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Title: Zuñi Breadstuff
Author: Frank Hamilton Cushing
Publisher: New York, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation

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> ZUÑI BREADSTUFF
BY FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING
CHAPTER I
CREATION, AND THE ORIGIN OF CORN1

[Illustration: The initial capital is ornate, and illustrated with a leaf motif.]

WATCHING one day a white-headed Zuñi grandmother who was stirring vigorously some yellow batter with a bundle of splints, I asked her what she was making. "Hoecakes," she answered, only she called it mu'-we.

"How do you make them?" I inquired.

"Sa-k'o, o'lut-si-na la k'ia'kok-shi, hi-ni-na hâ i'-ya si'; tem kwi'l-ip-nan, hâ ko-la ma-we ta i'-sha-nan wo-lu, shél-an-an ul-üp, he'-po-k'on wo'-tap, te'-na'-lap, u-li'-hap,-tchim i'-to-na-k'ia, a'ya-naie'l"-- replied the old woman.

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This is as hard as Zuñi milling; but I will try to grind it into English.

"Meal, soft corn-flour and good water, equally I mix; then stirring, red-pepper, salt, and suet, I put in, into husks I roll this, into an oven all place shutting the hole; time passed, I take them out. Now then, for eating they are ready!"

Do not imagine the old woman knew no other way of making corn-food. As prolific of resources as the Chinese are with their rice, not more so are they than are the ancient Zuñis with their corn.

Indeed so important to the Zuñi is his corn, that it plays an all-essential part, not only in his daily but also in his industrial, religious, and mythologic life, and even in the tales with which he amuses the children about the fireside in winter-time.

That this may be better understood among those controlled by a culture totally at variance with that of the Zuñis; that the many observances, ceremonials, and formulæ connected with corn, its growth, treatment, and preparation for food, hereinafter to be described, may not seem meaningless,


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it is necessary that an outline of the Zuñi mythology connected with corn, and that some, at least, of the philosophy and folk-lore which have grown out of this mythology, be recorded.

Thus, by following me in the pursuit of a useful purpose, I anticipate that my readers will find some part of the interest and pleasure which fell to my lot when, on long winter nights, I listened, in the light of pinñon-fires on Zuñi hearthstones, to the recitals which first gave me knowledge of these strange beliefs and things.

Thus listening, I once heard a Zuñi priest say:

"Five things alone are necessary to the sustenance and comfort of the 'dark ones' [Indians] among the children of earth:

"The sun, who is the Father of all.

"The earth, who is the Mother of men.

"The water, who is the Grandfather.

"The fire, who is the Grandmother.

"Our brothers and sister the Corn, and seeds of growing things."

This Indian philosopher explained himself somewhat after the following fashion:

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"Who among men and the creatures could live without the Sun Father? for his light brings day, warms and gladdens the Earth Mother with rain which flows forth in the water we drink and that causes the flesh of the Earth Mother to yield abundantly seeds, while these,--are they not cooked by the brand of fire which warms us in winter?"

That he reasoned well, may be the better understood if we follow for a while the teachings which instructed his logic. These relate that:

First, there was sublime darkness, which vanished not until came the "Ancient Father of the Sun," revealing universal waters. These were, save him, all that were.

The Sun-father thought to change the face of the waters and cause life to replace their desolation.

He rubbed the surface of his flesh, thus drawing forth yep'na.2

The yep'na he rolled into two balls. From his high and "ancient place among the spaces" (Te'-thlÄ-shi-na-kwin) he cast


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forth one of these balls and it fell upon the surface of the waters. There, as a drop of deer suet on hot broth, so this ball melted and spread far and wide like scum over the great waters, ever growing, until it sank into them.

Then the Sun Father cast forth the other ball, and it fell, spreading out and growing even larger than had the first, and dispelling so much of the waters that it rested upon the first. In time, the first became a great being--our Mother, the Earth; and the second became another great being--our Father, the Sky. Thus was divided the universal fluid into the "embracing waters of the World" below, and the "embracing waters of the Sky" above. Behold! this is why the Sky Father is blue as the ocean which is the home of the Earth Mother, blue even his flesh, as seem the far-away mountains, though they be the flesh of the Earth Mother.

Now, while the Sky Father and the Earth Mother were together, the Earth Mother conceived in her ample wombs--which were the four great underworlds or caves--


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the first of men and creatures. Then the two entered into council that they might provide for the birth of their children.

"How shall it be?" said the one to the other. "How, when born forth, shall our children subsist, and who shall guide them?"

"Behold!" said the Sky Father. He spread his hand high and abroad with the hollow palm downward. Yellow grains like corn he stuck into all the lines and wrinkles of his palm and fingers. "Thus," said he, "shall I, as it were, hold my hand ever above thee and thy children, and the yellow grains shall represent so many shining points which shall guide and light these, our children, when the Sun Father is not nigh."

Gaze on the sky at night-time! Is it not the palm of the Great Father, and are the stars not in many lines of his hand yet to be seen?

"Ah yes!" said the Earth Mother, "yet my tiny children may not wander over my lap and bosom without guidance, even in the light of the Sun Father, therefore, behold!"

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She took a great terraced bowl into which she poured water; upon the water she spat, and, whipping it rapidly with her fingers, it was soon beaten into foam as froths the soap-weed, and the foam rose high up around the rim of the bowl. The Earth Mother blew the foam. Flake after flake broke off, and bursting, cast spray downward into the bowl.

"See," said she, "this bowl is, as it were, the world, the rim its farthest limits, and the foam-bounden terraces round about, my features, which they shall call mountains whereby they shall name countries and be guided from place to place, and whence white clouds shall rise, float away, and, bursting, shed spray, that my children may drink of the water of life, and from my substance add unto the flesh of their being. Thou hast said thou wilt watch over them when the Sun Father is absent, but thou art the cold being; I am the warm. Therefore, at night, when thou watchest, my children shall nestle in my bosom and find there warmth, strength, and length of life from one daylight to another."

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Is not the bowl the emblem of the Earth, our mother? For from it we draw both food and drink, as a babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother, and round, as is the rim of a bowl, so is the horizon, terraced with mountains whence rise the clouds. Is not woman the warm, man the cold being? For while woman sits shivering as she cooks by the fire in the house-room, man goes forth little heeding the storms of winter, to hunt the feed and gather pine-fagots.

Yet, alas! men and the creatures remained bounden in the lowermost womb of the Earth Mother, for she and the Sky Father feared to deliver them as a mother fears for the fate of her first offspring.

Then the Ancient Sun pitied the children of Earth. That they might speedily see his light, he cast a glance upon a foam-cap floating abroad on the great waters. Forthwith the foam-cap became instilled with life, and bore twin children, brothers one to the other, older and younger, for one was born before the other. To these he gave the k'ia-al-lan, or "water-shield," that on


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it they might fly over the waters as the clouds, from which it was spun and woven, float over the ocean; that they might blind with its mists the sight of the enemy as the clouds, darken the earth with rain-drops. He gave them for their bow, the rainbow, that with it they might clear men's trails of enemies, as the rainbow clears away the storm-shadows; and for their arrows gave he them the thunderbolts, that they might rive open the mountains, as the lightning cleaves asunder the pine trees, and then he sent them abroad to deliver, guide, and protect the children of earth and the Sky Father. With their bow they lifted from his embraces the Sky Father from the bosom of the Earth Mother, "for," said they, "if he remain near, his cold will cause men to be stunted and stooped with shivering and to grovel in the earth," as stunted trees in the mountains delve under the snow to hide from the cold of the Sky Father. With their thunderbolts they broke open the mountain which gave entrance to the cave-wombs of the Earth Mother, and upon their water-shields they


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descended into the lowermost of the caves, where dwelt the children of earth--men and all creatures.

Alas! It was dark as had been the world before the coming of the Sun, and the brothers found men and the beings sadly bewailing their lot. When one moved it was but to jostle another, whose complaints wearied the ears of yet others; hence the brothers called a council of the priest-chiefs,--even ere the coming forth of men such lived,--and they made a ladder of tall canes which they placed against the roof of the cavern. Up this rushed the children of earth. Some, climbing out before of their own wills, found deliverance from the caves above and, wandering away, became the ancestors of nations unknown to us; but our fathers followed in the footsteps of the older and younger brothers. Does not the cane grow jointed today, showing thus the notches which men traversed to daylight?

In the second cave all was still dark, but like starlight through cloud rifts, through the cleft above showed the twilight. After


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time the people murmured again, until the two delivered them into the third world where they found light like that of early dawn. Again they grew discontented, again were guided upward, this time into the open light of the Sun--which was the light of this world. But some remained behind, not escaping until afterward; and these were the fathers of the western nations whom our ancients knew not.

Then indeed for a time the people complained bitterly, for it was then that they first saw the light of the Sun Father, which, in its brilliancy, smote them so that they fell grasping their eyeballs and moaning. But when they became used to the light they looked around in joy and wonderment; yet they saw that the earth seemed but small, for everywhere rolled about the great misty waters.

The two brothers spread open the limbs of the Earth Mother and cleft the western mountains with their shafts of lightning, and the waters flowed down and away from the bosom of the Earth Mother, cutting great cañons and valleys which remain to


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this day. Thus was widened the land, yet the earth remained damp. Then they guided the people eastward.

Already before men came forth from the lower worlds with the priest-chiefs, there were many gods and strange beings. The gods gave to the priests many treasures and instructions, but the people knew not yet the meaning of either. Thus were first taught our ancients incantations, rituals, and sacred talks (prayer), each band of them according to its usefulness. These bands were, the "Priesthood" (Shi'-wa'na-kwe), the "Hunter-band" (Sa'-ni-a-k'ia-kwe), the "Knife-band" (A'tchi-a-k'ia-kwe or Warrior), and the Ne'-we-kwe or the Band of Wise Medicine Men. The leaders of each band thus came to have wonderful knowledge and power--even as that of the gods! They summoned a great council of their children--for they were called the "Fathers of the People"--and asked them to choose such things as they would have for special ownership or use. Some chose the macaw, the eagle, or the turkey; others chose the deer, bear, or coyote; others the


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seeds of earth, or a'-tâ-a, the spring vine, tobacco, and the plants of medicine, the yellow-wood and many other things. Thus it came about that they and their brothers and sisters and their children, even unto the present day, were named after the things they chose in the days when all was new, and thus was divided our nation into many clans (a'-no'ti'we) of brothers and sisters who may not marry one another but from one to the other. To some of the elders of these bands and clans was given some thing which should be, above all other things, precious. For instance, the clans of the Bear and Crane were given the mu'-et-ton-ne, or medicine seed of hail and snow. For does not the bear go into his den, and appears not the crane when come the storms of hail and snow?

When more than one clan possessed one of these magic medicines, they formed a secret society, like the first four, for its keeping and use. Thus the Bear and Crane peoples became the "Holders of the Wand"--who bring the snow of winter and are potent to cure the diseases which come


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with them. In time they let into their secret council others, whom they had cured, that the precious secrets of their band might not be wasted. Thus it was that one after another were formed the rest of our medicine bands, who were and are called the finishers of men's trails, because, despite disease and evil, they guard and lengthen our lives; but in the "days of the new" there were only four bands.3

To the Eagle, Deer, and Coyote peoples were given the nal'-e-ton, or "deer medicine seed," which the Hunter band still guards; and to the Macaw, Sun, and Frog peoples the k'ia'-et-ton, or the "medicine seed of water," which the priesthood and the Sacred Dance, or Kâ'-kâ', still hold--without the administration of which the world would dry up and even the insects of the mountains and hollows of earth grow thirsty and perish. Yet, not less precious was the gift to the "Seed people," or Tâ'-a-kwe. This was the tchu'-et-ton, or the "medicine seed of corn," for from this came the parents of flesh and beauty, the solace of hunger, the emblems of birth,


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mortal life, death, and immortality. To the Badger people was given the knowledge of fire, for in the roots of all trees, great and little, which the badger best knows how to find, dwells the essence of fire.4

To all of these peoples it was told that they should wander for many generations toward the land whence the Sun brings the daylight (eastward), until at last they would reach the "middle of the world," where their children should dwell forever over the heart of our Earth Mother until their days should be numbered and the light of Zuñi grow dark.

Toward this unknown country the "twin brothers of light" guided them. In those times a day meant a year, and a night another, so that four days and nights meant eight years. Many days the people wandered eastward, slaying game for their flesh-food, gathering seeds from grasses and weeds for their bread-food, and binding rushes about their loins for their clothing; they knew not until afterward, the flesh of the cotton--and yucca-mothers.

The earth was still damp. Dig a hole


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in a hillside, quickly it filled with water. Drop a seed on the highest table-land, and it without waiting shot forth green sprouts. So moist, indeed, was the soil, that even footprints of men and all creatures might be traced withersoever they tended. The beings and strange creatures increased with men, and spread over the world. Many monsters lived, by whose ferocity men perished.

Then said the twin brothers: "Men, our children, are poorer than the beasts, their enemies; for each creature has a special gift of strength or sagacity, while to men has been given only the power of guessing. Nor would we that our children be web-footed like the beings that live over the waters and damp places."

Therefore, they sent all men and harmless beings to a place of security; then laid their water-shield on the ground. Upon it they placed four thunderbolts, one pointing north, another west, another south, and the other eastward. When all was ready they let fly the thunderbolts. Instantly the world was covered with lurid fire and


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shaken with rolling thunders, as is a forest today burned and blasted where the lightning has fallen. Thus as the clay of vessels is burned to rock, and the mud of the hearth crackled and reddened by fire, so the earth was mottled and crackled and hardened where now we see mountains and masses of rock. Many of the great monsters and prey-beings were changed in a twinkling to enduring rock or shriveled into twisted idols which the hunter and priest-warrior know best how to prize. Behold! their forms along every mountainside and ravine and in the far western valleys and plains still endure the tracks of the fathers of men and beings, the children of earth. Yet some of the beings of prey were spared, that the world might not become over-filled with life and starvation follow, and that men might breathe of their spirits and be inspired with the hearts of warriors and hunters.

Often the people rested from their wanderings, building great houses of stone which may even now be seen, until the conch of the gods sounded, which lashed the


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ocean to fury and beat the earth to trembling.5 Then the people started up, and gathering the few things they could, again commenced their wanderings; yet often those who slept or lingered were buried beneath their own walls, where yet their bones may sometimes be found.

Marvelous both of good and evil were the works of the ancients. Alas! there came forth with others, those impregnated with the seed of sorcery. Their evil works caused discord among men, and, through fear and anger, men were divided from one another. Born before our ancients, had been other men, and these our fathers sometimes overtook and looked not peacefully upon them, but challenged them--though were they not their elder brothers? It thus happened when our ancients came to their fourth resting place on their eastward journey, that which they named Shi-po-lo-lon-K'ai-a, or "Place of Misty Waters," there already dwelt a clan of people called the A'-tâ-a, or Seed people, and the Seed clan of our ancients challenged them to know by what right they assumed


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the name and attributes of their own clan. "Behold!" said these stranger beings, "we have power with the gods above yours, yet can we not exert it without your aid. Try, therefore, your own power first, then we will show you ours." At last, after much wrangling, the Seed clan agreed to this, and set apart eight days for prayer and sacred labors. First they worked together cutting sticks, to which they bound the plumes of summer birds which fly in the clouds or sail over the waters. "Therefore," thought our fathers, "why should not their plumes waft our beseechings to the waters and clouds?" These plumes, with prayers and offerings, they planted in the valleys, and there also they placed their tchu'-e-ton-ne. Lo! for eight days and nights it rained, and there were thick mists; and the waters from the mountains poured down, bringing new soil and spreading it over the valleys where the plumed sticks had been planted. "See!" said the fathers of the Seed clan, "water and new earth bring we by our supplications.

"It is well," replied the strangers, "yet


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life ye did not bring. Behold!" and they too set apart eight days, during which they danced and sang a beautiful dance and prayer song, and at the end of that time they took the people of the Seed clan to the valleys. Behold, indeed! Where the plumes had been planted and the tchu'-e-ton placed grew seven corn-plants, their tassels waving in the wind, their stalks laden with ripened grain. "These," said the strangers, "are the severed flesh of seven maidens, our own sisters and children. The eldest sister's is the yellow corn; the next, the blue; the next, the red; the next, the white; the next, the speckled; the next, the black, and the last and youngest is the sweet-corn, for see! even ripe, she is soft like the young of the others. The first is of the North-land, yellow like the light of winter; the second is of the West, blue like the great world of waters; the third is of the South, red like the Land of Everlasting Summer; the fourth is of the East, white like the land whence the sun brings the daylight; the fifth is of the upper regions, many-colored as are the clouds of morning and


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evening, and the sixth is of the lower regions, black as are the caves whence came we, your elder, and ye, our younger brothers."

"Brothers indeed be we, each one to the other," said the people to the strangers, "and may we not journey together seeking the middle of the world?"

"Aye, we may," replied the strangers, "and of the flesh of our maidens ye may eat, no more seeking the seeds of the grasses, and of your water we may drink, no more wondering whither we shall find it; thus shall each help the other to life and contentment. Ye shall pray and cut prayer-plumes; we shall sing, and dance shall our maidens that all may be delighted and that it may be for the best. But beware! no mortal must approach the persons of our maidens."

Thenceforward, many of the A'-tâ-a and the Seed clan journeyed together, until at last the Sun, Macaw, and some other clanspeople found the middle of the world; while others yet wandered in search of it, not for many generations to join their brothers, over the heart of the Earth


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Mother, which is Shi'wi-na-kwin, or the "Land of the Zuñis."6

Day after day, season after season, year after year, the people of the Seed clan and the A'-tâ-a, who were named together the Corn clan, or people, prepared, and their maidens danced the dance of the Thla-he-kwe,7 or "Beautiful Corn Wands," until their children grew weary and yearned for other amusements.

Sometimes the people saw over Thunder Mountain8 thick mists floating and lowering. At such times, near the Cave of the Rainbow, a beautiful halo would spring forth, amidst which the many-colored garments of the rainbow himself could be seen, and soft, sweet music, stranger than that of the whistling winds in a mountain of pines, floated fitfully down the valley. At last the priests and elders gathered in council and determined to send their two chief warriors (Priests of the Bow) to the Cavern of the Rainbow, that it might be determined what strange people made the sights and sounds. "Mayhap it will prove some new dancers, who will throw the light


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of their favor on our weary hearts and come to cheer us and delight our children." Thus said they to the warriors when they were departing.

No sooner had the warriors reached the cave entrance than the mists enshrouded them and the music ceased. They entered, and were received by a splendid group of beings bearing long, brightly-painted flutes, amongst whom the leader was Pai'-a-tu-ma, the father of the Ne'-we band, and the God of Dew.

"Enter, my children," said he, "and sit. We have commanded our dancers to cease and our players to draw breath from their flutes, that we might listen to your messages; for, 'not for nothing does one stranger visit the house of another.'"

"True," replied the warriors. "Our fathers have sent us that we might greet you, and the light of your favor ask for our children. Day after day the maidens of the Corn people dance one dance which, from oft repeating, has grown undelightful, and our fathers thought you might come to vary this dance with your own, for that


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you knew one we were taught by your music, which we sometimes heard."

"Aha!" replied Pai'-a-tu-ma, "It is well! We will follow; but not in the day-time--in the night-time we will follow. My children," said he, turning to the flute-players, "show to the strangers our custom."

The drum sounded till it shook the cavern; the music shrieked and pealed in softly surging unison, as the wind does in a wooded cañon after the storm is distant, and the mists played over the medicine bowl around which the musicians were gathered, until the rainbow fluttered his bright garments among the painted flutes. Maidens filed out, brandishing wands whence issued tiny clouds white as the down of eagles, and as the sounds died away between the songs the two warriors in silent wonder and admiration departed for their home.

When they returned to their fathers in Zuñi they told what they had seen and heard. Forthwith the fathers (priest-chiefs and elders) prepared the dance of the Corn Maidens. A great bower was placed


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in the court of the pueblo, whither went the mothers and priests of the Seed clan. The priests of the Macaw, Sun, and Water clans were there. A terrace of sacred meal was marked on the ground, an altar set up over its base, and along its middle were placed the e-'tâ-e or medicine-seeds of corn and water. Along the outer edges were planted the sticks of prayer, plumed with the feathers of summer birds, and down in front of the altar and terrace were set basket-bowls covered with sacred mantles made of the flesh of the Cotton Mother (Goddess of Cotton), whose down grows from the earth and floats in the skies [cotton and the clouds are one in the Zuñi mythology]. By the side of each basket-bowl sat a mother of the clan, silent in prayer and meditation. To the right were the singers, to the left the Corn Maidens. Night was coming on. The dance began and a fire was built in front of the bower beyond where the maidens danced. More beautiful than all human maidens were these Maidens of the Corn, but as are human maidens, so were they, irresistibly beautiful.

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As the night deepened, the sound of music and flutes was heard up the river, and then followed the players of the Rainbow Cave with their sisters, led by the God of Dew. When the players entered and saw the maidens, their music ceased and they were impassioned. And when their turn came for leading the dance, they played their softest strains over their medicine-bowl--the terraced bowl of the world--whence arose the rainbow. The people were delighted, but the Corn Maidens were sad; for no sooner had the dancing ceased a little than the flute players sought their hands and persons. In vain the Corn Maidens pleaded they were immortal virgins and the mothers of men! The flute players continually renewed their suits until the next day, and into the night which followed, while the dance went on. At last the people grew weary. The guardian warrior-priests nodded, and no longer wakened them. Silently the Corn Maidens stole up between the basket-trays and the sleeping people. There, passing their hands over their persons they placed


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something under the mantles, vanishing instantly as do the spirits of the dying, leaving only their flesh behind. Still the people slept, and ere long even the flute-players and dancers ceased. When the sun came out the people awoke. Then every one cried to the others, "Where are our maiden mothers, our daughters?" Yet not even the warriors knew; for only of the flesh of the maidens (corn) could be found a little in the trays under the mantles. Then the place was filled with moaning among the women and upbraidings among the men, each blaming every other loudly until the priests cried out to silence their wranglings, and called a council. Then said they:

"Alas, we have laden our hearts with guilt, and sad thoughts have we prepared to weigh down our minds! We must send to seek the maidens, that they desert us not. Who shall undertake the journey?"

"Send for the Eagle," it was said. The two warrior-priests were commanded to seek him.

Be it known that while yet the earth was young, her children, both men and the


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creatures, spoke as men alone now speak, any one with any other. This the aged among all nations agree in saying, and are not those who grow not foolish with great age the wisest of men? Their words we speak!

Therefore, when the two warriors climbed the mountain whereon the Eagle dwelt, and found only his Eaglets at home, the little birds were frightened and tried to hide themselves in the hole where the nest was built. But when the warriors came nearer, they screamed: "Oh, do not pull our feathers; wait till we are older and we will drop them for you!"

"Hush!" said the warriors, "we seek your father."

But just then the old Eagle, with a frown on his eyebrow, rushed in and asked why the warriors were frightening his "pin-feathers."

"We came for you, our father. Listen! Our mothers, the beautiful Corn Maidens, have vanished, leaving no trace save of their flesh. We come to beseech that you shall seek them for us."

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"Go before!" said the Eagle, smoothing his feathers, which meant that he would follow. So the warriors returned.

Then the Eagle launched forth into the sky, circling higher and higher, until he was smaller than a thistle-down in a whirlwind. At last he flew lower, then into the bower of the dancers where the council awaited him.

"Ah, thou comest!" exclaimed the people.

"Yes," replied the Eagle. "Neither a bluebird nor a wood-rat can escape my eye," said he, snapping his beak, "unless they hide under rocks or bushes. Send for my younger brother; he flies nearer the ground than I."

So the warriors went to seek the Sparrowhawk. They found him sitting on an ant-hill, but when he saw them he would have flown away had they not called out that they had words for him and meant him no harm."

"What is it?" said he. "For if you have any snare-strings with you, I'll be off."

"No, no! we wish you to go and hunt for our maidens--the Corn Maidens," said the


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warriors. "Your old brother, the Eagle, cannot find them."

"Oh, that's it! Well, go before--of course he can't find them! He climbs up to the clouds and thinks he can see under every tree and shadow as does the Sun, who sees not with eyes."

The Sparrowhawk flew away to the north and the east and the west, looking behind every cliff and copse-wood, but he found no trace of the maidens, and returned, declaring as he flew into the bower, "They can not be found. They are hiding more snugly than I ever knew a sparrow to hide," said he, ruffling his feathers and gripping the stick he settled on as though it were feathers and blood.

"Oh, alas! alas! our beautiful maidens!" cried the old women. "We shall never see them again!"

"Hold your feet with patience, there's old Heavy Nose out there; go and see if he can hunt for them. He knows well enough to find their flesh, however so little soever that may be," said an old priest, pointing to a Crow who was scratching an ash-heap


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sidewise with his beak, trying to find something for a morning meal. So the warrior ran down and accosted him.

"O caw!" exclaimed the Crow, probing a fresh place, "I am too hungry to go flying around for you stingy fellows. Here I've been ever since perching-time, trying to get a mouthful; but you pick your bones and bowls too clean, be sure for that!"

"Come in, then, grandfather, and we'll give you a smoke and something to eat," said the two warriors.

"Caw, haw!" said the old Crow, ruffling up his collar and opening his mouth wide enough to swallow his own head. "Go before!" and he followed them into the dance-court.

"Come in, sit and smoke," said the chief priest, handing the Crow a cigarette.

At once the old Crow took the cigarette and drew such a big whiff into his throat that the smoke completely filled his feathers, and ever since then crows have been black all over, although before that time they had white shoulder-bands and very blue backs, which made them look quite fine.

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Then the Crow suddenly espied an ear of corn under one of the mantles, for this was all the maidens had left; so he made for the corn and flew off with it, saying, as he skipped over the houses, "I guess this is all you'll see of the maidens for many a day," and ever since then crows have been so fond of corn that they steal even that which is buried. But bye and bye the old Crow came back, saying that he had a "sharp eye for the flesh of the maidens, but he could not find any trace of the maidens themselves."

Then the people were very sad with thoughts, when they suddenly heard Pai'-a-tu-ma joking"9 along the streets as though the whole pueblo were listening to him. "Call him," cried the priests to the warriors, and the warriors ran out to summon Pai'-a-tu-ma.

Pai'-a-tu-ma sat down on a heap of refuse, saying he was about to make a breakfast of it. The warriors greeted him.

"Why and wherefore do you two cowards come not after me?" inquired Pai'-a-tu-ma.

"We do come for you."

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"No, you do not."

"Yes, we do."

"Well, I will not go with you," said he, forthwith following them to the dance-court.

"My little children," said he, to the gray-haired priests and mothers, "good evening" (it was not yet mid-day); "you are all very happy, I see."

"Thou comest," said the chief priest.

"I do not," replied Pai'-a-tu-ma.

"Father," said the chief priest, "we are very sad and we have sought you that we might ask the light of your wisdom."

"Ah, quite as I had supposed. I am very glad to find you all so happy. Being thus you do not need my advice. What may I not do for you?"

"We would that you seek for the Corn Maidens, our mothers, whom we have offended, and who have exchanged themselves for nothing in our gaze."

"Oh, that's all, is it? The Corn Maidens are not lost, and if they were I would not go to seek them, and if I went to seek for them I could not find them, and if I found them I would not bring them, but I would


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tell them 'you did not wish to see them' and leave them where they are not--in the Land of Everlasting Summer, which is not their home. Ha! you have no prayer-plumes here, I observe," said he, picking up one each of the yellow, blue, and white kinds, and starting out with the remark, "I come."

With rapid strides he set forth toward the south. When he came to the mouth of the Cañon of the Woods, whence blows the wind of summer in spring-time, he planted the yellow-plumed stick. Then he knelt to watch the eagle-down, and presently the down moved gently toward the north, as though some one were breathing on it. Then he went yet farther, and planted the blue stick. Again the eagle-down moved. So he went on planting the sticks, until very far away he placed the last one. Now the eagle-plume waved constantly toward the north.

"Aha!" said Pai'-a-tu-ma to himself. "It is the breath of the Corn Maidens, and thus shall it ever be, for when they breathe toward the northland, thither shall warmth,


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showers, fertility, and health be wafted, and the summer birds shall chase the butterfly out of Summerland, and summer itself, with my own beads and treasures, shall follow after." Then he journeyed on, no longer a dirty clown, but an aged, grand god, with a colored flute, flying softly and swiftly as the wind he sought.

Soon he came to the home of the maidens, whom he greeted, bidding them, as he waved his flute over them, to follow him to the home of their children.

The maidens arose, and each taking a tray covered with embroidered cotton, followed him as he strode with folded arms, swiftly before them.

At last they reached the home of our fathers. Then Pai'-a-tu-ma gravely spoke to the council:

"Behold, I have returned with the lost maidens, yet may they not remain or come again, for you have not loved their beautiful custom, the source of your lives, and men would seek to change the blessings of their flesh itself into suffering humanity were they to remain amongst you.

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"As a mother of her own blood and being gives life to her offspring, so have these given of their own flesh to you. Once more their flesh they give to you, as it were their children. From the beginning of the new sun each year, ye shall treasure their gift, during the moon of the snow-broken boughs, during the moon of the lesser sand-driving winds, you shall treasure their flesh. Then, in the new soil which the winter winds and waters have brought, ye shall bury their flesh as ye bury the flesh of the dead, and as the flesh of he dead decays, so shall their flesh decay, and as from the flesh of the dead springs the other being (the soul), so from their flesh shall spring new being, like to the first, yet in eight-fold plenitude. Of this shall ye eat and be bereft of hunger. Behold these maidens, beautiful and perfect are they, and as this, their flesh, is derived from them, so shall it confer on those whom it feeds perfection of person and beauty, as of those whence it was derived." He lifted


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the tray from the head of the maiden nearest him. She smiled and was seen no more; yet when the people opened the tray it was filled with yellow seed-corn. And so Pai'-a-tu-ma lifted the trays, each in turn, from the heads of the other maidens, and, as he did so, each faded from view. In the second tray the people found blue corn; in the third, red; in the fourth, white; in the fifth, variegated; and in the sixth, black. These they saved, and in the spring-time they carefully planted the seeds in separate places. The breaths of the Corm Maidens blew rain-clouds from their homes in Summer-land, and when the rains had passed away green corns plants grew everywhere the grains had been planted. And when the plants had grown tall and blossomed, they were laden with ears of corn, yellow, blue, red, white, speckled, and black. Thus to this day grows the corn, always eight-fold more than is planted, and of six colors, which our women preserve separately during the moons of the sacred fire, snow-broken


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boughs, great sand-driving winds, and lesser sand-driving winds.

It was Pai'-a-tu-ma who found the Corn Maidens and brought them back. He took the trays from their heads and gave them to the people; hence, when in winter, during the moon of the sacred fire, the priests gather to bless the seed-corn for the coming year, the chief-priest of the Ne'-we-kwe hands the trays of corn-seed into the estufa [kiva].

Ever since these days the beautiful Corn Maidens have dwelt in the Land of Everlasting Summer. This we know. For does not their sweet-smelling breath come from that flowery country, bringing life to their children, the corn-plants? It is the south wind which we feel in spring-time.

Thus was born Tâ-a, or the "Seed of Seeds."

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> CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAGONFLY AND OF THE CORN PRIESTS, OR GUARDIANS OF THE SEED

[Illustration: The initial capital is ornate, and illustrated with a small leave motif.]

