Part 7

169. Once they killed a little deer, and some one among them thought that perhaps they might make, from the skin of the head, a mask, by means of which they could approach other deer and kill them. They tried to make such a mask but failed; they could not make it fit. They debated over the invention and considered it for four days, but did not succeed. On the morning of the fifth day they heard the gods shouting in the distance. As on a previous occasion, they shouted four times, and after the fourth call they made their appearance. They brought with them heads of deer and of antelope. They showed the people how the masks were made and fitted, how the eye-holes were cut, how the motions of the deer were to be imitated, and explained to them all the other mysteries of the deer-hunt.[31] Next day hunters went out and several deer were killed; from these more masks were made, and with these masks more men went out to hunt; after that time the camp had abundance of meat. The people dressed the deerskins and made garments out of them.

170. The people from the third world had been in the fourth world eight years when the following incident occurred: One day they saw the sky stooping down and the earth rising up to meet it. For a moment they came in contact, and then there sprang out of the earth, at the point of contact, the Coyote and the Badger. We think now that the Coyote and the Badger are children of the sky. The Coyote rose first, and for this reason we think he is the elder brother of the Badger. At once the Coyote came over to the camp and skulked round among the people, while the Badger went down into the hole that led to the lower world.

171. First Man told the people the names of the four mountains which rose in the distance. They were named the same as the four mountains that now bound the Navaho land. There was Tsisnadzi'ni in the east, Tsótsil in the south, Dokoslíd in the west, and Depe'ntsa in the north, and he told them that a different race of people lived in each mountain.

172. First Man was the chief of all these people in the fourth world, except the Kisáni. He was a great hunter, and his wife, First Woman, was very corpulent. One day he brought home from the hunt a fine fat deer. The woman boiled some of it and they had a hearty meal. When they were done the woman wiped her greasy hands on her dress, and made a remark which greatly enraged her husband; they had a quarrel about this, which First Man ended by jumping across the fire and remaining by himself in silence for the rest of the night.[32]

173. Next morning First Man went out early and called aloud to the people: "Come hither, all ye men," he said; "I wish to speak to you, but let all the women stay behind; I do not wish to see them." Soon all the males gathered, and he told them what his wife had said the night before. "They believe," he said, "that they can live without us. Let us see if they can hunt game and till the fields without our help. Let us see what sort of a living they can make by themselves. Let us leave them and persuade the Kisáni to come with us. We will cross the stream, and when we are gone over we will keep the raft on the other side." He sent for the hermaphrodites. They came, covered with meal, for they had been grinding corn. "What have you that you have made yourselves?" he asked. "We have each two mealing-stones, and we have cups and bowls and baskets and many other things," they answered. "Then take these all along with you," he ordered, "and join us to cross the stream." Then all the men and the hermaphrodites assembled at the river and crossed to the north side on the raft, and they took over with them their stone axes and farm implements and everything they had made. When they had all crossed they sent the raft down to the Kisáni for them to cross. The latter came over,--six gentes of them,--but they took their women with them. While some of the young men were crossing the stream they cried at parting with their wives; still they went at the bidding of their chief. The men left the women everything the latter had helped to make or raise.

174. As soon as they had crossed the river some of the men went out hunting, for the young boys needed food, and some set to work to chop down willows and build huts. They had themselves all sheltered in four days.

175. That winter the women had abundance of food, and they feasted, sang, and had a merry time. They often came down to the bank of the river and called across to the men and taunted and reviled them. Next year the men prepared a few small fields and raised a little corn; but they did not have much corn to eat, and lived a good deal by hunting. The women planted all of the old farm, but they did not work it very well; so in the winter they had a small crop, and they did not sing and make merry as in the previous winter. In the second spring the women planted less, while the men planted more, cleared more land, and increased the size of their farm. Each year the fields and crops of the men increased, while those of the women diminished and they began to suffer for want of food. Some went out and gathered the seeds of wild plants to eat. In the autumn of the third year of separation many women jumped into the river and tried to swim over; but they were carried under the surface of the water and were never seen again. In the fourth year the men had more food than they could eat; corn and pumpkins lay untouched in the fields, while the women were starving.

