The Delight Makers Part 32

It was next the turn of the clan delegates to be called up. They were those most directly interested, but until now they had, out of deference for their religious leaders, maintained an absolutely pa.s.sive att.i.tude.

After the Cuirana Naua had spoken, however, many raised their faces, changed their positions; some looked at the tapop with an air of expectancy, others glanced around, still others seemed to denote by their demeanour that they were anxious and eager to speak. Tyope and Topanashka, alone, did not change their att.i.tudes. The former remained with his head bent and his face covered with both hands; the latter, who happened almost directly to face Tyope, with head erect and an expression of calm watchfulness on his features.

It was of course impossible to foretell the general feeling among the members of the council in regard to the demands of the Turquoise people.

The Shkuy Chayan and the Koshare Naua had declared themselves favourable to their pretensions, but on the other hand the Hishtanyi Chayan--and his word had greater weight than their speeches--had made a very significant suggestion by reminding the governor in his reply that the matter did not properly come before the tribal council, but should be settled between the two clans directly interested. Hoshkanyi Tihua should have taken the hint; but Hoshkanyi Tihua had not the slightest tact; and besides, as a member of the clan Shyuamo, he felt too much interested in the matter not to be eager to press it at once, however imprudent and out of place such action might be. He was, moreover, utterly unconscious of the fact that he was nothing but a tool which both Tyope and the Naua wielded to further their perfidious designs.

The tapop therefore called upon the delegate of the Sun clan to speak.

He dwelt not far from the Turquoise people, and he expressed himself strongly in their favour.

"It is true," said he, "and I know it to be so, that my friends of Shyuamo are hungry. I know it, and it is true also, that the Water people have too much ground. It is right, therefore, for Shyuamo to ask for a share of what they have in excess. How much it shall be, they must settle among themselves."

Everybody did not appear to be satisfied with this; but when the tapop summoned the representative of the Bear clan to give his opinion, the speech of the latter was not only stronger, it was even offensive to the Water people. He accused them of having done wrong in not sharing their fields with the clan of the Turquoise some time before, since it was the duty of those who had too much to divide with those who were poorer. He said that it was wrong on the part of Tzitz to have remained silent when they knew how much Shyuamo did for the tribe, while at the same time they had not enough for their own existence. He charged the tapop, in the name of the council, with delinquency in not having required the Water people to share their superabundance with those of the Turquoise.

The delegate of Kohaio was not only aggressive in his speech, but his manner of delivering it was brusque and violent, and created quite a stir; and many of the members cast glances at him which were not of a friendly nature.

It was now the turn of the delegate of the Water people; and much depended upon what he would say, for he was, besides the members from Shyuamo, the party most interested in the proceedings. Kauaitshe, as he was called, was not, unfortunately, the man for the situation. Short and clumsy in figure, extremely good-natured and correspondingly slow in thought and action, he was intellectually heavy and dull. When the demand upon his clan was first formulated, he listened to it like one whom it does not concern, and only gradually came to the conception that the matter was after all of prime importance to him and to those whose interests he had been selected to defend. Kauaitshe was thunderstruck upon arriving at full comprehension; he was bewildered, and would much rather have run away from the council. But that was impossible. He heard the men speak one by one, and--what to him caused most anxiety--he saw the moment approaching when he also would be called upon; and the prospect filled him with dismay. What should he say! What could he say!

The injustice intended toward his const.i.tuents, the necessity of undertaking a task for which he felt himself incapable, terrified him at first and soon drove him to utter despair; and as all weak and lazy natures, when they see themselves driven to the wall, become frenzied, Kauaitshe, when the tapop turned to him, exploded like a loaded weapon, venting his wrath upon the governor instead of calmly discussing the matter itself. He saw in the governor not only a member of the clan whose plans were detrimental to the interests of his kinsmen, but chiefly the instrument by means of which he was placed in the present difficult position. His face turned dark, then yellow. His eyes glowed like embers. Bounding from his seat, he advanced toward the chairman and hissed,--

"I have heard. Yes,"--his voice became louder,--"I have heard enough.

Enough!" he screamed. "You want to take from us what is ours! You want to rob us, to steal from my people in order that your people may prosper and we may suffer! That is what you want," and he shook his clenched fist in the face of the tapop. The latter started up like an irate turkey, and screamed,--

"You lie! what we want from you is right! You are only a few people, and you are lazy; whereas we are many and thrifty; you are a liar!"

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" sounded the voice of the princ.i.p.al shaman, between the shouts and screams of the disputing parties.

"No! no!" shrieked Kauaitshe, "I will not hush. I will speak! I will tell these friends--"

"Water-mole!" yelled the tapop in response; and both the Koshare Naua and Tyope cried at once,--

"We are Shyuamo, not shuatyam." Their voices sounded like the threatening snarls of wild beasts.

