Navajo medicine-men (singers,hatáli­)

November 12, 2009 by

The medicine-men, who are termed singers,  hatáli­, are a dominant factor in the Navaho life. Like all primitive people, the Navaho are intensely religious, and the medicine-men, whose function it is to become versed in the mysteries of religion, are ever prone to cultivate in the minds of the people the belief that they are powerful not only in curing disease of mind and body but of preventing it by their incantations. Anyone who possesses the requisite ability may become a medicine-man, but owing to the elaborate ceremonies connected with their practices it requires long years of application ere one can attain sufficient knowledge to give him standing among his tribesmen.

To completely master the intricacies of any one of the many nine days’ ceremonies requires close application during the major portion of a man’s lifetime. The only way a novice has of learning is by assisting the elders in the performance of the rites, and as there is little probability that opportunity will be afforded him to participate in more than two or three ceremonies in a year, his instruction is necessarily slow.

The medicine-men recognize the fact that their ritual has been decadent for some time, and they regard it as foreordained that when all the ceremonies are forgotten the world will cease to exist.

Hástin Yázhe (Navaho)

Hástin Yázhe (Navaho)

Hástin Yázhe- Navaho

Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis

The most pronounced dread manifested by the Navaho is that derived from their belief respecting the spirits of the dead. It is thought that the spirit leaves the body at death and travels to a place toward the north where there is a pit whence the gods and the animals emerged from an underworld before the first Navajo were created, and which the dead now enter.

Their myths tell of the disappearance of a beautiful daughter of one of the animal chiefs on the fourth day after the gods and the animals came up into this world; diligent search was unrewarded until two of the searchers looked down through the hole and espied her sitting beside a stream in the lower world combing her hair. Four days later death came to these searchers, so that now the Navaho will go to any extreme to avoid coming into contact with spirits of the dead, chinde, which they believe travel anywhere and everywhere at will, often doing evil, but never good. The body is prepared for burial previous to death, and is never touched afterward if it can be avoided.

To the end that the spirit may begin aright its journey to the afterworld, the body is taken out of the hogan through an opening specially made in the wall on the northern side, for the doorway always faces the east. The immediate relatives of the deceased avoid looking at the corpse if possible. Friends of the family or distant relations usually take charge of the burial. A couple of men dig a grave on a hillside and carry the body there wrapped in blankets. No monument is erected to mark the spot.

Before the body is taken out, the hogan is vacated and all necessary utensils are carried away. The two men who bury the remains of the former occupant carefully obliterate with a cedar bough all footprints that the relations of the deceased may havemade in the hogan, in order to conceal from the departed spirit the direction in which they went should it return to do them harm.

The premises are completely abandoned and the house often burned. Never will a Navaho occupy a hogan, and when travelling at night he will take a roundabout trail in order to avoid one. Formerly horses were killed at the grave. So recently as 1906 a horse was sacrificed within sight of a Catholic mission on the reservation, that its spirit might accompany that of a dead woman to the afterworld. This horse was the property of the woman, and her husband, fearing to retain it, yet not daring to kill it himself, called upon another to do so.

Filed Under: Navajo Culture, Navajo Mythology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Navajo ceremonies rites of the Mountain Chant

November 10, 2009 by

Most Navaho ceremonies are conducted, at least primarily, for the purpose of healing disease; and while designated medicine ceremonies, they are, in fact, ritualistic prayers. There are[pg 078] so many of these ceremonies that no student has yet determined their number, which reaches into scores, while the component ritual prayers of some number hundreds. The principal ceremonies are those that require nine days and nine nights in their performance. Of the many now known the names of nine are here given: KléjÄ• Hatál, Night Chant;4 TzÄ­lhkí̆chÄ­ Hatál, Mountain Chant; HozhónÄ­ Hatál, Happiness Chant; Natói Hatál, Shooting Chant; Toi Hatál, Water Chant; AtsósÄ­ Hatál, Feather Chant; Yoi Hatál, Bead Chant; HochónchÄ­ Hatál, Evil-Spirit Chant; Mai Hatál, Coyote Chant. Each is based on a mythic story, and each has four dry-paintings, or so-called altars. Besides these nine days’ ceremonies there are others whose performance requires four days, and many simpler ones requiring only a single day, each with its own dry-painting.

