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Navaho Legends.

Nayénĕzgani hurled a lightning arrow and the monster tumbled to the foot of Winged Rock dead. After a while rain fell again, but there was neither thunder nor lightning with it. While it still poured, there fell upon the ledge the body of a Pueblo woman, covered with fine clothes and ornamented with ear pendants and necklaces of beautiful shells and turquoise. Nayénĕzgani looked up and beheld the female Tse‘nă′hale soaring overhead (she preyed only on women, the male only on men). A moment later she glided down, and was just about to light on her favorite crag, when Nayénĕzgani hurled another lightning arrow and sent her body down to the plain to join that of her mate.

338. The young ones now began to cry, and they said to the warrior: "Will you slay us, too?" "Cease your wailing," he cried. "Had you grown up here you would have been things of evil; you would have lived only to destroy my people; but I shall now make of you something that will be of use in the days to come when men increase in the land." He seized the elder and said to it, "You shall furnish plumes for men to use in their rites, and bones for whistles." He swung the fledgling back and forth four times; as he did so it began to change into a beautiful bird with strong wings, and it said: "Sŭk, sŭk, sŭk, sŭk." Then he threw it high in the air. It spread its pinions and soared out of sight, an eagle. To the younger he said: "In the days to come men will listen to your voice to know what will be their future: sometimes you will tell the truth; sometimes you will lie." He swung it back and forth, and as he did so its head grew large and round; its eyes grew big; it began to say, "Uwú, uwú, uwú, uwú," and it became an owl. Then he threw it into a hole in the side of the cliff and said: "This shall be your home."138

339. As he had nothing more to do at Tsé‘bĭtaĭ, he determined to go home, but he soon found that there was no way for him to descend the rock; nothing but a winged creature could reach or leave the ledge on which he stood. The sun was about half way down to the horizon when he observed the Bat Woman walking along near the base of the cliff. "Grandmother," he called aloud, "come hither and take me clown." "Tsĕ′dăni,"139 she answered, and hid behind a point of rock. Again she came in view, and again he called her; but she gave him the same reply and hid herself again. Three times were these acts performed and these words said. When she appeared for the fourth time and he begged her to carry him down, he added: "I will give you the feathers of the Tse‘nă′hale if you will take me off this rock." When she heard this she approached the base of the rock, and soon disappeared under the ledge where he stood. Presently he heard a strange flapping sound,140 and a voice