COYOTEWAY – Pages i-52
A Navajo Holyway Healing Ceremonial
Karl W. Luckert
and
Johnny C. Cooke,
Navajo Interpreter
Johnny C. Cooke, his father Luke Cook at age 96, and Karl W.
Luckert, during autumn of 2000,
in front of the hogan where
Coyoteway was performed in 1974
Preface
PART ONE: THE CEREMONIAL AND ITS PRIESTS
1.
Introduction to Coyoteway 3-14
2.
Man With Palomino Horse and His Tradition 15-22
The Singer and His Teachers
The Mythico-historical Origin of
Coyoteway
PART TWO: COYOTEWAY PERFORMED
3.
The Nine-Night Sequence 25-30
4.
Unraveling Ceremonies 31-52
Preparations and Singing
Unraveling
Burning the Feathers
5.
Fire Ceremonies 53-96
Making New Fire
The Reed-prayerstick Bundle Rites
Preparations
Prayers
Delivery of
Reed-prayerstick Bundles
Sweating Rite
Preparations
and Sweating
Iiłkóóh Rubbing-on and
Drinking
Sprinkling Kétloh
Burning the Feathers
The Washing Rite
6.
Basket-Drum Ceremonies 97-120
Preparations and Aim
Fifth Evening
Sixth Evening
Seventh Evening
Eighth Evening Burning the Feathers
7.
Sandpainting Ceremonies 121-184
The Problem
of Naming the Yé'ii
The One-yé'ii
Ceremony
The
Sandpaintings
The Ceremony
The Three-yé'ii
Ceremony
The
Sandpainting
The Ceremony
8.
The Ninth-Night Summary 185-188
The following chapters are not included in this exhibit.
For Chapters 9 through 12 please consult the printed version.
PART THREE: EARLY RECORDS OF COYOTEWAY
9. Coyoteway Myth of
Yoo' Hataałii 191-202
10. Coyoteway Myth of Tséyi'
nii 203-216
11. Coyoteway
Myth of William Charlie 217-223
12.
Sandpainting Reproductions 224-233
Sandpaintings by Big Mustache
Sandpaintings and
Prayersticks by Bit'ahnii
Bidághaaí
Sandpaintings by William Charlie
Bibliography 235-239
Index 241-243
_________________________________
The Navajo Coyoteway ceremonial (mą'iijí hatáál) has lingered in the shadow of death more
than a century. As early as 1910 it has been declared extinct, in
an Ethnologic Dictionary by Franciscan scholars. Nevertheless, the
ceremonial has survived in the remote ravines of the conservative Black Mesa
area of northern Arizona, long enough for us to record and photograph a
complete nine-night version. This happened during January of 1974. After our
recording of this chantway, the last active Coyoteway singer,
Man-with-Palomino-Horse, has staged five more such complete nine-night
performances. Several years ago he died, and the Coyoteway tradition on the
Navajo Reservation died with him. Our book was published in 1979 under the
title Coyoteway, a Navajo Holyway Healing Ceremonial. A few years later this
book, too, has died mysteriously -- after its second printing.
As far as could be ascertained, the printing
establishment in Phoenix was sold and the new owners promptly destroyed the
plates. When the publishers decided not to invest in a reprint, the
copyrights reverted to Karl W. Luckert. Prodded by persistent inquiries
about the availability of this book, Luckert, in consultation with Johnny C.
Cooke, has undertaken to re-format the text for the Internet. The
photographs are now given in color -- something that was possible only for
ten images in the original book. Unfortunately, the orthography of a few
Navajo words has become flawed in the process. Several combinations of
Navajo diacritical marks are still not available on the Windows Word 2000
fonts -- and on the Netscape Browser the slashed letter "l" [ł] continues to
appear as question-mark. But this appears to be a small price to pay for
resurrection.
* * *
Three men, especially, deserve the gratitude of
writer, reader, and posterity; they are Johnny C. Cooke (John Cook), Luke
Cook, and Man With Palomino Horse. Johnny Cooke has been my faithful
interpreter through three major research projects. His superior command of
the Navajo language, and his open-minded religious sensitivity, together
were the key to success in both our negotiations and in the translation of
the materials. A sincere word of thanks is hereby also extended to his wife
and children for enduring his frequent absences from home. Luke Cook has
been a devoted negotiator on our behalf, later also a very helpful
informant. He has selflessly volunteered to be our patient, and, seeing
himself in the traditional way still as the primary beneficiary, he has
insisted on bearing certain portions of the expenses himself. The consent of
his family, and the active support of his family, his relatives and friends,
is forever appreciated. Man With Palomino Horse, one of two surviving
singers of Coyoteway (mą'iijí
hatáál), has
consented to have his chantway recorded and preserved for posterity. Many
generations of Navajo students and world citizens will admire him for his
generous gesture toward a closed future. The world will never know the
struggle that went on behind his serene and dignified posture. Should
Coyoteway die ethnically pure, or should it be given to mankind? Some people
despair when they face the end of a road; Man With Palomino Horse dreamt a
broader vision.
A number of other people have helped me along the way. Melvin Nelson, of
Winslow, on many occasions during the negotiation stage, has saved me many
miles of extra driving by keeping our "pony express" relay communications
system going. When the ceremonial finally got off the ground, it was
my Northern Arizona University colleague. Bill Gillette, who let me use his
professional flash equipment to improve my photography. Then, in the days
after winter recess, when it appears to be difficult to grant leaves of
absence in Arizona, the Northern Arizona University administration
graciously gave me two additional days. Irvy W.
Goossen, another university colleague and
professor of Navajo, has helped me over and again with transcribing Navajo
words. His transcriptions correspond to the Young and Morgan orthography.
Barton Wright has discussed comparative Hopi materials with me, and the
library staff at the Museum of Northern Arizona has been as generous toward
me as always. Sam Gill, formerly a fellow student at
the University of Chicago, has through his work on Navajo prayer been a
stimulus for many an inspiration.
Before the manuscript was given to the University of Arizona Press, two
anthropologists with expertise in the Apachean field, Leland C. Wyman and
Morris E. Opler, together with a historian of
religions, Benjamin Ray, graciously consented to read it. The book owes many
improvements to their informed suggestions. It is difficult to estimate the
large debt that this author owes to the work of these and other scholars.
Without their generous assistance this publication would not have had a
chance to become what it now is. The many shortcomings which will
undoubtedly be found when I look at it ten years from now must not be
charged to the advice of others but to my own limited horizon.
While the greater portion of the expenses for this project has been paid by myself -- and suffered wonderingly by my family -- two partial grants-in-aid eventually came my way: one from the Smithsonian Institution and another from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Then, in the summer of 1974, while working on the manuscript, I was given five weeks of support from Northern Arizona University. To all these institutions I express my sincerest appreciation.
Chapters 9 through 12 in this book (not included in this internet version) contain materials that have been archived in the Museum of Navaho Ceremonial Art, Inc., at Santa Fe. Director Bertha Dutton and Curator of Archives Caroline Olin have supplied me with manuscripts of unpublished Coyoteway myths; they have provided photo prints of eleven Coyoteway sand-paintings; and they have graciously mediated and granted permission to print. Maud Oakes has given permission to include her Coyoteway myth by William Charlie. Without the dedicated work done through time by people associated with this and other museums, we would all know less about Coyoteway than we now do.
After a number of years have passed over a printed report of this kind, attitudes and theories in the fields of history of religions and anthropology will undoubtedly have changed. One can expect that readers will want to question my materials in relation to my methods and procedures. Since personal ambitions and attitudes are inseparable from methodology, I have decided to provide readers with at least a hint of how Coyoteway was found and experienced by me. The possibility that such a statement will be judged as self-serving dwindles in the face of the greater likelihood that future readers, who have outgrown the mistakes of my generation, will on the basis of these disclosures find me quite inadequate. Yet, in fairness to Coyoteway and to future generations of students, I think that this risk should be taken.
My first knowledge about the presence of Coyoteway on the Navajo Reservation I owe to two scholars, Jerrold Levy, a professor of anthropology from Portland, Oregon, and Oswald Werner, a professor of linguistics from Evanston, Illinois. Both men were interested in recording as much as possible of the Coyoteway tradition. They were in touch with a Coyoteway singer somewhere on Black Mesa, though this happened not to be the singer with whom I eventually worked.
One year later, in the summer of 1971, I traveled into the field in search of materials related to the Navajo hunter tradition. Johnny Cooke, a Presbyterian theology student from Chinle, was my Navajo interpreter. During one of our numerous trips we visited Johnny's parental home at Black Mesa. We had come to put ear-markers on some steers and calves. After wrestling these animals, we offered to play tapes of a Navajo hunter myth to Luke Cook, Johnny's father.
That meeting marked the beginning of a developing friendship with the Cook family -- in time I became known there affectionately as Johnny's Grandfather. A comparison of Navajo and Israelite religion helped unexpectedly to build a bridge of understanding between the traditional father and his seemingly estranged Christian son. The Navajo Deerway myth (Luckert 1975) was easily grasped by both men as a pre-pastoralist, and thus a type of pre-Abrahamic, revelation of God Almighty. To both it became clear that the God, whom nobody has managed to describe accurately thus far, has revealed himself to Navajo hunter ancestors, among other manifestations, in the form of sacrificial Deer People. As a Lamb he seems to have shown himself to Hebrew shepherds, eventually also as an anthropomorphic savior. Luke Cook was quick to see that this same God could also have appeared as Coyote.
When father and son found similarities in these two traditions, it was definitely not the result of persuasion on my part. Rather, it was the kind of natural synthesis that rational people in all cultures have been making all along, especially when they were faced with having to live concurrently in two cultures. The fact that we all live in the same world necessitates that we share with one another our hypotheses and axioms. Moreover, in all my contacts with Navajo singers I have not met one who would have found it difficult to think of his gods collectively as a single supreme personage -- in terms of monotheism.
On that occasion Luke Cook told us about two Coyoteway singers who were still alive and able to perform. Both lived somewhere in the southern portion of Black Mesa. On later occasions I was told that some years earlier, Luke Cook himself had been an apprentice to a Coyoteway singer. By now his family had been converted to Christianity and he had ceased to help in the traditional ceremonials. A gradual change of attitude toward us could be observed when Luke Cook sensed his son's new interest in his traditional ways. This is why he gradually began to confide to us a few points of general information about the Coyoteway ceremonial. As an apprentice who had ceased helping in the ceremonials he did not feel authorized to give us specific songs, prayers, or stories.
In January 1973, Johnny Cooke and I drove to Black Mesa and found our Coyoteway singer, Man With Palomino Horse. Would he tell us the Coyoteway myth and sing the songs for us? His answer at first was no. But then, when Johnny introduced himself as the son of Luke Cook (chíshi biye'), the practitioner began to take us more seriously. All along he had been doubting our sincerity. His foremost concern now was that he was getting old and that he had no apprentice to carry on the Coyoteway tradition. No doubt this was an oblique reference to Luke Cook's terminated apprenticeship. We told him straightforwardly that as Christians we could not become his apprentices, but that we respected and would like to record his chantway in order to preserve it in a book for future generations. Perhaps someday in the future, after we have all gone the paths of our ancestors, young Navajo people would want to learn about this tradition. This took some thinking. At last, perhaps as a favor to Luke Cook, whom he still respected and who recently had referred a patient to him, the singer agreed to have us record the Coyoteway ceremonial. Nevertheless, Coyoteway information could not be discussed and Coyote songs could not be sung apart from an actual ceremonial. We needed a patient. As we left the singer that night he suggested to us, completely on his own, that for the ceremonial we should bring a camera -- there would be sandpaintings.
