Part 29

“Well, why do you get this wood?” they asked.

“I light the ceremonial chamber with it.”

“What do you do when you get home?”

“Why, the maidens of my clan come and baptize me and feast me; then when the evening comes I go and light a fire with this wood in the chamber and wait until the young men gather; and when everything is ready I go to a niche in the wall and get the maiden’s bones and distribute them; and when they have finished the dance I tell them to stop, and they replace the bones.”

“What do they do then?” asked the two boys.

“Why, some of them go home, and some sleep right there, and I lie down and sleep there, too.”

“Is that all?” inquired the two boys.

“Why, yes, what more should there be?”

“Nothing more, except that I think we had better kill you now.” Thereupon they struck her to the earth and killed her. Then they skinned her like a bag, and the elder brother dressed the younger in the skin, as the Sun-father had directed, and he shouldered the bundle of wood.

“How do I look?” asked he.

“Just like her, for all the world!” responded the other.

“All right,” said he; “wait for me here.”

“Go ahead,” said the elder brother, and away the younger went. He ran with all his might till he came near to the town, and then he began to limp along and labor up the pathway just as the old woman was wont to do, so that everybody thought that he was the old woman, indeed. And sure enough it all happened just as the Sun-father had said it would. When the dance was over, some of the young men went away and others slept right there. There were so many of them, though, that they almost covered the floor. When they all began to snore, the young man arose, threw off his disguise, and stepped carefully between the sleepers till he reached the niche in the wall. Then he put his mother’s bones, one by one, into his blanket, felt all around to see that he left nothing, and started for the ladder. He reached it all right and took one, two, three steps; but when his foot touched the fourth rung it creaked, and the sleeping dancers awoke and started.

“Somebody is going up the ladder!” they exclaimed to one another. Then the young man ran up as fast as ever he could, but alas! he dropped one of his mother’s eyes out of the blanket. He kept on running until he reached the foot of the hill upon which the town stood; and when he came to the spring down on the plains he stopped to drink, and lo! his mother had come to life!

“_Ahwa!_” uttered the mother, “I’m tired and I don’t know what is the matter with my eyes, for things don’t look straight.”

Then the young man looked at his mother. She was more beautiful than all the other girls had been, but one of her eyes was shrunken in. “Alas! my mother,” said he, “I have dropped one of your eyes; but never mind, you can comb your hair down over it and no one will ever know the difference.”

As soon as they were rested they started again, and soon came to where the elder brother stood awaiting them. When he looked at his mother, he saw that one of her eyes had been left.

“Didn’t I tell you beforehand to be careful?” said he. “Poor mother; you have lost one of her eyes!”

“Well, it can’t be helped; never mind, she can comb her hair down over the eye that is dry and no one will ever know the difference.”

“That’s so; it can’t be helped. Now let’s go,” said the elder brother, and they all started.

When they arrived at the Waters of the Elks, the younger brother said: “Let’s camp here.”

“No, let’s run home,” returned the elder brother.

“No, let’s camp. Our poor mother will get tired, and, besides, she can see nothing of the country we are going through.”

And although the elder brother urged that they should go on, the younger insisted that they should stay; therefore they camped. The next day they continued their journey until they came near to the City of the Heights, not far from their own home; and as they journeyed, the deer, the antelope, the elks, and the mountain sheep were everywhere.

“Just look at that buck!” exclaimed the younger brother, clutching his bow. “Let’s shoot him.”

“No, no!” said the other; “Do you not remember that our father forbade us?” So they went on until they came to some trees, and as it was noon-day they sat down to eat. Now, the fine game animals circled all around and even came up near enough to smell them, and stood gazing or cropping the grass within a few steps of them.

“Just look at that splendid antelope!” cried the younger brother, and he nocked an arrow quicker than thought.

“No, no, no!” cried the elder, “you must not shoot it.”

“Why not? Here our poor mother has nothing but corn-cakes to eat, with all this meat around us.” And before his brother could speak another word, he drew his arrow to the head, and _tsi!_ it pierced the heart of the great antelope and it fell dead.

