Arizona -- Fiction; Frontier and pioneer life -- Fiction; Western stories
It developed, presently, from talk with the old Navajo, that this pile
was only a half of the load to be packed to Kayenta, and the other half
was round the corner of the mountain in the camp of Piutes. Hosteen
Doetin said he would send to the camp and have the Piutes bring their
share over. The suggestion suited Joe, who wanted to save his burros as
much as possible. Accordingly, a messenger was despatched to the Piute
camp. And Shefford, with time on his hands and poignant memory to
combat, decided to recall his keen interest in the Navajo, and learn,
if possible, what the Indian's life was like. What would a day of his
natural life be?
In the gray of dawn, when the hush of the desert night still lay deep
over the land, the Navajo stirred in his blanket and began to chant to
the morning light. It began very soft and low, a strange, broken murmur,
like the music of a brook, and as it swelled that weird and mournful
tone was slowly lost in one of hope and joy. The Indian's soul was
coming out of night, blackness, the sleep that resembled death, into the
day, the light that was life.
Then he stood in the door of his hogan, his blanket around him, and
faced the east.
Night was lifting out of the clefts and ravines; the rolling cedar
ridges and the sage flats were softly gray, with thin veils like smoke
mysteriously rising and vanishing; the colorless rocks were changing. A
long, horizon-wide gleam of light, rosiest in the center, lay low down
in the east and momentarily brightened. One by one the stars in
the deep-blue sky paled and went out and the blue dome changed and
lightened. Night had vanished on invisible wings and silence broke to
the music of a mockingbird. The rose in the east deepened; a wisp of
cloud turned gold; dim distant mountains showed dark against the red;
and low down in a notch a rim of fire appeared. Over the soft ridges and
valleys crept a wondrous transfiguration. It was as if every blade of
grass, every leaf of sage, every twig of cedar, the flowers, the trees,
the rocks came to life at sight of the sun. The red disk rose, and a
golden fire burned over the glowing face of that lonely waste.
The Navajo, dark, stately, inscrutable, faced the sun--his god. This was
his Great Spirit. The desert was his mother, but the sun was his life.
To the keeper of the winds and rains, to the master of light, to the
maker of fire, to the giver of life the Navajo sent up his prayer:
Of all the good things of the Earth let me always have plenty.
Of all the beautiful things of the Earth let me always have plenty.
Peacefully let my horses go and peacefully let my sheep go.
God of the Heavens, give me many sheep and horses.
God of the Heavens, help me to talk straight.
Goddess of the Earth, my Mother, let me walk straight.
Now all is well, now all is well, now all is well, now all is well.
Hope and faith were his.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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