Pĭké̆hodĭklad - Navaho

Pĭké̆hodĭklad - Navaho

Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis

This, the first of the dry-paintings employed in the rites of the Mountain Chant—a nine days’ healing ceremony of the Navaho—as in the Night Chant, is used on the fifth night, when the purpose of the performance is to frighten the patient, and thus banish the evil within him. The name of this painting, “Frighten Him On It,” is identical with that of the one used at the corresponding moment in the Night Chant.

The whole represents the den of a hibernating bear. Inside the ceremonial hogán is thrown up a bank of earth two or three feet high, with an opening toward the doorway. Colored earths picture bear-tracks leading in; bear-tracks and sunlight—sun dogs—are represented at the four quarters, and the bear himself, streaked with sunlight, in the centre. The twigs at the entrance of the bear den represent trees, behind which bears are wont to dig their dens in the mountain side. Everything tends to make the patient think of bears. He enters midst deep silence and takes his seat upon the pictured animal. The play of his imagination has barely begun when a man, painted and garbed as a bear, rushes in, uttering hideous snarls and growls, in which all assembled join. Women patients seldom fail to faint.

Filed Under: Navajo Creation Story, Navajo Culture, Navajo Mythology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Navajo Symbolism and Sand Painting rites

November 7, 2009 by

ALL ceremonies are for healing, either of fears or of bodily ailments, and each is a communal affair paid for by the patient’s relatives. A medicine man is consulted as to what ceremony is required and often uses divination to decide the matter. When this and the location are settled, and also whether a complete ritual or a short one should be used, the hogan is selected or built and medicine articles are collected, such as herbs, rocks to crush into colored sands, fuel, and persons to help the ritual. It begins by the lighting of the fire in the hogan, and for four days in a complete ritual the patient and participants take a sweat bath and emetic to cleanse themselves, and ceremonial offerings are made for the Powers to be invoked. In the evening while prayers are sung, a rite of the untying of knots in woolen cords which are pressed to the patient’s body and limbs, may typify the loosening of tensions in the patient.

Navajo Symbolism

Navajo Symbolism

1. Straight bar from E. to W. is rainbow (female) and N. to S. zig-zag bar is lightning (male). 2. Oblong symbols of houses of various powers in Hail Chant. 3. The path of life is shown as a cornstalk crossing a white field. The lower two figures are the Ethkaynahashi, the transmitters of life, and the upper figures are Dontso, the messenger fly.  4. Cross symbolizing fire.  5. Border representing variety of trails connected by black land below the horizon.  6. Central dwelling place and homeland.  7. Place of emergence.

There are several forms of these rites, such as passing the patient through a line of hoops placed outside the hogan on four consecutive days while prayers are said. As he passes through, a covering is progressively removed, which typifies a process of recreating him into health again.

The sand painting rite begins after the purification and is made to embody the powers to be invoked. The painting is made under the medicine man’s direction and is produced by each painter holding a particular colored sand in his hand and pouring it in a delicate stream between thumb and first finger.

When complete, the painting is blessed with pollen and prayer, and the patient sits on it and is treated by the assistant, who first presses the figures of the painting himself, then presses them to the body of the patient. The patient also drinks a decoration of the painting and afterwords inhales incense. In a complete ceremony there are usually four days of sand painting rites; each day after the treatment of the patient the painting is destroyed. Some-times the body of the patient is painted with the great symbols, which ends the rite of healing.

