an owl came in and bade the woman hurry. And at last, thinking her
husband asleep, the witch-wife rose noiselessly and went out. As
soon as she was gone, Ees-tée-ah Muts got up and followed her at a
distance, for it was a night of the full moon.
The witch-wife walked a long way till she came to the foot of the
Black Mesa, where was a great dark hole with a rainbow in its mouth.
As she passed under the rainbow she turned herself into a cat and
disappeared within the cave. Ees-tée-ah Muts crept softly up and
peered in. He saw a great firelit room full of witches in the shapes
of ravens and vultures, wolves and other animals of ill omen. They
were gathered about their feast and were enjoying themselves greatly,
eating and dancing and singing and planning evil to mankind.
For a long time Ees-tée-ah Muts watched them, but at last one caught
sight of his face peering in at the hole.
“Bring him in!” shouted the chief witch, and many of them rushed out
and surrounded him and dragged him into the cave.
“Now,” said the chief witch, who was very angry, “we have caught you
as a spy and we ought to kill you. But if you will save your life
and be one of us, go home and bring me the hearts of your mother and
sister, and I will teach you all our ways, so that you shall be a
mighty wizard.”
Ees-tée-ah Muts hurried home to Acoma and killed two sheep; for he
knew, as every Indian knows, that it was useless to try to escape
from the witches. Taking the hearts of the sheep, he quickly returned
to the chief witch, to whom he gave them. But when the chief witch
pricked the hearts with a sharp stick they swelled themselves out
like a frog. Then he knew that he had been deceived, and was very
angry, but pretending not to care he ordered Ees-tée-ah Muts to go
home, which the frightened hunter was very glad to do.
But next morning when Ees-tée-ah Muts awoke he was not in his own
home at all, but lying on a tiny shelf far up a dizzy cliff. To jump
was certain death, for it was a thousand feet to the ground; and
climb he could not, for the smooth rock rose a thousand feet above
his head. Then he knew that he had been bewitched by the chief of
those that have the evil road, and that he must die. He could hardly
move without falling from the narrow shelf, and there he lay with
bitter thoughts until the sun was high overhead.
At last a young Squirrel came running along the ledge, and, seeing
him, ran back to its mother, crying:
“_Nana! Nana!_ Here is a dead man lying on our ledge!”
“No, he is not dead,” said the Squirrel-mother when she had looked,
“but I think he is very hungry. Here, take this acorn-cup and carry
him some corn-meal and water.”
The young Squirrel brought the acorn-cup full of wet corn-meal, but
Ees-tée-ah Muts would not take it, for he thought:
“Pah! What is so little when I am fainting for food?”
But the Squirrel-mother, knowing what was in his heart, said:
“Not so, _Sau-kée-ne_ [friend]. It looks to be little, but there will
be more than enough. Eat and be strong.”
Still doubting, Ees-tée-ah Muts took the cup and ate of the blue
corn-meal until he could eat no longer, and yet the acorn-cup was not
empty. Then the young Squirrel took the cup and brought it full of
water, and though he was very thirsty he could not drain it.
“Now, friend,” said the Squirrel-mother, when he was refreshed by his
meal, “you cannot yet get down from here, where the witches put you;
but wait, for I am the one that will help you.”
She went to her store-room and brought out a pine-cone, which she
dropped over the great cliff. Ees-tée-ah Muts lay on the narrow ledge
as patiently as he could, sleeping sometimes and sometimes thinking
of his strange plight. Next morning he could see a stout young
pine-tree growing at the bottom of the cliff, where he was very sure
there had been no tree at all the day before. Before night it was a
large tree, and the second morning it was twice as tall. The young
Squirrel brought him meal and water in the acorn-cup twice a day, and
now he began to be confident that he would escape.
By the evening of the fourth day the magic pine towered far above his
head, and it was so close to the cliff that he could touch it from
his shelf.
“Now, Friend Man,” said the Squirrel-mother, “follow me!” and she
leaped lightly into the tree. Ees-tée-ah Muts seized a branch and
swung over into the tree, and letting himself down from bough to
bough, at last reached the ground in safety.
The Squirrel-mother came with him to the ground, and he thanked her
for her kindness.