Now, all the great animals round about grew angry when they saw this, and _tene!_ they came thundering after the little party. So the two fools, forgetting all about their poor mother, jumped up and ran away as fast as they could and climbed a big tree to the very top. When they straddled a big branch and looked down, the great deer had trampled their poor mother to death. Then they gathered around the foot of the tree to batter its trunk with their sharp horns, but they could not stir it. Presently some big-horn bucks came running along. _Thle-ee-ta-a-a!_ they banged their horns against the butt of the tree until it began to split and tremble, and presently bang! went the tree, and the boys fell to the ground. Then the mountain sheep and the great bucks trampled and tore and speared them with their sharp horns, and tossed them from one to another and lacerated them with their hoofs until they were like worn-out clothing--all torn to pieces except the head of the elder brother which none of them would touch. And there the head lay all through the winter; and the next spring there was nothing but a skull left of the two brothers.

Now, off in the valley that led to Thunder Mountain, just where it turns to go south, stood the village of K’yátik’ia, and down in the bottom of the valley the great priest-chief of K’yátik’ia had his fields of corn and melons and squashes. Summer came, and the squashes were all in bloom, when the rain poured down all over the country; and thus, little by little, the skull was washed until it fell into a stream and went bumping along on the waters even till it came to the fields of corn and pumpkins and melons in the planting of the priest-chief of K’yátik’ia.

Now, when the pumpkin and squash vines were in bloom, the priest-chief’s daughter, who was as beautiful as you could look upon, went down every morning just at daylight to gather squash-flowers with which to sweeten the feast bread. The morning after the rain had passed over, very early, she said to her younger sister: “Stay here and grind meal while I run down to the squash patch to pick a lot of flowers.” So she took her mantle with her and started for the fields. She had not been picking flowers long when a voice rose from the middle of the vines:

“_Ä-te-ya-ye, Ä-te-ya-ye. E-lu-ya._”

Here are more flowers, Here are more flowers. Beautiful ones.

“Ah!” said the girl, “I wonder what that is!” So she put her blanket of flowers down as soon as possible and started to hunt. As she approached the vine where the skull had been wont to lie, lo! there was a handsome young man!

“What are you doing?” asked the young man.

“Gathering flowers,” said she.

“If you will promise to take me home with you, I will help you,” said the young man.

“Very well,” replied the girl.

“Will you surely do it?” inquired the young man.

“Yes,” said she, and lo! the young man reached out his hand and there was a great heap of flowers already plucked before him! And while they were yet talking, the Sun rose; and as its first rays touched him he began to sink, until there before the girl was nothing but a hideous old skull.

“Oh, dear!” cried she; “but I promised to take it, and I suppose I must.” So she took the skull up with the tips of her fingers and put it into the blanket among the flowers, and started for home. Then she entered an inner room of the house, and taking the skull carefully out of the blanket, placed some cotton in a large new water-jar, and laid the skull upon it. Then she covered the jar with a flat stone and went to work grinding meal.

When the Sun was setting, a voice came from the jar.

“Take me down, quick!” And the girl took the skull down and placed it on the floor, and as it grew dark there stood the same handsome young man as before, magnificently clothed, with precious stones and shells all about him, just as the Sun-father had dressed him. And the girl was very happy, and told him she would marry him.

Next morning, just as the Sun rose, the young man vanished, and nothing but the old white skull lay on the floor. So the girl placed it in the jar again, and taking up another water-jar went out toward the spring. Now, her younger sister went into the room and espied the jar. “I wonder what sister has covered this jar up so carefully for,” said she to herself; and she stepped up to the jar and took the lid off.

“_Ati!_” cried she. “O dear! O dear!” she screamed. For when she looked down into the jar there was a great rattlesnake coiled up over the smooth white skull.

So she ran and called her father and told him in great fright what she had seen.

“Ah!” said the father, for he was a very wise priest-chief, “thou shouldst not meddle with things. Thou shouldst keep quiet,” said he. He then arose and went into the room. Then he approached the jar, and, looking down into it, said: “Have mercy upon us, my child, my father. Become as thou art. Disguise not thyself in hideous forms, but as thou hast been, be thou.” And the skull rattled against the sides of the jar in assent.

“It is well that thou shouldst marry my daughter. And we will close this room that thou shalt never come forth”; and again the skull clattered and nodded in glad assent.

