Washington Matthews

“ Then she pressed and worked his body and face all over until she molded him into a youth of the most beautiful form and feature. They gave him fine white moccasins and a collar of beaver skin with a whistle attached to it; they put the kàbasçan, or plumed sticks to represent wings, on his arms, and altogether dressed and adorned him as the akáninili is dressed and adorned. The woman gave him white corn meal mixed with water to eat, and he slept all night in the house of the butterflies. ”

“ After the last refusal Qastcèëlçi clapped his hands, uttered his cry of “hu‘hu‘hu‘hu‘!” and led the way. The house was of corn pollen; the door was of daylight; the ceiling was supported by four white spruce trees; rainbows ran in every direction and made the house shine within with their bright and beautiful colors. Neither kethàwn nor ceremony was shown the Navajo here; but he was allowed to tarry four nights and was fed with an abundance of white corn meal and corn pollen. ”

“ Seventh dance. The arc bearers had scarcely disappeared when another troupe entered the circle, the buffalo horn announcing their coming. A man with a whizzer led the procession. The choristers, in ordinary dress, were thirteen in number. The principal dancers were but two; they wore the usual sash and belt; the uncovered skin was painted white; they had on long blue woolen stockings of Navajo make and moccasins. Each bore a slender wand of two triangles of reeds adorned at the corners with pendant plumes. They saluted the fire as they danced around it. ”

“ Early each morning, before eating, all who desire, men and women, enter the medicine lodge, where, in a stifling 419 atmosphere, seated around a fire of dry wood of four different kinds—cedar, big willow, little willow, and spruce—they take the hot emetic infusion of fifteen different kinds of plants mixed together. ”

“ The woman answered: “It is already late; the night is falling and the way is long. It is of no use for you to see him to-night; let us wait until the morning.” “Very well,” said the shaman; “bring him at dawn to-morrow.” She left the lodge promising to do as she was bidden; and the moment she was gone the long suppressed merriment of the men broke forth. They all laughed inordinately, made many jokes about the lazy grandson, and told the medicine man that there was no use in sending such a person with the message when the best runners among them did not dare to undertake the journey. ”

“ They continued to come in groups until nightfall, when a great multitude had assembled to witness the dance. After the guests began to arrive the young men set to work to cut trees for the corral, and when the sun had set the building of the dark circle of branches began. While the young men were making the circle the old men were making speeches to the multitude, for the old men always love to talk when the young men are hard at work. It was the greatest corral that has ever been built in the Navajo country. ”

“ The next place they visited was Tse‘ça-iskági (Rock that Bends Back) , where they entered a house, striped within horizontally of many colors, and found eight more of the Tsilkè-¢igìni (Holy Young Men) . Two stood at each cardinal point and each one grasped a sapling which he held over his upturned mouth, as if about to swallow it. One of the young men addressed him, saying “Do thus. There are eight of us here; but when you do this in the dance that you will teach your people you need not have eight young men—six will be enough.” ”

“ When they rose, as the strangers entered, the plumes on their heads seemed to touch the heavens, they were so very tall. The goddesses said to Dsilyi‘ Neyáni, “We give you no kethàwn, but look at us well and remember how we appear, for in your ceremonies you must draw our picture; yet draw us not, as we now stand, in the east, the south, the west, and the north; but draw us as if we all stood in the east.” This is the origin of the second picture that is painted on the sand. ”

“ The head of the rainbow is rectangular, while the heads of the other forms in this picture are round. In the pictures of the Yàybichy dance we frequently observe the same difference in the heads. Some are rectangular, some are round; the former are females, the latter males; and whenever any of these gods are represented, by characters, in a dance, those who enact the females wear square stiff masks, like our dominoes, while those who enact the males wear roundish, baglike masks, of soft skin, that completely envelop the head. The rainbow god in all these pictures wears the rectangular mask. ”

“ The men who do the greater part of the actual work of painting, under the guidance of the chanter, have been initiated, but need not be skilled medicine men or even aspirants to the craft of the shaman. A certain ceremony of initiation has been performed on them four times, each time during the course of a different dance, before they are admitted into the lodge during the progress of the work or allowed to assist in it. The medicine man receives a good present in horses for his work; the assistants get nothing but their food. ”

“ From the many English synonyms for song I have selected the word chant to translate qaçàl. In its usual signification hymnody may be its more exact equivalent, but it is a less convenient term than chant. The shaman, or medicine man, who is master of ceremonies, is known as qaçàli or chanter—el cantador, the Mexicans call him. In order to keep in mind his relationship to similar functionaries in other tribes I shall, from time to time, allude to him as the priest, the shaman, or the medicine man, following 386 the example of other authors. ”

“ Within they encountered a bald headed old man who had only a little tuft of hair over each ear. This was Klictsò, the Great Serpent. He asked Niltci who his human companion was, and the wind god answered that he was a Navajo who had been captured by the Ute, but had escaped from them and had suffered many hardships. On hearing this Klictsò showed the Indian how to make the kethàwns, now known to the Navajo shamans as klictsò-bikeçan, or sacrificial sticks of the Great Serpent, and he told him how to plant these sacrifices. ”

“ Get two small forked sticks, the length of the forearm, to pass the hot stones into the sweat-house, and one long stick to poke the stones out of the fire, and let all these sticks be such as have their bark abraded by the antlers of the deer. Take 390 of all the plants on which the deer most like to browse and spread them on the floor of the sweat-house, that we may sit on them.” So they built the lodge as he directed, and lit the fire and heated the stones. ”

“ When the night began to fall many of the visitors moved all their goods into the corral and lighted there a number of small fires close to the fence, temporarily abandoning their huts and shelters outside. Those who did not move in left watchers to protect their property; for there are thieves among the Navajo. The woods around the corral were lighted up in various directions by the fires of those who had not taken their property into the great inclosure and of parties who were practicing dances and shows of an exoteric character. ”

“ These represent certain birds of blue plumage called by the Navajo çòli (Sialia arctica) . This bluebird is of the color of the south and of the upper regions. He is the herald of the morning. His call of “çòli çòli” is the first that is heard when the gray dawn approaches. Therefore is he sacred, and his feathers form a component part of nearly all the plume sticks used in the worship of this people. Two bluebirds, it is said, stand guard at the door of the house wherein these gods dwell; hence they are represented in the east of the picture. ”

“ Three times a day the person for whose benefit the dance is performed sends in enough mush, corn cake, soup, and roasted mutton to satisfy to the utmost the appetites of all in the lodge. There are some young men who live well all winter by going around the country from dance to dance and assisting in the work of the lodge. ”

“ A number of boys, from twelve to fifteen years of age they seemed, led by a pleasant looking old man 444 with a skeptical twinkle in his eye, came into the dark circle. One of the party carried a deep Indian basket, from the top of which a number of spruce twigs protruded. They formed what has been designated as the ring of occultation, and while doing so they shouted and screamed and puffed the talismanic “thòhay” in a way that left no doubt of their intention to ridicule. ”

“ As the Navajo entered the Kleyatcini passed out and closed the door behind him. The fugitive was not long in his place of concealment when the clamor made by the foiled pursuers was again heard, but it ceased sooner than usual. It was not yet sunset when the little animal returned to announce that the Ute had gone from the neighborhood. When the Navajo stepped out of the hole in the rock, Kleyatcini pointed out to him the mountains in which his home lay and counseled him to travel directly towards them. ”

“ When they reached the hogán, the father said: “Where is the atcai?” (pluck) and the younger said: “It is in the skin.” “Take it out,” said the old man, “and hang it on yonder mountain mahogany.” The young man did as he was bidden. The father advanced with his bow and arrow and handed them to the elder brother, who placed the arrow on the string and held the bow. The old man put his hands on top of those of his son and together they drew the bow. The former took careful aim at the pluck and let the arrow fly. ”

“ The half nearer the center is red; the outer half is blue; they are bordered with narrow lines of white. The same figures are repeated in other paintings. They appear in this drawing, and frequently in others, as something on which the gods seem to stand. They are the ca‘bitlòl, or rafts of sunbeam, the favorite vessels on which the divine ones navigate the upper deep. In the Navajo myths, when a god has a particularly long and speedy journey to make, he takes two sunbeams and, placing them side by side, is borne off in a twinkling whither he wills. ”

“ The Ute had tracked him to the edge of the cliff where he got on the tree; but there they lost his trail and searched all the neighborhood to see if they could regain it; hence the noises. When all was silent Qastcèëlçi returned and said, “Your enemies have departed; you can leave in safety.” So, taking a tanned elk skin to cover his back and a pair of new moccasins to protect his feet, the Navajo set out from the cave. ”

“ On two occasions I have witnessed a very pretty dance, in which an eagle plume was stuck upright in a basket and by means of some well hidden mechanism caused to dance in good time to the song, the beat of the drum, and the motions of the single Indian who danced at the same time ”

“ Each of the four sacred plants is represented as growing from five white roots in the central waters and spreading outwards to the periphery of the picture. The gods form one cross whose limbs are directed to the four cardinal points; the plants form another cross having a common center with the first named cross, but whose limbs extend to the intermediate points of the compass. ”

“ They have ear pendants, bracelets, and armlets, blue and red (of turquoise and coral) , the prehistoric and emblematic jewels of the Navajo. Their forearms and legs are black, showing in each a zigzag mark to represent lightning on the surface of the black rain clouds. In the north god these colors are, for artistic reasons, reversed. Each bears, attached to his right hand with a string, a rattle, a charm, and a basket. The rattle is of the shape of those used by the medicine men in this particular dance, made of raw hide and painted to symbolize the rain cloud and lightning. ”

“ He took two wicker bottles to a neighboring spring, filled them, and laid them on the ground beside the spring, while he went to gather some plants to stick into the mouths of the bottles as stopples. As he went he heard a voice saying “Hist!” and looking in the direction whence it came he saw a form sitting in the water; it wore a mask like the head of a great owl and it was smoking a pipe. When he turned towards it, it said, “You walk around like one without sense or knowledge. Why don’t you do something for yourself? ”

“ To the home of their neighbors in the south it was as far. As these long journeys must be made on foot and running, they could not find a single young man in the camp who would volunteer for the task. The men counseled about the difficulty all day and tried much persuasion on the youths, but none were found willing to make either journey.
62. As night approached an old woman entered the medicine lodge and said: “I will send my grandson as an akáninili.” This old woman’s lodge was not far from where the medicine lodge was built and all present knew her grandson well. ”

“ The glòï-bikeçàn, or sacrifices to the weasels, were four in number, two yellow and two white. In preparing the sticks one end was always to be held to the north, the other towards the south. At each end a narrow circle of red and a narrow circle of blue were painted; the red being to the north, i.e., outside of the blue at one end and inside of it at the other. The weasel men directed that the sticks should be buried in the ground in the same direction in which they were held when being made, lying from north to south with the outer red ring at the north. ”

“ The wand of the nahikàï was made by paring down a straight slender stick of aromatic sumac, about three feet long, to the general thickness of less than half an inch, but leaving a head or button at one end. A ring was fashioned from a transverse slice of some hollow or pithy plant, so that it would slide freely up and down the slender wand, but would nob pass over the head. Eagle down was secured to the wooden head and also to the ring. In the dance (paragraph 129) the eagle down on the stick is burned off in the fire while the ring is held in the palm of the hand. ”

“ I shall often refer to this inclosure as the corral. Some white men call the rites I describe the “corral dance,” but more usually they call them the “hoshkàwn dance,” from one of the minor performances of the last night, the hackàn-inçá‘, or act of the Yucca baccata, a rite or drama which seems to particularly excite the Caucasian interest. To such minor acts the terms inçá‘ and alìli are applied; these may be translated dance, show, act, or exhibition. ”

“ He told them all he knew about the swift couriers and all the grandmother had told him. He remarked that there were yet many who could not believe that the young men had made the journey; so, to satisfy all, he proposed that within twelve days they should have a race between the two fleet akáninili around the base of Tsòtsil, if all would agree to reassemble to witness it, and he begged them to invite their neighbors of the Pueblo and other tribes to come with them. Then other chiefs arose to speak. In the end the proposition of the Navajo chief was agreed to. ”