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Legends

The Revenge of Blue Corn Ear Maiden

A long time ago, two maidens lived in Oraibi. They were close friends and often ground corn at one another's houses. Their friendship ended abruptly, however, when they both fell in love with the same young man. One of them, Yellow Corn Ear Maiden, had supernatural powers, and she made up her mind to destroy her rival, Blue Corn Ear Maiden. Early one morning the two girls carried their jugs to get water from Spider Spring, northeast of the village. On the way back they came to a sand hill, and Yellow Corn Ear Maiden said, "Let's sit down and rest for a while."

After a time she said: "Let's play catch. You run down the hill, and I'll throw something at you, and you throw it back." She drew from her bosom a pretty little wheel that gleamed with all the colours of the rainbow. When her friend reached the foot of the hill, Yellow Corn Ear Maiden threw the wheel at her, but it was so heavy that Blue Corn Ear Maiden collapsed on the ground when she caught it. When she stood up again, she was a coyote. Yellow Corn Ear Maiden laughed and said, "That's what you get for quarrelling with me!" She shooed the coyote away, took her own jug, and went back to the village.

Sadly the coyote climbed the hill and tried to pick up her jug, but without hands she couldn't. She sat down and cried until evening.

After dark she tried to enter the village, but the dogs drove her away. She made a large circuit around the village and tried to go in from another side, but she was again driven away by the dogs. By this time she was getting very hungry, so she went off to the west hoping to find something to eat.

It was the fall of the year, and the people were busy in the fields working on their crops. Carefully she crept up to one of the homemade shelters in which the farmers lived, found two roasted ears of corn that had been left on top, and ate them right up. She tried a third time to enter the village, but when the dogs smelled her and drove her away, she knew she wouldn't be able to get home as long as she looked and smelled like a coyote.

She wandered through the entire night, until she arrived at a place which belonged to two Qooqoqlom Kachinas who were hunting in that region. In their hut she found plenty of baked rabbit meat and entrails, and lots of rabbit skins. Starving but also exhausted, she ate a little meat and a bit of entrail (which she did not like very much). Since the two hunters had already eaten and left for the hunt, she decided to stay in their hut and rest all day.

In the evening the two Qooqoqlom hunters returned. With their keen eyes and ears, they knew even as they approached that something was wrong. One of them peeked in and whispered, "There is a coyote in our hut and he's eaten some of our meat." He got his bow and arrows and was aiming at the intruder, when the other one said, "No, let's try to capture him alive and take him home to our grandmother, Spider Woman." So they went in but, much to their surprise, they heard the coyote sob and saw tears trickling from its yes. Even they were touched by the sight, and one of them took a large piece of meat from his pouch, broke it in two, and gave a portion to the visitor, who ate it with relish. They then decided to go back home that evening.

They tied up the meat and the skins, and also tied the feet of the coyote. Loading everything upon their backs, they returned to Kachina Gap, a short distance northwest of Oraibi.

As soon as they arrived, they called to Spider Woman, "Grandmother, we have brought you an animal. Come and help us lift it off our backs." She was delighted with her present, and placed the coyote with the rabbit meat near the fireplace. Then the woman looked closely at the wretched animal and exclaimed, "Alas! That poor one! This is no coyote. Thankfully you have not killed it. Where did you find it?" They told her how they had found and captured it in their hunting hut. She sent one of the men into the village after some tomoala (a potent plant); the other one she sent to the woods to fetch a few juniper branches.

While they were gone she boiled some water, and when the man with the tomoala returned, she poured the water into a vessel and hooked one tomoala pod into the coyote's neck and another one into her back. She then plunged the animal into the water and covered her with a piece of native cloth. Placing her hand upon the cover, Spider Woman took hold of the two hooks and kept twisting and turning them until she had pulled  off the skin of the coyote. When she threw aside the cloth, there was Blue Corn Ear Maiden, still in her original clothes, her hair tied in whorls just as it had been when she left the village. The woman asked how she had met this fate, and the maiden told her the whole story. Spider Woman comforted her, saying, "That Yellow Corn Ear Maiden is bad, but you will have your revenge."

