and told a falsehood for every life thou hast taken in the world;
therefore shall thou become a lying star, and each night thy guilt shall
be seen of all men throughout the wide world._” He twirled the bloody
head around once or twice, and cast it with all might into the air. _Wa
muu!_ it sped through the spaces into the middle of the sky like a spirt
of blood, and now it is a great red star. It rises in summer-time and
tells of the coming morning when it is only midnight; hence it is called
_Mokwanosana_ (Great Lying Star).
Then Mátsailéma seized the great knife and ripped open the abdomen with
one stroke. Grasping the intestines, he tore them out and exclaimed:
“_Ye have devoured and digested the flesh of men over the whole wide
world; therefore ye shall be stretched from one end of the earth to the
other, and the children of those ye have wasted will look upon ye every
night and will say to one another: ‘Ah, the entrails of him who caused
sad thoughts to our grandfathers shine well tonight!’ and they will
laugh and sneer at ye._” Whereupon he slung the whole mass aloft, and
_tsolo!_ it stretched from one end of the world to the other, and became
the Great Snow-drift of the Skies (Milky Way). Lifting the rest of the
carcass, they threw it down into the chasm whither the old demon had
thrown so many of his victims, and the rattlesnakes came out and ate of
the flesh day after day till their fangs grew yellow with putrid meat,
and even now their children’s fangs are yellow and poisonous.
* * * * *
“Now, then, for some fun!” shouted Mátsailéma. “Do you catch the old bag
up and prance around with it a little; and I will run off to see how it
looks.”
Áhaiyúta caught up the effigy, and, hiding himself behind, pulled at the
strings till it looked, of all things thinkable, like the living
Átahsaia himself starting out for a hunt, for they threw the lion skins
over it and tied the bow in its hand.
“Excellent! Excellent!” exclaimed the boys, and they clapped their hands
and _wa-ha-ha-ed_ and _ho-ho-ho-ed_ till they were sore. Then, dragging
the skin along, they ran as fast as they could, down to the plain below
Twin Mountain.
The Sun was climbing down the western ladder, and their old grandmother
had been looking all over the mountains and valleys below to see if the
two boys were coming. She had just climbed the ladder and was gazing and
fretting and saying: “Oh! those two boys! terrible pests and as
hard-hearted and as long-winded in having their own way as a turtle is
in having his! Now, something has happened to them; I knew it would,”
when suddenly a frightened scream came up from below.
“_Ho-o-o-ta! Ho-o-o-ta!_ Come quick! Help! Help!” the voice cried, as if
in anguish.
“Uhh!” exclaimed the old woman, and she went so fast in her excitement
that she tumbled through the trap-door, and then jumped up, scolding and
groaning.
She grabbed a poker of piñon, and rushed out of the house. Sure enough,
there was poor Mátsailéma running hard and calling again and again for
her to hurry down. The old woman hobbled along over the rough path as
fast as she could, and until her wind was blowing shorter and shorter,
when, suddenly turning around the crags, she caught sight of Áhaiyúta
struggling to get away from Átahsaia.
“_O ai o!_ I knew it! I knew it!” cried the old woman; and she ran
faster than ever until she came near enough to see that her poor
grandson was almost tired out, and that Mátsailéma had lost even his
war-club. “Stiffen your feet,--my boys,--wait--a bit,” puffed the old
woman, and, flying into a passion, she rushed at the effigy and began to
pound it with her poker, till the dust fairly smoked out of the dry
grass, and the skin doubled up as if it were in pain.
Mátsailéma rolled and kicked in the grass, and Áhaiyúta soon had to let
the stuffed demon fall down for sheer laughing. But the old woman never
ceased. She belabored the demon and cursed his cannibal heart and told
him that was what he got for chasing her grandsons, and that, and this,
and that, whack! whack! without stopping, until she thought the monster
surely must be dead. Then she was about to rest when suddenly the boys
pulled the strings, and the demon sprang up before her, seemingly as
well as ever. Again the old woman fell to, but her strokes kept getting
feebler and feebler, her breath shorter and shorter, until her wind went
out and she fell to the ground.
How the boys did laugh and roll on the ground when the old grandmother
moaned: “Alas! alas! This day--my day--light is--cut off--and my wind of
life--fast going.”
