Part 13

A Jicarilla Feast March

From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis

The Jicarillas, like their kindred the Navaho and Apache, pay much attention to religion and ceremony. Compared with the Navaho their life seems almost lacking in ceremony, but when contrasted with the various Yuman tribes on the Colorado and Gila rivers of Arizona it is fairly rich. Their healing or medicine rites include a dance, called Isánĕ, that occupies four days and four nights, and many one-day "sings," in all of which dry-paintings are employed. Like the Apache the Jicarillas attach much importance to the girls’ puberty ceremony and still rigidly adhere to it.

A four-day medicine dance is founded on the following legend:

Two maidens lived at the bottom of a deep pit. Many of the men wished to marry them, but the girls were well content and refused to come out. The Bear and the Snake formed a plan to carry them off and make them their wives. A beautiful butterfly was sent fluttering down over the girls’ heads, but they paid little heed to its beauties. Another was sent, then another, and yet a fourth, which was so beautiful that the girls reached up to catch it, for they wished to copy its splendid colors on a large basket they were weaving. But the butterfly escaped them and flew upward, keeping ever out of reach as the girls followed to the mouth of the pit. There the Bear and the Snake in waiting suddenly reached over, seized the girls, and carried them away. The people, learning of this, asked them to bring the girls back, but the Bear and the Snake refused, so an appeal was made to Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ and Kobadjischínĭ. These two gods built a fence around the world to keep the Bear and the Snake from escaping, and, summoning all the people, compelled the Bear and the Snake to bring the two young women back. The one the Bear had married had grown very fat and coarse, like her master. "What have you done to make this girl so fat?" demanded Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ in anger. "You must give her medicine to make her comely again." So the Bear sang songs and made medicine until the girl was herself again. Then came the Snake with the girl he had stolen. She had become thin, like her master. "What have you done to make this girl so thin?" cried Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ. "You must give her medicine to make her well again." The Snake then sang his songs and made medicine until the girl became again robust and beautiful.

As already mentioned, the performance of this ceremony extends through a period of four days and four nights. The day preceding is spent in preparation: the head of the family of the sick person makes ready for a feast, and helpers build a corral of piñon and spruce branches. This corral is circular, about forty yards in diameter and six feet high, with an opening at the east. To the west, close to the fence, is the medicine kozhán. The latter part of each morning of the four days is spent by the medicine-man and his assistants in the kozhán, where a dry-painting of blue, black, yellow, and red earths is made in the shape of a snake lying in a circle with a space between the head and the tail. The circle is about six feet in diameter, and within it are represented numerous animals: the bear, turkey, deer, eagle, buffalo, elk, badger, gopher, and others. A decoction is mixed in an earthen bowl and the patient is summoned. Sand from the various parts of the painting are sprinkled on the corresponding parts of his body, and the medicine mixture is given him to drink.

The night portions of the ceremony begin shortly after dark. The medicine-man and any persons who know the songs gather in the kozhán and sing, accompanied with a drum made of a basket inverted over a hole in the ground and covered with a buffalo skin, the head toward the east. The hole represents the pit in the legend, the basket the one the girls were weaving, and a figure interwoven in the latter symbolizes the butterfly of the story. The beating of the drum is varied at intervals by the use of a leg-bone of a mountain sheep rasped quickly over a notched stick. Any men of the tribe may enter the kozhán, and even a white man who is well known. The songs consist of recitals of the powers of the medicine-man and invocations to the various animals, as the bear, snake, and mountain sheep. Some of the songs consist merely in naming the parts of the animal’s body, while others are supposed to be those used by the Bear and the Snake in the legend. After singing these songs for about three hours, with intervals of rest, the dancing begins. On each side of the enclosure are three fires. Behind these on the north side are the men, on the south the women; thus a large open space is bounded by the two lines of fires, the kozhán, and the opening of the corral. Two women walk slowly into this space, their heads modestly bent. They stop, and a young man approaches to ascertain with whom they would dance. He then finds the desired persons, takes each by the arm, and drags him out. The men always feign unwillingness to go. In the meanwhile other pairs of women have come out and other young men become busy finding partners for them. As a rule they dance in groups of four, men and women facing each other and moving backward and forward five or six steps. As the dance progresses the man is likely to lay his hands upon the woman’s shoulders, but modesty forbids her a similar liberty. The same pair may remain dancing together throughout the night, or they may cease when either desires. On the first night the dancing continues until about midnight; the second, an hour or two longer; the third, until well toward dawn; the fourth, until sunrise.