“But now I must go back to my home,” she said. “Take these seeds
of the pine-tree and these piñon-nuts which I have brought for you,
and be very careful of them. When you get home, give your wife the
pine-seeds, but you must eat the piñons. So now, good-by,” and off
she went up the tree.
When Ees-tée-ah Muts had come to Acoma and climbed the dizzy stone
ladder and stood in the adobe town, he was very much surprised.
For the four days of his absence had really been four years, and
the people looked strange. All had given him up for dead, and his
witch-wife had married another man, but still lived in the same
house, which was hers[97]. When Ees-tée-ah Muts entered she seemed
very glad to see him, and pretended to know nothing of what had
befallen him. He said nothing about it, but talked pleasantly while
he munched the piñon-nuts, giving her the pine-seeds to eat. Her new
husband made a bed for Ees-tée-ah Muts, and in the morning very early
the two men went away together on a hunt.
[97] It is one of the fundamental customs of the Pueblos that
the house and its general contents belong to the wife; the
fields and other outside property to the husband.
That afternoon the mother of the witch-wife went to visit her
daughter, but when she came near the house she stopped in terror, for
far up through the roof grew a great pine-tree, whose furry arms came
out at doors and windows. That was the end of the witch-wife, for
the magic seed had sprouted in her stomach, and she was turned into
a great, sad Pine that swayed above her home, and moaned and sobbed
forever, as all her Pine-children do to this day.
XXVII
THE QUÈRES DIANA
THERE is a fragmentary Quères folk-story which bears internal
evidence that its heroine was the mother of the Hero Twins--that is,
the Moon. The adventure described here is one of those which befell
the Moon-Mother, as related in several myths; though it has been
varied, evidently by some later story-teller, and the identity of the
heroine does not appear at first sight. It is a story common to all
the Quères, and is undoubtedly ancient; but as I heard it first in
Isleta its scene is laid in Laguna, a pueblo only two hundred years
old.
Once upon a time the Tah-póh-pee[98] of Laguna had a daughter, who
was the belle of the village. She was very fond of hunting, and
killed as much game as any of the young men. Several miles south of
Laguna is a very large sandstone dome rising in the plain, and in the
heart of this rock the Governor’s daughter had hollowed out a room in
which she used to camp when on her hunting-expeditions.
[98] Governor.
One day there came a snow that covered the ground so that one could
easily track rabbits, and taking her bow and arrows she started off
to hunt.
She had unusual luck, and by the time she reached the hunting-lodge
she was loaded down with rabbits. The evening was very cold, and she
was hungry; so, going into the rock-house, she built a fire on the
hearth and began to roast a rabbit. Just as it was cooking a strong
west wind came up and carried the savory smell from her chimney far
to the east, till it reached a dark cavern in the Sandia Mountains,
fifty miles away. There lived an old giantess, the terror of all the
world, and when she caught a whiff of that sweet meat she started up
and rubbed her big red eye.
“Um!” she cried, “that is good! I am going to see where it is, for I
have had nothing to eat to-day.”
In two steps she was at the rock-house, and, stooping down, she
called at the door: “Quáh-tzee? [How are you?] What are you cooking
in there?”
“Rabbits,” said the girl, dreadfully scared at that great voice.
“Then give me one,” shouted the old giantess. The girl threw one out
at the door, and the giantess swallowed it at a gulp and demanded
more. The girl kept throwing them out until all were gone. Then
the giantess called for her _manta_ (dress), and her shawl and her
buckskin leggings, and ate them all, and at last said:
“Little girl, now you come out, and let me eat you.”
The girl began to cry bitterly when she saw that great savage eye
at the door, which was so small that the giantess could not get
her huge hand in. She repeated her commands thrice, and when the
girl still refused to come out, picked up a great boulder and began
to hammer the rock-house to pieces. But just as she had broken off
the roof and stooped to pick out the girl, two hunters chanced to
pass and hear the noise. They crept up and shot the giantess through
the neck with their strong arrows and killed her, and, bringing new
clothes for the girl, took her home safely to Kó-iks (the native name
for Laguna), where she lived for many years.
XXVIII
A PUEBLO BLUEBEARD
ANOTHER fragmentary story of the Quères seems to refer to this same
remarkable woman. You will see the connection when you remember
that the Moon disappears every month; and I should judge that the
following myth means that the Storm-King steals her.
