Okoya rose to go.
"Are you coming along?" he asked his uncle.
Hayoue shook his head; he still wished to remain alone.
"It may be," he said, "that we shall have to leave in two days against the Tehuas, and I shall remain so that I may be ready when the tapop calls upon us. You rely upon it, satyumishe, we shall go soon, and when it so happens that we both must go you shall come with me that I may teach you how the scalp is taken."
Thus dismissed, Okoya sauntered back down the valley.
When opposite the caves of the Water clan he furtively glanced over to the one inhabited by Shotaye. The deerskin, as Hayoue had stated, hung over the opening, and no smoke issued from the hole that served as vent and smoke-escape. The woman must be mourning very deeply, or else she was gone. She did not often enter his thoughts, and yet he wished Shotaye might come now and see his mother. He was convinced, without knowing why, that his mother would have been glad to see her.
At all events the dismal period of mourning was drawing rapidly to a close, and with it official sadness would vanish. He could hardly await the morrow. On that day he hoped that the question would be decided when the great work of revenge should commence and whether he would be permitted to take part in it. The words of his uncle had opened an entirely new perspective to Okoya. To become uakanyi was now his aim, his intense ambition. As warrior, and as successful warrior, he confidently expected that no one would dare refuse him Mitsha. This hope overcame the grief he had harboured during the days that elapsed, for that grief belonged to the past; and as the past now appeared to him, it seemed only a stepping-stone to a proud and happy future.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] I borrow these facts from Spanish sources. Both Castañeda and Mota Padilla mention cremation as being practised in the sixteenth century by the Pueblos. The latter author even gives a detailed description. Withal, the fact that the Pueblos also buried the body is more than abundantly established. Both modes of burial were resorted to, and contemporaneously even, according to the nature of the country and soil. There is comparatively little soil at the Rito. The mourning ceremonies, etc., I have witnessed myself.