THERE is nothing about Indian life so interesting as its lore. The Indian, like his possible Mongolian ancestor, lives less in the present than in the past. His spirit loves to roam through the dark, wild vistas of antiquity and dream of the marvels which he devoutly believes caused all things to become as they are. To him the youth of the world with its beautiful visions of the to be, is fled, and be he ever so young he is a dotard. There is a reason for all this, aside from his nationality. To no man on earth seems the future so gloomy and fateful as to the Indian; the past in such heroic, glorious contrast with it. Therefore, like a poor beast, driven by the storm-blast to


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the uttermost borders of his native range, he turns his back to the coming tempest and with sullen serenity awaits it; musing, meanwhile, on the scenes of other days, and the tales of other generations. In tune to the wild winds of the mesas and mountains which he ranges and watches his herds over, he composes the music of his songs, which songs are but the echoes of words uttered generations ere the white man knew him. All the genius of his best birthrights,--his imaginiative mind and picturesquely poetic language,--he devotes to the beautification of pristine wonder-tales, that he may teach his little ones, whom he dearly loves, to emulate himself in seeking joy rather with the memories of a dead but known past, than in the hopes of a living but unknown future. Alone with his family at night-time, the winter wind shrieking without, the piñon light dancing within, you would not think him a mournful being. His fingers are stretched forth, his eyes gleaming, his whole action joyful and spirited, as he recounts the adventures of his ancestry with gods, monsters, and


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wizards: tells how trees thought, beasts spoke, and men walked the skies, or descended to the "Dance Halls of the Dead." In more than a merely idle spirit, I have chosen two or three of these tales for my readers; for they will, so it seems to me, reveal many things relative to the Zuñi and the bread he eats, which otherwise, we who eat other bread would scarcely understand and perhaps not relish. It must be remembered that the Zuñi, not less with his imagination than his wife with her wood-ash and lime yeast, seasons every morsel of his breadstuff.

There is, on a low headland which juts out into the northern side of the plain of Los Ojos Calientes, twelve miles southwest of Zuñi, an ancient ruin called by the Indians Ha'-wi-k'uh. As we read the romantic pages of early Spanish conquest (in the letters which were penned for us more than three hundred years ago by the brave and devoted Franciscan fathers and their vanguard of Coronado's cavaliers), we come upon the narrative of a populous "citie of the Province of Ci'bola called


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Aguico," wherein "dwelt the governors and elders of Ci'bola. " This was no other than the town of Ha'-wi-k'uh, spoken of in the following bit of quaint folklore:

Very long, long ago, the old brokendown village of Ha'-wi-k'uh was filled with the fathers of our ancients as were many towns round about now broken down too. The plains below were covered with the fertile washes of spring streamlets and the mists from the hot springs above drove away the breath of the Ice God, so that cold never grew great in the valley. Thus it happened that year after year more corn grew for the people of Ha'-wi-k'uh than they had need for, and they became rich and insolent with plenty.

One day, the Chief Priest of the Bow saw some children playing at mimic warfare, with dirt and lumps of mud for their weapons. "Aha!" he mused, "I will devise a means of delighting my people and showing the nations round about our wealth and good fortune above theirs!"

He betook himself straightway to the house of his "Younger brother-priest,"


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and, summoning the elders, they held council.

"Why should we not order that our people prepare, for four days, great stores of sweet mush, bread, cakes, tortillas, guayaves, and all kinds of the seeds foods as for a grand festival? Then will we summon all nations round about to share in our festivities, and choose sides for a sham fight with good things and dough for our weapons. Think of it! How strangers will wonder at the wealth of the Ha'-wi-k'uh-ians when they see us treat these things which men work so hard that they may eat, as children treat refuse and mud in the plaza!"

"Listen, listen!" exclaimed the elders, who joined one and all in praising the ingenuity of their chief warrior.

So it happened that, big-hearted with conceit, the chief warrior-priests mounted to the topmost houses at sunset and ordered that the people busy themselves with preparing for the great game, explaining how it should be carried on, and demanding swift young men whom to send to the towns round about to summon visitors for the day


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that had been named. Next morning the town was noisy with the grinding of meal, and the breaking of wood for the cooking fires; and long before the time named was past, every pot, bowl, and basket seemed filled with batter and dough, and already the baking at night-time was beginning.

Now there lived far up the valley to the south, among the White Cliffs, two beautiful goddesses, the Maidens of the White Corn and the Yellow. These two sisters were very sad when they saw that their children were about to treat so lightly the gifts themselves had blessed them with. "Yet," said they, one to the other, "we will even still give them a chance to abide in our favor."

They disguised as poor and ugly women of one of the neighboring towns, and started late, on the day before the feast, toward Ha'-wi-k'uh. When they entered the town, a misty, drizzly rain preceded them; for were they not our Mother-maidens from Summer-land? But the foolish people never thought of this. No, they fancied the rain was made by the gods in


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humble recognition of themselves. The maidens draggled past each open doorway, but no one bade them enter. Heaps of baked things, yellow, red, white, brown, and fragrant, steamed in every corner, and paper bread was piled about as corn-shucks are at the husking. Near one house a boy and his infant sister were munching some corn-cakes. When they saw how tired and hungry the two poor girls looked, they stretched out their hands to offer them some of the food; but the old ones from within reproved them sharply, saying that "cooked food should not be wasted on vagabond creatures who might make their own food as the people of Ha'-wi-k'uh had to, instead of following the scent of the cooking-pots like the whelps of coyotes from one place to another!"

Away down at the end of the town was a broken old house. There lived a poor aged woman, and the people, heedless of her helpless lot, cast all their rubbish down the hill so that it fell about her doorway and she had to work day after day to keep it cleared away. Her clothes were patched


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and ragged, her blanket torn, and she had but little corn, for her brothers and uncles had many years been dead, her husband killed by the enemy and her children wasted by disease and want. No one ever entered her house, and people rarely spoke to her save to abuse her. When coming from the pool with water she met any of the women from the town, they turned their faces from her as dogs turn their heads from a cold wind. On the evening before the festival she was sitting by her hearthstone stirring some mush, her only food. Now, it happened that the maidens, having passed each house slowly, wandered down toward the old woman's doorway. A dog which was snuffing about the refuse near by began to bark, and as the old woman started up to drive him away, she espied the two strangers.

"My poor girls!" she cried in a quavering voice. "Come in and rest yourselves and eat, for hunger will soften my coarse food. You must have come far, for you look so tired and hungry. Never mind, my children, you shall rest a moment with


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me and eat, then go into the town where the people have cooked more food than you ever saw before, and you may feast to satisfaction."

The two girls turned and entered. The old woman threw the shredded mantle from off her shoulders and bade them sit on it, begging them to share it with each other, as she had only the one to offer them. Then she hastened to wash out a bowl and placed all the mush in it and set it before them. Once more bidding them to eat, she went away and busied herself about something else, to show them that she did not herself need of the food and that there would be plenty for them.

"Thou art a good and gentle old mother," said the elder of the two girls to her, "but hungry as we be, we will not suffer thee to go unsatisfied for ourselves' sake. Come and sit near us; see, we bring with us food," said she, drawing forth from under her ragged wrappings a beautifully embroidered and fringed cotton mantle. As she unrolled this before the astonished old woman, there were revealed some packages


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of honey-bread and pollen. The girls undid one of them, and scattered the pollen over the bowl of mush. The odors from the rising steam were as the fragrance of a valley of flowers. Then they laid the honey-bread, cake after cake of it, on the mantle beside the bowl, urging yet more their aged hostess to join them. For a long time the poor old creature crouched in a corner covered with shame, for she now knew that these two girls who had seemed poor and like herself, were not the daughters of men, but of the wonderful and beloved beings who control the lives of mortals (the gods).

"Mother, daughter, knowest thou not that we are thy mothers, and thou almost our only child here, save two little ones in the town above and an aged priest who sits by his hearth sadly thinking of his people's wantonness? Come, thou didst ask us to eat with thee, therefore do thou eat with us." The old woman, trembling with thought, arose, and, seeking some prayer meal, humbly scattered it upon the heads of the maidens. As she prepared to sit


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down with them, behold! they passed their hands over their persons and their ragged garments fell from them, leaving such splendid raiment as man had never before seen in Ha'-wi-k'uh, and their faces seemed as beautiful to the old woman as seems to a mother the face of her daughter long dead, when it rises before her dream vision. The girls began to eat, and the old woman, tasting a morsel of her coarse mush, found it so sweet and fragrant that, although her hunger was mingled with trepidation, she could not cease tasting morsel after morsel. The maidens laughed and chatted merrily until her old heart beat as it had not since she was a young girl. They opened yet another package. It contained dozens of minute melons which seemed shriveled by frost or heat, yet the maidens, taking one of them, breathed on it, moistened it, and lo! it grew instantly to a great size and looked as though freshly plucked from the vine. This the maidens broke open, and, placing it before the hostess, bade her finish the repast with it and with the honey-bread. Never had she tasted such rich


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fruit, such absorbing sweetness,--which fairly caused the nose to ache and the tears to start--as in the honey-bread of which she ventured a morsel.

The sun was setting, and as the meal was finished, the maidens, only smiling kindly on the mother for urging them to pass the night with her, arose to go. Their little bundles they undid one after another, placing them on the floor, "Take these, our beloved old one," said they; "place them in your store-rooms. You have but to pray and keep your heart good--no longer will you be poor." They took one each of their mantles. "Hang these," said they, "upon your blanket poles. We are the Seed Mothers, and from these thou wilt have abundance on the morrow of the night thou hangest them. May all days bring thee happiness, and bless thee with the favor of the beloved." With this they suddenly vanished, and the old woman prostrated herself in their footsteps.

Some noisy young people thought they saw two beautiful beings pass around the lower part of the town just at night-time,


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and when they told this to their old people, one aged man who sat silently in the hearth-corner said to his nephew and niece: "Alas! my sister's little ones, the 'Mother-maidens of Seed!' Saw ye not the rain today? Alas, my foolish people!"

"What?" said the children, half scared. "Were those two poor young women we offered bread to this morning, the Mother-maidens?"

"No, no," said the old man to comfort them; "the two beautiful beings the young people saw were they."

As the moon rose out of an arm in the vale of the White Cliffs, a little Squirrel, who ought to have been asleep, chattered and whistled from a high crag; for the Corn Maidens had told him something, and made him and his brother, the Mouse, chiefs of a grand expedition!

An old Crow in the pine tree above, and a Sparrow napping under a bush below, both woke up. "Kâ-hâ!" said the Crow. "The sun rises soon today!" And the Sparrow said, "Twi-hi! why does that impertinent, featherless wretch chatter so


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early in the morning? He might as well try to fly as to sing!" And thus they complained until every little animal in the valley, mice, wood-rats, squirrels, gophers, prairiedogs, crows, blackbirds, sparrows, finches, beetles, and bugs of all kinds were awakened and came rushing about the crag where the Squirrel sat piping and chattering. "What does all this mean?" said they. "You fool and rascal, this is not the sun you see, it is only the night-light rising; but it is very bright!" said they to one another.

"Tsu' tsu' tsu' k'ea'!" said an old Mouse, which meant, "Attention all, hush!" "My brother up there and I have something very important to tell you all."

"Ha! what's that?" exclaimed the creatures. Then the Squirrel coughed, flirted his tail, patted the rock he stood on, and began:

"My fathers and brothers, my sisters and mothers, my uncles, aunts, grandfathers, mothers of my fathers and mothers, sons and fathers-in-law, grandsons and mothers-in-law"--

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"We hear, we believe," broke in the impatient creatures.

"And friends," added the Squirrel.

"Yes, yes," piped and chirruped the creatures.

"Our mothers, the Corn Maidens (our grandchildren some call them, and men call them their daughters and mothers both--but they'll find out)"--said the Squirrel, changing position, "have told us that they are very sad and much vexed with their children, those big fellows who live on Ha'-wi-k'uh hill and plant corn. They told me and my younger brother, the Mouse, that we must summon all seed-eaters, for a dreadful calamity is about to befall us."

"Ha-na-ha!" said the creatures (which means "alas!").

"E'-ha!" rejoined the Squirrel, which means, "yes, indeed!" "That is, if we do not all go to Ha'-wi-k'uh tomorrow evening and wait around until the fires go out and the moon rises. Then we must rush into the town and gather all the food we can find lying around and store it away everywhere,


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for there is coming a great famine and"--

"Is that all?" said the discontented creatures.

"It's little enough we'll find," said a Bob-tailed Mouse, "for the Ha'-wi-k'uh beings stuff everything away so that no one can get to it without losing his head."

"Or tail!" remarked a jealous Wood-rat who had just come to see what was going on--looking at the Bob-tailed Mouse.

"Hush!" said the Chief-mouse. "Listen!"

"You see," continued the Squirrel, "our mothers and granddaughters, the Corn Maidens, have been too good to the Ha'-wi-k'uh humans. They have breathed rain over their country for years, until so much corn has grown that even we seed-eaters are the fattest in the land, yet we get only the leavings! Well, the Ha'-wi-k'uh humans concluded to have a frolic and throw away food as plentifully as my old uncle, the Gopher, slings dirt out of his diggings. That made our mothers feel sad, so they went there, pretending to be very poor and


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hungry, and, would you believe it? there were corn grains and other things piled around, enough to stock all the hollow trees on White Cliff mesa; yes, and holes in the rocks besides; but the Ha'-wi-k'uh humans wouldn't give them a bit; only two little ones and a very old woman offered them a thing!"

"Uh-h! just like them," grumbled the Bob-tailed Mouse.

"Well now, think of it, my fathers and mothers, my sisters and brothers, 'make your hearts ready,' for tomorrow they will throw all these things away. Our mothers told us to go there and gather everything, and--come up here a little nearer, uncle," called the Squirrel to the Gopher; but the latter gave a quick start and said:

"Oh! I can't waste any more time here; I've got to dig another cellar tomorrow."

"That's what I want you for. While these Ha'-wi-k'uh humans are making noise throwing food away for us tomorrow, you and your clan just dig holes into their corn rooms and we'll take the middle out of every corn cord10 we can get into, for we


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must store away enough food for a long drouth, you know. You see really, our mothers, the Corn Maidens, have made fools of these Ha'-wi-k'uh beings, all for our benefit. Do you not see, my children?" concluded the Squirrel, growing important: "Therefore, be ready to follow me tomorrow."

"It is well; it is well!" cried, squeaked, piped, twittered, and chirped the council of seed-eaters, and some of them stayed there all night, but the short-legged ones started straightway for Ha'-wi-k'uh, so that the longer-legged ones should not get ahead of them.

The Ha'-wi-k'uh people were all dressed in their finest blankets and necklaces, and strangers from the towns round about were coming in over all the trails when the sun rose. Every house-top was covered with baked things, dough and batter and meal, and the plaza was swept clean (so that the strangers could better see how much food was wasted). When the sun had climbed as high as he would that day, the chief warrior-priests chose sides and the fight


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began. How the people shrieked and laughed, for some were knocked down with hard bread, others had their breaths stopped with dough, and everybody's hair and dresses were besmeared all over with batter and meal. At evening the young men grew angry with one another (as young men do whenever young women are looking at them), and fell to fighting, and the girls stood on the house-tops laughing, and pelted them sorely with the hardest biscuits they could find, which made them fight the harder. When night came, almost everybody was disgusted with everybody else. So the town grew silent soon. When the moon rose, all the seed-eaters rushed in and carried away every piece of food, even every crumb and meal grain. Then they went into the corn rooms through the tunnels the gophers had made, and stole the grain all night. But of course there was still great store of corn left when the sun rose next morning.

Soon after the seed-eaters had scampered away, the people one by one climbed out of their roofs, and behold! not a trace of the


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food they had thrown away was to be seen! Many of them were troubled at this, because they had expected to gather much of it up after the strangers had gone. But they said to one another:

"Who cares? we have more corn than we could eat in a whole year!"

What do you suppose the old woman in the broken-down house found? When she woke up that morning she was very happy, for she thought the people would throw the food they had fought with down around her doorways, but when she saw that there was none of it left, she grew very sad. So she went into the rooms where she had placed the gifts of the Corn Maidens. There, in the first, she found the floor stacked to the ceiling with corn after cord of white and yellow corn. In another room she found melons and other fruits so many and large that she marveled how she could eat them all. But more wonderful still, where she had carefully hung up the mantles of woven cotton and many-colored embroideries, and the buckskin that had been given her by the Corn Maidens, every


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pole was filled as for a large and wealthy household with many kinds of robe and garment. The aged woman wept when she saw all these things, for, she thought, "Alas! I shall never see the beautiful maidens again to tell them how happy they have made me, and who is left now to share my good fortune?"

As time passed, and the winter waned, the people began to find that the mice (as they thought) had carried away great quantities of their corn, and they were troubled, for the winds, even as spring-time came, never blew from the southward, and no rain ever came to moisten the soil. Nevertheless, they planted more than ever of their seeds (thus only diminishing their store), for they were anxious to repeat their great feast when autumn came again. Throughout the long, hot summer they watched in vain for rain. The clouds would rise up from the mountain of the horizon, but no sooner had they floated over the Valleys of the Hot Waters than a great being, taller than the highest pine on the loftiest mountains, would gulp them all


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down and the sky would get as clear as before. Their corn-fields were parched and the plants grew yellow and dead. The priests and pupils sacrificed plumes and said prayers, and danced their most precious dances, but all to no purpose, for the "cloud swallower" always cleared the sky before the mists could shed their rain-drops over Ha'-wi-k'uh. At last despair filled the hearts of the people of Ha'-wi-k'uh. They went forth on the mesas to gather cactus fruit, but even this was scarce. When winter came, the cloud swallower had gone. The god of the ice caves breathed over the whole country, and even in the Valley of the Hot Water great banks of snow fell, such as the oldest men had never seen there. At last the corn was all gone. The people were pitiably poor. They were so weak that they could not hunt through the snow, therefore a great famine spread through the village. At last the people were compelled to gather old bones and grind them for meal, and for meat they toasted the rawhide soles of their moccasins. People wondered why the old


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woman in the house below the hill seemed as well as ever. At last they concluded that she was a sorceress, and when the good old crone offered them food, they dared not accept it from fear that she would seek revenge on them for their past ill-treatment of her. No one thanked her for her offerings; yet many beings lived by her bounty, for instead of throwing away the scraps of her food, she fed hungry dogs with them, and cast them away that the snowbirds and chickadees might pick them up.

When, long before the winter was gone, the old and young began to die, what was to be done? The chiefs and priests called council. A delegation of the strongest men was sent away to the country of the Moquis.11 After many days, two runners from Moqui, strong and hearty, arrived at the village. They bore strands of knotted strings to show how many days would pass before the Moquis would receive the Ha'-wi-k'uh people and feast them. Everyone was excited. The days were many, it is true, but the people were so weak that


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they knew it would be a long time before they could reach the country of the Moquis. They were in great haste, therefore, to set forth. No one thought of the poor old woman in the house below the hill! They did not even tell her they were going away.

Now, in all houses there was nothing but busy preparation. All night long the people prepared for their journey. They gathered every piece of rawhide and sinew they could find, and all the bone meal they had left, so that nothing remained in the village that could be eaten. When the morning came, long before sunrise, word was called from the house-tops that all was ready, and the people, old and young, tottered forth to follow the runners from Moqui, for the people feared they would be left behind by the strong young men.

Now it happened that when the family of the old uncle were ready to leave, their little children, a boy and a girl, were sleeping by the hearth-side. The old uncle, fearing that he would hinder the others--who were vexed with him because he had all along told them and others that they


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were to blame for their misfortunes (which the people didn't like, you see), had climbed out and gone on ahead. Just as the parents of the poor little brother and sister were about to leave, the uncle returned and shouted down to them, "Be sure to get the little ones." But the father and mother only turned to look at them, then, spreading a buffalo-robe over them, said: "Let them sleep on. Why should we wake them? They would only cry and lag along, and we cannot wait for babies or anything else now!"

So they left them sleeping there and joined the struggling crowd. Very long the two little ones slept. The morning came, and still they slept, for the village was as still as a winter forest when the wind has ceased blowing. At last the little boy woke up. When he looked all around the great room, he was at first frightened, and cried a little, but bethinking himself of the baby sister by his side, he softly arose, and gathering some splinters and cedar-bark, laid them on the hearth and built a little fire. Then he


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climbed the ladder and looked all around. Alas, no one was to be seen! Even the dogs were gone, and no smoke rose from the chimneys of any of the houses. Then he realized that his people had left. He was very hungry, and would have cried again, but he heard his poor little sister moaning and asking for parched corn as she dreamed, so he only sighed, and looked all around for something to cook. Alas, there was not a scrap of any kind to be found. At last the little boy thought of how his playmates had taught him to hunt chickadees. So softly creeping up to the bed where his sister lay, he pulled from the tail of the buffalo-robe some of the hairs. These he tied into nooses, and fastened them all over some little cedar branches which he found among the fire-sticks. Searching about, he found some castaway clothing from which he cut pieces and wrapped his feet with them. Carefully covering his little sister, he set out for the plains below the town. Where the old woman of the broken house had been accustomed to throw the scraps from her eatings were


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hundreds of chickadees. So the little boy, wondering at his good fortune, planted his little noose sprigs all around in the snow, and the birds, which kept flitting about, now and then lighted in his nooses (after the boy had hidden), until there was a large number caught in his snares. The little boy sallied forth two or three times before he returned home, each time capturing a number of the birds. When at last he gathered his snares together and climbed back to his house he had a long string of chickadees. He hastened to skin some of them, and spitting them on long splinters roasted several over the coals. Then he gently woke his little sister. At first the poor little thing cried for parched corn, but the boy gave her water; and then noticing that there were no old ones about the house, she cried for her mother and father and uncle. But the little boy at last succeeded in comforting her, and getting her to eat some of the roasted birds. Thus these poor little ones lived for a long time, but at last the sister grew weak, and cried all the time, save when she slept, for parched


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corn, for she no longer relished the wasted birds. In vain the little boy tried to comfort her. One day he said:

"Little sister, hush! I have found the strangest creature down in the plain where the corn grew. I will make a little cage for him and entice him into it. Then he shall be hung over your bed, where you may watch him."

This comforted the little girl for a time, and the boy hastened away to the fields. Then he gathered a bunch of grass straws and some stalks of corn, and running home with these, he sat down by the side of his little sister and began to make the cage. He cut the straws all of one length and strung on them sections of the pith from the corn-stalks. Then passing more of the straws through the pith the other way, he at last built up a beautiful little cage. Then, in another room, he found the feather boxes and paint-pots of his fathers, and moistening some of the paint, he covered the sections of pith with bands of white and black, red, yellow, and blue. Thus he made a very pretty cage, and


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knotting some hairs together, he formed a string with which to hang the cage over his sister's bed. At last the little sister, tired of watching him, fell asleep. Then the little boy hastened to cut a ball of pith. This he fastened to a longer piece, which he painted at one end, and cutting some pieces of pith very thin, he fastened them into the sides of the long piece near the ball. You see he was trying to make a butterfly; but the pith was so narrow, and his knives so rough--for they were made of flint chips--that he could not make the wings broad enough, so he made four long wings instead of two. When he had stuck these into the body of the fly, he took six little straws, and bending them to make them look jointed, stuck them into the pith under the wings. When he had finished, he painted eyes on the side of the head, but the paint spread so as to make them very large and black, and when he tried to paint the wings and body with red, green, white, and black, the dots and stripes spread out so as to make bands across the wings and stripes around the


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body; but after all the little toy looked just like some wonderful creature. The veins in the pith even were as fine and plain as they are in a fly's wing, only larger, for they marked the flesh shreds of the corn plant. When all was done, the boy hung the effigy, by a hair, in the cage, and suspended the cage just out of reach over the bed of his little sister. You should have seen the little sister when she woke up! She laughed and chattered as she had not once done since the old ones went away, and seemed to think that the strange creature up there in the cage understood all she said. But still the poor little thing was hungry for corn food. Once she said to the effigy:

"Dear treasure, go bring me corn grains that my brother may toast them, for you have long wings and can fly swiftly."

Wonderful to relate, the effigy fluttered its wings till they hummed like a sliver in a wind-storm, and the cage whirled round and round, but presently grew still again, and the boy thought it was the wind down the sky-hole blowing his cage and the


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wings of the "butterfly;" but the little sister clapped her hands and cried, "O, brother, just see; my butterfly heard me and fluttered its wings!" The brother said, "Yes, yes, little sister; I saw him, and was afraid he would get away."

One night when the little sister had gone to sleep, the little boy lay there awake watching the moonlight through the sky-hole, for the fire had died down and he had nothing to look at but that. Suddenly he heard a buzzing and hissing. "Thli ni ni," it said, and strange as it sounded, it seemed to say, "Let me go; let me go."

"Ha!" thought the boy, and still he listened.

"Let me go; let me go;" still buzzed the sound.

"Hush, hush, or you will wake little sister! Where are you?" said the boy, his heart thumping very hard.

"Here I am," buzzed the sound.

And looking up, the boy saw that the cage of straws was whirling round and round and the effigy was trying to fly away with it all, for it hung where the moonlight fell on it.

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"Poor thing; I didn't know it was alive. It must be hungry," thought the boy--for he was always hungry now--so he said:

"Wait, wait, my little creature, and I will let you go."

He softly got up, and opening the cage, un-noosed the horse-hair which bound the effigy. "Thli ni ni ni, su nu," Hummed and buzzed the creature as it swiftly flew about the room; then it softly neared the boy and said:

"My father, thy heart is better than many men's together, for see, thou hast given me a body where I had none before, and thou hast loved thy poor sister faithfully and well. Open the window above whence comes the light. Let me fly away. Fear not. I shall return, and it may be I can help thee and thy little sister. Surely I will not leave ye."

The boy, scared and wondering, searched about until he found some prayer dust, and this he scattered over the creature. Then he softly opened the sky-hole, and the thing, bidding him be of good cheer, flew around the room once or twice, and with a


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twang like a bowstring and a flight swift as the arrow's, shot up through the sky-hole.

For a long time the little boy lay there wondering at the strange things he had seen, and if the "butterfly" he had made would ever come back; but weary, at last he fell asleep.

You would not suppose it, but the old woman down in the broken house (which was no longer broken, for she could now keep it repaired as she had no refuse to clear away from her doors) never knew there were two little children in the town, for the house of the uncle stood high above and on the other side of the great plaza, and as the old woman never went out, she never saw the tracks of the little bird-hunter. You see she used the ladders and stepping logs of the abandoned houses round about for fire-wood, for she did not fancy the people would ever come back.

When the cornstalk being had flown out of the sky-hole, it circled about for a moment and then flew straight away to the westward. Over hills and valleys it flew more swiftly than the breath of the "Dust


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Blowing Demon," until at last it came to a great lake on the banks of the "Running Red Waters!"12

Forth from these dark, deep waters shone a thousand dim lights, and two ugly, but good, beings were pacing the shores, calling out loudly to one another. They were the ancients of the sacred dance, watching for the coming of men's souls. The "butterfly" never stopped to speak to them, but plunged at once with a sputtering sound into the clear, cold waters. In an instant he was below, in great blazing halls filled with the spirits of gods and the happy souls of men."Thli ni ni ni," he buzzed and spun about the room, then settling on a protruding mantle rack, rested a second, started up, settled back, started again, and so on--never quiet--until the God of Fire and Sacrifice said:

"Ha! my children, behold the Grandfather of Gods, yet never seen as now."

"Comest thou, our grandfather? And what may be thy message?"

"I come," replied the creature, "that I may beseech you to lay the light of your


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favors on some poor children who gave me this form, hence I have become their messenger."

Then he told the story of the poor boy and girl of Ha'-wi-k'uh, which the gods knew well enough before, yet they listened, and when the being had ceased speaking, said:

"Yea, will we happily help our beloved little ones in Ha'-wi-k'uh, and thou shalt teach them their duties to us that we may do so."

He summoned his swift-footed He'-he-a-kwe (runners of the sacred dance), and bade them take pouches of corn grains from the seed stores of the creatures of White Cliff valley and place them where the grandfather might find them, when he had need, for his little ones. Then said the god, "Hasten away to the land of Ha'-wi-k'uh and tell our little ones to cut prayer plumes, and do thou bring them to us on the fourth day hence, for thereby we may bring great blessings on our beloved little ones."

"Be ye all happy!" buzzed the creature


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as he swirled around the room and up through the watery roof, and swiftly hummed his way back to Ha'-wi-k'uh. As he was about flying down the sky-hole, where the children slept, he beheld through the window of the upper room small heaps of gleaming yellow grain. The being busily brought grain after grain from the store and dropped them through a chink above the bed of the little ones.

"K'o-po-po-po" it fell on the robe which covered them, until the poor little ones awakened, thought it must be rain-drops, so nestled down more snugly under the robe, which ere morning grew heavy, as though wet with water. When it grew light, the little boy lay there a long time, dreading to get up, as he expected to find everything wet and cold. Suddenly he thought of his "butterfly." Quickly putting the cover from his head, he looked up. There in the cage hung the effigy seeming as it had ever since he made it; but when he tried to rise, hundreds of corn grains rolled off over the floor, and he shouted so joyfully when he saw this that the little


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sister woke up too. How happy the two poor little creatures were: so happy that they forgot they were all alone. Some of the corn they parched in hot ashes, and some they cracked as best they could on the mealing stones and set it to boil with little bird bodies. All day they feasted little by little, and stretched their hands up toward the old "butterfly," who seemed to hang there as though he knew nothing at all of what was going on.

Night came, and again the effigy asked the boy to let him go. No sooner was he unfastened than he circled round and round the room, then came very close to the little boy. "Hast thou any feathers and plumes from the summer birds, eagle and duck?" said he to the boy.

"Yes; the other day when I sought for paint in the next room I found the feather boxes of my old ones," said the boy.

"Very well," replied the creature; "get these and cut sticks by the springs in the valley, and bring them here. Choose plumes and tie them to the end of the sticks, which thou must paint with six colors--


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yellow, blue or green, red, white, speckled, and black. Spring cometh, and that it might be hastened with the breath of good fortune for thee and thy little sister, I bid thee do these things. I will myself take thy plumes to the home of the gods, who mold the rain clouds, and to the spirits of thy ancients."

"I will do as you tell me," said the little boy; "but alas, I may not do well, for I cannot tell how my father and uncle used to make prayer-sticks."

"Thou wilt do well," said the creature. Then he flew forth out of the sky-hole, and the little boy, wondering whither he had gone, lay down to sleep by his little sister's side.

All night long the creature brought and dropped corn grains on the bed of the children, and next morning the little boy found them and gathered them carefully in a tray.

There sat the creature in his cage, never moving, yet the little boy looked up and said to him:

"Ah, my father, thank you; you have


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dropped the corn grains for us, and I thank you, for you are gentle and good to my little sister."

After he had parched some corn for the little girl, he went away up the valley to cut sticks from the willows and shrubs which grew by the springside. These he took home, and by the fireside cut them into wands the length of his hand from his elbow to the tips of his fingers, carefully straightening and smoothing them with pieces of sandstone.

Upon the ends of the sticks he tied with ravelings from an old cotton kilt the feathers the creature had directed him to; and the sticks he painted with the colors he had been told to use. When all was finished, he wrapped them together and sat down to pray over them as he had seen old men do, only he prayed a prayer of his own instead of the prayers of his ancients. At last he did up some prayer dust and sacred paint in some corn-shucks and laid the offering by.

When the night came the creature in the cage buzzed about, hovered a moment over


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the heads of his children, then, flying out, soon returned with a sprig of light-top.

Did you ever see the light-top grass in an autumn whirlwind? No bird is lighter! With the grass sprig the creature lightened his load of plume-sticks and flew away with them, the boy who was watching knew not whither.

Again beyond the hills and valleys flew the stalk-being westward. Again he entered the great Dance Hall of the Dead through the waters of the silent lake, and dropping his burdens at the feet of the gods, buzzed his greeting and settled airily on the mantle-rack.

Shu'-lu-wit-si waved his brand in the air, and suddenly it burst into red flames which lighted like sunset time the Halls of the Dead. He looked upon the plumes with pride and happiness.

"A father of his people shall become the youth whose little hand hath made these plumes, for we heard his prayers and shall more than answer them."

"Ha'-tchi, ha'-tchi!" responded the great Pa'-u-ti-wa, God of all Dance Gods, and


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the children all answered, "Ha'-tchi!" which means that the Fire God had spoken well.

"Grandfather," said the God of Fire, "return and cherish the little ones. When the spring-time cometh we will waft warm rain-clouds over the vale of Ha'-wi-k'uh, and our swift runners and brave warriors who fail like ourselves--never, will plant from the seed stores of the gods themselves, all over the Plains of the Hot Waters. Fear not for the future of the little ones. They shall become the fathers and mothers of their people for generations and the children of generations."

The creature returned. When the children awoke next morning, there he was perched in his cage of grass-straws and corn-pith.

Now, as day followed day, the little girl began to grow sick, and again she mourned for her mother and father and uncle. In vain her brother told her she ought not to long for those who had left them, without food, to die; she would not be comforted.

