of Spider Woman. He gave her the plumes and she said: "Thank you,
my grandchild, you have brought me the plumes that I have long wanted
to adorn my walls, and you have done a great service to your friends,
the Eagles, because you have slain their enemies." When she had spoken
he set out again on his journey.
586. He slept that night on the trail, and next morning he got back
to the towns of the Eagles. As he approached he heard from afar the
cries of the mourners, and when he entered the place the people
gathered around him and said: "We have lost many of our kinsmen,
and we are wailing for them; but we have been also mourning for you,
for those who returned told us you had been killed in the fight."
587. He made no reply, but took from his blanket the two young
bumblebees and swung them around his head. All the people were
terrified and ran, and they did not stop running till they got safely
behind their houses. In a little while they got over their fear,
came slowly from behind their houses, and crowded around the Navaho
again. A second time he swung the bees around his head, and a second
time the people ran away in terror; but this time they only went as far
as the front walls of their houses, and soon they returned again to the
Navaho. The third time that he swung the bees around his head they were
still less frightened, ran but half way to their houses, and returned
very soon. The fourth time that he swung the bees they only stepped
back a step or two. When their courage came back to them, he laid the
two bees on the ground; he took out the seeds of the tumble-weeds and
laid them on the ground beside the bees, and then he said to the Eagle
People: "My friends, here are the children of your enemies; when you
see these you may know that I have slain your enemies." There was great
rejoicing among the people when they heard this, and this one said:
"It is well. They have slain my brother," and that one said: "It is
well. They have slain my father," and another said: "It is well. They
have slain my sons." Then Great Wolf, chief of the white pueblo, said:
"I have two beautiful maiden daughters whom I shall give to you." Then
Fox, chief of the blue pueblo in the south, promised him two more
maidens, and the chiefs of the other pueblos promised him two each,
so that eight beautiful maidens were promised to him in marriage.
588. The chief of the white pueblo now conducted the Navaho to
his house and into a large and beautiful apartment, the finest the
poor Indian had ever seen. It had a smooth wall, nicely coated with
white earth, a large fireplace, mealing-stones, beautiful pots and
water-jars, and all the conveniences and furniture of a beautiful
pueblo home. And the chief said to him: "Sadáni, my son-in-law,
this house is yours."
589. The principal men from all the pueblos now came to visit him,
and thanked him for the great service he had done for them. Then
his maidens from the yellow house came in bringing corn meal; the
maidens from the black house entered bringing soap-weed, and the
maidens of the white house, where he was staying, came bearing a
large bowl of white shell. A suds of the soap-weed was prepared in
the shell bowl. The maidens of the white house washed his head with
the suds; the maidens of the black house washed his limbs and feet,
and those of the yellow house dried him with corn meal. When the
bath was finished the maidens went out; but they returned at dark,
accompanied this time by the maidens of the blue house. Each of the
eight maidens carried a large bowl of food, and each bowl contained
food of a different kind. They laid the eight bowls down before the
Navaho, and he ate of all till he was satisfied. Then they brought in
beautiful robes and blankets, and spread them on the floor for his bed.
590. Next morning the Navaho went over to the sky-hole, taking with
him the young bees and the seeds of the tumble-weeds. To the former
he said: "Go down to the land of the Navahoes and multiply there. My
people will make use of you in the days to come; but if you ever
cause them sorrow and trouble, as you have caused the people of this
land, I shall again destroy you." As he spoke, he flung them down to
the earth. Then taking the seeds of the tumble-weeds in his hands,
he spoke to them as he had spoken to the bees, and threw them down
through the sky-hole. The honey of the bees and the seeds of the
tumble-weeds are now used in the rites of yói hatál, or the bead chant.
591. The Navaho remained in the pueblos of the Eagle People twenty-four
days, during which time he was taught the songs, prayers, ceremonies,
and sacrifices of the Eagles, the same as those now known to us in the
rite of yói hatál;[259] and when he had learned all, the people told
him it was time for him to return to the earth, whence he had come.
592. They put on him a robe of eagle plumage, such as they wore
themselves, and led him to the sky-hole. They said to him: "When you
came up from the lower world you were heavy and had to be carried
by others. Henceforth you will be light and can move through the air
with your own power." He spread his wings to show that he was ready;
the Eagles blew a powerful breath behind him; he went down through
the sky-hole, and was wafted down on his outstretched wings until he
lit on the summit of Tsótsil.
