THE MAID OF DREAMS
Indian prayer is not the placid acceptance of thoughts comforting. The
complete man is both mind and body--and all of him must work when the
gods are called upon for work, and by fasting and exhaustion must the
spirit path be made clear for dreams.
The first day Tahn-té had sat in meditation before the sacred wall of
the stone face, chanting the songs to the clouds and the yellow birds
of the sun color, watching the pictured rock until the lines moved
when his body swayed to the chant, and a living thing seemed before
him--the accumulated faiths of all the devotees in that place since
the god was born!
As the sun went behind the mountain he knew the village herald was
telling the people, and the leaders of Povi-whah would fast that night
and send their thoughts to him. Po-tzah would fast although Po-tzah
was not called upon by his position to do so.
And Po-tzah had said, "Speak for our children to the god."
He seemed to hear Po-tzah's voice, and the words repeat themselves in
the dusk, and--stranger still--another voice back of Po-tzah's! it
also spoke of children--through the chanted prayer he heard
it--baffling yet insistent.
Then he knew it!
He knew it as the first shadow of the visions which the prayer was
bringing:--it was the voice of the Ruler whose office he now held--the
aged man who had once worn the white robe and said--"If she had not
died--her children would be your children!"
The picture of Po-tzah's small brown babe came between him and the
sacred figure on the rock,--a strange thing for the voice to suggest!
A little child--in the dusk--and--sheltering arms around it!
"Oh You!
Oh--Indwelling God!
Come to me!
Grey ghost--white ghost
Why is the false enchantment?
Grey ghost of darkness--
White ghost of high hills
Make way for sacred magic,
Sink far your darkened spells!
O You!
O Indwelling God
Come to me!"
In the dusk a shadow--or it might have been a drooping bough of the
piñon tree--gave outline of a bent head above the outline of the
babe--only a strange trick of carving on the gray stone, and swaying
branches outlining a head--then the shoulders--then an arm about the
babe! To the mind of the mystic it was the visible temptation of a
black enchantment in the very presence of the god!--The strongest the
opposing powers could send to man under vows of prayer and search for
the spirit medicine of the highest thought.
[Illustration: THE SIGNAL FIRE TO THE MOUNTAIN GOD _Page 129_]
"Oh You!
Goddess of the stars
You--who gives the life!
Why is there for me false magic?
Mother mine of the starry skirt
Why for me the darkened star?
I, Master of spells, call to you!
Ho:--there! It is I!
Green and black spirit of power
Seek elsewhere your victims!
I seek the light--I find the light!
Mother mine of the starry skirt
I find the light!
I--Master of spells!"
He was no longer merely a singer of prayers now. The dance before the
Ancient gods had begun as the first stars glimmered in the blue.
After many hours of the dance all the world drifts far. There is
nothing real left but the circle where the prayer is, and the space
where the feet touch in the dull pad-pad on the trail to the swoons
where visions come.
A lone figure chanting breathless things:--not aloud now! The
utterance is only broken whispers--only a god could read the meaning
of them!
But he did not feel alone. All the Lost Others were back of him
looking on from the dusk of the piñon boughs, and there to the right,
ever in shadow, was a Presence! It stood close to the rock wall. The
arms were folded, the line of the body strong and erect. The face was
a hidden face, but if he--Tahn-té, faltered in the lines of the
prayers,--or sank in the dance before the time--then he felt that the
phantom there would become real, and the face would be seen, and that
strong Thing would come forward--it would dance for jealous ghosts the
dance of triumph--it would wipe out in mockery the unfinished homage
to the gods!
The dawn came, and Tahn-té danced the stars of morning into the glow
of the sun. The prayers had been all said, and the Watcher no longer
stood by the rock!
Tahn-té saw nothing now but the glare of the sun on the rock wall--a
spot of light in the circle of black piñon.
He no longer even whispered. His moving arms seemed no longer a
part of him--it was as if numbness was there. His feet moved
mechanically--not able to lift themselves more quickly--neither
able to cease by his own will.
The Trues were watching him now, waiting to help. There was the white
bear of the North and the mountain lion of the East. There was the
wildcat of the West, and the serpent of the South. There was the eagle
of the upper world, and the mystic creature of the earth home which
tells the weather wizards of the number of winter days.
They were all there--so the prayer had been a good prayer.
