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Transcriber's note:
The symbol [=a] is used to denote the sound of a in "hare,"
which was originally represented in the text using the
letter "a" with a macron.
Other punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.
THE DELIGHT MAKERS
by
ADOLF F. BANDELIER
With an Introduction by Charles F. Lummis
Illustrated
[Illustration: Portrait of the Author]
New York Dodd, Mead and Company
Publishers
Copyright, 1890
by Dodd, Mead and Company
Copyright, 1916
by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
Copyright, 1918
by Mrs. Fanny R. Bandelier
Printed In U. S. A.
PREFACE
This story is the result of eight years spent in ethnological and
archæological study among the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. The first
chapters were written more than six years ago at the Pueblo of Cochiti.
The greater part was composed in 1885, at Santa Fé, after I had bestowed
upon the Tehuas the same interest and attention I had previously paid to
their neighbours the Queres. I was prompted to perform the work by a
conviction that however scientific works may tell the truth about the
Indian, they exercise always a limited influence upon the general
public; and to that public, in our country as well as abroad, the Indian
has remained as good as unknown. By clothing sober facts in the garb of
romance I have hoped to make the "Truth about the Pueblo Indians" more
accessible and perhaps more acceptable to the public in general.
The sober facts which I desire to convey may be divided into three
classes,--geographical, ethnological, and archæological. The
descriptions of the country and of its nature are real. The descriptions
of manners and customs, of creed and rites, are from actual observations
by myself and other ethnologists, from the statements of trustworthy
Indians, and from a great number of Spanish sources of old date, in
which the Pueblo Indian is represented as he lived when still unchanged
by contact with European civilization.
The descriptions of architecture are based upon investigations of ruins
still in existence on the sites where they are placed in the story.
The plot is my own. But most of the scenes described I have witnessed;
and there is a basis for it in a dim tradition preserved by the Queres
of Cochiti that their ancestors dwelt on the Rito de los Frijoles a
number of centuries ago, and in a similar tradition among the Tehuas of
the Pueblo of Santa Clara in regard to the cave-dwellings of the Puye.
A word to the linguist. The dialect spoken by the actors is that of
Cochiti for the Queres, that of San Juan for the Tehuas. In order to
avoid the complicated orthography latterly adopted by scientists for
Indian dialects, I have written Indian words and phrases as they would
be pronounced in continental languages. The letter [=a] is used to
denote the sound of a in "hare."
To those who have so kindly assisted me,--in particular to Rev. E. W.
Meany of Santa Fé, and to Dr. Norton B. Strong, of the United States
Army,--I herewith tender my heartfelt thanks.
AD. F. BANDELIER
SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO.
* * * * *
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The aim of our good and lamented friend in writing this book was to
place before the public, in novelistic garb, an account of the life and
activities of the Pueblo Indians before the coming of white men. The
information on which it is based was the result of his personal
observations during many years of study among the sedentary tribes of
New Mexico and in Spanish archives pertaining thereto in connection with
his researches for the Archæological Institute of America. He spent
months in continuous study at the Tehua pueblo of San Juan and the
Queres pueblo of Cochití, and the regard in which he was held by the
simple folk of those and other native villages was sincerely
affectionate. Bandelier's labors in his chosen field were commenced at a
time when a battle with hardship was a part of the daily routine, and
his method of performing the tasks before him was of the kind that
produced important results often at the expense of great suffering,
which on more than one occasion almost shut out his life.
Because not understood, _The Delight Makers_ was not received at first
with enthusiastic favor. It seemed unlike the great student of technical
problems deliberately to write a book the layman might read with
interest and profit; but his object once comprehended, the volume was
received in the spirit in which the venture was initiated and for a long
while search for a copy has often been in vain.
Bandelier has come unto his own. More than one serious student of the
ethno-history of our Southwest has frankly declared that the basis of
future investigation of the kind that Bandelier inaugurated will always
be the writings of that eminent man. Had he been permitted to live and
labor, nothing would have given him greater satisfaction than the
knowledge that the people among whom he spent so many years are of those
who fully appreciate the breadth of his learning and who have been
instrumental in the creation, by proclamation of the President, of the
"Bandelier National Monument," for the purpose of preserving for future
generations some of the archæological remains he was the first to
observe and describe.
F. W. HODGE.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
WASHINGTON, D. C.,
_September 25, 1916._
* * * * *
NOTE
A SPECIAL interest attaches to the illustrations, now first included in
this edition. Many of them are from photographs made by Chas. F. Lummis
in 1890, under the supervision of Bandelier, and with special reference
to "The Delight Makers," then being written. These two friends were the
first students to explore the Tyuonyi and its neighborhood. In rain and
shine, afoot, without blankets or overcoats, with no more provision than
a little _atole_ (popcorn meal) and sweet chocolate, they climbed the
cliffs, threaded the cañons, slept in caves or under trees, measured,
mapped and photographed the ruins and landscapes with a 40-pound camera,
and laid the basis-notes for part of Bandelier's monumental "Final
Report" to the Archæological Institute of America.
A few later photographs from the same hand show part of the excavation
done in the Tyuonyi by the School of American Archæology--through whose
loving and grateful efforts this cañon has been set apart as a National
Monument bearing the name of its discoverer and chronicler,
ADOLF F. BANDELIER.
Thanks are due also to Hon. Frederick C. Hicks, M.C., for six very
interesting photographs of the Zuñis and their country.
* * * * *
IN MEMORY
One day of August, 1888, in the teeth of a particular New Mexico
sand-storm that whipped pebbles the size of a bean straight to your
face, a ruddy, bronzed, middle-aged man, dusty but unweary with his
sixty-mile tramp from Zuñi, walked into my solitary camp at Los
Alamitos. Within the afternoon I knew that here was the most
extraordinary mind I had met. There and then began the uncommon
friendship which lasted till his death, a quarter of a century later;
and a love and admiration which will be of my dearest memories so long
as I shall live. I was at first suspicious of the "pigeon-hole memory"
which could not only tell me some Queres word I was searching for, but
add: "Policárpio explained that to me in Cochití, November 23, 1881."
But I discovered that this classified memory was an integral part of
this extraordinary genius. The acid tests of life-long collaboration
proved not only this but the judicial poise, the marvelous insight and
the intellectual chastity of Bandelier's mind. I cannot conceive of
anything in the world which would have made him trim his sails as a
historian or a student for any advantage here or hereafter.
