Speedily the fathers of the people recognized their lost K‘yäk´lu (led and prompted as they were of the Twain), and preciously they housed him, as we preciously and secretly receive with the cigarette of relationship a returning relative, and purify him and ourselves ere he speak, that he may not bring evil or we receive it, perchance, with the breath of his strange words.
Thus the fathers of the people did to K‘yäk´lu and the ancient ones, receiving them into secret council. And as one who returns famished is not given to eat save sparingly at first of the flour of drink (ók‘yäslu), so with this only was K‘yäk´lu regaled; but his bearers were laden speedily with gifts of food and garments which, forsooth, they would not wear save in disorderly ways. Then K‘yäk´lu spake a message of comfort to the mourners, telling them how, below the waters into which their little ones had sunken, they were dwelling in peace amongst the gods, and how all men and mothers would follow them thither in other part in the fulness of each one's time.
And then, holding in his hand the Duck, the guide to his blindness, he spake in measured motion and tone, to the sound of the shells on the neck of the Duck, the words of creation, K‘yäk´lu Mósonan Chïm´mik‘yanak‘ya pénane, and of his wanderings, and the speeches of gods and beings as they had been told him, and the directions of the sacred customs, all did he tell ceaselessly as is still his wont from mid-day to mid-day to each one of the six councils, that no part be forgotten.
Thus did our people first learn of their lost messengers, all save two of them, Ánahoho áchi, and of their lost children in the City of Ghosts; yea, of the spirit beings and man, animal, and of the souls of ancient men dead beforetime; yea, and yet more learned they—that all would gather there even those who had fled away in fear of the waters, in the fulness of time.
THE ENJOINING OF THE K‘YÄK´LU ÁMOSI, AND THE DEPARTURE OF K‘YÄK´LU AND THE OLD-ONES.
And when K‘yäk´lu had done speaking, he and the ancient ones breathed into the nostrils of those who had listened, and into the mouths of four chosen from amongst them (small of stature like as he was) he spat, that their tongues might speak unfailingly the words he had uttered. And these became the K‘yäk´lu Ámosi, whose office we still keep amongst us. Then the ancient ones lifted him upon the litter, and loudly joking about their gifts and bidding men call them ever with the Kâ´kâ that they might receive more háha, they sang of how the young women and maidens would wait for them as for lovers, bringing them the water of guests to drink, and amid laughter they bore K‘yäk´lu back whence they had come, to the mountain and city of the Kâ´kâ (Kâ´‘hluai yálane).
THE COMING OF THE BROTHERS ÁNAHOHO AND THE RUNNERS OF THE K´KÂ.
Now, when they had departed, there came from the west, behold! two strangers seeming, guided by the Sálamopia, and all the fleet runners of the Kâ´kâ then first seen of men and feared as by children now, for they were fierce and scourged people from their pathways to make room for those they guided. For know that these were the two brothers Ánahoho who had returned to the desolate cities of their people. Therein had they sought in vain for the living in the blackened houses. They even tore down the chimneys and peered in, seeking for their brother K‘yäk´lu, and when they found him not they smote their faces and held their noses in grief, and all black as were their hands with soot, lo! thus became their faces, flat and masked with the black hand-mark of dismay, and as they held their faces they cried dismally and long.
THE DISPATCHING OF THE SOULS OF THINGS TO THE SOULS OF THE DEAD.
No sooner did they come into the village of our fathers than they began turning over the things from which the people had fled, and casting them down where the Sálamopia stamped them into the earth or otherwise destroyed them that their likes might go the way of the dead for the dead and the Kâ´kâ. And when the people saw this, they brought forth vessels and baskets and other things without stint, all of which, as though all were chimneys, the Twain Ánahoho took up, and peering into them lifted their faces and cried their dreary mournful cry, casting these things straightway to the ground. Thus to this day they follow their brother, seeking ever, finding never, sending after their brother the souls of men's possessions that all may be well in the after time, in the after time of each age of man.