south; but their grandmother always forbade them. One day, however,
they stole away from the house, and got into the cañon. At last
they came to the She-Bear’s house; and there was old Quée-ah asleep
in front of the door. Máw-sahv crept up very carefully and threw in
her face a lot of ground _chile_,[101] and ran. At that the She-Bear
began to sneeze, _ah-hútch! ah-hútch!_ She could not stop, and kept
making _ah-hútch_ until she sneezed herself to death.
[101] The fiery red-pepper of the Southwest.
Then the Twins took their thunder-knives and skinned her. They
stuffed the great hide with grass, so that it looked like a Bear
again, and tied a buckskin rope around its neck.
“Now,” said Máw-sahv, “We will give our grandma a trick!”
So, taking hold of the rope, they ran toward Acoma, and the Bear came
behind them as if leaping. Their grandmother was going for water; and
from the top of the cliff she saw them running so in the valley, and
the Bear jumping behind them. She ran to her house and painted one
side of her face black with charcoal, and the other side red with the
blood of an animal;[102] and, taking a bag of ashes, ran down the
cliff and out at the Bear, to make it leave the boys and come after
her.
[102] Ancient tokens of mourning.
But when she saw the trick, she reproved the boys for their
rashness--but in her heart she was very proud of them.
XXX
THE HUNGRY GRANDFATHERS
A DISOBEDIENT child is something I have never seen among the Pueblos,
in all the years I have lived with them. The parents are very kind,
too. My little _amigos_ in Isleta and the other Pueblo towns--for
they are my friends in all--are never spoiled; but neither are they
punished much.[103] Personal acquaintance with a spanking is what
very few of them have. The idea of obedience is inborn and inbred.
A word is generally enough; and for extreme cases it only needs the
threat: “Look out, or I will send for the Grandfathers!”
[103] I must qualify this now. In the last two years I have
seen one spoiled child--just one, in ten years’ acquaintance
with 9000 Pueblos!
Now, perhaps you do not know who the Grandfathers are; but every
Pueblo youngster does. It has nothing to do with the “truly” grandpa,
who is as lovely an institution among the Tée-wahn as anywhere else.
No, the _Abuelos_ were of an altogether different sort. That name is
Spanish, and has three applications in Isleta: real grandparents;
the remarkable masked officials of a certain dance; and the bad Old
Ones. These last are called in the Tée-wahn tongue _T’ai-kár-nin_
(Those-Who-Eat-People). They were, in fact, aboriginal Ogres, who
once sadly ravaged Isleta.
The _T’ai-kár-nin_ had no town, but dwelt in caves of the lava
mountain a couple of miles west of this village--the _Kú-mai_ hill.
It is a bad place at best: bleak, black, rough, and forbidding--just
the place that a properly constituted Ogre would choose for his
habitation. In the first place, it is to the west of the town,
which is “bad medicine” in itself to any Indian, for that point
of the compass belongs to the dead and to bad spirits. Then its
color is against it; and, still worse, it is to this day the common
stamping-ground of all the witches in this part of the country,
where they gather at night for their diabolical caucuses. Of its
serious disrepute I can convey no better idea to the enlightened and
superstitionless American mind than by saying that it is a sort of
aboriginal “haunted house.”
So the hill of _Kú-mai_ was a peculiarly fit place for the Ogres to
dwell in. Deep in its gloomy bowels they huddled on the white sand
which floors all the caves there; and crannies overhead carried away
the smoke from their fires, which curled from crevices at the top of
the peak far above them. Ignorant Americans would probably have taken
it for a volcanic emission; but the good people of Shee-eh-whíb-bak
knew better.
These Ogres were larger than ordinary men, but otherwise carried no
outward sign of their odious calling. Their teeth were just like
anybody’s good teeth, and they had neither “tushes” nor horns nor
hoofs. Indeed, except for their unusual size, they would have been
easily mistaken for Indians of some distant tribe. But, _ay de mi_!
How strong they were! One could easily whip five common men in a
bunch--“men even as strong as my son, Francisco,” says Desiderio; and
Francisco is as stout as a horse.
They were people of very fastidious palates, these Ogres. Nothing
was good enough for them except human flesh--and young at that.
Their fare was entirely baby--baby young, baby brown, and baby very
fat. They never molested the adults; but as often as they found an
appetite they descended upon the village, scooped up what children
they could lay their hands upon, and carried them off to their caves.
There they had enormous _ollas_, into which half a dozen children
could be thrown at once.
