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ZUÑI FOLK TALES
Recorded and Translated by
FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING
With an Introduction by J. W. Powell
[Illustration: TÉNATSALI]
New York and London
G. P. Putnam’S Sons
The Knickerbocker Press
1901
Copyright, 1901
By
Emily T. M. Cushing
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
[Illustration: {Photograph of Frank Hamilton Cushing}]
LIST OF TALES
PAGE
THE TRIAL OF LOVERS: OR THE MAIDEN OF MÁTSAKI AND THE
RED FEATHER 1
THE YOUTH AND HIS EAGLE 34
THE POOR TURKEY GIRL 54
HOW THE SUMMER BIRDS CAME 65
THE SERPENT OF THE SEA 93
THE MAIDEN OF THE YELLOW ROCKS 104
THE FOSTER-CHILD OF THE DEER 132
THE BOY HUNTER WHO NEVER SACRIFICED TO THE DEER HE HAD
SLAIN: OR THE ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY OF RATTLESNAKES 150
HOW ÁHAIYÚTA AND MÁTSAILÉMA STOLE THE THUNDER-STONE AND
THE LIGHTNING-SHAFT 175
THE WARRIOR SUITOR OF MOKI 185
HOW THE COYOTE JOINED THE DANCE OF THE BURROWING-OWLS 203
THE COYOTE WHO KILLED THE DEMON SÍUIUKI: OR WHY COYOTES
RUN THEIR NOSES INTO DEADFALLS 215
HOW THE COYOTES TRIED TO STEAL THE CHILDREN OF THE
SACRED DANCE 229
THE COYOTE AND THE BEETLE 235
HOW THE COYOTE DANCED WITH THE BLACKBIRDS 237
HOW THE TURTLE OUT HUNTING DUPED THE COYOTE 243
THE COYOTE AND THE LOCUST 255
THE COYOTE AND THE RAVENS WHO RACED THEIR EYES 262
THE PRAIRIE-DOGS AND THEIR PRIEST, THE BURROWING-OWL 269
HOW THE GOPHER RACED WITH THE RUNNERS OF K’IÁKIME 277
HOW THE RATTLESNAKES CAME TO BE WHAT THEY ARE 285
HOW THE CORN-PESTS WERE ENSNARED 288
JACK-RABBIT AND COTTONTAIL 296
THE RABBIT HUNTRESS AND HER ADVENTURES 297
THE UGLY WILD BOY WHO DROVE THE BEAR AWAY FROM SOUTHEASTERN
MESA 310
THE REVENGE OF THE TWO BROTHERS ON THE HÁWIKUHKWE, OR THE
TWO LITTLE ONES AND THEIR TURKEYS 317
THE YOUNG SWIFT-RUNNER WHO WAS STRIPPED OF HIS CLOTHING
BY THE AGED TARANTULA 345
ÁTAHSAIA, THE CANNIBAL DEMON 365
THE HERMIT MÍTSINA 385
HOW THE TWINS OF WAR AND CHANCE, ÁHAIYÚTA AND MÁTSAILÉMA,
FARED WITH THE UNBORN-MADE MEN OF THE UNDERWORLD 398
THE COCK AND THE MOUSE 411
THE GIANT CLOUD-SWALLOWER 423
THE MAIDEN THE SUN MADE LOVE TO, AND HER BOYS: OR THE
ORIGIN OF ANGER 429
LIST OF PLATES
PAGE
PORTRAIT OF FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING _Frontispiece_
THE YOUTH AND HIS EAGLE 34
ZUÑI FROM THE SOUTH 64
WAÍHUSIWA 92
A BURRO TRAIN IN A ZUÑI STREET 132
THUNDER MOUNTAIN FROM ZUÑI 174
A HOPI (MOKI) MAIDEN 184
A DANCE OF THE KÂKÂ 228
ACROSS THE TERRACES OF ZUÑI 276
THE PINNACLES OF THUNDER MOUNTAIN 344
PÁLOWAHTIWA 388
ZUÑI WOMEN CARRYING WATER 428
INTRODUCTION
It is instructive to compare superstition with science. Mythology is the
term used to designate the superstitions of the ancients. Folk-lore is
the term used to designate the superstitions of the ignorant of today.
Ancient mythology has been carefully studied by modern thinkers for
purposes of trope and simile in the embellishment of literature, and
especially of poetry; then it has been investigated for the purpose of
discovering its meaning in the hope that some occult significance might
be found, on the theory that the wisdom of the ancients was far superior
to that of modern men. Now, science has entered this field of study to
compare one mythology with another, and pre-eminently to compare
mythology with science itself, for the purpose of discovering stages of
human opinion.
When the mythology of tribal men came to be studied, it was found that
their philosophy was also a mythology in which the mysteries of the
universe were explained in a collection of tales told by wise men,
prophets, and priests. This lore of the wise among savage men is of the
same origin and has the same significance as the lore of Hesiod and
Homer. It is thus a mythology in the early sense of that term. But the
mythology of tribal men is devoid of that glamour and witchery born of
poetry; hence it seems rude and savage in comparison, for example, with
the mythology of the _Odyssey_, and to rank no higher as philosophic
thought than the tales of the ignorant and superstitious which are
called folk-lore; and gradually such mythology has come to be called
folk-lore. Folk-lore is a discredited mythology--a mythology once held
as a philosophy. Nowadays the tales of savage men, not being credited by
civilized and enlightened men with that wisdom which is held to belong
to philosophy, are called folk-lore, or sometimes folk-tales.