Filed Under: Navajo Culture, Navajo Mythology Tagged With: ,

Navajo Sandpainting Mountain Chant Ceremony Third Day

October 27, 2009 by

The Third Picture commemorates the visit of Dsilyi‘ Neyáni to Çaçò‘-behogan, or “Lodge of Dew”. To indicate the great height of the Bitsès-ninéz the figures are twice the length of any in the other pictures, except the rainbows, and each is clothed in four garments, one above the other, for no one garment, they say, can be made long enough to cover such giant forms. Their heads all point to the east, instead of pointing in different directions, as in the other pictures.

The Navajo relate, as already told, that this is in obedience to a divine mandate; but probably there is a more practical reason, which is this: if they had the cruciform arrangement there would not be room on, the floor of the lodge for the figures and at the same time for the shaman, assistants, and spectators. Economy of space is essential; but, although drawn nearly parallel to one another, the proper order of the cardinal points is not lost sight of.

The form immediately north of the center of the picture is done first, in white, and represents the east. That immediately next to it on the south comes second in order, is painted in blue, and represents the south. The one next below that is in yellow, and depicts the goddess who stood in the west of the House of Dew-Drops. The figure in the extreme north is drawn last of all, in black, and belongs to the north. As I have stated before, these bodies are first made naked and afterwards clothed.

Navajo Sandpainting Mountain Chant Ceremony Third Day

Navajo Sandpainting Mountain Chant Ceremony Third Day

The exposed chests, arms, and thighs display the colors of which the entire bodies were originally composed. The glòï (weasel, Putorius) is sacred to these goddesses. Two of these creatures are shown in the east, guarding the entrance to the lodge. The appendages at the sides of the heads of the goddesses represent the glòï-bitcà, or headdresses of glòï skins of different colors which these mythic personages are said to wear.

Each one bears attached to her right hand a rattle and a charm, or plume stick, such as the gods in the second picture carry; but, instead of the basket shown before, we see a conventionalized representation of a branch of choke cherry in blossom; this consists of five diverging stems in blue, five roots, and five cruciform blossoms in white.

The choke cherry is a sacred tree, a mountain plant; its wood is used in making certain sacrificial plume sticks and certain implements of the dance; it is often mentioned in the songs of this particular rite. Some other adjuncts of this picture—the red robes embroidered with sunbeams, the arms and legs clothed with clouds and lightning, the pendants from the arms, the blue and red armlets, bracelets, and garters—have already been described when speaking of the second picture. The object in the left hand is a wand of spruce.

173. The rainbow which incloses the picture on three sides is not the anthropomorphic rainbow. It has no head, neck, arms, or lower extremities. Five white eagle plumes adorn its southeastern extremity. Five tail plumes of some blue bird decorate the bend in the southwest. 451 The plumes of the red shafted flicker (Colaptes auratus var. mexicanus) are near the bend in the northwest and the tail of the magpie terminates the northeastern extremity. Throughout the myth, it will be remembered, not only is the House of Dew-Drops spoken of as adorned with hangings and festoons of rainbows, but many of the holy dwellings are thus embellished.and blue the female.

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Navajo Sandpainting Mountain Chant Ceremony First Day

October 25, 2009 by

THE GREAT PICTURES OF DSILYÍDJE QACÀL.

A description of the four great dry-paintings  (sandpainting) 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.

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 assist in it. The medicine man receives a good present in horses for his work; the assistants 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 appetites 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 assisting in the work of the lodge.

The picture of the first day  is said to represent the visit of Dsilyi‘ Neyáni to the home of the snakes at Qocestsò.

first-dry-painting

Navajo dry-painting (Sandpainting) Mountain Chant Ceremony First Day

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 gods seem to stand.

They are the ca‘bitlòl, or rafts of sunbeam, the favorite vessels on which the divine ones navigate the upper deep. In the Navajo myths, when a god 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 447 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 gods 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 mottling. 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 Dsilyà-içín 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.

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 Dsilyà-içín. In the original picture the mountain was in relief which I have not attempted to represents 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 Dsilyàiçín, 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 aka¡ninili and the practice of the couriers , who are dressed to represent the prophet, throwing corn meal in front of them when they travel.

