376. When she got to Depĕ′ntsa (the San Juan Mountains), she went first to a place lying east of Hadzinaí (the Place of Emergence), named Dsĭlladĭltéhi; in an old ruined pueblo on its side she rested during the day, and at night she went to the top of the mountain to sleep. On the second day she went to a mountain south of the Place of Emergence, called Dsĭlĭ′ndĭltéhi; rested on the side of the mountain during the day, and on its top at night. She began now to feel lonely, and at night she thought of how men might be made to keep her company. She wandered round in thought during the third day, and on the third night she slept on top of Dsĭltagiĭltéhi, a mountain west of Hadzinaí. On the fourth day she walked around the Place of Emergence, and wandered into the old ruins she found there. On the fourth night she went to the top of Dsĭltĭnĭltéz, the mountain which lies to the north of the Place of Emergence, and there she rested, but did not sleep; for she thought all the time about her loneliness, and of how people might be made. On the fifth day she came down to the shores of the lake which surrounded the Place of Emergence, and built a shelter of brush. “I may as well stay here,” she said to herself; “what does it avail that I wander round?” She sat up late that night thinking of her lonely condition. She felt that she could not stay there longer without companionship. She thought of her sister in the far west, of the Twelve People, of the gods that dwelt in the different mountains, and she thought she might do well to go and live with some of them.
377. The next morning she heard faintly, in the early dawn, the voice of Hastséyalti shouting his usual “Wuʻhuʻhuʻhú,” in the far east. Four times the cry was uttered, each time louder and nearer. Immediately after the last call the god appeared. “Where did you save yourself?” he asked the White Shell Woman, meaning, “Where were you, that you escaped the anáye when they ravaged the land?” “I was at Dsĭlnáotĭl with my sister,” she said; “but for five nights I have been all alone in these mountains. I have been hoping that something might happen to relieve my great loneliness,—that I might meet some one. Sítsaí (Grandfather), whence do you come?” He replied: “I come from Tseʻgíhi,[165] the home of the gods. I pity your loneliness and wish to help you. If you remain where you are, I shall return in four days and bring Estsánatlehi, the divine ones of all the great mountains, and other gods, with me.” When he left, she built for herself a good hut with a storm door. She swept the floor clean, and made a comfortable bed of soft grass and leaves.
378. At dawn on the fourth day after the god departed, Yolkaí Estsán heard two voices calling,—the voice of Hastséyalti, the Talking God, and the voice of Hastséhogan, the House God. The voices were heard, as usual, four times, and immediately after the last call the gods appeared. It was dark and misty that day; the sun did not rise. Soon after the arrival of the first two, the other promised visitors came, and they all formed themselves in a circle east of the lodge, each in the place where he or she belonged. Thus the divine ones of Tsĭsnadzĭ′ni stood in the east; those of Tsótsĭl (San Mateo Mountain) in the south; those of Dokoslíd (San Francisco Mountain) in the west; those of Depĕ′ntsa (San Juan Mountain) in the north. Each one present had his appropriate place in the group. At first Yolkaí Estsán stood in the west; but her sister, Estsánatlehi, said to her: “No, my young sister; go you and stand in the east. My place is in the west,” and thus they stood during the ceremony. Estsánatlehi brought with her two sacred blankets called Dĭlpĭ′l-naská, the Dark Embroidered, and Lakaí-naská, the White Embroidered. Hastséhogan brought with him two sacred buckskins, and the Nalkénaaz (a divine couple who came together walking arm in arm) brought two ears of corn,—one yellow, one white,—which the female carried in a dish of turquoise.
