218. The plants mixed with the tobacco were these: tsohodzĭlaíʻ, silátso (my thumb), a poisonous weed, azébiniʻ, and azétloi. It has not been determined what plants these are; but the Navaho names are placed on record as possibly assisting in future identification.
219. In the Navaho ceremonies, when sacred cigarettes are finished, and before they are deposited as offerings to the gods, they are symbolically lighted with sunbeams. (See [par. 94].) The statement made here, that the hero lighted his pipe with the sun, refers probably to this symbolic lighting.
220. Kĕ′tlo is a name given to any medicine used externally, i.e., rubbed on the body. Atsósi kĕ′tlo means the liniment or wash of the atsósi hatál, or feather ceremony. It is also called atsósi azé (feather medicine), and atsósi tsíl (feather herbs).
221. Yá-di-dĭ-nil, the incense of the Navaho priests, is a very composite substance. In certain parts of the healing ceremonies it is scattered on hot coals, which are placed before the patient, and the latter inhales actively the dense white fumes that arise. These fumes, which fill with their odor the whole medicine-lodge, are pungent, aromatic, and rather agreeable, although the mixture is said to contain feathers. The author has obtained a formula for yádidĭnil, but has not identified the plants that chiefly compose it.
222. These are the animals he raises and controls, as told in [par. 527].
223. The Navahoes say they are acquainted with four kinds of wild tobacco, and use them in their rites. Of these the author has seen and identified but two. These are Nicotiana attenuata which is the dsĭ′lnạto, or mountain tobacco; and Nicotiana palmeri, which is the depénạto, or sheep tobacco. N. attenuata grows widely but not abundantly in the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona. N. palmeri is rare; the writer has seen it growing only in one spot in the Chelly Canyon. It has not been learned what species are called weasel tobacco and cloud tobacco; but one or more of the three species, N. rustica, N. quadrivalvis, and N. trigonophylla, are probably known to the Navahoes.
224. The description of these diseases given by the narrator of this tale is as follows: “Patients having these diseases are weak, stagger, and lose appetite; then they go to a sweat-house and take an emetic. If they have lĭ′tso, or the yellow disease, they vomit something yellow (bile ?). If they have tĭl-litá, or cooked blood disease, they vomit something like cooked blood. Those having the yellows have often yellow eyes and yellow skin. Thatlĭ′t, or slime disease, comes from drinking foul water full of green slime or little fish (tadpoles ?). Tsoxs, worms, usually come from eating worms, which you sometimes do without knowing it; but tsĭ′lgo, tapeworm, comes from eating parched corn.” Probably the last notion arises from the slight resemblance of the joints of Tænia solium to grains of corn. This little chapter in pathology from Hatáli Natlói is hardly in accordance with the prevalent theory that savages regard all disease as of demoniac origin.
225. The adjective yazóni, or yasóni, here used, which is translated “beautiful,” means more than this: it means both good (or useful) and beautiful. It contains elements of the words yatíʻ, good, and of ĭnzóni, nĭzóni, and hozóni, which signify beautiful.
226. According to the Navaho myths and songs, the corn and other products in the gardens of the yéi or divine ones grow and mature in a very short time. The rapid growth of the crops in Natĭ′nĕsthani’s farm is supposed to result from the divine origin of the seed.
227. The order in which Natĭ′nĕsthani lays down the ears of corn is the order in which sacrificial cigarettes, kethawns, and other sacred objects, when colored, are laid down in a straight row. The white, being the color of the east, has precedence of all and is laid down first. The blue, the color of the south, comes next, for when we move sunwise (the sacred ceremonial circuit of the Navahoes) south follows immediately after east. Yellow, the color of the west, on the same principle, comes third; and black (in this case mixed) comes fourth. Mixed is properly the coloring of the upper region, and usually follows after black; but it sometimes takes the place of black. These apparently superfluous particulars of laying down the corn have a ceremonial or religious significance. In placing sacred objects ceremonially in a straight row, the operator proceeds southward from his starting-point, for this approximates the sunwise circuit, and he makes the tip ends point east.