"Show me that you are my children," said he; "if you are, you can do as I do." Then the younger sent the chain lightning with its noisy peal across the sky. The older sent the heat lightning with its distant diapason tones. "You are my children," exclaimed Cloud, "you have power like unto mine." As a further test he placed them in a house near by where a flood of rain had drowned the inmates. "If they are mortals," thought he, "they will be drowned like the others." Unharmed by the waters about them, the children demonstrated their power to survive, and Cloud then took them to his home, where they remained a long time.
When they longed to see their mother again, Cloud made a bow and some arrows different from any that they had ever known and gave to them. He told them that he would watch over them as they journeyed, and admonished them against speaking to anyone that they might meet on the way. As the boys were traveling toward the westward, they saw Raven coming toward them, but they remembered their father's injunction against speaking and turned aside so as not to meet him. They also turned aside to escape meeting Roadrunner, Hawk, and Eagle. Eagle said: "Let's scare those children." So he swooped down over their heads, causing the boys to cry from fright. "Oh, we just wanted to tease you, that's all; we don't mean to do you any harm," said Eagle.
Thus they journeyed on until they met Coyote. They tried to turn aside in order to avoid him, but he ran around and put himself in their way. Cloud saw their predicament and sent down thunder and lightning, and the boys by their magic power added to the bolts that flashed before the eyes of Coyote until he turned and fled.
It was on the mountain top that the boys were halted by Coyote, and one stood on each side of the trail at the moment when they were transformed into the largest mescal that was ever known. The place was near Tucson.
This is the reason why mescal yet grows on the mountains and why the thunder and lightning go from place to place—because the children did. This is why it rains when we go to gather mescal.[1]
- ↑ A similar version of this myth was related to Lieutenant Emory by the interpreter of the Chief Juan Antonio Llunas. This man said: "That in bygone days a woman of surpassing beauty resided in a green spot in the mountains near the place where we were encamped. All the men admired and paid court to her. She received the tributes of their devotion—grain, skins, etc.—but gave no love or other favor in return. Her virtue and her determination to remain unmarried were equally firm. There came a drouth which threatened the world with famine. In their distress the people applied to her, and she gave corn from her stock, and the supply seemed to be endless. Her goodness was unbounded. One day as she was lying asleep with her body exposed a drop of rain fell on her stomach, which produced conception. A son was the issue, who was the founder of a new race which built all these houses."
When he was asked if he believed the story he replied: "No; but most of the Pimos do. We know, in truth, nothing of their origin. It is all enveloped in mystery." W.H. Emory, Notes of a Military Reconnoissance, S. Ex. Doc. 41, 83, 30th Cong., first sess., 1848.