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One night the creature of the cage flew away. He came not back the next morning, only his cage hung there, and the corn he had dropped was nearly gone. He flew south past many mountains and plains, straight as a strained bow-cord, to the Land of Everlasting Summer. There were green trees everywhere; everywhere flowers were blooming and fruits always ripening in that far-off Summerland. Birds and butterflies lived there, and in the valley of a great forest dwelt the Maidens of Corn. As he neared their home, he rested, for his flight had been long, and he knew not where to find the maidens. So wherever a corn plant grew he settled on its tassels, then flew to another, and another, till at last he reached the home of the Corn Maidens. The two sisters who had dwelt for a time in the grotto of the White Cliffs were strolling forth through the great fields of corn when they heard the creature buzzing.

"Hasten, sister!" said the elder one. "Heard you not our child? He comes from the Northland, but if we make not haste he cannot speak with us, for by day he is but


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flesh of the corn plant. Child, thou comest; where art thou?"

"Tsi-ni-thla," hummed the being, which meant "here;" so they looked, and there he was on a corn tassel, but ere they could speak more, he flew to another, and another, corn plant, perching again and again, yet never satisfied with his resting place.

"What wouldst thou, child?" said the maidens; yet they knew. Then the creature told them the story of the two poor little children.

"We will hasten to them. On the fourth day from this we will seek them, and with us will come warm rains, which will drive the cold snows away and bring the spring-time. Go before and tell our little son to prepare the corn rooms for us, and when we have entered them we will comfort and nourish his little sister. Our poor beloved little ones; did they not once offer us food? And we have not forgotten their goodness of heart."

When night came, away flew the corn being, and long before daylight he buzzed into the house of the little ones and round


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about the head of the boy, to awake him. When at last the little boy awoke, the creature said to him:

"Little father, when the sister cries tomorrow, tell her that on the night of the third day her mothers are coming; for I have been to Summerland and seen the Maidens of Corn. Thou wilt know of their coming, for a warm wind will blow from the southward laden with the odors of flowers and spring-time, and a misty rain will fall to melt away the frost of Sun-i-a-shi'-wa-ni's breath. Then thou must tell the little sister to sleep, and before long the Maiden Mothers will come into the room as softly as the moonbeams. Tomorrow and the next day thou must clean out the corn rooms, for there only will the Corn Maidens care to enter, and when thou hast seen them, thou canst take this little sister in to be comforted by them. Whose grandchild I am, surely thou wilt love," said he, and he flew to his perch in the cage of grass-straws and corn-pith.

After that the little brother could not sleep. At last, before daybreak, he arose,


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and, kindling a fire, began the work of cleaning the great room he lived in. Then as it grew lighter he went into the empty corn rooms, and with little wisps of straw swept them clean. When the little sister awoke he ran to her bedside and said:

"Little sister, see, I am cleaning the house, for our mother is coming;" but the little girl thought he was only trying to comfort her, and whenever he went away, she cried, for she felt so lonely. All day the brother worked, and all the next day, for he was weak, and it took long to clean the dust and cobwebs away. At last, however, every room was finished, and in the corn rooms the boy spread old blankets and soft things, that the beautiful mothers might not be angry with him or wish to leave his little sister.

On the third day the little sister cried more and more, because for two days her brother had told her the mother was coming. So the little brother kept climbing the ladder to see if the rain had begun. At last, away to the southward, he saw misty clouds, rosy and blue, gathering and rising,


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and soft fragrant wind blew in his face. Eagerly he climbed down the ladder, exclaiming:

"They are coming; they are coming, little sister; the mother is coming!" But when the sun set and the rain began falling, the little sister cried herself to sleep. By her side the brother sat smoothing her face and head, and at last the creature in the cage began to buzz joyfully about the room. "Thou wilt wait but little longer, my father," said he to the boy, and as he settled down in his cage, a light like the beams of the moon shone down the sky-hole. As the boy watched, the form of a beautiful maiden floated down the ladder and passed near him, and another followed her into the corn room. Then a voice soft as a bird's called him, and gently rising he went into the corn room.

The Maiden Mothers of Corn stood there, the gentlest and loveliest beings the boy had ever seen, and crying with joy he forgot they were not his own mothers, and ran up to where they stood. They knelt down and took him in their arms. They


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kissed him and stroked his cheeks until he was so happy he scarce dared leave them, but thinking of his little sister, he asked:

"Dear mothers, may I bring the little sister?"

"Aye," said the maidens gently, and they smiled so softly that the little boy knelt at their feet and pressed their hands against his cheeks.

Then he ran out to where the sister lay sleeping. He carefully took her in his arms and carried her into the presence of the maidens. They bade him bring fire, and he kindled a flame on the hearth of the long, empty room. It no longer seemed musty and old. The odors of the sweetest things filled the whole place. The Mother Maidens softly sang to the little ones, and birds seemed to sing with them, they sang so softly, and butterflies sported all about them in the firelight. Even the corn creature hummed slowly down from his cage and settled in the doorway. The little girl opened her sunken eyes and smiled as she gazed wonderingly about.

"See," said the little brother joyfully,


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"has not the mother come?" One of the maidens bent over and took the little girl in her arms. "See," said she, "little one, I am thy mother," and she nursed the child as its mother had. The elder sister took the hand of the brother. "Come," said she, "and sit with me. Thou art my child and shalt be the father of my children; hence, beloved little one, of my flesh if not born, yet nourished thou must be," and she gave the boy of her milk, as the other maiden had given it to the baby sister. "Sleep now, our little ones," said they, and again they sang until the butterflies danced in the firelight, and the brother and sister fell into a deep slumber. Then the Maidens of Corn drew forth from their mantles many things. An ear each of yellow, blue, red, white, speckled, and black corn, they placed on the floors of the corn rooms beneath little embroidered sashes of cotton, and on the blanket poles they hung treasure beads and turquoises, and many bright garments. These things were not what they seemed--single, but the seed of other things which the wonderful Mothers


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of Seed knew best how to multiply, as their flesh the corn multiplies itself many times from a single grain.

Green corn and fruits, melons and gourds, they placed in basket trays in the empty rooms, for the house was large where the uncle had dwelt; and then they went to where the children were sleeping. Behold, the little girl was fair and bright, no longer was her face shrunken nor eyelid deep. Her hair was soft and her lips ruddy and smiling. The boy looked strong and older. Though only a little boy his face looked like that of a master chief with aged bearing, and kindness shone from his freshened countenance, for had he not, and his little sister, drank of the flesh of the Seed Maidens?

Then the Maiden Mothers left them sleeping. They softly glided out of the house and down the hill to the home of the aged grandmother. The firelight was already shining red at the windows. They called in at the doorway. A startled voice from within called out in reply, and they entered. The old woman, greeting them,


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covered her face with her hands and knelt herself down at their feet. But they raised her up, saying, "Art thou not our child and mother?" When they had listened to her prayers of greeting and thanks and supplications for the light of their favor, they blessed her and said: "Thou are a good old mother, therefore have we come again to ask thy service. Long ago when we came hungry to the homes of our faithless children, two little ones offered us food. Their people, our foolish children, left them sleeping, to die, when they went to the towns of the Moquis. But from our flesh was made the form of a being, and he hath watched over our little ones. Knowest thou not that they abide with thee in this town? Go to comfort the little maiden, for she is yet but a baby girl, and be as a mother to her, for she shall become the mother of her people and her children after her; and her brother so manly, yet but a little boy, he shall become already, when the corn grows in the valley, the father of his people and their children. Yet, not until the being is departed shalt thou abide


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with the little ones, but dwell patiently in thy poor house the while. When thou art needed, the corn being will fly thither and summon thee."

Blessing the aged woman--who was no longer poor and shamefully ugly, but a kind, fair old mother, with white strands of hair, wearing whiter mantles of cotton--they returned hastily to the house of the little ones.

They softly wakened the boy, and calling him out of the corn room, took him between their knees and said: "We will tell thy guardian, the corn being, thou hast made many things, but to thee we will tell only this: that thy uncle will return from the land of the Moquis to get the loom that lies in the corner, for his people must now weave and labor for the people who fed them, else they may not longer abide with that people. He already prepares for his journey (as the snow is melted away from the pathways), and on the eighth morning from this he will enter the town of his people. He will see the smoke rising from they chimney-pots, and wearily yet


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eagerly enter at the ladder. He will joyfully greet thee and thy little sister, but speak not to him, neither accept of the food he will offer thee, for in the corn rooms thou wilt find abundance of fresh food. Not until the fourth day shalt thou speak to him, then shalt thou humble him with reproach, not complainingly, and wondering at thy wisdom and kindness he will bow to thee and become thy faithfullest guardian. Then thou shalt make him thy warrior priest, and bid him return to his people and summon them to come back to relight the hearthstones of Ha'-wi-k'uh and replant the wasted fields of the Vale of the Hot Waters. Should the little sister cry for us, bid the corn being bring thy grandmother, whom the people left as they left thee, to die, when they sought life far away. Be good as thou hast been, and thou shalt grow wise and powerful. Keep thy heart good, and gently counsel the foolish bad amongst thy people, as a father counseleth his wayward children; then shall prosperity and plenty bless thy people, and thy mothers--ourselves and


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our sisters--visit often the vales of our children."

Each in turn took his face between her hands and breathed upon his forehead and into his nostrils. Then said they: "We go. May each day bring thee happiness, and as much happiness as the day hath brought may each evening bring thee." To which he replied, "Thank you, beloved mothers, and may happiness go and abide with you whithersoever ye go and be."

"Go now in with thy little sister," said they, "for we depart, and thou shalt see us no more save with the eyes of thy dream-vision."

They faded from sight as their voices died from hearing. The daylight was breaking, and thenceforth the little boy was another being, kindly, yet grave, with a look of endless contentment on his face and anger forever gone out from his heart.

How would he have known but the Mother Maidens were still there had not the corn being, no longer a being of corn-pith and color, buzzed out of the sky-hole? Then he knew that the Mother Maidens


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had departed, and he softly went in to his little sister. All around her were heaped up fruits and melons, green and fragrant. In the rooms beyond were the piles of shining corn, and every rack (as had been the poles of the aged woman) was laden with a harvest of raiment grown from the seed things of property.

How the little brother feasted his sister, eating but sparingly himself, but saving all remains of their repasts that he might cast them into the fire, or out on the plains for the seed-eating creatures, "for," thought he, "if we but feed the beloved and the dead, returned in blessing will be the food there given, and if we the seed creatures feed, why will they waste the substance of our corn-heaps?"

One morning the little girl seemed sad, but she did not tell her brother, nor did she cry. The corn being fluttered and buzzed until he sung himself out of the window. By and by he returned, and soon an old woman followed. She was dressed just as the Mother Maidens had been, and the moment the little girl espied her, she trotted


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forth to meet her, and buried her face in the folds of her white mantles. The old woman fondled her, and taking the little one on her knee told her such pretty tales of the olden time that she laughed and thought her "Corn Mother had never been nearly so nice as these beings with soft voices who wore such pretty, bright garments."

When the old woman left, she told the little girl she would come again at times to see her and her little brother.

At last the time was for the arrival of the uncle. The little boy cleared away from the sitting place of the house every trace of the fruits and foods they had eaten, and all the garments brought by the Seed Mothers he hid away also. Then he built a bright fire that the smoke might rise high from the chimney, and calling the little sister, told her that the uncle was coming, but that she must not speak to him nor even smile on him, neither accept of his food nor offer him any.

At last they heard a cough down the pathway, and then someone climbed wearily up the ladder, more eagerly down into the


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house room. It was the old uncle bearing a heavy burden strapped across his forehead.

When he saw the two little ones sitting under the window, bright and hearty, his joy knew no bounds, and he rushed eagerly up to them, exclaiming:

"Ah, my beloved little ones, is it possible, is it possible that I see you, and be ye happy these many days?" But to his surprise they never smiled, neither spoke to him, seemed scarcely to know of his presence. "My beloved little ones," said he, going and bending over them until his gray hairs almost touched them, "know ye not that I am your old uncle?" Still they replied not, neither smiled.

He raised himself sorrowfully and looked about the room. It was as bare as when the people had departed to Moqui; save that it was clean and well ordered, there was no difference. No trace of food nor the leavings of eatings met his eye.

"Poor little creatures!" thought he in his own heart. "I will offer them food; perhaps as prairiedogs live in winter, so have they--sleeping; who knows?"

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He unwrapped his burden and revealed parched corn-meal and the dust of meat, with flour made from dried sweet mush. This he placed all before the little ones, saying: "Eat ye to satisfaction!" But they spoke not, neither smiled. "Ha!" thought he, and as he thought he grew fearful and betook himself nearer the hearth and farther from them. "They are not living, but the dead whose spirits I see before me!" But while he gazed at them, they looked so fresh and strong in color and substance, that he was fain to abandon the idea. "Besides," said he, "I look upon them in daylight, and were they other beings I would see them only in the night. My little ones," said he at last, "your mother and father and all the brothers and sisters of your clan are well, and maybe will come back to live in Ha'-wi-k'-uh. How may I tell you my joy at finding my beloved children of the sister, yet will their joy be the greater to see once more their little ones. Would you not be glad with them?" Still the brother and sister spoke not, neither smiled.

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Again the old man cast his eyes about the room. There was no fuel, save a few twigs, by the hearthstone. Taking the burden strap from off his bundle, he hung it on a round of the ladder and then hastily mixed a meager meal of the flour and dried meat dust. As he sat down to eat of this, once more he returned to ask the little ones to eat with him, but they neither spoke nor smiled. The old uncle silently ate a few mouthfuls, and the tears streamed down his cheeks as he did so, until the little boy was filled with compassion for him, but spoke not. At last the old man, rising, placed the remaining morsels carefully away, and turning toward the ladder said:

"At least I may remain with ye three or four days, and I will gather wood meanwhile that ye may not suffer from cold. I cannot remain, for my provisions, albeit I offer them freely to my sister's children, are scant, and the journey hence is long."

This time the little boy bowed his head and smiled, and the old uncle was gladdened greatly.

As soon as he had gone away, the little


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brother brought out fresh melons and green corn, actually green, for thus the Mother Maidens provided their children. When the feast was over, every trace of it the children removed. Not long after, the old man returned. He did not attempt more to speak with the children, but went about plaiting some basket trays, for which he had brought splints and osiers home on his pack of wood. The children meanwhile began to talk with one another, the boy in a grave manner, the little girl as might be expected of one so young. But in no way did either of them allude to the uncle or any of his people.

On the following day he again went for wood, and also on the third. This last time, however, he returned very soon, and the children had barely cleared away their food things before he came down the ladder. Although there was no trace of food, there was an odor of fruits most delicious all through the room. The old man said nothing, but determined to make on the morrow still greater haste. When morning came, he went as usual for wood. He had


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scarcely left when the old woman of the broken house came in and sat down with the children. The little girl told all about the uncle, and as the fourth day had come, together they prepared a great feast and spread it on one of the embroidered mantles. The little children, too, dressed themselves in the splendid embroideries and ornaments the Seed Mothers had provided them. Scarcely had these preparations been completed when the uncle suddenly appeared at the sky-hole. He descended. No attempt was made to clear the things away, and when he greeted the little ones after his custom, to his surprise they replied in words of great kindness and courtesy. Then first the uncle saw the old woman, whom he addressed as a superior being, calling her "Mother," and breathing upon her hands as he did upon those of the little boy and his sister. Upon these he looked in wonder, yet wise was he, and he knew they were the beloved ki-hes [spiritual friends].

"Sit with us, uncle, and eat, for we know thou art hungry," said the little boy. Taking


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first from each of the vessels and trays of food a morsel of each kind, the little boy cast them into the fire, saying:

"Makers of the trails of our lives and ye spirits of our ancestors, of this add ye unto your hearts after the manner of your own knowledge, and bless us with fruitful seasons, needed water and age of life." Hence to this day the priests or hosts of Zunñi do likewise. Then said he, "Eat ye all." While all ate, the hungry uncle almost tremulously with the eagerness of his hunger, the boy ate well, but sparingly, and with great deliberation. The old woman and the little sister cleared the remnants away, and then the boy said:

"Uncle and child, come hither and sit by me, for of saying I have much for thee."

The uncle himself sat nearer to the boy.

"What would you, father?" said he, for he now beheld that the boy was endowed with the spirit of a wise priest and a father's commanding.

"Thou and thy people, alas, alas! Not only did they make sport of the blessings of the beloved, but even of the beloved of


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themselves they thought not. Their own flesh and being, of it--my poor little sister and I--they thought not, but left it to perish. Sad was their recompense, and this their teaching, that in the future they may wiser be. Those who were our parents, behold they shall henceforth be our children, and the servants of our offspring shall their offspring be. Thou wert a warrior-priest, yet I remember thou didst not join the follies of thy others. Thou comest back, that the lives of thy sister's children might be saved. Therefore thou alone shalt enjoy my best favor. Thou shalt become my warrior-priest. Behold the aged woman whom the nation despised--no longer the despised shall she be, but the mother of her people until the end of her days, when the little sister shall become the Mother of Seed, for the flesh of the Mother Maidens hath she drank. No longer may the people of our nation live according to their own wills, but as children, whom a father and his brothers must guide, counsel and command, and I their father am appointed to be, for of the flesh of the


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Mother Maidens I have drank. Do thou according to my bidding. Four days thou shalt remain and rest thyself, then go hence to the country of the Moquis and summon my people. Meanwhile I will provide for them. That thou mayst bear proof with thee I bid thee rest and feast for four days." Thus said the boy, for the corn being had told him many things at night-time.

"Alas, alas! It is true, and even as thou hast said, so shall it be," said the uncle, and he bowed his head on his knee in thought and shame.

As evening came, it grew dark and the rain fell in torrents until the sun entered the west. Until the moon rose, foaming streams poured down into the valley, spreading all over it fresh soil.

Then in the moonlight came quickly, yet silently, many runners of the dance of the gods in the Lake of the Dead, and strong warriors came also. And into the new soil they planted everywhere corn of all kinds and food seeds from the stores of the gods themselves. And again, ere morning,


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soft rain fell, and the breath of the Mother Maidens fanned the country from the Land of Lasting Summer.

When the sun rose next morning not a track could be seen in all the great plain, yet everywhere shot forth from the warm soil rows of corn plants, yellow and green, and vines and other plants of the food seeds.

After the morning meal was over, the boy called his uncle, "My warrior-priest, come with me."

Together they ascended to the highest part of the house.

"Look!" said the boy, pointing to the plains below; and while the uncle, in wondering joy and reverence, looked abroad and bowed his head, the boy stretched forth his hands and cast to the six points sacred meal, with a prayer of thanksgiving to the gods.

"Behold!" then said he, "the planting of the beloved!"

And thus, each morning, he took the uncle to the topmost house. Already, on the second morning, the corn was waving fluted leaves, and on the third, the tassels


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had appeared. On the fourth the ears of corn had started through the corn leaves, and the young boy said:

"My warrior, take with thee now provisions for thy journey, and a plant of corn as a promise of harvest to my people, for foolish are they and of such vicious heart some, that of good hearts they know not the beating or the straightness of the words thereof. Ere thou hast reached the land of the Moquis, thy corn shall have grown milky and full of kernel as the brother and sister plants here do."

The old man hastily prepared for the journey, and taking a green corn-plant from the field, bade farewell to the boy and his sister and the old woman.

That night the corn being appeared uneasy, and toward daylight he called to the boy:

"Father of his people, hear thou me. Thou hast given me being, even as I and thy mothers have preserved thy old and given thee new being. Precious shalt thou be, and thy people shall plant and reap for thee and thy chosen council of wise


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ones. The offspring of thy flesh or of thy breath shall ever, as thou, be precious, when thou hath joined the everlasting Council of the Dead. Behold! I am born of the flesh of the Mother Maidens of men and the creatures. Their flesh is renewed, and amidst its tassels shall I find my home, yet thy messenger was I, hence never long in any of my many homes shall I rest. Make thou of the stalks that grow below yet another of my form and send her forth, and men shall call us and our offspring the 'Dragon-fly.' By my ministry and from the milk of the Mother Maidens of Seed hast thou received being, a man, yet a Shi-wa-ni [priest]; not one of the great beloved among the gods, yet one of the 'Forewalking Beloved' [leaders] among men who shall call thee their father as thou shalt call them thy children. And thy little sister shall be the Seed Priestess of earth, keeper of thy seed among men, and provider of the fertility of the seeds whereby men live. May all days thine happiness bring." As he said this, the boy thanked him, replying:

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"Thy form in remembrance will I paint on the sacred things, emblematic of spring and the health-giving rains of springtime; and thy companion shall I paint, the symbol of summer and the pools of summer showers."

The Dragon-fly poised a moment in the air over the head of the boy, then like a "star seeking the house of a wife" [meteor], he sped forth over the broad cornfields.

Hence to this day the dragon-fly comes (the black, white and red one) in early summer, when the corn tassels bloom, humming from one plant to another, yet never content with his resting place.

And following him comes the beautiful green dragon-fly, for of the green stalks of corn made the boy the companion of the first dragon-fly, hence the green dragon-fly is green with yellow light like a stalk of growing corn in the sunlight.

When eight days had passed, there came from over the northwestern hills the nation of Ha'-wi-k'uh. Amongst them came many strangers from other tribes and countries. And when they entered the town


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through vast fields of ripening corn, they passed beneath the house of the great priest-boy, and breathed humbly upon his hands.

Dazzled with the bright richness of his garments and the kindly yet grave face of the boy, they both loved and feared him. And to the sister girl and the aged woman of the broken house all paid their homage, as wise children homage parents who have grown wisely old.

From amongst the strangers who came to Ha'-wi-k'uh the young priest chose three men, aged and young. He embraced them and called them younger brothers, and breathed into them the breath which had been unto him breathed by the Mother Maidens of Seed. Then he chose a great warrior and set him under the aged uncle, and gave both the command of the nation, calling them the mouthpieces wherewith he and his brothers might speak to their people. "For," said he, "that our hearts may be always good and gentle, that our prayers be answered of the beloved, we may not too often speak to the foolish


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among our children. Go ye now," said he to the two warrior-priests, "and command the people together in the harvest of the gods. Each man shall fetch seven loads of corn for himself, but the eighth load he shall fetch for my brothers and me, that all of our children may the better bear our counsel and value in heart."

When the corn was gathered, the great priest had many rooms filled, and this he saved, that it might furnish seed for the people or food in times of want. Portions thereof he gave to the beloved, the ancestral spirits and the creatures which devour seed.

Then again he commanded the people to plant and attend the growing things, for the summer was not yet come, and when the harvest was by, a portion also took he for his little sister, his brother priests and himself. Great grew the boy-priest, and the most beautiful of maidens married he; and his daughters, when they had grown, were sought by men of all towns far and near.

Thus was it in the days of the ancients, long, very long, ago; and hence have we


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today Guardians of the Corn, Tâ-á A'-shi-wa-ni, or the Corn Priests of Zuñi.

(One cold night in winter, when the wind was blowing through the piñons near the White Cliffs, so that our camp-fire swirled up like a burning whirlwind, an Indian companion maliciously told me this story that he might make me "wait the morning watching." This is why it is so long.--F.H.C.)

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> CHAPTER III
LAND LAW AND LABOR

[Illustration: The initial word "IN" is n illustration of an inscribed stone tablet embedded in an open field.]

IN NO BRANCH of the industrial arts of the Zuñi Indians is shown so clearly as in their farming customs and methods, first the influences of climatic environment on a people's religion and culture, then the effects of this belief and philosophy on their daily life. Before noticing these curious topics, however, a considerable, but I hope not wearisome, digression must be made, to give some idea of the land laws of primitive Pueblodom.

In a former issue of this series the Zuñi conception of the origin of Indian sociologic systems was given. Fundamentally these are the organization into gentes, or clans--


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the warp, so to speak, of the Zuñi governmental fabric.13

The Zuñi tribe today (I shall speak of it frequently as a nation, for of such it is the remnant) includes only between sixteen and seventeen hundred members. This population is divided first, into six subtribes, each taking its name from the ki'wi-tsin, or sacred house to which it belongs. Again, without reference to this plan of subdivision, the tribe contains thirteen organizations, orders, or sacred societies, founded upon four primary elements in savage life: war, the chase, the priesthood, and the medical fraternities.

Yet again, owing allegiance to neither of the preceding is a third subdivision, into the farming tribes which derive their names from the summer pueblos near which their principal fields are located. The names of these geographic tribes are, in order of precedence, three: Tâ'-ia-kwe, "People of the Planting Town;" He-sho-ta-tsi'-na-kwe, "People of the Pictured Town" (from the sculptured pictographs on the foundation walls of their village); and the


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K'iap'-kwai-na-kwe, or "People of the Town Whence Flow the Hot Waters." More important than any of the preceding in its relation to the tenure of corn-land, is the gentile subdivision, for there are finally, irrespective of these, sixteen clans. In order of their rank they are named as follows;14 The Parrot or Macaw people, the Corn or Seed, the Badger, Sun, Eagle, Turkey, Crane, Deer, Bear, Coyote, Frog, Grouse, Tobacco, Spring-vine (or Chick-weed), Yellow-wood, and Rattlesnake peoples. The Parrot and Seed clans are nearly equal in membership, each containing about three hundred. From these there is a dwindling down throughout the other clans to five of the Yellow-wood people, and only one living representative of the Rattlesnake clan, a man, with whom of course, the clan will cease. Thus, it may be seen that one small nation is organized on four different principles, no one of which has, save in the religious aspect, dependency on any of the others: (1) The sacred government, according to the places of worship; (2) the secular government, according to landed and water


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possessions; (3) the medical government, according to professions of "medicines" and fetichism; and finally (4) the social government, according to family organization. Were this paper treating rather of the sociology than of the food productions of the Zuñis, I could show how these four kinds of subdivisions harmonize with one another; how, indeed, the first three were the outgrowth of the fundamental social principle of the tribe, and how, finally, with the addition of the phratral combinations of clans (now modified or outgrown among the Zuñis), all four features were well-nigh universal to aboriginal America. As it is, I must confine further remarks to what these things seem to tell us of the pre-Columbian Pueblo life, and to a discussion of the relation they bear to the land and water and food possessions of the tribe.

In addition to the clans above named, Zuñi tradition says that the tribe formerly possessed several others: the Water, the Macaw (as distinct from the Parrot), the Crow, the Sea Serpent, the Red-house, and the six Corn clans (Yellow, Blue, Red,


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White, Speckled, and Black), now merged into one--the Tâ'-a-kwe, or Seed people. The same traditions say that the nation of today is a remnant of three great tribes, the middle, the southern, and the northern. At the time of these tribes, a vast area of New Mexico, Arizona, and minor parts of the Southwest was covered by inhabited towns of them, few individuals living in a single place, and the people were more nomadic than at present. When, at last, these tribes confederated, and chose, one after another in the order of precedence above given, the great valley of Zuñi as their permanent home, they numbered many thousands, inhabiting no fewer than nineteen towns. When discovered in the early half of the sixteenth century by the Spanish Friar [Marcos de] Niza and later subdued by [Francisco] Vasquez Coronado, they were living in the famous "Seven Cities of Cibola." The native names of these towns were: 1, Mat'-sa-ki; 2, K'iÄ'-ki-ma; 3, Ha'-wi-k'uh; 4, K-ia'-na-wa; 5, Ham-pas-sa-wan; 6, Ke'-tchi-na (?), and 7, Ha-lo-na,15 the last being the only one of


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the towns now inhabited, save in summer, and the ancient name for modern Zuñi (Halona I'tiwana, "The Middle Place of Happy Fortune," "The Middle Ant-hill of the World").16

Although the early Spaniards doubtless exaggerated the population of Cibola (morethrough imperfect means of getting data than from willfulness) in stating it as great as "eleven thousand souls," we may safely conclude from a computation of the rooms in the six ruins above named, that altogether they and ancient Zuñi contained more than six thousand inhabitants.17 This seems only reasonable when we study the immense stock of lore, ritual, and ceremonial of the tribe, and, more than all else, the elaborate and highly differentiated organizations above mentioned. All these point not to a vast or dense population, but still to a very numerous and quite highly yet naturally developed ancestry.

When, during the years of the Pueblo rebellion (1680 to 1692), the Zuñis sought to fortify themselves from Spanish vengeance on the Rock Mountain of Thunder,18


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they had for nearly half a century been inhabiting six towns only. On the top of the Mountain of Thunder they built their town, not all together but in six different blocks or terraced masses, each mass representing one of the abandoned towns. This was significant. Great error has always been committed in considering the Indians, particularly the Pueblos, as (in our sense of the word) communists. Not even among ourselves is the division of property or individual land-tenure carried further. It is in consequence of a native method of speaking, law, or custom regulating the disposal of land that these curious people have come to be regarded as property communists.

Suppose that a young man belongs to the Parrot clan, he cannot marry any girl, however remote her relationship to him may be, who belongs to the same clan. As descent is on the mother's side, his children do not belong to him nor to his clan, but to his wife and her clan. If he, either before or after his marriage, "raises the sand" (takes up or clears a field), it belongs strictly


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to him, but is spoken of as the property of his clan. In case he makes no provision that it shall descend to his children or to his wife; in case, noreover, he has no nephews or nieces on the sister's side, the property remains, after his death, in the Parrot clan, may be claimed and cultivated by any member of that clan, preferably by near relatives, but neither by the man's wife nor by his own children. Any one man belonging to the tribe of Nutria, can-not, even of his own fields, give land to any one person belonging to either of the other pueblos, unless that person happens to be a member of his clan. Nor can any man living at Pescado, go and take up even unclaimed land at Nutria or Ojo Caliente, unless with the consent of the body politic of the tribe which he wishes to join. No Zuñi, whatever his rank, can, without the consent of the Corn and certain other priests of the tribe, give any member of a stranger tribe or people, either portions of his own land or of any part of the tribal domain. With such a people as the Zuñis, therefore, the reservation from sale is, by


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their native tribal law customs, without intervention of government, already provided for.

The procedure by which a Zuñi seeks to bequeath lands which he has inherited or reclaimed, is curious. Nominally, as above explained, such lands belong to his clan. In bestowing them upon his children, by doing which, of course, he transfers them to the clan of his wife, he has in the absence of all writing, to make arrangements in whatever one of the thirteen secret organization of sacred medicine (ti-kitla-pon, or ti'kia) he may be a member of. In the presence of the council of this society, he states with great minuteness all the particulars of his bequest. Years may pass. Not one of his items is, however, revealed, unless by himself, until after his death. If then, any question arises, the members who listened to his declaration, acting as witnesses to one another, reveal what the will of the deceased had been. In illustration of their process nothing can be more interesting or instructive than an account of a lawsuit at which, as (at the


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time) second chief of the tribe, I once presided.

One evening in the autumn of 1881 my old brother, Pa'-lo-wah-ti-wa, the head chief, said to me:

"Younger brother, wash your eyes in cold water."

"Why?"

"An old beast who belongs to the clan of him who was his uncle, wishes to get a peach orchard away from his brothers [cousins], the children of the dead one."

Soon after I heard the herald call out a council from the distant housetops.

The old man had only finished stuffing the big black throat of the family hearth with piñon sticks, when the members of the coming council began to steal in. Each was wrapped from nose to instep in his blanket, each, moreover, as grave and dignified as any senator of history. From the depths of each blanket would issue, as the threshold was crossed, the invariable greeting, "How be ye these many days?" to which was responded expressionlessly Kets'-in-i-shi; i-ti-ni-k'ia!--"Happy; gather


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and sit!" by my brother, myself, and all former arrivals.

