themselves up and strain and 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.
THE COYOTE AND THE BEETLE
In remote times, after our ancients were settled at Middle Ant Hill, a
little thing occurred which will explain a great deal.
My children, you have doubtless seen Tip-beetles. They run around on
smooth, hard patches of ground in spring time and early summer, kicking
their heels into the air and thrusting their heads into any crack or
hole they find.
Well, in ancient times, on the pathway leading around to Fat Mountain,
there was one of these Beetles running about in all directions in the
sunshine, when a Coyote came trotting along. He pricked up his ears,
lowered his nose, arched his neck, and stuck out his paw toward the
Beetle. “Ha!” said he, “I shall bite you!”
The Beetle immediately stuck his head down close to the ground, and,
lifting one of his antennæ deprecatingly, exclaimed: “Hold on! Hold on,
friend! Wait a bit, for the love of mercy! I hear something very strange
down below here!”
“Humph!” replied the Coyote. “What do you hear?”
“Hush! hush!” cried the Beetle, with his head still to the ground.
“Listen!”
So the Coyote drew back and listened most attentively. By-and-by the
Beetle lifted himself with a long sigh of relief.
“_Okwe!_” exclaimed the Coyote. “What was going on?”
“The Good Soul save us!” exclaimed the Beetle, with a shake of his head.
“I heard them saying down there that tomorrow they would chase away and
thoroughly chastise everybody who defiled the public trails of this
country, and they are making ready as fast as they can!”
“Souls of my ancestors!” cried the Coyote. “I have been loitering along
this trail this very morning, and have defiled it repeatedly. I’ll cut!”
And away he ran as fast as he could go.
The Beetle, in pure exuberance of spirits, turned somersaults and stuck
his head in the sand until it was quite turned.
Thus did the Beetle in the days of the ancients save himself from being
bitten. Consequently the Tip-beetle has that strange habit of kicking
his heels into the air and sticking his head in the sand.
Thus shortens my story.
HOW THE COYOTE DANCED WITH THE BLACKBIRDS
One late autumn day in the times of the ancients, a large council of
Blackbirds were gathered, fluttering and chattering, on the smooth,
rocky slopes of Gorge Mountain, northwest of Zuñi. Like ourselves, these
birds, as you are well aware, congregate together in autumn time, when
the harvests are ripe, to indulge in their festivities before going into
winter quarters; only we do not move away, while they, on strong wings
and swift, retreat for a time to the Land of Everlasting Summer.
Well, on this particular morning they were making a great noise and
having a grand dance, and this was the way of it: They would gather in
one vast flock, somewhat orderly in its disposition, on the sloping face
of Gorge Mountain,--the older birds in front, the younger ones
behind,-and down the slope, chirping and fluttering, they would hop,
hop, hop, singing:
“_Ketchu, Ketchu, oñtilã, oñtilã,
Ketchu, Ketchu, oñtilã, oñtilã!
Âshokta a yá-à-laa Ke-e-tchu,
Oñtilã,
Oñtilã!_”--
Blackbirds, Blackbirds, dance away, O, dance away, O!
Blackbirds, Blackbirds, dance away, O, dance away, O!
Down the Mountain of the Gorges, Blackbirds,
Dance away, O!
Dance away, O!--
and, spreading their wings, with many a flutter, flurry, and scurry,
_keh keh,--keh keh,--keh keh,--keh keh_,--they would fly away into the
air, swirling off in a dense, black flock, circling far upward and
onward; then, wheeling about and darting down, they would dip themselves
in the broad spring which flows out at the foot of the mountain, and
return to their dancing place on the rocky slopes.
A Coyote was out hunting (as if he could catch anything, the beast!) and
saw them, and was enraptured.
“You beautiful creatures!” he exclaimed. “You graceful dancers! Delight
of my senses! How do you do that, anyway? Couldn’t I join in your
dance--the first part of it, at least?”
“Why, certainly; yes,” said the Blackbirds. “We are quite willing,” the
masters of the ceremony said.
“Well,” said the Coyote, “I can get on the slope of the rocks and I can
sing the song with you; but I suppose that when you leap off into the
air I shall have to sit there patting the rock with my paw and my tail
and singing while you have the fun of it.”
