The North American Indian Part 16

_Fourth Day_: The ceremonies this day do not begin until later than usual, probably nine o'clock. Hasche?lti and Haschebaad dress and go out. The patient disrobes and takes his place. The a.s.sisting medicine-man digs a small hole just between the patient's feet, and encircles it with a line of _taditin_, or pollen, leaving an opening to the east, after which the patient dons a mask. Hasche?lti enters, followed by Haschebaad, who carries a small spruce tree. The former puts sacred pollen in the hole four times, each time giving his call; then Haschebaad plants the tree in the hole and fastens its top to the patient's mask; the mask is then pulled off the patient's head by his jerking quickly away from the tree.

This is the first night in which the ceremonies are continued until dawn.

After the unmasking, the singers take their place at one side of the back of the hogan and begin singing to the accompaniment of a basket drum. A youth and a maiden are required to sit in the hogan throughout the fourth night, the ritual requiring that these be persons who have not had s.e.xual knowledge.

_Fifth Day_: This is the last day of the sweating, and the day on which the first dry-painting is made. Just at dark this painting, a small one, is begun inside. In size it would square about four feet, and is placed close to the back of the hogan. There are three figures in the painting: the central one being the patient, the one to the left Hasche?lti, the one to the right Haschebaku?n. Around this painting, at all sides except the eastern, feather wands, _ndia_, are stuck in the ground; in this case twelve in number. Foot-tracks are made in the sand with white meal.

Hasche?lti and Haschebaku?n dress ceremonially, mask, and go out, after which the patient enters and takes his position on the central figure of the dry-painting, facing the east. The effort this night is to frighten the patient and thus banish the evil spirits from his body. The two maskers come running in, uttering weird, unearthly howls, in which every spectator in the hogan joins, feigning great fear. The masked figures make four entries, each like the other. In many cases the patient either actually faints from fright or feigns to do so. The patient then leaves the dry-painting and it is destroyed. None of the sand or other pigments used in this painting is applied to the patient's body, as is done with that of later paintings. The next part of the fifth night's ceremony is the initiation of new members into the Yeb.i.+.c.hai order. No one who is not a member of the order is allowed to enter the ceremonial hogan. At the time of the initiation Hasche?lti and Haschebaku?n are outside in the darkness.

The initiates enter and sit on the ground in a row-the males naked, the women dressed in their ordinary mode. They dare not look up, for should they see Hasche?lti before being initiated, they would become blind. One at a time these novices take their place in the centre of the hogan and the initiatory rite is performed over them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _s.h.i.+lhne'ohli_ - Navaho]

_s.h.i.+lhne'ohli_ - Navaho

_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_

In this plate is pictured the second dry-painting employed in the Night Chant, made on the sixth day of the ceremony. It represents crossed logs which whirl around in a mythic lake. Upon them are alternately seated male and female deities, singing. The light figures are G.o.ddesses, _haschebaad_; the dark ones G.o.ds, _haschebaku?__n_. Their songs treat of all life-giving plants, of which corn, beans, squashes, and tobacco, the most important, are pictured as growing from the very centre of the lake, the point of contact of the logs.

Of the four marginal figures the one in white toward the east is Hasche?lti, Talking G.o.d, with his pine-squirrel pouch of sacred meal.

Opposite him stands Haschogan, House G.o.d. The other two are Ganaski?dil, Hunchbacks, G.o.ds of Harvest, with seeds of the field in packs on their backs. Around the whole is the personified rainbow.

When the dry-painting is in actual use the patient enters upon it over the feet of Hasche?lti and sits at the intersection of the logs. A man personating a G.o.d then enters, places his hands upon the various parts of the many deities represented in the picture, then upon the corresponding parts of the patient's body. The whole picture is then destroyed and the colored sands are carried off to the north in a blanket and strewn under trees.

_Sixth Day_: This is the first day of the large dry-paintings. The painting is commenced early in the morning, and is not finished until mid-afternoon. The one on this day is the whirling log representation.

