GODDESS OF SALT
Between Zuni and Pescado is a steep mesa, or table-land, with fantastic rocks weathered into tower and roof-like prominences on its sides, while near it is a high natural monument of stone. Say the Zunis: The goddess of salt was so troubled by the people who lived near her domain on the sea-shore, and who took away her snowy treasures without offering any sacrifice in return, that she forsook the ocean and went to live in the mountains far away. Whenever she stopped beside a pool to rest she made it salt, and she wandered so long about the great basins of the West that much of the water in them is bitter, and the yield of salt from the larger lake near Zuni brings into the Zuni treasury large tolls from other tribes that draw from it.
Here she met the turquoise god, who fell in love with her at sight, and wooed so warmly that she accepted and married him. For a time they lived happily, but when the people learned that the goddess had concealed herself among the mountains of New Mexico they followed her to that land and troubled her again until she declared that she would leave their view forever. She entered this mesa, breaking her way through a high wall of sandstone as she did so. The arched portal through which she passed is plainly visible. As she went through, one of her plumes was broken off, and falling into the valley it tipped upon its stem and became the monument that is seen there. The god of turquoise followed his wife, and his footsteps may be traced in outcrops of pale-blue stone.
THE COMING OF THE NAVAJOS
Many fantastic accounts of the origin of man are found among the red tribes. The Onondagas say that the Indians are made from red earth and the white men from sea-foam. Flesh-making clay is seen in the precipitous bank in the ravine west of Onondaga Valley, where at night the fairies “little fellows” sport and slide. Among others, the Noah legend finds a parallel. Several tribes claim to have emerged from the interior of the earth. The Oneidas point to a hill near the falls of Oswego River, New York, as their birthplace; the Wichitas rose from the rocks about Red River; the Creeks from a knoll in the valley of Big Black River in the Natchez country, where dwelt the Master of Breath; the Aztecs were one of seven tribes that came out from the seven caverns of Aztlan, or Place of the Heron; and the Navajos believe that they emerged at a place known to them in the Navajo Mountains.
In the under world the Navajos were happy, for they had everything that they could wish: there was no excess of heat or cold, trees and flowers grew everywhere, and the day was marked by a bright cloud that arose in the east, while a black cloud that came out of the west made the night. Here they lived for centuries, and might have been there to this day had not one of the tribe found an opening in the earth that led to some place unknown. He told of it to the whole tribe. They set off up the passage to see where it led, and after long and weary climbing the surface was reached. Pleased with the novelty of their surroundings, they settled here, but on the fourth day after their arrival their queen disappeared.
Their search for her was unavailing until some of the men came to the mouth of the tunnel by which they had reached the upper land, when, looking down, they saw their queen combing her long, black locks. She told them that she was dead and that her people could go to her only after death, but that they would be happy in their old home. With that the earth shut together and the place has never since been open to the eye of mortals. Soon came the cannibal giants who ravaged the desert lands and destroyed all of the tribe but four families, these having found a refuge in a deep canon of the Navajo Mountains. From their retreat they could see a beam of light shining from one of the hills above them, and on ascending to the place they found a beautiful girl babe.
This child grew to womanhood under their care, and her charms attracted the great manitou that rides on a white horse and carries the sun for a shield. He wooed and married her, and their children slew the giants that had destroyed the Navajos. After a time the manitou carried his wife to his floating palace in the western water, which has since been her home. To her the prayers of the people are addressed, and twelve immortals bear their petitions to her throne.
THE ARK ON SUPERSTITION MOUNTAINS
The Pima Indians of Arizona say that the father of all men and animals was the butterfly, Cherwit Make (earth-maker), who fluttered down from the clouds to the Blue Cliffs at the junction of the Verde and Salt Rivers, and from his own sweat made men. As the people multiplied they grew selfish and quarrelsome, so that Cherwit Make was disgusted with his handiwork and resolved to drown them all. But first he told them, in the voice of the north wind, to be honest and to live at peace. The prophet Suha, who interpreted this voice, was called a fool for listening to the wind, but next night came the east wind and repeated the command, with an added threat that the ruler of heaven would destroy them all if they did not reform.
Again they scoffed, and on the next night the west wind cautioned them. But this third warning was equally futile. On the fourth night came the south wind. It breathed into Suha's ear that he alone had been good and should be saved, and bade him make a hollow ball of spruce gum in which he might float while the deluge lasted. Suha and his wife immediately set out to gather the gum, that they melted and shaped until they had made a large, rounded ark, which they ballasted with jars of nuts, acorn-meal and water, and meat of bear and venison.
