over again, to the weariness of the hearer. They are all used to-day in the rites mentioned, except the five baskets. Now ordinary sacred baskets (note 5, par. 28) are used; the jeweled baskets are legendary only.
203. The knowledge of domestic or pet turkeys is not new to the Navahoes. The Pueblo Indians of the Southwest have kept them for centuries. The Navahoes declare that in former years they kept pet turkeys themselves; but this seems doubtful, considering their mode of life. A conservative Navaho will not now eat turkey flesh, although he will not hesitate to shoot a wild turkey to sell it to a white man.
204. In the Navaho dry-paintings the rainbow is usually depicted with a head at one end and legs and feet at the other. The head is represented with a square mask to show that it is a goddess. It is apotheosized. (See fig. 29.) In one of the dry-paintings of the mountain chant the rainbow is depicted without limbs or head, but terminating at one end with five eagle-plumes, at the other end with five magpie-plumes, and decorated near its middle with plumes of the bluebird and the red-shafted woodpecker. (See "The Mountain Chant," p. 450."314)
205. This magic cup figures in many other Navaho myths. (See paragraph 572.)
206. Has-tsé-ol-to-i means the Shooting Hastsé (par. 78), or Shooting Deity. As the personator of this character always wears a female mask (fig. 28), it would seem that this divinity of the chase, like the Roman Diana, is a goddess. The personator (a man) carries a quiver of puma skin, a bow, and two arrows. The latter are made of reed, are headless, and are feathered with the tail and wing feathers of the red-tailed buzzard (Buteo borealis), tied on with fibrous tissue. The tips of the arrows are covered with moistened white earth and moistened pollen. Each arrow is at least two spans and a hand's-breadth long; but it must be cut off three finger-widths beyond a node, and to accomplish this it may be made a little longer than the above dimensions. There are very particular rules about applying the feathers. The man who personates Hastséoltoi, in a rite of succor in the ceremony of the night chant, follows the personators of the War Gods. While the patient stands on a buffalo robe in front of the medicine-lodge, the actor waves with the right hand one arrow at him, giving a peculiar call; then, changing the arrows from one hand to another, he waves the other arrow at the patient. This is done east, south, west, and north. The actor repeats these motions around the lodge; all then enter the lodge; there the patient says a prayer, and, with many formalities, presents a cigarette to the personator (after he has prayed and sacrificed to the War Gods). The three masqueraders then go to the west of the lodge to deposit their sacrifices (that of Hastséoltoi is put under a weed,—Gutierrezia euthamia, if possible). When this is done, they take off their masks, don ordinary blankets,—brought out by an accomplice,—hide the masks under their blankets, and return to the lodge in the guise of ordinary Indians. Some speak as if there were but one Hastséoltoi, and say she is the wife of Nayénĕzgani. Others speak as if there were one at every place where the yéi have homes.
207. The Gán-as-kĭ-di are a numerous race of divinities. Their chief home is at a place called Depéhahatil (Tries to Shoot Sheep), near Tse'gíhi, north of the San Juan; but they may appear anywhere, and, according to the myths, are often found in company with the yéi and other gods. They belong to the Mountain Sheep People, and often appear to man in the form of Rocky Mountain sheep. In the myths of the night chant it is said that they captured the prophet of the rites, took him to their home, and taught him many of the mysteries of the night chant. In the treatment accompanying these, the tendo-achillis of a mountain sheep is applied to an aching limb to relieve pain; the horn is pressed to an
