Part 3

Upon discovering the approach of the herdsmen and horses many of the women and children, too impatient to await the gathering of them in the corral, hasten to the valley to join the cavalcade, and upon reaching the party they at once scramble for the wood rats (_Neotoma_) which hang from the necks of the horses and colts. The men of the village are also much excited, but they may not participate in the frolic. From the time the herders leave the village until their return they are on the lookout for the _Neotoma_, which must be very abundant judging from the number gathered on these trips. The rats are suspended by a yucca ribbon tied around the necks of the animals. The excitement increases as the horses ascend the hill; and after entering the corral it reaches the highest point, and the women and children run about among the horses, entirely devoid of any fear of the excited animals, in their efforts to snatch the rats from their necks. Many are the narrow escapes, but one is seldom hurt. The women throw the lariat, some of them being quite expert, and drawing the horses near them, pull the rats from their necks. Numbers fail, but there are always the favored few who leave the corral in triumph with as many rats as their two hands can carry. The rats are skinned and cooked in grease and eaten as a great delicacy.

COSMOGONY.

The Sia have an elaborate cosmogony, highly colored with the heroic deeds of mythical beings. That which the writer here presents is simply the nucleus of their belief from which spring stories in infinite numbers, in which every phenomenon of nature known to these people is accounted for. Whole chapters could be devoted to the experiences of each mythical being mentioned in the cosmogony.

In the beginning there was but one being in the lower world, Sûs´sîstinnako, a spider. At that time there were no other animals, birds, reptiles, or any living creature but the spider. He drew a line of meal from north to south and crossed it midway from east to west; and he placed two little parcels north of the cross line, one on either side of the line running north and south. These parcels were very valuable and precious, but the people do not know to this day of what they consisted; no one ever knew but the creator, Sûs´sĭstinnako. After placing the parcels in position, Sûs´sĭstinnako sat down on the west side of the line running north and south, and south of the cross line, and began to sing, and in a little while the two parcels accompanied him in the song by shaking, like rattles. The music was low and sweet, and after awhile two women appeared, one evolved from each parcel; and in a short time people began walking about; then animals, birds, and all animate objects appeared, and Sûs´sĭstinnako continued to sing until his creation was complete, when he was very happy and contented. There were many people and they kept close together, and did not pass about much, for fear of stepping upon one another; there was no light and they could not see. The two women first created were the mothers of all; the one created on the east side of the line of meal, Sûs´sĭstinnako named Ût[´]sĕt, and she was the mother of all Indians; he called the other Now[´]ûtsĕt, she being the mother of other nations. Sûs´sĭstínnako divided the people into, clans, saying to certain of the people: “You are of the corn clan, and you are the first of all;” and to others he said: “You belong to the coyote, the bear, the eagle people,” and so on.

After Sûs´sĭstinnako had nearly perfected his creation for Ha´arts (the earth), he thought it would be well to have rain to water the earth, and so he created the cloud, lightning, thunder, and rainbow peoples to work for the people of Ha´arts. This second creation was separated into six divisions, one of which was sent to each of the cardinal points and to the zenith and nadir, each division making its home in a spring in the heart of a great mountain, upon whose summit was a giant tree. The Sha´-ka-ka (spruce) was on the mountain of the north; the Shwi´-ti-ra-wa-na (pine) on the mountain of the west; the Mai´-chi-na (oak)—_Quercus undulata_, variety Gambelii—on the mountain of the south; the Shwi´-si-ni-ha´-na-we (aspen) on the mountain of the east; the Marsh´-ti-tä-mo (cedar) on the mountain of the zenith, and the Mor´-ri-tä-mo (oak), variety pungens, on the mountain of the nadir. While each division had its home in a spring, Sûs´sĭstinnako gave to these people Ti´-ni-a, the middle plain of the world (the world was divided into three parts: Ha´arts, the earth; Ti´nia, the middle plain, and Hu´-wa-ka, the upper plain), not only for a working field for the benefit of the people of Ha´arts, but also for their pleasure ground.

Not wishing this second creation to be seen by the people of Ha´arts as they passed about over Ti´nia, he commanded the Sia to smoke, that clouds might ascend and serve as masks to protect the people of Ti´nia from view of the inhabitants of Ha´arts.

The people of Ha´arts made houses for themselves by digging holes in rocks and the earth. They could not build houses as they now do, because they could not see. In a short time the two mothers, Ût´sĕt and Now´ûtsĕt (the latter being the elder and larger, but the former having the best mind and heart), who resided in the north, went into the chita (estufa) and talked much to one another, and they decided that they would make light, and said: “Now we will make light, that our people may see; we can not now tell the people, but to-morrow will be a good day and day after to-morrow will also be a good day”—meaning that their thoughts were good, and they spoke with one tongue, and that their future would be bright, and they added: “Now all is covered with darkness, but after awhile we will have light.” These two women, being inspired by Sûs´sĭstinnako, created the sun from white shell, turkis, red stone, and abalone shell. After making the sun they carried him to the east and there made a camp, as there were no houses. The next morning they ascended a high mountain and dropped the sun down behind it, and after a time he began to ascend, and when the people saw the light their hearts rejoiced. When far off his face was blue; as he came nearer the face grew brighter. They, however, did not see the sun himself, but a mask so large that it covered his entire body. The people saw that the world was large and the country beautiful, and when the women returned to the village they said to the people: “We are the mothers of all.”

Though the sun lighted the world in the day, he gave no light at night, as he returned to his home in the west; and so the two mothers created the moon from a slightly black stone, many varieties of a yellow stone, turkis, and a red stone, that the world might be lighted at night, and that the moon might be a companion and a brother to the sun; but the moon traveled slowly, and did not always furnish light, and so they created the star people and made their eyes of beautiful sparkling white crystal, that they might twinkle and brighten the world at night. When the star people lived in the lower world they were gathered into groups, which were very beautiful; they were not scattered about as they are in the upper world. Again the two women entered the chita and decided to make four houses—one in the north, one in the west, one in the south, and one in the east—house in this instance meaning pueblo or village. When these houses were completed they said, now we have some beautiful houses; we will go first to that of the north and talk much for all things good. Now´ûtsĕt said to her sister: “Let us make other good things,” and the sister asked: “What things do you wish to make?” She answered: “We are the mothers of all peoples, and we must do good work.” “Well,” replied the younger sister, “to-morrow I will pass around and see my other houses, and you will remain here.”

After Ût´sĕt had traveled over the world, visiting the houses of the west, south, and east, she returned to her home in the north and was graciously received by Now´ûtsĕt, who seemed happy to see her younger sister, and after a warm greeting she invited her to be seated. Now´ûtsĕt had a picture which she did not wish the sister to see, and she covered it with a blanket, and said, “Guess what I have here?” (pointing to the covered picture) “and when you guess correctly I will show you.” “I do not know,” said Ût´sĕt and again the elder one asked, “What do you think I have here?” and the other replied, “I do not know.” A third time Ût´sĕt was asked, and replied that she did not know, adding, “I wish to speak straight, and I must therefore tell you I do not know what you have there.” Then Now´ûtsĕt said, “That is right.” After a while the younger sister said, “I think you have under that blanket a picture, to which you will talk when you are alone.” “You are right,” said the elder sister, “you have a good head to know things.” Now´ûtsĕt, however, was much displeased at the wisdom displayed by Ût´sĕt. She showed the picture to Ût´sĕt and in a little while Ût´sĕt left, saying, “I will now return to my house and no longer travel; to-morrow you will come to see me.”

After the return of Ût´sĕt to her home she beckoned to the Chas´ka (chaparral cock) to come to her, and said, “You may go early to-morrow morning to the house of the sun in the east, and then follow the road from there to his home in the west, and when you reach the house in the west remain there until my sister comes to my house to talk to me, when I will call you.” In the early morning the elder sister called at the house of the younger. “Sit down, my sister,” said the younger one, and after a little time she said, “Let us go out and walk about; I saw a beautiful bird pass by, but I do not know where he lives,” and she pointed to the footprints of the bird upon the ground, which was soft, and the tracks were very plain, and it could be seen that the footprints were in a straight line from the house of the sun in the east to his house in the west. “I can not tell,” said the younger sister, “perhaps the bird came from the house in the east and has gone to the house in the west; perhaps he came from the house in the west and has gone to the house in the east; as the feet of the bird point both ways, it is hard to tell. What do you think, sister?” “I can not say,” replied the other. Four times Ût´sĕt asked the question and received the same reply. The fourth time the elder sister added, “How can I tell? I do not know which is the front of the foot and which is the heel, but I think the bird has gone to the house in the east.” “Your thoughts are wrong,” replied the younger sister; “I know where the bird is, and he will soon be here;” and she gave a call and in a little while the Chas´ka came running to her from, the west.

The elder sister was mortified at her lack of knowledge, and said, “Come to my house to-morrow; to-day you are greater than I. I thought the bird had gone to the house in the east, but you knew where he was, and he came at your call; to-morrow you come to me.”

