Sacred Texts Native American Southwest Index Previous Next
The Story of Ee-ee-toy's Resurrection is perhaps the most poetic in the series, and the opening picture of him lying on the ground, lifeless, with the elements lamenting over him and the little children playing on him, might challenge the genius of a great artist.
It is particularly rich in the mystical element also.
I confess that I am not very confident of my rendering of those of the opening sentences of Ee-ee-toy's speech between "And he had made an earth" and the statement "And they shot him," etc. My Indians seemed to get hopelessly tangled over archaic words and other impediments here and not at all sure of what they told me. The rest I think is correct.
Here we came to the mystic colors of the four quarters, North, South, East and West and of the zenith, the Above, which the Pimas reckoned evidently as a cardinal point. If their mystic power was derived from the cardinal points, might not their inclusion of the zenith make five also sometimes a mystic number? I think that it perhaps was.
Brinton says that among the Mayas of Yucatan, East is Red, West is Black, North is White and South is Yellow.
The Speaker: It was customary in the villages of the Awawtam for some individual, perhaps a chief, or a mahkai, or some representative of these, to mount on a kee, or other high place, and in a loud voice shout news, orders, advice, or other important matters to the people. This was the Speaker, a sort of town crier.
To step on the rushing young maid who gathered the cactus fruit was a blow at the enemy's subsistence.
It seems to have been a custom among the mahkais to have pet animals to assist them in their magic.
A circle of bushes, stood up, in the earth, forming a screen for shelter or privacy, was called an onum. One or more may be found near almost any Pima hut.
To work witchcraft on a foe, so that ha be left weaponless and helpless, and off his guard against attack, seems to have been the favorite dream of whoso went to war. Treachery was idolized. There was no notion of a fair fight.
Stories of mythical beings who, tho repeatedly killed, persist in coming to life again, are common among many Indian tribes.