Sheep-pelts, dog-skins, buffalo-robes, retired blankets, four-pronged stool-blocks, bundle of corn-shucks, and long slender rolls of dry cedar-bark were strewn about the floor, and a bag or two of rocky old plug tobacco was lying in the firelight. As the council gathered in, everything except the shucks, cedar rolls, and tobacco was appropriated as a seat, no sooner than which the place sounded like a hail storm on dry fodder--which sound resulted from the rustling of corn-shucks--for every one who sat down (and none remained standing) immediately made a grab at the shuck pile and began to cut out a piece of husk with his thumb-nail, of suitable length to serve as a cigarette wrapper. When cut, the shuck was dampened with the tongue and scraped to a proper state of thinness and pliability between the teeth. It was then neatly rolled to the shape of the prospective cigarette and stuck into the top of the legging to take form. Meanwhile a nubbin of the dried plug was attacked with the


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same thumb-nail until a small quantity of coarse dust had accumulated in the palm of the opposite hand. Then the husk was unrolled, the pecked tobacco deposited in the last coil, and the wrapper without trouble rolled back to the shape it had been taking under pressure of the legging. As this process--tedious equally with its description--was completed at about the same time by two-thirds of the council, every person helping to make up that two-thirds called out at once, "KiÄthl'thla'-kwi-mon-ne'!" or "KiÄthl-u'-te-an-ne'! "--"Hither with the 'root!'" or "This way with the 'blossom!'" the "root" being the roll of bark, the "blossom" the fire at the end of it. Now all these things are told of, because out of the two or three hundred councils and lawsuits I have attended, they are the opening proceedings, as invariable as toasts are the fit endings of public dinners.

So far, all is peace. The call for the "root" and "blossom" means just as many clear, tiny, blue columns of smoke as there are mouths in the room. It means, too,


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such universal contentment that wild, very witty, somewhat coarse jokes and general uproariousness begins, even a few practical--not very gentle--pranks, and any quantity of sarcasm, make the place as nearly like as it can be in Zuñi, to a meeting of jolly students bent on a lark.

I sit next my "older brother," who has uttered never a word save the responsive "Happy; gather and sit!" since he took his station by the fireside. There is order in this chaos. If you look carefully, there is a little space along the middle of the room, ranged on either side of which is a party. As yet, however, every pair of lips not smoking a cigarette is stretched with a broad grin, every arm vigorously gesticulating--that is, with four or five exceptions. One of these is a sullen looking old fellow, who sits like a Zuñi eagle after "picking time," on his stool, smoking his cigarette and glaring into the fire. The other exceptions are (unless my bored brother be included) one or two despondent-looking young men. It need not be told that these are the characters concerned in the


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issue. I edge over closer to the old chief.

"Brother!"

"Ha?"

"Why is this orchard quarreled about?"

"Shut up!"

"But I want to know."

"Well, that's what these beasts are here to cackle about."

The old man deliberately finishes his cigarette (the joking is as loud as ever), then suddenly throws the stump away, spits, and hisses, "Shsshh," and says with a frown and a curse:

"Shut up, you beasts!"

For a moment no effect is produced. I thump on the stone floor with a staff of office and yell (being echoed by every subchief in the room) "Hi'tâ!" which means "Listen!" Every eye turns toward the now composed chief. With the gentlest demeanor possible, with absolute ignorance and lack of feeling expressed in the tone of his voice, the old man says to the silenced council:

"My brothers and children, 'why and


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wherefore' are we gathered together this night? For, it is not for nothing that people meet one another in council."

This is the signal! The mine has been fired! Both sides start up at once. Positive pandemonium ensues. I yell at the top of my lungs:

"One at a time, one, ONE!"--and every subchief cries "Hi'tâ!"

The clatter runs on for a moment--having boiled over in fierce personal abuse--until I jump up and yell:

"Shut up, every one of you; shut UP!"--and again the subchiefs shriek, "Hi'tâ! hi'tâ"

Silence reigns. A subchief rises up, goes over to the front of the sullen smoker (the picked eagle), and sits down. Two others of like rank come forward and sit down so as to face him, forming a breastworks, as it were, of despondent young men. Then the real business begins.

Now, with regard to the officers of a Zuñi council of law: The head chief is the judge. His function is to resemble as nearly as possible a dirtily dressed stone


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statue in sitting posture. Throughout the proceedings--save occasionally to grunt a curse, look exceedingly disgusted, and smoke unceasingly--he fulfills this mission perfectly.

The second chief is at once sergeant at arms and justice, or, more precisely, secretary. In the former capacity he has to rage and swear and thump the floor with his staff, jumping up, sitting down, and expressing ferocious wrath in his every action, but keeping his heart as imperturbed as a Hindoo rishi's during penance.

In the second capacity, he has to listen intently. This, with a view of straining twenty-five minutes of serious significant statement of fact, out of from five to seven midnight hours of vituperant recrimination and violent personal abuse, which scorns not to rake up from the traditionary tribal annals, every scandal, calumny, and other vicious bit of back-bite comprised within at least two antecessorial generations of the parties "mentioned the council." Add to this fact that the "lawyers" (the sub-chiefs to a man parceled equally to either


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side) occasionally in their warmth of zeal get into a little private discussion and reach such heat that the words of three or four of them let off simultaneously with those of a like number opposite, fairly strike fire (or ought to) in crossing; that the witnesses, amounting to a dozen or so, chime in with charming vigor, and you have some conception of the work he has to do, in order to distill from all this, enough material to make a clear recapitulation or "brief"--leaving out no single pertinent detail--to the silent judge toward the end of the proceedings.

This office it has been my happy lot to fulfill a few times. Happy, I say, because it was exciting and a better educator of the faculties of perception and memory than all the courses in Oxford, though (I must confess) in other respects not quite so edifying.

Now, in telling this I hope I have served two purposes--have given a near account of this particular lawsuit up to the production of my brief, and have demonstrated the fallacy of the sweeping assertion, "Two Indians are never known to speak at


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once." I grant this; but mind, I grant it simply because, during all my experiences while fulfilling the office of second chief, I never, by any amount of floor-pounding, could induce fewer than from five to fifteen to speak in the same breath.

When I turned to state the case to the governor, the substance of it proved to be about as follows. Only the interest of the whole council in what was to be presented to the head chief for his judgment (with the added taint of a desire to criticise) can be adduced to explain the silence which prevailed during its utterance.

"The old man died last year, leaving one girl and two sons, all well grown. When these children were young, the 'dead-one' with their assistance and that of an old friend, planted a large peach orchard. This has grown up, is fruitful, and contains eighty-six trees. The nephew claims he is the dead one's son in inheritance because the son of his sister. That the old-man-who-was never arranged to make his very children his children in inheritance. He, therefore, wants the whole orchard. Now,


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the talkers of the children of him-who-was, say that the nephew caused the old man years of 'thought' (anguish) by his laziness, impudence, gambling, and consequent wish to have things for nothing; therefore, the peach orchard could not have been thought of for him by the dead one; that the children helped plant the orchard and care for its growth, which the nephew had not aided in; hence, even if the father who-was had not 'brought words to the sitting place of his brothers,' he intended his very children should have that which he had 'looked upon with labor' and they deserved it, nevertheless, above the nephew.

"The question is, 'What did the old-man-who-was, want--?'"

"Wait!" replied the head chief, as though he had suddenly thought of something, but with a suspicious grin on his face.

"Here, Bit-By-A-Bear, and you Arrow-Scratched, and you, too, Straw-Counter [the old man was addressing his subchiefs], 'want after' the four oldest men in the Cactus band [society of surgeons]; run quick!" So the three subchiefs betook themselves to


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remote and widely separated parts of the pueblo.

Meanwhile the joking was resumed, but I noticed that some of the chief disputants turned their backs on one another. Still the question in hand was dropped pro tem.

Soon returned the three subchiefs with as many sleepy old men staggering after, and the rear brought up by an antiquated ex-chief. "The other couldn't be found," they said, and sat down to cut shucks.

"Thou hast come," said the chief, addressing the nearest of the fresh arrivals. "What's your heart up to?"

"Sleep!"

"Oh! I thought it was meditating mischief because these rattle-mouths [a wave at the subchiefs] made it necessary to pull you out of your dreams. Can you tell me where Dried-Bean-Pod is?"

"Why here; he came along with us."

As the one thus designated, after being vigorously punched (he was somewhat deaf), came forward, winking his eyes in the firelight, I giggled.

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"What are you laughing for?" said the head chief.

"Has the grandfather no other name?" said I.

At this the whole council grinned (the "Dried-Bean-Pod" not so much, for he didn't hear), while the old chief explained that "This was the best known name but not the best one the old man had, as his "Cactus name" was Iu-ai'-tih-si-wa, which means nothing but his name, but that Thlap'-K'us-na was the best for a council, because young people never remembered ti-k'ia names, nor those given by clans at birth. My brother finished by declaring apologetically to the council:

"You see, the young brother is smart, and the best 'side carrier' [assistant] I ever had, but he grew up on 'Me-li-kÄn' milk, therefore doesn't know everything! Ssi'!"

The last exclamation, the cut-off hiss "Ssi'!" brought the council to order, and I recapitulated at the top of my voice in the Dried-Bean-Pod's deaf ear.

"Ah! ah!" croaked the old fellow, when


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I had finished, poking an empty shuck at me for "sneeze stuff" (powdered American tobacco) and saying that his thumb-nail was broken.

Occasionally appealing to his two companions, this old dotard gave a history of his childhood, his initiation into the Cactus band and that of the deceased, hints of the Mexican war, the first coming of Washington (Americans), the Navaho wars, the starvation times, copious draughts from his ritual-stored brain showing the duty of every ti'k'ia member, until he worked down to the time when the orchard had been planted and stopped!

"Yes, yes, but did the dead never tell what should be done with the orchard?"

"Oh! ah! yes, yes! You see it was in winter time;--no, near spring, not long after the cliffs on Grand mountain caved in and we thought the world was going to vomit corpses, and send fine turquoises, prayer-meal, and shell beads to harden the earth. Isn't that so, younger brother?"

"Yes."

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"Yes, and just before we broke up god Po'-sha19 for burning the forests."

"Yes, yes."

"Well, he said to us, when we were 'in [fasting] for the third day,' said he, 'You see no one can tell how long daylight may last, my brothers; therefore I say this day my cornfields except one I give to my two boys, the one to my girl; my peach orchard I want to divide half and half between Wa'-mu, my nephew (unless he turns out bad), and my very children all; but then Wa'-mu, because he is a bad boy and does not love me--"

"You lie!" shrieked the said Wa'-mu, "my uncle never said so!"

"Shut up!" said I.

"What?" queried the deaf old man. "Ah, yes, says he, for that reason, and because he may turn bad, he must give part of the trees to my brother Chu-pa-thla'-shi-kia (Old-Corn-Bin), because Old-Corn-Bin helped me, and he didn't. So, isn't it, brothers?" concluded Dried-Bean-Pod.

"True! true!" echoed the others.

"That will do, Dried-Bean-Pod," said


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the chief, and the old man was glad to resume exclusively his cigarette.

Now, then, fury redoubled! Wa'-mu howled to prove that he had always been faithful and good. Everybody on one side accused everybody on the other side of unreliability, citing numerous instances as proof, until I yelled:

"Shut up, all of you!"

They were silenced after a fight of five minutes or so.

"Now," said the head chief to me in an undertone, "Ask the Old-Women's-Governor [the ex-chief mentioned above] to scathe these subchiefs; they're fighting on their own accounts, you see, to prove which is past the other in lying."

The Old-Women's-Governor needed only a hint. He kept his eyes closed or squinting, for they were sore, but he turned them toward me.

"Talk to these children?" said he, ironically waving his lean hand over the heads of the wrangling chiefs. "These are the days when every 'slender bone' [ungrown boy] swallows shame and vomits impudence,


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and 'chiefs!' ha, ha! ho, ho! chiefs think such talk is wisdom, so they try to imitate it. They only rattle, rattle; do you hear me? When I was young, a chief thought his duty was to travel the middle trail, but these, these, why they split apart as a band of runners do meeting a mud puddle and sling brine [caustic words] at one another from either side."

"So! so! True! true!" exclaimed the chief, and I said "Hi'-tâ," whereupon, behold! every subchief looked at every other and said, "Hi-tâ!"

"Sit down, old man, it's useless! The morning star is up!" said the head chief, addressing Old-Women's-Governor. Then turning to me, he asked:

"How much has it gone on, younger brother?"

So I repeated the essential features of Dried-Bean-Pod's evidence.

"Listen," said Pa'-lo-wah-tiwa. He then waited for about five minutes, and the council clamored for his decision, but he waited. He seemed intent only on finishing his cigarette, but there was a thoughtful


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expression on his face. Then he said quietly, not a single ray of emotion in his eyes:

"Brothers, it seems Wa'-mu is a bad man, but he belongs to the clan of his uncle-who-was. He shall have forty trees, and as he wouldn't of his own accord (because he wanted the whole orchard) give a sprout to the Old-Corn-Bin, he shall be told to have thought of giving eight trees to this old friend of his uncle for helping to plant the orchard, which Wa'-mu did not do. The rest of the orchard shall belong to the dead one's children, and they shall give how-many-soever they like to the Old-Corn-Bin. Day after tomorrow Scratched-By-An-Arrow, the Straw-Counter, and I will go to lay out the boundaries, and my younger brother here [referring to me] shall do as he likes. Thus much!"

I expected to hear a torrent of dissatisfaction, but every one said as meekly as catechised children, "Indeed!" or "It is well!" and this is the rule, as the decision of a head chief on such occasions is final. When I said, "Thus much we have straightened


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our thoughts, see that complaint crooks them not again," which meant the council was over, light spirits seemed to descend from the dense blue clouds of tobacco and corn-husk smoke among the rafters, and the jokes, pranks, gossip resumed sway once more, merged soon into yawns and remarks on the nearness of dawn, and then one by one the party left, seeming wafted through the open doorway out into the silent gray light by the draught-drawn smoke-clouds.

As I turned to roll up in the corner, the old man, who was cleaning away the "lame shucks" and "dead cigarettes," remarked with a dyspeptic grimace, "What kind of animals do they most resemble, prariedogs or bumblebees? Well, they're not to blame after all, for since those bearded beasts, the Mexicans, came, we never have had decent chiefs or dignified councils. No, we have had to sit as though watching for daylight, with the interrogation of every small question. May you happily wait until the morning, younger brother."

Two ends have been served by this long


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account. Relative to lands, the rights of water, the trespass of animals and children, lawsuits are the order of the day (or rather night) of each autumn. As they are all carried on in much the same way, this description of one shall stand for the many which must be mentioned hereafter. More-ever the law custom regulative of the transfer of land by bequeathal from one clan to another has in the above a fair, although only partial, illustration.

When a young Zuñi wishes to add to his landed possessions, he goes out over the country, to all appearance caring nothing at all for distance. He selects the mouth of some arroyo (deep dry gully or stream course) which winds up from the plain into the hills or mountains, and seeking, where it merges into the plain, some flat stretch of ground, his first care is to "lift the sand." This is done by striking the hoe into the earth at intervals of five or six yards, and hauling out little heaps of soil until a line of tiny boundary mounds has been formed all around the proposed field. Next in this space he cuts away the sage


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brushes with his heavy hoe, and clods of grass, weeds, etc., all of which he heaps in the middle of the field and burns. He then throws up long banks of sand on the line first indicated by the heaps of soil. Each embankment is called aso'-pit-thlan ("sand string"). At every corner he sets a rock, if possible columnar, sometimes rudely sculptured with his tokens (see initial letter). It is rare he does anything more to the piece in a single year. Not infrequently even years before the land is actually required for cultivation, the "sand is lifted" and a stone of peculiar shape is placed at one corner as a mark of ownership. Ever after, the place is, unless relinquished, the exclusive property of the one who lifted the sand, or, in case of his death, of the clan he belonged to.

In riding over the ancient country of the Zuñis, I have sometimes found these rows of little soil heaps as many as forty miles away from the central valley. Even after the lapse of years, overgrown with grasses, each the bases of a diminutive sand-drift, these marks of savage preëmption are distinct.


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Thus too, for ages they will remain to serve the archeologist, when the Zuñi and his theme shall have passed away, as material for speculation. Distance could not have been the sole cause for the abandonment of these pieces, as some fields, still under the hoe, are equally as far away; yet give evidence of having been cultivated, probably in consequence of great fertility, for several generations.

With the Zuñis one-half the months in the year are "nameless," the others are "named." The year is called "a passage of time," the seasons "the steps" (of the year), and the months "crescents"--probably because each begins with the new moon. New Year is called the "Mid-jouney of the sun;" that is, the midde of the solar trip between one summer solstice and another, and, occurring invariably about the nineteenth of December, usually initiates a short season of great religious activity. The first month after this is now called I'-koh-pu-yÄ-tchun, "Growing white crescent," as with it begins the South-western winter--the origin of the name is


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evident. The ancient name of the month seems to have been different in meaning, although strikingly similar in sound, I-shoh-k'o'a-pu-yÄ-tchun or "Crescent of the conception," doubtless a reference to the kindling of the sacred fire by drilling with an arrow-shaft into a piece of soft, dry wood-root, a ceremony still stricly observed. Interesting evidence of this meaning may be found on the old notched calendar-sticks of the tribe, the first month of the new year being indicated by a little fire-socket at one end.

The second month is Ta'-yÄm-tchu-yÄ-tchun, so named from the fact that it is the time when boughs are broken by the weight of descending snow.

The follows O-nan-ul'-ak-k'ia-kwum-yÄ-tchun, or the month during which "Snow lies not in the pathways," with which ends winter, or the "Sway of cold."

Spring, called the "Starting time," opens with Thli'-te'kwa-na-k'ia-tsa-na-yÄ-tchun, or the month of the "Lesser sand-storms," followed by Thli'-te-kwa-na-k'ia--thla'-na-yÄ-tchun, or the month of the "Greater sandstorms," and this, the ugliest season of the


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Zuñi year, is closed by YÄ-tchun-kwa-shi'-am-o-na, the "Crescent of no name." Summer and autumn, the period of the "months nameless," are together called O'lo-i-k'ia, the season "Bringing flour-like clouds." In priestly or ritualistic language these six months, although called nameless, are designated successively the "yellow, blue, red, white, variegated or iridescent, and black," after the colors of the plumed prayer-sticks sacrificed in rotation at the full of each moon to the gods of the north, west, south, east, the skies, and the lower regions respectively.

In common parlance, these months and the minute divisions of the seasons they embrace, are referred to by the terms descriptive of the growth of corn-plants and the development and naturescence of their grain. There will be, on a future page, occasion to illustrate the tendency of the Zuñis to make corn the standard of measurement and comparison not only for time, but for many other things, by the reproduction of a singular song of one of the sacred orders.

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Early in the month of the "Lesser sandstorms" the same Zuñi, we will say, who preëmpted, a year since, a distant arroyo-field, goes forth, hoe and axe in hand, to resume the work of clearing, etc. Within the sand embankment he now selects that portion which the arroyo enters from above, and cutting many forked cedar branches, drives them firmly into the dry stream-bed, in a line crossing its course, and extending a considerable distance beyond either bank. Against this row of stakes he places boughs, clods, rocks, sticks, and earth, so as to form a strong barrier or dry-dam; open, however, at either end. Some rods below this on either side of the stream-course, he constructs, less carefully, other and longer barriers. Still farther down, he seeks in the "tracks" of some former torrent, a ball of clay, which, having been detached from its native bank, far above, has been rolled and washed, down and down, ever growing rounder and smaller and tougher, until in these lower plains it lies embedded in and baked by the burning sands. This he carefully takes up,


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breathing reverently from it, and places it on one side of the stream-bed, where it is desirable to have the rain-freshets overflow. He buries it, with a brief supplication, in the soil, and then proceeds to heap over it a solid bank of earth which he extends obliquely across, and to some distance beyond the arroyo. Returning, he continues the embankment past the clay ball either in line of, or at whatever angle with the completed portion seems to his practiced eye most suited to the topography.

To those not acquainted with savage ways of thought, this proceeding will gain interest from explanation. The national game of the Zuñi is ti'-kwa-we, or, the race of the kicked stick. Two little cylindrical sticks of hard wood are cut, each the length of the middle finger. These, distinguished one from the other by bands of red paint, are laid across the toes of either leader and kicked in the direction the race is to be run. At full speed of the runners these sticks are dexterously shoveled up on the toes, and kicked on and on. The party which gets its stick over the goal first


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is counted the winning side. This race is usually run by no fewer than twelve men, six opposed to an equal number. The distance ordinarily accomplished without rest or even abatement, is twenty-five miles. Now, the time taken in running this race is marvelously short, never exceeding three hours; yet, were you to ask one of the runners to undertake the race without his stick, he would flatly tell you he could not possibly do it. So imbued with this idea are the Zuñis that frequently, when coming in from distant fields, and wishing to make haste, they cut a stick, and kick it on ahead of them, running to catch up with it, and so on. The interesting feature about all this is, that the Indian in this, as in most things else, confounds the cause with the effect, thinks the stick helps him, instead of himself being the sole motive power of the stick. The lump of clay before mentioned is supposed to be the ti'-kwa of the water gods, fashioned by their invisible hands and pushed along by their resistless feet, not hindering, but adding to the force and speed of the waters. The field-maker


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fancies that the waters, when they run down this trail again, will be as anxious to catch up with their ti'-kwa as he would be. So he takes this way of tempting the otherwise tameless (he thinks) torrents out of their course. Yet, to make doubly sure, he has thrown a dam across their proper pathway. On the outskirts of the field thus planned, little inclosures of soil, like earthen bins, are thrown up wherever the ground slopes how little-soever from a central point, these inclosures being either irregularly square or in conformity to the lines of the slope (pl. II).

My hope has been in so minutely describing these beginnings of a Zuñi farm to give a most precious hint to any reader of The Millstone interested in agriculture, or who may possess a field some portions of which are barren because too dry. We may smile at the superstitious observances of the Indian agriculturist, but when we come to learn what he accomplishes, we shall admire and I hope find occasion to imitate his hereditary ingenuity. The country of the Zuñis is so desert and dry, that times out of


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[Illustration: An illustration of a layout for a Zuñi cornfield, with small side illustrations of "The Prayer Plume and Sacred Cigarette," and "The Consecration of the Field."]




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number within even the fickle memory of tradition, the possession of water for drinking and cooking purposes alone has been counted a blessing. Yet, by his system of earth banking, the Zuñi Indian, and a few of his western brothers and pupils, the Moquis, have heretofore been the only human beings who could, without irrigation from living streams, raise to maturity a crop of corn within its parched limits.

The use of the principal barriers and embankments may be inferred from the terms of the invocation with which the field is consecrated after the completion of all the earthworks. The owner then applies to whatever corn-priest is keeper of the sacred "medicine" of his clan or order. This priest cuts and decorates a little stick of red willow with plumes from the legs and hips of the eagle, turkey, and duck, and with the tail-feathers from the Maximilian's jay, night-hawk, yellow-finch, and ground-sparrow, fastening them on, one over the other, with cords of fine cotton. From the store of paint which native tradition claims was brought from the original


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birthplace of the nation (a kind of plumbago), he takes a tiny particle, leavening with it a quantity of black mineral powder. To a sufficient measure of rainwater he adds a drop of ocean water with which he moistens the pigment, and with a brush made by chewing the end of a yucca-leaf, applies the paint to the stick. With the same paint he also decorates a section of cane filled with wild tobacco supposed to have been planted by rain, hence sacred. These two objects, sanctified by his breath, he gives to the applicant. Taking them carefully in his left hand, the latter goes forth to his new field. Seeking a point in the middle of the arroyo below all his earthworks, he kneels, or sits down on his blanket, facing east. He then lights his cane cigarette and blows smoke toward the north, west, south, east, the upper and the lower regions. Then holding the smoking stump and the plumed stick near his breast, he says a prayer. From the substance of his prayer which, remarkably curious though it be, is too long for literal reproduction here, we learn the important facts


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relative to his intentions and his faith. We find he believes that: He has infused the consciousness of his prayer into the plumed stick: that with his sacred cigarette he has prepared a way 'like the trails of the winds and rains' [clouds] for the wafting of that prayer to the gods of all regions. That, having taken the cloud-inspiring down of the turkey, the strength-giving plume of the eagle, the water-loving feather of the duck, the path-finding tails of the birds who counsel and guide summer; having moreover severed and brought hither the flesh of the water-attracting tree, which he has dipped in the god-denizened ocean, beautified with the very cinders of creation, bound with strands from the dress of the sky-born goddess of cotton--he beseeches the god-priests of earth, sky, and cavern, the beloved gods whose dwelling places are in the great embracing waters of the world, not to withhold their mist-laden breaths, but to canopy the earth with cloud banners, and let fly their shafts little and mighty of rain, to send forth the fiery spirits of lightning, lift up the voice of thunder whose


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echoes shall step from mountain to mountain, bidding the mesas shake down streamlets. The streamlets shall yield torrents; the torrents, foam-capped, soil-laden, shall boil toward the shrine he is making, drop hither and thither the soil they are bearing, leap over his barricades unburdened and stronger, and in place of their lading, bear out toward the ocean as payment and faith-gift the smoke-cane and the prayer-plume. Thus thinking, thus believing, thus yearning, thus beseeching (in order that the seeds of earth shall not want food for their growing, that from their growth he may not lack food for his living, means for his fortune), he this day plants, standing in the trail of the waters, the smoke-cand and prayer-plume.20

The effect of the network of barriers is what the Indian prayed for (attributes, furthermore, as much to his prayer as to his labors), namely, that with every shower, although the stream go dry three hours afterward, water has been carried to every portion of the field, has deposited a fine loam over it all, and moistened from one


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end to the other, the substratum. Not only this, but also, all rainfall on the actual space is retained and absorbed within the system of minor embankments.

At the stage of operations above last described, the field is again left for a year, that it may become thoroughly enriched. Meanwhile, during the same month (the first of spring) each planter repairs the banks in his old fields, and proceeds to adopt quite a different method for renewing or enriching the soil.

Along the western sides of his field, as well as of such spots throughout it as are worn out or barren, he thickly plants rows of sagebrush, leaving them standing from six inches to a foot above the surface. As the prevailing winds of the Zuñi plains hail from the southwest, and, as during the succeeding month (the "Crescent of the greater sand-storms"), these winds are laden many tens of feet high in the air with fine dust and sand, behind each row of the sagebrush a long, level, deep deposit of soil is drifted. With the coming of the first (and as a rule the only) rainstorm of spring-time, the


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water, carried about by the embankments and retained lower down by the "earth bins," redistributes this "soil sown by the winds" and fixes it with moisture to the surface it has usurped.

Thus, with the aid of nature's hand, without plow or harrow, the Zuñi fits and fertilizes his lands, for the planting of May-time, or the Nameless month.

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> CHAPTER IV
CORN-RAISING, OR "THE DECAY OF THE SEED"

[Illustration: The initial word "THE" is an illustration of a scarecrow in a corn field.]

THE READER of this chapter will at the end, like a man lost in the woods, find himself only where he started; but unlike such a man he will be, for all that, much nearer home. That is to say, a description of the last ceremonial of harvest must begin an account of Zuñi corn-planting and rearing.

In each corn room or granary of Zuñi are preserved carefully four objects: an ear of yellow corn full to the very tip of perfect kernels, called a yÄ'-po-to; an ear of white corn which has resulted from the intergrowth of two or more ears within a single


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husk-fold, called, from its disproportionate breadth and flatness, a mi'-k'iap-pan-ne; a moderately large, normal ear of corn which has been dipped by a seed-priest in the waters of the great sacred Salt Lake far south of Zuñi ("Las Salinas" of New Mexico), and a bunch of unbroken corn-soot. The latter two objects are laid side by side on the floor in the middle of the corn room, and upon them, also side by side, usually connected by a bandage of cotton filaments, the yÄ'-po-to and the mi'-k'iap-pan-ne. (See pl. III, a.)

The significance of all this is both interesting and poetic. The corn-soot is held to symbolize the "generation of life;" the salted and sanctified ear of corn, the material given by the gods and prepared by man, as the means whereby generated life is sustained; and, finally, both these are regarded as the "resting place" or "couch" of the "Father and Mother of Corn-crops" or seed; the yÄ'-po-to being the "male," the mi'-k'iap-pan-ne, the "female."

In a field of growing maize, the owner selects such hills as give promise of speediest


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[Illustration: An illustration of eight implements used in planting corn.]




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maturity. These receive his special care. No sooner have a few ears ripened on them than he picks the most perfect, as well as a bunch of soot from some neighboring stalk, and tenderly carries them home in his arms. Arrived at the entrance-way of his house, he calls to the women within:

"We come!"

"Ah? How come ye?" say they.

"Together, happily," he replies.

"Then enter ye!" calls out the chorus of women's voices, whereupon the man goes slowly in. One of the women beckons his attention to the "sitting place," which, in this instance, is a decorated basket-tray in the center of the room. Thither he proceeds and places, one by one, the ears of corn in the tray--using care that they shall all point eastward--and lays the bunch of soot over them. The women of the house flocks to the mantel whereon stands the family bowl of prayer-meal, each taking a pinch of the sacred substance, while one of their number, the "corn matron," hastens away to the granary,


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and carefully lifting the ya'-po-to and mi'-k'iap-pan-ne, brings them forth. As she nears the tray, she says, across the objects in her hands (addressing the new corn), "My children, how be ye these many days?" Then the new corn is supposed to reply through the voices of the other women, now gathered near, "Happily, our old ones; happily!" With this the corn matron deposits her burden on the new bunch of soot, and all present say little prayers significant of the occasion and setting forth their wishes for "age of life, happy fortune, and the health of strength born of the food of maize." This ceremonial is called the "Meeting of the Children," and is performed in commemoration of the return of the lost Corn Maidens under the guidance of Pai'-a-tu-ma, and their welcome by the Seed priests of ancient Zuñi.

With the closing of the prayers, the right hand of each worshipper is passed gently over the tray--while scattering prayer-meal--and breathed from. The corn matron then returns to the granary, bearing


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both the old corn and the new. She replaces the old bunch of soot with the new, laying the former away with the fresh ears of corn and returning the yÄ'-po-te and mi'-k'iap-pan-ne to their resting place.

When all the harvest has been gathered, dried, sorted, and corded up, around and over the "father and mother" in the corn room, the ceremonial interrupted at the beginning is resumed. While the corn is being classified as to color and grade, the finest ears of each kind are selected and laid aside. These and the ears of "new corn" are together laid along the outer edge of the corn-pile. Next morning the "corn matron" takes a basket-tray (perhaps the same one used before, or at least one like it) and goes to the door of the corn room. Here she slips off her left moccasin, then enters. As she passes the threshold she looks around as though she were about to address a group of waiting friends, and exclaims:

"My mothers and children, how be ye, and how have ye come unto the morning?"--and after a moment herself replies:

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"Happily!"

Reverently, for she is in the presence of the conscious and the benign, so it seems to her, she approaches the cord of corn and with her left hand takes of the selected ears along the top, an ear for each finger (that is, four), then with the right hand an equal number, placing them in the tray. She brings these forth, and assisted by the male head of the household, shells them with such care that not a kernel is lost. Dust from the old bunch of soot is scattered over the shelled corn, and a curious sacred pigment is prepared, in an earthen ladle, of yellow paint and a kernel of salt, from the mountain near the Lake of the Dead, and the Salt Lake in the south. To these ingredients are added two or three kinds of little yellow flowers, the principal variety being precious in the eyes of the Zuñi, as that which was "left over of the seed stores of the gods." All this is mixed with pollen and water, and the whole tray of kernels is thoroughly sprinkled and anointed by stirring. The corn grains thus treated are bright yellow in color and pleasantly odoriferous.


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All this is done that the "seed" may have the power of reproduction, rapid growth, and strength, and that it may bear fruit possessed of the properties of food, which fruit shall mature with the season when thrive most and bloom the little yellow flowers--early autumn. We are at first surprised when we learn that to a remarkable degree the corn thus treated has vigor and the quality of ripening early; but our wonder may be lessened when we reflect that these seeds are the most perfect of the whole harvest, selected mostly from among those ears which soonest reached maturity. Still, with the Zuñi all these things are living testaments of faith, proving the infallibility of his theory of "medicine," or fetichism, and of his practice of religion.

The corn, now fully prepared, is poured into a pouch made from the whole skin of a fawn (pl. III, b). Most fantastic in appearance is this spotted, life-like corn-bag, as it hangs at night-time against the wall, gilded by the firelight, head downward, the incessantly flickering shadows of its broad ears


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and dangling forelegs giving it the appearance of struggling to get free from the strong antlers which seem as actively trying to cast it off. And there, notwithstanding these illusionary struggles, it hangs until late springtime.

