* * * * *
Fewkes, Stephen, Mindeleff, Voth, and others have collected the more
important tales of migrations and the major myths underlying both
religion and social organization among the Hopi. One gets substantially
the same versions today from the oldest story-tellers. These are the
stories that never grow old; in the kiva and at the fireside they live
on, for these are the vital things on which Hopi life is built.
However, there is a lighter side, of which we have heard less, to this
unwritten literature of the Hopi people. These are the stories for
entertainment, so dear to the hearts of young and old alike. Even these
stories are old, some of them handed down for generations. And they
range from the historical tale, the love story, and the tale of
adventure to the bugaboo story and the fable. Space permits only a few
stories here.
No writing of these can equal the art of the Hopi story-teller, for the
story is told with animation and with the zest that may inspire the
narrator who looks into the faces of eager listeners.
The Hopi story-teller more or less dramatizes his story, often breaking
into song or a few dance steps or mimicking his characters in voice and
facial expression. Sometimes the writer has been so intrigued with the
performance she could scarcely wait for her interpreter (See Figure 13)
to let her into the secret. Often the neighbors gathered round to hear
the story, young and old alike, and they are good listeners. All of
these stories save one, that of Don, of Oraibi, were told in the Hopi
language, but having a Hopi friend as an interpreter has preserved, we
think, the native flavor of the stories.
The first story, as told by Sackongsie, of Bacabi, is a legend
concerning the adventure of the son of the chief of Huckovi, a
prehistoric Hopi village whose ruins are pointed out on Third Mesa. The
writer has since heard other variants of this story.
=An Ancient Feud,= as told by Sackongsie
"This is a story of the people that used to live on Wind Mountain. There
is only a ruin there now, but there used to be a big village called
Huckovi; that means wind on top of the mountain. These people finally
left this country and went far away west. We have heard that they went
to California, and the Mission Indians themselves claim they are from
this place.
[Illustration: Figure 13.--The Author's Interpreter at Walpi and
Daughter, "Topsy."]
"These people used to have ladder dances; that is an old kind of a
dance that nobody has now. But we are told that a long time ago these
people brought trees from far away and set them up in round holes made
on purpose in the rock along the very edge of the mesa.
"Then the Mud heads (masked Kachinas) furnish the music and young men
dressed as leopards and mountain lion Kachinas climb into the tree tops
and swing out over the canyon rim to time of the music. You can see the
round holes in the rock there now.
"Well--it has always been this way among Hopi--when there is a dance,
everybody goes to see.
"Now there was a dance at Mishongnovi and the boys from Huckovi went
over to see it.
"Now the war chief at Huckovi was a great man that everybody looked up
to, and he had only one son. This young man was so religious that he
never went to this kind of just funny dances, but this time he went
along with some friends. Long time ago the chief never goes to these
dances, nor his son who will follow his steps.
"When they got to Mishongnovi the dance was going on and everybody
laughing and having a good time, for the clown kachinas were going round
pestering the dancing kachinas. These rough clown kachinas took turns
appearing and disappearing, and some coming, others going away, then
coming back.
"About the middle of the afternoon, came two Kachina racers to run with
the clowns, and soon they began to call out some of the young men from
the audience, known to be the best runners. After a while the son of
Huckovi chief was chosen to run, but he was very bashful and refused to
perform. But the Kachina who had chosen him as a competitor insisted and
finally brought a gift of baked sweet corn and the young man was
embarrassed and thought he had to run or be made fun of, so he came over
and ran with this Kachina and beat him. They ran a long race, and the
Kachina never could catch up with him, but when the boy stopped, the
Kachina ran up and took hold of him and cut off his hair. The name of
this Kachina was Hair Eater, and he was supposed to cut off the hair if
he beat the boy, but he never did beat him.
"The Hopi, in those days, took great pride in their hair and would not
cut it off for anything in the world.
"The people who saw what had happened were so sorry that the honorable
son of the chief had been disgraced, that, to show their disapproval,
they all left while the dance was still going on.
"When the boy got home his father was grieved to see his son coming home
scalped, as he said. The father didn't know what to do.
"Now the chief had a daughter twelve years old. He told her to practice
running till she can beat her brother. Both the boy and the girl
practiced a long time and at last the girl can run faster and farther
than her brother.
"Then the father said, 'I think it is good enough.'
