Zuñi Folk Tales

by Frank Hamilton Cushing

So the two entered, but they were ill at ease in their clothes, which they were not used to. And when the old mother had placed soft rabbit-skins on the floor, they doffed their clothing and carefully laid it away. Then the whole family ate their evening meal.

“Keep count for us, father, and when the time comes, let us know,” said the boys.

So the days passed by until the day before the dance, and that morning the old Badger said to the Two: “Tomorrow the dance will come.”

“Very well,” replied they; “let us go out and hunt today, that you and mother may have something to eat.” So they went forth, and in the evening came back with great numbers of rabbits; and the old mother skinned the rabbits and put some of them to cook over night, so that her children might eat before starting for the town under Thunder Mountain.

At sunrise next morning both dressed themselves carefully, put on their plumes, and started on the pathway that leads around the mountain. They passed the village of K’yátik’ia on their way, and the people marvelled greatly at their beauty and their magnificent dress. And so they followed the road through the Cañon of the Coyotes, thence by the crooked pathway and the covered road under the house into the court of K’iákime. Just as the Sun-father had told them, they found everything there. There was the great house with the tall ladder and the two macaws, and there were the young maidens, their aunts, sitting on the house-top.

And as the dancers came into the court they stepped forward, and then it was that the people first saw and hailed them. The chief of the dance came forward and asked them whither they came and if they would not join in the dance. So they assented and came forward to the center of the plaza, and as they began to dance, the young girls arose and the dance chiefs went and escorted them to the dance plaza.

Although they told them, “Dance here,” they did not obey. They ran right over to where the two young men were dancing, and took hold of their hands just as the Sun-father had told them it would come to pass. And, in fact, everything happened just as he had said. Yes, they all ran down and grasped the two boys’ hands, and when the dance was over and they let go, they said to the two handsome young strangers: “Come up; come in.”

“It is well,” said the two young men. So they all went up into the house and sat down. Now, all these girls were young, and they were very much pleased with the young men. In fact the two youngest were in love with them already; so they smiled and made themselves very pleasant. Then the first brother arose and went over to the eldest one, and said: “Mother-aunt.”

“What is it?” she replied, “for of course throughout the cities of men we, as the daughters of a great priest, are the mothers of children,”—and so on until they came to the last and youngest one, whom they called “little mother-aunt,” and she also replied that, however young they might be, still they might be counted the mothers of the children of men.

“No, verily, ye are our parents,” replied the Twain. “Beyond this room is another, and beyond that another, and beyond that yet another where lived our mother, who never went forth from her house, but sat day after day making sacred trays. And there even now, according to the colors of the parts of the world hang her trays on the wall.”