176. First Man at length began to think what the effect of his course might be. He saw that if he continued to keep the men and the women apart the race might die out, so he called the men and spoke his thoughts to them. Some said, "Surely our race will perish," and others said, "What good is our abundance to us? We think so much of our poor women starving in our sight that we cannot eat." Then he sent a man to the shore to call across the stream to find if First Woman were still there, and to bid her come down to the bank if she were. She came to the bank, and First Man called to her and asked if she still thought she could live alone. "No," she replied, "we cannot live without our husbands." The men and the women were then told to assemble at the shores of the stream; the raft was sent over and the women were ferried across. They were made to bathe their bodies and dry them with meal. They were put in a corral and kept there until night, when they were let out to join the men in their feasts.[33]

177. When they were let out of the corral it was found that three were missing. After dark, voices were heard calling from the other side of the river; they were the voices of the missing ones,--a mother and her two daughters. They begged to be ferried over, but the men told them it was too dark, that they must wait until morning. Hearing this, they jumped into the stream and tried to swim over. The mother succeeded in reaching the opposite bank and finding her husband. The daughters were seized by Tiéholtsodi, the water monster, and dragged down under the water.

178. For three nights and three days the people heard nothing about the young women and supposed them lost forever. On the morning of the fourth day the call of the gods was heard,--four times as usual,--and after the fourth call White Body made his appearance, holding up two fingers and pointing to the river. The people supposed that these signs had reference to the lost girls. Some of the men crossed the stream on the raft and looked for the tracks of the lost ones; they traced the tracks to the edge of the water, but no farther. White Body went away, but soon returned, accompanied by Blue Body. White Body carried a large bowl of white shell, and Blue Body a large bowl of blue shell. They asked for a man and a woman to accompany them, and they went down to the river. They put both the bowls on the surface of the water and caused them to spin around. Beneath the spinning bowls the water opened, for it was hollow, and gave entrance to a large house of four rooms. The room in the east was made of the dark waters, the room in the south of the blue waters, the room in the west of the yellow waters, and the room in the north of waters of all colors.[36]

179. The man and the woman descended and Coyote followed them. They went first into the east room, but there they found nothing; then they went into the south room, but there they found nothing; next they went into the west room, where again they found nothing; at last they went into the north room, and there they beheld the water monster Tiéholtsodi, with the two girls he had stolen and two children of his own. The man and the woman demanded the children, and as he said nothing in reply they took them and walked away. But as they went out Coyote, unperceived by all, took the two children of Tiéholtsodi and carried them off under his robe. Coyote always wore his robe folded close around him and always slept with it thus folded, so no one was surprised to see that he still wore his robe in this way when he came up from the waters, and no one suspected that he had stolen the children of Tiéholtsodi.

180. Next day the people were surprised to see deer, turkey, and antelope running past from east to west, and to see animals of six different kinds (two kinds of Hawks, two kinds of Squirrels, the Hummingbird, and the Bat) come into their camp as if for refuge. The game animals ran past in increasing numbers during the three days following. On the morning of the fourth day, when the white light rose, the people observed in the east a strange white gleam along the horizon, and they sent out the Locust couriers to see what caused this unusual appearance. The Locusts returned before sunset, and told the people that a vast flood of waters was fast approaching from the east. On hearing this the people all assembled together, the Kisáni with the others, in a great multitude, and they wailed and wept over the approaching catastrophe. They wept and moaned all night and could not sleep.

181. When the white light arose in the east, next morning, the waters were seen high as mountains encircling the whole horizon, except in the west, and rolling on rapidly. The people packed up all their goods as fast as they could, and ran up on a high hill near by, for temporary safety. Here they held a council. Some one suggested that perhaps the two Squirrels (Hazáitso and Hazáistozi) might help them. "We will try what we can do," said the Squirrels. One planted a piñon seed, the other a juniper seed, and they grew so very fast that the people hoped that they would soon grow so tall that the flood could not reach their tops, and that all might find shelter there. But after the trees grew a little way they began to branch out and grew no higher. Then the frightened people called on the Weasels (Glo`dsilkái and Glo`dsilzi'ni). One of these planted a spruce seed and one a pine seed. The trees sprouted at once and grew fast, and again the people began to hope; but soon the trees commenced to branch, and they dwindled to slender points at the top and ceased to grow higher. Now they were in the depths of despair, for the waters were coming nearer every moment, when they saw two men approaching the hill on which they were gathered.

182. One of the approaching men was old and grayhaired; the other, who was young, walked in advance. They ascended the hill and passed through the crowd, speaking to no one. The young man sat down on the summit, the old man sat down behind him, and the Locust sat down behind the old man,--all facing the east. The elder took out seven bags from under his robe and opened them. Each contained a small quantity of earth. He told the people that in these bags he had earth from the seven sacred mountains. There were in the fourth world seven sacred mountains, named and placed like the sacred mountains of the present Navaho land. "Ah! Perhaps our father can do something for us," said the people. "I cannot, but my son may be able to help you," said the old man. Then they bade the son to help them, and he said he would if they all moved away from where he stood, faced to the west, and looked not around until he called them; for no one should see him at his work. They did as he desired, and in a few moments he called them to come to him. When they came, they saw that he had spread the sacred earth on the ground and planted in it thirty-two reeds, each of which had thirty-two joints. As they gazed they beheld the roots of the reeds striking out into the soil and growing rapidly downward. A moment later all the reeds joined together and became one reed of great size, with a hole in its eastern side. He bade them enter the hollow of the reed through this hole. When they were all safely inside, the opening closed, and none too soon, for scarcely had it closed when they heard the loud noise of the surging waters outside, saying, "Yin, yin, yin."[37]

