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
12. They had a stone ax-head, with a groove in it. Around this they bent
a flexible twig of oak and tied it with the fibers of the yucca, and
thus they made a handle. The first day after the spring was found the
young men went out and chopped all day, and in the evening brought home
four poles, and while they were gone the old man dug in the hillock. The
next day the young men chopped all day, and at night returned with four
more poles, while their father continued his digging. They worked thus
for four days, and the lodge was finished. They made mats of hay to lie
on and a mat of the same material to hang in the doorway. They made mats
of fine cedar bark with which to cover themselves in bed, for in those
days the Navajo did not weave blankets such as they make now. The soles
of their moccasins were made of hay and the uppers of yucca fibers. The
young men were obliged to go hunting every day; it was only with great
labor they could keep the house supplied with meat; for, as has been
said, they lived mostly on small animals, such as could be caught in
fall traps. These traps they set at night near the burrows, and they
slept close to the traps when the latter were set far from home. They
hunted thus for four days after the house was finished, while their
sisters scoured all the country round in search of seeds.
13. With all their work they found it hard to make a living in this
place. The land was barren; even rats and prairie dogs were scarce, and
the seed bearing plants were few. At the end of the fourth day they held
a consultation, and the old man said they would do better to move on to
the San Juan River, where food was more abundant, and they could trap
and gather seeds as they traveled. They determined to leave, and next
morning broke camp. They journeyed on till they reached the banks of the
San Juan. Here they found abundance of tciltcin (fruit of _Rhus
aromatica_) and of grass seeds, and they encamped beside the river at
night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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