Part 3

During the night the horses had come together. One bridle was lying at the east and the other at the west. They told the horses they must all stay there together. When the brothers returned the sweatlodge was built and the stones were on the fire. Tobatc'istcini directed that the men should stand in line while four of them should go into the bath four times. He said that when they had come out the fourth time the visitors would be like themselves. “You built this sweatbath, but it belongs to the Sun,” he told them. When he (Naiyenezgani) went in with them the fourth time he asked them where the thing was living which was killing them. The visitors replied that he lived down this way, pointing toward the west. “The one that has killed all of our people has something long for a weapon,” he added. Naiyenezgani said, “Well, he has been killing you.” When they came out the fourth time they all looked alike. They ate and after the meal the brothers told them all to remain there while they went to yonder white mountain ridge to look beyond. He looked at the Sun.

They landed far away on the mountain ridge.[26] Beyond that mountain they went to another. There was a plain on which a mountain was standing. They landed next on that mountain. Tobatc'istcini said, “Brother, is the dangerous thing feared by you? If you are afraid, I am afraid. If you are not afraid neither am I afraid. You are the elder, I am the younger.”

A man was walking in a valley without brush. He was the one who kills people. They sent their fly to look over the body of their enemy, to examine his ears, his eyes, and his mouth. The fly flew to the man and alighted on his ear. When he alighted on his nose the man said, “It is not just you. You smell like a man.”

The fly reported that they could not come up to the man, for while he walked in one direction he could see behind because he had eyes in the back of his head. He had no eyes in front. “He has something long in his hand with which he kills people. When I sat on his nose he told me I smelled like people,” the fly reported. “He is the same sort of a person that you are.” The fly told them to go around to a certain gap in the ridge, where the monster was accustomed to pass, and stand side by side. He promised to let them know when the enemy approached. When the monster walked along, the fly came back where the brothers were standing side by side and said, “He is coming up here very close. If he stops here you must cut his head off. Now, you shoot him,” he said. “If he sees anyone he makes a sweep with his long weapon and kills the person even a long way off.”

The man came close to them and stopped. One of them shot him and the other cut his head off. He stood just as he was before. They shot again and cut his head off again. The head fell but came back on again. One of them shot at him the third time and the other cut his neck off again. Then one of them ran around in front of him and shot him in the heart. This time his flesh flew apart and was scattered over considerable space. The flesh was quivering. That which they killed was called Naiye'. “That is why he named you Naiyenezgani,”[27] their fly said. “Because you and Tobatc'istcini both will kill dangerous beings your father named you that.” “You did this in his presence. He was looking at you and prevented the monster's making any move against you. He gave you the weapons with which you killed him. He did it for the good of mankind. Turn the head over and look at its face,” their fly told them. They turned him over and looked at his face. His face was like anyone's but he also had eyes in the back of his head.[28] No one could attack him from in front, and he had eyes to see behind himself also. His knife was sharp and the handle was good. “Let us take the knife to convince the people. If we do not have the knife, they will not believe us if we claim we have killed the Naiye' which used to kill people,” one of them said.

On their return they landed on the white mountain ridge and returned to the camp. When they had returned, Naiyenezgani directed that all the people, including the children, should come together. He asked his mother, because the people were assembling, to spread down a buckskin and to place on it the arrows, his own weapon, and that of the slain Naiye'. He asked the people to gather around it. He called the two visitors, asking them to come to a designated spot. He told his brother to stand in a certain position and said that he himself would stand in another place. He said that he would address the people and told his brother to do the same. “I am telling you this because you are seeing what you have not seen before. You see today what our father gave us. Now you speak to them,” he said to his brother.

Tobatc'istcini spoke as follows, “My name is Tobatc'istcini. Our father gave us these things lying here. A being called Naiye' was using that weapon over there to kill people. He had killed all the people except the two who are sitting over there. We killed him.” “You, Naiyenezgani, speak to them again,” he said to his brother.

“We started from here and we went up to the top of yonder mountain. We went on to the top of a mountain standing beyond that. A small mountain[29] stands beyond that and we went up to its top. There we saw a man walking in a valley. He[30] went to him for us and returned. 'When he walks he is blind, but he has eyes in the back of his head,' he reported to us. 'He kills the people who are slipping up behind him.' Now he will not kill anyone. We shall live safely.” He took up what used to be his knife and carried it around for the people to see. The man's blood was on it, and it was fearful to look at. “There is no place to take hold of it. I will take hold of it here,” he said. “Do not look at this which used to belong to Naiye'. It is dangerous. Have a meal and then go home. Look after our horses well.”

