Zuñi folk tales;
Cushing, Frank Hamilton, 1857-1900, comp. and tr
^^-n^. -?> • 9 » 0 •■ ^^-n^.. -> V "^^^^ ^^ .^^ owe 'IK\. y ^^•n^ o^^ <f^. * o « 0 ' ,-c'*- - %,^ ;^^.^ \/ ;^^\ %/' .^>%^^^ ^ vV^. o o V V C 0 " = » "^O .O"^ c " " " » ^C o. V ^^ ■^^„ .%*^ %' Q ^ /v^\a ,0^ ^^ u. ■/ > -n^-o^ '>o^ > <^ o ' • • * \ ' \V' v^. iV. ""..^Z -^o <i>' **^^ •^ 0 C z^"^":" ,.., ■y^ ^•< ^',. .V A^ // '4- .0- V^^' /X .-Jv 'bv %^ \^f;'\QO .A.J ZUNI FOLK TALES RECORDED AND TRANSLATED BY FRANK HAMILTON GUSHING .*y^ With an Introduction by J. W. POWELL NEW YORK AND LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS (Tbe tinickcxbochct press 1901 THF l.l«HARY OF CONCfTESS, Two Cof^lEa hECEIVED JAN. !9 1902 CopvKdOKT ENTRY CLAS%A/ XXa NO. OOPf B. Copyright, 1901 BY EMILY T. M. GUSHING Ube ftnickeiboctter press, mew Ji^ork LIST OF TALES The Trial of Lovers : or the Maiden of MAtsaki and the Red Feather i The Youth and his Eagle 34 The Poor Turkey Girl 54 How THE Summer Birds came 65 The Serpent of the Sea 93 The Maiden of the Yellow Rocks 104 The Foster-child of the Deer 132 The Boy Hunter who never sacrificed to the Deer he had slain : or the origin of the Society of Rattlesnakes 150 How AhaiyIJta and MAtsailema stole the Thunder-stone AND THE Lightning-shaft 175 The Warrior Suitor of Moki 185 How the Coyote joined the dance of the Burrowing-owls 203 The Coyote who killed the Demon SfuiuKi : or why Coyotes run their noses into deadfalls 215 How^ THE Coyotes tried to steal the Children of the Sacred Dance 229 The Coyote and the Beetle 235 How THE Coyote danced with the Blackbirds , . . 237 How the Turtle out hunting duped the Coyote . . , 243 The Coyote and the Locust 255 The Coyote and the Ravens who raced their eyes . . 262 The Prairie-dogs and their priest, the Burrowing-owl . 269 How the Gopher raced with the runners of K'iXkime . 277 How the Rattlesnakes came to be what they are , . 285 How the Corn-pests were ensnared 288 Jack-rabbit and Cottontail 296 The Rabbit Huntress and her adventures .... 297 iv List of Tales PAGE The Ugly Wild Boy who drove the Bear away from South- eastern Mesa 310 The Revenge of the Two Brothers on the HAwikuhkwe, or the Two Little Ones and their Turkeys . . .317 The Young Swift-runner who was stripped of his Cloth- ing BY THE Aged Tarantula 345 Atahsaia, the Cannibal Demon 365 The Hermit Mitsina 385 How THE Twins of War and Chance, AhaiyiJta and MAtsai- lema, fared with the Unborn-made Men of the Under- world 398 The Cock and the Mouse 4" The Giant Cloud-swallower 423 The Maiden the Sun made love to, and her Boys : OR the origin of anger 429 LIST OF PLATES Portrait of Frank Hamilton Gushing. Frontispiece The Youth and his Eagle ZuRi from the South .... Waihusiwa ...... A burro train in a Zu5fi street. Thunder Mountain from ZuNi. A HOPI (MoKl) MAIDEN A DANCE OF THE KaKA Across the terraces of ZuNi The pinnacles of Thunder Mountain Palovvahtiwa ..... ZuNi Women carrying water. 34 64 92 132 174 184 228 276 344 388 42S INTRODUCTION IT is instructive to compare superstition with science. Mythology is the term used to desig- nate the superstitions of the ancients. Folk-lore is the term used to designate the superstitions of the ignorant of today. Ancient mythology has been carefully studied by modern thinkers for purposes of trope and simile in the embellishment of litera- ture, and especially of poetry ; then it has been investigated for the purpose of discovering its meaning in the hope that some occult significance might be found, on the theory that the wisdom of the ancients was far superior to that of modern men. Now, science has entered this field of study to compare one mythology with another, and pre- eminently to compare mythology with science itself, for the purpose of discovering stages of hu- man opinion. When the mythology of tribal men came to be studied, it was found that their philosophy was also a mythology in which the mysteries of the universe were explained in a collection of tales told by wise men, prophets, and priests. This lore of the wise among savage men is of the same origin and has the same significance as the lore of Hesiod and Homer. It is thus a mythology in the early sense of that term. But the mythology of tribal men is devoid of that glamour and witchery born of poetry ; hence it seems rude and savage in comparison, for viii Introduction example, with the mythology of the Odyssey, and to rank no higher as philosophic thought than the tales of the ignorant and superstitious which are called folk-lore ; and gradually such mythology has come to be called folk-lore. Folk-lore is a dis- credited mythology — a mythology once held as a philosophy. Nowadays the tales of savage men, not being credited by civilized and enlightened men with that wisdom which is held to belong to phi- losophy, are called folk-lore, or sometimes folk-tales. The folk-tales collected by Mr. Gushing constitute a charming- exhibit of the