Coyote Interrupts the Corn Dance

COYOTE INTERRUPTS THE CORN DANCE ³

They were living in Ushuk (old site of Cochiti, south). One day the parrots said, "Shall we have a corn dance?" "All right. Go and get the prairie dogs to come." They went to the kiva and

p. 145

began to sing and practice for the corn dance. Next morning they called the prairie dog girls. All the, prairie dogs brought their dance clothes and went into the kiva. The parrots took the corn dance standard (paĕtiam, a pole topped with a ball and dressed with parrot-tail feathers and a pendent fox skin) and they went out to the plaza to dance.

Coyote heard that they were going to dance the corn dance and he came and joined the crowd. He said, "I'm hungry. Perhaps I could kill one of the corn dancers." He took a stick and hid it under his tail, and he said to the prairie dogs, "I'd like to dance too." "All right. You may dance at the end of the line." But the prairie dogs saw the stick that Coyote had under his tail. They sang,

Lookout! Lookout!
Coyote has a stick hidden under his tail.
Lookout! Lookout!

[paragraph continues] They all ran into their holes. Coyote ran and tried to strike them with his stick but they had all disappeared. He said, "I'll get these prairie dogs just the same!" and he dug and dug at their holes till he was all dusty and his tongue hung out, but he did not get one prairie dog.

Footnotes

144:3 Informant 2. Notes, p. 239.