Notes on the Story of Cloud

p. 234

NOTES ON THE STORY OF CLOUD

In Emory's report, before alluded to, also in Captain Johnston's, we find variants of The Story of the Children of Cloud. Thirsty Hawk, the Maricopa, told Emory "that in bygone days a woman of surpassing beauty resided in a green spot in the mountains, near where we were encamped. All-the men admired and paid court to her. She received the tributes of their devotion, grain, skins, etc., but gave no love or other favor in return. Her virtue and her determination to remain unmarried were equally firm. There came a drought which threatened the world with famine. In their distress, people applied to her, and she gave corn from her stock, and the supply seemed endless. . . . One day as she was lying asleep with her body exposed, a drop of rain fell on her stomach, which produced conception. A son was the issue, who was the founder of a new race which built all these houses" (ruins, vahahkkees).

Johnston has it: "The general asked a Pima who made the house I had seen. 'It is the Caza de Montezuma', said he, 'it was built by the son of the most beautiful woman, who once dwelt in yon mountain; she was fair, and all the handsome men came to court her, but in vain; when they came, they paid tribute, and out of this small store she fed all the people in time of distress, and it did not diminish; at last, as she lay asleep, a drop of rain fell upon her navel, and she became pregnant, and brought forth a boy, who was the builder of all these houses."

The seeneeyawkum gives her twins but knew nothing of any story of their children or of these buildings, the vahahkkees.