed and grumbled.

But no sooner had the Two begun their sport on the roof, than the rain fell in one vast sheet all about them; and it was not long ere the house was so full that the old grandmother--locked in as she was--bobbed her poor pate on the rafters in trying to keep it above the water. She gulped water, and gasped, coughed, strangled, and shrieked to no purpose.

"What a fuss our old grandmother is making, to be sure!" cried the boys. And they kept on, until, forsooth, the water had completely filled the room, and the grandmother's cries gurgled away and ceased. Finally, the thunder-stone grew so terrific, and the lightning so hot and unmanageable, that the boys, drawing a long breath and thinking with immense satisfaction of the fun they had had, possibly also influenced as to the safety of the house, which was beginning to totter, flung the thunder-stone and the lightning-shaft into the sky, where, rattling and flashing away, they finally disappeared over the mountains in the south.

Then the clouds rolled away and the sun shone out, and the boys, wet to the skin, tired in good earnest, and hungry as well, looked around. "Goodness! the water is running out of the

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windows of our house! This is a pretty mess we are in Grandmother! Grandmother!" they shouted. Open the door, and let us in!" But the old grandmother had piped her last, and never a sound came except that of flowing water. They sat themselves down on the roof, and waited for the water to get lower. Then they climbed down, and pounded open the door, and the water came out with a rush, and out with a rush, too, their poor old grandmother,--her eyes staring, her hair all mopped and muddied, and her fingers and legs as stiff as cedar sticks.

"Oh, ye gods! ye gods!" the two boys exclaimed; "we have killed our own grandmother--poor old grandmother, who scolded us so hard and loved us so much! Let us bury her here in front of the door, as soon as the water has run away."

So, as soon as it became dry enough, there they buried her; and in less than four days a strange plant grew up on that spot, and on its little branches, amid its bright green leaves, hung long, pointed pods of fruit, as red as the fire on the breast of the red-bird.

"It is well," said the boys, as they stood one day looking at this plant. "Let us scatter the seeds abroad, that men may find and plant them. It seems it was not without good cause that in the abandonment to our sport we killed our old grandmother, for out of her heart there sprung a plant into the fruits of which, as it were, has flowed the color as well as the fire of her scolding tongue; and, if we have lost our grandmother, whom we

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loved much, but who loved us more, men have gained a new food, which, though it burn them, shall please them more than did the heat of her discourse please us. Poor old grandmother! Men will little dream when they eat peppers that the seed of them first arose from the fiery heart of the grandmother of Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma."

Thereupon the two seized the pods and crushed them between their hands, with an exclamation of pleasure at the brisk odor they gave forth. They cast the seeds abroad, which seeds here and there took root; and the plants which sprang from them being found by men, were esteemed good and were cultivated, as they are to this day in the pepper gardens of Zuñi.

Ever since this time you hear that mountain wherein lived the gods with their grandmother called Thunder Mountain; and often, indeed, to this day, the lightning flashes and the thunder plays over its brows and the rain falls there most frequently.

It is said by some that the two boys, when asked how they stole the lightning-shaft and the thunder-stone, told on their poor old grandfather, the Centipede. The beloved Gods of the Rain gave him the lightning-shaft to handle in another way, and it so burned and shrivelled him that he became small, as you can see by looking at any of his numerous descendants, who are not only small but appear like a well-toasted bit of buckskin, fringed at the edges.

So shortens my story.

THE WARRIOR SUITOR OF MOKI
We take up a story. Of the times of the ancients, a story. Listen, ye young ones and youths, and from what I say draw inference. For behold! the youth of our nation in these recent generations have become less sturdy than of old; else what I relate had not happened.

To our shame be it told that not many generations ago there lived in Moki a poor, ill-favored outcast of a young man, a not-to-be-thought-of-as-hero youth, yet nevertheless the hero of my story; for this youth, the last-mentioned in the numbering of the men of Moki in those days, alone brought great grief on the nation of Zuñi.

And it happened that in Walpi, on the first mesa of the Mokis, there lived an amiable, charming, and surpassingly beautiful girl, whose face was shining, eyes bright, cheeks red like the frost-bite on the datila[1]; whose hair was abundant and soft, black and waving, and done up in large whorls above her ears,--larger than those of the other maidens of her town or nation,--and whose beautiful possessions were as many as were the charms of her person.

What wonder, then, that the youths of the Moki towns should be enamored of her, and seek constantly, with much urgent bespeaking, for the favor

[1. Fruit of the yucca, or soap-weed plant.]

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of her affections? Yet she would none of them. She would shake her head with a saucy smile, and reply to every one, as well as to every recommendation of one from her elders: "A hero for me or no one! Any one of these young men may win my affections if he will, for who knows until the time comes whether a man be a hero or not?"

So she made a proposition. She said to all the youths who came suing for her hand Behold! our nation is at enmity with the Zuñis, far off to the eastward, over the mountains. If any of you be so stout of limb and strong of heart and brave of will, let him go to Zuñi, slay the men of that nation, our enemies, and bring home, not only as proofs of his valor, but as presentations to the warrior societies of our people, scalps in goodly number. Him will I admire to the tips of my eyelashes; him will I cherish to the extent of my powers; him will I make my husband, and in such a husband will I glory!"

But most of the young and handsome suitors who worried her with their importunities would depart forthwith, crestfallen, loving the girl as they did, forsooth, much less than they feared the warriors of Zuñi,--so degenerate they had become, for shame! Months passed by. Not one of those who went to the maiden's house full of love came away from it with as much love as want of valor.

At last this outcast youth I have mentioned--who was spoken to by none, who lived not even in the houses of his people, but, all filth and rags, made himself comfortable as best he could with the

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dogs and eagles and other creatures captive of the people, eating like them the castaway and unwholesome scraps of ordinary meals--heard these jilted lovers conversing from time to time, exclaiming one to another: "A valuable maiden, indeed, for whom one would risk one's life single handed against a nation whose ancients ever prevailed over all men! No! though she be the loveliest of women, I care not for her on those conditions." "Nor I Nor I!" others would exclaim.

Overhearing this talk, the youth formed a most presumptuous resolution--no other, in fact, than this: that he himself would woo the maiden.

All dirty and ragged as he was, with hair unkempt, finger-nails long, and person calloused by much exposure, lean and wiry like an abused but hardened cur, he took himself one night to the home of the maiden's father.

"She-e!" he exclaimed at the entrance of the house, on the top.

And the people within called out: "Kwátchi!"

"Are ye in?" inquired the youth, in such an affable and finished tone and manner of speaking that the people expected to see some magnificent youth enter, and to listen to his proposal of marriage with their maiden.

When they called out "Come in!" and he came stepping down the ladder into the lighted room, they were, therefore, greatly surprised to see this vagabond in the place of what they expected; nevertheless, the old father greeted him pleasantly and politely and showed him a seat before the

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fireplace, and bade the women set food before him. And the youth, although he had not for many a day tasted good food or consumed a full meal even, ate quite sparingly; and, having finished, joined, by the old man's invitation, in the smoking and conversation of the evening.

At last the old man asked him what he came thinking of; and the youth stated that, although it might seem presumptuous, he had heard of the conditions which the maiden of this house had made for those who would win her, and it had occurred to him that he would be glad to try,--so little were his merits, yet so great his love.

The old man listened, with an inward smile; and the maiden, though she conceived no dislike for the youth (there was something about him, strange to say, now that his voice had been heard, which changed her opinion of him), nevertheless was quite merry, all to herself, over this unheard-of proposal. So, when she was asked what she thought of the matter, merely to test the seriousness of the young vagabond's motives, she made the conditions for him even harder than she had for the others, saying: "Look you, stranger! If you will slay single-handed some of the warriors of the valiant Zuñis and bring back to our town, to the joy of our warriors and people, a goodly number of their scalps, I will indeed wed you, as I have said I would the others."

This satisfied the youth, and, bidding them all pass a happy night, he went forth into the dark.

Not quite so poor and helpless as he seemed, was

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this youth; but one of those wonderful beings of this earth in reality, for, behold! as he had lived all his days since childhood with the dogs and eagles and other captive animals of the towns of Moki-land, so, from long association with them, he had learned their ways and language and had gained their friendship and allegiance as no other mortal ever did. No family had he; no one to advise him, save this great family of dogs and other animals with which he lived.

What do you suppose he did? He went to each hole, sheltered nook, and oven in the town and called on the Dogs to join him in council, not long before morning of that same night. Every Dog in the town answered the summons; and, below the mesa on which Walpi stands, on one of those sloping banks lighted by the moon, they gathered and made a tremendous clamor with their yelpings and barkings and other noises such as you are accustomed to hear from Dogs at night-time. The proposition which the youth made to this council of Dogs was as follows:

"My friends and brothers, I am about to go .forth on the path of war to the cities of the Zuñis toward the sunrise. If I succeed, my reward will be great. Now, as I well know from having lived amongst you and been one of you so long, there are two things which are more prized in a Dog's life than anything else. An occasional good feast is one of them; being let alone is another. I think I can bring about both of these rewards for you all if you will, four days hence, after I have prepared

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a sufficiency of food for the party, join me in my warlike expedition against the Zuñis."

The Dogs greeted this proposition with vociferous acclamation, and the council dispersed.

On the following day, toward evening, the youth again presented himself at the home of the maiden. "My friends," said he to the family; "I am, as you know, or can easily perceive, extremely poor. I have no home nor source of food; yet, as I anticipate that I shall be long on this journey, and as I neither possess nor know how to use a bow and arrow, I come to humbly beseech your assistance. I will undertake this thing which has been proposed to me; but, in order that I may be enabled the more easily to do so, I desire that you will present to me a sufficiency of food for my journey; or, if you will lend it to me, I shall be satisfied."

Now, the maiden's people were among the first in the nation, and well-to-do in all ways. They most willingly consented to give the young man not only a sufficiency of food for days, but for months; and when he went away that night he had all that he could carry of meal, coarse and fine, piki or Moki wafer-rolls, tortillas, and abundant grease-cakes, which he well knew would be most tempting to Dogs.

On the fourth day thereafter,--for he had been making his weapons: some flint knives and a good hard war-club,--at evening, he again called at each of the holes and places the Dogs of the town inhabited, and he said to all of them: "I shall leave forthwith on my journey, having provided myself

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with a sufficiency of food for much feasting on the way. Like yourselves, I have become inured to hardship and am swift of foot, and by midnight I shall be half-way to Zuñi. As soon as the people are asleep, that they may not pelt you with stones and drive you back, follow on the trail to Zuñi as fast as you can. I will await you by the side of the Black Mountains, near the Spring of the Nighthawks, and there I will cook the provisions, that we may have a jolly feast and the more strongly proceed on our journey the day following."

The Dogs gave him repeated assurances of their willingness to follow; and, heavily laden with his provisions, the youth, just at dusk, climbed unobserved down the nether side of the mesa and set out through the plains of sagebrush, over the hills far east of Moki, and so on along the plateaus and valleys leading to this our town of Zuñi. At the place he had appointed as a rendezvous he arrived not long before midnight, lighted a fire, unstrapped his provisions, and began to cook mush in great quantities.

Now, after the lights in the windows of Moki began to go out--shutting up their red eyes, as it were, as the maidens of Moki shut up their bright eyes--there was tremendous activity observed among the Dogs. But they made not much noise about it until every last Dog in town--as motley a crowd of curs and mongrels as ever were seen, unless one might see all the Dogs of Moki today--descended the mesa, and one by one gathered in a great pack, and started, baying, barking, and

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howling louder and louder as they went along over the eastern hills on the trail which the youth had taken.

By-and-by he heard them coming; te-ne-e-e-e they sounded as they ran; wo-wo-o-o-o they came, baying and barking in all sorts of voices, nearer and nearer. So the youth prepared his provisions, and as the nearest of them came into the light of the fire, cried out: "Ho, my friends, ye come! I am glad to see ye come! Sit ye round my camp-fire. Let us feast and be merry and lighten the load of my provisions. Methinks we will all carry some of them when we start out tomorrow."

Thereupon he liberally distributed mush, tortillas, and paper bread,--inviting the hot, tired Dogs to drink their fill from the spring and eat their fill from the feast. The Dogs, being very hungry, as Dogs always are--and the more so from the memory of many a long fast--fell to with avidity (and you know what that means with Dogs); and the Short-legs and Beagles would not have fared very well had the youth not considered them and held back a good supply of provisions against their tardy appearance.

Finally, when all were assembled and had eaten, if not to their satisfaction--that was impossible--yet to their temporary gratification, a merry, noisy, much-wriggling crowd they became. Some lay down and rested, others were impatient for the journey; so that even before daylight the youth, making up his bundle of provisions, again set forth at a swift trot, followed by this pack of Dogs which

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ran along either side of him and strung out on the trail the length of a race-course behind him.

Before night, see this valiant youth quietly hiding himself away in one of the deep arroyos around the western end of Grand Mountain, and the foot-hills of Twin Mountain, near which, as you know, the trail from Moki leads to our town. He is giving directions to the Dogs in a quiet manner, and feeding them again, rather more sparingly than at first that they may be anxious for their work.

He says to them: "My friends and brothers, lay yourselves about here, each one according to his color in places most suited for concealment,--some near the gray sage-bushes; and you fellows with fine marks on your backs keep out of sight, pray, in these deep holes, and come in as our reserve force when we want you. Now, lie here patiently, for you will have enough work to do, and can afford to rest. Tomorrow morning, not long after sunrise, I shall doubtless come, with more precipitation than willingness, toward your ambuscade, with a pack of Dogs less worthy the name than yourselves at my heels. Be ready to help me; they are well-nurtured Dogs, and doubtless, if you like, you will be wise enough to make much of this fact."

The Dogs were well pleased with his proposition, and, in louder voices than was prudent, attested their readiness to follow his suggestion, going so far as to assure him that he need have no fear whatsoever, that they alone would vanquish the Zuñi

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nation--which, they had heard from other Dogs, was becoming rather lazy and indifferent in manly matters, Dogs and all.

The night wore on; the youth had refreshed himself with sleep, and somewhat after the herald-stars of the morning-star had appeared, he stealthily picked his way across our broad plain, toward the hill of Zuñi; and out west there, only a short space from the sunset front of our town, he crouched down on a little terrace to wait.

Not long after the morning-star had risen, a fine old Zuñi came out of his house, shook his blanket, wrapped it round him, and came stealing down in the daylight to the river side. After he had presented his morning sacrifice toward the rising sun, he returned and sat down a moment. He had no sooner seated himself than the wily, sinewy youth with a quick motion sprang up, pulled the poor man over, and with his war-club knocked his brains out, after which he leisurely took off the scalp of the one he had slain. He had barely finished this operation when he heard a ladder creak in one of the tipper terraces of the town. He quickly tucked the scalp in his belt, pulled himself together, and thrusting the body of the dead man into the bottom of a hole, which was very near, crouched over it and waited. The footsteps of the man who was coming sounded nearer and nearer. Presently he also came to this place; but no sooner had he reached the terrace than the Moki youth leaped up and dealt him such a blow on the head that, without uttering a sound, he instantly expired. This one he likewise

{p. 195}

scalped, and then another and another he served in the same way, until, there being four slain men in the pit, he had to drag some out of the way and throw them behind the dust-heap. Just as he returned another man sauntered down to the place. The youth murdered him like the rest, and was busy skinning his scalp, when another who had followed him somewhat closely appeared at the hole, and discovering what was going on, ran toward the town for his weapons, shouting the war-cry of alarm as he went. Picking up the scalps and snatching from the bodies of the slain their ornaments of greatest value, the Moki youth sped off over the plain.

In less time than it takes to tell it, the people of Zuñi were in arms; dogs barked, children cried, women screamed,--for no one knew how many the enemy might be,--and the Priests of the Bow, in half-secured armor of buckskin, and with weapons in hand, came thundering down the hill and across the plains in pursuit of the fleeing youth and in readiness to oppose his band. Long before this crowd of warriors, now fully awake and wild with rage, had reached the spot, the youth plunged into the arroyo and called out to his Dogs: "Now for it, my friends! They will be here in a minute! Do you hear them coming?"

"Oh, ho!" softly barked the Dogs; and they stiffened their claws and crouched themselves to spring when the time should come.

Presently on came the crowd of warriors, now feeling that they had but a small force, if indeed

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more than one man to oppose. And they came with such precipitation that they took the gray and dun and yellow-shaded Dogs for so many rocks and heaps of sand, and were fairly in the midst of those brutes before they became aware of them at all. Death and ashes! what a time there was of it! The youth fell in with his war-club, the Dogs around, behind, and in front of them howling, snarling, biting, tearing, and shaking the Zuñis on every hand, until every one of the band was torn to pieces or so mangled that a few taps of the club of the youth dispatched them. Those who had followed behind, not knowing what to think of it all, frantically ran back to their people,--the shame-begrimed cowards!--while the youth, with abundant leisure, went on skinning scalps, until, perceiving much activity in the distant town, concluded it would be wise to abandon some few he had not finished. So, catching up his pack of provisions and his bloody string of scalps (which was so long and thick he could hardly carry it, and which dragged on the ground behind him), he trotted over the hills, followed by some of the Dogs--the others remaining behind, feeling more secure of swiftness--to take advantage of the ample feast spread before them.

When the youth and the Dogs who followed him, or afterward joined him, had again reached the great spring by the Black Mountains, leaving those who pursued far behind, they stopped; and, building a fire of brush and pine-knots, the youth cooked all the provisions he had. "Thanks this day, my friends and brothers!" he cried to the

{p. 197}

Dogs. "Ye have nobly served me. I will feast ye of the best." Whereupon he produced the grease-cakes and the more delicate articles of food which he had reserved as a reward for the Dogs. They ate and ate, and loud were their demonstrations of satisfaction. Then the youth, taking up the string of scalps again, attached them to a long pole, which, to keep the lower ones from dragging on the ground, he elevated over his shoulder, and, striking up a song of victory, he wound his way along the trail toward Moki.

The Dogs, crazy with victory and much glutted, could not contain themselves, but they bow-wowed with delight and yelped and scurried about, cutting circles dusty and wide around their father, the conquering youth. They hurried on so fast that by-and-by it was noticeable that the Beagle Dogs fell in the rear. "By the music of marrowbones!" exclaimed some of the swifter of foot; "we will have to slacken our pace, father." Said they, addressing the youth: "Our poor brothers, the Short-legs, are evidently getting tired; they are falling far in the rear, and it is not valorous, however great your victory and however strong your desire to proclaim it at home, to leave a worn-out brother lagging behind. The enemy might come unawares and cut off his return and his daylight." Most reluctantly, therefore, they slackened their pace, and with shouts and yelps encouraged as much as possible the stump-legged Dogs following behind.

Now, on that day in Moki there had been much surprise expressed at the absence of the Dogs,

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except those which were so young or so old that they could not travel; and the people began to think that some devil or all the wizards in Mokidom had been conjuring their Dogs away from them, when toward evening they heard a distant sound, which was the approaching victors' demonstration of rejoicing, and clear above all was the song of victory shouted by the lusty youth as he came bringing his scalps along. "Woo, woo, woo!" the Dogs sounded as they came across the valley and approached the foot of the mesa; and when the people looked down and saw the blood and dirt with which every Dog was covered, they knew not what to make of it,--whether their Dogs had been enticed away and foully beaten, or whether they had taken after a herd of antelope, perhaps, and vanquished them. But presently they espied in the midst of the motley crowd of Curs the tall lank form of the vagabond youth and heard his lusty song. The youths who had been jilted by the maiden at once had their own ideas. Some of them sneaked away; others ground their teeth and covered their eyes, filled with rage and shame; while the elder-men of the nation, seeing what feats of valor this neglected youth had accomplished, glorified him with answering songs of victory and gathered in solemn council, as if for a most honored and precious guest, to receive him.

So, victorious and successful in all ways, the outcast dog of a youth who went to Zuñi and returned the hero of the Moki nation right willingly was accepted by this beauteous maiden as her husband

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after the ceremonies of initiation and purification had been performed over him.

Ah, well! that was very fine; but all this praise of one who had been despised and abused by themselves, and, more than all, the possession of such a beautiful wife, wrought fierce jealousy in the breasts of the many jilted lovers; making those who had looked askance at one another before, true friends and firm brothers in a single cause--the undoing of this lucky vagabond youth. Nor were they alone in this desire, for behold! copying their lucky sister, all the pretty maidens in Moki declared that they would marry no one who did not show himself at least in some degree heroic, like the youth of the dog-holes who had married their pretty sister. It therefore came about that the whole tribe of Moki, so far as the young men were concerned became a company of jilted lovers, and all the maidens became confirmed in their resolutions of virgin maidenhood.

The jilted lovers got together one night in a cautious sort of way (for they were all afraid of this hero) and held a council. But the fools didn't think of the Dogs lying around outside, who heard what they said. They concluded the best way to get even with this youth was to kill him; but how to kill him was the problem, for they were cowards. "We will get up a hunt," said one; "and make friends with him and ask him to go, paying him all sorts of attention, and ask him to instruct us in the arts of war, the wretch! He will readily join us in our hunting excursion, and some of us will sling a

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throwing-stick at him and finish the conceited fellow's days!"

Now, the Dogs scrambled off immediately and informed their friend and brother what was going on.

He said: "All right! I will accept their advances and go with them on the hunt."

He went off that night to a cave, where he had often sought shelter from the wind when driven out of the town of Walpi, and thus ha-d made acquaintance with those most unerring travellers in crooked places--the Cave-swallows. He went to one of them, an elderly, wise bird, and, addressing him as "Grandfather," told him what was going on.

"Very well," said the old bird; "I will help you." And he made a boomerang for the youth which had the power to fly around bushes and down into gullies; and if well thrown, of course, it could not be dodged by any rabbit, however swift of foot or sly in hiding. Having finished this boomerang, he told the youth to take it and use it freely in hunting. The youth thanked him, and returning to his town passed a peaceful night.

When he appeared the next morning, the others greeted him pleasantly--those who happened to see him--to which greetings he replied with equal cordiality. They were so importunate with the priest-chiefs to be allowed to undertake a grand rabbit-hunt that these fathers of the people, always desirous of contributing to the happiness of their children, ordered a grand hunt for the very next day. So everybody was busy forthwith in making throwing-sticks and boomerangs.

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The next day all the able-bodied youth of the town, selecting the hero of whom we have told as their leader, took their way to the great plain south of Moki, and there, spreading out into an enormous circle, they drove hundreds of rabbits closer and closer together among the sagebrush in the center of the valley. Some of them succeeded in striking down one--some of them three or four--but ere long every one observed that each time the youth threw his stick he struck a rabbit and secured it, until he had so many that he was forced to call some boys who had followed along to carry them for him.

Already inflamed by their jealousies to great anger, what was the chagrin of this crowd of dandies, now that this youth whom they so heartily despised actually surpassed them even in hunting rabbits! They gnashed their teeth with rage, and one of them in a moment of excitement, when two or three rabbits were trying to escape, took deliberate aim at the youth and threw his boomerang at him. The youth, who was wily, sprang into the air so high, pretending meanwhile to throw his boomerang, that the missile missed his vital parts, but struck his leg and apparently broke it, so that he fell down senseless in the midst of the crowd; and the people set up a great shout--some of lamentation, some of exultation.

"Let him lie there and rot!" said the angry suitors, catching up their own rabbits and making off for the pueblo. But some of the old men, who deplored this seeming accident of the youth, ran as

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fast as they could toward the town--fearing to raise him lest they should make his hurt worse--for medicine.

When the youth had been left alone, he opened his eyes and smiled. Then, taking from his pouch a medicine unfailing in its effects, applied it to the bruised spot and quickly became relieved of pain, if not even of injury. Rising, he looked about and found the rabbits where, panic-stricken, the boys had dropped them and fled away. He made up a huge bundle, and not long before sunset, behold! singing merrily, he came marching, though limping somewhat, through the plain before the foot-hills of Moki, bearing an enormous burden of rabbits. He climbed the mesa, greeted every one pleasantly as though nothing had occurred, took his way to his home, and became admired of all the women of Moki, young and old, as a paragon of valor and manhood.

It became absolutely necessary after that, of course,--for these faint-hearted dandies tried no more tricks with the youth,--for anyone who would marry a Moki maiden to show himself a man in some way or other; and, as the ugliest and most neglected of children generally turn out sharpest because they have to look out for themselves, so it happens that to this day the husbands of Moki are generally very ugly; but one thing is certain--they are men.

Reflect on these things, ye young ones and youths.

Thus shortens my story.

HOW THE COYOTE JOINED THE DANCE OF THE BURROWING-OWLS
You may know the country that lies south of the valley in which our town stands. You travel along the trail which winds round the hill our ancients called Ishana-tak'yapon,--which means the Hill of Grease, for the rocks sometimes shine in the light of the sun at evening, and it is said that strange things occurred there in the days of the ancients, which makes them thus to shine, while rocks of the kind in other places do not,--you travel on up this trail, crossing over the arroyos and foot-hills of the great mesa called Middle Mountain, until you come to the foot of the cliffs. Then you climb up back and forth, winding round and round, until you reach the top of the mountain, which is as flat as the floor of a house, merely being here and there traversed by small valleys covered with piñon and cedar, and threaded by trails made not only by the feet of our people but by deer and other animals. And so you go on and on, until, hardly knowing it, you have descended from the top of Middle Mountain, and found yourself in a wide plain covered with grass, and here and there clumps of trees. Beyond this valley is an elevated sandy plain, rather sunken in the middle, so that when it rains the water filters down into the soil of the depressed portion (which is wide enough to be a country in itself) and

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nourishes the grasses there; so that most of the year they grow green and sweet.

Now, a long, long time ago, in this valley or basin there lived a village of Prairie-dogs, on fairly peaceable terms with Rattlesnakes, Adders, Chameleons, Horned-toads, and Burrowing-owls. With the Owls they were especially friendly, looking at them as creatures of great gravity and sanctity. For this reason these Prairie-dogs and their companions never disturbed the councils or ceremonies of the Burrowing-owls, but treated them most respectfully, keeping at a distance from them when their dances were going on.

It chanced one day that the Burrowing-owls were having a great dance all to themselves, rather early in the morning. The dance they were engaged in was one peculiarly prized by them, requiring no little dexterity in its execution. Each dancer, young man or maiden, carried upon his or her head a bowl of foam, and though their legs were crooked and their motions disjointed, they danced to the whistling of some and the clapping beaks of others, in perfect unison, and with such dexterity that they never spilled a speck of the foam on their sleek mantles of dun-black feather-work.

