Note 185 — LEGENDS. (continued 3)

For a description of this ceremony see “The Mountain Chant: a Navaho Ceremony,”314 by the author. It is an important healing ceremony of nine days’ duration. The rites, until the last night, are held in the medicine-lodge and are secret. Just after sunset on the last day, a great round corral, or circle of evergreen branches, is constructed, called ilnásdzĭn, or the dark circle of branches. This is about forty paces in diameter, about eight feet high, with an opening in the east about ten feet wide. From about eight P.M. on the last night of the ceremony until dawn next morning, a number of dances, dramatic shows, medicine rites, and tricks of legerdemain are performed in this corral, in the presence of a large group of spectators,—several hundred men, women, and children. No one is refused admittance. Fig. 37 shows the dark circle of branches as it appears at sunrise when the rites are over, and, in addition to the original opening in the east, three other openings have been made in the circle. Fig. 30 shows the alíl (rite, show, or ceremony) of nahikáï, which takes place on this occasion, and it is designed largely for the entertainment and mystification of the spectators. The performers march around (and very close to) the great central fire, which emits an intense heat. Their skin would probably be scorched if it were not heavily daubed with white earth. Each actor carries a short wand, at the tip of which is a ball of eagle-down. This ball he must burn off in the fire, and then, by a simple sleight-of-hand trick, seem to restore the ball again to the end of his wand. When this is accomplished, he rushes out of the corral, trumpeting like a sand-hill crane. In “The Mountain Chant” this is called a dance, but the movements of the actors are not in time to music. Nahikáï signifies “it becomes white again,” and refers to the reappearance of the eagle-down. The show is very picturesque, and must be mystifying to simple minds.