The folk-tales collected by Mr. Cushing constitute a charming exhibit of
the wisdom of the Zuñis as they believe, though it may be but a charming
exhibit of the follies of the Zuñis as we believe.
The wisdom of one age is the folly of the next, and the opinions of
tribal men seem childish to civilized men. Then why should we seek to
discover their thoughts? Science, in seeking to know the truth about the
universe, does not expect to find it in mythology or folk-lore, does not
even consider it as a paramount end that it should be used as an
embellishment of literature, though it serves this purpose well. Modern
science now considers it of profound importance to know the course of
the evolution of the humanities; that is, the evolution of pleasures,
the evolution of industries, the evolution of institutions, the
evolution of languages, and, finally, the evolution of opinions. How
opinions grow seems to be one of the most instructive chapters in the
science of psychology. Psychologists do not go to the past to find valid
opinions, but to find stages of development in opinions; hence
mythology or folk-lore is of profound interest and supreme importance.
Under the scriptorial wand of Cushing the folk-tales of the Zuñis are
destined to become a part of the living literature of the world, for he
is a poet although he does not write in verse. Cushing can think as
myth-makers think, he can speak as prophets speak, he can expound as
priests expound, and his tales have the verisimilitude of ancient lore;
but his sympathy with the mythology of tribal men does not veil the
realities of science from his mind.
The gods of Zuñi, like those of all primitive people, are the ancients
of animals, but we must understand and heartily appreciate their simple
thought if we would do them justice. All entities are animals--men,
brutes, plants, stars, lands, waters, and rocks--and all have souls. The
souls are tenuous existences--mist entities, gaseous creatures
inhabiting firmer bodies of matter. They are ghosts that own bodies.
They can leave their bodies, or if they discover bodies that have been
vacated they can take possession of them. Force and mind belong to
souls; fixed form, firm existence belong to matter, while bodies and
souls constitute the world. The world is a universe of animals. The
stars are animals compelled to travel around the world by magic. The
plants are animals under a spell of enchantment, so that usually they
cannot travel. The waters are animals sometimes under the spell of
enchantment. Lakes writhe in waves, the sea travels in circles about
the earth, and the streams run over the lands. Mountains and hills
tremble in pain, but cannot wander about; but rocks and hills and
mountains sometimes travel about by night.
These animals of the world come in a flood of generations, and the
first-born are gods and are usually called the ancients, or the first
ones; the later-born generations are descendants of the gods, but alas,
they are degenerate sons.
The theatre of the world is the theatre of necromancy, and the gods are
the primeval wonder-workers; the gods still live, but their descendants
often die. Death itself is the result of necromancy practiced by bad men
or angry gods.
In every Amerindian language there is a term to express this magical
power. Among the Iroquoian tribes it is called _orenda_; among the
Siouan tribe some manifestations of it are called _wakan_ or _wakanda_,
but the generic term in this language is _hube_. Among the Shoshonean
tribes it is called _pokunt_. Let us borrow one of these terms and call
it “orenda.” All unexplained phenomena are attributed to orenda. Thus
the venom of the serpent is orenda, and this orenda can pass from a
serpent to an arrow by another exercise of orenda, and hence the arrow
is charmed. The rattlesnake may be stretched beside the arrow, and an
invocation may be performed that will convey the orenda from the snake
to the arrow, or the serpent may be made into a witch’s stew and the
arrow dipped into the brew.
No man has contributed more to our understanding of the doctrine of
orenda as believed and practised by the Amerindian tribes than Cushing
himself. In other publications he has elaborately discussed this
doctrine, and in his lectures he was wont to show how forms and
decorations of implements and utensils have orenda for their motive.
When one of the ancients--that is, one of the gods--of the Iroquois was
planning the streams of earth by his orenda or magical power, he
determined to have them run up one side and down the other; if he had
done this men could float up or down at will, by passing from one side
to the other of the river, but his wicked brother interfered and made
them run down on both sides; so orenda may thwart orenda.
The bird that sings is universally held by tribal men to be exercising
its orenda. And when human beings sing they also exercise orenda; hence
song is a universal accompaniment of Amerindian worship. All their
worship is thus fundamentally terpsichorean, for it is supposed that
they can be induced to grant favors by pleasing them.
All diseases and ailments of mankind are attributed by tribal men to
orenda, and all mythology is a theory of magic. Yet many of the tribes,
perhaps all of them, teach in their tales of some method of introducing
death and disease into the world, but it is a method by which
supernatural agencies can cause sickness and death.
The prophets, who are also priests, wonder-workers, and medicine-men,
are called shamans in scientific literature. In popular literature and
in frontier parlance they are usually called medicine-men. Shamans are
usually initiated into the guild, and frequently there are elaborate
tribal ceremonies for the purpose. Often individuals have revelations
and set up to prophesy, to expel diseases, and to teach as priests. If
they gain a following they may ultimately exert much influence and be
greatly revered, but if they fail they may gradually be looked upon as
wizards or witches, and they may be accused of black art, and in extreme
cases may be put to death. All Amerindians believe in shamancraft and
witchcraft.
The myths of cosmology are usually called creation myths. Sometimes all
myths which account for things, even the most trivial, are called
creation myths. Every striking phenomenon observed by the Amerind has a
myth designed to account for its origin. The horn of the buffalo, the
tawny patch on the shoulders of the rabbit, the crest of the blue-jay,
the tail of the magpie, the sheen of the chameleon, the rattle of the
snake,--in fact, everything that challenges attention gives rise to a
myth. Thus the folk-tales of the Amerinds seem to be inexhaustible, for
in every language, and there are hundreds of them, a different set of
myths is found.