wisdom of the Zunis as they believe, though it may be but a charming ex- hibit of the follies of the Zunis as we believe. The wisdom of one age is the folly of the next, and the opinions of tribal men seem childish to civilized men. Then why should we seek to dis- cover their thoughts ? Science, in seeking to know the truth about the universe, does not expect to find it in mythology or folk-lore, does not even consider it as a paramount end that it should be used as an embellishment of literature, though it serves this purpose well. Modern science now considers it of profound importance to know the course of the evolution of the humanities ; that is, the evolution of pleasures, the evolution of indus- tries, the evolution of institutions, the evolution of languages, and, finally, the evolution of opinions. How opinions grow seems to be one of the most instructive chapters in the science of psychology. Psychologists do not go to the past to find valid opinions, but to find stages of development in Introduction ix opinions ; hence mythology or folk-lore is of pro- found interest and supreme importance. Under the scriptorial wand of Gushing the folk- tales of the Zuiiis are destined to become a part of the living literature of the world, for he is a poet althouo-h he does not write in verse. Cushine can think as myth-makers think, he can speak as proph- ets speak, he can expound as priests expound, and his tales have the verisimilitude of ancient lore ; but his sympathy with the mythology of tribal men does not veil the realities of science from his mind. The gods of Zuni, like those of all primitive people, are the ancients of animals, but we must understand and heartily appreciate their simple thought if we would do them justice. All entities are animals — men, brutes, plants, stars, lands, waters, and rocks — and all have souls. The souls are tenuous existences — mist entities, gaseous crea- tures inhabiting firmer bodies of matter. They are ghosts that own bodies. They can leave their bodies, or if they discover bodies that have been vacated they can take possession of them. Force and mind belong to souls ; fixed form, firm exist- ence belong to matter, while bodies and souls constitute the world. The world is a universe of animals. The stars are animals compelled to travel around the world by magic. The plants are animals under a spell of enchantment, so that usu- ally they cannot travel. The waters are animals sometimes under the spell of enchantment. Lakes writhe in waves, the sea travels in circles about the X Introduction earth, and the streams run over the lands. Moun- tains and hills tremble in pain, but cannot wander about ; but rocks and hills and mountains some- times travel about by night. These animals of the world come in a flood of generations, and the first-born are gods and are usually called the ancients, or the first ones ; the later-born generations are descendants of the gods, but alas, they are degenerate sons. The theatre of the world is the theatre of necro- mancy, and the gods are the primeval wonder- workers ; the gods still live, but their descendants often die. Death itself is the result of necromancy practiced by bad men or angry gods. In every Amerindian language there is a term to express this magical power. Among the Iro- quoian tribes it is called orenda ; among the Siouan tribe some manifestations of it are called wakan or wakanda, but the generic term in this language is hube. Amonor the Shoshonean tribes it is called pokunt. Let us borrow one of these terms and call it " orenda." All unexplained phenomena are attributed to orenda. Thus the venom of the ser- pent is orenda, and this orenda can pass from a serpent to an arrow by another exercise of orenda, and hence the arrow is charmed. The rattle-snake may be stretched beside the arrow, and an invoca- tion may be performed that will convey the orenda from the snake to the arrow, or the serpent may be made into a witch's stew and the arrow dipped into the brew. No man has contributed more to our under- Introduction xi standing of the doctrine of orenda as believed and practised by the Amerindian tribes than Gushing himself. In other publications he has elaborately discussed this doctrine, and in his lectures he was wont to show how forms and decorations of imple- ments and utensils have orenda for their motive. When one of the ancients — that is, one of the gods — of the Iroquois was planning the streams of earth by his orenda or magical power, he deter- mined to have them run up one side and down the other ; if he had done this men could float up or down at will, by passing from one side to the other of the river, but his wicked brother interfered and made them run down on both sides ; so orenda may thwart orenda. The bird that sings is universally held by tri- bal men to be exercising its orenda. And when human beings sing they also exercise orenda ; hence song is a