52 CASA GRANDE, ARIZONA [ETH. ANN. 28 
plaited Doctor and said he must get permission. Tonto was allowed by Feather- 
plaited Doctor to gamble with this man, but was warned not to play again if he were 
beaten; but should he win twice he must desist by all means from further playing. 
The game at which Tonto gambled was that known as the ‘‘cane game,” and on this 
occasion Feather-plaited Civan marked the canes. Tonto played and won twice 
from his opponent; he would not play a third time, but carried all he had won to the 
house of Feather-plaited Civan. Whenever he played with the marked canes, he 
won, so that one of his opponents consulted Tecuhu to learn the reason. Tcuhw 
informed him that the sticks were endowed with magic derived from the sun, whick’ 
gave them supernatural power over all others. ut 
Tcuhu then told a maid to search under trees and gather in the early morning the’ 
feathers of eagles, crows, buzzards, and hawks, bind them together, and bring them 
to him. After these feathers had been brought Tcuhu instructed her to strip every 
feather to its midrib and cut each into short sections. Having roasted the feathers 
with meal of popcorn, the girl placed them on a basket tray. She was then instructed 
to fill two small bowls with ‘‘medicine” and to carry them to a spring near the place 
where Tonto was going to play the next game. Before Tonto began this game he 
declared he was thirsty and started for the spring, kicking before him the stone ball. 
When he reached the spring he perceived the girl and fell in love with her. She prom- 
ised to marry him if her parents were willing. The maid handed Tonto a drink of the 
“medicine ” instead of water; at the first draught he began to tremble; a second caused 
him to shake violently, and at the thirc feathers began to form all over his body, and 
shortly afterward he took the form of a bird resembling the eagle. When the maid 
had witnessed this metamorphosis, she sought the man with whom Tonto had agreed 
to gamble and told him Tonto had become a bird, at the same time pointing to an eagle 
perched on a rock near the spring. The man tried to shoot Eagle, but he flew away 
and alighted on the top of a peak of the Superstition Mountains, which shook violently 
as Eagle landed thereon.! In his flight Eagle carried off the maid, now called Baat, 
with whom he lived. He killed many people dwelling near his home and heaped their 
bodies in a great pile near the cave in which he made his home. He became so dan- 
gerous, in fact, that the survivors asked Tcuhu’s aid; he promised to come in four 
days but did not do so. A new messenger was sent with the same request and he 
again promised to come in four days but again failed to fulfill his promise. Tcuhu 
told the messenger to bring him ashes, and the man brought mesquite charcoal, which 
he did not wish. Tcuhu procured charcoal from cactus fruit and, having ground the 
seeds into fine meal, he fashioned it into the form of a big knife. He then procured a 
flexible stick, such as grows in the White Mountains, and other pointed sticks resem- 
bling bone awls. Having made four of these sticks, he sharpened them and started 
forth to overcome Eagle, leaving word that if he were killed a smoke would be seen 
for four days, but that if he killed Eagle, a cloud would hang over the place of 
the combat. Tcuhu traveled eastward a long distance and came to the mountain 
where Eagle lived, in between perpendicular precipices, surrounded by deep fissures. 
Tcuhu metamorphosed himself into a fly and hid himself in this fissure, where he slept 
that night. On the following day he changed himself back into a man, stuck the 
sticks into the crevice of the cliff, and by their help climbed up to the crag in which 
Eagle had his home.* 
1A mountain in the Superstition Range, resembling a monster bird (eagle), is now pointed out from the 
Roosevelt Dam road. 
2 This story of Eagle seems to be a variant of that previously recorded in which the avian being killed was 
the monster Hok. Here Teuhu found only a captive woman, who said the monster had gone to procure 
victims. Tcuhu having revealed his mission, they agreed on a signal, and he changed intoa fly. When 
Eagle returned, although suspicious, he went to sleep and the woman whistled three times. At the last 
whistle Teuhu returned to human form and decapitated Eagle, throwing his head, limbs, and body to the 
four world quarters. Then the woman sprinkled ‘‘medicine” on a pile of bones, the remains of former vic- 
tims, and brought them to life. Thereupon all descended from the mountain over which hovered dense 
clouds, the signal that the monster was dead. 