In all of these languages a strange similarity in cosmology is observed,
in that it is a cosmology of regions or worlds. About the home world of
the tribe there is gathered a group of worlds, one above, another below,
and four more: one at every cardinal point; or we may describe it as a
central world, an upper world, a lower world, a northern world, a
southern world, an eastern world, and a western world. All of the
animals of the tribes, be they human animals, tree animals, star
animals, water animals (that is, bodies of water), or stone animals
(that is, mountains, hills, valleys, and rocks), have an appropriate
habitation in the zenith world, the nadir world, or in one of the
cardinal worlds, and their dwelling in the center world is accounted for
by some myth of travel to this world. All bodies and all attributes of
bodies have a home or proper place of habitation; even the colors of the
clouds and the rainbow and of all other objects on earth are assigned to
the six regions from which they come to the midworld.
We may better understand this habit of thought by considering the
folk-lore of civilization. Here are but three regions: heaven, earth,
and hell. All good things come from heaven; and all bad things from
hell. It is true that this cosmology is not entertained by scholarly
people. An enlightened man thinks of moral good as a state of mind in
the individual, an attribute of his soul, and a moral evil as the
characteristic of an immoral man; but still it is practically universal
for even the most intelligent to affirm by a figure of speech that
heaven is the place of good, and hell the place of evil. Now, enlarge
this conception so as to assign a place as the proper region for all
bodies and attributes, and you will understand the cosmological concepts
of the Amerinds.
The primitive religion of every Amerindian tribe is an organized system
of inducing the ancients to take part in the affairs of men, and the
worship of the gods is a system designed to please the gods, that they
may be induced to act for men, particularly the tribe of men who are the
worshipers. Time would fail me to tell of the multitude of activities in
tribal life designed for this purpose, but a few of them may be
mentioned. The first and most important of all are terpsichorean
ceremonies and festivals. Singing and dancing are universal, and
festivals are given at appointed times and places by every tribe. The
long nights of winter are devoted largely to worship, and a succession
of festival days are established, to be held at appropriate seasons for
the worship of the gods. Thus there are festival days for invoking rain,
there are festival days for thanksgiving--for harvest homes. In lands
where the grasshopper is an important food there are grasshopper
festivals. In lands where corn is an important food there are green-corn
festivals; where the buffalo constituted an important part of their
aliment there were buffalo dances. So there is a bear dance or festival,
and elk dance or festival, and a multitude of other festivals as we go
from tribe to tribe, all of which are fixed at times indicated by signs
of the zodiac. In the higher tribes elaborate calendars are devised from
which we unravel their picture-writings.
The practice of medicine by the shamans is an invocation to the gods to
drive out evil spirits from the sick and to frighten them that they may
leave. By music and dancing they obtain the help of the ancients, and
by a great variety of methods they drive out the evil beings. Resort is
often had to scarifying and searing, especially when the sick man has
great local pains. All American tribes entertain a profound belief in
the doctrine of signatures,--_similia, similibus curantur_,--and they
use this belief in procuring charms as medicine to drive out the ghostly
diseases that plague their sick folk.
Next in importance to terpsichorean worship is altar worship. The altar
is a space cleared upon the ground, or a platform raised from the ground
or floor of the kiva or assembly-house of the people. Around the altar
are gathered the priests and their acolytes, and here they make prayers
and perform ceremonies with the aid of altar-pieces of various kinds,
especially tablets of picture-writings on wood, bone, or the skins of
animals. The altar-pieces consist of representatives of the thing for
which supplication is made: ears of corn or vases of meal, ewers of
water, parts of animals designed for food, cakes of grasshoppers, basins
of honey, in fine any kind of food; then crystals or fragments of rock
to signify that they desire the corn to be hard, or of honeydew that
they desire the corn to be sweet, or of corn of different colors that
they desire the corn to be of a variety of colors. That which is of
great interest to students of ethnology is the system of picture-writing
exhibited on the altars. In this a great variety of things which they
desire and a great variety of the characteristics of these things are
represented in pictographs, or modeled in clay, or carved from wood and
bone. The graphic art, as painting and sculpture, has its origin with
tribal men in the development of altar-pieces. So also the drama is
derived from primeval worship, as the modern practice of medicine has
been evolved from necromancy.
There is another method of worship found in savagery, but more highly
developed in barbarism,--the worship of sacrifice. The altar-pieces and
the dramatic supplications of the lower stage gradually develop into a
sacrificial stage in the higher culture. Then the objects are supposed
to supply the ancients themselves with food and drink and the pleasures
of life. This stage was most highly developed in Mexico, especially by
the Nahua or Aztec, where human beings were sacrificed. In general,
among the Amerinds, not only are sacrifices made on the altar, but they
are also made whenever food or drink is used. Thus the first portions of
objects designed for consumption are dedicated to the gods. There are in
America many examples of these pagan religions, to a greater or less
extent affiliated in doctrine and in worship with the religion of
Christian origin.
In the early history of the association of white men with the Seneca of
New York and Pennsylvania, there was in the tribe a celebrated shaman
named Handsome Lake, as his Indian name is translated into English.
