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
181. The glòï-bikeçàn, or sacrifices to the weasels, were four in
number, two yellow and two white. In preparing the sticks one end was
always to be held to the north, the other towards the south. At each end
a narrow circle of red and a narrow circle of blue were painted; the red
being to the north, i.e., outside of the blue at one end and inside of
it at the other. The weasel men directed that the sticks should be
buried in the ground in the same direction in which they were held when
being made, lying from north to south with the outer red ring at the
north. (Paragraph 41.)
182. Four sticks pertained to the klictsò-bikeçàn: one was black, with
four white deer tracks painted on it; another was blue, with four yellow
deer tracks; a third was white, with four black deer tracks; the fourth
was yellow, with four blue deer tracks. The Great Serpent said to the
Navajo prophet: “There are certain moles who, when they dig in the
ground, scatter the earth in a long winding heap like the form of a
crawling snake. In such a heap of earth will you bury these kethàwns.”
(Paragraph 42.)
183. There are two sticks belonging to the kethàwn of the lightning god
(i¢nì‘-bikeçàn). One is black, with a white zigzag stripe from end to
end; the other blue, with a yellow zigzag stripe from end to end.
(Paragraph 43.)
184. The Estsàn-¢igìni, or Holy Women, showed the prophet but one
kethàwn stick. It was painted white and decorated with three pairs of
circular bands, red and blue, the blue in each case being next to the
body of the painter while he holds the stick in decorating it. This
kethàwn must be buried at the base of a young spruce tree, with the
first blue circle next to the tree. (Paragraph 45.)
185. Pour sticks were shown by the Tcikè-cac-nátlehi. They were black,
sprinkled with specular iron ore to make them shine; decorated with
three pairs of bands, red and blue, applied as in the kethàwns of the
Estsàn-¢igìni; and buried under a young piñon, with the first blue band
or circle next to the tree. (Paragraph 46.)
186. The two kethàwns seen by Dsilyi‘ Neyáni at Big Oaks, the home of
the ¢igin-yosíni, were both banded at the ends with blue and red and had
marks to symbolize the givers. One was white, with two pairs of stripes,
red and blue, running lengthwise. The other was yellow, with many
stripes of black and yellow running lengthwise. (Paragraph 49.)
187. At Last Mountain, the home of the skunks, two kethàwns, evidently
intended to symbolize these animals, were shown to the prophet and his
divine companions. Both the sticks were black: one had three white
longitudinal stripes on one side; the other had three longitudinal rows
of white spots, three spots in each row, on one side. (Paragraph 50.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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