Zuni Folktales · The Foster-Child of the Deer (2/2)

At last but few were left⁠—amongst them the kind old Deer-mother and her two children; and, taking the lead, the glorious youth, although encumbered by his new dress, sped forth with them. They ran and ran, the fleetest of the tribe of Háwikuh pursuing them; but all save the uncle and his brave sons were soon left far behind. The youth’s foster-brother was soon slain, and the youth, growing angry, turned about; then bethinking himself of the words of the gods, he sped away again. So his foster-sister, too, was killed; but he kept on, his old mother alone running behind him. At last the uncle and his sons overtook the old mother, and they merely caught her and turned her away, saying: “Faithful to the last she has been to this youth.” Then they renewed the chase for the youth; and he at last, pretending weariness, faced about and stood like a stag at bay. As soon as they approached, he dropped his arms and lowered his head. Then he said: “Oh, my uncle” (for the gods had told who would find him)⁠—“Oh, my uncle, what wouldst thou? Thou hast killed my brothers and sisters; what wouldst thou with me?”

The old man stopped and gazed at the youth in wonder and admiration of his fine appearance and beautiful apparel. Then he said: “Why dost thou call me uncle?”

“Because, verily,” replied the youth, “thou art my uncle, and thy niece, my maiden-mother, gave birth to me and cast me away upon a dust-heap; and then my noble Deer found me and nourished me and cherished me.”

The uncle and his sons gazed still with wonder. Then they thought they saw in the youth’s clear eyes and his soft, oval face a likeness to the mother, and they said: “Verily, this which he says is true.” Then they turned about and took him by the hands gently and led him toward Háwikuh, while one of them sped forward to test the truth of his utterances.

When the messenger arrived at Háwikuh he took his way straight to the house of the priest, and told him what he had heard. The priest in anger summoned the maiden.

“Oh, my child,” said he, “hast thou done this thing which we are told thou hast done?” And he related what he had been told.

“Nay, no such thing have I done,” said she.

“Yea, but thou hast, oh, unnatural mother! And who was the father?” demanded the old priest with great severity.

Then the maiden, thinking of her Sun-lover, bowed her head in her lap and rocked herself to and fro, and cried sorely. And then she said: “Yea, it is true; so true that I feared thy wrath, oh, my father! I feared thy shame, oh, my mother! and what could I do?” Then she told of her lover, the Sun⁠—with tears she told it, and she cried out: “Bring back my child that I may nurse him and love but him alone, and see him the father of children!”

By this time the hunters arrived, some bringing game, but others bringing in their midst this wondrous youth, on whom each man and maiden in Háwikuh gazed with delight and admiration.

They took him to the home of his priest-grandfather; and as though he knew the way he entered the apartment of his mother, and she, rising and opening wide her arms, threw herself on his breast and cried and cried. And he laid his hand on her head, and said: “Oh, mother, weep not, for I have come to thee, and I will cherish thee.”

So was the foster-child of the Deer restored to his mother and his people.

Wondrously wise in the ways of the Deer and their language was he⁠—so much so that, seeing them, he understood them. This youth made little ado of hunting, for he knew that he could pay those rites and attentions to the Deer that were most acceptable, and made them glad of death at the hand of the hunter. And ere long, so great was his knowledge and success, and his preciousness in the eyes of the Master of Life, that by his will and his arm alone the tribe of Háwikuh was fed and was clad in buckskins.

A rare and beautiful maiden he married, and most happy was he with her.

It was his custom to go forth early in the morning, when the Deer came down to drink or stretch themselves and walk abroad and crop the grass; and, taking his bow and quiver of arrows, he would go to a distant mesa, and, calling the Deer around him, and following them as swiftly as they ran, he would strike them down in great numbers, and, returning, say to his people: “Go and bring in my game, giving me only parts of what I have slain and taking the rest yourselves.”

So you can readily see how he and his people became the greatest people of Háwikuh. Nor is it marvellous that the sorcerers of that tribe should have grown envious of his prosperity, and sought to diminish it in many ways, wherein they failed.

At last one night the Master of Sorcerers in secret places raised his voice and cried: “Weh‑h‑h‑h! Weh‑h‑h‑h‑h‑h!” And round about him presently gathered all the sorcerers of the place, and they entered into a deep cavern, large and lighted by green, glowing fires, and there, staring at each other, they devised means to destroy this splendid youth, the child of the Sun.

One of their number stood forth and said: “I will destroy him in his own vocation. He is a hunter, and the Coyote loves well to follow the hunter.” His words were received with acclamation, and the youth who had offered himself sped forth in the night to prepare, by incantation and with his infernal appliances, a disguise for himself.

On the next morning, when the youth went forth to hunt, an old Coyote sneaked behind him after he reached the mesas, and, following stealthily, waited his throwing down of the Deer; and when the youth had called and killed a number of Deer and sat down to rest on a fallen tree, the Coyote sneaked into sight. The youth, looking at him, merely thought: “He seeks the blood of my slain Deer,” and he went on with his prayers and sacrifices to the dead of the Deer. But soon, stiffening his limbs, the Coyote swiftly scudded across the open, and, with a puff from his mouth and nostrils like a sneeze toward the youth, threw himself against him and arose a man⁠—the same man who had offered his services in the council of the wizards⁠—while the poor youth, falling over, ran away, a human being still in heart and mind, but in form a coyote.

Off to the southward he wandered, his tail dragging in the dust; and growing hungry he had naught to eat; and cold on the sides of the mesas he passed the night, and on the following morning wandered still, until at last, very hungry, he was fain even to nip the blades of grass and eat the berries of the juniper. Thus he became ill and worn; and one night as he was seeking a warm place to lay him down and die, he saw a little red light glowing from the top of a hillock. Toward this light he took his way, and when he came near he saw that it was shining up through the sky-hole of someone’s house. He peered over the edge and saw an old Badger with his grizzly wife, sitting before a fire, not in the form of a badger but in the form of a little man, his badger-skin hanging beside him.

Then the youth said to himself: “I will cast myself down into their house, thus showing them my miserable condition.” And as he tried to step down the ladder, he fell, teng, on the floor before them.

The Badgers were disgusted. They grabbed the Coyote, and hauling him up the ladder, threw him into the plain, where, toonoo, he fell far away and swooned from loss of breath. When he recovered his thoughts he again turned toward the glowing sky-hole, and, crawling feebly back, threw himself down into the room again. Again he was thrown out, but this time the Badger said: “It is marvellously strange that this Coyote, the miserable fellow, should insist on coming back, and coming back.”

“I have heard,” said the little old Badger-woman, “that our glorious beloved youth of Háwikuh was changed some time ago into a Coyote. It may be he. Let us see when he comes again if it be he. For the love of mercy, let us see!”

Ere long the youth again tried to clamber down the ladder, and fell with a thud on the floor before them. A long time he lay there senseless, but at last opened his eyes and looked about. The Badgers eagerly asked if he were the same who had been changed into a Coyote, or condemned to inhabit the form of one. The youth could only move his head in acquiescence.

Then the Badgers hastily gathered an emetic and set it to boil, and when ready they poured the fluid down the throat of the seeming Coyote, and tenderly held him and pitied him. Then they laid him before the fire to warm him. Then the old Badger, looking about in some of his burrows, found a sacred rock crystal, and heating it to glowing heat in the fire, he seared the palms of the youth’s hands, the soles of his feet, and the crown of his head, repeating incantations as he performed this last operation, whereupon the skin burst and fell off, and the youth, haggard and lean, lay before them. They nourished him as best they could, and, when well recovered, sent him home to join his people again and render them happy. Clad in his own fine garments, happy of countenance and handsome as before, and, according to his regular custom, bearing a Deer on his back, returned the youth to his people, and there he lived most happily.

As I have said, this was in the days of the ancients, and it is because this youth lived so long with the Deer and became acquainted with their every way and their every word, and taught all that he knew to his children and to others whom he took into his friendship, that we have today a class of men⁠—the Sacred Hunters of our tribe⁠—who surpassingly understand the ways and the language of the Deer.

Thus shortens my story.