Story 6—
The Whore
The people were getting along nicely. The Apaches went to the mountains and made their homes there, from where they came here and robbed the people.
The Apaches made bows and arrows from reeds. The Pimas also made bows and shields and tomahawks and made arrows from arrow reeds. When Siuuhu saw that these people were fighting, he saw that in the future the Pimas and Apaches would become friends. When the Pimas heard this, they didn't believe it because they felt in their hearts that they were very mad and would never stop fighting.
So these people lived here, and one time something evil happened through an old woman. She was very proud. One time when she was going after firewood with some other women, she made a lie to them. That was the first time that pride came to them and the first lie that happened.
While the women were returning home, they talked about a certain girl who lived someplace and had no husband. They talked about who was going to
marry that girl. The old woman told the other women that she had a son who was in love with the girl and that he was going to marry her, which wasn't true.
When the old woman got back home, she told her son to go and meet the girl at some place where there was water, where the girl came to bathe every day. He would meet her there and talk to her. The boy went and met the girl and tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't talk. So the boy went home sorry because he couldn't make the girl talk. He didn't eat anything because he was so sorry, and he wouldn't drink any water.
The old woman was thinking about her boy all the time. She tried to plan to do something to her boy because she knew she had lied to those people. Finally this was her plan. She would go to a very respected person, who knew very much, and that person could take her son and lead him and go to the girl's house and talk with her parents about the boy marrying the girl.
That man went with the boy and talked to the girl's parents. Finally her father decided to let her marry the boy, and the mother agreed that it was all right. Here is the name for the girl, By-av-chu-luv,[a] which
[a] Ba'i-cuklim, 'Throat-black', the black-throated desert sparrow (Zonotrichia querula )—Saxton, Saxton, and Enos 1983: 5. (Saxton and Saxton [1969] define this bird name as "small black bird," 3, and "unidentified," 167). Smith does not seem to have the same bird in mind, and his description baffles me because I think the name literally means "throat-black."
means a certain bird, something like a quail, with a crest, dark blue with a white collar.
This By-av-chu-luv didn't like the young man, but at that time the rule was that children should obey their parents. So if her father and mother agreed, she'd have to do it. When everything was all fixed, the man laid down with the girl, but some time in the night the girl left and went away.
When the girl left her house, she came this way [toward Snaketown], west. This [departure] happened just east of the San Tan Mountains at a place the Pimas call today Two Tanks (Gok Wapchki ).[b] The girl passed through the town there, but she didn't stop. She passed through Showing River (Mas Akimo )[c] and went down to the west to a place they call Mounds of Sand (Yea Huk ).[d] There lived a man with a son whom the young girl liked. The man's name was Cadigum,[e] a bird's name. The girl married the son, that she loved.
Well, back at Two Tanks, when the girl's mother found her daughter was gone, she told the boy, or
[b] Go:k Wapcki, 'Two Tanks' (or 'Reservoirs', 'Ponds'). I have heard other narrators call a mythical place in this region 'Two Ponds' (Go:k Wo'o). They consider it to be the place where a man was turned into an eagle (Smith-Allison story 10).
[c] Ma:s Akimel, 'Showing River'.
[d] Hia 'sand', and an unknown word.
[e] This might be Kuhigam, identified by Saxton and Saxton (1969: 27) as a "black bird species" and on p. 167 of the same dictionary as "unidentified." The name would seem to mean "neigher," "one who neighs (like a horse)," or "crows," "caws," or "screeches." (All those are meanings of the stem kuhu ). Alternatively, as discussed in the introduction to this part and in a note to the previous one, the word may not be a bird name at all but the name of a leafy plant.
the husband, to stay until morning. She thought the girl had just gone out to visit friends and would come back.
The girl's mother went to search for the girl but couldn't find her. She followed her tracks through Snaketown.[2] She followed her hard because she intended to make her return to her first husband. She got close to where the girl was and saw her grinding corn. She thought she would get her back home immediately, but when she got to the [current husband's] house, the [current] boy's mother said she would give her corn and pumpkins. She took those gifts and went home. Once home, she knew her daughter had done wrong in acting secretly.
The first husband went home and told his parents that he was married. His mother was happy and cleaned the house well. His father, Noda, went hunting deer.
The father didn't know of the desertion. He found deer tracks, followed them for a day, made camp, and sang:
Grey coyote is going to make a grey deer
And is going to put it in a cliff.
The next day he followed the tracks and made camp that night and made this song:
[f] The word is probably nodag[*] , 'dizzy', 'crazy'. If so, this is not a praise-worthy pleasure but is excessive and lacking in restraint and overly proud. In using this word, Smith is criticizing the man.
Yellow Buzzard is a medicine man
Who came here.
I am going to suffer much
I am going to cover all the earth.
He had to get the deer. Next day he went on, made camp, and sang a song that is now forgotten.
The next day the same, with this song:
In the morning
I am going to find the deer
And in the cliff
The deer will make a noise
And come out.
The next morning he did find a deer and killed him with an arrow. He carried the deer on his shoulder to his daughter-in-law's house, where the girl's mother was afraid to tell of her daughter's unfaithfulness and ashamed of her wickedness. So she told some neighbors to tell him and to ask him to take back the meat because she could not eat it. The neighbors did this, and the boy's mother came to take the meat away. The boy's parents were very sad and couldn't eat the meat. They took it to a place where there were many ants and left it there. The ants ate it.
Meanwhile the girl saw that her new father-in-law went out early in the morning and talked [to the village]. The girl was happy because the fields were full
of corn and watermelons. The father-in-law told the people always to plant plenty of corn, pumpkins, watermelons, and Indian beans. The girl thought she would live here always and sang:
Cadigum man goes out
And sends his breath in all directions.
His breath seems like green wind
Which is corn.[ 3]
(Second verse cut in half)
His breath seems like green weeds
Which is pumpkins.
The girl lived there but came to Showing River (mas akimo ) [Ma:s akimel ] to get cooking water. A man from a ruin east of Showing River also went to where the girl got her water. His name was Her-vachut (Bluebird).[g] He waited at the river for the girl to come. When she didn't come for a long time, he made a blue light and sent it to the girl's home. She was there making baskets.
When she saw Blue Light it pleased her. Blue Light left and started back, and the girl took a pot and followed. When she got to the river, she saw the man who was very beautiful. The girl spoke first and asked what he was doing there. He said he just wanted to see her because, "When you were living
[g] He:wacud , 'bluejay' (Saxton, Saxton, and Enos 1983: 20). See note 1, part 3, pertaining to Thin Leather's Corn and Tobacco story.
at your old home, I sometimes saw you and was very happy." She said, "That is true, for sometimes I think about you." And he said, "Well, it is all right then, leave your water pot and come to my home."
The girl obeyed. They started and did not go straight but stopped at some place and sat down. When night came they got up and started on to his home. While they walked the girl sang:
Byavchuluv [the girl's name] have [has
darkness
To fall around
In which with superstitious thoughts
I am getting farther away.
Byavchuluv have made the darkness
To fall all around
I am a little bit "nodag"[h
]Getting farther away.
The girl went to live with Hervachut and saw that he was lazy. When she saw this she sang two songs:
The blue Hervachut
Is lying down on top of the winds
And is shaking himself.
Look and see
That the corn tassels are tossed
By the wind.
[h] Nodag[*] , 'dizzy', 'crazy'.
The blue Hervachut is lying down
On top of the water.
Look and see.
The pumpkin blossoms are shaking
Which is made by the clouds.
The girl ran away from Bluebird and went with another man named Ho-ho-ki-muld (Butterfly).[i] Butterfly asked the girl to marry and live with him. He said he had a farm with much corn and pumpkins, so it was hard for a woman to work there. She went with him and saw that what he said of the farm was true. Butterfly had the kind of farm known in those days as Vapik-oiduk, which meant land with underground moisture. Everything was planted in this wet land. When the girl saw this she sang:
Butterfly has a farm
Which is in a sacred place.
In that farm grows the corn
And there is too much work
For a woman.[ 4]
(Second verse cut in half)
Where the pumpkin grows which
Is too much work
For a woman to do.
So this woman went on, leaving Butterfly, and went toward the east, teaching all women wicked ways.
[i] Hohokimal , 'butterfly'.
The people in the east, Si-u-dom and Ka-voa-lim,[5] went all over the world teaching sin to all people.
This girl went to the east, then she returned to the west to some people that we call Naksert the Mojave Indians. When the girl got to those people we call Naksert (scorpion),[j] while this [other, second father-in-law] man was living some place, we call [him
So she returned back, got in a certain distance, and saw one end of the mountain Komatke (Estrellas)[k] in the distance. When she saw this, she was happy and sang:
Before the Pimas called these mountains Komatke
The old-timers called it Old Man mountains
Below these mountains are fields that are green all
over
Here's where this By-av-chu-luv [said to be the girl's
name] owns some fields.
In those fields you see the corn tassels which shine
And among those tassels
You hear women laughing.[6]
[j] Naksal[*] , 'scorpion'.
[k] Komadk[*] , 'broad', 'spread out'. This mountain is called "Estrella," the Spanish word for "star," in English. Pimas do not call it "Hu:'u," which is their word for "star."
She kept coming, and just before sundown she came to the home of Cadigum. When the Cadigum man saw all that had happened, he didn't believe it was true. When the woman found out what Cadigum was thinking, she sang:
I came here
I came here
And you sing unbelievable words
And I'm shaking myself.
So the father of the young man didn't go to the place where the people go at night to talk over matters. He didn't go for four nights because he liked the woman who came back. Then on the fifth night he went to the meeting, and the first thing he did on reaching the meetinghouse was to go to the wisest medicine man and ask for some tobacco. The medicine man answered, "I [would] have given you all the tobacco you can smoke. Why is it that for four nights you have not come for my tobacco. I know the reason you did not come to see me. It is over a bad girl who you met at your house. That is why you did not come."
The woman [meanwhile] went out and was grinding something. The women who lived around there saw her and asked what this bad woman was grinding. When she heard the other women talking about her, she sang:
What am I grinding (about herself)
I took a seed
And that seed I am grinding (she means the corn).
When Siuuhu saw this happen, he thought it was a great sin. He made another commandment to the people, and since that time it is the duty of the father and mother to preach every morning to their young men and women, to tell them what is right and wrong. So this woman lived with this man, and she didn't do anything wrong from then on, and she died there.