593. He went back to his own relations among the Navahoes; but when
he went back everything about their lodge smelt ill; its odors were
intolerable to him, and he left it and sat outside.[260] They built for
him then a medicine-lodge where he might sit by himself. They bathed
his younger brother, clothed him in new raiment, and sent him, too,
into the lodge, to learn what his elder brother could tell him. The
brothers spent twelve days in the lodge together, during which the
elder brother told his story and instructed the younger in all the
rites and songs learned among the Eagles.
594. After this he went to visit the pueblo of Kintyél, whose inmates
had before contemplated such treachery to him; but they did not
recognize him. He now looked sleek and well fed. He was beautifully
dressed and comely in his person, for the Eagles had moulded, in
beauty, his face and form. The pueblo people never thought that
this was the poor beggar whom they had left to die in the eagles'
nest. He noticed that there were many sore and lame in the pueblo. A
new disease, they told him, had broken out among them. This was the
disease which they had caught from the feathers of the eaglets when
they were attacking the nest. "I have a brother," said the Navaho, "who
is a potent shaman. He knows a rite that will cure this disease." The
people of the pueblo consulted together and concluded to employ his
brother to perform the ceremony over their suffering ones.
595. The Navaho said that he must be one of the atsá`lei,[261] or
first dancers, and that in order to perform the rite properly he must
be dressed in a very particular way. He must, he said, have strings
of fine beads--shell and turquoise--sufficient to cover his legs and
forearms completely, enough to go around his neck, so that he could
not bend his head back, and great strings to pass over the shoulder
and under the arm on each side. He must have the largest shell basin
to be found in either pueblo to hang on his back, and the one next in
size to hang on his chest. He must have their longest and best strings
of turquoise to hang to his ears. The Wind told him that the greatest
shell basin they had was so large that if he tried to embrace it around
the edge, his finger-tips would scarcely meet on the opposite side,
and that this shell he must insist on having. The next largest shell,
Wind told him, was but little smaller.[262]
596. Three days after this conference, people began to come in from
different pueblos in the Chaco Canyon and from pueblos on the banks
of the San Juan,--all these pueblos are now in ruins,--and soon a
great multitude had assembled. Meantime, too, they collected shells
and beads from the various pueblos in order to dress the atsá`lei as
he desired. They brought him some great shell basins and told him
these were what he wanted for the dance; but he measured them with
his arms as Wind had told him, and, finding that his hands joined
easily when he embraced the shells, he discarded them. They brought
him larger and larger shells, and tried to persuade him that such
were their largest; but he tried and rejected all. On the last day,
with reluctance, they brought him the great shell of Kintyél and
the great shell of Ki'ndotliz. He clasped the first in his arms;
his fingers did not meet on the opposite side. He clasped the second
in his arms, and the tips of his fingers just met. "These," said he,
"are the shells I must wear when I dance."
597. Four days before that on which the last dance was to occur,
the pueblo people sent out messengers to the neighboring camps of
Navahoes, to invite the latter to witness the exhibition of the last
night and to participate in it with some of their alíli (dances or
dramas). One of the messengers went to the Chelly Canyon and there
he got Gánaskidi, with his son and daughter, to come and perform a
dance. The other messengers started for the Navaho camp at the foot
of Tsótsil on the south (near where Cobero is now). On his way he met
an akáninili, or messenger, coming from Tsótsil to invite the people
of the Chaco Canyon to a great Navaho ceremony. (You have heard all
about the meeting of these messengers in the legend of the mountain
chant. I shall not now repeat it.)[263] The messengers exchanged bows
and quivers as a sign they had met one another, and the messenger from
Kintyél returned to his people without being able to get the Navahoes
to attend. This is the reason that, on the last night of the great
ceremony of yói hatál, there are but few different dances or shows.
598. On the evening of the last day they built a great circle
of branches, such as the Navahoes build now for the rites of the
mountain chant (fig. 37), and a great number of people crowded into
the enclosure. They lighted the fires and dressed the atsá`lei in all
their fine beads and shells just as he desired them to dress him. They
put the great shell of Kintyél on his back, and the great shell of
Ki'ndotliz on his chest, and another fine shell on his forehead. Then
the Navaho began to dance, and his brother, the medicine-man, began
to sing, and this was the song he sang:--
The white-corn plant's great ear sticks up.
Stay down and eat.
The blue-corn plant's great ear sticks up.
Stay down and eat.
The yellow-corn plant's great ear sticks up.
Stay down and eat.
The black-corn plant's great ear sticks up.
Stay down and eat.
All-colored corn's great ear sticks up.
Stay down and eat.
The round-eared corn's great ear sticks up.
