Lamentations over a dead body are everywhere a sad and sickening
performance to witness and to hear. Among the aborigines of New
Mexico--among the sedentary tribes at least--the official death-wail is
carried on for four days. The number four plays a conspicuous rôle in
the lives of those people. And it is natural that it should. Four are
the cardinal points, four the seasons, four times five digits depend
from hands and feet. The Queres has not even a distinct term for finger
or for toe. He designates the former as one above the hand, the latter
as one above the foot. Four days the redman fasts or does penance; four
days he mourns, for that is the time required by the soul to travel from
the place where it has been liberated from the thralls of earthly life
to the place of eternal felicity. At the time of which we are speaking,
the body was still cremated, and with it everything that made up the
personal effects of the deceased.[11] If a man, his clothes, his
weapons, his loom, in case he had practised the art of weaving, were
burned; if a woman, the cooking utensils were "killed;" that is, either
perforated at the bottom or broken over the funeral pyre and afterward
consumed. In this manner the deceased was accompanied by his worldly
goods, in the shape of smoke and steam, through that air in which the
soul travelled toward Shipapu, in the far-distant mythical North. The
road must be long to Shipapu, else it would not require four entire days
to reach it; and there are neither eating-places nor half-way houses on
the way, where the dead may stop for refreshments. Therefore the
survivors placed on the spot where the body had rested for the last time
an effigy of the dead, a wooden carving, and covered it with a piece of
cloth; while by the side of this effigy they deposited food and water,
in order that neither cold, hunger, nor thirst might cause the
travelling spirit to suffer. But the road is not only long, it is also
dangerous; evil spirits lie in wait for the deceased to capture him if
possible, and hamper his ultimate felicity. To protect himself against
them a small war-club is added to the other necessaries, and to render
the journey safe beyond a doubt a magic circle is drawn, encompassing
the statuette with a circle of cruciform marks, imitating the footprints
of the shashka, or road-runner. As these crosses point in all four
directions, it is supposed that evil spirits will become bewildered and
unable to pursue the soul in its transit. At the end of the fourth day,
with many prayers and ceremonies, the circle is obliterated, and the
other objects, including the effigy, are taken away by the shamans to be
disposed of in a manner known to them alone.
During the period of official mourning the loud wail was carried on
incessantly, or at least at frequent intervals; fasting was practised;
the women wept, sobbed, screamed, and yelled. Both sexes gathered daily
around the place where the effigy lay, praying loudly for the safe
journey and arrival at Shipapu of the defunct. The women alone shed
tears on such occasions, the men only stared with a gloomy face and
thoughtful mien. They recalled and remembered the dead. What the great
master of historical composition has said of the ancient Germans may be
applied here also: "Feminis lugere honestum est, viris meminisse."
In the humble abode where Topanashka Tihua had dwelt with his deaf old
wife, and where his bloody remains had rested previous to being borne to
the funeral pyre, his effigy lay covered by the handsomest piece of
cotton cloth that could be found among the homes of the Rito, and a
quaintly painted and decorated specimen of pottery contained the
drinking-water for his soul. It was dusky in the room, for the window as
well as the hatchway afforded little light. Subdued voices sounded from
the apartment, monotonous recitals, which the loud refrain, "Heiti-na,
Heiti-na," at times interrupted. The poor deaf widow sat with tearful
eyes in a corner; her lips moved, but no sound came from them; only,
when the leader of the choir broke out with appropriate gesticulations,
she chimed in loudly. When at such a signal the other women present
began to tear their hair, she did the same, and shouted at the top of
her voice like the others, "Heiti-na, Heiti-na!"