There seemed to be some spell about these Ogres--besides their
frequent hungry spells--for the Pueblos, who were so brave in the
face of other foes, never dared fight these terrible cave-dwellers.
They continued to devastate the village, until babies were at a
premium, and few to be had at any price; and the only way the people
dared to try to circumvent them was by strategy. In time it came
about that every house where there were children, or a reasonable
hope of them, had secret cubby-holes back of the thick adobe walls;
with little doors which shut flush with the wall and were also
plastered with adobe, so that when they were shut a stranger--even if
he were a sharp-eyed Indian--would never dream of their existence.
And whenever arose the dreaded cry, “Here come the _T’ai-kár-nin_!”
the children were hustled, shivering and noiseless, into the secret
recesses, and the doors were shut. Then Mr. Ogre could come in
and peer and sniff about as he liked, but no chance to fill his
market-basket could he find. And when parents were forced to go away
and leave the babies behind, the poor young ones were inclosed in
their safe but gloomy prisons, and there in darkness and silence had
to await the parental home-coming. These inconveniences were gladly
borne, however, since they preserved the children--and we all know
that preserved baby is better than baby-stew. It was, of course,
rather rough on the Ogres, who began to find all their belts most
distressfully loose; but no one seemed to consider their feelings.
They were pretty well starved when the Spaniards came and delivered
the suffering Isleteños by driving off these savage neighbors. This
looks suspiciously as if the whole myth of the Ogres had sprung from
the attacks of the cruel Apaches and Navajos in the old days.
There was one queer thing about these Ogres--on their forages they
always wore buckskin masks, just like those of the _Abuelos_ of the
sacred dance. Their bare faces were seen sometimes by hunters who
encountered them on the _llano_, but never here in town. It was
in connection with these masks that Isleta had a great sensation
recently. The Hungry Grandfathers had been almost forgotten, except
as a word to change the minds of children who had about quarter of a
mind to be naughty; but interest was revived by a discovery of which
my venerable friend Desiderio Peralta was the hero.
This dear old man--news of his death has come to me as I write this
very chapter--was a remarkable character. He was one of “the oldest
inhabitants” of New Mexico--older than any other Indian among the
twelve hundred of Isleta, except tottering Diego; and that is saying
a great deal. His hair was very gray, and his kindly old face such
an incredible mass of wrinkles that I used to fancy Father Time
himself must have said: “No, no! You apprentices never do a thing
right! Here, _this_ is the way to put on wrinkles!” and that he then
and there took old Desiderio for a model, and showed the journeymen
wrinkle-makers a trick they never dreamed of. Certainly the job was
never so well done before. From chin to hair-roots, from ear to
ear, was such a crowded, tangled, inextricable maze of furrows and
cross-harrow lines as I firmly believe never dwelt together on any
other one human face. Why, Desiderio could have furnished an army of
old men with wrinkles! I never saw him smile without fearing that
some of those wrinkles were going to fall off the edge, so crowded
were they at best!
But if his face was _arrugada_, his brain was not. He was bright
and chipper as a young blackbird, and it was only of late that a
touch of rheumatism took the youth out of his legs. Until recently
he held the important position of Captain of War for the pueblo;
and only two years ago I had the pleasure of going with two hundred
_other_ Indians on a huge rabbit-hunt which was under his personal
supervision, and in which he was as active as any one, both on his
feet and with the unerring boomerang. His eyes were good to find
about as much through the sights of a rifle as anybody’s; and on the
whole he was worth a good deal more than I expect to be some seventy
years from now. He was a good neighbor, too; and I had few pleasanter
hours than those spent in talking with this genial old shrivel, who
was _muy sabio_ in all the folk-lore and wisdom of his unfathomable
race; and very close-mouthed about it, too--as they all are. Still,
there were some things which he seemed willing to confide to me; and
he always had an attentive listener.
Desiderio was not yet too old to herd his own cattle during the
season when they roam abroad; and, while thus engaged, he made a
discovery which set the whole quiet village agog, though no other
outsider ever heard of it.
One day in 1889 Desiderio started out from the village, driving
his cattle. Having steered them across the _acequia_ and up the
sand-hills to the beginning of the plain, he climbed to the top of
the _Kú-mai_ to watch them through the day--as has been the custom
of Isleta herders from time immemorial. In wandering over the rocky
top of the peak, he came to a ledge of rocks on the southeast spur of
the hill; and there found a fissure, at one end of which was a hole
as large as a man’s head. Desiderio put his face and his wrinkles
down to the hole to see what he could see; and all was dark inside.
But if his eyes strained in vain, his ears did not. From far down in
the bowels of the mountain came a strange roaring, as of a heavy
wind. Desiderio was somewhat dismayed at this; for he knew at once
that he had found one of the chimneys of the Ogres; but he did not
run away. Hunting around awhile, he found in the fissures of the
rocks some ancient buckskin masks--the very ones worn by the Ogres,
of course. He put them back, and coming to town straightway told the
medicine-men of the Black Eyes--one of the two parties here. They
held a _junta_; and after mature deliberation decided to go and get
the masks. This was done, and the masks are now treasured in the
Black Eye medicine-house.
I have several times carefully explored the _Kú-mai_--a difficult and
tiresome task, thanks to the knife-like lava fragments which cover it
everywhere, and which will cut a pair of new strong shoes to pieces
in an afternoon. It is true that in this hill of bad repute there
are several lava-caves, with floors of white sand blown in from the
_llano_; and that in these caves there are a few human bones. No
doubt some of the savage nomads camped or lived there. None of those
famous _ollas_ are visible; nor have I ever been able to find any
other relics of the Hungry Grandfathers.
[Illustration: THE COYOTE.]
XXXI
THE COYOTE
ALL the animals with which the Tée-wahn are familiar--the buffalo
(which they used to hunt on the vast plains to the eastward), the
bear, deer, antelope, mountain lion, badger, wild turkey, fox,
eagle, crow, buzzard, rabbit, and so on--appear in their legends and
fairy tales, as well as in their religious ceremonials and beliefs.
Too-wháy-deh, the Coyote,[104] or little prairie wolf, figures in
countless stories, and always to his own disadvantage. Smart as he
is in some things, he believes whatever is told him; and by his
credulity becomes the butt of all the other animals, who never tire
of “April-fooling” him. He is also a great coward. To call an Indian
here “_Too-wháy-deh_” is one of the bitterest insults that can be
offered him.
[104] Pronounced Coy-óh-ty.
You have already heard how the Coyote fared at the hands of the
fun-loving Bear, and of the Crows and the Blackbirds. A very popular
tale is that of his adventure with a bright cousin of his.
Once upon a time Too-wháy-shur-wée-deh, the Little-Blue-Fox,[105] was
wandering near a pueblo, and chanced to come to the threshing-floors,
where a great many crows were hopping. Just then the Coyote passed,
very hungry; and while yet far off, said: “Ai! how the stomach cries!
I will just eat Little-Blue-Fox.” And coming, he said:
[105] He is always a hero, and as smart as the Coyote is
stupid. His beautiful pelt is an important part of the costume
worn in many of the sacred dances of the Tée-wahn.
“Now, Little-Blue-Fox, you have troubled me enough! You are the cause
of my being chased by the dogs and people, and now I will pay you. I
am going to eat you up this very now!”
“No, Coyote-friend,” answered the Little-Blue-Fox, “_don’t_ eat me
up! I am here guarding these chickens, for there is a wedding in
yonder house, which is my master’s, and these chickens are for the
wedding-dinner. Soon they will come for the chickens, and will invite
me to the dinner--and you can come also.”
“Well,” said the Coyote, “if _that_ is so, I will not eat you, but
will help you watch the chickens.” So he lay down beside him.
At this, Little-Blue-Fox was troubled, thinking how to get away; and
at last he said:
“Friend Too-wháy-deh, I make strange that they have not before now
come for the chickens. Perhaps they have forgotten. The best way is
for me to go to the house and see what the servants are doing.”
“It is well,” said the Coyote. “Go, then, and I will guard the
chickens for you.”
So the Little-Blue-Fox started toward the house; but getting behind
a small hill, he ran away with fast feet. When it was a good while,
and he did not come back, the Coyote thought: “While he is gone, I
will give myself some of the chickens.” Crawling up on his belly to
the threshing-floor, he gave a great leap. But the chickens were
only crows, and they flew away. Then he began to say evil of the
Little-Blue-Fox for giving him a trick, and started on the trail,
vowing: “I will eat him up wherever I catch him.”
After many miles he overtook the Little-Blue-Fox, and with a bad face
said: “Here! Now I am going to eat you up!”
The other made as if greatly excited, and answered: “No, friend
Coyote! Do you not hear that _tombé_[106]?”
[106] Pronounced tom-báy. The sacred drum used in Pueblo dances.
The Coyote listened, and heard a drum in the pueblo.
“Well,” said the Little-Blue-Fox, “I am called for that dance,[107]
and very soon they will come for me. Won’t you go too?”
