520. The Navaho and his wife set out together. When they came to a little hill from which they could first see the field, they beheld the sun shining on it; yet the rain was falling on it at the same time, and above it was a dark cloud spanned by a rainbow. When they reached the field they walked four times around it sunwise, and as they went he described things in the field to his wife. “This is my white corn, this is my blue corn, this is my yellow corn, and this is my corn of all colors. These we call squashes, these we call melons, and these we call beans,” he said, pointing to the various plants. The bluebirds and the yellowbirds were singing in the corn after the rain, and all was beautiful. She was pleased and astonished and she asked many questions,—how the seeds were planted, how the food was prepared and eaten,—and he answered all her questions. “These on the ground are melons; they are not ripe yet. When they are ripe we eat them raw,” he explained. When they had circled four times around the field they went in among the plants. Then he showed her the pollen and explained its sacred uses.[11] He told her how the corn matured; how his people husked it and stored it for winter use, how they shelled, ground, and prepared it, and how they preserved some to sow in the spring. “Now, let us pluck an ear of each kind of corn and go home,” he said. When she plucked the corn she also gathered three of the leaves and put them into the same bundle with the corn; but as they walked home the leaves increased in number, and when she got to the house and untied the bundle she found not only three, but many leaves in it.
521. He explained to her how to make the dish now known to the Navahoes as dĭtlógi klesán,[230] and told her to make this of the white corn. He instructed her how to prepare corn as dĭtlógĭn tsĭdĭkói,[231] and told her to make this of the blue corn. He showed her how to prepare corn in the form of thábĭtsa,[232] or three-ears, and bade her make this of the yellow corn. He told her to roast, in the husk, the ear of many colors. She took the corn to the other lodge and prepared it as she had been directed. In cooking, it all increased greatly in amount, so that they all had a big meal out of four ears.
522. The old people questioned their daughter about the farm—what it looked like, what grew there. They asked her many questions. She told them of all she had seen and heard: of her distant view of the beautiful farm under the rain, under the black cloud, under the rainbow; of her near view of it—the great leaves, the white blossoms of the bean, the yellow blossoms of the squash, the tassel of the corn, the silk of the corn, the pollen of the corn, and all the other beautiful things she saw there. When she had done the old man said: “I thank you, my daughter, for bringing me such a son-in-law. I have travelled far, but I have never seen such things as those you tell of. I thought I was rich, but my son-in-law is richer. In future cook these things with care, in the way my son-in-law shows you.”
523. The old man then went to see his son-in-law and said: “I thank you for the fine food you have brought us, and I am glad to hear you have such a beautiful farm. You know how to raise and cook corn; but do you know how to make and cook the pemmican[229] of the deer?” “I know nothing about it,” said the Navaho. (The one knew nothing of venison; the other knew nothing of corn.) “How does it taste to you?” asked the old man. “I like the taste of it and I thank you for what you have given me,” replied the Navaho. “Your wife, then, will have something to tell you.” When he got back to the other lodge he said: “My son-in-law has been kind to us; he has shown you his farm and taught you how to prepare his food. My daughter, now we must show him our farm.” She brought to her husband a large portion of the cooked corn.
524. When night came and they were alone together she asked him to tell her his name. “I have no name,” he replied. Three times he answered her thus. When she asked for the fourth time he said: “Why do you wish to know my name? I have two names. I am Natĭ′nĕsthani, He Who Teaches Himself, and I am Áhodĭseli, He Who Has Floated. Now that I have told you my name you must tell me your father’s name.” “He is called Píniltani, Deer Raiser. I am Píniltani-bitsí, Deer Raiser’s Daughter, and my mother is Píniltani-baád, She Deer Raiser,” the young woman answered.
525. In the morning after this conversation they had a breakfast of mush and venison; but Natĭ′nĕsthani received no warning from the Wind People and feared not to eat. When the meal was over, the young woman said to her husband: “My father has told me that, as you have shown me your farm, I may now show you his farm. If you wish to go there, you must first bathe your body in yucca-suds and then rinse off in pure water.” After he had taken his bath as directed he picked up his old sandals and was about to put them on when she stopped him, saying: “No. You wore your own clothes when you went to your own farm. Now you must wear our clothes when you come to our farm.” She gave him embroidered moccasins; fringed buckskin leggings; a buckskin shirt, dyed yellow, beautifully embroidered with porcupine quills, and fringed with stripes of otter-skin; and a headdress adorned with artificial ears called Tsáhadolkohi—they wore such in the old days, and there are men still living who have seen them worn.
526. Dressed in these fine garments he set out with his wife and they travelled toward the southeast. As they were passing the other hut she bade him wait outside while she went in to procure a wand of turquoise. They went but a short distance (about three hundred yards)[233] when they came, on the top of a small hill, to a large, smooth stone, adorned with turquoise, sticking in the ground like a stopple in a water-jar. She touched this rock stopple with her wand in four different directions—east, south, west, north—and it sprang up out of the ground. She touched it in an upward direction, and it lay over on its side, revealing a hole which led to a flight of four stone steps.
527. She entered the hole and beckoned to him to follow. When they descended the steps they found themselves in a square apartment with four doors of rock crystal, one on each side. There was a rainbow over each door. With her wand she struck the eastern door and it flew open, disclosing a vast and beautiful country, like this world, but more beautiful. How vast it was the Navaho knew not, for he could not see the end of it. They passed through the door. The land was filled with deer and covered with beautiful flowers. The air was filled with the odor of pollen and the odor of fragrant blossoms. Birds of the most beautiful plumage were flying in the air, perching on the flowers, and building nests in the antlers of the deer. In the distance a light shower of rain was falling, and rainbows shone in every direction. “This, then, is the farm of my father-in-law which you promised to show me,” said the Navaho. “It is beautiful; but in truth it is no farm, for I see nothing planted here.” She took him into three other apartments. They were all as beautiful as the first, but they contained different animals. In the apartment to the south there were antelope; in that to the west, Rocky Mountain sheep; in that to the north, elk.
528. When they closed the last door and came out to the central apartment they found Deer Raiser there. “Has my son-in-law been in all the rooms and seen all the game?” he asked. “I have seen all,” said Natĭ′nĕsthani. “Do you see two sacrificial cigarettes of the deer above the rainbow over the eastern door?” “I see them now,” responded the Navaho, “but I did not notice them when I entered.” The old man then showed him, over the door in the south, two cigarettes of the antelope; over the door in the west, two cigarettes of the Rocky Mountain sheep; over the door in the north, the single white cigarette of Hastséyalti[234] (the elk had no cigarette), and at the bottom of the steps by which they had entered, two cigarettes of the fawn. “Look well at these cigarettes,” said the old man, “and remember how they are painted, for such we now sacrifice in our ceremonies.” “Are you pleased?” “Do you admire what you have seen?” “What do you think of it all?” Such were the questions the old man asked, and the Navaho made answer: “I thank you. I am glad that I have seen your farm and your pets. Such things I never saw before.”
529. “Now, my daughter,” said Deer Raiser, “catch a deer for my son-in-law, that we may have fresh meat.” She opened the eastern door, entered, and caught a big buck by the foot (just as we catch sheep in these days). She pulled it out. The Navaho walked in front; the young woman, dragging the buck, came after him, and the old man came last of all, closing the doors and putting in the stopple as he came. They brought the buck home, tied its legs together with short rainbows, cut its throat with a stone arrow point, and skinned it as we now skin deer.