Stay down and eat.[287]
599. This seemed a strange song to the pueblo people, and they all
wondered what it could mean; but they soon found out what it meant,
for they observed that the dancing Navaho was slowly rising from
the ground. First his head and then his shoulders appeared above the
heads of the crowd; next his chest and waist; but it was not until his
whole body had risen above the level of their heads that they began to
realize the loss that threatened them. He was rising toward the sky
with the great shell of Kintyél, and all the wealth of many pueblos
in shell-beads and turquoise on his body. Then they screamed wildly
to him and called him by all sorts of dear names--father, brother,
son--to come down again, but the more they called the higher he
rose. When his feet had risen above them they observed that a streak
of white lightning passed under his feet like a rope, and hung from a
dark cloud that gathered above. It was the gods that were lifting him;
for thus, the legends say, the gods lift mortals to the sky. When the
pueblos found that no persuasions could induce the Navaho to return,
some called for ropes that they might seize him and pull him down;
but he was soon beyond the reach of their longest rope. Then a shout
was raised for arrows that they might shoot him; but before the arrows
could come he was lost to sight in the black cloud and was never more
seen on earth.
NOTES.
1. How and when the name Navajo (pronounced Na'va-ho) originated has
not been discovered. It is only known that this name was given by
the Spaniards while they still claimed the Navaho land. The name
is generally supposed to be derived from navaja, which means a
clasp-knife, or razor, and to have been applied because the Navaho
warriors carried great stone knives in former days. It has been
suggested that the name comes from navájo, a pool or small lake. The
Navahoes call themselves Diné` or Diné, which means simply, men,
people. This word in the various forms, Dénè, Tinnéh, Tunné, etc., is
used as a tribal designation for many branches of the Athapascan stock.
2. The Carrizo Mountains consist of an isolated mountain mass, about
12 miles in its greatest diameter, situated in the northeast corner
of Arizona. It is called by the Navahoes Dsilnáodsil, which means
mountain surrounded by mountains; such is the appearance of the
landscape viewed from the highest point, Pastora Peak, 9,420 feet high.
3. The San Juan River, a branch of the Colorado of the West, flows
in a westerly direction through the northern portion of the Navaho
Reservation, and forms in part its northern boundary. It is the
most important river in the Navaho country. It has two names in
the Navaho language: one is Sánbito` (Water of Old Age, or Old Age
River), said to be given because the stream is white with foam and
looks like the hair of an old man; the other is To`baká (Male Water),
given because it is turbulent and strong in contrast to the placid
Rio Grande, which the Navahoes call To`baád, or Female Water. (See
note 137.) Perhaps the river has other names.
4. Tu-in-tsá is derived from to` or tu (water) and intsá or intsá
(abundant, scattered widely). The name is spelled Tuincha, Tuintcha,
and Tunicha on our maps. The Tuincha Mountains are situated partly
in New Mexico and partly in Arizona, about 30 miles from the northern
boundary of both Territories. They form the middle portion of a range
of which the Chusca and Lukachokai Mountains form the rest. The portion
known as Tuintsá is about 12 miles long. The highest point is 9,575
feet above sea-level. The top of the range, which is rather level and
plateau-like, is well covered with timber, mostly spruce and pine,
and abounds in small lakes and ponds; hence the name Tuintsá.
5. The basket illustrated in fig. 16 is made of twigs of aromatic sumac
(Rhus aromatica, var. trilobata). It is 13' in diameter and 3-3/8'
deep. In forming the helical coil, the fabricator must always put
the butt end of the twig toward the centre of the basket and the
tip end toward the periphery, in accordance with the ceremonial
laws governing the disposition of butts and tips (see notes 12 and
319). The sole decoration is a band, red in the middle with black
zigzag edges. This band is intersected at one point by a narrow
line of uncolored wood. This line has probably no relation to the
"line of life" in ancient and modern pueblo pottery. It is put
there to assist in the orientation of the basket at night, in the
dim light of the medicine-lodge. In making the basket, the butt of
the first twig is placed in the centre; the tip of the last twig,
in the helix, must be in the same radial line, which is marked by the
uncolored line crossing the ornamental band. This line must lie due
east and west on certain ceremonial occasions, as for instance when
the basket, inverted, is used as a drum during the last five nights
of the night chant. The margin of this, as of other Navaho baskets,
is finished in a diagonally woven or plaited pattern, and there
is a legend, which the author has related in a former paper,[321]
accounting for the origin of this form of margin. If the margin is
worn through or torn, the basket is unfit for sacred use. The basket
is one of the perquisites of the shaman when the rites are done;
but he, in turn, must give it away, and must be careful never to
eat out of it. Notwithstanding its sacred uses, food may be served
in it. Fig. 25 represents a basket of this kind used as a receptacle
for sacrificial sticks and cigarettes. In this case the termination
of the helix must be in the east, and the sacrifices sacred to the
east must be in the eastern quarter of the basket.