Aside from keen mutual interests of documentary and ethnologic study, we
came to know one another humanly by the hard proof of the Frontier.
Thousands of miles of wilderness and desert we trudged side by
side--camped, starved, shivered, learned and were Glad together. Our
joint pursuits in comfort at our homes (in Santa Fé and Isleta,
respectively) will always be memorable to me; but never so wonderful as
that companioning in the hardships of what was, in our day, the really
difficult fringe of the Southwest. There was not a decent road. We had
no endowment, no vehicles. Bandelier was once loaned a horse; and after
riding two miles, led it the rest of the thirty. So we went always by
foot; my big camera and glass plates in the knapsack on my back, the
heavy tripod under my arm; his aneroid, surveying instruments, and
satchel of the almost microscopic notes which he kept fully and
precisely every night by the camp-fire (even when I had to crouch over
him and the precious paper with my water-proof focusing cloth) somehow
bestowed about him. Up and down pathless cliffs, through tangled cañons,
fording icy streams and ankle-deep sands, we travailed; no blankets,
overcoats, or other shelter; and the only commissary a few cakes of
sweet chocolate, and a small sack of parched popcorn meal. Our "lodging
was the cold ground." When we could find a cave, a tree, or anything to
temper the wind or keep off part of the rain, all right. If not, the
Open. So I came to love him as well as revere. I had known many
"scientists" and what happened when they really got Outdoors. He was in
no way an athlete--nor even muscular. I was both--and not very long
before had completed my thirty-five-hundred-mile "Tramp Across the
Continent." But I never had to "slow down" for him. Sometimes it was
necessary to use laughing force to detain him at dark where we had water
and a leaning cliff, instead of stumbling on through the trackless night
to an unknown "Somewheres." He has always reminded me of John Muir, the
only other man I have known intimately who was as insatiate a climber
and inspiring a talker. But Bandelier had one advantage. He could find
common ground with _anyone_. I have seen him with Presidents, diplomats,
Irish section-hands, Mexican peons, Indians, authors, scientists and
"society." Within an hour or so he was easily the Center. Not
unconscious of his power, he had an extraordinary and sensitive modesty,
which handicapped him through life among those who had the "gift of
push." He never put himself forward either in person or in his writing.
But something about him fascinated all these far-apart classes of
people, when he spoke. His command of English, French, Spanish, and
German might have been expected; but his facility in acquiring the
"dialects" of railroad men and cowboys, or the language of an Indian
tribe, was almost uncanny. When he first visited me, in Isleta, he knew
just three words of Tigua. In ten days he could make himself understood
by the hour with the Principales in their own unwritten tongue. Of
course, this was one secret of his extraordinary success in learning the
inner heart of the Indians.
I saw it proved again in our contact with the Quíchua and Aymará and
other tribes of Peru and Bolivia.
I have known many scholars and some heroes--but they seldom come in the
same original package. As I remember Bandelier with smallpox alone in
the two-foot snows of the Manzanos; his tens of thousands of miles of
tramping, exploring, measuring, describing, in the Southwest; his year
afoot and alone in Northern Mexico, with no more weapon than a
pen-knife, on the trails of raiding Apaches (where "scientific
expeditions" ten years later, when the Apache was eliminated, needed
armed convoys and pack-trains enough for a punitive expedition, and
wrote pretentious books about what every scholar has known for three
hundred years) I deeply wonder at the dual quality of his intellect.
Among them all, I have never known such student and such explorer lodged
in one tenement.
We were knit not only thus but in the very intimacies of life--sharing
hopes and bereavements. My first son, named for him, should now be
twenty-two. The old home in Santa Fé was as my own. The truly wonderful
little woman he found in Peru for mate--who shared his hardships among
the cannibals of the Amazonas and elsewhere, and so aided and still
carries on his work--I met in her maiden home, and am glad I may still
call her friend.
Naturally, among my dearest memories of our trampings together is that
of the Rito, the Tyuonyi. It had never in any way been pictured before.
We were the first students that ever explored it. He had discovered it,
and was writing "The Delight Makers." What days those were! The weather
was no friend of ours, nor of the camera's. We were wet and half-fed,
and cold by night, even in the ancient tiny caves. But the unforgettable
glory of it all!
To-day thousands of people annually visit the Tyuonyi at ease, and camp
for weeks in comfort. The School of American Archæology has a summer
session there; and its excavations verify Bandelier's surmises. Normal
students and budding archæologists sleep in the very caves (identified)
of the Eagle People, the Turquoise, Snake and other clans. And in that
enchanted valley we remember not only the Ancients, but the man who gave
all this to the world.
During the six years I was Librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library,
far later, no other out-of-print book on the Southwest was so eagerly
sought as "The Delight Makers." We had great trouble in getting our own
copy, which slept in the safe. The many students who wished copies of
their very own were referred to dealers in Americana, who searched for
this already rare volume; and many were proud to get it, at last, at
ten, fifteen and even twenty times its original price. It will always be
a standard--the most photographic story yet printed of the life of the
prehistoric Americans.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS.
* * * * *
ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of the Author _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The East End of the Cañon of the Tyuonyi 8
A Modern Indian Dance 18
An Estufa 18
Rito de los Frijoles: Cavate Rooms in Cliff; Ruins
of Talus Pueblo at the Foot of Cliff 38
A Westerly Cliff of the Habitations of the Tyuonyi,
Showing Second and Third Story Caves, and
Some High Lookout Caves 70
A Navajo Hogan 88
The Heart of the Tyuonyi: The Excavated Lower
Story of the Great Terraced Communal House 88
Rito de los Frijoles: A Cliff Estufa of the Snake-Clan 116
The Dance of the Ayash Tyucotz 140
Indian Pueblo Dances of To-day: Lining Up for the
Dance; The "Clowns" 164
Type of Old Indian Woman 186
Juanico: A Member of the Modern Village-Council 224
The Hishtanyi Chayan, or Chief Medicine Man 256
Looking Out from One of the Weathered Cave-Rooms
of the Snake-Clan 320
Rito de los Frijoles: Looking Out from the Ceremonial
Cave 384
Ruins of an Ancient Pueblo 472
A Modern Pueblo 486
* * * * *
THE DELIGHT MAKERS
CHAPTER I.