[107] In all such Indian dances the participants are named by
the officials.
“If that is so, I will not eat you, but we will go to the dance.” And
the Coyote sat down and began to comb his hair and to make himself
pretty with face-paint. When no one came, the Little-Blue-Fox said:
[Illustration: “THERE THEY STOOD SIDE BY SIDE.”]
“Friend Coyote, I make strange that the _alguazil_ does not come.
It is best for me to go up on this hill, whence I can see into the
village. You wait here.”
“He will not dare to give me another trick,” thought the Coyote. So
he replied: “It is well. But do not forget to call me.”
So the Little-Blue-Fox went up the hill; and as soon as he was out of
sight, he began to run for his life.
Very long the Coyote waited; and at last, being tired, went up on the
hill--but there was no one there. Then he was very angry, and said:
“I will follow him, and eat him surely! _Nothing_ shall save him!”
And finding the trail, he began to follow as fast as a bird.
Just as the Little-Blue-Fox came to some high cliffs, he looked
back and saw the Coyote coming over a hill. So he stood up on his
hind feet and put his fore paws up against the cliff, and made many
groans, and was as if much excited. In a moment came the Coyote, very
angry, crying: “Now you shall not escape me! I am going to eat you up
now--now!”
“Oh, no, friend Too-wháy-deh!” said the other; “for I saw this cliff
falling down, and ran to hold it up. If I let go, it will fall and
kill us both. But come, help me to hold it.”
Then the Coyote stood up and pushed against the cliff with his fore
paws, very hard; and there they stood side by side.
Time passing so, the Little-Blue-Fox said:
“Friend Too-wháy-deh, it is long that I am holding up the cliff,
and I am very tired and thirsty. You are fresher. So you hold up
the cliff while I go and hunt water for us both; for soon you too
will be thirsty. There is a lake somewhere on the other side of this
mountain; I will find it and get a drink, and then come back and hold
up the cliff while you go.”
The Coyote agreed, and the Little-Blue-Fox ran away over the mountain
till he came to the lake, just as the moon was rising.
But soon the Coyote was very tired and thirsty, for he held up the
cliff with all his might. At last he said: “Ai! how hard it is! I am
so thirsty that I will go to the lake, even if I die!”
So he began to let go of the cliff, slowly, slowly--until he held
it only with his finger-nails; and then he made a great jump away
backward, and ran as hard as he could to a hill. But when he looked
around and saw that the cliff did not fall, he was very angry, and
swore to eat Too-wháy-shur-wée-deh the very minute he should catch
him.
Running on the trail, he came to the lake; and there the
Little-Blue-Fox was lying on the bank, whining as if greatly excited.
“Now I _will_ eat you up, this minute!” cried the Coyote. But the
other said: “No, Friend Too-wháy-deh! Don’t eat _me_ up! I am waiting
for some one who can swim as well as you can. I just bought a big
cheese[108] from a shepherd to share with you; but when I went to
drink, it slipped out of my hands into the water. Come here, and I
will show you.” He took the Coyote to the edge of the high bank, and
pointed to the moon in the water.
[108] Of course chickens and cheeses were not known to the
Pueblos before the Spanish conquest; and the cheese is so
vital a part of the story that I hardly think it can be an
interpolation. So this tale, though very old, is probably not
ancient--that is, it has been invented since 1600.
[Illustration: “‘HOW SHALL I GET IT?’ SAID THE COYOTE.”]
“M--m!” said the Coyote, who was fainting with hunger. “But how shall
I get it? It is very deep in the water, and I shall float up before I
can dive to it.”
“That is true, friend,” said the other. “There is but one way. We
must tie some stones to your neck, to make you heavy so you can go
down to it.”
So they hunted about until they found a buckskin thong and some large
stones; and the Little-Blue-Fox tied the stones to the Coyote’s neck,
the Coyote holding his chin up, to help.
“Now, friend Too-wháy-deh, come here to the edge of the bank and
stand ready. I will take you by the back and count _weem_, _wée-si_,
_p’áh-chu_! And when I say _three_, you must jump and I will
push--for now you are very heavy.”
So he took the Coyote by the back of the neck, swaying him back and
forth as he counted. And at “_p’áh-chu!_” he pushed hard, and the
Coyote jumped, and went into the deep water, and--never came out
again!
XXXII
DOCTOR FIELD-MOUSE
IT was the evening of the 14th of March. In the valley of the Rio
Grande, that stands at the end of the winter. Now it is to open the
big mother-canal that comes from the river to all the fields, giving
them to drink after their long thirst; and now to plow the _milpas_,
and to uncover the buried grape-vines, and make ready for the
farmer’s work.
As the door opened to admit stalwart Francisco to the big flickering
room where we were all sitting in silence, the long, shrill wail
of a Coyote, away up on the Accursed Hill, blew in after him on
the boisterous March wind. The boys pricked up their ears; and
bright-faced Manuelito[109] turned to his white-headed grandfather,
and said:
[109] Pronounced Mahn-way-lée-to.
“_Tata_, why is it that Too-wháy-deh always howls so? Perhaps he
has a pain; for he has been crying ever since the beginning of the
world--as they told us in the story of the Fawns and the She-Wolf.”
“What, Unknowing!” answered the old man, kindly. “Hast thou never
heard of the Coyote’s toothache, and who was the first medicine-man
in all the world? It is not well not to know that; for from that
comes all that we know to cure the sick. And for that, I will
tell--but it is the last story of the year. For to-morrow is
_Tu-shée-wim_, the Spring Medicine-Dance; and the snakes are coming
out from their winter houses. After that, we must not tell of the
Things of Old. For it is very long ago; and if one made a mistake in
telling, and said that which was not all true, _Ch’áh-rah-ráh-deh_
would bite him, and he would die.[110] But this one I will tell thee.”
[110] A fixed belief among the Pueblos, who will tell none of
their myths between the Spring Medicine-Making, in March, and
the Fall Medicine-Making, in October, lest the rattlesnake
punish them for some slip from the truth.
* * * * *
In the First Days, when the people had broken through the crust of
the earth, and had come up out of their dark prison, underground, and
crossed Shee-p’ah-póon, the great Black Lake of Tears, they came to
the shore on this side. Then it came that all the animals were made;
and very soon the Coyote was sent by the Trues to carry a buckskin
bag far south, and not to open it until he should come to the Peak
of the White Clouds. For many days he ran south, with the bag on his
back. But there was nothing to eat, and he grew very hungry. At last
he thought: “Perhaps in this bag there is to eat.” So he took it from
his back, and untied the thongs, and looked in. But there was nothing
in it except the stars; and as soon as the bag was opened they all
flew up into the sky, where they are to this day.
When the Trues saw that Too-wháy-deh had disobeyed, they were angry,
and made it that his punishment should be to wander up and down
forever, howling with the toothache and finding no rest.
So Too-wháy-deh went out with his toothache, running all over the
world groaning and crying; and when the other four-feet slept he
could only sit and howl. Because he came to talk with the other
animals, if they could not cure him, they caught the toothache too;
and that is the reason why they sometimes cry. But none have it like
the Coyote, who can find no rest.
In those times there were no medicine-men in the world,--not even of
the people,--and the animals found no cure.
Time passing so, it came one day that T’hoo-chée-deh, the smallest of
Mice, who lives in the little mounds around the chapparo-bush, was
making his road underground, when he came to a kind of root with a
sweet smell. T’hoo-chée-deh was very wise; and he took the root, and
put it with others in a buckskin pouch he carried under his left arm.
In a few days Kee-oo-ée-deh, the Prairie-Dog, came with his head all
fat with toothache, and said:
“Friend Field-Mouse, can you not cure me of this pain? For all say
you are very wise with herbs.”
“I do not know,” answered T’hoo-chée-deh. “But we will try. For I
have found a new root, and perhaps it is good.”
So he mixed it with other roots, all pounded, and put it on the cheek
of Kee-oo-ée-deh; and in a little, the toothache was gone.
In that time it was that there was so much toothache among the
animals that the Mountain Lion, Commander of Beasts, called a council
to see what should be done. When every kind that walks on the ground
had met, he asked each of them if they had found no cure; but none of
them knew any. The Coyote was there, howling with pain; but all the
other sick were at home.
At last it was to the Field-Mouse, who is the smallest of
all animals, and who did not wish to seem wise until all the
greater ones had spoken. When the Mountain Lion said, “And thou,
T’hoo-chée-deh--hast thou a cure?” he rose in his place and came
forward modestly, saying: “If the others will allow me, and with the
help of the Trues, I will try what I found last.”
Then he drew from his left-hand bag the roots one by one; and last
of all, the root of the _chee-ma-hár_, explaining what it had done
for Kee-oo-ée-deh. He pounded it to powder with a stone, and mixed
it with fat; and spreading it on flat leaves, put it to the Coyote’s
jaw. And in a little the pain was gone.[111]