In time there were born to these twain, twelve children. Nay, neither
man-children nor woman-children they! For look now! The first, was a
woman in fulness of contour, but a man in stature and brawn. From the
mingling of too much seed in one kind, comes the two-fold one kind,
_‘hláhmon_, being man and woman combined--even as from a kernel of
corn with two hearts, ripens an ear that is neither one kind nor the
other, but both! Yet not all ill was this first child, because she was
born of love--what though crazed!--ere her parents were changed; thus
she partook not of their distortions. Not so with her brothers; in
semblance of males, yet like boys, the fruit of sex was not in them!
For the fruit of mere lust comes to naught, even as corn, self-sown out
of season, ripens not. For their parents, being changed to hideousness,
abode together witlessly and consorted idly or in passion not quickened
of favor to the eye or the heart. And lo! like to their father were
his later children, but varied as his moods; for then, as now, what
the mother looked most on while withholding them, thus wise were they
formed as clay by the thought of the potter; wherefore we cherish our
matrons and reveal not to them the evil dramas neither the slaughtered
nor hamstrung game lest their children be weakly or go maimed. Thus
they were strapping louts, but dun-colored and marked with the welts of
their father. Silly were they, yet wise as the gods and high priests;
for as simpletons and the crazed speak from the things seen of the
instant, uttering belike wise words and prophecy, so spake they, and
became the attendants and fosterers, yet the sages and interpreters, of
the ancient of dance-dramas or the Kâ´kâ.
Named are they, not with the names of men, but with names of
mis-meaning, for there is Pékwina, Priest-speaker of the Sun.
Meditative is he, even in the quick of day, after the fashion of his
father when shamed, saying little save rarely, and then as irrelevantly
as the veriest child or dotard.
Then there is Pí‘hlan Shíwani (Bow Priest-warrior). So cowardly he that
he dodges behind ladders, thinking them trees no doubt, and lags after
all the others, whenever frightened, even at a fluttering leaf or a
crippled spider, and looks in every direction but the straight one,
whenever danger threatens!
There is Éshotsi (the Bat) who can see better in the sunlight than any
of them, but would maim himself in a shadow, and will avoid a hole in
the ground as a woman would a dark place, even were it no bigger than a
beetle burrow.
Also there is Muíyapona (Wearer of the Eyelets of Invisibility). He
has horns like the catfish, and is knobbed like a bludgeon-squash. But
he never by any chance disappears, even when he hides his head behind
a ladder rung or turkey quill, yet thinks himself quite out of sight.
And he sports with his countenance as though it were as smooth as a
damsel's.
There is Pótsoki (the Pouter), who does little but laugh and look
bland, for grin he can not; and his younger brother, Ná‘hläshi (Aged
Buck), who is the biggest of them all, and what with having grieved and
nearly rubbed his eyes out (when his younger brother was captured and
carried off by the K‘yámak‘ya-kwe or Snail Kâ´kâ of the South), looks
as ancient as a horned toad; yet he is as frisky as a fawn, and giggles
like a girl; yea, and bawls as lustily as a small boy playing games.
The next brother, Ítseposa (the Glum or Aggrieved), mourned also for
his nearest brother, who was stolen by the Kâ´kâ, too, until his eyes
were dry utterly and his chin chapped to protrusion; but nathless he is
lively and cheerful and ever as ready indeed as the most complaisant of
beings.
K‘yä´lutsi (the Suckling) and Tsa‘hläshi (Old-youth), the youngest,
are the most wilfully important of the nine, always advising others
and strutting like a young priest in his first dance, or like unto the
youthful warrior made too aged-thinking and self-notioned with early
honoring.
