Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/260

230 The gods, and such men as they favor, are represented in the tales as making rapid and easy journeys on rainbows, sunbeams, and streaks of lightning. Such miraculous paths are called etín dĭgíni, or holy trails. They are also represented as using sunbeams like rafts to float through the air. Compare this account with the creation of First Man and First Woman. (Pars. 162-164.)

Es-tsá-na-tle-hi (par. 72) is never represented in the rites by a masquerader, and never depicted in the sand-paintings, as far as the author has been able to learn. Other versions of the legend account for her creation in other ways. Version A.—First Man and First Woman stayed at Dsĭlnáotĭl and camped in various places around the mountain. One day a black cloud descended on the mountain of Tsolíhi, and remained there four days. First Man said: "Surely something has happened from this; let some one go over there and see." First Woman went. She approached the mountain from the east, and wound four times around it in ascending it. On the top she found a female infant, who was the daughter of the Earth Mother (Naestsán, the Woman Horizontal) and the Sky Father (Yadityĭl, the Upper Darkness). She picked up the child, who till that moment had been silent; but as soon as she was lifted she began to cry, and never ceased crying until she got home to Dsĭlnáotĭl. Salt Woman said she wanted the child. It is thought the sun fed the infant on pollen, for there was no one to nurse it. In twelve days she grew to be a big girl, and in eighteen days she became a woman, and they held the nubile ceremony over her. Twelve songs belong to this ceremony. Version B only says that First Woman found the infant lying on the ground and took it home to rear it. (See "Some Deities and Demons of the Navajos,"318 pp. 844, 846.)

Yol-kaí Es-tsán signifies White Shell Woman. Yol-kaí is derived by syncope from yo (a bead, or the shell from which a bead is made) and lakaí (white). Estsán means woman. As far as known, she is not represented bv a character in any of the ceremonies, and not depicted in the dry-paintings.

Note omitted.

Tó‘-ne-nĭ-li or Tó-ne-nĭ-li, Water Sprinkler, is an important character in Navaho mythology. He is a rain-god. In the dry-paintings of the Navaho rites, he is shown as wearing a blue mask bordered with red, and trimmed on top with life-feathers. Sometimes he is represented carrying a water-pot. In the rite of klédzi hatál, during the public dance of the last night, he is represented by a masked man who enacts the part of a clown. While other masked men are dancing, this clown performs various antics according to his caprice. He walks along the line of dancers, gets in their way, dances out of order and out of time, peers foolishly at different persons, or sits on the ground, his hands clasped across his knees, his body rocking to and fro. At times he joins regularly in the dance; toward the close of a figure, and when the others have retired, pretending he is unaware of their departure, he remains, going through his steps. Then, feigning to suddenly discover the absence of the dancers, he follows them on a full run. Sometimes he carries a fox-skin, drops it on the ground, walks away as if unconscious of his loss; then, pretending to become aware of his loss, he turns around and acts as if searching anxiously for the skin, which lies plainly in sight. He screens his eyes with his hand and crouches low to look. Then, pretending to find the skin, he jumps on it and beats it as if it were a live animal that he seeks to kill. Next he shoulders and carries it as if it were a heavy burden. With such antics the personator of Tónenĭli assists in varying the monotony of the long night's performance. Though shown as a fool in the rites, he is not so shown in the myths.