Note 56 — INTRODUCTION.

Do-kos-líd or Do-ko-os-lĭ′d, is the Navaho name of San Francisco Mountain, one of the most prominent landmarks in Arizona. The summit of this peak is distant in a direct line about twelve miles nearly north from the town of Flagstaff, on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, in Yavapai County, Arizona. The precise meaning of the Indian name has not been ascertained, but the name seems to contain, modified, the words toʻ and kos, the former meaning water and the latter cloud. It is the sacred mountain of the Navahoes, which they regard as bounding their land on the west. The color of the west, yellow, and the various things, mostly yellow, which symbolize the west, as mentioned in the myth, are sacred to it. Haliotis shell, although highly iridescent, is regarded by the Navahoes as yellow, and hence is the shell sacred to the mountain. In Navaho sacred songs, the peak is called, figuratively, The Wand of Haliotis. Plate II. is from a photograph taken on the south side of the mountain, at a point close to the railroad, two or three miles east of Flagstaff.