Group after group of mourners visited the room, until both clans, Tanyi
and Tyame, had performed their duty. Hannay, too, had made her
appearance; she had shed tears like a rain-cloud, had howled and whined
more than any one else. Her grief was surely assumed, for when Tyope
asked her in the evening she told him everything in detail that she had
noticed,--how this one had looked, how such and such a one had
yelled,--plainly showing that the flood of tears had in no manner
impeded her faculties of perception, the sighs and sobs around her in no
manner deafened her attentive ear. Tyope listened with apparent
indifference, and said nothing. She attended to the weeping part, he not
so much to the duty of pious recollection as to that of deep thinking
over the new phase which matters had entered upon in consequence of the
bloody event.
For this sudden death of the maseua was for his designs a most fortunate
occurrence. The only man who in the prospective strife between the clans
might have taken an attitude dangerous, perhaps disastrous, to his
purposes, was now dead; and the office which that man held had become
vacant. There was but one individual left in the tribe who might yet
prove a stumbling-block to him; that was the Hishtanyi Chayan. But the
great medicine-man was not so much a man of action as a man of words,
and the force of his oracular utterances Tyope hoped to destroy through
the powerful speeches of the Koshare Naua and the strong medicine of the
Shkuy Chayan. The plans of Tyope had been immensely furthered by the
terrible accident; they had advanced so much that he felt it
indispensable to modify them to some extent. Terror and dismay were
great at the Rito, and the council had been adjourned _sine die_. There
could be no thought of a fresh accusation against Shotaye until the four
days of official mourning were past, and the campaign against the enemy,
which the bloody outrage imperatively called for.
The murder by the Tehuas, as Tyope and the others believed, of the
principal war-chief of the tribe, at a time when the two tribes were
without any communication with each other, was too great an outrage not
to demand immediate revenge. The murder could not have been the result
of a misunderstanding or accident, else the scalp would not have been
taken by the murderer. It was premeditated, an act of deliberate
hostility, a declaration of war on the part of the Tehuas. The dead
man's scalp had certainly wandered over to the caves of the northern
tribe; it was certainly paraded there in the solemn scalp-dance by which
the Tehuas, beyond all doubt, publicly honoured and rewarded the
murderer.
Tyope knew that the Queres were of one mind and that the official
mourning alone kept them from replying to this act of unjustifiable
hostility by an attack upon the Puye, but he also knew that as soon as
the four days were past a campaign against the Tehuas would be set on
foot. The Hishtanyi Chayan had retired to work, and that meant war! He
and the Shikama Chayan fasted and mourned together; their mourning was
not only on account of the great loss suffered by the tribe in the
person of the deceased; they bewailed a loss of power. That power had
gone over into the enemy's ranks with the scalp of the murdered man.
Although the death of Topanashka was for Tyope an event of incalculable
benefit, he had exhibited tokens of regret and sorrow. His manner was
dignified; he did not mourn in any extravagant fashion, but conducted
himself so that nobody could suspect the death of the old man to be
anything else than a source of regret to him. Furthermore, he intended
by his own example to foster the idea among his tribal brethren that the
outrage was so grave that it demanded immediate and prompt redress. The
carrying out of this redress was of the greatest importance to him. The
sooner it was executed the better it would suit his plans.
During the last interview of Tyope with the young Navajo, the latter had
charged him with having asked the Dinne to kill the old maseua during an
incursion which his tribe were to make into the valley of the Rito. It
was true that Tyope had suggested it, but he had not told the Navajo all
that he designed through this act of treachery. His object was not
merely to rid himself of the person of Topanashka; he sought an
opportunity of becoming the ostensible saviour of his tribe in the hour
of need. If the Dinne had made the premeditated onslaught, he would,
after he had given them time to perform the murder, have appeared upon
the scene, driven off the assailants, and thus recommended himself to
the people for the vacant position of war-chief. The game was a double
one on his part; first he was to betray his kinsfolk to the Navajos, and
secondly to turn against the Navajos in defense of the betrayed ones.
Tyope realized that it was a very dangerous game, and he had therefore
desisted and even gone so far as to repel the young Navajo at the risk
of his own life.
As matters stood, all had gone far better than he ever hoped for.