The old woman covered her head with her tattered mantle; but when she
found that Átahsaia did not move, she raised her eyes and looked through
a rent. There were her two grandsons rolling and kicking on the grass
and holding their mouths with both hands, their eyes swollen and faces
red with laughter. Then she suddenly looked for the demon. There lay the
skin, all torn and battered out of shape.
“So ho! you pesky wretches; that’s the way you treat me, is it? Well!
never again will I help you, never!” she snapped, “nor shall you ever
live with me more!” Whereupon the old woman jumped up and hobbled away.
But little did the brothers care. They laughed till she was far away,
and then said one to the other: “It is done!”
* * * * *
Since that time, the grandmother has gone, no one knows where. But
Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma are the bright stars of the morning and evening,
just in front of and behind the Sun-father himself. Yet their spirits
hover over their shrines on Thunder Mountain and the Mount of the
Beloved, they say, or linger over the Middle of the World, forever to
guide the games and to guard the warriors of the Land of Zuñi. Thus it
was in the days of the ancients.
Thus shortens my story.
[Illustration: {Carvings}]
THE HERMIT MÍTSINA
When all was new, and the gods dwelt in the ancient places, long, long
before the time of our ancients, many were the gods--some destined for
good and some for evil or for the doing of things beneath understanding.
And those of evil intent, so painfully bad were they to become that not
in the company and council of the precious beloved of the _Kâkâ_ (the
Order of the Sacred Drama) could they be retained.
Thus it happened, in the times of our ancients, long, long ago, that
there dwelt all alone in the Cañon of the Pines, southeast of Zuñi,
Mítsina the Hermit. Of evil understanding he; therefore it had been said
to him (by the gods): “Alone shalt thou dwell, being unwise and evil in
thy ways, until thou hast, through much happening, even become worthy to
dwell amongst us.” Thus it was that Mítsina lived alone in his house in
the Cañon of the Pines.
Sometimes when a young man, dressed in very fine apparel (wearing his
collars of shell, and turquoise earrings, and other precious things
which were plentiful in the days of our ancients), would be out hunting,
and chanced to go through the Cañon of the Pines and near to the house
of Mítsina, he would hear the sounds of gaming from within; for, being
alone, the hermit whiled away his time in playing at the game of sacred
arrows (or cane-cards).
Forever from the ceiling of his house there hung suspended his
basket-drum, made of a large wicker bowl, over the mouth of which was
stretched tightly a soft buckskin, even like the basket-drums which we
use in the playing of cane-cards today, and which you know are suspended
with the skin-side downward from the ceilings of the gaming rooms in the
topmost houses of our town. Though the one he had was no better than
those we have today, save that it was larger and handsomer perhaps, yet
he delighted to call it his cloud canopy, bethinking himself of the
drum-basket of his former associates, the gods, which is even the
rounded sky itself, with the clouds stretched across it. Forever upon
the floor of his house there lay spread a great buffalo robe, the skin
upward dressed soft and smooth, as white as corn-flour, and painted with
the many-colored symbols and counting marks of the game, even as our
own. But he delighted to call it his sacred terraced plain,[25]
bethinking himself of the robe-spread of the gods, which is even the
outspread earth itself, bordered by terraced horizons, and diversified
by mountains, valleys, and bright places, which are the symbols and
game marks whereby the gods themselves count up the score of their game.
[25] The words “terrace,” “sacred terrace,” “terraced plain”
(_awithluiane_, _awithluian-pewine_), and the like, wherever
they occur, refer to the figurative expression for the earth in
the Zuñi rituals addressed to the gods, where they are used as
more nearly conforming to the usage of the gods. The symbol of
the earth on the sacred altars is a terraced or zigzag figure or
decoration, and the same figure appears in their carvings and
other ornamental work. The disgraced god Mítsina applied the
term to the robe spread out as the bed for his game. It may be
stated in further explanation that the country in which the
Zuñis have wandered and lived for unnumbered generations, and
where they still dwell, is made up largely of mesas, or flat-top
mountains or elevations, rising one above another and showing as
terraces on the horizon. Beheld at great distances, or in the
evening, these mountain terraces are mere silhouettes and serve
to exaggerate the zigzag spaces of light between them. As the
conventional sacred emblem for the earth is a terrace, outspread
or upreaching, as the case may be, so the conventional sacred
emblem for the sky is an inverted terrace.
