cusHiNQ] CHANGING OF THE BROTHER AND SISTER. 401 



was witli tbem ever after in those days. Tliey talked londly to each 

 other ; they laughed or they cried. Now they were like silly cliildreu, 

 playing' on the ground; anon they were wise as the priests and high 

 beings, and harangued as parents to children and leaders to people. 



The marks iu the mountain and sands sank farther and farther; for 

 much the earth shuddered as was wont in those days. And thus tlie 

 mountain was sundered in twain and waters welled up in the midway. 

 The furrow in the sands rau deeper and deeper and swifter and swifter 

 with gathering water. Into the nether mountain the pair fled — not 

 apart — but together, distraught. Ceaselessly echoed their gibberish 

 and cries across the wide water and from one mountain side to the 

 other. Thenceforth, together they dwelt in the caves of the jjlace they, 

 had chosen, forgetful of the faces of men and recking naught of their 

 own ugly condition ! 



THE BIRTH OF THE OLD-ONES OR ANCIENTS OF THE KA'KA. 



In time there were born to these twain, twelve children. Nay, neither 

 man-children nor woman-children they ! For look now ! The first, was 

 a woman in fulness of contour, but a man in stature and brawn. From 

 the mingling of too much seed in one kind, comes the two-fold one kind, 

 '■lildhmoH, being man and woman combined — even as from a kernel 

 of corn with two hearts, ripens an ear that is neither one kind nor the 

 other, but both ! Yet not all ill was this first child, because she was born 

 of love — what though crazed ! — ere her parents were changed; thus she 

 partook not of their distortions. Not so with her brothers; in sem- 

 blance of males, yet like boys, the fruit of sex was not in them ! For the 

 fruit of mere lust comes to naught, even as corn, self-sown out of 

 season, ripens not. For their parents, being changed to bideousness, 

 abode together witlessly and consorted idly or in passion not quick- 

 ened of favor to the eye or the heart. And lo! like to their father 

 were his later children, but varied as his moods; for then, as now, what 

 the mother looked most on while withholding them, thus wise were they 

 formed as clay by the thought of the potter; wherefore we cherish our 

 matrons and reveal not to them the evil dramas neither che slaughtered 

 nor hamstrung game lest their children be weakly or go maimed. Thus 

 they were strapping louts, but dun-colored and marked with the welts of 

 their father. Silly were they, yet wise as the gods and high priests; 

 for as simpletons and the crazed speak from the things seeu of the 

 instant, uttering belike wise words and prophecy, so sjiake they, and 

 became the attendants and fosterers, yet the sages and interpreters, of 

 the ancient of dance-dramas or the Kii'ka. 



Named are they, not with the names of men, but with names of mis- 

 meaning, for there is Pekwina, Priest-speaker of the Sun. Meditative 

 is he, even in the quick of day, after the fashion of his father when 

 shamed, saying little save rarely, and then as irrelevantly as the 

 veriest child or dotard. 

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