Without complicity on his part, Topanashka had been put out of his way;
and the office coveted by Tyope was vacant. An important military
enterprise was to follow at once. Tyope intended to go on this campaign
at all hazards, in order to distinguish himself as much as possible.
This he was able to do, for he possessed all the physical qualities
necessary for a powerful Indian warrior, and he was very crafty,
cunning, bold and experienced. He belonged to the society of war
magicians, and held in his possession most of the charms and fetiches
used for securing invincibility. There was no doubt in his mind that he
would return from the war-path crowned with glory and with scalps,
provided he was not killed. Should he return alive, then the time would
come for him to set the Koshare Naua to work to secure him the desired
position. Once made maseua he would resume his former plans, push the
case against Shotaye to the bitter end, and try to divide the tribe. For
the present the two objects had to be set aside. The expedition against
the Tehuas must take the lead of everything else.
While Tyope was prompted, by the grief and mourning that prevailed, to
display fresh activity and resort to new intrigues; while at the same
time his wife improved the occasion for her customary prying, listening,
and gossip,--their daughter, Mitsha, on the other hand, really mourned
sincerely and grieved bitterly. She mourned for the dead with the
candour of a child and the feeling of a woman. When she, too, had gone
to the house of the dead to pray, her tears flowed abundantly; and they
were genuine. The girl did not weep merely on account of the deceased,
for she could not know his real worth and merits; she grieved quite as
much on Okoya's account. The boy had been to see her every evening of
late. He was there on the night when the corpse was brought home, and
they heard the wail and rushed out on the roof. At that moment Hannay
had returned, full to the brim with the dismal news. Okoya forgot
everything and returned home, and Mitsha went back to the room and wept.
While her mother proceeded in her account with noisy volubility, Mitsha
cried; for Okoya had often spoken of his grandfather, telling her how
wise, strong, and good sa umo maseua was. She felt that the young man
looked up to him as to an ideal, and she wept quite as much because of
her feeling for Okoya as for the murdered main-stay of her people.
While she thus mourned from the bottom of her heart, the thought came to
her how she would feel in case her father was brought home in the same
way. Mitsha was a good child, and Tyope had always treated her not only
with affection but with kindness. He gave her many precious things, as
the Indian calls the bright-coloured pebbles, shell beads, base
turquoises, crystals, etc., with which he decorates his body. He liked
to see his daughter shine among the daughters of the tribe. With him it
was speculation, not affection; but Mitsha knew nothing of this, and
felt that in case her parent should ever be borne back to this house
dead, and placed on the floor before her covered with gore, she must
feel just as Okoya felt now. And yet the dead man was only his
grandparent. No, it was not possible for him to be as sad as she would
be in case Tyope should meet with such a fate. And then she wondered
whether the whole tribe would regret her father's death as much as they
regretted the loss of Topanashka. Something within her told that it
would not. She had already noticed that Tyope was not liked; but why,
she knew not. Okoya himself had intimated as much. She knew that the boy
shunned her father; and her attachment to Okoya had become so deep that
his utterances began to modify her feelings toward her own parents.
If she would sorrow and grieve for her father's loss, if Okoya was
mourning over his grandfather's demise, how must the child of the
murdered man, of such a man as Topanashka, feel? His only child was a
woman like herself. A true woman always feels for her sex and
sympathizes with other women's grief; and besides, that woman was the
mother of the youth who had won her heart. Okoya had told her a great
deal about his mother,--how good she was and how content she was to see
him and her become one. The girl was anxious to know his mother, but a
visit to a prospective mother-in-law is by no means an unimportant step.
If it is accompanied by a present it bears the character of an official
acceptance of courtship. That step Mitsha was afraid as yet to take; it
was too early; there were too many contingencies in the way.
