Myths and Legends
bellowing beneath; crash on crash told that houses and temples were falling in vast ruin; the mountain-sides were loosened and the rush of avalanches added to the din; the air was thick, and through the clouds the people groped their way toward the fields; rivers broke from their confines and laid waste farms and gardens! The gods had indeed abandoned them, and the spirit of the king's daughter took its flight in company with thousands of souls in whose behalf she had suffered uselessly.
The king was crushed beneath his palace-roof and the sacerdotal executioner perished in a fail of rock. The survivors fled in panic and the Ishmaelite tribes on their frontier entered their kingdom and pillaged it of all abandoned wealth. The cities never were rebuilt and were rediscovered but a few years ago, when the maiden's skeleton was also found. Nor does any Indian cross Superstition Mountains without a sense of apprehension.
TA-VWOTS CONQUERS THE SUN
THE Indian is a great story-teller. Every tribe has its traditions, and the elderly men and women like to recount them, for they always find listeners. And odd stories they tell, too. Just listen to this, for example. It is a legend among the tribes of Arizona.
While Ta-Vwots, the hare god, was asleep in the valley of Maopa, the Sun mischievously burned his
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