Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the Navajo IndiansStevenson, James
Religion
Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the Navajo Indians
Stevenson, James
Navajo Indians -- Rites and ceremonies
After the dance begins Hasjelti passes down the north side and joins
Hostjoghon at the east end of the dancers, Hasjelti keeping to the north
side of Hostjoghon. Three of the men, representing women, were dressed in
Navajo squaw dresses and three of them in Tusayan squaw dresses; they held
their arms horizontally to the elbow and the lower arm vertically, and,
keeping their feet close together, raised themselves simultaneously on
their toes. The dance was begun in single file, the men raising only their
right feet to any height and balancing on the left. After a minute or two
the line broke, the women passing over to the north side and the men to
the south side; almost instantaneously, however, they grouped into a
promiscuous crowd, women carrying a pine twig in each hand and the men a
gourd rattle in the right hand and a pine twig in the left. The men’s
bodies were painted white and were nude, excepting the silk scarfs and
mountain lion and other skins worn around the loins. Just before the
stamping of the feet in the beginning of the dance, a rattle was shaken by
all the male dancers, which was the signal for a peculiar back motion of
the right arm and body and one which preceded the actual dancing. The six
males lean their bodies to the right side extending the right hand
backward, and then bringing it forward in a circular under sweep around to
the mouth with a hoot. They then turn and face the east, and bending their
bodies toward the south perform the same motion as before, when they turn
to the west and repeat it in that direction. At the same time the leader
and follower repeat their peculiar performance with the fawn skin and
wands to the east and west. Dancing promiscuously for a few moments to
song and rattle, the men representing women singing in feminine tones,
they form again in two lines, the women as before on the north side. The
man at the west end of the male line and the woman at the same end of the
female line, meeting each other midway between the lines she passes her
right arm through the arm of her partner, his arm being bent to receive
it; they pass between the line and are met a short distance from the other
end of the line by Hasjelti and Hostjoghon, who dance up to meet them, the
movement resembling closely the old-fashioned Virginia reel. The couple
then dance backward between the lines to their starting point, then down
again, when they separate, the man taking his place in the rear of the
male line and the woman hers in the rear of the female line. This couple
starting down the second time, the man and woman immediately next in line
lock arms and pass down in the same manner, Hasjelti and Hostjoghon
scarcely waiting for the first couple to separate before dancing up to
meet the second couple; the remaining couples following in like order
until the first couple find themselves in their former position at the
head of the line. Now a group dance is indulged in for a minute or two
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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