“It may be,” said an old Blackbird, “that we can fit you out so that you
can fly with us.”
“Is it possible!” cried the Coyote, “Then by all means do so. By the
Blessed Immortals! Now, if I am only able to circle off into the air
like you fellows, I’ll be the biggest Coyote in the world!”
“I think it will be easy,” resumed the old Blackbird. “My children,”
said he, “you are many, and many are your wing-feathers. Contribute each
one of you a feather to our friend.” Thereupon the Blackbirds, each one
of them, plucked a feather from his wing. Unfortunately they all plucked
feathers from the wings on the same side.
“Are you sure, my friend,” continued the old Blackbird, “that you are
willing to go through the operation of having these feathers planted in
your skin? If so, I think we can fit you out.”
“Willing?--why, of course I am willing.” And the Coyote held up one of
his arms, and, sitting down, steadied himself with his tail. Then the
Blackbirds thrust in the feathers all along the rear of his forelegs and
down the sides of his back, where wings ought to be. It hurt, and the
Coyote twitched his mustache considerably; but he said nothing. When it
was done, he asked: “Am I ready now?”
“Yes,” said the Blackbirds; “we think you’ll do.”
So they formed themselves again on the upper part of the slope, sang
their songs, and hopped along down with many a flutter, flurry, and
scurry,--_Keh keh, keh keh, keh keh_,--and away they flew off into the
air.
The Coyote, somewhat startled, got out of time, but followed bravely,
making heavy flops; but, as I have said before, the wings he was
supplied with were composed of feathers all plucked from one side, and
therefore he flew slanting and spirally and brought up with a whack,
which nearly knocked the breath out of him, against the side of the
mountain. He picked himself up, and shook himself, and cried out: “Hold!
Hold! Hold on, hold on, there!” to the fast-disappearing Blackbirds.
“You’ve left me behind!”
When the birds returned they explained: “Your wings are not quite thick
enough, friend; and, besides, even a young Blackbird, when he is first
learning to fly, does just this sort of thing that you have been
doing--makes bad work of it.”
“Sit down again,” said the old Blackbird. And he called out to the rest:
“Get feathers from your other sides also, and be careful to select a few
strong feathers from the tips of the wings, for by means of these we
cleave the air, guide our movements, and sustain our flight.”
So the Blackbirds all did as they were bidden, and after the new
feathers were planted, each one plucked out a tail-feather, and the most
skilful of the Blackbirds inserted these feathers into the tip of the
Coyote’s tail. It made him wince and “yip” occasionally; but he stood it
bravely and reared his head proudly, thinking all the while: “What a
splendid Coyote I shall be! Did ever anyone hear of a Coyote flying?”
The procession formed again. Down the slope they went, hopity-hop,
hopity-hop, singing their song, and away they flew into the air, the
Coyote in their midst. Far off and high they circled and circled, the
Coyote cutting more eager pranks than any of the rest. Finally they
returned, dipped themselves again into the spring, and settled on the
slopes of the rocks.
“There, now,” cried out the Coyote, with a flutter of his feathery
tail, “I can fly as well as the rest of you.”
“Indeed, you do well!” exclaimed the Blackbirds. “Shall we try it
again?”
“Oh, yes! Oh, yes! I’m a little winded,” cried the Coyote, “but this is
the best fun I ever had.”
The Blackbirds, however, were not satisfied with their companion. They
found him less sedate than a dancer ought to be, and, moreover, his
irregular cuttings-up in the air were not to their taste. So the old
ones whispered to one another: “This fellow is a fool, and we must pluck
him when he gets into the air. We’ll fly so far this time that he will
get a little tired out and cry to us for assistance.”
The procession formed, and hopity-hop, hopity-hop, down the mountain
slope they went, and with many a flutter and flurry flew off into the
air. The Coyote, unable to restrain himself, even took the lead. On and
on and on they flew, the Blackbirds and the Coyote, and up and up and
up, and they circled round and round, until the Coyote found himself
missing a wing stroke occasionally and falling out of line; and he cried
out: “Help! help, friends, help!”