"Soon the chief, he was the war chief, went to visit his friend, the war
chief at Mishongnovi, and asked him to arrange a dance without letting
the village chief know, because he said he wanted to give some kind of
exhibition there.
"So his friend arranged the dance and four nights of practice followed.
This dance was to be given by the Snow Kachinas. So that night the dance
is going to be, the father and mother of the children baked up much
sweet corn for them to take to this dance at Mishongnovi.
"Now the chief had discovered that it was the son of the Mishongnovi
village chief (not the war chief there) that had scalped his son.
"Being fast runners, the children went a round-about way and were still
in time for the three o'clock dance. So they approached the village from
another direction so no one would know where they had come from, and
they put on their costumes and the girl dressed exactly like the son of
the Mishongnovi village chief in his Hair Eater Kachina costume so no
one can tell who she is.
"Now when the father started his children off, he gave them two
prayer-sticks for protection, and he said when they were pursued they
must conceal these and never let anyone touch them and they will be
protected.
"Well, when they got there the clowns were dancing with the Kachinas. So
the daughter of the Huckovi chief goes to a house top where she can see
the pretty daughter of the Mishongnovi chief sitting with a bunch of
girls, all in their bright shawls and with their hair in whorls.
"When these girls see a Hair Eater Kachina coming up on the house top
they run from her, remembering the old trouble when that kind of a
kachina had done such an awful thing. The girls all ran into a room and
on down into a lower room, and the Huckovi girl followed them and caught
the chief's daughter and cut off a whorl of her hair and also cut her
throat. Then she went out on the house top and shook out the whorl for
all the people to see.
"Of course the dance stopped and everybody started to come after her,
but she and her brother ran from house top to lower house top and jumped
to the ground and ran on west by Toreva and toward home, with all the
men of Mishongnovi chasing them and shooting with bows and arrows. At
last some were coming after them on horses. Then her brother asked her
if she was too tired to run farther, fearing they would be caught. She
replied, 'No more tired than at first!'
"By now they had come to the Oraibi Wash, and looking back they could
see some men coming on horses.
"They remembered their two prayer-sticks, so they took them out of where
they had hidden them in their clothes and they planted them at the two
sides of the wash.
"And immediately a great whirl wind started up from that place and grew
into a great sand storm that blotted out their tracks and made such a
thick cloud that their enemies could no longer see them. Then they
turned straight home.
"So the children came home with the whorl and scalp attached, and the
father was satisfied.
"But the Mishongnovi chief was terribly angry and told his people to
make much bows and arrows.
"Then a friend of the Huckovi chief went over from Mishongnovi and told
all this to the war chief of Huckovi, who told his people to do
likewise, for now there will be war.
"So after preparations had gone on for a long time, the Mishongnovi
chief went to the Huckovi chief and said, 'We have to divide the land
between us, and Oraibi Wash shall be the line.' (Meaning the mark past
which an enemy was not to be pursued, and each would be safe on his own
side of the line.)
"Oraibi Wash was already the line for the same purpose between
Mishongnovi and Oraibi Village because of an older trouble.
"Well, when the enemies came from Mishongnovi to fight them, the Huckovi
people had gathered many rocks and rolled them down from the mesa top,
and killed so many that the Mishongnovi men started for home. But the
Huckovi men came down then and followed them, and fought them every foot
of the way back to Oraibi Wash, where they had to let them go free, and
they went on running all the way home, and the Huckovi people then
returned to their homes satisfied."
* * * * *
The next two stories are by Dawavantsie, whose name means "sand dune."
She is a member of the Water Clan, and is the oldest woman now living in
Walpi. She is much loved by the whole village, who claim that she is
over a hundred years old. How old she really is, it would be impossible
to know, for such things were not kept track of so long ago. She speaks
no English. When asked about her age she merely shrugs her small
shrunken shoulders, draws her shawl around them, and with a pleasant
toothless smile, says: "O, I never know that, but I remember a long,
long time."
She loves to tell stories, and enjoys quite a reputation as a
story-teller among her relatives and neighbors, who like to gather round
and listen as she sits on the floor of her second story home, her back
against the wall, bare feet curled up and quiet hands folded in her lap.