After midnight, through deep snow, we arrived at Luke Cook's house and told him about our meeting with Man With Palomino Horse. He was enthusiastic. Yes, the Coyoteway ceremonial should be saved from complete extinction -- if not by an apprentice, then at least in a book. He volunteered to discuss our plans with a prospective patient he knew and to make the arrangements for us. He would then ride on horseback to the nearest telephone.
In March 1973, while doing work at the University of Oklahoma, I drove again into Navajoland to investigate. Johnny had, meanwhile, become the minister of the mission at Indian Wells; I found him there. The news he had was discouraging indeed: the shepherds around Black Mesa had suffered extensive livestock losses because of the heavy snow, and our prospective patient had died without having the benefit of a Coyoteway ceremonial. That night I fled a traffic-choking blizzard over northern Arizona and drove into the valley of Tucson; I was forced to return to Oklahoma by way of Texas.
In May we made another attempt to reach the singer. This time Luke Cook accompanied us. The proposed brief visit with the singer turned into a daylong search, one hundred miles over roads that were not roads. Our clutch gave out and had to be mended temporarily, in the midst of a sandstorm. I had to agree with my Navajo friends, that "chasing a coyote is not easy." In the evening we found our man at his home. I had to agree again. "Coyote is tricky!" But if Coyote is a trickster, he also has a human heart. Our daylong ordeal of trying to find the singer convinced him of our earnest determination. It, in part, atoned the practitioner's former apprentice for not completing his apprenticeship.
At that meeting I was given a choice: either to record five nights of Coyoteway in about a week in the home of one of the singer's relatives, or to wait until a full nine-night ceremonial could be arranged. This was a difficult choice. Should I opt for the first half of the ceremonial, would I ever get the remainder? The second portion is performed only over persons who have had the first part. If I chose to wait, would a patient ever be found who needed the full nine nights? Would the singer live long enough? I decided to wait until a full nine-night performance could be arranged.
This decision became considerably easier to live with when Luke Cook disclosed some of his thoughts to me. There was an uncle, who, like himself, a former apprentice, was also eligible to have the full nine-night ceremonial performed over him as an initiatory procedure. This idea immediately appealed to me. The chance for having a full ceremonial is far greater with a patient who is to be initiated as a singer. Such a person needs the full ceremonial for his full authorization; on the other hand, if the ceremonial is performed over a patient with actual symptoms of Coyote illness, and if in the process the symptoms get worse, the performance has to stop.
My choice was rewarded with Luke Cook's further suggestion: "If this uncle will not be our patient, I myself will be it." I was elated. Now it could only be a matter of time. No ceremonial could be sponsored by the Cook family right then for two reasons. A grandmother was about to die; if that should happen the ceremony would have to stop a full month. Then, they all had suffered far too heavy livestock losses in this winter's snow. The material means for such a ceremonial were not available. As it turned out, the uncle was willing, but his family vetoed his plans for having his initiation ceremonial. It was now Luke Cook's turn to become our patient.
The final arrangements for the ceremonial required eight more months. Luke Cook decided that he should build a new hogan for the occasion. Then, we attempted to arrange a leave of absence for Johnny from his congregation. Soon it became apparent that Christ and Coyote are divine savior manifestations from widely separate culture strata. Savior figures from the hunting era and from a monarchal civilization are not as easily reconciled as some well-meaning historian of religions might think. After six more negotiation journeys to the reservation it was agreed that I would do the recording alone, and that Johnny would be free to translate from the tapes.
On the morning of January 3, 1974, the coldest and snowiest day of winter, I loaded several boxes of equipment into my vehicle and drove to Black Mesa. Beautiful snow, which at many places lay two feet deep, had to be driven through with four-wheel-drive gear, snow tires, chains, a "sheepherder's" jack, and a shovel. A severe cold began to affect me from the beginning. Three bottles of cough syrup and one bottle of antibiotics later, on January 12, I drove home. What I had experienced in these ten days belongs among the most cherished memories of my professional life. The Coyoteway ceremonial which required one year of final negotiations, five months of preparations, 15,000 miles of driving and other things, is saved from oblivion.
A few years later (in 1979), as the manuscript approaches final preparation for becoming a book, a postscript to this Preface seems called for. Our patient, Luke Cook, participated earnestly as if he were to become a Coyote-priest. His participation in the Coyote ceremonial, however, was a farewell gesture to a tradition which he still respects, but which he nevertheless decided to abandon. He knows that because of his quitting the Coyote ceremonial will become extinct in a few years. In view of this fate, he volunteered and enthusiastically cooperated in the recording procedures. The temporarily initiated Coyote-priest continues nevertheless to move closer toward Christianity.
Sentiments of lament, bordering occasionally even on hostility toward
representatives of intruding religions, have been expressed by some
scientific field researchers and historians of religions. Their fields have
been altered before their eyes and have disappeared. And yet, life still is
motion; it seldom stays fixed long enough for scientific verification. Even
students of eternal things must learn to adjust to life's onward flow and
learn to celebrate its passing moments. Our Coyoteway
heir has as much right as any human being to follow the brightest star that
he happens to see. For him Coyote has now trotted into the shadows to hide.
And for the historical record it must be said that, at this point in time,
his guiding light and divine tutelary is Christ. (1) The
process of divine revelation does not stop just because a Coyote hides in
the bushes.
K.W.L. 1979
updated for the Internet 2000
________________________________
(1) PostScript: Two weeks after the ceremony, Luke Cook loaded two
sheep on the back of his pickup truck, for a church picnic. He was ready to
join a nearby Christian church. As it turned out, the performance and
recording of the Coyoteway ceremonial has
facilitated for Luke Cook an honorable transition, to rejoin his family that
had converted earlier.
__________________________________________________
Copyright information for the out-of-print book:
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS & THE MUSEUM OF NORTHERN ARIZONA
CO-PUBLISHERS
Copyright for both agencies 1979
The Arizona Board of Regents (for the Press) & the Museum of Northern
Arizona
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the U .S .A.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Luckert, Karl W. 1934-
Coyoteway.
Bibliography: p.
includes index.
1. Navaho Indians -- Rites and ceremonies. 2. Navaho Indians --
Medicine. 3. Indians of North America -- Southwest,
New -- Rites and ceremonies.
4. Indians of North America -- Southwest, New -- Medicine. I. Title.
E99.N3L8 1978 392 78-10358
ISBN 0-8165-0670-1
ISBN 0-8165-0655-8 pbk.
[After the printing plates had been accidentally destroyed, the University
of Arizona Press transferred the copyrights
back to the author, Karl W. Luckert]
____________________________________________
1
Introduction to Coyoteway
Navajo religion consists of twenty or more overlapping but nevertheless
distinct ceremonial traditions. In the opinion of this writer these
traditions are traceable in mythology, by way of geographized ecstatic
journeys (vision quests), to their respective shamanic founder or founders.
They are traceable in history, possibly, to a point in time when several
formerly shamanic traditions became amalgamated into the conglomerate
healing ceremonials of later priestly hataałii or
"singers." Since my general views on Navajo religious history have recently
been published (Luckert 1975), this statement on
the subject of historical development is brief.
The arrival of the first Navajo-Apachean hunters in the Southwest, from the
north, is commonly estimated at about A.D. 1500. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries most of the healing rituals of the Navajo-Apacheans
were probably still securely anchored in hunter ideology. But after coming
to the Southwest, and after a change in life-style, their hunting and their
hunting rites became less important. At the same time, the direct concern
for health in ceremonialism remained. In dialogue and in competition with
representatives of Pueblo Indian maize-planter cultures, the Navajo-Apachean
hunter shaman, with his northern Athapascan heritage, has gradually adapted
to become a sort of learned professional -- a priestly performer of
composite song-ceremonials, thus a "singer."
Pueblo Indian cosmology, the worldview that has been taking shape in the
Southwest for about two thousand years, appears to be in
Page 4
its basic outline a product of the great archaic civilization of Middle
America (see Luckert 1976). Its basic notions
are explained in terms of prehuman events in the
myth of emergence. For instance, according to Hopi tradition, the mythic
evolutionary emergence of the people from the underworld is generally
divided into four stages. The "fourth world" of present-day earth-surface
people is again structured numerically in relation to four cardinal points.
Specialized gods preside over each of the four directions.
Confronted by this tightly structured view of a planter people's
universe, the early Navajo-Apachean shaman found himself groping for answers
which would relate his divine hunter tutelaries
to the directionally stationed gods of the Southwest. For the traditionally
individualistic shaman it was no longer sufficient to encounter one divine
guardian at a time, or to get initiated by a predecessor into a close
relationship with that divine guardian. Confronted by Pueblo Indian
systematic cosmology he needed the combined strength of his Athapascan
heritage to achieve a synthesis that would fall short of total surrender.
And so it seems that Navajo narrators of myths began to draw increasingly
from a larger number of available shamanic formulations. As scholastic
syntheses, the originally shamanic bodies of knowledge ceased to be
shamanic. Instantaneous communication with divine
tutelaries was replaced increasingly by systematic learning and
poetic creativity. The credit for all this creativity was, nevertheless,
given to the gods, in a posture of religious humility.
While Navajo singer apprentices learned the traditions of several
shamanic masters, the divine guardians of the latter assembled above them
into some sort of corresponding pantheon. The result is that Navajo
ceremonial traditions feature now overlapping but, nevertheless, different
pantheons. And, in accordance with the four-directional scheme of Pueblo
Indian cosmology, some freely roaming tutelaries
of the Navajo-Apachean hunters were stationed permanently. Learned Apachean
hunter lore could thus be harmonized with the priestly concepts of Pueblo
Indian cosmology and anthropogony. The arrangement that has the Talking-god (haashch'ééłti'í) in
the east, Calling-god (haashch'éoghan) in
the south, Begochidi in the west, and Black-god (haashch'ééshzhini) in
the north, appears to be the most popular synthesis in the Black Mesa area.
Other traditions list Calling-god as a "Talking-god in the west." Still
other arrangements have a Talking-god stationed in each of the four
directions, or as four divine persons in the east, or everywhere. From a
historical perspective it seems that Talking-god, as an anthropomorphic
"talker," associated predominantly with the White East, has risen to highest
prominence.
Page 5
This era of general synthesis and poetic creativity in the history of
Navajo religion seems, in all likelihood, to have been precipitated by the
Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Large numbers of Pueblo Indians fled from along
the Rio Grande when the Spanish retaliated. Many of them were absorbed by
the Navajo tribe. The stories of shamanic vision quests, brought from the
north and now challenged by Pueblo cosmology and ceremonialism, were retold
by fascinated newcomers in the hauntingly bright and magnificent landscape
of the Southwest. All this together, in the course of a few centuries,
produced a ceremonial ferment that is unequalled anywhere in North America.
