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
18. On the following day they left the lodge together and did not take
separate trails. Soon they killed a deer, and the younger brother said:
“What shall we now do with it, since our father has told us not to skin
it and not to cut it up?” The elder brother said: “I know not. Return to
the lodge and ask our father what we must do.” Then the younger brother
returned to his father and the latter instructed him thus: “Cut the skin
around the neck; then carefully take the skin from the head, so as to
remove the horns, ears, and all other parts, without tearing the skin
anywhere. Leave such an amount of flesh with the nose and lips that they
will not shrivel and lose their shape when they dry. Then take the skin
from the body, which skin will again be mine. One of you must take out
the pluck and carry that in the hide to me; the other will bring the
skin of the head and the meat. Let him who bears the pluck come in
advance, and stop not till he comes directly to me, and he must hand it
to me and to no one else.” The younger brother went back and told all
this to the elder. They dressed the deer as they were bidden; the
younger put the pluck in the skin and went in advance, and the elder
followed with the venison and the skin of the head. When they reached
the hogán, the father said: “Where is the atcai?” (pluck) and the
younger said: “It is in the skin.” “Take it out,” said the old man, “and
hang it on yonder mountain mahogany.” The young man did as he was
bidden. The father advanced with his bow and arrow and handed them to
the elder brother, who placed the arrow on the string and held the bow.
The old man put his hands on top of those of his son and together they
drew the bow. The former took careful aim at the pluck and let the arrow
fly. It struck the object and penetrated both heart and lungs so far
that the point protruded on the opposite side. Then the old man told his
son to seize the arrow by the point and draw it completely through,
which was done. Next he made his son stand close to the pluck, looking
towards it, and while his son was in this position he blew on him in the
direction of the pluck. “Now,” said the father, “whenever you want to
kill a buck, even if there is neither track nor sign of deer in sight,
you have only to shoot into the tse‘isçázi (mountain mahogany,
_Cercocarpus parvifolius_) and you will find a dead deer where your
arrow strikes; while if you wish to kill a female deer you will shoot
your arrow into the awètsal (cliff rose, _Cowania mexicana_) and you
will find a doe there.” When all this was done they prepared the skin of
the head, under the old man’s directions. To keep the skin of the neck
open they put into it a wooden hoop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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