“There were no people then—there were only animals. They lived far under the ground in dark caves. But the Old Ones heard them moaning and crying in the dark. They heard the fox, and the bear, and the duck, and the wolf, all crying, crying in the dark. And they were sorry.”
Old as the tale was, the boys listened with breathless interest.
“So the Old Ones dropped a seed through sipapuh[1] and immediately up sprang a wonderful stalk of corn. It grew up, and up, and up, until at last its head rose into the sunlight of the Upper World. Then, one at a time, the fox, and the wolf, and the duck, and all the other animals and birds, came up the great stalk and stood in the light of Waka, the Sun. And they were no longer animals, but men and women. We must never forget this, or the Old Ones will forget us, and we would once more be animals, back in the middle of the earth, crying and moaning for the light.”
“But what of the snakes?” whispered Wiki. “My father says there are more than a hundred in the kisi.” He nodded toward a brush-covered shelter near the kiva.
“Hush,” replied Kwasa, looking furtively about. “They are the prayer-bearers, and carry to the Old Ones the prayers of the Snake Clan for rain, that the crop may thrive. But we must not speak of that now; it is not well to talk too much of the gods so near the place where they dwell.”
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A cavity in the floor of the kiva represented the lower world. Over this was placed a stone slab with a round hole in the middle, which was called sipapuh, and represented the outlet through which the ancestral beings emerged.
CHAPTER IV
The Rites in the Kiva
For an hour Kwasa had been sitting stiffly on the stone ledge that ran around the outer wall of the kiva, trying to get used to the smothering mask Mosu had put over his head. This mask was a gorgeously painted affair representing the head of a duck. Feathers of green and black were fastened to the crest, and a huge bill of yellow cane projected from the mouthpiece. In it Kwasa became for the time a Katcina, or one of the supernatural beings which mediate between gods and men. As a Katcina he represented one of the ancestral forms which had emerged from the Lower World upon the day of Creation.
A tunic of cotton cloth reached to his knees. It was brown, and upon it were painted zigzag white lines representing lightning. Over one shoulder was a yellow scarf upon which the same design was repeated, and on his feet were beautifully beaded moccasins, over which his grandmother had bent for weeks, that they might be ready when the time should come for her favorite’s adoption into the ranks of the men. Around his neck, securely tied in a little buckskin bag, hung a charm, an exquisite turquoise, blue as the spring skies and half as large as a swallow’s egg. Old Tcua had fastened this on with trembling fingers as Kwasa left her to descend to the kiva, saying as she did so: