The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony

Ⓢ
The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony, by

Washington Matthews This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 379-468
Author: Washington Matthews
Release Date: March 17, 2007 [EBook #20839]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by Louise Hope, Carlo Traverso, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr and by First-Hand History at http://www.1st-hand-history.org)

[Transcriber's Note:
This e-text is intended for readers who cannot use the "real" (unicode, utf-8) version of the file. Characters that could not be fully displayed have been "unpacked" and shown in brackets:
[-a] [-i] (a, i with macron or "long" sign) [`y] [)e] (y with grave accent; e with breve or "short" sign) [n] (small raised "n") ?￠ [?￠] (lower-case and upper-case "c with slash")
The author's "Note on Orthography" has been left in its original location, between the table of contents and list of illustrations.
Except for Illustration markers and the characters noted above, all brackets are in the original text. Any errors are listed at the end of the e-text.]
* * * * *
Smithsonian Institution--Bureau Of Ethnology.
THE MOUNTAIN CHANT:
A NAVAJO CEREMONY.
by
Dr. WASHINGTON MATTHEWS, U.S.A.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
[Numbers in {braces} are paragraph numbers, added to the Table of Contents by the transcriber.]
Page. Introduction 385 {1} Myth of the origin of dsily?-dje qa?§??l 387 {9} Ceremonies of dsily?-dje qa?§??l 418 {81} First four days 418 {84} Fifth day 419 {85} Sixth day 424 {100} Seventh day 428 {111} Eighth day 429 {115} Ninth day (until sunset) 430 {119} Last night 431 {124} First dance (nahik???ˉ) 432 {129} Second dance (great plumed arrow) 433 {131} Third dance 435 {133} Fourth dance 436 {136} Fifth dance (sun) 437 {138} Sixth dance (standing arcs) 437 {140} Seventh dance 438 {141} Eighth dance (rising sun) 438 {142} Ninth dance (Hoshk??wn, or Yucca) 439 {143} Tenth dance (bear) 441 {147} Eleventh dance (fire) 441 {148} Other dances 443 {151} The great pictures of dsily?-dje qa?§??l 444 {154} First picture (home of the serpents) 446 {160} Second picture (yays and cultivated plants) 447 {163} Third picture (long bodies) 450 {172} Fourth picture (great plumed arrows) 451 {174} Sacrifices of dsily?-dje qa?§??l 451 {176} Original texts and translations of songs, &c. 455 {192} Songs of sequence 455 {193} First Song of the First Dancers 456 {198} First Song of the Mountain Sheep 457 {201} Sixth Song of the Mountain Sheep 457 {205} Twelfth Song of the Mountain Sheep 458 {209} First Song of the Thunder 458 {213} Twelfth Song of the Thunder 459 {216} First Song of the Holy Young Men, or Young Men Gods 459 {219} Sixth Song of the Holy Young Men 460 {223} Twelfth Song of the Holy Young Men 460 {227} Eighth Song of the Young Women who Become Bears 461 {231} One of the Awl Songs 461 {236} First Song of the Exploding Stick 462 {239} Last Song of the Exploding Stick 462 {243} First Daylight Song 463 {247} Last Daylight Song 463 {250} Other songs and extracts 464 {254} Song of the Prophet to the San Juan River 464 {254} Song of the Building of the Dark Circle 464 {257} Prayer to Dsilyi` Ney??ni 465 {261} Song of the Rising Sun Dance 465 {265} Instructions given to the ak??ninili 466 {269} Prayer of the Prophet to his Mask 466 {272} Last Words of the Prophet 467 {275}
NOTE ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF NAVAJO WORDS.
The spelling of Navajo words in this paper is in accordance with the alphabet of the Bureau of Ethnology:
c = ch in chin; ?￠ = th in this; ?§ = th in think; j = z in azure; q = German ch in machen; ` shows that a vowel is aspirated; the vowels have the continental sounds; ai is the only diphthong, and is like i in line; l is usually aspirated; the other letters have the ordinary English pronunciation.

ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE X. Medicine lodge, viewed from the south 418 XI. Medicine lodge, viewed from the east 420 XII. Dance of nahik???ˉ 432 XIII. Fire dance 442 XIV. The dark circle of branches at sunrise 444 XV. First dry painting 446 XVI. Second dry painting 448 XVII. Third dry painting 450 XVIII. Fourth dry painting 452
FIGURE 50. Qastc?¨??l?§i, from a dry painting of the kl?¨dji-qa?§??l 397 51. The ?§obol?§??, or plumed wands, as seen from the door of the medicine lodge 422 52. Ak??ninili