After it is finished, feathers are stuck in the ground around it, and sacred meal is scattered on parts by some of the a.s.sisting singers. Others scatter the meal promiscuously; one of the maskers uses a spruce twig and medicine sh.e.l.l, applying meal to every figure and object in the painting.

Then the medicine-men all gather up portions of the sacred meal, putting it in their medicine pouches. The patient soon enters and takes his seat in the centre of the painting. The usual incantations are gone through, after which the colored sands of the painting are applied to the corresponding parts of the patient's body, then gathered up and carried off to the north. During the day two sets of beggars go out to the neighboring hogans. These personate Hasche?lti, Tonenili-Water Sprinkler, the G.o.d of Water, who is really a clown-and as many Haschebaad as care to go out. The beggars carry whips made of yucca leaves, and one who does not respond to their appeals for gifts is whipped,-if he can be caught,-which creates a great deal of amus.e.m.e.nt. The personators act like a company of clowns, but at the same time they gather a large quant.i.ty of food. When the day is thoroughly taken up with dry-painting and ceremonies, there is less of the ceremonial at night. The medicine-men, to the accompaniment of the basket drum, sing for a short time only on this sixth night, while outside the late evening is spent in dancing by those who are later to partic.i.p.ate in the closing dance.

_Seventh Day_: This day is practically consumed with the making of another large dry-painting. The masked men go out on another begging tour, also, and the medicine ceremonies and the destroying of the dry-painting are practically the same as those of the day before, while during the evening the medicine-men sing to the accompaniment of the drum.

_Eighth Day_: The dry-painting is finished about three o'clock in the afternoon. After its completion there is a large open-air initiation. To become a full member of the Yeb.i.+.c.hai order one must first be initiated in the hogan; the second initiation is a public one; the third, another inside the hogan; the fourth, another in the open. These different initiation ceremonies, the same in point of ritualism, may be carried over several years.

_Ninth and Final Day_: To the average person and to the Indians as a whole the last day is the Yeb.i.+.c.hai dance. From a distance the Indians have been gathering during the two previous days, and the hospitality of the patient's family, as well as that of all the people living in the neighboring hogans, is taxed to the utmost. And from early morning until dark the whole plain is dotted with hors.e.m.e.n coming singly and in groups.

Great crowds gather at the contests given half a mile from the hogan, where horse-races, foot-races, groups of gamblers, and throngs of Indians riding wildly from race-track to hogan fill the day with hilarity and incidents memorable to all. Toward the end of the day preparation is made for the closing part of the nine-day rite. Great quant.i.ties of fuel have been brought from the distant plateau, and placed in many small piles at each side of the smooth dance ground to the east of the hogan. As soon as it is dark the fuel is ignited, making two long lines of camp-fires, furnis.h.i.+ng both light to see the dancers and warmth to the spectators, for the Yeb.i.+.c.hai cannot be held until the autumn frosts begin, when the nights have the sharp, keen air of the high alt.i.tudes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Zahadolzha_ - Navaho]

_Zahadolzha_ - Navaho

_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_

This is the last of the dry-paintings used in the Night Chant, being destroyed on the night of the eighth day's ceremonies. It takes its name from the fact that the princ.i.p.al characters represented in it, the dark figures, are all Zahadolzha, Fringe-mouth G.o.ds. According to the myth underlying the rite these G.o.ds made the first paintings of this sort used among the spirit people, and were the ones who furnished succor to the patients on the eighth day of the nine days' healing ceremony. The light figures are female deities-haschebaad. In the centre is the cornstalk, a life-giving symbol, and partially encircling the whole is the personified light-giving rainbow, a female personage.

During the ceremony a man masked as a Zahadolzha places his hands first upon a part of his likeness pictured in colored earths and then on the corresponding part of the patient, as head, body, and limbs. Later the colored earths or sands are carried away in a blanket and placed under brush or trees toward the north.

