Part 5 (1/2)
One of the party carried a deep Indian basket, from the top of which a number of spruce twigs protruded. They formed what has been designated as the ring of occultation, and while doing so they shouted and screamed and puffed the talismanic ”thhay” in a way that left no doubt of their intention to ridicule. Their extravagant motions added to the significance of their intonation. When the ring opened the boys sat on the ground and began to sing and beat a drum. The old man sat at a distance of about three paces west of the basket. Presently the nose of a little weasel (the image being probably a stuffed skin) appeared among the spruce boughs. All the timid, inquiring motions of the little animal were well mimicked: the nose was thrust forward and pulled back, the whole head would emerge and retreat, and at rare times the shoulders would be seen for a moment, to be quickly drawn in among the screening spruce twigs. All these motions were made in perfect time to the singing and drumming. The old man who pulled the actuating strings made no secret of his manipulations. The play was intended for a farce, and as such the spectators enjoyed it.
THE GREAT PICTURES OF DSILYiDJE QAcaL.
154. A description of the four great pictures drawn in these ceremonies has been deferred until all might be described together. Their relations to one another rendered this the most desirable course to pursue. The preparation of the ground and of the colors, the application of the sacred pollen, and some other matters have been already considered.
155. The men who do the greater part of the actual work of painting, under the guidance of the chanter, have been initiated, but need not be skilled medicine men or even aspirants to the craft of the shaman.
A certain ceremony of initiation has been performed on them four times, each time during the course of a different dance, before they are admitted into the lodge during the progress of the work or allowed to a.s.sist in it. The medicine man receives a good present in horses for his work; the a.s.sistants get nothing but their food. This, however, is abundant. Three times a day the person for whose benefit the dance is performed sends in enough mush, corn cake, soup, and roasted mutton to satisfy to the utmost the appet.i.tes of all in the lodge. There are some young men who live well all winter by going around the country from dance to dance and a.s.sisting in the work of the lodge.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bureau of Ethnology Fifth Annual Report Pl. XIV THE DARK CIRCLE OF BRANCHES AT SUNRISE.]
156. The pictures are drawn according to an exact system. The shaman is frequently seen correcting the workmen and making them erase and revise their work. In certain well defined instances the artist is allowed to indulge his individual fancy. This is the case with the gaudy embroidered pouches which the G.o.ds carry at the waist. Within reasonable bounds the artist may give his G.o.d just as handsome a pouch as he wishes. Some parts of the figures, on the other hand, are measured by palms and spans, and not a line of the sacred design can be varied.
Straight and parallel lines are drawn by aid of a tightened cord. The mode of applying the colored powder is peculiar. The artist has his bark trays laid on the sand where they are convenient of access. He takes a small quant.i.ty of the powder in his closed palm and allows it to pa.s.s out between his thumb and forefinger, while the former is moved across the latter. When he makes a mistake he does not brush away the pigment.
He obliterates it by pouring sand on it, and then draws the corrected design on the new surface. The forms of the G.o.ds do not appear as I have represented them in the first coat of color. The naked figures of these mythical beings are first completely and accurately drawn and then the clothing is put on. Even in the pictures of the ”Long-bodies”
(Plate XVII), which are drawn 9 feet in length, the naked body is first made in its appropriate color--white for the east, blue for the south, yellow for the west, and black for the north--and then the four red s.h.i.+rts are painted on from thigh to axilla, as shown in the picture.
157. The drawings are, as a rule, begun as much towards the center as the nature of the figure will permit, due regard being paid to the order of precedence of the points of the compa.s.s, the figure in the east being begun first, that in the south next, that in the west third in order, and that in the north fourth. The periphery is finished last of all. The reason for thus working from within outwards is that the men employed on the picture disturb the smooth surface of the sand with their feet. If they proceed in the order described they can smooth the sand as they advance and need not cross the finished portions of the picture.
158. I have learned of seventeen great healing dances of the Navajo in which pictures of this character are drawn. There are said to be, with few exceptions--only one exception that I am positively aware of--four pictures appropriate to each dance. Some of the dances are practiced somewhat differently by different schools or orders among the medicine men, and in these divers forms the pictures, although agreeing in general design, vary somewhat in detail. Thus there are, on an average, probably more than four designs, belonging to each of the seventeen ceremonies, whose names I have obtained. If there were but four to each, this would give us sixty-eight such paintings known to the medicine men of the tribe, and thus we may form some conception of the great number of these sacred pictures which they possess. But I have reason to believe, from many things I have heard, that besides these seventeen great nine days' ceremonies to which I refer, there are many minor ceremonies, with their appropriate pictures; so that the number is probably greater than that which I give.
