Not for long did the impetuous fathers of the Bear and Crane
deliberate. Nay! Straightway they strode into the stream and feeling
forth with their feet that it e'en might be forded--for so red were
its waters that no footing could be seen through them,--they led the
way across; yet great was their fearfulness withal; for, full soon, as
they watched the water moving under their very eyes, strange chills
did pervade them, as though they were themselves changing in being
to creatures moving and having being in the waters; even as still
may be felt in the giddiness which besets those who, in the midst of
troubled or passing waters, gaze long into them. Nathless, they won
their way steadfastly to the farther shore. But the poor women who,
following closely with the little children on their backs, were more
_áyaᵘwe_ (tender, susceptible), became witlessly crazed with these
dread fear-feelings of the waters, wherefore, the little ones to whom
they clung but the more closely, being _k‘yaíyuna_ and all unripe, were
instantly changed by the terror. They turned cold, then colder; they
grew scaly, fuller webbed and sharp clawed of hands and feet, longer of
tail too, as if for swimming and guidance in unquiet waters. Lo! They
felt of a sudden to the mothers that bore them, as the feel of dead
things; and, wriggling, scratched their bare shoulders until, shrieking
wildly, these mothers let go all hold on them and were even fain to
shake them off--fleeing from them in terror. Thus, multitudes of them
fell into the swift waters, wailing shrilly and plaintively, as even
still it may be said they are heard to cry at night time in those lone
waters. For, no sooner did they fall below the surges than they floated
and swam away, still crying--changed verily, now, even in bodily form;
for, according to their several totems, some became like to the lizard
(_mík‘yaiya‘hli_), chameleon (_sémaiyak‘ya_), and newt (_téwashi_);
others like to the frog (_ták‘aiyuna_), toad (_ták‘ya_), and turtle
(_étâwa_). But their souls (_top‘hâ´ina_, 'other-being or in-being'),
what with the sense of falling, still falling, sank down through the
waters, as water itself, being started, sinks down through the sands
into the depths below. There, under the lagoon of the hollow mountain
where it was erstwhile cleft in twain by the angry maiden-sister
Síwiluhsitsa as before told, dwelt, in their seasons, the soul-beings
of ancient men of war and violent death. There were the towns for the
'finished' or dead, Hápanawan or the Abode of Ghosts; there also, the
great pueblo (city) of the Kâ´kâ, Kâ´‘hluëlawan, the town of many towns
wherein stood forever the great assembly house of ghosts, Áhapaáwa
Kíwitsinan‘hlana, the kiva which contains the six great chambers in the
midst of which sit, at times of gathering in council, the god-priests
of all the Kâ´kâ exercising the newly dead in the Kâ´k’okshi or dance
of good, and receiving from them the offerings and messages of mortal
men to the immortal ones.
Now, when the little ones sank, still sank, seeing naught, the lights
of the spirit dancers began to break upon them, and they became, as be
the ancients, _‘hlímna_, and were numbered with them. And so, being
received into the midst of the undying ancients, lo! these little ones
thus made the way of dying and the path of the dead; for whither they
led, in that olden time, others, fain to seek them (insomuch that they
died), followed; and yet others followed these; and so it has continued
to be even unto this day.
But the mothers, still crying, knew not this--knew not that their
children had returned unharmed into the world whence even themselves
had come and whither they too needs now must go, constrained thither
by the yearnings of their own hearts in the time of mourning. Loudly,
still, they wailed, on the farther shore of the river.