The Boy Who Made Dragonfly A Zuni Myth
by
Tony Hillerman

University of New Mexico Press Copyright 1972

ISBN 0-8263-0910-0

CHAPTER 1

It happened before the A'shiwi, the Flesh of the Flesh, finally found
the Middle Place and ended their long wanderings.

It happened before the A'shiwi came to be called the Zunis, before the
Water Strider stretched his arms and legs to the edges of the world and
lowered his body to the place where the A'shiwi were to live.  It
happened when the people still lived in the Valley of Hot Waters in the
good stone town they called Ha'wi-k'uh.  It happened long before the
white man came.

In those days the A'shiwi had been given by the Beloved Ones an
abundance of water blessings.  In the Valley of Hot Waters, there was a
richness of rain.  The mud washed down the arroyos and the A'shiwi
spread it across their flatlands with dams of brush.  It was that way
year after year.  And in the winter, the Ice God rarely blew his breath
toward them because two of the Corn Maidens lived just south of there
and looked after the people-who-would-be-called-Zunis.  Summer after
summer, the A'shiwi grew more corn than they could eat.  The storerooms
of all the women were filled to the rafters and all the A'shiwi were as
fat as October gophers.

One day in the autumn, when the people had brought in their corn, they
had so much that they would have to build new storerooms and they piled
it in the plaza.  The Chief Priest of the Bow was standing on top of his
house looking down at this great wealth of corn.  As he looked, his mind
became swollen with pride in his people.  None other of all the tribes
around the Middle Place had accumulated such an abundance that their
storerooms overflowed.  While he was thinking about this, and what he
should tell the A'shiwi to do with this richness of seed food, he
noticed some children playing at war.  They were throwing balls of mud
at each other, and as he watched their game, this Priest of the Bow,
this member of the great Bow Society, this valuable man of the village,
began to think as a little child thinks before he learns how to live.
The Priest of the Bow thought that it would be good to let the Navajos
and the Utes and the Lagunas and the Acomas and the Hopis and all the
other nations know how rich the A'shiwi had become.

The Bow Priest called together the valuable men of all the clans, and
the Pekwin, and the six A'shiwa-ni priests, and the leaders of the kiva
societies, and the Mudheads, and everybody else who was the most
valuable.  When they were in council, he spoke to them.

"Listen," he said.  "I think it would be a good thing for the A'shiwi if
we showed all the other people how rich we have become.  I think it
would be a good thing if we had all our people prepare a great feast. It
would be good if we had the women bake a great store of hard bread and
soft bread, corn cakes, tortillas, and other things, and make a great
supply of sweet mush and all other foods.  Then it would be good if we
sent out our fast-running young men to summon all the other nations to
come to Hawi-k'uh to join us in celebrating our water blessings. We will
have all who come join us n a great battle, such as the children play,
and we will use bread, and mush dough, and foodstuffs for our weapons.
Valuable men, think on this!  Think of how these strangers will marvel
at the wealth of the A'shiwi, when they see us treating the food for
which others labor so hard as the children treat the mud by the
riverside and the stones of the mesas."

The other valuable men were just as foolish as the Bow Priest.
"_Ha'tchi!" they all said.  "You have thought well, and spoken well. Let
it be done as you say."

And so the village of Ha'wi-k'uh became loud with sounds.

There was the noise of the men breaking the wood to fit into the ovens,
and the noise of the metates grinding mountains of yellow corn, and the
roar of the fires in the hornos where the food was baking.  And the
village was covered with a cloud of pinon smoke from the ovens and the
steam from the boiling pots of mush.  And while this was happening, the
runners went out in all the directions to tell the other nations.

Now the Corn Maidens heard of what the people of Ha'wi-k'uh were doing.
It made them sad that their children would waste the food of the water
blessing.  But the White Corn Maiden said that perhaps it was not as
they heard it was.  And the Yellow Corn Maiden said that perhaps the
people of Ha'wik'uh were seeking a way to share their seed foods with
other people who had been less blessed.  So they decided to make a test.
They left the Place Where the Summer Stays and came to Ha'wi-k'uh, and
as they came they put away all their brightness and their beauty and
they made themselves look like old women.  Their blankets were torn and
dirty and their moccasins were so worn out their toes stuck out through
the deerskin, and they made themselves look thin and hungry.  They did
this because they wanted to give the people another chance.  They did
not want to believe bad things about them.  And when the Corn Maidens
stumbled into the village, a misty rain cloud was all around them.  They
had brought their water blessing right into Ha'wi-k'uh.  There was more
rain then, and the A'shiwi weren't quite as thankful about it as they
are now.  They thought it was something the Rain God of the South had to
send down to them because they had it coming to them.  So when the Corn
Maidens wandered through the village, the people just looked out their
doors at them.  Nobody said, "Come in.  Sit happy.  Eat.  Be satisfied."
Everywhere the Corn Maidens went they saw seed food stacked up.  The
village was filled with the smell of cooking - of pots of mush, corn
cakes, hard bread, soft bread, everything good.  Everybody could see the
Corn Maidens were tired and hungry, but nobody told them, "Come in.  Sit
happy.

Be satisfied."

The only people who offered the Corn Maidens food in Ha'wi-k'uh that day
were two children.  They were a little boy and his baby sister.  They
were sitting on the roof of their mother's house eating corn cakes. When
they saw the old women trudging past, they reached down to give the
strangers some of their cake.  But their mother's sister saw them and
made them stop it.

"Don't waste good cooked food on those nomads," the mother's sister told
the children.  "They must be Navajos or Apaches who ought to stay home
and plant their own corn instead of wandering around following the smell
of other people's cooking pots."

It was different then.  The A'shiwi knew the Navajos and Apaches were
their younger brothers, but not all of the lessons of living had been
taught to them yet by the Holy People.  They had not yet learned that
abundance must be shared to be enjoyed.

They had not yet learned how to treat the Flesh of Their Own Flesh.

For in those days there was one A'shiwi who could not, because of years
of misfortunes, share in the plenty of the people.  She was an old
mother who lived down at the bottom of the village in a fallen-down
house.  Her brothers had all been killed In wars and her husband was
dead of a disease, and she didn't have any daughters to bring their
husbands into her home, and all her sons had moved away to live with the
families of their wives, and all had forgotten her.  So she lived alone,
with no one to help her plant her corn seeds, or to water the plants,
and she was very poor.  The old woman had no men to bring her deer
hides, and no way to get cotton.  So her clothing was rags. The people
of the village threw their trash and garbage down the slope to get rid
of it, and it fell all around her house, and even on her roof.  So she
had to spend much of her time every morning cleaning it up.

That's what she was doing when she saw the Corn Maidens coming out of
the village.  At first she didn't say anything to them, because the
people of the village didn't like her to talk to them or to be around
where they could see her.  The A'shiwi were rich, now, and the ragged
old mother reminded them how it had been when they were poor.  But
quickly, the old woman saw that the Corn Maidens looked cold and ragged
and old and tired, and hungry, too.  She thought they wouldn't mind.  So
she shouted to them in her old, weak voice.

"Come in and sit happy," she said.  "Your hunger will put good taste in
the poor food I can offer you tonight.  Come in and sit happy by my
fire, and be satisfied with my little food and rest yourself.  And
tomorrow it will be better for you.  For tomorrow the people of
Ha'wi-kuh will hold a great feast and a great game at which all the good
food will be thrown around as if it were nothing but mud from the river.
Tomorrow you can go back into the village and pick up all you wish to
eat from the ground.

But tonight, your great hunger will add taste to my poor food."

So the Corn Maidens came in and the old woman took off her ragged
blanket and spread it on the floor for them to sit upon. She put the
cornmeal she had boiled for her own supper into a bowl for them and
worked straightening out things around the room - the way women do - so
her guests wouldn't notice there was nothing for her to eat.  But the
Yellow Corn Maiden noticed anyway.

"An old mother as kind and gentle as you should not go without your
supper," the Yellow Corn Maiden said.  "Sit happy here and join us at
this meal because we, too, have some food."

Then the White Corn Maiden brought from under her torn blanket a pouch
made of buckskin and beaded with turquoise and the whitest shells.  From
that, she took out honeycomb, corn cakes, and the bread that is made
with meal and pinon nuts.  Then she took out a pouch of pollen and
sprinkled it over the old woman's lumpy cornmeal mush.  A mist rose up
from the pot and it smelled like a meadow of spring flowers.  And when
the old mother saw this happen, she knew that these poor women must be
two of the Corn Maidens, or two of the other Beloved Ones whom
A'wonawil'ona made to help look after the A'shiwi.  The old mother felt
ashamed that she had been so bold as to invite the Beloved Ones into her
broken old house.  She huddled over by the wall away from them.

Then the Yellow Corn Maiden spoke to her.  "Old mother, know now who we
are and know why we come here.  We are Yellow Corn Maiden and White Corn
Maiden, and we come to look at our children, the A'shiwi, the Flesh of
the Flesh.  But now we find that you and two little ones up in the
village must be the only true A'shiwi who are left in Ha'wi-k'uh.  So
come, sit happy with us and be satisfied.  You asked us to eat with you.
We ask you now to eat with us."