universal accompaniment of Amerindian worship. All their worship is thus fundamentally terpsichorean, for it is supposed that they can be induced to grant favors by pleasing them. All diseases and ailments of mankind are at- tributed by tribal men to orenda, and all mythology is a theory of magic. Yet many of the tribes, per- haps all of them, teach in their tales of some method of introducing death and disease into the world, but it is a method by which supernatural agencies can cause sickness and death. The prophets, who are also priests, wonder- workers, and medicine-men, are called shamans in scientific literature. In popular literature and in xli Introduction frontier parlance they are usually called medicine- men. Shamans are usually initiated into the guild, and frequently there are elaborate tribal cere- monies for the purpose. Often individuals have revelations and set up to prophesy, to expel dis- eases, and to teach as priests. If they gain a fol- lowing they may ultimately exert much influence and be greatly revered, but if they fail they may gradually be looked upon as wizards or witches, and they may be accused of black art, and in ex- treme cases may be put to death. All Amerin- dians believe in shamancraft and witchcraft. The myths of cosmology are usually called crea- tion myths. Sometimes all myths which account for things, even the most trivial, are called creation myths. Every striking phenomenon observed by the Amerind has a myth designed to account for its origin. The horn of the buffalo, the tawny patch on the shoulders of the rabbit, the crest of the blue-jay, the tail of the magpie, the sheen of the chameleon, the rattle of the snake, — in fact, everything that challenges attention gives rise to a myth. Thus the folk-tales of the Amerinds seem to be inexhaustible, for in every language, and there are hundreds of them, a different set of myths is found. In all of these languages a strange similarity in cosmology is observed, in that it is a cosmology of regions or worlds. About the home world of the tribe there is gathered a group of worlds, one above, another below, and four more : one at every cardinal point ; or we may describe it as a central Introduction xiii world, an upper world, a lower world, a northern world, a southern world, an eastern world, and a western world. All of the animals of the tribes, be they human animals, tree animals, star animals, water animals (that is, bodies of water), or stone ani- mals (that is, mountains, hills, valleys, and rocks), have an appropriate habitation in the zenith world, the nadir world, or in one of the cardinal worlds, and their dwelling in the center world is accounted for by some myth of travel to this world. All bodies and all attributes of bodies have a home or proper place of habitation ; even the colors of the clouds and the rainbow and of all other objects on earth are assigned to the six regions from which they come to the midworld. We may better understand this habit of thought by considering the folk-lore of civilization. Here are but three regions : heaven, earth, and hell. All good things come from heaven ; and all bad things from hell. It is true that this cosmology is not entertained by scholarly people. An enlight- ened man thinks of moral good as a state of mind in the individual, an attribute of his soul, and a moral evil as the characteristic of an immoral man ; but still it is practically universal for even the most intelligent to affirm by a figure of speech that heaven is the place of good, and hell the place of evil. Now, enlarge this conception so as to assign a place as the proper region for all bodies and attributes, and you will understand the cosmo- logical concepts of the Amerinds. The primitive religion of every Amerindian xiv Introduction tribe is an organized system of inducing the ancients to take part in the affairs of men, and the worship of the gods is a system designed to please the gods, that they may be induced to act for men, particularly the tribe of men who are the wor- shipers. Time would fail me to tell of the multi- tude of activities in tribal life designed for this purpose, but a few of them may be mentioned. The first and most important of all are terpsichorean ceremonies and festivals. Singing and dancing are universal, and festivals are given at appointed times and places by every tribe. The long nights of winter are devoted largely to worship, and a succession of festival days are established, to be held at appropriate seasons for the worship of the gods. Thus there are festival days for invoking rain, there are festival days for thanksgiving — for harvest homes. In lands where the grasshopper is an important food there are grasshopper festivals. In lands where corn is an important food there are green-corn festivals ; where the buffalo constituted an important part of their aliment there were buffalo dances. So there is a bear