The Mountain Chant (Complete Edition): Navajo Ceremony

Myth of the Origin of Dsilyídje Qaçàl

Table of Contents

9. Many years ago, in the neighborhood of Dsilyi‘-qojòni, in the Carrizo Mountains, dwelt a family of six: the father, the mother, two sons, and two daughters. They did not live all the time in one locality, but moved from place to place in the neighborhood. The young men hunted rabbits and wood rats, for it was on such small animals that they all subsisted. The girls spent their time gathering various wild edible seeds.

10. After a time they went to a place called Tse‘-biçàï (the Wings of the Rock or Winged Rock), which lies to the east of the Carrizo Mountains, on a plain. When they first encamped there was no water in the vicinity and the elder brother went out to see if he could find some. He observed from the camp a little sandy hillock, covered with some vegetation, and he determined to see what sort of plants grew there. Arrived there, he noticed a spot where the ground was moist. He got his digging stick and proceeded to make a hole in the ground. He had not dug long when the water suddenly burst forth in great abundance and soon filled the excavation he had made. He hastened back to the camp and announced his success. When they left the Carrizo Mountains it was their intention to go to ¢epéntsa, the La Plata Mountains, to hunt for food, and their halt at Tse‘-biçàï was designed to be temporary only; but, now that they had found abundance of water, the elder brother counseled them not to hasten on, but to remain where they were for a while. The spring he developed still exists and is known to the Navajo as Çobinàkis, or the One-Eyed Water.

11. The spring was some distance from the camp, and they had but one wicker water bottle; so the woman, to lighten her labor, proposed that they should move their goods to the vicinity of the spring, as it was her task to draw the water. But the old man counseled that they should remain where they were, as materials for building were close at hand and it was his duty to erect the hut. They argued long about it; but at length the woman prevailed, and they carried all their property down close to the spring. The elder son suggested that it would be well to dig into the soft sandy soil, in order to have a good shelter; so the old man selected a sandy hillock, overgrown with grease-wood, and excavated it near one edge, digging straight down, so as to have a wall on one side.

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.

14. Next day they traveled up the stream to a place called Tse‘çqàka, and here again they halted for the night. This place is noted for its deposits of native salt. The travelers cut some out from under a great rock and filled with it their bags, made out of the skins of the squirrels and other small animals which they had captured. Thence they followed up the river to Tse‘¢ezá‘ (Rock Sticking Up), and thence to Çisyà-qojòni (Beautiful Under the Cottonwoods), where they remained a day and killed two rabbits. These they skinned, disemboweled, crushed between two stones, bones and all, so that nothing might be lost, put them into an earthen pot to boil, and when they were sufficiently cooked they added some powdered seeds to make a thick soup; of all this they made a hearty meal. The Navajo then had neither horses nor asses; they could not carry stone metates when they traveled, as they do now; they ground their seeds with such stones as they could find anywhere. The old man advised that they should cross the river at this point and he directed his sons to go to the river and look for a ford. After a time they returned and related that they had found a place where the stream was mostly knee deep, and where, in the deepest part, it did not come above their hips, and they thought all would be able to cross there. The father named the hour of bihilçòhigi (when it gets warm, i.e., about 10 a.m.), on the morrow, as the time they should ford the San Juan; so next morning at the appointed time they crossed. They traveled up the north bank until they came to a small affluent whose source was in ¢epéntsa. Here they left the main river and followed the branch until night approached, when they made camp.

15. They moved on next day and came close to ¢epéntsa, to a soil covered with tracks of deer and of other great animals of the chase. Here they encamped, and on the following morning the young men set out by different ways in the direction of the mountain to hunt; but at night they returned empty handed. Thus they hunted four days unsuccessfully. Every day while his sons were gone the old man busied himself cutting down saplings with his stone ax and building a house, and the daughters gathered seeds, which constituted the only food of the family. As the saplings were abundant and close to the camp, the old man built his house fast, and had it finished at nightfall on the fourth day, when his sons returned from their fruitless labors. They entered the lodge and sat down. They were weary and hungry and their bodies were badly torn by the thorns and thick copse of the mountains. Their father spoke not a word to them as they entered; he did not even look at them; he seemed to be lost in deep contemplation; so the young men said nothing, and all were silent. At length the old man looked up and broke the silence, saying, Aqalàni cactcini! (Welcome, my children.) Again you have returned to the lodge without food. What does it avail that you go out every day to hunt when you bring home nothing? You kill nothing because you know nothing. If you had knowledge you would be successful. I pity you. The young men made no reply, but lay down and went to sleep.

16. At dawn the old man woke them and said: Go out, my children, and build a sweat-house, and make a fire to heat stones for the bath, and build the sweat-house only as I will tell you. Make the frame of four different kinds of wood. Put kaç (juniper) in the east, tse‘isçázi (mountain mahogany) in the south, ¢estsìn (piñon) in the west, and awètsal (cliff rose) in the north; join them together at the top and cover them with any shrubs you choose. Get two small forked sticks, the length of the forearm, to pass the hot stones into the sweat-house, and one long stick to poke the stones out of the fire, and let all these sticks be such as have their bark abraded by the antlers of the deer. Take of all the plants on which the deer most like to browse and spread them on the floor of the sweat-house, that we may sit on them. So they built the lodge as he directed, and lit the fire and heated the stones. While they were transferring the hot stones from the fire to the lodge the old man brought out the mats which they used for bedding, and when all the stones had been put in he hung the mats, one on top of another, over the doorway. This done the three men went into the sudatory and sat down to sweat, uttering not a word. When they had perspired sufficiently they came out and sat down in silence until they were again ready to submit themselves to the heat. In this way they sweated themselves four times, keeping all the time a perfect silence, until they emerged for the last time, when the old man directed his daughters to dig some soap root and make a lather. In this he bade his sons wash their hair and the entire surface of their bodies well. When they were thoroughly cleansed, he sent them out to set twelve stone fall traps, a task which occupied all the rest of the day. For each trap they buried a flat stone with its upper side on a level with the surface of the ground; on this they sprinkled a little earth, so that the rat would suspect nothing; over this they placed another flat stone, leaning at an angle and supported by a slender stick, to which were attached berries of the aromatic sumac as a bait. That night the young men sat up very late talking with their father, and did not lie down to sleep until after midnight, when, as their father directed, they lay side by side with their heads to the east.

17. The elder brother arose early, stirred the embers and made a fire, and soon the younger awoke. As they sat by the fire warming themselves, the elder one said: Younger brother, I had a dream in the night; I dreamt I killed a buck deer. And the younger replied: Elder brother, I, too, had such a dream, but that which I killed was a doe. The old man heard their words and rose, saying, It is well, my children; go out and try again. They went out to visit their traps. The first one they came to had fallen; they lifted the stone and found under it the body of a rat. So each one in turn, as they visited it was found to have fallen, killing in its fall some small animal; and they returned to the lodge with twelve little creatures for their food. Then the old man told them to take their bows and arrows and hunt for deer. Hunt, said he, to the east, the west, and the north, if you will, but do not pass to the south of the lodge. With these instructions they set out, each one in a different direction. The elder brother had not traveled far when he saw a herd of deer and shot one of the number. He skinned it, cut it up, took the backbone, hide, and tallow, and hung the rest in a tree. As he drew near the house, he saw his younger brother approaching from a different direction with the hide and meat of a doe. When they entered the hut, the old man asked which of the two deer was shot first. The elder brother answered: I think mine was, for I killed it early this morning, soon after I left the house. Well, said the father, "this skin of the first slain is