Once upon a time a chief of Acoma had a lovely daughter. One day a
handsome stranger stole her and took her away to his home, which
was in the heart of the Snow Mountain (Mt. San Mateo). He was none
other than Mast-Truan, one of the Storm-Gods. Bringing his captive
home, the powerful stranger gave her the finest clothing and treated
her very nicely. But most of the time he had to be away from home,
attending to the storms, and she became very lonesome, for there was
no one to keep her company but Mast-Truan’s wrinkled old mother.
One day when she could stand the loneliness no longer, she decided to
take a walk through the enormous house and look at the rooms which
she had not seen. Opening a door she came into a very large room
toward the east; and there were a lot of women crying and shivering
with cold, for they had nothing to wear. Going through this room
she came to another, which was full of gaunt, starving women, and
here and there one lay dead upon the floor; and in the next room
were scores of bleached and ghastly skeletons. And this was what
Mast-Truan did with his wives when he was tired of them. The girl saw
her fate, and, returning to her room, sat down and wept--but there
was no escape, for Mast-Truan’s old hag of a mother forever guarded
the outer door.
When Mast-Truan came home again, his wife said: “It is now long that
I have not seen my fathers. Let me go home for a little while.”
“Well,” said he, “here is some corn which must be shelled. When you
have shelled it and ground it, I will let you out”; and he showed her
four great rooms piled from floor to ceiling with ears of corn. It
was more than one could shell in a year; and when her husband went
out, she sat down again to cry and bemoan her fate.
Just then a queer little old woman appeared before her, with a kindly
smile. It was a _cumúsh-quio_ (fairy-woman).
“What is the matter, my daughter?” asked the old fairy, gently, “and
why do you weep?”
The captive told her all, and the fairy said: “Do not fear, daughter,
for I will help you, and we will have all the corn shelled and ground
in four days.”
So they fell to work. For two days the girl kept shelling; and though
she could not see the old fairy at all, she could always hear at her
side the click of the ears together. Then for two days she kept
grinding on her _metate_, apparently alone, but hearing the constant
grind of another _metate_ close beside her. At the end of the fourth
day the last kernel had been scrubbed into blue meal, and she was
very happy. Then the old fairy-woman appeared again, bringing a large
basket and a rope. She opened the doors to all the rooms where the
poor women were prisoners, and bade them all get into the basket one
by one. Mast-Truan had taken away the ladder from the house when he
left, that no one might be able to get out; but with her basket and
rope the good old fairy-woman let them all down to the ground, and
told them to hurry home--which they did as fast as ever their poor,
starved legs could carry them. Then the fairy-woman and the girl
escaped, and made their way to Acoma. So there was a Moon again--and
that it _was_ the Moon, we may be very sure; since this same girl
became the mother of the Hero Twins, who were assuredly Children of
the Moon.
XXIX
THE HERO TWINS
THAT the heroes of “The Magic Hide-and-Seek” were really the Pueblo
Castor and Pollux, the twin offspring of the Sun-Father and the
Moon-Mother, is more than probable. For some reason which I do not
know, these demigods do not figure as clearly in the Tée-wahn myths
as among the other Pueblos, the Navajos and the Apaches; but that
they are believed in, even in Isleta, there can be no doubt. They
were the ones who led mankind forth from its first home in the dark
center of the earth.[99] The rainbow is their bow, the lightnings
are their arrows. Among the other Pueblos there are countless
folk-stories about these Hero Twins; and the following example myth
will quickly remind you of the boys who played hide-and-seek. It
is told in Isleta, though I have never heard it from the Tée-wahn
people there. Ever since the great drouth of a generation ago, about
one hundred and fifty Quères, starved out from the pueblos of Acoma
and Laguna, have dwelt in Isleta, and they are now a permanent
part of the Village, recognized by representation in the civil
and religious government, though speaking an altogether different
language. Tée-wahn and Quères cannot understand each other in their
own tongues, so they have to communicate in Spanish.
[99] They are represented in the sacred dances by the
Káh-pee-óo-nin, “the Dying-of-Cold” (because they are always
naked except for the breech-clout).
Máw-Sahv and Oó-yah-wee, as the Hero Twins are named in Quères, had
the Sun for a father. Their mother died when they were born, and lay
lifeless upon the hot plain. But the two wonderful boys, as soon as
they were a minute old, were big and strong, and began playing.
