The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

“That is good,” said K[=a]-ye-fah––“very good for the work of the unborn years.”

For the youth was to carry on the tribal prayers to the gods when K[=a]-ye-fah no longer walked on earth. And his teaching must be greater than all other teaching, for the Ruler was planning for the work of the days to come.

And in a day of the early spring the work was made ready, for to S[=aa]-hanh-que-ah he said:––“A week ago So-hoah-tza went under the waters of the river and never breathed again. To him was given the guard of the sacred place of the Sun Father. I have not yet made any other the guardian. You are the woman of the order of the Po-Ahtun––I give you the guard to keep. Call the governor––but call your son first. You shall be guard as So-hoah-tza was guard, but Tahn-té shall be guard as I have been! Lean lower, and let your ear listen and your heart keep sacred the word. I go to our Lost Others––but I leave you to guard.”

The governor came, and all were sad, but no one thought that the life was over. K[=a]-ye-fah talked and smiled as one who goes to a feast.

But Tahn-té, standing tall and still by the couch said:––“It will be over! This morning he wakened and said he would go with the sun to-day. He has no other thought, and he will go!”

And the women wept, and made ready the things of burial for the high priest of the highest order. If Tahn-té said he would go into the shadows at that time––the women knew that it would be so. Tahn-té, as they knew him, joyous in the dances of the seasons,––was never in their minds apart from Tahn-té the prophet whose dreams even as a boy, had 58 been beyond the dreams of the others who sought visions.

And as the sun touched the black line of the pines on the western mountain, the aged Ruler asked for his wand of office, and the governor gave it to him, and with his own hand he gave it to Tahn-té, that even when his own form was covered with the soil, his vote would be on record in the minds of those who listened––and that vote gave to his pupil in magic, the wand of power––The youngest qualified member of the Order of Spiritual things was thus acclaimed as the Po-Ahtun-ho, a Ruler of Things from the Beginning.

Twenty-four years he had lived––but the time of life with the white men had counted more than double. In magic of many kinds he was more wise than the men of years, and the heart of his mother was glad with the almost perfect gladness when Tahn-té stood in the place of the Ancient Wisdom and listened as the ear of the god listens to the recitation of many tribal prayers.

The Po-Ahtun-ho also listens at times to the individual appeals of the things of every day life––as a father listens to a child who seeks advice. To the more ancient Rulers the younger people were often afraid to go––various “uncles” of the village were appealed to instead. But the youth of Tahn-té made all things different––even the love of a man for a maid, was not so small a thing that the new Ruler made the suppliant feel how little it was.

And one of the first who came to him thus––who knelt and offered a prayer to him, the prayer of a love, was the little Apache tigress who had been first of his own village to greet him in Ua-lano––Yahn Tsyn-deh, who had grown so pretty that the men of 59 the other villages talked of her, and her mother had asked great gifts for her. But the mother had died with the winter, and Yahn refused to be subject to the Tain-tsain clan of her father, and there had been much trouble until she threatened to go back to her mother’s tribe, and many thought it might come to that after all––for she was very strong of will.