To the gods the whole earth is represented as having seemed so
small that they invariably spoke of it as the terraced plain,
and in their playing of this game they are supposed to have used
it as the bed for the game, as the Zuñi people used the
outspread buffalo robe for the purpose.
Hearing these sounds of the game in passing, the young man would
naturally draw near and listen. Though all alone, every time he made a
good throw Mítsina would exclaim “_Her-r-r-r!_” and as the canes struck
the skin of the drum-basket above, _tcha-le-le, tcha-le-le_, it would
sound; and _ke-le-le_ they would rattle as they fell on the robe below.
“Ha! ha!” old Mítsina would exclaim, as if triumphantly to some opponent
in the game,--“_Kohakwa iyathtokyai!_” as much as to say: “Good for you,
old fellow! The white-corn symbol fell uppermost!”
“Oh!” the young man would exclaim as he listened. “Oh!”--and, wishing to
learn more about the matter, he would stealthily climb up the ladder and
peer down through the sky-hole. Old Mítsina would catch sight of him, be
sure of that, and greet him most cordially, calling to him: “Come in,
come in, my fine young fellow, come in; let’s have a game!”
Now, he had practised so long that he had acquired more skill than
anyone else throughout the world--at least among mortals; so that when
any of the young men chanced to play with him, he invariably lost, poor
fellow! Hanging on the pole along the north side of Mítsina’s house were
the necklaces, embroidered mantles, and turquoises, and all sorts of
treasures which he had won in this way; and as many on the western side,
on the southern side as many, and on the eastern side also.
When the young man came in, Mítsina would continue: “My good friend, sit
right down over there. Have you your canes today?” If the young man said
“Yes,” he would say: “Ha! very well.” Or, if he said “No,” “Never mind,”
Mítsina would say; “here are some,” producing a very fine set of
polished canes. The young man, being thus pressed, would stake perhaps
his necklace or his earrings, and the game would begin. Losing them, he
would stake his clothing, his bows and arrows--in fact, everything he
had about him. You know how it is with gamesters when they have lost a
great deal and wish to get it back again? Well, so it was then. When the
young man had lost everything, he would bow his head on his hand, and
sit thinking. Then old Mítsina, with a jolly, devil-may-care manner,
would say: “Bet your left thigh. I’ll put all you have lost and more,
too, on that.” The young man would say to himself, with a sigh of
relief: “What an old fool you are!” and reply: “All right! I will take
your bet.” Alas! the one thigh he bet is lost; then the other goes
the same way; then one of his sides and arms; losing which, he bet the
other, and so on, until he had bet away his whole body, including his
head. Then in utter despair he would exclaim: “Do with me as thou wilt.
I am thy slave.” And old Mítsina with the same devil-may-care manner
would catch him up, take him out to the back of his house and wring his
neck that he might not go back and report his losses to his people.
[Illustration: PÁLOWAHTIWA
Photo by A. C. Vroman]
Again, some other well-equipped young man would be passing that way, and
hearing the sound made by the solitary player, and being attracted
thereby, would be drawn in the same way into the game, would lose
everything, and old Mítsina would wring his neck and keep his treasures.
Thus it was in the days of the ancients. Great were the losses of the
young men, and many of them perished.
Well, one day little Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma--the War-gods of peace
times--who dwelt, as you know, where their shrine now stands on Face
Mountain, with their old grandmother,--went out hunting rabbits and
prairie-dogs. It chanced that in following the rabbits along the cliffs
of a side cañon they came into the Cañon of the Pines, near where the
house of Mítsina stood. Presently they heard the sounds of his game.
“Hu, hu!” the old fellow would exclaim as he cast his canes into the
air. _Ke-le-le-le_ they would rattle as they fell on the skin.
“Uh!” exclaimed Áhaiyúta, the elder. “Brother younger, listen.”
The younger listened. “By my eyes!” exclaimed he, “it is someone
playing at cane-cards. Let’s go and have a peep at him.” So they climbed
the ladder and peered in through the sky-hole.
Presently, old Mítsina espied them, and called out: “Ha! my little
fellows; glad to see you today! How are you? Come in, come in! I am
dying for a game; I was playing here all by myself.”
The two little War-gods clambered down the ladder, and old Mítsina
placed blankets for them, invited them most cordially to sit down, and
asked if they would like to play a game. Nothing loth they, seeing all
the fine things hanging round his room; so out from their girdles they
drew their cane-cards, for those, as you know, they always carried with
them.
