Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/167

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The Navaho Origin Legend.
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as he did so Hastséhogan's cry of "Ha-wa-u-ú." With similar motions he pointed the ears to the west and the north. Next he raised them toward the sky, and at length laid them down on the buckskin, with their tips to the east. He accompanied each act with a cry of his own or of Hastséhogan, alternating as in the beginning. So the ears were turned in every direction, and this is the reason the Navahoes never abide in one home like the Pueblos, but wander ever from place to place. Over the ears of corn he laid the other sacred buckskin with its head to the east, and then Nĭ′ltsi, the Wind, entered between the skins. Four times, at intervals, Hastséyalti raised the buckskins a little and peeped in. When he looked the fourth time, he saw that the white ear of corn was changed to a man, and the yellow ear to a woman. It was Nĭ′ltsi who gave them the breath of life. He entered at the heads and came out at the ends of the fingers and toes, and to this day we see his trail in the tip of every human finger. The Rock Crystal Boy furnished them with mind, and the Grasshopper Girl gave them voices. When Hastséyalti at last threw off the top buckskin, a dark cloud descended and covered like a blanket the forms of the new pair. Yolkaí Estsán led them into her hogán, and the assembled gods dispersed. Before he left, Hastséyalti promised to return in four days.

380. No songs were sung and no prayers uttered during their rites, and the work was done in one day. The hogán near which all these things happened still stands; but since that time it has been transformed into a little hill. To-day (A. D. 1884) seven times old age has killed since this pair was made by the holy ones from the ears of corn. The next very old man who dies will make the eighth time.166

381. Early on the fourth morning after his departure Hastséyalti came again as he had promised, announcing his approach by calling four times as usual. When White Shell Woman heard the first call, she aroused the young people and said: "Get up, my children, and make a fire. Hastséyalti is coming." He brought with him another couple, Hadáhonige Asiké (Mirage Boy) and Hadáhonestid Atét (Ground-heat Girl). He gave Yolkaí Estsán two ears of corn, saying, "Grind only one grain at a time," and departed. Yolkaí Estsán said to the newly-arrived couple: "This boy and girl of corn cannot marry one another, for they are brother and sister; neither can you marry one another, for you are also brother and sister, yet I must do-something for you all." So she married the boy made of corn to the Ground-heat Girl, and the Mirage Boy to the girl made of corn. After a time each couple had two children,—a boy and a girl. When these were large enough to run around, this family all moved away from Hadzinaí, where they had lived four years, to Tselakaíia