[Fig. 17] shows the other form of sacred basket. It is also made of aromatic sumac, and is used in the rites to hold sacred meal. The crosses are said to represent clouds, and the zigzag lines to indicate lightning.
6. The ceremonies of “House Dedication” are described at some length by Mr. A. M. Stephen in his excellent paper on “The Navajo,”[329] and he gives a free translation of a prayer and a song belonging to these rites.
7. A-na-yé, or a-ná-ye, is composed of two words, aná and yéi or ye. Aná, sometimes contracted to na, signifies a member of an alien tribe,—one not speaking a language similar to the Navaho,—and is often synonymous with enemy. Ye (see [par. 78]) may be defined as genius or god. The anáye were the offspring of women conceived during the separation of the sexes in the fourth world.
8. Ti-é-hol-tso-di is a water god, or water monster, a god of terrestrial waters,—not a rain god. He seems akin to the Unktehi of the Dakotas. He is said to dwell in the great water of the east, i.e., the Atlantic Ocean. Although commonly spoken of as one, there is little doubt that the Navahoes believe in many of the Tiéholtsodi. Probably every constant stream or spring has its own water god, (See note [152].) A picture of this god is said to be made in a dry-painting of the rite of hozóni hatál, but the author has not seen it. Tiéholtsodi is described as having a fine fur, and being otherwise much like an otter in appearance, but having horns like a buffalo. (See [pars. 140], [187], [484], [485].)
9. Tsús-kai or Tsó-is-kai is the name given by the Navahoes to a prominent conical hill rising 8,800 feet above sea-level, in northwestern New Mexico, about twenty-six miles north of Defiance Station on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. It is called Chusca Knoll, Chusca Peak, and Choiskai Peak by geographers. It rises abruptly four hundred feet or more above the level of the neighboring ridge, is visible at a great distance from the south (but not from the north), and forms a prominent landmark. The Navahoes limit the name Tsúskai to this knoll, but the Mexicans, and following them the Americans, apply the name in different forms (Chusca Mountains, Sierra de Chusca, Chuska, Chuskai, Tchuskai, etc.) to the whole mountain mass from which the knoll rises. The name, not accurately translated, contains the words for spruce (tso) and white (kai).
10. The bath forms an important part of the Navaho rites, being administered on many occasions, and it is often mentioned in the tales. It usually consists of a suds made in a water-tight wicker basket by soaking the root of some species of yucca (see note [88]) in water; the root of Yucca baccata being usually preferred, as it seems richest in saponine. After the application of the suds, the subject is commonly rinsed off with plain water and dried by rubbing on corn meal. In different ceremonies different observances are connected with the bath. In the myth of “The Mountain Chant,”[314] pp. 389, 390, a bath is described as part of the ceremony of the deer-hunt. It is given, no doubt, in preparing for the hunt, for practical as well as religious reasons. It is important that the hunter should divest himself as much as possible of his personal odor when he goes to kill game.
11. Pollen (Navaho, thaditín) is obtained, for sacred uses, from various plants, but Indian corn is the chief source of supply. The pollen is carried in small buckskin bags, which also usually contain small sacred stones, such as rock crystal and pyrophyllite, or small animal fetishes. The administration or sacrifice of pollen is a part of all rites witnessed, and almost always follows or accompanies prayer. It is used in different ways on different occasions; but the commonest way is to take a small pinch from the bag, apply a portion of it to the tongue and a portion to the crown of the head. For some purposes, the shaman collects a quantity of pollen, puts it in a large bag, immerses in it some live bird, insect, or other animal, and then allows the prisoner to escape. This is supposed to add extra virtue to the pollen. In one kind called iʻyidĕzná a bluebird, a yellowbird, and a grasshopper are put in the pollen together. In note [49] we have a mythic account of pollen put on the young of the sea monster and then preserved. Pollen which has been applied to a ceremonial dry-painting is preserved for future uses. Pollen in which a live striped lizard has been placed is used to favor eutocia. The term thaditín is applied to various things having the appearance of an impalpable powder, such as the misty hues of the horizon in the morning and evening, due in Arizona more frequently to dust in the air than to moisture. Captain Bourke, in “The Medicine-men of the Apache,”[295] chapter ii., describes many modes of using pollen which exist also among the Navahoes.
12. The following are a few additional observances with regard to kethawns:—
In cutting the reed used for a series of cigarettes, they cut off a piece first from the end nearest the root, and they continue to cut off as many pieces as may be necessary from butt to point. The pieces, according as they are cut, are notched near the butt (with a stone knife), so that the relations of the two extremities of the piece may not be forgotten. All through the painting of the cigarettes, and the various manipulations that follow, the butt end must be the nearer to the operator, and the tip end the farther away from him. Since the cigarette-maker sits in the west of the medicine-lodge facing the east, the cigarettes, while there, must lie east and west, with the tips to the east. If a number of cigarettes are made for one act of sacrifice, the first piece cut off is marked with one notch near the base, the second piece with two notches, the third piece with three notches, the fourth piece with four notches, all near the butt ends. This is done in order that they may always be distinguished from one another, and their order of precedence from butt to tip may not be disregarded. When they are taken up to be painted, to have the sacred feathers of the bluebird and yellowbird inserted into them, to be filled with tobacco, to be sealed with moistened pollen, or to be symbolically lighted with the rock crystal, the piece that came from nearest the butt (the senior cigarette, let us call it) is taken first, that nearest the tip last. When they are collected to be placed in the patient’s hands, when they are applied to his or her person, and finally when they are taken out and sacrificed, this order of precedence is always observed. The order of precedence in position, when sacrifices are laid out in a straight row, is from north to south; the senior sacrifice is in the northern extremity of the row, the junior or inferior in the southern extremity. When they are laid out in a circle, the order is from east back to east by the way of the south, west, and north. The gods to whom the sacrifices are made have commonly also an order of precedence, and when such is the case the senior sacrifice is dedicated to the higher god, the junior sacrifice to the lower god. When it is required that other articles, such as feathers, beads, powdered vegetable and mineral substances, be sacrificed with the cigarettes, all these things are placed in corn-husks. To do this, the husks are laid down on a clean cloth with their tips to the east; the cigarettes are laid in them one by one, each in a separate husk, with their tip ends to the east; and the sacred feathers are added to the bundle with their tips also to the east. When dry pollen is sprinkled on the cigarette, it is sprinkled from butt to tip. When moist pollen is daubed on the side of the cigarette, it is daubed from butt to tip. (From “A Study in Butts and Tips.”)[319] The hollow internode of the reed only is used. The part containing the solid node is discarded and is split up, so that when thrown away the gods may not mistake it for a true cigarette and suffer disappointment. All the débris of manufacture is carefully collected and deposited to the north of the medicine-lodge. The tobacco of commerce must not be employed. A plug of feathers, referred to above, is shoved into the tube from tip to butt (with an owl’s feather) to keep the tobacco from falling out at the butt. The moistened pollen keeps the tobacco in at the tip end. The rules for measuring kethawns are very elaborate. One or more finger-joints; the span; the width of the outstretched hand, from tip of thumb to tip of little finger; the width of three finger-tips or of four finger-tips joined,—are a few of the measurements. Each kethawn has its established size. This system of sacrifice is common among the pueblo tribes of the Southwest, and traces of it have been found elsewhere. [Fig. 23] represents a thing called ketán yaltí, or talking kethawn (described in “The Mountain Chant,”[314] p. 452), consisting of a male stick painted black and a female stick painted blue. [Fig. 24] shows a kethawn used in the ceremony of the night chant; a dozen such are made for one occasion, but male and female are not distinguished. [Fig. 25] depicts a set of fifty-two kethawns, used also in the night chant: of these the four in the centre are cigarettes lying on meal; the forty-eight surrounding the meal are sticks of wood. Those in the east are made of mountain mahogany, those in the south of Forestiera neo-mexicana, those in the west of juniper, and those in the north of cherry. A more elaborate description of them must be reserved for a future work.
13. “Sacred buckskin” is a term employed by the author, for convenience, to designate those deerskins specially prepared for use in making masks and for other purposes in the Navaho rites. The following are some of the particulars concerning their preparation; perhaps there are others which the author has not learned: The deer which is to furnish the skin must not be shot, or otherwise wounded. It is surrounded by men on foot or horseback, and caused to run around until it falls exhausted; then a bag containing pollen is put over its mouth and nostrils, and held there till the deer is smothered. The dead animal is laid on its back. Lines are marked with pollen, from the centre outwards along the median line of the body and the insides of the limbs. Incisions are made with a stone knife along the pollen lines, from within outwards, until the skin is opened; the flaying may then be completed with a steel knife. When the skin is removed it is laid to the east of the carcass, head to the east, and hairy side down. The fibulæ and ulnæ are cut out and put in the skin in the places where they belong,—i.e., each ulna in the skin of its appropriate fore-leg, each fibula in the skin of its appropriate hind-leg. The hide may then be rolled up and carried off. Both ulnæ are used as scrapers of the skin. If masks are to be made of the skin, the fibulæ are used as awls,—the right fibula in sewing the right sides of the masks, the left fibula in sewing the left sides of the masks. Other rules (very numerous) for making the masks will not be mentioned in this place. Fibulæ and ulnæ other than those belonging to the deer that furnished the skin must not be used on the latter.