392 ZUNI CREATION MYTHS. (eth.ann.13 



significantly and pluming them in various ways witli the feathers of 

 the cloud and cummer sun-loving birds (Olowik'ya Wowe Pekwi 

 Ashiwani), thinking thereby to waft the breath of their prayers and 

 incantations (taught of the Surpassing Ones all in the new time of 

 the world) and to show forth their meanings even so far as unto the 

 ancient sitting spaces of those who first taught them. 



When all else was prepared, they made a shrine around their mu- 

 etone (or medicine seed of hail and soil) their ¥ydetone (or medicine 

 seed of the water and rain) and their cMetone (or medicine seed 

 of grains). And around these, and reaching out toward the Sun 

 before them, they set their plumed wands of message. For the plain 

 was dry and barren, and they wanted fresh soil by the hail torrents, 

 moisture by the rain, and growth of seed-substance, that they might the 

 better exhibit their powers to these strangers; if perchance, in response 

 to their labors and beseechings, these things would be vouchsafed them. 

 Therefore, that the meaning of their beseechings might be the more 

 plain and sure of favor, certain ones of the sage priests, sought out and 

 placed the largest and most beautifully colored grass seeds they could 

 find among the stores of their wayfarings, in the gourd with the chu- 

 etone, and then cut from branches of the easy glowing cottonwood 

 and willow, gleaned from the ways of water, goodly wands which they 

 plumed and painted, like in color to each kind of seed they had selected; 

 yellow, green, red, white, black, speckled, and mottled; one for each 

 side of the sacred gourd, one to be laid upon it, one to be laid under it, 

 and one to be placed within it; and as soon as finished, thus they dis- 

 posed the wands. 



Now when night came, these master-priests took the chiietone — all 

 secretly, whilst the others were drowsy — and carried it, with the 

 plumed wands they had made, out into the plain, in front of the 

 bower. There they breathed into these things the prayers and over 

 them softly intoned the incantations which had been taught them 

 in the new time of the world. Then they placed the ehuetone on 

 the ground of the plain and on each side of it, by the light of the 

 seven great stars which were at that time rising bright above them, 

 they planted one of the plumed wands with the seeds of its color; 

 first, the brightest, yellow with the yellow grass seeds, on the north; 

 then the blue with the green grass seeds, on the west; then the red 

 with the red seeds, to the south, and the white with the white seeds to 

 the east; but the other three plumed wands they could not plant, one 

 above, the other below, and the last witliin the gourd; so looking 

 at the stars tliey saw how that they were set, four of them as though 

 around a gourd like their own, and three others as though along 

 its handle! '■'■Hd! Chukwc!'''' said they. '"Tis a sign, mayhap, of 

 the Sky-father!" whereupon they set each of the others in a line, 

 the black one with its seeds of black, nearest to the sacred gourd 

 below the handle; the speckled one with its spotted seeds next, 

 on the other side of the handle, and the mottled one with its 