I have told how, during the months of the sand-storms the banks in the old corn-fields are newly built up. Little more need be done, and some fine morning in May, the voice, low, mournful, yet strangely penetrating and tuneful, of the Sun Priest is heard from the housetops. As you listen in the shadow of some tall terrace, you think that voice must come from a spirit of the heroic age of Zuñi, returned on the night-wind and hastening to call his way-ward game-becrazed children to the fields, so old-fashioned, so hidden in meaning seem the words it is uttering. However little the sleepy-eyed devotee of "cane-weeds" and "stick-shuffling" may understand of that archaic monologue, he knows its one principal meaning, and if he be the head of the household who assisted in the shelling of the seed-corn last autumn, he


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bethinks himself of the planting stick and bestirs himself to sharpen (against a slab of sandstone) that useful, simple, yet ingenious instrument of husbandry. This planting stick (pl.III,c) is a kind of prod made from a straight-grained juniper sapling, the base flattened and sharpened to a round-nosed, blade-like point, and possessed of one ear formed by a fortuitous branch cut off and scraped until just enough is left to be useful as a brace for the right foot. The utensil our friend has just finished sharpening, glistens from long use. The blade is worn short, ground shorter, and the whole thing has an air of antiquity; was, likely as not made long ago by the man's grandfather on the mother's side or by some other equally pristine potterer early in this century or late in the last. He will not use this venerable relic, let us hope, for planting the whole field; but at any rate he prefers it, short though it be, for the work presently in hand. He has leaned it against the wall near the doorway now, and has gone in to get his feather-box and paintpots. With these and a piece of willow


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(cut this time at the Lake of the Dead), he makes a plumed prayer-stick. He then chooses from the fawn-skin pouch six kernels of corn, each, of course, of a different color, and in a broad husk wraps them with the plumed wand. Slinging the pouch over his shoulder, he takes up the old planting-stick and says ceremoniously to the women:

"We go!"

As he steps out of the doorway, the corn matron hustles after him with a bowl of fresh, cold water, with which she lavishly sprinkles him and his pouch, laughingly telling "them" to go. Thoroughly bedrenched, he shuffles down the hill, across the river, and out to his field.

I need not stop to explain that a Zuni would by no means miss this sprinkling process, as, jokingly performed though it may be, it is symbolic of rain, believed to be provocative of that blessing, without which the seed-corn would be powerless to grow. Arrived at the field, he goes to a well-known spot near the center. Here he digs in the soft, sandy soil by pushing his prod down with his foot, and turning it


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around and around--four deep holes equally distant from a central space: the first to the north, the second to the west, the third to the south, and the fourth to the east. By the left side of the northern hole he digs another to represent the sky-regions, and by the right side of the southern hole still another relating it to the lower regions. In the central space he kneels, facing the east, and, drawing forth the plumed prayerwand, first marks, by sprinkling prayer-meal, a cross on the ground, to symbolize not only the four cardinal points, but also the stars which shall watch over his field by night-time. Then with prayer he plants the plumed stick at the intersection of the cross, sprinkles it with more prayer-meal--as the corn matron had sprinkled him with water--and withdraws. From his pouch he selects three grains of each of the six colors--yellow, blue, red, white, speckled, and black--and places them respectively with the six grains of like colors which had been wrapped in the shuck. He now goes back, and, kneeling down, holds the four grains of yellow color in his left hand, and,


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facing toward the northern hole, crones the following first verse of a planting chant:

U----ai----o--a----ho----o

U----ai----o--a----ho----o

U----ai----o--a----ho----o

U----ai----o--a----ho----o

Li wa ma ha' ni.

Pish le a ha'n kwi,

Ho-lon e-te, hom thlup-tsi-kwa

Mi-a na-kia, an hai' te na kia.

U----ai----a--i----o--a----o ho

U----ai, [etc.]

"Off over yonder, Toward the North-land. Will it but prove that my yellow corn grains Shall grow and bear fruit, asking which I now sing."

U----ai, [etc.]

And just as he sings the refrain, he drops the yellow kernels into the hole toward the north. Continuing the refrain so that it runs into the prelude of the next stanza, he shifts about so as to face westward, and taking up the four blue grains, repeats as before, except that he sings to the "Westland" and of the "blue corn grains," and when he comes to the refrain, drops the blue grains into the hole toward the west. Thus he proceeds, not once interrupting his


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droning chant, until all the sets of grains have been dropped into the holes which their colors respectively relate them to: the red into the southern, the white into the eastern, the speckled into the upper, and the black into the lower. Ceremonial is now abandoned. He covers the grains he has dropped, and in lines corresponding to the directions of the four hills, plants rows far out into the field until the corn in the fawn-skin pouch is exhausted. Then he returns home, not again to plant until four days shall have passed by, during which time, let me add, he dutiously fasts, prays regularly at sunrise by the riverside, and abstains from all unbecoming pleasures.

It will not be held against me that I forgot to tell how the rest of the seed corn was provided. Those ears from among which the first eight were selected by the corn matron, have been brought out, last autumn, from the place of storage, and shelled in the most matter-of-fact way. Part of the grains are laid by as seed for the Kâ'-kâ, or sacred dance, while the remainder are stored in large buckskin bags to serve as


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the "common seed" for the planting of the fields.

At the end of the fourth day after the first planting, the householder quite likely makes a new planting-stick (pl.III.d), laying the old one aside. He also gets out his seed bags. These (pl.III, e) are curious. Usually of rawhide, they have been so puckered and sewed that they form egg-shaped receptacles, cut off at the smaller end. They are ingeniously made to remain open and otherwise retain their shape by being moistened, filled first with damp, then with moderately hot, dry sand, and hung up to harden by desiccation, which of course takes place in a short time. A little hoop of wood is, moreover, fitted around the upper edge, much as is the large wire rim of a tin bucket, and, like the latter, the seed-pouch is also furnished with a bail--of twisted buckskin.

Taking a luncheon of paper-bread--substantial in quantity at least--and a bag of common seed-corn, together with the various appliances above described, and followed by a discontented urchin, staggering


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under a big earthen canteen of water, the planter now proceeds to his field. Along the eastern side of the rows of last year's broken stalks (or corn butts), four or five inches from each bunch, he digs holes with his wooden prod, to the depth of from four to seven inches. The boy comes along after him, dropping into each hole from twelve to twenty kernels, and pushing sand in with his foot until it is filled. Wherever the stalk-butts happen to be thin, they reinforce them with bunches of grease-wood or sagebush sprigs. The consequence is that not only is the crop not planted twice successively in the same spots, but a long drift of fresh soil is blown by the still prevailing west winds directly over each new hill of corn, forming, without labor, neat little mounds of earth. The country of the Zuñis so dry that the seeds have to be planted to great depths--even at the expense of great delay in their growth, and the little drifts of sandy soil protect the underlying loam in which the kernels are embedded from the fierce southwestern sun. Not only on account of this dryness,


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but because some of the plants die in their efforts to reach daylight, the large number of kernels for each hill is required.

Now comes the time when young Zuñi and his elder brother may indulge in fanciful creations which would astound the most talented scarecrow makers of New England. The glossy, large, Southwestern crow or raven is abroad. He sits on every rock, soars through every cloud-shadow, laughs and cackles in every corn arroyo at safe, nevertheless impertinent, distances from the busy planter. He as much as says to his companions, in the language of Zuñi crow lore: "Ah! you must wait until those little green spikes come up! They grow solely for our benefit, that we may have signs whereby to find the good things those long-legged fearful fellows are hiding so deep in the sand. Why, that's what our heavy noses are provided for!" Alas, poor birds! Have they forgotten last season? What a shock is in store for them! What disappointment which shall soon be attested by the most discordant kaw-croaks of anguish!

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[Illustration: An illustration of scarecrows in a Zuñi cornfield.]

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The old man is busy setting up cedar poles, at intervals of a few rods, all over the field. Not knowing what these poles were for, you would think an eastern bean-patch or hop-field had been transferred to Zuñiland. But if you carefully look, you will see that each pole is furnished at the top with a bunch of its own or some other prickly leaves, so that the crows may not light on it. Moreover, the busy planter is now stringing from one pole to another, cords of split yucca, leaves which, but for their knottiness, would remind you of the telegraph wires of New York City, so thick they are. A sort of network is thus formed all over the field. To make this more imposing, tattered rags, pieces of dog and coyote skins, old shoulder-blades strung two or three together, streamers of moss, in fact streamers of every conceivable thing which has the property of swaying in the wind, are thickly attached to these numerous cords, making them appear much as I fancy a clothes-line would, left by a hurricane (pl. IV).

Meanwhile the youngsters are busy.


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They have pilfered from the old storeroom everything in the shape of off-duty clothing they could lay hands on. You must know, my reader, that this is quite what their fathers and uncles want; but not so their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. These representatives of Zuñi consanguinity are the stingiest creatures human breath was ever vouchsafed to. If a dress be too dirty and ragged to be kept comfortably on, it will do, backed by straw, to stop up skyholes with; if too far gone for this, still, it is serviceable baby bedding; and yet more, if even not good enough for this, it is most gracious in their eyes for the manufacture of "holders of hot things." Therefore, it is stored away in common with numerous predecessors for the "wanting time." Yet, young Zuñi is quite as sharp as any other boy. He gets what he covets, be assured, and that too without the knowledge of even his younger sister. Off to the deep arroyo near his father's field he goes with his plunder. His elder brother is "in with him." Both of them have been deprived all their lives long of slates and pencils.


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They have found no vent for their caricaturistic capacities, which are great, and they take it out on occasions like the present. They are prolific of invention, bold and of ready execution. Twenty-four hours hence, behold the result! As you ride along some outward-bound trail, your feelings would be mirthful but for the effect on your shaky Indian nag. He will not be convinced that those things standing or sitting around so frequently are inanimate! Yonder on the hillside is an old woman limping(not along). She carries a basket on her back and a rib-scapula-tin-can-and-stick-rattle in her hand. Does it rattle? Yes; it is safe to say that you can hear it, if the wind be blowing, even before you see the stuffed old woman. This way further expressively tearing right along, is a being with outstretched hands, streaming shocks of gray hair (pulled from a dead horse's tail), a black black rawhide face, eyes made of husk-balls popping out of his head and painted yellow, teeth of cornstalks from jaw-rim to jaw-rim, and a great red tongue which lolls in and out, from side


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to side, with every breeze-gust. He seems to be frightened by the frog-legged character behind him. Now all these she'-tu-na-kwe ("watchers of corn sprouts") have the desired effect. The old crows let the field most faithfully alone!

Not so with the new generation of "kernel diggers," which gets feathers and finds wings about this time. Before growth has made the corn invulnerable, these guileless young creatures come along. They are no more fearful of the extravagant effigies than of the embracing boughs of their paternal rookery. Many of them, therefore, get caught in little hair nooses plentifully attached to convenient cobbles. Others commit suicide in pairs by swallowing the tempting kernels at either end of a hair thread and then winding one another up and choking. They seem to prefer this to being "Siamese twins" all their lives!

The captives are, in due course of time, taken up. They are carried home and treated with the utmost tenderness, but they are not fed! If one of them happens to find something to eat or drink (rarely


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the case), his beak is promptly cut off in order that he shall not be tempted a second time. Of course, the wretched birds "die young," and are then crucified on two flexible twigs and hung, head downward, to one or another of the numerous yucca lines. This course of action is, it seems, prompted by the belief that the souls of these dead crows will warn their mortal companions that man is "very painful," and in order that these souls may not lack for witnesses, they are furnished with their own bodies, hung up in conspicuous places.21

The scarecrow and the bird it scares are subjects of such grave interest to the Zuñi, such an element of agitation during its brief season in his industrial life, so undoubtedly the chief root of evil to his bread material (on which subject he is as touchy as a miser), that a little anecdote relative to the bird in particular would not be, it seems to me, out of the way.

The corn had just sprouted in the spring of 1881, and my "elder brother's" scarecrows (fault of his own) had not been so successful as those of his neighbors. That


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those of his neighbors were better than his own was not in itself an aggravation, but certainly a nuisance, for it caused the crows to leave their fields and fairly flock to his. He came to my "little house" one morning, wearing a weary look.

"What's inside of you?" I asked.

"Crows!"

"Why do you not make scarecrows?" said I.

"Scarecrows? Ho! Nothing will remedy the folly of our ancients; nothing, I say, younger brother!"

"Why? What did they do?" said I, feeling for a pencil.

"Now, look here!" exclaimed the old man. "You little fool, put away that writing stick. I'm in earnest very, this morning, and I want to ask you two questions."

"Go on then," said I.

"Well, you know when our ancients came out of the four caves? There was a priest with them--he belonged to my clan too!" (added the old man with a look of injury and exceeding disgust). "Well,


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from under the world this priest had brought a wonderful and beautiful wand, but no one had seen it in the dark. Now, they all asked, 'What is it? What is it?'

"'It is a baton,' said the priest, 'given by the Makers of Life.'

"'What is it for?' said some, and 'How pretty it is!' said others, for it was covered with many colored feathers in bright patterns and bands.

"'It is a baton,' said the priest, 'given to test children's understandings,' saying which he spoke a charm, struck the wand against a rock, and behold! four eggs issued from one end and rolled out in front of the lookers. One pair was dull; the other beautiful, like pale turquoise--with little marks all over.

"'My children,' said the priest, 'listen! These are the seed of living things. Two of them are to become more beautiful than my wand, and precious--the blessing of those whom they accompany; for wheresoever they dwell, there will be everlasting summer and beautiful growing things. But the others will become beasts who,


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every year's end, will fight the summer birds away and bring back winter; and every summer-dawn will tear up growing things, leaving hunger and perplexing thoughts to those they live with. Be wise, now, my children, and, above all, choose not with greed,' said the priest."

"Now what do you suppose those fools did?"

"I don't know."

"Well! They took the pretty blue eggs, of course, 'because,' said they, 'these are of the color of precious stones; therefore they must surely be the seed of precious things!' So they carried them with great gentleness to a place on the sunny side of a cliff and laid them in soft down, and watched them day by day. By and by the eggs cracked and two little worms came out, which presently became birds with pin-feathers under their skins and open eyes. They never seemed satisfied with their food--always wanted more, you see! But the pin-feathers looked blue, green, and yellow, under their skins, and the people chuckled, saying 'Ha-ha, wa-ha!


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We have understandings, for look! If their dresses be pretty under their skins, think what they will be when they come out and cover them! 'So they fed the greedy little wretches all they could stuff. When the birds feathered out, they were black, and they flew away laughing 'Kâ-hâ, kâ-hâ,' as they've laughed ever since--the pesky corn-pullers!

"But the priest sent the dull eggs to summer-land in a rain-cloud, and they became the fathers of macaws, and where-ever they dwell, like the color of their plumage are the flowers, fruits, and leaves, and summer abides there forever.

"Younger brother, there are just two things I want!"

"What are they?"

"Some tail-feathers of the macaw for my medicine-wand, and some of that 'white wizard-power' that Americans make and that they say 'will kill even a Zuñi dog,' if you can only get him to eat it."

My elder brother looked considerably happier when I told him I would get some of the white powder; but when I added


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that it would not be so easy to find the macaw feathers, he fell to cursing his grandfathers as heartily as ever.

[Illustration: An illustration of three Zuñi cooking vessels.]

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> CHAPTER V
CORN-RAISING, OR "THE REGENERATION OF THE SEED"

[Illustration: The initial capital is illustrated by the meeting a two pairs of donkey ears attached to the head of two donkeys that are munching on corn stalks.]

WHEN the kernels have sprouted all through the field described in the last chapter, we find the planter busy inspecting the hills near the prayer-stick. Upon this inspection hangs the fate, so he thinks, of his cornfield; for if every kernel in each of the six sacred hills has "come out," the crop will be productive. If, on the contrary, one or two of the grains in, for example, the southern hill, have not sprouted forth, Alas! part of his crop of red corn will be a failure--will not get ripe before frost time.

Toward noon he is joined by two or three of the women and some of the children


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of the household, and perhaps by as many neighbors. Wherever a sprout looks yellow, they dig down and kill the little white worm they are sure to find near the root. This is called "grub-finishing." Wherever the plants are very vigorous, they pull up all except four or five of the best, and this is called "leafing," or "leaf-lifting."

The occasion which follows soon and is recurrent twice or thrice during the warm season, is perhaps the jolliest of the summer. It is the "hoeing" or "staving time," as the Zuñis call it in well remembrance of the instruments with which their ancestors hoed, away back in the age of stone. These were crooked, sharp-edged staves of hard wood, shaped not unlike sickles, or better still, short scythes (pl. III,f). Rude as they were, they seem to have been wonderfully efficacious in the removal of weeds, for the operator, progressing on his knees, swept the scythe-hoe from side to side between the rows of corn, cutting off wide swaths of weeds, just below the surface of the soft, yielding soil. The principal drawback to


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this implement was that it proved equally efficacious in wearying the man who wielded it. Therefore, while with the introduction of iron the heavy hand-wrought hoes affected today by the Zuñis displaced the ancient wooden instrument, not so with the name the latter gave to hoeing.

Every night at staving time you will hear women calling in at the doorways as they go the rounds of their husbands' clans, "She! Tomorrow we stave," for only the poorest Zuñis hoe their fields unaided. Next morning a goodly number of the men thus summoned gather at whatever house was represented by the woman who summoned them. Without breakfast they betake themselves to the field and hoe with might and main until about eleven o'clock, then stop to eat luncheon and joke with the girls who brought it down, and who are, true to nature, dressed in regular holiday costume. They have been "grinding" all the morning, in time to the shrill chant of the mistress, or of some old aunt whose back is too stiff for the mealing trough (or who pretends it is), but whose


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voice is, if possible, shriller than ever. If you look at these giggling, droop-eyed girls, you will see that they are a degree whiter than they were yesterday. They've actually been powdering! Just before starting out with the luncheon, each one, warmed and perspiring from the violent exercise at the metate, grabbed up a handful of white meal, rubbed it well between her palms, and applied it evenly all over her face and neck.

When the girls have returned to help cook for the "stavers," the latter resume the work, but now more moderately. Laughing, joking, telling stories of the olden time (not folklore, that is forbidden, for the rattlesnake is abroad!), racing at their task, playing pranks, they are the lightest-hearted laborers you ever saw.

According to these stories, it was not like this in the olden time of which they tell. Many of the laborers of primitive Pueblodom were given their tasks which they had to finish under a priest's inspection. Later on (and even that was a long time ago), war originated these hoeing bees (or "staving


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councils"). They were not then, as now, light-hearted crowds. Each member of them was like a deer on an open plain, fearful lest every puff of wind should bring sounds or scent of some enemy. Full often the enemy did come. Daring not to attack the terraced town, he hung about the distant fields, seeking vengeance for those of his tribe who had fallen under the knotty clubs of Zuñi. And woe to the workers if they proved but few! Armed even as they worked, brave with desperation, it was rare they ever saw Zuñi again; for the cowardly Navahos rarely came but in swarms. Some of the most thrilling traditions of Zuñi tongue concern these and the harvest days of long ago; and it is with regret that I pass my notes of many a long recital by for the short and perhaps less interesting tale below.

Below the pueblo of Zuñi westward, in one of the long arms of the valley, there stands, perched upon the summit of a high rock, an ancient tower of stone. You reach the doorway of this solitary little citadel by means of an old log notched at


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intervals to form rude steps. Entering, you find a neat little room, well plastered, in one corner a tiny fireplace, and opposite a single mealing-slab, while above hangs a blanket-pole. The cinders yet lie on the hearth-stone, the pole glistens still brightly from its shadowy recess, the meal clings even now to the roughened face of the millstone.

It seems as though only yesterday the fire was kindled, as though its light still lingered along the polished pole, as though the women had but just ceased to ply the molina in the mealing trough and had gone out to watch the wide cornfields or bring water. But it is fifty years since the flames died away on that hearthstone; fifty years a little streak of sunlight has played along the blanket-pole, replacing the fire's ruddy glow; and for fifty years the story has been related at each hoeing, how the woman went out one morning, never to return.

And the half of this tale is already told if you but climb another notched log leading through the trap-door by the chimney


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into an upper room. There are double port-holes here, which from without seem like the sightless sockets of a crumbling skull. By the light they let in you see that the plaster is broken and stained here and there with dark patches. Splintered shafts and shivered stones lie strewn about--ungathered by those who anxiously searched there fifty summers ago at sunset.

For the little house on the rock once belonged to Um'-thla-na, "He-Of-Large-Muscles." He was living there with his family to 'tend the cornfields. The women went out early one morning to get water. No sooner had they neared the distant pool than they heard the tread of many horse-hoofs. Then they saw, sweeping down the valley, a crowd of mounted warriors. They dropped their water-jars and fled--one to the neighboring rocks, hours after to appear breathless and fainting at Zuñi; but the younger toward the little tower, the steps of which she never ascended, for, caught up by some wrangling horsemen, wrangling for her possession, she was borne away into years of captivity.

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Um'-thla-na heard the rush of the riders, grasped up his war-club, bow, and arrows, and not pausing to close the doorway, clambered the step-log in the corner and barricaded the trap-door. Soon the Navahos thronged into the lower room. They snatched the serapes from the blanket-pole, they stole the basket of corn-cakes and paper-bread. Wild with glee over these delicacies so rare to their roving life, they never noticed the trap-door, but ran out and sat down about the doorway to feast. Alas, Um'-thla-na! why did he not keep quiet? Peering out through a porthole, he saw a big Navaho calmly sitting near the step-log eating a roll of paper-bread. He drew an arrow to the head, let fly, and struck so fairly the feasting raider that he uttered never a groan but fell over against the ladder, still grasping his roll of guayave. Another, sitting near, saw him fall, but ere he could call an alarm, he too was pinned with one of Um'-thla-na's arrows. As this one fell, Um'-thla-na raised a yell of victory, "changing his key that the Navahos might think him many."


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At first the enemy fell back, but when they found there was only one man, they rushed toward the house again. For awhile Um'-thla-na's arrows fell so thickly that the hazard of near approach kept the Navahos from charging. Even when his shafts were spent, he pulled stones from the wall and broke them against one another, casting them down at the enemy. The port-holes were small, and he had to stand quite close to them. Soon an arrow whizzed through one, sticking him in the arm. Um'-thla-na clinched his teeth and plucked it out, shooting it back.

Ere long he was wounded in many places and weak from loss of blood, still he stood bravely at bay by the port-holes. One of the Navahos, more distant than the rest, saw Um'-thla-na's face at the hole. Taking careful aim, he let go so cleverly that Um'-thla-na, dodging, was shot through the neck. He staggered back, falling heavily, then roused himself and sat up against the wall clutching his war-club. Now the Navahos rushed toward the doorway. Suddenly they fled away, for, behold!


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coming swiftly across the valley in a cloud of dust was a band of Zuñi horsemen. The Zuñis pursued the flying Navahos, never thinking of Um'-thla-na. At last the poor old man, hearing no sound, pulled some of the arrows from his wounds, broke others off, and slowly, painfully clambered down the step-log, and staggered out into the plain toward Zuñi. Fainter and fainter he grew until he swooned by the trail side. Toward sunset they found him there, those who came to seek. Some stayed to tenderly care for him, while others went to search for the young woman. They did not find her, but lying dead on the rocks near the tower were five Navahos. One of them was leaning against the step-log, still grasping in his hand a roll of paper-bread. Um'-thla-na lived to tell the story, but grew worse as the arrow wounds rancored, and "killed himself that he might be divided from pain."

Nobody lives in the little house now. "It is a place of painful thoughts," say the narrators; but it stands always the same, for its builder was He-Of-Large-Muscles.

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At sunset the men file in from the field. The women have spread or rather strung the feast out on the lowest roof. Ten or twelve great bowls in a row, smoking hot with stew, every one as red with chile as its rising vapors are with the touches of sunset. There is a row of breadstuff, thin as paper, flaky as crackers, red, yellow, blue, and white, piled up in baskets down either side of the meat bowls. Outside these, two other rows, this time of blankets and stool blocks. The first man whose head appears up the ladder is besieged with polite invitations to "Sit and eat; sit and eat," from as many pairs of lips as there are women on the housetop. When all are seated, a sacrifice is made to the house-hold fire. Up to this time the talking has been rife; now it ceases altogether. Everything except eating seems tabu until the feast has disappeared, and the cigarettes are rolled and lighted. Then talking resumes and long into the night continues.

At the second or third hoeing, which takes place usually after one of the late summer rains, they "hill" the corn much


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as our Eastern farmers do. In ancient times a sort of broad pick-axe or hoe made from the scapula of an elk and bound with rawhide to a wooden handle (pl. III. g). or a hoe of hard wood similarly fastened to the handle and surmounted by a heavy stone (h), was used for this purpose.

Autumn comes and the "corn children" have been taken in to meet their "father and mother," the yÄ'-po-toand themi'-k'iap-pan-ne. A while later, another search is made through the field, this time for such corn as gives no promise of ripening. Blanketful after blanketful is picked, husks and all, and carried to some distant wooded hill where the soil is solid. Here, with sharp sticks and hoes, a hole is dug resembling a well (fig. 2). At the top it is cut larger around, to the depth of a foot or more, and walled up neatly and solidly with sandstone. Below this wall, say a foot, the hole is gradually enlarged toward the bottom, until it embraces a room several feet in diameter and cone-shaped, the apex, as it were, being the walled, circular opening. From the windward side of the hill a trench


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is dug to a level with the bottom of the excavation. A hole or passage, about two feet in diameter, is cut from the end of the trench to the interior. Dry grass, old leaves, pitchy sticks, are thrown in from above, and arranged by a man who has entered through the trench. On top of these wood is piled until the hole is full.


[Illustration: An illustration of a cross-section of a corn roasting oven.]

The mass is now fired. As soon as the night-wind rises, flames dart upward through the circular hole, many feet into the air, straight, lurid, setting the woodlands around and the skies above, fairly aglow with ruddy splendor. All night long a merry group of young people dance, sing, and romp around this volcano-like oven. Wood, whenever needful, is piled in until


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late next morning. At last the embers have burned low, and smoke has ceased to rise from their glaring red depths. Cornstalks, green and plentiful, are thrown in, more are tucked into the large draught-hole, and preparations are made for artificially ripening that which nature has procrastinated over. A beautiful, long, fresh stalk is chosen, leaves, tassels, and roots complete. Two fine ears of corn are stripped of their husks. One of them is laid against the stalk, the other cleansed of its silk as though for boiling. The chief of ceremonials bites off from this all the milky kernels mouthful by mouthful, chews them to pulp, and blows their substance into fine mist over the heaps of plucked corn. He then places the cob by the side of the other ear, and binds both firmly to the stalk. This, in the brief prayer he presently makes, is called the shi'-wa-ni, or priest. It is cast into the still glowing pit, and then, men and women, young and old, begin to hurl in the unhusked corn from all sides until no more is left. Most likely space remains at the top.


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If so, it is quickly filled with green stalks, more of which are bundled up and used as a cork for the circular opening. A mound of damp soil is heaped to a considerable height above this impromptu stopper. As night again comes on, camp-fires, bright enough it is true, but pale compared with the flames of last night, are built at convenient distances. Muffled sounds come all night from the buried oven. Sometimes, though rarely, the top is blown off, but usually next morning the mound is found unchanged and the sounds have ceased.

Now comes a sight which would surprise a stranger, miles away though he might be. The earthen mound is removed and the stopper of corn-stalks, with great trepidation, most gingerly pulled out. Instantly, hissing and seething, the steam from the heated corn and stalks below, shoots hundreds of feet into the air. On a clear day in green-corn time dozens of these white columns may be seen rising from the wooded slopes around the vale of Zuñi. It is not until toward afternoon that the


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mass is sufficiently cooled to admit of approach. As soon as possible the corn is handed out through the draught-hole (which has been enlarged for the purpose), sewed up in blankets, strapped across burros (donkeys), and transported to the town. Every member of the party, as it approaches Zuñi, may be seen gorging this really delicious baked corn. When it is unloaded into the spare-room, the heat has not yet left it. With all possible haste the husks are stripped down, and the ears, now brown and plump, are braided into long bunches, and the whole is hung up to dry in an upper room.

Many of the leaves in the field still remain green. These are gathered, carefully dried, and folded into large long bundles for winter kitchen use. Quantities of late squash and pumpkin flowers are stored away in jars to serve a similar end.

As the corn ripens, you may see fires burning at almost any of the quaint little farm huts (pl. v), for children or very old men watch there day and night to keep crows, coyotes, and burros away. The


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[Illustration: An illustration of a larger square hut and a smaller rounded hut, both in a cornfield.]




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crows are worse than they were last spring. The coyotes are not outdone by the crows at either time, but the burros are worse than both together. They are, to quote Zuñi, mi'-wi-hâ, or "adopted of corn." You may put them in the corrals, tie their fore-feet close together, or heard them as you will, but some of them will "leave tracks and love corn in every field." The remedies are many and ingenious, but all more or less fatally short of happy results. Each man in Zuñi knows every other man, and equally as well he knows every other man's burros. If a burro be found in a cornfield some morning, the field owner counts the exact number of missing or injured ears, and drives the burro home. Forthwith he seeks out the animal's owner. If the latter prove obdurate, the sufferer informs the chief and bides his time. Woe to that burro if he get into the cornfield again. He may consider himself fortunate if he lose but one or even both ears. Sometimes he is gagged with a big stick, a cord being passed from either end of the stick up over the shoulders and back, and under


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the tail (see the initial). The burro is then welcome to remain in the cornfield as long as he chooses. At other times the luckless animal is thrown and a few of his teeth pulled Zuñi-fashion: which is to say, a thread of sinew is looped to each, a heavy stone tied to the sinew, and hurled into the air. I remember a lawsuit of three nights' duration over one of these animals. Ever after he was called the "short-horn," and little wonder! For his ears had been shaved close to his head, his tail cut off short, the tip of his tongue and part of his teeth amputated, his left eye put out, and his back so stiffened by castigation that a five-foot straight-edge laid lengthwise along the very acute angle of his vertebra would have touched at every point. Two years I knew that burro personally. His working days were over. He used to get deplorably hungry, and I sometimes fed him; for, winter or summer, he dared not stir from the protecting although inhospitable shadows of the walls of Zuñi. He preferred picking cedar-bark from the firewood, anything he preferred, to going abroad. In


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[Illustration: A photograph of a Zuñi cornfield.]




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fact, had he been able to run he would certainly have done so at the sight of a field of corn.

In pity both for crows and burros, I have sometimes pleaded mitigation of the customary severe measures. My experiences at such times lead me to advise all aspiring ethnologists to mind their own business when corn is in the question. As I have said before, the Zuñis, and probably most other Indians, are touchy on the subject of their breadstuff.

Frost comes, changing the green of the stalks to yellow gold, the leaf-like shucks to feathers. In every field are corn pickers and huskers. Such corn as is not husked in the field, is packed with consummate method on burros or in carts and a few second-hand wagons, and brought to the town. Husking bees are formed by the women, and at three o'clock any afternoon you can see around a corner, mountains of cast-away shucks, and many a black, frouzzly head sticking up from their flaky slopes, bobbing bodilessly with the severance of every ear from its rattling wrappings. At


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such times husks in great numbers are selected, bundled into neat bunches, and strung several feet long on threads of yucca fiber. They will be needed before the month is gone, particularly in the council chambers, where every night brings the weary law-givers of Zuñi fresh cases of trespass for consideration.

How the roofs groan under the weight of drying corn; how the walls gleam and glory with festoons of chile or red pepper! (pl. VII). But in time the corn is dry, the peppers ripened enough for storage, and the work of "corn-sorting" begins. The different colors, yellow, blue, red, white, speckled and black, are separated. The "nubbin-ears" are put in a cellar by themselves for sale or for burros, and, as described before, the corn is corded up in the granary around the tutelar divinities of the place--the "Father and Mother of corn crops."

Patient reader, forgive me for having lingered so long in Zuñi cornfields. However closely we may have scrutinized these crops growing green, golden grown as they may have been, we have but barely glanced


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[Illustration: A photograph of drying vegetables and fruits in the sun outside a Pueblo community house.]




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at them according to the rules and practices of their dusky owners. In illustration of his watchfulness--quite as well as in memory of a former promise--I repeat below a song of the growth of corn plants. Let me begin, however, by saying that I shall give only in the first verse the prelude and refrain which open and close each stanza of the song.

