All Cochiti heroes indiscriminately are insignificant, poverty stricken and ridiculed boys who are successful in overcoming their enemies and mockers. The Twin Heroes are mischievous and irresponsible (p. 19). Arrow Boy does not hunt, and spends his time courting the girls, for which all the boys ridicule him (p. 43). Poker Boy is ugly and untidy, and has singed, bushy hair (p. 49). Corncob Boy is described in identical terms, lived with his poor old grandmother and was despised by everyone (p. 51). He had to eat the scraps thrown out by other people (p. 62). Montezuma is a noodle, and is mocked by everyone. (Dumarest, 228.)
There are, other stories of all of them in which they are fairly dignified husbands, and in these cases they are described only by their prowess in deer hunting. Shell Man (p. 70) appears only in tales of this sort.
Of these heroes the Twins and Corncob Boy are clearly differentiated. The Twins are the mischievous, fun-loving, supernaturally powerful destroyers of the monsters of the earth, protectors of the helpless, and institutors of customs. Corncob Boy (with whom Poker Boy is to be identified also) is Cochiti's culture hero and his story is a curious mixture of the destitute youth and the Christ story. Arrow Boy is on the contrary the generic hero. The tales told of him are not considered to be all about the same individual. Any of the stories told of unnamed heroes, in some variant is likely to he ascribed to "Arrow Boy." This is even clearer in the case of his female analogue, Yellow Woman. She is a bride, a witch, the chief's daughter, the bear woman, or an ogress, quite without regard to character.
The usual pueblo incidents of the twins were recorded by Dumarest about 1900 but have not been obtained in any recent collections. Dumarest's version ends with the establishment of the shiwana and it may be that these tales are sacrosanct in the rain cult. The incidents of their birth and of the two boys' visit to Father Sun are told today, however, without mention of the twin brothers and may really have become separated. The twins appear in the recent collections only in their rôle as two little boys who escape from the dangerous giant and kill him, or as the rescuer of the rabbit huntress.
Dumarest's version, p. 216, follows closely the usual pueblo outline. It is as follows:
While the people were living at Frijoles a very young girl asked the sunlight for a child. Her parents turned her out on account of her pregnancy and her children were born on the top of Bernadillo Mountains. They were called Masewa and Oyoyewa.
(Children of the Sun: Benedict, informant 1 (p. 23), is a parallel tale though it is told of Bluebird and Turquoise: A handsome girl went out from Cochiti to gather piñons. Sun loved her and by aid of his brother and a downy feather took her to his home in the east. He brought her back to her home before her children were born. They were named Bluebird and Turquoise.)
(Son of Sun: Boas (p. 26). A girl had been grinding the hard blue corn until she was very tired. She lay where the sun was shining and was impregnated. Sun told her to tell his son when he was old enough who his father was.)
The children wanted to hunt and she made them bows and feathered arrows. They complained of the arrows and she told them good wood grew a day's journey away guarded by a mountain lion. They went, shot mountain lion, and skinned him. While they were doing this, Bear came up but they killed him too. They stuffed Bear and dragged him back to fool their mother. They told her how tame the dangerous animals had become, and jumped on the stuffed Bear's back. She was terrified. They wanted feathers for their arrows. Their mother told them they came only from a cannibal eagle. They went In the direction where Eagle lived and on the way had to get water from a spring guarded by Deer. Squirrel helped them to kill him by tunneling to his heart and they shot an arrow through the tunnel. Deer tried to gore the twins but died before he reached them. They took out his intestines, filled them with blood and tied them bandolier fashion over each shoulder. Eagle Swooping down caught them by these intestines so that they were not hurt. He dropped them alongside his nest. The intestines broke so that he thought they were dead. They shot the grown eagle and commanded the eaglets not to eat human flesh in the future. They returned to their mother and they made fun of the warnings she had given them.
The boys asked who their father was and was told he lived in the cast. They arrived there and found a house whose entrance was a rainbow. Sun was not at home and the chiefs put the boys on a pyre to test whether they were the children of Sun. They were not burned. Sun's wife was jealous and confined the boys successively in four rooms with prey animals, but they played with them, using them as mounts. Sun returned and his wife reviled him for his unfaithfulness. He acknowledged his children.
