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Marvelous both of good and evil were the works of the ancients. Alas! 
there came forth with others, those impregnated with the seed of sorcery. 
Their evil works caused discord among men, and, through fear and anger, 
men were divided from one another. Born before our ancients, had been 
other men, and these our fathers sometimes overtook and looked not peace- 
fully upon them, but challenged them—though were they not their elder 
brothers? It thus happened when our ancients came to their fourth resting 
place on their eastward journey, that which they named “Place of Misty 
Waters,” there already dwelt a clan of people called the Seed people, and 
the Seed clan of our ancients challenged them to know by what right they 
assumed the name and attributes of their own clan. “ Behold!” said these 
stranger beings, “we have power with the gods above yours, yet can we not 
exert it without your aid. Try, therefore, your own power first, then we 
will show you ours.” At last, after much wrangling, the Seed clan agreed 
to this, and set apart eight days for prayer and sacred labors. First they 
worked together cutting sticks, to which they bound the plumes e summer 
birds which fly in the clouds or sail over the waters. “ Therefore,” thought 
our fathers, “why should not their plumes waft our joes ee to the 
waters and clouds?” These plumes, with prayers and offerings, they 
planted in the valleys, and there also they placed their medicine seed of corn. 
Lo! for eight days and nights it rained, and there were thick mists; and the 
waters from the mountains poured down, bringing new soil cue! sueere it 
over the valleys where the plumed sticks had been planted. “See!” said 
the fathers of the Seed clan, ‘“‘ Water and new earth bring we by our suppti- 
cations.” 
“Tt is well,” replied the strangers, “yet life ye did not bring. Behold!” 
and they too set apart eight days, during which they danced and sang a 
beautiful dance and prayer song, and at the end of that time they took the 
people of the Seed clan to the valleys. Behold, indeed! Where the plumes 
had been planted and the medicine seed of corn placed grew seven corn- 
plants, their tassels waving in une wind, their stalks laden with ripened 
grain. ‘“ These,” said the strangers, “are the severed flesh of seven n maidens, 
our own sisters ae children. The eldest sister’s is the yellow corn; the 
next, the blue; the next, the red; the next, the white; the next, the speckled ; 
the next, the black, and the last iid youngest is the sweet-corn, for see! even 
ripe, she is soft like the young of the others. The first is of the Northland, 
yellow like the light of winter; the second is of the West, blue like the 
great world of waters; the third is of the South, red like the Land of 
Everlasting Summer; the fourth is of the East, white like the land whence 
the sun brings the daylight; the fifth is of the upper regions, many-colored 
as are the clouds of morning and evening, and the sixth is of the lower re- 
gions, black as are the caves whence came we, your elder, and ye, our 
younger brothers.” 