Filed Under: Navajo Art, Navajo Culture Tagged With:

Navajo Religion – The Sweat House Song

January 27, 2009 by

The Sweat House Song

(Tah’tsay Bee-yeen)

Navajo Men near sweat house 1909-1914

Navajo Men near sweat house 1909-1914
View is east across Hamblin Valley to the Echo Cliffs, opposite Hidden Springs, about eight miles north of the Tuba City junction off today’s U.S. Highway 89.

 

THIS celebrates the building of the first house when the people emerged from the Underworld. It was built for a purification ceremony, and the different animals of this world were asked for the wood, the water-washed rocks, the fire, the water, and the cover for the door. This last was given by the Owls, who are thought of as wearing a thick robe of feathers which they put over little children, lost at night.
THE SWEAT — BATH SONG

(As sunng by YELLOW POLICEMAN)

FIRST MAN SINGS:

Nah-yeh-nez-gha’ni will spread the earth
With beautiful flowers.
An everlasting world and a peaceful world.

Tso-ah-naht’le-he spreads the heavens
Spreads the different-colored stars.
An everlasting heaven and a peaceful heaven.

Kley-yah-nay-ya’ni made the she-mountains
Made the horned animals of different colors.
Everlasting mountains and peaceful mountains.

Brought the water. Brought the water.
Toh-ba’ad-zi-zi’ni brought down the she-rain
From heaven to make water.
And the iron-flakes make the edge of the stream glitter.
Everlasting water and peaceful water.

He put it down. He put it down.
First Man put down the sweat-house.
On the edge of the hole where they came up.
He built the son of the She-dark.
He built it of valuable soft materials.
Everlasting and peaceful, he put it there.
He put it there.

She put it down. She put it down.
First Woman, she put it down.
She built it with the early dawn.
She built it with valuable hard materials.
Everlasting and peaceful, she put it down.
She put it down.

No wood, no wood, no wood, no wood.
No wood — I went to Beaver Man.
We talked together about the wood,
And I got some wood from him.
I got the wood, I got the wood,
And made the house complete.
I got the wood. I got the wood.

No rock, no rock, no rock, no rock.
No rock — I went to Otter Man.
We talked together about the rock,
And I got some rock from him.
I got the rock, I got the rock,
And made the house complete.
I got the rock. I got the rock.

No fire, no fire, no fire, no fire.
No fire — I went to the Fire Fly.
We talked together about the fire,
And I got some fire from him.
I got the fire, I got the fire,
And made the house complete.
I got the fire. I got the fire.

No water, no water, no water, no water.
No water — I went to Beaver Girl.
We talked together about the water,
And I got some water from her.
I got the water, I got the water.
And made the house complete.
I got the water. I got the water.

The cover, the cover, the cover, the cover.
The Black Owl Man gave me his robe
To cover the dark door.
He gave me his robe, he gave me his robe,
He gave me his robe. The Black Owl gave me his robe.
To cover the dark — and I saw it done.
He gave me his robe, he gave me his robe, he gave me his robe.
The White Owl gave me his robe, to cover me.

Source: : Book Title: The Navajo Indians. Contributors: Dane Coolidge – author, Mary Roberts Coolidge – author. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company. Place of Publication: Boston. Publication Year: 1930. Page Number: 32.
Filed Under: Navajo Culture Tagged With: , , , ,

Navajo clans and marriage choices

February 20, 2008 by

 

Navajo family at fair

Navajo family at fair

Diné Traditional Marriage

(From the Navajo Common Law Project)

The traditional Diné wedding is based on the mating of the young maiden, White Shell Woman, and the Sun God in the White World. The following procedures of today’s wedding ceremony may vary depending on geographical location and customs are as follows:

  • The wedding takes place at the bride’s residence in a traditional hooghan.
  • The groom is seated on the west side in the hooghan and his relatives are seated to his left.
  • The bride’s relatives enter the hooghan and are seated to the right.
  • An uncle or a well-respected male individual is appointed as the wedding ceremony performer. He brings in a traditional pot of water and a gourd dipper.
  • The bride immediately follows carrying a wedding basket containing com mush.
  • The bride sits beside the groom with the water pot and basket placed in front of them side by side. The basket is to remain in place throughout the initial wedding ceremony.
  • The person who brings in water is seated to right-hand side of the couple.
  • The groom’s parents present the bride’s parents with gifts of values as agreed.
  • The wedding ceremony performer proceeds with pouring the water into the gourd dipper. The bride then pours water onto the groom’s hands to rinse his hands. The groom repeats this process for the bride.
  • A song or a prayer may be done before proceeding to the blessing of the com mush.
  • The blessing of the com mush is performed by sprinkling com pollen from west to east and back to west then from south to north and back to south in a straight line and crossing at the center on the com mush. Then in one circular motion, a sprinkle is made beginning from the east to south, west, north and ending to the east, but the circle is not enclosed. An opening is always left to the east representing an entrance and exit for the way of life.
  • The performer will place a dab of com pollen east on the com mush then the groom will take a small portion of the mush and com pollen to eat. The bride will then take a small portion of the mush and com pollen to eat. The same procedures are performed for the remaining cardinal directions and center of the com mush.
  • After this blessing, the groom and bride are pronounced husband and wife.
  • They are directed to continue eating more of the com mush. The com mush will also be shared with the groom’s relatives first and then with the bride’s relatives.
  • When all the mush has been eaten the basket is given to the groom’s mother to keep in her family.
  • A feast proceeds after the wedding ceremony. The wife’s relatives will provide all of the food for the feast.
  • During the feast, traditional moral practices of motivational and fundamental speeches of advises are given to the newly wed based on the holistic values and guiding principles of parenting, family well-being, and their roles and responsibilities as husband and wife. These speakers may be parents, relatives, leaders, medicine-people, and elders.

 

The traditional pot and the water used in the ceremony represent the Mother Earth containing grandmother and grandfather Holy Water of Life. The gourd dipper represents the roots, growth, interweaving, and reseeding of life. The water is poured on the hands for cleansing of certain wrongs that may have been committed and symbolizes the transition from individualism to a beginning of unity and sharing of the roles. and responsibilities.

 

The significant of the Diné traditional basket represents the creation. It is crafted from the center and proceeds in the footprints of life in the opposite path of the sun and the shadow. It is the foundation to the proceeding of growth and journey of life, Dah’adíníisá, Hajíínáí, dóó Ha’aznáagí hane’. It also reveals, from the center and outward, the comprehension of all bad and good things that happen in the process of the journey from the Dark to White World. From outside and inward in the path of the sun and the shadow, it reveals the comprehension of all the blessings and harmonies provided by the Holy Spirit and the Holy People.

 

The base is the foundation of life, the Mother Earth, and the outer edge is the foundation of the Father Universe. The color prints or figures are the formations of the earth surfaces, water, and the sky of days and nights throughout the four seasons. The color prints are not completely enclosed where there is an opening that represents an entrance and exit. The opening represents access to all foundations of life that the Mother Earth and the Father Universe provide. It is also the passage for communication in all prayers and songs to the Holy Spirit and the Holy People.

 

The black prints also represent the Holy People’s readiness to listen, assist, protect, and to guide. Like the Holy People, they also represent the Diné medicine­ people and leaders. The red stripes are the rainbow and represents the children, the Diné ­Bíla’ Ashla’ii Dine’é with the spiritual name Diyin Nohookáá Dine’é. It also represents the mind, dreams, language, learning, teaching, planning, prayers, and songs, which are the tools to every day life and accomplishments in the future.

 

The Diné traditional baskets have many uses. In the wedding ceremony the basket brings in com mush where com pollen is used. The com mush is the sacrament of binding power to unity of life, and the com pollen is the blessing for a new beginning of life.

The purpose of crossing a sprinkle of the com pollen is a blessing to uphold, with integrity and dignity, a pledge of unity, and roles and responsibilities.