“All right!” cried the Blackbirds. “Catch hold of his wings; hold him
up!” cried the old ones. And the Blackbirds flew at him; and every time
they caught hold of him (the old fool all the time thinking they were
helping) they plucked out a feather, until at last the feathers had
become so thin that he began to fall, and he fell and fell and
fell,--flop, flop, flop, he went through the air,--the few feathers left
in his forelegs and sides and the tip of his tail just saving him from
being utterly crushed as he fell with a thud to the ground. He lost his
senses completely, and lay there as if dead for a long time. When he
awoke, he shook his head sadly, and, with a crestfallen countenance and
tail dragging between his legs, betook himself to his home over the
mountains.
The agony of that fall had been so great and the heat of his exertions
so excessive, that the feathers left in his forelegs and tail-tip were
all shrivelled up into little ugly black fringes of hair. His
descendants were many.
Therefore you will often meet coyotes to this day who have little black
fringes along the rear of their forelegs, and the tips of their tails
are often black. Thus it was in the days of the ancients.
Thus shortens my story.
HOW THE TURTLE OUT HUNTING DUPED THE COYOTE
In the times of the ancients, long, long ago, near the Highflowing River
on the Zuñi Mountains, there lived an old Turtle. He went out hunting,
one day, and by means of his ingenuity killed a large, fine deer. When
he had thrown the deer to the ground, he had no means of skinning it. He
sat down and reflected, scratching the lid of his eye with the nail of
his hind foot. He concluded he would have to go hunting for a
flint-knife; therefore he set forth. He came after a while to a place
where old buildings had stood. Then he began to hum an old magic song,
such as, it is said, the ancients sung when they hunted for the flint of
which to make knives. He sang in this way:
“_Apatsinan tse wash,
Apatsinan tse wash,
Tsepa! Tsepa!_”
which may be translated, not perhaps correctly, but well enough:
Fire-striking flint-stone, oh, make yourself known!
Fire-striking flint-stone, oh, make yourself known!
Magically! Magically!
As he was thus crawling about and singing, a Coyote running through the
woods overheard him. He exclaimed: “Uh! I wonder who is singing and what
he is saying. Ah, he is hunting for a flint-knife, is he?--evidently
somebody who has killed a deer!” He turned back, and ran over to where
the old Turtle was. As he neared him, he cried out: “Halloo, friend!
Didn’t I hear you singing?”
“Yes,” was the reply of the Turtle.
“What were you singing?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“Yes, you were, too. What were you saying?”
“Nothing in particular, I tell you; at least, nothing that concerns
you.”
“Yes, you were saying something, and this is what you said.” And so the
Coyote, who could not sing the song, deliberately repeated the words he
had heard.
“Well, suppose I did say so; what of that?” said the Turtle.
“Why, you were hunting for a flint-knife; that is why you said what you
did,” replied the Coyote.
“Well, what of that?”
“What did you want the flint-knife for?”
“Nothing in particular,” replied the Turtle.
“Yes, you did; you wanted it for something. What was it?”
“Nothing in particular, I say,” replied the Turtle. “At least, nothing
that concerns you.”
“Yes, you did want it for something,” said the Coyote, “and I know what
it was, too.”
“Well, what?” asked the Turtle, who was waxing rather angry.
“You wanted it to skin a deer with; that’s what you wanted it for. Where
is the deer now, come? You have killed a deer and I know it. Tell,
where is it.”
“Well, it lies over yonder,” replied the Turtle.
“Where? Come, let us go; I’ll help you skin it.”
“I can get along very well without you,” replied the Turtle.
“What if I do help you a little? I am very hungry this morning, and
would like to lap up the blood.”
“Well, then, come along, torment!” replied the Turtle. So, finding a
knife, they proceeded to where the deer was lying.
“Let me hold him for you,” cried the Coyote. Whereupon he jumped over
the deer, spread out its hind legs, and placed a paw on each of them,
holding the body open; and thus they began to skin the deer. When they
had finished this work, the Coyote turned to the Turtle and asked: “How
much of him are you going to give me?”
“The usual parts that fall to anyone who comes along when the hunter is
skinning a deer,” replied the Turtle.
“What parts?” eagerly asked the Coyote.
“Stomach and liver,” replied the Turtle, briefly.
“I won’t take that,” whined the Coyote. “I want you to give me half of
the deer.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” replied the Turtle. “I killed the deer; you
only helped to skin him, and you ought to be satisfied with my
liberality in giving you the stomach and liver alone. I’ll throw in a
little fat, to be sure, and some of the intestines; but I’ll give you no
more.”
