Four-days journey from the Navaho country was a village of the Áya Kĭnné̆, Have Holes For Houses, enemies from early times. They also prided themselves on having two very beautiful girls, upon whom many admiring young men of the tribe bestowed valuable presents of turquoise, shell beads, and other jewels. One[pg 107] of these wondrous beauties wore her hair plaited always with rich strings of turquoise; the other with strings of white shell.
"To the two men," said the vaunting young Navaho, "who will fight their way to the homes of these boasted beauties and bring to me their jewel-plaited scalps, will I give my sisters."
The band started, each man eager and hopeful, and on the fourth night bivouacked in sight of the cliffs under which the hated Áya Kĭnné̆ had their homes. At daybreak on the following morning they made their attack on the pueblo, but the villagers, ever alert and well prepared for an onslaught, offered desperate resistance, every man fighting bravely for his life and his family. All day long the contest raged; arrow, lance, and stone hammer dealing death on every hand. As nightfall shrouded the combatants in darkness, the invaders, depleted in rank, slunk back to their camp on the hill, where they found the two gray-haired brothers, each bearing a jewelled scalp as his trophy.
When the Navaho chief learned that the old men were the victors, he raged with anger, condemning his tribesmen and vowing that his sisters should never become the wives of unknown aliens, and accordingly declared a new contest. The man who would win a beautiful wife must hit the blade of a yucca plant with an arrow at forty paces. The long, narrow blade was hung in the bark of a tree and the contest commenced. The younger men shot first. One by one they twanged their bows, and one by one marched off in sullen humor. At last it came the turn of the aged brothers. The first shot his arrow, and the slender leaf was pierced; the second shot, and again the leaf was pierced; but so soon as the second arrow had hit its mark the Navaho declared a new feat, contending that this had not been sufficient. A long race was then arranged, and once more the brothers came off victorious.
The chief became desperate. Some feat must be devised in which his own men could prove the superior. In the wall of a high cliff not far distant was a small hole, barely larger than a half-closed hand, and just above the reach of the average man. The ones who could run past that hole, jump, and thrust their hands into it as they did so, might claim the sisters. One by one the young Navaho warriors leaped wildly and struck out for the hole in the cliff, but none could thrust his hand into it. Then the elderly brothers ran past, sprang lightly, and darted a hand each into the pocket.
Zahadolzhá - Navaho
From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis
These deific characters in Navaho mythology, though beneficent always, have no special functions to perform. The name means "Fringe Mouth" and has no ascertainable significance other than that these spirits, whose abode is in the water, are supposed to have peculiar markings about their mouths. Rescue from drowning invariably redounds to the glory of these gods.
But for the third time the Navaho chief declared the test insufficient. The cliff was high. They who would marry his sisters must shoot an arrow over its rim; so a second contest in archery took place, but only the feathered reeds of the white-haired brothers passed out of sight.