flowers down as soon as possible and started to hunt. As she approached
the vine where the skull had been wont to lie, lo! there was a handsome
young man!
“What are you doing?” asked the young man.
“Gathering flowers,” said she.
“If you will promise to take me home with you, I will help you,” said
the young man.
“Very well,” replied the girl.
“Will you surely do it?” inquired the young man.
“Yes,” said she, and lo! the young man reached out his hand and there
was a great heap of flowers already plucked before him! And while they
were yet talking, the Sun rose; and as its first rays touched him he
began to sink, until there before the girl was nothing but a hideous old
skull.
“Oh, dear!” cried she; “but I promised to take it, and I suppose I
must.” So she took the skull up with the tips of her fingers and put it
into the blanket among the flowers, and started for home. Then she
entered an inner room of the house, and taking the skull carefully out
of the blanket, placed some cotton in a large new water-jar, and laid
the skull upon it. Then she covered the jar with a flat stone and went
to work grinding meal.
When the Sun was setting, a voice came from the jar.
“Take me down, quick!” And the girl took the skull down and placed it on
the floor, and as it grew dark there stood the same handsome young man
as before, magnificently clothed, with precious stones and shells all
about him, just as the Sun-father had dressed him. And the girl was very
happy, and told him she would marry him.
Next morning, just as the Sun rose, the young man vanished, and nothing
but the old white skull lay on the floor. So the girl placed it in the
jar again, and taking up another water-jar went out toward the spring.
Now, her younger sister went into the room and espied the jar. “I wonder
what sister has covered this jar up so carefully for,” said she to
herself; and she stepped up to the jar and took the lid off.
“_Ati!_” cried she. “O dear! O dear!” she screamed. For when she looked
down into the jar there was a great rattlesnake coiled up over the
smooth white skull.
So she ran and called her father and told him in great fright what she
had seen.
“Ah!” said the father, for he was a very wise priest-chief, “thou
shouldst not meddle with things. Thou shouldst keep quiet,” said he. He
then arose and went into the room. Then he approached the jar, and,
looking down into it, said: “Have mercy upon us, my child, my father.
Become as thou art. Disguise not thyself in hideous forms, but as thou
hast been, be thou.” And the skull rattled against the sides of the jar
in assent.
“It is well that thou shouldst marry my daughter. And we will close this
room that thou shalt never come forth”; and again the skull clattered
and nodded in glad assent.
So when the young girl returned, the voice came forth from the jar
again, and said: “Close all the windows and doors, and bring me raw
cotton if thy father have it, for he has consented that I marry you and
throw off my disguise.”
Then the girl gladly assented, and ran to get the cotton, and brought a
great quantity in the room. Then when the night came the voice called
once more: “Take me down!” The girl did as she was bidden, and the young
man again stood before her, more handsome than ever. So he married the
girl and both were very happy.
And the next morning when the Sun rose the young man did not again
change his form, but remained as he was, and began to spin cotton
marvellously fine and to weave blankets and mantles of the most
beautiful texture, for in nothing could he fail, being a child of the
Sun-father and a god himself.
So the days and weeks passed by, and the Sun-father looked down through
the windows in sorrow and said: “Alas! my son; I have delivered thee and
yet thou comest not to speak with thy father. But thou shalt yet come;
yea, verily, thou shalt yet come.”
So in time the beautiful daughter of the priest-chief gave birth to two
boys, like the children of the deer. As day succeeded day, they grew
larger and wiser and their limbs strengthened until they could run
about, and thus it happened that one day in their play they climbed up
and played upon the house-top and on the ground below. Thus it was that
the people of K’yátik’ia saw for the first time the two little children;
and when they saw them they wondered greatly. Of course they wondered
greatly. Our grandfathers were fools.
“Who in the world has married the priest-chief’s daughter?” everybody
asked of one another. Nobody knew; so they called a council and made all
the young men go to it, and they asked each one if he had secretly
married the priest-chief’s daughter; and every one of them said “No,”
and looked at every other one in great wonder.
“Who in the world can it be? It may be that some stranger has come and
married her, and it may be that he stays there.” So the council decided
that it would be well for him and the girl and their two little ones to
die, because they had deceived their people. Forthwith two war-priests
mounted the house-tops and commanded the people to make haste and to
prepare their weapons. “Straighten your arrows, strengthen the backs of
your bows, put new points on your lances, harden your shields, and get
ready for battle, for in four days the daughter and grandchildren of the
priest-chief and the unknown husband must die!”
And when the priest-chief’s daughter heard the voices of the heralds,
she asked her younger sister, who had been listening, what they said.
And the younger sister exclaimed: “Alas! you must all die!” and then she
told her what she had heard.
Now, the young man called the old priest and told him that he knew what
would happen, and the old priest said: “It is well; let the will of the
gods be done. My people know not the way of good fortune, but are fools
and must have their way.”
Therefore for two days the people labored at their weapons, and on the
morning of the third day they began to prepare for a feast of victory.
Then said the young man to his wife: “My little mother, dearly beloved,
on the morrow I must go forth to meet my father”; for he suddenly
remembered that he had neglected his father.
When the Sun had nearly reached the mid-heavens, the young man said to
his wife: “Go up and open the sky-hole. Farewell!” said he, and he
suddenly became a cloud of mist which whirled round and round and shot
up like a whirlwind in the rays of sunlight.
When he neared the Sun, the Sun-father said nothing, and the young man
waited outside in shame. Then said the Sun-father in pretended anger:
“Come hither and sit down. Thou hast been a fool. Did I not command thee
and thy brother?” And the young man only bent his head and said: “It is
too true.”
