Frank Hamilton Cushing

“ The people who called themselves "Of the Seed"—who were none others than the "Drinkers of the Dew of Grasses"—bade them pause. "Behold!" said they, "we have powers above yours, yet without your aid we can not exert them; even as the mothers of men may not be fertile save of the fathers. Ye are our younger brothers, for verily so are your People of Seed, and more precious than they know, are they and their sacred keepings, ye—unwittingly, alack!—so boast of; even as we are more wise than ye are and in ourselves quickening withal, for ye are, like virgins, unthinking, yet fertile. ”

“ And K‘yäk ́lu said: "It is well; I am ready; yea, even my heart listeneth," and in cadence to their speech following, he moved the Duck with her tinkling, talking shells, as a master of song moves his baton, or a dancer his rattle, and in solemn, ceaseless tone, as in singing yet with speech more steady, the gods, one by one, told to K‘yäk ́lu the things each best knew, whereof he so wondrously speaks when come amongst us for the welfare of our little children, bringing them the sacred breath of the Kâ ́kâ itself, and to their elders these same speeches of the gods. ”

“ Behold! the grasses were jointed where grasped four times or six according to their tallness; yea, and marked with the thumb-marks of those who grasped them; twisted by their grasp while circling around them and leaved with plume-like blades and tasseled with grass-like spikes at the tops. More wonderful than all, where their persons had touched the plants at their middles, behold! new seed of human origin and productive of continued life had sprung forth in semblance of their parentage and draped with the very pile of their generation. ”

“ THE BIRTH OF THE OLD-ONES OR ANCIENTS OF THE KÂ ́KÂ.
In time there were born to these twain, twelve children. Nay, neither man-children nor woman-children they! For look now! The first, was a woman in fulness of contour, but a man in stature and brawn. From the mingling of too much seed in one kind, comes the two-fold one kind, ‘hláhmon, being man and woman combined—even as from a kernel of corn with two hearts, ripens an ear that is neither one kind nor the other, but both! ”

“ And in their hands they carried, not tablets of the sun, moon, and each her star with cross symbol of the Corn priests above them, but, verily, wands of cottonwood from the branchlets and buds of which tiny clouds flowed forth.
"These be the sisters of our Maidens of Corn, of the House of the Stars, seen these too, as they, so these more faintly, as, when above are seen the stars of the House of Seven, others seven are seen below in the waters. Like in form of gesture is their dance custom, but fertile not of the seed, but of the water of life wherewith the seed is quickened," said Paíyatuma. ”

“ Forth to the river side went the priests. "We carry no pricking quills," said they, raising their hands all weaponless, "and, O, Black-banded father, we seek your aid; for look now, the mother-maidens of seed whose substance is the food alike of thy people and our people, have fled away whither neither our grandfather the Eagle, nor yet his younger brother the Falcon, can trace them; and we pray thee to aid us or give us counsel of guidance."
"Ka! ka!" cried the Raven. "Nay, now; much too hungry am I to go abroad fasting on business for ye and thy kind. Ye are stingy! ”

“ And as the bear, whose coat is grizzly like the evening twilight or black like the darkness of night, and the gray coyote, who prowls amidst the sagebrush at evening and goes forth and cries in the night-time, and the spring herb or the red-top plant, which blooms earliest of all flowers in spring when first the moisture-laden winds from the west begin to blow—these and the people named after them are as appropriately grouped in the west. ”

“ All through the night backward and forward danced they to the song line of the elders, and in accordance therewith by the side of the growing plants, motioning them upward with their magic wands and plumes, as we, with implements of husbandry, encourage the growth upward of the corn plants today. As time went on, the matron of the dance led the youth and the first maiden apart, and they grasped, one on either side, the first plants, dancing around them, gently drawing them upward as they went, even as the Two Beloved had caused to grow the canes of the under-world. ”

“ Go ye before contentedly," answered the Eagle, smoothing his feathers.
Forthwith the warriors returned to the council of the fathers, relating how that their message had been well received, and the eagle leapt forth and winged his way high into the sky—high, high, until he circled among the clouds, small seeming and swift, as seed-down in a whirlwind. And all through the heights he circled and sailed, to the north, the west, the south and the east. Yet nowhere saw he trace of the Maidens. ”

“ Look ye now; ye have watched ill, ye matrons and elders, and therein grievously have ye sinned, wherefore lost be our beloved maidens, mothers of the Seed of Seed, for some amongst our children have dared to hold them less than precious, and look upon them as upon maidens of the people they look! Wherefore arise, and brush away from thy persons and spit forth from thy mouths the evil of this night, that the day find ye not shame-darkened, and further ill befall ye not than the grievous loss of our beautiful maidens ”

“ Ere long, the sound of music was heard, coming from up the river, and soon came Paíyatuma followed by his Flute people and singers and maidens of the Flute dance. Uprose the fathers and all the watching people, greeting the God of Dawn with outstretched hands and offerings of prayer-meal, and words of thanks and welcome. Then the singers took their places and sounded their drum, flutes, and song of clear waters, while the Maidens of the Dew danced their custom of the Flute dance. Greatly marveled the people when from the wands they bore forth came white clouds, and fine cool mists descended. ”

“ But in spring, when with the first appearance of the bear and the first supposed growls of his spirit masters in the thunders and winds of that time their breaths begin to bring water from the ocean world, then the strength of the winter is broken, and the snows thereby melted away, and the earth is revivified with drink, in order that with the warmth of summer from the south things may grow and be cherished toward their old age or maturity and perfection, and finally toward their death or sleeping in winter by the frost-laden breaths of autumn and the east. ”

“ But there came a day when the people grew vain and waxed insolent, saying, "Look now, we are perfect of parts and surely have attained to the Middle place or unto one equal thereunto. Go to, let us build greatly and lay up store, nor wearily wander again even though the earth tremble and the Twain bid us forth. Think ye we shall not be strong and defy even the Fearful?" cried the Men of the Knife, the stout warriors of the Twain. ”

“ Even so, shall white clouds float up from the great waters at the borders of the world, and clustering about the mountain terraces of the horizons be borne aloft and abroad by the breaths of the surpassing of soul-beings, and of the children, and shall hardened and broken be by thy cold, shedding downward, in rain-spray, the water of life, even into the hollow places of my lap! ”

“ For, lo! they have departed, since the children of men would seek to change the sustaining blessedness of their flesh into suffering humanity which sustains not but is sustained, and they would perish—even as the maidenhood of thy daughters must perish—and in the loving of men and the cherishing of men's children, lo! they, even they, would forget the cherishing of their beautiful seed-growing!
"Lo! as a mother of her own being and blood gives life and sustenance to her offspring, so have these given unto ye—for ye are their children—the means of life and sustenance. ”

“ Beings of sorcery, demons and monsters of the under-world fled forth. Creatures turned fierce, becoming beasts of prey, wherefore others turned timid, becoming their quarry; wretchedness and hunger abounded, black magic, war, and contention entered when fear did into the hearts of men and the creatures. Yea, fear was everywhere among them, wherefore, everywhere the people, hugging in dread their precious possessions, became wanderers they, living on the seeds of grasses, eaters of dead and slain things! ”

“ Our fathers come nigh in breath, when now we call the Kâ ́kâ, and they aid our songs and prayers to the beloved Gods of Rain and Wind. How, if they see we have departed from their customs, and reveal these things? Then will they be sad at our forgetfulness of their ways, and filled with fear lest these evil people, beholding, do sacrilege to their precious Kâ ́kâ, and will flee away, nor aid our songs and prayers for rain, nor our calls for their beloved presence! ”

“ Still sat they, their drum in the middle,
As they sit evermore, in that valley.
Lo! dwarfed and hideous-disguised were the two gods Áhaiyuta and Mátsailema, erst Uanamachi Píahkoa or the Beloved Twain who Descended—strong now with the full strength of evil; and armed as warriors of old, with long bows and black stone-tipped arrows of cane-wood in quivers of long-tailed skins of catamounts; whizzing slings, and death-singing slung-stones in fiber-pockets; spears with dart dealing fling-slats, and blood-drinking broad-knives of gray stone in fore-pouches of fur-skin ”

“ So, again the Winter people were bidden to go northward, that in their strength they might overcome evils and obstacles and with their bows strung with slackless fiber of the yucca, contend, winning their way with the enemy in cold weather or warm, and in rain and dryness alike. With them, as aforetime, they carried their precious múetone, and with them journeyed Mátsailema and the Warriors of the Knife, they and chosen Priests of the Bow. ”

“ Twain Children of terror and magic were they, and when they called with the voice of destruction the smitten warriors of these Twain Children stirred and uprose, breathing battle-cries as echoes answer cries in deep canyons, and swiftly they roused those who still lived, of the deep-slumbering people. ”

“ Nevertheless, with the coming of each season, the creation is ever repeated, for the philosophy of ecclesiasticism is far older than ecclesiastics or their writings, and since man aided in the creation of the corn, so must he now ever aid in each new creation of the seed of seeds. Whence the drama of the origin of corn is not merely reenacted, but is revived and reproduced in all its many details with scrupulous fidelity each summer as the new seed is ripening. ”

“ I have commanded the singers to cease and the players to draw breath from their flutes, that we might hearken to the messages ye bear, since for naught never stranger visits the place of a stranger."
"True," replied the two, "our fathers have sent us to seek and greet ye, it having been declared by our children that thy song-sounds and the customs thereof so far surpass our own, even those of our beloved Maidens, makers of the seed of seeds."
"Ah, well!" replied he, "thus ever is it with men, children, verily! Athirst ever are they for that which is not or which they have not. ”

“ Men and the creatures were nearer alike then than now: black were our fathers the late born of creation, like the caves from which they came forth; cold and scaly their skins like those of mud-creatures; goggled their eyes like those of an owl; membranous their ears like those of cave-bats ”

“ It is also true that the Zuñis do not again burn the dead and cast their ashes into the river, nor bury the bodies of the clan elders, or the priests of the tribal septuarchy, in their own houses, as they did ere the time of Coronado, or "under the ladders," as their funereal rituals continue nevertheless to say they do. They bury all, now, in the little strip of consecrated ground out in front of the church; ground already so overfilled with the bones of past generations that never a new grave is made that does not encroach on other graves. ”

“ The badger, who digs his hole on the sunny sides of hills and in winter appears only when the sun shines warm above them, who excavates among the roots of the juniper and the cedar from which fire is kindled with the fire drill; the wild tobacco, which grows only where fires have burned, and the corn which anciently came from the south and is still supposed to get its birth from the southland, and its warmth—these are grouped in the south. The turkey, which wakes with the dawn and helps to awaken the dawn by his cries ”

“ The third great cave-world, whereunto men and the creatures had now ascended, being larger than the second and higher, was lighter, like a valley in starlight, and named Áwisho tehuli—the Vaginal-womb, or the Place of Sex-generation or Gestation. For here the various peoples and beings began to multiply apart in kind one from another; and as the nations and tribes of men and the creatures thus waxed numerous as before, here, too, it became overfilled. ”

“ Then the Sálamopia lifted the ladder and guided upward K‘yäk ́lu and the Duck, showing them safely to the shore of the lake. When [413] the old ones (Kâ ́yemäshi) heard the shells of the Duck tinkling, forth they came, bringing their litter and singing boisterously, for much they loved K‘yäk ́lu as the light of the rising sun fell upon him, as a raven loves bright shells or chips of glistening stone. ”

“ Nay, nor is it matter of wonder, either, that for all that, they are as greedy of corn-food as ever, for look now—no sooner had the old Raven recovered than he espied one of the ears of corn half hidden under the mantle-covers of the trays. He leapt from his sitting place laughing (as they always do when they find anything, these ravens) , then catching up the ear of corn, he made off with it over the heads of the people and the tops of the houses, saying, "Ha! ha! in this wise and in no other meseems will ye find thy Seed maidens!" ”