Still she longed to go to Say Koitza now. But visits of condolence are
not in vogue among Indians as long as there is loud mourning, except at
the house where the mourning is going on. How much Mitsha would have
given to be permitted to go to Say, sit down quietly in a corner, and
modestly and without speaking a word, weep in her company. At the same
time she felt another longing. Since the night of the murder Okoya had
of course not been to see her, and she naturally longed to meet him also
in this hour of sadness and trial. Once when she had gone to the brook
for water, Zashue had crossed her path; but he looked so dark and
frowning that she did not venture even to greet him.
It was the last day of mourning, and nearly everybody at the Rito who
could or ought had paid his respects to the dead. The Chayani of lesser
rank alone returned from time to time to perform specially strong
incantations in aid of the still travelling soul. Mitsha had gone down
to the brook to get water. It occurred only once a day during these
days, for the people of Tyame fasted, taking but one frugal meal daily.
Everybody was very careful also not to wash, and Mitsha herself was as
unkempt as any one else of her clan.
Bearing the huashtanyi on her head, she was returning, when as she
passed the corner of the big house her eyes discovered a man standing
with his back turned to her, gazing at the cliffs. He seemed to face the
dwellings of the Eagle clan. As the girl approached, the noise of her
step caused him to turn, and she recognized Okoya.
The youth stepped up to her; his eyes were hollow, and now they became
moist. He attempted to control himself, to restrain the tears that were
coming to his eyes at the sight of her; but he sobbed convulsively. When
she saw it tears came to her eyes at once. The two children stood there,
he struggling to hide his grief, for it was unmanly to weep, and yet he
was young and could not control his feelings; she, as a woman, feeling
at liberty to weep. She wept, but silently and modestly. It grieved her
to see him shed tears.
He, too, felt for her; but it was soothing to his own grief that Mitsha
mourned. He too was longing to meet her; the four days of separation had
been very long to him.
"He was so good," Okoya at last succeeded in saying. Fresh tears came to
his eyes.
Mitsha merely nodded and covered her face with a corner of her wrap.
"Have you been to him?" he asked.
She nodded; Okoya continued,--
"To-morrow I will come again."
Eager nods, mingled with sobs and accompanied by rubbing of the eyes,
were her reply. The nodding proved that his call would be very, very
welcome. She uncovered her face, her eyes beamed through tears, and she
smiled. As sincerely as she felt her grief, the announcement that he
would return as soon as the mourning-time was over made her happy, and
her features expressed it. She went her way quietly, Okoya following her
with his eyes.
He longed to say to her, "Come with me, and let us go together to my
mother; she weeps so much." But it could not be; it was useless to
mention it. About his mother Okoya felt deeply concerned, for she did
not bear her grief as the others bore theirs. She was not noisy like the
rest. Utterly oblivious of her daily task, she neither cooked nor baked
nor cared for anything. Her husband and children had to go hungry, while
she sat in a corner sobbing and weeping. It was indeed a blessing for
her that she was able to weep; otherwise her reason might have given way
under the terrible and crushing blow. With the loss of her father she
felt as if lost forever, as if her only support, her only hope, had
gone. The past came back to her, not like an ugly dream, but as a
fearful reality threatening sure destruction. Between her and the
accusation which she felt certain had been fulminated against her before
the council, there stood henceforth no one, and at the end of the
mourning she expected to be dragged before the council at once and
condemned to death! And what sort of death? Exposed to public wrath as a
witch, bound and gagged, tied to a tree, with the rough bark lacerating
her breast, and then beaten, beaten to a jelly, rib broken after rib,
limb after limb, until the soul left the body's wreck under the curses
of bystanders. Oh, if she could only die now a swift, an honourable
death like that of her father!
If she could only have seen Shotaye! She expected the cave-woman surely
to come down to cheer her up. She felt a longing for her friend, a
desire to see her, to hear her voice. But day after day ran on, night
after night followed, and Shotaye did not come. It did not surprise her
that Shotaye did not appear on the first day, but on the evening of the
second she began to tremble. When the night of the third came, her
apprehensions became distressing. On the fourth, Shotaye must surely
come; expectation, and finally disappointment, almost tortured to death
the poor woman, for Shotaye came not.