Handsome Lake had a nephew who was taken by the Spaniards to Europe and
educated as a priest. The nephew, on his return to America, told many
Bible stories to his uncle, for he speedily relapsed into paganism. The
uncle compounded some of these Bible stories with Seneca folk-tales, and
through his eloquence and great influence as a shaman succeeded in
establishing among the Seneca a new cult of doctrine and worship. The
Seneca are now divided into two very distinct bodies who live together
on the same reservation,--the one are “Christians,” the other are
“Pagans” who believe and teach the cult of Handsome Lake.
Mr. Cushing has introduced a hybrid tale into his collection, entitled
“The Cock and the Mouse.” Such tales are found again and again among the
Amerinds. In a large majority of cases Bible stories are compounded with
native stories, so that unwary people have been led to believe that the
Amerinds are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.
J. W. Powell.
Washington City,
November, 1901.
ZUÑI FOLK TALES
THE TRIAL OF LOVERS:
OR THE MAIDEN OF MÁTSAKI AND THE RED FEATHER
(_Told the First Night_)
In the days of the ancients, when Mátsaki was the home of the children
of men, there lived, in that town, which is called “Salt City,” because
the Goddess of Salt made a white lake there in the days of the New, a
beautiful maiden. She was passing beautiful, and the daughter of the
priest-chief, who owned more buckskins and blankets than he could hang
on his poles, and whose port-holes were covered with turquoises and
precious shells from the ocean--so many were the sacrifices he made to
the gods. His house was the largest in Mátsaki, and his ladder-poles
were tall and decorated with slabs of carved wood--which you know was a
great thing, for our grandfathers cut with the _tímush_ or flint knife,
and even tilled their corn-fields with wooden hoes sharpened with stone
and weighted with granite. That’s the reason why all the young men in
the towns round about were in love with the beautiful maiden of Salt
City.
Now, there was one very fine young man who lived across the western
plains, in the Pueblo of the Winds. He was so filled with thoughts of
the maiden of Mátsaki that he labored long to gather presents for her,
and looked not with favor on any girl of his own pueblo.
One morning he said to his fathers: “I have seen the maiden of Mátsaki;
what think ye?”
“Be it well,” said the old ones. So toward night the young man made a
bundle of mantles and necklaces, which he rolled up in the best and
whitest buckskin he had. When the sun was setting he started toward
Mátsaki, and just as the old man’s children had gathered in to smoke and
talk he reached the house of the maiden’s father and climbed the ladder.
He lifted the corner of the mat door and shouted to the people
below--“_Shé!_”
“_Hai!_” answered more than a pair of voices from below.
“Pull me down,” cried the young man, at the same time showing his bundle
through the sky-hole.
The maiden’s mother rose and helped the young man down the ladder, and
as he entered the fire-light he laid the bundle down.
“My fathers and mothers, my sisters and friends, how be ye these many
days?” said he, very carefully, as though he were speaking to a council.
“Happy! Happy!” they all responded, and they said also: “Sit down; sit
down on this stool,” which they placed for him in the fire-light.
“My daughter,” remarked the old man, who was smoking his cigarette by
the opposite side of the hearth-place, “when a stranger enters the house
of a stranger, the girl should place before him food and cooked
things.” So the girl brought from the great vessel in the corner fresh
rolls of _héwe_, or bread of corn-flour, thin as papers, and placed them
in a tray before the young man, where the light would fall on them.
“Eat!” said she, and he replied, “It is well.” Whereupon he sat up very
straight, and placing his left hand across his breast, very slowly took
a roll of the wafer bread with his right hand and ate ever so little;
for you know it is not well or polite to eat much when you go to see a
strange girl, especially if you want to ask her if she will let you live
in the same house with her. So the young man ate ever so little, and
said, “Thank you.”
“Eat more,” said the old ones; but when he replied that he was “past the
naming of want,” they said, “Have eaten,” and the girl carried the tray
away and swept away the crumbs.
“Well,” said the old man, after a short time, “when a stranger enters
the house of a stranger, it is not thinking of nothing that he enters.”
“Why, that is quite true,” said the youth, and then he waited.
“Then what may it be that thou hast come thinking of?” added the old
man.
“I have heard,” said the young man, “of your daughter, and have seen
her, and it was with thoughts of her that I came.”
Just then the grown-up sons of the old man, who had come to smoke and
chat, rose and said to one another: “Is it not about time we should be
going home? The stars must be all out.” Thus saying, they bade the old
ones to “wait happily until the morning,” and shook hands with the young
man who had come, and went to the homes of their wives’ mothers.
“Listen, my child!” said the old man after they had gone away, turning
toward his daughter, who was sitting near the wall and looking down at
the beads on her belt fringe. “Listen! You have heard what the young man
has said. What think you?”
“Why! I know not; but what should I say but ‘Be it well,’” said the
girl, “if thus think my old ones?”
“As you may,” said the old man; and then he made a cigarette and smoked
with the young man. When he had thrown away his cigarette he said to the
mother: “Old one, is it not time to stretch out?”
So when the old ones were asleep in the corner, the girl said to the
youth, but in a low voice: “Only possibly you love me. True, I have said
‘Be it well’; but before I take your bundle and say ‘thanks,’ I would
that you, to prove that you verily love me, should go down into my
corn-field, among the lands of the priest-chief, by the side of the
river, and hoe all the corn in a single morning. If you will do this,
then shall I know you love me; then shall I take of your presents, and
happy we will be together.”
“Very well,” replied the young man; “I am willing.”
Then the young girl lighted a bundle of cedar splints and showed him a
room which contained a bed of soft robes and blankets, and, placing her
father’s hoe near the door, bade the young man “wait happily unto the
morning.”
