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Legends

The Industrious Daughter who Would Not Marry

An old woman and an old man were living in the village, and they had an only daughter. They were very poor. When the girl grew up and began to wonder how she could take care of her father and mother, she said to herself, "I will pick up cotton that has been thrown away." She gathered cotton scraps, combed them, spun them, and rolled the yarn into a ball. When she had enough, she knit a pair of footless stockings. She showed them to her father and mother and said, "I worked hard to make them, and I think it will help us."

Next she tried knitting a pair of openwork stockings -- the sort of leggings, now made of twine, that women wear for the deer dance. She hung them on the clothes pole and called her parents to see what she had learned. "Now I will try to make a big white manta," she said. Picking up more scraps, she combed them and spun them and wound the yarn into balls. Then threaded her loom and began to weave. When she had finished, she decided to embroider it with different colours. She dyed her yarn and sat sewing on the white manta by the window.

By this time the daughter had grown to be a large, handsome girl. While she was embroidering, the young men came around to talk to her about marriage, but she was not interested. She said, "I take care of my father and my mother and myself." When the manta was finished, she presented it to her parents, and her mother hung it over the clothes pole. "Now I will make a small white manta for a dancer's sash," she said. She threaded her loom, wove it, and embroidered it at both ends. Her parents were very happy that their daughter had such initiative.

"I am going to make a belt," the girl said. She collected more cotton scraps and went out to pick the plants that are used in dying the yarn yellow. She saved urine in a very large jar, and when it was full, tipped some out into a bowl. She pounded up bluestone, wet it with the urine, and poured it into the big jar. Then she threw the yarn into the big jar, and when she took it out on the third day, it was as blue as blue could be.

Next, after boiling the yellow dye plants, the girl dipped the yarn into the dye water. She said to her father, "Shall I take them all out? For I might make the belt only of blue and yellow." Her father said, "Yes; when you take the yarn out, hang it over a rafter end, and in the lower loops put the rubbing stone so the yarn will dye straight. Then when you die, they won't stretch you out like that." Then she dyed some yarn red, wove her belt, and finished it. "When you finish the belt, stretch it well, so they won't stretch you when you die," her father told her. This is the advice they give all Indian girls when they weave.

Now the girl sent her father and mother out to sell what she had made, and when they got home, she was spinning again. "Did you have good luck?" she asked, and they said they had sold them all. Soon the people in the village were coming to the girl's house to buy whatever they wanted. The young men bought so many ball-fringed sashes and small embroidered mantas that at last everybody had a complete dancing costume. Then they said, "Let's have a great dance before her house and see which of us she will choose to dance with." So they dressed for the dance and gathered in front of her house. She was sitting in the doorway embroidering a white manta when they began to dance.

But she said, "Why do you think I am the only girl in the village? You are all calling me." she didn't even lift her head as the dance ended and they left. She finished embroidering the manta and gave it to her mother, who hung it over the pole. The family sat by the fireplace, and her father said, "Rest yourself, my daughter."

"I can't help working," she replied. "I like it." Even as she was sitting there, she was pulling  cotton apart. She heard the noise of the rattles approaching and said, "They're coming again! They make a great noise!" It was the rainbow dance, but she didn't watch.

Some of the dancers came to the house and said, "We're surprised that you don't even care to look up when we dance." They went home, but she kept working. Next day the young men began to come and ask her to marry them. Each brought a large manta and a small manta and a belt, but she refused them all.

"Thank you, but I can make those myself," she said. "I know how to make whatever I want."

"What can we do to persuade her to marry us?" they said. "Let's all draw pretty things on our houses." Soon all the young men were busy painting rainbows all over their houses, some on the walls and some on the ladders. Some made little stone birds, set them on both sides of the ladder rungs, and painted them in all colours. The next day she went all through the village, but she didn't care for the rainbows or birds or sunflowers. "I take care of myself and my parents," she said. "I don't need anything anymore, and I want to stay where I am."

Next the young men thought they would tempt her with corn. On top of their roofs they made piles of all the different-coloured ears: blue, white, red, dark red, yellow, and many others. As she walked through the village, she looked at the piles, and the young men all trembled with hope. But she didn't care for any of it. "I tell you boys, I never want to marry. I make my own clothing, and I live very well." So at last the boys said, "We won't court her anymore; she doesn't care for young men."

Coyote heard about this and said, "She'll have to go with me. I shall offer her nothing at all, but she will belong to me. I'll go to the mountains to fetch a blackcurrant branch." He went to his house and took his white buckskin moccasins, the skunk skin to tie around his ankles, the openwork stockings, the small white manta for his kilt, white and red yarn to tie around his arms, his white shell beads, his abalone shell, his paint pot, his long parrot-tail feathers, his short parrot-tail feathers, his downy feathers, and his gourd rattle. He did all these up in a bundle and started off.  As he went, he came to the place where the black currants grow. He took some and said, "Come along, Payatamu."

Arriving at the girl's village, he went not to her house but to another one. "Hello," he said, but no one answered, for nobody was there. He went into the inner room and laid down his bundle. "Now come, Payatamu!" He stamped four times rapidly with his foot, and drew on his white buckskin moccasins. He looked down at his feet. "Do I look pretty? Yes, I look pretty," he said. He stamped four times and put on his lace stockings, and he said, "Do I look pretty? Yes, I look pretty." He stamped four times, put the skunk skin around his ankles, and said, "Do I look pretty? Yes, I look pretty." And so he proceeded as he put on each of the things in his bundle.

When he was all dressed, he said, "Come, Payatamu, see if I can get that girl. I shall not dance before her house, but in the centre of the Little Plaza." And before he went out, picked up the bunch of black currants in his left hand. He went into the centre of Little Plaza and began to dance. When they heard the sound of the rattle, everybody looked out and saw a boy dancing. Hearing somebody singing, the girl threw down the white manta she was embroidering and went out.

"What a fine-looking boy!" she said. "I've never seen him before; I wonder who he is."

She walked into the centre of Little Plaza, and she spied his bunch of blackcurrants, of which she was very fond. Then she said to Coyote, "Give me the black currant branch, and I'll take you to my house."

The boys of the village said to her, "What a dirty, miserable girl you are! Why will you take such a little bit of blackcurrants and let him sleep with you? We've offered you so much more, but you wouldn't even look at it."

But the girl kept right on and led the dancer to her house. She called to her father and mother, "Here comes Payatamu." Her mother exclaimed, "Oh, my dear daughter! What a mischief you have done!"

"My dear mother, he has a branch of great blackcurrants. You know how I love blackcurrants, and it's a long time since I've eaten any."

Payatamu stayed the night and had intercourse with her, and she gave birth to little coyotes. She was a fine-looking girl, but no one in the village cared about her looks by then. Coyote said to the girl's father and mother, "I shall take my wife and children to my home." The couple set out and on their journey came near High Bank.

There was a big hole in the ground, and Coyote said, "Let me go in first." The girl asked, "How can you go in? It's so small." But he managed, and next the two little coyotes entered, and then the mother peeped through. Inside was a house just as good as her parents' home. Coyote had as many mantas, and embroidered mantas, and openwork stockings and belts as she had. So she went in, and they lived there ever after.
 
 
 

* Collected by Ruth Benedict in 1924