From some of them would come the medicine dreams!
The sun stood straight above,--then little by little reached towards
the mountain. It made shadows, and as the shadow of the sacred rock
touched the blinded dancer, he sank to the earth.
As he fell he strove to echo the prayer thought:--
"I find the light
I--master of spells!"
But he did not speak it. Only the eagle of his dream repeated it over
and over as it lifted him from the place where he had fallen, and bore
him swiftly to the highest point of the mountain of Tse-c[=o]me-u-piñ.
It has been the Sacred Mountain since men first spoke words in the
land. When a man has climbed to the shrine of the summit there, it is
as if all the world is very far below.
And that makes it lonely for the dweller there.
* * * * *
The stars were again alight in the heavens when the devotee awoke from
his sleep of exhaustion. To his entranced senses the stars were as the
eyes of the gods who watched the shrine where few men had ever danced
and lived. The wind touched the pines--and he thought their whispered
movement was the rustle of the wings of the eagle who had come in his
vision.
For the eagle was now his medicine, and the place where the eagle had
carried him in the dream was the best of all good places for medicine
that was strong.
In the starlight he again faced the ancient diety of the Lost
Others:--those Others who had carved the stone lions of Kat-yi-ti at
their entrance to the Under world, and had set the white stone bear of
the North on guard in the western hills. They did fine things--those
people who had perhaps first named the stars above. And this one
ancient cave god of the stone face was a link--so the wise old Ruler
had told him--with strange Mexic Brothers of the far south--who gave
worship--and gave human sacrifice, to a solitary mountain shrine,
called the shrine of the Sleeping Woman, where few men could dance--or
even learn the prayers of that dance.
No awesome Presence now faced him in the shadow of the rock as he
chanted his prayer of farewell under the stars. He had danced all
adverse spirits out of the charméd circle. His way was clearly marked
now to follow the way of the eagle,--there on the shrine of
Tse-c[=o]me-u-piñ he must say the final prayer. All of harmony and
all of hope was about him. Three days and three nights had he ran or
chanted prayers, or danced fasting, yet weariness was not with him as
he ended the ceremony which no man since his birth had made in this
place.
Somewhere, he would perhaps fall on the trail, and the men of Kah-po
or of Povi-whah would find him, as fainting medicine men had been
found ere this--but that must be after he had reached the shrine, and
gave prayers at the place of the eagle dream.
Past Pu-yé he went--scarce seeing the ghost walls of the older day; in
sight of Shufinne, the little island of forgotten dwellings on the
north mesa--through the pines to the cañon of Po-et-se where rocks of
weird shapes stood like gray and white giants to bar his way. He
thought at times voices sounded from the stone pillars, but it might
be the echo of his own.--He knew evil spirits did lurk along his
trail--no mortal could escape their shadows. Even the god who had
lived in the sun had been hurled to earth by them when the earth was
new, and the first trees--the pines, had begun to grow at the edges of
the ice. Since that time the Sun God only lived in the sky one half
the time. In the night he went to the Underworld, and the strands of
his dark hair covered his face. He must not let himself think that the
adverse spirits were less than men in strength--for man needed all the
medicine of the gods to war against evil!
Thus he thought--and muttered and stumbled blindly towards the north.
Into the stream of Po-eh-hin-cha he crept and drank,--then up--up to
Po-pe-kan-eh--the Place where the Water is Born, and from there to the
shrine of the Sacred Mountain, though his hands reached for help from
every tree and rock past which he staggered or crept.
[Illustration: AND REACHED HIS HANDS TO HIS BROTHERS--THE STARS _Page
129_]
Only water and the smoke of the medicine pipe had been his portion.
One may not eat the food of man, yet commune with Those Above.
The first stars were above the hills as he fell, bleeding from many
hurts--and breathless--at the shrine.
Far above one lone eagle soared, and the weariness was forgotten in
the joy of Tahn-té. The sacred spark came quickly to the twigs crossed
ceremonially for the fire on the shrine, and into the blue above, the
slender trail of smoke led undeviatingly up where the great bird
drifted as if awaiting to witness his offering of fire. Had any other
found medicine like that? He knew now that his magic was to be strong
magic, for his faith had been great--and he had followed the faith,
and found the bird of the strong gods waiting his coming!
Time was lost to him in the trance of that which he had lived through.
