KACHINA
She was a lissom creature, with a ruddy skin and blue-black hair as
fine-spun as silk--not coarse as is most Indians'--bound with a
fillet of serpent's-skin. Her dress was a robe of white cotton,
edged with vivid crimson, that was looped over her right shoulder,
passed under her left arm and belted about her waist with another
band of serpent's-skin. It stopped short of her bare knees. On her
feet were sandals, cleverly made of some vegetable fiber. And all
around her strutted and cackled and gobbled hundreds of turkeys,
their brazen plumage a splendid foil for her bronze beauty.
Her arrow was aimed full at Tawannears' chest, and she called to him
with a kind of high disdain in a throaty dialect which none of us
understood. But in the middle of her question she caught sight of
Corlaer and me, and her lustrous brown eyes widened in an excess of
surprise.
"Espanya!" she exclaimed.
Now, in my youth, amongst many other experiences of great and little
value, I campaigned in Spain with the Duke of Berwick--a good lord
and a man of honor, albeit a bastard--and I have some lingering knack
with the Spanish tongue. So I called back to her.
"Not Spaniards, but Englishmen!"
Her arrow wavered from one to the other of us.
"Espanya," she repeated uncertainly.
I took a step forward, but instantly the arrow steadied, and for the
blink of an eye I thought she would loose.
"We are friends," I said.
"Stand," she ordered in broken Spanish, with a strange accent such as
I had never heard. "What are English? You are Spanish! Go away!"
At that there came a yelp from the squat bowmen on our trail, and a
squad of them rained arrows on us from the cliffs overhead. She
looked up more startled than ever.
"We are friends," I insisted. "The bowmen pursued us here."
"Awataba," she murmured, almost to herself.
And quick as a flash she snatched a turkey-bone whistle from the
breast of her robe and blew a keen treble note, that seemed to slip
like a knife-blade through that clear, dry air. She half-turned as
she did so, and I seized the opportunity to examine the valley behind
her. 'Twas a bowl in the riven plateau-country, perhaps a league
wide and twice as long. Through it flowed a respectable stream that
issued from a ravine to the right of where we stood, and its floor
was carpeted with green fields, interspersed with the stunted trees
that were all this desert land afforded.
The whistle-blast called up dozens of men from the nearer bank of the
river, and looking closer, I saw that they had been working in
cultivated fields. Indeed, the whole surface of the valley appeared
to be given over to cultivation. Beyond the river, against the
right-hand wall of the valley, loomed a rounded protuberance of rock
that hung from the towering cliffs like a woman's breast. Its top
was surmounted by a mass of walls and towers, and as the shrilling
whistles carried back the warning of the turkey shepherdess a host of
tiny figures popped out upon the roofs and battlements.
"What place is that?" I asked curiously.
The turkey-girl replied mechanically--
"Homolobi."
It meant nothing to me at the time, but afterwards I was struck by
its aptness--The Place of The Breast.*
* This word, as well as most of the other bits of phraseology which
Ormerod mentions, indicates a relation between this cliff-dwelling
tribe and the present Hopi. There is similar evidence in the
religious customs cited.--A.D.H.S.
I started to walk forward for a better view, and the turkey-girl
promptly renotched her arrow.
"You must wait for Wiki," she announced.
"But we are friends," I declared. "If we stay here----"
"Who is he?" she interrupted with more interest than she had yet
shown, gesturing with her arrow toward Tawannears, who had not moved
since first he saw her, his eyes devouring her face in a manner most
extraordinary in one so self-contained and regardless of women as the
Seneca.
"He is an Indian warrior, who has journeyed with us from the country
by the Eastern Ocean, where we English dwell. He is of the People of
the Long House."
She shook her head.
"You talk nonsense. What are English? People of the Long House! Do
not we of Homolobi dwell in long houses? Wiki says that all our
people do so, except the Awataba, who have been cursed by Massi* to
go naked amongst the rocks. And what is an ocean?"