“Yes, you will, too,” snarled the Coyote, showing his teeth.
“Oh, will I?” replied the Turtle, deliberately, hauling in one or two of
his flippers.
“Yes, you will; or I’ll simply murder you, that’s all.”
The Turtle immediately pulled his feet, head, and tail in, and cried: “I
tell you, I’ll give you nothing but the stomach and liver and some of
the intestines of this deer!”
“Well, then, I will forthwith kill you!” snapped the Coyote, and he made
a grab for the Turtle. _Kopo!_ sounded his teeth as they struck on the
hard shell of the Turtle; and, bite as he would, the Turtle simply
slipped out of his mouth every time he grabbed him. He rolled the Turtle
over and over to find a good place for biting, and held him between his
paws as if he were a bone, and gnawed at him; but, do his best, _kopo,
kopo!_ his teeth kept slipping off the Turtle’s hard shell. At last he
exclaimed, rather hotly: “There’s more than one way of killing a beast
like you!” So he set the Turtle up on end, and, catching up a quantity
of sand, stuffed it into the hole where the Turtle’s head had
disappeared and tapped it well down with a stick until he had completely
filled the crevice. “There, now,” he exclaimed, with a snicker of
delight. “I think I have fixed you now, old Hardshell, and served you
right, too, you old stingy-box!”--whereupon he whisked away to the meat.
The Turtle considered it best to die, as it were; but he listened
intently to what was going on. The Coyote cut up the deer and made a
package of him in his own skin. Then he washed the stomach in a
neighboring brook and filled it with choppings of the liver and kidneys,
and fat stripped from the intestines, and clots of blood, dashing in a
few sprigs of herbs here and there. Then, according to the custom of
hunters in all times, he dug an oven in the ground and buried the
stomach, in order to make a baked blood-pudding of it while he was
summoning his family and friends to help him take the meat home.
The Turtle clawed a little of the sand away from his neck and peered out
just a trifle. He heard the Coyote grunting as he tried to lift the meat
in order to hang it on a branch of a neighboring pine tree. He was just
exclaiming: “What a lucky fellow I am to come on that lame, helpless old
wretch and get all this meat from him without the trouble of hunting for
it, to be sure! Ah, my dear children, my fine old wife, what a feast we
will have this day!”--for you know the Coyote had a large family over
the way,--he was just exclaiming this, I say, when the Turtle cried out,
faintly: “_Natipa!_”
“You hard-coated old scoundrel! You ugly, crooked-legged beast! You
stingy-box!” snarled the Coyote. “So you are alive, are you?” Dropping
the meat, he leaped back to where the Turtle was lying, his head hauled
in again, and, jamming every crevice full of sand, made it hard and
firm. Then, hitting the Turtle a clip with the tip of his nose, he sent
him rolling over and over like a flat, round stone down the slope.
“This is fine treatment to receive from the hands of such a sneaking cur
as that,” thought the Turtle. “I think I will keep quiet this time and
let him do as he pleases. But through my ingenuity I killed the deer,
and it may be that through ingenuity I can keep the deer.”
So the Turtle kept perfectly dead, to all appearances, and the Coyote,
leaving the meat hanging on a low branch of a tree and building a fire
over the oven he had excavated, whisked away with his tail in the air to
his house just the other side of the mountain.
When he arrived there he cried out: “Wife, wife! Children, children!
Come, quick! Great news! Killed an enormous deer today. I have made a
blood-pudding in his stomach and buried it. Let us go and have a feast;
then you must help me bring the meat home.”
Those Coyotes were perfectly wild. The cubs, half-grown, with their
tails more like sticks than brushes, trembled from the ends of their
toe-nails to the tips of their stick-like tails; and they all set
off--the old ones ahead, the young ones following single file--as fast
as they could toward the place where the blood-pudding was buried.
Now, as soon as the old Turtle was satisfied that the Coyote had left,
he dug the sand out of his collar with his tough claws, and, proceeding
to the place where the meat hung, first hauled it up, piece by piece, to
the very top of the tree; for Turtles have claws, you know, and can
climb, especially if the trunk of the tree leans over, as that one did.