On the morrow the younger sister called at the house of the elder and was asked to be seated. Then Now´ûtsĕt said, “Sister, a word with you; what do you think that is?” pointing to a figure enveloped in a blanket, with only the feet showing, which were crossed. Four times the question was asked, and each time the younger sister said she could not tell, but finally she added, “I think the feet are crossed; the one on the right should be left and the left should be right.” “To whom do the feet belong?” inquired the elder sister. The younger sister was prompted by her grandmother, Sûs´sĭstinnako[4], the spider woman, to say, “I do not think it is either man or woman,” referring to beings created by Sûs´sĭstinnako, “but something you have made.” The elder sister replied,“You are right, my sister.” She threw the blanket off, exposing a human figure; the younger sister then left, asking the elder to call at her house on the morrow, and all night Ût´sĕt was busy preparing an altar under the direction, however, of Sûs´sĭstinnako. She covered the altar with a blanket, and in the morning when the elder sister called they sat together for a while and talked; then Ût´sĕt said, pointing to the covered altar, “What do you think I have there?” Now´ûtsĕt replied, “I can not tell; I may have my thoughts about it, but I do not know.” Four times Now´ûtsĕt was asked, and each time she gave the same reply. Then the younger sister threw off the blanket, and they both looked at the altar, but neither spoke a word.

When the elder sister left, she said to Ût´sĕt, “To-morrow you come to my house,” and all night she was busy arranging things for the morning, and in the morning Ût´sĕt hastened to her sister’s house. (She was accompanied by Sûs´sĭstinnako, who followed invisible close to her ear.) Now´ûtsĕt asked, “What have I there?” pointing to a covered object, and Ût´sĕt replied, “I can not tell, but I have thought that you have under that blanket all things that are necessary for all time to come; perhaps I speak wrong.” “No,” replied Now´ûtsĕt, “you speak correctly,” and she threw off the blanket, saying, “My sister, I may be the larger and the first, but your head and heart are wise; you know much; I think my head must be weak.” The younger sister then said: “To-morrow you come to my house;” and in the morning when the elder sister called at the house of the younger she was received in the front room and asked to be seated, and they talked awhile; then the younger one said: “What do you think I have in the room there?” pointing to the door of an inner room. Four times the question was asked and each time Now´ûtsĕt replied, “I can not tell.” “Come with me,” said Ût´sĕt, and she cried as she threw open the door, “All this is mine, when you have looked well we will go away.” The room was filled with the Ka´ᵗsuna beings with monster heads which Ût´sĕt had created, under the direction of Sûs´sĭstinnako.

Sûs´sĭstinnako’s creation may be classed in three divisions:

1. Pai´-ä-tä-mo: All men of Ha´arts (the earth), the sun, moon, stars, Ko´-shai-ri and Quer´-rän-na.

2. Ko´-pĭsh-tai-a: The cloud, lightning, thunder, rainbow peoples, and all animal life not included under the first and third heads.

3. Ka´ᵗsuna: Beings having human bodies and monster heads, who are personated in Sia by men and women wearing masks.

After a time the younger sister closed the door and they returned to the front room. Not a word had been spoken except by the younger. As the elder sister left she said, “To-morrow you come to my house.” Sûs´sĭstinnako whispered in the ear of the younger, “To-morrow you will see fine things in your sister’s house, but they will not be good; they will be bad.” Now´ûtsĕt then said: “Before the Sun has left his home we will go together to see him; we will each have a wand on our heads made of the long white fluffy feathers of the under tail of the eagle, and we will place them vertically on our heads that they may see the sun when he first comes out;” and the younger sister replied: “You are the elder and must go before, and your plumes will see the sun first; mine can not see him until he has traveled far, because I am so small; you are the greater and must go before.” Though she said this she knew better; she knew that though she was smaller in stature she was the greater and more important woman. That night Sûs´sĭstinnako talked much to Ût´sĕt. She said: “Now that you have created the Ka´ᵗsuna you must create a man as messenger between the sun and the Ka´ᵗsuna and another as messenger between the moon and the Ka´ᵗsuna.”

The first man created was called Ko´shairi; he not only acts as courier between the sun and the Ka´ᵗsuna, but he is the companion, the jester and musician (the flute being his instrument) of the sun; he is also mediator between the people of the earth and the sun; when acting as courier between the sun and the Ka´ᵗsuna and vice versa and as mediator between the people of the earth and the sun he is chief for the sun; when accompanying the sun in his daily travels he furnishes him with music and amusement; he is then the servant of the sun. The second man created was Quer´ränna, his duties being identical with those of the Ko´shairi, excepting that the moon is his particular chief instead of the sun, both, however, being subordinate to the sun.

After the creation of Ko´shairi and Quer´ränna, Ût´sĕt called Shu-ah-kai (a small black bird with white wings) to her and said:

“To-morrow my sister and I go to see the sun when he first leaves his house. We will have wands on our heads, we will be side by side; she is much taller than I; the sun will see her face before he sees mine, and that will not be good; you must go to-morrow morning very early near the house of the sun and take a plume from your left wing, but none from your right; spread your wings and rest in front of the sun as he comes from his house.” The two women started very early in the morning to greet the rising sun. They were accompanied by all the men and youths, carrying their bows and arrows. The elder woman, after they halted to await the coming of the sun, said: “We are here to watch for the sun.” (The people had divided, some being on the side of Now´ûtsĕt, the others with Ût´sĕt). “If the sun looks first upon me, all the people on my side will be my people and will slay the others, and if the sun looks first upon the face of my sister all the people on her side will be her people and they will destroy my people.”

As the sun left his house, the bird Shu´ahkai placed himself so as to obscure the light, excepting where it penetrated through the space left by the plucking of the feather from his wing, and the light shone, not only on the wand on the head of the younger sister, but it covered her face, while it barely touched the top of the plumes of the elder; and so the people of the younger sister destroyed those of the elder. The two women stood still while the men fought. The women remained on the mountain top, but the men descended into a grassy park to fight. After a time the younger sister ran to the park and cried, “This is enough; fight no more.” She then returned to the mountain and said to her sister, “Let us descend to the park and fight.” And they fought like women—not with arrows—but wrestled. The men formed a circle around them and the women fought hard and long. Some of the men said, “Let us go and part the women;” others said, “No; let them alone.” The younger woman grew very tired in her arms, and cried to her people, “I am very tired,” and they threw the elder sister upon the ground and tied her hands; the younger woman then commanded her people to leave her, and she struck her sister with her fists about the head and face as she lay upon the ground, and in a little while killed her. She then cut the breast with a stone knife and took out the heart, her people being still in a circle, but the circle was so large that they were some distance off. She held the heart in her hand and cried: “Listen, men and youths! This woman was my sister, but she compelled us to fight; it was she who taught you to fight. The few of her people who escaped are in the mountains and they are the people of the rats;” and she cut the heart into pieces and threw it upon the ground, saying, “Her heart will become rats, for it was very bad,” and immediately rats could be seen running in all directions. She found the center of the heart full of cactus, and she said, “The rats for evermore will live with the cacti;” and to this day the rats thus live (referring to the _Neotoma_). She then told her people to return to their homes.

It was about this time that Sûs´sĭstinnako organized the cult societies, instructing all of the societies in the songs for rain, but imparting only to certain ones the secrets whereby disease is extracted through the sucking and brushing processes.

For eight years after the fight (years referring to periods of time) the people were very happy and all things flourished, but the ninth year was very bad, the whole earth being filled with water. The water did not fall in rain, but came in as rivers between the mesas, and continued flowing from all sides until the people and all animals fled to the mesa. The waters continued to rise until nearly level with the mesa top, and Sûs´sĭstinnako cried, “Where shall my people go? Where is the road to the north, he looking to the north, the road to the west, he facing the west, the road to the south, he turning south, the road to the east, he facing east? Alas, I see the waters are everywhere.” And all of his theurgists sang four days and nights before their altars and made many offerings, but still the waters continued to rise as before. Sûs´sĭstinnako said to the sun: “My son, you will ascend and pass over the world above; your course will be from the north to the south, and you will return and tell me what you think of it.” On his return the sun said, “Mother, I did as you bade me, and I did not like the road.” Again he told him to ascend and pass over the world from the west to the east, and on his return Sûs´sĭstinnako inquired how he liked that road. “It may be good for some, mother, but I did not like it.” “You will again ascend and pass over the straight road from east to west,” and upon the sun’s return the father inquired what he thought of that road. His reply was, “I am much contented; I like the road much.” Then Sûs´sĭstinnako said, “My son, you will ascend each day and pass over the world from east to west.” Upon each day’s journey the sun stops midway from the east to the center of the world to eat his breakfast, in the center to eat his dinner, and midway the center to the west to eat his supper, he never failing to take his three meals daily, stopping at these particular points to obtain them.

The sun wears a shirt of dressed deerskin, and leggings of the same, reaching to his thighs; the shirt and leggings are fringed; his moccasins are also of deerskin and embroidered in yellow, red, and turkis beads; he wears a kilt of deerskin, the kilt having a snake painted upon it; he carries a bow and arrows, the quiver being of cougar skin, hanging over his shoulder, and he holds his bow in his left hand and an arrow in his right; he still wears the mask which protects him from view of the people of the earth. An eagle plume with a parrot plume on either side, ornaments the top of the mask, and an eagle plume is on either side of the mask and one is at the bottom; the hair around the head and face is red like fire, and when it moves and shakes the people can not look closely at the mask; it is not intended that they should observe closely and thereby know that instead of seeing the sun they see only his mask; the heavy line encircling the mask is yellow, and indicates rain. (Fig. 14.)

The moon came to the upper world with the sun and he also wears a mask.

Each night the sun passes by the house of Sûs´sĭstinnako, who asks him: “How are my children above, how many have died to-day, and how many have been born to-day?” He lingers with him only long enough to answer his questions. He then passes on to his house in the east.