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" the Hishtanyi Chayan now sternly commanded. Rising, he grasped the little governor by the shoulder, pulled him back to his place on the floor, and warningly raised his hand toward Kauaitshe, whose mouth one of his colleagues had already closed by force.

"If you hope for light from Those Above," the medicine-man warned the delegate from Tzitz, "you must not name in their presence the powers of darkness." To the tapop he said,--

"Do your duty, but do it as it ought to be done!"

Kauaitshe reeled back to his place, where he sat down in sullen silence.

It happened to him as it always does to any one who loses his temper at the wrong time and in the wrong place; after the flurry is over, they find that they have wasted all their energies, and remain henceforth incapable of any effort. The delegate of the Water people was _hors du combat_ for the remainder of the evening.

The incident had made an impression on the a.s.sembly. Nearly everybody shared more or less in the excitement. Now that quiet was restored, apparent calmness seemed to prevail in their minds again. The men stared as motionless as before; but their faces were dark, and many an eye displayed a spark of pa.s.sionate fire. Topanashka had not moved during the quarrel, and Tyope hid his face in his hands as before.

Hoshkanyi's voice still trembled as he called upon the representative of Tanyi hanutsh. The latter replied,--

"There is more land yet at the Tyuonyi; let Shyuamo increase their ground from some waste tract."

"There is no room for it," growled the Koshare Naua.

"I say there is," defiantly retorted the other.

The delegate of the Prairie-wolf people was not only of the same opinion as his predecessor, he even mentioned a tract of waste land that lay east of the cultivated plots, from which Shyuamo might take what they needed. The speaker of Tzina hanutsh, however, was of an adverse opinion. He remarked that it was always better for a smaller clan to divide their ground with a more powerful one, as in that case larger crops would be raised. As matters stood, he added, only a portion of the land belonging to the Water people was tilled. This the member from Huashpa denied, and reminded him that the Hishtanyi Chayan had suggested that the whole matter should be settled by the two clans privately. Both the Cuirana Naua and Tyame, the delegate of the Eagle clan, could not refrain from expressing their approval in an audible manner by the customary "[=A]-[=a]," and the s.h.i.+kama Chayan slightly nodded a.s.sent.

It was already late, but n.o.body thought of the hour. On such occasions the Indian can sit up whole nights without ever thinking of rest. Not only was everybody interested, but the excitement, although barely visible on the surface, was rapidly growing; and personal ill-feeling and spite cropped out more and more.

Tyame having expressed himself in favour of the opinion of the delegate from Huashpa hanutsh, the tapop could not refrain from going out of the ordinary routine in order to slight him, and to give the floor to the member from Hiits Hanyi. This flattered the popular delegate, and he accordingly spoke so strongly in favour of the claim presented by Shyuamo that at the close of his speech several voices at once grunted a.s.sent. Both parties were growing decidedly bitter.

Tyame noticed the intended slight; so when Hoshkanyi called him up he opened his talk with the remark,--

"One can see that you are Shyuamo."

"That is what I am," the little fellow bragged.

"But you are tapop also," Tyame objected.

"Why do you speak thus? Are you angry that you could not be used for the place?" venomously inquired the governor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Hishtanyi Chayan, or Chief Medicine Man]

"If I were in your place," retorted the Eagle, "I should do as is customary, and call upon each one in turn."

"You have time enough left to speak against Shyuamo," said the chief of the Delight Makers in a wicked manner.

"That I shall do, most a.s.suredly," exclaimed Tyame. "I am against giving Shyuamo any more ground than they have at present. You have enough for yourselves, for your women, and for all your children. Do more work in the field and do less penance; be shyayak rather than Koshare!" He rose and turned toward Tyope. "Your woman belongs to our hanutsh, and I know that it is not you who feed her; and so you are, all of you. You live from other people's crops!"

Tyope looked up, and his eyes flashed; but in a quiet tone he answered,--

"Your woman is Shyuamo; you know best how it is." The other continued with growing pa.s.sion,--

"And when your wife was from Tzitz everybody knew that it was not you who supported her, but that she maintained you!"

Loud murmurs arose, and the Shkuy Chayan called Tyame to order, so that Tyope did not have time for a reply to this insulting insinuation.

Of all the clans represented three had yet to express their views. These were the clans of Yakka, of the Panther, and Shyuamo. The delegate of the Corn people was no friend of Tyame's, therefore he spoke directly against what the Eagle had intimated. He emphasized how detrimental it might become for a small cl.u.s.ter to own too much tillable land while a large and important clan was suffering for the lack of vegetable food.

