Unwritten Literature of the Hopi — Chapter XI, Stories Told Today, Part 4

* * * * * One of the most pleasant memories the writer has kept of her Hopi story-tellers is that of wholesome Mother Sacknumptewa of Oraibi.

She must be middle-aged, and is surprisingly young-looking to be the mother of her big family of grown-up sons and daughters.

She wore a brand-new dress of pretty yellow and white print, made in the full Hopi manner, and her abundant black hair was so clean and well brushed that it was actually glossy.

Her house was spic and span and shining with a new interior coat of white gypsum.

Her long Indian name, Guanyanum, means "all the colors of the butterflies."

It was late afternoon, and she sat on the clean clay floor of her house and husked a great pile of young green corn for supper, as she told me the two little fables that follow.

There was a poise and graciousness about this woman, quite outstanding; yet she was a simple, smiling, motherly person who often laughed quietly, or broke into a rhythmic crooning song as she imitated her characters.

Several of her grown children gathered round and laughed with hearty approval at her impersonations, and at last her husband came in smiling and sat near, joining in the songs of the frog and the locust, to the great merriment of their children.

=The Coyote and the Turtle,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa "A long time ago, there were many turtles living in the Little Colorado River near Homolovi, southeast of Winslow, where Hopi used to live.

And there was a coyote living there too, and of course, he was always hungry.

"Now one day the turtles decided they would climb out of the river and go hunt some food, for there was a kind of cactus around there that they like very much.

But one of the turtles had a baby and she didn't like to wake it up and take it with her because it was sleeping so nicely.

So they just went along and left the baby asleep.

"After a while the little turtle woke up and he said, 'Where is my mother?

She must have gone somewhere and left me.

O, I must go and find her!'

"So the baby turtle saw that the others had crawled up the bank, and he followed their tracks for a little way.

But he soon got tired and just stopped under a bush and began to cry.

(Note: Her imitation of the crying was good.

H.

G.

L.

) "Now the coyote was coming along and he heard the poor little turtle crying.

So he came up and said, 'That's a pretty song; now go on and sing for me.'

"But the baby turtle said, I'm not singing, I'm crying.'

"'Go on and sing,' said the coyote, 'I want to hear you sing.'

"'I can't sing,' said the poor baby, 'I'm crying and I want my mother.'

"'You'd better sing for me, or I'll eat you up,' said the big hungry coyote.

"'O, I can't sing--I just can't stop crying,' said the baby, and he cried harder and harder.

"'Well,' the big coyote said, 'if you don't sing for me I'm going to eat you right up.'

The coyote was mad, and he was very hungry.

'All right, then, I'll just eat you,' he said.

Now the little turtle thought of something.

So he said, 'Well, I can't sing, so I guess you'll have to eat me.

But that's all right, for it won't hurt me any; here inside of my shell I'll go right on living inside of you.'

"Now the coyote thought about this a little bit and didn't like the idea very well.

"Then the baby turtle said, 'You can do anything you want with me, just so you don't throw me into the river, for I don't want to drown.'

"Now the old coyote was pretty mad and he wanted to be as mean as possible.

So he just picked that baby up in his mouth and carried him over to the river and threw him in.

"Then the baby turtle was very happy; he stuck his little head out of his shell and stretched out his feet and started swimming off toward the middle of the river.

And he said, 'Goodbye, Mr. Coyote, and thank you very much for bringing me back to my house so that I didn't have to walk back.'

And the little turtle laughed at the old coyote, who got madder and madder because he had let the little turtle go.

But he couldn't get him now, so he just went home.

And the baby turtle was still laughing when his mother got home, and she laughed too.

And those turtles are still living in that water.

(Note: Here is manifest all the subtlety of "The Tar Baby," though generations older.

H.

G.

L.

) =The Frog and the Locust,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa "Qowakina was a place where Paqua, the frog, lived.

One day he was sitting on a little wet ground singing a prayer for rain, for it was getting very hot and dry and that was Paqua's way of bringing the rain, so he had a very good song like this.

(Note: Here she sang a pretty little song, very rhythmic, and her body swayed gently in time to the music.

It occurred to the writer that this would make a good bedtime story and the little song, a lullaby, for it went on and on with pleasing variation.

H.

G.

L.

) "Not far away Mahu, the locust, was sitting in a bush, and he was singing too, for he was getting pretty dusty and the weather was very hot, and so he, too, was praying for rain.

He has a very nice song for rain, and it goes this way.

(Note: Here came a lovely little humming song whose words could not be interpreted, since they were but syllables and sounds having no meaning in English.

However, these sounds had a definite order and rhythm.

At this point the husband smilingly joined in the song, and the unison of both sounds and rhythm was perfect.

H.

G.

L.

) "By and by the locust heard the frog, so he came over and asked him what he was doing.

The frog said he was hot and wanted it to rain; that's why he was singing.

Then the locust said, 'Now isn't that strange, that's exactly what I do to make it rain, too, and that's the best thing to do.'

So they both sang.

"Pretty soon they noticed that the clouds had been coming up while they were singing, and before long it rained, and they both were happy.

"After this they were always great friends because they had found out they both had the same idea about something."

XII. CONCLUSION