379. Hastséyalti laid the sacred blankets on the ground, and spread on top of these one of the sacred buckskins with its head to the west. He took from the dish of the female Nalkénaaz the two ears of corn, handing the white ear to Tseʻgádĭnatĭni Asiké, the Rock Crystal Boy of the eastern mountain, and the yellow ear to Natáltsoi Atét, the Yellow Corn Girl of San Francisco Mountain. These divine ones laid the ears on the buckskin,—the yellow with its tip toward the west, the white with its tip toward the east. Hastséyalti picked up the ears, and nearly laid them down on the buckskin with their tips to the east, but he did not let them touch the buckskin; as he did this he uttered his own cry of “Wuʻhuʻhuʻhú.” Then he nearly laid them down with their tips to the south, giving as he did so Hastséhogan’s cry of “Ha-wa-u-ú.” With similar motions he pointed the ears to the west and the north. Next he raised them toward the sky, and at length laid them down on the buckskin, with their tips to the east. He accompanied each act with a cry of his own or of Hastséhogan, alternating as in the beginning. So the ears were turned in every direction, and this is the reason the Navahoes never abide in one home like the Pueblos, but wander ever from place to place. Over the ears of corn he laid the other sacred buckskin with its head to the east, and then Nĭ′ltsi, the Wind, entered between the skins. Four times, at intervals, Hastséyalti raised the buckskins a little and peeped in. When he looked the fourth time, he saw that the white ear of corn was changed to a man, and the yellow ear to a woman. It was Nĭ′ltsi who gave them the breath of life. He entered at the heads and came out at the ends of the fingers and toes, and to this day we see his trail in the tip of every human finger. The Rock Crystal Boy furnished them with mind, and the Grasshopper Girl gave them voices. When Hastséyalti at last threw off the top buckskin, a dark cloud descended and covered like a blanket the forms of the new pair. Yolkaí Estsán led them into her hogán, and the assembled gods dispersed. Before he left, Hastséyalti promised to return in four days.
380. No songs were sung and no prayers uttered during their rites, and the work was done in one day. The hogán near which all these things happened still stands; but since that time it has been transformed into a little hill. To-day (A.D. 1884) seven times old age has killed since this pair was made by the holy ones from the ears of corn. The next very old man who dies will make the eighth time.[166]
381. Early on the fourth morning after his departure Hastséyalti came again as he had promised, announcing his approach by calling four times as usual. When White Shell Woman heard the first call, she aroused the young people and said: “Get up, my children, and make a fire. Hastséyalti is coming.” He brought with him another couple, Hadáhonige Asiké (Mirage Boy) and Hadáhonestid Atét (Ground-heat Girl). He gave Yolkaí Estsán two ears of corn, saying, “Grind only one grain at a time,” and departed. Yolkaí Estsán said to the newly-arrived couple: “This boy and girl of corn cannot marry one another, for they are brother and sister; neither can you marry one another, for you are also brother and sister, yet I must do something for you all.” So she married the boy made of corn to the Ground-heat Girl, and the Mirage Boy to the girl made of corn. After a time each couple had two children,—a boy and a girl. When these were large enough to run around, this family all moved away from Hadzinaí, where they had lived four years, to Tseʻlakaíia (White Standing Rock). The two men were busy every day hunting rabbits, rats, and other such animals, for on such game they chiefly lived. From these people are descended the gens of Tseʻdzĭnkĭ′ni,[167] House of the Dark Cliffs; so named because the gods who created the first pair came from the cliff houses of Tseʻgíhi, and brought from there the ears of corn from which this first pair was made.
382. After they had lived thirteen years at Tseʻlakaíia, during which time they had seen no sign of the existence of any people but themselves, they beheld one night the gleam of a distant fire. They sought for the fire all that night and the next day, but could not find it. The next night they saw it again in the same place, and the next day they searched with greater vigilance, but in vain. On the third night, when the distant gleam shone again through the darkness, they determined to adopt some means, better than they had previously taken, to locate it. They drove a forked stick firmly into the ground; one of the men got down on his hands and knees, spreading them as wide apart as possible, and sighted the fire through the fork of the stick. Next morning he carefully placed his hands and knees in the tracks which they had made the night before, and once more looked through the fork. His sight was thus guided to a little wooded hollow on the side of a far-off mountain. One of the men walked over to the mountain and entered the little hollow, which was small and could be explored in a few moments; but he discovered no fire, no ashes, no human tracks, no evidence of the presence of man. On the fourth night all the adults of the party took sight over the forked stick at the far twinkle, and in the morning when they looked again they found they had all sighted the same little grove on the distant mountain-side. “Strange!” said the man who had hunted there the day before; “the place is small. I went all through it again and again. There was no sign of life there, and not a drop of water that could reflect a ray from a star or from the moon.” Then all the males of the family, men and boys, went to explore the little wood. Just as they were about to return, having found nothing, Wind whispered into the ear of one: “You are deceived. That light shines through a crack in the mountain at night. Cross the ridge and you will find the fire.”[168] They had not gone far over the ridge when they saw the footprints of men, then the footprints of children, and soon they came to the camp. One party was as much rejoiced as the other to find people like themselves in the wilderness. They embraced one another, and shouted mutual greetings and questions. “Whence do you come?” said the strangers. “From Tseʻlakaíia,” was the response. “And whence come you?” asked the men of the White Standing Rock. “We tarried last,” replied the strangers, “at Toʻĭ′ndotsos, a poor country, where we lived on ducks and snakes.[169] We have been here only a few days, and now we live on ground-rats, prairie-dogs, and wild seeds.” The new party consisted of twelve persons,—five men, three women, one grown girl, one grown boy, and two small children. The Tseʻdzĭnkĭ′ni people took the strangers home with them, and Yolkaí Estsán welcomed them, saying: “Ahaláni sastsíni!” (Greeting, my children!) The place where the Tseʻdzĭnkĭ′ni found the strangers encamped was called Tséʻtlana (Bend in a Canyon); so they gave them the name of Tseʻtláni, or Tseʻtlánidĭneʻ, and from them is descended the present gens of Tseʻtláni in the Navaho nation.
383. The next morning after the arrival of the Tseʻtláni, Hastséyalti came once more to the lodge of the White Shell Woman; but he talked with her apart from the others, and when he was gone she told no one what he said. In three days he came back again; again they talked apart, and when Hastséyalti was gone she remained silent. It was her custom to sleep with one of the little girls, who was her favorite and companion. In the morning after the second visit of Hastséyalti she said to this little girl: “I am going to leave you. The gods of Tseʻgíhi have sent for me; but I shall not forget your people, and shall come often to watch over them and be near them. Tell them this when they waken.” When she had spoken she disappeared from the sight of the little girl, and when the people woke they searched, but could find her nowhere. They supposed she had gone to Tseʻgíhi and tarried there a while before she went to Depĕ′ntsa to dwell forever in the house of White Shell, which had been prepared for her there. The fourth night after the departure of Yolkaí Estsán the little girl had a dream, which she related to her people in the morning. In the vision she saw Yolkaí Estsán, who said to her: “My grandchild, I am going to Depĕ′ntsa to dwell. I would take you with me, for I love you, were it not that your parents would mourn for you. But look always for the she-rain when it comes near your dwelling, for I shall ever be in the she-rain.”
384. While at White Standing Rock the men wandered much around the country in search of food. Some who had been to Toʻdokónzi (Saline Water) said the latter was a better place than than that in which they lived; that there were some porcupines there, an abundance of rats, prairie-dogs, and seed-bearing plants; and that there were steep-sided mesa points in the neighborhood where they might surround large game.[170] After the departure of Yolkaí Estsán the people all moved to Toʻdokónzi;[171] but they remained here only a few days, and then went to Tsaʻolgáhasze. Here they planted some grains of corn from the two ears that Hastséyalti had given them long ago. This was a very prolific kind of corn; when planted, several stalks sprouted from each grain, and a single grain, when ground, produced a large quantity of meal, which lasted them many days.
385. When they had been fourteen years at Tsaʻolgáhasze they were joined by another people, who came from the sacred mountain of Dsĭlnáotĭl, and were therefore called Dsĭlnaotĭ′lni, or Dsĭlnaotĭ′ldĭneʻ. These were regarded as dĭnéʻ dĭgíni, or holy people, because they had no tradition of their recent creation, and were supposed to have escaped the fury of the alien gods by means of some miraculous protection. They did not camp at first with the older settlers, but dwelt a little apart, and sent often to the latter to borrow pots and metates. After a while all joined together as one people, and for a long time these three gentes have been as one gens and have become close relations to one another. The new-comers dug among old ruins and found pots and stone axes; with the latter they built themselves huts.