Part 6

If there is no "father" for him in the war-party, as soon as possible a messenger is sent on ahead to get some one at home to take the office for him, and to make the fires in the kee, that being a man's special duty. And the wife of the slayer is also now unclean by his act, and must purify herself as long as he, tho she must keep apart from him. And she also must have a substitute to do her usual work. She must keep close at home, and her husband, the slayer, remain out in the bushes till the purification is accomplished.

For two days the fast is complete, but on the morning of the third day the slayer is allowed one drink of pinole, very thin, and no more than he can drink at one breath. The moment he pauses he can have no more at that time.

When presenting this pinole, the "father" makes this speech:

"Your fame has come, and I was overjoyed, and have run all the way to the ocean, and back again, bringing you this water.

On my return I strengthened myself four times, and in the dish in which I carried the water stood See-vick-a Way-hohm, The Red Thunder Person, the Lightning, and because of his force I fell down.

And when I got up I smelled the water in the dish, and it smelled as if something had been burned in it.

And when I got up I strengthened myself four times, and there came from the sky, and stood in the dish, Tone-dum Bah-ahk, The Eagle of Light. And he turned the water in the dish in a circle, and because of his force I fell down, and when I rose up again and smelled the water in the dish it was stinking.

And when I had started again I strengthened myself four times, and Vee-sick the Chicken Hawk, came down from the sky and stood in the dish. And by his force I was thrown down. And when I stood again and smelled the water in the dish, it smelled like fresh blood.

And I started again, strengthening myself four times, and there came from the East our gray cousin, Skaw-mack Tee-worm-gall, The Coyote, who threw me down again, and stood in the dish, and turned the water around, and left it smelling as the coyote smells.

And when I rose up I started again, and in coming to you I have rested four times; and now I have brought you the water, and so many powerful beings have done wonderful things to it that I want you to drink it all at one time."

After the third day the "father" brings his charge a little to eat every morning and evening, but a very little.

On the morning of the fourth day, at daybreak the slayer takes a bath of purification, even if it is winter and he has to break the ice and dive under to do it. And this is repeated on the morning of each fourth day, till four baths have been taken in sixteen days.

The slayer finds an owl and without killing him pulls long feathers out of his wings and takes them home. The slayer had cut a little lock of hair from the head of the Apache he had killed (for in old times, at least, the Pimas often took no scalps) and now a little bag of buckskin is made, and a ball of greasewood gum is stuck on the end of this lock of hair which is placed in the bag, and on the bag are tied a feather of the owl and one from a chicken hawk, and some of the soft feathers of an eagle, and around the neck of the bag a string of blue beads.

(And during this time the women are carrying wood in their giyh-haws to the dancing place.)

Now the Apaches are contemptuously called children, and this bag represents a child, being supposed to contain the ghost of the dead Apache, and the slayer sits on the ground with it, and takes it in his hands as if it were a baby, and inhales from it four times as if he were kissing it. And when it is time for the dance the slayers who are a good ways off from the dancing place start before sunset, but those who are close wait till the sun is down. And the "father" goes with the slayer, through woods and bushes, avoiding roads. And before this the "father" has dug a hole at the dancing place about ten inches deep and two feet wide, just big enough for a man to squat in with legs folded, and behind the hole planted a mezquite fork, about five feet high, on which are hung the weapons of the slayer, his shield, club, bow, quiver of arrows, perhaps his gun or lance.

(The shield was made of rawhide, very thick, able to turn an arrow and was painted jet black by a mixture of mezquite gum and charcoal, with water, which made it glossy and shiny. The design on it was in white, or red and white. The handle was of wood, curved, placed in the centre of the inside, bound down at the ends by rawhide, and the hand fended from the rough shield by a piece of sheepskin.)