The day was gone, and he stood alone on the heights and reached his
hands in ecstasy to his brothers the stars. He felt the exultant
strength of the mortal with whom the gods have worked!
And when the last mountain prayer had been whispered, a reeling,
staggering, nude figure walked, and sometimes ran and often fell down
the steep sides of Tse-c[=o]me-u-piñ, and when the great dark pines
and the slender aspens were reached, he used his hands as well as his
feet in making his way, reeling from tree to tree, but holding with
instinctive steadiness to the trail of the Navahu--the ancient way of
the enemy, where ambush and slaughter was often known. Many captives
had been driven between the high rock walls. Youths and maidens swept
from Te-hua corn fields, and Navahu captives as well, caught by Te-hua
hunters in the hunting grounds to the West,--all came through the one
great pass--and the way of the trail was so narrow that to guard it
was not a hard thing in time of battle.
The rush of the swift water was always near as he went on and on in
the darkness. It had a lulling effect. The whispers of the pines also
spoke of rest. This was the fourth day of the fasting. He, Tahn-té,
had been strong as few men are strong, but suddenly in the night,
earth and sky seemed to meet, and putting out his hands he groped
through a thicket of the young pines, and fell there quite close to
the dancing water--and all the life of earth drifted far. He, Tahn-té,
the devotee of the Trues--the weaver of spells, and dancer of the
Ancient Dance to the God of the Stone, lay at last in the stupor
beyond dreams, helpless in the path of an enemy if any should trail
him for battle.
His sleep was dreamless, and the length of it until the dawn seemed
but a hand's breadth on the path of the stars across the sky.
But with the dawn a vision came, and he knew it again as the actual
form of that which had been so often the vague dream-maid of charméd
moments.
There was the flash of water in the pool--a something distinct from
the steady murmur of its ripples--that was the sign by which he was
wakened quite suddenly, without movement or even a breath that was
loud. Under the little pines at the very edge of the stream he was
veiled in still green shadows, and there before him was The Maid of
Dreams. Those Above had let her come to him that for once his eyes
should see and his heart keep her in the medicine visions of this
fasting time of prayer.
[Illustration: THE MAID OF DREAMS _Page 130_]
Not once did she turn her eyes towards him as she stood, dripping with
the water of the bath. Her slender figure was in shadow, and her
movements were shy and alert and quick.
To the dry sand she stepped, and lifted thence a white deerskin robe.
Two bluebird wings were in the white banda about her loosened hair,
very blue was the color of the wings as the light touched them, and he
thought of the wonderful Navahu Goddess Estsan-atlehi who was created
from an earth jewel--the turquoise, and who is the belovéd of the Sun.
If a maid could be moulded from any jewel of earth, Tahn-té thought
she would look like this spirit of the forest stream. Even while held
by the wonder and the beauty of the vision, he thought of this, and
recalled the bluebird feathers in the prayer plumes of Tusayan:--next
to the eagle they were sacred feathers:--the gods were sending him
strong thoughts for magic!
Suddenly the maid stood tense and erect as though listening--or was
it only the nearness of a mortal by which she was thrilled to
movement?--for she clasped the trailing white skin to her breast, and
stepped into the deeper shadow where grew the fragrant thickets of
the young pine under the arms of the great pine mothers.
Without sound she moved. His eyes watched in strained eagerness for
the one turn of the head, or one look of the eyes towards him, but
that was not to be. To mortal all the joys cannot be given at one
time--else all would be as gods!
He stared at the shadows into which she had blended herself, and he
stared at the pool from which she had arisen. It was again a mirror
reflecting only the coming day. Yet his heart leaped as he saw a sign
left there for him!
Drifting idly there in a circle was a bit of blue too vivid for the
echo of the sky of dawn--it was the wing of a bluebird, and even as he
looked, it was caught in an eddy more swift, and moved on the surface
of the water straight to the edge of the bank nearest his place of
rest.
Staggering to his feet, he went to meet it. It was not an empty vision
as the maid had been, and it did not fade as he grasped it. The
visions of the night had been strong visions, but with the dawn had
come to Tahn-té the added medicine of the second gift of the Spirits
of the Air. Above the clouds must his thoughts be in their height. The
medicine of the eagle had made that plain to him, and the feathers of
prayer lay in his hand as a sign such as had come to no other man!
The Brothers of the Air were plainly to be his kindred!
