For drought not only affects the crops; it exerts quite as baneful an influence upon game; and game, as food for man, is under the special care of the Shkuy Chayan. He is the great medicine-man of the hunt. Drought artificially produced, as the Indian is convinced it can be through witchcraft, is one of the greatest calamities that can be brought upon a tribe. As a crime, it is worse than murder, for it is an attempt at wholesale though slow extermination. The sorcerer or the witch who deliberately attempts to prevent rain-fall becomes the object of intense hatred on the part of all. The whole cluster of men assembled felt the gravity of the charge. Horror-stricken, they sat in mute silence, awaiting the result of the investigation which the Shkuy Chayan proceeded to carry on.
"How do you know that the aniehna"—he emphasized the untranslatable word of insult, and his voice trembled with passion—"has worked such evil to the people?" The query was directed to the Koshare Naua. The latter turned to Tyope, saying,—
"Speak, satyumishe nashtio." He squatted again.
The eyes of all, Topanashka's excepted, who did not for a moment divert his gaze from the chief of the Delight Makers, were fixed on Tyope. He rose and dryly said,—
"I saw when Shotaye Koitza and Say Koitza, the daughter of our father the maseua,"—everybody now looked at the war-chief in astonishment, dismay, or sorrow; but he remained completely impassive,—"who lives in the abodes of Tanyi hanutsh, caused the black corn to answer their questions. And there were owl's feathers along with the corn. It was night, and I could not hear what they said. It was in the beginning of winter; not last winter, but the winter before."
"Is that all?" inquired the Hishtanyi Chayan in turn. It displeased him to hear that Tyope had been eavesdropping in the dark,—the man had no business in the big house at night.
"I know also," continued Tyope, "that Shotaye gathered the feathers herself on the kauash toward the south."
"Did you see her?"
"Yes," boldly asserted Tyope. He lied, for he dared not tell the truth; namely, that the young Navajo was his informant.