The Delight Makers

by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

These facts had been recognized by Tyope, and he had talked with the Koshare Naua about them for some time past. They were the only persons who had thought of them, not so much deploring the necessity arising therefrom in the future as hailing them as welcome pretexts for their immediate personal aims. Neither Tyope nor the Naua had such high ambition as to aspire to a change of the basis of social organization. Neither of them had any conception of government but what was purely tribal, but they both aspired to offices and dignities such as tribal organization alone knows. These seemed unattainable for them as long as there were other powerful clans at the Rito besides their own, whereas in case some of the former were expelled, it would leave vacant and at their disposal the positions which they coveted.

Tyope, for instance, looked forward to the dignity of head war-chief, or maseua; but as long as Topanashka lived he saw no chance for himself. He therefore concocted with the young Navajo the sinister plan of murdering the old man. It was even uncertain, in presence of the two powerful clans of Tanyi and Tyame, whether after the death of Topanashka it would be possible for him to secure the succession. For the chief penitents, who selected officially the new incumbent, while they were in no manner accessible to outside influence, might consider the general tendency of affairs, and for the same reasons that they chose Hoshkanyi Tihua for tapop might determine upon appointing some member of Tanyi or Tyame as maseua. Tyope had foreseen such a contingency, and had therefore suggested to Nacaytzusle the propriety of converting the isolated murder into a butchery of the adult men as far as possible. His suggestion to surprise the Rito while the Koshare were at work in their estufa had a double aim,—in the first place it made it less dangerous for the Navajos, in the second it appointed a time when most of the men of the Turquoise clan were out of reach of an enemy. The blow must then fall upon the males of other clans, for the majority of the Koshare were from the people of Shyuamo. This plan was out of the question since the night when his negotiations with Nacaytzusle had come to such a disastrous termination. But Tyope had laid his wires in other directions also. Seeing that he could not reduce the numbers of the tribe by one fell blow, or that at least his endeavours might not succeed, he was devising in his peculiar underhand way means to create a disunion, and trying to secure for the time of the crisis a commanding position for his own clan.

As he could never have attempted all this alone, he needed an associate, an accomplice. That accomplice he readily found in the old Koshare Naua. In the same manner that Tyope aspired to the position of war-chief, the chief of the Delight Makers was coveting the rank of leading shaman, or medicine-man. Not the dignity of cacique,—for that position entailed too many personal sacrifices, and carried with it a life of seclusion and retirement that presented no redeeming features,—but the office of hishtanyi chayan, or principal medicine-man, was what the Naua desired to obtain. That position did not entail greater privations than the one which the old schemer occupied, but it secured for its incumbent much greater sway over the people, and placed him in the position to exert a degree of influence which was beyond the pale of Koshare magic. The Naua was working toward his end by ways and with means different from those employed by Tyope. His machinations were directed against the religious heads of the tribe, and he persisted in securing for the society of Delight Makers a prominence that lay outside of their real attributes. Therefore Hayoue did not speak amiss when, in his interview with Okoya, he accused the Koshare, and principally their leader, of attempting to usurp functions and rights belonging properly to the main official shamans, and thus secure for themselves undue advantages.

Tyope and the old Naua had found each other, in accordance with the proverb about birds of a feather. Their understanding was perfect, although it had been brought about gradually and without the formality of a conspiracy. Each worked in his own line and with his own means, and neither had any thought of going beyond what the tribal organization could give them. There was no idea of revolutionizing or even reforming the organization. Had one of them entertained such a thought the other would have become his bitterest enemy, for both were deeply imbued with the principles on which rested the existence of the society in which they had been born. All they aspired to was to eliminate a certain number of men or people, in order to secure with greater ease certain advantages. It was the survival of the fittest, as primitive society understands it and as refined society attempts to enact, though with more refined means.