Their mother asked why the two who had come to them should not accompany them where the horses were. They went with them where the horses were. “Catch the sorrel gelding when you want to. You can tell it by the white spot on its shoulder,” he told one of them. To the other he said, “You may catch this black one with a white spot on its forehead. If we are away anywhere saddle them and ride them around among the horses and through the camp. The horses look as if they were mean, as if they had never had a rope on them, but they will not misbehave, they are not mean and will not shy.” They started back and when they came to the camp again they ate.

Two days after they had killed the Naiye' they said they were going in a certain direction and that it might be late when they returned. They went up to the top of a small sharp-topped mountain. They looked at the Sun and, when it came up, yellow beams streamed out from the Sun's disk. His breath took the shape of a rainbow. The sunbeams fell to the ground over them. “It must be there,” he said. They started and landed on a mountain top. From there they went to another and from that one to a projecting ridge. Beyond that was a plain on which stood a blue mountain. They landed on that. It seems that those who were killing the people lived at a distance from each other and the people were living in the center of the world. The killers of the people were working towards each other.

The two brothers stood on the mountain side by side. They were made like their father. You could hardly see their bodies. They were killing out the Naiye'. “Fly over the country and hunt him up. He is living somewhere,” one of them said to the fly. It flew off and went around them in a circle. The next time it went around in a smaller circle. He (the monster) was coming behind them. He had eyes looking both ways, four eyes. He held something crooked. He stopped and looked carefully behind himself. He did not look in front. He could look straight up and could see people down below. The fly looked him all over, at his eyes, his ears, his nose, and his face. “You are a burr,” he said to the fly. The fly thought he said he was going to catch him. He flew between the man's legs and returned where the brothers were sitting. “Did you say Naiye'? You have come to a dangerous place,” the fly said to them. “As he walks along he looks carefully behind himself. When he stops he looks up and he can see the people who are below.[31] He carries a long, crooked object with which he makes a sweep at people he sees in the distance and catches them with his hook.”

The fly was sent again to find out from which point the monster could be attacked with the best chances for success. They saw him walking in the distance and then they saw him standing where he was accustomed to come up the ridge. The fly reported that was a good place for the attack. The brothers addressed each other. “What is the matter with you, Tobatc'istcini?” Naiyenezgani asked. “You are the leader and should speak first,” Tobatc'istcini replied. “Very well, you did not answer me. We will attack him. I will cause large hail with thirty-two points to fall on him. What are you going to do?” Naiyenezgani asked. “I will cause hot rain to fall on him,” was the reply.

They went to him where he was walking. The sky made a noise and it began to rain. The two brothers came toward him behind this rain. He put his hand to the top of his head. It was hot rain which was falling. They could see him, but he could not see them. “Let him walk between you,” the fly directed. He was already exhausted with the hot rain and the hail. Naiyenezgani stood here and Tobatc'istcini there. The monster walked here saying, “It is a bad time. I, too, where I am, it is a bad place.” As he walked one of the brothers raised his bow and brought it down again, shooting. His companion cut off the monster's head. It came back immediately as it was before. They shot and cut his head off again. He fell three ways. They did the same thing to him the fourth time and he spread out like water. “There shall not be those who kill,” Naiyenezgani said. “This is the way I do to Naiye'. Just let him float here in his blood. The people will live happily on the earth. I have done well by them. Get ready, brother, we will go back. We will take the weapon with which he has been killing people.” He rolled this weapon up into a coil and put it in his blanket. “Come, we will go back,” he said.

They came back in the manner they went, landing on the successive mountains until they reached the camp. They danced a war dance near the camp. They danced, holding up the weapon they had taken. “Mother, we are hungry, hurry and cook for us,” they said to her. When they had eaten they asked their mother to assemble the people and to ask the visitors also to come. She told the people to assemble, saying that her sons must have seen something during the day they had been away which they would tell them about. When the people had come together the weapon they had brought back was lying there, not as yet untangled.

“We killed one like the other one. We both did it, but I could have done it by myself, if I had been alone. If he had been alone he too could have done it by himself,” Naiyenezgani said. “We both attacked him because we could do it quickly. We killed him quickly because our father helped us. If it had been one of you, you could have done nothing with this one that we call Naiye'. He would have killed you right away and eaten you up. He had killed all the people who lived with these two men, and just now he was coming for you. Before we had known it, he would have killed us all. There are no people living on the edges of the earth. We are all that are left. He killed people this way. Suppose that person should come on you, he would kill you this way.” He threw the weapon to a distant bush. It went around the tree and it was as if it had been cut off. “He was killing people thus. Now we will live well and no one will bother us. A man is going around the earth in one day and he will tell us about it.”[32] Tobatc'istcini started away and his mother spoke to him. “My son, put on this belt,” she said, offering him the one the Sun's wife had given her. “I am going around from here but today it is late, I will go tomorrow,” he said. They went to bed. “Take good care of things and do not be afraid of anything,” Tobatc'istcini said.

