The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony: Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 379-468 — John Shaqi
The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony: Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 379-468Matthews, Washington
Religion
The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony: Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 379-468
Matthews, Washington
Mountainway (Navajo rite); Navajo Indians -- Rites and ceremonies
15. They moved on next day and came close to [¢]epéntsa, to a soil
covered with tracks of deer and of other great animals of the chase.
Here they encamped, and on the following morning the young men set out
by different ways in the direction of the mountain to hunt; but at night
they returned empty handed. Thus they hunted four days unsuccessfully.
Every day while his sons were gone the old man busied himself cutting
down saplings with his stone ax and building a house, and the daughters
gathered seeds, which constituted the only food of the family. As the
saplings were abundant and close to the camp, the old man built his
house fast, and had it finished at nightfall on the fourth day, when his
sons returned from their fruitless labors. They entered the lodge and
sat down. They were weary and hungry and their bodies were badly torn by
the thorns and thick copse of the mountains. Their father spoke not a
word to them as they entered; he did not even look at them; he seemed to
be lost in deep contemplation; so the young men said nothing, and all
were silent. At length the old man looked up and broke the silence,
saying, “Aqalàni cactcini!” (Welcome, my children.) “Again you have
returned to the lodge without food. What does it avail that you go out
every day to hunt when you bring home nothing? You kill nothing because
you know nothing. If you had knowledge you would be successful. I pity
you.” The young men made no reply, but lay down and went to sleep.
16. At dawn the old man woke them and said: “Go out, my children, and
build a sweat-house, and make a fire to heat stones for the bath, and
build the sweat-house only as I will tell you. Make the frame of four
different kinds of wood. Put kaç (juniper) in the east, tse‘isçázi
(mountain mahogany) in the south, ¢estsìⁿ (piñon) in the west, and
awètsal (cliff rose) in the north; join them together at the top and
cover them with any shrubs you choose. Get two small forked sticks, the
length of the forearm, to pass the hot stones into the sweat-house, and
one long stick to poke the stones out of the fire, and let all these
sticks be such as have their bark abraded by the antlers of the deer.
Take of all the plants on which the deer most like to browse and spread
them on the floor of the sweat-house, that we may sit on them.” So they
built the lodge as he directed, and lit the fire and heated the stones.
While they were transferring the hot stones from the fire to the lodge
the old man brought out the mats which they used for bedding, and when
all the stones had been put in he hung the mats, one on top of another,
over the doorway. This done the three men went into the sudatory and sat
down to sweat, uttering not a word. When they had perspired sufficiently
they came out and sat down in silence until they were again ready to
submit themselves to the heat. In this way they sweated themselves four
times, keeping all the time a perfect silence, until they emerged for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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