It chanced this morning of the Foam-dance that a Coyote was nosing about for Grasshoppers and Prairie-dogs. So quite naturally he was prowling around the by-streets in the borders of the Prairie-dog town. His house where he lived with his old grandmother stood back to the westward, just over the elevations that bounded Sunken Country, among

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the rocks. He heard the click-clack of the musicians and their shrill, funny little song:

"I yami hota utchu tchapikya,
Tokos! tokos! tokos! tokos!

So he pricked up his ears, and lifting his tail, trotted forward toward the level place between the hillocks and doorways of the village, where the Owls were dancing in a row. He looked at them with great curiosity, squatting on his haunches, the more composedly to observe them. Indeed, he became so much interested and amused by their shambling motions and clever evolutions, that he could no longer contain his curiosity. So he stepped forward, with a smirk and a nod toward the old master of ceremonies, and said: "My father, how are you and your children these many days?"

"Contented and happy, "replied the old Owl, turning his attention to the dancing again.

"Yes, but I observe you are dancing," said the Coyote. "A very fine dance, upon my word! Charming! Charming! And why should you be dancing if you were not contented and happy, to be sure?"

"We are dancing," responded the Owl, "both for our pleasure and for the good of the town."

"True, true," replied the Coyote; "but what's that which looks like foam these dancers are carrying on their heads, and why do they dance in so limping a fashion?"

"You see, my friend," said the Owl, turning toward the Coyote, "we hold this to be a very

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sacred performance--very sacred indeed. Being such, these my children are initiated and so trained in the mysteries of the sacred society of which this is a custom that they can do very strange things in the observance of our ceremonies. You ask what it is that looks like foam they are balancing on their heads. Look more closely, friend. Do you not observe that it is their own grandmothers' heads they have on, the feathers turned white with age?"

"By my eyes!" exclaimed the Coyote, blinking and twitching his whiskers; "it seems so."

"And you ask also why they limp as they dance," said the Owl. "Now, this limp is essential to the proper performance of our dance--so essential, in fact, that in order to attain to it these my children go through the pain of having their legs broken. Instead of losing by this, they gain in a great many ways. Good luck always follows them. They are quite as spry as they were before, and enjoy, moreover, the distinction of performing a dance which no other people or creatures in the world are capable of!"

"Dust and devils!" ejaculated the Coyote. "This is passing strange. A most admirable dance, upon my word! Why, every bristle on my body keeps time to the music and their steps! Look here, my friend, don't you think that I could learn that dance?"

"Well," replied the old Owl; "it is rather hard to learn, and you haven't been initiated, you know; but, still, if you are determined that you

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would like to join the dance--by the way, have you a grandmother?"

"Yes, and a fine old woman she is," said he, twitching his mouth in the direction of his house. "She lives there with me. I dare say she is looking after my breakfast now."

"Very well," continued the old Owl, "if you care to join in our dance, fulfill the conditions, and I think we can receive you into our order." And he added, aside: "The silly fool; the sneaking, impertinent wretch! I will teach him to be sticking that sharp nose of his into other people's affairs!"

"All right! All right!" cried the Coyote, excitedly. "Will it last long?"

"Until the sun is so bright that it hurts our eyes," said the Owl; "a long time yet."

"All right! All right! I'll be back in a little while," said the Coyote; and, switching his tail into the air, away he ran toward his home. When he came to the house, he saw his old grandmother on the roof, which was a rock beside his hole, gathering fur from some skins which he had brought home, to make up a bed for the Coyote's family.

"Ha, my blessed grandmother!" said the Coyote, "by means of your aid, what a fine thing I shall be able to do!"

The old woman was singing to herself when the Coyote dashed up to the roof where she was sitting, and, catching up a convenient leg-bone, whacked her over the pate and sawed her head off with the teeth of a deer. All bloody and soft as it was, he clapped it on his own head and raised himself on

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his hind-legs, bracing his tail against the ground, and letting his paws drop with the toes outspread, to imitate as nearly as possible the drooping wings of the dancing Owls. He found that it worked very well; so, descending with the head in one paw and a stone in the other, he found a convenient sharp-edged rock, and, laying his legs across it, hit them a tremendous crack with the stone, which broke them, to be sure, into splinters.

"Beloved Powers! Oh!" howled the Coyote. "Oh-o-o-o-o! the dance may be a fine thing, but the initiation is anything else!"

However, with his faith unabated, he shook himself together and got up to walk. But he could walk only with his paws; his hind-legs dragged helplessly behind him. Nevertheless, with great pain, and getting weaker and weaker every step of the way, he made what haste he could back to the Prairie-dog town, his poor old grandmother's head slung over his shoulders.

When he approached the dancers,--for they were still dancing,--they pretended to be greatly delighted with their proselyte, and greeted him, notwithstanding his rueful countenance, with many congratulatory epithets, mingled with very proper and warm expressions of welcome. The Coyote looked sick and groaned occasionally and kept looking around at his feet, as though he would like to lick them. But the old Owl extended his wing and cautioned him not to interfere with the working power of faith in this essential observance, and invited him (with a hem that very much resembled

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a suppressed giggle), to join in their dance. The Coyote smirked and bowed and tried to stand up gracefully on his stumps, but fell over, his grandmother's head rolling around in the dirt. He picked up the grisly head, clapped it on his crown again and raised himself, and with many a howl, which he tried in vain to check, began to prance around; but ere long tumbled over again. The Burrowing-owls were filled with such merriment at his discomfiture that they laughed until they spilled the foam all down their backs and bosoms; and, with a parting fling at the Coyote which gave him to understand that he had made a fine fool of himself, and would know better than to pry into other people's business next time, skipped away to a safe distance from him.

Then, seeing how he had been tricked, the Coyote fell to howling and clapping his thighs; and, catching sight of his poor grandmother's head, all bloody and begrimed with dirt, he cried out in grief and anger: "Alas! alas! that it should have come to this! You little devils! I'll be even with you! I'll smoke you out of your holes."

"What will you smoke us out with?" tauntingly asked the Burrowing-owls.

"Ha! you'll find out. With yucca!"

"O! O! ha! ha!" laughed the Owls. That is our succotash!"

"Ah, well! I'll smoke you out!" yelled the Coyote, stung by their taunts.

"What with?" cried the Owls.

"Grease-weed."

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"He, ha! ho, ho! We make our mush-stew of that!"

"Ha! but I'll smoke you out, nevertheless, you little beasts!"

"What with? What with?" shouted the Owls.

"Yellow-top weeds," said he.

"Ha, ha! All right; smoke away! We make our sweet gruel with that, you fool!"

"I'll fix you! I'll smoke you out! I'll suffocate the very last one of you!"

"What with? What with?" shouted the Owls, skipping around on their crooked feet.

"Pitch-pine," snarled the Coyote.

This frightened the Owls, for pitch-pine, even to this day, is sickening to them. Away they plunged into their holes, pell-mell.

Then the Coyote looked at his poor old grandmother's begrimed and bloody head, and cried out--just as Coyotes do now at sunset, I suppose--"Oh, my poor, poor grandmother! So this is what they have caused me to do to you!" And, tormented both by his grief and his pain, he took up the head of his grandmother and crawled back as best he could to his house.

When he arrived there he managed to climb up to the roof, where her body lay stiff. He chafed her legs and sides, and washed the blood and dirt from her head, and got a bit of sinew, and sewed her head to her body as carefully as he could and as hastily. Then he opened her mouth, and, putting his muzzle to it, blew into her throat, in the hope of resuscitating her; but the wind only leaked

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out from the holes in her neck, and she gave no signs of animation. Then the Coyote mixed some pap of fine toasted meal and water and poured it down her throat, addressing her with vehement expressions of regret at what he had done, and apology and solicitation that she should not mind, as he didn't mean it, and imploring her to revive. But the pap only trickled out between the stitches in her neck, and she grew colder and stiffer all the while; so that at last the Coyote gave it up, and, moaning, he betook himself to a near clump of piñon trees, intent upon vengeance and designing to gather pitch with which to smoke the Owls to death. But, weakened by his injuries, and filled with grief and shame and mortification, when he got there he could only lie down.

He was so engrossed in howling and thinking of his woes and pains that a Horned-toad, who saw him, and who hated him because of the insults he had frequently suffered from him and his kind, crawled into the throat of the beast without his noticing it. Presently the little creature struck up a song:

"Tsakina muuu-ki
Iyami Kushina tsoiyakya
Aisiwaiki muki, muki,
Muuu ka!"

"Ah-a-a-a-a-a," the Coyote was groaning. But -when he heard this song, apparently far off, and yet so near, he felt very strangely inside, so he thought and no doubt wondered if it were the song

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of some musician. At any rate, he lifted his head and looked all around, but hearing nothing, lay down again and bemoaned his fate.

Then the Horned-toad sang again. This time the Coyote called out immediately, and the Horned-toad answered: "Here I am. "But look as he would, the Coyote could not find the Toad. So he listened for the song again, and heard it, and asked who it was that was singing. The Horned-toad replied that it was he. But still the Coyote could not find him. A fourth time the Horned-toad sang, and the Coyote began to suspect that it was under him. So he lifted himself to see; and one of the spines on the Horned-toad's neck pricked him, and at the same time the little fellow called out: "Here I am, you idiot, inside of you! I came upon you here, and being a medicine-man of some prominence, I thought I would explore your vitals and see what was the matter."