In this hole the slayer sits down and behind him and the fork lies down his dancer, for the slayer himself does not dance but some stranger who represents him perhaps a Papago or a Maricopa, drawn from a distance by the fame of the exploit. Nor do the slayers sing, but old men who in their day have slain Apaches. These singers are each allowed to sing two songs of their own choice, the rest of the veterans joining in. And as soon as the first old man begins to sing, the dancers get up, take the weapons of the men they represent, and dance around the fire, which the "fathers" keep burning, keeping time with the song.

And the women cook all kinds of good things, and set them before the singers, but the bystanders jump in and snatch them away. But sometimes the wife of an old singer will get something and save it for him.

And the relatives of the slayers will bring presents for the dancers, buckskin, baskets, and anything that an Indian values. And as soon as presented some relative of the dancer runs in and takes the present and keeps it for him.

And while this big war-dance is going on the rest of the people are having dances in little separate groups, all around. And as soon as the dance is over the weapons are returned to the forks they were taken from.

By this time it is nearly morning, and the slayers get up and take their bath in the river, and return and dry themselves by the expiring fire. Then returning to the bushes they remain there again four days, and that is the last of their purification.

As this dance is on the eve of the sixteenth day, there were twenty days in all.

Grossman's account differs considerably from this, and is worth reading.

During the time of purifying, the slayers wear their hair in a strange way, like the top-knot of a white woman, somewhat, and in it stick a stick, called a kuess-kote to scratch themselves with, as they are not allowed to use the fingers. This is alluded to in the Story of Paht-ahn-kum's War. A picture of a Maricopa interpreter, with his hair thus arranged, is in the report of Col. W. H. Emory, before alluded to. This picture is interesting, because it shows that the Maricopas, when with the Pimas, adopted the same custom. When I showed this picture to the old see-nee-yaw-kum he was much interested, saying he himself had known this man, who was a relative of his, there being a dash of Maricopa blood in his family, and that he had been born in Mexico and had there learned Spanish enough to be an interpreter. His Mexican name, he said, was Francisco Lucas, but the Pimas called him How-app-ahl Tone-um-kum, or Thirsty Hawk, a name which has an amusing significance when we recall what Emory says about his taste for aguardiente, and that Captain Johnston says of the same man, "the dog had a liquorish tooth."

STORIES OF THE SECOND NIGHT

THE STORY OF THE TURQUOISES AND THE RED BIRD

And at the vahahkkee which the white men now call the Casa Grande ruins was the home of Seeollstchewadack Seeven, or the Morning green Chief.

And one morning the young women at that place were playing and having a good time with the game of the knotted rope or balls, which is called toe-coll.

And in this game the young girls are placed at each end, near the goals, and at this time, at the west end, one of the young girls gradually sank into the earth; and as she sank the earth around her became very green with grass.

And Seeollstchewadack Seeven told the people not to disturb the green spot until the next morning; and the next morning the green spot was a green rock, and he told the people to dig around it, and as they dug they chipped off small pieces, and the people came and got what they wanted of these pieces of green stone. And they made ear-rings and ornaments from these green stones, which were tchew-dack-na-ha-gay-awh or turquoises.

And after the turquoises were distributed, and the fame of this had spread, the chief of another people, who lived to the east, whose name was Dthas Seeven (Sun-Chief) thought he would do something wonderful, too, being envious, and he opened one of his veins and from the blood made a large, beautiful bird, colored red.

And Dthas Seeven told his bird to go to the city of Seeollstchewadack Seeven and hang around there till that chief saw him and took him in. And when they offered him corn he was not to eat that nor anything else they gave him, but when he saw his chance he was to pick up a bit of the green stone and swallow it, for when it should be seen that he would swallow the green stones then he would be fed on turquoises.

So the bird was sent, and when it arrived at the city of the turquoises, the daughter of Seeollstchewadack Seeven, whose name was Nawitch, saw it and went and told her father. And he asked, "What is the color of the bird?" and she answered, "Red;" and he said, "I know that bird. It is a very rare bird, and its being here is a sign something good is going to happen. I want you to get the bird and bring it here, but do not take hold of it. Offer it a stick, and it will take hold of it, with its bill, and you can lead it here."