183. The waters rose fast, but the reed grew faster, and soon it grew so high that it began to sway, and the people inside were in great fear lest, with their weight, it might break and topple over into the water. White Body, Blue Body, and Black Body were along. Black Body blew a great breath out through a hole in the top of the reed; a heavy dark cloud formed around the reed and kept it steady. But the reed grew higher and higher; again it began to sway, and again the people within were in great fear, whereat he blew and made another cloud to steady the reed. By sunset it had grown up close to the sky, but it swayed and waved so much that they could not secure it to the sky until Black Body, who was uppermost, took the plume out of his head-band and stuck it out through the top of the cane against the sky, and this is why the reed (Phragmites communis) always carries a plume on its head now.[38]

184. Seeing no hole in the sky, they sent up the Great Hawk, Gini'tso, to see what he could do. He flew up and began to scratch in the sky with his claws, and he scratched and scratched till he was lost to sight. After a while he came back, and said that he scratched to where he could see light, but that he did not get through the sky. Next they sent up a Locust.[39] He was gone a long time, and when he came back he had this story to tell: He had gotten through to the upper world, and came out on a little island in the centre of a lake. When he got out he saw approaching him from the east a black Grebe, and from the west a yellow Grebe.[40] One of them said to him: "Who are you and whence come you?" But he made no reply. The other then said: "We own half of this world,--I in the east, my brother in the west. We give you a challenge. If you can do as we do, we shall give you one half of the world; if you cannot, you must die." Each had an arrow made of the black wind. He passed the arrow from side to side through his heart and flung it down to Wonistsídi, the Locust.[41] The latter picked up one of the arrows, ran it from side to side through his heart, as he had seen the Grebes do, and threw it down.[42] The Grebes swam away, one to the east and one to the west, and troubled him no more. When they had gone, two more Grebes appeared, a blue one from the south and a shining one from the north. They spoke to him as the other Grebes had spoken, and gave him the same challenge. Again he passed the arrow through his heart and the Grebes departed, leaving the land to the locust. To this day we see in every locust's sides the holes made by the arrows. But the hole the Locust made in ascending was too small for many of the people, so they sent Badger up to make it larger. When Badger came back his legs were stained black with the mud, and the legs of all badgers have been black ever since. Then First Man and First Woman led the way and all the others followed them, and they climbed up through the hole to the surface of this--the fifth--world.

II. EARLY EVENTS IN THE FIFTH WORLD.

185. The lake[43] was bounded by high cliffs, from the top of which stretched a great plain. There are mountains around it now, but these have been created since the time of the emergence. Finding no way to get out of the lake, they called on Blue Body to help them. He had brought with him from the lower world four stones; he threw one of these towards each of the four cardinal points against the cliffs, breaking holes, through which the waters flowed away in four different directions.[44] The lake did not altogether drain out by this means; but the bottom became bare in one place, connecting the island with the mainland. But the mud was so deep in this place that they still hesitated to cross, and they prayed to Ni'ltsi Dilkóhi, Smooth Wind, to come to their aid.[45] Ni'ltsi Dilkóhi blew a strong wind, and in one day dried up the mud so that the people could easily walk over. While they were waiting for the ground to dry, the Kisáni camped on the east side of the island and built a stone wall (which stands to this day), to lean against and to shelter them from the wind.[46] The other people set up a shelter of brushwood. The women erected four poles, on which they stretched a deerskin, and under the shelter of this they played the game of three-sticks,[47] tsindi', one of the four games which they brought with them from the lower world.

186. When they reached the mainland they sought to divine their fate. To do this some one threw a hide-scraper into the water, saying: "If it sinks we perish, if it floats we live." It floated, and all rejoiced. But Coyote said: "Let me divine your fate." He picked up a stone, and saying, "If it sinks we perish; if it floats we live," he threw it into the water. It sank, of course, and all were angry with him and reviled him; but he answered them saying: "If we all live, and continue to increase as we have done, the earth will soon be too small to hold us, and there will be no room for the cornfields. It is better that each of us should live but a time on this earth and then leave and make room for our children." They saw the wisdom of his words and were silent. The day they arrived at the shore they had two visitors,--Puma and Wolf. "We have heard," said these, "that some new people had come up out of the ground, and we have come over to see them." Puma took a bride from among the new people.