Jicarillas

From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis

On the last night the top of a small spruce tree, tipped with eagle down, is planted near the door of the kozhán, and a new element in the dancing is introduced. About midnight, before any dancing has been engaged in, the ceremonial dancers enter from two dressing kozhán some two hundred yards east of the corral. These consist of two parties. The first, eight in number, enter in single file, preceded and followed by a man in everyday costume. These dancers, called Tsannatí̆, are nude, save for the breech-cloth, with body and face painted in white and black, and the hair hanging loose. Immediately following them are the Chanzhiní̆, six in number, accompanied by four keepers, two in front and two behind. The six are nude, the bodies painted solid white with six black stripes encircling them. The hair is painted white and is done up into two long, stiff braids, which project from the sides of the head like a pair of horns. The faces are hideously made up to represent clowns, as indeed their name signifies. In dancing, the Chanzhiní̆ and Tsannatí̆ do not take steps, but shuffle sidewise, locomotion being effected by means of a sort of exaggerated shivering of the legs. This movement is common to Plains tribes in many of their dances. The whole line of dancers proceed with their peculiar motion into the kozhán and around the fire, passing before the patient, the Chanzhiní̆ all the while uttering hoarse, animal-like cries. Their utterances are always coarse and obscene, causing much merriment, which is supposed to aid the patient in casting off his illness. After passing through the kozhán the Tsannatí̆ form in line outside and with their feet keep time to the singing and drumming, while the others break ranks and in a promiscuous throng pass before the spectators, first on the men’s side, then on the women’s. Just before their departure from the corral any woman who feels an indisposition may crouch in their path near the gate, facing the west, and the Chanzhiní̆ one by one leap over her, first from the east, then from the other three directions, ever continuing their hoarse cries.

These characters make their appearance four times during the course of the night, the spectators dancing during the intervals. After their last exit dancing continues until shortly before sunrise; then the medicine-man and the singers arise, and, forming a circle about the fire in the centre of the kozhán, sing a number of songs. A maiden is summoned from the gathering to carry a basket of sacred meal, and the medicine-man, taking up the top of the spruce tree, passes out of the enclosure toward the rising sun, followed by the maiden, the patient, the singers, and any who may be afflicted with a bodily ailment. At a distance of about a hundred yards the medicine-man stops and plants the little spruce tip, to which the disease is now supposed to have been transferred, under a tree, sprinkling over it quantities of the sacred meal. Then each of the others, the patient leading, steps forward, throws a pinch of the meal on the tree, and passes on, always facing the east. When the last one has thus passed, the procession stops, everybody holds his blanket ready, and on signal from the medicine-man, just as the sun appears, gives it a shake and runs at full speed to the kozhán and around the fire. Thus is disease shaken out and the pursuit of the evil spirits of sickness eluded.

Jeditoh - Navaho

From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis

It is interesting to note the difference between the Apache of Arizona and the Jicarillas in their assignment of colors to the cardinal directions. The former invariably associate black with the east, blue with the south, yellow with the west, and white with the north.

MYTHOLOGY - CREATION MYTH

In the beginning all people, birds, and beasts were far beneath this earth, somewhere in the darkness; there was no sun, no moon. It was not a good place in which to live, because of the darkness. After a time came Chunnaái, the Sun, and Klĕnaái, the Moon. They directed the people to leave the world of darkness, showing the way they were to go by passing up through a rift in the sky. But the sky was so far above that the people knew of no way to reach it, so they made a pile of sand in the form of a mountain, and painted the east side white, the south blue, the west yellow, and the north side all colors. Then they gathered seeds from all the plants they knew and placed them inside the little mountain. Chunnaái sent back his messenger, Ánltsĭstn, the Whirlwind, to instruct them how to make the mountain increase in size.

Then all gathered about it and danced and sang, until after four days the seeds sprouted and the mountain began to expand and to increase in height. This continued for four days, at the end of which time the mountain seemed almost to reach the sky; but suddenly its growth ceased, and none knew the cause. From Chunnaái came Whirlwind to tell the inhabitants how two of their maidens had entered the sacred space on the mountain top and had wantonly broken and destroyed plants and fruits, thus causing the mountain to cease growing.

With two long poles and four buffalo horns, which then were straight, the people made a ladder, which, when placed on the mountain top, reached the sky. One of the four Great Whirlwinds, Níchitso, went up to see what this new place was like. He put his head through the opening, and seeing that the world was covered with water, at once descended the ladder. The four Whirlwinds then went up; White Wind rolled the water to the east, but still there was water at the south; Blue Wind rolled it away to the south, but still there was water at the west; so Yellow Wind blew it away to the west, and then there was water only at the north, which All-Color Wind quickly blew away. Then the Winds blew over the earth for four days to dry it; but they left some of the water, which flowed along in streams.

