Etext of Many Swans: Sun Myth of the North American Indians
by Amy Lowell
1920

[NOTE. -- "Many Swans" is based upon a Kathlamet legend, the
main theme and many of the episodes of which I have retained,
while at the same time augmenting and freely departing from it in
order to gain a wider symbolism. Four of the songs in my poem are
real Indian songs, one is an adaptation, the others are merely in the
Indian idiom. In the interest of atmospheric truth, I have felt at
liberty to make occasional use of Indian expressions and turns of
thought, and I here wish to record my gratitude to that small body
of indefatigable workers in that field of Indian folk-lore and
tradition whose careful and exact translations of Indian texts have
made them accessible to those who, like myself, have not the
Indian tongues. -- A. L.]

When the Goose Moon rose and walked upon a pale sky, and water
made a noise once more beneath the ice on the river, his heart was
sick with longing for the great good of the sun. One Winter again
had passed, one Winter like the last. A long sea with waves biting
each other under grey clouds, a shroud of snow from ocean to
forest, snow mumbling stories of bones and driftwood beyond his
red fire. He desired space, light; he cried to himself about himself,
he made songs of sorrow and wept in the corner of his house. He
gave his children toys to keep them away from him. His eyes were
dim following the thin sun. He said to his wife: "I want that sun.
Some day I shall go to see it." And she said: "Peace, be still. You
will wake the children." 

So he waited, and the Whirlwind Moon came, a crescent --
mounted, and marched down beyond the morning, and was gone.
Then the Extreme Cold Moon came and shone, it mounted, moved
night by night into morning and faded through day to darkness. He
watched the Old Moon pass, he saw the Eagle Moon come and go.
Slowly the moons wound across the snow, and many nights he
could not see them, he could only hear the waves raving foam and
fury until dawn. 

Now the Goose Moon told him things, but his blood lay sluggish
within him until the moon stood full and apart in the sky. His wife
asked why he was silent. "I have wept my eyes dry," he answered.
"Give me my cedar bow and my two-winged arrows with the
copper points. I will go into the forest and kill a moose, and bring
fresh meat for the children." 

All day he stalked the forest. He saw the marks of bears' claws on
the trees. He saw the wide tracks of a lynx, and the little
slot-slot-of a jumping rabbit, but nothing came along. Then he
made a melancholy song for himself: "My name is Many Swans,
but I have seen neither sparrow nor rabbit, neither duck nor crane.
I will go home and sit by the fire like a woman and spin cedar bark
for fish-lines." 

Then silver rain ran upon him through the branches from the
moon, and he stepped upon open grass and laughed at the touch of
it under his foot." I will shoot the moon," he thought, "and cut it
into cakes for the children." 

He laid an arrow on his bow and shot, and the copper tip made it
shine like a star flying. He watched to see it fall, but it did not. He
shot again, and his arrow was a bright star until he lost it in the
brilliance of the moon. Soon he had shot all his arrows, and he
stood gaping up at the moonshine wishing he had not lost them. 

Then Many Swans laughed again because his feet touched grass,
not snow. And he gathered twigs and stuck them in his hair, and
saw his shadow like a tree walking there. But something tapped
the twigs, he stood tangled in something. With his hand he felt it, it
was the feather head of an arrow. It dangled from the sky, and the
copper tip jangled upon wood and twinkled brightly. This -- that --
and other twinkles, pricking against the soft flow of the moon, and
the wind crooned in the arrow-feathers and tinkled the bushes in
his hair. 

Many Swans laid his hand on the arrow and began to climb -- up --
up -- a long time. The earth lay beneath him wide and blue, he
climbed through white moonlight and purple air until he fell asleep
from weariness. 

Sunlight struck sidewise on a chain of arrows, below were cold
clouds above a sky blooming like an open flower and he aiming to
the heart of it. Many Swans saw that up was far, and down was
also far, but he cried to himself that he had begun his journey to
the sun. Then he pulled a bush from his hair, and the twigs had
leaved and fruited, and there were salmon-berries dancing beneath
the leaves. "My father, the sun, is good," said Many Swans, and he
eat the berries and went on climbing the arrows into the heart of
the sky. 

He climbed till the sun set and the moon rose, and at midmost
moon he fell asleep to the sweeping of the arrow-ladder like a
cradle in the wind. 

When dawn struck gold across the ladder, he awoke. "It is
Summer," said Many Swans, "I cannot go back, it must be more
days down than I have travelled. I should be ashamed to see my
children, for I have no meat for them."Then he remembered the
bushes, and pulled another from his hair, and there were blue
huckleberries shining like polished wood in the midst of leaves.
"The sun weaves the seasons," thought Many Swans, "I have been
under and over the warp of the world, now I am above the world,"
and he went on climbing into the white heart of the sky. 

Another night and day he climbed, and he eat red huckleberries
from his last bush, and went on -- up and up -- his feet scratching
on the ladder with a great noise because of the hush all round him.
When he reached an edge he stepped over it carefully, for edges
are thin and he did not wish to fall. He found a tall pine-tree by a
pond. "Beyond can wait," reasoned Many Swans, "this is surely a
far country." And he lay down to sleep under the pine-tree, and it
was the fourth sleep he had had since he went hunting moose to
bring meat to his family. 

The shadow crept away from him, and the sun came and sat upon
his eyelids, so that by and by he opened them and rubbed his eyes
because a woman stared at him, and she was beautiful as a salmon
leaping in Spring. Her skirt was woven of red and white cedar
bark, she had carved silver bracelets and copper bracelets set with
haliotis shell, and earrings of sharks' teeth. She sparkled like a
river salmon, and her smile was water tipping to a light South
breeze. She pleased the heart of Many Swans so that fear was not
in him, only longing to take her for himself as a man does a
woman, and he asked her name. "Grass-Bush-and-Blossom is my
name," she answered, "I am come after you. My grandmother has
sent me to bring you to her house." "And who is your
grand-mother?" asked Many Swans. But the girl shook her head,
and took a pinch of earth from the ground and threw it toward the
sun. "She has many names. The grass knows her, and the trees, and
the fishes in the sea. I call her 'grandmother,' but they speak of her
as 'The-One-Who-Walks-All-Over-the-Sky.'" Many Swans
marvelled and said nothing, for things are different in a far
country. 

They walked together, and the man hungered for the woman and
could not wait. But he said no word, and he eat up her beauty as
though it were a ripe foam-berry and still went fasting until his
knees trembled, and his heart was like hot dust, and his hands
ached to thrust upon her and turn her toward him. So they went,
and Many Swans forgot his wife and children and the earth
hanging below the sharp edge of the sky. 

* * * 

The South wind sat on a rock and never ceased to blow, locking
the branches of the trees together; a flock of swans rose out of the
South-East, one and seven, making strange, changing lines across a
smooth sky. Wild flax-blossoms ran blue over the bases of black
and red totem poles. The colours were strong as blood and death,
they rattled like painted drums against the eyesight. "Many
Swans!" said the girl and smiled. "Blood and death," drummed the
totem poles. "Alas!" nodded the flax. The man heeded nothing but
the woman and the soles of his feet beating on new ground. 

The houses were carved with the figures of the Spring Salmon.
They were carved in the form of a rainbow. Hooked noses stood
out above doorways; crooked wooden men crouched, frog-shaped,
gazing under low eaves. It was a beautiful town, ringing with
colours, singing brightly, terribly, in the smooth light. All the way
was sombre and gay, and the man walked and said nothing. 

They came to a house painted black and carved with stars. In the
centre was a round moon with a door in it. So they entered and sat
beside the fire, and the woman gave the man fish-roes and
gooseberries, but his desire burnt him and he could not eat. 

Grass-Bush-and-Blossom saw his trouble, and she led him to a
corner and showed him many things. There were willow arrows
and quivers for them. There were mountain-goat blankets and
painted blankets of two elkskins, there were buffalo skins, and
dressed buckskins, and deerskins with young, soft hair. But Many
Swans cared for nothing but the swing of the woman's bark skirt,
and the sting of her loveliness which gave him no peace. 

Grass-Bush-and-Blossom led him to another corner, and showed
him crest helmets, and wooden armour; she showed him coppers
like red rhododendron blooms, and plumes of eagles' wings. She
gave him clubs of whalebone to handle, and cedar trumpets which
blow a sound cool and sweet as the noise of bees. But Many Swans
found no ease in looking save at her arms between the bracelets,
and his trouble grew and pressed upon him until he felt strangled. 

She led him farther and showed him a canoe painted silver and
vermilion with white figures of fish upon it, and the gunwales fore
and aft were set with the teeth of the sea-otter. She lifted out the
paddles, the blades were shaped like hearts and striped with
fire-hues. She said, "Choose. These are mine and my
grand-mother's. Take what you will." But Many Swans was filled
with the glory of her standing as a young tree about to blossom,
and he took her and felt her sway and: fold about him with the
tightness of new leaves. "This" -- said Many Swans, "this -- for am
I not a man!" So they abode and the day ran gently past them,
slipping as river water, and evening came, and someone entered,
darkening the door. 

Then Grass-Bush-and-Blossom wrapped her cedar-bark skirt about
her and sprang up, and her silver and copper ornaments rang
sweetly with her moving. The-One-Who-Walks-All-Over-the-Sky
looked at Many Swans. "You have not waited," she said. "Alas! It
is an evil beginning. My son, my son, I wished to love you." But he
was glad and thought: "It is a querulous old woman, I shall heed
her no more than the snapping of a fire of dead twigs." 

The old woman went behind the door and hung up something. It
pleased him. It was shining. When he woke in the night, he saw it
in the glow of the fire. He liked it, and he liked the skins he lay on
and the woman who lay with him. He thought only of these things. 

In the morning, the old woman unhooked the shining object and
went out, and he turned about to his wife and said sharp, glad
words to her and she to him, and the sun shone into the house until
evening, and in the night again he was happy, because of the thing
that glittered and flashed and moved to and fro, clashing softly on
the wall. 

The days were many. He did not count them. Every morning the
old woman took out the shining thing, and every evening she
brought it home, and all night it shone and cried "Ching-a-ling" as
it dangled against the wall. 