With notable shrewdness, he exposed to the meeting the danger for the whole tribe in case one of its princ.i.p.al components should begin to decrease in numbers. He wound up by saying,--

"The strong hanutsh are those who maintain the tribe, for they are those who give us the most people that do penance for the welfare of all, be they Koshare or Cuirana. They also have the greatest number of warriors and hunters. If they have nothing to eat, they cannot watch, pray, and fast in honour of Those Above! So the s.h.i.+uana and the Kopishtai become dissatisfied with us, and withdraw their protection from their children; and we become lost through suffering those to starve who are most useful." But he omitted altogether the important fact that there was still waste land in the gorge, and that it was far preferable to redeem such tracts than to create dissension.

Still it must be acknowledged that the clearing of timbered expanses, such as those on the eastern end of the valley mostly were, opposed great difficulties to the Indian. At the time when the Rito was settled, the native had only stone implements. To cut down trees, to clear brush even, was a tedious and protracted undertaking when it had to be performed with stone axes and hatchets. Fire was the most effective agent, but fire in such proximity to the dwellings was a dangerous servant. On the western end there was no tillable land beyond the patches of the Water clan. Still, if there had been any disposition on the part of Shyuamo to be reasonable, they would have remained satisfied with extending their field slowly and gradually toward the east; but neither Tyope nor the Naua really wanted more land; what they desired was strife, disunion, an irremediable breach in the tribe.

The Panther clan, whose representative had to speak now, was a cl.u.s.ter which belonged neither to the larger nor to the smaller groups.

Occupying, as was the case, a section of the big house, the Panther people were consequently near neighbours of Tanyi, and they sympathized generally with the latter. Their delegate, however, was Koshare, and he leaned not so much toward the Turquoise as toward what seemed to be the desire of the leading Delight Makers,--the Naua and Tyope. He therefore expressed himself bluntly in favour of Tzitz hanutsh giving up a certain quant.i.ty of land to the clan Shyuamo, without stating his opinion or suggesting in the least how it ought to be done.

Every member of the council, Tyope and Topanashka excepted, had spoken.

The majority of votes seemed in favour of the claim represented, but it is not plurality of votes which decides, but unanimity of opinion and conviction; and finally and in the last instance, the utterances of those who speak in the name of the powers above. The shamans had given their opinions, the Shkuy was manifestly favourable to Shyuamo, but his colleague, the Hishtanyi Chayan, had spoken in a manner that restricted the point at issue to a discussion among the clans directly interested.

The Histanyi Chayan was a personage of great authority, and many of those who were on the side of the Turquoise people thought his word to be law in the end. They had shown themselves friendly toward their brethren of Shyuamo, willing, however, to abide by what the closing discussion would bring to light. That discussion was yet to commence, and the opening was to be the speech of Tyope himself. Much stress also was laid upon what Topanashka would say, for he too was to take part.

Some had their misgivings concerning the real object of the move which every one felt certain Tyope and the Koshare Naua had set on foot; and when the tapop summoned Tyope to speak at last, there was something like a subdued flutter among the audience. Many turned their heads in the direction of the speaker, others displayed in their features the marks of unusual attention.

Tyope rose slowly from his seat. He looked around quietly; there was a sardonic smile on his lips. His eyes almost closed; he spoke in a m.u.f.fled voice, slowly and very distinctly. He was evidently master of his subject, and a natural orator.

"Yaya, nashtio, Tapop, I have heard what you have all said, and it is well, for it is well for each one of you to have spoken his thoughts, in order that the people be pleased and delight come into their hearts. For there are many of us, the fathers of the tribe, and each one has his own thoughts; and thoughts are like faces, never two alike. For this reason did I speak to our father the tapop that he should call in the uuityam, in order that all might hear and that n.o.body could say afterward,--'Shyuamo hanutsh has taken from Tzitz hanutsh what belonged to the Water people, and behold we knew nothing about it!' Shyuamo hanutsh"--he raised his voice and glanced around with flas.h.i.+ng eyes--"has many people; Shyuamo is strong! But the men of the Turquoise are just! They go about in daylight and speak loudly, and are not like the water that roars at night and drops into silence as soon as oshatsh brightens the world." After this fling at the delegate of the Water clan, Tyope paused a moment; he seemed to wait for a reply, but none came, the explanation of his action in carrying the matter before the council appearing to satisfy all. "Shyuamo hanutsh," he proceeded, "is great in numbers but weak in strength, for its people have no food for themselves, and what they raise is barely enough for their koitza, their makatza, and the little ones. They themselves must starve," he cried, "in order that other clans may increase through the children which my men beget with their daughters!"