It is understood that the patient has been sweated in the morning, as on the second day.
Photo of Navajo Medicine Man
Sources of Information for the Article:
The Night Chant, A Navaho Ceremony. By Washington Matthews – May, 1902.
Legend Of The Night Chant- The North American Indian By Edward S. Curtis 1907
The Nightway:A History and a History of Documentation of a Navajo Ceremonial by: James C. Faris – 1990.
Earth is My Mother, Sky is my Father, by Trudy Griffin-Pierce, 1992
On this night he is dressed in spruce boughs by the assisting medicine-man, bound around the wrists, arms, ankles, legs, and body, and fastened on the head in the form of a turban.
After several songs, Nayenezgani and Tobadzischini cut the boughs from the body, using a stone arrow-point as a knife. Then the boughs are cut into fragments over the patient’s head, after which the singer takes a feather wand, points it toward the four cardinal points above the fire, and brushes the patient, chanting meanwhile.
At the end of the brushing he points the wand out of the smoke-hole, at the same time blowing the dust from it out into the open air.
See the Yei Bi Chei Ceremony now going on in Shiprock at the Northern Navajo Nation Fair