"By the souls of my ancestors!" exclaimed the Coyote, "be careful what you do in there!"

The Horned-toad replied by laying his hand on the Coyote's liver, and exclaiming: "What is this I feel?"

"Where?" said the Coyote.

"Down here."

"Merciful daylight! it is my liver, without which no one can have solidity of any kind, or a proper vitality. Be very careful not to injure that; if you do, I shall die at once, and what will become of my poor wife and children?"

Then the Horned-toad climbed up to the stomach

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of the Coyote. "What is this, my friend?" said he, feeling the sides of the Coyote's food-bag.

"What is it like?" asked the Coyote.

"Wrinkled, "said the Horned-toad, "and filled with a fearful mess of stuff!"

"Oh! mercy! mercy! good daylight! My precious friend, be very careful! That is the very source of my being--my stomach itself!"

"Very well," said the Horned-toad. Then he moved on somewhat farther and touched the heart of the Coyote, which startled him fearfully. "What is this?" cried the Horned-toad.

"Mercy, mercy! what are you doing?" exclaimed the Coyote.

"Nothing--feeling of your vitals," was the reply. "What is it?"

"Oh, what is it like?" said the Coyote.

"Shaped like a pine-nut, "said the Horned-toad, "as nearly as I can make out; it keeps leaping so."

"Leaping, is it?" howled the Coyote. "Mercy! my friend, get away from there! That is the very heart of my being, the thread that ties my existence, the home of my emotions, and my knowledge of daylight. Go away from there, do, I pray you! If you should scratch it ever so little, it would be the death of me, and what would my wife and children do?"

"Hey!" said the Horned-toad, "you wouldn't be apt to insult me and my people any more if I touched you up there a little, would you?" And he hooked one of his horns into the Coyote's heart. {p. 214} The Coyote gave one gasp, straightened out his limbs, and expired.

"Ha, ha! you villain! Thus would you have done to me, had you found the chance; thus unto you"--saying which he found his way out and sought the nearest water-pocket he could find.

So you see from this, which took place in the days of the ancients, it may be inferred that the instinct of meddling with everything that did not concern him, and making a universal nuisance of himself, and desiring to imitate everything that he sees, ready to jump into any trap that is laid for him, is a confirmed instinct with the Coyote, for those are precisely his characteristics today.

Furthermore, Coyotes never insult Horned-toads nowadays, and they keep clear of Burrowing-owls. And ever since then the Burrowing-owls have been speckled with gray and white all over their backs and bosoms, because their ancestors spilled foam over themselves in laughing at the silliness of the Coyote.

Thus shortens my story.

THE COYOTE WHO KILLED THE DEMON SÍUIUKI:
OR WHY COYOTES RUN THEIR NOSES INTO DEADFALLS
It was very long ago, in the days of the ancients. There stood a village in the cañon south of Thunder Mountain where the Gods of Prey all lived with their sisters and mothers: the Mountain Lion, the great Black Bear, the Wildcat, the Gray Wolf, the Eagle, and even the Mole-all the Gods of Prey lived there together with their mothers and sisters. Day after day they went out hunting, for hunting was their business of life, and they were great hunters.

Now, right up on the edge of Thunder Mountain there lived a spotted Demon, named Síuiuki, and whenever the people of the towns round about went hunting, he lay in wait for them and ate them up.

After a long while the Gods of Prey grew discontented, and they said to one another: "What in the world can we do? None of the children of men ever make sacrifices to us, for, whenever our children among men go out hunting, this Demon who lives on the top of Thunder Mountain destroys them and eats them up. What in the world can be done?"

"It would be a good thing if we could kill him, said some of them.

Now, just down below the house of the Demon,

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in Wolf Cañon, lived a Coyote, and he had found out where the Gods of Prey lived, and whenever he wanted a feast of sinew and gristle, he went below their houses and gnawed at the bones that they had thrown away, and thus it happened that when the gods were talking together in this way he was near their doorway gnawing a bone, and he heard all they said.

"Yes," said one or two of the others, "and if anybody will go and kill Síuiuki, we will give him our sister to marry."

"Aha!" said the Coyote to himself. "Ha, ha!"--and he dropped the bone he was gnawing and cut off for home as fast as ever he could.

Next morning, bright and early, he began to dig into the side of the cañon below the Demon's home, and after he had dug a great hollow in the side of the arroyo, he rolled a heavy stone into it, and found another, which he placed beside it. Then he brought a great many leg-bones of deer and antelope. Then he found a large bowl and put a lot of yellow medicine-fluid in it, and placed it beside the rock. He then sat down and began to crack the leg-bones with the two stones he had brought there.

The old Demon was not in the habit of rising very early, but when he arose that morning he came out and sat down on the edge of the cliff; there the Coyote was, battering away at the bones and pretending to bathe his own lips with the medicine-fluid.

"I wonder what in the world that little sneak is

{p. 217}

doing down there," said the old Demon. So he put on his war-badge and took his bow and arrows, as though he were going out to hunt, and started down to where the Coyote was.

"Hello!" said the Coyote, "how did you pass the night?"

"What in the world are you doing here?" asked the Demon.

"Why, don't you know?" replied the Coyote.

"This is the way I train myself for running, so as to catch the deer; I can run faster than any deer in the country. With my medicine, here, I take the swiftness out of these bones."

"Is it possible?" said the old Demon.

"Of course it is," said the Coyote. "There is no deer that can run away from me."

"Will you show me?" said the Demon, eagerly.

"Why, yes, of course I will; and then we will go hunting together."

"Good, good!" said the old Demon. "I have a hard time catching deer and antelope."

"Well, now, you sit down right over there and watch me," said the Coyote, "and I will show you all about it."

So he laid his left leg over the rock, and then slily took an antelope bone and laid it by the side of it. Then he picked up a large stone and struck it as hard as ever he could against the bone. Whack! went the stone, and it split the bone into splinters; and the Coyote pretended that it was the bone of his own leg.

"Aye! Ah! Oh!" exclaimed he, "But then it

{p. 218}

will get well!" Still crying "Oh! Ah!" he splashed the leg with the medicine-water and rubbed it. "Didn't I tell you?" said he, "it is all right now." And then away he went and ran like lightning round and round on the plain below, and rushed back again. "Didn't I tell you so?" said he.

"Fury! what a runner it makes out of you," said the old Demon, and his eyes stuck out more than ever. "Let me try it now."

"Hold on, hold on," said the Coyote; "I have not half finished yet."

So he repeated the experiment with his other leg, and made great ado, as if it hurt him more than ever. But, pretending to cure himself with the medicine-water, he ran round and round on the plain below so fast that he fairly left a streak of dust behind him.

"Why, indeed, you are one of the fastest runners I ever saw!" said the Demon, rubbing his eyes.

Then the Coyote repeated the experiment first with his left paw and then with his right; and the last time he ran more swiftly than before.

"Why, do you mean to say that if I do that I can run as fast as you do?" said the Demon.

"Certainly," replied the Coyote. "But it will hurt you."

"Ho! who cares for a little hurt?" said the Demon.

"Oh! but it hurts terribly," said the Coyote, "and I am afraid you won't have the pluck to go through with it."

"Do you think I am a baby?" said the old Demon,

{p. 219}

getting up,--"or a woman, that I should be afraid to pound my legs and arms?"

"Well, I only thought I 'd tell you how much it hurts," said the Coyote but if you want to try it yourself, why, go ahead. There's one thing certain: when you make yourself as swift as I am, there's no deer in all the country that can get away from us two."

"What shall I do?" said the Demon.

"You just sit right down there, and I'll show you how," said the Coyote. So the Demon sat down by the rock.

"There, now, you just lay your leg right over that stone and take the other rock and strike your leg just as hard as you can; and as soon as you have done, bathe it in the medicine-water. Then do just the same way to the other."

"All right," said the Demon. So he laid his leg over the rock, and picking up the other stone, brought it down with might and main across his thigh--so hard, indeed, that he crushed the bone into splinters.

"Oh, my! Oh, my! what shall I do?" shouted the Demon.

"Be patient, be patient; it will get well," said the Coyote, and he splashed it with the medicine-fluid.

Then, picking up the stone again, the Demon hit the other thigh even harder, from pain.

"It will get well, my friend; it will get well," shouted the Coyote; and he splashed more of the medicine-water on the two wounded legs.

{p. 220}

Then the Demon picked up the stone once more, and, laying his left arm across the other stone, pounded that also until it was broken.

"Hold on; let me bathe it for you," said the Coyote. "Does it hurt? Oh, well, it will get well. Just wait until you have doctored the other arm, and then in a few minutes you will be all right."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" groaned the Demon. "How in the world can I doctor the other arm, for my left arm is broken?"

"Lay it across the rock, my friend," said the Coyote, "and I'll doctor it for you."

