Note 184 — INTRODUCTION.

For the performance of these nine-days’ ceremonies the Navahoes now build temporary medicine-lodges, which they use, as a rule, for one occasion only. Rarely is a ceremony performed twice in the same place, and there is no set day, as indicated by any phase of any particular lunation, for the beginning of any great ceremony. Many ceremonies may be performed only during the cold months, but otherwise the time for performance is not defined. There is a tradition that their customs were different when they lived in a compact settlement on the banks of the San Juan River (before they became shepherds and scattered over the land); that they then had permanent medicine-lodges, and exact dates for the performance of some ceremonies. In paragraph 411 we hear of a ceremony which lasted all winter.