I

A-he-e'-in, a-he-e'-in!

A-he-e'-in, a-he-e'-in!

Sa-ni-hi'-akia tchu elai'-e

Te-tchi-nai-u-le, te-tchi-nai-in-le'e'e.

Soil shorn and spread by storms!

Soil shorn and spread by storms!

Band of hunters, their corn grains planted

There may now be seen; there may now be seen.

II

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, ke'-mu-toi'-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn grains sprouted.

III

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, thla-kwi-moi'-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn grains rooted.

IV

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, k'e-tsithl-poi'-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn leaves fluted.

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V

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, la she yai'-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn leaves feathered.

VI

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, ta-a-nai-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn stalks tasseled.

VII

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, u-te-ai-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn plants blooming.

VIII

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, te-k'u-ai'-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn cars started.

[i.e. enfolded within the leaves].

IX

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, thla-k'u-nai'-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn ears shooting.

[i.e. starting forth from the leaves].

X

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, mi-i-ai'-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn cars kerneled.

XI

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, sho-ho-nai-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn ears silkened.

XII

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, o-sho-nai-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn plants sooted.

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[Illustration: A close-up photograph of chopped fruits on trays drying in the sun.]

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XIII

Sa-ni-hi'-akia, thla-shi-nai-ye.

Band of hunters, their corn grown aged.

This song, although beautiful in the original language and music (possessed as it is of perfect meter, fair rhythm, and considerable poetic sentiment), defies exact translation. Not only is it framed in archaic syllables, but the terms in Zuñi for every phenomenon connected with corn and its growth are so numerous and technical that it is as difficult to render them into English as it would be to translate into Zuñi the terminology of an exact science. I have, however, introduced this approximation as illustrative not only of Indian powers of observation, but also as giving a fair example of the terms wherewith, from planting time to harvesting time, may be designated any given period; for the Zuñi. simply adding to any of the above expressions a syllable expressive of time, thus divides the quarters of the "nameless months."

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> CHAPTER VI
I'-NO-TE-KWE A-WEN I'-Tâ-WE, OR THE "FOOD OF THE ANCIENTS"

[Illustration: The initial capital is an illustration of a Zuñi man balancing a pole across his shoulders.]

THERE is a wonderful degree of ingenuity shown in the methods employed by primitive man for the production and preparation of his food. By primitive man I signify here the chief figure of a pristine picture faintly lighted up against the darkening mists of antiquity by the dim rays of tradition, which rays even still flicker from the hearts of Zuñi and throw their fading glow backward through, it may be, a thousand generations of men, and westward over desert ranges far toward the slopes that bound the "Ocean of the Sunset World."

Thus seen, he is as dark as the shadows


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[Illustration: A photograph of crops piled in front of a Zuñi house.]




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of the cliffs he dwells among, and clothed in rudely plaited or stitched garments of rush or skin, as scantily as the barren nature around him. Rough sandals of fiber, turned up at toe and heel, but partly hide his feet, calloused and grimy as are his bare knees and meager, naked thighs. A fillet of beaten yucca, red or green, confines the coarse hair he has not yet learned to restrain in other ways. Through his nose is thrust a spine of cactus or the quill of some bird of prey, and depending from his ears, huge glistening rings of white shell, gathered in the terror of vague reverence from the distant sea, and fashioned in fitful persistence with flinty tools against blocks of gritty stone. More of the same, yet smaller and of different shapes, strung on sinew or hair with scales, fangs, and glistening stones of talismanic power, adorn his neck.

Stuck through the left side of the rawhide belt which girdles to his waist the kilt of rush or bark, is a stick into which is socketed and lashed a chisel-shaped stone, his all-important possession--axe and war-


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club in one. A bow nearly as long as himself, and a bundle of cane arrows tipped with diminutive flint and obsidian points, which he has fashioned with delicacy and rapidity by the pressure of a prong of horn or splinter of bone against a buckskin-covered anvil of stone or his own hardened palm, are clutched for instant use. A broad, long dirk, made--shape, method, and material--like the arrow-tips, dangles in a pouch of fur in front of the hafted chisel, like the latter, weapon and utensil in one. Beside him stands the limited village of his clan: low huts of plastered stones half sunken in the ground and thatched with bark and sticks like beehives, which most they resemble, save that they are here and there huddled together and ranged row above row along the steep side of the lofty headland they are built upon. Out in front of the doorways of these huts stand the household baskets--huge, shallow bowls plastered with gritty clay (pl. X h), bottles rendered water-tight with pitch, and closely woven pot-shaped wicker vessels (the uses of which we may learn further


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[Illustration: Several illustrations of various baskets, mats and cutting stones and implements.]




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on), trays and great panniers, the former fan or scoop-shaped (c) and the latter peaked and wide-spreading (b) like the thatched roofs of the round huts against which they are confusedly stored. A fire smoulders in front of each doorway, over heaps of reddened stones, while out of holes in the roof-thatches puff now and then faint films of smoke, proclaiming kindred though less glowing brands within. Between the fire and the doorway crouches, flabby and angular, the ugly mate of this ancient master--for master more than his modern representative is this man of his mate. She plies with a coarse-grained rubbing rock on a slanting slab of sandstone, beneath which is spread a hairless skin, close-woven mat (pl. x, e)the family meal of grass seed. By means of a stick of burning pith, she has bobbed her hair off evenly above the eyebrows, which, however, has left it frouzy and rusty, while the masses of side-locks and rear, untrimmed and unconfined, fall down over the square mat or skin, which, tied at two corners under her chin, covers her back and shoulders.


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Fastened to this in front or with a strap around her neck, is a lighter and longer garment of dressed skin, widening downward, wrapped around the thighs, skewered together at the back or side, and forming apron or skirt as you will.

Such as these were the remote ancestors of the Zuñis, scattered over a thousand plains instead of one, slowly working toward a civilization which, half reached already, had it not been stunned by the culverin of the Spaniard, had ultimately rivaled Aztec and Inca in its barbaric splendor and conventionality of art. Such too, with slightest variation of detail and background, the progenitors of every civilization on the globe today, and hence the story of these special ancients, Indians though they be, who haply dwell still within the pale of memory and monument, is surely of interest, if only that it may give us a glimpse by comparison of the ugly man, who evolved from an uglier environment, the possibilities of all we prize today, food, raiment, and appliance, religion, science, and art.

The alien reader of The Millstone will


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therefore pardon me if I briefly record as an introduction to the cuisine of the modern Zuñi, the first chapter of this prehistoric story.

That the primeval Zuñi was not unlike what tradition has painted him, is evidenced by the myths, institutions, and language of his modern lineal descendants, and by the remains he left in the devious trails of his centuries of migration. He must have been, even thus anciently, according to these various sources, rather superior to the surrounding tribes, and perhaps his closest representative today is the Ha-va-su-pai', or Coçonino, of Cataract cañon, in Arizona,22 and a knowledge of whose daily life serves, I confess, to give color and vividness to somewhat that would otherwise lack these requisites in the following paragraphs. There is, however, one difference to be noticed between what the Coçonino is, and what the earliest Zuñi was, which has a decided bearing on the breadstuff of the latter, namely, that while the Coçonino is a horticulturist par excellence during one half of the year, the


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Zuñi of those remote times practised only to the most limited extent the industry which distinguishes his medieval and modern representatives, both consanguineal and comparative, from the majority of the North American tribes of history or of today.

It thus happens quite naturally that Zuñi tradition will tell you in obscure yet poetic language that the "seeds of the Ancient were sown only by the Beloved, and his herds herded by the Gods of Prey themselves;" which, interpreted, signifies that he gathered the seed cultivated by the winds and rains alone, and that his herds, the deer, antelope, and other animals of the chase, were so wild that none could watch and follow them save the brotherhood of the coyote and the mountain-lion.

Yet by no means meager were the repasts or limited the cuisine he derived from these apparently precarious sources. In illustration of this I propose to give a somewhat representative and long list of the plants which supplied him, trusting rather to the interspersed narrative of his ingenuity in


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gathering and rendering relishable these usually unpalatable products of Nature's broad fields, as well as to the entire novelty of the theme, than to the quaint Zuñi style and wonder-lore of former pages, for sustaining the interest.

The story of ancient food can be but half told within the limitation of this paper on breadstuff. Half told indeed! for on the chase more than on all else depended the ancient Zuñi for his support, especially during winter, when the elements assisted his rude yet effective contrivances (snares, stone-pointed weapons, pit-falls, gigantic stockades or corrals covering sometimes thousands of acres), rendering animal food abundant and the necessity for lessening his limited stores of roots, fruits, and seeds less pressing.

As spring advanced and the chase yielded each day less and less, these stores so patiently garnered during a past year, so carefully guarded or concealed during a long winter's wanderings, were now drawn from in times of need; for although the snows disappeared and the sun glowed


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warmly by day, the hot winds drove the sands on the bare, dun plains and the clouds in the bright, dry skies hither and thither, so that "growing things dared not appear." Yet from among the barren wilds which environed him, this ancient knew how to seek for and find means of eking out his wasting substances. Among the high mountains grew many trees, which, stripped of their outer bark and scraped, yielded a snappy pulp and sweet fiber--hard of digestion, it is true, but none the less grateful to his meat-sated appetite. Most valued for this kind of food and easy of access with his rude instruments was the yellow pine, thousands of the trunks of which were annually whitened on the southern sides by the scrapers of the ancient Zuñis. Oftentimes only the pulp thus obtained was eaten raw, and the stringy, stringent fiber was wrapped into bundles--huge skeins--and carried home for cooking. Some of it was boiled with bony joints of dried meat. Thus were brought into use the huge, closely-plaited basket vessels mentioned at the outset; for, filled with


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water, into which the joints and well-pounded bark strings were thrown, these vessels were then set out in front of the huts near the fires and made to boil violently with numbers of the reddened stones, hot as flowing iron, which were dextrously transferred by means of flat pokers and cedar-bark holders from fire to basket, from broth to fireplace again, and so on, until the cooking was complete.

Deep down in the sand which bordered, and for a time almost choked, the starved streams issuing from the mountains, were dug the juicy roots of certain rushes which, sweet and earthy in taste, although scarcely more nutritious than the bark-pulp, were like the latter grateful for the variety they afforded. They were eaten raw, or else slightly toasted in the ashes, dipped in salted water, and used as relishes for roasts of jerked meat.
Another root which every child sought and grubbed for with avidity was the kwi'-mia'-tchi-kwa, or "sweet-root," a kind of wild licorice which, nevertheless, differed so far from the product with which we are acquainted that an


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unwholesome amount of bitter was mingled with its sweet. Yet extremely popular was it with these denizens of the night of history, as it has continued to be late into the noonday of the present Zuñis. Doubtless, too, the ancient Zuñi, like the modern, dried the root to serve as an ingredient for other foods.
With the advance of the season the rush stems grew tough, the licorice more bitter than ever, and they were replaced with great quantities of watercress (pi'-k'ai-a), like in taste and appearance, though smaller, the celery we all prize. It grew abundantly in every spring and living streamlet, was boiled and eaten with other food, the residue each day being made into flat, compact cakes, and dried with salt into greenish-black, very stemmy, and indurate bricks, which were packed away for second cookings.

Another far more nutritious food, but one requiring masterly care in its preparation, was a diminutive wild potato (k'ia-pia mo'-we), which grew in all bottomlands favored to any extent with moisture. These potatoes were poisonous in the raw


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state or whole, but were rendered harmless by the removal of the skin. As they were never larger than nutmegs, this had to be accomplished by a preliminary boiling with ashes. Afterward the potatoes were again stewed and eaten with the water they had been boiled in, usually with the addition of wild onions as a relish.
A very important addition, too, were these onions, which grow in springtime under many of the ranges of cliffs throughout the Southwest, and although true onions, resemble in size and appearance the Eastern garlic. They were invariably eaten raw, in which condition they were almost strong enough to temporarily benumb the organs of taste, flood the eyes, and annihilate all sense of everything in the region of smell save themselves. Peeled and dried for preservation, they resembled diminutive hickory-nuts, which may have suggested, with the foregoing, their Zuñi name, mo'-kwi tet-tchi; from mo, nut or fruit, kwi'-mon-ne, a root, and tet'-tchi, to stink--"stinking root-nuts."

Apace with the season more and more


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plants furnished food material. Everywhere that rain had fallen on the lower plains grew in fitful and brief luxuriance a small variety of milkweed which bore in abundance little seed-vesicles resembling those of the common mustard, although a trifle more corpulent. These were called thla'-pi-a-we, meaning "hanging pods." Divested of their skins, they were eaten raw, or boiled with other foods, or, again, toasted in hot ashes and soaked in the all-important brine-sauce with mashed onions.

A kind of wild, hard-shelled squash, from which doubtless were derived varieties of the true garden plant cultivated by the Zuñis today, grew abundantly in moist arroyos, the fruit of which, while still green, was cooked in various ways. Principally, however, it was boiled to paste, mixed liberally with rancid suet, and fried on hot stone slabs. As such it resembled eggplant fried in butter, the far-gone smell and flavor of the suet being, curiously enough, only to a limited extent recognizable in it.

A great luxury was a kind of puff-ball, or


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fungus, produced in warm seasons in spontaneous liberality by the rains. These were peeled, toasted, and eaten with a sauce of brine and ground onions, flavored with the aromatic seeds of certain caraway plants native to the country.

During early summer the unripe seedy pods of the yucca(Spanish bayonet, or palmita), a quart or two of which may sometimes be gathered from a single stalk or spike, were much sought after by the ancient Zuñis. They were boiled excessively either in water or in water and ashes. When afterward cleansed they had much the appearance of gherkins, which indeed they prove similar to in taste when pickled in vinegar. They were eaten either plain or with a liberal allowance of the flavored brine-sauce (k'iÄ'thl-k'o-se).
Like them, gummy, with a flavor of cauliflowers, were the hearts of a species of the century plant (agave), which were prepared in the same way.
Later on the large green fruit of the soapweed, or datila (pl. X,f), a plant similar in appearance to both of the above mentioned, either roasted thoroughly in


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the ashes or else boiled, were esteemed quite as much as the yucca pods. Both forms of food are still prepared, in their seasons, the century plants, however, more rarely, because not native to the present habitat of the Zuñis. So important were the two former sources of food considered, that they were credited with having possessed, in the mystic days, conscious existence and extremely jealous dispositions. Doubtless their jealousy and virulence were attributed from the observed fact that either was equal to the other as food, and both were poisonous if eaten raw. As illustrative of this belief, you will not infrequently hear some old member of the Zuñi household tell the youngsters stories like the following, which, although absurd, are curious and ridiculous enough to cause universal laughter and clapping of tiny hands. The old worthy mentioned, very likely with his mouth full of the boiled fruits, will champ a little faster and exclaim:

"Oh yes, little ones, by the way! Did you ever know that in ancient times, when plants and animals talked, some na'-pi-an-we


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[palmitas] and su'-pi-an'-we [datilas] dwelt on two opposite mesas and grew extremely quarrelsome with one another?

"Well, it was this way: You see, as the pods grew big on the Palmitas and the fruit swelled out on the Datilas, they kept looking across at one another until the biggest and oldest Datila bent over in the breeze and sang out:

"'Au Na'-pi-an-we'. Na'-pi-an-we'!

Sho-lo a'-kwi! Sho-lo a'kwi!'"

"'O. Palmita-pods, Palmita-pods!

Your ribs are split! Your ribs are split!'"

"'Listen, father; listen,' said the young Palmitas. 'The Datilas over there are scolding us, and calling us "Split-ribs.'"

"'Wait a bit,' said the old Palmita, 'and I'll give them back as good as they send.' Whereupon he stretched himself up and retorted:

"'Su-pi-an'-we, Su-pi-an'-we,

Ha-k'i tsu'-kwi! Ha-k'i tsu'-kwi'"

"'Datila, Datila, Your forehead is blood-stained! Your forehead

is bloodstained!'"

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"That's the way the plants of the Beloved scolded one another in the days beyond guessing, but all the same the na'pi-an-we keep splitting down the belly, and the su'-pi-an'-we grow very red at the ends of their noses where the sun strikes them, even to this day."

With the close of summer, during the middle part of which and the latter, rare but copious rains have fallen, behold the deserts of the Southwest! Weeds, grasses, and shrubbery are spread out abundantly, albeit brokenly, all over the vast sand plains, vying even more richly with the dark woodlands on the elevated, wide mesas. In the cañons and down the mountain slopes grow with an evanescent aspiration to forest grandeur, yet in tangled dwarfishness, the wild fruit trees and nutoaks. The dust-shrouded world has suddenly turned "blue with the mist-laden breaths from Summerland!" so say the Zuñis of this verdure. Everywhere the "fields of the Beloved" are ripening their harvests. I may not then, longer follow ancient Zuñi in the order of his gathering.


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I have thought well, therefore, of telling rather in the order of their simplicity as food, first how he availed himself of the natural fruits and nuts of the forests and valleys, then how he collected and manipulated the sterner stuffs and seeds which required the exercise of his crude genius and industrial art to their fullest; to render them fit food for his palate, however undiscriminating this may have been judged in the preceding recipes of dish-shifts.

First to ripen, first, too, in importance among the fruits, was the datila, called tsu'-pi-a-we (see pl. X,f) instead of su'-pi-a-we, on account of its blushing color when ripe. Few who have not visited the Southwest in autumn imagine that, dry and sterile though it be throughout most of the year, a fruit rivaling in its size, shape, color, and exceeding sweetness the banana, grows there in abundance on the warmer plains. Yellow and red, this long, pulpy fruit hangs in clusters so heavy that they bend or sometimes break the stalks that bear them. Yet, however delicious, these, like the fruit I have compared them with, may not be


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eaten raw in large quantity with impunity, for their effects on the digestion are, though opposite, equally summary. Tempted by their rare sweetness, ancient Zuñi must have early discovered how to remedy this defect, by pleasing his taste--as predatory school-boys do with green apples--in chewing but not swallowing the datilas, for we find that exactly this process is the initiatory step toward rendering the pulp harmless, equally delicious, and even more nutritious than it is in a state of nature.

After great stores of the fruit had been gathered in little, square burden-baskets by the men and heaped in shady, cool places, it was peeled by the women and thoroughly masticated. By this means not only were the seeds separated from the pulp, but the latter was thus made ready to be set away in water-tight basket-bowls for fermentation. By fermentation an agreeable pungent taste was added and the saliva acting on the glutinous or mucilaginous ingredients heightened the sweetness. The process was stopped by excessive boiling, which reduced the pulp to homogenous


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paste, which on cooling was kneaded into little, flat cakes. The latter, when partially dried were pounded together and rolled into large cylinders. In the course of time these cylinders grow quite solid and gummy, and semi-translucent like the gelatin ink rollers used by printers. In taste the food resembles black licorice. A little slice being hacked off was immersed in two or three quarts of water. When thoroughly soaked, it was stirred, churned, squeezed, and strained, until a dark-red, pasty fluid was formed, than which hardly any delicacy known to the ancient Zuñis ranked more highly or commanded such extravagant bargains in barter with the surrounding tribes.

The possible rival of tsu'-pi-a-we was made from the hearts of the mescal plant or the mature agave. When large quantities of these cabbage-like hearts had been gathered, great pits were dug in gravelly knolls. Within and around the pits, fires were built, which were kept burning whole days or nights. When the ground had been thoroughly heated, the mescal hearts


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were thrown in on a layer of coarser leaves of the same plant, with which they were also covered. They were then buried deep in the hot gravel. Huge fires were kept burning over the mounds thus formed until the mescals were considered done.

Meanwhile crowds gathered, dances of a semi-sacred, though not very refined nature, were celebrated, and the pits were opened amid universal rejoicing. The time was divided between riotous feasting and serious mastication of the baked, already very sweet leaves, to separate them from the fiber. The pulp or paste thus formed was spread out thinly over large mats (pl. X i), and when dried could be conveniently rolled up for transportation. Another and more wholesome method was pursued, if the quantity furnished by the pit proved too much for the maxillary powers of the party. This was to pound the leaves, and, if necessary, moisten them slightly to give them a pulpy consistency, and thus spread and dry them on the plaited mats. Although much less valued by the Indians, this kind of food was toothsome and more


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nutritious, perhaps, than any other ancient preparation.23

In dry season or wet, there was one class of fruit that rarely failed, hence we find modern ceremonial and ancient folklore teeming with allusions to it--the cactus. Of the many varieties of this plant growing in the Southwest, three were especially fruitful, bearing juicy, plump berries of an acid-sweet taste peculiarly agreeable during the hot dry season in which they ripened. Of these the kâ-shi, or formidable club cactus, bore the largest and perhaps sweetest fruit (tui'-a-we), of a brilliant although dark scarlet color, and in shape and size not unlike gumbo. The shu'-ne-po and me'-wi (pl. X, g), two varieties of the low-lying chain cactus, bore red and yellow fruit which, though smaller, was more luxuriant and less spiny, hence preferred.

On account of the barbed spines which arm the cactus and its product, and which had the unpleasant quality of sinking deeper and deeper into the flesh once fixed in it, special apparatus had to be employed for gathering the berries or pods. A picker


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was made of flexible wood, slitted as are the bark-peelers used by willow weavers, and forming long tweezers with which the fruit was grasped (pl. X, j). The baskets used were closely woven, quadrangular, although somewhat flat, to fit the back, and gradually tapering from the large opening toward the bottom. They were supported by a band or strap which passed around the forehead or over the shoulders (pl. X, a). Leaves or grasses were thrown in to prevent the spines from piercing through the meshes.

When a basketful had been gathered it was carried home and emptied upon a bed of clean sand. With two flat sticks the fruit was then stirred about in the sand until divested of its spines, after which it was eaten raw, dried, or roasted slightly in the ashes as an additional security against the spines. Large quantities were gathered for preservation by drying, but as the fruit thus prepared was liable to injury by worms, it was usually ground on a mealing-slab (pl. X, d), and either stored away in skin bags, to be used in connection with other material for bread-making later on,


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or formed into huge cakes by the addition of water which rendered it adhesive so as to be easily molded in baskets.

Undoubtedly, many generations later these fruits of the cactus played a leading part in the food economy of the Zuñis, and apparently commemorative of this is a highly picturesque dance usually celebrated by the modern Zuñis in early spring and called the "Beings of Old." In this dance, besides other characters, are represented an ancient woman with a narrow, hollow-cheeked, remarkably long and prominent-chinned mask, gray frizzled hair, a tattered cloak, and short worn skirt, which although made of cloth, evidently represents the prehistoric costume of the tribe. Her feet (with the exception of makeshift moccasins representing sandals) and arms are bare, although painted like the mask, pink. Strapped to her back is a hu'-tche-pon, or one of the quadrangular burden-baskets previously described, and in her right hand she carries one of the forked wooden cactus-tweezers, while she grasps with her left hand, as if for support, a long,


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wooden staff like a shepherd's crook. This character is called Ya-a-na tui'-ash-na O'-k'iÄt-si-ki, or the "Ancient moon-woman cactus-picker." During the performance of the ceremonial, she wanders about, industriously striving to overtake an equally grotesque character who as ceaselessly eludes her pursuit. This latter is a man whose face and head are covered with a cylindrical rawhide mask painted green, the eyes being represented by diminutive, elongated, square holes, while a huge black beak well serrated and toothed represents his nose and mouth. The crown of his mask is entirely covered with leaves and branches of the green cactus, on which are seen, temptingly red among the spines, the tui'-a-we, or ripe fruit. As the cactus, on account of its warlike spines, is assigned, by the mythology of the Zuñis, a place in the martial priesthood of plants, this man, clothed in the ceremonial garments of the sacred Zuñi dance (which are of cotton beautifully embroidered), bears in his left hand the insignia of war--a bow and several arrows, and in his right a rattle with


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which he teases his pursuer. Two other figures among the dramatis personae of this dance claim our attention because related to the pair described. They are, one of the corn beings masked and bearing in either hand an ear of corn, and a man, dancing ever near, whose face is covered with a smiling, conical, pink mask, whose hair is bound with a fillet of yucca fiber, whose costume is a many-colored blanket cape and embroidered cotton kilt, and who carries, as emblematic of his office, a little wooden hoe of the ancient style' (see the initial). While the "Old Moon Woman" and the "Cactus Being" ceaselessly pursue and elude each other, the "Corn Being" and the "Cultivator of Corn" dance with the other characters in sublime indifference. All this is wonderfully poetic and significant, if, as it seems, it represents the personified conflict between the wild fruits of the nomadic Zuñis and the cultivated harvests of their sedentary descendants; and that this significance is as it seems is indicated surely by the wild, triumphant song-notes of the "Corn Being" and its


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follower, and the querulous cries of the baffled cactus-picker.24

Among the sandy defiles of the upper plains, mesas, and mountains, grow abundant low bushes bearing very juicy little yellow berries called k'ia'-po-li mo'-we, or the "juice-filled fruitage." These berries were in high favor with the ancient Zuñis as food. They were collected in great quantities and boiled or stewed, forming a sweet but acrid sauce which, although not quite so acid, resembled otherwise the cranberry.

Another favorite berry was the small and equally acrid fruit of the wild currant, called in Zuñi ke-la shi'-u-ni, or the "first to leaf out," which grew along the edges of malpais mesas in verdant luxuriance rare to be seen in the Southwest.
Like the two latter, the chokecherry or "bitter hanging-fruit" formed the ingredient of frequent sauces.
The wild plum, or si'-lu-e-la mo'-we, was used not only in the raw and stewed state, but was also dried and preserved for after use.

A much more abundant fruit, very sweet


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and aromatic in flavor, was the ta'-kwi mo'-we, or cedar-berries. They were collected in large quantities, boiled, roasted, or dried and ground to form the meal with which were made several varieties of cake, and which will be mentioned with other preparations farther on.

In late autumn enormous quantities of sweet, diminutive acorns were gathered from the dwarf oaks which everywhere grew in the mountains of the Southwest, and still more plentiful stores of the he'-sho k'u'-we, or piñon-nuts, which were borne in prodigal plenitude on the low piñon trees of almost every mesa or mountain plateau. These nuts, together with the o'-ma-tsa-pa k'u'-we, or wild sunflower seed, were treated similarly in preparation for food and will be briefly referred to in future paragraphs, as will also the following list of seeds, upon which, more than on all else, depended the ancient Zuñi for his vegetable food supply. I therefore beg that my reader will kindly bear in mind the names by which these seeds are distinguished from one another.

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First among them was the k'u-shu-tsi, a kind of purslane or portulaca, not unlike the garden pests of the same genus in the East. This plant bore plentifully a small, black, very starchy and white-kerneled seed. It was gathered by pulling the plants just before the seed had ripened, then drying and threshing them either by agitation or by pounding them over mats or screens. A method of gathering such seeds as had advanced too far toward maturity was to sweep up the surface, usually sandy, of the ground on which they grew, dust and all, and afterward to carefully winnow the seeds from the soil.

An equally important seed, though less abundant, was borne by the suthl'-to-k'ia, a certain round-topped weed resembling in its grain stalks and foliage the common pigweed or goosefoot of the East, but more bushy, yet undoubtedly belonging to the Chenopodium genus. Quite a different method was pursued in harvesting the grains of this plant. As the bushes grew somewhat above the surface of the ground, the seeds were threshed and collected at


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once by placing a closely-woven, large, shallow tray near each promising bush and energetically slapping the latter with a wicker fan or scoop. Hardly excepting the piñon-nut and sunflower-seed, this grain is probably the richest and most delicious ever known either to the ancient or modern Zuñi, and its disuse as a source of food must undoubtedly be attributed rather to the difficulty attending its production than to any lack of quality.

Another plant, blue-leafed, but otherwise resembling the last described, probably not, however, of the same genus, furnished seeds which although less rich and oily were, if we may trust tradition and their taste, more meritorious, and, in fact, as nearly like corn as any of the wild varieties of grain used by primitive Zuñis. Hence the archaic name by which it was distinguished, mi'-ta-li-k'o, signifies as nearly as may be determined by its etymology, "father-in-law of corn." These seeds were gathered as were those of the suthl'-to-k'ia.

Two grasses, among several varieties which might be mentioned as sources of


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supply to the ancient Zuñi, one the te'-shu-ko-na ("that searched for"), or a kind of wild rice, and the other pish'-shu-li-a ("sweep rush"), or a feathery grass, both of which grew on the wet lands of the Southwest, furnished rich grains. The height to which these plants grew enabled the women to sweep the seeds into the large conical panniers (pl. x, b) without unswinging the latter from their backs.

Last of this long list, and perhaps most important, as the actual predecessor of the modern bean, although very rarely made into bread, was the no-k'iÄ-mo-li-a, or wild pea, more properly bean than pea, although shaped, it must be confessed, like the latter.

These various nuts and seeds were quite similarly prepared for food, and several varieties of them were not infrequently compounded to form a single kind of bread or cake. For this reason I have not dealt with them separately, as with the bark, root, and fruit products, but have deemed it better to make, as it were, a brief chapter of the cookery of which they formed the material basis.

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> CHAPTER VII
NA'-NA-KWE A-WEN I'-Tâ-WE, OR THE "FOOD OF THE GRANDFATHERS"

[Illustration: The initial capital is ornate, and illustrated with a small design.]

LET us suppose that the lines of the last chapter extend far over these; for as the age of a father lingers on into the early manhood of his son, so did many of the arts and industries of the hunter Zuñi (see fig. 3) survive, and commingle with those fostered by the horticulture of his farmer descendants. The line which divides one era of culture from another is as vague as a twilight shadow: as well try to define the boundary between daylight and darkness in an evening sky. As indefinitely separated, then, though different their names, these chapters.

So long continued and often interrupted was the labor of collecting the various nuts and seeds described in the last chapter, that


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they were dried, almost as fast as gathered, by toasting. The means whereby this toasting, or more properly parching, was effected, were ingenious, but the method most laborious. Into one of the shallow trays, which the reader will remember were plastered with clay freely tempered by the addition of grit to keep it from cracking (pl. x, h), a quantity of glowing wood coals


[Illustration: An illustration of a Zuñi hunter in front of his dwelling.]




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was placed, together with two or three quarts of the seeds or nuts. The operator, quickly squatting, grasped the tray at opposite edges, and with a rapid, spiral-wise motion of the basket, kept the grain and coals dancing separately round and round, yet almost touching one another, meanwhile puffing the embers with every breath to keep them alive and free from ashes. So dextrously was all this done that the grains were evenly browned, yet none of them scorched; and the frail basket, protected by the thin coating of clay grown hard by long use, was never burned by the fiercest heat of the moving coals. If thus the seeds were rendered more palatable, less liable, when long kept, to germinate, readily tractable on the mealing stone, how much more owed the later Zuñis to this early industry. For with the separation from its osier matrix of the thin clay lining, baked hard enough in some instances to form a vessel by itself--lo! is born the potter's art.25 And probably from this crude beginning, by easy, yet lingering steps, all the marvelous beauty and perfection


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of Pueblo fictile productions were matured. Most probably did I say? Most certainly I may now say; for the spirally built cooking-pot of the older Southwestern ruins (pl. XI, b) was but the reproduction in clay--rough surface, zigzag ornamentation, and all--of the spirally woven basket-bottle (a), the name of which earlier object lingered on to distinguish the "basket in clay" as but the offshoot of the basket in osiers. In no other way can the angular the other extremely conventional features of the ancient Pueblo ceramic decorations be explained than by referring them to the imitation of basketry patterns, themselves the mere outgrowth of discolored splint lines. Moreover, by a similar train of reasoning it is seen that the Pueblos owed, too, the art and patterns of weaving--embroidery and all--to basketry, proof almost positive of which exists today in the etymology of the names, of stitches and designs.

Does the reader then, realize with me, how far-reaching has been the influence of our breadstuff?

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[Illustration: An illustration of six various implements used in cooking.]