So the Demon did as he was bidden, and the Coyote brought the stone down with might and main against his arm. "Have patience, my friend, have patience," said he, as he bathed the injured limb with more of the medicine-water. But the Demon only groaned and howled, and rolled over and over in the dust with pain.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Coyote, as he keeled a somersault over the rocks and ran off over the plain. "How do you feel now, old man?"

"But it hurts! It hurts!" cried the Demon.

"I shall never get well; it will kill me!"

"Of course it will," laughed the Coyote. "That's just what I wanted it to do, you old fool!"

So the old Demon lay down and died from sheer pain.

Then the Coyote took the Demon's knife from him, and, cutting open his breast, tore out his heart, wind-pipe, and all. Then, stealing the war-badge

{p. 221}

that the Demon had worn, he cut away as fast as ever he could for the home of the Prey-gods. Before noon he neared their house, and, just as he ran up into the plaza in front of it, the youngest sister of the Prey-gods came out to hang up some meat to dry. Now, her brothers had all gone hunting; not one of them was at home.

"I say, wife," said the Coyote. "Wife! Wife!"

"Humph!" said the girl. "Impertinent scoundrel! I wonder where he is and who he is that has the impudence to call me his wife, when he knows that I have never been married!"

"Wife! Wife!" shouted the Coyote again.

"Away with you, you shameless rascal!" cried the girl, in indignation. Then she looked around and spied the Coyote sitting there on the ash-heap, with his nose in the air, as though he were the biggest fellow in the world.

"Clear out, you wretch!" cried the girl.

"Softly, softly," replied the Coyote. "Do you remember what your brothers said last night?

"What was that?" said the girl.

"Why, whoever would kill the speckled Demon, they declared, should have you for his wife."

"Well, what of that?" said the girl.

"Oh, nothing," replied the Coyote, "only I've killed him!" And, holding up the Demon's heart and war

-badge, he stuck his nose in the air again.

So the poor girl said not a word, but sat there until the Coyote called out: "I say, wife, come down and take me up; I can't climb the ladders."

So the poor girl went down the ladder, took her

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foul-smelling husband in her arms, and climbed up with him.

"Now, take me in with you," said the Coyote. So she did as she was bidden. Then she was about to mix some dough, but the Coyote kept getting in her way.

"Get out of the way a minute, won't you?" said the girl, "until I cook something for you."

"I want you to come and sit down with me," said the Coyote, "and let me kiss you, for you know you are my wife, now." So the poor girl had to submit to the ill-smelling creature's embraces.

Presently along came her brother, the Gray Wolf, but he was a very good-natured sort of fellow; so he received the Coyote pleasantly. Then along came the Bear, with a big antelope over his shoulder; but he didn't say anything, for he was a lazy, good natured fellow. Then presently the other brothers came in, one by one; but the Mountain Lion was so late in returning that they began to look anxiously out for him. When they saw him coming from the north with more meat and more game than all the others together had brought, he was evidently not in good humor, for as he approached the house he exclaimed, with a howl: "Hu-hu-ya!"

"There he goes again," said the brothers and sisters, all in a chorus. "Always out of temper with something."

"Hu-hu-ya!" exclaimed the Mountain Lion again, louder than before. And, as he mounted the ladder, he exclaimed for a third time: "Hu-hu-ya!" and, throwing his meat down, entered swearing

{p. 223}

and growling until his brothers were ashamed of him, and told him he had better behave himself.

"Come and eat," said the sister, as she brought a bowl of meat and put it on the floor.

"Hu-hu-ya!" again exclaimed the Mountain Lion, as he came nearer and sat down to eat. "What in the world is the matter with you, sister? You smell just like a Coyote. Hu-hu-ya!"

"Have you no more decency than to come home and scold your sister in that way?" exclaimed the Wolf. "I'm disgusted with you."

"Hu-hu-ya!" reiterated the Mountain Lion.

Now, when the Coyote had heard the Mountain Lion coming, he had sneaked off into a corner; but he stuck his sharp nose out, and the Mountain Lion espied it. "Hu-hu-ya!" said he. "Sling that bad-smelling beast out of the house! Kick him out!" cried the old man, with a growl. So the sister, fearing that her brother would eat her husband up, took the Coyote in her arms and carried him into another room.

"Now, stay there and keep still, for brother is very cross; but then he is always cross if things don't go right," she said.

So when evening came her brothers began to discuss where they would go hunting the next day; and the Coyote, who was listening at the door, heard them. So he called out: "Wife! Wife!"

"Shom-me!" remarked old Long Tail. "Shut up, you dirty whelp." And as the sister arose to go to see what her husband wanted, the Mountain

{p. 224}

Lion remarked: "You had better sling that foul-smelling cub of yours over the roof."

No sooner had the girl entered than the Coyote began to brag what a runner he was, and to cut around at a great rate.

"Shom-me!" exclaimed the Mountain Lion again.

A Coyote always will make a Coyote of himself, foul-smelling wretch! "Hu-hu-ya!"

"Shut up, and behave yourself!" cried the Wolf.

Don't you know any better than to talk about your brother-in-law in that way?" But neither the Coyote nor the girl could sleep that night for the growlings and roarings of their big brother, the Long Tail.

When the brothers began to prepare for the hunt the next morning, out came the Coyote all ready to accompany them. "You, you?" said the Mountain Lion. "You going to hunt with us? You conceited sneak!"

"Let him go if he wants to," said the Wolf.

"Hu-hu-ya! Fine company!" remarked the Mountain Lion. "If you fellows want to walk with him, you may. There's one thing certain, I'll not be seen in his company," and away strode the old fellow, lashing his tail and growling as he went. So the Coyote, taking a luncheon of dried meat that his wife put up for him, sneaked along behind with his tail dragging in the dust. Finally they all reached the mountain where they intended to hunt, and soon the Mountain Lion and the Bear started out to drive in a herd of antelope that they had scented in the distance. Presently along rushed the leaders of the herd.

{p. 225}

"Now, then, I'll show your cross old brother whether I can hunt or not," cried the Coyote, and away he rushed right into the herd of antelope and deer before anyone could restrain him. Of course he made a Coyote of himself, and away went the deer in all directions. Nevertheless, the brothers, who were great hunters, succeeded in catching a few of them; and, just as they sat down to lunch, the Mountain Lion returned with a big elk on his shoulders.

"Where is our sweet-scented brother-in-law?" he asked.

"Nobody knows," replied they. "He rushed off after the deer and antelope, and that was the last of him."

"Of course the beast will make a Coyote of himself. But he can go till he can go no longer, for all I care," added the Mountain Lion, as he sat down to eat.

Presently along came the Coyote.

"Where's your game, my fine hunter?" asked the Mountain Lion.

"They all got away from me," whined the Coyote.

"Of course they did, you fool!" sneered the Mountain Lion. "The best thing that you can do is to go home and see your wife. Here, take this meat to sister," said he, slinging him a haunch of venison.

"Where's the road?" asked the Coyote.

"Well," said the Wolf, "follow that path right over there until you come to where it forks; then be sure to take the right-hand trail, for if you

{p. 226}

follow the left-hand trail it will lead you away from home and into trouble."

"Which trail did you say?" cried the Coyote.

"Shom-me!" again exclaimed the Mountain Lion.

"Oh, yes," hastily added the Coyote; "the right-hand trail. No, the left-hand trail."

"Just what you might expect," growled the Mountain Lion. "Already the fool has forgotten what you told him. Well, as for me, he can go on the left-hand trail if he wants to, and the farther he goes the better."

"Now, be sure and take the right-hand trail," called the Wolf, as the Coyote started.

"I know, I know," cried the Coyote; and away he went with his heavy haunch of venison slung over his shoulder. After a while he came to the fork in the trail. "Let me see," said he "it's the left-hand trail, it seems to me. No, the right-hand trail. Well, I declare, I've forgotten! Perhaps it is the right-hand trail, and maybe it is the left-hand trail. Yes, it is the left-hand trail. Now I'm certain." And, picking up his haunch of venison, away he trotted along the left-hand trail. Presently he came to a steep cliff and began to climb it. But he had no sooner reached the middle than a lot of Chimney-swallows began to fly around his head and pick at his eyes, and slap him on the nose with their wings.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" exclaimed the Coyote. "Aye! aye!" and he bobbed his head from side to side to dodge the Swallows, until he missed his footing, and down he tumbled, heels over head,--

{p. 227}

meat, Coyote, and all,--until he struck a great pile of rocks below, and was dashed to pieces.

That was the end of the Coyote; but not of my story.

Now, the brothers went on hunting again. Then, one by one, they returned home. As before, the Mountain Lion came in last of all. He smelt all about the room. "Whew!" exclaimed he. "It still smells here as if twenty Coyotes had been around. But it seems to me that our fine brother-in-law isn't anywhere about."

"No," responded the rest, with troubled looks on their faces. "Nobody has seen anything of him yet."

"Shom--m-m!" remarked the Mountain Lion again. "Didn't I tell you, brothers, that he was a fool and would forget your directions? I say I told you that before he started. Well, for my part, I hope the beast has gone so far that he will never return," and with that he ate his supper.

