Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

94 | heavens, who sent rain when and how He pleased, in male and female form. The light showers were female; the roaring thunder-storms that occasion-. ally sweep those valleys were male. And in that dry and arid land, where the people depended solely upon agriculture for their lives, who shall say that these gods were not very real ones? The intermediary between God and man was the earth-runner—the snake— who lived underground, and who knew the secrets of the water-springs. Not any particular kind of snake; any snake was a messenger. They dwelt in pools; they loved cool, damp places; they fol- . lowed the crevasses, and they alone had access to their gods. For this reason the snake was held to be a celestial mes- senger. On the other hand it was the sun that burned their scanty crops. It was the sun that reigned supreme for eleven months out of the year. being the stronger, it was the sun that must be placated to abate his fierce rays till the gods should get word, sent by the serpents, to send their male and female storms upon the earth. , It had pleased Ari-zuna, the sun-god- dess, to visit her people in person and they must make her stay so pleasant that she would remain among them, for while she was absent from the sun it would shed less heat and so the crops would prosper. By some strange freak of fortune the weather did actually become cooler about the time of Mercedes’ arrival and she got all the credit for it. It was a purely natural process to the Indians. The sun, deprived of its tutelary deity, lost its force. The fact that the usual rainy sea- son—what there was of it—was about due, meant nothing to them. Rains came, and the sun’s rays lost much of their force that year because Ari-zuna had come to dwell among her people. It was very simple. What wonder that, by quaint ceremo- * nies that were old five hundred years be- fore Cortez landed in Anahuac, by in- cantations, by charms woven by the priests in the recesses of the sacred kiva beneath the temple, by spells made by antelope and snake priests, they should seek to detain Ari-zuna among them Therefore, Adventure and should send the sacred snakes to take their pressing messages to their god for water. — This was the reason for the great snake-dance which the Pueblo Indians have each year just before the breaking of the rains. This was the dance for which they began to prepare as soon as Ari-zuna had made her home among them in the apartments of the temple prepared for her. Below her rooms lay the sacred kiva, the real temple, where the priests met in solemn conclave. Entrance was through a square hole in the roof, to which a ladder led. The ladder was hung with three eagle feathers, suspended above the opening, and three small skins hanging from a string. Curiosity drew Mer- cedes to the room. nothing and it was taken for granted that she should wander at will through the “place. During the week following her arrival, the men who had rescued her were sum- moned a dozen times to the kiva, where they were questioned and cross-ques- tioned as to the manner of her coming. Once a black stranger had been seen by these men, but a white man never. They always told the same tale: how they had seen her come down from the sky in the midst of a tornado, for they had come to believe that they had actually seen her coming down. The story lost nothing in the telling and they always told it the same way. They had had no training. That kiva was about ten paces long. One-half of it was raised a foot higher than the rest of it, and rough pictures of a coyote were paintedvin red and yel- low ocher on the floor. <A square altar, like the one in the upper apartment, stood in one end, and before it in the loose earth were thrust many “thunder sticks” to invoke the aid of the gods. For night after night after her arrival, Mercedes saw great fires glow on the highest peaks, and every morning men summoned the runners. These runners were men selected for their speed and endurance. It was their duty to gather snakes for the dance so that there would be many messengers to despatch to’ the gods. Equipped with a leather bag and with a brush made of feathers, each man started at a run and ran on straight COPMICLOOOK<S She was denied — (E(@)