Afterward the bride wife heard her sister singing beside a planted field: “Is there perhaps anyone who will marry me again? Let him ask me.” She had not been singing long when Tʻhăʻhyoñʹnĭʻ (Wolf) replied: “I will marry you if you will accept me.” To this she answered: “If I marry you, what will be my usual food?” Tʻhăʻhyoñʹnĭʻ replied: “You shall have meat for your usual food.” Her answer was: “I shall die if I am compelled to eat that kind of food.”
Thereupon the maiden resumed her singing: “Is there perhaps some one who will marry me again? Let him ask me to do so.” Nyāʹgwaiʼ (Bear) answered her: “I will marry you if you will accept me.” The maiden answered: “If I marry you what will be my usual food?” Nyāʹgwaiʼ said in reply: “Your usual food will be various kinds of nuts.” She said: “In the event that I am compelled to eat that kind of food I shall surely die.”
Again she began to sing: “Is there perhaps anyone who will marry me again? Let him ask me.” While she sang Neʹogĕⁿʼ (Deer) answered her: “I will marry you if you will accept me.” The maiden said in reply: “If I should marry you what would be my usual food?” Neʹogĕⁿʼ replied: “Your food would be buds and sprouts and the moss growing on trees.” The maiden’s response was: “In the event that I am compelled to eat that kind of food I shall surely die.”
After thus refusing each of these proposals of marriage, once again she began to sing: “Is there perhaps anyone who will again marry me? If there be one such, let him ask me.” While she sang, expressing the impulses of her heart, a man named Corn answered her challenge, saying: “I will marry you if you will accept me, for I know that you are circumspect in making your selection of a husband.” In reply the maiden asked: “If I should marry you what shall be my usual food?” Corn answered: “If you will marry me your food shall be corn; corn shall be your sustenance.” The maiden replied: “I accept you, and I am thankful for my good fortune in finding just what I want. For a long time I have been lonely, for I desired to see a human being, to be in a position to mingle [[647]]with mankind.” With these words she ran forward, and throwing her arms around him fondly embraced him, saying: “I will share with you your fortune or misfortune, whichever it be, wherever mankind shall have charge of your welfare and needs, for my grandmother has appointed me to care for mankind during the time that this earth shall endure. So it shall be that they shall plant us always in one place. So from one place you and I together shall depart when the time during which we shall provide (food) for mankind, as has been appointed for us, shall expire. We must teach them our songs and dances, so that mankind may express their gratitude when they shall gather in their harvests of corn and beans and squashes.”
Continuing, she said to her husband: “We must instruct mankind with care in this matter, so that they shall do the essential things and sing the essential songs of the Aʻkoñwiʹʻsĕⁿʼ,[446] (the ceremony of the Corn dances). The women and the young maidens of both the Father and the Mother side in beginning this ceremony shall stand on their respective sides of the fire, forming in orderly lines with the matrons of their several clans as leaders. One side shall first sing the song which is in order, and then the other side shall sing that song; then they shall sing it alternately, while the several leaders in taking the lead must carry the turtle-shell rattle. It is important that this shall be done in order, and that the rhythm of the songs be not broken. When the song has been sung by both sides then the two lines of women shall encircle the fire and dance around it three times. This shall be done in the case of each song of the Aʻkoñwiʹʻsĕⁿʼ.
“Now, the words of the essential songs are as follows:
“(a) ‘Coming hither I heard them; I heard them sing and dance the Aʻkoñwiʹʻsĕⁿʼ.’
“(b) ‘We have now arrived—we who are about to sing and dance the Aʻkoñwiʹʻsĕⁿʼ.’
“(c) ‘Among living, growing, unplucked flowers I am walking reverently (silently, slowly).’
“(d) ‘I am now dancing among living, growing, unplucked flowers (blossoms).’