On the day assigned Suha and his wife were looking regretfully down into the green valleys from the ledge where the ark rested, listening to the song of the harvesters, and sighing to think that so much beauty would presently be laid waste, when a hand of fire was thrust from a cloud and it smote the Blue Cliffs with a thunder-clang. It was the signal. Swift came the clouds from all directions, and down poured the rain. Withdrawing into their waxen ball, Suha and his wife closed the portal. Then for some days they were rolled and tossed on an ever-deepening sea. Their stores had almost given out when the ark stopped, and breaking a hole in its side its occupants stepped forth.
There was a tuna cactus growing at their feet, and they ate of its red fruit greedily, but all around them was naught but water. When night came on they retired to the ark and slept—a night, a month, a year, perhaps a century, for when they awoke the water was gone, the vales were filled with verdure, and bird-songs rang through the woods. The delighted couple descended the Superstition Mountains, on which the ark had rested, and went into its valleys, where they lived for a thousand years, and became the parents of a great tribe.
But the evil was not all gone. There was one Hauk, a devil of the mountains, who stole their daughters and slew their sons. One day, while the women were spinning flax and cactus fibre and the men were gathering maize, Hauk descended into the settlement and stole another of Suha's daughters. The patriarch, whose patience had been taxed to its limit, then made a vow to slay the devil. He watched to see by what way he entered the valley. He silently followed him into the Superstition Mountains; he drugged the cactus wine that his daughter was to serve to him; then, when he had drunk it, Suha emerged from his place of hiding and beat out the brains of the stupefied fiend.
Some of the devil's brains were scattered and became seed for other evil, but there was less wickedness in the world after Hauk had been disposed of than there had been before. Suha taught his people to build adobe houses, to dig with shovels, to irrigate their land, to weave cloth, and avoid wars. But on his death-bed he foretold to them that they would grow arrogant with wealth, covetous of the lands of others, and would wage wars for gain. When that time came there would be another flood and not one should be saved—the bad should vanish and the good would leave the earth and live in the sun. So firmly do the Pimas rely on this prophecy that they will not cross Superstition Mountains, for there sits Cherwit Make—awaiting the culmination of their wickedness to let loose on the earth a mighty sea that lies dammed behind the range.
THE PALE FACED LIGHTNING
Twenty miles from the capital of Arizona stands Mount Superstition—the scene of many traditions, the object of many fears. Two centuries ago a tribe of Pueblo dwarfs arrived near it and tilled the soil and tended their flocks about the settlements that grew along their line of march. They were little people, four feet high, but they were a thousand strong and clever. They were peaceful, like all intelligent people, and the mystery surrounding their incantations and sun-worship was more potent than a show of arms to frighten away those natural assassins, the Apaches.
After they had lived near the mountain for five years the “little people” learned that the Zunis were advancing from the south and made preparations for defence. Their sheep were concealed in obscure valleys; provisions, tools, and arms were carried up the mountain; piles of stone were placed along the edges of cliffs commanding the passes. This work was superintended by a woman with a white face, fair hair, and commanding form, who was held in reverence by the dwarfs; and she it was—the Helen of a New-World Troy—who was causing this trouble, for the Zunis claimed her on the ground that they had brought her from the waters of the rising sun, and that it was only to escape an honorable marriage with their chief that she had fled to the dwarfs.
Be that as it might, the Zunis marched on, meeting with faint resistance until, on a bright afternoon, they massed on a slope of the mountain, seven hundred in number. The Apaches, expecting instant defeat of the “little men,” watched, from neighboring hills, the advance of the invaders as they climbed nimbly toward the stone fort on the top of the slope, brandishing clubs and stone spears, and bragging, as the fashion of a red man is—and sometimes of a white one.
At a pool outside of the walls stood the pale woman, queenly and calm, and as her white robe and brown hair fluttered in the wind both her people and the foe looked upon her with admiration. When but a hundred yards away the Zunis rushed toward her with outstretched arms, whereupon she stooped, picked up an earthen jar, emptied its contents into the pool, and ran back. In a moment sparks and balls of fire leaped from crevices in the rocks, and as they touched the Indians many fell dead. Others plunged blindly over the cliffs and were dashed to pieces.
In a few minutes the remainder of the force was in full retreat and not an arrow had been shot. The Apaches, though stricken with terror at these pyrotechnics, overcame the memory of them sufficiently in a couple of years to attempt the sack of the fort on their own account, but the queen repelled them as she had forced back the Zunis, and with even greater slaughter. From that time the dwarfs were never harmed again, but they went away, as suddenly as they had come, to a secret recess in the mountains, where the Pale Faced Lightning still rules them.
Some of the Apaches maintain that her spirit haunts a cave on Superstition Mountain, where her body vanished in a blaze of fire, and this cave of the Spirit Mother is also pointed out on the south side of Salt River. A skeleton and cotton robes, ornamented and of silky texture, were once found there. It is said that electrical phenomena are frequent on the mountain, and that iron, copper, salt, and copperas lying near together may account for them.
THE WEIRD SENTINEL AT SQUAW PEAK
There is a cave under the highest butte of the Squaw Peak range, Arizona, where a party of Tonto Indians was found by white men in 1868. The white men were on the war-path, and when the Tontos fell into their hands they shot them unhesitatingly, firing into the dark recesses of the cavern, the fitful but fast-recurring flashes of their rifles illuminating the interior and exposing to view the objects of their hatred.
The massacre over, the cries and groans were hushed, the hunters strode away, and over the mountains fell the calm that for thousands of years had not been so rudely broken. That night, when the moon shone into this pit of death, a corpse arose, walked to a rock just within the entrance, and took there its everlasting seat.
Long afterward a man who did not know its story entered this place, when he was confronted by a thing, as he called it, that glared so fearfully upon him that he fled in an ecstasy of terror. Two prospectors subsequently attempted to explore the cave, but the entrance was barred by “the thing.” They gave one glance at the torn face, the bulging eyes turned sidewise at them, the yellow fangs, the long hair, the spreading claws, the livid, mouldy flesh, and rushed away. A Western paper, recounting their adventure, said that one of the men declared that there was not money enough in Maricopa County to pay him to go there again, while the other had never stopped running—at least, he had not returned to his usual haunts since “the thing” looked at him. Still, it is haunted country all about here. The souls of the Mojaves roam upon Ghost Mountain, and the “bad men's hunting-grounds” of the Yumas and Navajos are over in the volcanic country of Sonora. It is, therefore, no unusual thing to find signs and wonders in broad daylight.
SACRIFICE OF THE TOLTECS
Centuries ago, when Toltec civilization had extended over Arizona, and perhaps over the whole West, the valleys were occupied by large towns—the towns whose ruins are now known as the City of Ovens, City of Stones, and City of the Dead. The people worked at trades and arts that had been practised by their ancestors before the pyramids were built in Egypt. Montezuma had come to the throne of Mexico, and the Aztecs were a subject people; Europe had discovered America and forgotten it, and in America the arrival of Europeans was recalled only in traditions. But, like other nations, the Toltecs became a prey to self-confidence, to luxury, to wastefulness, and to deadening superstitions. Already the fierce tribes of the North were lurking on the confines of their country in a faith of speedy conquest, and at times it seemed as if the elements were against them.
The villagers were returning from the fields, one day, when the entire region was smitten by an earthquake. Houses trembled, rumblings were heard, people fell in trying to reach the streets, and reservoirs burst, wasting their contents on the fevered soil. A sacrifice was offered. Then came a second shock, and another mortal was offered in oblation. As the earth still heaved and the earthquake demon muttered underground, the king gave his daughter to the priests, that his people might be spared, though he wrung his hands and beat his brow as he saw her led away and knew that in an hour her blood would stream from the altar.
The girl walked firmly to the cave where the altar was erected—a cave in Superstition Mountains. She knelt and closed her eyes as the officiating-priest uttered a prayer, and, gripping his knife of jade stone, plunged it into her heart. She fell without a struggle. And now, the end.
Hardly had the innocent blood drained out and the fires been lighted to consume the body, when a pall of cloud came sweeping across the heavens; a hot wind surged over the ground, laden with dust and smoke; the storm-struck earth writhed anew beneath pelting thunder-bolts; no tremor this time, but an upheaval that rent the rocks and flung the cities down. It was an hour of darkness and terror. Roars of thunder mingled with the more awful bellowing beneath; crash on crash told that houses and temples were falling in vast ruin; the mountainsides were loosened and the rush of avalanches added to the din; the air was thick, and through the clouds the people groped their way toward the fields; rivers broke from their confines and laid waste farms and gardens! The gods had indeed abandoned them, and the spirit of the king's daughter took its flight in company with thousands of souls in whose behalf she had suffered uselessly.
The king was crushed beneath his palace-roof and the sacerdotal executioner perished in a fall of rock. The survivors fled in panic and the Ishmaelite tribes on their frontier entered their kingdom and pillaged it of all abandoned wealth. The cities never were rebuilt and were rediscovered but a few years ago, when the maiden's skeleton was also found. Nor does any Indian cross Superstition Mountains without a sense of apprehension.
TA-VWOTS CONQUERS THE SUN
The Indian is a great story-teller. Every tribe has its traditions, and the elderly men and women like to recount them, for they always find listeners. And odd stories they tell, too. Just listen to this, for example. It is a legend among the tribes of Arizona.
While Ta-Vwots, the hare god, was asleep in the valley of Maopa, the Sun mischievously burned his back, causing him to leap up with a howl. “Aha! It's you, is it, who played this trick on me?” he cried, looking at the Sun. “I'll make it warm for you. See if I don't.”
And without more ado he set off to fight the Sun. On the way he stopped to pick and roast some corn, and when the people who had planted it ran out and tried to punish him for the theft he scratched a hole in the ground and ran in out of sight. His pursuers shot arrows into the hole, but Ta-Vwots had his breath with him, and it was an awfully strong breath, for with it he turned all the arrows aside. “The scamp is in here,” said one of the party. “Let's get at him another way.” So, getting their flints and shovels, they began to dig.
“That's your game, is it?” mumbled Ta-Vwots. “I know a way out of this that you don't know.” With a few puffs of his breath and a few kicks of his legs he reached a great fissure that led into the rock behind him, and along this passage he scrambled until he came to the edge of it in a niche, from which he could watch his enemies digging. When they had made the hole quite large he shouted, “Be buried in the grave you have dug for yourselves!” And, hurling down a magic ball that he carried, he caved the earth in on their heads. Then he paced off, remarking, “To fight is as good fun as to eat. Vengeance is my work. Every one I meet will be an enemy. No one shall escape my wrath.” And he sounded his war-whoop.
Next day he saw two men heating rocks and chipping arrow-heads from them. “Let me help you, for hot rocks will not hurt me,” he said.
“You would have us to believe you are a spirit, eh?” they questioned, with a jeer.
“No ghost,” he answered, “but a better man than you. Hold me on those rocks, and, if I do not burn, you must let me do the same to you.”
The men complied, and heating the stones to redness in the fire they placed him against them, but failed to see that by his magic breath he kept a current of air flowing between him and the hot surface. Rising unhurt, he demanded that they also should submit to the torture, and, like true Indians, they did so. When their flesh had been burned half through and they were dead, he sounded his warwhoop and went on.
On the day following he met two women picking berries, and told them to blow the leaves and thorns into his eyes. They did so, as they supposed, but with his magic breath he kept the stuff away from his face.
“You are a ghost!” the women exclaimed.
“No ghost,” said he. “Just a common person. Leaves and thorns can do no harm. See, now.” And he puffed thorns into their faces and made them blind. “Aha! You are caught with your own chaff I am on my way to kill the Sun. This is good practice.” And he slew them, sounded his war-whoop, and went on.
The morning after this affair some women appeared on Hurricane Cliff and the wind brought their words to his ears. They were planning to kill him by rolling rocks upon him as he passed. As he drew near he pretended to eat something with such enjoyment that they asked him what it was. He called out, “It is sweet. Come to the edge and I will throw it up to you.” With that he tossed something so nearly within their reach that in bending forward to catch it they crowded too near the brink, lost their balance, fell over, and were killed. “You are victims of your own greed. One should never be so anxious as to kill one's self.” This was his only comment, and, sounding the warwhoop, he went on.
A day later he came upon two women making water jugs of willow baskets lined with pitch, and he heard one whisper to the other, “Here comes that bad Ta-Vwots. How shall we destroy him?”
“What were you saying?” asked the hare god.
“We just said, 'Here comes our grandson.'” (A common form of endearment.)
“Is that all? Then let me get into one of these water jugs while you braid the neck.”
He jumped in and lay quite still as they wove the neck, and they laughed to think that it was braided so small that he could never escape, when—puff! the jug was shattered and there was Ta-Vwots. They did not know anything about his magic breath. They wondered how he got out.
“Easily enough,” replied the hare god. “These things may hold water, but they can't hold men and women. Try it, and see if they can.” With their consent, Ta-Vwots began weaving the osiers about them, and in a little while he had them caged. “Now, come out,” he said. But, try as they might, not a withe could they break. “Ha, ha! You are wise women, aren't you? Bottled in your own jugs! I am on my way to kill the Sun. In time I shall learn how.” Then, sounding his war-whoop, he struck them dead with his magic ball and went on.
He met the Bear next day, and found him digging a hole to hide in, for he had heard of the hare god and was afraid. “Don't be frightened, friend Bear,” said the rogue. “I'm not the sort of fellow to hide from. How could a little chap like me hurt so many people?” And he helped the Bear to dig his den, but when it was finished he hid behind a rock, and as the Bear thrust his head near him he launched his magic ball at his face and made an end of him. “I was afraid of this warrior,” said Ta-Vwots, “but he is dead, now, in his den.” And sounding his war-whoop he went on.
It was on the day following that he met the Tarantula, a clever rascal, who had a club that would deal a fatal blow to others, but would not hurt himself. He began to groan as Ta-Vwots drew near, and cried that he had a pain caused by an evil spirit in his head. Wouldn't Ta-Vwots thump it out? Indeed, he would. He grasped the club and gave him the soundest kind of a thwacking, but when the Tarantula shouted “Harder,” he guessed that it was an enchanted weapon, and changing it for his magic ball he finished the Tarantula at a blow. “That is a stroke of your own seeking,” he remarked. “I am on my way to kill the Sun. Now I know that I can do it.” And sounding his war-whoop he went on.
Next day he came to the edge of the world and looked off into space, where thousands of careless people had fallen, and there he passed the night under a tree. At dawn he stood on the brink of the earth and the instant that the Sun appeared he flung the magic ball full in his face. The surface of the Sun was broken into a thousand pieces that spattered over the earth and kindled a mighty conflagration. Ta-Vwots crept under the tree that had sheltered him, but that was of no avail against the increasing heat. He tried to run away, but the fire burned off his toes, then his feet, then his legs, then his body, so that he ran on his hands, and when his hands were burned off he walked on the stumps of his arms. At last his head alone remained, and that rolled over hill and valley until it struck a rock, when the eyes burst and the tears that gushed forth spread over the land, putting out the flames. The Sun was conquered, and at his trial before the other gods was reprimanded for his mischievous pranks and condemned thereafter to travel across the sky every day by the same trail.
THE COMANCHE RIDER
The ways of disposing of the Indian dead are many. In some places ground sepulture is common; in others, the corpses are placed in trees. South Americans mummified their dead, and cremation was not unknown. Enemies gave no thought to those that they had slain, after plucking off their scalps as trophies, though they sometimes added the indignity of mutilation in killing.
Sachem's Head, near Guilford, Connecticut, is so named because Uncas cut a Pequot's head off and placed it in the crotch of an oak that grew there. It remained withering for years. It was to save the body of Polan from such a fate, after the fight on Sebago Lake in 1756, that his brothers placed it under the root of a sturdy young beech that they had pried out of the ground. He was laid in the hollow in his war-dress, with silver cross on his breast and bow and arrows in his hand; then, the weight on the trunk being released, the sapling sprang back to its place and afterward rose to a commanding height, fitly marking the Indian's tomb. Chief Blackbird, of the Omahas, was buried, in accordance with his wish, on the summit of a bluff near the upper Missouri, on the back of his favorite horse, fully equipped for travel, with the scalps that he had taken hung to the bridle.
When a Comanche dies he is buried on the western side of the camp, that his soul may follow the setting sun into the spirit world the speedier. His bow, arrows, and valuables are interred with him, and his best pony is killed at the grave that he may appear among his fellows in the happy hunting grounds mounted and equipped. An old Comanche who died near Fort Sill was without relatives and poor, so his tribe thought that any kind of a horse would do for him to range upon the fields of paradise. They killed a spavined old plug and left him. Two weeks from that time the late unlamented galloped into a camp of the Wichitas on the back of a lop-eared, bob-tailed, sheep-necked, ring-boned horse, with ribs like a grate, and said he wanted his dinner. Having secured a piece of meat, formally presented to him on the end of a lodge-pole, he offered himself to the view of his own people, alarming them by his glaring eyes and sunken cheeks, and told them that he had come back to haunt them for a stingy, inconsiderate lot, because the gate-keeper of heaven had refused to admit him on so ill-conditioned a mount. The camp broke up in dismay. Wichitas and Comanches journeyed, en masse, to Fort Sill for protection, and since then they have sacrificed the best horses in their possession when an unfriended one journeyed to the spirit world.
Myths and Legends
HORNED TOAD AND GIANTS
The Moquis have a legend that, long ago, when the principal mesa that they occupy was higher than it is now, and when they owned all the country from the mountains to the great river, giants came out of the west and troubled them, going so far as to dine on Moquis. It was hard to get away, for the monsters could see all over the country from the tops of the mesas. The king of the tribe offered the handsomest woman in his country and a thousand horses to any man who would deliver his people from these giants. This king was eaten like the rest, and the citizens declined to elect another, because they were beginning to lose faith in kings. Still, there was one young brave whose single thought was how to defeat the giants and save his people.
As he was walking down the mesa he saw a lizard, of the kind commonly known as a horned toad, lying under a rock in pain. He rolled the stone away and was passing on, when a voice, that seemed to come out of the earth, but that really came from the toad, asked him if he wished to destroy the giants. He desired nothing so much. “Then take my horned crest for a helmet.”
Lolomi—that was the name of him—did as he was bid, and found that in a moment the crest had swelled and covered his head so thickly that no club could break through it.
“Now take my breastplate,” continued the toad. And though it would not have covered the Indian's thumb-nail, when he put it on it so increased in bulk that it corseleted his body and no arrow could pierce it.
“Now take the scales from my eyes,” commanded the toad, and when he had done so Lolomi felt as light as a feather.
“Go up and wait. When you see a giant, go toward him, looking in his eyes, and he will walk backward. Walk around him until he has his back to a precipice, then advance. He will back away until he reaches the edge of the mesa, when he will fall off and be killed.”
Lolomi obeyed these instructions, for presently a giant loomed in the distance and came striding across the plains half a mile at a step. As he drew near he flung a spear, but it glanced from the Indian's armor like hail from a rock. Then an arrow followed, and was turned. At this the giant lost courage, for he fancied that Lolomi was a spirit. Fearing a blow if he turned, he kept his face toward Lolomi, who manoeuvred so skilfully that when he had the giant's back to the edge of a cliff he sprang at him, and the giant, with a yell of alarm, fell and broke his bones on the rocks below. So Lolomi killed many giants, because they all walked back before him, and after they had fallen the people heaped rocks on their bodies. To this day the place is known as “the giants' fall.” Then the tribe made Lolomi king and gave him the most beautiful damsel for a wife. As he was the best king they ever had, they treasured his memory after he was dead, and used his name as a term of greeting, so that “Lolomi” is a word of welcome, and will be until the giants come again.
THE SPIDER TOWER
In Dead Man's Canon—a deep gorge that is lateral to the once populated valley of the Rio de Chelly, Arizona—stands a stark spire of weathered sandstone, its top rising eight hundred feet above its base in a sheer uplift. Centuries ago an inhabitant of one of the cave villages was surprised by hostiles while hunting in this region, and was chased by them into this canon. As he ran he looked vainly from side to side in the hope of securing a hiding-place, but succor came from a source that was least expected, for on approaching this enormous obelisk, with strength well-nigh exhausted, he saw a silken cord hanging from a notch at its top. Hastily knotting the end about his waist, that it might not fall within reach of his pursuers, he climbed up, setting his feet into roughnesses of the stone, and advancing, hand over hand, until he had reached the summit, where he stayed, drinking dew and feeding on eagles' eggs, until his enemies went away, for they could not reach him with their arrows, defended as he was by points of rock. The foemen having gone, he safely descended by the cord and reached his home. This help had come from a friendly spider who saw his plight from her perch at the top of the spire, and, weaving a web of extra thickness, she made one end fast to a jag of rock while the other fell within his grasp—for she, like all other of the brute tribe, liked the gentle cave-dwellers better than the remorseless hunters. Hence the name of the Spider Tower.
THE LOST TRAIL
The canon of Oak Creek is choked by a mass of rock, shaped like a keystone, and wedged into the jaws of the defile. An elderly Ute tells this story of it. Acantow, one of the chiefs of his tribe, usually placed his lodge beside the spring that bubbled from a thicket of wild roses in the place where Rosita, Colorado, stands to-day. He left his wife—Manetabee (Rosebud)—in the lodge while he went across the mountains to attend a council, and was gone four sleeps. On his return he found neither wife nor lodge, but footprints and hoofprints in the ground showed to his keen eye that it was the Arapahoes who had been there.
Getting on their trail he rode over it furiously, and at night had reached Oak Canon, along which he travelled until he saw the gleam of a small fire ahead. A squall was coming up, and the noise of it might have enabled him to gallop fairly into the group that he saw huddled about the glow; but it is not in the nature of an Indian to do that, and, tying his horse, he crawled forward.
There were fifteen of the Arapahoes, and they were gambling to decide the ownership of Manetabee, who sat bound beneath a willow near them. So engrossed were the savages in the contest that the snake-like approach of Acantow was unnoticed until he had cut the thongs that bound Manetabee's wrists and ankles—she did not cry out, for she had expected rescue—and both had imperceptibly slid away from them. Then, with a yell, one of the gamblers pointed to the receding forms, and straightway the fifteen made an onset.
Swinging his wife lightly to his shoulders Acantow set off at a run and he had almost reached his horse when his foot caught in a root and he fell headlong. The pursuers were almost upon him when the storm burst in fury. A flood of fire rushed from the clouds and struck the earth with an appalling roar. Trees were snapped, rocks were splintered, and a whirlwind passed. Acantow was nearly insensible for a time—then he felt the touch of the Rosebud's hand on his cheek, and together they arose and looked about them. A huge block of riven granite lay in the canon, dripping blood. Their enemies were not to be seen.
“The trail is gone,” said Acantow. “Manitou has broken it, that the Arapahoes may never cross it more. He would not allow them to take you. Let us thank the Manitou.” So they went back to where the spring burst amid the rose-bushes.
A BATTLE IN THE AIR
In the country about Tishomingo, Indian Territory, troubles are foretold by a battle of unseen men in the air. Whenever the sound of conflict is heard it is an indication that many dead will lie in the fields, for it heralds battle, starvation, or pestilence. The powerful nation that lived here once was completely annihilated by an opposing tribe, and in the valley in the western part of the Territory there are mounds where hundreds of men lie buried. Spirits occupy the valley, and to the eyes of the red men they are still seen, at times, continuing the fight.
In May, 1892, the last demonstration was made in the hearing of John Willis, a United States marshal, who was hunting horse-thieves. He was belated one night and entered the vale of mounds, for he had no scruples against sleeping there. He had not, in fact, ever heard that the region was haunted. The snorting of his horse in the middle of the night awoke him and he sprang to his feet, thinking that savages, outlaws, or, at least, coyotes had disturbed the animal. Although there was a good moon, he could see nothing moving on the plain. Yet the sounds that filled the air were like the noise of an army, only a trifle subdued, as if they were borne on the passing of a wind. The rush of hoofs and of feet, the striking of blows, the fall of bodies could be heard, and for nearly an hour these fell rumors went across the earth. At last the horse became so frantic that Willis saddled him and rode away, and as he reached the edge of the valley the sounds were heard going into the distance. Not until he reached a settlement did he learn of the spell that rested on the place.
ON THE PACIFIC COAST
THE VOYAGER OF WHULGE
Like the ancient Greeks, the Siwash of the Northwest invest the unseen world with spiritual intelligence. Every tree has a soul; the forests were peopled with good and evil genii, the latter receiving oblation at the devil-dances, for it was not worth while to appease those already good; and the mountains are the home of tamanouses, or guardian spirits, that sometimes fight together—as, when the spirits of Mount Tacoma engaged with those of Mount Hood, fire and melted stone burst from their peaks, their bellowing was heard afar, and some of the rocks flung by Tacoma fell short, blocking the Columbia about the Dalles.
Across these fantastic reports of older time there come echoes of a later instruction, adapted and blended into native legend so that the point of division cannot be indicated. Such is that of the mysterious voyager of the Whulge—the Siwash name for the sound that takes the name of Puget from one of Vancouver's officers. Across this body of water the stranger came in a copper canoe that borrowed the glories of the morning. When he had landed and sent for all the red men, far and near, he addressed to them a doctrine that provoked expressions of contempt—a doctrine of love.
To fight and steal no more, to give of their goods to men in need, to forgive their enemies,—they could not understand such things. He promised—this radiant stranger—to those who lived right, eternal life on seas and hills more fair than these of earth, but they did not heed him. At last, wearying of his talk, they dragged him to a tree and nailed him fast to it, with pegs through his hands and feet, and jeered and danced about him, as they did about their victims in the devil-dance, until his head fell on his breast and his life went out.
A great storm, with thunderings and earthquakes! They took the body down and would have buried it, but, to! it arose to its feet, as the sun burst forth, and resumed its preaching. Then they took the voyager's word for truth and never harmed him more, while they grew less warlike as each year went by until, of all Indians, they were most peaceable.
TAMANOUS OF TACOMA
Mount Tacoma has always been a place of superstitious regard among the Siwash (Sauvage) of the Northwest. In their myths it was the place of refuge for the last man when the Whulge was so swollen after long rain that its waters covered the earth. All other men were drowned. The waves pursued the one man as he climbed, rising higher and higher until they came to his knees, his waist, his breast. Hope was almost gone, and he felt that the next wave would launch him into the black ocean that raged about him, when one of the tamanouses of the peak, taking pity on him, turned his feet to stone. The storm ceased, and the waters fell away. The man still stood there, his feet a part of the peak, and he mourned that he could not descend to where the air was balmy and the flowers were opening. The Spirit of all Things came and bade him sleep, and, after his eyes were closed, tore out one of his ribs and changed it to a woman. When lifted out of the rock the man awoke, and, turning with delight to the woman, he led her to the sea-shore, and there in a forest bower they made their home. There the human race was recreated.
On the shore of the Whulge in after years lived an Indian miser—rare personage—who dried salmon and jerked the meat that he did not use, and sold it to his fellow-men for hiaqua—the wampum of the Pacific tribes. The more of this treasure he got, the more he wanted—even as if it were dollars. One day, while hunting on the slopes of Mount Tacoma, he looked along its snow-fields, climbing to the sky, and, instead of doing homage to the tamanous, or divinity of the mountain, he only sighed, “If I could only get more hiaqua!”
Sounded a voice in his ear: “Dare you go to my treasure caves?”
“I dare!” cried the miser.
The rocks and snows and woods roared back the words so quick in echoes that the noise was like that of a mountain laughing. The wind came up again to whisper the secret in the man's ear, and with an elk-horn for pick and spade he began the ascent of the peak. Next morning he had reached the crater's rim, and, hurrying down the declivity, he passed a rock shaped like a salmon, next, one in the form of a kamas-root, and presently a third in likeness of an elk's head. “'Tis a tamanous has spoken!” he exclaimed, as he looked at them.
At the foot of the elk's head he began to dig. Under the snow he came to crusts of rock that gave a hollow sound, and presently he lifted a scale of stone that covered a cavity brimful of shells more beautiful, more precious, more abundant than his wildest hopes had pictured. He plunged his arms among them to the shoulder—he laughed and fondled them, winding the strings of them about his arms and waist and neck and filling his hands. Then, heavily burdened, he started homeward.
In his eagerness to take away his treasure he made no offerings of hiaqua strings to the stone tamanouses in the crater, and hardly had he begun the descent of the mountain's western face before he began to be buffeted with winds. The angry god wrapped himself in a whirling tower of cloud and fell upon him, drawing darkness after. Hands seemed to clutch at him out of the storm: they tore at his treasure, and, in despair, he cast away a cord of it in sacrifice. The storm paused for a moment, and when it returned upon him with scream and flash and roar he parted with another. So, going down in the lulls, he reached timber just as the last handful of his wealth was wrenched from his grasp and flung upon the winds. Sick in heart and body, he fell upon a moss-heap, senseless. He awoke and arose stiffly, after a time, and resumed his journey.
In his sleep a change had come to the man. His hair was matted and reached to his knees; his joints creaked; his food supply was gone; but he picked kamas bulbs and broke his fast, and the world seemed fresh and good to him. He looked back at Tacoma and admired the splendor of its snows and the beauty of its form, and had never a care for the riches in its crater. The wood was strange to him as he descended, but at sunset he reached his wigwam, where an aged woman was cooking salmon. Wife and husband recognized each other, though he had been asleep and she a-sorrowing for years. In his joy to be at home the miser dug up all his treasure that he had secreted and gave of his wealth and wisdom to whoso needed them. Life, love, and nature were enough, he found, and he never braved the tamanous again.