But the
Huckovi men came down then and followed them, and fought them every foot
of the way back to Oraibi Wash, where they had to let them go free, and
they went on running all the way home, and the Huckovi people then
returned to their homes satisfied."

* * * * *

The next two stories are by Dawavantsie, whose name means "sand dune."
She is a member of the Water Clan, and is the oldest woman now living in
Walpi. She is much loved by the whole village, who claim that she is
over a hundred years old. How old she really is, it would be impossible
to know, for such things were not kept track of so long ago. She speaks
no English. When asked about her age she merely shrugs her small
shrunken shoulders, draws her shawl around them, and with a pleasant
toothless smile, says: "O, I never know that, but I remember a long,
long time."

She loves to tell stories, and enjoys quite a reputation as a
story-teller among her relatives and neighbors, who like to gather round
and listen as she sits on the floor of her second story home, her back
against the wall, bare feet curled up and quiet hands folded in her lap.
Her face, while deeply wrinkled, is fine and expressive of much
character as well as sweetness of disposition. Figure 14 shows her
posing for her picture just outside her door, on the roof of the next
lower room. Her skin and hair and dress are all clean and neat; her
little back is astonishingly straight, and her bare brown feet, so long
used to the ladders of Hopiland, are surer than mine, if slower.

She has lived all her life, as did her mother and grandmother before
her, in this second story room, on whose clean clay floor we sat for the
visiting and story-telling. From its open door she looks out over the
roofs of Walpi and far across the valley in all directions, for hers is
the highest house, and near the end of the mesa. The ancestral home with
its additions is now housing four generations. She has always been a
woman of prominence because of her intelligence and has the marks of
good breeding--one of nature's gentlewomen.

[Illustration: Figure 14.--Dawavantsie of Walpi.]

The writer's friends, Dr. and Mrs. Fewkes, had told of her several
years ago, for it was in her house that they had lived for some time in
the early nineties while carrying on research work for the Bureau of
American Ethnology. The writer did not realize that this was the house
and the woman of whom she ha