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Show 26 II. ANAA, DZI^K'I, HOZHONEE'JI Younger Sister and Big Snake Man From Beauty Way (Hozhonee'ji) Younger Sister, meanwhile, was being chased by Big Snake Man. Using his magic smoke, he trailed her to Hosta Butte and Yucca Mountain. From there they went first to the White Mountains and then to the San Francisco Peaks. Then she turned back eastward toward the Sonsela Buttes. By the time she neared Black Rock, between Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto, she had become extremely thirsty. Her clothes were so worn that she had to cover herself with a bunch of mountain rice. At the top of Black Rock, Younger Sister found a pool of water in a rock basin. Just as she as about to drink, she heard someone call to her. She looked up and saw a slim young man painted all over with bluish clay and ornamented with a necklace and a rain plume. He warned her that she was in a holy place where Earth-Surface People were not allowed. He also told her not to drink of the water there because the pool was really a doorguard. Beneath the stone there was a passage leading underground. There, in the underground world, he told her, she could escape Big Snake. He tapped the pool with the weasel-skin medicine bundle he carried and removed the stone. Beneath the rock, a ladder descended into the mountain. Younger Sister then looked about her for the stranger, but he had vanished. Carefully she descended the ladder into the underground darkness. As she drew near the bottom, it grew lighter all about her. Reaching the bottom of the ladder, she found herself in the daylight of the lower world. There to greet her was the stranger, who told her he was Mountain Sheep Man. She stayed with the Mountain Sheep People for some time but then decided to move on. In her traveling, she discovered many ruins. Some were still standing in good shape. She also found melon fields and cornfields, some just planted and others fully ripe. The ripe corn appealed to her, for she was very hungry from her wandering. She plucked several ears and husked them, exposing the full, sweet kernels. Then she returned with the corn to a family of Snake People with whom she had been living. The father had called her "daughter-in-law." After borrowing a knife to cut the kernels from the corn, she boiled a mush for them. After dinner, some of the Snake People spent their time at target practice with their Lightning Arrows. Others talked and smoked. So they passed the time until the people grew drowsy and decided to go to sleep. One of the people told her, "We are very |