In time these two gave birth to twelve children. No, they were neither man-children nor woman-children! For look now! The first was a woman in fulness of contour, but a man in stature and muscle. From the mingling of too much seed in one kind comes the two-fold one kind, 'hláhmon , 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 bon of love—even though insane!—before her parents were changed; thus she did not share their distortions. Not so with her brothers; they resembled males but like boys, for the fruit of sex was not in them! For the fruit of mere lust comes to nothing, even as Corn, self-sown out of season, does not ripens. For their parents7 being changed to hideousness, lived together witlessly and consorted idly or in passion not quickened of favor to the eye or the heart. And see! 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, according to its shape they were formed as clay by the thought of the potter; wherefore we cherished our matrons and do not reveal to them the evil dramas or the slaughtered nor hamstrung game lest their children be weakly or go maimed. Thus they were strapping louts, but earth-colored and marked with the welts of their father. They were silly yet wise as the gods and high priests; for as simpletons and the crazed speak from the things seen in the instant, uttering both wise words and prophecy, so the spoke, and became the attendants and fosterers, and also the sages and interpreters, of the ancient of dance-dramas or the K&aicrc;'kâ.

   They are named not with the names of men but with names of mismeaning, for there is Pékwina, Priest-speaker of the Sun. He is meditative even in the liveliest part of day, after the fashion of his father when shamed, saying little and then as irrelevantly as a child or dotard.

Then there is Pí'hlan Shíwani (Bow Priest-warrior). He is so cowardly that he dodges behind ladders, thinking them trees no doubt, and lags after all the others whenever he is frightened, even at a fluttering leaf or a crippled spider, and looks in every direction but the straight one whenever danger threatens!

   There is Éshotsi (the Bat) who can see better in the sunlight than any of them but would maim himself in a shadow and will avoid a hole in the ground as a woman would a dark place, even were it no bigger than a beetle burrow.

   Also there is Muíyapona (Wearer of the Eyelets of Invisibility). He has horns like the catfish and is knobbed like a bludgeon-squash. But he never by any chance disappears, even when he hides his head behind a ladder rung or turkey quill, yet thinks himself quite out of sight. And he sports with his face as though it were as smooth as a clam-shell's.

   There is Pótsoki (tbe Pouter), who does little but laugh and look bland, for he can not grin; and his younger brother, Ná'häshi (Aged Buck), who is the biggest of them all, and what with having grieved and nearly rubbed his eyes out (when his younger brother was captured and carried off by the K'yámak'ya-kwe or Snail Kâ'kâ of the South), looks as ancient as a horned toad; yet he is as frisky as a fawn and giggles like a girl; indeed, and bawls as lustily as a small boy playing games.

   The next brother, Ítseposa (the Glum or Aggrieved), mourned also for his nearest brother who was stolen by the Kâ'kâ, too, until his eyes were utterly dry and his chin chapped to protrusion; but nevertheless he is lively and cheerful and ever as ready as the most complaisant of beings.

   K`yä'lutsi (the Suckling) and Tsa'hläshi (Old-youth), the youngest, are the most wilfully important of the nine, always advising others and strutting like a young priest in his first dance, or like the youthful warrior made too aged-thinking and self-notioned with early honoring.

   And while the father stands dazed, with his head bowed and his hands clasped before him or like broken bows hanging by his sides, these children romp and play (as he and his sister did when turned childish), and are just like idiots or dotards and crones turned young again, inconstant as laughter7, startled to new thought by every flitting thing around them; but in the presence of the Kâ'kâ of old, they are grave but uncouth. And they are the oracles of all ancient sayings of deep meanings; for this reason they are called the Kâ'yemashi (Husbandmen of the Kâ'kâ or sacred drama-dance); and they are spoken of even by the Fathers of the people as the Á'hläshi Tséwashi (Sages of the Ancients). And they are most precious in the sight of the beings and men! But for their birth and the manner of their birth, it is said that all had been different; for from it many things came to be as they are both for men and gods and even the souls of the dead!





©1996, Richard Hooker

For information contact: Richard Hines
Updated 6-6-1999