Act I

(Ten thousand years have passed, and it is the time of the early voyaging from Europe to the waters of the Pacific, when the deserted hillside is again revealed as the moon rises. The stream no longer flows from the spring. Since the grove is used only as a camp for the night when the Nishinam are on their seasonal migration there are no signs of previous camps.)

(Enter from right, at end of day's march, women, old men, and Shaman, the women bending under their burdens of camp gear and dunnage)

(Enter from left youths carrying fish-spears and large fish)

(Appear, coming down the hillside, Red Cloud and the hunters, many carrying meat.)

(The various repeated characters, despite differences of skin garmenting and decoration, resemble their prototypes of the prologue.)

[Red Cloud] Good hunting! Good hunting!

[Hunters] Good hunting! Good hunting!

[Youths] Good fishing! Good fishing!

[Women] Good berries! Good acorns!

(The women and youths and hunters, as they reach the campsite, begin throwing down their burdens)

[Dew-Woman] (Discovering the dry spring.) The water no longer flows!

[Shaman] (Stilling the excitement that is immediate on the discovery.) The word of old time that has come down to us from all the Shamans who have gone before! The Sun Man has come back from the Sun.

[Dew-Woman] (Looking to Red Cloud.) Let Red Cloud speak. Since the morning of the world has Red Cloud ever been reborn with the ancient wisdom to guide us.

[War Chief] Save in war. In war I command.

(He picks out hunters by name.) Deer Foot... Elk Man... Antelope. Run through the forest, climb the hill-tops, seek down the valleys, for aught you may find of this Sun Man.

(At a wave of the War Chief's hand the three hunters depart in different directions.)

[Dew-Woman] Let Red Cloud speak his mind.

[Red Cloud] (Quietly) Last night the earth shook and there was a roaring in the air. Often have I seen, when the earth shakes and there is a roaring, that springs in some places dry up, and that in other places where were no springs, springs burst forth.

[Shaman] There is a sign. The Shamans told it of old. The Sun Man will bear the thunder in his hand.

[People] There is a sign. The Sun Man will bear the thunder in his hand.

[Shaman] The roaring in the air was the thunder of the Sun Man's return. Now will he destroy the Nishinam. Such is the word.

[War Chief] Hoh! Hoh!

(From right Deer Foot runs in.)

[Deer Foot] (Breathless.) They come! He comes!

[War Chief] Who comes?

[Deer Foot] The Sun Men. The Sun Man. He is their chief. He marches before them. And he is white.

[People] There is a sign. The Sun Man is white.

[Red Cloud] Carries he the thunder in his hand?

[Deer Foot] (Puzzled) He