American Museum of Natural History -- Fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction; Nature stories, American; Western stories
"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 gods 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
god-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 snatched away by the gods 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 gods, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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