Fig. 17 shows the other form of sacred basket. It is also made of
aromatic sumac, and is used in the rites to hold sacred meal. The
crosses are said to represent clouds, and the zigzag lines to indicate
lightning.
6. The ceremonies of "House Dedication" are described at some length
by Mr. A. M. Stephen in his excellent paper on "The Navajo,"[329]
and he gives a free translation of a prayer and a song belonging to
these rites.
7. A-na-yé, or a-ná-ye, is composed of two words, aná and yéi or
ye. Aná, sometimes contracted to na, signifies a member of an alien
tribe,--one not speaking a language similar to the Navaho,--and is
often synonymous with enemy. Ye (see par. 78) may be defined as genius
or god. The anáye were the offspring of women conceived during the
separation of the sexes in the fourth world.
8. Ti-é-hol-tso-di is a water god, or water monster, a god of
terrestrial waters,--not a rain god. He seems akin to the Unktehi of
the Dakotas. He is said to dwell in the great water of the east, i.e.,
the Atlantic Ocean. Although commonly spoken of as one, there is little
doubt that the Navahoes believe in many of the Tiéholtsodi. Probably
every constant stream or spring has its own water god, (See note
152.) A picture of this god is said to be made in a dry-painting of
the rite of hozóni hatál, but the author has not seen it. Tiéholtsodi
is described as having a fine fur, and being otherwise much like an
otter in appearance, but having horns like a buffalo. (See pars. 140,
187, 484, 485.)
9. Tsús-kai or Tsó-is-kai is the name given by the Navahoes to
a prominent conical hill rising 8,800 feet above sea-level, in
northwestern New Mexico, about twenty-six miles north of Defiance
Station on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. It is called Chusca
Knoll, Chusca Peak, and Choiskai Peak by geographers. It rises abruptly
four hundred feet or more above the level of the neighboring ridge, is
visible at a great distance from the south (but not from the north),
and forms a prominent landmark. The Navahoes limit the name Tsúskai
to this knoll, but the Mexicans, and following them the Americans,
apply the name in different forms (Chusca Mountains, Sierra de Chusca,
Chuska, Chuskai, Tchuskai, etc.) to the whole mountain mass from
which the knoll rises. The name, not accurately translated, contains
the words for spruce (tso) and white (kai).
10. The bath forms an important part of the Navaho rites, being
administered on many occasions, and it is often mentioned in the
tales. It usually consists of a suds made in a water-tight wicker
basket by soaking the root of some species of yucca (see note 88) in
water; the root of Yucca baccata being usually preferred, as it seems
richest in saponine. After the application of the suds, the subject
is commonly rinsed off with plain water and dried by rubbing on corn
meal. In different ceremonies different observances are connected
with the bath. In the myth of "The Mountain Chant,"[314] pp. 389,
390, a bath is described as part of the ceremony of the deer-hunt. It
is given, no doubt, in preparing for the hunt, for practical as well
as religious reasons. It is important that the hunter should divest
himself as much as possible of his personal odor when he goes to
kill game.
11. Pollen (Navaho, thaditín) is obtained, for sacred uses, from
various plants, but Indian corn is the chief source of supply. The
pollen is carried in small buckskin bags, which also usually contain
small sacred stones, such as rock crystal and pyrophyllite, or small
animal fetishes. The administration or sacrifice of pollen is a part
of all rites witnessed, and almost always follows or accompanies
prayer. It is used in different ways on different occasions; but the
commonest way is to take a small pinch from the bag, apply a portion
of it to the tongue and a portion to the crown of the head. For some
purposes, the shaman collects a quantity of pollen, puts it in a
large bag, immerses in it some live bird, insect, or other animal,
and then allows the prisoner to escape. This is supposed to add
extra virtue to the pollen. In one kind called i`yidezná a bluebird,
a yellowbird, and a grasshopper are put in the pollen together. In
note 49 we have a mythic account of pollen put on the young of the
sea monster and then preserved. Pollen which has been applied to a
ceremonial dry-painting is preserved for future uses. Pollen in which
a live striped lizard has been placed is used to favor eutocia. The
term thaditín is applied to various things having the appearance of
an impalpable powder, such as the misty hues of the horizon in the
morning and evening, due in Arizona more frequently to dust in the
air than to moisture. Captain Bourke, in "The Medicine-men of the
Apache,"[295] chapter ii., describes many modes of using pollen which
exist also among the Navahoes.
12. The following are a few additional observances with regard to
kethawns:--