Note 166 — LEGENDS. (continued 3)

The expression used by the story-teller was, “seven times old age has killed.” This would be freely translated by most Navaho-speaking whites as “seven ages of old men.” The length of the age of an old man as a period of time is variously estimated by the Navahoes. Some say it is a definite cycle of 102 years,—the same number as the counters used in the game of kesitsé (note 176); others say it is “threescore years and ten;” while others, again, declare it to be an indefinite period marked by the death of some very old man in the tribe. This Indian estimate would give, for the existence of the nuclear gens of the Navaho nation, a period of from five hundred to seven hundred years. In his excellent paper on the “Early Navajo and Apache,”301 Mr. F. W. Hodge arrives at a much later date for the creation or first mention of the Tseʻdzĭnkĭ′ni by computing the dates given in this legend, and collating the same with the known dates of Spanish-American history. He shows that many of the dates given in this story are approximately correct. While the Tseʻdzĭnkĭ′ni is, legendarily, the nuclear gens of the Navahoes, it does not follow, even from the legend, that it is the oldest gens; for the dĭnéʻ dĭgíni, or holy people (see note 92), are supposed to have existed before it was created.