The challenge that is put on the priest and the mythmaker is great indeed in
the Southwest, because world-sketches of heroes and gods must excel those
attainable by ordinary Earth-surface people. The general pattern of this
Apachean-Pueblo synthesis is still very much in evidence in the form and
content (i.e., first half versus second half) of the
Coyoteway ceremonial. Specifically, in this instance, this synthesis
may be as recent as the early part of the nineteenth century.
According
to Leland C. Wyman (1970b, p. 3), there were formerly "about twenty-three
Holyway chantway systems,
all for curing illnesses, to which -- by elaboration according to male and
female branches, ritual, and other considerations -- about forty names for
song ceremonials could be ascribed." Wyman's newest, at the moment
__________________________________________________________________________________________
The Holyway Chantways
Shooting Chant subgroup
Hailway
* Waterway * Shootingway Red
Antway Big Starway Flintway
(?)
Mountain Chant subgroup
Mountainway Beautyway Excessway
* Mothway *
God-Impersonators subgroup
Nightway Big
Codway * Plumeway Coyoteway
* Dogway * Ravenway
*
Wind Chant subgroup
Navajo Windway Chiricahua Windway
Hand-Trembling Chant subgroup
Hand-Tremblingway
Eagle Trapping subgroup
Eagleway
* Beadway *
Extinct ceremonials of uncertain affiliation
Awlway
* Earthway * Reared-in-Earthway
(?) *
* extinct, obsolescent, or virtually obsolescent. (?) indicates questionable
classification.
Page
6
still unpublished, chart of these chantway
systems is included here with his permission. Coyoteway
is classified as a chantway of the
God-Impersonators subgroup and as "virtually obsolescent."
Classification of Navajo chantways is
made difficult by the fact that two somewhat independent criteria are being
used interchangeably -- modes of performance and etiological factors.
Coyoteway is readily, and for obvious reasons,
assigned to the God-Impersonators subgroup. God-impersonators do indeed
appear during performance of this ceremonial. Nevertheless, based on Navajo
etiological reasoning, a good case can be made for having
Coyoteway in the Mountain Chant subgroup
alongside ajiłee, the so-called
Excessway.
Recent research in the ajiłee tradition
has revealed that, rooted in the hunter tradition,
Coyoteway and ajiłee are indeed
closely related. A more extensive discussion of the ajiłee-mą'iijí dichotomy
will have to be postponed to a forthcoming publication. Let it suffice to
say here, that Luke Cook, our Coyoteway patient,
has traced all illness among humankind to the great Coyote beyond the east.
From there illness is conveyed to us by Sun and Moon. According to its more
specific etiology. Coyote illness is mediated from Sun and Moon to humankind
by predators. "It is gotten when members of the Coyote family (which in a
broad sense includes all predators) put their heads together and decide to
get to you." Ajiłee is basically the same
kind of illness. It, too, is sent into our world by the great Coyote who
lives beyond the homes of Sun and Moon in the east. It, too, is conveyed
into our world by these celestial personages. But in contrast to what is
specifically referred to as Coyote illness, ajiłee is
passed on to humans when they eat the meat of the game animals without the
proper counter measures; it has gotten into the game animals when, in
self-defense, they ate certain poisonous or hallucinogenic plants; such
plants have, in turn, received ajiłee power
from having been made pregnant by Sun and Moon.
Regardless of the subgroup to which it belongs,
Coyoteway is a healing ceremonial of the Holyway
type. This means, it seeks to remedy the patient's estrangement from the
Holy People and his provocations toward them.(1) Angered gods, in
this instance angered Coyote People, inflict their brand of illness on the
human offender. Subsequently, the divine cause and his human victim must be
reconciled ceremonially with songs and prayers; the evil residues of
illness must, nevertheless, be exorcised, in Evilway
or Weaponway fashion, with the appropriate
rites. Each species of Holy People, such as Bear,
________________________________
(1) Evidence of an Evilway version of
Coyoteway is presented below, in Chapters 11 and
12, with the myth and the sandpaintings of
William Charlie. See also an explanation of Evilway
modes of performance later in this chapter.
Page 7
Snake, Wind, or Lightning, requires its own special reconciliation
procedures. So it may be said, that each of the twenty or more chant-ways
represents a sort of "mini-religion." Each of these small-scale religious
traditions has its own distinct soteriology; it saves the devotee, that is,
the patient, from his particular predicament and estrangement, yes, even
from his self-destructive open rebellion against a divine being. The process
of liberation and recovery requires usually a two, five, or nine-night
performance of the god's (or gods') own prescribed reconciliation
ceremonial.
Adjusted to Pueblo Indian cosmography, the divine Coyote People live
underground. At the same time, manifestations of these divine prototypes
roam in the surface world as animals. Mą'ii is
the Navajo name for Coyote; it is also a generic name for the larger wolf
and the smaller foxes. The remaining predators, even snakes, are sometimes
included in the extended ma'ii family.(2) The
Coyoteway which is presented here does not
include any references to wolves, but according to our informants it
includes all the Coyote People who now live in the Navajo territory: White
Coyote in the east, Blue Coyote in the south, Yellow Coyote in the west, and
Black Coyote in the north. Of these the Yellow Coyote (yellow or red fox)
and the Blue Coyote (gray or silver fox) are native in the Black Mesa area.
Black Coyote is said to live "somewhere on the Navajo Reservation; he is
used in the yé'iibicheii (Nightway)
ceremonial" (Luke Cook). Specifically, it is the Gray or Blue Coyote from
the south that figures in the last sand-painting ceremony where a
yé'ii-impersonator carries a stuffed specimen of
the mą'ii species. In the
sandpainting itself, animal-shaped and
anthropomorphic Coyote People of all four colors are represented.
For diagnostic purposes the Navajo Coyoteway
can be performed as a two-night ceremonial. If it proves effective, a
continuation of up to at least five nights is called for, namely, the first
four nights (evenings and mornings) of the complete nine-night sequence and
a basket-drum summary on the fifth night. The second four-night portion of
the full sequence can be considered as a separate ceremony. For historical
interpretation, someday, it will be significant to know that the Holiness
Rite of the Jicarilla Apache corresponds to the second half of Navajo
nine-night ceremonials. The first portion of the Navajo sequence is omitted
in the Jicarilla ceremonials (cf. Opler 1943,
pp. 94f). Nevertheless, on account of this I do not regard the first four
nights of Coyoteway as constituting a later
development. On the contrary, the rites on the first four evenings and
mornings strike me as
___________________________
(2) Mą'i is an old Apachean form for "animal."
See, for instance the Chiricahua mbai
-- coyote; mhai'tso -- wolf; mba'ishói
-- lizard. (Personal communication of Morris E.
Opler.)
Page 8
being, in the Navajo historical context, much more archaic than the
Puebloized sandpainting
rites which follow. A combination of at least two basically different
ceremonial traditions seems, therefore, indicated. In the case of the Navajo
Coyoteway the synthesis of two such traditions
is indeed firm. While the four-night portions of the ceremonial are
separable, patients become eligible for the second portion only after having
experienced the first portion earlier.
In contrast to Luke Cook, whose Coyote theology of cosmic dimensions
has already been introduced, our Coyoteway
singer, Man With Palomino Horse, insists on a simpler explanation -- that
Coyote illness results only from offending animal Coyote persons. According
to him, prior to 1948, or thereabouts, a bounty was paid on the Navajo
Reservation for coyote skins. Apparently this was a government effort at
reducing the ever-increasing livestock losses, especially among young lambs.
But this well-intentioned measure burdened the coyote-hunting shepherds with
divinely caused troubles and with human guilt. Not many centuries ago the
Navajo people were hunters. Coyote was a fellow hunter who probably enjoyed
the rights of kinship that then applied to all fellow hunter peoples. As the
explanations to some of William Charlie's sandpaintings
(Chapter 12) seem to indicate, Coyote functioned occasionally, though
definitely more seldom than his big brother Wolf, as a divine tutelary power
in hunting.
Still in the 1880s Coyote was regarded as a respectable hunter
tutelary among the Zuni Indians. Frank H. Cushing (1920, pp. 414-515) has
recorded a mythological narrative about a hunter whose divine sponsor and
guardian was a Coyote person. It seems at least possible that the portion of
the Zuni story, which refers directly to the Hunter/Coyote relationship, has
had parallels in other hunter traditions of the Southwest. Numerous
incidents from Navajo coyote mythology can be traced to Pueblo Indian
traditions. Moreover, William Charlie's Navajo
Coyoteway could be performed for success in hunting.
In any case, later, when the Navajo hunters had become herdsmen
provisioned with and equipped by Western materialism, they were hunting
coyotes as nuisances and pests. This all too sudden change to a pursuit of
new values took its toll. Coyote illness soon was on the increase and was
persistently diagnosed in the Black Mesa area. Since 1948, according to our
practitioner, Coyote troubles have been declining steadily in this area.
The manner in which Coyote illness is caught was explained by our
singer in the following manner: When a Coyote person is shot and left to
die, his last spasms and twitchings, as they
suddenly cease in the animal person, leap onto the killer. This happens most
easily if some-
Page
9
how in the process of killing the hunter has eye-contact with his victim --
Coyote continues to recognize and to haunt the offender. But this can also
happen through physical contact with the animal's dead body or even with the
decayed remains of a Coyote person. And in this regard no shepherd who
strolls through the sagebrush pastures can ever be sure of his personal
immunity. Killing a Coyote person means offending him. The symptoms of the
animal's suffering which are thrown onto the offender continue as a sort of
nervous malfunction, as a shaking of the head, hands, or of the entire body.
Coyote illness may also be indicated by a twisted mouth, by
cross-eyed vision, by weakened eyesight, loss of memory or loss of mind,
and by fainting (Luke Cook). Earlier sources (Franciscan Fathers 1910, p.
363) counted mania and prostitution (sex frenzy) among the symptoms of
Coyote illness. Wyman and Kluckhohn (1938, p.
27, informant "R") named prostitution, mania and rabies. Their informant
"M" added sore throat and stomach trouble. Recently I have even been told of
a case where chronic alcoholism was diagnosed as Coyote illness.
Notwithstanding possible later embellishments, mania, nervous malfunctions,
and rabies seem to comprise the basic symptom pattern of Coyote illness most
naturally. What our practitioner has described as shaking and twitching may
well be traceable to rabies. This seems even more likely if we consider that
our patient, after he is initiated into a sort of kinship with Coyote
peoples, must also respect dogs, wild cats, badgers, porcupines, and skunks
-- all potential carriers of rabies.
Nevertheless, these considerations do not allow us to simply reduce
the Coyoteway healing procedure to a primitive
attempt to cure rabies. No scientific experiment has yet disproved the link
between rabies and the intentions of some divine Coyote peoples -- not to
mention the intentions of the cosmic Coyote who transmits his spells on
humankind from beyond Sun and Moon in the east. First and foremost, in the
perspective of the Coyoteway tradition is the
wrath of divine Coyote people, and it must be placated.
