| Here is one of my favorite stories of
the Hopi indian, as told by Frank Waters. I hope you enjoy it as much as
my family and I do.J
Starshyne
Hay-ya,
hay-ya, mel-lo....
So the people began their migrations, climbing up a high mountain. They were accompanied by two insect people resembling the katydid or locust, the mahu (insect which has the heat power). On top they met a great bird, the eagle. One of the mahus, acting as a spokesman for the people, asked the eagle, "Have you been living here very long?"
"Yes," replied the eagle, "since the creation of this Fourth World."
"We have traveled a long way to reach this new land," said the mahu. "Will you permit us to live here with you?"
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"Perhaps," answered the eagle. "But I must test you first." Drawing out one of the arrows he was holding in his claws, he ordered the two mahus to step closer. To one he said, "I am going to poke this arrow into your eyes, If you do not close them, you and all the people who follow you may remain here."
Where upon he poked the point of the arrow so close to the mahu's eye it almost touched, but the mahu did not
even blink. "You are a people of great strength," observed the eagle. "But the second test is much harder and I don't believe you will pass it."
"We are ready for the second test," said the two mahus.
The eagle pulled out a bow, cocked an arrow, and shot the first mahu through the body. The mahu, with the arrow, sticking out one side of him, lifted the flute he had brought with him and begun to play a sweet and tender melody. "Well!" said the eagle. "You have more power than I thought!" So he shot the other mahu with a second arrow.
The two mahus, both pierced with arrows, played their flutes still more tenderly and sweetly, producing a soothing vibration and an uplift of spirit which healed their pierced bodies.
The eagle, of course, then gave the people permission to occupy the land, saying, "Now that you have stood both tests you may use my feather anytime you want to talk to our Father Sun, the Creator, and I will deliver you message because I am the conqueror of air and master of height. I am the only one who has the power of space above, for I represent the loftiness of the spirit and can deliver your prayers
to the Creator."
Ever since then the people have used the feathers of an eagle for their prayer-feathers or pahos, and sing to a sick child, knowing that the sweet power of music will help to heal him. The locust mahu is known as the Humpbacked Flute Player, the kachina named Kokopilau, because he looked like wood (koko-wood; pilau-hump). In the hump on his back he carried seeds of plants and flowers, and with the music of his flute he created warmth. When the people moved off on their migrations over the continent they carved pictographs of him on rocks all the way from the tip of South America up to Canada, and it was for these two mahus that the Blue Flute and Gray Flute clans and societies were named.
Having obtained the eagle's permission to occupy the land, the people now divided into four groups, each going a different direction. With those going to the north was the Blue Flute Clan, accompanied by one of the two mahus. Every so often this Humpbacked Flute Player would stop and scatter seeds from the hump on his back. Then he would march on, playing his flute and singing a song. His song is still remembered, but the words are so ancient that nobody knows what they mean:
Ki-tana-po, ki-tana-po, ki-tana-po, ki-tana-po!
Ai-na, ki-na-weh, kina-weh
Chi-li li-cha, chi-li li-cha
Don-ka-va-ki, mas-i-ki-va-ki
Ki-ve, ki-ve-na-meh
HOPET!
The Spider Woman led this group going northward. It comprised five clans: the Spider Clan named after her, the Blue Flute Clan, the Ghost or Fire Clan, the Snake Clan. They traveled slowly up the length of the continent on the west side of the mountain wall. Going was easy in the tropical country, where it was warm and there were plenty of fruits and vegetables to eat. Then the land became drier and colder. Sometimes they stopped for a year or more to plant and harvest some of the corn they carried with them. They would make homes by digging holes in the ground and roofing them with brush and poles-which people now describe as "pit houses." Then the star which was guiding them moved on, and they packed up again to follow it. The remains of these pit houses and the rock writings they made on their way are the "flags" and the "footprints" marking their long journey.
Northward and still northward the star kept leading them until they came to a land of perpetual snow and ice. At night they burrowed into snow banks and kept warm with the power of heat they were able to evoke. For water they planted the little jar of water they always carried; it became a spring which gushed forth water here just as it had in the dry deserts they had crossed to the south. They also carried
a little bowl of earth. Into this they planted seeds of corn and melon; and as they sang over it, the seeds grew into plants and the plants bore corn and melons. Such were the powers they possessed because they were still pristinely pure in this new Fourth World.
At last they reached what is now the Arctic Circle. "It is as far as we can go." they said to one another. "The way is blocked by a mountain of snow, a sea of ice. Clearly this is the Back Door of this Fourth World, which Sotuknang said was closed to us." Spider Woman; however, urged them to go on. "You have the magic powers given you. Use them. Melt this mountain of snow, this sea of ice."
The Spider Clan agreed at once, persuading the others to pool their magic powers to melt the closed Back Door-the Blue Flute Clan using the Humpbacked FLute Player to play his flute to
bring tropical warmth; the Fire Clan summoning the fire deep inside the earth; the Sun Clan invoking the heat of the sun; and the Snake CLan trying to crack the mountain of snow and the sea of ice with mighty vibrations, the snake having power to utilize the vibrations sent along the world's axis by the two Twins because he lives deep underground. Four times they tried, but failed to break through the closed Back Door.
Sotuknang then appeared to Spider Woman and said sternly, "If my Uncle, the Creator, and I, his Nephew, had allowed you to open this Back Door, disaster would have come. The melted mountain of snow and sea of ice would have flooded this new Fourth World and forever changed its shape from the way we ordained it to be. You have done wrong. Because you helped to create these people and have aided them in all their Emergencies, we have allowed you to remain young and beautiful. But now because you have disobeyed our wishes I am going to let your own thread run out. We are not going to cut it off. Just let it run out until you are an ugly old woman. Now something more. Because the Spider Clan named after you also encouraged the people to use their sacred powers wrongly, I ordain the the Spider Clan hereafter will breed wickedness and evil. That is what I had to say. Now I have said it."
So all the clans turned back from the north and returned southward along the east side of the wall of mountains until they came to Pisisvaiyu, now known as the Colorado River. The spider Clan, separating from the others, then continued on south to the place from which they all had started. The other four clans, the Fire, Blue Flute, Snake, and Sun Clans, turned eastward and traveled until they came to the Atlantic Ocean. Then they turned back and begun their slow migration to the Western limit of the land.
Drawings and source material recorded by Oswald White Bear Fredericks
Copyright 1963, by Frank Waters
ISBN 0 14 00.4527 9
Library of Congress Catalog No. 77-1558
Published by Penguin Books USA, Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10014
Paperback Edition Pages 345
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Starshyne updated 9/29/01
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