Zuni Folk Tales

THE TRIAL OF LOVERS: OR THE MAIDEN OF MATSAKI AND THE RED FEATHER-2

"Hai, and Ée, we are within. Be yourself within."

Then without help he went down the ladder, but he didn't mind, for he felt himself poor and his bundle was small. As he entered the fire-light he greeted the people pleasantly and gravely, and with thanks took the seat that was laid for him.

Now, you see, the old man was angry with the girl, so he did not tell her to place cooked things before him, but turned to his old wife.

"Old one," he began--but before he had finished the maiden arose and brought rich venison stew and flaky héwe, which she placed before the youth where the fire's brightness would fall upon it, with meat broth for drink; then she sat down opposite him and said, "Eat and drink!" Whereupon the young man took a roll of the waferbread and, breaking it in two, gave the girl the larger piece, which she bashfully accepted.

The old man raised his eyebrows and upper lids, looked at his old wife, spat in the fireplace, and smoked hard at his cigarette, joining the girl in her invitation by saying, "Yes, have to eat well."

Soon the young man said, "Thanks," and the maiden quickly responded, "Eat more," and "Have eaten."

After brushing the crumbs away the girl sat down by her mother, and the father rolled a cigarette for the young man and talked longer with him than he had with the others.

After the old ones had stretched out in the corner and begun to "scrape their nostrils with their breath," the maiden turned to the young man and said: "I have a corn-field in the lands of the priest-chief, down by the river, and if you truly love me, I would that you should hoe the whole in a single morning. Thus may you prove yourself a man, and to love me truly; and if you will do this, happily, as day follows day, will we live each with the other."

"Hai-í!" replied the young man, who smiled as he listened; and as the young maiden looked at him, sitting in the fading fire-light with the smile on his face, she thought: "Only possibly. But oh! how I wish his heart might be strong, even though his bundle be not heavy nor large.

"Come with me, young man, and I will show you where you are to await the morning. Early take my father's hoe, which stands by the doorway, and go down to the cornfield long before the night shadows have run away from Thunder Mountain"--with which she bade him pass a night of contentment and sought her own place.

When all was still, the young man climbed to the skyhole and in the starlight asked the gods of the woodlands and waters to give strength to his hands and power to his prayer-medicine, and to meet and bless him with the light of their favor; and he threw to the night-wind meal of the seeds of earth and the waters of the world with which those who are wise fail not to make smooth their trails of life. Then he slept till the sky of the day-land grew yellow and. the shadows of the night-land grew gray, and then shouldered his hoe and went down to the corn-field. His task was not great, for the others had hoed much. Where they left off, there he fell to digging right and left with all his strength and haste, till the hard soil mellowed and the earth flew before his strokes as out of the burrows of the strongest-willed gophers and other digging creatures.

When the sun rose the maiden looked forth and saw that his task was already half done. But still she waited. As the sun warmed the day and the youth worked on, the dewdrops of flesh stood all over his body and he cast away, one after the other, his blanket and sash and even his leggings and moccasins. Then he stopped to look around. By the side of the field grew tall yellow-tops. He ran into the thicket and rubbed every part of his body, yea, even. the hair of his head and his ear-tips and nostrils, with the bark of the finger-root. Again he fell to work as though he had only been resting, and wondered why the may-flies and gnats and mosquitoes came not to cause him thoughts as they had the others. Yet still the girl lingered; but at last she went slowly to the room where the jar stood.

"It is absurd," thought she, "that I should hope it or even care for it; it would indeed be great if it were well true that a young man should love me so verily as to hold his face to the front through such a testing." Nevertheless, she drew the lid off and bade her strange children to spare him no more than they had the others.

All hasty to feast themselves on the "waters of life," as our old grandfathers would say for blood, again they rushed out and hummed along over the corn-fields in such numbers that they looked more like a wind-driven sandstorm than ever, and "tsi-nini-i, tso-no-o" they hummed and buzzed about the ears of the young man when they came to him, so noisily that the poor fellow, who kept at work all the while, thought they were already biting him. But it was only fancy, for the first may-fly that did bite him danced in the air with disgust and exclaimed to his companions, "Sho-o-o-m-m!" and "Us-á!" which meant that he had eaten something nasty, that tasted as badly as vile odors smell. So not another may-fly in the throng would bite, although they all kept singing their song about his ears. And to this day may-flies are careful whom they bite, and dance a long time in the air before they do it.

Then a gnat tried it and gasped, "Weh!" which meant that his stomach had turned over, and he had such a sick headache that he reeled round and round in the air, and for that reason gnats always bite very quickly, for fear their stomachs will turn over, and they will reel and reel round and round in the air before doing it.