Everything seemed to conspire to render her hopelessly miserable. She
lost sight of her surroundings, grew speechless, and almost devoid of
feeling. The others explained her state as one of profound and very
natural grief, and let her alone. But it was uncomfortable in the house
when the mistress took no notice of anything, and did not even provide
the most necessary things, not even drinking-water. Therefore Zashue, as
well as Okoya, preferred to go out of doors, there to await the
termination of the disagreeable period of mourning at the end of which
they confidently expected Say to return to her normal condition.
After he had separated from Mitsha, Okoya sauntered, without really
knowing whither, up the gorge and down the northern side of the
cultivated plots. He gradually neared the cliffs, and found himself
beyond the dwellings of the Water clan, and therefore beyond the
uppermost caves that were inhabited. The gorge, narrow and covered
mostly with underbrush and pines, afforded to his sight but a single
conspicuous object, and toward this he turned at once.
To his right lay some caves that had been long ago forsaken, and whose
front wall had partly crumbled. Below the short slope leading up to them
are the traces of an old round estufa. A plain concavity in the ground
indicates its site to-day. At the time when Okoya strolled about, the
roofing alone was destroyed, and part of the interior was filled with
blocks of stone that had tumbled from the cliffs, crushing the roof.
Okoya, from where he stood, had the interior of the ruin open before
him, and he saw in it, partly sitting and partly reclining, the figure
of his friend Hayoue. It was a welcome discovery.
He had not met Hayoue since the death of his grandfather, for the
brother of Zashue had avoided the great house and its inmates on
purpose. He mourned earnestly and sincerely, and wished to be alone with
his thoughts. But Okoya was not disposed to let him alone. He knew that
if his uncle spoke to any one he would speak to him, and that if he felt
indisposed to enter into any conversation he would say so at once.
Hayoue was very outspoken.
The boy jumped down from block to block noisily, for he wanted to
attract his uncle's attention beforehand. The latter looked up. As soon
as he saw who the disturber of his musings was, he waved his hand,
beckoning him to come. Okoya obeyed with alacrity, for he saw that
Hayoue felt disposed to talk. Throwing himself down beside him he waited
patiently until the other saw fit to open the conversation. They both
remained for a while in silence, until Hayoue heaved a deep sigh and
said,--
"Does Zashue, my brother, mourn also?"
"Not as we do," replied Okoya; "yet he is sad."
"It is well. He is right to feel sad. Sad for himself, for you, for all
of us."
"Sa umo was so good," whispered the boy, and tears came to him again;
but he controlled his feelings and swallowed his sobs. He did not wish
the other to see him weep.
"Indeed sa umo maseua was good," Hayoue emphasized, "better than any of
us, truer than any of us! None of us at the Tyuonyi is as strong and
wise as he was."
"How could the Moshome kill him, if he was such a great warrior," Okoya
naïvely inquired.
"See, satyumishe, he was struck from behind. In this way a Moshome may
kill a bear, and so yai shruy destroys the strongest mokatsh. Sa umo had
no weapons, neither bow nor arrow nor club. He did not suppose that
there were any Moshome lurking about as tiatui lies in wait for the
deer. Had sa nashtio gone south or toward the west, he would have
carried what was right, but over there,"--he pointed northward,--"who
would have believed the people over there to be so mean as these
shuatyam of Tehuas now prove to be? Destruction come upon them!" He
spoke very excitedly, his eyes flashed, and he gnashed his teeth.
Shaking his clenched fist at the north, he hissed, "And destruction will
come upon them soon! We shall go to Kapo and come back with many scalps.
We will not get one only, and crawl back, as shutzuna does after he has
stolen a turkey. We shall go soon, very soon!"
Okoya yielded to the excitement which the latter part of his friend's
speech bespoke. His eyes sparkled also, and his chest heaved at the
mention of blood.