When it was daylight their mother prepared a meal for them and they ate. “Come back safely, my son, as the people said to you,” the mother said. “I am going, but I do not know when I shall come back,” Tobatc'istcini replied. He started, telling them to watch for him on a certain mountain point. “I will be back about noon.”

He started away, traveling with a blue flute which had wings.[33] He went with this from place to place and was back home before long. He went entirely around the border of the world on which people were living. The belt was a blue flute. He thought with it four ways and looked into it four ways. Before noon a light rain fell on the projecting mountain. That cleared off and then he came laughing. “It was not far, only so large,” he said, joining the tips of his forefinger and his thumb. “Have you your property ready?” he asked. “Have you collected everything that is ours? Tomorrow we will give out the horses, one apiece to each of you. We shall not give out horses again. Bring the horses near to the camp.”

They brought the saddles, the bridles, the halters, the ropes, and the blankets. They two went where the horses were. They caught some of the horses and saddled them, and drove the other horses near the camp where they herded them. They called the people to assemble and when they came caught horses for them. He gave away ten horses in all. “I will give you no more horses,” he said. “Tomorrow we will go different ways.”[34] He drove the horses back where they stayed. “Stake out our horses nearby and leave the saddles on them all night,” he said. “This is all. You may go in any direction you like.” “This way,” pointing to the east; “this way,” south; “this way,” west; or “this way,” north. “We are going over here where the end of the world is,” some of them said. Others said they were going to the end of the world in this direction. In this manner, each party chose a location.

When they had finished, they asked the brothers which way they were going. They replied that they were going to drive their horses to the top of yonder mountain (_bitsanldai_). “Take good care of your horses. Look after them for twelve days and then they will be accustomed to you. Now you may go. We are going also.” He drove his horses away saying, “None of you are going with us. I thought some of you would go with us. You are only giving us back our mother. Go on, mother, let your horse lead.”

His mother inquired which way she should lead them. “Go on, go on, I tell you,” he replied. She rode towards the east. Soon a little light was to be seen under the horse. They went higher and higher until they came to the mountain he spoke of. They rode their horses beside hers. “Wait, mother,” he said and rode back. “Keep on down this mountain. It is good country in this basin. We will live here,” he said. They talked together. “You unsaddle over there, you over there, and you over there. We will watch the horses.”

“You may have my yucca fruit which lies on the face of Turnbull Mountain.”[35]

Footnote 1:

Told by a White Mountain Apache called Noze, at Rice, Arizona, in January. 1910. Noze was a native of Cedar Creek and came to the San Carlos Reservation when it was organized. He was for a long time the chief of a considerable band which in 1910 had greatly dwindled. He died some time between 1910 and the next visit in 1914.

Footnote 2:

This mountain was said to be called _tsidalanasi_ and to stand by the ocean at the south. This is a remarkable statement as east would have been expected and as is so stated in fact in a following paragraph.

Footnote 3:

This makes the boys brothers in our use of the word. They are always so called in the Navajo account according to which their mothers were sisters. Matthews, 105.

Footnote 4:

At the center of the sky.

Footnote 5:

And therefore the boys were not seen by the Sun.

Footnote 6:

The sacred numbers are 4, 12, and 32.

Footnote 7:

This method of making the journey has not been encountered before in this connection, but is an incident in a European story secured from the San Carlos, p. 82, above. The usual account includes a series of obstacles some of which resemble the incidents of a European story. See p. 116 below.

Footnote 8:

Clouds according to the Navajo account, Matthews, 111; and below, p. 117.

Footnote 9:

Thus far the myth seems chiefly to deal with the adolescence ceremony of the boys. The San Carlos account brings in the Sun's father and brothers of the Sun's father as performers of this ceremony, while the Navajo account mentions the daughters of the Sun. See p. 11 above, and Matthews, 112.

Footnote 10:

Other versions make this the second naming of the elder brother. His boyhood name was “Whitehead,” p. 31. Still other names are known to the Navajo. Matthews, 263-264.

Footnote 11:

To know by name things or animals hitherto unknown is often mentioned as a great feat. P. 24.

Footnote 12:

It is seldom that the Apache conception of animism is so plainly stated. Songs however abound in the designation of objects as “living.”

Footnote 13:

When a youth went through an adolescence ceremony he did it with a definite career in mind. The normal myth of this type put the emphasis on the weapons secured and feats of warlike prowess in killing the monsters; that is, the warrior idea is uppermost. This version stresses the acquisition of horses and probably is a specialized myth for those who wish to be successful in acquiring and breeding horses.

Footnote 14:

The house of the Sun with the stable and corral, the furniture of the house, and many other references indicate the home of a European and such seems to be the conception.

Footnote 15:

The two wives of the Sun are often mentioned. The Navajo account has Esdzanadlehi go to the west where the sun visits her daily. Here and there, especially in the songs, the Moon is coupled with the Sun, and is feminine in sex. That the Moon and the Earth should both be called the “Woman who renews herself” is interesting. These conceptions are generally vague and implied rather than expressed.

Footnote 16:

Earth, literally “There on the earth.”

Footnote 17:

The narrator said those mentioned at the beginning of the narrative were not real people but just like shadows. The other versions have only the one family existing at this time.

Footnote 18:

The reference may be to moss, especially as rain falling on it is mentioned below.

Footnote 19:

The narrator said it was true that horses would not pass a blanket so placed in a narrow canyon.

This order of the colors and their assignment varies from the one more generally found of black for the east and white for the south. P. 7, and Matthews, 215.

Footnote 20:

This announcing of names is probably to be explained as ceremonial. Ordinarily, it is improper, probably because immodest to call one's own name.

Footnote 21:

The use of pollen for sacred purposes is a very important feature among the Athapascan of the Southwest. It is always preferred to the cornmeal used by the Pueblo peoples.

Footnote 22:

In the division of labor the women are supposed to saddle and unsaddle the horses.

Footnote 23:

Because he must use a white saddle, the informant explained.

Footnote 24:

The whinneying was heard from the top of the sky.

Footnote 25:

The conception of time passing while the Sun stood still is fairly difficult for a people without timepieces.

Footnote 26:

This method of traveling implies lightning, rainbow or a similar supernatural method, in this case said to be sunbeams.

Footnote 27:

The name is Naiye', “a dangerous monster,” and -nezgani, “he who kills.”

Footnote 28:

It is said above that he had no eyes in front.

Footnote 29:

“Mountain, its child.”

Footnote 30:

He did not mention his fly by name.

Footnote 31:

Probably means he can see people who are on the opposite side of a hill.

Footnote 32:

These monsters are not those in the usual versions. The bringing of trophies and the narratives remind one of counting coup in the Plains. The Navajo versions also mention the bringing back of trophies.

Footnote 33:

One of the recognized methods of rapid locomotion. P. 20 above.

Footnote 34:

The dispersion of the tribes, a common incident in origin myths.

Footnote 35:

The formula for the completion of a narrative.

NAIYENEZGANI.[36]

Long ago the Sun set and, there in the west, he became the son-in-law of Toxastinhn (Water-old-man) whose daughter he married. She, who was to become the wife of the Sun, built a house with its door facing the sunrise. She sat in the doorway facing the rising sun from which the red rays streamed toward her. These rays entered her and since her period was about to occur she became pregnant as a result.

When the child was born, its hands and feet were webbed. There was no hair on its head and it had no nose. When the boy was grown up he asked where his father lived. His mother replied that his father lived where one could not go, for the Sun was his father. The boy asked again where he lived. His mother said he lived at the sunrise, but that one could not go there. The boy then said that he would go there and set out on the journey.

He came where the cliffs come down of themselves. They moved in front of him. The lightning shot across with him. Beyond that place he came to the mountain of cactus which formed a dark barrier in front of him. There a black whirlwind twisted through for him so that he passed by. From there he went on where the mountain of mosquitoes stood like a black ridge in front of him. A female rain fell for him and the wings of the mosquitoes became damp; then he passed over. From there he went on where the mountains moved up and down toward each other. He jumped away from them and then toward them, but in no way could he get through. Black-measuring-worm, whose back is striped with lightning, bent over it with him.[37]

He walked on toward the house of the Sun. As he was going along, near sundown, a spider drew its thread across below the boy's knee and tripped him. He got up and went back, but fell again at the same place. Wondering why he had fallen, he started on again, when he saw the head of Spider-old-woman projecting from her hole so far (three inches) away. “Grandchild, where are you going?” she asked. He replied that he was going to the house of his father, the Sun. She told him to come into her house instead. He replied that the opening was too small. When assured that it was large enough, he went in. She told him one could not go to the Sun. The spider girls were lying there without skirts or shirts. They lay with the head of one toward the feet of the next. Spider-woman asked what was the piece of cloth tied to his shirt. He gave it to her and she worked with it all night; and the next morning each girl had a shirt and a skirt. She made them from the young man's piece of cloth.[38]