So when she had gone he looked at the hoe and thought: “Ha! if that be
all, she shall see in the morning that I am a man.”
At the peep of day over the eastern mesa he roused himself, and,
shouldering the wooden hoe, ran down to the corn-fields; and when, as
the sun was coming out, the young girl awoke and looked down from her
house-top, “Aha!” thought she, “he is doing well, but my children and I
shall see how he gets on somewhat later. I doubt if he loves me as much
as he thinks he does.”
So she went into a closed room. Down in the corner stood a water jar,
beautifully painted and as bright as new. It looked like other water
jars, but it was not. It was wonderful, wonderful! for it was covered
with a stone lid which held down many may-flies and gnats and
mosquitoes. The maiden lifted the lid and began to speak to the little
animals as though she were praying.
“Now, then, my children, this day fly ye forth all, and in the
corn-fields by the river there shall ye see a young man hoeing. So hard
is he working that he is stripped as for a race. Go forth and seek him.”
“_Tsu-nu-nu-nu_,” said the flies, and “_Tsi-ni-ni-ni_,” sang the gnats
and mosquitoes; which meant “Yes,” you know.
“And,” further said the girl, “when ye find him, bite him, his body all
over, and eat ye freely of his blood; spare not his armpits, neither his
neck nor his eyelids, and fill his ears with humming.”
And again the flies said, “_Tsu-nu-nu-nu_,” and the mosquitoes and
gnats, “_Tsi-ni-ni-ni._” Then, _nu-u-u_, away they all flew like a cloud
of sand on a windy morning.
“Blood!” exclaimed the young man. He wiped the sweat from his face and
said, “The gods be angry!” Then he dropped his hoe and rubbed his shins
with sand and slapped his sides. “_Atu!_” he yelled; “what matters--what
in the name of the Moon Mother matters with these little beasts that
cause thoughts?” Whereupon, crazed and restless as a spider on hot
ashes, he rolled in the dust, but to no purpose, for the flies and gnats
and mosquitoes sang “_hu-n-n_” and “_tsi-ni-ni_” about his ears until he
grabbed up his blanket and breakfast, and ran toward the home of his
fathers.
“_Wa-ha ha! Ho o!_” laughed a young man in the Tented Pueblo to the
north, when he heard how the lover had fared. “_Shoom!_” he sneered.
“Much of a man he must have been to give up the maid of Mátsaki for
may-flies and gnats and mosquitoes!” So on the very next morning, he,
too, said to his old ones: “What a fool that little _boy_ must have
been. I will visit the maiden of Mátsaki. I’ll show the people of Pínawa
what a Hámpasawan man can do. Courage!”--and, as the old ones said “Be
it well,” he went as the other had gone; but, pshaw! he fared no better.
After some time, a young man who lived in the River Town heard about it
and laughed as hard as the youth of the Tented Pueblo had. He called the
two others fools, and said that “girls were not in the habit of asking
much when one’s bundle was large.” And as he was a young man who had
everything, he made a bundle of presents as large as he could carry; but
it did him no good. He, too, ran away from the may-flies and gnats and
mosquitoes.
Many days passed before any one else would try again to woo the maiden
of Mátsaki. They did not know, it is true, that she was a Passing Being;
but others had failed all on account of mosquitoes and may-flies and
little black gnats, and had been more satisfied with shame than a full
hungry man with food. “That is sick satisfaction,” they would say to one
another, the fear of which made them wait to see what others would do.
Now, in the Ant Hill, which was named Hálonawan,[1] lived a handsome
young man, but he was poor, although the son of the priest-chief of
Hálonawan. He thought many days, and at last said to his grandmother,
who was very old and crafty, “_Hó-ta?_”
[1] The ancient pueblo of Zuñi itself was called Hálonawan, or
the Ant Hill, the ruins of which, now buried beneath the sands,
lie opposite the modern town within the cast of a stone. Long
before Hálonawan was abandoned, the nucleus of the present
structure was begun around one of the now central plazas. It was
then, and still is, in the ancient songs and rituals of the
Zuñis, _Hálona-ítiwana_, or the “Middle Ant Hill of the World,”
and was often spoken of in connection with the older town as
simply the “Ant Hill.”
“What sayest my _nána_?” said the old woman; for, like grandmothers
nowadays, she was very soft and gentle to her grandson.
“I have seen the maiden of Mátsaki and my thoughts kill me with longing,
for she is passing beautiful and wisely slow. I do not wonder that she
asks hard tasks of her lovers; for it is not of their bundles that she
thinks, but of themselves. Now, I strengthen my thoughts with my
manliness. My heart is hard against weariness, and I would go and speak
to the beautiful maiden.”
“_Yo á!_ my poor boy,” said the grandmother. “She is as wonderful as she
is wise and beautiful. She thinks not of men save as brothers and
friends; and she it is, I bethink me, who sends the may-flies and gnats
and mosquitoes, therefore, to drive them away. They are but disguised
beings, and beware, my grandson, you will only cover yourself with shame
as a man is covered with water who walks through a rain-storm! I would
not go, my poor grandchild. I would not go,” she added, shaking her head
and biting her lips till her chin touched her nose-tip.
“Yes, but I must go, my grandmother. Why should I live only to breathe
hard with longing? Perhaps she will better her thoughts toward me.”
