the skin, tired in good earnest, and hungry as well, looked around.
“Goodness! the water is running out of the 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 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.
[Illustration: A HOPI (MOKI) MAIDEN
Photo by A. C. Vroman]
THE WARRIOR SUITOR OF MOKI
[Illustration: {A young Moki woman}]
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[12]; 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.
[12] Fruit of the yucca, or soap-weed plant.
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
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 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 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 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 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 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 Night-hawks, 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 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 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 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 upper 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 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 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 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, 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 after
the ceremonies of initiation and purification had been performed over
him.