Her face, while deeply wrinkled, is fine and expressive of much
character as well as sweetness of disposition. Figure 14 shows her
posing for her picture just outside her door, on the roof of the next
lower room. Her skin and hair and dress are all clean and neat; her
little back is astonishingly straight, and her bare brown feet, so long
used to the ladders of Hopiland, are surer than mine, if slower.
She has lived all her life, as did her mother and grandmother before
her, in this second story room, on whose clean clay floor we sat for the
visiting and story-telling. From its open door she looks out over the
roofs of Walpi and far across the valley in all directions, for hers is
the highest house, and near the end of the mesa. The ancestral home with
its additions is now housing four generations. She has always been a
woman of prominence because of her intelligence and has the marks of
good breeding--one of nature's gentlewomen.
[Illustration: Figure 14.--Dawavantsie of Walpi.]
The writer's friends, Dr. and Mrs. Fewkes, had told of her several
years ago, for it was in her house that they had lived for some time in
the early nineties while carrying on research work for the Bureau of
American Ethnology. The writer did not realize that this was the house
and the woman of whom she had heard till half-way through the first
story, when some mention of Dr. Fewkes, by her son-in-law (a man past
middle age) brought out the fact. When informed of the death of both Dr.
and Mrs. Fewkes, her controlled grief was touching. In speaking of our
mutual friend, the writer used the Hopi name given him by the Snake
fraternity of the old woman's village so many years ago--Nahquavi
(medicine bowl), a name always mentioned with both pride and amusement
by Dr. Fewkes. And I found that in this family, none of whom speak
English, exactly these same emotions expressed themselves in the faces
of all the older members of the family, who remembered with a good deal
of affection, it seemed, these friends of nearly forty years ago.
Over and over, they repeated the name; it stirred memories; they laughed
eagerly, and nodded their heads, and began to talk to me in Hopi,
completely forgetting the interpreter. Then their faces sobered and
sighs and inarticulate sounds were all that broke the silence for fully
ten minutes. Then quietly the little grandmother turned to the
interpreter and asked her to say to me, "He called me his sister."
Silence again, and after a few minutes she went on with her stories.
=Memories of a Hopi Centenarian,= as told by Dawavantsie
"One of the first important things I can remember was when some Spanish
soldiers came here. I don't know how old I was, but I had been married
for several years, I think, for my first child had died. I was then
living in this same old house. These Spaniards came from the direction
of Keam's Canyon, and they passed on toward Oraibi. They did not come up
onto this mesa at all, but just took corn and melons and whatever they
wanted from the fields down below.
"It was early one morning and I had gone with two other girls, cousins
of mine, down to the spring at the foot of the mesa for water. These
men came toward us, and we ran, but they caught us and started to take
us away. I fought the man who was holding me and got loose and ran up
the mesa trail faster than he could run.
"I rolled rocks on them when they tried to come up and so they gave it
up. I ran on up to the top of the mesa and gave the alarm and our men
went to rescue the other two girls, but the Spaniards had horses and
they got away with the girls, who have never been heard of to this day.
"The Hopi had no horses in those days, but there were just a few burros.
So the men followed on foot, but they could never catch them. There was
a skirmish at Oraibi, too, over the stealing of girls.
"One Walpi man in the fields was unable to keep them from taking his two
girls, so he just had to give them up and he never saw them again. The
poor father had few relations and had to go from house to house asking
for food, for he was so grieved that he could never get along after
that, but just was always worrying about his girls, and he died in less
than a year.
"After a long time other Spaniards came, and a young man who was down
below the mesa, practicing for a race before sunrise, saw them and ran
back and got enough men to go down and capture them. They kept their
prisoners fastened in a room for a while and then the older men decided
that they would not let them be killed although some wanted to; so they
took them to some houses below the mesa--the place is still called
Spanish Seat--and kept them there.
"After a few weeks they let them go away. Some Hopi men were bribed to
get some girls to go down off the mesa that day so these Spaniards could
take them away with them.
"They asked me to go and a girl friend of mine, but we would not go. One
girl did go, for a famine was beginning and this poor girl thought she
was being taken to visit with the Zunis and would be better off there.
Nobody ever got track of her again.
"Once food was so scarce that I had to go with my mother and sister to
Second Mesa, and we stayed there with our clan relations till food was
scarce, and then we went to Oraibi and stayed with our clan relations
there until summer. We could go back to Walpi then because corn and
melons were growing again; but we left my sister because she had married
there.