The stumbling-blocks in the path of these intriguers were the chief penitents,—the cacique, or as their titles run, the Hotshanyi, or principal cacique, and his two assistants, the uishtyaka and the shaykatze. These men, selected for the purpose of doing penance for all and thus obtaining readier access to the ear of the immortal ones, were the official keepers of peace among the tribe. For the Indian feels that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and that the maintenance of harmony through a constant appeal to the higher powers is the most important feature in the life of his tribe. To discredit in an underhand way the caciques was the special aim of the Koshare Naua, and to direct the eyes of the people to his own achievements in religious magic,—in one word to place the power of the Koshare and their specific medicine on a higher plane than all that the official penitents might achieve. To do this was a very slow piece of work, and it had to be brought about in such a manner that nobody could suspect his object. But both Tyope and the aged scoundrel were working their plans with the utmost caution, and the religious heads of the tribe had not the slightest suspicion of what was going on against them.

The Tyuonyi, therefore, was quiet on the surface, but there were occasional ripples of that placid brook which earnest and thoughtful observers could not fail to notice. Hayoue, although very young, was one of these observers; but none saw more and penetrated deeper into the real state of affairs than Topanashka. He and the Hishtanyi Chayan, who to some extent was his trusty friend, felt that a tempest was coming. Both saw that the disturbing powers were rooted in the society of the Koshare, that Tyope and the Naua must be the leading spirits. But how and to what ultimate end the machinations were intended escaped their penetration. For the same reason they could not come actively to the relief of the situation, as no overt action had as yet been committed which would justify an official movement against the conspirators.

Topanashka had for several days been keeping the informal fast upon which he had determined for the benefit of his grandson's wooing. It was a warm, pleasant afternoon. Since the rain which followed upon the ayash tyucotz the sky had been blue again as before; the season for daily showers had not yet commenced, and the people were in the corn-patches as busy as possible, improving the bright days in weeding and putting the ground in order. The bottom of the gorge therefore presented an active appearance. Men and women moved about the houses, in and out of the cave-dwellings, and in the fields. From the tasselled corn that grew in these plots a tall figure emerged; it was Topanashka himself, and he directed his steps toward the cliffs at the lower end, where the Turquoise people dwelt. The old man moved as usual with a silent, measured step which would have appeared stately had not his head leaned forward. He was clad in a wrap of unbleached cotton, and a leather belt girded his loins. Around his neck a string of crystals of feldspar was negligently thrown; and a fetich of white alabaster, representing rudely the form of a panther, depended from the necklace hanging upon his breast.

The people of the Turquoise or Shyuamo resided on the lower range of cliffs, and formed the most easterly group of cave-dwellings on the Rito. Here the rocks are no longer absolutely perpendicular; they form steps; and the slope leading to them is overgrown with shrubbery, except where erosive action of wind, as well as of water or frost, has scooped out strange formations in advance of the main wall. These erosions are mostly regular cones, tent-shaped, between and behind which open chasms and deep rents like the one above which, as we recollect, lies the estufa of the Koshare. Topanashka walked toward the upper part of the cluster of dwellings of Shyuamo, where the ascending slope was sparsely covered with brush. In front of one of the caves sat a woman. She was unusually tall for an Indian, and neither young nor old. She appeared to be busy extracting the filaments from shrivelled leaves of the yucca, which had been dried by roasting, and afterward had been buried to allow the texture to decay. So engrossed was the woman by her task that only when the old man stood by her side, and asked, "Where is the tapop?" did she notice his presence.

Koay, for it was she, the towering consort of the governor of the Tyuonyi, did not condescend to reply in words to the inquiry of the war-captain. She resorted to a lazy pantomime by gathering her two lips to a snout-like projection and thrusting this protuberance forward in the direction of the doorway before which she was squatting. Then she resumed her occupation.

The visitor paid no further attention to the uncivil woman. He passed in front of her unceremoniously, and entered the cave. The apartment was like those we have previously described, with the single difference that it was better lighted, somewhat larger, and that the household effects scattered and hung around were of a different character. Implements of warfare,—a bow and a quiver with arrows, a shield—convex and painted red, with a yellow disk, and several green lines in the centre,—were suspended from the wall. The niches contained small vessels of burnt clay and a few plume-sticks. A low doorway led from this room into another, and beyond that there was even a third cell, so that Hoshkanyi Tihua, the civil chief of the Queres, enjoyed the luxury of occupying three apartments.