"You have time enough left to speak against Shyuamo," said the chief of the Delight Makers in a wicked manner.
"That I shall do, most assuredly," exclaimed Tyame. "I am against giving Shyuamo any more ground than they have at present. You have enough for yourselves, for your women, and for all your children. Do more work in the field and do less penance; be shyayak rather than Koshare!" He rose and turned toward Tyope. "Your woman belongs to our hanutsh, and I know that it is not you who feed her; and so you are, all of you. You live from other people's crops!"
Tyope looked up, and his eyes flashed; but in a quiet tone he answered,—
"Your woman is Shyuamo; you know best how it is." The other continued with growing passion,—
"And when your wife was from Tzitz everybody knew that it was not you who supported her, but that she maintained you!"
Loud murmurs arose, and the Shkuy Chayan called Tyame to order, so that Tyope did not have time for a reply to this insulting insinuation.
Of all the clans represented three had yet to express their views. These were the clans of Yakka, of the Panther, and Shyuamo. The delegate of the Corn people was no friend of Tyame's, therefore he spoke directly against what the Eagle had intimated. He emphasized how detrimental it might become for a small cluster to own too much tillable land while a large and important clan was suffering for the lack of vegetable food. With notable shrewdness, he exposed to the meeting the danger for the whole tribe in case one of its principal components should begin to decrease in numbers. He wound up by saying,—
"The strong hanutsh are those who maintain the tribe, for they are those who give us the most people that do penance for the welfare of all, be they Koshare or Cuirana. They also have the greatest number of warriors and hunters. If they have nothing to eat, they cannot watch, pray, and fast in honour of Those Above! So the Shiuana and the Kopishtai become dissatisfied with us, and withdraw their protection from their children; and we become lost through suffering those to starve who are most useful." But he omitted altogether the important fact that there was still waste land in the gorge, and that it was far preferable to redeem such tracts than to create dissension.
Still it must be acknowledged that the clearing of timbered expanses, such as those on the eastern end of the valley mostly were, opposed great difficulties to the Indian. At the time when the Rito was settled, the native had only stone implements. To cut down trees, to clear brush even, was a tedious and protracted undertaking when it had to be performed with stone axes and hatchets. Fire was the most effective agent, but fire in such proximity to the dwellings was a dangerous servant. On the western end there was no tillable land beyond the patches of the Water clan. Still, if there had been any disposition on the part of Shyuamo to be reasonable, they would have remained satisfied with extending their field slowly and gradually toward the east; but neither Tyope nor the Naua really wanted more land; what they desired was strife, disunion, an irremediable breach in the tribe.
The Panther clan, whose representative had to speak now, was a cluster which belonged neither to the larger nor to the smaller groups. Occupying, as was the case, a section of the big house, the Panther people were consequently near neighbours of Tanyi, and they sympathized generally with the latter. Their delegate, however, was Koshare, and he leaned not so much toward the Turquoise as toward what seemed to be the desire of the leading Delight Makers,—the Naua and Tyope. He therefore expressed himself bluntly in favour of Tzitz hanutsh giving up a certain quantity of land to the clan Shyuamo, without stating his opinion or suggesting in the least how it ought to be done.