The Sun's Children

THE SUN'S CHILDREN ³

Once a girl went out from Cochiti to pick up piñons. She stayed several days and gathered a great many. One day the Sun said, "I want this girl for myself. I wish to possess her. I will go and speak to her." She was a very fine looking girl and she wore big buckskin puttees and a manta and belt, and a white manta over her shoulders, and carried a little basket for piñons on her arm. So the Sun came down to speak to her. He was a handsome man, and he said, "Girl, are you picking up piñons?" "Yes." "Would you like to have a buckskin?" When he said this, he took hold of her and they played with each other. She liked him. She stayed for several days, and the Sun slept with her. When each morning came, Sun left her. He lifted up his downy feathers, and flew up. One night Sun said to the girl, "Tomorrow morning when I return to my home I will take you with me."

In the morning she got ready and dressed herself in her best clothes. That morning his brother took the Sun's place. Before day broke he said to her, "Hold on to his downy feather and it will take us to the place where I live. But shut your eyes tight and don't open them." She shut her eyes and they started off. They went to the east. They traveled a long way till they got to a great plain. There they put her down and she opened her eyes. This is the way they got to the place at the edge of the world where Sun starts out.

They found a village there with people living in it. He took her to a two-story house. She went up the ladder. Sun went up first for his father and mother were living there. He said, "Here comes in a valuable girl, and I wish you to receive her." "Yes,"

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said the father and mother, "come in, come in." She went in. They greeted her and set out a stool of solid turquoise. They slept that night in his house and the next morning started off from his house to the great plains.

As they were crossing the plains, she was already about to have a child. He took her back to the place where he had found her when she was picking piñons and said, "Now I shall go back and go on with my business. I shall always come back to see what you are doing." It was four days before he came back again, and during those days her baby boy was born. She nursed him until the Sun father came back. Sun returned to the girl, and the girl offered the child to him, saying, "Here is your baby. It is a little boy." They named him Bluebird (Culutiwa). He grew up and he became a big boy, but Sun father did not take the girl to his house any more. At last she had another child. Now there were two little Sun babies. They named the younger one Turquoise.

When they grew up they asked their mother, "Who is our father?" "Your father is Sun." "We ask because people say that we have no father." They were very naughty little boys, and whatever they were told to do they did just the other thing. They fed their mother only venison. One day their mother said, "Now, my little boys, go look for your father, but you are to go alone. Travel east all the way." On the way the people tried to harm them, but they could not. They got close to where Sun comes up. Under the Sun were lots of black flint arrow points all sticking up. It did not bother them; they went right past. Their mother told them, "When you get to the village, don't stop at any other house. Way at the east end there, is a two-story house. Go up the ladder and down into the house. That is where your grandfather and grandmother live." As they went in they greeted their grandfather and grandmother and asked, "Is this where our father lives? Our mother told us that our father lives in the house at the east, and we want to know him, and that is why we have come here." "Sit down, sit down, my little grandchildren. He'll be in soon," their grandmother said.

Night came. Their father came in. As he came down the ladder his mother said, "My son, here are two little boys. They are looking for you." Their father greeted them with all his heart. His mother said, "To-morrow you shall make them buckskin clothing." Sun said to his father, "Make the buckskin clothing for them so that it will be ready to-morrow. Wait for me here, my little boys, to-night, and to-morrow morning I shall try you and see how you go across the sky." Sun took the little boys along with him to try them. He took them to a little room. There were snakes all over the floor. They coiled and stretched their necks up, and made as if

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to bite. The boys began at once to kill the snakes, and both took the dead snakes on their backs. They were not frightened at all. He took them into another room full of deer. They began at once to kill the deer. As they came, to the end of that room, at the door were two long obsidian knives, and between them only a tiny space. They were not afraid and passed through and there was not even a scar.

From there he took them to the place where the Sun lives. Bluebird was the first. Sun said to him, "When it is time for the first daybreak, put this downy feather on your forehead. When it is time for it to get lighter, take it off and tie on this parrot-tail feather. Then start to come up. As you get halfway to noon, stop for a while and wait to see if anybody gives you sacred meal and pollen in Cochiti. As soon as you receive your sacred meal and pollen, go on again and wait again at noon for somebody to come and give you food. When you receive your sacred meal and pollen, start again. When you come to setting, stop again and wait for food. As soon as you have stopped for a while, start off again and when you are getting near where Sun goes down, you will see two great monsters with long teeth lying low down (on the horizon). Don't be afraid. Go right down." * * * That is the place where Bluebird was afraid to go, and he stopped for a long time. The monsters frightened him, and the sun didn't set that night. The younger brother watched; he was a long way off. He had great power, and he came fast. He pushed his brother down into the monster's jaws, and the sun set.

He was in another world, but his father had told him, "When you get to the underworld don't be afraid of the people there." He went down under the earth and returned again to this world. He got to the place where his father lived. "Thank you," said his grandfather and grandmother, "that you have come home safe. We know it is true that you are a child of the Sun." It was Turquoise's turn. They tried him in the same way. Before dawn they gave him a downy feather to tie on his forehead, and when the morning light was coming, the parrot-tail feather. His father said, "When the sky begins to get red, take the feather off and come up and bring the daylight. Then people will begin that day to give you sacred meal and pollen. In the morning wait and see if anyone gives you food. At noon stop again and wait for meal. When you get this, start again, and when it is almost sunset stop a third time and get sacred meal and then go on." He did all this and came to the place where the sun sets. The monsters did not frighten him; he went in between them. "You are a very brave boy," they said to him. He went on through the other world, and came again to the place where

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his father lived. His grandfather and grandmother were much pleased and said, "Thank you very much, you have come back safely. We know you are surely the Sun's child."

Footnotes

23:3 Informant 1. Notes, p. 211.