Slender-maiden of the Apache
Slender-maiden was to have her dance in twelve days. The acorns were now ripening along Ash Creek; the stags, their horns fully grown, were taking on fat; thunder-showers were now falling, and the year was at its best. During the preceding spring, Slender-maiden’s mother had noted her daughter’s approach to womanhood. The winter before, Slender-maiden’s father had gone to the mountains beyond Black River and hunted for half a month. The best of the deerskins had been carefully tanned and put away. On Cibicu Creek, a day to the west, lived a man noted for the fine buckskin suits he could make. Slender-maiden’s father took four of these dressed deerskins and two of his best horses to this skilled man. The horses were given him for his work on the skins. Slender-maiden’s father was told to come for the garments about the time corn showed its tassels.
Slender-maiden’s mother and Slender-maiden herself were Wormwood clan. Many women of this clan lived in the neighborhood and they gladly agreed to help gather food for the feast. Slender-maiden’s father was of the Adobe clan. His brothers promised to join him before the dance, in a hunt which should provide venison for the feast. There was, fortunately, a large number of horses belonging to the family with which those who sang the songs and directed the ceremony might be paid.
Slender-maiden’s father rode up the creek to the marsh where he cut a supply of reeds. Of these he made tubes, which he filled with tobacco and tied at right angles, making crosses. These were sent by Slender-maiden’s cousin, a young man but recently with a beard to pluck, to the medicine man living on Eastfork who knew the songs of Naiyenezgani, used for the dance of adolescent girls. When the young man arrived at the home of the singer he placed the cross on his toe. As the old man reached for the token he asked the young man from whence he came.
“I am Wormwood clan and I come from the valley of dancehouse. Slender-maiden’s father, my uncle, asks that on the twelfth day you sing for his daughter under the cotton-woods on Ash Creek. He sends you this deerskin, these beads of turquoise, of jet, of white stone, and of red coral. Besides he gives you a horse, and a saddle from Old Mexico.”
“Sit, my grandchild,” said the singer to the young man. The old man then filled his pipe and passed his buckskin bag of tobacco to the young man. “Call my brothers,” he said to his wife before they began smoking. When they had gathered and the pipes were burning, the singer told the young man’s errand and that their aid was required in the ceremony. Food was now brought and the young man was served.
A similar invitation was sent to a medicine man on Turkey Creek who knew the dance of the Gans.
A few days later the women of Slender-maiden’s clan and those living in her camp loaded their burros and horses with the food for the feast and the necessary utensils. The sun was well up when they were ready to start, and by sundown the party camped when they reached a stream where oaks grew in profusion, about two-thirds of the way to Ash Creek. By noon the next day, camp was made under the cotton-woods in the valley of the creek.
The day before the dance was to be held a sweat lodge was built near the stream. In this dome-shaped lodge, parties of six and eight men went repeatedly for baths. The songs of Naiyenezgani were sung and the men were purified by the steam and heat. At midday, food was served to all those who had gathered in the vicinity.
Just before the sun rose the next morning, four blankets were spread, one above the other, and a cane, bent at the top, was stood up just east of this bed. Near the cane was placed a basket of shelled corn.
The singer from Eastfork with his chorus of young men formed a line just back of the western end of the bed. Slender-maiden now appeared and took her place in front of the singers, facing the rising sun. As the songs were sung in proper order Slender-maiden danced, swaying her body from side to side. When the proper song was reached, she knelt and moved from side to side on alternate knees with her face always toward the rising sun. Soon she lay prone on the bed and was molded to a form of beauty by her matronly attendant. Finally she was prayed for by all the assembled spectators who passed in line behind her and put pollen on the crown of her head. When the sun was about half-way to the middle of the sky she ran the appointed race and the morning ceremony was completed.
Every one was soon served with meat and soup.
That evening at about sunset a man without clothes, except a breechcloth, his body painted white with black stripes, appeared at the dance-ground and by signs inquired if a dance were in progress. On being told that was the case he ran away to a secluded spot. Soon peculiar noises were heard and the sound of rattles. Four men came in single file followed by a painted clown. The four wore moccasins and kilts below the waist but were painted black above with symbolic designs in white. Their faces were covered and on the tops of their heads were fan-shaped forms of wood covered with painted designs. After making a circuit of the dance-ground, these masked men danced for some time and then withdrew.
After nightfall a great fire was kindled and the masked men returned. Slender-maiden, bearing her cane, danced near the fire. With her were other maidens who occasionally invited young men to dance with them. While the masked men were dancing, the singer from Turkey Creek led the songs of the Gans, immortals who join with men in the celebration of attaining adolescence. The time of the songs was marked by the singers beating on a stretched skin.
When the earth was made,
When the sky was made,
Where the head of the black earth lies,
Where the head of the black sky lies,
Where the heads of them meet,
Black Thunder, Black Gan, facing each other with life stepped out.
Black Gan with his dance spoke four times.
About midnight the singer from Eastfork and his assistants took their places within a house consisting of four poles only. A fire was kindled here, back of which, facing the east, stood Slender-maiden accompanied by a girl of her own age, and two youths. At intervals until dawn the songs of Naiyenezgani were sung while the young people danced.
Estsunnadlehe
From her house of white cloud
Living white shell, her chief,
It echoes with me.
Estsunnadlehe
Long and fortunate life, her chief,
It echoes with me.
After breakfast more songs were sung and then the masked men appeared and assisted, first in painting Slender-maiden with white earth and later in marking with symbols the cheeks and hands of all the spectators. The ceremony was now complete and the assembly soon dispersed, some people to the gathering of acorns and some to their camps in order to tend their crops.
Among those who had been at the ceremony at Ash Creek was a young man named Red-boy. His home was on San Pedro Creek, one hundred miles south and west, not far from the country of the Pima. He had come to visit relatives in the White Mountain country for his mother was of the Adobe clan and her brothers and sisters were living on the White River.
Red-boy was much interested in Slender-maiden and resolved to seek her for a wife. His request was listened to, and his presents of horses were accepted. Slender-maiden herself was pleased, for the stranger was tall, and generous with his presents to her. The couple soon moved to a camp on Black River, where Slender-maiden was left behind while her husband joined a small party which was going to Mexico on a raid. Ten days later the party returned without loss and with a large number of horses. Red-boy had taken ten which he gave Slender-maiden’s parents.
The next spring Red-boy and Slender-maiden went to the village on San Pedro and planted the land that had belonged to Red-boy’s mother. Here they lived for five years, raising good crops and having plenty of deer from the surrounding mountains.
One day in August Slender-maiden and her sister-in-law were making baskets under the cotton-woods by the creek. Slender-maiden’s five-year old daughter was sleeping under a willow nearer the stream where the breeze was cooler. Suddenly a roar was heard and a wall of water, mud, and torn-up trees rushed out of the canyon. The women jumped up, but before they could reach the sleeping child the water had rolled over in a brown flood. The women themselves were able to escape by climbing into the cotton-woods.
Saddened by this loss and disconcerted by the washing over of the farm by the waters of a thunder-shower, Slender-maiden and her husband moved to the White Mountain country and settled on Cedar Creek near her people. Here they lived for ten years. There were now five children, the youngest of which was a girl.
One day a messenger came from White River asking that Slender-maiden’s husband come to treat a sick man. Red-boy knew the songs and ritual of a healing ceremony. He went with his wife, and camped by the man who had been suddenly taken ill. He was burning with fever and covered with an eruption. The songs were of no avail for before dawn the man was dead. The body was almost immediately placed in a cleft of the rocks in a nearby canyon and covered with sticks and stones.