Meanwhile, for the majority of the Navajo people Coyote has lost his
positive value and function. Some people on the reservation barely seem to
know anymore that the shakedowns (the dust or "pollen" brushed from a coyote
being) contain power to procure wealth. Most people have by now come to
interpret the sighting of a coyote as a bad omen. Like many things that
still had their proper place in the old Navajo hunter tradition, and like
his big brother Wolf, Coyote has come to be associated with witchcraft.
This defamation of Coyote as a divine person appears to be the result
of two parallel developments. The first is that all hunter gods
Page
10
eventually do suffer defamation if their human protégés cease to be hunters
and if they learn to answer to different types of gods (cf.
Luckert 1975, pp. 186-90). Coyote is a trickster
person par excellence. Among archaic hunters this reputation gave him
prestige; hunters daily tried to imitate his trickery.(3) But
trickster gods among presiding shepherds or among sedentary planters are a
nuisance -- their archaic behavior burdens them soon with the reputation of
being wizards or even of being devils. In spite of all this, Coyote does
nothing to redeem his reputation -- he kills the shepherds' lambs. According
to what seems to belong to the Pueblo Indian portion of Coyote mythology,
this trickster also steals the farmers' maize.
There is a second reason for Coyote's bad reputation. Aside from
suffering the universal fate of all hunter gods in post-hunting cultures,
Coyote, while getting involved in medicinal ceremonialism, came under
suspicion precisely from that direction. Luke Cook, our patient, traces
every kind of illness to the great Coyote beyond Sun and Moon in the east;
and as far as Coyote's general disposition can be understood -- "Coyote
giveth and Coyote taketh away." So it seems that the present defamation of
Coyote is being generated also by that same general concern which
necessitates various versions of Evilway healing
ceremonials.(4) Evilway performances
emphasize exorcism and are held primarily to drive away vengeful ghosts,
their bewitching influence, together with evil hosts of other witchcraft
elements. Evilway ceremonials today run a close
second in popularity to the Blessingway rites.
Their popularity, it seems, runs parallel with the general fear of
ghost-influence in Navajo society. Fears of various kinds marry each other
easily.(5) In any case, it must be noted, that the deezlájí (Weapon-
or
____________________________
(3)Apache tribes used Coyote ceremonies for trickery of war (personal
communication of Morris E. Opler). On the other
hand, it was insisted on by the participants, that sexual trickery, which is
frequently attributed to Coyote, has nothing to do with the performance of
the Coyoteway ceremonial that is recorded in
this book.
(4)Evilway rites became increasingly
necessary during the Fort Sumner period (see Chapter 2). Also in Chapter 2,
note 2, Coyote's involvement in Pueblo Indian witchcraft is documented.
(5)I have delineated my incomplete views on this subject in The
Navafo Hunter Tradition (pp. 199-202). The
increase in the fear of ghost-influence, in Navajo history, appears to have
been primarily the result of having lost touch with the traditional "Black
Earth" eschatology. According to an informant of Wyman, Hill, and
Osanai (1942, pp. 34-37), the dead Navajo people
formerly went to join their predecessors who had returned to Black Earth, a
northern place. It seems that upon moving south, in confrontation with
Pueblo Indian emergence mythology, and with an ever growing dedication of
practitioners to retain their patients' health at any cost, apparitions of
the dead ceased to be tolerable signals for rejoining the ancestors. For
people who refuse to be escorted away -- at least "not yet" -- ghost
apparitions are bad omens. For people who no longer know where to go after
death they are evil in general and a threat to human existence.
Morris E. Opler (personal communication)
suggested that defeat, loss of territory in the face of a growing
population, lack of resources, high incidence of disease, alcoholism, etc.,
cause friction and suspicion among Navajos; further, that these human
conflicts, the ill will and suspicions which they engender, play a large
part in the perpetuation of the fear of ghosts and witches. This statement
does indeed explain the intensification of fears in certain culture areas.
But it also appears that religious eschatologies
do not necessarily obey the laws of economics, anatomy, or psychology. The
same troubles that in one place intensify interpersonal conflicts and
subsequent fears, are resolved elsewhere by the vision of a real afterworld
in favor of a harmonious coexistence with the dead. Proof of this has been
the Ghost Dance religion toward the end of the nineteenth century on
the Great Plains. And, while tear of witches appears to linger today in the
Navajo Peyote religion, frequent anticipation of "a new heaven and a new
earth" has generally transformed fear of the dead into a relationship of
friendship with them.
Page 11
Fightingway)
attitude which is expressed in Evilway rites
against certain causes of disease -- whether they be ghosts, witches, or
defamed archaic gods -- is the opposite of the search for reconciliation
which predominates during Holyway rites. And
having been caught in this general trend of Evilway
thinking, Coyote has become associated with the "wrong kind of people."
In several versions of Evilway mythology
-- as in Upwardreaching-way and in the myth of
Ghostway in the Male Branch of
Shootingway -- Coyote is no longer mentioned in
Holyway fashion as an offended deity, a
subsequent patient, or as a reconciling agent of health; instead, he is
regarded exclusively as a cause of illness. In this manner Coyote has become
identified with vengeful ghosts and with evil witchcraft elements with whom
reconciliation is no longer possible. Coyote, the already defamed hunter
tutelary roaming among shepherds, must now be driven away -- exorcised in
order to safeguard human health. And so it seems that, because of an
increase in Evilway-type thinking, this
Holyway-type ceremonial was increasingly
misunderstood and avoided. Had it not been for the government's bounty on
coyote skins, which produced a flare-up of Coyote illness and a demand for
the ceremonial in the conservative Black Mesa area, the
Coyoteway ceremonial of the Holyway type
would probably not have survived. But now, after several decades of inroads
made by American secular education, it seems as though this religious
ceremonial is definitely doomed.
While his ceremonial is disappearing, Coyote as an archaic divine
figure is still a long way from dying. Indeed, he was forced into joining
the ranks of antiquated and defamed hunter gods, but Coyote mythology
itself credits him with several resurrections. His positive role is still
vaguely reflected in the ethicized fables that depict the great Coyote of
Coyoteway as a laughable villain, buffoon, or
bungler -- more often than as a shrewd exemplary model for hunter
tricksters. The archaic Coyote, the epitome of hunter tricksters, could
indeed be a clownish bungler. Divine incarnations among hunters need this
sign of humanity. On the other hand, the Coyote of
Coyoteway is also a greater-than-human personage, a deity who, when
angered, inflicts his brand of punishment or illness and who, when
reconciled with the use of his own prayers, songs, and rites, restores the
patient to health. He even helps a man to gain prosperity.
Page 12
The strongly ethicized, popular Coyote tales that until now have been
available in ethnological literature represent, as all ethical systems do,
only the tail end or afterglow of a religious fascination. The real
Coyoteway ceremonial has been classified as
"extinct" by the Franciscan Fathers in 1910 (p. 392). From the perspective
of a historian of religions it seems therefore extremely fortunate that the
archaic core of Coyote religion among the Navajo, the "head of the comet,"
so to speak, could once more be sighted and seen in a meaningful historical
context.
* * *
A brief explanation about nomenclature may be in order at this point.
A Navajo healing ceremonial is called a hatáál, a
"sing." The person who officiates is a hatááłi, a
"singer." However, almost everywhere in the Western world the word "singer"
conjures up some associations with operas and folk music. In my earlier work
on the Navajo hunter tradition I have used, with some hesitation, the
popular term "medicine man." Leland Wyman has advised strongly against using
this term in connection with Coyoteway.
"Medicine man" reminds him of America's once popular medicine shows.
Obviously, Navajo healing ceremonies should not be confused with
unscrupulous salesmanship and with a circus atmosphere. Wyman, who is also a
scholar of biology and physiology, suggests that the term "practitioner" be
used.
As far as the title "shaman" is concerned, I am still very
sympathetic toward Mircea Eliade's delineation
of shamanism as "techniques of ecstasy." At the same time, I see that
outside the Tungusic-Siberian realm shamanism is
not always clearly definable in terms of ecstasy. In the American Indian
area a rational discourse with the god(s) often takes the place of ecstasy.
Moreover, individuals who would be better classified as priests sometimes
have ecstatic experiences. Morris Opler suggests
therefore that Navajo ceremonialists be distinguished from shamans by virtue
of their reliance on traditions. Thus, a shaman who no longer alters his
rite on the basis of direct communication with divine
tutelaries, and on the spur of the moment, should be called a priest.
This line of demarcation extends the phenomenon of shamanism just enough to
accommodate the American Indian situation. Since ecstasy is a matter of
degrees and is an inner happening, detection is often very difficult. For
field research in American Indian religions the boundary line that is
suggested by Opler is therefore more useful.
Moreover, since the Tungusic terminus "shaman"
has already been linked to loosely related phenomena elsewhere in the world,
this slight adaptation seems justified.
Page 13
Theologically defined, this means then that a shaman should be
regarded as having become a priestly practitioner when his divine tutelary
(or tutelaries) no longer adds new revelations
to his rite. Therefore, wherever in this book I mention Navajo "shamanism"
or refer to "shamans" I actually have reference to a time when the northern
religious heritage of Apachean hunters was still intact -- a time, perhaps,
before the Spanish name "Navajo" was applied.
Our Coyoteway ceremonialist may thus be
called a practitioner, or else, he may be called a priest. I like the term
"practitioner" because it implies a professional relationship toward
individual clients; I dislike the term because in our Western culture it
generally refers to a materialistically trained, scientific medical doctor.
I like the designation "priest" because it refers to a mediator between
god(s) and humankind; I dislike the term because priests are generally
thought of as mediating between god(s) and organized groups of people.
Navajo singers perform their ceremonials for individual clients. In an
attempt to get the best part of both suggestions I have decided, in this
book, to refer to our ceremonialist primarily as "priestly practitioner." In
order to escape the awkward grammatical consequences of this long title, I
will occasionally substitute such alternatives as healer, practitioner,
priest, singer, and priestly singer.
The primary participants in the Coyoteway
ceremonial, the divine Coyote People and various other divine personages, I
prefer to call "gods." In much of anthropological literature the term
"super-natural(s)" has been adopted. In my opinion this is a most
unfortunate choice. To apply this term in Navajo religion, where nature is
not yet distinguished from a divine realm, would be more distorting than
simply referring to gods as greater-than-human personal powers or Holy
People.
Finally, an explanation is called for concerning the capitalization
of some English nouns in translations of Navajo texts. The practice of
writing ordinary English nouns with small letters, and of capitalizing the
names of persons, is based on a view of the world where the observers
pretend to know, absolutely, the difference between an "object" and a
"person." This practice is a legacy of British Empiricism and the result of
scientific ambitions. But, unlike English orthography, Navajo traditional
thought has none of its roots in this philosophy. Navajo traditionalists are
obviously capable of identifying certain less-than-human entities as
"objects" or as "things," but, when on subsequent occasions some of these
"objects" happen to reveal themselves as persons, then traditionally
oriented Navajo minds remain open also
Page
14
to this possibility. When in addition such entities that are recognized as
persons are seen as being in some ways greater-than-human, they are
approached as Holy People, accordingly, with prayers and with songs. The
least an editor can do in rendering these prayers and songs, and in
describing the Navajo religious posture in English, is to refer to what may
be Holy People by way of capitalized "proper" nouns.