And while the father stands dazed, with his head bowed and his hands
clasped before him or like to broken bows hanging by his sides,
these children romp and play (as he and his sister did when turned
childish), and verily are like to idiots, or to dotards and crones
turned young again, inconstant as laughter, startled to new thought by
every flitting thing around them; but, in the presence of the Kâ´kâ of
old, they are grave what though so uncouth. And they are the oracles
of all olden sayings of deep meanings; wherefore they are called the
Kâ´yemashi (Husbandmen of the Kâ´kâ or sacred drama-dance); and they
are spoken of, even by the Fathers of the People, as the Á‘hläshi
Tséwashi (Sages of the Ancients). And most precious in the sight of the
beings and of men are they! But for their birth and the manner thereof,
it is said that all had been different; for from it many things came
to be as they are, alike for men and gods and even the souls of the
dead!
THE RENEWAL OF THE GREAT JOURNEY, AND THE SUNDERING OF THE TRIBES OF
MEN.
There came a time when the people for whom Síweluhsiwa and Síwiluhsitsa
had gone to seek the way, could tarry no longer awaiting them; for,
hearing the earth rumble, the Twain Beloved and their Warrior-leaders
of the Knife summoned the tribes forth to journey again. Now in these
days the people had grown so vast of number that no longer could they
journey together; but in great companies they traveled, like herds of
bison severed when too numerous for the grass of a single plain. The
Bearers of the Ice-wands and the Ancient Brotherhood of the Knife led
the clans of the Bear, the Crane, the Grouse and others of the People
of Winter (yea and in small part others too), through the northernmost
valleys, carrying ever in their midst the precious _múetone_. The
Fathers of the People, Keepers of the seed, and the Ancient Brotherhood
of Priests led the clans of the Macaw and other Summer people (and in
part others still) through the middle valleys, carrying ever in their
midst the precious _k‘yáetone_. They, being deliberate and wise, sought
rather in the pathway between the northward and the southward for the
place of the Middle.
The Seed-fathers of the Seed-kin, the Keepers of Fire, and the Ancient
Brotherhood of Paíyatuma (Néwe-kwe) led the All-seed clans, the Sun,
Badger and other Summer people (not of the Midmost), through the
southern valleys, carrying ever in their midst the precious _chúetone_.
Leading them all, whether through the northern ways, through the middle
ways, or through the southern ways, now here, now there, were the Two
Beloved ones, and with them their Warriors of the Knife.
Now although those who went by the northern way were called the Bear
and Crane father-people, yet with them went some of all the clans,
as the Parrot-macaws of the Middle, and the Yellow-corn ones of the
Southern people.
And although the People of the Middle way were called the Macaw
father-people, yet with them went Bear and Crane people of the north,
nevertheless, (a few) and Seed people of the south, also (a few) those
of the White Corn.
And although the people of the southern way were called the All-seed
father-people, yet with them went a few of both the northern and the
middle ways. And this was well! That even though any one of these
bands might hap to be divided through wildness of the way or stress
of war, they nathless might retain, each of them, the seed of all the
kin-lines. Moreover, this of itself speedily came to be, through the
mingling of the clans from one to another in the strands of marriage.
And although thus apart the peoples journeyed, descending from the
westward the valleys toward north and toward south, like gathering
streams from a wide rain-storm, yet also like rain-streams gathering
in some great river or lagoon, so they came together and thus abode in
seasons of rest. Strong and impetuous, the Bear kindred on the one hand
were the first to move and farthest to journey; on the other hand the
Seed kindred led the way; whereas, the heart of them all of the Macaw
kindred, deliberately (as was their custom) pursued the middle course
of the Sun-father.
In such order, then, they came, in time, within sight of the great
divided mountain of the Kâ´yemäshi. Seeing smoke and mist rising
therefrom, they all, one after another, hastened thither. The Bear
peoples were first to approach, and great was their dismay when, on
descending into the plain, they beheld a broad river, flowing, not as
other waters were wont to flow in that land, from east to west, but
straight across their pathway, from toward the south, northward. And
lo! on the farther side were the mysterious mountains they sought, but
between them rolled swiftly these wide turbid waters, red with the soil
of those plains.