Only a Witch Led To Death Page 310
|
“Just at daylight Doli calls The bluebird has a voice His voice melodious That flows in gladness Doli calls! Doli calls!” |
The guard shrank away from her as she began. The Navahu captive who had been long a slave, said it was the song of the Dawn, and that it was the last song of many songs which were part of the wonderful “Night Chant” ceremony of his people,––it was a ceremony to heal all things of the ills of life.
But despite his words the Te-hua men shrank away, and the Te-hua women had trembling hands as they stripped her, and crowned her with the sacred pine, and fastened around her a girdle of the feathery young cedar, and in the green of the crown they thrust the golden disks of the flowers of the sun. She lifted the lion skin from the ground and held it close as a garment, and stood alone against the terrace wall. The people shrank and half feared to look at her lest the Dawn song be a witch charm to enchant them.
Po-tzah had brought to Tahn-té the white robe of the priest who makes sacrifice, and a long knife of white flint for which the sheath was softest of deerskin, and the symbols painted on it were those of the Father Sun and Mother Moon.
And while the maid held close the garment he had given her, and chanted her Dawn song dreamily, Tahn-té lifted from the ground the wing of the bluebird tossed aside by the medicine women who made her ready for the sacrifice, and he placed it in the white band about his own head so that he wore two instead of one, and then he lifted his voice and spoke, and no other sound was heard but his voice, and the low song of the witch maid.
“Men of Te-hua,” he said. “If I speak not you will not know the truth;––and it may be that you 313 will live many days ere you believe this truth! The maid who has come down from the hills is not a stranger to Povi-whah––and has done no evil. The daughter of K[=a]-ye-fah is this maid. She is K[=a]-ye-povi, the child who was lost. All you people know of the years of the grieving of her father who was strong for that which was good. His child has come back to find her own people. On the trail she was lost, and evil magic of the men of iron have made hard your hearts when she came to you. I have waited until all the people were here to listen. Now I speak. To speak at Pu-yé to the clan of Tain-tsain would not have been wise. They were sent by the vision of the white priest to find a witch woman. It is the child of K[=a]-ye-fah they find, and instead of glad hearts, and glad speech, she is given by the Te-hua people only the crown of the sacred pine. Let her own clan of the Towa Toan speak!”
A thrill of wonder ran through the crowd, but no kind faces were there, and Tahn-té took from his medicine pouch the last seed of the sacred medicine given to man by the gods. There had been many seeds when they left Pu-yé. He knew he was daring the gods, and that the penalty would be heavy. But her fearless face, and the music of her Dawn song was payment for much.
And to the gods he would answer!