"'He accordingly apportioned some of each to every tribe and clan, and
thus it is down to the present day. Then those above (that is, the
Sun-father and the Moon-mother), mindful lest the people on their long
journey to the appointed abiding-place succumb to weariness and fall by
the way, made for them a koshare, a delight-maker. His body was painted
in diagonal sections of black and white, and his head, in lieu of the
regulation feather-decorations, was fantastically arrayed in withered
corn-leaves.
"'This koshare began at once to dance and tumble. Then the people
laughed, and were glad. And ever from that day, in their wanderings in
search of a satisfactory settling-place in the solid centre of the big
weary world, the koshare led them bravely and well.
"'He it was who danced and jested to make happiness among the people.
His it was to smile on the planted maize till it sprouted and flowered
in the fertile bottoms, to beam joyously on the growing fruit, that it
might ripen in its season.
"'From that day there have been delight-makers in all the Pueblo tribes.
The koshare became in time with them an organization, as the
Free-masons, or the Knights of Pythias, with us. This necessity, we are
told, arose from the fact that among the Pueblos there were summer
people who enjoy the sunshine, and winter people,--people who
determinedly prefer to live in the dark and cold.'
"Is it not so," said Leon, turning down a leaf and closing his book,
"with every people on the face of the earth?
"Is not the 'delight-maker,'--the koshare,--under various names and
guises, still in demand? It has struck me," continued he, looking
quizzically at this disgruntled assemblage, "that the koshare might be
an acceptable addition to our despondent circle."
"Amen!" fervently responded the Methodist minister.
"Right you are," said the Harvard man. "Write me as one who approves the
koshare!"
"Yes! yes!" eagerly exclaimed approving voices. "Let us have the koshare
here and at once!"
"A capital move," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw (born and reared in the
climatic belt of clubdom, and regent of a Chapter of Daughters of the
Revolution). "Let us have a Koshare Club."
"Good!" echoed Mrs. Fairlee, among her intimates surnamed "the Pourer,"
because of her amiable readiness to undertake for her friends the
helpful office that among afternoon tea-circles has been distinguished
by that name. "We might give afternoon teas to the members."
"And why not have recitations, with humorous selections?" bashfully
suggested the gray-eyed school-mistress, who rejoiced in a fine-toned
voice and in a diploma from the School of Oratory.
"Yes, indeed; and music, acting, and dancing, and all manner of high
jinks," exclaimed Miss Louise, who, an accomplished musician, and
distinguished for her amateur acting, with her superb health and
unfailing flow of spirits, might be counted in as a born koshare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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