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
62. As night approached an old woman entered the medicine lodge and
said: “I will send my grandson as an akáninili.” This old woman’s lodge
was not far from where the medicine lodge was built and all present knew
her grandson well. Whenever they visited her lodge he was always lying
on the ground asleep; they never saw him go abroad to hunt, and they all
supposed him to be lazy and worthless; so when she made her offer they
only looked at one another and laughed. She waited awhile, and getting
no response she again offered the services of her grandson, only to
provoke again laughter and significant looks. A third and a fourth time
she made her proposal, and then she said: “Why do you not at least
answer me? I have said that I will let my grandson take your messages to
one of these camps and you laugh at me and thank me not. Why is this?”
Hearing her words, the chief medicine man, who came from a distant camp
and did not know her, asked the men who were present who the woman was
and what sort of a young man her grandson was; but again the men laughed
and did not answer him either. He turned to the old woman and said:
“Bring hither your grandson, that I may see him.” The woman answered:
“It is already late; the night is falling and the way is long. It is of
no use for you to see him to-night; let us wait until the morning.”
“Very well,” said the shaman; “bring him at dawn to-morrow.” She left
the lodge promising to do as she was bidden; and the moment she was gone
the long suppressed merriment of the men broke forth. They all laughed
inordinately, made many jokes about the lazy grandson, and told the
medicine man that there was no use in sending such a person with the
message when the best runners among them did not dare to undertake the
journey. “He is too weak and lazy to hunt,” said they; “he lives on
seeds and never tastes flesh.”
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