Moons and moons went by, no doubt. Many Swans did not reckon
them out. Was there an earth? Was there a sky? He remembered
nothing. He did not try. And then one day, wandering along the
street of carved houses, he heard a song. He heard the beat of
rattles and drums, and the shrill humming of trumpets blown to a
broken rhythm:

"Haioo'a! Haioo! 
Many salmon are coming ashore, 
They are coming ashore to you, the post of our heaven, 
They are dancing from the salmon's country to the shore. 
I come to dance before you at the right-hand side of the world,
overtowering, outshining, surpassing all. I, the Salmon! 
Haioo'a! Haioo!" 

And the drums rumbled like the first thunder of a year, and the
rattles pattered like rain on flower petals, and the trumpets
hummed as wind hums in round-leafed trees; and people ran,
jumping, out of the Spring Salmon house and leapt to the edge of
the sky and disappeared, falling quickly, calling the song to one
another as they fell so that the sound of it continued rising up for a
long time. 

Many Swans listened, and he recollected that when the Spring
Salmon jump, the children say: "Ayuu! Do it again!" He thought of
his children and his wife whom he had left on the earth, and
wondered who had brought them meat, who had caught fish for
them, and he was sad at his thoughts and wept, saying: "I want to
shoot birds for my children. I want to spear trout for my children."
So he went back to his house, and his feet dragged behind him like
nets drawn across sand.

He lay down upon his bed and grieved, because he had no children
in the sky, and because the wife of his youth was lost to him. He
would not eat, but lay with his head covered and made no sound. 

Then Grass-Bush-and-Blossom asked him: "Why do you grieve?"
But he was silent. And again she said: "Why do you grieve?" But
he answered nothing. And she asked him many times, until at last
he told her of his children, of his other wife whom he had left, and
she was pitiful because she loved him. 

When the old woman came, she also said: "What ails your husband
that he lies there saying nothing?" And Grass-Bush-and-Blossom
answered: "He is homesick. We must let him depart." 

Many Swans heard what she said, and he got up and made himself
ready. Now the old woman looked sadly at him. "My son," she
said, "I told you it was a bad beginning. But I wish to love you.
Choose among these things what you will have and return to your
people." 

Many Swans pointed to the shining thing behind the door and said,
"I will have that." But the old woman would not give it to him. She
offered him spears of bone, and yew bows, and arrows winged
with ducks' feathers. But he would not have them. She offered him
strings of blue and white shells, and a copper canoe with a
stern-board of copper and a copper bailer. He would not take them.
He wanted the thing that glittered and cried "Ching-a-ling" as it
dangled against the wall. She offered him all that was in the house.
But he liked that great thing that was shining there. When that
thing turned round it was shining so that one had to close one's
eyes. He said: "That only will I have." Then she gave it to him
saying: "You wanted it. I wished to love you, and I do love you."
She hung it on him. "Now go home." 

Many Swans ran swiftly, he ran to the edge of the sky, there he
found the land of the rainbow. He put his foot on it and went
down, and he felt strong and able to do anything. He forgot the sky
and thought only of the earth. 

Many Swans made a song as he went down the rainbow ladder. He
sang with a loud voice:

"I will go and tear to pieces Mount Stevens, I will use it for stones
for my fire. 
I will go and break Mount Qa-tsta-is, I will use it for stones for my
fire. 

All day and all night he went down, and he was so strong he did
not need to sleep. The next day he made a new song. He shouted it
with a great noise:

"I am going all round the world, 
I am at the centre of the world, 
I am the post of the world, 
On account of what I am carrying in my hand." 
This pleased him, and he sang it all day and was not tired at all. 

Four nights and days he was going down the ladder, and every day
he made a song, and the last was the best. This was it!

"Oh wonder! He is making a turmoil on the earth. 
Oh wonder! He makes the noise of falling objects on the earth. 
Oh wonder! He makes the noise of breaking objects on the earth." 

He did not mean this at all, but it was a good song. That is the way
with people who think themselves clever. Many Swans sang this
song a great many times, and on the fourth day, when the dawn
was red, he touched the earth and walked off upon it. 

* * * 

When Many Swans arrived on the earth, he was not very near his
village. He stood beneath a sea-cliff, and the rocks of the cliff were
sprinkled with scarlet moss as it might have been a fall of red
snow, and lilac moss shouldered between boulders of pink granite.
Far out, the sea sparkled all colours like an abalone shell, and red
fish sprang from it -- one and another, over its surface. As he
gazed, a shadow slipped upon the water, and, looking up, he saw a
raven flying and overturning as it flew. Red fish, black raven --
blood and death -- but Many Swans called "Haioho-ho!" and
danced a long time on the sea-sand because he felt happy in his
heart. 

He heard a robin singing, and as it sang he walked along the shore
and counted his fingers for the headlands he must pass to reach
home. He saw the canoes come out to fish, he said the names of
his friends who should be in them. He thought of his house and the
hearth strewn with white shells and sand. When the canoes of
twelve rowers passed, he tried to signal them, but they went by too
far from land. The way seemed short, for all day he told himself
stories of what people would say to him. "I shall be famous, my
fame will reach to the ends of the world. People will try to imitate
me. Every one will desire to possess my power." So Many Swans
said foolish things to himself, and the day seemed short until the
evening when he came in sight of his village. 