The mountain ranges skirting the Rio Grande del Norte on the west,
nearly opposite the town of Santa Fé, in the Territory of New Mexico,
are to-day but little known. The interior of the chain, the Sierra de
los Valles, is as yet imperfectly explored. Still, these bald-crested
mountains, dark and forbidding as they appear from a distance, conceal
and shelter in their deep gorges and clefts many a spot of great natural
beauty, surprisingly picturesque, but difficult of access. From the
river these cañons, as they are called in New Mexico, can be reached
only by dint of toilsome climbing and clambering; for their western
openings are either narrow gaps, or access to them is barred by colossal
walls and pillars of volcanic rocks. The entire formation of the chain,
as far as it faces the Rio Grande, is volcanic, the walls of the gorges
consisting generally of a friable white or yellowish tufa containing
nodules of black, translucent obsidian. The rock is so soft that in many
places it can be scooped out or detached with the most primitive tools,
or even with the fingers alone. Owing to this peculiarity the slopes
exposed to the south and east, whence most of the heavy rains strike
them, are invariably abrupt, and often even perpendicular; whereas the
opposite declivities, though steep, still afford room for scanty
vegetation. The gorges run from west to east,--that is, they descend
from the mountain crests to the Rio Grande, cutting the long and narrow
pedestal on which the high summits are resting.
Through some but not all of these gorges run never-failing streams of
clear water. In a few instances the gorge expands and takes the
proportions of a narrow vale. Then the high timber that usually skirts
the rivulets shrinks to detached groves, and patches of clear land
appear, which, if cultivated, would afford scanty support to one or two
modern families. To the village Indian such tillable spots were of the
greatest value. The deep ravine afforded shelter not only against the
climate but against roving enemies, and the land was sufficient for his
modest crops; since his wants were limited, and game was abundant.
The material of which the walls of these cañons are composed, suggested
in times past to the house-building Indian the idea of using them as a
home. The tufa and pumice-stone are so friable that, as we have said,
the rock can be dug or burrowed with the most primitive implements. It
was easier, in fact, to excavate dwellings than to pile up walls in the
open air.
Therefore the northern sides of these secluded gorges are perforated in
many places by openings similar in appearance to pigeon-holes. These
openings are the points of exit and entrance of artificial caves, dug
out by sedentary aborigines in times long past. They are met with in
clusters of as many as several hundred; more frequently, however, the
groups are small. Sometimes two or more tiers of caves are superimposed.
From the objects scattered about and in the cells, and from the size and
disposition of the latter, it becomes evident that the people who
excavated and inhabited them were on the same level of culture as the
so-called Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.
It is not surprising, therefore, that some traditions and myths are
preserved to-day among the Pueblos concerning these cave-villages. Thus
the Tehua Indians of the pueblo of Santa Clara assert that the
artificial grottos of what they call the Puiye and the Shufinne, west of
their present abodes, were the homes of their ancestors at one time. The
Queres of Cochiti in turn declare that the tribe to which they belong,
occupied, many centuries before the first coming of Europeans to New
Mexico, the cluster of cave-dwellings, visible at this day although
abandoned and in ruins, in that romantic and picturesquely secluded
gorge called in the Queres dialect Tyuonyi, and in Spanish "El Rito de
los Frijoles."
The Rito is a beautiful spot. Situated in a direct line not over twenty
miles west of Santa Fé, it can still be reached only after a long day's
tedious travel. It is a narrow valley, nowhere broader than half a mile;
and from where it begins in the west to where it closes in a dark and
gloomy entrance, scarcely wide enough for two men to pass abreast, in
the east, its length does not exceed six miles. Its southern rim is
formed by the slope of a timbered mesa, and that slope is partly
overgrown by shrubbery. The northern border constitutes a line of
vertical cliffs of yellowish and white pumice, projecting and
re-entering like decorations of a stage,--now perpendicular and smooth
for some distance, now sweeping back in the shape of an arched segment.
These cliffs vary in height, although nowhere are they less than two
hundred feet. Their tops rise in huge pillars, in crags and pinnacles.
Brushwood and pine timber crown the mesa of which these fantastic
projections are but the shaggy border.
Through the vale itself rustles the clear and cool brook to which the
name of Rito de los Frijoles is applied. It meanders on, hugging the
southern slope, partly through open spaces, partly through groves of
timber, and again past tall stately pine-trees standing isolated in the
valley willows, cherry-trees, cottonwoods, and elders form small
thickets along its banks. The Rito is a permanent streamlet
notwithstanding its small size. Its water freezes in winter, but it
never dries up completely during the summer months.
Bunches of tall grass, low shrubbery, and cactus grow in the open spaces
between rocky débris fallen from above. They also cover in part low
mounds of rubbish, and ruins of a large pentagonal building erected
formerly at the foot of a slope leading to the cliffs. In the cliffs
themselves, for a distance of about two miles, numerous caves dug out by
the hand of man are visible. Some of these are yet perfect; others have
wholly crumbled away except the rear wall. From a distance the
port-holes and indentations appear like so many pigeons' nests in the
naked rock. Together with the cavities formed by amygdaloid chambers and
crevices caused by erosion, they give the cliffs the appearance of a
huge, irregular honeycomb.
These ruins, inside as well as outside the northern walls of the cañon
of the Rito, bear testimony to the tradition still current among the
Queres Indians of New Mexico that the Rito, or Tyuonyi, was once
inhabited by people of their kind, nay, even of their own stock. But the
time when those people wooed and wed, lived and died, in that secluded
vale is past long, long ago. Centuries previous to the advent of the
Spaniards, the Rito was already deserted. Nothing remains but the ruins
of former abodes and the memory of their inhabitants among their
descendants. These ancient people of the Rito are the actors in the
story which is now to be told; the stage in the main is the Rito itself.
The language of the actors is the Queres dialect, and the time when the
events occurred is much anterior to the discovery of America, to the
invention of gunpowder and the printing-press in Europe. Still the Rito
must have appeared then much as it appears now,--a quiet, lovely,
picturesque retreat, peaceful when basking in the sunlight, wonderfully
quiet when the stars sparkled over it, or the moon shed its floods of
silver on the cliffs and on the murmuring brook below.
In the lower or western part of its course the Tyuonyi rushes in places
through thickets and small groves, out of which rise tall pine-trees. It
is very still on the banks of the brook when, on a warm June day,
noon-time is just past and no breeze fans the air; not a sound is heard
beyond the rippling of the water; the birds are asleep, and the noise of
human activity does not reach there from the cliffs. Still, on the day
of which we are now speaking, a voice arose from the thicket, calling
aloud,--
"Umo,--'grandfather!'"[1]
"To ima satyumishe,--'come hither, my brother,'" another voice replied
in the same dialect, adding, "See what a big fish I have caught."
It sounded as though this second voice had issued from the very waters
of the streamlet.
Pine boughs rustled, branches bent, and leaves shook. A step scarcely
audible was followed by a noiseless leap. On a boulder around which
flowed streams of limpid water there alighted a young Indian.
He was of medium height and well-proportioned. His hands and feet were
rather small and delicate. He carried his head erect with ease and
freedom. Jet-black hair, slightly waving, streamed loose over temples
and cheeks, and was gathered at the back in a short thick knot. In front
it parted naturally, leaving exposed a narrow strip of the brow. The
features of the face, though not regular, were still attractive, for
large black eyes, almond-shaped, shone bright from underneath heavy
lashes. The complexion was dusky, and the skin had a velvety gloss.
Form, carriage, and face together betokened a youth of about eighteen
years.
His costume was very plain. A garment of unbleached cotton, coarsely
woven, covered the body as low as the knee. This garment, sleeveless and
soiled by wear, was tied over the right shoulder. A reddish-brown scarf
or belt of the same material fastened it around the waist. Feet, arms,
and the left shoulder were bare. Primitive as was this costume, there
was, nevertheless, an attempt here and there at decoration. The belt was
ornamented with black and white stitches; from each ear hung a turquoise
suspended by a cotton thread, and a necklace of coloured pebbles strung
on yucca fibre encircled the neck.
Like a statue of light-coloured bronze decked with scanty drapery, and
adorned with crude trinkets, holding a bow in the right hand, while the
left clenched a few untipped arrows, the youth stood on the boulder
outlined against the shrubbery, immovable above the running brook. His
gaze was fixed on the opposite bank, where a youngster was kneeling.
The latter was a boy of perhaps nine years. A dirty wrap hung loosely
over shoulders and back, and no necklace or ear-pendants decorated his
body. But the childish features were enlivened by a broad grin of
satisfaction, and his eyes sparkled like coals just igniting, while he
pointed to a large mountain trout which he pressed against a stone with
both hands. He looked at the older youth with an expression not merely
of pleasure, but of familiar intimacy also. It was clear that both boys
were children of the same parents.
The younger one spoke first,--
"See here, Okoya," he began, grinning; "while you are older than I, and
bigger and stronger, I am more cunning than you. Ever since the sun came
out you have followed the turkeys, and what have you? Nothing! Your
hands are empty! I have just come down from the field, and look! I
caught this fish in the water. Shall we fry and eat it here, or carry it
home to the mother?"
The older brother did not relish the taunt; his lips curled. He replied
scornfully,--
"Any child may catch a fish, but only men can follow turkeys. The tzina
is shy and wary; it knows how sure my aim is, therefore it hides when I
go out to hunt."
The little one replied to this pompous explanation with a clear mocking
laugh.
"Turkeys care nothing about you," he retorted. "It is nothing to them
whether you go out or not!"
"Shyuote," his brother scolded, "stop prating about things of which you
do not know. It is true I am not one of the order of hunters, Shyayak,
but I may become so soon." He stopped, as if a sudden thought had struck
him, and then exclaimed: "Now I know why luck has failed me this
morning! When I left our houses I should have scattered meal, and placed
a pebble on the heap beside the trail, and offered a plume to our Mother
Above. All this I neglected. Now I am punished for it by the birds
concealing themselves. For had they come out--"
"You would have missed them," tauntingly replied the other. "If you want
to kill turkeys join the Koshare. Then you will catch them with roots
and flowers."
Okoya grew angry.
"Hush! foolish boy," he retorted, "what are the Koshare to me? Don't
speak about such things here. Come, take your fish, and let us go home."
With this Okoya leaped over the brook. Shyuote whispered audibly to him,
"Yes; you are very fond of the Koshare." But the sarcastic remark was
not heeded by the elder lad, who turned to go, Shyuote following him.
Proudly the little boy tossed his fish from one hand to the other.
Beyond the straight and lofty pine trunks a whitish glare soon appeared.
Brilliant sunlight broke through the tree-tops, and played around the
dark needles, turning them into a brighter, lighter, emerald green. A
background of yellow and cream-coloured rocks, visible now through
openings in the shrubbery, showed that the boys were approaching a clear
space.
Here the elder one suddenly stopped, turned to his brother, looked
straight at him, and asked,--
"Shyuote, what have you heard about the Koshare?"
Instead of answering the child looked down, indifferent and silent, as
if he had not heard the query.
"What have you heard, boy?" continued the other.
Shyuote shrugged his shoulders. He had no inclination to reply.
"Why don't you answer?" Okoya persisted.
His brother looked up, cast a furtive glance at the interlocutor, then
stared vacantly, but with head erect, before him. His eyes were glassy
and without any expression.
[Illustration: The east end of the Cañon of the Tyuonyi]
Whenever the Indian does not wish to speak on any subject, whatever it
be, no power on earth can compel him to break silence. Okoya, as an
Indian, felt rather than understood this; and the child's refusal to
answer a very simple question aroused his suspicions. He looked at the
stubborn boy for a moment, undecided whether he would not resort to
force. The child's taunts had mortified his pride in the first place;
now that child's reticence bred misgivings. He nevertheless restrained
both anger and curiosity for the present, not because of indifference
but for policy's sake, and turned to go. Shyuote looked for a moment as
if he wished to confess to his brother all that the latter inquired
about, but soon pouted, shrugged his shoulders, and set out after Okoya
in a lively fox-trot again.
The valley lay before them; they had reached the end of the grove.
Smiling in the warm glow of a June day, with a sky of deepest azure, the
vale of the Rito expanded between the spot which the boys had reached
and the rocky gateways in the west, where that valley seemed to begin.
Fields, small and covered with young, bushy maize-plants, skirted the
brook, whose silvery thread was seen here and there as its meanderings
carried it beneath the shadow of shrubs and trees, or exposed it to the
full light of the dazzling sun. In the plantations human forms appeared,
now erect, now bent down over their work. A ditch of medium size
bordered the fields on the north, carrying water from the brook for
purposes of irrigation. Still north of the ditch, and between it and the
cliffs, arose a tall building, which from a distance looked like a high
clumsy pile of clay or reddish earth.