And Nawitch offered the bird a stick, and it caught hold of the end by its bill, which was like a parrot's bill, and she led it to her father.

And Seeollstchewadack Seeven said: "Feed him on pumpkin seed, for that is what this kind of bird eats."

And Nawitch gave the bird pumpkin seed, but it would not eat. And then she tried melon seed, but it would not eat. And then she tried devil-claw seed, but it would not eat. And her father said, then: "Make him broth of corn, for this kind of bird eats only new dishes!" And she did so, but it would not eat the broth of corn.

And the old man told her to try pumpkin seed again; and she tried the pumpkin seed again, and the melon seed again, and the devil-claw seed, and the broth of corn, but the bird would not touch any of these.

But just then the bird saw a little piece of turquoise lying on the ground and it sprang and swallowed it. And the daughter saw this and told her father that the bird would eat turquoises. And her father said: "This kind of bird will not eat turquoises, but you may try him." And she gave it some turquoises and it ate them greedily. And then her father said: "Go and get some nice, clean ones, a basket full." And she did so, and the bird ate them all, and she kept on feeding it until it had swallowed four basketful.

And then the bird began to run around, and the girl said: "I fear our pet will leave us and fly away" but the old man said: "He will not fly away. He likes us too well for that," but after a short time the bird got to a little distance and took to its wings, and flew back to the city of Dthas Seeven.

And Dthas Seeven gave it water twice, and each time it vomited, and thus it threw up all the turquoises.

And so Dthas Seeven also had turquoises.

NOTES ON THE STORY OF THE TURQUOISES

Turquoises seem to have been regarded by all Arizona Indians as magical and lucky stones, and the Story of the Turquoises professes to give their origin.

Of the game, toe-coll, here spoken of, Whittemore gives this account in Cook's "Among the Pimas:" "One of the amusements of the women was that of tossing balls. They had two small ones, covered with buckskin, and tied about six inches apart. Young women and married, from thirty to seventy-five in a group, assembled as dressed for a ball, their hair carefully manipulated so as to be black and glossy. Each had a stick of willow six feet long. With these they dextrously tossed the balls high in the air, running after them until one party was so weary that they gave up the game from mere exhaustion.

"In order to make the excitement a success they had certain active women, keen of wit and quick of action, practice weeks in advance."

Sometimes the balls were formed by two large knots in a short piece of rope.

THE STORY OF WAYHOHM, TOEHAHVS AND TOTTAI

And Seeollstchewadack Seeven wondered what this action of the bird meant, and he studied about it till he found out who it was that had sent the bird and for what purpose.

And he sent a cold rain upon the home of Dthas Seeven. And it rained a heavy rain for three days and three nights, so hard that it put out all the fires in the city of Dthas Seeven, and Dthas Seeven was dying with cold.

And the people came about him to witness his dying, and they said: "Let us send some one to get the fire!" And they sent Toehahvs.

And Toehahvs went, and at last came to a house where he heard the fire roaring within. And he looked in, and there was a big fire. And he sat in the doorway holding out his paws toward the heat.

And the owner of the house, whose name was Way-hohm, or the Lightning, sat working within with his face to the fire and his back to Toehahvs. And Toehahvs wanted to dash in and steal some fire, but he did not dare, and he went back and told the people he had seen the fire but he could not get it.

On the fourth day it was still raining, and they sent another person. And this time they sent Tot-tai, or the Road Runner, for they said he could run almost as fast as Toehahvs.

And Tottai came to the same house, and heard the fire, and peeped in the door to warm himself. And there sat the owner of the fire, Wayhohm, working with his face to the fire and his back to Tottai. And Tottai dashed in and caught hold of a stick with fire at one end and ran out with it.

