“There is such a knife,” said Ho-tiwa. “It belongs to the Ancient Days, and only the gods, and two men know it. It shall be as she says. The god of the sky has brought the woman and has brought the child, and on the face of the child is set the light of the moon that the Hopi people will never again doubt that the gods can do these things.”
And there was a council at which all the old men talked through the night and the day. And while they talked, the rain poured in a flood from the gray sky, until men said this might be magic, for the woman might have brought witchcraft.
But the old chief said no evil craft could have brought the good rain:–The wind and the rain had come from the south as the girl had come from the south, and the light on the face of the child was a symbol that it was sacred.
Then one man, who had been an Apache prisoner, and found his way back, told of a strange thing;–that forty days to the south where the birds of the green feathers were, a new people had come out of the Eastern sea, and were white. The great kings made sacrifices for them, and planted prayer plumes before them–for they were called the new gods of the water and the sunrise.
And the girl had come from the south!
Yet another reminded the council that the words of the girl were Te-hua words, and the Te-hua people lived East of Ci-bo-la and Ah-ko–the farthest east of the stone house building people.
“Since these are her only words, the child shall be named in the way of that people,” said Ho-tiwa. “The sacred fire was lit at the birth, and on the fourth morning my woman will give the name in the Te-hua way, and throw the fire to burn all evil from his path, and the sacred corn will guard his sleep. Some of you younger men never have heard of the great Te-hau god. Tell it to them, Atoki, then they will know why a Te-hua never sends away a poor stranger who comes to them.”
The man who knew Te-hua words, and had seen the wonderful Te-hua valley in his youth, sent smoke from his ceremonial pipe to the four ways of the gods, and then to the upper and nether worlds, and spoke:
“Aliksai! I will tell of the Te-hua god as it was told to me by the old man of Kah-po in the time of starving when I went with the men for the sacred corn of the seed planting:
“The thing I tell is the true thing!
“It was time for a god to walk on the earth, and one was born of the piñon tree and a virgin who rested under the shadow of its arms. The girl was very poor, and her people were very poor; when the piñon nut fell in her bosom, and the winds told her a son was sent to her to rest beneath her heart, she was very sad, for there was no food.
“But wonderful things happened. The Spirits of the Mountain brought to her home new and strange food, and seeds to plant for harvest:–new seeds of the melon, and big seed of the corn:–before that time the seeds of the corn were little seeds. When the child was born, strange things happened, and the eagles fly high above till the sky was alive with wings. The boy was very poor, and so much a boy of dreams that he was the one to be laughed at for the visions. But great wise thoughts grew out of his mountain dreams, and he was so great a wizard that the old men chose him for Po-Ahtun-ho, which means Ruler of Things from the Beginning. And the dreamer who had been born of the maid and the piñon tree was the Ruler. He governed even the boiling water from the heart of the hills, and taught the people that the sickness was washed away by it. His wisdom was beyond earth wisdom, and his visions were true. The land of that people became a great land, and they had many blue stones and shells. Then it was that they became proud. One day the god came as a stranger to their village:–a poor stranger, and they were not kind to him! The proud hearts had grown to be hard hearts, and only fine strangers would they talk with. He went away from that people then. He said hard words to them and went away. He went to the South to live in a great home in the sea. When he comes back they do not know, but some day he comes back,–or some night! He said he would come back to the land when the stars mark the time when they repent, and one night in seven the fire is lit on the hills by the villages, that the earth-born god, Po-se-yemo, may see it if he should come, and may see that his people are faithful and are waiting for him to come.
“Because of the day when the god came, and they turned him away for that his robe was poor, and his feet were bare;–because of that day, no poor person is turned hungry from the door of that people. And the old men say this is because the god may come any day from the South, and may come again as a poor man.
“And this was told to us by the Te-hua men when we went for seed corn in that starving time, and were not sent away empty. Aliksai!”
The men drew long breaths of awe and approval when the story was ended. The old man who had found the girl knew that the girl had found friends.
But the mysterious coincidence of her coming as the rain came–and from the south–and the fair child!
Again the man who had been a prisoner with the Apaches was asked to tell of the coming of the white gods in the south where the Mexic people lived. He knew but little. No Apache had seen them, but Indian traders of feathers had said it was so.
The men smoked in silence and then one said:–“Even if it be so, could the girl come alone so far through the country of the hostile people?”
“There is High Magic to help sometimes,” reminded the old chief. “When magic has been used only for sacred things it can do all things! We can ask if she has known a white god such as the trader told of to our enemies.”
And the two oldest men went to the house of Ho-tiwa’s wife, and stood by the couch of the girl, and they sprinkled sacred meal, and sat in prayer before they spoke.
And the girl said, “My name is Mo-wa-thé (Flash Of Light) and the name of my son is Tahn-té (Sunlight). We may stay while these seeds grow into grain, and into trees, and bear harvest. But not always may we be with you, for a God of the Sky may claim his son.”
And she took three seeds from the fold of the girdle she had worn. They were strange seeds of another land.
The old men looked at each other, and remembered that to the mother of the Te-hua god, strange seeds had been given, and they trembled, and the man of the Te-hau words spoke:
“You come from the south where strange things may happen. On the trail of that south, heard you or saw you–the white god?”
And she drew the child close, and looked in its face, and said, “Yes–a white god!–the God of the Great Star.”
And the old men sprinkled the sacred meal to the six points, and told the council, and no one was allowed to question Mo-wa-thé ever again.
The seeds were planted near the well of Sik-yat-ki, and grew there. One was the tree of the peach, another of the yellow pear, and the grain was a grain of the wheat. The pear tree and the wheat could not grow well in the sands of the desert, only enough to bring seed again, but the peach grew in the shadow of the mesa, and the people had great joy in it, and only the men of the council knew they came from the gods.
And so it was in the beginning.
CHAPTER II
THE DAY OF THE SIGN
Mo-wa-thé,–the mother of Tahn-té, drew with her brush of yucca fibre the hair-like lines of black on the ceremonial bowl she was decorating. Tahn-té, slender, and nude, watched closely the deft manipulations of the crude tools;–the medicine bowls for the sacred rites were things of special interest to him–for never in the domestic arrangement of the homes of the terraces did he see them used. He thought the serrated edges better to look at than the smooth lines of the home dishes.
“Why can I not know what is that put into them?” he demanded.
“Only the Ancient Ruler and the medicine-men know the sacred thing for ‘Those Above.’”
He wriggled like a beautiful bronze snake to the door and lay there, his chin propped on his hands, staring out across the plain–six hundred feet below their door–only a narrow ledge–scarcely the length