Navajo Night
Contents:
On the north and south sides of the dancing-place two long piles of cedar wood have been laid, and as evening comes on four fires are started on each side. Around these, families of Navajos camp down, with all their blankets and supplies; and all through the night as the ceremony drags on there is eating and much drinking of strong coffee.
Later comers park their wagons on both sides of the dancing-ground and build fires farther down the line. There is a confusion of snarled-up ponies, wagons, harness, and automobiles, and in every direction there are camps where women are cooking and tending their children. Every man, woman, and child is wrapped in a gay blanket, for the winter nights are cold, and there is a wealth of turquoise and silver jewelry displayed by every fire. A spirit of good will and hospitality pervades the scene, not unlike our own Christmas cheer, and old grudges and feuds are forgotten as they come to share the blessing of the gods.
The Talking God and four Male Dancing Gods begin the evening ceremony and their singing and dancing are watched with the keenest interest. For in this dance, if any word is spoken wrongly, or the chorus is sung more or less than twelve times, the whole ceremonial breaks up at once. Bad luck is supposed to befall all the participants in the ceremony, and the patient as well, unless the evil effects are warded off by another Yeibitchai Chant.
A special team is, therefore, hired for this dance alone, and every step and word is rehearsed many times before the final night. The four Dancing Gods paint their bodies white and don their costumes in the medicine-hohrahn. Then, with their masks hid under their blankets, they retire to the brush shelter while their chief, fully masked, clears the dancingground. In their right hands the dancers carry a gourd rattle and in their left a bough of sacred spruce, brought from some place high up in the mountains where the gods are thought to dwell. Each wears a heavy belt of silver disks, from the back of which a foxskin is hung.
Then from the darkness to the east they appear, walking softly and in silence. As they line up before the hohrahn, the patient comes out with a ceremonial basket of corn meal which he sprinkles over their bodies. Then a long prayer is recited, sentence by sentence, first by the hatali and then by the patient, while the dancers sway their bodies back and forth and lift their left feet rhythmically. At the end the Talking God gives a whoop, waving his pouch as a signal to begin, and the dancers, facing the hohrahn, whoop in chorus and bow low.
THE NAVAJO NIGHT CHANT
It begins very slowly and consists essentially of four words, repeated with variations, and a chorus of meaningless syllables. The corn comes up.
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- The Night Chant “The Yeibitchai Dance”.
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Haunted by a past she could not remember, Shanna had come to New Mexico looking for answers. This land seemed strangely familiar and most familiar of all was Rigg Schellion, the dark-eyed stranger she had never met.
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