The old mother was still afraid but she got out her prayer meal and
sprinkled it on the heads of the Corn Maidens, blessing them.  And as
she sat to eat with them, she saw their hair was no longer grizzled
white with age, but black and glossy with youth, and their wrists
jangled with perfect silver, and their faces were beautiful with
happiness.  The old mother dipped her fingers into the coarse corn mush
and found it had become sweet and rich to taste, as if it had been mixed
with honey.  And the Corn Maidens talked to her and laughed and made
jokes.  The old mother's lonely old heart forgot its years of solitude
and remembered how it had been when her sons had been around her and her
house had been full of the sounds of children.

When they had all satisfied themselves, the White Corn Maiden brought
out a bundle and unrolled it on the floor.  Inside was a white cape of
fringed doeskin.  "Hang this on your blanket pole, kind mother, the
White Corn Maiden said, "and on the morning after you hang it there, you
will find under it meal, and melons, and all good things to eat, in
plenty.  We leave you this because our water blessing will no longer
come to Ha'wi-k'uh." By then Sun-Father had left the sky and gone to his
sacred place, and darkness covered Corn Mountain, and the Corn Maidens
breathed on the hands of the old mother, and she breathed on their
hands, and they went away.

When the last knot in the calendar cord was untied and the day for the
great festival came, the people of Ha'wi-k'uh put on their finest silver
and turquoise and their strings of whitest shell and the best of their
blankets and the softest deerskin. As Sun-Father came standing out from
his sacred place, the pathways to the pueblo were covered in all
directions with the strangers coming in, as bidden by the A'shiwi
runners.  The housetops of the village were covered with breadstuffs,
with hard cakes and soft, and with great pots of batter and meal.  As
the morning passed, the priests of the Bow Society began dividing up the
clans into armies for the great war game.  The Badger Clan would be on
this side, and the Turkey Clan on that, the Yellow-wood Clan on this,
and the Tobacco Clan on that.  And when the Sun-Father had reached his
highest point in the sky for that day, the mock battle began.

The air over the pueblo of Ha'wi-k'uh at that moment was filled with
flying bread, and blobs of boiled mush, and all other food.  Some
warriors were knocked to the earth by hard bread, and some were
splattered across their faces with dough, and everyone's hair and robes
were smeared with cornmeal batter.  The A'shiwi shrieked with laughter
and the visiting strangers smiled a little, but mostly they talked
quietly among themselves trying to think of the reasons the A'shiwi
behaved in this way. The girls were standing on the rooftops, laughing
and throwing hard bread down at the young men fighting below.  As it is
when young men are being looked upon by maidens, the warriors began to
fight harder with one another, and to get angry, and to cause pain.  By
the time darkness finally came, almost everybody in the pueblo was angry
and disgusted and soon the moon rose over a town that was sullen with
silence.

When dawn came and the people climbed out of their roofs to make their
prayer to the Sun-Father, they were astonished by what they saw.  A
murmur of surprise and worry could be heard all across the village.  The
great plaza of Ha'wi-k'uh had been covered the night before with the
breadstuffs used in the great war game, but now in the light of the dawn
the people saw that it had been swept clean.  The A'shiwi were disturbed
by this - some because they had planned to gather in the food they had
thrown (after the strangers had gone and could not see them do it) to
save it for the winter, and some because it seemed strange and unnatural
that all the foodstuffs would thus vanish during the night.  They soon
understood that the seed-eaters had taken it, because all around the
pueblo they found the tracks of the animals.  But even this seemed
unnatural.  How had the seed-eaters known to come?

Even so, they said to each other: "What matters it?  Be happy.  Our
storerooms still hold enough corn to last us through the winter.  And
when summer comes again, there will be another harvest of great bounty."

For the old mother in the broken house below the village, the view at
dawn caused great dismay.  She had gone to her bed the night before
thinking that when morning came the people of Ha'wi-k'uh would throw the
breadstuffs they had used in the war game down around her hut as they
always threw their trash.  She awoke that morning happy, thinking to go
out from her house and gather in this wasted food and thus have
something to keep her old body alive through the winter.  But alas! When
she climbed through her roof hole and looked about her, she saw there
was no wasted food - the village had been picked as clean as an old
bone.  She climbed back down the ladder, thinking to make herself a
breakfast of her rough ground meal.  But as she did, she remembered the
robe the Corn Maidens had left for her - and the magic they had told her
the robe would work.  She went into the room where she had hung the robe
on the blanket pole.  Lo!  In that room, under this robe, the old mother
saw a sight to startle her eyes.  Against the walls were stacked cords
of white corn, and yellow corn, and corn of mixed colors.  And around it
were baskets of squash, and melons, and dried fruits, and pinon nuts,
and jerked venison.

When she saw these things, tears came to the eyes of the old woman and a
great weight lifted from her heart.  Because, now, the winter held no
fear.  She would survive the days and nights of cold.  But there was
also a sadness to her thoughts.  She longed for a chance to tell the
Corn Maidens of the peace they had brought to her.  But she longed even
more for someone to tell of her good fortune - and to share it with her.

CHAPTER 2

Time and winter passed and then came the winds of spring. But this year
the winds blew steadily from the west.  Never did they blow with the
water blessing from the Rain God of the South, and no rains came to make
the flatlands of Ha'wi-k'uh ready for the corn seeds.  The people of
Ha'wi-k'uh were troubled by this. But they planted even more of their
supply of corn seed than they usually would, because they wished to
repeat their war-game-with-food festival when the harvest came.  The
corn sprouted weak and yellow from the dryness of its roots.  The
A'shiwi planted prayer plumes of the most beautiful feathers and sang
the proper prayers most carefully, and performed the most valuable
dances, with every word sung and every step done exactly in the proper
fashion.  But the water blessing did not come. Each afternoon, the
clouds would climb the sky from the horizon. But as the prayers of the
A'shiwi drew them toward the cornfields of Ha'wi-k'uh, the monster
called Cloud-Swallower would rise into the sky and drink them all down.
Day after day through the hot summer this would happen.  The priests and
valuable men of the kiva fraternities would perform their most precious
dances, and bury prayer plumes made in the most valuable way, and the
clouds would be drawn toward the cornfields.  And then Cloud-Swallower
would arise, invisible to the A'shiwi, and suck down all the mist and
vapor, so no rain could fall.  The corn yellowed.  The corn died, its
dead stalks brittle in the fields.

Many weeks earlier, the people of Ha'wi-k'uh had stopped talking of
holding another war game and began talking only of whether there would
be enough to eat.  Now they felt despair.  As winter came again, the
A'shiwi roamed the mesas collecting the dried fruits of the cactus, and
the roots of plants that can be eaten, and the nuts of the pinons.  But
the failure of the water blessing had left even these poor foodstuffs
scarce in the countryside.  The mule deer had moved northward where the
springs still ran and the browse was better, and even the rabbits and
the prairie dogs had left the drought-stricken countryside.

By the time of the days of the longest darkness, in the dead, cold heart
of winter, the last of the corn from the storerooms had been ground and
eaten.  The people then were pitifully poor.  The children sorted
through the dust in search for stray kernels that might have fallen from
the cobs, and the men hunted through the snowy mesas for game which
would no longer be lured by their hunting chants.  The buckskin of their
robes was toasted, old bones were ground for food on the meal stones,
and everywhere there was hunger.

From her broken house below the village, the old mother saw the misery
of her people and wished to help.  But when the A'shiwi saw the woman of
the broken house was no thinner than she had ever been and had food when
they had none, they concluded that she had joined the brotherhood of
sorcerers.  Thus, when the old woman offered food, in her kindness, they
were afraid to take it.  Each of them knew in his heart that he had
treated the old mother cruelly.  Each presumed that she now sought her
revenge as a sorceress.  So it happened that only the birds and the
hungry animals of the village shared in the blessings given the old
woman by the Corn Maidens.

In the darkest days of winter, the very old and the very young among the
A'shiwi began to weaken from hunger, and to sicken, and to die.  A
council was called of all the kivas and the fraternities and the clans.
The priests and the valuable men each spoke their thoughts.  And when
the council ended, it was decided that if the people were to survive
they must abandon Ha'wl-k'uh and find food.  The Council sent runners
westward to the villages of the Hopis to ask if they could feed the
A'shiwi until spring.  After many days had passed, two young messengers
from the Hopis arrived at Ha'wi-k'uh bearing lengths of knotted cord
numbering the days until the Hopis would be prepared to greet and feed
the A'shiwi.

There was great excitement among the houses of Ha'wi-k'uh then.  To
reach the Hopi villages they must walk many days across the broken lands
covered with snow and barren of food.  Would they have enough food to
keep them alive on this bitter journey?

Perhaps, the priests decided, but only if they left that very night -
before more of their pitiful supply was eaten.

That night there was much haste.  In all the houses of Ha'wi-k'uh the
people worked through the dark hours gathering what leather and bone
meal could be found, searching everywhere for anything that could be
eaten to keep them alive.  Long before morning, the call went out from
the rooftops of the village that all was ready and that the sturdy young
runners from the Hopi villages were leaving to lead the A'shiwi.  When
the people heard this call, they rushed from their houses.  They were
terrified that, weak as they were from hunger, they would be left behind
by the strong young strangers.

Now it happened that in the house of the boy and girl who had offered
bread to the Corn Maidens, there lived an old uncle who had good reason
for such fear.  This man had been a Koyemshi, one of the wisest of the
wise fraternity of Mudhead Clowns.  But now he was the oldest man of
Ha'wi-k'uh, too weak to wear the mask of mud and do the hard work of the
brotherhood of clowns. He had the hardihood of the aged, and the walk
through the snow to the Hopi villages held no fear for him.  But his
legs hobbled only slowly.  This old uncle had already earned the anger
of many of the villagers.  He had warned the valuable men of the kivas,
before the great war games, that treating foodstuffs as children treat
the river mud was not the way of the A'shiwi.  He had chided the people
for failing to feed the ragged beggar women. And, when the priests and
their student priests vainly danced their most sacred rituals to draw
the blessed clouds over the dying corn, he had told the A'shiwi that
their own foolishness had caused this great trouble.  That had angered
the village, and he wished not to anger his people again by lagging
behind.  So this old uncle left early, knowing the villagers would soon
over-take him.

The boy and the girl had worked late helping prepare for the trip, but
finally they had fallen asleep in a warm corner beside the hearth.  When
the voice of the Pekwin sounded over the village, urging all forth to
follow the Hopi guides, there was a rush in this house for the ladders
to the roof holes, and in this rush the two little ones were forgotten.
It was only when the night was gone and the villagers had struggled many
miles past the Zuni buttes that their parents realized they were not
with the column.  And then it was thought that perhaps they had gone
ahead with the old uncle.  If not, their path was certainly completed.
By then it was clear that this journey would be very hard, few of the
little ones would survive, and those who straggled behind would surely
die.  It was better to let them sleep.  If someone went back for them
now, neither he nor the children would ever catch up again.

The brother and his little sister slept peacefully.  The Sun-Father
emerged from his sacred place and lit the eastern sky, but still they
slept because they were both tired from their labors and weak from the
long hunger, and because the village was drained now of all other life
and was as silent as the snow. When the little boy finally awoke, he
looked around the great room of his house, saw that it was empty and
silent, and realized at once what had happened.

A great fear overcame him for a moment, and tears welled from his eyes.
But then he thought of his little sister.  He must somehow keep her from
fear and harm.

The boy built a fire of bark and pinon sticks in the hearth to warm the
room, and then he scrambled up the ladder through the roof hole.  It was
just as he had guessed.  All around him, the village of Ha'wi-k'uh lay
silent and empty.  No smoke rose from the roof holes of any of the
houses.  The boy would have cried again in his hunger and his
loneliness, but just then he heard his sister awakening.  The little
girl cried out for mush (of which, maybe, she had been dreaming) so the
boy climbed down the ladder and looked everywhere he could think of for
something to cook for her.

Alas, there was nothing.  But then the boy remembered that from the
rooftop, he had seen a flight of birds in the air below the village. And
he remembered that he had been told how to catch birds.

He pulled from his head some of the long hairs.  These he tied carefully
into slip nooses and arranged them neatly over cedar and pinon twigs
from the pile of firewood.  And then he tied rags around his feet to
protect them from the snow (his moccasins had long since been parched
and eaten) and went out to set his snares.

The boy noticed hundreds of wrens, and sparrows, and snowbirds, and even
pinon lays clustered around the broken house under the village where the
old mother lived.  But the boy knew that the villagers had avoided this
house, and had kept away from the old mother who lived there.  He
thought she would be gone, now, with the other villagers.  But perhaps
she had been a sorceress.  It would be best to avoid a house where
sorcery had been practiced.  The boy did not know the birds were
attracted there because, early each morning, the old mother fed them
from her doorway.  He thought they might be some magical lure of
witchcraft.  And so it happened that as the winter grew in cold and
darkness, neither the boy nor the old mother knew the other was in the
village.  The old woman, whose ancient bones were quick to chill, stayed
inside her broken house, and the boy kept to the other side of the
village.  There he set out his twigs, with the nooses attached, and hid
himself away.  Within the hour, three birds had caught themselves.  The
boy gathered them in and skinned them and took them home to his sister.
When he had spitted them and roasted them over the coals, he gently
awoke the child.  At first she cried for parched corn.  And then she
noticed there were no old ones around the house and she cried for her
mother.  But the boy finally got her to drink water and to satisfy
herself with the roasted birds.

Thus the two little ones lived, day after day.  But the little sister
grew sadder and sadder, wishing for seed food, and parched corn, and
breadstuffs.  She tired of eating nothing but the winter birds and
longed for the food to which she was accustomed.  More and more, she
cried, and the boy found it more and more difficult to comfort her.

Thus it happened that one day he said:

"Hush, little sister.  Hush your crying.  If you will smile again I will
get you something pretty with which to play.  I will get you whatever
would please your heart."

On hearing this the little girl stopped her crying and thought.  And
after she had thought for a moment, she told her brother that her
sadness would end if he would bring her a butterfly.  She said this,
probably, because she was weary of the hunger and cold of the winter and
the butterfly is the insect of warmth and summer the time of green corn,
and fruit, and squash. Whatever reason she said it, the words at first
brought despair to the mind of her brother.  He climbed to the roof hole
and looked around.  Everywhere the landscape was the black and gray and
white of winter.  The first butterfly would be months away. As he looked
across the cornfields where the insects flew in the summer, a thought
came to him.  He would make a butterfly.

The boy hurried to the fields and gathered dried stalks of corn and the
straw of grasses and with these he hastened home lest his sister would
miss him and cry again.  He arranged his materials on the blanket beside
the child so that she could be amused by his work.

First he built a cage.  He cut eight equal sections of cornstalk, and
stripped away the hard covering so that only the pith remained.  In both
ends of each of these eight pieces, he bored holes.  Then, using the
softer grass as a weaver uses his yarn, he tied the sections together
into two square frames.  These shaped the top and bottom of his cage.
Then he cut stiff straws of grass into identical lengths, and used these
as the bars of his cage-sticking their ends into the softness of the
pith.  Soon the cage was made.

He decorated it with feathers and paints from the boxes of ceremonial
things his father and his uncles had left behind.  A string of woven
hairs served to hang it over the robes where his sister slept, by the
hearth.

When his sister had wearied of watching him and had fallen asleep, he
began the butterfly.  He shaped the body from a long piece of pith,
carving the head round and the proper body sections.  And then he tried
to make the wings.  But the biggest pieces of pith he could find were
far too narrow, and when he tried to join sections into the shape of
wider wings the brittle substance would crumble.  Finally the boy knew
he could never make the wide wings of the butterfly from the materials
at his hands.  Instead, he gave the insect two long, narrow wings on
each side of its body.  And then he gave the fly its six legs, made of
bent grass straws.  On both sides of the head, he used black paint to
form the eyes.  But the paint was mixed too thin and the eyes spread
much too large for those of a butterfly.  He had the same trouble when
he tried to paint the spots that give the butterfly wings their color.
The red, yellow, blue, and black pigments spread and ran, forming
stripes instead of circles.  And finally, when the boy was finished and
ready to put the paint pots away, the toy looked very little like the
butterfly he had promised his sister.  Instead he had created a
wonderful creature, like none before him had ever seen.  And to this, at
the point of balance between its wings, he looped a knotted hair and
thus suspended his little effigy from the top of the cage.

When the little girl awoke and saw this being so suspended, just out of
reach above her sleeping robes, the sound of her laughter was heard in
the house for the first time since the old ones had left them.  She
wanted, her joy, to call this bright and graceful being a name.
Butterfly was not the right name, that was easy to see, so she called it
the words which mean "being-which-flies-on-double-wings." All that day
the little one talked to the Cornstalk Being, laughing and chattering
and making it swing in its cage.  She told her brother that
Being-That-Flies lived and understood her words, and the boy's heart was
light to see that it made his sister forget her sorrows.

That night before she slept, the pains of her hunger came again to the
little one as she played, and she said to Being-That-Flies:

"Fly away to where you can find yellow corn and bring back grains to my
brother that he may parch them for my breakfast."

As these words were said, the boy believed, for a moment, that he saw
the wings of the Cornstalk Insect flutter with such speed that they
blurred before his eyes and hummed like the sound of summer bees.  But
as he saw this, he knew that the blurring was caused by nothing more
than the dizziness of his hunger that wings made of corn pith do not
fly.

The sister, too, thought she had seen the wings flutter.  She bounced
with joy and laughed.  "O, my brother.  Did you see that the Being heard
my voice and moved his wings?"

"Yes, I saw, little sister.  I was afraid he would break out of his cage
and fly away," the boy said.  He said it only to cheer his sister.

But that night, as the boy lay on his sleeping robes waiting for sleep
to take him and watching the light of the stars through the smoke hole,
he thought of how it would be if the Corn Being he had made could indeed
fly and could somehow find food as his sister had asked.  Without it, he
feared that the child would not live through the winter.  And while he
was thinking this, feeling a great longing for some way to help the
little one, he heard something like the humming of tiny wings and a
whispering sound.

"_Thli-ni-ni," the whisper said.  "Let me go."

The boy lay rigid on his robes, listening.

"Let me go, let me go," whispered the sound.

The boy was so frightened that he could hardly move his tongue.  "Where
are you?" he said.  "Who are you?"

"In this cage," the whisper said.

The boy saw then that the cage with the Cornstalk Creature was shaking
on its string.  In the dim light of the stars, he could see it flying
against the straw which barred its passage circling on the thread of
hair on which it hung from the cage top.

"Wait, little creature.  I will get you water to drink I and I will try
to find you food, if I but knew what you eat," the boy said.  "I would
let you go, but you fly out of our house you will surely die of cold.
And if you fly away, my sister will mourn for your going.  Therefore you
must say to me before I open your cage that you will not fly outside
this warm room."

"I do, the Corn Being said.  "I say it."

So the boy opened the cage and carefully released the noose of hair
which held the Cornstalk Insect.  The little creature flew with
marvelous swiftness, darting into all corners of the room.  And finally
it hovered near the ear of the boy.

"Your heart is greater than the hearts of most of the A'shiwi," the
creature said.  "You, who have had great reason for anger, have kept
anger away from you, and you have loved this poor child, thy sister,
faithfully and well." The voice of the insect was a low humming voice
and the boy had to strain to hear it, even in the silent night.  "You,
great-hearted boy, are my father.  Because you have given me a body
where there was no body before, and twin wings with which I can hover,
as no other flying thing.  And because you made me out of unselfish love
you have touched me with life.  And I, the product of your mind, am your
creature and wish now only to serve you.  Release me from my promise.
Let me fly through the smoke hole through which the starlight comes.  I
will return before Sun-Father lights the east.  I will spend the night
seeking a way to serve you and your sister.  But whether or not I fail,
I shall return.  I will not leave you."

The boy was frightened by this.  But he found a tiny pinch of prayer
meal and scattered it over the insect in blessing, and told the creature
it was free to go.

The insect darted twice around the darkness of the room, with a buzzing
hum, and then shot through the smoke hole like an arrow shot by a
strong-armed hunter.

The boy lay back on his sleep robes, wondering at what he had seen and
heard and if the creature he had made of cornstalk would ever return.
And soon sleep took him in.

CHAPTER 3

The Cornstalk Being soared high over the rooftops of Ha'wi-k'uh, circled
higher than the hunting eagle, and finally darted westward.  It flew
like an arrow across the great mesa and the valleys and the depths of
the arroyos and finally it came to the canyons of the Colorado Chiqueto,
where the water runs roaring red, and at last it hovered over a great
blue lake.  From where it hovered on its double wings, the insect could
see deep into the blue water, see below the surface dim lights as
numberless as the winter stars.  And on the sandy shores he saw the
Water Beings, their ugly bird faces smiling with their kindness, pacing
and watching ceaselessly for the souls of men who had fulfilled the
pathway of their lives, and who were ready to begin the second life of
endless joy.  And when the insect saw these things he knew he had found
the Sacred Lake.  At that moment, he pointed his tail at the sky and his
head at the blue shield of water, and dove with the speed of a
plummeting falcon.  He paused not to speak to the Water Beings but sped
past them, plunging into the cold, clear water with the sound of an
arrow striking.

Almost at once, the Cornstalk Being penetrated the water roof and found
himself in a hall blazing with the light of a thousand fires and crowded
with happy souls of the Beloved Ones. He was in the Dance Hall of the
Dead where the souls of men with their paths fulfilled celebrate their
happiness.  And at one end, the insect saw the Council of the Gods, with
the great Shalako Messenger Birds attending them.  He buzzed and darted
around the room, resting a moment on a blanket pole here, and on the lip
of a pot there, until finally the Little Fire God, Shulawitsi, noticed
him.

"Look, my uncles," Shulawitsi cried.  "Look upon the shape formed by
Grandfather of Gods - a shape never seen before."

Sayatasha, the Rain God of the North with the misty rain clouding around
his single long horn, spoke then to the insect. "Why do you come, Our
Grandfather?  And what message do you bring to the Council of the Gods?"

"I come, oh Beloved Beings of the Sun-Father, to ask that you place your
blessing upon two poor children: they who gave me this form and
permission to be their messenger."

The Cornstalk Being then told how the boy of Ha'wi-k'uh was keeping life
in the body of his sister and how, if their paths were to be fulfilled,
they must have seed food to survive the winter.

The Council listened and when the insect had finished speaking,
Sayatasha spoke:

"Sit happy, Our Grandfather, and we will instruct you what must be done,
for we will happily help our beloved children at Ha'wi-k'uh." And
Sayatasha showed the insect how the boy should cut prayer plumes and how
they should be decorated with paint and with feathers, and how they
should be offered, that the Council of the Gods might bring its
blessings upon the children.  And then Sayatasha summoned the
He'hea-kwe, the Runners-of-the-Sacred-Dance, and instructed them to take
corn grains and place them at Ha'wi-k'uh where Grandfather Insect would
easily find them, so that the children would be fed while they were
taught their duties.  "Fly away now, Our Grandfather, to our beloved
children, and instruct them well that they may have great blessings.  Go
happy!"

"Sit happy," said the Cornstalk Insect.  With his wings buzzing, he
darted upward through the watery roof and in a moment was flashing over
the rooftops of Ha'w'-k'uh.  Just as he flew down the smoke hole into
the great room where the children were sleeping, he saw through the
window of the upper room that the Runners-of-the-Sacred-Dance had
already deposited hundreds of piles of yellow corn grains there.

The insect began darting back and forth, dropping corn kernels from the
piles through a crack in the ceiling over the sleeping robes of the
boy-child.  "Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, click," the kernels fell on the
buffalo robe.  Soon the robe was yellow with corn.  The sound brought
the boy part way out of the cave of sleep, enough to hear the sound and
think in his doze that it was made by raindrops dripping, enough to feel
the weight and think that his robe was growing with the weight of
soaking dampness.  He huddled under the robe, dreading the dawn when he
would have to rise with everything cold and wet.

But when morning came and the boy pushed the robe back from his head, he
shouted with delight.  As he rose, hundreds of corn kernels poured down
upon the floor in a golden flood.  As he saw this, he thought of his
Cornstalk Being and remembered releasing it the night before.  But now
it hung in its cage, just as it had since he had placed it there,
without sound and without motion.

That morning the children were so happy they forgot, for the first time,
that they had been left alone.  They toasted some of the corn among the
hot coals of the fireplace.  Some they ground on the millstone into meal
and this they cooked into mush.  Some they boiled with the poor bodies
of the birds the boy had trapped.  For the first time that winter, they
were satisfied and their bellies were warm with food.  All the long day
they feasted, eating a little at a time, and as they ate they would
raise their hands in blessing toward the insect - who simply hung there
as if he were nothing but dead winter stalks.

When night came, and shadows danced around the room in the light from
the fire, and the boy and his sister were full from feasting, the insect
began to swing, ever so slowly, back and forth in his tiny cornstalk
cage.

At first the boy was not sure.  He had watched the insect all day long,
and his sister had watched, but there had been no movement.  Now the
insect was swinging back and forth, and soon he began to speak.

"_Thli-ni-ni," said the insect in his low humming whisper. "Let me go,
for now I must teach you to make prayer plumes for the Council of the
Gods."

The boy did not understand these things, for the old ones had left
without instructing him.  But the insect was now his friend, and he let
him out of the cage.

No sooner was the door to the cage unfastened than the insect darted out
and circled around the room in the red glow from the firelight.  He flew
around the room three times, for his wings were stiff from sitting in
the cage all day.  Then he flew down next to the boy's ear.

"Have you feathers from the summer birds?" asked the insect.

His voice was like the whisper of the wind in summer grasses.

Little sister, full from the day's feasting, had dropped off to sleep
near the fire.

"Yes," said the boy.  "Once, when I looked in the next room for paint, I
found the feather box of my old ones.  There were feathers from the duck
and from the eagle."

"It is good," said the insect.  "In the morning, when Sun-Father first
smiles across the rooftops and the paths are still white with frost, go
and cut sticks by the springs in the valley and bring them here.  Choose
plumes from the duck and from the eagle, and tie them to six sticks. The
sticks must then be painted yellow, blue or green, red, white, speckled,
and black. Do these things, that spring, which is the planting time,
might be blessed with the breath of good fortune for you and your little
sister."

"I will do as you have told me," said the boy, "but I may not do well.
My father and my uncle, who made the prayer plumes, never told me of the
way it should be done."

"You will do well," said the Cornstalk Insect.  "And when you have
finished I will take the plumes to the Council of the Gods, who shape
the rain clouds in summer, and to the ancient ones."

Then the insect was finished talking, and the only sounds were the
crackling of the fire, and the whirring of his wings a s he flew out the
sky hole into the night.

The boy sat very still in the glow from the fire and wondered where the
Cornstalk Creature could have gone, but he was tired and soon he was
fast asleep beside his sister.

When the room grew still and dark, and the embers from the fire were
only a faint glow, and the stars were tiny points of light through the
sky hole, the insect began his nightly work.

All night long the insect flew back and forth, dropping corn through the
crack in the ceiling.  When morning came, and Sun-Father climbed up over
the mountains in the east and made the rooftops pink, there was the
buffalo robe covered with golden grains of corn.

When the boy awoke, he saw the corn spread like a golden blanket over
the buffalo robe.

"Thank you, My Father," he said to the Cornstalk Creature sitting
motionless in its cage.  "Thank you for dropping the corn in the night,
and thank you for being so gentle and good to my little sister," he
said.  But the Cornstalk Being did not move.

After the boy had gathered the corn into a tray, and parched some for
his little sister's breakfast, he set out along the path to the valley
where the willow trees grew in clumps beside a spring.  Sun-Father was
not yet very high above the mountains, and the dead grass along the path
was white with frost.

The boy selected only the straightest and best of the willow boughs, and
when he had cut enough he tied them in a bundle and carried them home.
He sat beside his sister near the fire.  When he was warm he cut the
willow boughs into wands.  These he rubbed against pieces of sandstone
until they were smooth.

Then, as the insect had directed, he tied the feathers on the ends of
the sticks with brightly colored yarn from an old cotton kilt.  When the
feathers were tied securely, he painted the sticks.  He painted them in
the colors the insect had said, and when it was finished he tied the
sticks together in a bundle and began to pray over them as he had seen
his old ones do.  The boy did not know the prayers of the ancients, so
instead he made up his own prayer.  Then he made an offering of prayer
dust and sacred paint and laid it by in a corn shuck.

All day long the boy worked on the plumes and the prayer and the
offering of sacred dust, and all day long the insect sat his cornstalk
cage and did not move.  Sun-Father was just ending his journey across
the wide sky when the boy finished his tasks.

Soon night settled like a dark blanket over the empty houses of the old
ones.  Darkness crept into the doorways and windows and filled the
silent rooms, and the only light was a glow from the children's hearth.

The glow warmed the room and the children's faces, and once in a while
the fire would flare up in the hearth and send shadows dancing across
the walls and in and out of the corners, and then the Cornstalk Being
began to stir.

He rocked back and forth for a moment in the firelight, then flicked out
of his cage and out into the room.  He flew three times around the room,
then _flick, he darted down and picked up the prayer plumes.  _Flick, he
was gone out the smoke hole and into the starry night.

The little boy and his sister wondered where the Cornstalk Creature had
gone, but he was their friend, whom they trusted, and they were not
afraid.  They curled up warm and snug under the Buffalo robe, and by the
time the fire had died down to a faint red glow in the hearth, they were
asleep.

Again the Cornstalk Being circled high over the rooftops of Ha'wi-k'uh.
He soared higher than the hunting eagle, higher even than the night
wind, and then he shot westward like an arrow.

Over the great mesa he flew, and over the dark canyons and arroyos,
until once again he hovered over the great blue lake with lights as
numberless as winter stars.

Then down he dove, into the cold, clear water, and when he looked around
he saw the Dance Hall of the Dead.

At the feet of Shulawitsi, the Little Fire God, the insect laid the
sacred bundle of prayer plumes.

Shulawitsi waved his torch in the air until it burst into flames, and
lit the Hall of the Dead.  He looked upon the plumes of the eagle and
the duck, and upon the brightly painted sticks, all just the right
length and rubbed smooth with sandstone, and he was pleased.

"The youth whose hand has made these plumes shall become great in the
eyes of his people," said Shulawitsi.  "We have heard his prayers."

"_Ha'tchi, _ha'tchi!, said Pa'u-ti-wa, God of All Dance Gods, and the
others all answered "_Ha'tchi," which meant that the Fire God had spoken
well and true.

Then the Little Fire God spoke again to the insect.

"Return to the children and cherish them," he said.  "When springtime
comes to the valley of Ha'wi-k'uh, and it is once again planting time,
we will shape the rain clouds high and wide and white above the mesas.
Our swift runners will plant the flatlands from the seed stores of the
gods."

This made the insect very happy.  He flew from pot lip to blanket pole
and hummed to himself.  Again the Fire God spoke.

"Do not fear for the little ones," he said to the Cornstalk Creature.
"They shall complete their paths and be valuable to their people for
generations, and generations after that."

Now this made the insect so happy that he could not sit still any
longer.  He flew up into the air, and he flew around the room three
times.  And then he flew down and hovered, on his tiny wings of
cornstalk, near the Fire God's ear.

"I thank you for myself," he said, "and for my children, who are very
good." The creature's voice was just a whisper, for he was very small.

When he had given thanks, he darted up through the silent blue lake, up,
higher than hunting eagles fly, up to where the sky begins.  Then he
turned toward the east and the faint yellow glow from Sun-Father where
he rested behind the mountains.

When the children awoke the next morning, there sat the insect, still as
cornstalk in his tiny cage.

CHAPTER 4

Now as day followed day in that time just before spring, it happened
that the little girl began to grow sick.  She mourned often for her
mother and her father, and her uncle, and nothing her brother could say
made her feel better.

"You should not mourn for the old ones who left us to die from hunger
and cold," he said, but still she would not be comforted.

When the fire had died away, and night had filled the room, and the
little girl had finally cried herself to sleep, the Cornstalk Being
slipped out of his cage and flew away through the smoke hole.

In the morning both the children were saddened, for the corn was almost
gone from the storeroom, and worse than that, the cornstalk cage hung
empty and very, very still.

The Cornstalk Being flew south over many mountains and across many
plains.  He flew as straight as a strained bow cord to the Land of
Everlasting Summer.  Everywhere there were birds and butterflies, and
flowers of every color filled the air with their fragrance, and fruits
hung ripe and heavy on all the trees.

In this valley the Corn Maidens lived.  As the Cornstalk Being neared
their home he rested, for his flight had stretched over many mountains
and across many plains, and he was very tired.

Wherever a corn plant grew he rested on its tassels for a moment before
flying on to the next one.  In this way he flew and rested until he
reached the home of the Corn Maidens.

The two sister maidens, who had dwelt for a time in the Cave of the
White Cliffs, were strolling through the great fields of corn when they
heard the insect.  He made a sound like dry cornstalks in a summer wind.

"Hurry, sister," said the elder one.  "Didn't you hear our child who
comes from the Northland?"

"Where are you, oh child who art flesh of the corn plant?"

she said.

"_Tsi-ni-thla," buzzed the Cornstalk Being.  "Here I am."

So the Corn Maidens looked and there he was perched on a corn tassel,
telling them of the children and their plight.

"We will hurry to them," said the elder sister, "for did they not once
offer us food, thinking we were but poor beggars?"

"It is so," said the other sister.  "We will not forget their goodness."

"Go before and tell our little son to prepare the corn rooms for us,"
said the elder sister.  "For we will come to visit, and with us will
come warm rains which will drive the cold snows away and bring the
springtime."

Long before daylight the Cornstalk Being buzzed into the house of the
children.  He flew round and round the room, and then he flew round the
boy's head until the boy awoke.

The room was still dark, for the fire had died away in the night, and
Sun-Father had not yet crept up behind the mountains to the east.  The
boy sat up and listened to the buzzing of the Cornstalk Being, and
rubbed his eyes, for he was still very sleepy.

"Wake up, Little Father," said the Cornstalk Being, "for I have been to
the Land of Everlasting Summer and talked to the Corn Maidens, and there
is much that you should hear."

The boy's eyes became accustomed to the dark, and in the faint starlight
through the smoke hole he could just make out the Cornstalk Being
perched on the lip of a pot.

"I am awake," he whispered, for he did not want to wake his little
sister.

"In the morning, when the light from Sun-Father fills the room, and your
little sister wakes and begins to cry," whispered the Cornstalk Being in
his tiny voice, "tell her that on the night of the third day her
mothers, the Corn Maidens, are coming.

You'll know when it is their time, for a south wind will blow heavy with
the scent of flowers and springtime, and a mist will melt away the frost
of Sun-i-a-shi'wa-ni's breath.  Then must you tell her to sleep, and
before that night of the third day has passed the Corn Maiden Mothers
will come into the room as softly as moonlight.

"Tomorrow and the next day you must clean out the corn rooms, for that
is where the Corn Maidens will wish to stay, and when you have seen them
you can take your little sister to them and she will be comforted."

When the Cornstalk Being had said all this, he flew to his perch in the
tiny cage of grass straws and corn pith, and sat very still.

After that the little boy could not sleep, and just before daybreak he
arose and kindled a fire in the hearth.  By the light of the fire he
began cleaning the great room in which he and his sister lived.  Then
when Sun-Father rose over the eastward mountains and painted the
rooftops red, the boy began cleaning the empty corn rooms.

When his little sister awoke, the boy ran to where she lay under the
buffalo robe.

"See, little sister," he said, "I am cleaning the house, for our mothers
are coming." But the little girl thought he was only trying to comfort
her and she cried anyway.

All day long the little boy cleaned the corn rooms, and all the next
day, for he was weak, and it took a long time to clean all the dust and
cobwebs away with a little hand-broom made of straw.

Finally, all the rooms were finished, and in each room the boy spread
old blankets and soft things, so that the Corn Maidens would be pleased
and would not leave his little sister.

On the third day the little sister cried more than she ever had before,
because for two days her brother had told her the Corn Maiden Mothers
were coming.  So the little boy kept climbing the ladder and looking out
the smoke hole to see if the rain clouds were building.

At last, far away to the south, he saw clouds of mist gather and rise
high above the mesa, and in his face blew a soft breeze that smelled of
flowers and springtime.

"They are coming, little sister," he shouted as he climbed down the
ladder.  "They are coming.  Soon, the Corn Maidens will be here to
comfort you."

Sun-Father moved behind the clouds, and the rain began to fall, and the
Cornstalk Creature began to buzz joyfully around the room.

It was dim, for Sun-Father was still behind the clouds, but the light
from the smoke hole poured in and filled the room. Then, right before
the little boy's eyes, the form of a beautiful maiden floated down the
ladder and past him into the corn room, and behind the first Corn
Maiden, a second.

Then from the corn room came a voice as soft as bird song.

"Come, Little-Boy-Who-Comforts-His-Sister," said the voice, "that you
might be comforted."

So the little boy went into the corn room where he had cleaned and
spread the blankets and soft things, and there stood the Maiden Mothers
of Corn who were the gentlest and loveliest beings the boy had ever
seen.  He forgot they were not his own mother, and he ran up to where
they stood.  They knelt down and took him in their arms and kissed him
and stroked his cheeks, and it all made him very, very happy, for even
though he had been strong and had taken care of his little sister, he
was still just a little boy.

Then he carried his sleeping sister into the presence of the Maidens,
where he laid her on a soft blanket.  He kindled a flame on the hearth
of the empty room.  The fire leaped and danced in the hearth and made
the room cheerful and warm.  The Corn Maidens sang to the little ones,
and while they sang Cornstalk Creature hummed down from his cage and
settled in the doorway.  Finally the little girl opened her sunken eyes
and smiled about.

"See," said the little boy, "I told you the Mothers of Corn were coming.
It is as the Cornstalk Creature told me, in the night."

For as long as the firelight lasted the Maiden Mothers of Corn soothed
and comforted the children.  They stroked their hair and cradled them in
their arms and sang soft slow songs until the children fell into a deep
slumber.

When the children were sound asleep, and the fire had died down very
low, the Corn Maidens drew from the folds of their robes many wonderful
things.  An ear each of yellow, red, blue, white, and speckled corn,
they laid carefully on the floor of the corn room.  Over the ears of
corn they placed little embroidered sashes of cotton, and on the blanket
poles they hung beads of shell and turquoise, and many bright garments.

All these things were but the seeds of all the wonderful things which
the Mothers of Seed knew best how to multiply, as the corn, which is
really their flesh, multiplies itself many times from a single grain.

The house where the children's uncle had lived was large, and in all the
many rooms the Corn Maidens placed baskets of green corn, and fruits,
and melons, and gourds, and all manner of good things, and all of the
things were but seeds of things to come.  Then the Maidens went to where
the children lay sleeping, and they saw that the children had changed.
The little girl was fair and bright and her hair was soft, and the
pallor of winter was lifted; and the boy, who was only a child, looked
stronger and older, and his face shone with kindness and his bearing was
of one much beloved by his people.

When the Maiden Mothers saw that it was good with the children they
glided softly out of the house and down the hill to the home of the aged
grandmother.

They called in at the doorway and a startled voice bade them enter. When
the old woman saw who it was, she covered her face with her hands and
knelt at their feet.

"You are a good old mother," said the White Corn Maiden, and that is why
we have come to ask your help."

And then the Maiden told the old woman how the children had been left
alone when the village was emptied, and how - from the flesh of the corn
plant - a being was made to watch over the children, and how the
children and the Cornstalk Being lived in a house across the village and
over the hill from the old woman's house.

"Go to comfort the little girl, for she is but a baby," said the Yellow
Corn Maiden, "and be as a mother to her, for she shall become the mother
of her people, and her children shall be mothers of the people.  Go also
and look after the little boy, for when the corn grows tall and green in
the valley, and the tassels ripen and turn yellow in the sun, he shall
become the father of his people."

Then the White Corn Maiden said to the old woman, "But not until the
Cornstalk Being has gone away shall you abide with the little ones.  Be
content to dwell in your poor house, and when you are needed the Being
will summon you."

The Corn Maidens then blessed the old woman, who was no longer poor and
ugly, but a kind, fair old mother, with long beautiful strands of white
hair, and quickly they returned to the house of the little ones.  There,
they spoke to the boy of the many things which were soon to pass.  Soon,
they said, the boy's oldest uncle would return for a loom which was
lying in one corner of the house, for now the uncle and his people had
to weave and work for the Hopis for their food.

"Our warm rains melted the snow on the trail," said the White Corn
Maiden, "and even now your oldest uncle prepares for his journey.  On
the eighth morning he will enter this, the old home of his people.  He
will see the smoke rising from your smoke hole, and he will come tired
but eager at your ladder.

"He will greet you and your sister with joy, but you must neither speak
to him nor accept the food he offers.  Not until the fourth day will you
speak to him.  By then he will have been puzzled by your silence, and
have pondered its meanings, and will have guessed in the wisdom of his
years that you have last spoken to the Beloved Ones.  He will forget
that you are but a stripling, not yet initiated into your clan.  When
you speak, he will be humble before you, and wonder at your wisdom, and
he will bow to you and become your faithful servant.

"When all this is done, you shall declare him a warrior-priest, and bid
him return to the nation of the Hopis and gather our people once again
to relight the hearth fires of Ha'wi-k'uh and replant the wasted fields
of the Valley of the Hot Waters."

This made the little boy very happy, for he and his sister were saddened
when they saw the empty rooms where their people had once lived.  It
would be a good thing, he thought, for the rooms to hear laughter again,
and to have the smoke make blue lines into the morning sky above
Ha'wi-k'uh.

Then the Yellow Corn Maiden spoke to the boy.

"Should your little sister cry for us," she said, "have the Cornstalk
Being bring the grandmother, who, like you, was left when the people
went to live far away.

"Be as good as you have been," she cautioned, and you will grow wise and
powerful.  Keep your heart good and gentle, and counsel the bad among
your people as a father counsels the foolish among his children.  If you
do these things, then this valley will be blessed with our presence, and
the corn will multiply, and the squash, and all the food of the people,
and the land of the people will be filled with plenty."

Then each of the Corn Maidens in turn took the boy's face and breathed
upon his forehead, and then they said, "May each day bring you
happiness, and as much happiness as the day has brought, so much may the
evening bring."

"Go now in with your little sister," said the elder maiden, for we
depart and you will see us no more, save with the eyes of your dreams."

As daylight broke in the east behind the mountain, the Corn Maidens
faded from sight, and their voices faded away to bird songs.

When the Corn Maidens had departed the boy went softly to his sister.
All around her were baskets of fragrant fruits and melons, and in the
corn rooms were piles and baskets of the golden grain.

"Feast happily on that brought by the Corn Maidens," he said to her, and
she feasted on melons and on the corn that he had parched.  And when
they had eaten their fill the boy cast the leavings outside to the birds
and the rodents.

Then it happened that one morning the little girl felt sad, but she did
not cry and did not tell her brother.  The Cornstalk Being knew that she
was sad, and he fluttered and buzzed about until he sang himself right
out the windows After a few moments he returned, and close behind him
followed the old woman who lived alone below the hill.

She was dressed exactly as the Corn Maidens had been, and when the
little girl saw her she ran up and buried her face in the folds of the
old woman's white robe.  The old woman bounced the little girl on her
knee and told her such pretty tales of the old times that the little
girl had to laugh, in spite of herself.

When the old woman left she told the little girl she would come again
from time to time to see her and her little brother, and when the little
girl heard this she was so happy she laughed out loud, and her laughter
was like the brook tumbling down over smooth rocks at the head of the
valley.  It was a springtime sound, made of melting snow.

CHAPTER 5

Soon after the old woman's visit, it was time for the arrival of the
uncle.  The boy carefully cleared away all traces of food from the
sitting place in the house, and he put away all the garments brought by
the Corn Maidens.  Then he built a great fire in the hearth, so that the
smoke might rise high above the village of Ha'wi-k'uh.  Then they heard
the uncle's footsteps on the pathway outside, and his weary feet upon
the ladder and his steps upon the roof.  And then his old eyes were
looking through the sky hole into the room where the children were
sitting.  He saw them and he was amazed and overjoyed.  "Ah, my beloved
little ones," he said.  "Is it possible?  Is it possible that I see you
again after all these many days?"

To his surprise the children neither smiled nor spoke to him.  They
seemed not to notice his presence.

"My beloved little ones," he said as he bent over them until his gray
hairs almost touched their faces, "don't you know that I am your old
uncle?"

Still nothing.  The little children neither smiled nor spoke.

The uncle stood up sorrowfully and looked around the room. It was as
bare as when the people had left for the Hopi villages.

The only difference was that now it was clean and well-ordered. Of food
or clothing or the utensils of daily living there was no trace.

"Poor little creatures," the uncle thought to himself.  "I will offer
them food, for it may be that they have lived as prairie dogs live in
winter-sound asleep."

He unwrapped his burden and mixed a gruel of ground corn and water. This
he placed before the little ones, and said, "Eat all you can, my
children, for it has been a long winter, and very cold."

Still the children neither spoke nor smiled nor seemed in any way to
notice his presence.

The uncle grew fearful, and moved away from the children and closer to
the hearth.

"They are not living," he thought to himself, "but the Beloved Ones
whose paths have been completed." But while he looked at them so fresh
and strong with their cheeks full of color he knew it was not so.
"Besides," he thought again, "if they were truly returned from the Dance
Hall of the Dead, I would see them only in the night."

"My little ones," he said aloud again, "your mother and father and all
the brothers and sisters of your clan are well, and may soon come back
to live at Ha'wi-k'uh.  My joy is great at seeing you unharmed, and
theirs will be yet greater.  Will you not also be glad to see them?"

And still the children made no answer, but sat very still and gazed upon
the fire.

Once again the uncle cast his eyes about the room.  Then he took the
bundle from his back and hung it on one of the steps of the ladder. From
the bundle he took flour and dried meat dust and hastily made a meal,
but before sitting down to eat asked the children again to share his
food.  Still there was no reply.

The old uncle ate a few mouthfuls in silence, but he felt so sad about
the children that the tears began to stream down the side of his face.
The boy was filled with compassion for the old uncle, but he remembered
the instructions given by the Corn Maidens and he said not a word.

At last the old uncle finished his meal and after he had placed the
remaining morsels carefully away he turned again toward the little boy.

"I cannot remain here long.  My provisions are scant and the journey
back to our people is long and hard, but I will stay for three or four
days and gather wood for your fire.  I will do this so that when the
night settles like a blanket over the empty houses, you and your little
sister will be warm, and your room will be lighted against the night
shadows."

At this the little boy bowed his head and smiled, and the old uncle was
greatly relieved to see some sign of life.

As soon as the uncle went for firewood, the little boy brought out
melons and green corn, which the Maidens had provided.  When the
children had eaten their fill, they cleaned away all traces of the food.

It happened thus, until the fourth day when the uncle went as usual for
wood.  He had scarcely been gone a minute when the old woman of the
broken house came in and helped the children prepare a great feast and
spread it on one of the embroidered mantles left by the Maidens of Corn.
There were melons of green and red, and yellow squash, and beans, and
mountains of golden corn, and cakes of meal and all manner of fruit from
trees along the river, and all manner of food from the seed left by the
Maidens of Corn.

When the baskets were filled to overflowing with the food, and the air
in the room was full and heavy with the smell of fruit, and the feast
was in readiness, then the children dressed themselves in the splendid
embroideries and ornaments left by the Corn Maidens.

Scarcely were all the preparations complete when the uncle suddenly
appeared at the sky hole.  As he descended the ladder with his burden of
firewood, the uncle's eyes fell upon the old woman, whom he addressed as
"Mother," in the way one greets a superior and beloved being, and he
breathed upon her hands to show his respect for her.

Then he looked upon the little boy and his sister with wonder and, being
wise and heavy with many years, he knew that they had been somehow
touched by A'wonawil'ona - the Creator and Container of All - and he
breathed upon their hands also.

"Sit with us, Uncle, and eat, for we know you are very hungry," said the
little boy.  "You brought few provisions, which you offered freely, and
you have gathered wood for our fire, now it is four days."

And saying that, the boy took first from each of the vessels and baskets
of food a morsel of each kind.  Then he cast them into the fire saying,
"Makers of the trails of our lives and ye spirits of our ancestors, of
this add ye unto your hearts after the manner of your own knowledge, and
bless us with fruitful seasons, needed water, and age of life."

They ate of all the food spread before them, the uncle with a trembling
hand for he was indeed hungry, and the boy sparingly and with great
deliberation, in the manner most becoming to a wise and great person.

When they were finished, the old woman and the little sister cleared
away the remnants and laid them away for the seed-eaters outside.  Then
the boy spoke to the uncle.

"Uncle and child, come and sit close to me," he said, "for there is much
that I must say and you must hear."

The uncle moved nearer the boy.  "What is it, My Father?" he said, for
now he knew that the boy was endowed with the spirit of a wise priest
and a father's commanding.

And then the little boy, who had been made wise, began to speak, and as
he spoke he looked into the fire.

"You and your people, alas, alas!" he said.  "Not only did they make
sport of the blessings of the Beloved, but even of the Beloved
themselves.  Of myself and my little sister, their own flesh and blood,
they thought not, but left us to perish.  Sad were the ways of the
people after that, and it was a teaching that they might be wiser in the
future."

"It is indeed as you have said, My Father," said the uncle.

He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, and he knew that what the
boy said was true.

"Those who were our parents," said the boy, "behold, they shall
henceforth be our children, and their offspring shall be the servants of
our offspring."

And then the boy looked straight at the uncle and said, "Yet I remember
you did not join in the folly of the others.  You alone warned against
it.  Therefore you alone shall enjoy my best favor.  You are wise, and
long will you serve as my warrior-priest."

Then the boy spoke of the old woman, whom the people of Ha'wi-k'uh had
despised.

"No longer shall she be despised," said the wise boy.  "No longer shall
she rummage among the leavings of the town for her food, and no longer
shall she live alone in her broken house below the hill, for she shall
be the mother of her people until the end of her days.  And when that
time comes, then shall the little sister become the Mother of Seed, for
she has tasted the milk of the Corn Maidens."

Then the boy spoke of the people.

"No longer may the people live according to their own wills," he said,
"but rather as children, whom a father and his brother must guide,
counsel, and command.  I am their father for I have tasted of the flesh
of the Corn Maidens and thus it will be until the days of our people are
spent.

"Four days you shall spend here to rest yourself," the boy said to the
uncle.  "Then you shall return to the country of the Hopis and summon my
people."

As evening came it grew dark earlier than usual, and the clouds boiled
and churned high above the mesas, and then the thunder came with a great
crashing and rumbling, and the lightning cracked and snapped about the
buttes and lit the darkness under the clouds with hard blue flashes, and
the smell of rain was in the air.

It fell in torrents over the parched land.  It fell on the mountains
high above the village and it fell over the mesas and in the valley
where the stream tumbled over the round rocks and boulders.  The water
foamed down off the mesas and boiled through the arroyos until, finally,
it spread out in ever-widening fans across the floor of the valley and
laid down a fertile layer of fresh new soil.

Then, as the moon rose over the Zuni buttes, there came, silent as
hawks, many runners from the Dance Hall of the Gods in the Lake of the
Dead, and with them came many strong warriors. Into the rich new soil
they planted, everywhere, corn of all kinds and food seeds from the
storehouses of the gods.  And then once again, in the quiet time before
dawn, the rain came.

It came soft as rabbit skin and it touched the mounds of earth covering
the many-colored kernels of seed corn, and when the rain had gone, the
breath of the Corn Maidens fanned the country with warmth from the Land
of Everlasting Summer.

When Sun-Father moved from his lodge behind the eastern mountains and
flooded the valley with orange light, not a footprint could be seen in
all the great plain.  Yet everywhere there were rows of yellow and green
corn plants and melon vines, shooting forth from the warm soil.

Light crept into the house on long yellow shafts, and after everyone was
awake and had eaten the morning meal, the boy called to his uncle.

"Come with me, my warrior-priest," he said, and together they climbed
the ladders to the highest part of the house.

"Behold," said the boy as he pointed to the field of sprouting corn.
"Behold the planting of the Beloved!

"You will go now, my warrior," said the boy.  "Take with you now such
provisions as you will need for the journey to our people.  Take also a
plant of corn as a promise of harvest to the A'shiwi, for they have
forgotten by now the sound of truth. Before you have reached the land of
the Hopis, this corn plant shall have grown milky and full of kernel,
and it shall be your proof.

CHAPTER 6

Now as it happened, the Cornstalk Being had kept as still and quiet as
if he were only corn pith and straw while the uncle stayed with the boy
and his sister.  But on the night after the uncle had departed, the tiny
creature once again began to rock nervously back and forth on his perch,
impatient for the night to end.  Toward daylight he could not sit still
a minute more, and softly he called to the boy.

"Father of His People, hear me now," buzzed the creature, but soft
enough not to wake the little sister.

"Father of His People, hear me now," he buzzed again, and this time the
boy awoke and slipped quietly out from under the buffalo robe.

"I hear you, My-Friend-Who-Art-Made-of-Corn," said the boy, "but the
fire is gone and Sun-Father has not yet come, and I cannot see you in
the dark."

"It is of no importance," said the creature.  "It is almost time for me
to go, yet there are things which must pass between us.  Of these things
I now speak," and then the creature buzzed down close to the boy's ear
in the dark, so that the little sister would not awaken.

"You have given me life," said the creature, "even as I and the Mothers
of Corn have given you new life."

"It is so," said the boy.

"Precious shall you be," said the creature, "and your people shall plant
and reap for you and your chosen council of wise ones.  And when you
have fulfilled your path and joined the everlasting Council of the Dead,
the offspring of your flesh or breath shall be as precious to the people
as you have been.

"By my ministry," the creature continued, "and from the milk of the
Mother Maidens of Seed you have received being as both a man and
shi-wa-ni, which means priest, and your little sister shall be the Seed
Priestess of Earth, keeper of seed among men, and provider of the
fertility of the seeds whereby men live."

"It will be as it will be," said the boy, for he was wise now beyond his
years and knew of the responsibility that had been given him.

While they talked, light began to creep into the east, and from behind
the mountains which were still black there came a soft blue glow from
Sun-Father's first awakening.  In the light that was not yet light the
boy could barely make out the blur from the creature's cornstalk wings,
as he hovered silently in the still room.

"Behold," said the creature.  "It is almost time, yet there is a final
thing."

"I will hear it," said the boy.

And then the creature told how it was that he was born of the flesh of
the Mother Maidens of both men and creatures.

"In my being their flesh is renewed," said the tiny creature, "and
amidst the corn tassels shall I find my home.  Yet it was to be your
messenger that I was made, therefore never very long in any of my many
homes shall I rest."

And then he said to the boy, "Make another of my form from the
cornstalks growing now in the fields below, and send her forth, and men
shall call us and our offspring 'Dragonflies.""

And that is how it is that there are Dragonflies.

"It will be done," said the boy.  "In remembrance of your faithful
service I will paint your form on sacred things as a symbol of the
god-given rains of springtime, and your companion shall be painted as
the symbol of summer and the pools of summer showers."

When eight days had passed, over the northwestern hills came the nation
of Ha'wi-k'uh, and with them came many strangers from other tribes and
countries.  When they entered the town through vast fields of ripening
corn they passed beneath the house of the great priest-boy, and breathed
with humility their spirits upon his hands.

From among the strangers who came that day, the young priest chose
three.  These three he embraced and called younger brothers, and into
them he breathed the breath which had been breathed into him by the
Mothers of Corn.

Then he chose a great warrior and placed him under the old uncle, and
gave them command of the nation.

When he had done this he spoke to the two warrior-priests.

"Go now," he said to them, "and command the people in the harvest of the
gods.  Each man shall take seven loads of corn for himself, but the
eighth load shall he take for my brothers and me, that all the people
shall keep respect for our counsel in their hearts."

When the corn was gathered, the boy who was now a great priest had many
storerooms filled.  This he saved, that it might furnish seed for the
people, or food in time of want.  Portions of the stored harvest he gave
to the Beloved Ones, the ancestral spirits, and the seed-eaters that
they might be content and not raid the corn bins at night.

By and by it was that the boy-priest grew great in the eyes of his
people, and when several years had passed he married the most beautiful
of maidens, and his daughters when they had grown were sought for their
beauty and radiance by men from all towns both far and near.

This is how it was in the days of the ancients very long ago, and that
is how there came to be the Ta'a'shi-wa-ni, or Corn Priests of Zuni.

Author's Notes on

The Boy Who Made Dragonfly

Its Form: In our society, the account of the boy who made the first
dragonfly would be called a "Bible story." Like stories based on the Old
Testament or Pentateuch, this narrative is intended to teach both the
history and morality of a people. There is one important difference. The
Zunis had no written language to keep alive their tribal wisdom. Instead
it was passed on orally- memorized by children who, in turn, taught it
to their own children.

This particular story was first recorded in writing in 1883.

Frank Hamilton Cushing, a young Easterner, came to the Zuni Pueblo in
1879 to study the tribe for the Bureau of American Ethnology.  Strongly
attracted to the Zunis, Cushing abandoned his white man's ways and was
accepted as a member of the tribe. He was initiated into the Macaw Clan
and, before his death, had become the Chief Priest of the Bow Society -
one of the most valuable men" in Zuni tribal life.

Its Place: In terms of "mythic time" this story seems to have come
relatively late in the development of the Zuni culture.

The Zuni clans had almost completed their legendary wanderings in search
of the Middle Place of the World, where they were destined to live.  In
fact, Ha'wi-k'uh, was the next-to-last stop for these previously
migratory people.  When they abandoned this village for good, in about
1672, it was to move a few miles northward to the present site of the
Zuni Pueblo.  Their legend tells us that the Water Strider, a mythic
being, helped the Zunis in their search.  He stretched his many legs to
the edges of the earth and lowered his body.  The point where it touched
the earth (a low hill beside the Zuni river, south of Gallup, New
Mexico) was It'a-wa-na (The Middle Place) and there the Zunis built the
stone-and-adobe Zuni Pueblo which they call Halona It'a-wa-na (Ant Hill
of the Middle Place).  This, legend tell us, is to be their home until
time ends for the Zunis.

In terms of "historic time" this story was probably first told more than
five hundred, and less than six hundred, years ago.  We know that
Ha'wi-k'uh was founded about seven hundred years ago, about the year
1300.  The story seems to be based on a drought-famine which happened
after this village had time to become a well-established community, but
before the arrival of the first European explorers (1539-40) began
disrupting the patterns of Indian civilizations.

Zuni Mythology: In the beginning, the Zuni version of the Old Testament
Genesis tell us there was only a formless mist and _A'wonawil'ona, who's
the Great God and Container of All Things.

_A'wonawil'ona created the Sun-Father, and the Moon, and two superhuman
beings, whom the Zunis call Shi-wa-ni and Shi-wa-no-kia.  These two
created the starry skies and the earth, and deep within the earth they
produced living beings that were to become men and other animals and
insects.

Zuni mythology tells how these beings, with help of two sons of the sun,
worked their way from the total darkness of the fourth underworld to the
Water Moss World, and from there upward to the Mud World, and thence
upward to the World of Wings, and finally, through the waters of a lake,
to the surface of the earth.  There, after losing their tails and other
animal-like features, some of these beings became men.  The Zuni clans
then began their migrations in search of the Middle Place, obtained
corn, learned to hunt, and founded the various religious societies and
priesthoods.

Zuni Attitudes: Much that might seem strange in the story of the
dragonfly becomes clear if one understands the basic Zuni philosophy.
The story of creation in the Old Testament teaches us that we were made
lords of the universe, with dominion over the birds and the beasts.  The
Zuni story of creation and emergence makes him one with the universe.
He, as a man, is part of a universal harmony with the deer, the dung
beetle, the spider, the bee, the cloud, the wind, the bear, and the
cactus. Every part of nature is to be treated with respect.  Thus, the
offense of the Zunis in wasting their food supplies (which showed
disrespect for the plants and rain and earth which provided it) would
seem more serious in their eyes than it might to us.  The same can be
said for the failure to feed the Corn Maidens in their disguise as
ragged old women.  In Zuni philosophy all humans are brothers, and
strangers must be treated with great hospitality.  The "prayer meal"
mentioned in the story is, of course, finely ground corn meal, which the
Zunis and many other Southwestern Indians use to this day in
ceremonials, much as Catholics use "holy water" and some other religions
use aromatic oils.  In fact, in the Catholic church at Zuni, one finds
corn meal in the holy-water font at the entrance.  The philosophy behind
its use is basic: corn represents the supreme blessing from God,
allowing a wandering tribe of hunters and seed gatherers to put down
roots, become farmers, and develop a civilization.  Meal of corn thus
symbolizes all blessings.

The Zuni practice of breathing upon another's hands combines the
meanings we attach to shaking hands, hugging one another, and bowing.
The gesture involves both respect and love - the breath coming, as it
does, directly from the spirit within.

Since ties of family are unusually strong among Zunis (and most other
Southwestern Indians), kinship titles are often used to denote respect
and/or affection.  Thus, the effigy of the dragonfly is called
"Grandfather" in recognition of his wisdom.