Navaho Legends

by Unknown

Stay down and eat.[287]

599. This seemed a strange song to the pueblo people, and they all wondered what it could mean; but they soon found out what it meant, for they observed that the dancing Navaho was slowly rising from the ground. First his head and then his shoulders appeared above the heads of the crowd; next his chest and waist; but it was not until his whole body had risen above the level of their heads that they began to realize the loss that threatened them. He was rising toward the sky with the great shell of Kĭntyél, and all the wealth of many pueblos in shell-beads and turquoise on his body. Then they screamed wildly to him and called him by all sorts of dear names—father, brother, son—to come down again, but the more they called the higher he rose. When his feet had risen above them they observed that a streak of white lightning passed under his feet like a rope, and hung from a dark cloud that gathered above. It was the gods that were lifting him; for thus, the legends say, the gods lift mortals to the sky. When the pueblos found that no persuasions could induce the Navaho to return, some called for ropes that they might seize him and pull him down; but he was soon beyond the reach of their longest rope. Then a shout was raised for arrows that they might shoot him; but before the arrows could come he was lost to sight in the black cloud and was never more seen on earth.

NOTES.

1. How and when the name Navajo (pronounced Nă′vă-ho) originated has not been discovered. It is only known that this name was given by the Spaniards while they still claimed the Navaho land. The name is generally supposed to be derived from navaja, which means a clasp-knife, or razor, and to have been applied because the Navaho warriors carried great stone knives in former days. It has been suggested that the name comes from navájo, a pool or small lake. The Navahoes call themselves Dĭnéʻ or Dĭné, which means simply, men, people. This word in the various forms, Dénè, Tinnéh, Tunné, etc., is used as a tribal designation for many branches of the Athapascan stock.

2. The Carrizo Mountains consist of an isolated mountain mass, about 12 miles in its greatest diameter, situated in the northeast corner of Arizona. It is called by the Navahoes Dsĭlnáodsĭl, which means mountain surrounded by mountains; such is the appearance of the landscape viewed from the highest point, Pastora Peak, 9,420 feet high.

3. The San Juan River, a branch of the Colorado of the West, flows in a westerly direction through the northern portion of the Navaho Reservation, and forms in part its northern boundary. It is the most important river in the Navaho country. It has two names in the Navaho language: one is Sánbĭtoʻ (Water of Old Age, or Old Age River), said to be given because the stream is white with foam and looks like the hair of an old man; the other is Toʻbaká (Male Water), given because it is turbulent and strong in contrast to the placid Rio Grande, which the Navahoes call Toʻbaád, or Female Water. (See note [137].) Perhaps the river has other names.

4. Tu-ĭn-tsá is derived from toʻ or tu (water) and ĭntsá or ĭntsá (abundant, scattered widely). The name is spelled Tuincha, Tuintcha, and Tunicha on our maps. The Tuincha Mountains are situated partly in New Mexico and partly in Arizona, about 30 miles from the northern boundary of both Territories. They form the middle portion of a range of which the Chusca and Lukachokai Mountains form the rest. The portion known as Tuĭntsá is about 12 miles long. The highest point is 9,575 feet above sea-level. The top of the range, which is rather level and plateau-like, is well covered with timber, mostly spruce and pine, and abounds in small lakes and ponds; hence the name Tuĭntsá.

5. The basket illustrated in [fig. 16] is made of twigs of aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica, var. trilobata). It is 13′ in diameter and 3–⅜′ deep. In forming the helical coil, the fabricator must always put the butt end of the twig toward the centre of the basket and the tip end toward the periphery, in accordance with the ceremonial laws governing the disposition of butts and tips (see notes [12] and [319]). The sole decoration is a band, red in the middle with black zigzag edges. This band is intersected at one point by a narrow line of uncolored wood. This line has probably no relation to the “line of life” in ancient and modern pueblo pottery. It is put there to assist in the orientation of the basket at night, in the dim light of the medicine-lodge. In making the basket, the butt of the first twig is placed in the centre; the tip of the last twig, in the helix, must be in the same radial line, which is marked by the uncolored line crossing the ornamental band. This line must lie due east and west on certain ceremonial occasions, as for instance when the basket, inverted, is used as a drum during the last five nights of the night chant. The margin of this, as of other Navaho baskets, is finished in a diagonally woven or plaited pattern, and there is a legend, which the author has related in a former paper,[321] accounting for the origin of this form of margin. If the margin is worn through or torn, the basket is unfit for sacred use. The basket is one of the perquisites of the shaman when the rites are done; but he, in turn, must give it away, and must be careful never to eat out of it. Notwithstanding its sacred uses, food may be served in it. [Fig. 25] represents a basket of this kind used as a receptacle for sacrificial sticks and cigarettes. In this case the termination of the helix must be in the east, and the sacrifices sacred to the east must be in the eastern quarter of the basket.