232. Soon after this Coyote visited Maítso,[80] the Wolf. The latter took down, from among the rafters of his hut, two of the old-fashioned reed arrows with wooden heads, such as the Navahoes used in the ancient days; he pulled out the wooden points, rolled them on his thigh, moistened them in his mouth, and buried them in the hot ashes beside the fire. After waiting a little while and talking to his guest, he raked out from the ashes, where he had buried the arrow points, two fine cooked puddings of minced meat; these he laid on a mat of fresh herbs and told Coyote to help himself. Coyote again enjoyed his meal greatly, and soon after, when he rose to leave, he invited Wolf to pay him a visit in two days. Wolf went in due time to the house of Coyote, and when he had seated himself the host took two arrow-heads, as Wolf had done, rolled them on his thigh, put them in his mouth, and buried them in the hot ashes. After waiting a while, he raked the ashes and found nothing but two pieces of charred wood where he had placed the arrow-heads. This time he gave no evidence of his disappointment, but sat and talked with his guest just as if nothing had happened, until Wolf, seeing no sign of dinner and becoming very hungry, got up and went home.
233. In those days the Chicken-hawks and the Hummingbirds were known as great hunters. They were friendly to one another and dwelt together in one camp.
234. Coyote went to pay them a visit, and when he arrived at the camp he entered one of the huts of the Hummingbirds. He found therein two beautiful Hummingbird maidens, gayly dressed, with rows of deer-hoof pendants on their skirts and shoulders. He lay down in the lodge and said to the maidens: “Where is everybody to-day? I heard there were many people camped here, but the camp seems deserted.” The maidens replied: “There are many people camped here, but to-day the men are all out hunting.”
235. Now, Coyote was a dandy; he was always beautifully dressed; he had a nice otter-skin quiver and his face was painted in spots. The maidens, when they had looked well at him, bent their heads together and whispered to one another, “He is a handsome young man. He is beautifully dressed. He must be a person of some importance.” He spent the day gossipping with the maidens and telling them wonderful tales about himself. “Would you know who I am?” he said. “I am the God of Tsĭsnadzĭ′ni Mountain. I have no need to hunt. All I have to do is to will the death of an animal and it dies. Your people have no need to wear themselves out hunting for game. I can kill all they want without labor.”
236. At nightfall, when the hunters returned, the maidens left the lodge, went to where their friends were assembled, and told them all about the visitor. When the maidens had finished their story, the chief directed one of the young men to go over to the hut, peep in over the curtain in the doorway, and see what the stranger looked like. The young man did as he was bidden, making no noise, and looked into the lodge unobserved by Coyote. When he returned to the chief he said: “The stranger is a fine-looking man and is beautifully dressed. Perhaps he is indeed a god.” The chief then said: “It may be that all is true which he has told the maidens. We have to travel far in all sorts of weather and to work hard to secure food. He may know some way to save us from labor, so let us be kind to him. Go, one of you maidens, back to the lodge to serve him.” Hearing these words, the younger of the two young women returned to the lodge. Her clothing was ornamented with many pendants of bone and hoof that rattled with every movement she made, and for this reason Coyote named her Tsiké Nazĭ′li, or Young Woman Who Rattles.
237. In the morning she went to the lodge where her people were, and where a good breakfast was already prepared, and she brought a large dishful of the food for Coyote to eat. As she was about to depart with the food her people charged her to tell Coyote nothing of certain bad neighbors of theirs, lest he might visit them and work wonders for their benefit. But their injunctions came too late. Already Tsiké Nazĭ′li had told him all about these bad neighbors, and he had made up his mind to visit them.
