Zuñi Folk Tales

by Frank Hamilton Cushing

So the Háwikuhkwe all poured down toward them, but when they arrived there they found no enemy. While the people were looking and running about, tsok tsok, and tsok tsok, and tsok tsok, the arrows of Áhaiyúta, and Mátsailéma struck the nearest ones, for they had crawled along the trail and were waiting in the grass. They never missed. Every man they struck fell, but many, many came on, and when these saw that there were only two, their faces were all the more to the front with haste. Still the two boys shot, shot, shot at them until many were killed or wounded before the remainder decided to flee.

“Come, brother, my arrows are gone,” said the younger brother. “Quick! put on the water-shield, and let us be off!” Now, the people were gaining on them faster and faster, but Áhaiyúta threw water like thick rain from his shield strapped over his back, so that the enemies’ bow-strings loosened, and they had to stop to tighten them again and again.

Whenever the Háwikuhkwe pressed them too closely, the water-shield sprinkled them so thoroughly that when they nocked an arrow the sinew bow-string stretched like gum, and all they could do was to stop and tighten their bow-strings again. Thus the boys were able to near the home of their grandfather, the big Turtle, now and then shooting at the leaders with their warring arrows and rarely missing their marks.

But as they came near, the people were gathering more and more thickly in their rear, so that Mátsailéma barely had time to take his grandfather—who was waiting on the bank of the pond—upon his back.

“Now, run you along in front and we’ll follow behind,” said old Etawa, as he put one paw over the left shoulder and the other under the right arm, and clasped his legs tightly around the loins of Mátsailéma so as to hug close to his back.

“Grandfather, kutchi! You are as heavy as a rock and as hard as one, too,” said the younger brother. “How can I dodge those stinging beasts?”

“That’s all the better for you,” said the old Turtle, loosening his grip a little; “take it easy.”

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” shouted Áhaiyúta from ahead. “Hurry, hurry, brother younger; hurry!” But Mátsailéma couldn’t get along any faster than he could.

Presently the old Turtle glanced around and saw that the people were gaining on them and already drawing their bows. “Duck your head down and never mind them. Now, you’ll see what I can do!” said he, pulling into his shell.

Thle-e-e, thle-thle-thle-e-e, rattled the arrows against old Etawa’s shell, and the warriors were already shouting, “Ho-o-o-awiyeishikia!”—which was their cry of victory,—when they began to cry out in other tones, for tsuiya! their arrows glanced from old Turtle’s shell and struck themselves, so that they dropped in every direction. “Terror and blood! but those beings can shoot fast and hard!” shouted they to one another, but they kept pelting away harder and faster, only to hit one another with the glancing arrows.