When supper was over, the sister said: "Come, brothers, let's go and hunt for my husband."

At first the Mountain Lion growled and swore a great deal; but at last he consented to go. When they came to where the trails forked, there were the tracks of the Coyote on the left-hand trail.

"The idiot!" exclaimed the Mountain Lion. "I hope he has fallen off the cliff and broken every bone in his body!"

When at last the party reached the mountain, sure enough, there lay the body of the Coyote, with not a whole bone in him except his head.

{p. 228}

"Good enough for you," growled the Mountain Lion, as he picked up a great stone and, tu-um! threw it down with all his strength upon the head of the Coyote.

That's what happened a great while ago. And for that reason whenever a Coyote sees a bait of meat inside of a stone deadfall he is sure to stick his nose in and get his head mashed for his pains.

Thus shortens my story.

HOW THE COYOTES TRIED TO STEAL THE CHILDREN OF THE SACRED DANCE
In the times of the ancients, when our people lived in various places about the valley of Zuñi where ruins now stand, it is said that an old Coyote lived in Cedar Cañon with his family, which included a fine litter of pups. It is also said that at this time there lived on the crest of Thunder Mountain, back of the broad rock column or pinnacle which guards its western portion, one of the gods of the Sacred Drama Dance (Kâkâ)[1], named K'yámakwe, with his children, many in number and altogether like himself.

[1. The Kâkâ, or Sacred Drama Dance, is represented by a great variety of masks and costumes worn by Zuñi dancers during the performance of this remarkable dramatic ceremony. Undoubtedly many of the traditional characters of the Sacred Drama thus represented are conventionalizations of the mythic conceptions or personifications of animal attributes. Therefore many of these characters partake at once of the characteristics, in appearance as well as in other ways, of animals and men. The example in point is a good illustration of this. The K'yámakwe are supposed to have been a most wonderful and powerful tribe of demi-gods, inhabiting a great valley and range of mesas some forty miles south of Zuñi. Their powers over the atmospheric phenomena of nature and over all the herbivorous animals are supposed to have been absolute. Their attitude toward man was at times inimical, at times friendly or beneficent. Such a relationship, controlled simply by either laudatory or propitiatory worship, was supposed to hold spiritually, still, between these and other beings represented in the Sacred Drama and men. It is believed that through the power of breath communicated by these ancient gods to men, from one man to another man, and thus from generation to generation, an actual connection has been kept up between initiated members of the Kâkâ drama and these original demigod characters which it represents; so that when a member is properly dressed in the costume of any one of these characters, a ceremony (the {footnote p. 229} description of which is too long for insertion here) accompanying the putting on of the mask is supposed not only to place him en rapport spiritually with the character he represents, but even to possess him with the spirit of that character or demi-god. He is, therefore, so long as he remains disguised as one of these demi-gods, treated as if he were actually that being which be personates. One of the K'yámakwe is represented by means of a mask, round and smooth-headed, with little black eyes turned up at the corners so as to represent a segment of a diminishing spiral; the color of the face is green, and it is separated from the rest of the head by a line composed of alternate blocks of black and yellow; the crown and back of the head are snow-white; and the ears are pendent and conical in shape, being composed of husks or other paper-like material; the mouth is round, and furnished with a four-pointed beak of husks, which extends two or three inches outward and spreads at the end like the petals of a half-closed lily; round the neck is a collar of fox fur, and covering the body are flowing robes of sacred embroidered mantles, which (notwithstanding the gay ornaments and other appurtenances of the costume) have, in connection with the expression of the mask, a spectral effect; the feet are encased in brilliantly painted moccasins, of archaic form, and the wrists laden with shell bracelets and bow-guards. When the long file of these strange figures making up the K'yámakwe Drama Dance comes in from the southward to the dance plazas of the pueblo, each member of it bears on his back freshly slain deer, antelope, rabbits, and other game animals or portions of them in abundance, made up in packages, highly decorated with tufts of evergreen, and painted toys for presentation to the children. In one band are carried bows and arrows, and in the other a peculiar rattle or clanger made of the shoulder-blades of deer. The wonder expressed by the coyote as the story goes on, and his excessive admiration of the children of the K'yámakwe may therefore be understood.]

{p. 230}

One day the old Coyote of Cedar Cañon went out hunting, and as he was prowling around among the sage-bushes below Thunder Mountain, he heard the clang and rattle and the shrill cries of the K'yámakwe. He pricked up his ears, stuck his nose into the air, sniffed about and looked all around, and presently discovered the K'yámakwe children running rapidly back and forth on the very edge of the mountain.

"Delight of my senses, what pretty creatures they are! Good for me!" he piped, in a jovial

{p. 231}

voice. "I am the finder of children. I must capture the little fellows tomorrow, and bring them up as Coyotes ought to be brought up. Aren't they handsome, though?"

All this he said to himself, in a fit of conceit, with his nose in the air (presumptuous cur!), planning to steal the children of a god! He hunted no more that day, but ran home as fast as he could, and, arriving there, he said: "Wife! Wife! O wife! I have discovered a number of the prettiest waifs one ever saw. They are children of the Kâkâ, but what matters that? They are there, running back and forth and clanging their rattles along the very edge of Thunder Mountain. I mean to steal them tomorrow, every one of them, and bring them here!"

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the old Coyote's wife. "There are children enough and to spare already. What in the world can we do with all of them, you fool?"

"But they are pretty," said the Coyote. "Immensely fine! Every Coyote in the country would envy us the possession of them!"

"But you say they are many," continued the wife.

"Well, yes, a good many," said the Coyote.

"Well, why not divide them among our associated clans?" suggested the old woman. "You never can capture them alone; it is rare enough that you capture anything, alone, leave out the children of the K'yámakwe. Get your relatives to help you, and divide the children amongst them."

{p. 232}

"Well, now, come to think of it, it is a good plan," said the Coyote, with his nose on his neck. "If I get up this expedition I'll be a big chief, won't I? Hurrah! Here's for it!" he shouted; and, switching his tail in the face of his wife, he shot out of the hole and ran away to a high rock, where, squatting down with a most important air and his nose lifted high, he cried out:

Au hii lâ-â-â-â!
Su Homaya-kwe!
Su Kemaya-kwe!
Su Ayalla-kwe!
Su Kutsuku-kwe!

[Listen ye all!
Coyotes of the Cedar-cañon tribe
Coyotes of the Sun flower-stalk-plain tribe
Coyotes of the Lifted-stone-mountain tribe
Coyotes of the Place-of-rock-gullies tribe!]

I have instructions for you this day. I have found waif children many--of the K'yámakwe, the young. I would steal the waif-children many, of the K'yámakwe, the young. I would steal them tomorrow, that they may be adopted of us. I would have your aid in the stealing of the K'yámakwe young. Listen ye all, and tomorrow gather in council. Thus much I instruct ye:

"Coyotes of the Cedar-cañon tribe!
Coyotes of the Sunflower-stalk-plain tribe!
Coyotes of the Lifted-stone-mountain tribe!
Coyotes of the Place-of-rock-gullies tribe!"

It was growing dark, and immediately from all quarters, in dark places under the cañons and

{p. 233}

arroyos, issued answering howls and howls. You should have seen that crowd of Coyotes the next morning, large and small, old and young,--all four tribes gathered together in the plain below Thunder Mountain!

When they had all assembled, the Coyote who had made the discovery mounted an ant-hill, sat down, and, lifting his paw, was about to give directions with the air of a chief when an ant bit him. He lost his dignity, but resumed it again on the top of a neighboring rock. Again he stuck his nose into the air and his paw out, and with ridiculous assumption informed the Coyotes that he was chief of them all and that they would do well to pay attention to his directions. He then showed himself much more skilful than you might have expected. As you know, the cliff of Thunder Mountain is very steep, especially that part back of the two standing rocks. Well, this was the direction of the Coyote:

"One of you shall place himself at the base of the mountain; another shall climb over him, and the first one shall grasp his tail; and another over them, and his tail shall be grasped by the second, and so on until the top is reached. Hang tight, my friends, every one of you, and every one fall in line. Eructate thoroughly before you do so. If you do not, we may be in a pretty mess; for, supposing that any one along the line should hiccough, he would lose his hold, and down we would all fall!"

So the Coyotes all at once began to curve their necks and swell themselves up and strain and

{p. 234}

wriggle and belch wind as much as possible. Then all fell into a line and grabbed each other's tails, and thus they extended themselves in a long string up the very face of Thunder Mountain. A ridiculous little pup was at one end and a good, strong, grizzled old fellow--no other than the chief of the party--at the other.

"Souls of my ancestors! Hang tight, my friends! Hang tight! Hang tight!" said he, when, suddenly, one near the top, in the agitation of the moment, began to sneeze, lost his hold, and down the whole string, hundreds of them, fell, and were completely flattened out among the rocks.

The warrior of the Kâkâ--he of the Long Horn, with frightful, staring eyes, and visage blue with rage,--bow and war-club in hand, was hastening from the sacred lake in the west to rescue the children of the K'yámakwe. When he arrived they had been rescued already, so, after storming around a little and mauling such of the Coyotes as were not quite dead, he set to skin them all.

