Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/179

Rh 416. She said to these: "I wish you to dwell near me, where I can always see you; but if you choose to go to the east, where your kindred dwell, you may go." She took them from her floating home to the mainland; here they lived for thirty years, during which time they married and had many children. At the end of this time the Twelve People (Dĭné' Nakidáta), or rather what was left of them, appeared among Estsánatlehi's people and said to them: "We have lost our sister who kept our house for us; we have no home; we know not where else to go; so we have come here to behold our mother, our grandmother. You have kindred in the far east who have increased until they are now a great people. We do not visit them, but we stand on the mountains and look at them from afar. We know they would welcome you if you went to them." And many more things they told about the people in the far east.

417. Now all crossed on a bridge of rainbow to the house of Estsánatlehi on the sea, where she welcomed them and embraced them. Of the Dĭné' Nakidáta but ten were left, for, as has been told, they lost their sister and their younger brother; but when they came to the home of Estsánatlehi she made for them two more people out of turquoise, and this completed their original number of twelve. She knew with what thoughts her children had come. She opened four doors leading from the central chamber of her house into four other rooms, and showed them her various treasures, saying: "Stay with me always, my children; these things shall be yours, and we shall be always happy together."

418. When the people went back from the house of Estsánatlehi to the mainland, all was gossip and excitement in their camp about what they had heard of the people in the east. Each one had a different part or version of the tale to tell,—of how the people in the east lived, of what they ate, of the way in which they were divided into gentes, of how the gentes were named, and of other things about them they had heard. "The people are few where we live," they said; "we would be better off where there are so many." They talked thus for twelve days. At the end of that time they concluded to depart, and they fixed the fourteenth day after that as the day they should leave.

419. Before they left, the Dĭné' Nakidáta and Estsánatlehi came to see them. She said: "It is a long and dangerous journey to where you are going. It is well that you should be cared for and protected on the way. I shall give you five of my pets,189—a bear, a great snake, a deer, a porcupine, and a puma,—to watch over you. They will not desert you. Speak of no evil deeds in the presence of the bear or the snake, for they may do the evil they hear you speak of; but the deer and the porcupine are good,—say whatever you please to say in their presence."