And Wayhohm caught up his bow, the Bow-of-the-Lightning, Way-hohm-a-Gaht, and fired at Road Runner, and struck him on the side of his head, and that is why the side of Tottai's head is still bare; and Tottai ran on, and Wayhohm shot at him again and struck the other side of his head.

And Tottai whirled around then so that the sparks flew every way, and got into all kinds of wood, and that is why there is fire in all kinds of sticks even now, and the Indian can get it out by rubbing them together to this day.

But Tottai kept on, and got to the house of Dthas Seeven all right, and they made a fire, and Dthas Seeven got better again.

NOTES ON THE STORY OF WAYHOHM

There is a suggestion of Thor in the Story of Wayhohm, and also of Prometheus. Wayhohm's house must have been the hall of the clouds.

How true to nature, here, is the touch describing the Coyote-person, Toehahvs. The excessive caution of the coyote, making it impossible for him, however eager, to force himself into any position he suspects, here stands out before us, contrasted in the most dramatic way with the dashing boldness of the road-runner.

When we reached the end of this story Comalk Hawk-Kih took two pieces of wood to rub them together to make fire. But he was old and breathless, and "Sparkling-Soft-Feather," the mother of my interpreter, took them and made the fire for me. I have the implements yet.

There were two parts to the apparatus. Gee-uh-toe-dah, the socket stick was of a soft dry piece of giant cactus rib, and a notch was whittled in one side of this with a small socket at the apex, that is on the upper side.

This was placed flat on the ground, with a bit of corn husk under the notch, and held firmly in position by the bare feet. The twirling stick, eev-a-dah-kote, was a hard arrow weed, very dry and scraped smooth. The end of this was engaged in the little socket, at the top of the cactus rib, and then, held perpendicularly, was twirled between the two hands till the friction rubbed off a powder which crowded out of the socket, and fell down the notch at its side to the corn-husk. This little increasing pile of powder was the tinder, and, as the twirling continued, grew black, smelled like burned wood, smoked and finally glowed like punk. It was now picked up on the corn husk and placed in dry horse dung, a bunch of dry grass, or some such inflammable material, and blown into flame.

It looked very simple, and took little time, but I never could do it.

THE STORY OF HAWAWK

And when Dthas Seeven had gotten better he meditated on what had happened to him, and studied out that Seeollstchewadack-Seeven was the cause of his trouble, and planned how to get the better of him.

Now the Indians have a game of football in which the ball is not kicked but lifted and thrown a good ways by the foot, and Dthas Seeven made such a ball, and sent a young man to play it in the direction of the city of Seeollstchewadack-Seeven. And the young man did so, and as he kept the ball going on it came to the feet of a young girl, who, when she saw the ball, picked it up and hid it under the square of cloth which Indian girls wear.

And the young man came up and asked her if she had seen the ball, and she answered no, she had not seen it, and she kept on denying it, so at last he turned back and said he might as well go home as he no longer had a ball to play with. But he had not gone far before the girl called to him: "Are you not coming back to get your ball?" And he went back to her, and she tried to find the ball, but could not.

But the ball was not lost, but it had bewitched her.

And after a time this girl had a baby, a tall baby, with claws on its hands and feet like a wild animal.

And the people did not know what this meant, and they asked Toehahvs, and Toehahvs knew because this had been prophesied of old time. And Toehahvs said: "She is Haw-awk."

And Hawawk grew and became able to crawl, but people were afraid of handling her because of the scratching of her claws. Only her relatives could safely handle her. And as she grew older, still, she would sometimes see other children and wish to play with them, but in a short time they would get scratched by her in her gambols and would run home crying and leave her alone. And it got so that when the children saw her coming they would tell each other and run home and she could get none of them to play with her.

She claimed Ee-ee-toy as her uncle, and when he had been rabbit-hunting and came in with game she would run and call him "uncle!" and try and get the rabbits away from him; and when he cleaned the rabbits and threw away the entrails she would run and devour them, and the bones of the rabbits the people threw away after the feasts she would eat, too.

