120. It was in his efforts to get a further explanation of this extraordinary picture that the author came upon the story of Natĭ′nĕsthani. It is not the story that explains the picture, although certain passages in it ([pars. 481], [488]) might seem to explain it. The story to which the picture belongs is that of Bélahatĭni, which may some day be published in connection with a description of the ceremony of klédzi hatál, or the night chant. The prophet Bélahatĭni, according to the tale, floated down the San Juan River in a hollow log, until he came to the whirling lake, where he saw the vision depicted in the dry-painting. But when the shaman had finished telling the story of Bélahatĭni he said: “There is another story of a man who floated down the San Juan River in a hollow log. It is a story belonging to a different rite, the atsósidze hatál. Would you like to hear it?” It was thus that the story of Natĭ′nĕsthani came to be told. The narrator of the two tales was a priest of the klédzi hatál, but not of the atsósidze hatál; hence one tale is crowded with allusions to acts in the ceremony, while the other, as here published, has few such allusions.
121. The Great Shell of Kĭntyél.—The story of the Great Shell of Kĭntyél, as here given, is a fragment of a rite-myth,—the myth of the yóidze hatál, or yói hatál[250] (bead chant), a nine days’ healing ceremony. It conveys a moral often found in Navaho tales, which is, that we must not despise the poor and humble. They may be favored by the gods and prove themselves, to-morrow, more potent than those who yesterday despised and mocked them. It also signalizes the triumph of a poor Navaho over wealthy Pueblos.
122. Translation of Legends.—In rendering the Navaho tales into English, the author has not confined himself to a close literal translation. Such translation would often be difficult to understand, and, more often still, be uninteresting reading. He has believed it to be his duty to make a readable translation, giving the spirit of the original rather than the exact words. The tales were told in fluent Navaho, easy of comprehension, and of such literary perfection as to hold the hearer’s attention. They should be translated into English of a similar character, even if words have to be added to make the sense clear. Such privileges are taken by the translators of the Bible and of the classic authors. Still the writer has taken pains never to exceed the metaphor or descriptive force of the original, and never to add a single thought of his own. If he has erred in rendering the spirit of the savage authors, it has been by diminishing rather than by exaggerating. He has erred on the side of safety. He has endeavored to “tune the sitar” rather low than high.[15a] Again, the original was often embellished with pantomime and vocal modulation which expressed more than the mere words, and which the writer is unable to represent, and it contained extemporized onomatopes which no letters can express.
123. Texts.—The men who narrated to the author the tales contained in this book were not men of unlimited leisure, as many suppose the Indians to be; they were popular shamans, or medicine-men, who had numerous engagements to conduct ceremonies during the summer months, and it was only during the winter months that they permitted themselves to tell the tales. It was usually with difficulty that arrangements were made with one of these shamans to devote a period of two or three weeks to the service of the author. Then, too, they had farms and stock which demanded their care. Neither was the author a man of unbounded leisure. Rarely could he devote more than two or three hours out of twenty-four to the work of ethnography. It has happened more than once that he has been obliged to break an engagement made with a shaman, at a cost of considerable trouble and money, in order to go on detached service away from his proper station. For these reasons it was not practicable to record the original Indian texts of all the stories. The author had to choose between copious texts and copious tales. He chose the latter. But some texts have been recorded. In order that the reader may judge how closely the liberal translation here offered follows the original, the Navaho text of the opening passages—ten paragraphs—of the Origin Legend, with interlinear translations, are given in the notes. The texts of songs, prayers, and interesting passages may also be found in the notes.
ALPHABET USED.
124. Ever since the present alphabet of the Bureau of Ethnology was established (in 1880), it has been the author’s custom to use it in spelling Indian words. But heretofore he has written mostly for the scientific world, for ethnologists and philologists who either were familiar with the alphabet, or were willing to constantly refer to it in reading. As the present work is designed to reach a wider circle of readers, the propriety of using the alphabet of the Bureau becomes doubtful. Many of the author’s friends have begged him not to use it in this collection of tales, believing that its unusual characters would embarrass the average reader and detract from the interest of the work. Another system has, therefore, been devised, according to which consonants printed in Roman letters have the ordinary English sounds, while those printed in Italics have sounds analogous to the English but not identical with them. The vowels, when unmarked, have the continental sounds. When these sounds are modified, diacritical marks are added in accordance with the latest edition of Webster’s Dictionary. The sound of English a in what is indicated by ạ. The only diphthong is ai, which has the sound of English i in pine. One mark not employed in Webster’s orthoepy is used in this book, viz., the inverted comma after a vowel to show that it is aspirated.
125. According to this arrangement, the casual reader will find the Indian words easily legible. If he takes the trouble to consult this and the preceding paragraph he may pronounce the words almost exactly as a Navaho would; if not he may, at least, pronounce them in a way that few Navahoes would fail to comprehend. At all events, to the majority of readers, a perfect pronunciation of the Indian words is immaterial. Many white men, living within the borders of the Navaho land, converse with these Indians in a jargon or debased language which might be spelled in English characters with their ordinary English values. For example, let us take the word for hut or house. This is properly pronounced hogán; but the whites in New Mexico generally call it hogán, and the Navahoes never fail to understand the word as thus pronounced. In this form it is an adopted English word in the Southwest. The following are the values of the consonants when printed in Italics:—
d has the sound of English th in this.
g has a sound unknown in English, gh imperfectly represents it. It is the g of the Dakota, or the Arabic ghain.