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
10. After a time they went to a place called Tse‘-biçàï (the Wings of
the Rock or Winged Rock), which lies to the east of the Carrizo
Mountains, on a plain. When they first encamped there was no water in
the vicinity and the elder brother went out to see if he could find
some. He observed from the camp a little sandy hillock, covered with
some vegetation, and he determined to see what sort of plants grew
there. Arrived there, he noticed a spot where the ground was moist. He
got his digging stick and proceeded to make a hole in the ground. He had
not dug long when the water suddenly burst forth in great abundance and
soon filled the excavation he had made. He hastened back to the camp and
announced his success. When they left the Carrizo Mountains it was their
intention to go to [¢]epéntsa, the La Plata Mountains, to hunt for food,
and their halt at Tse‘-biçàï was designed to be temporary only; but, now
that they had found abundance of water, the elder brother counseled them
not to hasten on, but to remain where they were for a while. The spring
he developed still exists and is known to the Navajo as Çobinàkis, or
the One-Eyed Water.
11. The spring was some distance from the camp, and they had but one
wicker water bottle; so the woman, to lighten her labor, proposed that
they should move their goods to the vicinity of the spring, as it was
her task to draw the water. But the old man counseled that they should
remain where they were, as materials for building were close at hand and
it was his duty to erect the hut. They argued long about it; but at
length the woman prevailed, and they carried all their property down
close to the spring. The elder son suggested that it would be well to
dig into the soft sandy soil, in order to have a good shelter; so the
old man selected a sandy hillock, overgrown with grease-wood, and
excavated it near one edge, digging straight down, so as to have a wall
on one side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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