550. When the Navaho went back to the house where his wife was, she said: “My father has been here inquiring for you. When I told him you had gone to the east he was very angry, and said that he told you not to go there.” Soon the old man entered and said fiercely: “Why have you gone to the east? I told you not to go there. I told you it was a bad place.” The young man made no reply, but acted as if he had seen and heard nothing while he was gone, and in a little while Deer Raiser calmed down and acted as if he wished to be at peace again with his son-in-law; but before he left he warned him not to go to the south. Natĭ′nĕsthani pondered on the words of his father-in-law that night, and made up his mind to again disobey him when morning came.
551. Next day, when he had eaten, he dressed himself for a journey and walked toward the south. He came, in time, to a blue ridge, and when he was ascending it he met a little man, much like the one he had met the day before, but he had a bluish face. Instead of being dressed to look like a deer, he was dressed to look like an antelope; he wore an antelope hunting-mask with horns, he carried a wand of haliotis, and a bow made of a wood called tsĕlkáni, with no sinew on the back, and he had arrows trimmed with the tail feathers of the red-tailed buzzard.[248] Like the little man of the east, he was also one of the Tsĭdastói People. He told the Navaho how to make the cigarette that belonged to him, to make it the length of the middle joint of the little finger, to paint it blue, spot it with yellow, and deposit it in the fork of a cedar-tree. The little man told the Navaho to go on over the ridge till he came to two lodges and to listen there to what the people would tell him. He went and found two lodges, and people playing nánzoz, and had all things happen to him nearly the same as happened to him in the east. When he returned home he had again an angry talk from his father-in-law, and was warned not to go to the west; but again he determined to pay no heed to the warning.
552. When he went to the west, next day, he found a yellow ridge to cross. The little man whom he met had a yellowish face; he was armed and dressed the same as the little man of the east, except that he had no horns on his deer-mask, for he represented a doe. He described to the Navaho how to make a cigarette sacred to himself, which was to be painted yellow, spotted with blue, and deposited in a piñon-tree, like the cigarette of the east. Other events happened much as on the two previous days.
553. On the fourth of these forbidden journeys the Navaho went to the north. The ridge which he had to cross was black. The little man whom he met was armed and dressed like the man in the south, but he had no horns on his mask. His face was very dark. The cigarette which he described was to be painted black and spotted with white; it was to be the same length as the cigarette of the south, and disposed of in the same way.
554. When he got home from his fourth journey, his father-in-law came into the lodge and reviled him once more with angry words; but this time the Navaho did not remain silent. He told the old man where he had been, what people he had met, what stories he had heard, and all that he knew of him. He told him, too, that he had learned of cigarettes, and medicines, and charms, and rites to protect him against a wizard’s power. “You have killed others,” said Natĭ′nĕsthani, “you have tried to kill me. I knew it all the time, but said nothing. Now I know all of your wickedness.” “All that you say is true,” said the old man; “but I shall seek your life no more, and I shall give up all my evil ways. While you were abroad on your journeys you learned of powerful sacrifices, and rites, and medicines. All that I ask is that you will treat me with these.” His son-in-law did as he was desired, and in doing so performed the first atsósi hatál.[249]
555. After treating his father-in-law, Natĭ′nĕsthani returned to his people, taught them all he had learned while he was gone, and thus established the rite of atsósi hatál among the Navahoes. Then he went back to the whirling lake of Tóʻnihilin, and he dwells there still.
THE GREAT SHELL OF KĬNTYÉL.
556. Kĭntyél,[72] Broad House, and Kĭ′ndotlĭz, Blue House,[208] are two pueblo houses in the Chaco Canyon. They are ruins now; but in the days when Kinníki lived on earth many people dwelt there. Not far from the ruins is a high cliff called Tseʻdezáʻ, or Standing Rock. Near these places the rite of yói hatál,[250] or the bead chant, was first practised by the Navahoes, and this is the tale of how it first became known to man:—
