The head men wrapped themselves in the robes of ceremony, the younger priests painted their bodies with the white, and into the kiva of council they descended with their visitor of high office.
On the shrine there, Tahn-té placed a fragment of the sun symbol taken from the pouch at his girdle. Before a white statue of the weeping god he placed it, and the Keeper of the Sacred Fire there, breathed on his hand, and threw fragrant dried herbs of magic on the live coals, that all evil and all discord be driven out by the fumes, and when the smoke drifted upwards and out by the way of the sky, the talk was made.
With briefness Tahn-té stated all heard in the council of Povi-whah concerning the wishes of the strangers from the South.
Into the Kiva of Council They Descended Page 206
The men smoked the sacred smoke of council and listened, and when all was said, they nodded to each other.
“That which you say is that which the tribes have always talked about when the wild people came for war. In old days of our fathers, we people of the houses and the fields did make compact with each other as brothers. But always it has been broken, often it had to be broken. We are far apart. When the Yutah comes from the north, and the Pawnee from the east––and the Apache and the Navahu from every place, the men of each village must look to their own women. He cannot go to his brother to learn if he also is having war.”
“That is true,” said Tahn-té. “But the wild people fight and go away again. If these strangers find the symbol of the sun in our land, they will never go away––more will come––and then more always! I have seen the talking leaves of their people. If they get room for their feet, they then ask the field; if the way of the door is opened to them, they then take the house. They and their animals will ride us down as the buffalo tramp under foot the grass on the wide lands.”