CHAPTER VIn the Far Fields
Spring in the canyons! How good the warm, moist air felt after the rains, and how bright and fresh the young grass looked along the little river so far below the cliff village. The rusty red of the pinons and oaks, and of the dull little cedars, too, had been turned to deep, rich green, and the yucca tufts which clambered bravely almost to the top of the gorge were sending up new lances of vivid color. Life was in the air, and it stirred even the oldest people of the cliff village to a keen interest in the year’s greatest event.
There was a great stir in the court. On every terrace, too, were girls and women at work, tying the sharp new ironwood planting sticks into bundles and shelling the sacred colored corn which was to be planted in a specially prepared corner of the field. Great baskets and bags were filled with food: piki, and pounded acorns baked in sheets with meal, and strips of hard, dry meat. There were cakes of buffalo meat, too, pounded fine, and bags of dried peaches, and beans for eating as well as planting. For from now on until the crop was ready for harvest men must stay in the far-away fields to guard as well as work.
For the first time Kwasa and Wiki were to go with the men. They strutted about the plaza importantly, one minute imitating the stately manners of Honau and the other men, the next strongly tempted to join in the games of leap-frog and hunt-the-deer that were being carried on in the crannies of the great building. Strong as the temptation was, however, they would not have yielded to it for the world, lest in the eyes of the other lads they should lose some of their newly acquired dignity.
The great field lay far away to the south of the village, beyond where the canyon opened out into the wider valley. For many years the same ground had been cultivated by the Clan, and on every side were evidences of the painstaking and careful work that had made possible the abundance of grain the Cliff people had enjoyed from year to year. On a gentle slope beyond the field was a scattering orchard of peach trees, each carefully placed in some particularly fertile spot. From a great rockreservoir on the hill above, a ditch ran down to the fields, separating as it reached the edge into many small passways for water, which could thus be turned upon the growing crop should the gods, whose aid had been so earnestly invoked, neglect to send rain enough. Along the lower edge of the field ran a long, low clay wall or ledge, designed to keep the water thus led into the planted land from wasting by running too far down the slope.
How good the brown earth smelled as the sharp planting sticks turned up the moist soil to make fine, soft beds for the precious seeds. Where the soil was heavy and came up in clods, old Honau, the master of the planting, showed Kwasa and Wiki how to follow behind the seed scatterers and smash the lumps with stone mauls tied to the ends of long sticks. They were instructed, too, how to clean the winter’s wash of mud out of the waterways, and how to repair the lower wall where it had washed away.
Cliff men going down to work in the fields. The watch tower is seen in the background.
Cliff men going down to work in the fields. The watch tower is seen in the background.
Cliff men going down to work in the fields. The watch tower is seen in the background.
A round tower built of sandstone blocks stood on a jutting point of rock far above the fertile valley. Adjoining it was a low, oblong room fitted with two small openings. This was both guard and shelter. From the tower a watcher kept constant lookout, for the men were far from home and unprotected by natural walls, as they were in the cliff village, and a sudden rush of enemies from any of the many intersecting canyons might result in a terrible loss of life. The watcher was not Bimba, however, who could not be spared from the watch tower above the village, where long usage had made him familiar with every crack and crevice of the hills and valleyswithin the sweep of his sharp eyes, until not even a rabbit could cross an open spot undiscovered. Now that the men were gone it was more important than ever to have a trusted and experienced watcher to guard the women and children. So the guardian in the tower above the great field was not Bimba, but Haida, who, next after the veteran himself, had the sharpest eyes in the clan.
No alarm came, however, to mar the joy of the planting time. Day after day the men worked on, cleaning away every weed and bush as they went, and seeing that every one of the treasured seeds had its proper chance to grow and thrive. For upon the crop must depend the lives of all the next winter. Though they went on occasional long hunts, the Cliff men were not, like their neighbors and enemies, the Utes and Apaches, dependent upon game for the greater part of their living. Corn was the main food of the people of the cliffs, and whether parched to be eaten whole, or ground in three-parted stone metates to be made into the great thin sheets of piki, or paper bread, it formed the staff of life for them. Hence the great importance of every seed-grain, for the winters in the canyons were long and there were many mouths to feed.
There were long days of work, and weary nights when the men lay down in the stone shelter adjoining the watch tower with aching muscles but hopeful hearts; but at last every seed was in. The irrigating channels were straight and clean, and the reservoir, as they had ascertained, was two-thirds full of water. Even so soon the favor of the gods seemed sure, for twice since theplanting had begun good rains had fallen, leaving the earth dark and mellow and rich with promise.
There must be one more thing done, however, before they could return to the village for the short stay possible between the planting and the working of the crop. Two days before a messenger had been sent to tell Mosu that the planting was nearly done, and hardly was the last row finished when they saw him coming. In his hands he carried a bowl of sacred meal, and upon his forehead was the mystic raincloud symbol, colored, like the feathers in the prayer-plume an attendant carried behind him, with red, green, yellow, and white pigments. His tunic of beautifully-dressed deerskin was also decorated with the symbols of the cloud and the sun, while the snake-like lightning symbols were painted in white upon his powerful brown arms. A second attendant bore a great bundle of prayer-plumes, and a third a bowl of water and a short, stiff brush of turkey feathers.
Solemnly the planters met Mosu as he came toward them. Falling into line behind him they marched solemnly around the field, and back to the center where a hole had been dug and a stone slab placed over it in imitation of the sipapuh in the kiva. Here they formed into a hollow square, each side facing a point of the compass. The attendant distributed the prayer-plumes, which each man held high in his left hand as Mosu scattered the sacred meal to north, east, south and west, the zenith and the nadir. Then into the bowl of water he dipped the turkey-feather brush, sprinkling the earth toward the cardinal points. Marching about the improvised sipapuheach man stamped upon it in passing. Then, stooping reverently, they laid the prayer-plumes underneath the slab that covered the excavation, and the ceremony was over.
“I wonder where Sado is,” said Wiki suddenly, as the boys passed the spring at the head of the canyon on their way home.
“I hope we may see him again some time,” returned Kwasa. “Do you suppose he has danced in the kiva yet?”
“Sometimes I wish we had not been ‘adopted,’” said Wiki almost regretfully, “for I would like to throw the dice again.”
“Well, why not?” laughed Kwasa. “The men play at that game, and I have never shown you old Honau’s trick. Besides, here are the dice. Let us hurry home.”