46. THE JUG BOY. 1

The Traditions of the Hopi, by H.R. Voth, [1905], at sacred-texts.com

p. 155

In the village of Háno the people were living. The Háno know how to make the earthen jugs, and one time a handsome young woman also made an earthen jug. She kneaded the clay and when her hands were tired she trampled it with her feet, so that the wet clay spurted all around. ² By and by this woman bore a child, but it was an earthen jug, inside of which was a little boy, who cried when he was born. The women who were present were happy. "Ishuní!" they said, "you have borne a child," whereupon they washed the jug child, and in that way the child grew up. But the mother nursed it, holding her breast over the opening of the jug when the child nursed.

By and by the child grew up and began to talk like the Háno, and from that time on the child refused to take the mother's breast; it asked for some food, and from there on it ate food which the mother put into the jug. Thus the child grew to be a young man. One time it rained and then it snowed, and the young men then went hunting. In the evening they came home carrying the rabbits. That jug youth envied them. He had a grandfather, and said to the grandfather, "My grandfather." "Hay!" the latter replied. "I want to go hunting, too." "Very well," he replied, and then the grandfather made a bow for him and arrows, and tied feathers to the arrows, and when he had made them he tied them to the jug handles. He also tied some food to the jug and a burden band with it. These things he made.

Then the grandfather lifted the jug up, carried it down from the village and left it there. He said to him, "Now go on; there in the field they are hunting, hence when you proceed and find rabbit tracks somewhere you follow them. This kind of tracks they have," whereupon he drew them for him. Now then he (the jug youth) moved forward in a wabbling manner and descended somewhere along the path. When he had descended he went somewhere northward from the village. Then he moved up and down that way, and sure enough somewhere found some tracks. He followed them and there, sure enough, a rabbit was running. Now that jug youth moved very fast, so that the mouth of the jug whistled. He circled around the rabbit once, then the rabbit jumped into the wash. The jug youth also came and jumped down. When he landed on the ground he burst into two and a Hopi came bouncing out of it.

p. 156

After that he at once untied the bow and arrows and burden band. He now took the burden band, the bow and arrows, and followed the rabbit. The rabbit became tired and sat down. When the youth found him he shot it. He then followed another one and killed it. Thus he killed four. He now tied them up and carried them on his back and then went home from there. When it was evening he came to his mother carrying the rabbits, and she was truly happy. "Oh my! Thanks that you have killed them, thanks, thanks," she said. The grandfather now also said: "Thanks, thanks, why you have fixed yourself up somewhere, and hence you are now a Hopi and have carried these here to me. Thanks! Why now subsisting on your account I shall live here." When he had thus spoken to him, after that that one lived as a Hopi, and after that he always provided something for his mother, and then subsisting on his account (by his assistance) they lived there.

Footnotes

155:1 Told by Tangákhoyoma (Oraíbi).

155:2 A part of it entered her genitalia and she became pregnant from it.