There chanced to be in a cliff to the southward a nest of white
crows; and presently the young crows said: “_Nana_, what is that over
there? Isn’t it two babies?”
“Yes,” replied the Mother-Crow, when she had taken a look. “Wait and
I will bring them.” So she brought the boys safely, and then their
dead mother; and, rubbing a magic herb on the body of the latter,
soon brought her to life.
By this time Máw-Sahv and Oó-yah-wee were sizable boys, and the
mother started homeward with them.
“Now,” said she when they reached the edge of the valley and could
look across to that wondrous rock whereon stands Acoma, “go to yonder
town, my sons, for that is Ah-ko, where live your grandfather and
grandmother, my parents; and I will wait here. Go ye in at the west
end of the town and stand at the south end of the council-grounds
until some one speaks to you; and ask them to take you to the
Cacique, for he is your grandfather. You will know his house, for
the ladder to it has three uprights instead of two. When you go in
and tell your story, he will ask you a question to see if you are
really his grandchildren, and will give you four chances to answer
what he has in a bag in the corner. No one has ever been able to
guess what is in it, but there are birds.”
The Twins did as they were bidden, and presently came to Acoma and
found the house of the old Cacique. When they entered and told their
story, he said: “Now I will try you. What is in yonder bag?”
“A rattlesnake,” said the boys.
“No,” said the Cacique, “it is not a rattlesnake. Try again.”
“Birds,” said the boys.
“Yes, they are birds. Now I know that you are truly my grandchildren,
for no one else could ever guess.” And he welcomed them gladly, and
sent them back with new dresses and jewelry to bring their mother.
When she was about to arrive, the Twins ran ahead to the house and
told her father, mother, and sister to leave the house until she
should enter; but not knowing what was to come, they would not go
out. When she had climbed the big ladder to the roof and started down
through the trap-door by the room-ladder, her sister cried out with
joy at seeing her, and she was so startled that she fell from the
ladder and broke her neck, and never could be brought to life again.
Máw-Sahv and Oó-yah-wee grew up to astounding adventures and
achievements. While still very young in years, they did very
remarkable things; for they had a miraculously rapid growth, and at
an age when other boys were toddling about home, these Hero Twins
had already become very famous hunters and warriors. They were very
fond of stories of adventure, like less precocious lads; and after
the death of their mother they kept their grandmother busy telling
them strange tales. She had a great many anecdotes of a certain
ogre-giantess who lived in the dark gorges of the mountains to the
South, and so much did Máw-Sahv and Oó-yah-wee hear of this wonderful
personage--who was the terror of all that country--that their boyish
ambition was fired.
One day when their grandmother was busy they stole away from home
with their bows and arrows, and walked miles and miles, till they
came to a great forest at the foot of the mountain. In the edge of it
sat the old Giant-woman, dozing in the sun, with a huge basket beside
her. She was so enormous and looked so fierce that the boys’ hearts
stood still, and they would have hidden, but just then she caught
sight of them, and called: “Come, little boys, and get into this
basket of mine, and I will take you to my house.”
“Very well,” said Máw-Sahv, bravely hiding his alarm. “If you will
take us through this big forest, which we would like to see, we will
go with you.”
The Giant-woman promised, and the lads clambered into her basket,
which she took upon her back and started off. As she passed through
the woods, the boys grabbed lumps of pitch from the tall pines and
smeared it all over her head and back so softly that she did not
notice it. Once she sat down to rest, and the boys slyly put a lot of
big stones in the basket, set fire to her pitched hair, and hurriedly
climbed a tall pine.
Presently the Giant-woman got up and started on toward home; but in
a minute or two her head and _manta_ were all of a blaze. With a
howl that shook the earth, she dropped the basket and rolled on the
ground, grinding her great head into the sand until she at last got
the fire extinguished. But she was badly scorched and very angry, and
still angrier when she looked in the basket and found only a lot of
stones. She retraced her steps until she found the boys hidden in the
pine-tree, and said to them: “Come down, children, and get into my
basket, that I may take you to my house, for now we are almost there.”
The boys, knowing that she could easily break down the tree if they
refused, came down. They got into the basket, and soon she brought
them to her home in the mountain. She set them down upon the ground
and said: “Now, boys, go and bring me a lot of wood, that I may make
a fire in the oven and bake you some sweet cakes.”