dance or festi- val, and elk dance or festival, and a multitude of other festivals as we go from tribe to tribe, all of which are fixed at times indicated by signs of the zodiac. In the hig^her tribes elaborate calendars are devised from which we unravel their picture- writings. The practice of medicine by the shamans is an invocation to the gods to drive out evil spirits from the sick and to frighten them that they may leave. Introduction xv By music and dancing they obtain the help of the ancients, and by a great variety of methods they drive out the evil beings. Resort is often had to scarifying and searing, especially when the sick man has great local pains. All American tribes entertain a profound belief in the doctrine of signatures, — simzlia, similibtis curantur, — and they use this belief in procuring charms as medi- cine to drive out the ghostly diseases that plague their sick folk. Next in importance to terpsichorean worship is altar worship. The altar is a space cleared upon the ground, or a platform raised from the ground or floor of the kiva or assembly-house of the people. Around the altar are gathered the priests and their acolytes, and here they make prayers and perform ceremonies with the aid of altar-pieces of various kinds, especially tablets of picture-writings on wood, bone, or the skins of animals. The altar- pieces consist of representatives of the thing for which supplication is made : ears of corn or vases of meal, ewers of water, parts of animals designed for food, cakes of grasshoppers, basins of honey, in fine any kind of food ; then crystals or frag- ments of rock to signify that they desire the corn to be hard, or of honeydew that they desire the corn to be sweet, or of corn of different colors that they desire the corn to be of a variety of colors. That which is of o-reat interest to students of eth- nology is the system of picture-writing exhibited on the altars. In this a great variety of things which they desire and a great variety of the xvi Introduction characteristics of these things are represented in pictographs, or modeled in clay, or carved from wood and bone. The graphic art, as painting and sculpture, has its origin with tribal men in the de- velopment of altar-pieces. So also the drama is derived from primeval worship, as the modern practice of medicine has been evolved from necromancy. There is another method of worship found in savagery, but more highly developed in barbarism, — the worship of sacrifice. The altar-pieces and the dramatic supplications of the lower stage gradually develop into a sacrificial stage in the higher culture. Then the objects are supposed to supply the ancients themselves with food and drink and the pleasures of life. This stage was most highly developed in Mexico, especially by the Nahua or Aztec, where human beings were sacri- ficed. In general, among the Amerinds, not only are sacrifices made on the altar, but they are also made whenever food or drink is used. Thus the first portions of objects designed for consumption are dedicated to the gods. There are in America many examples of these pagan religions, to a greater or less extent afifiliated in doctrine and in worship with the relieion of Christian orio^in. In the early history of the association of white men with the Seneca of New York and Pennsyl- vania, there was in the tribe a celebrated shaman named Handsome Lake, as his Indian name is translated into English. Handsome Lake had a nephew who was taken by the Spaniards to Europe Introduction xvii and educated as a priest. The nephew, on his re- turn to America, told many Bible stories to his uncle, for he speedily relapsed into paganism. The uncle compounded some of these Bible stories with Seneca folk-tales, and through his eloquence and o-reat influence as a shaman succeeded in establish- o incr amone the Seneca a new cult of doctrine and worship. The Seneca are now divided into two very distinct bodies who live together on the same reser- vation,— the one are " Christians," the other are " Pao-ans " who believe and teach the cult of Hand- some Lake. Mr. Gushing has introduced a hybrid tale into his collection, entitled " The Cock and the Mouse." Such tales are found again and again among the Amerinds. In a large majority of cases Bible stories are compounded with native stories, so that unwary people have been led to believe that the Amerinds are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. J. W. Powell. Washington City, November, 1901. ZUNI FOLK TALES THE TRIAL OF LOVERS: OR THE MAIDEN OF MATSAKI AND THE RED FEATHER {Told the First Night) IN the days of the ancients, when Matsaki was the home of the children of men, there Hved, in that town, which is called " Salt City," because the God- dess of Salt made a white lake there in the days of the New, a beautiful maiden. She was passing beautiful, and the daughter of the priest-chief, who owned more buckskins and