When they returned and told what they had done, the people sent Ká̑gĕ, the Crow, who was wise, to view the land. They waited long, but Ká̑gĕ did not return. Then they sent Little Whirlwind, who found the Crow perched upon some dead bodies, plucking out their eyes; and because of his wickedness in forgetting the people, his feathers, once white, had turned black. Then Nagánschitn, the Badger, was sent to see if the land was good, but just as soon as he had crawled through he sank in the black mud and could go no farther, so Little Whirlwind was despatched to succor him. To this day Badger’s legs are black. Next Kĕldinshé̆n, the Skunk, was sent, because he was light in weight; but even he sank in the mud and blackened his legs. Then the people sent Cha, the Beaver, who travelled about for a long time, and finding all the water running away in streams, built dams and thus formed many lakes. He came back and told the people that the land was good to live in, which pleased them greatly. Then they started up the ladder, and when all had passed over, it was found that their weight had bent the buffalo horns, which ever since have been curved. Thus all the people came out upon this earth at a place in the north.(3)

During the first days the Sun did not rise above the horizon, having been held back in the east by a web that Mansché̆, the Spider, had woven about him. But the people succeeded in tearing the web away, and from that time the Sun each day has travelled across the whole sky.

On emerging from the underworld the inhabitants began moving in a great circle, travelling from the north to the east, then to the south, then to the west. When any found a spot that pleased them, they settled there, and Chunnaái and Klĕnaái gave them a language of their own. Four times the land was thus encircled, but each time the circle became smaller, and when the people came the last time to the north, Haísndayĭn, the Jicarillas, found their home in the mountains near the Rio Chama.

MIRACLE PERFORMERS

During the wanderings of the people a girl, Yólkai Ĕstsán, became separated from the rest. She would lie all day on a hillside in the sunshine, and the Sun saw that no harm came to her. By and by she bore a child, whose father was Chunnaái, the Sun, and the child was Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ. Another girl, Ĕstsán Nátlĕshĭn, was fond of lying asleep under a rock, and by the trickling water that fell upon her Kobadjischínĭ was begotten.

Lake Lajara - Navaho

From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis

The two women and their sons lived together. To amuse the children the mothers made them a wheel, but cautioned them never to roll it toward the north. Whenever he heard the sound of water, Kobadjischínĭ, to seek its source, would leap straight into any torrent, and his mother hoped that the toy would deter him from falling into such danger. One day the two boys became curious to know what was in the north, so they rolled the wheel in that direction. It went straight on for a long time, then came to a ladder leading up the steep side of a rock, up which it rolled. The boys stopped in astonishment. The wheel rolled on down into a cave, where lived Yíyĕ, a monster Owl, who ate human flesh. A young girl, Yíyĕ’s slave, was sent up to see who was outside. "Two young, fine-looking boys," she reported. Yíyĕ sent her to tell them to come into the cave, but this they refused to do, even when he urged them himself, saying, "No! Give us our wheel!" But at last the boys yielded to Yíyĕ’s persuasions and proceeded up the ladder and down into the cave. Owl built a fire under a huge pot of water, seized the boys, and put them into it. He boiled them a long time, then lifted them out with a stick. They stood up and said, "Why do you not give us our wheel and let us go home?" Then Yíyĕ became angry and thrust them into a great heap of hot ashes and built a fresh fire over them. After a long time he took them out, but they were still unharmed, and only asked, "Why do you not give us our wheel?" At this Owl became very angry and, seizing them, cut them into small pieces, put them into the pot, and boiled them again; but when he took them out they were alive and whole. Owl said not a word, but gave them their wheel and motioned them to go. All this time the mothers of the two boys knew from the Sun where they were, and by a burning stick could tell when their children were in danger; for if they were safe the flame burned high, but if in danger it burned low.

Because there were so many monsters on the earth that destroyed people, the mothers of Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ and Kobadjischínĭ sent them on a visit to Chunnaái to learn how to kill these evil beings. Chunnaái sent down the rainbow, and up this the two boys climbed and went into the house of the Sun. For Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ the Sun made a complete suit of turquoise—shirt, leggings, and moccasins—and in his hair fastened a long eagle feather. He gave him also huge arrows made of pine trees pointed with flint of white, blue, yellow, and all-colors, and a bow made of a part of the rainbow. To Kobadjischínĭ he gave a suit of flint of many colors and a long whip with which to drive away sickness, and in his hair he tied a downy eagle feather. Then he said to Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ, "Shoot down and see if you can hit that tree." So Nayé̆nayĕzganĭ shot, and the arrow shattered the tree like a bolt of lightning.

Into the Desert - Navaho