And when Hawawk grew older she would sometimes complain to Ee-ee-toy if he came in without game. "Why is it you sometimes come in without rabbits?" she would say, "And why do you not kill a great many?" And he would reply: "It is not possible to kill a great many, for they run very fast and are very hard to shoot with a bow and arrow." "Let me go with you," she would say, "and I will kill a great many." But he would tell her: "You are a girl, and it is not your place to go hunting. If you were a boy it would be, but as it is you cannot go."

And she kept on begging in this way, and he kept on refusing, she saying that she could kill a great many, and he saying that only a man or a boy could shoot many rabbits, because they ran so fast.

But as she grew older still she began to follow the hunters, and when the hunting began she would be in the crowd, but she tried to keep out of her uncle's way so that he would not see her. And sometimes when she would thus be following the hunt a rabbit would run in her direction, and she would run fast and jump on it and kill it, and eat it right there; and after a while she could do this oftener and caught a good many; and she would eat all she wanted as she caught them, and the others she gave to her uncle, Ee-ee-toy, to carry home. And Ee-ee-toy came to like to have her with him because of the game she could get. But after a time she did not come home anymore, but staid out in the bushes, living on the game she could get. But when the hunters came out, she would still join them and after killing and eating all she wanted she would give the rest of her kill to her uncle, as before.

And so she contrived to live in the wild places, like a wild-cat, and in time became able to kill deer, antelopes, and all big game, and yet being part human she would tan buckskin like a woman and do all that a woman needs to do.

And she found a cave in the mountain which is called Taht-kum, where she lived, and that cave can be seen now and is still called Hawawk's Cave.

But she had been born near where the ruins of Casa Grande now are and claimed that vahahkkee for her own. And when she knew a baby had been born there she would go to the mother and say, "I want to see my grandchild." But if the mother let her take the baby she would put it over her shoulder, into her gyih-haw, and run to her cave, and put the baby into a mortar, and pound it up and eat it. And she got all the babies she could in this way; and later on she grew bolder and would find the larger children, where they were at play, and would carry them off to eat them. And now she let all the rabbits and such game go, and lived only on the children she caught, for a long time.

And Ee-ee-toy told the people what to do in this great trouble. He told them to roast a big lot of pumpkin seeds and to go into their houses and keep still. And when the people had roasted the pumpkin seeds and gone into their houses, Ee-ee-toy came around and stopped up the door of every house with bushes, and plastered clay over the bushes as the Awawtam still do when they go away from home.

After a time Hawawk came around, and stood near the houses, and listened, and heard the people cracking the pumpkin seeds inside.

And she said: "Where are all my grandchildren? They must have been gone for a long time, for I do not see any tracks, nor hear any voices, and I hear only the rats eating the seeds in the empty houses."

And she came several times and saw no one, and really believed the people had gone entirely away. And for a while she did not come any more, but after a time she was one day running by the village and she saw some children playing. And she caught two and ran with them to her cave. And from that day she went on stealing children as before.

And Ee-ee-toy made him a rattle, out of a wild gourd, and went and lay on the trail on which Hawawk usually came, and changed himself into the little animal called "Kaw-awts." And when Hawawk came along she poked him with a stick of her gyih-haw and said: "Here is a little kaw-awts. He must be my pet." And then Ee-ee-toy jumped up and shook his rattle at her, and frightened her so that she ran home. And then Ee-ee-toy made rattles for all the children in that place and when they saw Hawawk coming they would shake their rattles at her and scare her back again.

But after a while Hawawk became used to the rattles and ceased to fear them, and even while they were shaking she would run and carry some of the children off.

And one day two little boys were hunting doves after the manner of the country. They had a little kee of willows, and a hole inside in the sand where they sat, and outside a stick stuck up for the doves to light on. And when the doves came they would shoot them with their bows and arrows. And while they were doing this they saw Hawawk coming. And they said: "What shall we do! Hawawk is coming and will eat us up."