Navaho Legends

by Unknown

252. Again she led him forth, but took him still farther away from the lodge than she had taken him before, and with a heavy club pounded him into a shapeless mass, until she thought he must certainly be dead. She stood a long time gazing at the pounded flesh, and studying what she would do with it to make her work sure. She carried the mass to a great rock, and there she beat it into still finer pieces. These she scattered farther than she had scattered the pieces before, and went back to the house. But she had still failed to injure the two vital spots. It took the Coyote a longer time on this occasion than on the previous occasions to pull himself together; still she had not wrought much on her basket when he again presented himself and said: “I have won three games; there is but one more game to win.”

253. The fourth time she led him farther away than ever. She not only mashed him to pieces, but she mixed the pieces with earth, ground the mixture, like corn, between two stones, until it was ground to a fine powder, and scattered this powder far and wide. But again she neglected to crush the point of the nose and the tip of the tail. She went back to the lodge and worked a long time undisturbed. She had just begun to entertain hopes that she had seen the last of her unwelcome suitor when again he entered the door. Now, at last, she could not refuse him. He had fulfilled all her conditions, and she consented to become his wife. He remained all the afternoon. At sunset they heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and she said: “My brothers are coming. Some of them are evil of mind and may do you harm. You must hide yourself.” She hid him behind a pile of skins, and told him to be quiet.

254. When the brothers entered the lodge they said to their sister: “Here is some fat young venison which we bring you. Put it down to boil and put some of the fat into the pot, for our faces are burned by the wind and we want to grease them.” The woman slept on the north side of the lodge and kept there her household utensils. She had about half of the lodge to herself. The men slept on the south side, the eldest next to the door.

255. The pot was put on and the fire replenished, and when it began to burn well an odor denoting the presence of some beast filled the lodge. One of the brothers said: “It smells as if some animal had been in the wood-pile. Let us throw out this wood and get fresh sticks from the bottom of the pile.” They did as he desired; but the unpleasant odors continued to annoy them, and again the wood was taken from the fire and thrown away. Thinking the whole pile of wood was tainted with the smell, they went out, broke fresh branches from trees, and built the fire up again; but this did not abate the rank odor in the least. Then one said: “Perhaps the smell is in the water. Tell us, little sister, where did you get the water in the pot?” “I got it at the spring where I always get it,” she replied. But they got her to throw out the water and fill the pot with snow, and to put the meat down to boil again. In spite of all their pains the stench was as bad as ever. At length one of the brothers turned to his sister and said: “What is the cause of this odor? It is not in the wood. It is not in the water. Whence comes it?” She was silent. He repeated the question three times, yet she made no answer. But when the question had been asked for the fourth time, Coyote jumped out of his hiding-place into the middle of the lodge and cried: “It is I, my brothers-in-law!” “Run out there!” the brothers commanded, and turning to their sister they said: “Run out you with him!”

256. They both departed from the lodge. As Coyote went out he took a brand from the fire, and with this he lighted a new fire. Then he broke boughs from the neighboring trees and built a shelter for himself and his wife to live in. When this was completed she went back to the lodge of her brothers, took out her pots, skins, four awls, baskets, and all her property, and carried them to her new home.

257. One of the elder brothers said to the youngest: “Go out to-night and watch the couple, and see what sort of a man this is that we have for a brother-in-law. Do not enter the shelter, but lie hidden outside and observe them.” So the youngest brother went forth and hid himself near the shelter, where he could peep in and see by the light of the fire what took place and hear what was said. The pair sat side by side near the fire. Presently the woman laid her hand in a friendly manner on Coyote’s knee, but Coyote threw it away. These motions were repeated four times, and when he had thrown her hand away for the fourth time he said: “I have sworn never to take a woman for a wife until I have killed her four times.” For a while the woman remained silent and gazed at the fire. At length she said: “Here I am. Do with me as you will.” (The myth then relates four deaths and resurrections of the woman, similar to those of the Coyote, but it does not state how or where she preserved her vital principle.) When she returned for the fourth time she lay down, and Coyote soon followed her to her couch. From time to time during the night they held long, low conversations, of which the listener could hear but little. At dawn the watcher went home. In reply to the questions of his brothers he said: “I cannot tell you all that I saw and heard, and they said much that I could not hear; but all that I did hear and behold was tsĭndás” (devilish, evil).

258. Next morning the brothers proposed to go out hunting. While they were getting ready Coyote came and asked leave to join them, but they said to him tauntingly: “No; stay at home with your wife; she may be lonely and may need some one to talk to her,” and they chased him out of the lodge. Just as they were about to leave he came back again and begged them to take him with them. “No,” they replied, “the woman will want you to carry wood; you must stay at home with her.” They bade him begone and set out on their journey. They had not gone far on their way when he overtook them, and for the third time asked to be allowed to join the party; but again they drove him back with scornful words. They travelled on till they came to the edge of a deep canyon bordered with very steep cliffs, and here Coyote was seen again, skulking behind them. For the fourth time he pleaded with them; but now the youngest brother took his part, and suggested that Coyote might assist in driving game towards them. So, after some deliberation, they consented to take Coyote along. At the edge of the canyon they made a bridge of rainbow,[86] on which they proceeded to cross the chasm. Before the brothers reached the opposite bluff Coyote jumped on it from the bridge, with a great bound, and began to frolic around, saying: “This is a nice place to play.”

259. They travelled farther on, and after a while came to a mesa, or table-land, which projected into a lower plain, and was connected with the plateau on which they stood by a narrow neck of level land. It was a mesa much like that on which the three eastern towns of the Mokis stand, with high, precipitous sides and a narrow entrance. On the neck of land they observed the tracks of four Rocky Mountain sheep, which had gone in on the mesa but had not returned. They had reason, therefore, to believe that the sheep were still on the mesa. At the neck they built a fire, sat down near it, and sent Coyote in on the mesa to drive the sheep out. Their plans were successful; soon the four sheep came running out over the neck, within easy range of the hunters’ weapons, and were all killed. Presently Coyote returned and lay down on the sand.

260. In those days the horns of the Rocky Mountain sheep were flat and fleshy and could be eaten. The eldest brother said: “I will take the horns for my share.” “No,” said Coyote, “the horns shall be mine: give them to me.” Three times each repeated the same declaration. When both had spoken for the fourth time, the eldest brother, to end the controversy, drew out his knife and began to cut one of the horns; as he did so Coyote cried out, “Tsĭnántlehi! Tsĭnántlehi! Tsĭnántlehi! Tsĭnántlehi!” (Turn to bone! Turn to bone! Turn to bone! Turn to bone!) Each time he cried, the horn grew harder and harder, and the knife slipped as it cut, hacking but not severing the horn. This is why the horns of the Rocky Mountain sheep are now hard, not fleshy, and to this day they bear the marks of the hunter’s knife. “Tsĭ′ndi! Tsĭndás bilnáalti!” (You devil! You evil companion in travel!) said the hunter to Coyote.

261. The hunters gathered all the meat into one pile, and by means of the mystic power which they possessed they reduced it to a very small compass. They tied it in a small bundle which one person might easily carry, and they gave it to Coyote to take home, saying to him, “Travel round by the head of the canyon over which we crossed and go not through it, for they are evil people who dwell there, and open not your bundle until you get home.”