At the dusky time of night, he came to it, and he heard singing, so
he knew his people were having a festival. He could hear the
dance-sticks clattering on the cedar boards and the moon-rattles
whirling, and he could see the smoke curling out of the
smoke-holes. Then he shouted very much and ran fast, but as he
ran, the thing which he carried in his hands shook and cried: "We
shall strike your town." Then Many Swans went mad; he turned,
swirling like a great cloud, he rose as a pillar of smoke and bent in
the wind as smoke bends, he streamed as bands of black smoke,
and out of him darted flames, red-mouthed flames, so that they
scorched his hair. His hands were full of blood, and he yelled
"Break! Break! Break! Break!" and did not know whose voice it
was shouting. 

There was a tree, and a branch standing out from it, and fire came
down and hung on the end of the branch. He thought it was copper
which swung on the tree, because it twirled and had a hard edge.
Then it split as though a wedge had riven it, and burst into purple
flame. The tree was consumed, and the fire leapt laughing upon
the houses and poured down through the roofs upon the people.
The flame-mouths stuck themselves to the houses and sucked the
life from all the people, the flames swallowed themselves and
brought forth little flames which ran a thousand ways like young
serpents just out of their eggs, till the fire girdled the village and
the water in front curdled and burned like oil. 

Then Many Swans knew what he had done, and he tried to throw
away his power which was killing everybody. But he could not do
it. The people lay there dead, and his wife and children among the
dead people. His heart was sick, and he cried: "The weapon flew
into my hands with which I am murdering," and he tried to throw it
away, but it stuck to his flesh. He tried to cut it apart with his
knife, but the blade turned and blunted. He cried bitterly: "Ka! Ka!
Ka! Ka!" and tried to break what he wore on a stone, but it did not
break. Then he cut off his hair and blackened his face, and turned
inland to the spaces of the forest, for his heart was dead with his
people. And the moon followed him over the tops of the trees, but
he hated the moon because it reminded him of the sky. 

* * * 

A long time Many Swans wandered in the forest. White-headed
eagles flew over the trees and called down to him: "There is the
man who killed everybody." By night the owls hooted to each
other: "The man who sleeps has blood on him, his mouth is full of
blood, he let loose his power on his own people." Many Swans
beat upon his breast and pleaded with the owls: "You with ears far
apart who hear everything, you the owls, it was not I who killed
but this evil thing I carry and which I cannot put down." But the
owls laughed, shrill, mournful, broken laughs, repeating the words
they had said, so that Many Swans could not sleep and in the
morning he was so weak he shook when he walked. 

He walked among pines which flowed before him in straight,
opening lines like water, and the wind in the pine-branches
wearied his soul as he heard it all day long. At first he eat nothing,
but when he stumbled and fell for faintness he gathered currants
and partridge-berries and so made his feet carry him on. 

He came to a wood of red firs where fire had been before him. The
heartwood of the firs was all burnt out, but the trees stood on stilts
of sapwood and mocked the man who slew with fire. 

He passed through woods of spear-leaf trees, with sharp vines
head-high all about them. He thrust the thing he carried into the
vines and tried to let go of it, but it would not stay tangled and
came away in his hand. 

He heard beavers drumming with their tails on water, and saw
musk-rats building burrows with the stalks of wild rice in shoal
water but they scattered as he came near. The little animals fled
before him in fear, chattering to each other. Even the bears
deserted the huckleberry bushes when they heard the fall of his
foot, so that he walked alone. Above him, the waxwings were
catching flies in the spruce-tops, they were happy because it was
Summer and warm, they were the only creatures too busy to look
down at the man who moved on as one who never stops, making
his feet go always because there was nothing else to do. 

By and by the trees thinned, and Many Swans saw beyond them to
a country of tall grass. He rested here some time eating fox-grapes
and blackberries, for indeed he was almost famished, and weary
with the sickness of solitude. He thought of the ways of men, and
hungered after speech and comforting. But he saw no man, and the
prairie frightened him, rolling endlessly to the sky. 

At last his blood quickened again, and the longing for people beat
a hard pulse in his throat so that he rose and went on, seeking
where he might find men. For days he sought, following the trails
of wild horses and buffalo, tripping among the crawling pea-vines,
bruised and baffled, blind with the sharp shimmer of the grass. 

Then suddenly they came, riding out of the distance on both sides
of him. These men wore eagle-plume bonnets, and their horses
went so fast he could not see their legs. They ran glittering toward
one another, whooping and screaming, and the horses' tails
streamed out behind them stiffly like bunches of bones. Each man
lay prone on his horse and shot arrows, hawk-feathered arrows,
owl-feathered arrows, and they were terrible in swiftness because
the feathers had not been cut or burned to make them low. 

The arrows flew across one another like a swarm of grasshoppers
leaping, and the men foamed forward as waves foam at a double
tide. 

