Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/171

Rh so many fires. As the strangers, who were also dĭné' dĭgíni, or holy people, said they came from Nahopá (Place of the Brown Horizontal Streak), the Navahoes called them Nahopáni. They joined the tribe, camping near the Haskánhatso and Dsĭlnaotĭ'lni.

388. It was autumn when the fifth gens was received. Then the whole tribe moved to the banks of the San Juan River and settled at a place called Tsĭntó'betlo174 (Tree Sweeping Water), where a peculiar white tree hangs over the stream and sweeps the surface of the water with its long branches: there is no other tree of its kind near by. Here they determined to remain some time and raise crops; so they built warm huts for the winter, and all the fall and winter, when the days were fair, they worked in the bottom-lands grubbing up roots and getting the soil ready for gardens to be planted in the spring. The elder gentes camped farther down the stream than those more newly arrived.

389. In those days the language which the Navahoes spoke was not the same they speak now. It was a poor language then; it is better in these days.

390. When the tribe had been living six years on the banks of the San Juan, a band joined them who came from Tsĭ'nadsĭn175 (Black Horizontal Forest), and were named as a gens from the place whence they came. The Navahoes observed that in this band there was a man who talked a great deal to the people almost every morning and evening. The Navahoes did not at first understand what this meant; but after a while they learned he spoke to his people because he was their chief. His name was Nabĭnĭltáhi.

391. While living at the San Juan the people amused themselves much with games. They played mostly nánzoz76 in the daytime and kĕsĭtsé176 at night. They had as yet no horses, domestic sheep, or goats. They rarely succeeded in killing deer or Rocky Mountain sheep. When they secured deer it was sometimes by still-hunting them, sometimes by surrounding one and making it run till it was exhausted, and sometimes by driving them over precipices. When a man got two skins of these larger animals he made a garment of them by tying the fore-legs together over his shoulders. The woman wore a garment consisting of two webs of woven cedar bark, one hanging in front and one behind; all wore sandals of yucca fibre or cedar bark. They had headdresses made of weasel-skins and rat-skins, with the tails hanging down behind. These headdresses were often ornamented with colored artificial horns, made out of wood, or with the horns of the female mountain sheep shaved thin. Their blankets were made of cedar bark, of yucca fibre, or of skins sewed together.177 Each house had, in front of the door, a long passageway, in which hung two curtains,—one at the