The Maiden the Sun Made Love To, and Her Boys
Or, The Origin of Anger
Let it be about a person who lived in the Home of the Eagles (Kʻiákime), under the Mountain of Thunder, that I tell you today. So let it be. It was in the ancient, long-forgotten times. It was in the very ancient times beyond one’s guessing. There lived then, in this town, the daughter of a great priest-chief, but she had never, never, never since she was a little child, come forth from the doorway of the house in which she dwelt. No one there in that town had ever seen her; even her own townspeople had never seen her.
Now, day after day at noon-time, when the Sun stood in the mid-heavens, he would look down from the sky through a little window in the roof of her house. And he it was who instant was her lover, and who, descending upon the luminously yellow trail his own rays created, would talk to her. And he was her only companion, for she knew not her own townspeople, neither had she seen them since she was a child. None save only her parents ever saw her.
“Wonder what the cacique’s child looks like,” the people would say to one another. “She never comes out; no one has seen her since she was a little child.” And so at last they schemed to get a look at her. One said: “I have it! Let us have a dance for her. Then it may be she will deign to come forth.”
The young man who spoke was chief of the dances, and why should he not suggest such a thing? So, his friends and followers agreeing, they began to make plumes of macaw feathers—beautiful plumes they were—for the Plume dance. They set a day, and on that day, in the morning, they danced, with music and song, in the plaza before the house of the great priest-chief where the girl lived. They looked along the top of the house in vain; the girl was not there; only her old parents sat on the roof.
“Oh! I’m so thirsty!” cried the chief of the dance, for he it was who wanted to see the girl.
“Run right in and get a drink,” said the girl’s old ones. So the young man climbed the ladder and went into the first room. There was no water there; then he went into the second room, but there was no water there; then into the third room, but still he found no water. He looked all around, but saw nothing of the priest-chief’s daughter. All the same, she was back in the fourth room, sitting there just as if no dance were going on in the plaza, weaving away at her beautiful trays of colored splints.
Well, the young man went back; they finished their dance, but no one saw anything of the priest-chief’s daughter; and when the dancers all returned to their ceremonial chamber they said to one another: “Alas! although we danced for her, she came not out to see us!”
Now, in reality, the Sun, who was her lover, and came down each day on a ray of his own light to visit her, loved her so much he would not that she should come forth from her house and be seen of men. Therefore he set an Eagle upon the housetop in a great cage to watch her. He was a very wise old Eagle. He could understand every word that the people said. And he it was that she fed and watered from day to day. Now, the dancers in the ceremonial chamber asked: “What shall we do?”
“Why, let us dance again,” said the chief of the dances, “and if we do not succeed, yet again.” They did as he said, but with no better success than before; so at last the two Warrior Priests of the Bow grew angry, and although they were the girl’s father’s own warriors, they ordered the Warrior festival, or Óinahe dance. “Surely,” said they, “she will come forth, and if not, let her perish, for how can she refuse the delight of the great Óinahe, where each young man dances and masks himself according to his fancy?”
So, one night the two warriors went out and called to the people to make ready and be happy, for in four days they should dance the Óinahe. When they had done calling, they descended, and the people said to one another: “Surely she will come out when we dance the Óinahe, for she will be delighted with it, and we shall yet see her. She was very beautiful when she was a little girl.” Then both of the warriors climbed to the top of Thunder Mountain, where Áhaiyúta and his brother, Mátsailéma, the Gods of War, and their grandmother lived in the middle of the summit. As they approached the presence of the two gods, they exclaimed: “She-e!”
“Hai!” the gods replied.
“Our fathers, how is it that ye are, these many days?” they asked, and the Twain replied: “We are happy. Come in; sit down”; and they placed a couple of stools for the warriors. “What is it that ye would of us?” they continued; “for it would be