The sprinkle of the com pollen from the west to east and back represents the commitment and expectations that the husband will go outside to succeed and bring in the teachings and nourishment to his family’s well being. He has to maintain his energy to uphold the home and improvement of the livelihood. He has to uphold his stability, mentality, and role modeling to keep the dignity, integrity, obedience, and discipline in place for his children. He has to uphold his affection and compassion for his family.

 

The sprinkle of the com pollen from the south to north and back represents the expectation of the mother to uphold her roles and responsibilities like the father, but from and within the household for her family’s well-being. The circular com pollen sprinkle represents the new family’s journey on the footprints of life.

The traditional Diné kinship and clan systems (K’é dóó Dóóne’é) need to be seriously considered before a couple plans to wed. This is a Diné verbal law brought down from our ancestors to keep the bloodline healthy.

This Diné traditional wedding serves as an example of using the guiding principles of life, Iiná Bitsé Siléí dóó Báá Siléí as the Navajo Customary Law.Virtually the sole surviving function of the clan is in the limitation of marriage choices; clan exogamy at Shonto remains universal. On the positive side, however, no pattern of clan preference in marriage is discernible. The frequency of marriage between different pairs of clans is proportional throughout to the numerical strength of the clans themselves. Beyond limiting marriage choice, clan affiliation serves only to establish certain special etiquette patterns as between members, especially if they happen to be strangers. The relations and reciprocal behavior established are essentially similar to those which ensue when two Anglo-American namesakes meet by chance, and probably have no more functional significance. Economic and social responsibility for clan brothers and sisters are definitely things of the past at Shonto (cf. Kluckhohn and Leighton, 1946, p. 65). It is readily observable that interaction between households and residence groups is determined by blood relationship without reference to clan.
More than any other factor, it is probably the lack of a clearcut residence tradition (see below) which has in the long run robbed Shonto’s clans of most of their functional significance. The result of this situation is that clans cut completely across territorial lines, and cannot be correlated with any of the regular functional units of Shonto society.

Only the first six clans in the list, plus kinlichi’ini, were present in the Shonto area two generations ago. The clan inventory is extremely limited as compared with other Navaho communities (cf. Carr, Spencer , and Woolley, 1939; Kluckhohn and Leighton, 1946, p. 64). In addition to those represented in the community, only 14 additional clans are recognized by some Shonto informants. Many of the clans given separate designation by Reichard ( 1928, pp. 11-13) are believed to be not merely linked but identical. In particular, all of the clans.
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Navajo Religious And Social Views

February 18, 2008 by

The Navajos call themselves Dine’ — “the People” — which implies that other humans are “not-people” or are enemy people (anaii dine’e). Dine’ has a broad meaning; it means not just earth people, but holy people — diyin dine’e — with whom the Navajos are closely associated, thus giving them a sense of their divinity, or contentedness to the gods.

Peshlakai Etsetti Navajo Family with Christmas Tree

Peshlakai Etsetti Navajo Family with Christmas Tree – 1935 Christmas at Wupatki 

Photo courtesy NAU Cline Library Special Collections

In this, of course, they are not unique. All ethnic groups imagine themselves as chosen. James Axtell has written that the Indians of Canada and New England believed that they were superior to the French and English.

They thought their way of life the best, and when runaway Indian schoolboys returned to their tenacious cultures, they quickly relapsed into the old way. The prideful eastern Natives, whose conceit the Christian divines condemned as sinful, simply did not believe in the superiority of “civilization.”

The same may be said for the Navajo. The proscriptions laid on the true people by the Holy Beings did not apply to the non-Navajo. For instance, at one time (and still perhaps today), Navajos relied on Anglos to bury corpses as a way to avoid contamination by the dead.

Flora Bailey was asked to examine a corral of dead, blackened sheep that had been struck by lightning. If Navajos observed the lightning-struck sheep, they would become ill; if Bailey looked at them, she would not get sick because she was a white person, a non-Navajo.