This pile was irregularly terraced. Human beings stood on the terraces
or moved along them. Now and then one was seen to rise from the interior
of the pile to one of the terraced roofs, or another slowly sank from
sight, as if descending into the interior of the earthy heap. On the
outside, beams leaned against it, and on them people went up and down,
as if climbing ladders. Thin films of smoke quivered in the air from
imperceptible flues.
The cliffs themselves extended north of this building and east and west
as far as the range of view permitted, like a yellowish ribbon of
towering height with innumerable flexures and alternations of light and
shade. Their base was enlivened by the bustle of those who dwelt in
caves all along the foot of the imposing rocky wall. Where to-day only
vacant holes stare at the visitor, at the hour on the day when our story
begins, human eyes peered through. Other doors were closed by deer-hides
or robes. Sometimes a man, a woman, or a child, would creep out of one
of these openings, and climbing upward, disappear in the entrance of an
upper tier of cave-dwellings. Others would descend the slope from the
cliffs to the fields, while still others returned from the banks of the
ditch or of the brook. At the distance from which the boys viewed the
landscape all passed noiselessly; no human voice, no clamour disturbed
the stillness of the scene.
Peaceful as Nature appeared, neither of the youth were in the least
struck by its charms or influenced by the spell which such a tranquil
and cheerful landscape is likely to exercise upon thinking and feeling
man. With both it was indifference; for the Indian views Nature with the
eyes of a materially interested spectator only. But the elder brother
had another reason for not noticing the beauty of the scene. He was not
only troubled, he was seriously embarrassed. The hint thrown out by his
little brother about the Koshare had struck him; for it led to the
inference that the child had knowledge of secret arts and occult
practices of which even he, Okoya, although on the verge of manhood, had
never received any intimation. Far more yet than this knowledge, which
Shyuote might have obtained through mere accident, the hint at
unpleasant relations between Okoya and the Koshare startled the latter.
It was perfectly true that he not only disliked but even hated the
cluster of men to which the name of Koshare was given in the tribe; but
he had concealed his feelings as carefully as possible until now. Only
once, as far as he could remember, had he spoken of his aversion; and
then it was during an absolutely confidential conversation with his own
mother, who seemed to entertain like sentiments.
To his father he had never uttered a word; because his father was
himself a Koshare. Whatever Shyuote knew, he could only have gathered by
overhearing a conversation of the Koshare among themselves, in which it
was mentioned that he, Okoya, harboured ill-feelings toward that
brotherhood. In that case he might be exposed to serious danger, since,
as he believed, those people were in possession of knowledge of a higher
order, and practised arts of an occult nature. Against danger arising
from such a source, Okoya considered himself utterly defenceless.
The more he tried to think over these matters, the more troubled his
mind became. Only one thought appeared logical and probable and that was
that the boy had overheard one or other of the Koshare's intimate
conversations. But how came it that the Koshare knew about Okoya's
aversion toward them? Who could have told them? Only his mother knew the
secret! Had she, perhaps, she--The thought was like a spark which glowed
for a while, grew to a flame, flared and flickered unsteadily within his
heart, then began to shrink. No, no; it was impossible! it could not be!
His mother would never betray her child! The flame died out, the spark
remained fast dying. Suddenly it blazed up again as if some breath had
fanned it.
With renewed insistence, it struck Okoya that even if Shyuote had merely
overheard a conversation and the child's knowledge was derived from that
source, the most extraordinary part of the information could only have
come from one source,--the person in whom he had confided, his mother!
She alone could have told the Koshare that Okoya hated them. The spark
flared up anew; it burst out in a wild flame of suspicion. It singed
the heart and smothered feeling as well as reason. It so completely
absorbed his thoughts, that Okoya forgot everything else. Instead of
walking along at a quiet easy gait, he rushed fast and faster, wrapped
in dismal despair and in wild impotent wrath. Heedless of his little
companion he ran, panting with agitation, until Shyuote, unable to keep
pace and startled at his wild gait, pulled his garment and begged him to
stop.
"Brother," he cried, "why do you go so fast? I cannot follow you!"
Okoya came to a sudden halt, and turned toward the boy like one aroused
from a sinister dream. Shyuote stared at him with surprise akin to
fright. How changed was his appearance! Never before had he seen him
with a countenance so haggard, with eyes hollow and yet burning with a
lurid glow. Loose hair hung down over forehead and cheeks, perspiration
stood on the brow in big drops. The child involuntarily shrunk back, and
Okoya, noticing it, gasped,--
"You are right, the day is long yet and the houses near. We will go
slower."
Bowing his head again he went on at a slower gait.
Shyuote followed in silence. Although surprised at the change in his
brother's looks, he did not for a moment entertain the thought or desire
of inquiring into the cause of it. He was fully satisfied that as long
as Okoya did not see fit to speak of the matter, he had no right to ask
about it: in short, that it was none of his business.
Meanwhile dark and dismal thoughts were chasing each other within the
elder brother's soul. Doubt and suspicion became more and more crushing.
He was tempted to break the spell and interrogate Shyuote once more,
even to wrench from him, if needs be, a full explanation. The boy was
old enough to enjoy that great and often disagreeable quality of the
American Indian, reticence. Furthermore, he might have been forbidden to
speak.
If the Indian is not an ideal being, he is still less a stolid mentally
squalid brute. He is not reticent out of imbecility or mental weakness.
He fails properly to understand much of what takes place around him,
especially what happens within the circle of our modern civilization,
but withal he is far from indifferent toward his surroundings. He
observes, compares, thinks, reasons, upon whatever he sees or hears, and
forms opinions from the basis of his own peculiar culture. His senses
are very acute for natural phenomena; his memory is excellent, as often
as he sees fit to make use of it. There is no difference between him and
the Caucasian in original faculties, and the reticence peculiar to him
under certain circumstances is not due to lack of mental aptitude.
