Spring in the canyons! How good the warm, moist air felt after the
rains, and how bright and fresh the young grass looked along the little
river so far below the cliff village. The rusty red of the pinons and
oaks, and of the dull little cedars, too, had been turned to deep, rich
green, and the yucca tufts which clambered bravely almost to the top of
the gorge were sending up new lances of vivid color. Life was in the
air, and it stirred even the oldest people of the cliff village to a
keen interest in the year’s greatest event.
There was a great stir in the court. On every terrace, too, were girls
and women at work, tying the sharp new ironwood planting sticks into
bundles and shelling the sacred colored corn which was to be planted in
a specially prepared corner of the field. Great baskets and bags were
filled with food: piki, and pounded acorns baked in sheets with meal,
and strips of hard, dry meat. There were cakes of buffalo meat, too,
pounded fine, and bags of dried peaches, and beans for eating as well
as planting. For from now on until the crop was ready for harvest men
must stay in the far-away fields to guard as well as work.
For the first time Kwasa and Wiki were to go with the men. They
strutted about the plaza importantly, one minute imitating the stately
manners of Honau and the other men, the next strongly tempted to join
in the games of leap-frog and hunt-the-deer that were being carried on
in the crannies of the great building. Strong as the temptation was,
however, they would not have yielded to it for the world, lest in the
eyes of the other lads they should lose some of their newly acquired
dignity.
The great field lay far away to the south of the village, beyond
where the canyon opened out into the wider valley. For many years the
same ground had been cultivated by the Clan, and on every side were
evidences of the painstaking and careful work that had made possible
the abundance of grain the Cliff people had enjoyed from year to year.
On a gentle slope beyond the field was a scattering orchard of peach
trees, each carefully placed in some particularly fertile spot. From
a great rock reservoir on the hill above, a ditch ran down to the
fields, separating as it reached the edge into many small passways for
water, which could thus be turned upon the growing crop should the
gods, whose aid had been so earnestly invoked, neglect to send rain
enough. Along the lower edge of the field ran a long, low clay wall or
ledge, designed to keep the water thus led into the planted land from
wasting by running too far down the slope.
How good the brown earth smelled as the sharp planting sticks turned
up the moist soil to make fine, soft beds for the precious seeds.
Where the soil was heavy and came up in clods, old Honau, the master
of the planting, showed Kwasa and Wiki how to follow behind the seed
scatterers and smash the lumps with stone mauls tied to the ends of
long sticks. They were instructed, too, how to clean the winter’s wash
of mud out of the waterways, and how to repair the lower wall where it
had washed away.
[Illustration: Cliff men going down to work in the fields. The watch
tower is seen in the background.]
A round tower built of sandstone blocks stood on a jutting point of
rock far above the fertile valley. Adjoining it was a low, oblong
room fitted with two small openings. This was both guard and shelter.
From the tower a watcher kept constant lookout, for the men were far
from home and unprotected by natural walls, as they were in the cliff
village, and a sudden rush of enemies from any of the many intersecting
canyons might result in a terrible loss of life. The watcher was not
Bimba, however, who could not be spared from the watch tower above the
village, where long usage had made him familiar with every crack and
crevice of the hills and valleys within the sweep of his sharp eyes,
until not even a rabbit could cross an open spot undiscovered. Now that
the men were gone it was more important than ever to have a trusted and
experienced watcher to guard the women and children. So the guardian
in the tower above the great field was not Bimba, but Haida, who, next
after the veteran himself, had the sharpest eyes in the clan.
No alarm came, however, to mar the joy of the planting time. Day after
day the men worked on, cleaning away every weed and bush as they went,
and seeing that every one of the treasured seeds had its proper chance
to grow and thrive. For upon the crop must depend the lives of all
the next winter. Though they went on occasional long hunts, the Cliff
men were not, like their neighbors and enemies, the Utes and Apaches,
dependent upon game for the greater part of their living. Corn was
the main food of the people of the cliffs, and whether parched to be
eaten whole, or ground in three-parted stone metates to be made into
the great thin sheets of piki, or paper bread, it formed the staff of
life for them. Hence the great importance of every seed-grain, for the
winters in the canyons were long and there were many mouths to feed.
There were long days of work, and weary nights when the men lay down
in the stone shelter adjoining the watch tower with aching muscles but
hopeful hearts; but at last every seed was in. The irrigating channels
were straight and clean, and the reservoir, as they had ascertained,
was two-thirds full of water. Even so soon the favor of the gods seemed
sure, for twice since the planting had begun good rains had fallen,
leaving the earth dark and mellow and rich with promise.
There must be one more thing done, however, before they could return
to the village for the short stay possible between the planting and
the working of the crop. Two days before a messenger had been sent to
tell Mosu that the planting was nearly done, and hardly was the last
row finished when they saw him coming. In his hands he carried a bowl
of sacred meal, and upon his forehead was the mystic raincloud symbol,
colored, like the feathers in the prayer-plume an attendant carried
behind him, with red, green, yellow, and white pigments. His tunic of
beautifully-dressed deerskin was also decorated with the symbols of the
cloud and the sun, while the snake-like lightning symbols were painted
in white upon his powerful brown arms. A second attendant bore a great
bundle of prayer-plumes, and a third a bowl of water and a short, stiff
brush of turkey feathers.
Solemnly the planters met Mosu as he came toward them. Falling into
line behind him they marched solemnly around the field, and back to
the center where a hole had been dug and a stone slab placed over
it in imitation of the sipapuh in the kiva. Here they formed into a
hollow square, each side facing a point of the compass. The attendant
distributed the prayer-plumes, which each man held high in his left
hand as Mosu scattered the sacred meal to north, east, south and
west, the zenith and the nadir. Then into the bowl of water he dipped
the turkey-feather brush, sprinkling the earth toward the cardinal
points. Marching about the improvised sipapuh each man stamped upon
it in passing. Then, stooping reverently, they laid the prayer-plumes
underneath the slab that covered the excavation, and the ceremony was
over.
“I wonder where Sado is,” said Wiki suddenly, as the boys passed the
spring at the head of the canyon on their way home.
“I hope we may see him again some time,” returned Kwasa. “Do you
suppose he has danced in the kiva yet?”
“Sometimes I wish we had not been ‘adopted,’” said Wiki almost
regretfully, “for I would like to throw the dice again.”
“Well, why not?” laughed Kwasa. “The men play at that game, and I have
never shown you old Honau’s trick. Besides, here are the dice. Let us
hurry home.”