In the early part of this century, Little Gambler asked William T. Williams to bury his brother, who was killed by lightning. Williams also shot a horse over his grave as Little Gambler requested. Little Gambler, however, would not attend the burial, and Williams did not tell him that before he got the corpse in the ground a coyote had fed on his brother’s body.

The proscriptions of the Holy Beings did not apply to the whites, so that Williams would not contaminate himself as the Navajo ran the risk of doing.

Navajo religion — its beauties, its curing, and indeed its taboos — extended its advantages and restrictions only to the Navajos.

Source: William H. Lyon, “Americans and Other Aliens in the Navajo Historical Imagination in the Nineteenth Century,” American Indian Quarterly24.1 (2000): 143, Questia, 20 Oct. 2007 

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Navajo Medicine-Men

February 17, 2008 by

IT IS commonly agreed by Indians and traders alike that, among the Navajos, one man out of eight is a medicine-man. That is about the same as saying that, among the white people, one man out of every eight belongs to some lodge or secret society or is a communicant of some church. And, with them as with us, these men who belong are the leaders.

Navajo Medicine Man

Navajo Medicine Man

Much has been said by uninformed people about the charlatanism of Indian medicine-men. But among the Dineh all the important men belong to different lodges. They also know many lucky songs and prayers to protect them and theirs from bad luck, and as a sign to the gods they wear on their hair-braid a turquoise bead and shell for every lodge. With a Shooting Arrow bead in his hair a Navajo will laugh when the lightning strikes close. But without it he will shrink in fear — he has no medicine to ward off the bolt.

A good Navajo medicine-man is a superior being, at once a doctor, a religious leader, and a historian. In the chants which he sings and the myths which he relates there is preserved the story of his people. A Five-Rattle Hatali — one who has the five different kinds of rattles which are used in the fourteen big ceremonies — is a Ph.D., LL.D. He is an intellectual leader, respected for his learning and the power which that learning gives him.

The Navajos are ruled by medicine-men.
The fear of devils, or chindis as the Navajo call them, is the basis of the medicine-man’s power. Whether these devils are virulent germs and microbes, as many of them are, or merely bad dreams or bad luck, it is his business to drive them out.

His treatment is eclectic and inclusive. He gives the patient emetics and purges, he sweats him over aromatic herbs. He kneads his relaxed muscles like a well-trained osteopath until every bone is in place. Then he sings over him and prays, paints his body from the feet up to drive the devils out at his mouth; loads cigarettes and lights them as an offering to the gods and makes a series of sand-paintings. Then they dance and sing holy songs all night and the patient generally gets well.
No matter what was the matter with him, or if he only thought he was sick, the medicine-man has effected a cure. But there is one little formality which must be observed in advance or the medicine will not work. The doctor must be paid. And the more you pay him, the better results you will get. It is a grand system, but the charges are not high. For an ordinary all-night sing or devil-chasing ceremony, six dollars is the usual fee.
This devil-chasing is the real old Stone Age religion and is undoubtedly of Asiatic origin. From Asia, too, comes that unreasoning fear of the dead which haunts the Navajos at every turn. Even to dream of the dead calls for a purification ceremony, and the Reservation is dotted with chindi hohrahns, deserted houses in which some one has died. Whether the body is buried in the hut or not, no Navajo will ever enter its door again or use any of the property left inside. A log is torn out from the north or west wall, for the removal of the body, and it is abandoned to the ghosts of the dead.
This  superstition, however, is not without its good points, for when an epidemic of smallpox or influenza sweeps the land, the Navajos flee and escape. They are afraid of death, and the devils which bring death, and that is why they survive. But the Hopis in their old, infected pueblos are decimated by every epidemic.

The smallpox killed thousands of them before the soldiers came in and cremated the dead and cleaned up. Yet a well-intentioned official in charge of a Navajo school takes pride in the effort he is making to overcome their heathen fears. On every Memorial Day he marches the children through the cemetery to salute the graves of the dead.

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