The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

“But––if the dreams came like a maid also––but a maid so fine that it was as a star––or a flower––or a prayer made human––then––”

“It is like that?” asked the old man, and the boy answered:

“Sometimes it seems like that––but not when I awake. Only in my sleep does she come close, yet that dream has kept guard for me many days until the others laugh and say I have no eyes to see a woman, I do see––but––”

“That is well––it is best of all!” said K[=a]-ye-fah, the Ruler. “If my own child had come back to me I might not have said it is well. My heart would have wanted to see your children and the children of K[=a]-ye-povi––I dreamed of that through many harvests––but it is over now. She did not live. The trader of robes from the Yutah brought that word, and it is better that way. I was dying because my daughter would be slave to Navahu men––and when word comes that she died as a little child, then the sun is shining for me again, and I live again. But 116 always when I think that the little child could be a woman, then it is good to think that your children could be her children. Since it is so––so let it be! The dream maid of the spirit flower, and of the star, can be my K[=a]-ye-povi, and you will have the mate no other earth eyes can ever see, and your nights and your days will not be lonely. Also it will be that your prayers be double strong.”

From that day of talk, the dream maid of Tahn-té had been a more tangible presence––never a woman––never quite that, but in the smile of certain children he caught swift glimpse of her face and then music rang in the rustle of the corn or the rush of the river. When the dream vision was beyond all measure sweet, he was certain of the wisdom of the Ancient––for the dream and the thoughts of prayer were double strong.

They were double strong that morning as he came from the river bath, and the face of Yahn––and the thought of her love––brought strangely that dream face to him in which there was no madness such as the Apache had shown him when at his feet in prayer.

The tombé sounded softly from a far terrace where special prayer was being made for the growing things, gray doves fluttered home with food to their young, and little brown children––not so much clothed as the birds!––climbed ladders to look in the dove cotes on his roof, and see the nurslings there lift clamoring mouths for worms or other treasure.

A woman weaving a blanket of twisted skins of rabbits worked in the open with her primitive loom in an arbor before her door, beside her a man whirled a distaff and spun the coarse hemp of which the warp was made. Maids and mothers with water jars on their heads walked in stately file from a spring near 117 the river’s edge––and above all the serene accustomed life of that Indian village, could be heard the drone of the grinding songs––in the valley of P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé there was ever corn for the grinding, and the time of hunger had come not often to Povi-whah.

Tahn-té felt a certain consciousness of the great content to which the grinding songs and the steady beat of the prayer drum made music. He knew better than the others, the worth of that peace, and quiet plenty, for to the south he had seen hunger stalk in the trail of the white conquerors, and no woman weaving a robe could be sure that it would ever keep her children from the cold. The men of iron had entered doors as they chose and carried thence all manner of things pleasing to their fancy.

But the life of Povi-whah was a different life, and Tahn-té was glad often to know that it was his land. The great medicine Mesa of the Hearts stood like a guardian straight to the east and at morning its shadow touched the terraces.