He does not practise that reticence alike toward all. A great number of
examples seems to establish the fact that the Indian has developed a
system of casuistry, based upon a remarkably thorough knowledge of human
nature. Certain matters are kept concealed from some people, whereas
they are freely discussed with others, and _vice versa_. The Indian
hardly ever keeps a secret to himself alone; it is nearly always shared
by others whom the matter directly concerns. It may be said of the red
man that he keeps secrets in the same manner that he lives,--namely, in
groups or clusters. The reason is that with him individualism, or the
mental and moral independence of the individual, has not attained the
high degree of development which prevails among white races.
When Europeans began to colonize America in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, the social organization of its inhabitants presented a
picture such as had disappeared long before on the continent of Europe.
Everywhere there prevailed linguistic segregation,--divisions into
autonomous groups called tribes or stocks, and within each of these,
equally autonomous clusters, whose mutual alliance for purposes of
sustenance and defence constituted the basis of tribal society. The
latter clusters were the clans, and they originated during the
beginnings of the human family. Every clan formed a group of supposed
blood-relatives, looking back to a mythical or traditional common
ancestor. Descent from the mother being always plain, the clan claimed
descent in the female line even if every recollection of the female
ancestor were lost, and theoretically all the members of one clan were
so many brothers and sisters. This organization still exists in the
majority of tribes; the members of one clan cannot intermarry, and, if
all the women of a clan die, that clan dies out also, since there is
nobody left to perpetuate it. The tribe is in reality but a league; the
clan is the unit. At the time we speak of, the affairs of each tribe
were administered by an assembly of delegates from all its clans who at
the same time arbitrated inevitable disputes between the several
blood-relations.
Each clan managed its own affairs, of which no one outside of its
members needed to know anything. Since the husbands always belonged to a
different consanguine group from their wives, and the children followed
their mother's line of descent, the family was permanently divided.
There was really no family in our sense of the word. The Indian has an
individual name only. He is, in addition, distinguished by the name of
his clan, which in turn has its proper cognomen. The affairs of the
father's clan did not concern his wife or his children, whereas a
neighbour might be his confidant on such matters. The mother, son, and
daughter spoke among themselves of matters of which the father was not
entitled to know, and about which he scarcely ever felt enough curiosity
to inquire. Consequently there grew a habit of not caring about other
people's affairs unless they affected one's own, and of confiding
secrets to those only whom they could concern, and who were entitled to
know them. In the course of time the habit became a rule of education.
Reticence, secrecy, discretion, are therefore no virtues with the
Indian; they are simply the result of training.
Okoya too had been under the influence of such training, and he knew
that Shyuote, young as he was, had already similar seeds planted within
him. But uncertainty was insufferable; it weighed too heavily upon him,
he could no longer bear it.
"Umo," he burst out, turning abruptly and looking at the boy in an
almost threatening manner, "how do you know that I dislike the Koshare?"
Shyuote cast his eyes to the ground, and remained silent. His brother
repeated the query; the little fellow only shrugged his shoulders. With
greater insistence the elder proceeded,--
"Shyuote Tihua, who told you that the Delight Makers are not precious to
me, nor I to them?"
Shyuote shook his head, pouted, and stared vacantly to one side. He
manifestly refused to answer.
Cold perspiration stood on the brow of the elder brother; his body
quivered in anguish; he realized the truth of his suspicions. Unable any
longer to control himself he cried,--
"It is my mother who told them!"
Trembling, with clenched hands and gnashing teeth, he gazed at the child
unconsciously. Shyuote, frightened at his wild and menacing attitude,
and ignorant of the real cause of his brother's excitement, raised his
hand to his forehead and began to sob.
A shout coming from the immediate vicinity aroused and startled Okoya. A
voice called out to him,--
"Umo!"
He looked around in surprise. They were standing close to the cultivated
plots, and a man loomed up from between the maize-plants. He it was who
called, and as soon as Okoya turned toward him he beckoned the youth to
come nearer. Okoya's face darkened; he reluctantly complied, leaped over
the ditch, walked up to the interlocutor, and stood still before him in
the attitude of quiet expectancy with downcast eyes. Shyuote had dropped
to the ground; the call did not interfere with his sobs; he pouted
rather than grieved.
Okoya's interlocutor was a man of strong build, apparently in the
forties. His features, although somewhat flat and broad, created a
favourable impression at first; upon closer scrutiny, however, the eyes
modified that impression. They were small, and their look piercing
rather than bright. His costume was limited to a tattered breech-clout of
buckskin. A collar of small white shells encircled the neck, and from
this necklace dangled a triangular piece of alabaster, flat, and with a
carving on it suggesting the shape of a dragon-fly. His hair streamed
loose over the left ear, where there was fastened to the black coarse
strands a tuft of grayish down.
This individual eyed Okoya in silence for a moment, as if inspecting his
person; then he inquired,--
"Where do you come from?"
The young fellow looked up and replied,--
"From below," pointing to the lower end of the gorge.
"What did you hunt?" the other continued, glancing at the bow and arrows
of the boy.
"Tzina;" and with perceptible embarrassment Okoya added, "but I killed
nothing."
The man seemed not to heed the humiliation which this confession
entailed, and asked,--
"Have you seen tracks of the mountain-sheep down yonder?"
"Not one; but I saw at a distance on the slope two bears very large and
strong."
The other shook his head.
"Then there are no mountain sheep toward that end of the Tyuonyi," he
said, waving his left hand toward the southeast, "thank you, boy," at
the same time extending his right to the youth. Okoya grasped it, and
breathed on the outside of the hand. Then he said, "hoa umo," and turned
and sauntered back to where his little brother was still squatting and
pouting, morose and silent.
The man had also turned around, bent down, and gone on weeding the corn.
Withal he did not lose sight of the boys; on the contrary, an occasional
stealthy glance from his half-closed eyes shot over where they met.
Shyuote rose from the ground. His eyes were dry, but he glanced at his
brother with misgivings as well as with curiosity. The latter felt a
sudden pang upon beholding the childish features. The short
interruption, though annoying at first, had diverted him from gloomy
thoughts. Now, everything came back to his mind with renewed force,--the
same anguish, the feeling of utter helplessness in case of impending
danger, indignation at what he believed to have been base treason on the
part of his mother,--all this rushed upon him with fearful force, and he
stood again motionless, a picture of wild perplexity. His face betokened
the state of his mind. Shyuote did not dare to inquire of him further
than to ask a very insignificant question,--namely, who the man was that
had called.
Okoya answered readily, for this query was almost a relief,--a diversion
which enabled him to subdue his agitation. "Tyope Tihua," he said
hastily, "wanted to know if I had seen any mountain sheep. I told him
that I had only seen bear-tracks. Let him follow those," he growled.
"Come on, satyumishe, it is getting late."
While this conversation had been carried on, the boys, now hurrying and
now slackening their pace, had arrived within a short distance of the
tall clay-pile, which was seen to be a high polygonal building,
apparently closed on all sides. Between them and this edifice there was
still another lower one, not unlike an irregular honeycomb. About forty
cells, separated from each other by walls of earth, carried up from the
ground to a few inches above the terraced roof, constituted a
ground-floor on which rested a group of not more than a dozen similar
cells. The walls of this structure were of stones, irregularly broken
and clumsily piled, but they were covered by a thick coating of clay so
that nothing of the rough core remained visible. Instead of doors or
entrances, air-holes, round or oval, perforated these walls.
The house appeared empty. No smoke flitted over the flat roof; the
coating was so recent that many places were hardly dry.
[Illustration: (Upper picture) A modern Indian Dance]
[Illustration: (Lower picture) An estufa]
North of this building, a circular structure thirty feet in diameter
rose a few feet only above the soil, like the upper part of a sunken
cylinder. Its top was flat, and large flags of stone formed a rough
staircase leading to its roof. In the centre, a square opening appeared,
out of which a tall beam, notched at regular intervals like a primitive
ladder, protruded, and down which also the beam disappeared as if
extended into the bowels of the earth. This edifice, half underground,
half above the soil, was what to-day is called in New Mexico an
_estufa_.[2] This Spanish word has become a technical term, and we shall
hereafter use it in the course of the story as well as the designations
_tshikia_ and _kaaptsh_ of the Queres Indians.
The estufas were more numerous in a single pueblo formerly than they are
now. Nor are they always sunken. At the Rito there were at least ten,
five of which were circular chambers in the rock of the cliffs. These
chambers or halls were, in the times we speak of, gathering places for
men exclusively. No woman was permitted to enter, unless for the purpose
of carrying food to the inmates. Each clan had its own estufa, and the
young men slept in it under the surveillance of one or more of the aged
principals, until they married, and frequently even afterward.
There the young men became acquainted with the affairs of their
individual connections, and little by little also with the business of
the tribe. There, during the long evenings of winter, old men taught
them the songs and prayers embodying traditions and myths, first of
their own clan, then of the tribe.[3] The estufa was school, club-house,
nay, armory to a certain extent. It was more. Many of the prominent
religious exercises took place in it. The estufa on special occasions
became transformed into a temple for the clan who had reared it.
From the depths of this structure there came a series of
dull sounds like beats of a drum. The youngsters stopped short, and
looked at each other in surprise.
"The new house," whispered Okoya, "which the Corn clan have built here
is empty, yet there is somebody in its estufa. What may this mean?"
"Let us look into it," eagerly suggested Shyuote.
"Go you alone!" directed the elder brother. "I will walk on, and you can
overtake me by-and-by."
That suited Shyuote. He crept stealthily toward the round building.
There was an air-hole in the rim which rose above the ground. Crouching
like a cat, the boy cautiously peered through this opening, but quickly
withdrew with an expression of disappointment. The underground chamber
was not even finished; its walls were dark and raw, the floor rough, and
on this floor a half-dozen young fellows in every stage of dress or
undress were lounging. One of them mechanically touched a small drum
with a stick, while two or three of the others were humming a monotonous
tune to the rhythm of his rappings. Shyuote stole away in evident
discontent; his curiosity was satisfied, but at the expense of his
expectations.
Loud laughter, screams, and animated talking diverted his attention, and
caused him to run in the direction of the new house of the Corn clan. He
heard the voice of his brother, but at the same time women's voices
also, and as soon as he turned the farther corner of the building, he
saw what was plainly a playful encounter between Okoya and a pair of
young girls.
The former had his bow in hand ready to shoot, and he pointed the arrow
at the maidens alternately; they, utterly unconcerned about his weapon,
were pressing him with weapons of their own, which he was much more
anxious to avoid than they his missiles. These were two pairs of very
dirty hands filled and covered with liquid mud with which the damsels
attempted to decorate his person. Okoya was clearly on the defensive,
and the advantage so far seemed on the side of his aggressors. Shyuote
flew to his assistance. Rushing to a large vessel of burnt clay,
standing alongside the wall and filled with water, he plunged both hands
into it, and began to bespatter the assailants with the not very clean
liquid. Forthwith one of the girls turned against the new enemy. She was
older and taller than Shyuote. Seizing his raven locks she pulled him to
the ground on his face, knelt on the prostrate form, and then and there
gave the boy a series of energetic cuffs against which the youngster
struggled and wriggled in the most desperate but absolutely ineffectual
manner. The fair sex held the balance of power and wielded it. At every
attempt of Shyuote to rise or to roll over, she pushed his face back
into the moist ground, she pulled his hair, thumped his shoulders, and
boxed his ears. She was in earnest, and Shyuote was powerless in her
firm grasp. He could not even scream, for a thick coating of soil had
fastened itself to his features, had penetrated into eye, mouth, and
nostrils. His fate was as melancholy as it was ludicrous; it brought
about a truce between Okoya and the other maiden. They dropped, he the
weapon, she her muddy arms, and looked at the other set of combatants
with surprise and with immoderate laughter. The Indian is not
tender-hearted on such occasions. When the victorious beauty at last
arose, suffering her victim to turn over again, the merriment became
uproarious, for Shyuote presented the appearance of a blowing, spitting,
coughing, statue of dirt. His looks were in no manner improved by his
frenzy after the boy had rubbed his eyes, and recovered his breath.
Tears of rage rolled down his cheeks over patches of sand and mud, and
when he noticed the mirth of the others Shyuote's fury knew no bounds.
He rushed madly at the triumphant lass, who did not shrink from the
hostile approach. The contest was threatening to assume serious
proportions, when another person appeared upon the scene, at the sight
of whom even Shyuote temporarily stayed all demonstrations, while Okoya
seemed both startled and embarrassed. The new-comer was a young girl
too; she carried on her head a vessel of burnt clay similar to a flat
urn, decorated with black and red designs on cream-coloured ground, and
filled with water.
To understand this scene we must know that the two girls had been
engaged in putting on the last coat of plaster to the walls of the abode
of the Corn people, when Okoya suddenly came upon them. At a glance they
saw that he had been on a hunt, and also that he had hunted in vain.
Here was a welcome opportunity for jeering and mockery. They interrupted
their plastic labour, and turned against him with such merciless
allusions to his ill-success, that unable any longer to reply to their
sarcasm Okoya threatened them, in jest of course, with his bow. Instead
of desisting, the girls at once moved upon him with muddy hands. The one
who last appeared upon the scene, although assistant to the others,
inasmuch as she carried the water needed in the preparation of the mud
for plastering, had not seen the engagement just fought. She looked at
the group in blank surprise, stood still without lifting the bowl from
her head, and presented thus the appearance of a handsome statue, dusky
and graceful, whose lustrous black eyes alone moved, glancing from one
of the members of the group to the other. Those large expressive eyes
plainly asked, "What does all this mean?"
The antagonists of Okoya and Shyuote were buxom lasses, rather short,
thick-waisted, full-chested, with flat faces, prominent cheek-bones, and
bright eyes. The third maiden was taller and much more graceful: her
features were less coarse, less prominently distinctive. The nose was
well-proportioned, the mouth also, although the lips were rather heavy.
The eyes were large and beaming, soft yet not without an intelligent
expression. All three girls were dressed nearly alike. A dark-blue
cotton garment descended as far as the knees; it was tied over the left
shoulder, and the right was exposed. A red-tinged scarf served as belt
around the waist. Arms and feet were bare. The long black hair streamed
loosely. Two of them wore heavy necklaces of green stones, red pebbles,
and shell beads. The last comer carried only a single string of shell
beads with an iridescent conch fastened to it in front. Ear-pendants of
turquoises hung from the ears of all three.
The attention of the girl with the urn on her head soon rested on
Shyuote, and she was the first to break the silence by a hearty peal of
laughter. This started her companions again, and the one nearest to
Okoya exclaimed,--
"Mitsha help us throw the water in your urn over the head of the boy.
Okoya began it all, give it to him, too. You are strong enough."
At the mention of Okoya's name the maiden addressed as Mitsha started.
She threw a quick glance like a flash at him. Her face quivered and
coloured slightly. Turning away, she deposited the water-urn at the foot
of the wall, and remained standing, her eyes directed to the cliffs, her
lithe fingers carelessly playing with the beads of her necklace. She was
disinclined to take any part in the fray, and her behaviour acted as a
damper on the buoyancy of the others. Okoya hastily gathered up his
arrows, and called Shyuote to his side. But the boy did not care to
obey. Thirst for revenge held him to the spot of his defeat; he shook
his fists at the girls, clenched his teeth, and began to threaten
vengeance, and to shower uncomplimentary expressions upon them. As soon,
however, as the one who had so effectually routed him showed again a
decided movement toward his raven locks, he beat a hasty retreat to his
elder brother. This change of base excited new hilarity, and under a
shower of jokes and sarcasms the two boys departed. Okoya walked along
at a steady gait; but Shyuote, as soon as he considered the distance
safe enough, turned around, making grimaces at the belligerent damsels,
vowing vengeance, and uttering opprobrious epithets of the choicest
kind. He noticed that the two returned his compliments without reserve,
whereas Mitsha stood in silence leaning against the house-wall. One
single look, one earnest almost sad glance, she sent after the
disappearing form of Shyuote's elder brother.
The main building was now close at hand. It was an irregular pentagon,
and at places two, at others three stories high. With one single
exception these stories formed terraces, retreating successively from
the ground to the top like so many steps of a staircase. Nowhere did
there appear any entrance. Notched beams led up to trapdoors in the
roofs, similar beams penetrated into the interior below. Absolute
stillness reigned about the edifice. Some women scoured scanty clothing
in the ditch running past the structure; on the terraces not a soul
appeared. The lads directed their course toward that side where the
three stories presented a perpendicular wall, and as they neared it an
entrance, or doorway, high enough for a man and wide enough for four
abreast appeared in the vertical front. It led them through a dark
passage into an interior court which was fairly clean and contained
three estufas. Its diameter did not exceed one hundred and fifty feet.
Toward this court, or yard, the stories of the building descended in
terraces also; but though everywhere beams leaned up as ladders, access
to the ground-floor was also afforded by narrow doorways closed with
hides or mats. It was hot and quiet in this yard; the sun shed glaring
light into it and over the roofs. Naked urchins played and squirmed
below, whereas above, an old woman or some aged man would cower
motionless, shading their blear eyes with one hand and warming their
cold frames in the heat. Okoya went directly to one of the ground-floor
openings, lifted the deerskin that hung over it, and called out the
usual greeting,--
"Guatzena!"
"Opona,--'come in,'" responded a woman's voice. Both lads obeyed the
summons. At first the room seemed dark on account of the sudden contrast
with the glare outside, but as soon as this first impression was
overcome, it appeared moderately lighted. It was a chamber about
fourteen feet long and ten feet wide, and its walls were whitewashed
with burnt gypsum. Deer-hides and a mat plaited of yucca-leaves lay
rolled up in one corner. A niche contained a small earthen bowl, painted
white with black symbolic figures. A doorway to the right led into
another compartment which seemed darker than the first. As soon as the
boys entered the room, a woman appeared in this side doorway. She was
small, slender, and apparently thirty-five years of age. Her features,
notwithstanding the high cheek-bones, were attractive though wan and
thin. An air of physical suffering lay over them like a thin cloudy
veil. At the sight of this woman, Okoya's heart began to throb again;
for she it was whom he so direly suspected, nay, accused of treachery
and deceit. This woman was his mother.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The word "umo" properly signifies "grandfather;" but it is
used indiscriminately for all ages and sexes in calling. An old man, for
instance, will call his grandchild "umo;" so will a wife her husband, a
brother his sister, etc.]
[Footnote 2: _Estufa_ properly means a stove, and the name was applied
to those semi-subterranean places by the Spaniards on account of their
comfortable temperature in winter. They recalled to them the
_temaz-calli_, or sweat-houses, of Mexico.]
[Footnote 3: The preservation of traditions is much systematized among
the Pueblo Indians. Certain societies know hardly any other but the
folk-tales relating to their own particular origin. To obtain correct
tradition it is necessary to gain the confidence of men high in degree.
That is mostly very difficult.]