They came near, bright men, fine as whips, striding lithe cat
horses. One rode a spotted horse, and on his head was an upright
plume of the tail-feathers of the black eagle. One rode a buckskin
horse, long-winded and chary as a panther. One rode a sorrel horse
painted with zigzag lightnings. One rode a clay-coloured horse,
and the figure of a kingfisher was stamped in blue on its shoulder.
Wildcat running horses, and their hoofs rang like thunder-drums
on the ground, and the men yelled with brass voices:

"We who live are coming. 
Ai-ya-ya-yai! 
We are coming to kill. 
Ai-ya-ya-yai! 
We are coming with the snake arrows, 
We are coming with the tomahawks 
Which swallow their faces. 
Ai-ya-ya-yai! 
We will hack our enemies. 
Ai-ya-ya-yai! 
We will take many scalps. 
Ai-ya-ya-yai! 
We will kill -- kill -- kill -- till every one is dead. 
Ai-ya-ya-ya-yai!" 

Many Swans lay in a buffalo wallow and hid, and a white fog slid
down from the North and covered the prairie. For a little time he
heard the war-whoops and the pit-pit of hitting arrows, and then he
heard nothing, and he lay beneath the cold fog hurting his ears
with listening. When the sky was red in the evening and the fog
was lifted, he shifted himself and looked above the grass. "Alas!"
Alas!" wept Many Swans, "the teeth of their arrows were like dogs'
teeth. They have devoured their enemies." For nobody was there,
but the arrows were sticking up straight in the ground. Then Many
Swans went a long way round that place for he thought that the
stomachs of the arrows must be full of blood. And so he went on
alone over the prairie, and his heart was black with what he had
seen. 

* * * 

A stream flowed in a sunwise turn across the prairie, and the name
of the stream was "Burnt Water," because it tasted dark like
smoke. The prairie ran out tongues of raw colors -- blue of camass,
red of geranium, yellow of parsley -- at the young green grass. The
prairie flung up its larks on a string of sunshine, it lay like a
catching-sheet beneath the black breasts balancing down on a
wind, calling "See it! See it! See it!" in little round voices.

Antelope and buffalo, 
Threading the tall green grass they go, 
To and fro, to and fro. 
And painted Indians ride in a row, 
With arrow and bow, arrow and bow, 
Hunting the antelope, the buffalo. 
Truly they made a gallant show 
Across the prairie's bright green flow, 
Warriors painted indigo, 
Brown antelope, black buffalo, 
Long ago. 

* * * 

Now when he heard the barking of dogs, and saw the bundles of
the dead lashed to the cottonwood trees, Many Swans knew that he
was near a village. He stood still, for he dared not go on because of
the thing which he had with him. He said to himself, "My mind is
not strong enough to manage it. My mind is afraid of it." But he
longed to speak with men, and so he crept a little nearer until he
could see the painted tepees standing in the edge of the sunshine,
and smell the smoke of dried sweet grass. Many Swans heard the
tinkling of small bells from the buffalo tails hung on the tepees, he
saw the lodge ears move gently in the breeze. He heard talk, the
voices of men, and he cried aloud and wept, holding his hands out
toward the village. 

Then the thing which he was carrying shook, and said: "We shall
strike that town." Many Swans heard it, and he tried to keep quiet.
He tried to throw the thing down, but his hands closed. He could
not keep his mind, and his senses flew away so that he was crazy.
He heard a great voice shouting: "Break! Break! Break! Break!"
but he did not know that it was his own voice. 

Back over the prairie sprang up a round cloud, and fire rose out of
the heart of the grass. The reds and yellows of the flowers
exploded into flame, showers of sparks rattled on the metal sky,
which turned purple and hurtled itself down upon the earth. Winds
charged the fire, lashing it with long thongs of green lightning,
herding the flames over the high grass; and the fire screamed and
danced and blew blood whistles, and the scarlet feet of the fire
clinked a tune of ghost-bells on the shells of the dry cane brakes.
Animals ran -- ran -- ran -- and were overtaken, shaken grass
glittered up with a roar and spilled its birds like burnt paper into
the red air. The eagle's wing melted where it flew, the hills of the
prairie grew mountain-high, amazed with light, and were obscured.
The people in the village ran -- ran -- and the fire shot them down
with its red and gold arrows and whirled on, crumpling the tepees
so that the skins of them popped like corn. Then the bodies of the
dead in the trees took fire with a hard smoke, and the burning of
the cottonwoods choked Many Swans as he fled. His nostrils smelt
the dead, and he was very sick and could not move. Then the fire
made a ring round him, and he stood in the midst by the Burnt
River and wrung his hands until the skin tore. He took the thing he
wore and tried to strip it off in the fork of a tree, but it did not
come off at all. He cried: "Ka! Ka! Ka! Ka!" and leapt into the
river and tried to drown the thing, but when he rose it rose with
him and came out of the water gleaming so that its wake rippled
red and silver a long way down the stream. 

Then Many Swans lamented bitterly and cried: "The thing I wanted
is bad," but he had the thing and he could not part from it. He
rolled in the stones and the bushes to scrape it off, but it clung to
him and grew in his flesh like hair. Therefore Many Swans
dragged himself up to go on, although the heat of the burnt grass
scorched his feet and everything was dead about him. He heard
nothing, for there was nobody to mock any more. 

