CXVIII. Blanket rug and medicine tubes and sticks
PLATE CXIX. Blanket rug and medicine tube
PLATE CXX. First sand painting
PLATE CXXI. Second sand painting
PLATE CXXII. Third sand painting
PLATE CXXIII. Fourth sand painting

INTRODUCTION.

During my visit to the Southwest, in the summer of 1885, it was my good
fortune to arrive at the Navajo Reservation a few days before the
commencement of a Navajo healing ceremonial. Learning of the preparation
for this, I decided to remain and observe the ceremony, which was to
continue nine days and nights. The occasion drew to the place some 1,200
Navajos. The scene of the assemblage was an extensive plateau near the
margin of Keam's Canyon, Arizona.

A variety of singular and interesting occurrences attended this great
event--mythologic rites, gambling, horse and foot racing, general
merriment, and curing the sick, the latter being the prime cause of the
gathering. A man of distinction in the tribe was threatened with loss of
vision from inflammation of the eyes, having looked upon certain masks
with an irreligious heart. He was rich and had many wealthy relations,
hence the elaborateness of the ceremony of healing. A celebrated theurgist
was solicited to officiate, but much anxiety was felt when it was learned
that his wife was pregnant. A superstition prevails among the Navajo that
a man must not look upon a sand painting when his wife is in a state of
gestation, as it would result in the loss of the life of the child. This
medicine man, however, came, feeling that he possessed ample power within
himself to avert such calamity by administering to the child immediately
after its birth a mixture in water of all the sands used in the painting.
As I have given but little time to the study of Navajo mythology, I can
but briefly mention such events as I witnessed, and record the myths only
so far as I was able to collect them hastily. I will first describe the
ceremony of Yebitchai and give then the myths (some complete and others
incomplete) explanatory of the gods and genii figuring in the Hasjelti
Dailjis (dance of Hasjelti) and in the nine days' ceremonial, and then
others independent of these. The ceremony is familiarly called among the
tribe, "Yebitchai," the word meaning the giant's uncle. The name was
originally given to the ceremonial to awe the children who, on the eighth
day of the ceremony, are initiated into some of its mysteries and then for
the first ti