Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/213

208 Then he sang:

Earth Doctor saw that while the moon was yet above the horizon there was sufficient light, but when it disappeared the darkness was intense, so he took some of the water in his mouth and blew it into the sky in a spray, which formed the stars, but the night was still dark. Then he took his magic crystal and, after breaking it, threw it also into the sky to form the larger stars, so the darkness was less intense. Then he sang:

Next he took his walking stick, and placing ashes on the end he drew it across the sky to form the milky way.

When the earth was thus prepared for habitation, Earth Doctor created all manner of birds and creeping things. Next he formed images of clay, which he commanded to become animate human beings, and they obeyed him. For a time they increased and overspread the earth until it became so populous that food became scarce and there was not sufficient water to supply their needs. Of sickness and death they knew nothing, and their numbers grew apace. Hungering, they began to kill one another and to eat human flesh. Earth Doctor pitied them in their extremity, but could devise no plan for relieving their distress, except to destroy all, and this he at length felt forced to do.

Earth Doctor said: "I shall unite earth and sky; the earth shall be as a female and the sky as a male, and from their union shall be born one who will be a helper to me. Let the sun be joined with the moon, also even as man is wedded to woman, and their offspring shalt be a helper to me." Then he caught the hook of his staff into the sky and pulled it down, crushing to death the people and all other living things. Thrusting his stick through the earth, Earth Doctor went through the hole and came out alone on the other side. He called upon the sun and moon to come forth from the wreck of world and sky, and they obeyed him. But there was no sky for them to travel through, no stars nor milky way, so he created all these anew. Then he called for the offspring of earth and sky, but there was no response. Then he created a race of men, as he had done before; these were the Rsâsanatc.