“I yami hota utchu tchapikya,
Tokos! tokos! tokos! tokos!”
So he pricked up his ears, and lifting his tail, trotted forward toward the level place between the hillocks and doorways of the village, where the Owls were dancing in a row. He looked at them with great curiosity, squatting on his haunches, the more composedly to observe them. Indeed, he became so much interested and amused by their shambling motions and clever evolutions, that he could no longer contain his curiosity. So he stepped forward, with a smirk and a nod toward the old master of ceremonies, and said: “My father, how are you and your children these many days?”
“Contented and happy,” replied the old Owl, turning his attention to the dancing again.
“Yes, but I observe you are dancing,” said the Coyote. “A very fine dance, upon my word! Charming! Charming! And why should you be dancing if you were not contented and happy, to be sure?”
“We are dancing,” responded the Owl, “both for our pleasure and for the good of the town.”
“True, true,” replied the Coyote; “but what’s that which looks like foam these dancers are carrying on their heads, and why do they dance in so limping a fashion?”
“You see, my friend,” said the Owl, turning toward the Coyote, “we hold this to be a very sacred performance—very sacred indeed. Being such, these my children are initiated and so trained in the mysteries of the sacred society of which this is a custom that they can do very strange things in the observance of our ceremonies. You ask what it is that looks like foam they are balancing on their heads. Look more closely, friend. Do you not observe that it is their own grandmothers’ heads they have on, the feathers turned white with age?”
“By my eyes!” exclaimed the Coyote, blinking and twitching his whiskers; “it seems so.”
“And you ask also why they limp as they dance,” said the Owl. “Now, this limp is essential to the proper performance of our dance—so essential, in fact, that in order to attain to it these my children go through the pain of having their legs broken. Instead of losing by this, they gain in a great many ways. Good luck always follows them. They are quite as spry as they were before, and enjoy, moreover, the distinction of performing a dance which no other people or creatures in the world are capable of!”
“Dust and devils!” ejaculated the Coyote. “This is passing strange. A most admirable dance, upon my word! Why, every bristle on my body keeps time to the music and their steps! Look here, my friend, don’t you think that I could learn that dance?”
“Well,” replied the old Owl; “it is rather hard to learn, and you haven’t been initiated, you know; but, still, if you are determined that you would like to join the dance—by the way, have you a grandmother?”
“Yes, and a fine old woman she is,” said he, twitching his mouth in the direction of his house. “She lives there with me. I dare say she is looking after my breakfast now.”
“Very well,” continued the old Owl, “if you care to join in our dance, fulfill the conditions, and I think we can receive you into our order.” And he added, aside: “The silly fool; the sneaking, impertinent wretch! I will teach him to be sticking that sharp nose of his into other people’s affairs!”
“All right! All right!” cried the Coyote, excitedly. “Will it last long?”
“Until the sun is so bright that it hurts our eyes,” said the Owl; “a long time yet.”
“All right! All right! I’ll be back in a little while,” said the Coyote; and, switching his tail into the air, away he ran toward his home. When he came to the house, he saw his old grandmother on the roof, which was a rock beside his hole, gathering fur from some skins which he had brought home, to make up a bed for the Coyote’s family.
“Ha, my blessed grandmother!” said the Coyote, “by means of your aid, what a fine thing I shall be able to do!”
The old woman was singing to herself when the Coyote dashed up to the roof where she was sitting, and, catching up a convenient leg-bone, whacked her over the pate and sawed her head off with the teeth of a deer. All bloody and soft as it was, he clapped it on his own head and raised himself on his hindlegs, bracing his tail against the ground, and letting his paws drop with the toes outspread, to imitate as nearly as possible the drooping wings of the dancing Owls. He found that it worked very well; so, descending with the head in one paw and a stone in the other, he found a convenient sharp-edged rock, and, laying his legs across it, hit them a tremendous crack with the stone, which broke them, to be sure, into splinters.
“Beloved Powers! Oh!” howled the Coyote. “Oh‑o‑o‑o‑o! the dance may be a fine thing, but the initiation is anything else!”
However, with his faith unabated, he shook himself together and got up to walk. But he could walk only with his paws; his hindlegs dragged helplessly behind him. Nevertheless, with great pain, and getting weaker and weaker every step of the way, he made what haste he could back to the Prairie-dog town, his poor old grandmother’s head slung over his shoulders.
When he approached the dancers—for they were still dancing—they pretended to be greatly delighted with their proselyte, and greeted him, notwithstanding his rueful countenance, with many congratulatory epithets, mingled with very proper and warm expressions of welcome. The Coyote looked sick and groaned occasionally and
