Zuni Folktales · The Revenge of the Two Brothers on the Háwikuhkwe, or the Two Little Ones 16 and Their Turkeys (2/3)

“Let’s have some fun with the old Shield-back,” said the boys to one another. “Just you hold a moment, brother elder,” said Mátsailéma as he fitted an arrow to the string and drew it clean to the point. Tsi‑i‑i‑i thle‑e‑e! sang the arrow as it struck the back of the old Turtle; and although he was as big as the Turtles in the big Waters of the World now are, the force and fright ducked him under the scum like a chip, and he came up with his eyes slimy and his mouth full of spittle, and his legs flying round too fast to be counted. When he spied the two boys, he cursed them harder than their grandmother did, but they hardly heard him, for their arrow glanced upward from his back and came down so straight that they had to run for their lives. “Atiki! troublesome little beasts, who never knew what shame nor dignity was!” exclaimed the old fellow.

“Don’t be angry with us, grandpa,” said the boys. “You must be deaf, for we called and called to you, but you only paddled round and ate rushes; so we thought we would fire an arrow at you, for you know we couldn’t get at you.”

“Oh, that’s it! Well, what may my grandchildren be thinking of, in thus coming to see me? It cannot be for nothing,” reflected the old man, as he twisted his head up toward them and pushed the scum with his tail.

“Quite true, grandfather; we’ve started out sprouting, and had to come to our grandfather for advice.”

“Why, what is it then?” queried the old Shield-back.

“You see, we have a flock of Turkeys⁠—”

“Yes, I know,” interrupted the old man, “for they came down here to drink yesterday and broke my morning nap with their ‘quit quit quittings!’ ”

“Well,” resumed the boys, “they went toward the Háwikuhkwe, and the shameless beasts, that they are, turned out and killed very nearly all of them, and we’re going to even matters with them; that’s why we are out sprouting.”

“Ah ha!” cried the old man, paddling up nearer to the bank. “Good! Well, that’s right, my grandchildren; you show that you are the wise boys that you are to come to me. I’m a great warrior, I am, for though I have neither bow nor arrow, yet the more my enemies have, the worse for themselves, that’s all. You two just wait until tomorrow,” and he stretched his head out until it looked as though he kept a snake in his shell.

“Will you help us?” asked the boys. (They knew very well he would like nothing better.)

“Of course, my grandchildren.”

“Will you come to the council?”

“Of course, my grandchildren two. How many will be there?” called the old fellow.

“The house shall be as full as a full stomach,” retorted the boys, jousting each other.

“Thluathlá!” gruffly said Etawa, for that was the Turtle’s name.

So the boys started for Oak-wood Canyon, and, arrived there, soon had a large bundle of branches cut down with their big flint knives, and four stout, dry oak-sticks. They shouldered their “sprouts” and started home, and, although they had bundles big enough to almost hide them, they trotted along as though they had nothing. On their way they picked up a lot of obsidian, and went fast enough until they were near their home, and then they were “very tired”⁠—so tired that the old grandmother, when she caught sight of them, pitied them, and hurried down to stir some mush for them. She buried some corn-cakes in the ashes, too, and roasted some prairie-dogs in the same way; so that when those two lying little rascals came up and seemed so worn-out, she hurried so fast to get their food ready that it made her sinews twitch.

When the boys had eaten all they could and cracked a few prairie-dog bones, they fell to breaking the sprouts. They worked with their stone chips very fast, and soon had barked all they wanted. These they straightened by passing them through their horns19 and placed them before the fire. While the shafts were drying, they broke up the obsidian, and laying chips of it on a stone covered with buckskin, quickly fashioned them into sharp arrowheads with the points of other stones, and these they fastened to the ends of the shafts, placing feathers of the eagle on the other ends, until they had made enough for four big bundles. Then they made a bow of each of the four oak-sticks, and stood them up to dry against the wall.

As it grew dark they heard something like a dry leaf in a little wind.

“Ah!” said one to the other, “our grandfather comes”; and sure enough presently Amiwili poked his yellow eyes in at the door, but quickly drew back again.

“Kutchi!” said he, “your fire is fearful; it scares me!”

“The grandfather cometh!” exclaimed the boys. “Come in; sit down.”

“Very well. Ah! you are stretching shafts, are you?” said the old Worm, crawling around behind the boys and into the darkest corner he could find.

“Yes,” replied they. “Why do you not come out into the light, grandpa?”

“Kutchi! I fear the fire; it hurts my eyes, and makes me feel as the sun does after a rainstorm and I have no leaves to crawl into.”

“Very well,” said the boys. “Grandmother, spread a robe for him in the corner.” Then they busied themselves straightening some of the arrows and trying their bows. Just as they were pulling one toward the entrance way, they heard old Etawa thumping along, and immediately the old fellow called out: “Hold on; don’t thump me against one of those sticks of yours; they jar a fellow so!”

“Oh, it’s you, is it, grandfather? Well, we’re only trying our new bows; come in and sit down.” So the old fellow bumped along in and took his place by the fire, for he did not care whether it was hot or cold.

“Are the councillors here?” asked he, wagging his head around.

“Why, certainly,” said the two boys; “and now our council is so full we had better proceed to discuss what we had better do.”

When the old Turtle discovered that the boys had been playing him a joke, he was vexed, but he didn’t show it. “Amiwili here?” asked he. “Tchukwe! We four will teach those Háwikuhkwe!”

“Yes, indeed!” croaked the Rainbow-worm.

“Well,” said the boys, “at daybreak tomorrow morning, before it is light, we shall start for Háwikuh-town.”

“Very well,” responded Amiwili. “Come to my place first, and let me know when you start.”

“And,” added Etawa, “come to my place next and let me know. When you boys get to Háwikuh and alarm the people, if they get too thick for you, come back to my house as fast as you can, and you, Mátsailéma, take me up on your back. Then you two run toward your other grandfather’s house. I’ll show these Háwikuhkwe that I can waste life as much as anybody, even if I have no arrows to shoot at them.”

“Yes,” added the Rainbow-worm, “and when you come up to my house, just run past me and I’ll take care of the rest of them. I’m made to use up life, I am,” swaggered he.

“And I,” boasted the old Turtle. “Come, brother, let us be going, for we have a long way to travel, and our legs are short.” So, after feasting, the two started away.

As soon as they had gone, the two boys went to their corner and lay down to rest, first filling their quivers with arrows, and laying their water-shield20 out on the floor. They were presently quiet, and then began to snore; so their old grandmother went into another room and brought out a new bowl which she filled with water. Then she retired into the room again, and when she came out she was dressed in beautiful embroidered mantles and skirts and decorated with precious ornaments of shell and turquoise.

The noise she made awoke Áhaiyúta, who punched his younger brother, and said: “Wake up, wake up! Here’s grandmother dressed as though she were going to a dance!”

Then the younger brother raised his voice to a sharp whisper (they knew perfectly well what the old grandmother was intending to do): “What for?”

“Here!” said the old woman, turning toward the bed. “Go to sleep! What are you never-weary little beasts doing now? For shame! You pretend you are going out to war tomorrow!”

“Why are you dressed so, grandmother?” ventured the younger.

“What should I be dressed for but to make medicine for you two? Now, mind, you must not watch me. I shall make the medicine and place it in these two cane tubes, and you must shoot them into the middle of the plaza of Háwikuh as soon as you get there. That will make the people like women; for the canes will break and make the medicine fly about like mist, and whomsoever gets his skin wet by it, will become no more of a warrior than a woman. Go to sleep, I say, you pests!”

But the boys had no intention of sleeping. To be sure, they stretched themselves out and slyly laid their arms across their eyes. The old grandmother did not notice this at first. She began to wash her arms in the bowl of water. Then she rubbed them so hard that the yepna (“substance of flesh”) was rolled off in little lumps and fell into the water. This she began to mix carefully with the water, when Áhaiyúta whispered to the other: “Brother younger, just look! Old grandmother’s arms look as bright as a young girl’s. Look, look!” said he, still louder, for the other had already begun to giggle; but when the old woman turned to talk sharply at them, they turned over, the rascals, as dutifully as though they had never joked with their poor old grandmother. Soon they were indeed sleeping.

Then the grandmother proceeded to fill the canes with the fluid, and then she fastened these to the ends of two good arrows. “There!” she exclaimed, with a sigh; and after she had chanted an incantation over the canes, she laid some food near the boys and softly left the room, to sleep.

The boys never minded the things they had to do in the morning, but slept soundly until the coming of day, when they arose, took their bows and quivers, knives, war-clubs, arrows, and water-shield, and quietly stole away.

It was not long ere they approached the house of Amiwili. He was fairly gorging the leaves of all the lizard plants he could lay hold of, and already looked so full that he must have felt like a ball. But he munched away so busily that he wouldn’t have looked at the boys had it been light enough.

“How did our grandfather come unto the morning?” asked they.

“Thluathlá!” (“Get out!”) was all the old Worm vouchsafed them between his cuds; and they sped on.

Soon they reached the home of the old Turtle. This old grandfather was more leisurely. “You will return at the height of the sun,” said he. “Now mind what I told you last night. I’ll wait right here on the bank for you.”

“Very well,” laughed the boys, for little they cared that they were on the warpath.

By-and-by they neared the town of Háwikuh. It was twilight, for the morning star was high. The boys sat down a moment and sang an incantation⁠—the same our fathers and children, the Ápithlan Shíwani, sing now. Then the younger brother ran round the pueblo to scout. Two or three people were getting up, as he could see, for nearly everybody slept on the roofs, it was so warm.

“Iwolohkia-a-a!” cried he, at the top of his voice; and as the people were rousing he drew one of the cane arrows full length in his bow, and so straight and high did he shoot, that it fell thl‑i‑i‑i‑i! into the middle of the plaza, splitting and scattering medicine-water in every direction, so that the people all exclaimed, as they rubbed their eyes: “Ho! it is raining, and yet the sky is clear! And didn’t someone cry ‘Murder, murder!’ ”

When Áhaiyúta’s arrow struck, it scattered more medicine-water upon them, until they thought they must be dreaming of rain; but just then Mátsailéma shouted, “Ho‑o‑o! Murder!” again, and everybody started to hunt bows and arrows. Then the boy ran to the hiding-place of his brother in the grass on the trail toward the wood border, and just as he got there, some of the people who were shouting and gabbling to one another ran out to see him.

“Ha!” they shouted, “there they are, on the northern trail.”

So the Háwikuhkwe all poured down toward them, but when they arrived there they found no enemy. While the people were looking and running about, tsok tsok, and tsok tsok, and tsok tsok, the arrows of Áhaiyúta, and Mátsailéma struck the nearest ones, for they had crawled along the trail and were waiting in the grass. They never missed. Every man they struck fell, but many, many came on, and when these saw that there were only two, their faces were all the more to the front with haste. Still the two boys shot, shot, shot at them until many were killed or wounded before the remainder decided to flee.

“Come, brother, my arrows are gone,” said the younger brother. “Quick! put on the water-shield, and let us be off!” Now, the people were gaining on them faster and faster, but Áhaiyúta threw water like thick rain from his shield strapped over his back, so that the enemies’ bowstrings loosened, and they had to stop to tighten them again and again.

Whenever the Háwikuhkwe pressed them too closely, the water-shield sprinkled them so thoroughly that when they nocked an arrow the sinew bowstring stretched like gum, and all they could do was to stop and tighten their bowstrings again. Thus the boys were able to near the home of their grandfather, the big Turtle, now and then shooting at the leaders with their warring arrows and rarely missing their marks.

But as they came near, the people were gathering more and more thickly in their rear, so that Mátsailéma barely had time to take his grandfather⁠—who was waiting on the bank of the pond⁠—upon his back.

“Now, run you along in front and we’ll follow behind,” said old Etawa, as he put one paw over the left shoulder and the other under the right arm, and clasped his legs tightly around the loins of Mátsailéma so as to hug close to his back.

“Grandfather, kutchi! You are as heavy as a rock and as hard as one, too,” said the younger brother. “How can I dodge those stinging beasts?”

“That’s all the better for you,” said the old Turtle, loosening his grip a little; “take it easy.”

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” shouted Áhaiyúta from ahead. “Hurry, hurry, brother younger; hurry!” But Mátsailéma couldn’t get along any faster than he could.

Presently the old Turtle glanced around and saw that the people were gaining on them and already drawing their bows. “Duck your head down and never mind them. Now, you’ll see what I can do!” said he, pulling into his shell.

Thle‑e‑e, thle‑thle‑thle‑e‑e, rattled the arrows against old Etawa’s shell, and the warriors were already shouting, “Ho‑o‑o‑awiyeishikia!”⁠—which was their cry of victory⁠—when they began to cry out in other tones, for tsuiya! their arrows glanced from old Turtle’s shell and struck themselves, so that they dropped in every direction. “Terror and blood! but those beings can shoot fast and hard!” shouted they to one another, but they kept pelting away harder and faster, only to hit one another with the glancing arrows.

“Hold!” cried one in advance of the others. “Head them off! Head them off! We’re only shooting ourselves against that black shield of theirs, and the other loosens our bowstrings.”

But just then Áhaiyúta reached the home of his other grandfather, Amiwili. Behold! he was all swollen up with food and could hardly move⁠—only wag his head back and forth.

“Are you coming?” groaned the old fellow. “Quick, get out of the way, all of you! Quick, quick!”

Áhaiyúta jumped out of the way just as Mátsailéma cried out: “Ha hua! I can run no farther; I must drop you, grandfather,”⁠—but he saw Áhaiyúta jump to one side, so he followed, too.

Old Amiwili reared himself and, opening his mouth, waah! weeh! right and left he threw the lizard leaves he had been eating, until the Háwikuhkwe were blinded and suffocated by them, and, dropping their bows and weapons, began to clutch their eyes from blindness and pain. And old Amiwili coughed and coughed till he had blown nearly all his substance away, and there was nothing left of him but a worm no bigger than your middle finger.