Finally, long-beak himself tried it, and, as long-beak hangs on, you know, longer than most other little beasts, he kept hold until his two hindlegs were warped out of shape; but at last he had to let go, too, and flew straight away, crying, "Yá kotchi!" which meant that something bitter had burned his snout. Now, for these reasons mosquitoes always have bent-up hindlegs, which they keep lifting up and down while biting, as though they were standing on something hot, and they are apt to sing and smell around very cautiously before spearing us, and they fly straight away, you will notice, as soon as they are done.

Now, when the rest of the gnats and mosquitoes heard the words of their elder brothers, they did as the may-flies had done--did not venture, no, not one of them, to bite the young lover. They all flew away and settled down on the yellow-tops, where they had a council, and decided to go and find some prairie-dogs to bite. Therefore you will almost always find may-flies, gnats, and mosquitoes around prairie-dog holes in summer time when the corn is growing.

So the young man breathed easily as he hoed hard to finish his task ere the noonday, and when the maiden looked down and saw that he still labored there, she said to herself: "Ah, indeed he must love me, for still he is there! Well, it may be, for only a little longer and they will leave him in peace." Hastily she placed venison in the cooking-pot and prepared fresh héwe and sweetened bread, "for maybe," she still thought, "and then I will have it ready for him."

Now, alas! you do not know that this good and beautiful maiden had a sister, alas!--a sister as beautiful as herself, but bad and double-hearted; and you know when people have double hearts they are wizards or witches, and have double tongues and paired thoughts--such a sister elder had the maiden of Mátsaki, alas!

When the sun had climbed almost to the middle of the sky, the maiden, still doubtful, looked down once more. He was there, and was working among the last hills of corn.

"Ah, truly indeed he loves me," she thought, and she hastened to put on her necklaces and bracelets of shells, her ear-rings as long as your fingers-of turquoises,-and her fine cotton mantles with borders of stitched butterflies of summer-land, and flowers of the autumn. Then she took a new bowl from the stick-rack in the corner, and a large many-colored tray that she had woven herself, and she filled the one with meat broth, and the other with the héwe and sweet-bread, and placing the bowl of meat broth on her head, she took the tray of héwe in her hand, and started down toward the corn-field by the river-side to meet her lover and to thank him.

Witches are always jealous of the happiness and good fortune of others. So was the sister of the beautiful maiden jealous when she saw the smile on her hani's face as she tripped toward the river.

"Ho há!" said the two-hearted sister. "Témithlokwa thloká! Wananí!" which are words of defiance and hatred, used so long ago by demons and wizards that no one knows nowadays what they mean except the last one, which plainly says, "Just wait a bit!" and she hastened to dress herself, through her wicked knowledge, exactly as the beautiful maiden was dressed. She even carried just such a bowl and tray; and as she was beautiful, like her younger sister, nobody could have known the one from the other, or the other from the one. Then she passed herself through a hoop of magic yucca, which made her seem not to be where she was, for no one could see her unless she willed it.

Now, just as the sun was resting in the middle of the sky, the young man finished the field and ran down to the river to wash. Before he was done, he saw the maiden coming down the trail with the bowl on her head and the tray in her hand; so he made haste, and ran back to dress himself and to sit down to wait for her. As she approached, he said: "Thou comest, and may it be happily,"--when lo! there appeared two maidens exactly alike; so he quickly said, "Ye come."

"E," said the maidens, so nearly together that it sounded like one voice; but when they both placed the same food before him, the poor young man looked from one to the other, and asked: "Alas! of which am I to eat?"

Then it was that the maiden suddenly saw her sister, and became hot with anger, for she knew her wicked plans. "Ah, thou foolish sister, why didst thou come?" she said. But the other only replied:

"Ah, thou foolish sister, why didst thou come?"

"Go back, for he is mine-to-be," said the maiden, beginning to cry.

"Go back, for he is mine-to-be," said the bad one, pretending to cry.

And thus they quarrelled until they had given one another smarting words four times, when they fell to fighting--as women always fight, by pulling each other's hair, and scratching, and grappling until they rolled over each other in the sand.

The poor young man started forward to part them, but he knew not one from the other, so thinking that the bad one must know how to fight better than his beautiful maiden wife, he suddenly caught up his stone-weighted hoe, and furiously struck the one that was uppermost on the head, again and again, until she let go her hold, and fell back, murmuring and moaning: "Alas! that thus it should be after all, after all!" Then she forgot, and her eyes ceased to see.

While yet the young man looked, lo! there was only the dying maiden before him; but in the air above circled an ugly black Crow, that laughed "kawkaw, kawkaw, kawkaw!" and flew away to its cave in Thunder Mountain.