The Trail Book Part 7

"Below the hill, where the ground was made high, at one side of the steps that went up to the Place of Giving, stood the house of the Corn G.o.ddess, which was served by women. There the Seven laid up their offering of poor food before the altar and stood on the steps of the G.o.d-house until the head priestess noticed them. Wisps of incense smoke floated out of the carved doorways and the drone of the priestess like bees in a hollow log. All the people came out on their flat roofs to watch--Did I say that they had two and even three houses, one on top of the other, each one smaller than the others, and ladders that went up and down to them?--They stood on the roofs and gathered in the open square between the houses as still and as curious as antelopes, and at last the priestess of the Corn came out and spoke to us. Talk went on between her and Waits-by-the-Fire, purring, spitting talk like water stumbling among stones. Not one word did our women understand, but they saw wonder grow among the Corn Women, respect and amazement.

"Finally, we were taken into the G.o.d-house, where in the half dark, we could make out the G.o.ddess of the Corn, cut in stone, with green stones on her forehead. There were long councils between Waits-by-the-Fire and the Corn Woman and the priests that came running from the Temple of the Sun. Outside the rumor and the wonder swelled around the G.o.d-house like a sudden flood. Faces bobbed up like rubbish in the flood into the bright blocks of light that fell through the doorway, and were shifted and shunted by other faces peering in. After a long tune the note of wonder outside changed to a deep, busy hum; the crowd separated and let through women bearing food in pots and baskets. Then we knew that Waits-by-the-Fire had won."

"But what?" insisted Dorcas; "what was it that she had told them?"

"That she had had a dream which was sent by the Corn Spirit and that she and those with her were under a vow to serve the Corn for the s.p.a.ce of one growing year. And to prove that her dream was true the G.o.ddess of the Corn had revealed to her the speech of the Stone House tribe and also many hidden things. These were things which she remembered from her captivity which she told them."

"What sort of things?"

"Why, that in such a year they had had a pestilence and that the father of the Corn Woman had died of eating over-ripe melons. The Corn Women were greatly impressed. But she carried it almost too far ... perhaps ... and perhaps it was appointed from the beginning that that was the way the Corn was to come. It was while we were eating that we realized how wise she was to make us come fasting, for first the people pitied us, and then they were pleased with themselves for making us comfortable. But in the middle of it there was a great stir and a man in chief's dress came pushing through. He was the Cacique of the Sun and he was vexed because he had not been called earlier. He was that kind of a man.

"He spoke sharply to the Chief Corn Woman to know why strangers were received within the town without his knowledge.

"Waits-by-the-Fire answered quickly. 'We are guests of the Corn, O Cacique, and in my dream I seem to have heard of your hospitality to women of the Corn.' You see there had been an old story when he was young, how one of the Corn Maidens had gone to his house and had been kept there against her will, which was a discredit to him. He was so astonished to hear the strange woman speak of it that he turned and went out of the G.o.d-house without another word. The people took up the incident and whispered it from mouth to mouth to prove that the strange Shaman was a great prophet. So we were appointed a house to live in and were permitted to serve the Corn."

"But what did you do?" Dorcas insisted on knowing.

"We dug and planted. All this was new to us. When there was no work in the fields we learned the ways of cooking corn, and to make pots.

Hunting-tribes do not make pots. How should we carry them from place to place on our backs? We cooked in baskets with hot stones, and sometimes when the basket was old we plastered it with mud and set it on the fire.

But the People of the Corn made pots of coiled clay and burned it hard in the open fires between the houses. Then there was the ceremony of the Corn to learn, the prayers and the dances. Oh, we had work enough! And if ever anything was ever said or done to us which was not pleasant, Waits-by-the-Fire would say to the one who had offended, 'We are only the servants of the Corn, but it would be a pity if the same thing happened to you that happened to the grandfather of your next-door neighbor!'

"And what happened to him?"

"Oh, a plague of sores, a scolding wife," or anything that she chanced to remember from the time she had been Given-to-the-Sun. _That_ stopped them. But most of them held us to be under the protection of the Corn Spirit, and when our Shaman would disappear for two or three days--that was when she went to the mountain to visit Shungakela--_we_ said that she had gone to pray to her own G.o.ds, and they accepted that also."

"And all this time no one recognized her?"

"She had painted her face for a Shaman," said the Corn Woman slowly, "and besides it was nearly forty years. The woman who had been kind to her was dead and there was a new Priest of the Sun. Only the one who had painted her with the sign of the Sun was left, and he was doddering."