Having hauled the meat to the very topmost branches of the tree, and
tied it there securely, he descended and went over to where the
blood-pudding was buried. He raked the embers away from it and pulled it
out; then he dragged it off to a neighboring ant-hill where the red
fire-ants were congregated in great numbers. Immediately they began to
rush out, smelling the cooked meat, and the Turtle, untying the end of
the stomach, chucked as many of the ants as he could into it. Then he
dragged the pudding back to the fire and replaced it in the oven, taking
care that the coals should not get near it.
He had barely climbed the tree again and nestled himself on his bundle
of meat, when along came those eager Coyotes. Everything stuck up all
over them with anxiety for the feast--their hair, the tips of their
ears, and the points of their tails; and as they neared the place and
smelt the blood and the cooked meat, they began to sing and dance as
they came along, and this was what they sang:
“_Na-ti tsa, na-ti tsa!
Tui-ya si-si na-ti tsa!
Tui-ya si-si na-ti tsa!
Tui-ya si-si! Tui-ya si-si!_”
We will have to translate this--which is so old that who can remember
exactly what it means?--thus:
Meat of the deer, meat of the deer!
Luscious fruit-like meat of the deer!
Luscious fruit-like meat of the deer!
Luscious fruit-like! Luscious fruit-like!
No sooner had they neared the spot where they smelt the meat than,
without looking around at all, they made a bound for it. But the old
Coyote grabbed the hindmost of the young ones by the ear until he
yelped, shook him, and called out to all the rest: “Look you here! Eat
in a decent manner or you will burn your chops off! I stuffed the
pudding full of grease, and the moment you puncture it, the grease,
being hot, will fly out and burn you. Be careful and dignified,
children. There is plenty of time, and you shall be satisfied. Don’t
gorge at the first helping!”
But the moment the little Coyotes were freed, they made a grand bounce
for the tempting stomach, tearing it open, and grabbing huge mouthfuls.
It may be surmised that the fire-ants were not comfortable. They ran all
over the lips and cheeks of the voracious little gormands and bit them
until they cried out, shaking their heads and rubbing them in the sand:
“_Atu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!_”
“There, now, didn’t I tell you, little fools, to be careful? It was the
grease that burnt you. Now I hope you know enough to eat a little more
moderately. There’s plenty of time to satisfy yourselves, I say,” cried
the old Coyote, sitting down on his haunches.
Then the little cubs and the old woman attacked the delicacy again.
“_Atu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!_” they exclaimed, shaking their heads and
flapping their ears; and presently they all went away and sat down,
observing this wonderful hot pudding.[14]
[14] It may be well to explain here that there is no more
intensely painful or fiery bite known than the bite of the
fire-ant or red ant of the Southwest and the tropics, named, in
Zuñi, _halo_. Large pimples and blisters are raised by the bite,
which is so venomous, moreover, that for the time being it
poisons the blood and fills every vein of the body with burning
sensations.
Then the Coyote looked around and observed that the meat was gone, and,
following the grease and blood spots up the tree with his eye, saw in
the top the pack of meat with the Turtle calmly reclining upon it and
resting, his head stretched far out on his hand. The Turtle lifted his
head and exclaimed: “_Pe-sa-las-ta-i-i-i-i!_”
“You tough-hided old beast!” yelled the Coyote, in an ecstasy of rage
and disappointment. “Throw down some of that meat, now, will you? I
killed that deer; you only helped me skin him; and here you have stolen
all the meat. Wife! Children! Didn’t I kill the deer?” he cried, turning
to the rest.
“Certainly you did, and he’s a sneaking old wretch to steal it from
you!” they exclaimed in chorus, looking longingly at the pack of meat in
the top of the tree.
“Who said I stole the meat from you?” cried out the Turtle. “I only
hauled it up here to keep it from being stolen, you villain! Scatter
yourselves out to catch some of it. I will throw as fine a pair of ribs
down to you as ever you saw. There, now, spread yourselves out and get
close together. Ready?” he called, as the Coyotes lay down on their
backs side by side and stretched their paws as high as they could
eagerly and tremblingly toward the meat.
“Yes, yes!” cried the Coyotes, in one voice. “We are all ready! Now,
then!”