That afternoon Slender-maiden and her husband moved down White River and a few days later to Black River in which she and her husband bathed. That night her head ached and she begged her husband to leave, lest he too contract the disease. When twelve days later the fever left her, she saw her husband sitting by, tired and worn with watching over her.
“Why did you not leave me?” she asked.
“Because I have loved you for many years,” he replied.
In a few days he too was ill and then Slender-maiden, still weak, watched him until he was taken to the canyon for burial. When the plague had passed, Slender-maiden’s children and near relatives were all dead except the youngest girl who had been left with an aunt on Cedar Creek.
Slender-maiden cut her hair, of course, and wore only a skirt and a poncho of cloth. Even when the year was up she did not allow her hair to grow. Her husband’s clansmen, noting her disinclination to marry again, respected her wishes and did not assign her a husband. She continued the cultivation of her small farm and the care of her daughter.
The requests of her adolescence ceremony for long life were answered. So old is she that she must walk with a cane. Her hair is white, not with the symbolic white earth but with age. Her daughter, in middle age, unmarried, highly respected, but much sought for herself and her considerable herds, attends to her physical needs. For the remainder, Slender-maiden lives with her memories of a happy youth.
P. E. Goddard
When John the Jeweler was Sick[4]
Told at St. Michaels, Arizona, by one of the Franciscan Fathers
You may remember having met here a Navaho friend of ours, one of the silver-smiths, whom we familiarly called “John the Jeweler.” Early this year he went over to the Kohonino Cañon and stayed there four days. The day after leaving the Cañon he was taken with ague, and every day for twenty days he had a chill followed by fever and delirium. The strangeness of the disease had an extraordinarily depressing effect on him and during these twenty days he was in a state of utter collapse.
John the Jeweler is a medicine man, a minor priest, of considerable repute, and numbers of his friends came to see him, but none of them knew anything about his disease. The priests and the patient were inclined to attribute it to “a bad smell emanating from the Kohonino,” but as there was also a band of wandering Paiutes there during the time of the patient’s visit, they were not sure but that the bad smell may have originated with the Paiutes.
It was concluded in this emergency to call in the best mediciners of the region. The first to officiate was Ojkai yośna. His rites and song-prayers were directed to the Yè who dwells at the mouth of the pit through which all people came up to this world, and through which the spirits of the dead return to the lower world.
This pit is in the summit of that mountain in the north called Tjoliĭ. Between the patient and the mouth of the pit the priest made a fire with certain woods, and beside this fire he sang prayers to the Yè who sits on “this side” the mouth of the pit. He beseeched the Yè not to call the patient to descend the ladder leading to the regions of the dead. He rubbed the ashes and pulverized charcoal of his medicine-fire all over the body of the patient, first having rubbed him with a mixture obtained by melting the fat of the bison, mountain sheep, elk and deer, with a small portion of the fat of the domestic sheep. This grease was to make stick to the skin the charcoal and ashes of the medicine-fire. After the anointment the songs were sung again beside the patient.
The rites of Ojkai yośna lasted two days and nights and his fee was one horse, say fifty dollars.
The next shaman was Kuma byge. In the sick man’s hut, a little hollow mound of clay was made, and within the hollow three stones were set; on these were laid splinters of piñon and cedar which were set afire. When they had burned to embers, the shaman shook his rattle and sang to the Yès of his father. He then laid upon the embers five herbs. The patient was laid naked upon the sand, close to the fireplace, and a blanket was spread over the fireplace, and the patient thus inhaled the fumes of the herbs, while the shaman sat alongside, shaking his rattle and continuing his song.
The treatment was performed at sunrise and sunset, and should last four days, with songs, dances and other ceremonies at night. But in this instance, at the close of the second day, an embarrassing circumstance occurred: the patient’s wife’s menstrual flow began. This at once put a stop to all further treatment. Kuma byge’s fee was one horse, say fifty dollars.
After the wife got well, Etsĭdi bĭkĭs was summoned. To the leader of the four winds sang the shaman, the white wind of the East, the blue wind of the South, the yellow wind of the West, and the black wind of the North. Before the people emerged from the lower world the winds were taken up the pit at Tjoliĭ by the “Leader” and their directions assigned them. He caused them to blow upon the muddy surface of the earth while this upper surface was yet new and damp, until the world became dry enough for habitation. The winds expelled the evil influence of the bad Yès, and the new world became beautiful. So it was to this Leader that Etsĭdi bĭkĭs sang, asking him to bring the winds together, and expel the evil influence that threatened the patient.
The ceremonies lasted four days and nights and consisted of song-prayers, exhibiting fetiches, shaking the rattle, blowing the whistle, and swinging the tsin boosni (which is like swinging the Thunder prayer stick of the Hopi). The fee of Etsĭdi bĭkĭs was a large horse, say sixty dollars.
The next shaman was called Hostin bĭkân. He administered herb roots, both raw and in infusions. The raw root of the Jamestown weed was given the patient at sunrise, noon and sunset. Each dose was something less than half an ounce of the recently dry root. This was chewed and swallowed. Closely following each of these doses, he was given a piece of the stalk of the Golden Alexander, about six inches long and as thick as the thumb. This he chewed, swallowing the saliva, but not the fiber. Between the songs, during the day and night, infusions were given the patient to drink, in quantities never to exceed half a pint at once. There were separate infusions of herbs known as: aze klohĭ, laughing medicine, aze bĭni, bad or dreaded talk medicine, thajuhuĭtso, great chief of water medicines, that is of medicinal herbs growing in marshes, all, I surmise, species of nightshade. Hostin bĭkân’s ceremonies lasted a day and a night. His fee was a horse, say fifty dollars.
The last and most potent of the shamans was Kuma. He is chief of the clan to which the patient belongs. He lives about thirty miles southwest from our Cañon.
Kuma’s prayers were directed to Hosdjoqun (the Killer) and Hos-(dje) Yelti (the Talker), guardian deities of Tjoliĭ. But all these prayers were more immediately addressed to the Yès who dwell in the Half-white-house, asking their mediation, that the “Killer” might withhold his hand, that the “Talker” might withhold the word of death. I presume you know that there is a mythic region in the north. It extends from nadir to zenith and has no horizon. It is a land of vertical strata of various colors, each stratum reaching from The Below to The Above. At each stratification is the house of a Yè, half in one stratum, half in the next.[5]
A sweat house is decorated on the outside with a rainbow in colored sands; a singing-house is built for the occasion; sand pictures (altars) are made on the floor of the singing-house; and there are dances of the masked participants.
Kuma’s ceremonies lasted five days and nights. Every morning at sunrise, the patient was placed in the sweat house for about twenty minutes, say ten minutes in each. Nothing of special significance was done during the day, but from sunset to dawn the maskers danced before the singing-house, while within the singing-house, the priests sang their prayers, made their sand pictures, and placed the proper fetiches before and upon them. For a fee, Kuma received a fine horse and colt, worth one hundred dollars.
Aside from all these fees, sheep were killed to provide mutton, and other provisions were purchased to feed the shamans and their assistants, the dancers, and the numerous spectators who flock around when any of these religious ceremonies are in progress. In these expenses the patient was assisted by all his relatives.
In these ceremonies, three weeks went by, with every day an ague. At the end of that time, the patient said that he was “looking down the descending ladder.”
His friends then cinched him upon a saddle, and brought him here, muffled in a blanket, just like a bag of bones. We had him dumped in the wool room. This was four days ago. We had no calomel, so we gave him a generous dose of blue mass, about thirty grains. On the following morning we administered a liberal draught of castor oil, and then we gave him about thirty grains of quinine, in four doses, daily. Two days ago his ague left him. This morning he and his friends left for home. Just as he was leaving, John the Jeweler told me he was feeling so well, he thought that by to-morrow night he could resume the performance of his marital duties.
A. M. Stephen