159. These pictures, the medicine men aver, are transmitted from teacher to pupil in each order and for each ceremony unaltered from year to year and from generation to generation. That such is strictly the case I cannot believe. There are no standard pictures on hand anywhere. No permanent design for reference is ever in existence, and there is, so far as I can learn, no final authority in the tribe to settle any disputes that may arise. Few of these great ceremonies can be performed in the summer months. Most of the figures are therefore carried over from winter to winter in the memories of fallible men. But this much I do credit, that any innovations which may creep into their work are unintentional and that if changes occur they are wrought very slowly.
The shamans and their faithful followers believe, or profess to believe, that the direst vengeance of the G.o.ds would visit them if these rites were varied in the least in picture, prayer, song, or ceremonial. The mere fact that there are different schools among the medicine men may be regarded as an evidence that changes have occurred.
160. FIRST PICTURE. The picture of the first day (Plate XV) is said to represent the visit of Dsilyi' Neyani to the home of the snakes at Qoests. (Paragraph 53.)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bureau of Ethnology Fifth Annual Report Pl. XV FIRST DRY-PAINTING]
161. In the center of the picture was a circular concavity, about six inches in diameter, intended to represent water, presumably the house of water mentioned in the myth. In all the other pictures where water was represented a small bowl was actually sunk in the ground and filled with water, which water was afterwards sprinkled with powdered charcoal to give the impression of a flat, dry surface. Why the bowl of water was omitted in this picture I do not know, but a medicine man of a different fraternity from that of the one who drew the picture informed me that with men of his school the bowl filled with water was used in the snake picture as well as in the others. Closely surrounding this central depression are four parallelograms about four inches by ten inches in the original pictures. The half nearer the center is red; the outer half is blue; they are bordered with narrow lines of white. The same figures are repeated in other paintings. They appear in this drawing, and frequently in others, as something on which the G.o.ds seem to stand. They are the ca'bitll, or rafts of sunbeam, the favorite vessels on which the divine ones navigate the upper deep. In the Navajo myths, when a G.o.d has a particularly long and speedy journey to make, he takes two sunbeams and, placing them side by side, is borne off in a twinkling whither he wills. Red is the color proper to sunlight in their symbolism, but the red and blue together represent sunbeams in the morning and evening skies when they show an alternation of blue and red.
It will be seen later that the sunbeam shafts, the halo, and the rainbow are represented by the same colors. In form, however, the halo is circular, and the rainbow is distinguished by its curvature, and it is usually anthropomorphic, while the sunbeam and the halo are not.
External to these sunbeam rafts, and represented as standing on them, are the figures of eight serpents, two white ones in the east, two blue ones in the south, two yellow ones in the west, and two black ones in the north. These snakes cross one another (in pairs) so as to form four figures like the letter +X+. In drawing these +X+'s the snake which appears to be beneath is made first complete in every respect, and then the other snake is drawn over it in conformity with their realistic laws of art before referred to. The neck, in all cases, is blue, crossed with four bands of red. The necks of the G.o.ds in all the pictures, it will be observed, are made thus, but the bars in the manlike figures run transversely, while those in the snake-like run diagonally. Three rows of +V+-shaped figures, four in each row, are seen on the backs of the snakes; these are simply to represent mottlings. Outside of these eight snakes are four more of much greater length; they form a frame or boundary to the picture, except in the west, where the mountain of Dsilya-icin lies beyond them. There is a white snake in the east, lying from north to south and bounding the picture in the east; a blue snake, of similar size and shape, in the south; a yellow one in the west, and a black one in the north. They seem as if following one another around the picture in the direction of the sun's apparent course, the head of the east snake approximating the tail of the south snake, and so on.