* Ruler of the Dead.
How I should have answered these very difficult questions I don't
know, but fortunately--or unfortunately--at that moment the bowmen,
the Awataba, as the turkey-girl called them, were emboldened by our
quiescence to attempt a final charge. They preceded it with a
tempest of arrows aimed to follow a high arc and fall on our side of
the bowlders that partially sheltered us. One of these shafts killed
a turkey, and the herd-girl was immediately almost in tears. Another
stuck in the sleeve of Peter's shirt, and he squeaked indignantly.
"Come! We gife der naked men a lesson, eh? Afterward we take der
girl's friendts."
We had no choice. Our tormenters were dodging in and out of the
rocks at the mouth of the ravine, and if we ran from them we should
present excellent marks on the open ground of the valley floor.
Peter tumbled over one of the nearest to us, and I knocked a poor
wretch from his cliff-perch. Tawannears, rousing from the bewildered
stupor which had overcome him, was equally successful. A bow-string
twanged at my elbow, and the turkey-girl pointed proudly to a savage
who was making off with her shaft in his arm. But the Awataba
refused to lose courage as they had in every previous attack upon us;
and in ten minutes of rapid firing we exhausted our ammunition.
I looked behind me as I fired my last shot, and was relieved to see
that several hundred men were running up from the valley; for the
naked bowmen were now at close range, their hideous, bestial faces
bobbing betwixt the rocks, dropping from ledge to ledge in efforts to
come at us in flank. They reached Peter first, and he surprised them
by reversing his piece and using the butt for a flail. I imitated
him, but Tawannears preferred to trust to knife and tomahawk, after
the manner of his race. And at intervals, when I cleared myself of
an opponent, I saw the turkey-girl, still standing undaunted in front
of her excited flock, loosing her arrows with cold precision.
Then a flood of stinking bodies submerged me. I went down, and
struggled to my feet again. Gap-toothed mouths yapped at my throat.
Squat fiends struck at me with stone-mauls and flint knives. But I
smashed right and left with my musket-butt, and kept my footing until
Corlaer came to my rescue, swinging his clubbed musket in one hand,
his knife in the other, ready for the few who passed its orbit.
"Tawannears!" he grunted, his little pig-eyes gleaming joyously.
Side by side we chopped our way through the smelly mob to where the
Seneca stood with his back to a bowlder, the herd-girl crouched
beside him. Her turkeys had taken flight at last, and she was
wielding a rock-maul one of the savages had dropped, laughing with
glee as she pecked at men who tried to attack Tawannears from the
rear.
She even shook her weapon at us, as though to ask us why we intruded.
But the fight was over, for her own people were surging into the
defile, arrows slatting on the rocks, and the squat savages fled
incontinently.
The turkey-girl tossed away the stone-maul she had used so valiantly.
"Whoever you are," she remarked, "you are good fighters--better than
Kokyan,* I think."
* The Spider.
"Who is Kokyan?" I asked.
But she ignored me, as she had once before.
"What is his name!" she demanded, pointing at Tawannears.
I told her, and Tawannears, at sound of his name, suspended cleaning
his knife-blade and gave her a long look.
"Ask the maiden who she is, brother," he said.
I did so, and she answered without hesitation--
"I am Kachina.* Is Tawannears a priest, too, or only a warrior?"
* The Sacred Dancer.
"He is a great chief, a war-captain," I answered. "He guards the
Western Door of the Long House in which his people dwell."
She pursed her lips contemptuously.
"Anybody can be a warrior," she commented. "The warriors must have
priests to pray for them and secure them victory."
I smiled at this naïve view.
"In my red brother's country the warrior is honored above the
priest," I said.
"They must be very ignorant people," she declared. "Like the
Awataba. Are you a priest?"
"I am a trader. I buy and sell."
Her contempt for me was even more pronounced than for Tawannears.
"And the fat one?"
"He is a warrior, too."