“Ah, yes, but all the same, she will test thee. Well, go to the
mountains and scrape bitter bark from the finger-root; make a little
loaf of the bark and hide it in your belt, and when the maiden sends you
down to the corn-field, work hard at the hoeing until sunrise. Then,
when your body is covered with sweat-drops, rub every part with the
root-bark. The finger-root bark, it is bitter as bad salt mixed in with
bad water, and the ‘horn-wings’ and ‘long-beaks’ and ‘blue-backs’ fly
far from the salt that is bitter.”
“Then, my gentle grandmother, I will try your words and thank you,”--for
he was as gentle and good as his grandmother was knowing and crafty.
Even that day he went to the mountains and gathered a ball of
finger-root. Then, toward evening, he took a little bundle and went up
the trail by the river-side to Mátsaki. When he climbed the ladder and
shouted down the mat door: “_Shé!_ Are ye within?” the people did not
answer at once, for the old ones were angry with their daughter that she
had sent off so many fine lovers. But when he shouted again they
answered:
“_Hai_, and _Ée_, we are within. Be yourself within.”
Then without help he went down the ladder, but he didn’t mind, for he
felt himself poor and his bundle was small. As he entered the fire-light
he greeted the people pleasantly and gravely, and with thanks took the
seat that was laid for him.
Now, you see, the old man was angry with the girl, so he did not tell
her to place cooked things before him, but turned to his old wife.
“Old one,” he began--but before he had finished the maiden arose and
brought rich venison stew and flaky _héwe_, which she placed before the
youth where the fire’s brightness would fall upon it, with meat broth
for drink; then she sat down opposite him and said, “Eat and drink!”
Whereupon the young man took a roll of the wafer-bread and, breaking it
in two, gave the girl the larger piece, which she bashfully accepted.
The old man raised his eyebrows and upper lids, looked at his old wife,
spat in the fireplace, and smoked hard at his cigarette, joining the
girl in her invitation by saying, “Yes, have to eat well.”
Soon the young man said, “Thanks,” and the maiden quickly responded,
“Eat more,” and “Have eaten.”
After brushing the crumbs away the girl sat down by her mother, and the
father rolled a cigarette for the young man and talked longer with him
than he had with the others.
After the old ones had stretched out in the corner and begun to “scrape
their nostrils with their breath,” the maiden turned to the young man
and said: “I have a corn-field in the lands of the priest-chief, down by
the river, and if you truly love me, I would that you should hoe the
whole in a single morning. Thus may you prove yourself a man, and to
love me truly; and if you will do this, happily, as day follows day,
will we live each with the other.”
“_Hai-í!_” replied the young man, who smiled as he listened; and as the
young maiden looked at him, sitting in the fading fire-light with the
smile on his face, she thought: “Only possibly. But oh! how I wish his
heart might be strong, even though his bundle be not heavy nor large.
“Come with me, young man, and I will show you where you are to await
the morning. Early take my father’s hoe, which stands by the doorway,
and go down to the corn-field long before the night shadows have run
away from Thunder Mountain”--with which she bade him pass a night of
contentment and sought her own place.
When all was still, the young man climbed to the sky-hole and in the
starlight asked the gods of the woodlands and waters to give strength to
his hands and power to his prayer-medicine, and to meet and bless him
with the light of their favor; and he threw to the night-wind meal of
the seeds of earth and the waters of the world with which those who are
wise fail not to make smooth their trails of life. Then he slept till
the sky of the day-land grew yellow and the shadows of the night-land
grew gray, and then shouldered his hoe and went down to the corn-field.
His task was not great, for the others had hoed much. Where they left
off, there he fell to digging right and left with all his strength and
haste, till the hard soil mellowed and the earth flew before his strokes
as out of the burrows of the strongest-willed gophers and other digging
creatures.
When the sun rose the maiden looked forth and saw that his task was
already half done. But still she waited. As the sun warmed the day and
the youth worked on, the dewdrops of flesh stood all over his body and
he cast away, one after the other, his blanket and sash and even his
leggings and moccasins. Then he stopped to look around. By the side of
the field grew tall yellow-tops. He ran into the thicket and rubbed
every part of his body, yea, even the hair of his head and his ear-tips
and nostrils, with the bark of the finger-root. Again he fell to work as
though he had only been resting, and wondered why the may-flies and
gnats and mosquitoes came not to cause him thoughts as they had the
others. Yet still the girl lingered; but at last she went slowly to the
room where the jar stood.
“It is absurd,” thought she, “that I should hope it or even care for it;
it would indeed be great if it were well true that a young man should
love me so verily as to hold his face to the front through such a
testing.” Nevertheless, she drew the lid off and bade her strange
children to spare him no more than they had the others.
All hasty to feast themselves on the “waters of life,” as our old
grandfathers would say for blood, again they rushed out and hummed along
over the corn-fields in such numbers that they looked more like a
wind-driven sandstorm than ever, and “_tsi-ni-ni-i, tso-no-o_,” they
hummed and buzzed about the ears of the young man when they came to him,
so noisily that the poor fellow, who kept at work all the while, thought
they were already biting him. But it was only fancy, for the first
may-fly that did bite him danced in the air with disgust and exclaimed
to his companions, “_Sho-o-o-m-m!_” and “_Us-á!_” which meant that he
had eaten something nasty, that tasted as badly as vile odors smell. So
not another may-fly in the throng would bite, although they all kept
singing their song about his ears. And to this day may-flies are
careful whom they bite, and dance a long time in the air before they do
it.
