Part 2 (1/2)
”Opened he his claws and scattered wide the Stars. To North and South fell Takhonaha, the Stars, to East and West fell they.
”Then was the promise of Yaeethl fulfilled. Thus kept he his word to the Earth Mother, and gave her light, that she might see. Gave her Kayah, the Light, to father her children and wipe out the disgrace of her barrenness. And the children of Klingatona-Kla were as the sands of the sea.
”But upon Yaeethl, the Raven, had fallen the curses of the Wise Man. Three curses: Blackness, Hoa.r.s.eness, and the Keeping of One Shape. And as his feathers were blackened, so, thereafter, was his heart darkened with eternal selfishness.”
I was silent. My pipe had gone out, and Zachook was bent low over the dying fire. I was thinking of another story of a Child who had given Light to the World, and suffered for the bringing.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
_The Water Carrier_
”When You Give a Potlach, Forget Not He Who Carries the Water.”
”Thank Yaeethl for that,” said Zachook as I rose with dripping beard from the stream where I had drunk deep, with many sighs of satisfaction and relief. ”His pack is not heavy with thanks of men these days.”
”Thank the Raven? For what?”
”The starving man asks not the name of the owner of the cache, but his heart is filled with grat.i.tude.”
”That may be, but no cache of Yaeethl's is in this stream.”
”The ignorant deny all they cannot see.”
”Wise sayings feed neither fire nor belly,” I retorted, provoked by the criticism of my companion, thinly veiled behind his customary proverbs, and attempting to pay him in his own coin from my slender store of Klingat adages. ”'Only a beggar gives thanks.' Is it not your teaching that he who gives in this world receives the benefit, since in Tskekowani[1] his possessions shall be as his gifts here?
If Yaeethl wants my thanks, if they are the due of the Raven, he has them, but why or for what I know not. Your words are like the ice of a windy day, rough and cloudy.”
[1] _The next world._
”You are right, Cousin. I forget at times that you are only a white man. Let me touch thy ear with my tongue.”
”Cha-auk.[2] In the Time before Time, there was no water upon the earth or in the bowl of the sea, and Shanagoose the Sky gave neither rain nor snow.
[2] _Ages ago._
”In one place only was Heen, the water. In a deep well it was, the father of wells, hidden among the mountains that lie between here and Tskekowani.
”To Heenhadowa, the Thirst Spirit, belonged the well, by Heenhadowa was it guarded. By the door of the well-house sat he by day, in front of the well-house door was his bed by night. And none might enter.
”Never did he leave the well, morning, noon or night. From the water he took life, to the water he gave life. To no man, woman, or child, to neither animal nor bird, to nothing that walks, creeps, or flies would Heenhadowa give of the precious water. Not so much as would moisten the tongue of Ta-ka the Mosquito would he give, though men died.
”To quench their thirst men chewed the roots of young trees and the stalk of Yan-a-ate.[3]
[3] _Species of wild celery._
”A few men there were, brave of heart and moose-legged, who had travelled the weary journey to the well among the mountains, the mountains marked with the trail of Oonah, the Gray One, Death, seeking the water that is life.