Most of the people were still busy with their social dances; but
the chiefs and medicine men and the good people, when they had the
news, began to climb the reeds. In this they were helped by the two
Gods of Hard Substances, who made the reeds firm. These people
managed to crawl through the hole in the sky. But those who had
given their time to frivolous things were shaken from the reeds by
the chiefs, and they dropped back into the Underworld, and the hole
in the sky was stopped up.
Search for the new home was then begun. But the head chief’s
daughter died. This delayed things. He believed that some powerful
witch had come out of the Underworld with them, so he called the
people together and made some medicine of cornmeal, saying that the
meal would fall on the witch’s head. It did fall on a girl’s head.
The chief then decided to throw this witch back into the
Underworld; but when he looked down through the hole in the sky he
saw his daughter playing there, in the old place, as a little
child; and he knew then that everyone went back to the Underworld
after death.
Now the witch told the chief that if she might live with him he
would be kept from many hardships and difficulties, and that some
day his daughter would return to him. So the witch was spared.
It was utter darkness when the Hopi arrived on the earth. They
counseled, and sought a means to create light. They cut out a round
piece of buckskin, and on it put bits of the hearts of birds and
beasts, and of all the people, and then told the buckskin to give
forth light.
But this was not powerful enough. So they took white cotton cloth,
and put the bits of their hearts on it, and set it in the East for
the Sun. Thus the Sun gave light for every living thing, and to-day
we all welcome its coming up in the East.
The head chief then called the mocking bird, and told him to give
to each group a language. The older brother’s people received the
first language, which is that of the white men.
The clans now went in different directions. The older brother of
the chief, with his people, was directed to go where the Sun rises,
and to stay there. In time of trouble he would be sent for. The
chief told him not to be baptized into any strange fraternity.
Then the clans went their several ways, each to find a country.
They would travel for a distance, and stop to raise a crop of corn,
and then go on. Sometimes they stayed at places two or three years.
And the older brother, with those who made up his company, traveled
fast to the East, and has not yet returned.
The Ghost clan finally arrived at Moencopi, and there too came the
Smoke and the Spider clans. The Bear clan reached Chimopovi. Two
brothers were chiefs of this division, and one of them settled
Oraibi, where the Ghost and other clans later joined them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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