* * * 

Mist rises along the river bottoms, and ghost-voices hiss an old
death-song to a false, faint tune. The branches of willows beat on
the moon, pound, pound, with a thin, far sound, shaking and
shrilling the wonder tale, the thunder tale, of a nation's killing:

The Nation's drum has fallen down. 
Beat -- beat -- and a double beat! 
Ashes are the grass of a lodge-pole town. 
Rattle -- rattle -- on a moon that is sinking. 
Out of the North come drift winds wailing. 
Beat -- beat -- and a double beat! 
In the frost-blue West, a crow is ailing. 
The streams, the water streams, are shrinking! 
He gave an acre and we gave him brass. 
Beat -- beat -- and a double beat! 
Beautiful and bitter are the roses in the grass. 
Rattle -- rattle -- on a moon that is sinking. 
A knife painted red and a knife painted black. 
Beat -- beat -- and a double beat! 
Green mounds under a hackmatack. 
The streams, the water streams, are shrinking! 
Is there Summer in the Spring? Who will bring the South? 
Beat -- beat -- and a double beat! 
Shall honey drop from the green snake's mouth? 
Rattle -- rattle -- on a moon that is sinking. 
A red-necked buzzard in an incense tree. 
Beat -- beat -- and a double beat! 
And a poison leaf from Gethsemane. The streams, the water
streams, are shrinking. 

* * * 

Now Many Swans walked over cinders, and there was no sprig or
root that the fire had left. Therefore he grew weaker day by day,
and at night he lay awake tortured for food, and he prayed to the
Earth, saying: "Mother Earth have pity on me and give me to eat,"
but the ears of the Earth were stopped with cinders. Then, after
five sleeps, suddenly before him grew a bush of service-berries
which the fire had not taken. Many Swans gathered the berries and
appeased his hunger. He said: "The berries that grow are blessed,
for now I shall live." Yet he knew that he did not want to live, only
his hunger raged fiercely within him and he could not stand against
it. He took cinders and powdered them, and mixed them with river
water, and made his body black, and so he set his back to the river
and his face to the mountains and journeyed on. 

Up and over the Backbone-of-the-World went Many Swans. Above
the peaks of solitude hang the winds of all directions, and because
there are a multitude of winds they can hold fire and turn it.
Therefore Many Swans felt leaves once more about his face, and
the place was kind to his eyes with laurels, and quaking aspens,
and honeysuckle trees. All the bushes and flowers were talking,
but it was not about Many Swans. The oaks boasted of their iron
sinews: "Fire is a plaything, a ball to be tossed and flung away,"
and they rustled their leaves and struck their roots farther into the
moist soil. The red firs stirred at the challenge: "In Winter your
leaves are dry," they called to the oaks, "then the fire-bear can eat
you. But our leaves are never dry. They are whips to sting the lips
of all fires." But the cedars and the pines said nothing, for they
knew that nobody would believe them if they spoke. 

Now when the hemlocks ran away from him, and the cold rocks
glittered with snow, Many Swans knew that he stood at the Peak of
the World, and again the longing for men came upon him. "I will
descend into a new country," he said. "I will be very careful not to
swing the sacred implement, truly it kills people so that they have
no time to escape." He thought he could do it, he believed himself,
and he knew no rest because of his quest for men. 

There was no way to find, but Many Swans went down through the
firs, and the yellow pines, and the maples, to a white plain which
ran right, and left, and forward, with only a steep sky stopping it
very far off; and the sun on the plain was like molten lead pressing
him down and his tongue rattled with thirst. So he lifted himself
against the weight of the sun and wished a great wish for men and
went on with his desire sobbing in his heart. 

To the North was sand, to the East was sand, to the West was sand,
to the South was sand, and standing up out of the sand the great
flutes of the cactus-trees beckoned him, and flung their flowers out
to tempt him -- their wax-white flowers, their magenta flowers,
their golden-yellow flowers perking through a glass-glitter of
spines; all along the ridges of the desert they called to him and he
knew not which way to turn. He asked a humming-bird in a scarlet
trumpet-flower, and the humming-bird answered: "Across the
sunset to the Red Hills." The sun rose and set three times, and
again he knew not where to go, so he asked a gilded flicker who
was clicking in a giant cactus. And the flicker told him: "Across
the sunset to the Red Hills." But when, after many days, he saw no
hills, he thought "The birds deceived me," and he asked a desert
lily: "Where shall I find men?" And the lily opened her
green-and-blue-veined blossom, and discovered the pure whiteness
of her heart. "Across the desert to the Red Hills," she told him, and
he believed her, and, on the ninth morning after, he saw the hills,
and they were heliotrope and salmon, and as the sun lifted, they
were red, and when the sun was in the top of the sky, they were
blood scarlet. Then Many Swans lay and slept, for he did not wish
to reach the hills at nightfall lest the people should take him for an
enemy and kill him. 

