Waterless Mountain

by Laura Adams Armer

  “It’s great stuff, this tying up fiction with facts,” said the Big Man. “Now let us leave the family to sleep for the night. They will all be happy on the floor with your rugs and skins.”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  STORY OF THE WESTERN CLANS

  HEN morning came plans were made for building Mother’s loom in the patio of the museum. The curator ordered sycamore limbs to be brought, and Mother soon had the two posts firmly set in the ground. To these she tied a cross piece at top and bottom, and proceeded to make the frame for the woolen strings she wound up and down for the warp. As her rug was to be a small one she had the strings all stretched by noontime. She had brought her wool yarn with her from the desert.

  A number of visitors crowded about her. They had come to see the museum exhibit of Navaho handwork. They watched Mother pass her yarn through the warp, weaving in and out, and causing patterns to grow like magic.

  Father did not feel like working in silver. He was too much interested looking in the glass cases which held prehistoric articles from the Channel Islands. He and Younger Brother stayed with the Big Man, while the curator pointed out the treasures he had found in the graves on the lonely island.

  Younger Brother moved from case to case, not very much interested in the things which were strange to him. Round bowls of soapstone and fish hooks of bone had no familiar meaning to him, but when he saw abalone shell ornaments and wampum beads just like those he wore on his purple velvet shirt, he said to Father, “The ancient people of this land liked shell beads, but I see no turquoise.”

  “I think our people have all the turquoise. They would not trade it for shells. The shells they have are reminders of the wide water, but the turquoise belongs to the desert.”

  “Here is a pipe shaped like the one the Sun Bearer smokes when he reaches home,” said Younger Brother.

  “Maybe it is his pipe,” said Father.

  “That cannot be so. He smokes it every night while he sits by Estsanatlehi’s fire. My Uncle has told me so.”

  “Maybe it is an old pipe which he threw away.”

  “That may be. I shall ask Uncle when we return to the Waterless Mountain.”

  The curator was showing a stone charm to the Big Man. It was a top shaped object about three inches long. It was made of rock which looked something like soapstone and something like mutton fat jade. It was carved by hand into a design of six ridges running lengthwise. Two of the ridges were plain, one was divided into five knobs, one into four, and the other into three knobs.

  The curator had found this object in a grave on the mainland and had never heard of anything like it in America. It was precious to him on account of its rarity and mystery.

  When Younger Brother saw it he said simply, “My Uncle has one much like it. He uses it for healing. He presses it to the patient’s legs when he has pain.”

  “What is it, my boy ?” asked the Big Man.

  “My Uncle says it is a piece of star.”

  “Well,” said the curator, “the migrations of the early Americans have left strange traces along the road.”

  The Big Man asked Younger Brother to tell what he knew of the early clans who traveled from the wide water to the desert.

  The boy spoke in his soft, musical voice. “My Uncle has told me that some of our people lived here by the wide water, and when the twelve holy people of the east visited them, they listened to tales of people of their own kind who lived over the mountain and far in the desert.

  “They liked the stories of what the desert people did, what they ate, and how they dressed in skins and yucca fiber. They thought they would like to join them, so they decided to ask the Turquoise Woman what she thought about it. She said, ‘It is a dangerous trip, my children, and a long way to travel. I know, for I have traveled it myself. If you must go, I will give you five of my pets to protect you. Take a bear, a snake, a deer, a porcupine and a mountain lion. They will watch over you. Speak no evil in the presence of the bear and the snake, for they might do the wrong you speak of.’ “

  Younger Brother, standing by the case of abalone shell ornaments, pointed to them and said, “My uncle has told me that the Turquoise Woman gave a magic wand of abalone shell and one of white shell to her children. Also my uncle said she gave them magic wands of black stone, of turquoise, and of red stone. She told the people they would need them on the way.

  Take a bear, a snake, a deer, a porcupine, and a mountain lion, they will watch over you.

  “ ‘But,’ she said, ‘I also will watch over you as you travel. Remember your mother always in her western home.’ “

  The little story teller looked up at the Big Man, and a smile of happiness spread over his face. “I have remembered her,” he said. “Always I have thought of the mother of all of us, and I am glad that I left my sheep to come here to make my offering. Uncle will be happy to have the Paiute wicker jar filled with the sacred water.”

  “We are all glad you came,” said the Big Man. “Did Uncle tell you more of the people who traveled east ?”

  “He has told me much, but I cannot remember all. I like to think of the pet bear watching by the camps at night, and growling at any danger.”

  “What did the people do with the magic wands, my boy ?”

  “As the people traveled, they came to a great plain where there was no water. The little children cried, for they were thirsty. The men said, ‘Let us try the magic of our wands.’ So the owner of the turquoise wand struck it into the ground and worked it round and round until the hole was big. Then water sprang from the hole, but it was bitter. They drank it and cooked with it, and then moved on for four days. Because there was still no water, they thrust the white shell wand into the ground. The water which came was muddy and it made the children sick.

  “Many days they traveled and many days they were thirsty and the children cried. They passed white alkaline ground, mile after mile glaring in the sun.”

  The Big Man said, “That must have been in the Death Valley Region.”

  “After forty days the travelers reached the mountain which we call Dokoslid. It is the western mountain which I climbed, Grandfather. That is the mountain where I left my prayer stick with the yellow warbler feathers.”

  “I know the mountain well,” said the Big Man. “Always its peak is white with snow.”

  “The western people carried abalone shells to the mountain, Grandfather. And while they camped on its eastern side they built a stone wall which still stands. It was there the mountain lion killed a deer. The pet bear sometimes killed rabbits.”

  “It was a good camp, I am sure,” said the Big Man.

  “It is still a good camp. There is where I slept two nights and there is where I saw the Deer People at the spring.”

  As Younger Brother finished his story of the migration from the west, Father walked down the big room looking at the work of the prehistoric people. He was getting tired. He had seen enough; more than enough, because at the far end of the room he had come to an exhibit of very old skulls.

  He said in a frightened voice, “Chindi !” and ran from the room to sit by Mother’s loom. The others followed and the Big Man heard Father say to Mother, “Why do Pelicanos keep bones in their hogans ? I do not like it here. I want to go back home where the dead stay buried.”

  “This is a strange place,” said Mother. “Some of the women have short hair and they have no shame, for their skirts are very short. Not one of them can spin nor weave.”

  The Big Man listening, laughed to reassure his desert people. He said, “The Pelicano children are very kind to Little Sister They have given her sweet yellow fruit from their trees.”

  “Yes,” said Mother, “little children are all right, whatever the color of their skin.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE MOVIE HERO SPEAKS

  URING four days the exhibition of Navaho work attracted people to the museum. The Navaho family grew more at ease, though everyone was anxious to get back home to the sheep and the
sagebrush under the shadow of Waterless Mountain.

  On the last night of their stay the Big Man decided to take his charges to a movie theatre to see a talking picture which had been staged in Navaho land.

  The little party walked down the street of many hogans where bright lights dazzled their eyes, and many automobiles confused them.

  As they entered the theatre leaving the brilliantly lighted street, they were suddenly plunged into blackness vast and terrible.

  Mother tried to run back, she was so frightened. It took much persuasion on the Big Man’s part to get the family into the seats which they could not see.

  As they sat there in the dark, the first picture of the play was flashed on the screen. Younger Brother found himself looking at a piece of the desert he had traveled over with the Pelicano boy. He saw the very place where the boy’s machine had been stuck in the mud under the colored cliffs.

  He was so dazed, he thought he must be dreaming. As one scene after another was reeled off before any real action began, Younger Brother accepted the new experience as he had accepted other wonders of the Pelicanos.

  When a group of Navahos on their ponies were shown riding across a stretch of sand to dismount in front of a trading post, he became more interested.

  He watched intently and as a close up picture of the riders was shown, he became much excited and said to the Big Man sitting next to him, “That is Cut Finger who tried to steal my pony.”

  The pictures reeled off too fast for the unaccustomed eyes of the boy, leaving his mind confused by sight and sound. He could not understand what was happening. There was much white man’s talk, and noise of horse hoofs beating on rocks. A big Pelicano sat on a white horse which stood in the sunlight under shadowed cliffs.

  Younger Brother thought the horse was a beauty. While he was busy admiring it, he was suddenly conscious that a very strange thing was happening on the screen. The picture showed a tall Navaho man, dressed with velveteen shirt, walking slowly toward the Pelicano. His soft moccasined feet made no sound as he moved across the sunlit sand at the base of the cliff.

  As Younger Brother watched the figure move toward the white horse with the Pelicano he began to tremble violently.

  The Big Man wondered what ailed the boy. He put his hand on his knee to comfort him.

  Just then the Navaho in the picture spoke one word, “Ahalani, Greeting.”

  It was the voice of the beautiful young husband of Younger Brother’s relative.

  The trembling boy, looking at the picture was terrified beyond control. He jumped from his seat, crying, “Chindi, Chindi, ghost !”

  He ran wildly toward the theatre door, stumbling in the darkness, sobbing and utterly distraught.

  The Big Man and the boy’s parents followed him. He ran out of the theatre onto the street, and when they stopped him he was still crying and trembling. With difficulty the Big Man managed to get the boy back to the home of the curator.

  There he quieted him, while Father and Mother stood by helplessly. He told the boy more about the white man’s cameras, and tried to dispel the terrible fear which had come over him.

  When the boy was able to talk coherently, he said to his mother, “The husband of your relative was too beautiful. I know now. The Pelicano saw his perfect beauty. They made the picture of him and the Yays were jealous. They destroyed him in the flood. It is not well that anything be overdone. I must go back to my Uncle at the Waterless Mountain. I need to tell him what I have learned.”

  The Big Man said, “Yes, we must all go back. We do not belong here. There is too much noise and too much heaping of goods.”