With the gathering darkness the human tide flows toward the medicine hogan, illuminated in the dusk by the long lines of camp-fires. All gather about and close around the dance square, having to be kept back by those in charge. Men, women, and children sit on the ground near the fires. Many on horseback have ridden up, and form a veritable phalanx back of the sitting spectators. The dance does not begin at once, and those a.s.sembled spend the time telling stories, jesting, and gossiping. Belated arrivals make coffee, or do hurried cooking around the fires.

Some distance to the east of the dance ground is a brush enclosure where the dancers prepare for their part in the rite. There, too, is a fire for light and warmth. The men in preparation remove all clothing, save short kilts, and paint their bodies with a mixture of water and white clay.

Anyone who may have experienced the enjoyment of a sponge bath out in the open on a cold, windy night can appreciate the pleasure of the dance preparation. The dancers are impersonators of Navaho myth characters, twelve usually taking part. No qualifications are necessary other than that the partic.i.p.ant be conversant with the intricate ritual of the dance.

The dance continues throughout the entire night, one group of men being followed by another. The first twelve men dance through four songs, retiring to the dressing enclosure for a very brief rest after each. Then they withdraw, and twelve others dance for a like period, and so on. The first group sometimes returns again later, and the different groups vie with one another in their efforts to give the most beautiful dance in harmony of movement and song, but there is no change in the step. The several sets have doubtless trained for weeks, and the most graceful take great pride in being p.r.o.nounced the best dancers. The first group of grotesquely masked men is ready by nine or ten o'clock; they file into the dance enclosure led by Hasche?lti, their naked, clay-painted bodies glinting in the firelight. While wearing masks the performers never speak in words; they only sing or chant. To address one in conversation would incur the displeasure of the G.o.ds and invite disaster. Time is kept by the basket drum and the rhythm of the singing.

The white visitor will get his best impression of the dance from a short distance, and, if possible, a slight elevation. There he is in touch with the stillness of the night under the starry sky, and sees before him, in this little spot lighted out of the limitless desert, this strange ceremonial of supplication and thanksgiving, showing slight, if any, change from the same performance, held on perhaps the same spot by the ancestors of these people ages ago. As the night wears on the best group of dancers come out. They are, perhaps, from the Redrock country, or from some other far-away district, and have been practising for weeks, that they might excel in this dance. The most revered song of the Yeb.i.+.c.hai is the Bluebird song, which is sung at the approach of day, and is the closing act of the drama. With the last words, "_Dola anyi, dola anyi_,"

the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude start for their homes, near and far, melting into the gray of the desert morn, and by the time the sun breaks above the horizon the spot which was alive with people a few hours before is wrapped in death-like stillness, not a soul being within range of the eye.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Yeb.i.+.c.hai Hogan_ - Navaho]

_Yeb.i.+.c.hai Hogan_ - Navaho

_From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis_

MATURITY CEREMONY

The ceremony celebrating maturity of girls among the Navaho is held generally on the fourth night after the first evidence of the maiden's entrance into womanhood. On the first morning following the moment of this change in life the girl bathes and dresses in her finest clothes. Later she stretches herself face downward on a blanket just outside the hogan, with her head toward the door. A sister, aunt, or other female relation, if any happen to be close at hand, or if not, a male relative other than her father, then proceeds symbolically to remould her. Her arms and legs are straightened, her joints smoothed, and muscles pressed to make her truly shapely. After that the most industrious and energetic of the comely women in the immediate neighborhood is called in to dress the girl's hair in a particular form of knot and wrap it with deerskin strings, called _tsiklolh_. Should there be any babies or little tots about the home, the girl goes to them, and, placing a hand under each ear, successively lifts them by the neck, to make them grow faster. Then she darts off toward the east, running out for about a quarter of a mile and back. This she does each morning until after the public ceremony. By so doing she is a.s.sured of continuing strong, lithe, and active throughout womanhood.

The four days preceding the night of the ceremony are days of abstinence; only such foods as mush and bread made from corn-meal may be eaten, nor may they contain any salt. To indulge in viands of a richer nature would be to invite laziness and an ugly form at a comparatively early age. The girl must also refrain from scratching her head or body, for marks made by her nails during this period would surely become ill-looking scars. All the women folk in the hogan begin grinding corn on the first day and continue at irregular intervals until the night of the third, when the meal is mixed into batter for a large corn-cake, which the mother bakes in a sort of bean-hole outside the hogan.

