112. Version A gives the names of these two young men as Black Thunder and Blue Thunder.
113. The teller of the version has omitted to mention that the brothers, when they entered the house, declared that they came to seek their father, but other story-tellers do not fail to tell this.
114. Four articles of armor were given to each, and six different kinds of weapons were given to them. The articles of armor were: peské (knife moccasins), pesĭstlê′ (knife leggings), pesê′ (knife shirt), and pestsá (knife hat). The word “pes” in the above names for armor, is here translated knife. The term was originally applied to flint knives, and to the flakes from which flint knives were made. After the introduction of European tools, the meaning was extended to include iron knives, and now it is applied to any object of iron, and, with qualifying suffixes, to all kinds of metal. Thus copper is peslĭtsí, or red metal, and silver, peslakaí, or white metal. Many of the Navahoes now think that the mythic armor of their gods was of iron. Such the author believed it to be in the earlier years of his investigation among the Navahoes, and he was inclined to believe that they borrowed the idea of armored heroes from the Spanish invaders of the sixteenth century. Later studies have led him to conclude that the conception of armored heroes was not borrowed from the whites, and that the armor was supposed to be made of stone flakes such as were employed in making knives in the prehistoric days. The Mokis believe that their gods and heroes wore armor of flint.
115. The weapons were these:—
- atsĭniklĭ′ska (chain-lightning arrows)
- hatsĭlkĭ′ska or hadĭlkĭ′ska (sheet-lightning arrows)
- saʻbitlólka (sunbeam arrows)
- natsilĭ′tka (rainbow arrows)
- peshál (stone knife-club)
- hatsoilhál, which some say was a thunderbolt, and others say was a great stone knife, with a blade as broad as the hand. Some say that only one stone knife was given, which was for Nayénĕzgạni, and that only two thunderbolts were given, both of which were for Toʻbadzĭstsíni. The man who now personates Nayénĕzgạni in the rites carries a stone knife of unusual size ([plate IV.]); and he who personates Toʻbadzĭstsíni carries in each hand a wooden cylinder (one black and one red) to represent a thunderbolt. ([Plate VII.])
116. Version A adds that when they were thus equipped they were dressed exactly like their brothers Black Thunder and Blue Thunder, who dwelt in the house of the Sun.
117. The man who told this tale explained that there were sixteen poles in the east and sixteen in the west to join earth and sky. Others say there were thirty-two poles on each side. The Navahoes explain the annual progress of the sun by saying that at the winter solstice he climbs on the pole farthest south in rising; that as the season advances he climbs on poles farther and farther north, until at the summer solstice he climbs the pole farthest north; that then he retraces his way, climbing different poles until he reaches the south again. He is supposed to spend about an equal number of days at each pole.
118. Many versions relate that the bearer of the sun rode a horse, or other pet animal. The Navaho word here employed is lin, which means any domesticated or pet animal, but now, especially, a horse. Version A says the animal he rode was made of turquoise and larger than a horse. Such versions have great difficulty in getting the horse up to the sky. Version A makes the sky dip down and touch the earth to let the horse ascend. Of course the horse is a modern addition to the tale. They never saw horses until the sixteenth century, and previous to that time it is not known that any animal was ridden on the western continent. Version B merely says that the Sun “put on his robe of cloud, and, taking one of his sons under each arm, he rose into the heavens.”
119. Version B says they all ate a meal on their journey to the sky-hole. Version A says that they ate for food, at the sky-hole, before the brothers descended, a mixture of five kinds of pollen, viz.: pollen of white corn, pollen of yellow corn, pollen of dawn, pollen of evening twilight, and pollen of the sun.[11] These were mixed with tóʻlanastsi, all kinds of water.[67]
120. Tóʻ-sa-to or Warm Spring is at the village of San Rafael, Valencia County, New Mexico. It is about three miles in a southerly direction from Grant’s, on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, five miles from the base and eighteen miles from the summit of Mount Taylor, in a southwesterly direction from the latter. The lake referred to in the myth lies about two miles southeast of the spring.