* * * 

In the morning, Many Swans got up and made haste forward to the
hills, and soon he was among cornfields, and the rows of the
cornfields were newly plowed and from them there came a sound
of singing. Then Many Swans felt the fear come upon him because
of the thing he loathed and yet carried, and he thought: "If it should
kill these people!" The music of the song was so beautiful that he
shed tears, but his fears overcame his longing, for already he loved
these people who sang in cornfields at dawn. Many Swans hid in a
tuft of mesquite bushes and listened, and the words the people
were singing were these, but the tune was like a sun wind in the
tree-of-green-sticks:

The white corn I am planting, 
The white seed of the white corn. 
The roots I am planting, 
The leaves I am planting, 
The ear of many seeds I am planting, 
All in one white seed. 
Be kind! Be kind! 
The blue corn I am planting, 
The blue ear of the good blue corn. 
I am planting tall rows of corn. 
The bluebirds will fly among my rows, 
The blackbirds will fly up and down my rows, 
The humming-birds will be there between my rows, 
Between the rows of blue corn I am planting. 
Beans I am planting. 
The pod of the bean is in the seed. 
I tie my beans with white lightning to bring the thunder, 
The long thunder which herds the rain. 
I plant beans. 
Be kind! Be kind! 
Squash-seeds I am planting 
So that the ground may be striped with yellow, 
Horizontal yellow of squash-flowers, 
Horizontal white of squash-flowers, 
Great squashes of all colours. 
I tie the squash-plants with the rainbow 
Which carries the sun on its back. 
I am planting squash-seeds. 
Be kind! Be kind! 
Out of the South, rain will come whirling; 
And from the North I shall see it standing and approaching. 
I shall hear itdropping on my seeds, 
Lapping along the stems of my plants, Splashing from the high
leaves, 
Tumbling from the little leaves. 
I hear it like a river, running -- running -- 
Among my rows of white corn, running -- running -- 
I hear it like a leaping spring among my blue corn rows, 
I hear it foaming past the bean sprouts, 
I hear water gurgling among my squashes. 
Descend, great cloud-water, 
Spout from the mouth of the lightning, 
Fall down with the overturning thunder. 

For the rainbow is the morning 
When the sun shall raise us corn, 
When the bees shall hum to the corn-blossom, 
To the bean blossom, 
To the straight, low blossoms of the squashes. 
Hear me sing to the rain, 
To the sun, 
To the corn when I am planting it, 
To the corn when I am gathering it, 
To the squashes when I load them on my back. 
I sing and the god people hear, 
They are kind. 

When the song was finished, Many Swans knew that he must not
hurt this people. He swore, and even upon the sacred and terrible
thing itself, to make them his safe keeping. Therefore when they
returned up the trail to the Mesa, he wandered in the desert below
among yellow rabbit-grass and grey iceplants, and visited the
springs, and the shrines full of prayer-sticks, and his heart
distracted him with love so that he could not stay still. 

That night he heard an elf owl calling from a pinyon-tree, and he
went to the owl and sought to know the name of this people who
sang in the fields at dawn. The owl answered: "Do not disturb me,
I am singing a love-song. Who are you that you do not know that
this is the land of Tusayan." And Many Swans considered in
himself: "Truly I have come a long way." 

Four moons Many Swans abode on the plain, eating mesquite pods
and old dried nopals, but he kept away from the Mesa lest the
thing he had with him should be beyond his strength to hold. 

* * *

Twixt this side, twixt that side, 
Twixt rock-stones and sage-brush, 
Twixt bushes and sand, 
Go the snakes a smooth way, 
Belly-creeping, 
Sliding faster than the flash of water on a bluebird's wing. 

Twixt corn and twixt cactus, 
Twixt springside and barren, 
Along a cold trail 
Slip the snake-people. 
Black-tip-tongued Garter Snakes, 
Olive-blue Racer Snakes, 
Whip Snakes and Rat Snakes, 
Great orange Bull Snakes, 
And the King of the Snakes, 
With his high rings of scarlet, 
His high rings of yellow, 
His double high black rings, 
Detesting his fellows, 
The Killer of Rattlers. 
Rattle -- rattle -- rattle -- 
Rattle -- rattle -- rattle -- 
The Rattlers, 

The Rattlesnakes. 
Hiss-s-s-s! 
Ah-h-h! 
White Rattlesnakes, 
Green Rattlesnakes, 
Black-and-yellow Rattlesnakes, 
Barred like tigers, 
Soft as panthers. 
Diamond Rattlesnakes, 
All spotted, 
Six feet long 
With tails of snow-shine. 
And most awful, 
Heaving wrongwise, 
The fiend-whisking 
Swift Sidewinders. 
Rattlesnakes upon the desert 
Coiling in a clump of greasewood, 
Winding up the Mesa footpath. 
Who dares meet them? 
Who dares stroke them? 
Who dares seize them? 
Rattle-rattle-rattle -- 
Rattle -- rattle -- hiss-s-s! 

They dare, the men of Tusayan. 
With their eagle-whips they stroke them. 
With their sharp bronze hands they seize them. 
Run -- run -- -up the Mesa path, dive into the kiva. 
The jars are ready, drop in the rattlers -- Tigers, Diamonds,
Sidewinders, drop in Bull Snakes, Whip Snakes, Garters, but hang
the King Snake in a basket on the wall, he must not see all these
Rattlesnakes, he would die of an apoplexy. 

They have hunted them toward the four directions. Toward the
yellow North, the blue West, the red South, the white East. Now
they sit by the sand altar and smoke, chanting of the clouds and the
four-coloured lightning-snakes who bring rain. They have made
green prayer-sticks with black points and left them at the shrines to
tell the snake people that their festival is here. Bang! Bang!
Drums! And whirl the thunder-whizzers!