Next day Masewa asked to carry the sun disk. He did so, but was afraid to plunge below the horizon at sunset. Sun had to push him down. Oyoyewa next day plunged without hesitating.
(Children of Sun, continued. See above. The boys asked for their father, and their mother told them he lived in the east. They had to cross a field of black arrow points set upright, but they succeeded. Sun's father and mother were there. When Sun returned he greeted the boys and tested them in a room of (1) snakes, (2) deer, (3) a narrow pass between great obsidian knives, (4) carrying the sun across the sky. They were told to tie downy
feathers at sunrise to their foreheads, then parrot tail feathers. They were to stop at midday at the zenith and at a halfway point on either side to receive offerings of sacred meal. When the Sun set they were to plunge Into Dragon's jaws. The elder boy carried the sun disk first, but was afraid to plunge at sunset, and the younger pushed him in. The next day the younger was successful. Therefore Sun's father and mother knew that these were Sun's children (p. 24).
(Son of Sun. Sun's son started to find. his father's house and came to Spider Old Woman. She made medicine and blew it over them both. They became eagles and few to Sun's house. In his house the Mint shamans were in retreat. When his father came, the son proposed to accompany him across the sky. The Sun told him to gather all the offerings of sacred meal and pollen made to him, and dressed him in dancer's costume. He took the Sun's place in the journey across the sky, but at sunset was afraid to descend among the watersnakes. The Sun came to his rescue. The offerings he had collected from humans were given to the Mint shamans (of the sky) for their rites. Next day Sun's son killed a deer and took it to his mother as a farewell gift before he returned to live with his father Sun (p. 26).)
They set out to return home. Sun gave them arrows and a rabbit stick. He warned them of their power, and told them to be careful. When they came near a pueblo, however, they both threw their sticks and mountains were leveled which formed the plains between the mountains of Santa Fe and Bernadillo.
They wanted to drink at a spring guarded by a great giant. They cut him in two with the rabbit stick, but the severed parts joined as before. They threw again and were able to hold the 'two parts from touching one another so that the giant died. They reached home.
(3 versions: a Dumarest, p. 22; b Benedict, informant 1. p. 20; c Benedict, informant 3, p. 19)
This is the part of the usual twin cycle which is commonly told in Cochiti to-day. The Dumarest version follows closely the usual Southwest account, but at the present time the giantess has become a giant in Cochiti versions, probably due to the influence of the story of the giant created ritualistically by the Giant Society to destroy an evil child-killing giant whom he overcame and shut up in the cave in Peralta Canyon. This cave, known as "Where the Giant is Shut up," is 40 to 50 feet up a perpendicular cliff and walled up with four enormous stones. See Dumarest, p. 207. Both tales have come to be associated with this cave in Cochiti.
The giant (Giantess throughout, a) lived at Peralta Canyon and used to descend on Cochiti and carry off all the children in his carrying basket (see Dumarest, p. 207). (He used to boll them in the boiling place of Giant, b.)
The twins met Giant. He threw them Into his basket, but as he passed through piñon trees, they gathered gum, plastered it on his head and set fire to it. He ran to the river to put it out and they escaped, b, c. He met them again and put them In his basket. They filled the basket with stones (they
asked for them to bruise the leaves that children are accustomed to suck, etc., a; Masewa jumped out and handed them up, b) and when the basket was so heavy he did not notice the difference, they escaped (swinging themselves out of the basket on a pine branch. Giantess told them, "Do not go to sleep, you are too heavy when you go to sleep," a). He found them again and took them to his house (he ate rotten human heads and offered them to the twins, a). A great fire was burning there with which to cook them, but they were unharmed (because they were children of Sun, a; because the mud with which they were plastered cooled the water, b). They opened the oven door and put manure in their place. Next morning Giant took out the feast (and saw it was manure, b; and ate it with relish, thinking it was the children. The twins, hidden in bowls, mocked Giant, and he thinking it was the bowls that spoke broke the bowls and they jumped out. She made up another fire and they pushed her in and killed her, a. No killing of Giant is given. The story is only one of the practical jokes perpetrated on him, b).
When he found the twins had escaped he went after them to his home and brought them again to his cave, but they killed him with their obsidian knives and walled him up in the cave, c.
The story of the children-killing giant--not a story of the twin heroes--which probably modified the above tale is as follows:
Long ago, when the people lived at Tiputse the witches made a giant who came down and ate the children. The Giant Society asked Our Mother to help, so they put a grain of corn under a white manta, and prayed, and a giant was created. This giant, when he learned the purpose of his creation, came against and taunted the witch giant, and the two fought each other with thunder knife and war club, the witch giant, being the older, having the first four blows. The first stroke of the good giant destroyed the other, who was found to have a heart filled with cactus spines. This was replaced with one of turquoise, and Our Mother put marks upon him so that he should henceforth be the helper of the people. The good giant was sung back to Our Mother, and the bad one shut up in the cave "Where the giant is shut up" (p. 17).
(3 versions: Boas, p. 21; Benedict, informant 1 (omitted); Benedict, informant 3 (omitted).)
The twins are also shown as protectors of the unfortunate rabbit huntress. After they had rescued her from the ogre they instituted the proper way of living, that is, women shall stay at home and men shall hunt. (For abstracts, see p. 227.)
(Dumarest, p. 226)
There was a great drought. The twins came to a great hole into Wenima and heard from it the songs of the Shiwana. They cast themselves down. When they recovered from the force of the fall they saw it was such a beautiful place, they thought it was very natural the Shiwana had not come to visit the earth. Heluta was asleep and they stole the masks and lightnings and rose from the underworld on the bolts of the lightning. The rains fell and the [paragraph continues]
Shiwana pursued them, but said, "It is well. Now you are one of us. Keep the masks and lightning." So they brought the Shiwana to Cochiti.
Another and different story is told of the twins and the Shiwana. In Cochiti to-day the dominant rôle in this tale is given to Arrow Boy, see notes, page 215, but in Dumarest's abbreviated version it is given to the Twins.
Kotshatosha had imprisoned the Shiwana and the twins contested with her in a game of hide and seek with the Shiwana as stake. They won and released the rains. (Dumarest, p. 234.)
The names of the twins are used as designations for the two war captains who function for yearly terms in the religious and secular government of Cochiti (see Goldfrank, p. 24), as pp. 43, 44, 54, 64, etc. Similarly, the terms apply to the war-captain guardians at the entrance of the house of Uretsete (Dumarest, p. 227), they lead the people at the emergence (p. 13), and they allot territory to the people of the earth before leaving Shipap (p. 7). The bridge between these two concepts is given in Dumarest: "When Masewa and Uyuyewa (i. e., the twin heroes) died they went to Shipap to guard Uretsete" (p. 227).
The following is the only tale of Sun's son which has no analogue in the Cochiti stories of the twins:
A girl who lived at White House refused to marry, but, while she lay In the sun in the hatchway, was impregnated by Sun and bore a child. Because the baby was fatherless, it was put on a cradle board and thrown into a spring, but his father Sun took him. When he was grown, Sun dressed him as a katcina and returned him to the village. Sun's son asked to dance the harvest dance, Uatyautci, for them, and selected his own mother for his partner. When the dance was almost over, he let fly his downy feather, and both were drawn up to Sun. So the boy took his mother back to her husband (p. 31).
Arrow Boy is the stock name for the hero in Cochiti. The tales that are told of him are not felt to belong to one integrated biography. He is a poor, despised boy, like all other Cochiti heroes, and he overcomes his detractors in a ceremonial deer hunt. Perhaps the favorite tale is that of his releasing of the Shiwana 2 from Wind Maker Old Woman. In another tale he follows his wife to the sky world where she has been taken by his pet eagle whom she has neglected to feed. Several tales which are told of Arrow Boy in one version and of unnamed heroes in others are discussed in their appropriate places among the novelistic tales. These are: The Abduction of Arrow Boy's Wife, p. 66, notes, p. 230; Arrow Boy [paragraph continues]
Kills His Bear Children When They Come to Reap Their Father's Field, p. 111, notes, p. 229; Arrow Boy, the Child of a Witch Father, born after his mother had succeeded in exposing and killing her witch husband, p. 92, notes, p. 232.
(4 versions: a Boas, p. 32; b Dumarest, p. 233; c Benedict, Informant 1, p. 39; d Benedict, Informant 3 (omitted).)
