Story 4–
Corn and Tobacco Leave
At a certain time the corn and tobacco met together, and the people decided the corn man and tobacco man should play a game of gins .[7] Corn and tobacco believed what the people said, so they started the game.
[f] Kof or ko:f , nettle leaf goosefoot plant (Chenopodium murale ), an annual weed actually introduced from Europe (if murale; C. desiccatum is native—Parker 1972: 104–105) whose seeds can be gathered in early summer, parched, and made into pinole (Russell 1908: 73). The plant grows on moistened, "disturbed" ground in or near fields. It is a semidomesticate. Saxton and Saxton do not list kof, ko:f , or ko:w in their Papago dictionaries, nor does Mathiot list it. Perhaps it is more a Pima than a Papago plant.
They cheated each other. That was the first time that madness [anger] came into the world. Corn spoke up to Tobacco. Corn said, "You are nothing, Tobacco, only the old people smoke you. For my part, men, women, and children eat me. I am raising the young people."
Tobacco said, "I think the same about you. You are nothing, but medicine men smoke me and doctor 'the people."
So they were talking, which was not right. They felt sorry for the mean words they said, and the people didn't help them out but just let them speak. So the tobacco left and went toward the west. He followed down the river (Gila), and when he got to a certain distance he felt sorry. He cried like this—song:
Black bobcat
Toward the sunset
is going
Hay ya ha'a hah (crying ).
He went and stopped at the west part of the Navajo country. Corn stayed here for four days, waiting for the older people to bring him soft feathers and beads, so he would not have to leave the country. The people didn't give him what he needed, so he sang this song:
I deep beat (deep win)
Tobacco was mad
And was talking.
The people, they will get [a
And give it to me
The people will get a bead
And give it to me.
So he went out, toward the east. He got all the corn that the people had and took it with him, and the people were hungry. The old people were also scarce in tobacco.
When Siuuhu saw this, he didn't like it. The people had learned how to get mad, and Siuuhu made a rule that every morning the old people were to talk to their young children and tell them what was right to do.
When the people wanted something to smoke really badly, they got a man to go after Tobacco and bring him back home. This man went and tried to tell him to come back, but Tobacco said he doesn't want to come back. He said, "Corn called me some mean things so I don't want to go back." The man prayed to Tobacco and said Tobacco should sympathize with him and go back home.
The tobacco didn't want to come home, but he gave the man one of his little seeds and told him to take the seed with him, prepare the ground, plant the seed, and sometimes the tobacco would come out pretty well and sometimes it won't.
The corn that went toward the east stopped there and sang two songs:
The big corn stalks
They called me corn
I have come out here.
My stalks are stout
And are standing straight up
My fruit is [are
And are standing straight up.
So the people were hungry here.