Then a gnat tried it and gasped, “_Weh!_” which meant that his stomach
had turned over, and he had such a sick headache that he reeled round
and round in the air, and for that reason gnats always bite very
quickly, for fear their stomachs will turn over, and they will reel and
reel round and round in the air before doing it.
Finally, long-beak himself tried it, and, as long-beak hangs on, you
know, longer than most other little beasts, he kept hold until his two
hindlegs were warped out of shape; but at last he had to let go, too,
and flew straight away, crying, “_Yá kotchi!_” which meant that
something bitter had burned his snout. Now, for these reasons mosquitoes
always have bent-up hindlegs, which they keep lifting up and down while
biting, as though they were standing on something hot, and they are apt
to sing and smell around very cautiously before spearing us, and they
fly straight away, you will notice, as soon as they are done.
Now, when the rest of the gnats and mosquitoes heard the words of their
elder brothers, they did as the may-flies had done--did not venture, no,
not one of them, to bite the young lover. They all flew away and settled
down on the yellow-tops, where they had a council, and decided to go and
find some prairie-dogs to bite. Therefore you will almost always find
may-flies, gnats, and mosquitoes around prairie-dog holes in summer time
when the corn is growing.
So the young man breathed easily as he hoed hard to finish his task ere
the noon-day, and when the maiden looked down and saw that he still
labored there, she said to herself: “Ah, indeed he must love me, for
still he is there! Well, it _may be_, for only a little longer and they
will leave him in peace.” Hastily she placed venison in the cooking-pot
and prepared fresh _héwe_ and sweetened bread, “for _maybe_,” she still
thought, “and then I will have it ready for him.”
Now, alas! you do not know that this good and beautiful maiden had a
sister, alas!--a sister as beautiful as herself, but bad and
double-hearted; and you know when people have double hearts they are
wizards or witches, and have double tongues and paired thoughts--such a
sister elder had the maiden of Mátsaki, alas!
When the sun had climbed almost to the middle of the sky, the maiden,
still doubtful, looked down once more. He was there, and was working
among the last hills of corn.
“Ah, truly indeed he loves me,” she thought, and she hastened to put on
her necklaces and bracelets of shells, her earrings as long as your
fingers--of turquoises,--and her fine cotton mantles with borders of
stitched butterflies of summerland, and flowers of the autumn. Then she
took a new bowl from the stick-rack in the corner, and a large
many-colored tray that she had woven herself, and she filled the one
with meat broth, and the other with the _héwe_ and sweet-bread, and
placing the bowl of meat broth on her head, she took the tray of _héwe_
in her hand, and started down toward the corn-field by the river-side to
meet her lover and to thank him.
Witches are always jealous of the happiness and good fortune of others.
So was the sister of the beautiful maiden jealous when she saw the smile
on her _háni’s_ face as she tripped toward the river.
“_Ho há!_” said the two-hearted sister. “_Tém-ithlokwa thlokwá!
Wananí!_” which are words of defiance and hatred, used so long ago by
demons and wizards that no one knows nowadays what they mean except the
last one, which plainly says, “Just wait a bit!” and she hastened to
dress herself, through her wicked knowledge, exactly as the beautiful
maiden was dressed. She even carried just such a bowl and tray; and as
she was beautiful, like her younger sister, nobody could have known the
one from the other, or the other from the one. Then she passed herself
through a hoop of magic yucca, which made her seem not to be where she
was, for no one could see her unless she willed it.
Now, just as the sun was resting in the middle of the sky, the young man
finished the field and ran down to the river to wash. Before he was
done, he saw the maiden coming down the trail with the bowl on her head
and the tray in her hand; so he made haste, and ran back to dress
himself and to sit down to wait for her. As she approached, he said:
“Thou comest, and may it be happily,”--when lo! there appeared two
maidens exactly alike; so he quickly said, “Ye come.”
“_E_,” said the maidens, so nearly together that it sounded like one
voice; but when they both placed the same food before him, the poor
young man looked from one to the other, and asked:
“Alas! of which am I to eat?”
Then it was that the maiden suddenly saw her sister, and became hot with
anger, for she knew her wicked plans. “Ah, thou foolish sister, why
didst thou come?” she said. But the other only replied:
“Ah, thou foolish sister, why didst _thou_ come?”
“Go back, for he is mine-to-be,” said the maiden, beginning to cry.
“Go back, for he is mine-to-be,” said the bad one, pretending to cry.
And thus they quarrelled until they had given one another smarting words
four times, when they fell to fighting--as women always fight, by
pulling each other’s hair, and scratching, and grappling until they
rolled over each other in the sand.
The poor young man started forward to part them, but he knew not one
from the other, so thinking that the bad one must know how to fight
better than his beautiful maiden wife, he suddenly caught up his
stone-weighted hoe, and furiously struck the one that was uppermost on
the head, again and again, until she let go her hold, and fell back,
murmuring and moaning: “Alas! that thus it should be after all, after
all!” Then she forgot, and her eyes ceased to see.
While yet the young man looked, lo! there was only the dying maiden
before him; but in the air above circled an ugly black Crow, that
laughed “_kawkaw, kawkaw, kawkaw!_” and flew away to its cave in Thunder
Mountain.
Then the young man knew. He cried aloud and beat his breast; then he ran
to the river and brought water and bathed the blood away from the
maiden’s temples; but alas! she only smiled and talked with her lips,
then grew still and cold.
