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
The final decoration of masks with ribbons, plumes, etc., began at
sunrise and consumed most of the morning. About noon two sticks 1 inch
in diameter and 6 inches long were colored; one, of piñon, was painted
black, the other, of cedar, was colored red. Three medicine tubes were
made, one black, one red, and one blue. These were placed in a basket
half filled with meal; the basket stood in the niche behind the
song-priest. Two men personated Naiyenesgony and Tobaidischinni.
Naiyenesgony’s body was painted black (from the embers of a burnt weed
of which specimens were procured) and on the outside of his legs below
the knee, on the upper arms, breast and scapula were bows in white but
without arrows. Tobaidischinni had his body painted with the scalp knot
in white in relative positions to the bows on Naiyenesgony. A third man,
personating the turquois hermaphrodite Ahsonnutli, wore the usual
squaw’s dress with a blanket fastened over the shoulders reaching to the
ground. Her mask was blue. The three left the lodge carrying their masks
in their hands. Passing some distance down the avenue to the east they
put on their masks and returned to the lodge. A buffalo robe had been
spread in front of the lodge. Just as the maskers returned, the invalid,
wrapped in a fine red Navajo blanket and bearing a basket of sacred
meal, stepped upon the robe; he had before stood in front of the lodge
by the side of the song-priest. The many spectators on foot and
horseback clad in their rich blankets formed a brilliant surrounding for
this ceremony, which took place just at the setting of the son.
Naiyenesgony carried in his right hand a large lava celt which was
painted white. Tobaidischinni followed next carrying in his right hand
the black wood stick which had been prepared in the morning, and in his
left hand the red stick. Ahsonnutli followed with bow and arrow in the
left hand and an arrow in the right with a quiver thrown over the
shoulder.
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