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Shotaye had still another reason for not encouraging her friend to speak to the higher chayani. The fever coincided with the rainy season. As soon as this was over it subsided. Natural as this was, both women attributed it to a mysterious cause; and Shotaye, suspicious and vindictive even, thought she had discovered a clew to the guilty party.
The Chayani of lesser rank alone returned from time to time to perform specially strong incantations in aid of the still travelling soul. Mitsha had gone down to the brook to get water. It occurred only once a day during these days, for the people of Tyame fasted, taking but one frugal meal daily.
The incantations of the chayani and the fasts of the Koshare seemed to have no effect whatever upon the course of the rain-clouds. The heavens clouded regularly every day; they shed their moisture all around the Tyuonyi, but not a drop fell in the valley-gorge.
Now that her case had been delayed, the eight days had grown to nearly ten. The chayani and the caciques were fasting still, as well as some of the clan delegates. Twelve days had passed, and it was the last day of official penance. That evening something was sure to occur to relieve the situation. So everybody thought at the Tyuonyi; so Shotaye thought herself.
It is not their duty to make people believe that they are wiser than the chayani and to induce the people to give them bowl after bowl full of meal, feathers, shells, and whatever else may be good and precious. For it is not to the Koshare as a body that all these things are distributed; it is only their naua who gets them, and through him his hanutsh, at the expense of all the other clans.
It was therefore the duty of Shotaye, who was better informed on institutions and customs, to direct her sick friend to a shaman. But Shotaye was not on good terms with the official wizards, particularly the Chayani, those who cured, and still less with the highest religious powers, the Yaya.
A number of able-bodied men of the clan to which the grandmother belonged gathered in order to fast and make the usual sacrifices preliminary to the formation of a war party. On the last night of their fast a delegate from the hishtanyi chayani appeared in their midst, and performed the customary incantations.
This ceremony was always performed by a certain group of medicine-men, called therefore Hakanyi Chayani, or Fire Shamans. The Hishtanyi Chayan was their official head, and he, with the four others belonging to the fire-eating crew, fasted rigorously for four days and nights.
She would hide her companions at the approaches to the Tyuonyi, and lie in wait for Tyope and the old Delight Maker, for the Chayani also if possible. The Tehuas would reap many scalps; she would have had her revenge; and the deed could be so performed as to make those at the Rito believe that the Navajos were the perpetrators.
They were the delegates who had come to listen at last to the oracle which was to be revealed to them through the mouth of the great shaman. Their number was not yet complete; the Tapop, Tyope, the Koshare Naua were there, but neither the Caciques nor the Chayani nor the Maseua had put in an appearance. Everybody was silent, hardly a word was heard from time to time, seldom a whisper.
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