2
Man With Palomino Horse and His Tradition
The Singer and His Teachers
He lives in one of the southern valleys of Black Mesa, approximately five
miles from Pinon. A big man, he stands broader and taller than most of his
fellow tribesmen, even now that he is well advanced in years. Various
estimates of his age, of being somewhere in the eighties, were given by
people who know him. At the time of the ceremonial he himself answered that
he was now seventy-seven years old.
We do not know how soon among his tribesmen our practitioner became known as
Man With Palomino Horse. Presumably he had to be old enough to own an easily
distinguishable horse with a white mane. In those days, we can infer, the
man's horse was more conspicuous than its rider. The people named the rider
after his horse. The horse has long since died, the singer has become an
important person in his own right, but he is still known as the man of that
famous palomino horse. Our singer, who today is known among his fellow
tribesmen as an accomplished practitioner of Coyoteway
and of Lifeway (Female Shooting Branch), and as one who assists in the
performance of various other song ceremonials, must be searched for in
the United States census books under a different name. Man With Palomino
Horse
--
hastiin
bitsiigha' ligaii
hólónii,
of the Coyote Clan
--
seemed an impossible designation to the government official who was given
the difficult task of recording the man's existence. With an unusual flare
of imagination this unknown official assigned him a name not much
Page 16
shorter than the original name would have been: Jessie James Begay the
First.
Man With Palomino Horse said he learned the Coyoteway
ceremonial from Many Whiskers (bidághaa'
lání) who died in the middle fifties. His
former apprentice, Luke Cook, mentioned the maternal uncle of Man With
Palomino Horse, Yellow Hair (tsii'
litsooí), as an intermediary teacher. So it
appears that Yellow Hair was an older apprentice of Many Whiskers while Man
With Palomino Horse was a younger one. When Many Whiskers died, the Man With
Palomino Horse finished learning Coyoteway by
observing Yellow Hair. Many Whiskers, the grandfather who taught Yellow Hair
and Man With Palomino Horse, learned the Coyoteway
ceremonial from another and older grandfather, He Who Returns Angrily (hashkéé
náane), who died when our practitioner was
only six years old-thus around 1903.
When given the name hastiin
neez to identify, the face of Man With
Palomino Horse lit up. Yes, he knew hastiin
neez. From him he has the
sandpaintings that were used in our ceremonial.
This piece of information needs some slight modification, perhaps. Mary
Wheelwright wrote that hastiin
neez, from near Rainbow Bridge, died in 1919. At
that time Man With Palomino Horse was only twenty-two years old. It is quite
possible that he saw hastiin
neez use the
sandpaintings in question. But it should also be taken into account
that in 1929, Many Whiskers gave to Laura Armer
exactly the same sandpaintings. Many Whiskers
was a direct teacher of Man With Palomino Horse until the fifties; so it
would seem natural that our practitioner's knowledge about the
sandpaintings of hastiin
neez was reinforced through him.
Both grandfathers, He Who Returns Angrily and Many Whiskers, were included
when in 1864 Navajo people were deported to the Fort Sumner concentration
camp. According to his age, it is possible that hastiin
neez, who died in 1919, was included also.
This episode of existential fears and hostilities
--
when the Navajos were surrounded by the United States Army, felt threatened
by "Enemy Navajos," Mescaleros,
Comanches, and Kiowas,
and when their number was reduced by famine and epidemics
--
has visibly increased the Navajo awareness of witchcraft. At that time
Evilway rites were primarily called for. Father
Berard (1950, p. 297) reported that at that time
a Chiricahua Apache introduced a sucking cure, which was aimed specifically
against the disease-producing agents of "bean-shooting" witchcraft. This
intensified confrontation could well have contributed some aspects to the
present form of the Coyoteway ceremonial.
Perhaps "Burning the Feathers," the counter-measure for "feather-shooting,"
was added then (cf. note 2, this chapter).
Page 17
Man With Palomino Horse,
Coyoteway
Hastiin Neez: .
This photograph -- from the Philip
Johnston Collection, in Special Collections, Northern
Arizona University Library -- was identified by Man
With Palomino Horse as his teacher of long ago.
Page 18
Man with Palomino Horse seemed unable to name a still older
Coyoteway singer. However, Luke Cook, who
belongs to the last generation of Coyoteway
apprentices, has heard it spoken that the first
Coyoteway singer who taught the above mentioned grandfathers was
Yellow Man of the Canyon People (tséyi'
niiltsooí). Presumably this man had already
died when the Navajo people were taken to Fort Sumner. All agree,
nevertheless, that Coyoteway was known and had
been performed in Navajoland long before
the Fort Sumner deportation.
Where historical inquiries end, the mythical record usually points a little
farther. Both Coyoteway myths of the
Holyway type (given in Chapters 9 and 10) point
to a place of origin in the La Plata Mountains, in the Mesa Verde vicinity.
Whether Luke Cook's "Yellow Man of the Canyon People" is identical with the
"Nalth-keh-olth-eh"
of tséyi'nii or with the "Grandnephew of
the Coyote-clan chief" of yoo'
hataalii (see Chapters 10, 11), is now
impossible to verify. In any case, what the two myths agree on is that the
Coyoteway ceremonial originated in the Old
Navajoland
--
the place where according to its cosmological orientation one would expect
it to have originated. Old Navajoland is the
place where Navajo-Apachean hunter shamans first seem to have come in
contact with the Pueblo Indian four-directional four-level cosmology and
with the anthropogony of emergence. Courageous shamans that they were, a few
of them ventured down into the hole of emergence from where, according to
the new worldview, all life and power originates. Coyote and fox
tutelaries have been showing their fellow
hunters the right way all along
--
by digging burrows for themselves and by living in the "underworld." Now, at
last, in the light of the Pueblo myth of emergence, could the pioneering
efforts and hints of the Coyote People be fully understood.
The Mythico-historical Origin of
Coyoteway
When Man With Palomino Horse told the story about the origin of
Coyoteway he emphasized that this is the only
story that belonged to the ceremonial from the beginning. He admitted that
some storytellers may have added other Coyote stories, but this story is all
that belongs. Rock-extending-between (Middle Point) is the name of the
place. It snowed early in the morning. A man was going out with the
intention to hunt. He saw Coyote tracks. He started backtracking the Coyote
tracks. They led to a pond that was surrounded with many
Page 19
kinds of green plants. As he approached he saw a ladder sticking out of the
water, barely above the water. On the steps of this ladder the hunter went
down into the water.(1) Down
below he touched ground. It was very beautiful down there. The earth surface
on which we now sit had winter; there was snow on the ground. But below it
was summer; there was green grass, flowers, all over the place. In the east
he saw white buildings. He went over to the buildings and saw Coyote human
beings. They were in fact human beings, but they were Coyote People. There
were lots of young beautiful girls with long and wavy hair. Then he saw all
the fields of corn. The corn was ripe. The Coyote People gathered the corn
and cooked meals for him. He ate and stayed overnight.
Toward evening the Coyote People assembled, and he was taught the
Coyoteway ceremonial
--
the songs, the prayers, the procedures, and the
prayersticks. He was taught everything. He simply learned it from
these people. They told him that the prayers, the songs, and the ceremonial
items are also to be used on the earth; and these are the ways you are going
to use them. These were all read to him. It seems, perhaps, that he wrote it
all on papers of his mind. Then he began climbing up again to this earth. He
came up through the water, on the ladder, to the earth.
So this is the simple story about where the songs and the ceremonial came
from. So this is what it is. This is what my grandfather told me; Many
Whiskers is his name. Further back in time there was another grandfather who
died of old age, his name is He Who Returns Angrily. He died when I was only
six years old. The other grandfather died more recently, about twenty years
ago. So these are the people from whom I have learned it. They taught me
these things, and I accepted them. I learned them. And that is the way it is
today. It is a simple story. And this is all.
_____________________
(1)
The setting of this myth, with "a ladder sticking out of the water," is
identical in all the three available Coyoteway
versions of the Holyway type. The two other
versions by yoo'
hataalii and by tséyi'nii, are
given in Chapters 9-10. A related Lipan Apache story can be found in Morris
E. Opler's Myths and Legends of the Lipan Apache
Indians, 1940, pp. 41-44. The setting in all these myths is obviously
related to Pueblo kiva architecture and to the mythic flood caused by the
Water Serpent (see Luckert 1976). The origin
myth of the Hopi Reed clan appears to have provided the model for
Coyoteway cosmology. The myth of the Hopi Snake
clan, in some of its aspects, may be the prototype for the Reed clan myth.
What is unique in the ecstatic journey of the Navajo shaman can be seen
after subtracting the Hopi elements from the available
Coyoteway myths. The Hopi Reed clan hero went in search of a hunting
animal. From the crest of a mountain he sighted a dog. The animal trotted
ahead of him and led him "to what appeared to be a water hole. Protruding
from the water was the top of a ladder. The dog began to descend the ladder,
and as he did so the water disappeared." Spider Grandmother advised the man
to follow: "...this is the kiva of the dog people." The hero obtained a
hunting dog to take home with him. In the origin myth of the Snake clan the
ancestral hero married a Snake maiden and learned how to perform the Snake
ceremonies(Courlander 1971, pp. 58. 103-5). Thus it appears that the Navajo
Coyoteway myth of the
Holyway type is a blend of Hopi Reed clan cosmology, of something
akin to Hopi Snake clan initiational procedures,
and of Navajo shamanic experience and/or ingenuity.
Page 20
On two occasions we asked Luke Cook about what he knows concerning the
origin of the Coyoteway ceremonial. In the first
instance he referred simply to the mythic age immediately after the
emergence of the first people from the underworld. Everything else in human
history began with First Man, First Woman, First Boy, First Girl, and
Coyote, so why should the Coyoteway ceremonial
not be traceable to these? On the second occasion, while explaining the
Feather-burning Rite, he told us the myth of Coyote's adventure
into Narrow Canyon. When later we asked Man With Palomino Horse specifically
about this myth, he claimed that, while it explains the Feather-burning
Rite, it has nothing to do with Coyoteway;
moreover, it belongs to the Upwardreaching
Chant (hanelnéhe) that serves the primary
purpose of driving away the evil influence of ghosts, witches, and Coyote.
Concerning a first Coyoteway ceremonial on the
rim of Narrow Canyon, about which Luke Cook informed us, our practitioner
seemed to know nothing. Nevertheless, Luke Cook's story is verified by
earlier recordings; it contains important historical data, coming from a
time when the idea of feather-burning was introduced and when
Evilway-type thinking not only pressured but
also shaped the apologetics of the Holyway-type
Coyoteway. There was, in fact, a
Coyoteway ceremonial performed on the rim
of Narrow Canyon. The mischievous Coyote was indeed chased out
of Narrow Canyon, but not, as Evilway singers
maintain, because he was Evil incarnate. Rather, Coyote became a patient
--
thus the prototype of all subsequent patients and healers. Divine Coyote
People came to heal their kinsman. Thus, Coyote is not the evil being which,
according to Evilway mythology, only deserves to
be driven away. Coyote is a person; more yet, Coyote is a Navajo.
The Coyoteway originated at Narrow Canyon (tséyi'
haats'ósí). The Bird People lived in this
canyon under ledges along the cliffs. Coyote ventured among them and angered
them. In revenge the Bird People shot their feathers into Coyote. They were
using these feathers as witchcraft arrows
--
shooting them like feathered arrows. Coyote barely escaped to the top of the
canyon. He felt miserable.(2)
______________________________
(2)
According to a Taos tale (Parsons 1940, pp. 112-15), Coyote became
envious of clothing that White-headed Eagles possessed. They agreed to trade
some of their clothing if Coyote would get for them a blue coyote fur. To
accomplish his end Coyote plays dead while all kinds of coyotes examine his
condition -- Red Coyote, Gray Coyote, Black Coyote, and Blue Coyote. In the
process Coyote kills Blue Coyote, skins him, and trades the fur for the
Eagles' clothes.... Up to this point-if we assume Navajo borrowing from
Pueblo mythology-this story explains perhaps the curious fact of why in
Coyoteway coyotes are constantly mentioned and
why the skin of a "blue coyote" (gray fox) and a stuffed "blue coyote" are
actually used. The Taos tale continues: ...Encouraged by his improved
appearance, Coyote challenges the Eagles to a fight; this time around his
personal clothing, his own skin, is to be at stake. In the course of the
fight the powerful Eagles shoot
"very little, fine arrows" into Coyote. Coyote is defeated and loses his
skin. This "feather-shooting"
episode seems to extend the mythological Pueblo influence to the Navajo
Evilway Upwardreaching
ceremonial -- eventually even to the present Evilway
intrusion of Coyoteway itself. Coyote's
association with witchcraft seems
otherwise well documented in the Pueblo realm. Parsons informs us that
"most Pueblowitch transformations are into
Coyote" and that frequently in mythology Coyote is also regarded as the
First Witch (Parsons, 1939, pp. 217, 1067n). In addition, a "Feather-burning
Rite" has been reported from Zuni (Ladd 1960, p. 118)
Page 21
Luke Cook on horseback, with Mrs. Cook and son,
on the day of the author's first visit to his homestead, in 1971.
In May of 1973 we made another
attempt to reach the singer (see Preface).
Johnny
and his father Luke, preparing lunch at a roadside-stop near Second Mesa.
Page 22
Then Coyote came to the home of Horned Toad and there he asked for food. He
demanded to be given all the available food. Horned Toad refused. Thereupon
Coyote became angry and swallowed him. He thought he had killed him. And
Coyote sat in Horned Toad's house, his hogan.
Shshd! Coyote heard a sound and concluded that
he was in a ch'íídii
hooghan; he was feeling increasingly worse.
(The humorous implication is what every child knows: if Coyote had actually
killed Horned Toad and had dispatched his ghost, the
hogan would indeed be hok'ee
--
a ghost hogan. The ghost of Horned Toad would
naturally claim the home in which he was dispatched.) Meanwhile, Horned Toad
who was still alive crawled all around in Coyote's belly, exploring it. He
wondered what all the different organs were and grabbed them as he
investigated
--
stomach, lungs, and the heart. At last he pinched off the heart and came out
through the mouth. There was blood in the mouth and face of Coyote, stemming
from his internal bleeding. For the time being Horned Toad had killed Coyote.(3)
At this point the narrator broke off, but from subsequent conversations it
became obvious that because of his self-provoked sufferings, because of his
"coyoteing around," Coyote has himself become the first
Coyoteway patient. This happened up on the rim of Narrow Canyon where
other Coyote People had gathered to revive him. This conclusion of the myth
transforms a potential Evilway myth into one of
the Holyway type. Coyote does not remain the
epitome of Evil;
rather, he becomes the prototype of all subsequent
Coyoteway patients and healers. According to the ancient way of
Coyote all subsequent sufferers
--
though they may have brought their suffering upon themselves through
"coyoteing around"
--
are given a chance for recovery. Divine grace and participation abounds over
merit.
___________________________________
(2)
A related myth is given in the narrative by tséyi'nii (Chapter
10, paragraphs 21-28). See also the introductory statement to this myth.
____________________________
PART TWO –
COYOTEWAY PERFORMED
Pages 25
3
The Nine-Night Sequence
The nine-night Coyoteway ceremonial divides
naturally into two four-night portions and a one-night summary. Each of the
four-night portions is further divisible into an evening and a morning
section. This enables us to discuss the ceremonial as five groups of
ceremonies: Unraveling Ceremonies, Fire Ceremonies, Basket-Drum Ceremonies,
Sandpainting Ceremonies, and the Ninth-Night
Summary.
During the nine-night sequence of the Coyoteway
ceremonial many songs are chanted. All have been recorded on tape and are
presented here in the form of a free English translation. Johnny Cooke
usually dictated to me from the tapes, sentence by sentence, what he
considered to be the best English translation. Sentence by sentence, in
return, I suggested alternate formulations by utilizing the largest possible
number of synonyms. In addition, Johnny Cooke frequently explained different
contexts in which certain Navajo expressions are used. Whenever we were in
doubt about a particular word or phrase, we took it to Luke Cook or to Man
With Palomino Horse to have it explained. In the end, the task of editing
and balancing the lines fell on me. While it would be foolish to insist that
every word in these songs is translated with unambiguous precision, both
Johnny Cooke and I are satisfied that we have done what honestly could be
done with this difficult archaic material. For the specialist there will
always be copies of tapes that we deposited at the Navajo Tribal Museum,
Window Rock, at the Museum of Navaho Ceremonial Art, Santa Fe, at
For presenting the entire ceremonial as an illustrated documentary,
it has seemed best to group the various ceremonies together with their
repetitions from subsequent days. So, for instance, the Unraveling
Ceremonies of the first four evenings are discussed as one unit, regardless
of there having been Fire Ceremonies on the
mornings between. Combining repetitions into a single discussion makes for
easier reading and comprehension; however, it interrupts the actual
recording sequence. In order to remedy this difficulty and to facilitate
easy checking on the actual song and prayer sequence, a continuously
numbered index is here provided. Numbers in parentheses indicate earlier
occasions in the sequence where the same song has been chanted.
The Nine-Night Sequence of Coyoteway
Evening and Night Morning and Noon
1. Unraveling Ceremony Fire Ceremony
2. Unraveling Ceremony Fire Ceremony
3. Unraveling Ceremony Fire Ceremony
4. Unraveling Ceremony Fire Ceremony
5. Basket-drum Ceremony Sandpainting
Ceremony,
One-yé'ii
6. Basket-drum Ceremony Sandpainting
Ceremony,
One-yé'ii
7. Basket-drum Ceremony Sandpainting
Ceremony,
One-yé'ii
8. Basket-drum Ceremony Sandpainting
Ceremony,
Three-yé'ii
9. Basket-drum Ceremony
Summary
Index to Song and Prayer Sequence of Coyoteway
First Evening
1. They were given 2. Now it has begun moving
3. With these he is well again 4. By these he was led
5. Hwii eiya
eiya! The sound was heard
First Morning
6. By sternness, whatever your name is 7. I bring these to you
8. Formal Prayer 9. He has walked
10. This is the Fur 11. The Red Berry Shrubs
12. It is his Water 13. He who was given
14. The Red Berry Shrubs (cont.) 15. The Furs are put in the water
Second Evening
16. The stick stands upright 17. With these he is well again (3)
18. With these he walked 19. With these he ran
20. By these he was led (4) 21. The sound was heard (5)
Second Morning
22. I bring these to you (7) 23. Formal Prayer
24. He has walked (9) 25. This is the Hogan
26. On these he walked 27. The Medicine is being made
28. The Medicine is ready 29. The Medicine I ate
30. The furs are put in the water (15)
Third Evening
31. He brought it back 32. Now it has begun moving (2)
33. With these he is well again (3, 17) 34. With these he walked (18)
35. By these he was led (4, 20) 36. The sound was heard (5, 21)
Third Morning
37. I bring these to you (7, 22) 38. Formal Prayer
39. He has walked (9, 24) 40. With these he walked out again
41. He is walking in the water 42. With these it is coming out
43. With these it is dripping 44. With these it is falling
45. With these he is well 46. It is his water (variation of 12)
47. He who was given (variation of 13) 48. The furs are put in the
water (15, 30)
Fourth Evening
49. The stick stands upright (16) 50. With these he is well again (3,
17, 33)
51. With these he walked (18, 34) 52. With these he ran (19)
53. By these he was led (4, 20, 35) 54. The sound was heard (5, 21, 36)
Fourth Morning
55. I bring these to you (7, 22, 37) 56. Formal
Praver
57. He has walked (9, 24, 39) 58. With these he walked out again (40)
59. He is walking in the water (41) 60. With these it is coming out
(42)
61. With these it is dripping (43) 62. With these it is falling (44)
63. With these he is well (45) 64. It is his water (46)
65. They have blown far away 66. He brought it back (31)
67. Now he is moving 68. Now he is walking
69. It is I, it is I walking 70. It is I. it is I made strong
Fifth Evening
71. This is the Fur (10) 72. This is the Hogan (variation of 25)
73. With their Blood in me I am immune 74. Down the Mountain, they roll
it over him
75. He has come back and I am walking 76. I am not ashamed as I am
walking
77. Hogan below from where he emerges 78. The Adulterous Coyote, he
walks underground
79. The Adulterous Coyote, he calls everywhere 80. He makes the
Medicine
81. I put it in your mouth 82. I put it in your mouth, he is eating it
83. The Hawks are going in pairs 84. The Pairs keep going behind
ridges
85. He carried it away
Fifth Morning
86. From the Hogans I came down 87. From
the hidden Hogan I came with herbs
88. Beneath the Two Rising, he ran
Sixth Evening
89. To the Hogan I came 90. It is I, it is I walking (69)
91. I caught up with him 92. He gives the
Prayerstick to me
93. He came back with me 94. They are now sitting by me
Sixth Morning
95. From the Hogans I came down (86) 96.
From the hidden Hogan I came with herbs (87)
97. Beneath the Two Rising, he ran (88)
Seventh Evening
98. This is the Hogan (72) 99. The One walking in the fields
100. From far away he comes out
Seventh Morning
101. From the Hogans I came down (86, 95)
102. From the hidden Hogan I came with herbs (87, 96)
103. Beneath the Two Rising, he ran (88, 97)
Eighth Evening
104. With my Mind I walk 105. I am looking for my mind
106. I have found my Mind 107. I am bringing back my Mind
108. I am reviving my Mind 109. Now my Mind is walking with me
110. Now my Mind is remade for me 111. Now my Mind returns with me
112. Now I am sitting with my Mind 113. With Black Bead as my feet,
with this I walk
114. They are singing for me 115. It is raining on me
116. The blessing is given
Eighth Morning
117. Hwii eiya
eiya, he calls me 118. White Bead Son is
touching him
119. The White Bead Son I am 120. Beneath the Two Rising he is moving
121. All is Happiness, all is well 122. From the
Hogans I came down (86, 95, 101)
123. From the hidden Hogan I came with herbs (87, 96, 102)
124. Beneath the Two Rising, he ran (88, 97, 103)
Ninth Night
125 through 161. All songs of fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth evenings are
repeated.