"This was a two-year famine and almost everybody left Walpi and wandered
from village to village, living wherever they could get food. There had
been more rain and better crops in some of the other places.
"Ever since then some Walpi people have scattered among other villages,
where they married, and some went as far as the Rio Grande villages, and
some perished on the way.
"Again after many years, Spaniards came, stealing corn, and this time
they went through the houses and stole whatever they wanted. They took
away ceremonial and sacred things, that was the worst. And when they
left, they went northeast, past where Tom's store is now.
"No, there were never any Spanish missionaries living in Walpi; those
who tell of priests living here are mistaken--too young to know. I have
heard of those at Oraibi long ago, and at Awatobi; some were killed at
those places.
"Some of the rafters of this house, not of this room but another part,
were brought from ruins of Awatobi. An uncle of my daughter's husband
here brought some sacred things from Awatobi and revived some of the old
ceremonials that had been dropped on account of our not having the right
things to use for them. Spaniards had already been here and taken some
of those things out of the houses, so some ceremonies could never be
held any more without those things. You see, the Awatobi people had some
such things, too, and so our people wanted to save them. I think some of
our trouble with Awatobi was to get these things.
"I remember that after the famine, when crops were good again, we had
trouble with Navajos. It was in the summer and a Hopi hoeing his field
was killed by a bunch of thieving Navajos, and that started the trouble.
This man who was killed had a crippled nephew working with him at the
time, and that boy got away and ran back to Walpi with the word, and
everybody was surprised that he could run fast enough to get away.
"After that they made him a watchman to look out for Navajos.
"A good while after that two Hopi boys were fired upon by prowling
Navajos who were hiding in the village of Sichomovi. For a number of
years then the Navajos plundered the fields, drove off the stock, and
killed children. Then they stopped coming here for a good while, but
later they began doing all those things again, worse than ever. So then
the Hopi decided to shoot every Navajo they saw in their fields, and
this stopped the trouble.
"Now the Navajos are good friends, come here often, and bring meat."
=The Coyote and the Water Plume Snake,= by Dawavantsie
"Once upon a time a Coyote and a Water Plume Snake got acquainted. One
day the Coyote invited his friend, the big snake, to come and visit him
at his house. The Snake was pleased to be invited, so he went that very
night.
"The Coyote was at home waiting, and when his guest arrived, he told him
to come right in. So the Snake started in, first his head, then his long
body, and more and more of him kept coming in, so that the Coyote had to
keep crowding over against the wall to make room. By the time the Snake
was in, tail and all, the Coyote had to go up and stay outside, for his
visitor took up all the room in his house.
"Now the Coyote could still put his head close to his door and visit
with the Snake, so that they had a very good visit. But that night was
pretty cold, and after while the Coyote was so cold he got cross and
wished the Snake would go home.
"Well, by and by, the Snake said he must go home now, so he said
goodnight and invited the Coyote to come over to his house the next
night.
"The Coyote said he would be sure to come over, then he went into his
house and sat by the fire and got warm and made plans how he would get
even with that big Water Plume Snake.
"Well, next day he went and gathered a lot of cedar bark and some corn
husks and some pine gum, and he made himself a great long tail and put
lots of wool and some of his hair on the outside, so that it was a very
big tail and long, too.
"So when evening came, he waited for it to get dark, then he started for
the kiva of the big Snake.
"When he got there his friend was waiting and had a nice fire and
received him with good welcome and told him to come right in and get
warm.
"Now the Water Plume Snake was sure surprised when the Coyote got in and
kept going round and round, pulling his long tail after him, and being
wise he saw just what was going on, and now he knows the Coyote is
making fun of him. So he just says nothing and makes room enough for the
Coyote by going outdoors himself.
"So the Snake just put his head in and was very nice and polite and they
have a good visit. But the Snake got very cold and still the Coyote will
not go home and the Snake is nearly freezing.
"At last the Coyote says he have to go and the Snake is pretty cold and
pretty mad, too. So he says good night to the Coyote and crawls right
down into his house quick as the Coyote's body is out, and when he sees
all that big tail rolling out he just holds the end of it over the
fireplace and gets it burning.
"But the Coyote is very pleased with himself and he don't look back but
just goes right along. After a while he notices a fire behind him and
turns around and sees the grass is burning way back there. So he says to
himself, 'Well I better not go into my house for the Hopi have set fire
to the grass to drive me away, and I'll just go on, so they won't find
me at home.'
"But soon the fire got going fast in that cedar bark and before he can
get that tail untied he is burned so bad that he just keeps running till
he gets to Bayupa (Little Colorado River). There was a great flood going
down the river and he was so weak from running that he could not swim,
so he drowned. And that is what he got for trying to get even with
somebody."
Quentin Quahongva, who tells the next story, lives at Shungopovi,
Second Mesa. He is a good-natured, easy-going man of middle age, and
usually surrounded by a troop of children, his own and all the
neighbors'.
[Illustration: Figure 15.--Quahongva, Story-teller of Shungopovi, and
Listeners.]
We had no more than started our first story when the youngsters began to
appear. They squatted about on the floor and covered the door step, and
were good listeners. Their squeals of glee brought other children
scampering, as the story-teller imitated the song and dance steps of the
Eagle, in one of his stories. But the one we have chosen to record here
is a Bear story. Figure 15 shows Quahongva surrounded by those of the
children who had not been called home to supper when the stories ended.
One small girl in the foreground is carrying her doll on her back by
means of her little shawl, exactly as her mother carries her baby
brother.
Quahongva was a good story-teller. Some of his tales were long enough to
occupy an evening. His best story took two and a half days for the
telling and recording, so can not be included here.
=A Bear Story,= as told by Quahongva
"Long ago at Shipaulovi there lived a woman with her husband and two
little children, two and four years old. The husband died. For a long
time the woman stayed alone and had to do all the work herself, bring
wood and make the fire and everything.
"One day she went to a little mesa a good ways off for wood, for there
was dry wood in that place. One of the children wanted to go with her
and cried, but the mother could not take her, she was too little. So she
told her to stay at home and play and watch for her return.
"The two little ones were playing 'slide down' on a smooth, slanting
rock, and from quite a distance the mother looked back and saw them
still playing there. Then she went around a little hill to find her
wood.
"She gathered a big bunch and tied it up, making a kind of rack that she
could carry on her back. Now she leaned her load up on a big rock so she
could lift it to her back, and as she turned around just ready to take
up the load, she saw a bear coming. She was terribly frightened and just
stood still, and the bear came closer and made big noise. (Note: A good
imitation was given, and the children listeners first laughed and then
became comically sober. H.G.L.)
"She said, 'Poor me, where shall I hide! What am I going to do!'
"She was so frightened she could not think where to go; but now she saw
a crevice under the rock where she was leaning, so she crawled in and
put the rack of wood in front of her.
"From behind the wood she could still see the bear coming and hear his
great voice. Soon he reached the rock and tore the wood away with his
great paws. Then he reached in and pulled the woman out and ripped her
open with his terrible claws and tore her heart out and ate it up.
"By this time the sun was nearly down; it was soon dark and the poor
children were still waiting for their mother just where she had left
them, but she never returned. Some one came to them and asked, 'What are
you doing here?'
"'We are watching for our mother, who went for wood, and we are waiting
for her,' they said.
"'But why does she not come when it is so late?' they said. Then they
said, 'Let's all go home; something must have happened.' So they took
the children home with them and sent some others to look for the mother.
"They followed her tracks and found the place, the mother dead, and her
heart gone. So they came back home in the dark night.
"Next day, they returned to the place and followed the bear tracks to
the woods where his home was, but never found the bear. So they went
home.
"The poor little children were very lonely and not treated very well by
the neighbors, and both children died, first the younger, and then the
older; and this is a true story." (Note: One could well imagine from the
faces of the young listeners that something like a resolution to stay
pretty close around home was passing unanimously. H.G.L.)
* * * * *
Don Talayesva of Upper Oraibi was the only one of my story-tellers who
spoke without the aid of an interpreter. He is a tall, good-looking man
of less than forty, with an expressive face and a pair of merry dark
eyes that hold a prophesy of the rich sense of humor one soon discovers
in both his conversation and his stories.
This particular tale rather gives away some state secrets as to how Hopi
children are persuaded to be good, and Don chuckled and paused to lower
his voice and see that his own small son was out of hearing, when
explaining certain parts of the story.