162. In the northeast is seen the yay, Niltci, who accompanied the Navajo prophet to the home of the snakes. In the extreme west is a black circular figure representing the mountain of Dsilya-icin. In the original picture the mountain was in relief--which I have not attempted to represent--a little mound of about ten or twelve inches high. The description of the mountain given in the myth is duly symbolized in the picture, the halo added. The green spot in the center is designed to represent a twig of spruce which was stuck in the mound of sand to indicate the spruce tree door. From the summit of the mountain to the middle of the central waters is drawn a wide line in corn meal, with four footprints, depicted at intervals, in the same material. This represents the track of a bear. Immediately south of this track is the figure of an animal drawn in gray pigment. This is the grizzly himself, which here, I have reason to believe, is used as a symbol of the Navajo prophet. The bear, in the sacred language of the shamans, is appropriately called Dsilyi' Neyani, since he is truly reared within the mountains. His track, being represented by a streak of meal, has reference to the same thing as the name akaninili and the practice of the couriers (paragraph 102), who are dressed to represent the prophet, throwing corn meal in front of them when they travel.
163. The SECOND PICTURE is said to be a representation of the painting, which the prophet saw in the home of the bears in the Carrizo Mountains (paragraph 40). In the center of this figure is the bowl of water covered with black powder, to which I referred before. The edge of the bowl is adorned with sunbeams, and external to it are the four ca'bitlol, or sunbeam rafts, on which seem to stand four G.o.ds, or yays.
164. The divine forms are shaped alike but colored differently. They lie with heads extended outward, one to each of the four cardinal points of the compa.s.s, the faces looking forward, the arms half extended on either side, with the hands raised to a level with the shoulders. They wear around their loins skirts of red sunlight, adorned with sunbeams. They have ear pendants, bracelets, and armlets, blue and red (of turquoise and coral), the prehistoric and emblematic jewels of the Navajo. Their forearms and legs are black, showing in each a zigzag mark to represent lightning on the surface of the black rain clouds. In the north G.o.d these colors are, for artistic reasons, reversed. Each bears, attached to his right hand with a string, a rattle, a charm, and a basket. The rattle is of the shape of those used by the medicine men in this particular dance, made of raw hide and painted to symbolize the rain cloud and lightning. The left hand is empty; but beside each one is a highly conventionalized picture of a plant. The left hand remains empty, as it were, to grasp this plant, to indicate that the plant at the left hand belongs to the G.o.d whose corresponding hand is unoccupied and extended towards it. The proprietors.h.i.+p of each G.o.d in his own particular plant is further indicated by making the plant the same color as the G.o.d. The body of the eastern G.o.d is white; so is the stalk of corn at his left, in the southeast. The body of the southern G.o.d is blue; so is the beanstalk beside him, in the southwest. The body of the western G.o.d is yellow; so is his pumpkin vine, in the northwest. The body of the north G.o.d is black; so is the tobacco plant, which is under his special protection, in the northeast.
165. Each of the four sacred plants is represented as growing from five white roots in the central waters and spreading outwards to the periphery of the picture. The G.o.ds form one cross whose limbs are directed to the four cardinal points; the plants form another cross having a common center with the first named cross, but whose limbs extend to the intermediate points of the compa.s.s.
166. On the head of each yay is an eagle plume lying horizontally and pointing to the right. A similar arrangement of four plumes, all pointing in one direction (contrary to the sun's apparent course), may be observed on the baskets carried by the G.o.ds.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bureau of Ethnology Fifth Annual Report Pl. XVI SECOND DRY PAINTING]
167. The G.o.ds are represented with beautiful embroidered pouches, each of a different pattern. In old days the most beautiful things in art the Navajo knew of were the porcupine quill embroideries of the northern races. The art of garnis.h.i.+ng with quills, and later with beads, seems never to have been practiced to any extent by the Navajo women. They obtained embroideries of the Ute and other northern tribes, and their ancient legends abound in allusions to the great esteem in which they held them. (See, for instance, paragraphs 32, 34.) Hence, to represent the grandeur and potency of their G.o.ds, they adorn them with these beautiful and much coveted articles.
168. Surrounding the picture on about three-fourths of its circ.u.mference is the anthropomorphic rainbow or rainbow deity. It consists of two long stripes, each about two inches wide in the original picture, one of blue, one of red, bordered and separated by narrow lines of white. At the southeastern end of the bow is a representation of the body below the waist, such as the other G.o.ds have, consisting of pouch, skirt, legs, and feet. At the northeastern end we have head, neck, and arms.