Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/243

Rh 11. Pollen (Navaho, thaditín) is obtained, for sacred uses, from various plants, but Indian corn is the chief source of supply. The pollen is carried in small buck skin bags, which also usually contain small sacred stones, such as rock crystal and pyrophyllite, or small animal fetiches. The administration or sacrifice of pollen is a part of all rites witnessed, and almost always follows or accompanies prayer. It is used in different ways on different occasions; but the commonest way is to take a small pinch from the bag, apply a portion of it to the tongue and a portion to the crown of the head. For some purposes, the shaman collects a quantity of pollen, puts it in a large bag, immerses in it some live bird, insect, or other animal, and then allows the prisoner to escape. This is supposed to add extra virtue to the pollen. In one kind called i'yidĕzná a bluebird, a yellowbird, and a grasshopper are put in the pollen together. In note 49 we have a mythic account of pollen put on the young of the sea monster and then preserved. Pollen which has been applied to a ceremonial dry-painting is preserved for future uses. Pollen in which a live striped lizard has been placed is used to favor eutocia. The term thaditín is applied to various things having the appearance of an impalpable powder, such as the misty hues of the horizon in the morning and evening, due in Arizona more frequently to dust in the air than to moisture. Captain Bourke, in "The Medicine-men of the Apache,"295 chapter ii., describes many modes of using pollen which exist also among the Navahoes.

12. The following are a few additional observances with regard to kethawns:—In cutting the reed used for a series of cigarettes, they cut off a piece first from the end nearest the root, and they continue to cut off as many pieces as may be neces sary from butt to point. The pieces, according as they are cut, are notched near the butt (with a stone knife), so that the relations of the two extremities of the piece may not be forgotten. All through the painting of the cigarettes, and the various manipulations that follow, the butt end must be the nearer to the operator, and the tip end the farther away from him. Since the cigarette-maker sits in the west of the medicine-lodge facing the east, the cigarettes, while there, must lie east and west, with the tips to the east. If a number of cigarettes are made for one act of sacrifice, the first piece cut off is marked with one notch near the base, the second piece with two notches, the third piece with three notches, the fourth piece with four notches, all near the butt ends. This is done in order that they may always be distinguished from one another, and their order of precedence from butt to tip may not be disregarded. When they are taken up to be painted, to have the sacred feathers of the bluebird and yellowbird inserted into them, to be filled with tobacco, to be sealed with moistened pollen, or to be symbolically lighted with the rock crystal, the piece that came from nearest the butt (the senior cigarette, let us call it) is taken first, that nearest the tip last. When they are collected to be placed in the patient's hands, when they are applied to his or her person, and finally when they are taken out and sacrificed, this order of precedence is always observed. The order of precedence in position, when sacrifices are laid out in a straight row, is from north to south; the senior sacrifice is in the northern extremity of the row, the junior or inferior in the southern extremity. When they are laid out in a circle, the order is from east back to east by the way of the south, west, and north. The gods to whom the sacrifices are made have commonly also an order of precedence, and when such is the case the senior sacrifice is dedicated to the higher god, the junior sacrifice to the lower god. When it is required that other articles, such as feathers, beads, powdered vegetable and mineral substances, be sacrificed with the cigarettes, all these things are placed in corn-husks. To do this, the husks are laid down on a clean cloth with their tips to the east; the cigarettes are laid in them one by one, each in a separate husk, with their tip ends to the east; and the sacred feathers are added to the bundle with their tips also to the east. When dry