“Blood!” cried he to the other. “Ati! Somebody’s coming!”
“Where?” asked the other. “Where?”
“Right over there!”
“Ati!” he exclaimed.
Then the Sun, with stately step, approached them, dazzling their eyes with his beauty and his magnificent dress. So the poor little fellows huddled together and crouched their knees close to their bodies (for they had no clothes on), and watched him, trembling, until he came near. Then one of them said faintly: “Comest thou?” as though he just remembered it.
“Yea, I do, my children,” said the Sun. “How are ye these many days?”
“Happy,” responded they; but they were almost frightened out of their wits, and kept looking first at the Sun-father and then at each other.
“My children,” said the Sun-father tenderly, “ye are my own children; I gave ye both life.” But they only gazed at him, not believing what he said.
“Ye are both mine own children,” he repeated.
“Is that so?” replied they.
“Yea, that is true; and I saw ye here, and pitied ye; so I came to speak with ye and to help ye.”
“Hai!” exclaimed they. But they still looked at each other and at the Sun-father, and did not believe him.
“Yea, ye are verily my children,” continued the Sun. “I am your own father. Around Thunder Mountain there is a city of men. It is called the Home of the Eagles, and there once lived a beautiful maiden who never left her home, but was always shut in her room. Day after day at midday, just at this time, I came down and visited her in my own sunlight. And a great Eagle always stood and watched her. Now, the townspeople grew anxious to see her, so they danced day after day their most beautiful dances, hoping to entice her to come forth; but she never looked out. So her father’s warriors went to the home of Áhaiyúta and his younger brother, Mátsailéma, where they lived with their grandmother, on the middle of Thunder Mountain, and the Twain said that they would go with them and compel her to come forth. Therefore, one day they went and led the dance of the Óinahe. Yet, although they danced four times, she would not come forth, but tried to escape to my home in the heavens on the back of her Eagle; so the two gods shot her, and she fell down the canyon. Then it was that ye two, my children, were born and rolled among the bushes. Now, the people ran down from the village to strive for your mother’s body, and an Acoma got her and carried her away to the home of his people. An old Badger found ye and brought ye home to his wife, and that is the way ye came to live in the home of the Badgers.”
Still the little ones did not believe him.
“Look!” said the Sun-father. “See what I have brought ye!” Then he continued: “Wait; in eight days, in the Home of the Eagles, where your aunts live in the house of your mother’s father, there will be a great dance. Go ye thither. Ye will climb up a crooked path and enter the town through a road under the houses. Do not go out at once into the plaza, but wait until the dancers come out. Then step forth, and over to the left of the plaza ye will see your grandfather’s house. It is the greatest house in the city, and the longest ladder leads up to it, and fringes of hair ornament its poles. On the roof ye will see, if the day be warm, two noisy macaws, and there ye will see your mother’s sisters—your own aunts. When ye go into the plaza the people will rush up to ye and say: ‘Whither do ye come, friends? Will ye not join in the dance?’ And ye must say ye will, and then your aunts will come down and dance for the first time, because they are the most beautiful maidens in the pueblo, and very proud. But they will take hold of your hands and dance with ye, and when they have done will ask ye to come into their house; and ye must go.
“Now, the one who sits over in the northern corner is the first sister of your mother, therefore your mother; and the one who sits next to her is your next mother, and so on. There will be eight of them, and the youngest will be like a sister unto ye. They will place stools for ye, and ye must sit down and call them aunts. They will say: ‘Certainly, we are the aunts of all good boys in the cities of men who are not our enemies.’ And then ye must tell them that they are your real aunts, that this is your house, that your mother used to live there—was the maiden who never went out, but always sat making beautiful basket-trays of many-colored splints. Then ye must lead them into the next room, and the next, and then into the next one, and point to the beautiful basket-trays on the walls. There on the northern wall will hang a yellow tray, on the west wall will hang a blue one, and on the south wall, a red tray, then
