Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 23, 2008 17:32:22 GMT -5
Heluta and Nyenyega Contest for a Wife - Cochiti
Heluta, the father of the katcinas, and Nyenyega, contested as to which should marry Yellow Woman. Yellow Woman "ground" at the dance (i. e., she rubbed the notched stick with the deer's scapula, resting it on an inverted dried pumpkin). Heluta and Nyenyega watched her all the, time, and they thought she was very beautiful. They fell to fighting for her. They fought and fought. The koshare said, "What is the use of fighting for Yellow Woman? Go out hunting, both of you, and whoever kills a deer without wounding it shall marry her." Next day Heluta and Nyenyega went out to hunt. Yellow Woman said, "Whoever kills a deer with out a wound and brings it to me first, I shall marry him." Heluta did not find a deer, but Nyenyega killed his and brought it in unskinned without a wound. So Nyenyega married Yellow Woman.
Tales of the Cochiti Indians by Ruth Benedict, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 98 [1932]
Heluta, the father of the katcinas, and Nyenyega, contested as to which should marry Yellow Woman. Yellow Woman "ground" at the dance (i. e., she rubbed the notched stick with the deer's scapula, resting it on an inverted dried pumpkin). Heluta and Nyenyega watched her all the, time, and they thought she was very beautiful. They fell to fighting for her. They fought and fought. The koshare said, "What is the use of fighting for Yellow Woman? Go out hunting, both of you, and whoever kills a deer without wounding it shall marry her." Next day Heluta and Nyenyega went out to hunt. Yellow Woman said, "Whoever kills a deer with out a wound and brings it to me first, I shall marry him." Heluta did not find a deer, but Nyenyega killed his and brought it in unskinned without a wound. So Nyenyega married Yellow Woman.
Tales of the Cochiti Indians by Ruth Benedict, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 98 [1932]