Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/208

178 compartments in his pouch for his different mixtures. The old man invited him four times to smoke; but four times the Navaho refused, and said at last: "I have my pipe already filled with my own tobacco. I shall smoke it. My tobacco injures no one unless he is ill." He proceeded to smoke the pure tobacco. When he had done smoking, he said: "See. It does me no harm. Try another pipeful."

507. He now filled his pipe with the mixture of four kinds of real tobacco and handed it to the old man to smoke. When the latter had finished he said: "Your tobacco does not taste as it did before, and I do not now feel the same effect after smoking it as I did at first. Now it cools me; formerly it made me perspire. Why did I fall down when I smoked it before? Tell me, have I some disease?' The Navaho answered: "Yes. It is yasĭ'ntsogi, something bad inside of you, that makes the tobacco affect you so. There are four diseases that may cause this: they are the yellow disease, the cooked-blood disease, the water-slime disease, and the worm disease. One or more of these diseases you surely have."224 The old man closed his eyes and nodded his head to show that he believed what was told him. Of course the Navaho did not believe what he himself had said; he only told this to the old man to conceal the fact that he had filled the pipe with poisoned tobacco.

508. While all these things were happening the Navaho had paid no heed to how the day was passing; but now he became suddenly aware that it was late in the afternoon and that the sun was about to set. "I must hasten away. It is late," he said. "No, my son-in-law; do not leave us," pleaded the old man. "Sleep here tonight." He ordered his daughter to make a bed for the stranger. She spread on the floor fine robes of otter-skin and beaver-skin, beautifully ornamented. He laid down on the rugs and slept there that night.

509. Next morning the young woman rose early and went out. Soon after her departure the old man entered the lodge and said to his guest: "I and my daughter were so busy yesterday with all that you did to me, and all the cures you wrought on me, that we had no time to cook food and eat; neither had you. She has gone now to prepare food. Stay and eat with us." Presently the young woman returned, bringing a dish of stewed venison and a basket filled with mush made of wild seeds. The basket was such a one as the Navahoes now use in their rites.5 On the atáatlo (the part where the coil terminates, the point of finish), the old man had, with the knowledge of his daughter, placed poison. She presented the basket to the stranger, with the point of finish toward him, as her father had directed her to do, saving: "When a stranger visits us