A NAVAJO MEDICINE CHANT
The Navajos give a medicine dance and chant a long song when a sick person asks for this service. This chant is the story in song of the capture and escape of a young Navajo brave. He is helped by his people’s gods, who are like the creatures that live in his own country.
This is the part of the chant telling of his escape:
“He came to the house of the Butterfly. It was filled with butterflies and rainbows.
“Kacluge, the great Butterfly, welcomed him to his lodge. His wife took the young brave by the hand. He was welcome.
“She left the room, but came back with a great pearl dish in her hand. It was a sea-shell filled with water. She gave him soapweed. He washed and was white. He dried his hands with meal and painted his face with white earth; then he was fair as a white man. [[71]]
“Kacluge gave him fine white moccasins. He gave him a collar of beaver skin, and a whistle to call for help.
“His arms looked like wings, for plumed prayer-sticks were fastened to them in the Butterfly’s lodge.
“The young man was no longer tired. He was strong again, and like a white butterfly in beauty. Kacluge fed him with white corn meal mixed with pure water. He slept in the house of the Butterfly.
“In the morning the young Navajo stepped on the white sand. The wife of the Butterfly put two burning lines of white lightning before his feet. He stepped upon these, and his white moccasins fastened to the lightning.
“ ‘Now,’ said the Butterfly, ‘the lightning is yours; follow where it leads.’
“With one step he stood on a high hill. He saw a flash of lightning fill the valley.
“ ‘It is the trail I must follow,’ said the young Navajo. Across the valley, on the trail of the lightning, he ran to the mountains; and now, pure in face, in heart, and with white feet, the lightning led him home.”
Adapted from Powell’s Report. [[72]]