4
Unraveling
Ceremonies
PREPARATIONS AND SINGING
The Unraveling Ceremony is performed on each of the first four evenings of
the nine-night Coyoteway ceremonial. The action
pattern on each of these performances is rather consistent -- except for the
number of wooltáád bundles that are used
and for a variation among songs. Thus, for the purpose of illustrating the
procedures, all four evenings can be discussed together.
In preparation for the Unraveling Ceremony on the first evening five wooltáád bundles
are made. For the second evening of unraveling seven bundles are needed.
Nine wooltáád bundles are prepared for
the third evening. Eleven bundles are required in the fourth Unraveling
Ceremony.
Each wooltáád bundle contains an
eagle feather (atsá
bit'a'), blue grama grass (tl'oh
nastasí), snakeweed (ch'il
diilyésii), Artemisia
frigida (tóyikááł), rock
sagebrush (tsé'ézhiih), and a spruce
twig (ch'ó). The bundles are wound and
tied with strings spun of sheep wool. At the end of these strings additional
eagle feathers are secured to serve as handles during the unraveling. The
patient undresses during the last stages of bundle-making.
In a seashell the practitioner mixes zaa'nił powder
with water: "medicine to be put in the mouth." Zaa'nił is
ground-up medicine powder made of blue, yellow, and white corn, ground
together with fruits from sumac berry (tsiiłchin), juniper (gad, service
berry (dzídzé dit'ódii), ribes(dik'óozhii),
and "redberry" (łichíi'ii) bushes.
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For the second evening of unraveling seven bundles are needed.
|
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Nine wooltáád bundles are prepared for
the third evening.
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Eleven bundles are required in the fourth Unraveling Ceremony.
The bundles are wound and tied with strings spun of sheep wool.
At the end of these strings additional eagle feathers are secured
to serve as handles during the
unraveling.
Page 34
In a bowl the practitioner prepares kétłoh, a
mixture of four kinds of crushed leaves, suspended in hot water. Kétłoh is
"rub-on medicine." The leaves for this mixture are obtained from
Brickellia grandiflora, "the herb from the air" (bił
haazhch'ih), Pectis
angusti-folia, "the herb from the rock" (tsé
ghániłch'ih), "the herb from the water" (tó
bits'ąądęę') and "the frosted herb" (shohch'il).
Zaa'nił shell and kétłoh bowl
are illustrated in connection with the One-yé'ii Sandpainting
Ceremonies in Chapter 7.
The patient's place in the hogan is
prepared by sprinkling a corn-meal circle. This circle represents the world.
Lines are sprinkled from the center of the circle to its eastern, western,
southern, and its northern limits. The result is a wheel-like pattern with
four spokes, with the spokes pointing to the four cardinal points of the
world. This inner design does not represent a cross extending over the world
-- such an idea would be too Christian. Nor is this design merely a symbol
of the world in its entirety with its four cardinal directions -- this idea
would be too Pueblo Indian. As perceived by the Navajo participants, in the
Coyoteway ceremonial, the "lines leading out
represent all the living minds" of the world. The participants in our
ceremonial recognize "minds" and "persons" wherein most Western people
would not even see animate beings.
The patient, who in accordance with ceremonial practice has disrobed,
circles the fire sunwise and then sits on this
miniature corn-meal world. While the priestly singer intones a series of
chants, the patient joins all the living minds and creatures in the world
and so symbolically acknowledges his kinship with them. "The world of living
minds will speak from the cornmeal design to me." These are the words by
which the patient later explained his participation. "There is a
relationship of trust, and one will strive in this context to think good
thoughts; I will live a long life and die of ripe old-age. I will walk
happily. I will walk well. I will finish my life in old age."
After he sits down, the patient, because he is an initiatory and not
an actually suffering patient, joins the practitioner and his helpers in the
singing. On the rapturous wings of traditional songs the leader, especially,
is transported into another space -- the real world where underworld and
surface-world have blended into one. With his rattle he maintains an
ecstatic rhythm -- restructuring the neutral flow of past, present, and
future into the eternally returning heartbeats of sacred time. The first
song participates in the primeval moment in the
Coyoteway tradition when the holy Coyote People, in the underworld,
consecrated the agents of health for the benefit of future patients and
apprentices.
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"The world of living minds will speak from the cornmeal design to
me...."
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After he sits down, the patient... joins the practitioner and his helpers in
the singing.
Page 36
Score of the first Coyoteway song
Page
37
1. Song, First Evening
They were given, they were given,
Those were given, those were given.
The Sons of Sun were given. Those were given, those were given.
The Sons of White Corn were given. Those were given, those were given.
The Dark Cloud above the earth was given. Those were given, those were
given.
The Flash of Lightning was given. Those were given, those were given.
The Thin Dark Wind was given. Those were given, those were given.
The Arrow Lightning's Voice was given. Those were given, those were given.
The Long-life One, the Happiness One.
Those were given, those were given,
They were given, they were given,
Those were given, those were given.
The Sons of Moon were given. Those were given, those were given.
The Sons of Yellow Corn were given. Those were given, those were given.
The Ones that stand above were given. Those were given, those were given.
The White Rainbow was given. Those were given, those were given.
The White Wind with its body was given. Those were given, those were given.
The Voice of the Cornripener was given. Those
were given, those were given.
The Long-life One, the Happiness One.
Those were given, those were given,
They were given, they were given,
Those were given, those were given.
31. Song, Third Evening, a Continuation of Song 1
He brought it back, he brought it back,
He brought it back, he brought it back.(1)
With these he brought it back.
The Sons of Sun, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
The White Corn Boy, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
_____________________________
(1) Health, Long-life, and Happiness are brought back.
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On the rapturous wings of traditional songs the leader,
especially, is transported into another space....
Page 39
The Black Water, with these he
brought it back. He brought it back.
The White Lightning, with these he
brought it back. He brought it back.
The White
Prayerstick, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
The Black Prayerstick, with these he brought it
back. He brought it back.
The Black Wind, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
The Sound of Thunder, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
The Long-life Happiness One,
with these he brought it back.
He brought it back, he brought it back,
He brought it back, he brought it back.
With these he brought it back.
The Sons of Moon, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
The Sons of Yellow Corn Girl, with these he brought it back. He brought it
back.
The Black Fur, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
The White Prayerstick, with these he brought it
back. He brought it back.
The Black Prayerstick, with these he brought it
back. He brought it back.
The White Rainbow, with these he brought it back. He brought it back.
The Blue Prayerstick, with these he brought it
back. He brought it back.
The Male Cornripener Beetle, with these he
brought it back. He brought it back.
The Long-life Happiness One, with these he brought it back.
He brought it back, he brought it back,
He brought it back, he brought it back.
16, 49. Song, Second and Fourth Evenings
The stick stands upright, the stick stands upright,
The stick stands upright, the stick stands upright.(2)
_____________________________________________________
(2)
Reference is made to the vertical stick used in the fire drill. This refrain
echoes the fire-making song (Song 6) from the First Morning.
Page 40
With the Sons of Sun, the stick stands upright.
With the Sons of White Corn, the stick stands upright.
In the White Reed Skin, the stick stands upright.
With Lightning, the stick stands upright.
With Black Wind, the stick stands upright.
With the Sound of Lightning, the stick stands upright.
With the Sons of the Two-who-walk-before-you, Givers of Happiness,
The stick stands upright, the stick stands upright,
The stick stands upright, the stick stands upright.
With the Sons of Moon, the stick stands upright.
With the Sons of Yellow Corn Girl, the stick stands upright.
In the Yellow Reed Skin, the stick stands upright.
With the White Rainbow, the stick stands upright.
With Blue Pollen, the stick stands upright.
With the Cornripener, the stick stands upright.
With the Sons of the Two-who-walk-before-you, Givers of Happiness,
The stick stands upright, the stick stands upright,
The stick stands upright, the stick stands upright.
2, 32. Song, First and Third Evenings
Now it has begun moving, now it has begun moving,
Now it has begun moving, now it has begun moving.
With the help of these it has begun moving.
With the Sons of Sun it has begun moving.
With the Sons of White Corn Girl it has begun moving.
With the Ones that stand above it has begun moving.
With the Flash of Lightning it has begun moving.
With the Black-blossomed Plant, it has begun moving.
With the Sound of Lightning it has begun moving.
With the Long-life Happiness One it has begun moving.
Now it has begun moving, now it has begun moving,
Now it has begun moving, now it has begun moving.
With the Sons of Moon it has begun moving.
With the Sons of Yellow Corn it has begun moving.
With the Ones that stand above, it has begun moving.
With the White Rainbow it has begun moving.
With the Yellow-blossomed Plant it has begun moving.
With the Cornripener Beetle it has begun moving.
With the Long-life Happiness One it has begun moving.
With the help of these it has begun moving.
Now it has begun moving, now it has begun moving,
Now it has begun moving, now it has begun moving.
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3, 17, 33, 50. Song, First Through Fourth Evenings
With these he is well again, with these he is well again,
With these he is well again, with these he is well again.
With the Sons of Sun he is well again.
With the Sons of White Corn Boy he is well again.
With the Skin of Dark Cloud he is well again.
With the Flash of Lightning he is well again.
With the Skin of Black Wind he is well again.
With the Sound of Lightning he is well again.
With the Sons of the Long-life Happiness One he is well again.
With these he is well again, with these he is well again,
With these he is well again, with these he is well again.
With the Sons of Moon he is well again,
With the Sons of Yellow Corn Boy he is well again.
With Dark Cattails on top he is well again.
With the White Rainbow he is well again.
With Blue-blossom Pollen he is well again.
With the Sons of Cornripener he is well again.
With the Sons of the Long-life Happiness One he is well again.
With these he is well again, with these he is well again,
With these he is well again, with these he is well again.
18, 34, 51. Song, Second Through Fourth Evenings
With these he walked, with these he walked,
With these he walked, with these he walked.
With the Sons of White Corn Boy, with these he walked.
In the midst of Black Clouds, with these he walked.
In the midst of Lightning, with these he walked.
In the midst of Black Wind, with these he walked.
In the midst of Holy Lightning, with these he walked.
With the Sons of Long-life Happiness One, with these he walked.
With these he walked, with these he walked,
With these he walked, with these he walked.
With the Sons of Sun, with these he walked.
With the Sons of White Corn Girl, with these he walked.
In the midst of Lightning, with these he walked.
In the midst of Corn Pollen, with these he walked.
In the midst of Blue Corn Pollen, with these he walked.
In the midst of Cornripeners, with these he
walked.
With the Sons of Long-life Happiness Ones, with these he walked.
With these he walked, with these he walked,
With these he walked, with these he walked.
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19, 52. Song, Second and Fourth Evenings
With these he ran, with these he ran,
With these he ran, with these he ran.
With the Sons of Sun, with these he ran.