And ever since then you will observe that the dancers of the Long Horn have blue faces, and whenever they arrive in our pueblo wear collars of coyote-skin about their necks. That is the way they got them. Before that they had no collars. It is presumable that that is the reason why they bellow so and have such hoarse voices, having previously taken cold, every one of them, for the want of fur collars.

Thus shortens my story.

HOW THE COYOTES TRIED TO STEAL THE CHILDREN OF THE SACRED DANCE
In the times of the ancients, when our people lived in various places about the valley of Zuñi where ruins now stand, it is said that an old Coyote lived in Cedar Cañon with his family, which included a fine litter of pups. It is also said that at this time there lived on the crest of Thunder Mountain, back of the broad rock column or pinnacle which guards its western portion, one of the gods of the Sacred Drama Dance (Kâkâ)[1], named K'yámakwe, with his children, many in number and altogether like himself.

[1. The Kâkâ, or Sacred Drama Dance, is represented by a great variety of masks and costumes worn by Zuñi dancers during the performance of this remarkable dramatic ceremony. Undoubtedly many of the traditional characters of the Sacred Drama thus represented are conventionalizations of the mythic conceptions or personifications of animal attributes. Therefore many of these characters partake at once of the characteristics, in appearance as well as in other ways, of animals and men. The example in point is a good illustration of this. The K'yámakwe are supposed to have been a most wonderful and powerful tribe of demi-gods, inhabiting a great valley and range of mesas some forty miles south of Zuñi. Their powers over the atmospheric phenomena of nature and over all the herbivorous animals are supposed to have been absolute. Their attitude toward man was at times inimical, at times friendly or beneficent. Such a relationship, controlled simply by either laudatory or propitiatory worship, was supposed to hold spiritually, still, between these and other beings represented in the Sacred Drama and men. It is believed that through the power of breath communicated by these ancient gods to men, from one man to another man, and thus from generation to generation, an actual connection has been kept up between initiated members of the Kâkâ drama and these original demigod characters which it represents; so that when a member is properly dressed in the costume of any one of these characters, a ceremony (the {footnote p. 229} description of which is too long for insertion here) accompanying the putting on of the mask is supposed not only to place him en rapport spiritually with the character he represents, but even to possess him with the spirit of that character or demi-god. He is, therefore, so long as he remains disguised as one of these demi-gods, treated as if he were actually that being which be personates. One of the K'yámakwe is represented by means of a mask, round and smooth-headed, with little black eyes turned up at the corners so as to represent a segment of a diminishing spiral; the color of the face is green, and it is separated from the rest of the head by a line composed of alternate blocks of black and yellow; the crown and back of the head are snow-white; and the ears are pendent and conical in shape, being composed of husks or other paper-like material; the mouth is round, and furnished with a four-pointed beak of husks, which extends two or three inches outward and spreads at the end like the petals of a half-closed lily; round the neck is a collar of fox fur, and covering the body are flowing robes of sacred embroidered mantles, which (notwithstanding the gay ornaments and other appurtenances of the costume) have, in connection with the expression of the mask, a spectral effect; the feet are encased in brilliantly painted moccasins, of archaic form, and the wrists laden with shell bracelets and bow-guards. When the long file of these strange figures making up the K'yámakwe Drama Dance comes in from the southward to the dance plazas of the pueblo, each member of it bears on his back freshly slain deer, antelope, rabbits, and other game animals or portions of them in abundance, made up in packages, highly decorated with tufts of evergreen, and painted toys for presentation to the children. In one band are carried bows and arrows, and in the other a peculiar rattle or clanger made of the shoulder-blades of deer. The wonder expressed by the coyote as the story goes on, and his excessive admiration of the children of the K'yámakwe may therefore be understood.]

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One day the old Coyote of Cedar Cañon went out hunting, and as he was prowling around among the sage-bushes below Thunder Mountain, he heard the clang and rattle and the shrill cries of the K'yámakwe. He pricked up his ears, stuck his nose into the air, sniffed about and looked all around, and presently discovered the K'yámakwe children running rapidly back and forth on the very edge of the mountain.

"Delight of my senses, what pretty creatures they are! Good for me!" he piped, in a jovial

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voice. "I am the finder of children. I must capture the little fellows tomorrow, and bring them up as Coyotes ought to be brought up. Aren't they handsome, though?"

All this he said to himself, in a fit of conceit, with his nose in the air (presumptuous cur!), planning to steal the children of a god! He hunted no more that day, but ran home as fast as he could, and, arriving there, he said: "Wife! Wife! O wife! I have discovered a number of the prettiest waifs one ever saw. They are children of the Kâkâ, but what matters that? They are there, running back and forth and clanging their rattles along the very edge of Thunder Mountain. I mean to steal them tomorrow, every one of them, and bring them here!"

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the old Coyote's wife. "There are children enough and to spare already. What in the world can we do with all of them, you fool?"

"But they are pretty," said the Coyote. "Immensely fine! Every Coyote in the country would envy us the possession of them!"

"But you say they are many," continued the wife.

"Well, yes, a good many," said the Coyote.

"Well, why not divide them among our associated clans?" suggested the old woman. "You never can capture them alone; it is rare enough that you capture anything, alone, leave out the children of the K'yámakwe. Get your relatives to help you, and divide the children amongst them."

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"Well, now, come to think of it, it is a good plan," said the Coyote, with his nose on his neck. "If I get up this expedition I'll be a big chief, won't I? Hurrah! Here's for it!" he shouted; and, switching his tail in the face of his wife, he shot out of the hole and ran away to a high rock, where, squatting down with a most important air and his nose lifted high, he cried out:

Au hii lâ-â-â-â!
Su Homaya-kwe!
Su Kemaya-kwe!
Su Ayalla-kwe!
Su Kutsuku-kwe!

[Listen ye all!
Coyotes of the Cedar-cañon tribe
Coyotes of the Sun flower-stalk-plain tribe
Coyotes of the Lifted-stone-mountain tribe
Coyotes of the Place-of-rock-gullies tribe!]

I have instructions for you this day. I have found waif children many--of the K'yámakwe, the young. I would steal the waif-children many, of the K'yámakwe, the young. I would steal them tomorrow, that they may be adopted of us. I would have your aid in the stealing of the K'yámakwe young. Listen ye all, and tomorrow gather in council. Thus much I instruct ye:

"Coyotes of the Cedar-cañon tribe!
Coyotes of the Sunflower-stalk-plain tribe!
Coyotes of the Lifted-stone-mountain tribe!
Coyotes of the Place-of-rock-gullies tribe!"

It was growing dark, and immediately from all quarters, in dark places under the cañons and

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arroyos, issued answering howls and howls. You should have seen that crowd of Coyotes the next morning, large and small, old and young,--all four tribes gathered together in the plain below Thunder Mountain!

When they had all assembled, the Coyote who had made the discovery mounted an ant-hill, sat down, and, lifting his paw, was about to give directions with the air of a chief when an ant bit him. He lost his dignity, but resumed it again on the top of a neighboring rock. Again he stuck his nose into the air and his paw out, and with ridiculous assumption informed the Coyotes that he was chief of them all and that they would do well to pay attention to his directions. He then showed himself much more skilful than you might have expected. As you know, the cliff of Thunder Mountain is very steep, especially that part back of the two standing rocks. Well, this was the direction of the Coyote:

"One of you shall place himself at the base of the mountain; another shall climb over him, and the first one shall grasp his tail; and another over them, and his tail shall be grasped by the second, and so on until the top is reached. Hang tight, my friends, every one of you, and every one fall in line. Eructate thoroughly before you do so. If you do not, we may be in a pretty mess; for, supposing that any one along the line should hiccough, he would lose his hold, and down we would all fall!"

So the Coyotes all at once began to curve their necks and swell themselves up and strain and

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wriggle and belch wind as much as possible. Then all fell into a line and grabbed each other's tails, and thus they extended themselves in a long string up the very face of Thunder Mountain. A ridiculous little pup was at one end and a good, strong, grizzled old fellow--no other than the chief of the party--at the other.

"Souls of my ancestors! Hang tight, my friends! Hang tight! Hang tight!" said he, when, suddenly, one near the top, in the agitation of the moment, began to sneeze, lost his hold, and down the whole string, hundreds of them, fell, and were completely flattened out among the rocks.

The warrior of the Kâkâ--he of the Long Horn, with frightful, staring eyes, and visage blue with rage,--bow and war-club in hand, was hastening from the sacred lake in the west to rescue the children of the K'yámakwe. When he arrived they had been rescued already, so, after storming around a little and mauling such of the Coyotes as were not quite dead, he set to skin them all.

And ever since then you will observe that the dancers of the Long Horn have blue faces, and whenever they arrive in our pueblo wear collars of coyote-skin about their necks. That is the way they got them. Before that they had no collars. It is presumable that that is the reason why they bellow so and have such hoarse voices, having previously taken cold, every one of them, for the want of fur collars.

Thus shortens my story.