Thunder is a god among the American aborigines, without distinction of tribe; in every case it is represented as a bird. It thus appears among the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Assinaboines; on the basket-work of the Moquis; on the walls of the old Catholic church in the pueblo of Acoma (N.M.); and in the few pictographs of Apache origin.
Allusion has been made to the religious importance of lightning, both in describing talismans and in repeating one of the prayers of the Sioux "medicine-men" at their sun-dance; there only remains to be added that when an Apache or Navajo is killed by lightning, the subsequent funeral services embody an unusual amount of singing and dancing by the "medicine-men".[1]
The prayer to the wind-deities has been mentioned under the reference to smoking.
The last element, the earth, is personified by a goddess—"Guzanutli", or, as known to the Navajoes, "Assunutli." She is the giver of many blessings: the introducer of corn, melons, and fruits; the one who is the special guardian of both Navajoes and Apaches, to whom she imparted a knowledge of beads and of the "Chalchihuitl". She is "the woman of double sex"; her home is in the ocean, in the West. Many of the Navajoes speak of her as "the Woman in the West"—a title suggestive of a migration from, and a former home closer to, the Pacific Ocean.[2]
- ↑ Bancroft says that "the Indians of Northern Mexico would not touch a man who had been struck by lightning; would leave him to die alone, or, if dead, would not bury him." (Native Races, etc., vol. ii, 588.)
- ↑ The Nehannis of Alaska, a branch of the Tinneh stock, from which Navajoes and Apaches are an offshoot, pay homage to the same goddess.
"It is not a little remarkable that this warlike and turbulent horde was at one time governed by a woman. Fame gives her a fair complexion, with regular features, and great intelligence. Her influence over her fiery people, it is said, was perfect, while her warriors, the terror and scourge of the surrounding country, quailed before her
