126 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. VIII. 



Hereupon they all picked up their things, the women throwing 

 their children on their backs, the men their buckskins, meat, etc., 

 and then they fled. The Skeleton took possession of the houses that 

 the K6honino had left, and has been living there ever since. The 

 K6honino went westward and finally arrived at a very steep bluff. 

 This they ascended and settled down there in the valley near Green 

 Bluff, where they have been living ever since, and this is why the 

 Kohonino settled down at this place. 



35. THE WHITE CORN-EAR MAIDEN AND THE SORCERERS.' 



A long time ago when there were a great many people living in 

 Oraibi there lived a beautiful maiden in the village by the name of 

 White Corn-Ear Maiden (Qotca-Awats-Mana). This maiden persist- 

 ently refused all offers that were made to her by various young men 

 to marry her. The inhabitants of the Wikolapi kiva at that time 

 were sorcerers (Popwaktu), and being angry at that maiden they 

 decided to destroy her. One day they agreed that in the night they 

 would meet in the sorcerers' house at Skeleton Gulch (Masposove), 

 so called, it is said, because at one time a great many people of the 

 Badger clan were killed there by the Orafbi, and their corpses thrown 

 into the gulch. At this meeting they decided that the next day they 

 would make a wheel, such as are still used by the children for a cer- 

 tain play, and also a number of feathered arrows, and that one of 

 these arrows should be poisoned with rattlesnake poison. With this 

 latter the maiden should be hurt, and after her death, which was 

 expected as a matter of course, she was to be taken to the sorcerers' 

 house, where they were assembled. So this was done, and the 

 sorcerers wrapped into the wheel the breath of that maiden, but just 

 in what manner that was obtained is not known. 



When the wheel and the arrows were completed, a number of 

 young men played with them on the street in front of the maiden's 

 house, and when one time she came down the ladder and passed the 

 players to go on an errand, the man holding the poisoned arrow 

 pretended to shoot at the wheel, but wounded her foot with it. 

 When she returned after a short time her foot was badly swollen and 

 she related to her parents what had happened to her. During the 

 night she died. The sorcerers upon hearing that the maiden had 

 died, again repaired to their place at the Skeleton Gulch and there 

 changed themselves into coyotes, wolves, foxes, etc., whereupon they 

 waited until the maiden had been buried and her friends who had 



' Told by Qoydwaima (Oraibi). 