Perhaps I have not told you that even the basket-drum old Mítsina played
with was fringed with the handsome long turquoise earrings which he had
won, and even under the robe on which he played there were piled one
over another, in a great flat heap, the finest of the necklaces gathered
from those whom he had defeated in playing and then slain.
“What would you like to put up?” asked the old fellow, pointing around
his room--particularly to the basket-drum fringed with turquoises--and
lifting the robe and showing just enough of the necklaces underneath it
to whet the appetites of the little War-gods.
“We’ve nothing fine enough to bet for these things,” said they
ruefully.
“O ho!” cried Mítsina. “No matter, no matter at all, my boys. Bet your
bows and arrows and clothing; if you like, bet everything you have on,
and I’ll put up that poleful there on the north side of my room.”
“Good! good! tell him all right,” whispered the younger brother to the
elder.
So the elder agreed, chuckling to himself, for it was rarely that a man
was found who could beat the little War-gods in a game. And they began
their playing. How the turquoises rattled as they threw their canes! How
the canes jingled and thumped as they fell on the robe!
The game was merry and long, and well played on both sides; but the poor
little War-gods lost. Their countenances fell; but old Mítsina, with a
merry twinkle in his eyes, exclaimed: “Oh pshaw! never mind, never
mind!”
“Yes,” said the two War-gods, “but how in the world are we ever going
back to our grandmother in this plight?”--glancing down over their bare
bodies, for they had bet even the clothing off their backs. “What else
can we bet? How can we win back what we have lost?”
“Bet your left thighs,” said the old hermit.
They thought a moment, and concluded they would do so. So the game was
staked again and begun and the canes rattled merrily; but they lost
again. Then old Mítsina suggested that they bet their other thighs. They
did so and again lost. Then he suggested they should bet their left
sides, hoping forthwith to get hold of their hearts, but the young
War-gods were crafty. The elder one exclaimed: “All right!” but the
younger one said: “Goodness! as for you, you can bet your left side if
you want to, but I’ll bet my right, for my heart is on my left side, and
who ever heard of a man betting away his heart!”
“Just as you like,” said Mítsina, “but if you’ll bet your bodies up to
your necks I will stake all you have lost and all I have besides,” said
he, looking around on his fine possessions.
“Done!” cried the War-gods. And again they played and again lost. Then
they had nothing left but their heads and ears and eyes to bet. Finally
they concluded to bet these also, for said they to one another: “What
good will our heads do us, even though they be the crown-pieces of our
being, without the rest?”
They played again, but the poor fellows lost their heads also. “Alas!
alas! do as thou wilt with us,” exclaimed the little War-gods, with
rueful countenances.
Old Mítsina, locking them up in a small recess of his house, went out
and gathered before his front door a great quantity of dry wood. Then he
tied the little fellows hand and foot, and laid them near by,--not near
enough to burn them up, but near enough so that they would scorch,--and
lighted the fire, to have the pleasure of roasting them. When they began
to brown and sizzle a little they writhed and howled with pain, but
they were tough and quite bad, as you know, and this did not kill them.
Who can hide a thing from the eyes of the gods? The elder brothers of
these two foolish little War-gods, Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma, those who
dwelt on Thunder Mountain, became aware of what was going on. “Come,
brother younger,” said the elder, strapping on his quiver and taking his
bow in hand, “come, let us off to old Mítsina’s house and teach him a
lesson!” So, in a twinkling they were climbing down the mountain,
speeding across the wide valley, and threading their way through the
Cañon of the Pines.
Mítsina had grown tired of watching the poor little War-gods and had
gone in to have another little game, and there he was pitching his
cane-cards and talking to himself, as usual. The two gods hauled their
unfortunate brothers away from the fire, and, climbing the ladder,
peered in. Mítsina espied them, and as usual invited them in to a game.
With as jolly an air as his own they accepted his challenge and sat
down. Mítsina offered to bet all his fine things hanging on the north
side of the house. “What will you put up, my little fellows?” asked he.
“If you will include those ugly little devils that we saw sizzling
before the fire when we came in, we will bet you everything we have with
us,” said they.
“Good! good! haul them in!” shouted Mítsina.
