Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/484

 428 When an Apache smokes, he blows first to the sky, then to the earth, then in a horizontal plane to the four winds, making a sucking, grunting noise with each motion ; then he prays as follows :

Gun/ule. Chigo-na-dy. I-shan-a-ydle. Gun/ule. Be good. O Sun ! Keep me from death. Be good. Diosen. Shild. Ana/'dle. Tudishindi;u-dd. O gods ! My fathers. Keep me from death. Don't let me sicken. Ettego. Tu-datzd-da. Inguzan. Gunyule. (a word of emphasis.) Don't kill me. Good earth. Be good. Ishanaydle. Gunyule. Iltchi. Ishana/'dle. Keep me from death. Be good. O winds 1 Keep me from death, Natindi. , and chills and fever.^

^ This last request is not so odd as it may, at first reading, seem. Malaria has always been a scourge to the ill-dressed, and sometimes, ill-fed savage, exposed to the cold, damp valleys and ravines of Arizona. Not alone to the Apache of to-day, but as well to the inhabitants whom he dispossessed, and whose ruined stone dwellings line the cliffs and dot the highest " mesas" of our south- western territory. In no case can these prehistoric ruins be found elsewhere than on the most elevated stations, where they would not only be secure against human foes, but protected from the more malign influences of malaria of the cienagas (marshes). It may be interesting to know that the same prayer has been in use among nations widely separated. The Israelites were threatened with a "burning ague" (chills and fever), in Leviticus, cap. xxvi, v. 16. In the Record^ of Philadelphia, of February 1884, appeared a most interesting description of travels made to and among the Kaffirs of Afghanistan, by Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone and Mr. McNair. The latter, in the disguise of a native habib, or doctor, succeeded in reaching the interior of their territory, and obtained much useful infor- mation. Among other items, he states that their prayer is : " Ward off fever from us. Increase our stores, kill the Mussulmans, and, after death, admit us to Paradise." In several other respects these Kaffirs of the Hindu-Kush resemble the Moyni and Zuni Indians : in form and material of houses, entrance thereto by ladders, use of dried manure of cattle as fuel ; in the shape and position of temples, corresponding to the Estufas or Kibas of the tiibes above named, and in other features.