"Satyumishe," he exclaimed, "let us go, I and you together. Let us go
and get what may please our father's heart!"
Hayoue looked at him; it was an earnest and significant look.
"You are right, brother. You are wise and you are good. You also know
how to hit with an arrow, but you are not uakanyi."
"But I shall be one, if I go with you," boldly uttered the boy.
His uncle shook his head, and smiled.
"Don't you know, sa uishe, that every one cannot go with the warriors,
when they go on the war-path? Every one cannot say, 'I am going,' and
then go as he pleases and when he pleases. Every one cannot think, 'I am
strong and wise, and I will follow the enemy.' If the Shiuana do not
help him, the strongest is weak, and the wisest is a child before the
foe. See, satyumishe, I am as good a uakanyi as any one, but I do not
know whether, when the Hishtanyi Chayan says in the uuityam which men
shall go and take from the Tehuas what is proper, I may go with them.
Perhaps I shall have to stay, and some other one will go in my stead."
"Must not all go?" Okoya asked; he was astonished.
"Every one must go whom the maseua chooses." With a sad expression he
added, "Our maseua is no more, and ere the Hotshanyi has spoken to the
yaya and nashtio, and said to them, 'such and such a one shall be
maseua,' it is the Hishtanyi Chayan who decides who shall go and who
shall stay at home."
His nephew comprehended; he nodded and inquired,--
"Does not the Hishtanyi Chayan fast and do penance now?"
"Our nashtio _yaya_," Hayoue replied with an important and mysterious
mien, "has much work at present."
"Do you know what he is working?" naïvely asked Okoya.
"He is with Those Above."
The reply closed the conversation on that subject. Okoya changed the
topic, asking,--
"Satyumishe, you are not much older than I. How comes it that you are
uakanyi already?"
Hayoue felt quite flattered. He was indeed very young for a war
magician, and he felt not a little pride on account of it. Assuming a
self-satisfied and important air, he turned to his nephew with the
query,--
"When you go out hunting, what is the first thing you do?"
"I take my bow and arrow and leave the house," readily answered the boy.
"This is not what I ask for," growled Hayoue. "What kind of work do you
do ere you rise to the kauash?"
The boy understood at last.
"I place the stone, and speak to Those Above."
"If before you go hunting you do not speak to them, are you lucky?"
"No," Okoya mumbled. He recalled the unlucky turkey-hunt of some time
ago, when he had forgotten to say his prayers before starting, of which
we have spoken in the first chapter.
"Why have you no luck?" Hayoue further asked.
"Because the Shiuana are not satisfied," replied the other. His uncle
nodded.
"Are you a hunter?" he asked.
"Not yet, I am only learning."
"Why do you learn?"
"In order to know."
"When you once know, what can you do then?"
"I can--" Okoya was embarrassed. "I can make the Shiuana help me."
"That is it!" Hayoue exclaimed. "If the Shiuana do not help, you can do
nothing; no matter how swift you run, how far you see, and how sure your
aim is. But of the Shiuana there are many, as many as grains of sand on
the shore of the great river below here, and when we do not know them we
cannot speak to them and beg for assistance. Just as there are Shiuana
who assist the hunter, there are those who help us, that we may strike
the enemy and take away from him what makes him strong, that it may
strengthen us. Look at Tyame, the nashtio of Tzitz hanutsh; he is swift
and strong, but he knows not how to call to Those Above and around to
help him take the scalp of the Moshome. We must be wise, and listen to
what those speak who know how to address the Shiuana, and what to give
them. We must learn in order to act. I have learned, and thus I have
become uakanyi. And he who will soon be where in time we also shall find
rest,--he taught me many things. He was good and wise, very good, our
father the maseua," he added, sighing deeply.
"Will you help me to learn and become uakanyi?" Okoya turned to him now
with flashing eyes.