Then the Sun-father smiled gently, and said: “Think not, neither be sad,
my child. I know wherefore thou comest, and I remember how thou didst
try to prevail upon thy younger brother to obey my commandments; and
that it might be well I caused thee to forget me, and to come unto the
past that thou hast come unto. Thou shalt be a god, and shalt sit at my
left hand. Forever and ever shalt thou be a living good unto men, who
will see thee and worship thee in the evening. And through thy will
shall rain fall upon their lands. True, I had designed, had my children
been wiser, that thou shouldst remain with them and enrich them with thy
precious shells and stones, with thy great knowledge and good fortune.
But those are men very unwise and ungrateful, therefore shalt thou and
thy children, and even thy wife, be won from thy earth-life and sit by
my left hand. Descend. Make four sacred hoops and entwine them with
cotton. Make four sacred wands, such as are used in the races. Hast thou
an unembroidered cotton mantle?”
“I have,” replied the young man.
“It is well. This evening spread it out and place at each of its four
corners one of the sacred hoops and wands. Place all thereon that thou
valuest. Leave not a precious stone nor yet a shell to serve as
parentage for others, but place all thereon. The people will gather
around thy father’s house and storm it, and then retire and storm it
again. Now, when the people approach the house, sit ye down, one at each
of the four corners; grasp them and lift them upward, and gradually ye
will be raised. Then when the people approach nearer, lift them upward
once more, and ye will be raised yet farther. And when they begin to
mount the ladders, lift ye again, and yet again, and ye shall come unto
my country.”
So the young man descended. No change was visible in the old
priest-chief’s countenance. He had caused gay preparations to go forward
for the festival, for a priest knows that all things are well, and he
makes no change in his mind or actions. And when he asked the young man
what the Sun-father had said to him, the only reply was: “It shall be
well. Tomorrow we go to dwell forever at the home of the Sun-father.”
Early in the morning the two Priests of War mounted to the house-tops
and called out: “Hasten, hasten! For the time has come and the people
must gather, each carrying his weapons, for today the children of our
priest-chief must die!”
So, after the morning meal, all gathered at the council, chambers of the
warriors, and a great company they were. The Sun had risen high.
Brightly painted shields glittered in his light. Long lances stood black
with paint like the charred trunks of a burned forest; and the people
raised their war-clubs and struck them against one another until the
din was like thunder.
“_Ho-o-o!_” sounded the clash of weapons and the war-cries of the
people, and in the home of the priest-chief they knew they were coming.
All night long they had been preparing; the young man had placed all
their belongings upon the blanket, and now one by one they sat down. The
wife and the husband grasped two corners, the children grasping the two
others. They lifted them and slowly arose toward the ceiling. Once more,
as the people came nearer, they lifted the corners and neared the
sky-hole. When again they lifted the corners, they passed above the
roof, and the people saw their shadows cast upon the ground.
“Quick, quick!” shouted the young men. “See the shadow; they are
escaping!”
Already the arrows began to whistle past them, but the Sun cast his
shield beneath them, and the arrows only glanced away or flew past. Once
more they drew the corners of the mantle upward, and as they rose higher
and higher, the people, old and young, began to quarrel and fell to
beating one another, and to fighting among themselves. The old ones
called the young ones fools for attempting the life of a god, and the
young ones in turn called the old ones fools for counselling them to
attempt the life of a god.
“Thus shall ye ever be,” cried the young man, “for ye are fools! Your
father, the Sun, had intended all things for your good, but ye were
fools; therefore with me and mine will pass away your peace and your
treasures.”
My children, at sunset have you not seen the little blue twinkling
stars that sit at the left hand of the Sun as he sinks into night? Thus
did it come to pass in the days of the ancients, and thus it is that
only in the east and the west where the Sun rises and sets, even on the
borders of the great oceans, may we find the jewels whereby we decorate
our persons. And ever since then, my children, the world has been filled
with anger, and even brothers agree, then disagree, strike one another,
and spill their own blood in foolish anger.
Perhaps had men been more grateful and wiser, the Sun-father had smiled
and dropped everywhere the treasures we long for, and not hidden them
deep in the earth and buried them in the shores of the sea. And perhaps,
moreover, all men would have smiled upon one another and never enlarged
their voices nor strengthened their arms in anger toward one another.
Thus short is my story; and may the corn-stalks grow as long as my
stretches, and may the will of the Holder of the Roads of Life shelter
me from dangers as he sheltered his children in the days of the ancients
with the shield of his sunlight.
It is all finished. (_Tenk’ia._)
[Illustration: {Zuñi symbols}]
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Illustration captions in {brackets} have been added by the transcriber
for the convenience of the reader.
Archaic and variant spelling is preserved as printed.
Minor punctuation errors have been corrected.
Hyphen and accent usage has been made consistent.
There was one instance in which a double quotation mark was unpaired.
On page 99, there is the following:
“... they dressed her in her sacred cotton robes of ceremonial,
embroidered elaborately, and adorned her ...”
There may be a word missing following ‘ceremonial’ but as there is
no way to determine what it might be, it is preserved as printed.
The following amendments have been made:
Page 42--comform amended to conform--... and they taught him how
to conform himself to it, ...
Page 107, footnote 8--explaned amended to explained--This, it
may be explained, ...
Page 321--croned amended to crooned--“Foolish, foolish boys!”
crooned the old grandmother.
Page 456--they amended to he--“... Come up and come down,” said
he.
The frontispiece has been moved to follow the title page. Other
illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in
the middle of a paragraph.