This is the story of Arrow Boy's journey to sky land to release the rains which have been imprisoned by an old woman there. Version b recorded by Dumarest about 1900 ascribes this exploit to the twins (only the culminating incident is given), and their subordinate rôle in the more recent texts is probably due to the influence of versions such as that recorded by Boas from Laguna, (loc. cit., p. 76) in which the gambler is similarly overcome by Sun Youth, an analogue of Arrow Boy.
Arrow Boy was a great hunter and while hunting he met two girls, Eagles, the elder of whom flew up with him on her back to their home on a high cliff. Their parents came home bringing a buffalo and gave him the girls as wives, c.
Arrow Youth lived with his wife Yellow Woman, but was stolen by a female eagle, who with her sister swooped from the sky while he was hunting rabbits. They took him to the zenith, a.
They took him to the sky to release the Shiwana held captive by Wind Maker Old Woman. The eagle girls took him to the rock at the entrance to sky land (under which there were many dangerous rattlesnakes, a). (They sent him on with downy feathers plucked from under their, tails by means of which he traveled. He came to Spider Old Woman (to Macawi, Black Buzzard, a katcina, b) who directed him to the kiva of the twin brothers, c, d.) (They direct him to return the following day and he flies down on the back of Eagle Girls and back again the next day, c, d. They travel on feathers plucked from under the eagle girls' tail, c, on their arrows that they shoot as they go, c, on Arrow Boy's, d.)
They come to Wind Maker Old Woman who has imprisoned the Shiwana. (In version a Arrow Boy at this time kills Wind Maker Woman, cuts out her cactus heart and substitutes one of corn. He sends her southwest to live. This incident is repeated after the hide and seek contest in this version, and is obviously misplaced. They follow her to her home, kill her watchman, and challenge her to hide and seek, a.)
She offered them skulls to eat but they refused, c.
They contested with her (in a throwing contest, in which the articles the twins threw became birds so that they won, d; in a hide and seek contest where Wind Maker Old Woman hides in various places in the room and finally in the sun but is guessed by Arrow Boy, c; in a hide and seek contest on each turn of which the Shiwana of one room are staked. She is discovered by Arrow Boy hiding in her own ear, in the rung of the ladder, in the anus of the last reindeer in the northeast, on top of the sun where he finds her by
holding up an eagle feather as if to catch the direction of the wind. Again they kill her and replace her heart, a. The twins hid under a deer lying down, the woman in the intestine of a rabbit, the twins in the queue of a woman, the woman covered the sun with her queue, and the twins found her by following a downy feather. They won the shiwana, b. Dumarest).
Therefore they won back the rain. They killed Wind Maker Old Woman and took out her heart, giving her a good turquoise one, c. They released all the Shiwana in the four rooms and it began to rain. Arrow Boy went back to (the Eagle Girls, a; his eagle wives, c, d), whom he had told that rain and lightning would be a sign of his success. They carried him back to this world (all versions).
Version a ends with the Eagle Girls' return to their home after they had taken Arrow Boy to Cochiti. Their father brought home a buck which they placed in front of the fireplace and fed with sacred meal, thanking their father, a. (See Introduction of versions c, d.)
The incident of Arrow Boy's meeting with the eagle girls, version is reproduced exactly as the introduction to the tale of Arrow Boy's son who brings back eagle powers to the village. It continues:
After Arrow Boy has been married to Eagle Girls for some time and the elder sister has a child, he proposes to them the test of meal ground so fine it will adhere to the side of the grinding stone. They finally succeed and therefore he takes them with him to Cochiti as his wives. His son grows up there and has eagle powers (p. 45). (See also same for Poker Boy, p. 217.)
Arrow Boy, the cacique's grandson, was an effeminate youth who did not learn to hunt, etc., but spent his time courting the girls in the pueblo. To shame him it was arranged that he should be put in charge of the ceremonial deer hunt, But Arrow Boy fulfilled all the ceremonial obligations and was successful. His grandfather had him initiated into the Flint society and he became cacique (p. 43).
