Zuñi Folk Tales

by Frank Hamilton Cushing

“Come hither,” said the Sun-father to the younger brother. “Stand here.” So the little boy did as he was bidden.

“Lift up thy foot.” Then the Sun-father drew off the moccasin of bark and put beautiful fringed leggings upon it, and replaced the bark moccasins with buskins like his own, and tied up the leggings with many-colored garters, and dressed him as he was dressed, and placed a beautiful quiver upon his back. But the poor little boys were dark-colored, and their hair was tangled and matted over their heads. Then the Sun-father turned himself about as if to summon some unseen messenger, and created a great warm cloud of mist, with which he cleansed the boys, and lo! their skins became smooth and clear, and their hair fell down their backs in wavy masses. Then the Sun-father arranged the younger brother’s hair and placed a plume therein like his own, and beautiful plumes on his head.

“There,” said he to the elder; “look at thy younger brother.” But the poor little fellow was covered with shame, and dared only steal glances at his brother and the Sun-father. Then the Sun-father dressed the other like the first.

“Ti!” exclaimed they, as they looked at each other and at the Sun-father.

“You are just like Him,” they said to each other. But still they did not call him father. Then they fell to conversing.

“Why; he must be our father!” said they to each other. “Mother’s face has a black streak right down the middle of it, and father’s face is just like it, except that his chin is grizzly.” Then they knew that the Sun was their father, and they thanked him for his goodness.

Then said the Sun-father to them: “Mind what I have told ye, my children. I must go to my home in the heavens. Happy may ye always be. Ye are my children; I love ye, and therefore I came to help ye. Run home, now, for your father and mother who reared ye—the Badgers—are awaiting your coming. They will not know ye, so ye must roll up your bark moccasins and take along your strings of corn-cakes together with the rabbits ye have slain.”

“How can we carry them?” asked they; “for they are heavy.”

Then the Sun-father turned about and passed his hands gently over the heap of dead rabbits. “Lift them now,” said he to the children; and when they tried to lift them, lo! they were as light as dry grass-stalks. So they bade their father farewell and started home. When they had gone a little way they stopped to look around, but their father was nowhere to be seen.

Sure enough, when they neared home there were the two old Badgers running around their hole, and the old Badger-father was just getting ready to go out and search, for fear that they had perished from cold. He had just gone down to get some rabbit-skins and other things with which to wrap them, when the old woman, who was up above, shouted down: “Hurry, come out! Somebody is coming!”