blankets than he could hang on his poles, and whose port-holes were cov- ered with turquoises and precious shells from the ocean — so many were the sacrifices he made to the gods. His house was the largest in Matsaki, and his ladder-poles were tall and decorated with slabs of carved wood — which you know was a great thing, for our grandfathers cut with the timush or flint knife, and even tilled their corn-fields with wooden hoes sharpened with stone and weighted with granite. That 's the reason why all the young men in the towns round about were in love with the beautiful maiden of Salt City. Now, there was one very fine young man who lived across the western plains, in the Pueblo of the 2 Zuni Folk Tales Winds. He was so filled with thoughts of the maiden of Matsaki that he labored long to gather presents for her, and looked not with favor on any girl of his own pueblo. One morning he said to his fathers : " I have seen the maiden of Matsaki ; what think ye ? " " Be it well," said the old ones. So toward night the young man made a bundle of mantles and neck- laces, which he rolled up in the best and whitest buckskin he had. When the sun was settingf he started toward Matsaki, and just as the old man's children had grathered in to smoke and talk he reached the house of the maiden's father and climbed the ladder. He lifted the corner of the mat door and shouted to the people below — " Shd ! " ''Hair' answered more than a pair of voices from below. " Pull me down," cried the young man, at the same time showing his bundle through the sky- hole. The maiden's mother rose and helped the young man down the ladder, and as he entered the fire- light he laid the bundle down. " My fathers and mothers, my sisters and friends, how be ye these many days ? " said he, very care- fully, as though he were speaking to a council. " Happy ! Happy !" they all responded, and they said also : " Sit down ; sit down on this stool," which they placed for him in the fire-light. " My daughter," remarked the old man, who was smoking his cigarette by the opposite side of the hearth-place, " when a stranger enters the house of The Trial of Lovers 3 a stranger, the girl should place before him food and cooked things." So the girl brought from the great vessel in the corner fresh rolls of h^we, or bread of corn-flour, thin as papers, and placed them in a tray before the young man, where the light would fall on them. " Eat ! " said she, and he replied, " It is well." Whereupon he sat up very straight, and placing his left hand across his breast, very slowly took a roll of the wafer bread with his right hand and ate ever so little ; for you know it is not well or polite to eat much when you go to see a strange girl, especially if you want to ask her if she will let you live in the same house with her. So the young man ate ever so little, and said, " Thank you." " Eat more," said the old ones ; but when he re- plied that he was " past the naming of want," they said, " Have eaten," and the girl carried the tray away and swept away the crumbs. "Well," said the old man, after a short time, " when a stranger enters the house of a stranger, it is not thinking of nothing that he enters." " Why, that is quite true," said the youth, and then he waited. " Then what may it be that thou hast come thinking of ? " added the old man. 'T have heard," said the young man, "of your daughter, and have seen her, and it was with thoughts of her that I came." Just then the grown-up sons of the old man, who had come to smoke and chat, rose and said to one another : " Is it not about time we should be 4 Zuni Folk Tales going home ? The stars must be all out." Thus saying, they bade the old ones to " wait happily until the morning," and shook hands with the young man who had come, and went to the homes of their wives' mothers. *' Listen, my child ! " said the old man after they had gone away, turning toward his daughter, who was sitting near the wall and looking down at the beads on her belt fringe. " Listen ! You have heard what the young man has said. What think you ? " " Why ! I know not ; but what should I say but * Be it well,' " said the girl, " if thus think my old ones?" " As you may," said the old man ; and then he made a cigarette and smoked with the young man. When he had thrown away his cigarette he said to the mother : " Old one, is it not time to stretch out ? " So when the old ones were asleep in the corner, the girl said to the youth, but in a low voice : " Only possibly you love me. True, I have said ' Be it well ' ; but before I take your bundle and say 'thanks,' I would that you, to prove that you verily love me, should go down into my corn-field, among the lands of the priest-chief, by the side of the river, and hoe all the corn in a single morning. If you will do this, then shall I know you love me ; then shall I take of your presents, and happy we will be together." " Very well," replied the young man ; " I am willing." Then the young girl lighted a bundle of cedar The Trial of Lovers 5 splints and showed him a room which contained a bed of soft robes and blankets, and, placing her father's hoe near the door, bade the young man " wait happily unto the morning." So when she had gone he looked at the hoe and thought : " Ha ! if that be all, she shall see in the mornins: that I am a man." At the peep of day over the eastern mesa he roused himself, and, shouldering the wooden hoe, ran down to the corn-fields ; and when, as the sun was coming out, the young girl awoke and looked down from her house-top, " Aha ! " thought she, " he is doing well, but my children and I shall see how he gets on somewhat later. I doubt if he loves me as much as he thinks he does." So she went into a closed room. Down in the corner stood a water jar, beautifully painted and as brieht as new. It looked like other water jars, but it was not. It was wonderful, wonderful ! for it was covered with a stone lid which held down many may-flies and gnats and mosquitoes. The maiden lifted the lid and began to speak to the little animals as though she were praying. " Now, then, my children, this day fly ye forth all, and in the corn-fields by the river there shall ye see a young man hoeing. So hard is he working that he is stripped as for a race. Go forth and seek him." " Tsu-nu-nu-nu" said the flies, and " Tsi-m-m-ni" sang the gnats and mosquitoes ; which meant " Yes," you know. " And," further said the girl, " when ye find him, 6 Zuni Folk Tales bite him, his body all over, and eat ye freely of his blood ; spare not his armpits, neither his neck nor his eyelids, and fill his ears with humming." And again the flies said, " Tsu-nu-nu-nu^' and the mosquitoes and gnats, " Tsi-ni-7ii-nu' Then, nu-u-u, away they all flew like a cloud of sand on a windy morning. " Blood !" exclaimed the young man. He wiped the sweat from his face and said, "The gods be angry ! " Then he dropped his hoe and rubbed his shins with sand and slapped his sides. ''Atu ! " he yelled; "what matters — what in the name of the Moon Mother matters with these little beasts that cause thoughts ? " Whereupon, crazed and restless as a spider on hot ashes, he rolled in the dust, but to no purpose, for the flies and gnats and mosquitoes sang '' ku-n-n" and '' tsi- ni-ni " about his ears until he grabbed up his blanket and breakfast, and ran toward the home of his fathers. ''Wa-ha ha! Ho of" laughed a young man in the Tented Pueblo to the north, when he heard how the lover had fared. " Shoom ! " he sneered. " Much of a man he must have been to give up the maid of Matsaki for may-flies and gnats and mosquitoes ! " So on the very next morning, he, too, said to his old ones : " What a fool that lit- tle boy must have been. I will visit the maiden of Matsaki. I '11 show the people of Pinawa what a Hampasawan man can do. Courage ! " — and, as the old ones said " Be it well," he went as the other had gone ; but, pshaw ! he fared no better. The Trial of Lovers 7 After some time, a young man who Hved in the River Town heard about it and laughed as hard as the youth of the Tented Pueblo had. He called the two others fools, and said that "girls were not in the habit of asking much when one's bundle was large." And as he was a young man who had everything, he made a bundle of presents as large as he could carry ; but it did him no good. He, too, ran away from the may-flies and gnats and mosquitoes. Many days passed before any one else would try again to woo the maiden of Matsaki. They did not know, it is true, that she was a Passing Being ; but others had failed all on account of mosquitoes and may-flies and little black gnats, and had been more satisfied with shame than a full hungry man with food. "That is sick satis- faction," they would say to one another, the fear of which made them wait to see what others would do. Now, in the Ant Hill, which was named Halon- awan,^ lived a handsome young man, but he was poor, although the son of the priest -chief of Halonawan. He thought many days, and at last said to his grandmother, who was very old and crafty, 'H6-ta f " ' The ancient pueblo of Zuni itself was called Halonawan, or the Ant Hill, the ruins of which, now buried beneath the sands, lie opposite the modern town within the cast of a stone. Long before Halonawan was abandoned, the nucleus of the present structure was begun around one of the now central plazas. It was then, and still is, in the ancient songs and rituals of the Zunis, Hdlotia-{tiwana , or the "Middle Ant Hill of the World," and was often spoken of in connection with the older town as simply the "Ant Hill." 8 Zuni Folk Tales "What sayest my ndnaf'' said the old woman; for, like grandmothers nowadays, she was very soft and gentle to her grandson. " I have seen the maiden of Matsaki and my thoughts kill me with longing, for she is passing beautiful and wisely slow. I do not wonder that she asks hard tasks of her lovers ; for it is not of their bundles that she thinks, but of themselves. Now, I strengthen my thoughts with my manli- ness. My heart is hard against weariness, and I would go and speak to the beautiful maiden." ''Yo d! my poor boy," said the grandmother. " She is as wonderful as she is wise and beautiful. She thinks not of men save as brothers and friends ; and she it is, I bethink me, who sends the may-flies and gnats and mosquitoes, therefore, to drive them away. They are but disguised beings, and beware, my grandson, you will only cover yourself with shame as a man is covered with water who walks through a rain-storm ! I would not go, my poor grandchild. I would not go," she added, shaking her head and biting her lips till her chin touched her nose-tip. "Yes, but I must go, my grandmother. Why should I live only to breathe hard with longing ? Perhaps she will better her thoughts toward me." " Ah, yes, but all the same, she will test thee. Well, go to the mountains and scrape bitter bark from the finger-root ; make a little loaf of the bark and hide it in your belt, and when the maiden sends you down to the corn-field, work hard at the hoeing until sunrise. Then, when your body is The Trial of Lovers 9 covered with sweat-drops, rub every part with the root-bark. The finger-root bark, it is bitter as bad sah mixed in with bad water, and the * horn- wings ' and ' long-beaks ' and ' blue-backs ' fly far from the salt that is bitter." " Then, my gentle grandmother, I will try your words and thank you," — for he was as gentle and good as his grandmother was knowing and crafty. Even that day he went to the mountains and gathered a ball of finger-root. Then, toward even- ing, he took a little bundle and went up the trail by the river-side to Matsaki. When he climbed the ladder and shouted down the mat door : '' Slid ! Are ye within ? " the people did not answer at once, for the old ones were angry with their daughter that she had sent off so many fine lovers. But when he shouted again they answered : " Hai, and Ee, we are within. Be yourself within." Then without help he went down the ladder, but he did n't mind, for he felt himself poor and his bundle was small. As he entered the fire-light he greeted the people pleasantly and gravely, and with thanks took the seat that was laid for him. Now, you see, the old man was angry with the girl, so he did not tell her to place cooked things before him, but turned to his old wife. " Old one," he began — but before he had fin- ished the maiden arose and brought rich venison stew and flaky hdwe, which she placed before the youth where the fire's brightness would fall upon it, with meat broth for drink ; then she sat down lo Zuni Folk Tales opposite him and said, " Eat and drink ! " Where- upon the young man took a roll of the wafer-bread and, breaking it in two, gave the girl the larger piece, which she bashfully accepted. The old man raised his eyebrows and upper lids, looked at his old wife, spat in the fireplace, and smoked hard at his cigarette, joining the girl in her invitation by saying, " Yes, have to eat well." Soon the young man said, *' Thanks," and the maiden quickly responded, " Eat more," and " Have eaten." After brushing the crumbs away the girl sat down by her mother, and the father rolled a ciga- rette for the young man and talked longer with him than he had with the others. After the old ones had stretched out in the corner and begun to "scrape their nostrils with their breath," the maiden turned to the young man and said : " I have a corn-field in the lands of the priest-chief, down by the river, and if you truly love me, I would that you should hoe the whole in a single morning. Thus may you prove yourself a man, and to love me truly ; and if you will do this, happily, as day follows day, will we live each with the other." ''Hai-i/" replied the young man, who smiled as he listened ; and as the young maiden looked at him, sitting in the fading fire-light with the smile on his face, she thought : " Only possibly. But oh ! how I wish his heart might be strong, even though his bundle be not heavy nor large. " Come with me, young man, and I will show you The Trial of Lovers ii where you are to await the morning. Early take my father's hoe, which stands by the doorway, and go down to the corn-field long before the night shadows have run away from Thunder Mountain " — with which she bade him pass a night of content- ment and sought her own place. When all was still, the young man climbed to the sky-hole and in the starlight asked the gods of the woodlands and waters to give strength to his hands and power to his prayer-medicine, and to meet and bless him with the light of their favor ; and he threw to the night-wind meal of the seeds of earth and the waters of the world with which those who are wise fail not to make smooth their trails of life. Then he slept till the sky of the day-land grew yellow and the shadows of the night-land grew gray, and then shouldered his hoe and went down to the corn-field. His task was not great, for the others had hoed much. Where they left off, there he fell to digging right and left with all his strength and haste, till the hard soil mellowed and the earth flew before his strokes as out of the burrows of the strongest-willed gophers and other digging creatures. When the sun rose the maiden looked forth and saw that his task was already half done. But still she waited. As the sun warmed the day and the youth worked on, the dewdrops of flesh stood all over his body and he cast away, one after the other, his blanket and sash and even his leggings and moccasins. Then he stopped to look around. By the side of the field grew tall yellow-tops. He 12 Zuni Folk Tales ran into the thicket and rubbed every part of his body, yea, even the hair of his head and his ear- tips and nostrils, with the bark of the finger-root. Again he fell to work as though he had only been resting, and wondered why the may-flies and gnats and mosquitoes came not to cause him thoughts as they had the others. Yet still the girl lingered ; but at last she went slowly to the room where the jar stood. " It is absurd," thought she, "that I should hope it or even care for it ; it would indeed be great if it were well true that a young man should love me so verily as to hold his face to the front through such a testing." Nevertheless, she drew the lid off and bade her strange children to spare him no more than they had the others. All hasty to feast themselves on the "waters of life," as our old grandfathers would say for blood, again they rushed out and hummed along over the corn-fields in such numbers that they looked more like a wind-driven sandstorm than ever, and " tsi- m-nz-i, tso-no-o " they hummed and buzzed about the ears of the young man when they came to him, so noisily that the poor fellow, who kept at work all the while, thought they were already biting him. But it was only fancy, for the first may-fly that did bite him danced in the air with disgust and ex- claimed to his companions, ''Sho-o-o-m-m ! " and " U's- d / " which meant that he had eaten something nasty, that tasted as badly as vile odors smell. So not another may-fly in the throng would bite, although they all kept singing their song about his ears. And The Trial of Lovers 13 to this day may-flies are careful whom they bite, and dance a long time in the air before they do it. Then a gnat tried it and gasped, " Wehf " which meant that his stomach had turned over, and he had such a sick headache that he reeled round and round in the air, and for that reason gnats always bite very quickly, for fear their stomachs will turn over, and they will reel and reel round and round in the air before doing it. Finally, long-beak himself tried it, and, as long- beak hangs on, you know, longer than most other little beasts, he kept hold until his two hindlegs were warped out of shape ; but at last he had to let go, too, and flew straight away, crying, " Yd kotcJii! " which meant that something bitter had burned his snout. Now, for these reasons mosquitoes always have bent-up hindlegs, which they keep lifting up and down while biting, as though they were stand- ing on something hot, and they are apt to sing and smell around very cautiously before spearing us, and they fly straight away, you will notice, as soon as they are done. Now, when the rest of the gnats and mosquitoes heard the words of their elder brothers, they did as the may-flies had done — did not venture, no, not one of them, to bite the young lover. They all flew away and settled down on the yellow-tops, where they had a council, and decided to go and find some prairie-dogs to bite. Therefore you will al- most always find may-flies, gnats, and mosquitoes around prairie-dog holes in summer time when the corn is growing. 14 Zuni Folk Tales So the young man breathed easily as he hoed hard to finish his task ere the noonday, and when the maiden looked down and saw that he still labored there, she said to herself : " Ah, indeed he must love me, for still he is there ! Well, it may be, for only a little longer and they will leave him in peace." Hastily she placed venison in the cooking- pot and prepared fresh h^we and sweetened bread, "for maybe," she still thought, "and then I will have it ready for him." Now, alas ! you do not know that this good and beautiful maiden had a sister, alas ! — a sister as beautiful as herself, but bad and double-hearted ; and you know when people have double hearts they are wizards or witches, and have double tongues and paired thoughts — such a sister elder had the maiden of Matsaki, alas ! When the sun had climbed almost to the middle of the sky, the maiden, still doubtful, looked down once more. He was there, and was workingr among the last hills of corn. 