=The Giant and the Twin War Gods,= as told by Don Talayesva
"Well, once upon a time more people lived here in Old Oraibi--many
people, many, many children, and the children getting pretty bad. People
tried every way to punish and correct them and at last the head governor
got tired of this business, and so he thought of best way to fix them.
They were all time throwing stones at the old people and pinning rags on
the back of somebody and don't mind their parents very good.
"Now this head governor is very powerful and very wise. He went out to
where there is many pinon and cedar trees and he gathered much pinon
gum. Next day he called an old lady, a Spider Woman, to come and help
him out.
"She asked what she can do. He explained about the naughty children and
their disrespect for the old people and their parents.
"He asked her to make a Giant out of the gum. She greased her hands and
molded a big figure about a foot thick and four feet high with head and
arms and legs. Then she covered it up with a white wedding blanket, and
then she take whisk-broom and she patted with the broom, in time to her
singing, on this doll figure, and it began to live and grow larger.
"When she finished singing he was enormously wide and tall, and he got
up and uncovered himself and he sat there and said, 'What can I do to
help you?'
"Then the governor said, 'I hired the old lady to make you and make you
come to life so you can do a job for me. Now you go and make your home
over here near by.'
"The governor gave him as weapons a hatchet, bow and arrow, a rabbit
stick, and a big basket to carry the children away in, and a big wooden
spear.
"'Now you go over there,' the governor said, 'and make your home. On the
fourth day you come down and catch the first child you see playing on
trash piles.'
"So on the fourth day the Giant came over early before sunrise and got
to Oraibi by sunrise and got up here on top of the mesa and saw two
brothers playing on the trash pile. They were facing west and he slipped
up behind and tied them together and put them in his basket and carry
them to his home.
"At breakfast the families missed the children and traced them to where
the Giant picked them up, but saw no tracks farther.
"Every morning he comes over looking for some more children and got away
with many before parents know where they went.
"This kept going on till there were very few children left and the
parents were very sad. Giant leaves no tracks, so nobody knows what to
do. At last parents decide to do something.
"The second chief decided to go to the two little War Gods, who live
with their grandmother, a Spider Woman, and see if they would help them.
"So then the second chief cut two round pieces out of strong buckskin,
and made two big balls and stuffed them hard and painted them with a red
face, a mask like Supais. He made a strong bow and many strong arrows
and put them in a--something like an army bag. All this he made for the
Twin War Gods, who are small but powerful and their medicine too.
"Then he took these presents and started off to the home of these two
little War Gods.
"At early sunrise he arrived there and peeked down into their house,
which was like a big kiva, and there were the two boys playing shinney.
"The grandmother received the man kindly and told the rough, unruly boys
to stop their playing and be quiet. But they don't stop their playing,
so she picked up a big stick and hit the boys a good lick across the
legs. Now the boys see the man and his two fine balls and sticks. They
say to each other, 'We like to have those things!'
"After a good breakfast she asked the man, 'What can we do for you?'
"'Yes,' he said, 'a Giant at Oraibi has been carrying away more than
half the children from our village.'
"She said, 'Yes, we know all about this and just waiting for you to come
to ask our help. I have dreamed that you would come today for our help.'
"Then the man gave his nice presents to the boys and said, 'Tomorrow you
come over to Oraibi and meet the Giant when he comes at sunrise for
children.'
"The boys said, 'Sure, we kill him!'
"But the grandmother said, 'Don't brag, just say you do your best!'
"Next morning both boys forget all about it, but grandmother wake them
up and started them off.
"They got to Oraibi Mesa and waited for the Giant, but they got to
playing with their balls and sticks and forgot to watch for him.
"Soon the Giant came slipping up, but the boys saw him and they said,
'Here's that Giant, let's hit the ball hard and hit him in the head and
kill him.' So they did, and knocked him off the mesa.
"It didn't kill him though, but he got mad, and he said, 'You wait and
see what I do to you!' And he came back and picked them up, one at a
time, and put them in his basket and started off with them.
"As they were going along, the boys told the Giant they have to get out,
for just a minute please. So the Giant let them get out of the basket,
but he held on to the rope that he has tied around them.
"So the boys stepped behind a big rock and untied themselves and
fastened the rope to the rock. Then the Giant got mad and pulled the
rope hard and the big rock rolled over on him and hurt his legs.
"Then that Giant was sure mad, and he catch those boys again and he put
them in his basket and take them right home and make oven very hot for
cooking boys.
"But the boys had some good medicine with them that their grandmother
gave them, and each took some in his mouth and when the Giant threw the
first boy in the oven, he spit a little of the medicine out into the
oven and cooled it off, so that it was just warm enough for comfort. So
the boys told stories and had fun all night.
"Next morning the Giant made pudding to go with his meat, and he opened
the oven and there were the boys smiling.
"Giant was very hungry, so he said, 'You come out and I challenge you to
fight it out and see who is more powerful.'
"So the Giant threw his rabbit stick at the bigger boy, but the boy
jumped up and the stick caught fire as it passed under him. Then the
Giant threw at smaller boy just high enough to hit his head, but he
ducked down and the stick passed over his head like a streak of fire.
Then he tried bow and arrows, but nothing hurt the boys.
"Then the Giant said, 'Well I have used all my weapons and failed, so
now you can try to kill me.'
"So both boys threw their rabbit sticks at the same time. One broke the
Giant's legs, the other cut off his head. Then the boys smelled the pine
gum that he was made of, so they burned him up and he sure did make a
big blaze.
"They just saved his head, and carried it to the Hopi at Oraibi. They
arrived just when the people were having breakfast, at about ten in the
morning. So they reported to the second chief and presented him with the
Giant's head.
"The second chief was well pleased and said he was glad and very
thankful, and then he said, 'I don't know what I can give you for a
proper gift, but I have two daughters and, if you want them, you can
take them along.'
"The boys smiled and whispered, 'They look pretty good, let's take them
for squaws.' So they said they would take them.
"'All right,' said their father, 'come on the fourth day and get them.'
"So they went home and told their grandmother, and on the fourth day
they came back and got their wives.
"The Hopi always kept the head of this Giant to use as a mask in some
dances.
"Really the most important thing we do with this kind of a mask is for
the men to wear when they go round the village and call out the children
and scare them a little bit and tell them to be good so they don't have
to come back with the basket and carry them off. Sometimes they act like
they were going to take some naughty children with them right now, and
ask the parents if they have any bad ones, and the parents are supposed
to be very worried and hide the children and tell the Giants their
children are good, and always the parents have to give these Giants that
come around some mutton and other things to eat, in order to save their
children; and then the children are very grateful to their parents.
"You see, the parents always tell the men who are coming around,
beforehand, of a few of the things the children have been doing, so when
they come looking for bad children they mention these special things to
show the children that they know about it. And parents tell children a
Giant may come back for them if they are pretty bad, and come right down
the chimney maybe.
"My brother is a pretty tall man, and I am the tallest man in Oraibi, so
we are sometimes chosen to act the part of Giants. Then we paint all
black and put on this kind of a mask. It is an enormous black head with
a big beak and big teeth. The time when the Giants go around and talk to
the children is in February.
"There were a good many of these masks, very old and very funny ones.
But a beam fell, killing many giant masks and leaving only two of the
real old ones. So now we have to use some masks made of black felt; one
of these is a squaw mask.
"I don't know if we can wait till February, or not, mine is getting
pretty bad already." (Note: This last was said with a big laugh and a
look around to see where his own boy was. And just then the tall little
son, aged eight, let out a yell exactly like any other little boy who
has cut his finger on Daddy's pocket knife. The buxom mother and two
aunts went scrambling down the ladder to see what was the matter. The
father got up, too, but laughed and remarked, "He be all right," and
came back and sat down. H.G.L.)
* * * * *
One of the most pleasant memories the writer has kept of her Hopi
story-tellers is that of wholesome Mother Sacknumptewa of Oraibi. She
must be middle-aged, and is surprisingly young-looking to be the mother
of her big family of grown-up sons and daughters. She wore a brand-new
dress of pretty yellow and white print, made in the full Hopi manner,
and her abundant black hair was so clean and well brushed that it was
actually glossy. Her house was spic and span and shining with a new
interior coat of white gypsum.
Her long Indian name, Guanyanum, means "all the colors of the
butterflies."
It was late afternoon, and she sat on the clean clay floor of her house
and husked a great pile of young green corn for supper, as she told me
the two little fables that follow. There was a poise and graciousness
about this woman, quite outstanding; yet she was a simple, smiling,
motherly person who often laughed quietly, or broke into a rhythmic
crooning song as she imitated her characters.
Several of her grown children gathered round and laughed with hearty
approval at her impersonations, and at last her husband came in smiling
and sat near, joining in the songs of the frog and the locust, to the
great merriment of their children.
=The Coyote and the Turtle,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa
"A long time ago, there were many turtles living in the Little Colorado
River near Homolovi, southeast of Winslow, where Hopi used to live. And
there was a coyote living there too, and of course, he was always
hungry.
"Now one day the turtles decided they would climb out of the river and
go hunt some food, for there was a kind of cactus around there that they
like very much. But one of the turtles had a baby and she didn't like to
wake it up and take it with her because it was sleeping so nicely. So
they just went along and left the baby asleep.
"After a while the little turtle woke up and he said, 'Where is my
mother? She must have gone somewhere and left me. O, I must go and find
her!'
"So the baby turtle saw that the others had crawled up the bank, and he
followed their tracks for a little way. But he soon got tired and just
stopped under a bush and began to cry. (Note: Her imitation of the
crying was good. H.G.L.)
"Now the coyote was coming along and he heard the poor little turtle
crying. So he came up and said, 'That's a pretty song; now go on and
sing for me.'
"But the baby turtle said, I'm not singing, I'm crying.'
"'Go on and sing,' said the coyote, 'I want to hear you sing.'
"'I can't sing,' said the poor baby, 'I'm crying and I want my mother.'
"'You'd better sing for me, or I'll eat you up,' said the big hungry
coyote.
"'O, I can't sing--I just can't stop crying,' said the baby, and he
cried harder and harder.
"'Well,' the big coyote said, 'if you don't sing for me I'm going to
eat you right up.' The coyote was mad, and he was very hungry. 'All
right, then, I'll just eat you,' he said.
Now the little turtle thought of something. So he said, 'Well, I can't
sing, so I guess you'll have to eat me. But that's all right, for it
won't hurt me any; here inside of my shell I'll go right on living
inside of you.'
"Now the coyote thought about this a little bit and didn't like the idea
very well.
"Then the baby turtle said, 'You can do anything you want with me, just
so you don't throw me into the river, for I don't want to drown.'
"Now the old coyote was pretty mad and he wanted to be as mean as
possible. So he just picked that baby up in his mouth and carried him
over to the river and threw him in.
"Then the baby turtle was very happy; he stuck his little head out of
his shell and stretched out his feet and started swimming off toward the
middle of the river. And he said, 'Goodbye, Mr. Coyote, and thank you
very much for bringing me back to my house so that I didn't have to walk
back.' And the little turtle laughed at the old coyote, who got madder
and madder because he had let the little turtle go. But he couldn't get
him now, so he just went home. And the baby turtle was still laughing
when his mother got home, and she laughed too. And those turtles are
still living in that water. (Note: Here is manifest all the subtlety of
"The Tar Baby," though generations older. H.G.L.)
=The Frog and the Locust,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa
"Qowakina was a place where Paqua, the frog, lived. One day he was
sitting on a little wet ground singing a prayer for rain, for it was
getting very hot and dry and that was Paqua's way of bringing the rain,
so he had a very good song like this. (Note: Here she sang a pretty
little song, very rhythmic, and her body swayed gently in time to the
music. It occurred to the writer that this would make a good bedtime
story and the little song, a lullaby, for it went on and on with
pleasing variation. H.G.L.)
"Not far away Mahu, the locust, was sitting in a bush, and he was
singing too, for he was getting pretty dusty and the weather was very
hot, and so he, too, was praying for rain. He has a very nice song for
rain, and it goes this way. (Note: Here came a lovely little humming
song whose words could not be interpreted, since they were but syllables
and sounds having no meaning in English. However, these sounds had a
definite order and rhythm. At this point the husband smilingly joined in
the song, and the unison of both sounds and rhythm was perfect. H.G.L.)
"By and by the locust heard the frog, so he came over and asked him what
he was doing. The frog said he was hot and wanted it to rain; that's why
he was singing. Then the locust said, 'Now isn't that strange, that's
exactly what I do to make it rain, too, and that's the best thing to
do.' So they both sang.
"Pretty soon they noticed that the clouds had been coming up while they
were singing, and before long it rained, and they both were happy.
"After this they were always great friends because they had found out
they both had the same idea about something."