Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the Navajo Indians | Page 5

a piñon tree, a few feet from the tree in which the boughs and heated
stones were placed, and arranged crosswise in the tree, and on these
logs corn meal was sprinkled and on the meal a medicine tube
(cigarette) was deposited. The tube was about 2 inches long and one
third of an inch in diameter, and it contained a ball composed of down
from several varieties of small birds, sacred tobacco, and corn pollen. It

was an offering to Hasjelti. Meal was sprinkled on the tube. The ground
on which the house had stood was smoothed over, the ashes from the
fire carefully swept away, and thus all traces of the ceremony were
removed. The invalid upon entering the lodge took his seat on the west
side facing east. The song priest continued his chant. He took from the
meal bag some sacred meal and placed it to the soles of the feet of the
invalid and on his palms, knees, breast, back, shoulders, and head. At
the conclusion of this ceremony all indulged in a rest for an hour or
more. The bark cups which contained the colored sands for decorating
were placed in the medicine lodge north of the door.

SWEAT HOUSES AND MASKS.
The deer skins which hang over the entrance of the sweat houses (a
different skin being used for each sweat house) must be from animals
which have been killed by being smothered. The deer is run down and
secured by ropes or otherwise. Corn pollen is then put into the mouth of
the deer and the hands are held over the mouth and nostrils until life is
extinct. The animal now being placed upon his back, a line is drawn
with corn pollen, over the mouth, down the breast and belly to the tail.
The line is then drawn from the right hoof to the right foreleg to the
breast line. The same is done on the left fore leg and the two hind legs.
The knife is then passed over this line and the deer is flayed. Skins
procured in this way are worth, among the Navajo, $50 each. Masks are
made of skins prepared in the same manner. If made of skins of deer
that have been shot the wearer would die of fever.
Buckskin over the entrance to an eastern sweat house denotes dawn;
over a southern, denotes red of morning; over a western, sunset; over a
northern, night.

PREPARATION OF THE SACRED REEDS (CIGARETTE) AND
PRAYER STICKS.
Before noon two sheepskins were spread one upon the other before the

song-priest. Upon these was laid a blanket, and on the blanket pieces of
cotton. These rugs extended north and south. The theurgist then
produced a large medicine bag, from which a reed was selected. The
reed was rubbed with a polishing stone, or, more accurately speaking,
the polishing stone was rubbed with the reed, as the reed was held in
the right hand and rubbed against the stone, which was held in the left.
It was then rubbed with finely broken native tobacco, and afterwards
was divided into four pieces, the length of each piece being equal to the
width of the first three fingers. The reeds were cut with a stone knife
some 3-1/2 inches long. An attendant then colored the tubes. The first
reed was painted blue, the second black, the third blue, and the fourth
black. Through all these, slender sticks of yucca had been run to serve
as handles while painting the tubes and also to support the tubes while
the paint was drying. The attendant who cut the reeds sat left of the
song-priest, facing east; a stone containing the paints was placed to the
north of the rug; and upon the end of the stone next to himself the
reed-cutter deposited a bit of finely broken tobacco. In cutting the reeds
occasionally a bit splintered off; these scraps were placed by the side of
the tobacco on the northeast end of the rug.
[Illustration]
The attendant who colored the reeds sat facing west; and as each reed
was colored it was placed on the rug, the yucca end being laid on a
slender stick which ran horizontally. The first reed painted was laid to
the north. Three dots were put upon each blue reed to represent eyes
and mouth; two lines encircled the black reeds. Four bits of soiled
cotton cloth were deposited in line on the east of the rug. The three
attendants under the direction of the song-priest took from the medicine
bag, first two feathers from the Arctic blue bird (Sialia arctica), which
he placed west of the bit of cloth that lay at the north end of the rug; he
placed two more of the same feathers below the