IN the days of the ancients there lived with his old grandmother, not far from K’iákime, east, where the sweet wafer-bread is pictured on the rocks, a frightfully ugly boy. The color of his body and face was blue. He had a twisted nose, crooked scars of various colors ran down each side of his face, and he had a bunch of red things like peppers on his head; in fact, in all ways he resembled the Héhea, or the wild men of the Sacred Dance who serve as runners to the priest-clowns.
Now, one season it had rained so much that the piñon trees were laden with nuts, and the datilas were heavy with fruit, and the gray grass and red-top were so heavy with seeds that even when the wind did not blow they bent as if in a breeze.
In vain the people of K’iákime went to the Southeastern Mesa, where the nut trees and datilas and grass grew. They could not gather the nuts and the fruit and the seeds, because of the ugly old Bear who claimed the country and its products for his own, and waxed fat thereon. Some of the people were killed by him, others were maimed, and all the rest were driven away.
One day the ugly little boy said to his grandmother: “O grandmother, I am going out to gather datilas and piñon nuts on the Southeastern Mesa.”
“Child, child!” cried the grandmother, “do not go; do not, by any means, go! You know very well there is an ugly Bear there who will either kill you or maim you frightfully.”
“I don’t care for all that!” cried the boy; “I am going!” Whereupon he went.
He followed the trail called the Road of the Pending Meal-sack, and he climbed the crooked path up Shoyakoskwe (Southeastern Mesa), and advanced over the wide plateau. No sooner had he begun to pluck the sweet datila fruit and eat of it, and had cracked between his teeth an occasional piñon nut, than “Wha-a-a-a!” snarled the old Bear; and he came rushing out of the nearest thicket toward the boy.
“U shoma kutchi kihe!” shouted the boy. “Friend, friend, don’t bite me! It’ll hurt! Don’t bite me! I came to make a bargain with you.”
“I’d like to know why I shouldn’t bite you!” growled the Bear. “I’ll tear you to pieces. What have you come to my country for, stealing my fruit and nuts and grass-seed?”
“I came to get something to eat,” replied the boy. “You have plenty.”