"I am sorry," she said royally. "I thought you might be great ones,
priests of some far people come to sit at Wiki's feet and hear Kokyan
cast spells for Yoki*--or perhaps to see me dance."
* The Rain.
"Are you a priestess?" I inquired respectfully.
"I am Kachina," she said, and her words were a rebuke.
I would have asked more, but an angry-eyed young man in a kilt of
serpent's-skins thrust himself between us and addressed her volubly,
with denunciatory gestures at us. She replied to him as coolly as
she had to me, and finally turned away and beckoned to an older man
who was leading back the men from the fields who had pursued the
squat bowmen. The older man issued a brief order to his followers
and walked over to our group. Like the voluble young man, he wore a
kilt of serpent's-skins, and both of them had their lank black hair
bound with fillets of the same material.
The two were much alike, their skins a muddy reddish hue, their
figures spare and lean and rather under-sized. In fact, they and all
the other people of Homolobi resembled in general appearance the
squat savages who had driven us into their hands, except that they
were less muscular and had much more intelligent faces. They were
markedly inferior in stature to the Plains tribes, and equally
superior in mental development as regards their domestic life.
Kachina, the turkey-shepherdess, was entirely different from the
Homolobi people. Her bronze skin had a tawny note in it. Her shape
was exquisitely molded; her hands and feet were small; and her
features were of a clear-cut, aquiline cast very dissimilar from the
flat physiognomy of all the others we saw. I may as well say here,
that from these circumstances and others which we discovered I became
convinced she had a considerable proportion of Spanish blood in her;
but we never were able to secure any definite account of her origin
from Wiki, who alone knew the truth.
The older man, after a glance of appraisal at us, engaged in a
prolonged conversation with the girl, interrupted frequently by his
younger associate; and gradually a circle of curious townsmen formed
around us. They were all dressed in cotton kilts of varying colors,
and the vegetable-fiber sandals, and carried bows and arrows, spears,
hatchets and knives. Their manner toward us was non-committal rather
than hostile. The conversation terminated abruptly when the younger
man, with a savage glance at Tawannears, snapped a hot retort to
something Kachina had said and strode out of the circle, followed by
nearly half of its members.
The older man and the girl turned to us as though nothing had
happened.
"This is Wiki," said the girl. "He is the High Priest of Massi."
I bowed.
"Tell him," I began, but Wiki himself interrupted me, speaking in
Spanish more fragmentary than Kachina's, yet understandable.
"You are not Spanish?"
"No."
"Say after me: 'Go with God, most excellent señor,'" he prescribed.
I obeyed, and took no special pains with my accent--albeit I doubt if
I had need to be more slovenly than ordinary. However, Wiki seemed
satisfied.
"You are French?"
I was surprised. This man, then, knew something of the outside world.
"No."
"English?"
"Yes."
He nodded thoughtfully.
"Why do you come here?" he demanded
"We were pursued by the squat bowmen the maiden calls Awataba."
"Were you seeking Homolobi?"
He eyed me sharply as he spoke.
"We had never heard of it."
"Then what are Englishmen doing here so many months' journey from
their own land? Why do you bring this red man with you?"
"We have been traveling, partly to forget sorrows laid upon us by the
Great Spirit, partly to see new countries."
"Have you traveled far?"
"To the coast of the Western ocean."
He nodded again.
"What the Spaniards call the Pacifico?"
"Yes."
"And this red man?"
"He is a chief of the Hodenosaunee, a great nation of the Eastern
Indians, who are allied with the English. He is my brother."
Wiki nodded a third time. He was obviously a man of unusual
intellectual ability. His face was thoughtful. His forehead was
high, and his deep-set eyes were inscrutable. There was about him
nothing of the trickster, the charlatan, the types of most Indian
priests or medicine-men. And plainly, he was well-informed. He had
an air of concealing more knowledge than he admitted.
"All we ask," I continued, "is permission to rest in your valley
before we continue our journey."