She seemed about to go on with her story, but the oldest dancing woman interrupted her.

"Those things helped," said the dancing woman, "but it was her thought which hid her. She put on the thought of a Shaman as a man puts on the thought of a deer or a buffalo when he goes to look for them. That which one fears, that it is which betrays one. She was a Shaman in her heart and as a Shaman she appeared to them."

"She certainly had no fear," said the Corn Woman, "though from the first she must have known--

"It was when the seed corn was gathered that we had the first hint of trouble," she went on. "When it was ripe the priests and Caciques went into the fields to select the seed for next year. Then it was laid up in the G.o.d-houses for the priestess of the Corn to keep. That was in case of an enemy or a famine when the people might be tempted to eat it.

After it was once taken charge of by the priestess of the Corn they would have died rather than give it up. Our women did not know how they should get the seed to bring away from the Stone House except to ask for it as the price of their year's labor."

"But couldn't you have just taken some from the field?" inquired Dorcas.

"Wouldn't it have grown just the same?"

"That we were not sure of; and we were afraid to take it without the good-will of the Corn G.o.ddess. Centcotli her name was. Waits-by-the-Fire made up her mind to ask for it on the first day of the Feast of the Corn Harvest, which lasts four days, and is a time of present-giving and good-willing. She would have got it, too, if it had been left to the Corn Women to decide. But the Cacique of the Sun, who was always watching out for a chance to make himself important, insisted that it was a grave matter and should be taken to Council. He had never forgiven the Shaman, you see, for that old story about the Corn Maiden.

"As soon as the townspeople found that the Caciques were considering whether it was proper to give seed corn to the strangers, they began to consider it, too, turning it over in their minds together with a great many things that had nothing to do with it. There had been s.m.u.t in the corn that year; there was a little every year, but this season there was more of it, and a good many of the bean pods had not filled out. I forgot," said the Corn Woman, "to speak of the beans and squashes. They were the younger sisters of the corn; they grew with the corn and twined about it. Now, every man who was a handful or two short of his crop began to look at us doubtfully. Then they would crowd around the Cacique of the Sun to argue the matter. They remembered how our Shaman had gone apart to pray to her own G.o.ds and they thought the Spirit of the Corn might have been offended. And the Cacique would inquire of every one who had a toothache or any such matter, in such a way as to make them think of it in connection with the Shaman.--In every village," the Corn Woman interrupted herself to say, "there is evil enough, if laid at the door of one person, to get her burned for a witch!"

"Was she?" Dorcas Jane squirmed with anxiety.

"She was standing on the steps at the foot of the Hill of the Sun, the last we saw of her," said the Corn Woman. "Of course, our women, not understanding the speech of the Stone Houses, did not know exactly what was going on, but they felt the changed looks of the people. They thought, perhaps, they could steal away from the town unnoticed. Two of them hid in their clothing as much Seed as they could lay hands on and went down toward the river. They were watched and followed. So they came back to the house where Waits-by-the-Fire prayed daily with her hand on the Medicine of the Sun.

"So came the last day of the feast when the sacred seed would be sealed up in the G.o.d-house. 'Have no fear,' said Waits-by-the-Fire, 'for my dream has been good. Make yourselves ready for the trail. Take food in your food bags and your carriers empty on your backs.' She put on her Shaman's dress and about the middle of the day the Cacique of the Sun sent for them. He was on the platform in front of the G.o.d-house where the steps go up to the Hill of the Sun, and the elders of the town were behind him. Priests of the Sun stood on the steps and the Corn Women came out from the temple of the Corn. As Waits-by-the-Fire went up with the Seven, the people closed in solidly behind them. The Cacique looked at the carriers on their backs and frowned.

"'Why do you come to the G.o.d-house with baskets, like laborers of the fields?' he demanded.

"'For the price of our labor, O Cacique,' said the Shaman. 'The G.o.ds are not so poor that they accept labor for nothing.'

"'Now, it is come into my heart,' said the Cacique sourly, 'that the G.o.ds are not always pleased to be served by strangers. There are signs that this is so.'

"'It may be,' said Waits-by-the-Fire, 'that the G.o.ds are not pleased.

They have long memories.' She looked at him very straight and somebody in the crowd snickered."

"But wasn't it awfully risky to keep making him mad like that?" asked Dorcas. "They could have just done anything to her!"

