Zuni Folktales

kept looking around at his feet, as though he would like to lick them. But the old Owl extended his wing and cautioned him not to interfere with the working power of faith in this essential observance, and invited him (with a hem that very much resembled a suppressed giggle), to join in their dance. The Coyote smirked and bowed and tried to stand up gracefully on his stumps, but fell over, his grandmother’s head rolling around in the dirt. He picked up the grisly head, clapped it on his crown again and raised himself, and with many a howl, which he tried in vain to check, began to prance around; but ere long tumbled over again. The Burrowing-owls were filled with such merriment at his discomfiture that they laughed until they spilled the foam all down their backs and bosoms; and, with a parting fling at the Coyote which gave him to understand that he had made a fine fool of himself, and would know better than to pry into other people’s business next time, skipped away to a safe distance from him.

Then, seeing how he had been tricked, the Coyote fell to howling and clapping his thighs; and, catching sight of his poor grandmother’s head, all bloody and begrimed with dirt, he cried out in grief and anger: “Alas! alas! that it should have come to this! You little devils! I’ll be even with you! I’ll smoke you out of your holes.”

“What will you smoke us out with?” tauntingly asked the Burrowing-owls.

“Ha! you’ll find out. With yucca!”

“O! O! ha! ha!” laughed the Owls. “That is our succotash!”

“Ah, well! I’ll smoke you out!” yelled the Coyote, stung by their taunts.

“What with?” cried the Owls.

“Grease-weed.”

“He, ha! ho, ho! We make our mush-stew of that!”

“Ha! but I’ll smoke you out, nevertheless, you little beasts!”

“What with? What with?” shouted the Owls.

“Yellow-top weeds,” said he.

“Ha, ha! All right; smoke away! We make our sweet gruel with that, you fool!”

“I’ll fix you! I’ll smoke you out! I’ll suffocate the very last one of you!”

“What with? What with?” shouted the Owls, skipping around on their crooked feet.

“Pitch-pine,” snarled the Coyote.

This frightened the Owls, for pitch-pine, even to this day, is sickening to them. Away they plunged into their holes, pell-mell.

Then the Coyote looked at his poor old grandmother’s begrimed and bloody head, and cried out⁠—just as Coyotes do now at sunset, I suppose⁠—“Oh, my poor, poor grandmother! So this is what they have caused me to do to you!” And, tormented both by his grief and his pain, he took up the head of his grandmother and crawled back as best he could to his house.

When he arrived there he managed to climb up to the roof, where her body lay stiff. He chafed her legs and sides, and washed the blood and dirt from her head, and got a bit of sinew, and sewed her head to her body as carefully as he could and as hastily. Then he opened her mouth, and, putting his muzzle to it, blew into her throat, in the hope of resuscitating her; but the wind only leaked out from the holes in her neck, and she gave no signs of animation. Then the Coyote mixed some pap of fine toasted meal and water and poured it down her throat, addressing her with vehement expressions of regret at what he had done, and apology and solicitation that she should not mind, as he didn’t mean it, and imploring her to revive. But the pap only trickled out between the stitches in her neck, and she grew colder and stiffer all the while; so that at last the Coyote gave it up, and, moaning, he betook himself to a near clump of piñon trees, intent upon vengeance and designing to gather pitch with which to smoke the Owls to death. But, weakened by his injuries, and filled with grief and shame and mortification, when he got there he could only lie down.

He was so engrossed in howling and thinking of his woes and pains that a Horned-toad, who saw him, and who hated him because of the insults he had frequently suffered from him and his kind, crawled into the throat of the beast without his noticing it. Presently the little creature struck up a song:

“Tsakina muuu-ki
Iyami Kushina tsoiyakya
Aisiwaiki muki, muki,
Muuu ka!”

“Ah‑a‑a‑a‑a‑a,” the Coyote was groaning. But when he heard this song, apparently far off, and yet so near, he felt very strangely inside, so he thought and no doubt wondered if it were the song of some musician. At any rate, he lifted his head and looked all around, but hearing nothing, lay down again and bemoaned his fate.

Then the Horned-toad sang again. This time the Coyote called out immediately, and the Horned-toad answered: “Here I am.” But look as he would, the Coyote could not find the Toad. So he listened for the song again, and heard it, and asked who it was that was singing. The Horned-toad replied that it was he. But still the Coyote could not find him. A fourth time the Horned-toad sang, and the Coyote began to suspect that it was under him. So he lifted himself to see; and one of the spines on the Horned-toad’s neck pricked him, and at the same time the little fellow called out: “Here I am, you idiot, inside of you! I came upon you here, and being a medicine-man of some prominence, I thought I would explore your vitals and see what was the matter.”

“By the souls of my ancestors!” exclaimed the Coyote, “be careful what you do in there!”

The Horned-toad replied by laying his hand on the Coyote’s liver, and exclaiming: “What is this I feel?”

“Where?” said the Coyote.

“Down here.”

“Merciful daylight! it is my liver, without which no one can have solidity of any kind, or a proper vitality. Be very careful not to injure that; if you do, I shall die at once, and what will become