Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/254

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224
Notes.

now occupy among the celestial lights. Before First Man got through with his work, Coyote became impatient, and, saying, 'Oh! they will do as they are,' he hastily gathered the fragments of mica, threw them upwards, and blew a strong breath after them. Instantly they stuck to the sky. Those to which locations had been assigned adhered in their proper places; but the others were scattered at random and in formless clusters over the firmament." See "A Part of the Navajo's Mythology," pp. 7, 8.306

71. The following are some of the destroyers who sprang from this blood:—

Tse'nagáhi, Travelling Stone.
Tsĭndilhásitso, Great Wood That Bites.
Bĭtsoziyeada'a'i,
nĭsdzol, Old Age Lying Down.
Tse'tlahódĭll, Black Under Cliffs.
Tse'tlahódot'z, Blue Under Cliffs.
Tsé'tlahaltsó, Yellow Under Cliffs.
Tsé'tlahalkaí, White Under Cliffs.
Tse'tlahóditsos, Sparkling Under Cliffs.
Tsadidahaltáli, Devouring Antelope.
Yeitsolapáhi, Brown Yéitso.
Lokáadikĭsi, Slashing Reeds.

"You see colors under the rocks, at the bottoms of the cliffs, and when you approach them some invisible enemy kills you. These are the same as the Tse'tlayalti', or Those Who Talk Under the Cliffs." Thus said Hatáli Nĕz when questioned.

72. Kĭntyél or Kĭntyếli.—This name (from kin, a stone or adobe house, a pueblo house, and tyel, broad) means simply Broad Pueblo,—one covering much ground. It is applied to at least two ruined pueblos in the Navaho country. One of these—the Pueblo Grande of the Mexicans, situated "twenty-two or twenty-three miles north of Navaho Springs," a station on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, in Arizona—is well described and depicted by Mr. Victor Mindeleff in his "Study of Pueblo Architecture."325 The other—the Kintyel to which reference is made in this story—is in the Chaco Canyon, in New Mexico. With its name spelled "Kintail," and rendered "the Navajo name for ruin," it is mentioned by Mr. F. T. Bickford,293 and one of his pictures, probably representing Kĭntyél, is here reproduced (fig. 36). In the Journal of American Folk-Lore, April-June, 1889, the author says: "I have reason to believe that this pueblo is identical with that seen and described in 1849 by Lieut. J. H. Simpson, U.S.A. under the name of Pueblo Chettro Kettle."

73. The name Hastséyalti, spelled according to the alphabet of the Bureau of Ethnology "Qastcéyalçi " may be translated Talking God, or Talking Elder of the Gods, Hastséyalti is otherwise called Yébĭtsai, or the Maternal Grandfather of the Gods. He is a chief or leader among several groups of local divinities who are said to dwell at Kĭninaékai, in the Chelly Canyon, at Tsĕ'nitse, Tsé'híhi, and at various other sacred places. Although called a talking god, the man who personates him in the rites never speaks while in character, but utters a peculiar whoop and makes signs. In the myths, however, the god is represented as speaking, usually after he has whooped and made signs. (Par. 472.) He is a beneficent character, always ready to help man and rescue him from peril. He is sometimes spoken of and prayed to as if there were but one, but the myths show that the Navahoes believe in many gods of this name, and in some prayers it is distinctly specified which one is meant by naming his home in connection with him. In plate I. he is shown, as represented in the dry-paintings, carrying a tobacco bag made of the skin of Abert's squirrel (Sciurus aberti). In the picture the black