Explore "How the Gopher Raced with the Runners of Kʻiákime" by Frank Hamilton Cushing on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There was a time in the days of the ancients when the runners of Kʻiákime were famed above those of all other cities in the Valley of Shíwina for their strength, endurance, and swiftness of foot. In running the tikwa, or kicked-stick race, they overcame, one after another, the runners of Shíwina or Zuni, of Mátsaki or the Salt City, of Pínawa or the Town of the Winds, and in fact all who dared to challenge them or to accept their challenges.
The people of Shíwina and Mátsaki did not give up easily. They ran again and again, only to be beaten and to lose the vast piles of goods and precious things which they had staked or bet; and at last they were wholly disheartened and bereft of everything which without shame a man might exhibit for betting.