187. On the fourth day of the emergence some one went to look at the hole through which they had come out, and he noticed water welling up there; already it was nearly on a level with the top of the hole, and every moment it rose higher. In haste he ran back to his people and told them what he had seen. A council was called at once to consider the new danger that threatened them. First Man, who rose to speak, said, pointing to Coyote: "Yonder is a rascal, and there is something wrong about him. He never takes off his robe, even when he lies down. I have watched him for a long time, and have suspected that he carries some stolen property under his robe. Let us search him."[48] They tore the robe from Coyote's shoulders, and two strange little objects dropped out that looked something like buffalo calves, but were spotted all over in various colors; they were the young of Tiéholtsodi. At once the people threw them into the hole through which the waters were pouring; in an instant the waters subsided, and rushed away with a deafening noise to the lower world.[49]

188. On the fifth night one of the twin hermaphrodites ceased to breathe. They left her alone all that night, and, when morning came, Coyote proposed to lay her at rest among the rocks. This they did; but they all wondered what had become of her breath. They went in various directions to seek for its trail, but could find it nowhere. While they were hunting, two men went near the hole through which they had come from the lower world. It occurred to one of them to look down into the hole. He did so, and he saw the dead one seated by the side of the river, in the fourth world, combing her hair. He called to his companion and the latter came and looked down, too. They returned to their people and related what they had seen; but in four days both these men died, and ever since the Navahoes have feared to look upon the dead, or to behold a ghost, lest they die themselves.[60]

189. After this it was told around that the Kisáni, who were in camp at a little distance from the others, had brought with them from the lower world an ear of corn for seed. Some of the unruly ones proposed to go to the camp of the Kisáni and take the corn away from them; but others, of better counsel, said that this would be wrong, that the Kisáni had had as much trouble as the rest, and if they had more foresight they had a right to profit by it. In spite of these words, some of the young men went and demanded the corn of the Kisáni. The latter said, after some angry talk on both sides, "We will break the ear in two and give you whichever half you choose." The young men agreed to this bargain, and the woman who owned the ear broke it in the middle and laid the pieces down for the others to choose. The young men looked at the pieces, and were considering which they would take, when Coyote, getting impatient, picked up the tip end of the ear and made off with it. The Kisáni kept the butt, and this is the reason the Pueblo Indians have to-day better crops of corn than the Navahoes. But the Pueblos had become alarmed at the threats and angry language of their neighbors and moved away from them, and this is why the Navahoes and Pueblos now live apart from one another.

190. After the Kisáni moved away, First Man and First Woman, Black Body and Blue Body, set out to build the seven sacred mountains of the present Navaho land. They made them all of earth which they had brought from similar mountains in the fourth world. The mountains they made were Tsisnadzi'ni in the east, Tsótsil (Taylor, San Mateo) in the south, Dokoslíd (San Francisco) in the west, Depe'ntsa (San Juan) in the north, with Dsilnáotil, Tsolíhi, and Akidanastáni (Hosta Butte) in the middle of the land.[61]

191. Through Tsisnadzi'ni,[62] in the east, they ran a bolt of lightning to fasten it to the earth. They decorated it with white shells, white lightning, white corn, dark clouds, and he-rain. They set a big dish or bowl of shell on its summit, and in it they put two eggs of the Pigeon to make feathers for the mountain. The eggs they covered with a sacred buckskin to make them hatch (there are many wild pigeons in this mountain now). All these things they covered with a sheet of daylight, and they put the Rock Crystal Boy and the Rock Crystal Girl[53] into the mountain to dwell.

192. Tsótsil,[54] the mountain of the south, they fastened to the earth with a great stone knife, thrust through from top to bottom. They adorned it with turquoise, with dark mist, she-rain, and all different kinds of wild animals. On its summit they placed a dish of turquoise; in this they put two eggs of the Bluebird, which they covered with sacred buckskin (there are many bluebirds in Tsótsil now), and over all they spread a covering of blue sky. The Boy who Carries One Turquoise and the Girl who Carries One Grain of Corn[55] were put into the mountain to dwell.

193. Dokoslíd,[56] the mountain of the west, they fastened to the earth with a sunbeam. They adorned it with haliotis shell, with black clouds, he-rain, yellow corn, and all sorts of wild animals. They placed a dish of haliotis shell on the top, and laid in this two eggs of the Yellow Warbler, covering them with sacred buckskins. There are many yellow warblers now in Dokoslíd. Over all they spread a yellow cloud, and they sent White Corn Boy and Yellow Corn Girl[57] to dwell there.