Storyteller Read online

  Performing the witchery

  for suffering

  for torment

  for the stillborn

  the deformed

  the sterile

  the dead.

  Whirling

  Whirling

  Whirling

  Whirling

  set into motion now

  set into motion.

  So the other witches said

  “Okay you win; you take the prize,

  but what you said just now—

  it isn’t so funny

  It doesn’t sound so good.

  We are doing okay without it

  we can get along without that kind of thing.

  Take it back.

  Call that story back.”

  But the witch just shook its head

  at the others in their stinking animal skins, fur

  and feathers.

  It’s already turned loose.

  It’s already coming.

  It can’t be called back.

  Juana Quicero

  The Navajos say the black peaks in this valley are drops of blood that fell from a dying monster that the Twin Brothers fought and fatally wounded.

  Estoy-eh-muut and the Kunideeyahs

  Estoy-eh-muut, Arrowboy, had not been married

  very long before he started to feel

  something was not as it should be.

  Something felt out of place

  but he didn’t know what it was.

  At first he thought

  it must be the long hours

  spent in his fields

  the worry over the drought

  and the spring that went dry.

  But one evening

  when he was visiting his parents

  his sister asked

  who had been sick at his house

  the night before.

  “No one,” Estoy-eh-muut told her.

  “I saw someone last night,”

  his sister told him,

  “when I got up with the baby—I happened to look

  across the plaza and I saw someone

  going out your door.”

  “You must have been dreaming,” Estoy-eh-muut told her.

  “I would have heard if anyone went out.”

  Days passed and still Estoy-eh-muut felt

  something was out of place.

  He slept all night

  without dreaming

  but in the morning he was exhausted.

  As he worked in the fields

  the heat made him dizzy and weak.

  The corn plants had been sickly that year

  and the worms devoured all the bean plants.

  When he told his wife, Kochininako.

  that he was afraid something was happening

  she only laughed

  and told him to get to bed earlier.

  So he did

  but the next morning

  he went to see

  old Spider Woman,

  who always helped the people

  whenever they faced great difficulties.

  She was sitting under a snakeweed plant

  near the entrance to her house.

  “Oh you poor thing!” Spider Woman said

  when she saw him.

  “Have you been sick?

  Come inside, rest awhile.”

  “How shall I get in?” Estoy-eh-muut asked.

  “Your house is so small.”

  “Go ahead, put your foot in the door,”

  she told him.

  And when he did

  he was able to enter

  the spider hole

  “What’s wrong, Grandson?”

  old Spider Woman asked him,

  “Maybe I can help you.”

  “Something doesn’t feel right, Grandmother,

  I don’t know what it is

  but it seems to be getting worse all the time.

  Especially in the morning

  when I wake up—

  that’s when it is the worst—

  a fear for all of us

  that leaves me shaking the rest of the day.

  “Then whatever it is

  it happens at night

  while you are asleep,” Spider Woman told him.

  “Here, my dear grandson,

  take this special powder.

  Swallow it

  before you go to bed.

  The powder will keep you

  awake

  but I want you to pretend

  you are sleeping.

  Don’t tell anyone

  not even Kochininako.

  Wait.

  See what happens.”

  So that night

  he swallowed the medicine

  old Spider Woman had given him

  and he went to bed

  and pretended to sleep.

  Kochininako came to bed soon after

  but he could tell

  by the sound of her breathing

  she was not asleep.

  When she touched his shoulder

  he did not move.

  She got up then

  and silently left the room

  but she returned

  and placed something in the bed

  beside him.

  “Dark purple corn,”

  Kochininako said softly,

  “Keep Estoy-eh-muut asleep

  while I am gone.

  Don’t let him awake

  until I return.”

  The ear of dark purple corn

  had the power to make him sleep

  but Spider Woman’s medicine

  protected Estoy-eh-muut from it

  that night.

  He listened

  he could hear Kochininako lift the lid

  on the cooking pot.

  He could hear her bundling up something.

  Then she left the house

  carrying food with her.

  Estoy-eh-muut followed her

  wondering where Kochininako was going

  in the middle of the night.

  He followed her north

  far from the village

  to a place in the hills

  where there are many caves

  in the sandstone cliffs.

  He could smell woodsmoke

  then he could see the dim light

  from a fire inside a large shallow cave.

  Kochininako stepped inside.

  As Estoy-eh-muut crept closer

  he could hear the hollow sound

  of human voices inside the cave.

  Then he knew:

  She was a secret member

  of the Kunideeyah Clan.

  Kochininako was going to a meeting

  of the Kunideeyah,

  the Destroyers.

  “Kochininako, our sister,”

  they greeted her

  “You are late tonight.”

  “Yes,” he heard Kochininako answer

  “Estoy-eh-muut took a long time

  getting to sleep.”

  “Let’s go ahead with our meeting,”

  the leader of the Kunideeyah said.

  “Each one of you will go under

  this cottonwood bow and say

  which animal form you want to take.”

  “I want to be a bear,”

  the first one said

  going under the cottonwood bow.

  “I want to be a crow,”

  said the second one.

  Nothing happened.

  “Something is wrong,”

  the leader said.

  “Kochininako, go and see

  if an outsider is spying on us.”

  Kochininako went out

  as she was ordered and

  there she found Estoy-eh-muut,

  her husband,

  creeping around the cave.

  This was why the magic

  had not worked.

  “Estoy-eh-muut is out there,”

  she tol
d them.

  “Well, take Estoy-eh-muut home,”

  they told her.

  This time she had a broom straw

  in her hand

  she said “Broom straw!

  Broom straw put Estoy-eh-muut to sleep!”

  And as she spoke

  Estoy-eh-muut felt suddenly tired

  and though he tried to fight it

  he fell asleep.

  Kochininako took her sleeping husband

  to the cliff

  a dangerous and precipitous cliff

  nearby.

  The cliff was called

  “Mah’de’haths”

  the place of no escape.

  She laid him on the narrow edge

  and returned to her meeting.

  The members of the Kunideeyah Clan

  went under the cottonwood bow

  changing into animal forms

  now that there was no one

  to interfere with the magic.

  Then the Kunideeyahs went

  to perform their night work

  uttering weird cries

  of wolves, mountain lions, coyotes and bears.

  The whip snake Kunideeyah crawled into a house

  and left an ugly bundle

  of human hair and excrement tied together

  to cause madness in that house.

  The bear Kunideeyah attacked

  a lone night traveler from another pueblo

  and dragged the body away.

  Wearing wolfskin shirts

  other Kunideeyahs

  stampeded the deer from the hunting places

  so the village people would go hungry.

  The bull snake strangled a sleeping baby

  and the coyote partner

  carried the small corpse away

  moving through the night

  doing their work of destruction.

  When they had completed their missions

  the Kunideeyahs returned to the cave

  and regained their human forms.

  They feasted at midnight

  on the heart of the slain traveler

  and on the infant’s brain.

  When they had finished

  they fell upon each other

  men embracing other men

  women reaching for the rattlesnake,

  the whip snake Kunideeyahs

  they desired.

  They returned to their homes

  before dawn.

  Estoy-eh-muut woke up

  on a ledge so narrow

  he could not move in any direction.

  “Oh my mother! Oh my sister!”

  he cried,

  “Kochininako has put me on the ledge

  and I don’t know how to get down!”

  Two little ground squirrels heard his voice

  coming from the cliff which is

  impossible to reach.

  They knew no person could reach

  that ledge alive

  so they became very frightened

  thinking what they heard was

  a dead person crying.

  They ran home

  and hid themselves in a pile of acorns

  so that only their little bright eyes

  peeked out.

  When Old Mother Ground Squirrel came home

  she asked why they were hiding.

  They told her they heard a dead person

  crying on the high cliff.

  “Dead persons will never cry,”

  she told her children,

  “Let’s go.

  Probably the Kunideeyahs have left some

  poor victim up there to die.”

  The ground squirrels went

  to the foot of the high cliff

  where they heard a voice crying

  “Oh my mother! Oh my sister!

  Kochininako has put me on this cliff

  and I don’t know how to get down!”

  “Oh my poor grandson,”

  the mother ground squirrel called

  up to him,

  “You must not move or you will fall.

  I will get you down in four days.”

  “I’m so thirsty, Grandmother.”

  “You must bear your thirst, Grandson.

  In four days

  I will see that you get water.”

  Then the old ground squirrel planted

  four piñon seeds

  at the foot of the cliff.

  She watered them everyday

  and on the fourth day

  the seeds had grown into tall piñon trees

  reaching the ledge just where

  Estoy-eh-muut lay.

  Then the little ground squirrels carried

  water in little acorn shell cups

  up the piñon trees

  to the ledge.

  It took many acorn cups to satisfy

  Estoy-eh-muut’s thirst.

  When he had regained his strength

  he climbed down a piñon tree

  and went home with the old ground squirrel

  and her children.

  Estoy-eh-muut was a great hunter

  and he brought the family

  many rabbits and deer.

  After a long time there

  he was ready to go home.

  He had not traveled far

  when he heard someone calling

  “Grandson! Grandson! Over here!”

  It was old Spider Woman

  calling from her place

  under a yucca.

  “Estoy-eh-muut! Grandson!

  Where are you going?”

  “I’m going home,”

  he told her,

  “Kochininako belongs to the Kunideeyah Clan

  and I must warn the people about her.”

  “Oh my dear Grandson.

  You can’t go home yet.

  When Kochininako sees you did not die

  on the cliff

  she will try to kill you.”

  “But what can I do?”

  “Remain here with me four days

  while I prepare something

  to protect you,” Spider Woman told him.

  So Estoy-eh-muut waited

  while Spider Woman took yucca fiber

  and began weaving a coiled ring

  called a maas-guuts

  used to cushion the water jars

  the people carried

  balanced on their heads.

  As she wove it

  an unusual design began to appear—

  the figure of a snake.

  On the fourth day

  Grandmother Spider had completed

  the small woven-coil ring

  and she gave Estoy-eh-muut

  the instructions:

  “Now listen very carefully, Grandson

  to what I say:

  You must not let

  Kochininako see you first or

  she will kill you.

  As soon as you see her—

  quickly—

  roll this maas-guuts

  right at her!”

  Estoy-eh-muut gave Spider Woman some

  rabbits and a deer he had brought

  and thanked her for all her help.

  He approached the village

  very carefully from the hill behind it.

  He waited on the hill

  and when he saw Kochininako come out

  he rolled the woven coil down the hill

  at her

  the way Spider Woman had told him he must.

  The coiled ring of

  woven yucca fiber

  went rolling straight to Kochininako

  but when it hit her chest

  it became a rattlesnake that struck her

  and killed her.

  In my essay “Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit” I wrote about the matriarchal society still in place at Laguna when I was a girl. The women owned and inherited the houses, so they knew how to repair their houses with adobe
plaster. Lillian Romero stands smiling with a load of adobe plaster.

  My father has more than one portrait of the Enchanted Mesa near Acoma. I came across this view that I’d not seen before—with the snow on the ground and the clouds above the mesa as bright as snow themselves. He made this photograph of the mesa in 1949.

  My father was seldom far from one of his cameras. His second love was automobiles, probably because Grandpa Hank loved cars. My father later became fixated on Jeeps and Range Rovers. My mother snapped this shot of him in 1949 when the Jeep station wagon was brand-new.

  Jose Sanschu and his wife always traveled the four miles from Mesita to the post office and store at Laguna by wagon. I was horse-crazy from the time I can remember, and when I was only three or four, I used to dance with joy when I saw the old folks in their wagon pulled by two horses. They were very kind and gave me rides in the wagon.

  The Go-wa-peu-zi Song:

  Hena-ti-tzi

  He-ya-she-tzi

  So-you-tano-mi-ha-ai

  Of the clouds

  and rain clouds

  and growth of corn

  I sing.

  It was summertime

  and Iktoa’ak’o’ya-Reed Woman

  was always taking a bath.

  She spent all day long

  sitting in the river

  splashing down

  the summer rain.

  But her sister

  Corn Woman

  worked hard all day

  sweating in the sun

  getting sore hands

  in the corn field.

  Corn Woman got tired of that

  she got angry

  she scolded

  her sister

  for bathing all day long.

  Iktoa’ak’o’ya-Reed Woman

  went away then

  she went back

  to the original place

  down below.

  And there was no more rain then.

  Everything dried up

  all the plants

  the corn

  the beans

  they all dried up

  and started blowing away

  in the wind.

  The people and the animals