Once
more they listened and heard it louder still, very near. A moment
later four mysterious beings appeared. These were White Body, Blue
Body, Yellow Body and Black Body.
The gods told
the people that they would come back in twelve days. On the morning
of the Twelfth Day the people washed themselves well. Then the women
dried their skin with yellow cornmeal, the men with white cornmeal.
Soon they heard the distant call, shouted four times, of the approaching
gods. When the gods appeared, Blue Body and Black Body each carried
sacred buckskin. White Body carried two ears of corn one yellow
and one white.
The gods laid
one buckskin on the ground with the head to the west, and on this
they placed the two ears of corn with their tips to the east. Over
the corn they spread the other buckskin with its head tot he east.
Under the white ear they put the feather of a white eagle; under
the yellow ear the feather of a yellow eagle. Then they told the
people to stand back and allow the wind to enter. Between the skins
the white wind blew from the east and the yellow wind from the west.
While the wind was blowing, eight gods called the Mirage People
came and walked around the objects on the ground four times. As
they walked, the eagle feathers, whose tips stuck out from the buckskins,
were seen to move. When the Mirage People finished their walk, the
upper buckskin was lifted. The ears of corn had disappeared; a man
and a woman lay in their place.
The white ear
of corn had become the man, the yellow ear had become a woman: First
Man and First Woman. It was the wind that gave them life, and it
is the wind that comes out of our mounts now that gives us life.
When this ceases to blow, we die.
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