had been le

[Dorosan <fan...@de...>]

D went away. The next morning he went to the place and took the covering
off, and saw that the clay shapes had changed a little. The second
morning there was still more change, and the third still more. The
fourth morning he went to the place, took the covering off, looked at
the images, and told them to rise and walk; and they did so. They walked
down to the river with their Maker, and then he told them that his name
was _Na'pi,_ Old Man. As they were standing by the river, the woman said
to him, "How is it? will we always live, will there be no end to it?" He
said: "I have never thought of that. We will have to decide it. I will
take this buffalo chip and throw it in the river. If it floats, when
people die, in four days they will become alive again; they will die for
only four days. But if it sinks, there will be an end to them." He threw
the chip into the river, and it floated. The woman turned and picked up
a stone, and said: "No, I will throw this stone in the river; if it
floats we will always live, if it sinks people must die, that they may
always be sorry for each other."[1] The woman threw the stone into the
water, and it sank. "There," said Old Man, "you have chosen. There will
be an end to them." [Footnote 1: That is, that their friends who survive
may always remember them.] It was not many nights after, that the
woman's child died, and she cried a great deal for it. She said to Old
Man: "Let us change this. The law that you first made, let that be a
law." He said: "Not so. What is made law must be law. We will undo
nothing that we have done. The child is dead, but it cannot be changed.
People will have to die." That is how we came to be people. It is he who
made us. The first people were poor and naked, and did not know how to
get a living. Old Man showed them the root