To
Miss MARY CABOT WHEELWRIGHT
Because those who love the Southwest and
its peoples owe to her courage, her discernment,
and her venturing spirit
more than they can repay.
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE SONS OF KAI
The country of the Navahos lies south and west of the Rocky Mountains on a great tableland lifted up into the sky. It is a country of canyons and deserts, mountains and wild pasture lands arched over by the bluest sky in all the world. The sun there seems bigger than our northern sun, and he treads the sky each day like a proud Indian god in a feather headdress of gold and fire.
When a Navaho falls ill, or has recovered from an illness, his friends and the friends of his friends meet together by night to dance the sacred fire dance. In the open land by some lonely settlement in the ancient hills, they kindle great fires under the starry sky, and dance the sacred dance round and about the flames. The old men sing, the drums resound, and the tread of the dancers shakes the earth till the fires sink and die in the glow of the mountain dawn.
The song which the old men sing at the dance is very beautiful and very old. It is called the Song of Healing. This is the story the Navahos tell about the song.
Once upon a time, say the Navahos, an Indian people lived in a cliff dwelling in the south wall of the Canyon de Chelly.[A] The huge, arched-over hollow in which their town was built was more than halfway up the side of the reddish-pink canyon wall, and to get to it, the people had to climb ladders and follow narrow paths cut in the stone. Looking from the canyon up to the cliff, one could see the little square houses nestling under the huge arch, a watch tower, and a granary. At one end of the arch, a ribbon of water, gliding down the cliff, marked the overflow of a fine spring which never failed.