Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/261

Rh 99. They manipulated the abdominal parietes, in the belief that by so doing they would insure a favorable presentation. This is the custom among the Navahoes to-day.

100. Among the Navahoes, medicine-men act as accoucheurs.

101. Other versions make Estsánatlehi the mother of both War Gods, and give a less imaginative account of their conception. Version A.—The maiden Estsánatlehi went out to get wood. She collected a bundle, tied it with a rope, and when she knelt down to lift it she felt a foot pressed upon her back; she looked up and saw no one. Three times more kneeling, she felt the pressure of the foot. When she looked up for the fourth time, she saw a man. "Where do you live?" he asked. "Near by," she replied, pointing to her home. "On yonder mountain," he said, "you will find four yuccas, each of a different kind, cut on the north side to mark them. Dig the roots of these yuccas and make yourself a bath. Get meal of tohonotĭ'ni corn (note 28), yellow from your mother, white from your father (note 27). Then build yourself a brush shelter away from your hut and sleep there four nights." She went home and told all this to her foster parents. They followed all the directions of the mysterious visitor, for they knew he was the Sun. During three nights nothing happened in the brush shelter that she knew of. On the morning after the fourth night she was awakened from her sleep by the sound of departing footsteps, and, looking in the direction that she heard them, she saw the sun rising. Four days after this (or twelve days, as some say) Nayénězgani was born. Four days later she went to cleanse herself at a spring, and there she conceived of the water, and in four days more To'badzĭstsíni, the second War God, was born to her. Version B.—The Sun (or bearer of the sun) met her in the woods and designated a trysting place. Here First Man built a corral of branches. Sun visited her, in the form of an ordinary man, in the corral, four nights in succession. Four days after the last visit she gave birth to twins, who were Nayénĕzgani and To'badzĭstsíni. (See "A Part of the Navajos' Mythology,"306 pp. 9, 10.)

102. Version A thus describes the baby basket of the elder brother: The child was wrapped in black cloud. A rainbow was used for the hood of the basket and studded with stars. The back of the frame was a parhelion, with the bright spot at its bottom shining at the lowest point. Zigzag lightning was laid on each side and straight lightning down the middle in front. Nĭltsátlol (sunbeams shining on a distant rainstorm) formed the fringe in front where Indians now put strips of buckskin. The carrying-straps were sunbeams.

103. The mountain mahogany of New Mexico and Arizona is the Cercocarpus parvifolius, Nutt. It is called by the Navahoes Tsé'estagi, which means hard as stone.

104. Round cactus, one or more species of Mammilaria. Sitting cactus, Cereus phoeniceus, and perhaps other species of Cereus.

105. Yé-i-tso (from yéi, a god or genius, and tso, great) was the greatest and fiercest of the anáye, or alien gods. (Par. 80, note 7.) All descriptions of him are substantially the same. (See pars. 323, 325, 326.) According to the accounts of Hatáli Nĕz and Torlino, his father was a stone; yet in par. 320 and in Version B the sun is represented as saying that Yéitso is his child. Perhaps they mean he is the child of the sun in a metaphysical sense.

106. This part of the myth alludes to the trap-door spiders, or tarantulas of the Southwest, that dwell in carefully prepared nests in the ground.

107. By life-feather or breath-feather (hyĭná bĭltsós) is meant a feather taken from a live bird, especially one taken from a live eagle. Such feathers are supposed to preserve life and possess other magic powers. They are used in all the rites. In order to secure a supply of these feathers, the Pueblo Indians catch