So when the young girl returned, the voice came forth from the jar again, and said: “Close all the windows and doors, and bring me raw cotton if thy father have it, for he has consented that I marry you and throw off my disguise.”

Then the girl gladly assented, and ran to get the cotton, and brought a great quantity in the room. Then when the night came the voice called once more: “Take me down!” The girl did as she was bidden, and the young man again stood before her, more handsome than ever. So he married the girl and both were very happy.

And the next morning when the Sun rose the young man did not again change his form, but remained as he was, and began to spin cotton marvellously fine and to weave blankets and mantles of the most beautiful texture, for in nothing could he fail, being a child of the Sun-father and a god himself.

So the days and weeks passed by, and the Sun-father looked down through the windows in sorrow and said: “Alas! my son; I have delivered thee and yet thou comest not to speak with thy father. But thou shalt yet come; yea, verily, thou shalt yet come.”

So in time the beautiful daughter of the priest-chief gave birth to two boys, like the children of the deer. As day succeeded day, they grew larger and wiser and their limbs strengthened until they could run about, and thus it happened that one day in their play they climbed up and played upon the house-top and on the ground below. Thus it was that the people of K’yátik’ia saw for the first time the two little children; and when they saw them they wondered greatly. Of course they wondered greatly. Our grandfathers were fools.

“Who in the world has married the priest-chief’s daughter?” everybody asked of one another. Nobody knew; so they called a council and made all the young men go to it, and they asked each one if he had secretly married the priest-chief’s daughter; and every one of them said “No,” and looked at every other one in great wonder.

“Who in the world can it be? It may be that some stranger has come and married her, and it may be that he stays there.” So the council decided that it would be well for him and the girl and their two little ones to die, because they had deceived their people. Forthwith two war-priests mounted the house-tops and commanded the people to make haste and to prepare their weapons. “Straighten your arrows, strengthen the backs of your bows, put new points on your lances, harden your shields, and get ready for battle, for in four days the daughter and grandchildren of the priest-chief and the unknown husband must die!”

And when the priest-chief’s daughter heard the voices of the heralds, she asked her younger sister, who had been listening, what they said. And the younger sister exclaimed: “Alas! you must all die!” and then she told her what she had heard.

Now, the young man called the old priest and told him that he knew what would happen, and the old priest said: “It is well; let the will of the gods be done. My people know not the way of good fortune, but are fools and must have their way.”

Therefore for two days the people labored at their weapons, and on the morning of the third day they began to prepare for a feast of victory. Then said the young man to his wife: “My little mother, dearly beloved, on the morrow I must go forth to meet my father”; for he suddenly remembered that he had neglected his father.

When the Sun had nearly reached the mid-heavens, the young man said to his wife: “Go up and open the sky-hole. Farewell!” said he, and he suddenly became a cloud of mist which whirled round and round and shot up like a whirlwind in the rays of sunlight.

When he neared the Sun, the Sun-father said nothing, and the young man waited outside in shame. Then said the Sun-father in pretended anger: “Come hither and sit down. Thou hast been a fool. Did I not command thee and thy brother?” And the young man only bent his head and said: “It is too true.”

Then the Sun-father smiled gently, and said: “Think not, neither be sad, my child. I know wherefore thou comest, and I remember how thou didst try to prevail upon thy younger brother to obey my commandments; and that it might be well I caused thee to forget me, and to come unto the past that thou hast come unto. Thou shalt be a god, and shalt sit at my left hand. Forever and ever shalt thou be a living good unto men, who will see thee and worship thee in the evening. And through thy will shall rain fall upon their lands. True, I had designed, had my children been wiser, that thou shouldst remain with them and enrich them with thy precious shells and stones, with thy great knowledge and good fortune. But those are men very unwise and ungrateful, therefore shalt thou and thy children, and even thy wife, be won from thy earth-life and sit by my left hand. Descend. Make four sacred hoops and entwine them with cotton. Make four sacred wands, such as are used in the races. Hast thou an unembroidered cotton mantle?”

“I have,” replied the young man.

“It is well. This evening spread it out and place at each of its four corners one of the sacred hoops and wands. Place all thereon that thou valuest. Leave not a precious stone nor yet a shell to serve as parentage for others, but place all thereon. The people will gather around thy father’s house and storm it, and then retire and storm it again. Now, when the people approach the house, sit ye down, one at each of the four corners; grasp them and lift them upward, and gradually ye will be raised. Then when the people approach nearer, lift them upward once more, and ye will be raised yet farther. And when they begin to mount the ladders, lift ye again, and yet again, and ye shall come unto my country.”

So the young man descended. No change was visible in the old priest-chief’s countenance. He had caused gay preparations to go forward for the festival, for a priest knows that all things are well, and he makes no change in his mind or actions. And when he asked the young man what the Sun-father had said to him, the only reply was: “It shall be well. Tomorrow we go to dwell forever at the home of the Sun-father.”

Early in the morning the two Priests of War mounted to the house-tops and called out: “Hasten, hasten! For the time has come and the people must gather, each carrying his weapons, for today the children of our priest-chief must die!”

So, after the morning meal, all gathered at the council, chambers of the warriors, and a great company they were. The Sun had risen high. Brightly painted shields glittered in his light. Long lances stood black with paint like the charred trunks of a burned forest; and the people raised their war-clubs and struck them against one another until the din was like thunder.

“_Ho-o-o!_” sounded the clash of weapons and the war-cries of the people, and in the home of the priest-chief they knew they were coming. All night long they had been preparing; the young man had placed all their belongings upon the blanket, and now one by one they sat down. The wife and the husband grasped two corners, the children grasping the two others. They lifted them and slowly arose toward the ceiling. Once more, as the people came nearer, they lifted the corners and neared the sky-hole. When again they lifted the corners, they passed above the roof, and the people saw their shadows cast upon the ground.

“Quick, quick!” shouted the young men. “See the shadow; they are escaping!”

Already the arrows began to whistle past them, but the Sun cast his shield beneath them, and the arrows only glanced away or flew past. Once more they drew the corners of the mantle upward, and as they rose higher and higher, the people, old and young, began to quarrel and fell to beating one another, and to fighting among themselves. The old ones called the young ones fools for attempting the life of a god, and the young ones in turn called the old ones fools for counselling them to attempt the life of a god.

“Thus shall ye ever be,” cried the young man, “for ye are fools! Your father, the Sun, had intended all things for your good, but ye were fools; therefore with me and mine will pass away your peace and your treasures.”

My children, at sunset have you not seen the little blue twinkling stars that sit at the left hand of the Sun as he sinks into night? Thus did it come to pass in the days of the ancients, and thus it is that only in the east and the west where the Sun rises and sets, even on the borders of the great oceans, may we find the jewels whereby we decorate our persons. And ever since then, my children, the world has been filled with anger, and even brothers agree, then disagree, strike one another, and spill their own blood in foolish anger.

Perhaps had men been more grateful and wiser, the Sun-father had smiled and dropped everywhere the treasures we long for, and not hidden them deep in the earth and buried them in the shores of the sea. And perhaps, moreover, all men would have smiled upon one another and never enlarged their voices nor strengthened their arms in anger toward one another.

Thus short is my story; and may the corn-stalks grow as long as my stretches, and may the will of the Holder of the Roads of Life shelter me from dangers as he sheltered his children in the days of the ancients with the shield of his sunlight.

It is all finished. (_Tenk’ia._)

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

Illustration captions in {brackets} have been added by the transcriber for the convenience of the reader.

Archaic and variant spelling is preserved as printed.

Minor punctuation errors have been corrected.

Hyphen and accent usage has been made consistent.

There was one instance in which a double quotation mark was unpaired.

On page 99, there is the following:

“... they dressed her in her sacred cotton robes of ceremonial, embroidered elaborately, and adorned her ...”

There may be a word missing following ‘ceremonial’ but as there is no way to determine what it might be, it is preserved as printed.

The following amendments have been made:

Page 42--comform amended to conform--... and they taught him how to conform himself to it, ...

Page 107, footnote 8--explaned amended to explained--This, it may be explained, ...

Page 321--croned amended to crooned--“Foolish, foolish boys!” crooned the old grandmother.

Page 456--they amended to he--“... Come up and come down,” said he.

The frontispiece has been moved to follow the title page. Other illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph.