Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/212

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Next Earth Doctor created some black insects, tcotcĭk tâtâny, which made black gum on the creosote bush. Then he made hiapitc, the termite, which worked upon and increased the small beginning until it grew to the proportions of our present earth. As he sang and danced the wonderful world developed, and then he made a sky to cover it, that was shaped like the round house of the Pimas. But the earth shook and stretched so that it was unfit for habitation. So Earth Doctor made a gray spider, which he commanded to spin a web around the unconnected edges of earth and sky. When this was done the earth grew firm and solid.

All that we now see upon the land—water, mountains, trees, grass, and weeds—was made, and then he made a dish, poured water into it, and the water became ice. Taking this block of ice he threw it toward the north, where it fell at the place where earth and sky forever meet. At once the ice shone forth as the brilliant disk we now know as the sun. For a certain distance the sun rose into the sky and then fell back again. Earth Doctor took it and threw it toward the west, where earth and sky are sewn together, and again it rose and slid back into the ground. And in the south it behaved in a similar manner, but when he threw it to the east it rose higher and higher, until it reached the zenith, and then went on to sink in the west, and thus it has continued to do until this day. As the evening glow grew dim the darkness fell in inky blackness. So Earth Doctor poured more water into the dish and it became ice, and he sang:

Then to the north he threw the ice until it dropped at the edge where the earth and sky are woven together. It became the shining circle which we call the moon. The moon rose in the sky, but soon fell back as the sun had done, so he threw it to the west, and then to the south, and finally to the east before it rose and pursued its course across the sky as it does to the present time.