At this point, the other hunter returned with the juniper branches. She took the maiden, together with the branches and the water, into another room and there bathed her, then gave her some corn, which the maiden ground into meal. The maiden stayed there for several days, until Spider Woman told her that her mother was very sick with worry and that she should go home. But first Spider Woman called together a number of Kachinas who lived nearby and told them all that had happened. "I want you to return her to her house," she said, and they were willing. She dressed the maiden in wonderful finery, put her hair into fresh whorls, and placed over her shoulders a new atoo.

She instructed her to have her father make bahos, prayer sticks, and a number of nakwakwosis as prayer offerings to the leader of the Kachinas and the leader of the singing. Lastly, she gave her a plan to deal with Yellow Corn Ear Maiden. So off they set, the maiden walking in the rear of the line of Kachinas.

At early dawn, the so-called white dawn, they arrived near the house of the village chief, where the Pongowe kiva is at present situated; there they performed their first dance, singing while they danced. Those already stirring in the village rushed out to see the Kachinas dancing. Soon the news was whispered around through the whole village that the Kachinas had brought a maiden with them, and some soon recognized Blue Corn Ear Maiden and ran to the house of her parents. The latter refused to believe the news, and four messengers had to be sent to convince them.

When they finally went to the Kachinas, the procession had arrived at the dancing plaza in the centre of the village. "So you have come," the mother said, and began to cry. She wanted to take her daughter with her then, but the girl said, "Wait a little," and gave her father Spider Woman's instructions. The Kachinas continued their dancing, with the mana, the female Kachinas waiting by their side.

When finally the father brought the prayer offerings, he gave one baho to the leader, the other to his daughter. After the dancing was over, the daughter gave her prayer stick to the leader of the singing. The nakwakwosis were distributed among the other Kachinas, and after the happy father had thanked them for bringing his child, they returned to their own homes.

Blue Corn Ear Maiden rested at her parents' for a day and a night, but early the next morning she went to grind corn, and as she did, she sang a little song about her adventures. When Yellow Corn Ear Maiden heard her voice, she came rushing out to proclaim how delighted she was at her friend's return. Blue Corn Ear Maiden treated her cordially, just as Spider Woman had told her to. They ground corn together all day, just as they had done before. In the evening they went after water again, to the same spring where they had gotten water before. While they were filling their jugs, Yellow Corn Ear Maiden noticed that her friend was dipping her water with a peculiar little vessel (which Spider Woman had given her) and that the water, which ran into the jug, was very  beautiful, glistening with the colours of the rainbow. She said to her friend: "What have you there? Let me see that little cup."

"Yes," her friend said, "That is a very fine cup, and the water tastes good from it, too." Thereupon she drank from it and handed it to her friend, who also drank. Immediately she fell down and was turned into a bull snake. "There! You will remain on the ground forever," Blue Corn Ear Maiden said. "You once tried to destroy me, but it didn't work. No one will help restore you, though." She laughed, picked up her jug, and returned to the village.

So the bull snake slithered away to begin its lifelong wandering. It was often hungry, but as it couldn't move very fast, it had to  capture its prey by luring little rabbits and birds with its powerful intoxicating breath.

Yellow Corn Ear Maiden tried finally to return to her village,  where she was killed by her own parents. They, of course, didn't know the snake they had killed was their own daughter. But her soul was liberated to go to the Skeleton House.

Ever since then some dead sorcerers will take the form of bull snakes and leave their graves, still wound in the yucca leaves with which the corpse was tied up when laid away. If such a bull snake is killed, the soul of the sorcerer living in it is set free and can go to the Skeleton House, just as Yellow Corn Ear Maiden did at last.
 
 
 

* Based on a version collected by Henry Voth in 1905

NOTE: The *mana*, or female Kachinas, were actually men dressed up like women.