Aw-Aw-Tam Indian Nights Part 16

A SONG OF THE DOCTOR WHOSE SNAKE THREW DOWN THE VAHAHKKEE

I made the black snake; And he went across and wounded the vahahkkee.

NOTES ON THE STORY OF EE-EE-TOY'S ARMY AND THAT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE VAHAHKKEES

In the Story of Ee-ee-toy's Army we come to an amusing superst.i.tion of the Pimas. There is a funny little creature in Arizona, related to the tarantula, perhaps, which the Pimas say is very poisonous, and which is certainly very quick in motion and the hardest thing to kill I ever saw. It is covered with a sort of fuzzy hair, which blows in the wind, and is sometimes red and sometimes yellow or white. Now there seems to be a connection in the Indian mind between this way-heem-mahl, as they name him, and this story of Ee-ee-toy's Army. The bands, it is related, were distinguished by certain colors--some took red, and some yellow and white, for their badge-color. And the Pimas of today suppose themselves descended from these bands, and some clans claim that the bands of the red were their forbears, and some trace back to the bands of yellow and white. And not many years back there was a rivalry between these, and the wayheemmahls, having the same colors, were identified with the bands, and the Pimas descended from a band of a certain color would not kill a wayheemmahl of that color, or willingly permit others to do so, but would eagerly kill wayheemmahls of the opposite color. If, then, a Pima of the red faction saw a yellow wayheemmahl, running over the ground, he was quick to jump on it; but if a Pima of the yellow stood near he would resent this attack on his relation, and a hair-pulling fight would result. This custom is probably altogether obsolete now.

It will be noticed that the fantastic explanations of why gyihhaws are now carried by the women, is contradicted by the carrying of gyihhaws by various women in previous stories.

The closing of the earth cuts down the six bands to four and a fraction.

Wardances, and extravagant and boastful speeches prophesying success, seem to have preceded all the military movements of the Awawtam.

The creation of deer in this story, by Ee-ee-toy, is contrary to their presence in earlier tales, as in that of Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai.

The careful mention of the sickness and death of an apparently unimportant woman is curious, and hard to explain. Perhaps this was the inauguration of the pestilence.

The Story of the Destruction of the Vahahkkees has the most historic interest of any.

The uniting of the bands by the "Light" is very curious. My Indians could not tell me what this was, only something occult and mysterious by which they had clairvoyant ken of each other's needs. Its use appears in the fight at Cheof Seevick.

The resemblance to the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is remarkable in the exploit of the Bow Doctor, and the crossing of the Rio Colorado.

The Choochawf Awawtam appear to have been cave-dwellers, and my Indians were confused in memory as to whether they were encountered on the hither or far side of the Colorado.

The statement that the closing of the waters left the Yumas and Maricopas on the far bank of the Colorado is likely only a mahkai's fanciful attempt to explain their presence there. As the Indians of the Yuman stock speak an entirely different language from the Indians of the Piman stock, it is unlikely they were united in the original invading army. There is no other evidence that there ever was any alliance between them till the Maricopas, fearing extermination from the Yumas, joined the Pimas sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Comalk Hawkkih gave me this account of the coming in of the Maricopas: The Yumas and the Maricopas were once all one people, but there was a jealousy between two sons of a chief, one of whom was a favorite of his father, and one killed the other, and this grew to a civil war. The defeated party, the Maricopas, went first to Hot Springs, where they staid awhile, and then to Gila Bend, but each time the Yumas followed and attacked them and drove them on. Fearing extermination they came to the Pimas for protection. The Pimas adopted them. Now began war between Yumas and Mohaves on one side, and Pimas, Papagoes and Maricopas on the other. There were only two battles after the Maricopas came in, but in the second battle all the Yuma warriors engaged were killed, and the Mohaves had to flee over the mountain, and only a part of these escaped. This battle was fought at what is now called Maricopa Mountain.

So terrible was the defeat, that to this day the Yumas hold an annual "Cry," or lamentation, in memory of it. Their old foes are invited, and if any Pima or Maricopa attends he is given a horse. This war reduced both Yumas and Maricopas to a mere remnant.

Since then the Maricopas have lived with the Pimas, and in customs are almost exactly similar, except that they burn their dead, and still speak their distinctive language.

They are a taller, larger race than the Pimas, more restless, said to be quicker witted, but more inclined to vice, and to be rapidly dying out; while the Pimas yet hold their own in numbers, despite recent inroads of tuberculosis.

THE STORY OF SOHAHNEE MAHKAI AND k.a.w.kOINPUH

Now when the bands were going thru this country they had selected the places for their homes, expecting to return, and each band, as it selected its place, drove down short sticks so as to know it again.

And after returning across the Rio Colorado the bands went again to these places which they had selected and settled there.

Only the Toehawnawh Awawtam (the Papagoes) did not at first go to their selected place, but went on beyond Awn-kee Ack-kee-mull, the Salt River, to where is now Lehi.

And there was one doctor among them named So-hah-nee Mahkai, and he had no child, but he had found one of the children belonging to the country, which had been left alive, and he had adopted it for his own. And he went on and lived by himself at the place then called Vah-kah-k.u.m, but now named Stcheu-a-dack-a-Vahf, or Green Cliff.

And the Aw-up, or Apaches, were a part of the original people of this country, and this child which Sohahnee Mahkai had adopted was an Apache.