An enigmatic smile flickered across Wiki's face. He waved an arm
toward the smoke-puffs that were beginning to spurt up from the rocks
bordering the defile.
"The Awataba would not let you go as easy as that," he replied. And
after a moment: "If you went, you might lead Spaniards to Homolobi."
"We have nothing to do with the Spaniards," I denied.
"You speak their language," he observed.
"So do you. I learned it when I was in the army of the French in
Spain."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You seem to be all things," he remarked. "You are an Englishman,
yet you have been a French soldier and in Spain."
I laughed.
"Why, that is true," I admitted, "but you need have no fear of our
returning here. We have suffered too much. Our one desire is to
return safely to our own country--and there seems little chance of
that, for our powder and lead are gone."
He tipped my powder-horn to prove my words.
"Huh!" he grunted. "We talk too much. Come with me to Homolobi."
"And the Awataba?" I questioned. "Will they make trouble for you if
we go?"
"I think not," he answered calmly. "They are children. They cannot
harm us, and if they ravage our gardens they know that I will make a
curse against them, and they will die of hunger when the Winter
comes."
"But if we go with you will you guarantee us against treachery?" I
asked.
His eyes swept from me to Kachina, intent on our conversation, and on
to Corlaer, phlegmatically surveying the prospect of the valley, and
Tawannears, whose gaze was still riveted on the girl's face.
"All things are as Massi wills," he returned.
"That may be," I rasped, with all the ferocity I could muster. "But
if we are to die, we will die here in the open, taking with us as
many of you as we can slay."
The girl broke in impetuously.
"What talk is this of treachery and slaying? Wiki said only 'all
things are as Massi wills.' Is it likely Massi wills your deaths
when you fought in defense of the sacred turkeys?"
Wiki smiled his shadowy, enigmatical smile.
"Stay here and risk the Awataba, if you choose," he offered.
I don't know what I should have answered, but Tawannears plucked my
sleeve and diverted my attention.
"Ask the chief whence came the maiden, brother," he urged.
I balked, inclined to doubt the wisdom of such personal questions.
"Ask!" he insisted. "Tawannears has a reason."
Wiki, himself, was attracted by the Seneca's earnest mien, and
inquired the subject of his remark. I answered reluctantly, but Wiki
evinced no displeasure.
"Say to your red brother," he answered courteously, "that the maiden
is Kachina, the Sacred Dancer, who herds the sacred turkeys of
Massi's shrine. She came to me once with a message from Massi, when
I fasted in the desert seeking for knowledge of what was to come."
I repeated this to Tawannears, and he sighed, by an effort wrenching
his eyes from the maiden's face.
"Tawannears thought---- But Hanegoategeh bewitches me!"
"Have a care he does not bewitch us all to death," I muttered
fiercely. "Must you, of all men, endanger our lives for idle
curiosity in a woman of a strange tribe?"
"What is death, brother?" returned the Seneca mournfully. "There
were times when we both prayed for it. Shall we fear it now?"
Peter bent close to me, his lips against my ear.
"She has der look of Gahano," he murmured. "Say no more. Idt is a
passing fancy. He will forget."
'Twas true. In no way identical, yet there was about this girl
Kachina a mystic semblance of that dead priestess of a renegade
Iroquois rite, for whom Tawannears had mourned so many years, whose
memory was the mainspring of our fantastic search, whose Lost Soul he
insisted was awaiting him in some dim land betwixt the worlds,
presided over by Ataentsic and Jouskeha, demi-gods of his heathen
pantheon.
"Pardon, brother," I said gently. "I spoke unkindly. My nerves are
on edge. But what shall I say to these people? They bid us come
with them or stay here and be finished by the naked savages who
hounded us hither. And if we go with them----"
"Go with them!" exclaimed Tawannears eagerly. "Ay, let us go!"
"Peter?"
The Dutchman yawned.
"_Ja_, we better go. I hafe a hole in my belly."