"I will, surely I will. You shall become one of us. But you know,
brother, that you must be silent and keep your tongue tied. You must not
say to this or that one, 'I am learning, I have learned such and such
things, for I am going to become uakanyi.'"
Okoya of course assented. Then he asked,--
"I am not uakanyi, and can the Hishtanyi Chayan tell me to go along too
with the men to strike the Tehuas?"
"Certainly, for there are not many of us, and in the Zaashtesh all must
stand up for each, and each for all. But when many go on the war-path
there are always some of us with them in order that the Shiuana be in
our favour."
"Do the Shiuana help the Tehuas also? For the Tehuas are people like
ourselves, are they not?"
"They are indeed Zaashtesh, like the Queres. But I do not know how the
Shiuana feel toward them. Old men who knew told me that the Moshome
Tehua prayed to Those Above and around us, and that they call them Ohua.
Whether they are the same as ours I cannot tell; but I cannot believe
them to be; for the kopishtai who dwell over there must be good to their
people, whereas the kopishtai here are good to us. Only those who hold
in their hands the paths of our lives help those who do right and give
them what is due, wherever and whoever they be."
"How soon shall we go against the Tehuas?"
"The Yaya Chayan and the uishtyaka perhaps alone know that. As soon as
the Hishtanyi has done his work he will call the uuityam, and then those
shall go that must. Perhaps I may go, perhaps not. It may be that both
of us will be sent along. But we will go soon," he fiercely muttered,
"soon, to take from the Tehuas what is precious to the heart of our
father, who now goes toward Shipapu."
Okoya felt wildly excited and could barely restrain himself. Thirst for
revenge joined the intense wish to become a warrior. But Hayoue's placed
a damper on his enthusiasm, else he might have left that night alone,
with bow and arrow and a stone knife, to hover about the Puye until some
luckless Tehua fell into his hands. He saw, however, that nothing could
be done without the consent and support of the higher powers, and that
he must curb his martial ardour and abide by the decisions of Those
Above. The present topic of conversation being exhausted, both sat in
silence for a while, each following his own train of thoughts. Okoya was
the first to speak again.
"Does your hanutsh mourn?"
"The women have gone to weep with the dead," replied Hayoue. "I too am
mourning," he added sorrowfully; "but I mourn as is becoming to a man.
Crying and weeping belong only to women."
"I have cried," whispered Okoya timidly, as he looked at his friend with
a doubting glance. He was ashamed of the confession, and yet could not
restrain himself from making it. Hayoue shrugged his shoulders.
"You are young, satyumishe, and your heart is young. It is like the
heart of a girl. When you have seen many dead men and many dying, you
will do as I do,--you will not cry any more." He coughed, and his face
twitched nervously; with all his affectation of stoicism he had to
struggle against tears. In order to suppress them completely he spoke
very loudly at once,--
"Tzitz hanutsh has nothing to do with the dead, and yet the women lament
and its men think over the loss that the tribe has sustained. I tell
you, Okoya, we have lost much; we are like children without their
mother, like a drove of turkeys whose gobbler tiatui or mokatsh have
killed. Now,"--his eyes flashed again and he gnashed his teeth,--"now
Tyope and the old Naua are uppermost. Just wait until the men have
returned from the war-path, and you will see. Evil is coming to us. Did
you notice, satyumishe, on the night when they carried sa nashtio maseua
back to the Tyuonyi how angry the Shiuana were; how the lightning flamed
through the clouds and killed the trees on the mesa? I tell you,
brother, evil is coming to our people, for a good man has gone from us
to Shipapu, but the bad ones have been spared."
Okoya shuddered involuntarily. He recollected well that awful night.
Never before had a storm raged on the Rito with such fury. Frightful had
been the roar of the thunder, prolonged like some tremendous
subterranean noise. Incessant lightning had for hours converted night
into day, and many were the lofty pines that had been shattered or
consumed by the fiery bolts from above. The wind, which seldom does any
damage at such places, had swept through the gorge and over the mesas
with tremendous force, and lastly the peaceful, lovely brook, swollen by
the waters that gushed from the mountains in torrents, as well as by the
rain falling in sheets, had waxed into a roaring, turbid stream. It had
flooded the fields, destroying crops and spreading masses of rocky
débris over the tillable soil. Yes, the heavens had come upon the Rito
in their full wrath, as swift and terrible avengers. Both of them
remembered well that awful night, and dropped into moody silence at the
dismal recollection.
"Are there any other bad men at the Tyuonyi?" Okoya asked; but low, as
if he were afraid of the answer.
"There may be others," Hayoue muttered, "but those two are certainly the
worst."
Okoya felt disappointed; Tyope, he saw, must indeed be a bad creature.
"Do you know whether Tyope is mourning?" asked his uncle.
"I have not seen him," grumbled the other.
"I am sure he will look as if his mother had died," scolded Hayoue. "He
is a great liar, worse than a Navajo. He puts on a good face and keeps
the bad one inside. I would like to know what the Shiuana think of that
bad man."
"Have we any bad women among us?" Okoya said, to change the
conversation.
"Hannay is bad!" his uncle cried.
A pang went through the heart of the other youth. His prospective father
and mother in-law appeared really a pair of exquisite scoundrels.
"Are there any others?"
"I don't know, still I have heard." Hayoue looked about as if afraid of
some eavesdropper,--"what I tell you now is only for yourself,--that
Shotaye is bad, very bad! After being Tyope's wife for a while, I should
not be surprised if--"
"Does she speak to those that can do us harm?" Okoya interrupted in a
timid whisper.
"It may be. There is no doubt but she is a harlot; I know it myself, and
every man on the Tyuonyi knows it. Other women are also spoken of, but
nobody says it aloud. It is not right to speak thus of people when we do
not know positively. I have not seen Shotaye since our father died. She
is mourning perhaps, for her cave is shut and the deerskin hangs over
the doorway. She is likely to be inside in quiet until the trouble is
over and the men can go to her again."
Okoya rose to go.
"Are you coming along?" he asked his uncle.
Hayoue shook his head; he still wished to remain alone.
"It may be," he said, "that we shall have to leave in two days against
the Tehuas, and I shall remain so that I may be ready when the tapop
calls upon us. You rely upon it, satyumishe, we shall go soon, and when
it so happens that we both must go you shall come with me that I may
teach you how the scalp is taken."
Thus dismissed, Okoya sauntered back down the valley.
When opposite the caves of the Water clan he furtively glanced over to
the one inhabited by Shotaye. The deerskin, as Hayoue had stated, hung
over the opening, and no smoke issued from the hole that served as vent
and smoke-escape. The woman must be mourning very deeply, or else she
was gone. She did not often enter his thoughts, and yet he wished
Shotaye might come now and see his mother. He was convinced, without
knowing why, that his mother would have been glad to see her.
At all events the dismal period of mourning was drawing rapidly to a
close, and with it official sadness would vanish. He could hardly await
the morrow. On that day he hoped that the question would be decided when
the great work of revenge should commence and whether he would be
permitted to take part in it. The words of his uncle had opened an
entirely new perspective to Okoya. To become uakanyi was now his aim,
his intense ambition. As warrior, and as successful warrior, he
confidently expected that no one would dare refuse him Mitsha. This hope
overcame the grief he had harboured during the days that elapsed, for
that grief belonged to the past; and as the past now appeared to him, it
seemed only a stepping-stone to a proud and happy future.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: I borrow these facts from Spanish sources. Both Castañeda
and Mota Padilla mention cremation as being practised in the sixteenth
century by the Pueblos. The latter author even gives a detailed
description. Withal, the fact that the Pueblos also buried the body is
more than abundantly established. Both modes of burial were resorted to,
and contemporaneously even, according to the nature of the country and
soil. There is comparatively little soil at the Rito. The mourning
ceremonies, etc., I have witnessed myself.]