Zuni Folktales

around the crags, she caught sight of Áhaiyúta struggling to get away from Átahsaia.

“O ai o! I knew it! I knew it!” cried the old woman; and she ran faster than ever until she came near enough to see that her poor grandson was almost tired out, and that Mátsailéma had lost even his war-club. “Stiffen your feet⁠—my boys⁠—wait⁠—a bit,” puffed the old woman, and, flying into a passion, she rushed at the effigy and began to pound it with her poker, till the dust fairly smoked out of the dry grass, and the skin doubled up as if it were in pain.

Mátsailéma rolled and kicked in the grass, and Áhaiyúta soon had to let the stuffed demon fall down for sheer laughing. But the old woman never ceased. She belabored the demon and cursed his cannibal heart and told him that was what he got for chasing her grandsons, and that, and this, and that, whack! whack! without stopping, until she thought the monster surely must be dead. Then she was about to rest when suddenly the boys pulled the strings, and the demon sprang up before her, seemingly as well as ever. Again the old woman fell to, but her strokes kept getting feebler and feebler, her breath shorter and shorter, until her wind went out and she fell to the ground.

How the boys did laugh and roll on the ground when the old grandmother moaned: “Alas! alas! This day⁠—my day⁠—light is⁠—cut off⁠—and my wind of life⁠—fast going.”

The old woman covered her head with her tattered mantle; but when she found that Átahsaia did not move, she raised her eyes and looked through a rent. There were her two grandsons rolling and kicking on the grass and holding their mouths with both hands, their eyes swollen and faces red with laughter. Then she suddenly looked for the demon. There lay the skin, all torn and battered out of shape.

“So ho! you pesky wretches; that’s the way you treat me, is it? Well! never again will I help you, never!” she snapped, “nor shall you ever live with me more!” Whereupon the old woman jumped up and hobbled away.

But little did the brothers care. They laughed till she was far away, and then said one to the other: “It is done!”

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Since that time, the grandmother has gone, no one knows where. But Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma are the bright stars of the morning and evening, just in front of and behind the Sun-father himself. Yet their spirits hover over their shrines on Thunder Mountain and the Mount of the Beloved, they say, or linger over the Middle of the World, forever to guide the games and to guard the warriors of the Land of Zuni. Thus it was in the days of the ancients.

Thus shortens my story.

The Hermit Mítsina

When all was new, and the gods dwelt in the ancient places, long, long before the time of our ancients, many were the gods⁠—some destined for good and some for evil or for the doing of things beneath understanding. And those of evil intent, so painfully bad were they to become that not in the company and council of the precious beloved of the Kâkâ (the Order of the Sacred Drama) could they be retained.

Thus it happened, in the times of our ancients, long, long ago, that there dwelt all alone in the Canyon of the Pines, southeast of Zuni, Mítsina the Hermit. Of evil understanding he; therefore it had been said to him (by the gods): “Alone shalt thou dwell, being unwise and evil in thy ways, until thou hast, through much happening, even become worthy to dwell amongst us.” Thus it was that Mítsina lived alone in his house in the Canyon of the Pines.

Sometimes when a young man, dressed in very fine apparel (wearing his collars of shell, and turquoise earrings, and other precious things which were plentiful in the days of our ancients), would be out hunting, and chanced to go through the Canyon of the Pines and near to the house of Mítsina, he would hear the sounds of gaming from within; for, being alone, the hermit whiled away his time in playing at the game of sacred arrows (or cane-cards).

Forever from the ceiling of his house there hung suspended his basket-drum, made of a large wicker bowl, over the mouth of which was stretched tightly a soft buckskin, even like the basket-drums which we use in the playing of cane-cards today, and which you know are suspended with the skin-side downward from the ceilings of the gaming rooms in the topmost houses of our town. Though the one he had was no better than those we have today, save that it was larger and handsomer perhaps, yet he delighted to call it his cloud canopy, bethinking himself of the drum-basket of his former associates, the gods, which is even the rounded sky itself, with the clouds stretched across it. Forever upon the floor of his house there lay spread a great buffalo robe, the skin upward dressed soft and smooth, as white as cornflour, and painted with the many-colored symbols and counting marks of the game, even as our own. But he delighted to call it his sacred terraced plain,25 bethinking himself of the robe-spread of the gods, which is even the outspread earth itself, bordered by terraced horizons, and diversified by mountains, valleys, and bright places, which are the symbols and game marks whereby the gods themselves count up the score of their game.

Hearing these sounds of the game in passing, the young man would naturally draw near and listen. Though all alone, every time he made a good throw Mítsina would exclaim “Her‑r‑r‑r!” and as the canes struck the skin of the drum-basket above, tcha‑le‑le, tcha‑le‑le, it would sound; and ke‑le‑le they would rattle as they fell on the robe below. “Ha! ha!” old Mítsina would exclaim, as if triumphantly to some