The Delight Makers. Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
placed it on her head. With this load she climbed up the rugged slope leading to the dwellings of the Water clan, to which Zashue belonged. The lad was sitting in the cave inhabited by his family, busying himself with straightening arrow shafts over the fire, when the girl, pushing before her the loaded tray, crept through the port-hole. Silently she placed the food before him, and went out again without a word. This was her affirmative reply to his wooing. Thereafter, Zashue visited the quarters of the Gourd people at the big house every night. Along the foot of the cliffs, in soft ground, and in a lonely sheltered spot, he meanwhile planted four stakes connected by cross-poles. From end to end cotton threads were drawn lengthwise, and here Zashue wove a cotton wrap day after day. The girl would steal out to this place also, carrying food to the young artisan. She would cleanse his hair while they chatted quietly, shyly at first, about the present and the future. When the mantle was done and it looked white and firm, Zashue brought it to Say Koitza's mother, who forthwith understood the intention of his gift, and felt gratified at the prospect of securing a son-in-law who possessed cotton. The plant was not cultivated near the upper Rio Grande at that time, and had to be obtained from the far south by barter. Many journeys distant, Pueblo Indians lived also, and thither the Queres went at long intervals to trade and to hunt the buffalo on the southwestern plains.
Topanashka also was pleased with the suitor. In due course of time Zashue Tihua and Say Koitza, therefore, became man and wife.
Zashue proved to be a good husband, according to Indian ideas. He worked and hunted dutifully, providing the storerooms of Tanyi Hanutsh with supplies of which his wife, and through her he also, enjoyed the benefit. He spun cotton and wove it into wraps, scarfs, and sashes. Furthermore, he was always good-natured and merry. He did not spend too many nights out of his wife's home, either. They had three children, Okoya, Shyuote, and a little girl. Of these Shyuote became the father's favourite, for when the child was yet small it happened that his father made a vow to make a Koshare of him. Zashue was a Delight Maker himself, and one of the merriest of that singular crew. Among them he was perhaps the most popular; for while good-looking, his strength and agility enabled him to perform in a conspicuous manner, and his ready wit and quick conception of everything ludicrous caused him to shine as a great light among that society of official jesters.
So the two lived in quiet and sober content. Zashue was pleased with his spouse. She kept her looks well with advancing years, and while there is never among Indians that complete intimacy between man and wife which engenders fidelity under all circumstances, while a certain freedom of action is always permitted to the man toward the other sex, Say had natural tact enough to never pry into such matters. She, in turn, did her duty. Always at home, she faithfully fulfilled her obligations as head of the house, and naturally shrank from all society but that of her own sex and such men as were allied to her by near ties of relationship. When she told her father in that sad interview that she was faithful to her husband, Say had told the truth. And yet there was something that caused her to plead guilty.
The family had lived contentedly, and no cloud appeared to hang over them until, a few years previous to the date of our story, Say Koitza fell ill from want of proper care. Mountain fever is not infrequently fatal, and it was mountain fever that had seized upon the delicate frame of the little woman. This fever is often tenacious and intermittent; sometimes it is congestive. Indian medicine may cure a slight attack, and prevent too frequent returns of more violent ones; but if the case is a serious one, Indian remedies are of no avail. Say suffered from a slight attack at first, and recovered from it. A primitive cold-water treatment was effective for the time being; but in the year ensuing fever set in again, and no sudorific was of any use. She tried a decoction of willow bark, but it did her no good. She took the root of the yucca, or soapweed, and drank the froth produced by whipping water with it, but gained no relief. The poor woman did not know that these remedies are not employed by the Indians in a case like hers, but only for toothache and, in the case of soapweed, for consumption.
Thus it went on for three years. During the dry seasons there were no signs of the illness; but as soon as, in July or August, thunderstorms shed their moisture over the mountains, and chilly nights alternated with warm sunshine, the fever made its appearance. Two years before the rainy season had lasted unusually long, and it was followed immediately by snow-falls. The attacks from the disease were therefore unusually violent, and by November Say Koitza thought herself dying from weakness and exhaustion. Her condition was such that her husband felt alarmed, and every effort was made to relieve her by the aid of such arts as the Indian believes in. The chief medicine-man, or great shaman, of the tribe had to come and see the patient, pray by her side, and then go home to fast and mortify himself for four consecutive days. His efforts had no effect whatever. Every indigenous medicine that was thought of had been already used, and none had been of any avail.
At last the shaman, encouraged by the many blue and green stones, cotton wraps, and quantities of corn meal which Zashue Tihua contributed in reward of his juggleries, resolved to make a final trial by submitting himself and his associates to the dangerous ordeal of fire-eating for the invalid's sake. This ceremony was always performed by a certain group of medicine-men, called therefore Hakanyi Chayani, or Fire Shamans. The Hishtanyi Chayan was their official head, and he, with the four others belonging to the fire-eating crew, fasted rigorously for four days and nights. Then they went to the house of Say Koitza, and in her presence sang the powerful song, while each one of them in turn waved a burning bunch of long dry grass to the six sacred regions, and each time bit off a piece of the burning weed and chewed it. When all had gone through the performances, and their mouths were well filled with ashes, each one gravely stepped up to the invalid, and spat the contents of his mouth in her face. Then they departed as quietly as they had come, and went home to await the results of the wonderful remedy.[5] It was a last, a supreme effort.
The condition of Say could not fail to arouse the sympathies of her own sex, even outside of her clan. Many were the calls from compassionate women. They would drop in, squat down, tender their services, suggest remedies, and gossip. Only one woman made herself directly useful, and that was Shotaye, a member of the Water clan. Shotaye was a strange woman. Nobody liked her, and yet many applied to her for relief in secret; for Shotaye possessed great knowledge of plants and other remedies, and she had a keen practical sense. But people dreaded her; she lived alone in her cave among the abodes of the Water people, and nobody knew but she might know more than the official medicine-men themselves. In short, the majority of the tribe believed that Shotaye was a witch; but the woman was so wary that nobody could prove her to be one.
Shotaye was not an old woman. Her appearance was not in the least repulsive, on the contrary. The men knew that the woman showed no objections to occasional attentions, even to intimacy. For this reason, also, she was not popular among her own sex.
Shotaye had had a husband once; but he had left her and was living with another woman. That husband was called Tyope, badger, a man of strong physique and one averse to monotony in conjugal life. Tyope was a scheming man, cunning and unscrupulous in the highest degree; Shotaye an energetic woman, endowed with a powerful will of her own. Had there not been the little cloud of marital inconstancy on both sides, the pair would have been well-assorted for good as well as for evil. Tyope was a Koshare rather than an agriculturist, he spent his time mostly in other people's homes and in the estufa of the Delight Makers, leaving his wife to provide for herself and for him also, whenever he chose to remain at her house. In short there were flaws on both sides, and Shotaye being the house-mistress held the main power. One fine evening when Tyope presented himself in the grotto occupied by his wife, she refused to recognize him any longer. He protested, he stormed, he menaced her; it was of no avail. Shotaye told him to go, and he left. Henceforth the two were mortal enemies. The woman said little; but he was bent upon her destruction by every possible means. She kept on the defensive, avoided all conflicts, and was very careful not to give any cause for a direct accusation of sorcery. She cured people incidentally, never asking any compensation for it. She lived alone, and thus earned