The boys gathered a big pile of wood, with which she built a roaring
fire in the adobe oven outside the house. Then she took them and
washed them very carefully, and taking them by the necks, thrust them
into the glowing oven and sealed the door with a great, flat rock,
and left them there to be roasted.
But the Trues were friends of the Hero Twins, and did not let the
heat harm them at all. When the old Giant-woman had gone into the
house, Máw-Sahv and Oó-yah-wee broke the smaller stone that closed
the smoke-hole of the oven, and crawled out from their fiery prison
unsinged. They ran around and caught snakes and toads and gathered up
dirt and dropped them down into the oven through the smoke-hole; and
then, watching when the Giant-woman’s back was turned, they sneaked
into the house and hid in a huge _olla_ on the shelf.
Very early in the morning the Giant-woman’s baby began to cry for
some boy-meat. “Wait till it is well cooked,” said the mother; and
hushed the child till the sun was well up. Then she went out and
unsealed the oven, and brought in the sad mess the boys had put
there. “They have cooked away to almost nothing,” she said; and she
and the Giant-baby sat down to eat. “Isn’t this nice?” said the baby;
and Máw-Sahv could not help saying, “You nasty things, to like that!”
“Eh? Who is that?” cried the Giant-woman, looking around till she
found the boys hidden in the _olla_. So she told them to come down,
and gave them some sweet cakes, and then sent them out to bring her
some more wood.
It was evening when they returned with a big load of wood, which
Máw-Sahv had taken pains to get green. He had also picked up in the
mountains a long, sharp splinter of quartz.[100] The evening was
cool, and they built a big fire in the fireplace. But immediately, as
the boys had planned, the green wood began to smoke at a dreadful
rate, and soon the room was so dense with it that they all began to
cough and strangle. The Giant-woman got up and opened the window and
put her head out for a breath of fresh air; and Máw-Sahv, pulling out
the white-hot splinter of quartz from the fire, stabbed her in the
back so that she died. Then they killed the Giant-baby, and at last
felt that they were safe.
[100] A thunder-knife.
Now the Giant-woman’s house was a very large one, and ran far back
into the very heart of the mountain. Having got rid of their enemies,
the Hero Twins decided to explore the house; and, taking their bows
and arrows, started boldly down into the deep, dark rooms. After
traveling a long way in the dark, they came to a huge room in which
corn and melons and pumpkins were growing abundantly. On and on they
went, till at last they heard the growl of distant thunder. Following
the sound, they came presently to a room in the solid rock, wherein
the lightning was stored. Going in, they took the lightning and
played with it awhile, throwing it from one to the other, and at last
started home, carrying their strange toy with them.
When they reached Acoma and told their grandmother of their wonderful
adventures, she held up her withered old hands in amazement. And
she was nearly scared to death when they began to play with the
lightning, throwing it around the house as though it had been a
harmless ball, while the thunder rumbled till it shook the great rock
of Acoma. They had the blue lightning which belongs in the West; and
the yellow lightning of the North; and the red lightning of the
East; and the white lightning of the South; and with all these they
played merrily.
But it was not very long till Shée-wo-nah, the Storm-King, had
occasion to use the lightning; and when he looked in the room
where he was wont to keep it, and found it gone, his wrath knew no
bounds. He started out to find who had stolen it; and passing by
Acoma he heard the thunder as the Hero Twins were playing ball with
the lightning. He pounded on the door and ordered them to give him
his lightning, but the boys refused. Then he summoned the storm,
and it began to rain and blow fearfully outside; while within the
boys rattled their thunder in loud defiance, regardless of their
grandmother’s entreaties to give the Storm-King his lightning.
It kept raining violently, however, and the water came pouring down
the chimney until the room was nearly full, and they were in great
danger of drowning. But luckily for them, the Trues were still
mindful of them; and just in the nick of time sent their servant,
Teé-oh-pee, the Badger, who is the best of diggers, to dig a hole up
through the floor; all the water ran out, and they were saved. And so
the Hero Twins outwitted the Storm-King.
* * * * *
South of Acoma, in the pine-clad gorges and mesas, the world was
full of Bears. There was one old She-Bear in particular, so huge and
fierce that all men feared her; and not even the boldest hunter dared
go to the south--for there she had her home with her two sons.