The ceremony proper consists of little more than songs. A medicine-man is called upon to take charge, being compensated for his services with blankets, robes, grain, or other articles of value. Friends and neighbors having been notified, they a.s.semble at the girl's hogan fairly early in the evening. When dusk has settled, the medicine-man begins his songs, singing first the twelve "hogan songs" of the Bahozhonchi. After he has finished, anyone present who so desires may sing songs taken from the ritual of the same order. This motley singing and hilarity continue until well toward sunrise, when the mother brings in a bowl of yucca suds and washes the girl's hair. Her head and hair are dried with corn-meal, after which the girl takes her last run toward the east, this time followed by many young children, symbolically attesting that she will be a kind mother, whom her children will always follow. The _hatali_, or medicine singer, during her absence sings eight songs, generally termed the Racing songs. On her return the great corn-cake is brought in, cut, and divided among the a.s.semblage, when all disperse, and the girl may once more loosen her hair and partake of any food she pleases.

MARRIAGE

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Yeb.i.+.c.hai_ Dancers - Navaho]

_Yeb.i.+.c.hai_ Dancers - Navaho

_From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis_

The Navaho marriage ceremony is always held at the home of the girl. When a young man wishes to marry the maid of his choice, he makes his desire known to his parents, when the father goes to the girl's parents and explains that his son would like to marry their daughter. The girl is then consulted, and if she be willing to marry the young man, the parents of the two open negotiations. A popular, pretty girl commands a considerably higher price than a plain one, though few are married for a smaller bonus than fourteen ponies and a silver belt. Horses, saddles, cattle, sheep and goats, and turquoise-studded silver ornaments are the usual media of exchange in matrimonial bargains. The arrangement of compensatory details, particularly the date of delivery of the articles for payment, often requires a considerable period of time and no little controversy. When finally completed, the date is set for the wedding, which takes place always at night.

The girl's mother fills a wedding basket with corn-meal mush, which figures prominently in the ceremony. About nine o'clock in the evening the wedding party a.s.sembles. Anyone may attend, and usually a goodly number is present. The young man and his bride take seats on the western side of the hogan, facing the doorway. On their right the male spectators sit in rows; on their left, the women. The girl's mother, however, does not enter, for a mother-in-law, even in the making, must not look upon her newly acquired son, nor he upon her, then or thereafter. To do so would occasion blindness, and general ill luck to either one or both parties.

The basket of mush and two wicker bottles of water are brought in and placed before the couple, the bearer being careful to see that the side of the basket on which the top coil terminates is toward the east. The girl's father then steps forward, and from his pouch of _taditin_, or sacred pollen, sifts several pinches on the basket of mush. Beginning at the end of the coil on the eastern rim, he sifts straight across and back, then follows the rim with the pollen around to the south side, sifts across and back, and then drops a little in the centre. That done, the bride pours a small quant.i.ty of water from the wicker bottle upon the young man's hands.

He washes and pours a little upon hers. Then from the side of the basket toward the east he dips out a little mush with two fingers and eats. The girl follows, dipping from the same place. This act is repeated at the three remaining sides-the south, west, and north,-and then the basket is pa.s.sed to the a.s.semblage, who finish eating its contents. The empty basket becomes the property of the young man's mother, who retains it as a sort of certificate of marriage. The was.h.i.+ng of hands and the dipping of mush from the same spot is a pledge that the girl will follow in her husband's footsteps-doing as he does.

When the ceremony is concluded, a supper is provided for all. General conversation and levity while away the hours, the talk consisting princ.i.p.ally, however, of sage advice from relatives to both husband and wife as to how they should conduct themselves in future. At dawn the party disperses, the young man taking his bride with him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mescal Harvest - Apache]

Mescal Harvest - Apache

_From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis_