The woman said, "I do not know how to make the earth hard."

Three times Utset asked the woman about hardening the earth, and three

times the woman said, "I do not know." The fourth time the woman said,

"Well, I guess I know. I will try."

So she called together the members of the Spider society, the Kapina,

and said,

"Our mother, Sussistinnako, bids us work for her and harden the earth so

that the people may pass over it." The spider woman first made a road of

fine cotton which she produced from her own body, and suspended it a few

feet above the earth. Then she told the people they could travel on

that. But the people were afraid to trust themselves to such a frail

road.

Then Utset said, "I wish a man and not a woman of the Spider society to

work for me."

Then he came. He threw out a charm of wood, latticed so it could be

expanded or contracted. When it was extended it reached to the middle of

the earth. He threw it to the south, to the east, and to the west; then

he threw it toward the people in the north.

So the earth was made firm that the people might travel upon it.

Soon after Utset said, "I will soon leave you. I will, return to the

home from which I came."

Then she selected a man of the Corn clan. She said to him, "You will be

known as Ti-amoni (arch-ruler). You will be to my people as myself. You

will pass with them over the straight road. I give to you all my wisdom,

my thoughts, my heart, and all. I fill your mind with my mind."

Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest · 第 15 / 33 题