238. When breakfast was over she said: “Now the hunters are going out.” He replied: “I will go with them.” So he joined the party, and they travelled together till they got to the brow of a high hill which overlooked an extensive country. Here Coyote told his companions to remain concealed while he went into the plain and drove the game toward them. When he got out of sight, he tied to his tail a long fagot of shredded cedar-bark, which he set on fire, and then he ran over the country in a wide circle as fast as he could go. Everywhere the fagot touched it set fire to the grass, and raised a long line of flame and smoke which drove the antelope up to where the hunters were concealed. A great quantity of game was killed; the hunters returned laden with meat, and their faith in Coyote was unbounded.
239. Next morning they all went out once more to hunt. Again the hunters concealed themselves on the brow of a hill, and again Coyote tied the blazing fagot to his tail and ran. The people on the hilltop watched the line of fire advancing over the plain; but when it turned around as if to come back to the place from which it started, it suddenly ceased. Much game was driven toward the party in ambush; but Coyote did not return, and the hunters went to work cutting up the meat and cooking food for themselves.
240. Coyote, in the mean time, had gone to seek the bad neighbors. He untied his brand at the place where the hunters had seen the line of fire cease, and wandered off in a different direction. After a while he came to two great trees, a spruce and a pine, growing close together, and filled with chattering birds of two kinds. The spruce-tree was filled with birds called Tsĭ′di Béze, and the pine-tree with birds called Tsĭ′di Sási. They were all busily engaged in playing a game which Coyote had never seen before. They would pull out their eyes, toss these up to the top of the tree, cry “Drop back, my eyes! Drop back!” and catch the eyes as they descended in their proper sockets. Coyote watched their play for a long time, and at length, becoming fascinated with the game, he cried out to the Tsĭ′di Sási in the pine-tree, “Pull out my eyes for me. I want to play, too.” “No,” they replied, “we will have nothing to do with you.” Again and again he begged to be allowed to join in the sport, and again and again they refused him. But when he had pleaded for the fourth time, they flew down to where Coyote sat, and, taking sharp sticks, they gouged his eyes out. The eyes were thrown up to the top of the pine-tree, and when they fell down Coyote caught them in his orbits and could see again as well as ever. Coyote was delighted with the result of his first venture, and he begged them to pull his eyes out again, but they said angrily: “We do not want to play with you. We have done enough for you now. Go and leave us.” But he continued to whine and beg until again they pulled out his eyes and tossed them up with the same happy result as before. Thus four times were his eyes pulled out, thrown upward, and caught back again in the head. But when he begged them to pull out his eyes for the fifth time, they went to a distance and held a council among themselves. When they returned they pulled his eyes out once more; but this time they took pains to pull out the strings of the eyes (optic nerves) at the same time; these they tied together, and, when the eyes were again flung up in the tree, they caught on one of the branches and there they stayed. Now Coyote was in mortal distress. “Drop back, my eyes! Drop back!” he cried. But back they never came, and he sat there with his nose pointed up toward the top of the tree, and he howled and prayed and wept. At last the birds took pity on him and said: “Let us make other eyes for him.” So they took a couple of partly dried pieces of pine gum and rolled them into two balls; these were stuck into the empty sockets, and, although they were not good eyes, they gave him sight enough to see his way home. The gum was yellow, and for this reason coyotes have had yellow eyes ever since.
241. He crept back, as best he could, to the place where he had left the hunters, and where he found them cutting and cooking meat. He sat down facing the fire, but he soon found that his gum eyes were getting soft with the heat, so he turned his side to the fire. The hunters gave him a piece of raw liver, supposing he would cook it himself. Not daring to turn towards the fire, lest his eyes should melt altogether, he threw the liver on the coals without looking, and when he tried afterwards to take it up he thrust his hand at random into the fire and caught nothing but hot coals that burned him. Fearing that his strange action was observed, he tried to pass it off as a joke, and every time he picked up a hot coal he cried: “Don’t burn me, liver! Don’t burn me, liver!” After a while the hunters seated around the fire began to notice his singular motions and words, and one said to another: “He does not act as usual. Go and see what is the matter with him.” The hunter who was thus bidden went over in front of Coyote, looked at him closely, and saw melted gum pouring out from between his eyelids.