With the Sons of Yellow Corn Boy, with these he ran.
Among the Mountains, with these he ran.
In Flashes of Lightning, with these he ran.
In the Body of Black Wind, with these he ran.
In the midst of Thunders, with these he ran.
With the Sons of Long-life Happiness One, with these he ran.
With these he ran, with these he ran,
With these he ran, with these he ran.
With the Sons of Sun, with these he ran.
With the Sons of Yellow Corn Girl, with these he ran.
In Flashes of Lightning, with these he ran.
Among Rainbows, with these he ran.
In the Body of Blue Wind, with these he ran.
In the midst of Cornripeners, with these he
ran.
With the Sons of Long-life Happiness One, with these he ran.
With these he ran, with these he ran,
With these he ran, with these he ran.
UNRAVELING
With
the next song the practitioner rises and becomes active. He hands his rattle
to a helper and, still singing, begins the unraveling procedures. He takes
a wooltáád bundle in one hand; with his
other hand he grasps the eagle feather that is fastened as a handle to the
wound-around wool string. In this manner, with both hands, he presses the
bundle against a significant portion of the patient's body.
On the first evening two wooltáád bundles are used to loosen knots in the patient's feet.
Two more bundles are
applied, one to each of his arms. Finally, one bundle is destined for the
point where back and neck run together. Chanting all the while, with one arm
moving away from the patient in a sweeping motion, the singer then pulls the
strings that are wound around the bundles. "The tight knots in the patient's
body are so loosened."
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Two more bundles are applied, one to
each of his arms.
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Finally, one bundle is destined for the point where back
and neck run together.
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Chanting all the while... the singer then pulls the string
that are wound around the bundles. "The tight knots
in the patient's body are so loosened."
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The seven bundles on the second evening allow for additional
applications on the breast and on the head.
Loosening the tight knots of illness is only one of the objectives in
the unraveling rite. The herbs in the wooltáád bundles
contain significant and positive powers of health. Upon contact with the
patient's skin, these powers begin to flow to the deficient places in his
body where the knots have been loosened. As the bundle is unraveled, a
quantity of herbal power is freed to enter the patient's body; it not only
flows to deficient places but at the same time expels the agents of illness.
The missiles or arrows of witchcraft are so loosened, displaced, and
eventually removed. To assure the patient, as well as the gods who are
present, that the unraveling has indeed been accomplished, the practitioner
draws the handful of loosened strings over all the significant spots on the
patient's body. The bundles themselves are taken outside and are disposed of
at some distance from the hogan, together with
the illness they have absorbed.
After the unraveling the patient is given zaa'nił to
drink from a sea-shell -- "the medicine to be put in the mouth." The "rub-on
medicine," from the bowl, is applied to his body. All the while the group is
chanting the song that narrates the first shaman's learning experience in
the houses of the Coyote People. The two White, Yellow, Blue, and Black
Coyote-persons, by whom he was led, we shall see later depicted in the
sandpaintings. All references in this song to
places
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…the practitioner draws the handful of loosened strings over
all the significant spots on the patient's body.
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...the patient is given zaa 'nił to
drink from a seashell...
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The "rub-on medicine," from the
bowl, is applied to his body.
where the Holy People once walked relate also to the corresponding trails
and places in the area where our ceremonial is now being performed;
4, 20, 35, 53. Song, First Through Fourth Evenings
By these he was led, by these he was led,
By these he was led, by these he was led.
By the Two White Ones who walk before you, by these he was led.
With the White Prayerstick in his hand, by these
he was led.
Toward White Morning Dawn, by these he was led.
On the Trail toward the hogan, by these he was
led.
On the Trail with the hogan in view, by these he
was led.
On the Trail unto the hogan, by these he was
led.
To the Walls of the hogan, by these he was led.
Near the Fire in the hogan, by these he was
led.
Around the Fire in the hogan, by these he was
led.
Into the Shadows of the hogan, by these he was
led.
To a Corner in the hogan, by these he was led.
These are the places where they walked, by these he was led.
Happiness was given back to you, by these he was led.
These are the places where they walked, by these he was led.
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Your name was given back to you, by these he was led.
Happiness was given back to you, by these he was led,
By these he was led, by these he was led,
By these he was led, by these he was led.
By the Two Yellow Ones who walk before you, by these he was lead.
With the Yellow Prayerstick in his hand, by
these he was led.
Toward Yellow Evening,,...
By the Two Blue Ones who walk before you, by these he was led.
With the Blue Prayerstick in his hand, by these
he was led.
Toward the Blue South....
By the Two Black Ones who walk before you, by these he was led.
With the Black Prayerstick in his hand, by these
he was led.
Toward the Dark North....
BURNING THE FEATHERS
To
conclude the Unraveling Ceremony, each evening a red-hot coal is laid before
the patient. On this coal a mixture of plant powders and various feathers is
sprinkled. From the rising smoke emanates a pungent smell; the patient rubs
the smoke on his body. The plant powders are prepared from "the plant to
which the birds fly" (dehi
dii'áii)(3) and from a plant
called "fire's sword" (kQ'bidiltł'ish). The
feathers used are those of blue jay (ch'ishii
sháshii), bluebird (joo'ish or dólii), and
from the entire bird kingdom.
The Feather-burning Rite is used to conclude every ceremony in the
entire nine-night ceremonial, except on the ninth night. Its purpose each
time is the same. Luke Cook understands it thus: Formerly Coyote, when he
ventured into Narrow Canyon, was shot full with the Bird People's feathery
arrows. He became sick. After barely escaping to the rim of Narrow
Canyon his kinsmen restored him by rubbing this same kind of feather-smoke
on him. This measure charred and loosened the witchcraft arrows which had
penetrated his body; they fell off and blew away (for the complete myth see
Chapter 2).(4)
Later in this report will be printed a series of songs which link
this mythic event to the patient's present predicament and cure. These songs
are used during the Sweating portion of the Fire Ceremony on the third and
fourth mornings. Their sequential numbers are 42
____________________________
(3)
Possibly Penstemon
trichander.
(4) A parallel to this rite, the cure for a spider bite, is on
record from Zuni: A tent is erected over the victim. Bluebird feathers are
burned on hot coals. The smoke is inhaled, while the bite is treated with a
mixture of water, coals, and burned feathers (Ladd 1960, p. 118). For
mythological parallels see the section on "The Mythico-historical
Origin of Coyoteway," Chapter 2.
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From the rising smoke emanates a pungent smell;
the patient rubs the smoke on his body.
through 45, and 60 through 63. The Sweating Rite, which is part of the Fire
Ceremony and thus held during mornings, is, in fact, understood as an
amplified feather-removing procedure. Therefore, the concluding song of the
Sweating Rite on the fourth day, "They have blown away" (Song 65),
celebrates not only the accomplished results of Sweating Rites but also of
Feather-burning.
After feather-smoke is rubbed on the patient's body, the
contaminated coal is extinguished with water and the ashes are carried
outside, together with the cornmeal from the symbolic "world of living
minds." Both remainders are deposited in the shadow of a living plant.
Whatever powers of illness coal and cornmeal have absorbed in the course of
these exorcistic procedures, they are thus neutralized and banished.
For the duration of the Feather-burning Rite the singers rest. But
soon after the quenched coal is carried outside, all join to chant the final
song: "The sound was heard!" The sound of the departing agents of illness --
feathery arrows as they whizzed away -- could be heard throughout the known
cosmos. The White, Yellow, Blue, and Black Coyote People who live in the
four directions of the underworld -- kinsmen -- heard the whirring sound.
The primeval healing process of Coyote is reproduced as the ancient songs
are sung once again, this time in the surface world among humankind. This
means that the whirring sound was heard in all the known worlds
concurrently. The
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...all join to chant the final song:
"The sound was heard!"
profane distinctions in space and time, of underworld and surface-world, of
past and present, are exploded by this song. Human limitations become void,
and so the patient emerges healthy from a new beginning.
Navajo healers are initiated, as happens to be the case with our
patient, into the ways of divine origins. They learn to act out the
archetypal roles of shamanic adventurers and patients. Contemporary patients
are healed exactly in the same manner as the priestly practitioners have
been initiated. Of this entire sacred history of pre-accomplished facts the
participants are aware when they repeat the divine songs at the appropriate
moments in the ongoing history of Coyoteway.
Presently they sing:
5, 21, 36, 54. Song, First Through Fourth Evenings
Hwii
eiya eiya!
The sound was heard, the sound was heard.
The Son of the Two Rising heard the sound.5
The Early Morning, Young, Man heard the sound.
________________________________
(5) Son of Sun and Moon as they rise in the east. White Coyote.
Interestingly, Sun and Moon were said to be both masculine. By contrast, the
Earth is feminine.
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From the tail the sound was heard.
From the mouth the sound was heard.
From the tips of the fur the sound was heard.
The Yellow Kinsman heard the sound.
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
The Blue Kinsman heard the sound,
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
The Black Kinsman heard the sound.
Happiness before you, the sound was heard.
Happiness behind you, the sound was heard.
The Son of the Two Setting, heard the sound.(6)
The Yellow Evening Sky heard the sound.
From the mouth the sound was heard.
From the tips of the gray fur the sound was heard.
The White Kinsman heard the sound.
From the tips of the fur the sound was heard.
The Blue Kinsman heard the sound. (7)
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
The Black Kinsman heard the sound.(8)
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
Happiness behind you the sound was heard.
Happiness before you the sound was heard.
The Son of the Two Above heard the sound.(9)
The Sunlight Young Man heard the sound.
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
The White Kinsman heard the sound.
From the tips of the fur the sound was heard.
The Yellow Kinsman heard the sound.
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
The Black Kinsman heard the sound, (10)
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
Through the Streaks of Wind the sound was heard.
Happiness before you, the sound was heard.
Happiness behind you, the sound was heard.
The Son of Where the Stars Turn heard the sound. (11)
_______________________________
(6)
Son of Sun and Moon as they set in the west. Yellow Coyote.
(7) On first day mistakenly sung as "Yellow Kinsman."
(8) On
first day mistakenly sung as "Blue Kinsman."
(9) Son of
Sun and Moon as they stand high in the south. Blue Coyote.
(10) On
first day mistakenly sung as "Blue Kinsman."
(11) Son of
the North, where Big Dipper turns around the Polar Star: Black Coyote.
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The Dark Night Sky heard the sound.
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
The White Kinsman heard the sound.
From the tips of the fur the sound was heard.
The Yellow Kinsman heard the sound.
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
The Blue Kinsman heard the sound.
From the tip of the tongue the sound was heard.
Through the Streaks of Wind the
sound was heard.
Happiness behind you, the sound was heard.
Happiness before you, the sound was heard.
"Blow away!" said the singer each evening as he concluded this song.
On the first evening, being aware that he had made mistakes in the color
sequence of the Kinsmen, and because he knew that he had confused a few
lines, he humbly told Coyote: "I do not know your song, therefore I am
saying this" (niyiin doo
bééhasingóó ádíshní). What he may
possibly have failed to accomplish because of his faulty singing he could
achieve more directly, and perhaps as effectively, with his spoken command,
"Blow away!"