Zuñi Folk Tales

by Frank Hamilton Cushing

“Demons and corpses!” she cried. “By the moon! You have stolen the thunder-stone and lightning-shaft from the Gods of Rain themselves! Go this instant and return them, and never do such a thing again!” she cried, with the utmost severity; and, making a quick step for the fireplace, she picked up a poker with which to belabor their backs, when they whisked out of the room and into another. They slammed the door in their grandmother’s face and braced it, and, clearing away a lot of rubbish that was lying around the rear room, they established themselves in one end, and, nodding and winking at one another, cried out: “Now, then!” The younger let go the lightning-shaft; the elder rolled the thunder-stone. The lightning hissed through the air, and far out into the sky, and returned. The thunder-stone rolled and rumbled until it shook the foundations of the mountain. “Glorious fun!” cried the boys, rubbing their thighs in ecstasy of delight. “Do it again!” And again they sent forth the lightning and rolled the thunder-stone.

And now the gods in Summerland arose in their majesty and breathed upon the skies; and the winds rose, and the rains fell like rivers from the clouds, centering their violence upon the roof of the poor old grandmother’s house. Heedlessly those reckless wretches kept on playing the thunder-stone and lightning-shaft without the slightest regard to the tremendous commotion they were raising all through the skies and all over Thunder Mountain; but nowhere else as above the house where their poor old grandmother lived fell the torrent of the rain, and there alone, of course, burst the lightning and rolled the thunder.

Soon the water poured through the roof of the house; but, move the things as the old grandmother would, she could not keep them dry; scold the boys as she would, she could not make them desist. No, they would only go on with their play more violently than ever, exclaiming: “What has she to say, anyway? It won’t hurt her to get a good ducking, and this is fun!” By-and-by the waters rose so high that they extinguished the fire. Soon they rose still higher, so that the War-gods had to paddle around half submerged. Still they kept rolling the thunder-stone and shooting the lightning. The old grandmother scolded harder and harder, but after awhile desisted and climbed to the top of the fireplace, whence, after recovering from her exertion, she began again. But the boys heeded her not, only saying: “Let her yell! Let her scold! This is fun!” At last they began to take the old grandmother’s scolding as a matter of course, and allowed nothing but the water to interrupt their pastime. It rose so high, finally, that they were near drowning. Then they climbed to the roof, but still they kept on.

“By the bones of the dead! why did we not think to come here before? ’Tis ten times as fine up here. See him shoot!” cried one to the other, as the lightning sped through the sky, ever returning.

“Hear it mutter and roll!” cried the other, as the thunder bellowed and grumbled.

But no sooner had the Two begun their sport on the roof, than the rain fell in one vast sheet all about them; and it was not long ere the house was so full that the old grandmother—locked in as she was—bobbed her poor pate on the rafters in trying to keep it above the water. She gulped water, and gasped, coughed, strangled, and shrieked to no purpose.

“What a fuss our old grandmother is making, to be sure!” cried the boys. And they kept on, until, forsooth, the water had completely filled the room, and the grandmother’s cries gurgled away and ceased. Finally, the thunder-stone grew so terrific, and the lightning so hot and unmanageable, that the boys, drawing a long breath and thinking with immense satisfaction of the fun they had had, possibly also influenced as to the safety of the house, which was beginning to totter, flung the thunder-stone and the lightning-shaft into the sky, where, rattling and flashing away, they finally disappeared over the mountains in the south.

Then the clouds rolled away and the sun shone out, and the boys, wet to the skin, tired in good earnest, and hungry as well, looked around. “Goodness! the water is running out of the windows of our house! This is a pretty mess we are in! Grandmother! Grandmother!” they shouted. “Open the door, and let us in!” But the old grandmother had piped her last, and never a sound came except that of flowing water. They sat themselves down on the roof, and waited for the water to get lower. Then they climbed down, and pounded open the door, and the water came out with a rush, and out with a rush, too, their poor old grandmother,—her eyes staring, her hair all mopped and muddied, and her fingers and legs as stiff as cedar sticks.

“Oh, ye gods! ye gods!” the two boys exclaimed; “we have killed our own grandmother—poor old grandmother, who scolded us so hard and loved us so much! Let us bury her here in front of the door, as soon as the water has run away.”

So, as soon as it became dry enough, there they buried her; and in less than four days a strange plant grew up on that spot, and on its little branches, amid its bright green leaves, hung long, pointed pods of fruit, as red as the fire on the breast of the red-bird.