“A fresh wind in that country,
Girls dance circling.”
He had dreamed that he had gone to that far land where he had seen them dancing. The others caught up the refrain: they stood singing for some minutes. Then when they sang in unison Paiya signaled and all began circling to the left with a short, sidewise shuffling step. Slowly the circle swung, fifty men in their gala dress, girls with their jingling ornaments; over and over they sang the song, to bring it to an end when the leader reached his starting point. They stood hardly a minute: none dropped out. “Nidjanwi,” several prompted; so Paiya began the favorite:
“Nidjanwi, I do it;
I am the man who names himself;
Maidens stand alongside.”
Soon all were chanting, and the circle moved again. Excitement was high; the old people called out encouraging compliments; girls shouldered their way beside partners of their choice; reluctant Navaho were laughingly forced into the throng. Panamida felt some one pushing against his thigh; there was little Lanso, his older brother’s boy: “Yes, come in,” as he made space. Another song, and they stopped to rest. Navaho paid a trifle to their partners for release. Now a grotesque figure dashed from the obscurity of the night; white mask, cross-barred body, yucca leaf switches in hand, he sprang about, whipping the laggards to the dance; adults were laughing, children scampering in fright, dogs barking. The dance commenced again. Panamida was hoarse, it was far from dawn, and this was only the first of three nights’ dance.
III
Sinyella is half a skeptic. He sat back in the lodge and watched Sack, the medicine man, in the firelight beside his sister’s sick grandson. Let the other relatives shout to make the shaman strong: he would wait, if the boy died, he would kill the incompetent. The shaman knelt over the boy, swaying as he sang, his head to one side, his left knuckles clenched over his closed eyes, his clashing rattle in the other hand. Once he stopped rigid with open mouth, so that his familiar spirit might leave his chest to search for sickening ghosts outside the house. Then he rose and went out into the dark. Sinyella heard his spirit halloing and whistling as it returned to him out there. The shaman reëntered and resumed his singing. He put his lips to the boy’s forehead that the spirit might go in search of the sickness. He sucked the spirit back with a gulp, spat into his palm, and triumphantly exhibited its contents, some little white thread-like worms. “That was hard for me, but I have taken out all the sickness; there is no more there now.” Well, the boy’s father would give Sack a big blanket, but Sinyella decided that he, at any rate, would wait.
Musing as he waded through the crusted snow to his own lodge set snugly in the cedar thickets, he thought: Sack is young, he may not be much good, perhaps his spirit is weak. But I don’t know much about these things: there’s that star up there, Pagioga, the man-snatcher, and sometimes there are ghosts. I pray too: “Sun, my relative,” I say, “do something for me. You make me work so I can do anything: make good things for us: keep me always as I am now.” ... Of late his ears had been frequently ringing; ghosts were whispering to him. Suddenly he shouted, “Huuuu; no, though you talk that way, I am not going to die.”