"She was a wise woman; she knew what she had to do. The Cacique _was_ angry. He began making a long speech at her, about how the s.m.u.t had come in the corn and the bean crop was a failure,--but that was because there had not been water enough,--and how there had been sickness. And when Waits-by-the-Fire asked him if it were only in that year they had misfortune, the people thought she was trying to prove that she hadn't had anything to do with it. She kept reminding them of things that had happened the year before, and the year before. The Cacique kept growing more and more angry, admitting everything she said, until it showed plainly that the town had had about forty years of bad luck, which the Cacique tried to prove was all because the G.o.ds had known in advance that they were going to be foolish and let strangers in to serve the Corn. At first the people grew excited and came crowding against the edge of the platform, shouting, 'Kill her! Kill the witch!' as one and then another of their past misfortunes were recalled to them.

"But, as the Shaman kept on prodding the Cacique, as hunters stir up a bear before killing him, they began to see that there was something more coming, and they stood still, packed solidly in the square to listen. On all the housetops roundabout the women and the children were as still as images. A young priest from the steps of the Hill, who thought he must back up the Cacique, threw up his arms and shouted, 'Give her to the Sun!' and a kind of quiver went over the people like the shiver of still water when the wind smites it. It was only at the time of the New Fire, between harvest and planting, that they give to the Sun, or in great times of war or pestilence. Waits-by-the-Fire moved out to the edge of the platform.

"'It is not, O People of the Sun, for what is given, that the G.o.ds grow angry, but for what is withheld,' she said, 'Is there nothing, priests of the Sun, which was given to the Sun and let go again? Think, O priests. Nothing?'

"The priests, huddled on the stairs, began to question among themselves, and Waits-by-the-Fire turned to the people. 'Nothing, O Offspring of the Sun?'

"Then she put off the Shaman's thought which had been a shield to her.

'Nothing, Toto?' she called to a man in the crowd by a name none knew him by except those that had grown up with him. She was Given-to-the-Sun, and she stood by the carved stone corn of the G.o.d-house and laughed at them, shuffling and shouldering like buffaloes in the stamping-ground, and not knowing what to think. Voices began to call for the man she had spoken to, 'Toto, O Toto!'

"The crowd swarmed upon itself, parted and gave up the figure of the ancient Priest of the Sun, for they remembered in his day how a girl who was given to the Sun had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the G.o.ds out of sight of the people. They pushed him forward, doddering and peering. They saw the woman put back her Shaman's bonnet from her head, and the old priest clap his hand to his mouth like one suddenly astonished.

"Over the Cacique's face came a cold glint like the coming of ice on water. 'You,' he said, 'you are Given-to-the-Sun?' And he made a gesture to the guard to close in on her.

"'Given-to-the-Sun,' she said. 'Take care how you touch that which belongs to the G.o.ds, O Cacique!'

"And though he still smiled, he took a step backward.

"'So,' he said, 'you are that woman and this is the meaning of those prophecies!'

"'I am that woman and that prophet,' she said with her hand at her throat and looked from priests to people. 'O People of the Sun, I have heard you have a charm,' she said,--'a Medicine of the Sun called the Eye of the Sun, strong Medicine.'

"No one answered for a while, but they began to murmur among themselves, and at last one shouted that they had such a charm, but it was not for witches or for runaway slave women.

"You _had_ such a charm,' she said, for she knew well enough that the sacred charm was kept in the G.o.d-house and never shown to the people except on very great occasions. She was sure that the priests had never dared to tell the people that their Sacred Stone had disappeared with the escaped captive.

"Given-to-the-Sun took the Medicine bag from her neck and swung it in her fingers. _'Had!'_ she said mockingly. The people gave a growl; another time they would have been furious with fright and anger, but they did not wish to miss a syllable of what was about to happen. The priests whispered angrily with the guard, but Given-to-the-Sun did not care what the priests did so long as she had the people. She signed to the Seven, and they came huddling to her like quail; she put them behind her.

"'Is it not true, Children of the Sun, that the favor of the Sun goes with the Eye of the Sun and it will come back to you when the Stone comes back?'

"They muttered and said that it was so.

"'Then, will your priests show you the Eye of the Sun or shall I show you?'

"There was a shout raised at that, and some called to the priests to show the Stone, and others that the woman would bring trouble on them all with her offenses. But by this time they knew very well where the Stone was, and the priests were too astonished to think of anything.

Slowly the Shaman drew it out of the Medicine bag--"