The War-gods scrambled out of the house, and, by no means gently,
dragged their wretched little brothers in by the heels and dumped them
down on the floor to show their indifference, sat down, and began to
play. They bet their weapons, holding up the knife of war which they
carried, the point of lightning itself fatal in power,--splitter of
mountains and overcomer of demons and men alike.
Old Mítsina, when told of the power of the weapons, became doubtful as
to his company, but presently fell to and played with a will. He lost.
Then he put up all the rest of his goods hanging on the other side of
the room. Again he lost, and again, even the turquoises hanging from the
basket-drum, the necklaces under his robe, and the things he played
with, and getting wild with excitement, sure that his luck would return,
followed out the plan he had so often suggested to others, and bet away
his thighs, then his sides and arms, then his head and ears, excepting
his eyes, and last of all his very eyes themselves. Each time the young
War-gods won. The old gambler let his hands fall by his sides, and
dropped his head on his breast, sick with humiliation and chagrin.
“Now, my brother,” said the elder to the younger, “what shall we do with
this beast?”
“I don’t know,” said the other. “We can’t kill him; yet, if we leave him
to go his own way, he will gamble and gamble without ceasing, and make
no end of trouble. Suppose we make a good man of him.”
“How?” asked the other.
“Pluck out his eyes.”
“Capital!” exclaimed the first. So, while one of them held the old
fellow down, the other gouged out his eyes, and with pain and horror he
utterly forgot in unconsciousness (swooned away).
The two elder War-gods set their younger brothers on their feet, and all
four of them joined in clearing out the treasures and magnificent
possessions which Mítsina through all these years had won from his
victims; and these they took away with them that by their sacred
knowledge they might change them into blessings for the faithful of
their children among men, and thus return, as it were, what had been
lost. Then away they went, leaving old Mítsina still as witless as a
dead man, to his fate.
By-and-by the old man came to his senses, and raising himself up, tried
to look around, but, forsooth, he could not see.
“What in the world has happened? What a fearful pain I have in my
temples!” said he. “What is the matter? Is it night?”
Then gradually his situation came to him. He uttered a groan of pain and
sorrow, and, putting out his hand, felt the wall and raised himself by
it. Then he crept along, feeling his way to the window, not yet quite
certain whether he had been dreaming all this and it was still night, or
whether he had really lost everything and been bereft of his eyes by
those midgets. When he put his hand into the window, however, he felt
the warm sunlight streaming in, and knew that it was still day, and that
it was all true.
In feeling there he chanced to touch a little package of pitch which
had been laid in the window. He felt it all over with both hands, but
could not quite tell what it was. Then he put it against his cheek, but
was still uncertain; then he rubbed it, and smelt of it. “Pitch! pitch!
as I live!” said he. “I have often lighted this when it was dark, and
been able to see. Now, maybe, if I light it this time, I shall be able
to see again.” He felt his way all round the room to the fireplace, and
after burning his fingers two or three times in feeling for coals, he
found a sliver and held it in the coals and ashes until he heard it
begin to sputter and crackle. Then he lighted the pitch with it. Eyeless
though he was, the fumes from this medicine of the woodlands restored to
him a kind of vision. “Good!” cried the old fellow, “I see again!” But
when he looked around, he saw nothing as it had been formerly; and his
thoughts reverted to the great City of the Gods (_Kothluellakwin_); and,
as it were, he could see the way thither. So he turned toward his door,
and with a sigh gave up his old place of abode, relinquished all thought
of his possessions, gave up his former bad inclinations, and turned
westward toward the City of the Gods and Souls.
As he went along holding his light before him and following it, he sang
a mournful song. The Birds, hearing this song, flocked around him, and
as he went on singing, exclaimed to one another: “Ha! ha! the old
wretch; he has lost his eyes! Served him right! Let’s put out his light
for him.”
Now, before that time, strange as it may seem, the Eagles and even the
Crows were as white as the foam on warring waters. The Eagles were so
strong that they thrust the other birds away, and began to pounce down
at Mítsina’s light, trying to blow it out with their wings. _Thluh!
thluh!_ they would flap into the light; but still it would not go out;
and they only singed their feathers and blackened their wings and tails
with smoke. In looking at one another they saw what a sad plight they
were in. “Good gracious, brothers!” exclaimed some of them to the
others, “we have made a fine mess of our white plumage!” And they gave
it up.