Sixth Day: This is the first day of the large dry-paintings. The painting is commenced early in the morning, and is not finished until mid-afternoon. The one on this day is the whirling log representation. After it is finished, feathers are stuck in the ground around it, and sacred meal is scattered on parts by some of the assisting singers. Others scatter the meal promiscuously; one of the maskers uses a spruce twig and medicine shell, applying meal to every figure and object in the painting. Then the medicine-men all gather up portions of the sacred meal, putting it in their medicine pouches. The patient soon enters and takes his seat in the centre of the painting. The usual incantations are gone through, after which the colored sands of the painting are applied to the corresponding parts of the patient's body, then gathered up and carried off to the north. During the day two sets of beggars go out to the neighboring hogáns. These personate Hasché̆ltĭ, Tónenĭlĭ—Water Sprinkler, the God of Water, who is really a clown—and as many Haschĕbaád as care to go out. The beggars carry whips made of yucca[pg 121] leaves, and one who does not respond to their appeals for gifts is whipped,—if he can be caught,—which creates a great deal of amusement. The personators act like a company of clowns, but at the same time they gather a large quantity of food. When the day is thoroughly taken up with dry-painting and ceremonies, there is less of the ceremonial at night. The medicine-men, to the accompaniment of the basket drum, sing for a short time only on this sixth night, while outside the late evening is spent in dancing by those who are later to participate in the closing dance.
Seventh Day: This day is practically consumed with the making of another large dry-painting. The masked men go out on another begging tour, also, and the medicine ceremonies and the destroying of the dry-painting are practically the same as those of the day before, while during the evening the medicine-men sing to the accompaniment of the drum.
Eighth Day: The dry-painting is finished about three o'clock in the afternoon. After its completion there is a large open-air initiation. To become a full member of the Yébĭchai order one must first be initiated in the hogán; the second initiation is a public one; the third, another inside the hogán; the fourth, another in the open. These different initiation ceremonies, the same in point of ritualism, may be carried over several years.
Ninth and Final Day: To the average person and to the Indians as a whole the last day is the Yébĭchai dance. From[pg 122] a distance the Indians have been gathering during the two previous days, and the hospitality of the patient's family, as well as that of all the people living in the neighboring hogáns, is taxed to the utmost. And from early morning until dark the whole plain is dotted with horsemen coming singly and in groups. Great crowds gather at the contests given half a mile from the hogán, where horse-races, foot-races, groups of gamblers, and throngs of Indians riding wildly from race-track to hogán fill the day with hilarity and incidents memorable to all. Toward the end of the day preparation is made for the closing part of the nine-day rite. Great quantities of fuel have been brought from the distant plateau, and placed in many small piles at each side of the smooth dance ground to the east of the hogán. As soon as it is dark the fuel is ignited, making two long lines of camp-fires, furnishing both light to see the dancers and warmth to the spectators, for the Yébĭchai cannot be held until the autumn frosts begin, when the nights have the sharp, keen air of the high altitudes.
Zahadolzhá - Navaho
From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis
This is the last of the dry-paintings used in the Night Chant, being destroyed on the night of the eighth day's ceremonies. It takes its name from the fact that the principal characters represented in it, the dark figures, are all Zahadolzhá, Fringe-mouth Gods. According to the myth underlying the rite these gods made the first paintings of this sort used among the spirit people, and were the ones who furnished succor to the patients on the eighth day of the nine days' healing ceremony. The light figures are female deities—haschĕbaád. In the centre is the cornstalk, a life-giving symbol, and partially encircling the whole is the personified light-giving rainbow, a female personage.
During the ceremony a man masked as a Zahadolzhá places his hands first upon a part of his likeness pictured in colored earths and then on the corresponding part of the patient, as head, body, and limbs. Later the colored earths or sands are carried away in a blanket and placed under brush or trees toward the north.
With the gathering darkness the human tide flows toward the medicine hogán, illuminated in the dusk by the long lines of camp-fires. All gather about and close around the dance square, having to be kept back by those in charge. Men, women, and children sit on the ground near the fires. Many on horseback have ridden up, and form a veritable phalanx back of the sitting spectators. The dance does not begin at once, and those assembled spend the time telling stories, jesting, and gossiping. Belated arrivals make coffee, or do hurried cooking around the fires.