"Ho! Ho! Ho! Hear us! 
Carry our words to your Mother. 
We wash you clean, Snake Brothers. 
We sing to you. 
We shall dance for you. 
Plead with your Mother 
That she send the white and green rain, 
That she look at us with the black eyes of the lightning, 
So our corn-ears may be double and long, 
So our melons may swell as thunder-clouds 
In a ripe wind. 
Bring wind! 
Bring lightning! 
Bring thunder! 
Strip our trees with blue-rain arrows. 
Ho-Ho-hai! Wa-ha-ne" 
Bang! Bang! 

Over the floor of the kiva squirm the snakes, fresh from washing.
Twixt this side, twixt that side, twixt toes and twixt ankles, go the
snakes a smooth way, and the priests coax them with their
eagle-feather whips and turn them always backward. Rattle --
rattle -- rattle -- snake-tails threshing a hot air. Whizz! Clatter!
Clap! Clap! Corn-gourds shaking in hard hands. A band of light
down the ladder, cutting upon a mad darkness. 

Cottonwood kisi flickering in a breeze, little sprigs of
cotton-leaves clapping hands at Hopi people, crowds of Hopi
people waiting in the Plaza to see a monstrous thing. Houses make
a shadow, desert is in sunshine, priests step out of kiva. 

Antelope priests in front of the kisi, making slow leg-motions to a
slow time. Turtle-shell knee-rattles spill a double rhythm, arms
shake gourd-rattles, goat-toes; necklaces -- turquoise and sea-shell
-- swing a round of clashing. Striped lightning antelopes waiting
for the Snake Priests. Red-kilted Snake Priests facing them, going
forward and back, coming back and over, waving the snake-whips,
chanting a hundred ask-songs. Go on, go back -- white -- black --
red blood-feather, white breath-feather, little cotton-leaf hands
clap -- clap -- He is at the flap of the kisi, they have given him a
spotted rattlesnake. Put him in the mouth, kiss the Snake Brother,
fondle him with the tongue. 

Tripping on a quick tune, they trot round the square. Rattle -- rattle
-- goat-toes, turtle-shells, snake-tails. Hiss oily snake-mouths, drip
wide priest-mouths over the snake-skins, wet slimy snake-skins.
"Aye-ya-ha! Ay-ye-he! Ha-ha-wa-ha! Oway-ha!" The red
snake-whips tremble and purr. Blur, Plaza, with running priests,
with streaks of snake-bodies. The Rain-Mother's children are being
honoured. They must travel before the setting of the sun. 

* * * 

When the town was on a roar with dancing, Many Swans heard it
far down in the plain, and he could not contain his hunger for his
own kind. He felt very strong because the cool of sundown was
spreading over the desert. He said, "I need fear nothing. My arms
are grown tough in this place, my hands are hard as a sheep's skull.
I can surely control this thing," and he set off up the path to ease
his sight only, for he had sworn not to discover himself to the
people. But when he turned the last point in the road, the thing in
his hands shook, and said: "We shall strike that town." 

Many Swans was strong, he turned and ran down the Mesa, but, as
he was running, a priest passed him carrying a handful of snakes
home. As the priest went by him, the thing in Many Swan's hand
leapt up, and it was the King Snake. It was all ringed with red and
yellow and black flames. It hissed, and looped, and darted its head
at the priest and killed him. Now when the priest was dead, all the
snakes he was holding burst up with a great noise and went every
which way, twixt this side, twixt that side, twixt upwards, twixt
downwards, twixt rock-stone and bunch-grass. 

And they were little slipping flames of hot fire. They went up the
hill in fourteen red and black strings, and they were the strings of
blood and death. The snakes went up a swift, smooth way and
Many Swans went up with them, for he was mad. He beat his
hands together to make a drum, and shouted "Break! Break! Break!
Break!" And he thought it was the priests above singing a new
song. 

Many Swans reached the town, but the fire-snakes were running
down all the streets. They struck the people so that they died, and
the bodies took fire and were consumed. The house windows were
hung with snakes who were caught by their tails and swung down
vomiting golden stars into the rain-gutters. In one of the gutters
was a blue salvia plant, and, as Many Swans passed, it nodded and
said "Alas! Alas!" It reminded Many Swans of the flax-flowers in
the sky, and his senses came back to him and he tore his clothes
and his hair and cried "Ka! Ka! Ka! Ka!" a great many times. Then
he beat himself on the sharp rocks and tried to crush the thing he
had, but he could not; he tried to split it, but it did not split. 

Many Swans saw that he was alone in the world. He lifted his eyes
to the thing and cursed it, then he ran to hurl himself over the cliff.
Now a boulder curled into the path and, as he turned its edge,
The-One-Who-Walks-All-Over-the-Sky stood before him. Her eyes
were moons for sadness, and her voice was like the coiling of the
sea. She said to him: "I tried to love you; I tried to be kind to your
people; why do you cry? You wished for it." She took it off him
and left him. 

Many Swans looked at the desert. He looked at the dead town. He
wept.