The Traditions of the Hopi (Volume 8) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 3. COMING OF THE HOPI FROM THE UNDER-WORLD.1 A long time ago the people were living below. There were a great many of them, but they were often quarreling with one another. Some of them were very much depraved. They abused the women and the maidens, and that led to very many contentions. So the chiefs, who were worried and angry over this, had a council and concluded that they would try to find another place to live. So they first sent out a bird named Mtsni, to find a place of exit from this world. He flew up high but was too weak and returned without having been successful. They then sent the Mocking-bird (Yhpa). He was strong and flew up very high and found a place of exit. Returning, he reported this to the chiefs. In the meanwhile the chiefs had caused a great flood. Many Bllokongwuus2 came out of the ground with the water, and a great portion of the people were destroyed. When the Mocking-bird had made his report to the chiefs the latter said: "All right, that is good. We are going away from here. ' They then announced through the crier that in four days they would leave, and that the women should prepare some food, and after they had eaten on the fourth day they would all assemble at the place right under the opening which the Mocking-bird had found. This was done. The chiefs then planted a pine-tree (calavi), sang around it, and by their singing made it to grow very fast. It grew up to the opening which the Yahpa had found, and when the chiefs tried and shook it, they found that it was fairly strong, but not strong enough for many people to climb up on, especially its branches, which were very thin. So they planted another kind of pine (loq), sang around it, and made it also to grow up fast. This tree and its branches was much stronger than the other, but ...