Arrow Boy lived at Potsherd Place with his wife Yellow Woman. They had an eagle that she had to feed when Arrow Boy was not there. She became neglectful and the eagle escaped. She followed him, taking a white manta to catch him. She chased him to Whirlpool Place, then he lit on a rock and told her to fold the manta and sit on it. She was asked to close her eyes, and he carried her into the next world. He lit on the great rock where all eagles must light and left her there. He told her that she must shift for herself because she had been unkind to him. He returned to the world but did not tell Arrow Boy where his wife was. He was unable to trace her farther than Whirlpool Place and he mourned for her constantly. Grandmother Spider took pity on him, told him where his wife was, and offered to take him to the next world. He got on her back, and after an unsuccessful attempt, because he opened his eyes, she brought him to the great rock. She directed him along the middle road to the house of her sister who told him where to find his wife. He came to a house where he stayed that night, and on the following day, he killed turkeys for the feast to which the mother of that house invited his wife. They hid Arrow Boy under a sheepskin when she came in. They placed
the food before her, and she recalled her life with him. When he heard this, he asked if she would like to live that life over again. She was happy when she found him in his hiding place. The mother of the house told him to take two turkeys to pay Gawi’ma for finding his wife, and this he did (p. 47).
Poker Boy is a subordinate name for the hero in Cochiti. In one version of Corncob Boy's marriage, with the chief's daughters and his magic contest to retain them, he is called Poker Boy for the first half of the story (p. 60, note 1). The following incident is also told of Poker Boy, though elsewhere (p. 46) it is connected with Arrow Boy's son:
Poker Boy lived at Old Pueblo. He was a great hunter and married to Yellow Woman. Her youngest sister, Blue Woman, was in love with her sister's husband, and they contested with finely ground flour as to which was to possess him. That one was to be successful whose flour was so fine It adhered to a polished floor-rubbing stone set upright. They each threw four times and were unsuccessful. At last the old woman told them to parch white corn before grinding. They did so and Yellow Woman threw first. Her meal stuck. So she got her husband back again (p. 49). (See also same for Arrow Boy, p. 216.)
The one fixed fact about Poker Boy is his shrine, the Shrine of Yellow Woman, which he shares with Corncob Boy. The following story is told of his going into his shrine.
The people were living at White House. Poker Boy herded his turkeys by the sweet sound of his flute. He drew his turkeys and wives with their babies with him far to the south to the Shrine of Yellow Woman where he gives blessing In hunting and the bearing of children (p. 50).
Corncob Boy is the local culture hero of Cochiti. He belongs to Cochiti, and the other pueblos are said to be in awe of this little village because of his blessing. His shrine is near by, the Shrine of Yellow Woman (see Poker Boy, above). In his youth he is mocked as a poor orphan, but he vindicates himself by his successful management of the ceremonial rabbit hunt. He foretells the weather and teaches the people all the customs of healing, hunting, fishing and warfare. He foretold the coming of the Whites and the strange fruits and animals they would bring (p. 64).
The name of Poker Boy is used interchangeably with Corncob Boy in one version (p. 60). Both names are associated with the shrine of Yellow Woman. The story as it stands is a curious mixture, with its affinities on the one hand to that of the dirty dwarfish twin heroes of the western pueblos and on the other to that of the Christ asking
the mercy of the angry God his father, and bearing the people's prayer for forgiveness.
(2 versions: a Boas, p. 51; b Benedict, Informant 1 (p. 60, first part omitted; divergences noted in abstract).)
Corncob Boy was an untidy singed-haired orphan living with his grandmother. The cacique's daughters, however, chose him to make their rabbit sticks at the ceremonial rabbit hunt, and he killed all the rabbits. He married them. 2 The rest of the men in the village were jealous and arranged contests with him on which his wives were staked. (Poker Boy (sic) won the first contest because he did not bleed when he was whipped, b.) They contested to determine whose hair was longest. He purified himself by vomiting and (Spider sent him to the turkeys, b; the chief's daughters called their turkeys, a) who pulled each hair till it swept the ground when he sat on top of the kiva ladder. The last contest was one of food stores. The men of the village painted stones to look like corn and melons (but Corncob Boy followed coyote's seed-filled droppings till he found his stores underground, in Shipap, and was given a well-stocked house which became large when it was set up where he lived, b; but the chief's daughters swept his house and gave him four large rooms filled with corn and melons, a).
Again they contested as to the parentage of Yellow Woman's child, who had by now been born. All the contestants and the chief's family purified themselves four days by vomiting, and came to the kiva. All the men held flowers to the baby but he paid no attention to any except Corncob Boy. a.
In order to show the people "who maintained them," Corncob Boy departed northwestward. He left inexhaustible supplies with his wives, and told them to give to the people when they were in distress. (He never came back any more, a.)
(Because of their sins, Heluta withheld the rains, giving only to his song Corncob Boy, Inexhaustible supplies and commanding him to give freely to the people. When the people repented they besought Corncob, Boy as Intermediary with his father and he sent Coyote to Shipap. Heluta blessed them with the Institution of the Giant Society and it began to rain (p. 62).)
When Corncob Boy left his home he went northwest and married Heluta's daughters. Heluta showed him his fields in which he planted dewclaws. The ground was pricked with the antlers of tiny deer (cp. pp. 11, 25). Corncob Boy then planted corn and taught them to cook it. He returned to Cochiti with his wives and disappeared into his shrine, the Shrine of Yellow Woman, b. (Also see notes, pp. 206, 207.)
The Cochiti version of this story does not specify that this is the culture tale of the introduction of deer, as does the Navaho, for instance, but it is regarded as implicit in the tales. On the other hand, the fact that this is the occasion of the introduction of corn to Heluta's people is stressed. They have to learn to like it, etc.
Corncob Boy was an orphan begging scraps from door to door. Before the ceremonial rabbit hunt the boys mocked him saying he could not kill a rabbit. He turned their mockery against them so that no one killed any rabbits on the hunt. The priests came to him and he told them why he had hidden the rabbits. Masewa proclaimed a new hunt and Corncob Boy purified himself. They caught more rabbits than they could carry.
After this people believed in him. He foretold the rains and snows, and promised good weather for the coming season. They asked him to be cacique, but he said he was not born for that. He instituted customs of the hunt and of warfare.
He prophesied the coming of the Whites and the disappearance of game animals (p. 62).
(2 versions: a Dumarest, p. 228; b, Benedict, Informant 4, p. 191.)
Dumarest's account of Montezuma is of a thoroughly mythological culture hero, and it contrasts strongly with version b, which is a very characteristic Cochiti historical tale, telling of his designation of Watumasi as chief of Azteco pueblo, and of his conflict with Nankortez for Tuskala. It agrees with Dumarest's much more mythological version of Montezuma, however, in stressing the golden age during his rule, his going away and his promise to return. He dressed himself and the Malinche, his female partner, as for a dance, and they entered a lake together. In his final speech he foretold the coming of the Whites, and promised to come again when there were many Whites in the country, b.
Dumarest's account agrees with all Cochiti hero stories in the picture of the hero as ridiculed, but Montezuma is ridiculed as a half-wit, and noodle stories are told of him:
His mother, a dirty orphan girl, was made pregnant by a piñon nut. The child walked In four days. He had no one to teach him of hunting but he made a bow and arrow for himself, and made a nuisance of himself asking questions. They told him to shoot a rabbit, and he shot the man digging out a rabbit from his burrow. He overcame his mockers by bringing in many rabbits, and by magically attracting game by playing his flute from the roof of his house.
He was accepted as a supernatural, and was paraded like a santu, while the people prostrated themselves. He assigned the places where all his people were to live. His food was the food of supernaturals, corn pollen and wild honey; when he fed his followers with it it was inexhaustible. His bowl
he had only to lift to the sky, also, in order to have it fill with water. His Malinche gave a woman in return for her hospitality a roll of wafer bread, and when she unrolled it it had become gold.
The only culture hero incident that is assigned to Montezuma in instituting the customs, is, significantly enough, that of "reforming the unmarried mothers," i. e., he is associated with the Catholic enforcement of marriage. He made a winged fish to frighten them, but it devoured them, so Montezuma confined it in a lake.
He was put in prison by the Spaniards, but a stone from one of his own people killed him. He had told them he would return and deliver them. They were to offer ground shell to him every morning toward the east at sunrise, for that was the direction from which he would return.
210:1 Tales of the Children of Sun are closely allied and are included here.
214:2 The masked Impersonations of the rain clouds.
218:2 The tests to which a husband is put to retain his wife are a stock feature of southwest folklore (see also the wives' tests, pp. 45, 46), but in the text version of Corncob Boy these tests take place before marriage. However, In this same version a child of Yellow Woman Is born to Corncob Boy during the tests.