Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/56

38 257, 260), yet they dislike to discuss its character or appearance. They believe there is a devil associated with every corpse, and that it has something of the appearance of a partly decayed corpse. The spirit of the dead man goes to the lower world, which was the former home of the race, yet a demon remains with the dead body. Other Indians believe in a similar corpse spirit, yet the author has never known any who have such dread as the Navahoes of human mortuary remains. (See par. 188 and note 91.)

83. Zoölatry.—The legend tells us that there is a First Man and a First Woman (see pars. 160-165), who came into being in the fourth world as the result of a special act of creation: but they have not died like Adam and Eve; they still live in some form; they are potent; they are immortal; they are divine. But it is not man only that has his divine ancestral prototype: every animal on the face of the earth has its also, and many, if not all, of these are objects of worship. A share of reverence, too, in some cases, as in that of the bear, is bestowed on their mortal descendants. In the rite of the mountain chant314 many of the sacrifices are sacred to the animals of the mountains. In short, zoölatry is an important element in Navaho worship.

84. Local Gods.—Some of the gods mentioned are also local divinities; thus the War Gods are local divinities at T‘oyĕ´tli (par. 374), and the yéi are local divinities at Tsé‘natsi. But, in addition to these, there are other gods of places so numerous that a complete list of them will probably never be obtained. In the Origin Legend it is shown that each of the sacred mountains of the Navaho land (seven in number according to Tall Chanter) has its divine pair of indwelling guardians, and these seem to receive more honor than any others which are gods of places only; but the genii of other mountains and of different rocks and canyons have their prayers and sacrifices in some of the rites.

85. Fanciful legends of places are common in all lands and among all races, but no people are more ingenious in composing such tales than our American Indians. The Navaho has unusual sources of inspiration in this direction, and he fails not to profit by them. His land abounds in wonderful geologic formations, in rocks strangely sculptured by rain and by Nature's sand-blast, in vast volcanic peaks and fields of lava; and it abounds also, as might be expected, in myths accounting for these features, and in the genii which belong to the myths. A few of these myths are incorporated in the tales told in this work, but they are very few compared with the total of such legendary lore.

86. The strength of their belief in these local divinities may be illustrated by the following incident: The writer once made a