317. Behold the tip of my nose.
318. It is not placed there without a purpose.
319. I have placed it there for chasing away other gods.
320. I use it for keeping other gods from entering my house.
321. When the little ones make of me their bodies,
322. They shall use it to chase away other gods, as they travel the
path of life.
323. Behold the hair on the crown of my head grown thin.
324. It has not grown thin without a purpose.
325. I have made it to be a sign of old age.
326. When the little ones make of me their bodies,
327. When they become aged men,
328. They shall see in their whitened hair
329. The sign of old age, as they travel the path of life.
330. There comes a time
331. When a calm and peaceful day comes upon me,
332. So there shall come upon the little ones a calm and peaceful
day, as they travel the path of life.
The most important wi´-gi-es (recited parts of a ritual) used in the
child-naming rituals are those which relate to the life symbols of a
gens, such as the sun, the moon, the morning and evening stars, night
and day, deer, elk, bear, etc., which are called wa-zho´-i-ga-the,
objects of which bodies are made; and those which relate to the
personal, sacred names adopted by a gens to be used by its members for
their children. The wi´-gi-e relating to the life symbols are usually
recited at the beginning of the ceremony. (See wi´-gi-e of the Ṭsi´-zhu
Wa-shta-ge gens, p. 60.) The name wi´-gi-es, called Zha´-zhe Ḳi-ṭoⁿ
(Zha´-zhe, name; Ḳi-ṭoⁿ, the taking of), are recited when all the
Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga who were invited to take part in the ceremony of the
conferring of a name upon a child have assembled. The life-symbol and
the name-taking wi´-gi-es are paraphrases of the mythical stories of
the origin of the people of a gens. These mythical origin stories are
called Ni´-ḳi-e, freely translated, Sayings of the Ancient Men.
Xu-tha´-wa-ṭoⁿ-iⁿ (pl. 7), of the Ṭsi´-zhu Wa-noⁿ gens of the Ṭsi´-zhu
great tribal division, recorded the life symbol wi´-gi-e of his gens
(see pp. 75-84) but he declined to give the wi´-gi-e of the sacred
gens names. However, these names appear in the Wi´-gi-e Ṭoⁿ-ga, Great
Wi´-gi-e (36th Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethn., pp. 254-269), which are
here given in their order, as follows:
1. ’Iⁿ-çka´, White Rock. In the origin story of this gens the people
came down from the sky, as eagles, to the earth and alighted upon seven
trees. Thence:
36. They moved onward over the earth.
37. They came to the top of a rocky cliff,
38. Close to it they came and paused,
40. They spake to one another, saying: White Rock
41. We shall make to be a personal name for ourselves.
—(36th Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 255.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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