Alone, as the sun travelled toward the land of evening, wept the young
man over the body of his beautiful wife. He knew naught but his sad
thoughts. He took her in his arms, and placed his face close to hers,
and again and again he called to her: “Alas, alas! my beautiful wife; I
loved thee, I love thee. Alas, alas! Ah, my beautiful wife, my beautiful
wife!”
When the people returned from their fields in the evening, they missed
the beautiful maiden of Mátsaki; and they saw the young man, bending low
and alone over something down in the lands of the priest-chief by the
river, and when they told the old father, he shook his head and said:
“It is not well with my beautiful child; but as They (the gods) say,
thus must all things be.” Then he smiled--for the heart of a
priest-chief never cries,--and told them to go and bring her to the
plaza of Mátsaki and bury her before the House of the Sun; for he knew
what had happened.
So the people did as their father had told them. They went down at
sunset and took the beautiful maiden away, and wrapped her in mantles,
and buried her near the House of the Sun.
But the poor young man knew naught but his sad thoughts. He followed
them; and when he had made her grave, he sat down by her earth bed and
would not leave her. No, not even when the sun set, but moaned and
called to her: “Alas, alas! my beautiful wife; I loved thee, I love
thee; even though I knew not thee and killed thee. Alas! Ah, my
beautiful wife!”
* * * * *
“_Shonetchi!_” (“There is left of my story.”) And what there is left, I
will tell you some other night.
(_Told the Second Night_)
“_Sonahtchi!_”
“_Sons shonetchi!_” (“There is left of my story”;) but I will tell you
not alone of the Maid of Mátsaki, because the young man killed her, for
he knew not his wife from the other. It is of the Red Feather, or the
Wife of Mátsaki that I will tell you this sitting.
Even when the sun set, and the hills and houses grew black in the
shadows, still the young man sat by the grave-side, his hands rested
upon his knees and his face buried in them. And the people no longer
tried to steal his sad thoughts from him; but, instead, left him, as one
whose mind errs, to wail out with weeping: “Alas, alas! my beautiful
wife; I loved thee, I love thee; even though I knew not thee and killed
thee! Alas! Ah, my beautiful wife!”
But when the moon set on the western hills, and the great snowdrift
streaked across the mid-sky, and the night was half gone, the sad
watcher saw a light in the grave-sands like the light of the embers that
die in the ashes. As he watched, his sad thoughts became bright
thoughts, for the light grew and brightened till it burned the dark
grave-sands as sunlight the shadows. Lo! the bride lay beneath. She tore
off her mantles and raised up in her grave-bed. Then she looked at the
eager lover so coldly and sadly that his bright thoughts all darkened,
for she mournfully told him: “Alas! Ah, my lover, my husband knew not me
from the other; loved me not, therefore killed me; even though I had
hoped for love, loved me not, therefore killed me!”
Again the young man buried his face in his hands and shook his head
mournfully; and like one whose thoughts erred, again he wailed his
lament: “Alas, alas! my beautiful bride! I do love thee; I loved thee,
but I did not know thee and killed thee! Alas! Ah, my beautiful bride,
my beautiful bride!”
At last, as the great star rose from the sky-land, the dead maiden spoke
softly to the mourning lover, yet her voice was sad and strange: “Young
man, mourn thou not, but go back to the home of thy fathers. Knowest
thou not that I am another being? When the sky of the day-land grows
yellow and the houses come out of the shadows, then will the light
whereby thou sawest me, fade away in the morn-light, as the blazes of
late councils pale their red in the sunlight.” Then her voice grew
sadder as she said: “I am only a spirit; for remember, alas! ah, my
lover, my husband knew not me from the other--loved me not, therefore
killed me; even though I had hoped for love, loved me not, therefore
killed me.”
But the young man would not go until, in the gray of the morning, he saw
nothing where the light had appeared but the dark sand of the grave as
it had been. Then he arose and went away in sorrow. Nor would he all day
speak to men, but gazed only whither his feet stepped and shook his head
sadly like one whose thoughts wandered. And when again the houses and
hills grew black with the shadows, he sought anew the fresh grave and
sat down by its side, bowed his head and still murmured: “Alas, alas! my
beautiful wife, I loved thee, though I knew not thee, and killed thee.
Alas! Ah, my beautiful wife!”
Even brighter glowed the light in the grave-sands when the night was
divided, and the maiden’s spirit arose and sat in her grave-bed, but she
only reproached him and bade him go. “For,” said she, “I am only a
spirit; remember, alas! ah, my lover, my husband knew not me from the
other; loved me not, therefore killed me; even though I had hoped for
love, loved me not, therefore killed me!”
But he left only in the morning, and again when the dark came, returned
to the grave-side.
When the light shone that night, the maiden, more beautiful than ever,
came out of the grave-bed and sat by her lover. Once more she urged him
to return to his fathers; but when she saw that he would not, she said:
“Thou hadst better, for I go a long journey. As light as the wind is, so
light will my feet be; as long as the day is, thou canst not my form
see. Know thou not that the spirits are seen but in darkness? for, alas!
ah, my lover, my husband knew not me from the other; loved me not,
therefore killed me; even though I had hoped for love, loved me not,
therefore killed me!”
Then the young man ceased bemoaning his beautiful bride. He looked at
her sadly, and said: “I do love thee, my beautiful wife! I do love thee,
and whither thou goest let me therefore go with thee! I care not how
long is the journey, nor how hard is the way. If I can but see thee,
even only at night time, then will I be happy and cease to bemoan thee.
It was because I loved thee and would have saved thee; but alas, my
beautiful wife! I knew not thee, therefore killed thee!”