This was the dawning of the fifth day on the prayer trail. A little
way he walked, and the world reeled about him,--to escape from the
cloud of weakness he ran the way of the brook towards the far
river--and then as a brook falls into the shadows of a cavern place,
Tahn-té fell and lay where he fell. In the darkness closing over him
he heard the rustle of wings--though another might have heard only the
whisper of the pines.
When the sun stood straight above, and the bush of the sage brooded
over its own shadow, it was then Po-tzah and the brothers of Po-tzah
found him. They wondered at the wing of the bluebird in his hand, but
carried him on a robe of the buffalo until they brought him to his
own home. Then the people of his order brought to him the foods and
the drinks allowed after the fasting time to the men who make many
prayers.
When the strength had come back he spoke in secret council of the
vision of the eagle and the vision of the maid born from the waters of
the sacred mountain of prayer.
The old men debated wisely as to the visions and the meaning of the
visions. The dance was a great dance and plainly had the favor of
Sinde-hési since Tahn-té had come out of it alive;--the Summer People
would hold a long feast to mark the time, and the boys who were taught
by the old men, would be told in the kivas of the ways in which a man
might grow strong in body and strong in spirit to face the god who
lives on high in the hills.
Of the visions of the eagles they were glad--for in his dream Tahn-té
had been carried by the eagle to the shrine of power, and that was
very great medicine. It was well he had kept strength to follow the
trail and meet the eagle there.
Of the maid-vision there was long talk. To dream of a maid was the
natural dream thought of a young man, and the wing of the bird could
be only the symbol for thoughts that fly very high.
The clan of his mother--the Arrow Stone People, thought the vision by
the pool meant that the time to choose a wife had come to Tahn-té. He
had proven himself for magic. It was now time that he think of strong
sons.
The elders agreed that it was so, and talked of likely maids, and that
was when the name of Yahn the Beautiful was spoken. But Tahn-té heard
part of the talk, and stopped it. He had read the books of the white
god, and out of them all he had found one strong thought. The white
god, and the prophets of that god, were strong for magic because they
did not take wives of the tribes about them. Because of that they had
been strong to conquer their world. He, Tahn-té, meant to work for the
red gods as the priests of the dark robe worked for the white gods. He
would work alone unless other men worked with him. It was not magic in
which a woman could help. But alone he fastened four feathers of a
bluebird to the Prayer Flute of the far desert, and in the dusks under
Venus and the young moon he breathed through it softly to bring back
the vision of the Maid of Dreams.
Not all this talk was spoken of outside the kiva:--only the name of
Yahn had been said--and that Tahn-té would have no wife even when
urged by the old men. But Koh-pé, the wife of Ka-yemo did hear of
it--also some other wives, and Yahn Tsyn-deh heard their laughter, and
carried a bitter heart in the days to follow. She had no love for
Tahn-té, yet--to wed with the Highest--would be victory over a false
lover!
For the feast made for Tahn-té the Po-Ahtun-ho, she would gather no
flowers and bake no bread, and when the dance in honor of Tahn-té was
danced, she put on her dress of a savage, brown deer skin fringed and
trimmed with tails of the ermine of the north. About her brows she
fastened a band on which were white shells and many beads in the
pattern of the lightening path--and on it was also the white of the
ermine--and the warrior feathers of the eagle which she wore not
often--but this day she wore them!
[Illustration: STRAIGHT TO HIM DRIFTED THE BLUEBIRD'S WING _Page 132_]
Also she took from an earthen jar the strands of beads of the Navahu.
With head held high she walked through the village and knew well that
she looked finer than all the dancers. Thus proudly she walked to the
sands by the river's edge, and held the beads against her brow and
bosom--and twisted them about her round arms as she gazed at her
reflection in the water. But the pride and the defiance died out of
her face when there were no jealous eyes to watch, and a tear fell on
the still water, breaking the picture.
For a space she stood--a lonely figure despite her trophies--and the
music of the dance came to her on the wind, and filled her with sullen
rage. A canoe was on the shore above; she pushed it into the water and
stepped in lifting the paddle of split ash wood and sending the craft
darting downwards--anywhere to be away from the voices of people.
And Koh-pé, of the red beads, laughed at a safe distance, and told her
comrades of the terraces that the Apache had gone fishing without a
net--she would come home empty!