  In the morning before they left the place of many hogans, Younger Brother went down to the wide water alone. He looked across its blue breadth to the blue island. He reached out his arms toward the west, and said:

  “Mother of all of us, I shall not forget the trail of beauty the Sun Bearer travels to your hearth. I shall tell Uncle when I give the water to him, that you are watching your children. Now I return.”

  It was a happy group that waited at the railroad station to board the train. The Big Man said to Father:

  “Hasteen, where did you get those sheep horns ?”

  “I took them from the wall of the Pelicano’s hogan. I want them for my sheep. If I burn a little piece of horn in the corral, my sheep will increase. The Pelicano let me have them.”

  Mother carried her loom and Sister was loaded down with presents the children had given her. Under one arm she carried a toy bureau and a teddy bear. Younger Brother had his jar of water and an abalone shell.

  The Big Man said to the conductor, “We may need a baggage car.”

  So, laughing, they said goodbye to the kind Pelicano and left the wide water of the west.

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE HOUSE DEDICATION

  T HOME again in the early autumn, Younger Brother felt content. Uncle had given him a purification ceremony and a sweat bath in the little mud house made for that purpose.

  Stones had been heated in a fire outside the tiny hut, and had been shoveled into the sweat house. Younger Brother crawled through the small door. He had removed all his clothes and had taken a big drink of warm water.

  Blankets at the doorway shut in the heat and the air grew very hot. Younger Brother felt the sweat pouring out through his skin and after a sufficient time he went outside, steaming all over. He dried himself with sand which he rubbed on his wet skin.

  After that he felt fine and knew that everything Uncle was doing for him was good. He lost the memory of his fright in the Pelicanos’ dark picture house where chindis talked. He remembered only the blue island and the blue water where the Turquoise Woman lived in beauty.

  He was lying in the morning sunshine by his mother’s camp-fire. Little Sister had just put a cedar stick on the fire under the dye pot. Mother was spinning natural brown wool which she was to weave with the yarn that she was dyeing red.

  The turquoise sky behind the Waterless Mountain must have shaken bits of itself to earth, thought Younger Brother, as he watched a big flock of bluebirds flying to the overflow of the water tank for their morning drink.

  “Never have I seen so many bluebirds,” said the boy.

  Mother looked toward the brilliant moving specks of blue and said:

  “There are many and I think they have come down from the north too early. The northern people must have sent them to us.”

  “That means early winter weather. Uncle has told me so. He says that when the snow comes, our northern brothers are looking south.”

  “Your uncle knows. He is wise. I am glad we are home again with him and Elder Brother and the sheep.”

  “It is good,” said the boy. “Elder Brother says he is building a new hogan for his family, and the house blessing will be soon.”

  “Yes,” said Mother. “We will all go. There will be much good food to eat. There will be mutton and corn bread.”

  Two days later the whole family rode to the new home of Elder Brother. It was built on a little knoll surrounded by juniper and piñon trees. Orange-colored sandstone buttes rose behind the knoll. In front the rolling ground stretched away toward purple mountain ranges.

  To the east Waterless Mountain stood, with its long, straight top, and steep, canyoned sides. It was a very big mountain, extending many miles in every direction.

  Uncle said that on all of its sides, east, south, west, and north there was not a single spring of water.

  It was such a high mountain that in the winter time, snow lay on its flat top, giving moisture to the pine and spruce forests that massed just below its crest. Its steep rocky sides gave little support to vegetation.

  Younger Brother often wished he might climb its wind carved cliffs. Once more he thought so as he sat outside the new hogan, waiting with all the relatives for Elder Brother and his wife to finish their house blessing.

  Inside, Elder Brother made the fire, while his wife swept the floor with a bunch of grass. When that was
done the wife handed a basket of white corn meal to her husband. He took a little of the meal and rubbed it on the south timber of the doorway as high as he could reach.

  Moving in the sunwise direction, to the west and north timbers, he silently made the gift of corn meal to the house where he and his family were to live.

  When this was done, he sprinkled the meal on the floor at the base of the timbers, saying in low, measured tones:

  May it be delightful, my house.

  From my head to my feet

  May it be delightful.

  Where I lie may it be delightful.

  All above me may it be delightful.

  All around me may it be delightful.

  While Elder Brother went through this ceremony, his wife watched and listened with quiet happiness. She saw him fling a bit of meal into the fire he had made and she heard him say:

  May my fire be delightful.

  She watched him throw a bit toward the ceiling. The words he then spoke were addressed to the sun:

  Accept this gift, Oh, Bearer of the Day.

  May it be delightful as I walk about my house.

  Then from the open doorway Elder Brother sprinkled the white corn meal toward the east, saying:

  May this road of light ever and always lead in peace to my home.

  After that he handed the basket to his wife and she spoke the words of blessing that Uncle had taught her. She went to the sweet cedar fire that her husband had lit for her and said in a low voice:

  May it be delightful my fire.

  May it be delightful for my children.

  May all be well.

  May it be delightful with my food and theirs.

  May all be well.