11. Toward what shall the little ones take their footsteps? they
asked of one another.
12. It is the Male Star (the sun) who sitteth in the heavens,
13. Toward which the little ones shall take their footsteps.
14. When the little ones take their footsteps toward the Male Star,
15. They shall always live to see old age, O, younger brothers, they
said to one another.
4
16. Toward what shall the little ones take their footsteps? they
said to one another.
17. It is the Female Star (the moon) who sitteth in the heavens,
18. Toward which the little ones shall take their footsteps.
19. When the little ones take their footsteps toward the Female
Star,
20. They shall always live to see old age, O, younger brothers,
they said to one another.
The words of the processional song:
Into a star you have cast yourself,
Into my star you have cast yourself, etc.
are addressed to the child upon whom is to be conferred his personal,
gentile name, and who is to be given his place in the Puma gens into
which he was born. The star referred to in the song is the sun, the
greatest life symbol of the Puma gens.
In the first section of the “Footstep Wi´-gi-e,” which the Xo´-ḳa
recites as he makes his processional approach to the House of Mystery,
the sun is referred to as the “Male Star.” The first line of the
wi´-gi-e, “Toward what shall the little ones take their footsteps,”
implies that much thought was given by the ancient Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga to
the question as to the places where prayers for aid for the attainment
of long life should be directed. The lines that follow imply that
the Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga had finally arrived at the belief that if the
“Little Ones” go with their prayers to the “Male Star,” the sun, they
would find the way by which they could reach old age. The authors of
these peculiar rites in speaking of long life did not only mean the
attainment of old age by the child but they also meant the continuity
of its life by procreation.
In the second section of the wi´-gi-e the moon is referred to as the
“Female Star.” The same form that is used for the sun is also used
for the moon. The pairing of these two great cosmic bodies in this
wi´-gi-e suggests a procreative relationship between the two. The last
two sections of the wi´-gi-e are repetitions of the first two. These
repetitions are made in order to complete the mystic number four. The
moon, referred to in the second section as the female star, is the life
symbol of the Wa-ça´-be, or the Black Bear gens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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