Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology: to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891
History
Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology: to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891
Navajo Indians -- Rites and ceremonies; Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities; Pueblo architecture
Baskets and bowls in unlimited quantity, filled with food, were placed
in a circle around the fire which now burned brightly. The guests formed
into groups and drew the food toward them, but did not touch it for a
time. The invalid, song-priest, and his attendants, indulged in a smoke
which was social and not religious, the white man’s tobacco being
preferred on such occasions. A girl and a boy, about 12 years of age,
came into the lodge. The boy was the son of the invalid, the girl his
sister’s child. The boy knelt at the northeast end of the rug and the
girl at the southeast end. They were richly dressed in Navajo blankets,
coral necklaces, etc., and they remained perfectly quiet. The theurgist
and his attendants talked together in an undertone, and if the inmates
of the lodge spoke at all their voices were scarcely audible. After a
time the choir opened, led by the song-priest with his rattle. During
the singing the rattle was passed from one to the other. The invalid did
not join in the song. The choir continued an hour without cessation, and
then rested 2 minutes, and again began and continued for another
hour.[4] At the conclusion of the singing the song-priest handed to the
girl a wand of turkey plumes taken from a basket of feathers which had
stood, since the placing of the masks, on the west side of him. Another
wand was passed to the boy; and the children received some instructions
from the song-priest, who spoke in an undertone, after which, an
attendant filled with water from a wicker water jug a basket that had
stood throughout the ceremony at the east of the rug.
[Footnote 4: I noticed that the priest of the sweat house on no
occasion sat with the song-priest and his attendants.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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