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Such portions of the parched seeds and nuts as were required for immediate use were stored in bags about the edges of the lodge, which bags were of varying colors or materials to distinguish their contents, and were used by day as seats, by night as pillows. The remainder of the grain was carried away to the granaries. These were formed by stopping up the crevices and plastering with mud the interiors of any suitable holes in the cliffs that happened to be protected by overhanging rocks, which, when filled, were closed with rude masonry, of such ingeniously selected materials that the completed depositories were almost indistinguishable from formations around them. Before the mud-plastering with which these half-natural bins were cemented was dried, the owner stamped into it with the tips of his fingers, not only figures indicating the varieties of the contents, but sometimes special marks of ownership, or totems, which latter were as faithfully respected as is the seal among ourselves. Thus at once the grains were disposed of, or protected from moisture and the inroads


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of seed-devouring animals, hidden from the enemy and recorded in kind, as property. From this latter practice it is probable that the system of pictography or symbolism was developed, which was so far elaborated in latter ages as to become expressive mnemonically even of mythic conception, and to which there came to be attributed supernatural origin and magic efficacy. The explorer of the Southwest, sometimes miles away from the ancient sites to which they pertained, discovers now and then these diminutive granaries of the cliffs; and often they are found to contain perfectly preserved, if spared by granivorous creatures, examples not only of the seeds heretofore described, but of others which it has been deemed unnecessary to mention.

The piñon-nuts and acorns were rarely used alone for bread-making but, like the sunflower-seeds and suthl'-to-k'ai grain, which were extremely rich in oil, were added to the meal of the more starchy varieties as seasoning or "shortening." The nuts and sunflower-seeds were shucked by being reheated in the roasting-tray,


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and, while still hot, rolled lightly under the muller, or molina, on a coarse slab of lava. The brittle shells were broken by this slight pressure, while the oily meats, rendered soft by the warmth, came out clean and perfect. In this shape they were usually eaten. If designed for thickening soups or stews, which purpose they served admirably, or for use as shortening, they were carefully parched yet again until friable, then slightly ground on a fine-grained stone. So rich were the sunflower and suthl'-to-k'ia seeds that no amount of drying made it possible to reduce them to meal except in the condition of paste. As such, however, they were formed with the fingers into little patti-cakes which, laid on leaves, or hardened by roasting deep buried in the ashes, were eaten with other food in the place of meat, supplying the lack of the latter, at least to the taste, most admirably.
The dryer, more starchy seeds, such as the mi'-tÄ-li-k'o k'u'-shu-tsi, or purslane, wild rice, and various grass-grains, were of course readily ground and were susceptible of being made into


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a great variety of mushes, breads, and cakes.

For mush, the meal was left coarse and added to boiling water until a thick, sticky mass was formed, to stir which was no longer possible. Whatever of this half-cooked mush happened to be left over, was rolled into balls, flattened out and dried, or baked on the embers in which measure of economy arose, no doubt, the earliest suggestion of bread. Bread of other kinds soon followed as a few selected recipes might well show; but let us first consider some kindred culinary inventions.

It will be borne in mind that these ancients had to effect the boiling of foods with hot stones. Doubtless surviving many efforts to thoroughly cook mush in this way without either filling it with grit or wasting it, were two methods deserving of attention. Some coarse meal was moistened with hot water sufficiently to render it adhesive. This was thoroughly kneaded and rolled into little, elongate balls or cylinders. These cylinders were then encased in leaves and thrown into the boiling


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basket--together with the heating stones--until sufficiently cooked, when they were dipped up with a wicker scoop. After the stones had been fished out, the fluid remaining, now thick, like gruel or gravy, was allowed to settle, when all of it was poured off except the sandy dregs, and served with the lumps of mush or dumplings. Occasionally little slices or fragments of jerked meat were incased in the meal cylinders to give variety; or, not infrequently meal of juniper berries was kneaded in to impart its sweet taste and aromatic flavor. Both of the former varieties of boiled bread were sometimes seasoned with sprigs of cedar by throwing the latter into the water as the boiling progressed.

Griddle cakes were made by cooking as much as possible, fine and coarse meal equally blended, with scalding water. The resulting paste or batter was poured over hot, well-polished slabs of sandstone.

"Stone-cakes" were made in the same way, except that as a preliminary to the baking, huge sandwiches composed of alternating layers of hot sandstone slabs


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and batter (pl. XI, c) were built up, carefully inclosed in a casing of larger slabs cemented with mud, and buried in a hot pit over which a fire was built. These cakes were made sweet, very like "Indian pudding," although more solid, by the addition to the paste of wild honey, or by the mastication and fermentation of a portion of it previously to the baking.

Sometimes for the baking of separate loaves, these little pits were lined with flat stones set up edgewise around the sides. A rock of lava, if possible, was provided for the lid, and thus was completed the earliest style of oven known to the primitive Zuñis.
By far their most perfect oven, however, was the smaller of their granaries. These natural cavities which art had but completed as receptacles, were seldom used for baking, save when great feasts or long journeys made requisite large quantities of bread. This bread was mixed like mush with the addition of sour dough or stone-cake to make it rise. It was kneaded into little lumps not exceeding ordinary cookies in size, but much thicker. Meanwhile a


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fire was kept burning in the oven (or granary) until the surrounding rock was thoroughly heated, when the brands and coals were withdrawn, the cavity swept out with wisps of cedar-brush, and the little lumps of dough, now swollen, laid in, row after row, with long, spatula-shaped staves. The opening was closed with a sandstone slab, every crevice perfectly cemented with mud, and the whole thing left to itself while the sun traveled one long "step" through the sky. At the end of this time the "closing stone" was broken down and the loaves taken out--dark-blue or brownish-gray in color, but thoroughly done and as palatable as any bread since devised by even the most modern Zuñis.

The last described class of seeds and breadstuffs held with these ancients the place filled today by corn; yet long after the introduction of the latter grain they continued in use. Even now, when a rainy season has made them especially abundant, the Zuñis collect large quantities particularly of the k'u'-shu-tsi, which they store away for use in the sense that


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"a little leaveneth the whole mass" of their corn-foods. They affirm that by thus nourishing themselves with how little soever of the food of their forefathers, they partake of the hardihood, courage, wisdom, and possibly some of the supernatural qualities with which they fail not to endow their remote ancestors. How long the ancient Zuñis lived, as here described, on the products of nature and the chase alone, we know not, nor may we ever know; but of this we may be certain, that the scenes and generations of their life shifted many times during that lengthened period, and that contemporaneously with their organization into true clans or tribes, or at any rate early in their history as such, they became to a certain extent horticulturists. Evidence there is that with their first coming to the desert country, they had to displace, or at least to guard against, the incursions of a ruder people, hence the remains of their older villages are perched among the most isolated and grim lava mesas, far out of reach, and often near caves or over tremendous fissures. When, in the course of time,


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peace ensued and it became possible for them to leave the malpais wastes and descend into the fertile valleys, they adopted and cultivated corn, beans, the squash, and possibly one or two other plants. It was during this middle period, as we may call it, that, no longer fearful of any enemy, they divided into little clans or large totemic families, following whithersoever moisture of soil, presence of water, or other requisites for their limited cultivation, led them. Hence everywhere we find, broadly scattered within the region claimed by tradition as at one time or another their habitat, the ruins of single houses, little or large.

It is interesting to note in this connection the evidence of language. The Zuñi name for a Navaho lodge, which is a sort of beehive-shaped structure built of sticks and earth, is "leaf-lodge" or "brush-roof." We may infer from this that the earliest form of hut among the Zuñis was shaped like the Navaho hogan, but roofed with leaves, bark, or brushes. The most ancient name for a house, now restricted to the sense of


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a wall, was he'-sho-ta, from he'-sho, wax, and sho'-tai-e, leaned together circularly. This points to the lava regions, the rocks of which resembled wax, and were doubtless the first used for building. The modern name for a house is k'ia'-kwin-ne, from k'ia'-we, water, and kwin, the place of, which indicates that the first regular houses were single and distributed according to the occurrence of water in any way. Again, the name of an upper story or room is osh'-te-nu-thlan, from o'shte, a rock-shelter or shallow cave, and u'-thla-nai-e, surrounding or built around. This evidences exactly what the ruins of the scattered houses do, namely, that at the beginning of the peace of the middle period these houses were one-storied. As time went on and the cultivation which characterized this period was developed, distant, more savage tribes--the Bedouin element of Desert America--tempted by the rich plunder offered by the little isolated farm-houses, descended upon them, driving the inhabitants to seek shelter, not in the lava regions where their all-important corn


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could not be raised, but among the cliffs as near their farms as possible. Here, on shelves or under shallow grottoes, which everywhere characterize the sandstones cañons of the Southwest, they built like swallow nests the first "cliff-houses," the necessity of finding shelter for the whole clan leading to the construction of second and even third stories against the rock wall of the cliff. Naturally this portion of the dwelling took the name most characteristic of it--as the portion "built around the cave roof." We have only to suppose that when, in an interval of peace, the cliff fugitives descended to rebuild their farmhouses, the idea of the second story was carried with them, and that its first name, slightly modified, remained, as it has even to this day. Conformable to all this is the testimony furnished by the later house-ruins of the middle period, which are sometimes two and even three stories in height.

Finally, when (as will be shown in a future page) the necessity for mutual protection compelled these scattered clans of house-builders to confederate into tribe-


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communities and become village-builders, or Pueblos, they named each huge, huddled structure, thlu'-ellon-ne, which derivatively signifies, "many standing together."

I have ventured these details because they bear very directly on all that relates to even the daily lives of those whom they concern. The introduction of horticulture, for instance, enabled the Zuñis to build and live permanently, which fostered the cultivation of arts and industries, customs, etc., before limited or unknown. The rude, half-spherical cooking vessels, first made of spirally woven grasses and osiers, then of spirally built ropes of clay, assumed now more regular and ornate forms. The necessity of frequent change of location no longer existing, this pottery was not subjected to the frequent breakage of journeys, hence gradually replaced the canteen, water-bottle, boiling-vessel and roasting-trays of wicker. The mealing-stone, formerly propped up over a mat or skin (see pl. X, e), was now permanently built into a stone bin out in front of or inside the huts; the dome-shaped oven, sometimes of


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gigantic proportions, though rarely, replaced the hole in the ground and the recess in the rocks, as the fire for stone-heating was replaced by the sunken, flueless hearth in a corner of the dwelling room. Within the little recesses of this room, or in separate smaller apartments, was stored the grain, both wild and cultivated, and with these improvements, slight howsoever they


[Illustration: An illustration of several ancient dome-shaped ovens.]




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may seem, the medieval Zuñi had already advanced far toward his ultimate barbaric status of culture.

Although he continued to gather and prepare wild fruits, nuts, and grains, one added source of supply--corn--outweighed them all; for was it not the author of his improvements, the object of his affection, care and devotion, the sure promise of his mastery of the desert?

We may now turn to the foods he made of it. Most easily rendered suitable among these were the green-corn preparations. As with ourselves, the ears were roasted on the coals (or, as he had it, "ripened"), or boiled in his little narrow-necked pots of clay.
The delicacy of the year was the far-famed succotash, made by scraping the milky kernels from the ears, mingling them with little round beans, which had now come to be domesticated, and with bits of fresh meat, the whole being seasoned with salt, thickened with sunflower-seeds, suthl'-to-k'ia, or piñon-nut meal, and boiled until reduced to an almost homogeneous stew.
A little dish, then and long after


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common to the Zuñis, still a favorite with their distant, primitive neighbors, the Havasupai, than which no green-corn cookery of civilization can boast anything more delicious, was made by scraping the kernels off in great quantity, grinding them excessively in their own milk with sunflower seeds and green squash. Sprinkled with salt, this paste was boiled until evaporation left it thick and gelatinous like curdled milk, although more adhesive when warm, more solid when cold.

Of course the baked corn --not baked in underground ovens, but in the abandoned granaries of a former period or in the dome ovens [see pl. XIV, XV] nearer at hand--was well known.

After the corn was ripened, two modes of making it eatable were extremely simple. Still on the ear it was toasted, or, in the kernel, parched. In several ways this parching was accomplished. Crudest of all these was burial and constant stirring in hot ashes; but the favorite process was to half fill a thle'-mon-ne, or black, shallow roasting pot or pan (pl. XI, d), with clean, dry


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sand. The pot was then set over the fire until the sand became thoroughly heated, when the corn was poured in and constantly stirred with a bundle of hard-wood sprigs (e) so loosely tied at the middle that they could be spread apart in order that the sand and corn might readily pass between them. When well browned and swollen, a judicious shaking of the toasting vessel brought all the kernels to the top, whence they were easily separated from the sand.
Of the corn thus parched, a highly concentrated and nutritious substance was made, the grains first being cracked, re-toasted, and then ground to fine flour.
A little of this flour stirred into cold water made a gruel which required no cooking and was capable alone of sustaining life throughout extended journeys, where lightness of burden and ease of preparation were prime requisites.
Mixed with water and sweetened by a means heretofore described, or happily by the addition of ground licorice-root, fermented and slightly boiled, it made a thin syrup or sweet gruel (tsa'-shi-we), ever the favorite at the Zuñi evening feast.

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When the corn was designed for consumption without further preparation than by the parching, salt, if abundant enough, was used in place of the sand, imparting to the kernels roasted in it a delicate seasoning unattainable by the cruder methods first described.

Simplest of cereal foods, as it was, one variety or another of this parched corn formed one of the chief articles of diet with not only the people here described, but among all the more advanced tribes of ancient America; in proof of which one need not search far into the chronicles of our early explorers and pioneers to find repeated mention of it. Nor are the monuments of prehistoric times scant in their testimonials of its universality. Among the forest middens of central New York, in the ashes of excavated mounds along the Mississippi valley, frequently in the granaries, cliff-ruins, and caves of the great Southwest, and even in the collections from the huacas of ancient Peru, I have found these toasted grains carbonized by age, yet preserved unbroken long after the


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very bones of the hands that poised the pot they were parched in have crumbled to lime.

[Illustration: An illustration of three examples of Zuñi pottery.]

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> CHAPTER VIII
"THE YOUNG MEN WHO WERE FOND OF PARCHED CORN AND SWEET GRUEL, OR THE FOUR AWKWARD SUITORS"

[Illustration: The initial capital is illustrated as two Zuñi young men, one sitting in front of a bowl with his leg extended representing the base of the letter "L" and the other standing over the man who is sitting down, representing the back of the letter "L".]

LITTLE wonders--if we consider its importance as indicated by the closing lines of the last chapter--that parched corn and its chief productions should have entered into the mystic folklore and legendary fancies of the people who most prized it. So in winter time, when the corn grains, sputtering petulantly over the embers, remind the sitters by the Zuñi fireside that they may soon crack the kernels for which their mouths never fail to water at such times, some old fellow who is debarred from the coming feast by lack of teeth consoles himself by telling a tale like the following,


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which the Zuñis call "The Young Men Who Were Ford of Parched Corn and Sweet Gruel, or The Four Awkward Suitors."

In ancient times, though not very many men's ages ago, there stood in the valley of the Great Flowing Waters (El Rio Grande del Norte, of eastern New Mexico) four towns. One of them was where San Felipe now stands, another over the mountains to the eastward where people now gather turquoises, the third away to the northward, and toward the southward the fourth. Who can tell the names of all these towns? I cannot, for they were not the homes of our ancestors. But anybody who will look where they were will see their ruins, and many others between, on the bluffs and in the mountains along the valley of the Great Flowing Waters.

Well, in those days there lived We'-thlu-ella-kwin (that was the name of Old San Felipe, you know) an aged and rich cacique who had an only daughter. This maiden was thought the prettiest of her tribe. She was proud, and when she went down to the river of an evening to get


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water, she spoke to none of the young men who waited to see her along the way. She always carried the handsomest jar, and wore the whitest moccasins, and the finest dresses and blankets in the pueblo. This it was that made her so haughty, and hence no young man in the town where she lived dared ask her to look upon him with the light of favor in her eyes.

In the northern pueblo lived at that time a young man who was a good hunter and had blankets and shell beads of his own. He was very timid and bashful, this young man. Yet once he had seen in the dance at Old San Felipe the cacique's daughter. He was never contented after that. One autumn morning he made up a bundle of deer-skins and necklaces. Then he said to his old ones:

"Oh, my fathers and mothers, I have seen the maiden of We'-thlu-ella-kwin. She is beautiful, and I think of her all days."

The old ones were surprised, but said, "Son, be it well."

He took the bundle and started south that day. It was a long way, but at sunset


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he neared the cornfields that surrounded Old San Felipe, and a little after dark stole into the plaza which fronted the house of the cacique. The house was large and the old cacique had relatives, among them many young men--nearly all married--but who were fond of sitting in his house autumn and winter evenings and smoking, as they told stories in the light of the fire, for the old man was merry and hospitable.

Well, the young man looked at the windows of the house. The red light was shining brilliantly through them. "Ha!" said he in his heart, "The house is full of visitors, else why do the fires burn so brightly. What shall I say when I go in? Oh yes; I will say, 'My fathers and mothers, my sisters, friends, and brothers, how are you these many days?'" This he kept repeating to himself, as a novice does prayers before his initiation. Meanwhile he peered in at the windows. They were very small and high, and he could see only the feet of the sitters. "Possibly I know some of them," thought he. "If I should, that would make it easier for me to go in,


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I'll just climb the ladder and peep down the sky-hole." He hastily slipped the burden-strap from his forehead and slung the bundle over his shoulder, then cautiously clambered to the roof and crept over to the sky-hole. Placing one hand on one side and the other on the other, he gently let himself down until he could see the shins of the visitors. He stretched down a little farther and could now see their knees and the chins of some of the short ones. "Only a little farther," thought he, when suddenly the bundle, giving way, knocked him on his head, his hands slipped, and, poor fellow! down he tumbled, end over end, into the room below. He jumped up--he did not know what to say. Then he bethought himself and cried out. "Oh yes; I--I mean, my--my fathers and mothers, my sisters and brothers, how are you these many days?" Everybody was surprised, but they now began to laugh so hard that the bashful boy, losing heart, fled headlong up the ladder. That was the last they saw of him, for he ran home and never had courage to try again.

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Now, a young man who lived in the pueblo on the Turquoise mountain happened to hear the cacique's relatives telling the story of the bashful northern fellow. "Ha-ha, wa-ha!" he laughed with the rest; but he thought, "What a stupid fool! If I had been in his place, I should have walked right in. What's the use of being bashful like a little boy or a young girl?" He thought so much of this that he decided at last himself to make a trial, and told his parents. The old ones were well pleased. So the young man made a bundle with many turquoise beads and other precious things in it. One day he too started, and when he came in front of the cacique's house that night, the light, sure enough, was shining as brightly as before. "But," thought the young man, "what care I?" He bravely climbed the ladder, did not even stop to say, "Are ye in?" but slid down the step-log, marched into the middle of the room where the light shone on him (and his bundle), and said:

"My fathers and mothers, my sisters and brothers, how are you these many days?"

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"Happy! happy!" cried the people. "Sit down, sit down;" while the old man looked up and said:

"Whence come you, my lad?"

"From the Turquoise mountains," answered the young man with great confidence.

"Daughter," said the old man; "come, the young man is a stranger and must be hungry. It is the daughter's place to spread food before the hungry stranger."

The daughter arose and went to the mill trough. There she had placed a fresh tray of parched corn. Now this young man was particularly fond of parched corn, and, moreover, he was very hungry after his long journey. Yet he knew he could eat but little, for he feared giving the impression that he was a heavy feeder--as all young men do when they go out courting!26

The maiden placed the tray of corn before him, and said with a smile, "Eat."

"It is well, thank you," replied the young man. He stretched out his hand, taking a kernel or two, and after he had thus eaten very deliberately for a little while, he said, "Thanks." Yet all the


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while he had been thinking to himself, "If I could only eat all I wanted of this parched corn! How can I eat all I want? Never mind, I will watch and see where she puts it;" so he only said, "Thanks."

"Eat more and be satisfied," said the maiden and the old mother.

"Oh, thank you!" he replied, "I have eaten to satisfaction."

So the girl took the tray away, and placed it near the trough. The young man watched her closely, and the old man looked over toward the old woman and raised his eyebrows, as much as to say, "See how he watches our daughter! Very well, he has many turquoises, and I hope that will satisfy our proud daughter."

The young men who had been smoking with the cacique before the stranger came in, pretended to be sleepy.

"Look here," cried one; "it must be late!" He went over to the sky-light and glanced up. "Why, sure enough!" he exclaimed. "The stars are in the middle of the sky!" With that they all arose, and, throwing on their blankets, said


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"Good-night," and went to the "various homes of their relatives-in-law." It was not late, you know, but they knew what the young man had come for.

After they had gone, the old man turned to the youth and said, "Have a cigarette and smoke with me."

As the young man filled the cigarette the old one continued, "It cannot be thinking of nothing that you come so far to the house of a stranger!"

"Quite true," said the young man, as he lit the cigarette; and he seemed to be thinking of something, indeed, for he turned absently toward the mealing-trough.

"And what may it be that you came thinking of?" said the old man.

"Well, 'hem, well," said the young man, "I am--that is--I came with thoughts of your daughter."

"Daughter," said the cacique, looking toward the maiden, "Daughter, listen; you have heard; what think you?"

"As my old ones think, so think I," said the girl, quite meekly--for a few days


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before they had spoken to her about being too proud toward the young men.

"Be it well, my son," said the old man; "you hear what the daughter has said." For a long time the young man was silent, and the old cacique thought he was bashful. "Pass the night with us," said he, at last; and turning to his old wife, who was napping against the wall, he added, "Old girl, is it not about time to stretch out?"

The sleepy old woman roused herself and spread a buffalo-skin and some blankets on the floor in the far corner, and there the old people lay down and soon were rasping away through their noses--thle-lo-lo, thle-lo-lo-k'ea--as soundly asleep as though no stranger had entered the house. Then the girl spread a robe at the end of the room nearest the fire (which of course was close by the mealing-trough), placed a blanket on the robe and another by the side of it. You see, the young man was so abstracted she pitied him and thought he must be bashful! So she said, "Come over here and sit down by my side." The young man joyfully obeyed, but presently became


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as silent as before. "What can be the matter with him?" she thought. "The brother did not act so when he came to see sister." So she sat nearer to him and tried to cheer him. "Why is mine-to-be so thoughtful?" said she. The young man started and said, "O! I am tired." "Would you like to sleep?" asked the girl. "Oh, no," replied the youth; you see he was thinking, "How can I get some more of that parched corn?" and thus became silent again.

"Here, take my hand; perhaps you fear me. Why should you fear me?" said the girl, and she laid her hand on his arm, for she thought, "Poor young fellow, he is bashful!" And she waited and waited, but the young man made no further move than to sigh; so the girl, who like most women could not keep awake doing nothing, fell asleep.

"Ah!" thought the young man, "now is my chance! If she only stays asleep, what a fine feast I shall have." The girl still slept. The fire died down until it was quite dark. Then the young man listened


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a moment, and little by little took the girl's hand off his arm. Then he moved her a trifle and presently felt for the tray of parched corn. He found it. Cautiously he took a kernel out and put it between his teeth, but when he attempted to bite it, it cracked! He started and ceased, to listen again. "How can I stop that noise?" thought he. "I have it! That's it!" he said to himself. He pulled some wool out of the buffalo-robe and stuffed his ears full of it. Then he reached over and took out two or three kernels. He cracked first one, then the others altogether, but heard never a sound. "Tchu-kwe!" said he to himself. "That's the way; now I can eat all I want!" But the fire had gone down and he felt chilly, now that he was thinking no longer how to get at the corn. So he took up the tray and guardedly crawled over to the hearth. He sat down on the floor with the basket between his knees and began to eat. What with the enjoyment of the parched corn and the warmth of the embers, so great was his satisfaction that he closed his eyes and fell to eating more slowly to protract


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the pleasure, but with mouthful after mouthful he made so much noise that the old woman woke up. She listened a moment, then punched the old man. "Old one, old one," she whispered.

"What do you want?" growled the old man. "What do you want now?"

"The dogs must be on the roof eating our venison. Don't you hear them cracking the bones?"

"Oh, you always think you are hearing something. Go to sleep, old girl."

"But listen," persisted the old woman. He raised his head. "Quite true!" He heard the dogs, so he thought, gnawing the bones. "Wait and I'll drive them away," said he; and raising slowly, for his joints were stiff, he went over to the hearth and laid some cedar-bark on the coals. Still the young man sat there, his eyes closed, eating parched corn. He was too sleepy to see, and too deaf to hear, for his ears were stuffed with the buffalo-hair. The old man blew the fire until the cedar-bark suddenly blazed up so that it lighted the whole room.

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There sat the young man, his back to the fire.

"Why, my poor young man!" exclaimed the old cacique. "Why didn't you say you were hungry?" Still the young man sat there. "What can be the matter with him? He wasn't deaf, neither was he blind, when I talked with him this evening."

"Young man!" Young man!" called the old cacique. "Son! son!" he cried. Still no answer. The old man stepped over and slapped the youth on the back.

The young man started. He dropped the parched corn, looked around, and fled up the ladder as precipitately as had the one who had tunbled in--leaving blanket, bundle, and everything else; nor did he ever come back to get them.

"Ha, ha!" laughed a young man in the pueblo to the south, when he heard the story. "Think of a young fellow liking popcorn better than a pretty maiden! Anybody's sister can parch corn, but caciques' daughters are not everybody's sisters!" But as he too had seen the proud maiden, he was seized with a passion for


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her, and the more he thought, the bolder he grew. "After all," said he in his heart, "she as good as accepted the Turquoise fellow, if he hadn't been--like a crow--so fond of corn that he forgot everything else." The upshot of it all was, he tried, too. He was quite as brave when he arrived at the girl's house as the other had been, even a trifle more attentive, but when the girl, mindful of her former experience, placed sweet-gruel before him, he was seized with as great a longing as the other had experienced to get his fill, for he had never tasted better in his life. So he watched the girl as she put the new shining bowl of the delicious syrup away opposite him in a niche in the wall. And when she spread a robe down almost under it and invited him to sit there with her, his joy knew no bounds; but being more crafty than his predecessor, he talked to the girl gently, and when she drew her mantle off because the fire was so warm, took it and fanned her with it, singing the while, until she nodded and presently fell asleep. That was just what he wanted. He softly laid


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the mantle down and reached up to the bowl. He dipped one finger over the edge, and, withdrawing it, licked off the gruel. Then he put in two fingers at a time, and finally began to dip the fluid up in the palm of his hand. Every time he withdrew his hand, the fluid streamed down his wrist, so that he had to wipe it off with his other hand until both were wet all over. Finally he grew impatient. Reaching up, he took the bowl down and rested it on the palms of both hands, while he squared himself back against the wall for a good drink. He slowly raised the edge of the vessel to his lips. But alas! in tilting it the bowl slipped through his wet hands, and, tsu-lu-lu! the sweet-gruel poured down all over the young man's chin, neck, and front. He made a clutch for the bowl, but it slipped from his hands again and crashed on the floor. The young man jumped up. He grabbed the girl's mantle and wiped the gruel off his clothes; then seeing the shattered bowl on the floor, and thinking he heard them rousing up, he stole out on tiptoe, and ran away as the others had.

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Next morning the girl awoke where she had been sitting. She looked around for the young man, and seeing his blanket, thought to herself:

"Well, he's gone out hunting. He is a man! I will grind some meal and cook his breakfast." Thus thinking, she reached for her mantle. It all came up at once! "What's the matter?" thought the girl. She rubbed the mantle, but it was stiff with the sweet-gruel which had dried on it. She smelled it. "Mother of men!" she exclaimed, "it is sweet-gruel." Then when she saw the broken bowl, she understood. "Never," said she, awakening the old ones, "will I have anything more to do with them. One courts me for my popcorn, another for my sweet-gruel. We would have fared finely with such or such a glutton for a son-in-law!"

Now when the corn and melons had all been gathered in, the people began to have feasts and dances. One cold night before the day of a festival, a young man of the town where the girl lived, who had long watched her with longing heart, determined


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to go and ask her to let him marry her. He went around to her house, but his heart misgave him, so he looked in at the window. The girl was kneeling before the fire kneading bread for the feast, and there were no visitors save an old aunt. "I wish she'd go away," thought the young man. He waited and waited until he grew cold. "Will she never go away?" thought he, as he looked in at the window again. "Well, I can wait as long as she can," said he, and he began to look about for a nook in which to get shelter from the wind. He espied a big oven by the corner of the house. "Ha!" said he. "Just the thing! and he crawled in and curled up in the back part with his blanket muffled about his head, until he was as warm as if he had been in the house. "How lucky!" thought he; but gradually he grew sleepy, and soon fell asleep in good earnest. There he slept all night long, dreaming that the girl's aunt had not gone yet. Before daylight the next morning an old granny from the house above came to the sky-hole and called the girl. The girl was already up.

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"Do you hear?" screeched the old woman.

"Yes; what is it?" answered the girl.

"Is your bread ready?"

"No," said the girl.

"Well, may I use your folks' oven a little while?"

"Oh, yes," said the girl; "I shall not bake till after sun-out."

The old woman limped away and gathered some cedar-bark and splinters. These she piled up in the mouth of the oven, and tucking some coals under, blew until the splinters blazed and crackled and smoked round and round in the oven. Then she went away to get some more wood. Presently the young man began to cough and strangle. Then he woke up and remembered where he was. Muffling the blanket around his head, he dashed out through the fire and ran away. But, alas! he had not covered the top of his head, so that the hair burnt off the crown and frizzled up all around as tightly as the beard of a buffalo. The poor boy's hair never straightened out, and the girl, taking pity on him, married


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him after all. They lived together with but one vexation to mar their happiness: their children were all kinky-haired! People say that is the reason why so many old men in San Felipe have bald heads and curly hair.

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> CHAPTER IX
Tâ-A I'-Tâ-WE, OR THE "FOOD OF THE SEED OF SEEDS"

[Illustration: The initial capital is n illustration of two Zuñi women bearing a stretcher.]

HERE we need no longer follow by the uncertain light of tradition, or by the scarcely more satisfactory guidance of comparative study, the ways of the ancient Zuñi breadmaker. We may now go to the house of her modern descendants and watch, if we will but accept their hospitality (not always easy this!), their every process in the preparation of breadstuff.

First, however, let us consider the changes that brought together in pueblos--some of which astounded the Spanish explorers with their regularity and extent--the scattered denizens of the cliff and valley houses described in a former chapter.

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The incursions of predatory bands of savages from the border regions of the desert areas wherein the house-builders found their homes and lands, increased with the prosperity, population, and growth of the dominion of the latter and the tribes which, subjugated by them or encouraged by their example, imitated their industry, until almost all were driven well-nigh permanently to the cliffs of fertile cañons. Here, regular villages instead of single houses were built wherever foothold could be found for them out of the reach of assault (pl. XII). What though hundreds of the enemy came! These houses, which, to all intent suspended midway between earth and air, overlooked the crops, were to the inhabitants accessible with ladders which they drew up after them, to the stranger scaleless. And now the sunflower, cultivated along with corn, assumed greater importance, for tradition says that the cliff-dwellers, often beleaguered at a distance, were debarred from the privilege of the hunt and hence compelled to subsist long periods at a time on the products of


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[Illustration: An illustration of a multi-leveled ancient Zuñi cliff dwelling.]




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their plantings alone. Yet, although by their lengthened and desperate struggle for life these people became small of physique, they were hardy, and increased to such an extent that they were gradually forced to abandon their hanging villages as too limited, and ascend to the tops of the cliffs and mesas--first near at hand, then farther and farther away, building their great, clustered, terraced towns, until the dwellings of the cliffs became only the occasional resort of planters and harvesters, the towns on the mesas the permanent habitation of many congregated clans or tribes. These looked for security, to their numbers. Their common dangers developed in them a kind of communal brotherhood, a parental priesthood which gave rise to a democratic yet almost absolute government, bound firmly and controlled by an elaborately ceremonial and ritualistic worship. Such, all too scantily described, was the pre-Columbian Pueblo, whose type found its most perfect realization, its highest development, in the Zuñi of fifteen or twenty generations ago. The food of


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these older Pueblos, less in variety it is true, and differing in some few of the methods and materials of its composition, was nevertheless so like the latter, indeed even that of today, that the following descriptions, save where otherwise specified, must be regarded as embracing the cookery of both periods.

The green corn, boiled, roasted, and baked, stewed and fried; the ripe corn, toasted and parched, have been already mentioned; yet there remain one or two other descriptions of eatables formed without the service of the mealing-stone, or metate.

Almost as simple as the parched corn was the mi'-li-a-we, which was no other than baked corn boiled on the ear. A variety of food very like this was called tchu'-la-a-we, ordinary corn on the ear being roasted or browned over the coals, then shelled and boiled in water, either with or without meat.
A more elaborate food was called "skinned corn," which was similar in many respects to the hulled corn of the Northern states. The corn being first excessively


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boiled in wood-ashes and water, was then thoroughly washed and again boiled, either for consumption in the simple condition in which it left the cooking-pot or by combination in various ways to form the basis of bread, dumplings, griddle-cakes, or the like.

In order that the preparation of the more elaborate kinds of corn food, in which the metate and molina bore a conspicuous part, may be the better referred to and understood, I must risk a little repetition by giving below the Zuñi classification of their materials as introductory to some following more descriptive paragraphs.

As the reader is already aware, the generic term for corn in Zuñi is tâ-a, or a'-tâ-a, the approximate English of which is "the seed of seeds," yet which applies not only to the grain itself in the abstract, but also to the green plants which produce it. Corn on the ear is termed mi'-we, in the grain tchu'-we. When the corn grains have been simply cracked on the coarse grinding-stones, they are called tchu'-thlÄ-tsa-we. When skinned through the agency of ashes and water, as above described, or by boiling


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in water alone, and careful rubbing on the mealing-stone, it is termed tchu'-tsi-kwah-na-we. Broken under the muller into very coarse meal or samp, it is called sa'-k'o-we; reduced to meal, o'-we; and when ground to exceedingly fine flour, o'lu-tsi-na.

Passing over the various dishes which answer to our hasty-pudding, mushes, and the like, which were all well known, we may be interested to find out how the settled, semi-civilized, pueblo Zuñi improved on the baked things of his farming or cliffdwelling predecessor. His most notable advance was perhaps the introduction of ashes, or of very finely ground lime, called a'lu-we, mingled with salt into fermented mush-yeast to overcome its acidity.
The most prized leaven of his time, however, was chewed sa'-ko-we mixed with moderately fine meal and warm water and placed in little narrow-necked pots over or near the hearth until fermentation took place, when lime flour and a little salt were added. Thus a yeast, in nowise inferior to some of our own, was compounded. In addition to its leavening qualities, this yeast had the


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[Illustration: An illustration of various baskets and clay vessels to hold food.]




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remarkable property, when added to the meal of blue corn or black, to change the color during cookery to a beautiful green hue, or, mingled with yellow-corn flour, to render it light blue.

The greater variety and nicety of cookery which this yeast made possible to the pueblo Zuñi required also vastly improved culinary methods and appliances, giving origin undoubtedly to a special apartment for cookery which we may without exaggeration term the kitchen. I will be pardoned for pausing to describe one of these rooms, using those I am familiar with in modern Zuñi, at least, as my model. Behind the "sitting-place," as it was called (or the dining-room and living-room combined), entered by a narrow doorway, and unilluminated save by the gray light which struggled down its broad chimney or eddied forth from the flicker of its almost constant fires, was the diminutive cookery of these ancient days. In the dim twilight of this place the uninitiated would have stumbled almost at every step upon its furnishings; for scattered over the floor,


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dependent from the rafters--which the shortest could almost reach by stretching--and hanging against the walls, were the rude appliances which we may dignify by this title--sieves made of coarsely woven yucca. (pl. XIII, f), meal trays (e), bread plaques (c), enormous cooking-pots, some with prong-like, irregular legs (b), pigmy water boilers (a) with their round stone covers, polished baking stones blackened by a thousand heatings, bread-bowls (d), carved pudding sticks, numerous hardwood pokers charred to all degrees of shortness, and, finally, bundles of greasewood or fagots of finely splintered piñon-wood suspended in the chimney for drying--were some of the objects which would meet the eye as it grew accustomed to the place.

A more specific description must be given to the fireplace. This extended entirely across the end of the room, down from the ceiling of which, like one side of an elongated hopper, descended the flange or flue made of staves slantingly set side by side upon a a pole--either of which was


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inserted in either wall--and smoothly plastered with mud.27 Below this pole, exactly on a line with it, was a row of thick stones set on edge to divide the hearth from the floor of the room. In one corner of this commodious hearth a baking stone, large and thick, rested upon four rough pillars of mud masonry. In the middle, sunken deep down into the ground, was a square stone cist, not unlike the excavated ovens described on a former page; and in the corner opposite to the baking stone one might see four or five rudely hollow columns or upright cylinders of masonry, open in front and behind for draft, on at least one or two of which rested, as though permanently placed there, cooking-pots of more than ordinary size and thickness. Within this dark retiring place the women concocted many strange dishes, but a mortal fear of becoming wearisome with detail causes me to make a selection of but few of their many recipes.

Doubtless survivals of a former effort, alluded to once before, to thoroughly effect the cooking of mushes, gruels, etc., by the


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immersion of heated stones, was a series of boiled breads or dumplings of which the simplest were the mu'-k'iÄ-li-weand mu'-k'iÄ-pa-we. The first of these was made by mixing fine meal or flour with an equal quantity of coarse meal of sa'-k'o-we, salting, and by the addition of cold water and the intervention of excessive kneading to form a stiff dough. This was divided into little pieces which were rolled into hard balls between the hands. A pot of water was set over one of the columnar receptacles and, as soon as this was made to boil violently, the little balls were poured in. Instead of disintegrating, they became harder and harder with the progress of the cooking, yet enough of their substance mingled with the water to cause it to become pasty, no sooner than which the pot was lifted from the fire, and the balls, fluid, and all were poured into a large eating trencher or bowl of pottery. While still hot these "water balls," as they were called, were eaten with brine sauce.
Mu'-k'iÄ-pa-we differed from these only in having a less proportion of coarse meal added


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and of different color from the fine, in being more thoroughly salted, seasoned with lime yeast, and mixed before cooking, with hot water instead of cold. The dough was pressed between the hands to form flat cakes, and by the boiling, this food, affected by the lime, was rendered light blue.
A better kind of dumpling was made in the form of little pellets of blue cornmeal, finely ground, mixed with a considerable quantity of lime-batter or yeast, kneaded into stiff dough, and wrapped tightly in corn-shucks. During the boiling these dumplings became not only extremely blue but considerably swollen through the agency of the yeast.

More remarkable than any of these, however, was a kind of stewed dumpling called k'ia-mu-k'iÄ-li-we. Considerable care was required in the manufacture of these. Fine flour was boiled in water until paste had been formed. Into this paste enough meal was mixed to make a stiff dough, and of this dough little balls or pellets were rolled out and spread evenly over a yucca sieve or screen of sticks connected


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at the ends. A large pot half-filled with water was set over the fire, inside of which a smaller vessel, partially filled with water and weighted with pebbles to keep it steady, was placed. Upon this smaller pot was laid the sieve or screen holding the balls of dough, the larger pot then being covered with a slab of stone and kept boiling until the dumplings were thoroughly cooked by steaming.

Perhaps belonging to this same class of food, although counted among the delicacies of the Zuñis, was the Ä'-tea-mu-we, a kind of sweet pudding. It was made of yellow cornmeal, a portion of the batter of which was sweetened either by previous mastication and fermentation or by the admixture of dried flowers. This batter was most dextrously enwrapped in green corn-leaves preserved for the purpose by drying and rendered flexible as occasion required by immersion in hot water. Of necessity these little masses of paste or dough took the form of crescents. They were usually boiled, rarely baked, but in either case were perhaps the sweetest


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cooked food known to the Zuñis, which heightened sweetness doubtless owed not a little to the succulent corn-leaves.

Perhaps more complex than any of the hitherto described products of the ancient Zuñi kitchen were the tchu'-tsi-kwah-na-mu'-we. These were made by hulling corn, then grinding it with water, precisely as colors are ground by artists with oil. This batter, fine and sticky, well seasoned with lime-yeast, was wrapped in broad shucks carefully folded over and tied at the ends, then boiled. The batter was solidified by the boiling and when done resembled to a great extent well-cooked gristle or tough gelatin. Great quantities of these rubber-like dumplings were made at a time, as the process of their manufacture was tedious and laborious. When cold they were freshened by roasting on the embers or by baking in the little hearth-cists of the kitchen.

A crude kind of batter-cake, yet much of an improvement on the variety before described, the forerunner, doubtless, of the most important breadstuff known to the


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Zuñis today, was made from fine corn flour. This and lime-yeast were mixed together in liberal quantities, hot water enough being added to make a stiff batter, which was boiled until adhesive and pasted or spread over the well-greased, polished baking-stone in the corner of the hearth.
Differing from these in being raised with yeast before baking, therefore thicker, and circular in shape, were the k'os-he'-pÄ-tchi-we, or salt tortillas. The dough of which these were formed was invariably made of very finely ground white corn, so stiff that balls of it might be flattened out on a smooth stone. These round, thin masses of dough, first indented on one side with the tips of the fingers, were laid roughened surface downward on an extremely hot baking-stone, meanwhile the other surface being similarly indented. They were then constantly turned until thoroughly done and browned.
This same dough, minus the yeast, and thinner, like batter, was used to make "johnny-cakes" or "corn-dodgers," which were baked on little flat stones at first well heated, then placed very near a hot fire.

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[Illustration: A photograph of two large outdoor dome-shaped ovens.]

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The rudest forms of true bread were made by placing in a bowl fine flour, into which enough cold water was poured to make of it dough, and sufficient lime-yeast to leaven it. This was then kneaded and molded into thick cakes, which were set away a short time to rise, after which they were cooked on hot coals by frequent turning, in which form they were called mui'-Ä-li-we; (fire loaves); or baked, buried deep under hot ashes. In this shape they were known as lu-pan-mu'-lo-ko-na, or ash-bread, which differed as much from the former as though made from entirely foreign materials. It is needless to say that this bread was also frequently baked, especially for feasts, when it assumed, under the artistic treatment of the Zuñi women, most extraordinary shapes (see the initial illustration), in the large dome-shaped ovens [pl. XIV, XV] or in the little fire-boxes on the tops of the houses.

We now come to the greatest delicacy in the way of bread known either to the older or the recent Zuñis. In its simplest form it was known as k'os-he-pa-lo-kia, or "salty


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buried-bread." It was made by the mixture of sa-ko k'o'-ha-na, or the samp of white corn in water to which enough fine flour of the same corn was added to render the batter very sticky. Broad husks, made pliable with hot water, were then laid on a flat stone; the paste spread over them to the thickness of about an inch, covered with more husks folded at the edges to keep the batter in place, covered over with another stone, and so on until a sandwich like that described for "stone-cakes" was built up (pl. XI, c). Instead of being inclosed in a casing of thicker stones, this was buried in the hearth-cist--which had been previously heated almost to redness--then sealed up with mud, and baked by a night-long fire.
Leaving salt out of this recipe and adding to it dried flowers, licorice-root, wild honey, or, more frequently than any of these, masticated and fermented meal, this buried bread was made sweet like our own Indian pudding, which it exactly resembled in taste. The latter variety was baked, however, even more slowly, and quite as often cooked in a small


[Illustration: A photograph of a woman baking bread in a small dome-shaped oven.]




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mush-pot of earthenware, well lined with husks to keep the batter from adhering to its sides, as between flat stones.

Perhaps one of the most curious delicacies, for such it was considered, ever known to the Zuñis, was made not by baking, but by freezing. This was called thlem-mÄthl-to-we ("slab-bread"). The plain variety was simply thin mush reduced to paste by boiling, then placed between two stones which were laid in cold places and left until thoroughly frozen.
The unbaked batter of the tchik-k'we'-pa-lo-kia, or "sweet buried-bread," excessively boiled, then treated in this manner, made what we might call an exceedingly coarse ice-cream and certainly prized as highly by these ancients, to say the least, as is the latter delicacy among ourselves.

Before describing the all-important he'-we, or paper-bread of later days, and some of the really delicate foods it gave rise to, it will be necessary for the reader to be made acquainted with several branches of Zuñi industry which, apparently not connected with our subject, in reality have the closest


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relationship to it. I will pause, then, to relate some fragments of an olden story, and tell of an art which within the present generation will wholly or mostly cease to be--visiting the while with my readers, the quarries and workshops of an age of stone.

Miles to the westward of where the eleven towns of the older Zuñis used to stand, is a beautiful volcanic hill or mountain, sacred in the oral annals of this most venerable tribe, the home, it is said, of the myriad gods and heroes of the Kâ-kâ,or the Dance of Worship; for it rears its steep sides and brown, rounded brow, seemingly out of the very depths of the dark Lake of the Dead. Here, many generations ago, came a beautiful Goddess of the Ocean, the "Woman of the White Shells," younger sister of the Moon. Not less kind than the Moon Mother herself, most lovely of all beings, this goddess was the especial patroness of beauty and grace; who loved to number among her disciples the daughters of men, and like Hathor and Isis of the ancient Egyptians, imparted an attractiveness almost equaling her own, to those into whose


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hearts she deigned to breathe. That she might not be defiled, she dwelt in a cave before the portal of which the Zuñi pilgrim removes his head-band and reverently bows as he passes, and whence the unknown deeps of which the gods caused a ceaseless breath of wind to issue, in order that no lighted torch might reveal the path of entrance to shameless mortals. To this day blows forth the cold wind from the cavern!

"Once, when some maidens were passing near the mountain, suddenly the beautiful goddess appeared to them, sitting high up among the rocks, arrayed in snowy white garments of cotton. With her hand she beckoned to the maidens, and as they neared, half fearing, banished with her smile their timidity and wonder.

"'Sit ye down by my side.' said she to them, 'and I will teach ye the arts of women.' Then with a sharp-edged fragment of jasper she shaped by chipping and hewing, a mealing stone of lava, hollow from end to end, yet flat from side to side. Another stone of finer material, long enough


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to reach entirely across the metate, she hewed and flattened and beveled. Then taking from her girdle white shells and white kernels of corn, she ground them to fine powder between the stones she had fashioned, teaching with each motion a grace of movement before unknown to the women of men. Now, leaning ever so lightly on her molina, and glancing slyly under her waving side-locks, she talked to the watching maidens, teaching them how to tease their lovers; then dashing the hair from her eyes, she turned to the metate, and with gentle and swerving yet rapid movements of her arms and body, plied the rubbing stone with her left hand, with her right scattered under it the shining grains, singing meanwhile, in time to her labors, the songs that ever since young women have loved to sing, young men loved yet more to listen to. She ceased and plucked from the mountain slope some long stems of grass which she delicately bound together at the middle, then returning, swept into the corner of her mantle with the brush thus made and many


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a turn of her wrist and arm, the flour she had been mealing. Of this she apportioned to each of the maidens an equal measure. 'Take it,' she said, 'and remember how I have made it that ye may be blessed with children and make more for them and they for theirs. With it men and women shall cast their prayers to the Beloved, and maidens shall beautify their persons;' saying which, she placed a little of the flour between her palms and applied it lightly to her face and bosom, when lo! her countenance appeared almost as white as her mantle, and as smooth as dressed doeskin.

"And ever since that time women have won the most lingering of lovers with the wiles of the meal-stone." And from the mountain where those wiles are said to have been first taught, they bring, let me add, aided by their now reluctant victims, the favorite stones of the mill-trough.

It is related that at another time the same goddess taught how the bright patterns on the many stranded bread-trays were woven to represent the flowers and butterflies of Summerland. Hardly can it


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be claimed, however, that she told of the most beautiful art known and practised by the Pueblo women; for in this all graces are lost, as laughter, song, and converse must be rigidly refrained from during every stage of its progress. Perhaps, in explaining why this is, it would be well to describe in full the potter's art; for curious enough it is to have long ago merited attention; only, that it was not until the later cliffdwellings and mesa villages were built that it reached its highest productiveness and perfection.

The clay which served for their wares was seldom taken from the native quarries without prayers and propitiatory offerings. Dependently upon the kind of vessel to be made, it was the subject of careful choice. It was brought from the distant sources of supply in the form of dry lumps, which, as needed, were pulverized on the metates, and mixed with crushed quartz, sand, or potsherds, then moistened and kneaded until in condition to be easily dented with the tip of the tongue.

For cooking-vessels red clay was selected


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and tempered with a larger allowance of sand or grit than was used for the finer wares. This not only kept the clay from cracking as it dried, but rendered the ware tougher and better able to withstand the effects of fire. Either a semicircular bowl or basket was used as a mold for the bottoms of the vessels, the clay being pressed evenly into the inside and drawn up half an inch above the margin of this impromptu form. Around on the raised border, then around and around on itself, shortened here to form the contraction of the neck, there lengthened to flare the rim, a little strip or flattened rope of clay was spirally wound and cemented, smoothed down outside and in with scoop-shaped trowels of gourd-rind or old pottery, and the vessel was shaped; after which it was set away in a shady place to partially dry, thereby contracting so much that it could easily be removed from the mold at the bottom. It was then additionally smoothed outside with pieces of sandstone and again set away in a safe nook until thoroughly dry, when it was taken out and placed in a


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little underground kiln or else surrounded top and sides, above ground, with a dome of turf and greaseweed or other light fuel. Just before the summit of this dome was completed the woman, muttering a short prayer, threw inside a few crumbs or bits of dried bread or dough, which ceremonial was pronounced the "Feeding." The whole mass was then fired, and blankets held up to intercept drafts. Within a few minutes all was aglow with heat. As soon as the turf or wood had been reduced to cinders, the red-hot vessel was removed with a long poker and gently laid on hot ashes hastily drawn to one side of the fire for the purpose. Here it was thoroughly coated inside and out with the mucilaginous juice of crushed cactus leaves, piñon gum being liberally applied in addition, to the interior. Another dome, this time of coarser fuel, was quickly erected, the vessel placed inside and again fired. The effect of the cactus juice and piñon gum under the second burning, was to close all pores in the pot and cover the inside with a shining, hard, black glaze. So


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perfectly fire-proof and compact were these vessels thus rendered that they might be placed over a bed of embers empty, heated almost to redness, and cold water dashed into them without causing breakage or even cracking. I have often with fear and vain remonstrance seen this done, yet never witnessed an accident as the result therefrom. The women make in the same way, only with the addition of a larger proportion of sand, the crucibles with which the native jewelers melt their silver.

In some details the process of manufacturing water-jars, eating-bowls and other receptacles was different. It is true they were built up in much the same way, and when nearly dry, scoured smooth with sandstone; but the clay of which they were made was either of a blue variety, or a kind of carbonaceous shale or marl. When the wares had been smoothed, they were coated with a thin wash of whatever argilaceous body-color--white, yellow, red, or pink-- and highly polished with little water-worn pebbles.
The paints were usually


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ochers and jasper for red and yellow; hematite with a sizing of prairiedog urine or the syrup of the datila fruit, for black; the simple iron-ore ground with water for brown; kaolin for white, or various combinations of these pigments for intermediate hues. The designs were laid on with little brushes made by chewing the ends of sections cut from fibrous yucca-leaves, split beforehand to the desired degree of coarseness of fineness. As I have said before, throughout all of these operations attendant upon the finishing and decorating of these vessels, no laughing, music, whistling, or any other unnecessary noises were indulged in, and conversation was carried on in faint whispers or by signs; for it was feared that the "voice" would enter into the vessels, and that when the latter were fired, would escape with a loud noise and such violence as to shiver the ware into shreds. That this should not in any event happen, the voice-spirit in the vessels--especially those designed for water and food, was fed during the burning. Thus not only was it propitiated, but also rendered


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beneficent; for (evidencing the strange way in which mankind's superstitions have their origin), curiously enough, unable to explain the almost human resonance in earthenware, the absence of this characteristic from cracked pottery or the violence of the sound which signified the ruin of their dishes when broken by heat, these savages supposed each vessel to be the birthplace at the time of firing, the habitation afterward, of a conscious or at least controllable existence, which they came to regard as the source of life and which, if properly feasted and addressed, would communicate its health and life-giving properties or influences to any food or drink placed within its fragile domain. As further testimonial of this curious belief, we may find by examining any extensive collection, that on nearly all the earthenware receptacles of the Southwest, the painted zones of ornamentation near the rims--inside the food vessels, outside the water-jars, were left unconnected at one point or another, and the space thus open, we will be told by the native artist, is the


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"exit trail" (o-na-yÄthl kwai'-na). If these lines were closed, not only would the subtle source of life be debarred from escape with food or water, but the woman who "knowingly" connected them (that is with her eyes open) would either be prematurely smitten with blindness, or have in herself the coveted source of life forever closed and hence become as barren as the most chaste of maidens. Hence, whenever it became necessary to paint over these spaces, the decorator turned her eyes away, and the same custom was observed in cementing the aperture at the apex of any conical vessel, like the native canteen.

A more intelligent explanation of all this would involve a long discourse more properly the subject of a scientific disquisition than of an article on breadstuff, but I have labored enough, I hope, to show the reader that the Zuñi did not consider the nutritive qualities of food and drink entirely due to his bread and water, but in some degree related to the vessels wherein they were contained.

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[Illustration: A photograph of Zuñi people tending a garden.]

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> CHAPTER X
HE'-WE I'Tâ-WE, or THE WAFER FOODS

[Illustration: The initial capital is illustrated by a Zuñi man with his arms and legs representing the shape of the letter "F".]

FOR no art or industry within the range of the domestic duties of Zuñi, is so much care and instruction bestowed by the old women on the young, as for every process in the making of the he'-we, or wafer breads. Year in and year out, too, while these lessons are being plied, it is told how the famed and beloved Goddess of the WhiteShells taught not a few of her graces--and some secrets-in connection with the daily occupation which forms their theme. Of these secrets a chosen few old women of the tribe are the keepers. With many a mysterious rite and severe penance, they quarry and manufacture the enormous


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baking-stones on which the flaky, toothsome he'-we is made. Garrulous enough, mercy knows, are these old crones on most other subjects; but they guard with sphinx-like jealousy such of their methods and observances as add prestige to experience in their occasional calling. Indeed, it was only in the lead of an accident--so curious that it must be related--that I came to a knowledge of these things: not full, it is true, but instructive.

There is a mesa, which you will find figured among my articles in the Century, called "Thunder Mountain."28 This grand and solitary, tree-covered rock stands three miles eastward of Zuñi. Over some part of its enormous length rises the sun every day in the year to the dwellers in the plain below. Guarding them as it does with its morning shadows and red evening reflections--telling by these signs the season as the sun tells the time--and echoing to their reverent ears the first storm-voices of the valley, no wonder these sun--and thunder-worshipping people make it the principal pedestal of their finest poetic fancies, their


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profoundest notions, and their most sacred shrines. Up this mountain, one hot day in autumn, I climbed with an Eastern friend and an officer of the Army who were visiting me at Zuñi, and who wished to see the altar of A'-hai-iu-ta, the War-god, as also the toppling gray ruins--gray and toppling these two hundred years--on the southern brink of the mesa. Sated with their sight-seeing, weary enough with their winding climb, and thirstier than they liked to confess, my two companions followed me to the eastern edge, steeply down from whence led the "trail of the bend." Below, far toward the west, stretched the basin of Zuñi, like a map, framed in north and south by unbroken table-lands and hills. But it was not the dun, smoky dot that marked Zuñi, nor yet the corn patches--green specks on an ocean of sand--which arrested my gaze. Straight down a thousand feet from our perch, hidden amidst a maze of foothills--some bulbous with accessory knolls, others serrated and tortuous with their spines of uplifted rocks--burned several little fires, as evidenced by


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as many skeins and knots of smoke which mounted and surged above the cedars wherewith those lesser heights were speckled.

"Halloa!" I exclaimed. "They are clearing peach orchards down there. Shall we go down by the nearest trail?"

"By all means," assented my thirsty friends.

Midway down, but all too late, they repented. The sweat--of the cool kind--gathered on their foreheads as they gazed on the twisting and frightfully descending line of rock-niches by which they must travel to the tops of the foundation-hills. With palpitating feet, faint hearts--or stomachs--and seasick heads, they cast themselves down on the uppermost of these hilltops as soon as we reached it; while I, light-shod with moccasins, and unencumbered by the buckskin shorts of Zuñi fashion, ran forward to find the tenders of the smoky fires. My way led out of an amphitheater,--if a half-circle of rugged, vertical cliffs eight hundred feet in height may be called such,--and as I went along, wishing to give warning to the supposed


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planters, I yelled with all the strength of my recovered wind, a Zuñi song, until the rocks seemed fairly voluminous with an artillery of voices--so easily answer the echoes in that inland cove. Yet only self-answered were mine, and at this I wondered as I scaled a ridge of shingle, when behold! before me was a hill-bounded hollow, on the level, spacious bottom of which burned a broken circle of fires. In and out among these hovered half a dozen old squaws, like a double trio of the Witches of Forres. Propped over each fire were huge flat objects, black with soot, yet reeking, hissing, and steaming with the pitch, which ever and anon one or another of the sweltering old women applied, by means of improvised, long sapling-tongs, to their scorching surfaces.

Presently one of these weird beings issued from the smudge which had until now half-hidden her, and I recognized, by her white hair, my Zuñi grandmother, "Old Ten."

"Ha-hau!" I shouted, as I made a bolt for the bottom of the hill. "My mothers


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and grandmothers, be ye happy! A thirsty trail it is, up one side and down the other of Thunder Mountain, to all except sparrow hawks and other wingsters--and my American friends are neither; no, they are dying back there; and where Zuñi mothers are, there are canteens in plenty, so--"But I suddenly stopped as I neared the fires. Each member of the party, including an old priest whom I had not seen before, was glaring at me with compressed lips. Dismay was depicted on the countenances of all. Some were fairly dancing, as well as their stiffly-hinged joints would admit, with the excitement they tried hard to suppress; others were frantically waving me off; but my old grandmother, knowing me better, laid one set of sooty fingers over her lips, while with the other she beckoned me nearer. As I approached her, she lowered the admonitory set of fingers, but their prints, clearly defined in soot across her mouth, continued to warn me from speaking. What could I do? I threw my head back, closed my eyes simperingly as though ravished with the delight of slaking thirst,


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and gurgled--inaudibly, but as visibly as possible with my throat--at the same time holding up two fingers and pointing with them back toward the hill. Forthwith, as if to practically illustrate my meaning, appeared the two heads of my American companions, who had grown impatient and followed me. Anything like the discomfiture of an American is a joke in Zuñi. The rage in the faces of the old women and the priest vanished, and they began to grin. "Old Ten" seized the fringe of my shirt, dragged me outside of a certain imaginary boundary line, and began hastily whispering to me (furtively glancing from side to side, meanwhile) in the following strain:

"Look here, my beloved fool of a child! What have you not accomplished of misfortune to us this day? We are finishing hel'-Äsh-na-k'ia stones! Do you hear? Your dreadful voice should have stopped when you saw our signal-smokes; but no! You are crazy; you sadly lack aged bearing; you look no more where you go than a crust-eyed turtle; not content with rousing


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every echo-god in Tâ-ai-yÄl'-lon-ne, you bounced down with your jabbering clatter into our very 'silence tract!' Oh, the moon! Away with you! Run along, now, with your dry-skinned American friends. Fill them up with the water (you will find plenty of it in a hole around the corner of that hill), or they'll begin to mouth."

"I know," said I, "but why--"

"Never mind why--run along, and I'll tell you some other time. Go now, go, or every stone in our fire-beds will be ruined!"

"You should have told me this before, and then I shouldn't have--"

"Well, I will tell you! Run along, they're coming!"

So, supplementing as far as possible the hasty inventory I had taken of the place while all this was transpiring, I led the way, with a whispered word of explanation, to the watering place below the hill.

It was evening when we reached home. Later on the old woman, evidently impressed by what I had said to her at the scene of their curious operations, came to me. There was a look in her face of wonderful


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wisdom, strangely blended with vexation or disappointment, as she said:

"Hear me, child. I knew your heedlessness would cause great trouble and loss to us! You have broken two of our best baking-stones with your giving of much mouth to your voice at the foot of Thunder Mountain today."

It at once occurred to me that superstitions similar to those connected with the manufacture of pottery must pertain with equal force to the finishing of he'-we stones. So I said in a conciliatory tone:

"I am sorry that I did not know that the stones were as touchy [a'-ya-vi] as baking-clay. Never mind, old mother, I will make presents for them. But how was I to know? As I said up there, 'Why--?'"

"'Why?' indeed!" she repeated. "Am I not telling you why?" Whereupon she continued in the same strain, as if her grotesque reasoning were the most obviously natural in the world.

From all she said--it was not a little, for I led her on by simulating stupidity--and


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from the little I had seen at the quarries, I gathered what in part follows:

I had seen that while some of the old women were busy as I have described, applying piñon-gum and rubbing crushed cactus leaves over the hot, blackened objects--which proved to be baking-stones--others occasionally placed more fuel on the fires and cast into them little green sprigs of cedar, which latter, besides augmenting the signal-banners of smoke, had, it was supposed, some potent effect on the stones.

Out to one side of the little glade where all this was going on, were still two others, working in a sort of quarry. There, stones were lying in all stages of preparation, from the freshly-mined blocks, roughly chipped into shape, to those awaiting only the burning process by which all must be tempered before use. These stones were composed of a massive, very light-gray sandstone. Such as had been fully worked were four inches thick and nearly as many feet long, by two and a half in breadth. The surfaces designed to be lowermost


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were very roughly leveled by a pecking process, while the upper faces were beautifully finished. They were not only as even as though planed, but ground to the last degree of smoothness (short of polish) by means of various flat, rudely rounded blocks of sandstone. Even the chipped, less uniform edges partook to some extent of this attritional finish. Thus far manipulated, the stones were left, the old woman told me, an indefinite length of time to cure; and on occasions like that which (happily for me) I had intruded upon, they were carried, with great labor, to the neighborhood of the fires, there to be thoroughly dried and warmed before being brought into actual contact with the flames and embers.

The usual number of old women making up a party of "stone finishers" is four or eight, rarely more. Four days previously to the tempering of the stones they retire to an estufa [kiva] or lone room, there to fast and engage in certain ceremonials, in which crooning traditional chants and repeating rituals play an important part. During


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these four days they never come forth unless at rare intervals and for a very short time (and then under the protecting influence of warning head-plumes), that they may not be touched by the uninitiated. Yet, during the intermissions of their religious observances, they prepare great cakes of piñon gum, carefully wrapping them in strips of cedar-bark, and in other ways make ready for the work at hand. On the morning of the day succeeding the last night of their vigil, they repair in single file, headed by a particular clan-priest (usually a "Badger," who on no account touches one of them), to the quarry. Before lifting the stones, before even quarrying any of them, they recite long, propitiatory prayers, casting abundant medicine-meal to the "flesh of the rock." With other but shorter prayers the fire is kindled by the old priest, who uses as his match a stick of hard-wood with which he drills vigorously into a piece of dry, soft root, until the friction ignites the dust of its own making, and to the new flames thus generated, offerings of dry food are made. The stones are then brought,


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and when warm enough, placed over the fires; being so constantly anointed with the pitch and cactus juice, which they greedily absorb, that they at last seem solid masses of carbonized substance rather than gritty rock. From the beginning to the end of this tempering process never a word is spoken aloud nor the least excitement or sprightly action indulged in. Sounds uttered would penetrate the grain of the rock and, expelled by heat or conflicting with the new "being" (function) of the stone, split, scale, or shiver it with a loud noise. So also the evil influence of undue passion or hasty action would alike be communicated to it, with blighting future effect.

At certain times the stones are temporarily withdrawn, and being coated with grease, assiduously rubbed with hard, smoothly water-worn cobble-stones. After several reburnings and repetitions of this treatment, they assume a fine black luster amounting practically to a glaze on their upper sides. They are now considered finished, bundled up in old blankets and


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rags, and mounted on the sturdy backs of attendant--or stray--burros; all at least except one, the smallest of the lot, which, in memory of former times, it may be supposed, is snailed home on the unlucky shoulders of the accompanying priest. This latter, by the way, although an important functionary, leading, as we have seen, in certain of the rites, is made, either through good nature or custom, a general utility man. The one I saw had at least that appearance. He was always pottering about--without accomplishing the slightest good--but stepped aside most deferentially when any of the ancient matrons came near, and wore that bilious look which men so naturally assume when representing the minority at, for instance, a tea-drinking. From all this I argued that his office was a survival of