And when he had grown up to be quite a large boy the Apaches planned to capture Sohahnee Mahkai; but Sohahnee Mahkai knew of this and told the boy to go to a place where he had been clearing up a farm and to find the stick there with which he had been cutting down bushes, and to dig a hole there under the bushes, and then to come back home and eat his supper. And after he had eaten his supper he was to return to the place where the stick was, and hide in the hole under the bushes which were there.

And the boy's name was Kaw-koin-puh, and he dug the hole under the bushes, as he was directed, and returned for his supper.

And then Sohahnee Mahkai said to him: "Now to-night the Apaches will come to kill me, but here is a basket-box which I want you to have after I am dead. And when you are safe in your hole you will hear when they come to kill me. But don't you come out till they are far enuf away. Then come and find my body, no matter whether h is here or dragged away. And when you find it, do not mind how stained and b.l.o.o.d.y it is, but fall upon it, and put your mouth to mine, and inhale, and thus you will inherit my power. And when you leave my body, do not attempt to follow after the Apaches, for they would surely kill you, for tho you are one of them they would not know that, because you do not speak their language. But I want you to return to where we left some people at the place called Vik-kuh-svan-kee."

So the boy took the little basket-box, and went to his hole, and early in the evening the Apaches came and surrounded the house, and staid there till near morning, and then began the attack. And the boy could hear the fighting, and could hear Sohahnee Mahkai yell every time his arrow killed anyone; and he could hear the old woman, his wife, shout out in her exultation, too. And it was after the sun was up that the old woman was killed; and then Sohahnee Mahkai ran out and the Apaches chased him and killed him, and said: "Now let us cut him open and find what it is that made him so brave, and enabled him to kill so many of us." And they cut him open and found under his heart a feather of the chicken hawk.

And the Apaches took that feather, and that is how they are so brave and even if there are only two of them will often attack their enemies and kill some of them.

And after the Apaches were far away the boy came out of his hole and found the old woman, and from there tracked till he found the old man; and he fell over him, as he had been told, and inhaled four times; and then he went to Vikkuhsvankee, but he got there at night, and did not attempt to go into any house, but staid outside all night in the bushes.

And in the morning a girl came and found the boy, and went back and told the people there was some one outside who was a stranger there, some one with short hair. And they came and stood around him, and teased him, and threw dirt at him, until finally he cried out: "Don't you remember me, who I am? My name is k.a.w.koinpuh and I was here once, but went away with the doctor, Sohahnee Mahkai. And now the Apaches have killed him and the old woman, his wife, and I am left alone."

And when he said this the people remembered him, and took him by the hand, and led him to a doctor named Gawk-siss Seev-a-lick, who adopted him, and he was treated nicely because he was a good hunter and used to keep the doctor in plenty of game.

And the doctor had a daughter, and when she was old enuf he gave her to k.a.w.koinpuh for his wife. And k.a.w.koinpuh staid with his wife's people; and his wife expected a child, and wanted different things to eat. So k.a.w.koinpuh left home and went to the mountain called Vahpkee, and there got her a lot of the greens called choohookyuh. And after a while he wanted to go again, but she said: "Do not go now, for the weather is bad. Wait till it is more pleasant." But he said, "I am going now," and he went.

And this time he was hunting wood rats instead of greens, and he had killed three and was trying to scare out the fourth one, where he could shoot it, when the Apaches came and surrounded him a good ways off.

He saw them and ran for home, but there were many Apaches in front of him, and they headed him off.

But he jumped up and down and sideways, as Sohahnee Mahkai had done, shooting and killing so many that finally he broke thru their ring, and started for home. But he kept turning back and shooting at them as he ran. And one of them came near and was about to kill him, but he shot first and killed the Apache. And then another came near and this time the Apache shot first, and so k.a.w.koinpuh was killed.

And when evening came, Gawksiss Seevalick came out, and called aloud, and invited the people to his house, and asked them if any had seen his son, k.a.w.koinpuh; who had seen him last; for he knew something had happened to him, as he always came home after his hunt, because he loved his home. But n.o.body had seen anything of k.a.w.koinpuh, because no one had been out, the weather being bad.

But Gawksiss Seevalick knew the boy was killed, because he was a doctor, and there is a being above, called Vee-ips-chool, who is always sad and who makes people sad when anything bad has happened.

So they went out the next morning, and tracked the boy, and came to where he had killed the wood-rats, and then they found the tracks of the Apaches, and then found a great many Apaches whom he had killed, and finally they found his body.

The Apaches had cut him open, and taken out his bowels and wound them around bushes, and cut off his arms and legs and hung them on trees. And one of the men, there, told them to get wood and to gather up these parts of k.a.w.koinpuh's body and burn them. And some of the people remained behind and did this, and then all went home.

And in the evening Gawksiss Seevalick again called the people together and sang them a song to express his grief.

And the next morning he went with his daughter to where k.a.w.koinpuh had been burned, and there they found some blood still remaining and buried it. And that evening again he called the people together, and said: "You see what has happened; we have lost one of our number. We ought not to stay here, but to return to the place we first selected." And the people took his advice and got their things ready and started.

And they went slow because they were on foot, and it took them four nights to get to the place where they wanted to go. And the first night there was no singing, but the second night there was a doctor named Geo-goot-a-nom-k.u.m who sang a song for them; and the third night there was a doctor named Geo-deck-why-nom-k.u.m who sang a song for them; and on the fourth night there was a doctor named Mahn-a-vanch-kih who sang for them a song.